August 24, 2021 • 44 mins
Rob Adetuyi grew up in a small mining town in Canada. His view of the country was much different than the rest of the world envisions, but that is what has made him a successful writer, director and storyteller in Hollywood. He sits with America's Podcaster, Kurt Caceres, to share his incredible journey from a small town blue collar labor union upbringing, to the big budget sets and walking the lots of the biggest film studios in the world. His climb took decades, living in obscurity for many years, writing and pitching scripts to studios and executives. He received his college degree in Sociology, which has helped catapult him into writing and telling poignant stories about the human condition. He says that when writing a screenplay, story is more important than anything else. It can have the explosions and special effects, but without story, it has no depth, no longevity. He shares many behind the scenes experiences that the rest of the world never will experience. From studio executives, agents, writers and even actors bringing in their own personal scribes to rewrite their dialogue. This is a true behind the scenes expose into how the Hollywood machine works.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Ladies and gentlemen, please take yourseats. The show is about to begin.
Microphone check, everything's wrong so Ican hear it. How sounding?
Microphone check? Let's hear you're Mike, Robert. How are we sounding here?
That's good? That's good talking likethat. That sounds good. Yeah,
(00:20):
that's good. So I'm good.Maybe a little closer, a little
closer, right, Okay, that'syour love? Love that all right?
I feel good. You're perfect,you guys, so you don't have to
wear them now, you're good.I know I look better on camera without
him anyway. Yeah, there's not. Every woman assist in the chair never
wears them because they don't want tomiss it. Now you're going to say,
see my hair, that's just Iwatch for those things. How did
(00:42):
you right? Yea perfect? Allright? This is it? Three two
one. Welcome to What Your NameAgain? The podcast? Because Americans podcaster
kirkis Sarah's back at you. I'mgoing to stay in this because I got
some amazing co host today. Theseare people that I love very much,
(01:03):
and they're amazing human beings. Imean, that's who I bring in here,
amazing human beings who are good people. Because I believe in bringing good
energy into the studio so that wecan bounce it off our guests every single
episode. So I'm gonna start overto my to my right, ladies.
First, this is her first timeco hosting on What's Your Name Again?
First time co host name in MyShows. She's a past guest on roll
(01:26):
called podcast I Have here Straight fromJamaica through New York, Josan Marie,
Welcome, What's Up? What's goneon? Welcome? And she showed up
with a notebook with like no one'sever done that, And I'm so unpressed.
I already called to her co hostfor her right. He's fired after
(01:46):
the he doesn't even come prepared,but shows done. Thank you. I
love it she can because I liketo do things, you know, all
the I don't like the stock withcreativity, you know what I mean.
It's like those actors that try theimprovised, they don't want the lines.
You know, those guys that walkin there and they go, I don't
want my line because I don't wantto still, you know, my creativity
(02:07):
it's just a bullshit. It's basicallybullshit reasoning for being lazy and not doing
the job exactly. And that voiceyou guys here fans of the show,
you heard him many times. That'smy boy, my brother. We got
Anthony Z. What's up. Thankyou, thank you for showing up,
you guys. This is a great, great next here and we're here for
(02:29):
this, for this amazing guest.And he was referred to me by Tony
Gee, which Benny of you guysknow from a previous previous episode. And
this guy is He is a writer, director, producer. He's Canadian born
from Sudbury, Ontario, congratulated fromYork University in Toronto, study communications and
(02:49):
sociology. We have Rob out oftwo ye. What's up? Thank you,
thank you for being here. AndI always like to tell whenever I
have Canadians on or whenever I meetin person. All the decades I've been
(03:13):
meeting Canadians like you guys have thisodd friendliness about you that's so genuine and
it's real. And I say thisall the time. When I first met
Canadians, you guys were so friendly, and I thought it was fake,
because growing up in America, alot of times people are fake. When
they're friendly, you can't tell.So I would meet Canadians and they'd be
genuinely care about me, I'd belike this dude, no, he's up
(03:36):
to something, man like, he'sgot an agenda. But genuinely, Canadians
just like you because you're a humanbeing, which is how it should be,
and so it's pleasure to have you, Canadian you. You came in
with great energy. Even when wefirst started communicating about coming on the show,
you were just so excited and communicationwas great, and I was like
this guy. See, he's attentiveand I appreciate it. So thanks for
(03:57):
coming in. I appreciate that.But I gotta tell you something I figured
out this recently is that Canadians arepolite, they're friendly, but when they're
behind the wheel, this is whatI figured out. Canadians behind the wheel
a little crazy driving driving. Whenthey're driving, that's when they let it
out. So when Canadian friends cometo LA and they drive around, they're
almost kind of like, why isno one cutting me off? And I
(04:17):
realize Canadians that cut you off.So when they're behind the wheel, that's
what that's crazy, because there's isn'tit. What's the percentage of wilderness in
Canada. It's it's mostly rural becausethe big city. So I would just
think that everybody's just driving slow,you know, just chill. But so
(04:38):
they're cutting people off like I doin other countries. That's bad drivers.
Well, not that they're bad drivers. I'm just saying they get their aggression
out aggressive behind. That's what I'msaying. Not bad drivers, dangerous aggression
danger when they're driving. That's whyI can be chill all the rest of
the time. So that's how youdrive well. And see, I've been
(04:58):
here for so long now, I'vetaken on the La Chill kind of style.
So that's why I say, whenI'm in Toronto, if I put
on my blinker to turn, ifI have a Canadian passenger with me,
don't don't do that. They're gonnacut you off. They're gonna know you're
trying to turn ya, butn't thatyou gotta let them know. No,
no, no, Just so Ilove how he said I've been in LA
long enough, I have the chillattitude. I don't. I don't consider
(05:20):
I don't consider La chill for driving, right exactly. No, it's pretty
laid no, totally right there,right, yeah, yeah, perfect,
LA's chill for driving compared compared tolet you go to Toronto and be on
the road. You'll see there's somestuff going on. I love New York.
I guess well, New York's differentaltogether. It's a weird island that
(05:41):
you know, the mentality of NewYork. It's not really a proper driving
city to start, right, that'strue. Yeah, no, you want
you want to take the public thesubway, it's right, exactly. But
I love Toronto. I've worked theremany subway you get murdered, I mean
the murder rate, that's a rollcall. Now you're scaring people who've never
been in New York. You'll getmurdered. So did you come to LA
(06:06):
to be in Hollywood or for anotherreason? No? No, Yeah,
I knew it was time, youknow, as it happens to everybody.
Did you get your degree in communicationssociology which film? Well, I know
it sounds like it's not, butI knew I was going to be a
writer. I was already kind ofworking at it. I was. I
started off as an actor and thenI thought, okay, I should go
(06:28):
to university. My dad was reallyon me because I was actually playing on
skipping that I was just I wasin Toronto acting and I hadn't gone to
university after high school. So thenI said, Okay, I'm gonna do
it. And I started off inthe film program at York University, and
I realized very quickly that they're tryingto tell you how to point the camera.
And I said, you know,I don't want to learn how to
point the camera. I understand thatI need no about people. Yes,
(06:50):
And so that's what really I fellin love with sociology, and I took
the film theory courses, but Ireally focused on trying to understand what people
are about. And that's so onceI love that, then I made the
move to la, what's your conclusionabout what are people about? Oh?
You know, in general, ifyou can say, take out race,
(07:13):
take out, take out, takeout gender, take everything out? What
are people about? Robert? Fromyour perspective of a true gentleman? Here,
I do have a theory, andso I've never tried to put it
in one line, but it talksabout the schism that exists in all of
us, and that's really what thisis all about. It's about repairing the
schism that happened thousands and thousands ofyears ago in human evolution, which relates
(07:39):
to the idea that you know,we were once hunted and gatherers, and
you did everything, you know,you you created your god, you created
your food, you did you oryour own everything, your medicine, you
did everything. And suddenly we're ina fragmented world where you got a priest
over here, you have someone thatcooks your food over here. Everything's fragmented.
And a schism occurred some long timeago. That's my person. That's
(08:01):
interesting. Yeah, you could goto the bank with that one and a
schism and then more schisms kept itjust kept going exactly and now we have
the ultimate, the ultimate of schismsright now and decide, in my opinion
is like social media and to allthese tictoks and Instagram and again, yeah
we're sounding old, but man,that's just divided, that's just yeah.
(08:24):
Yeah, the idea had a holein it. Yeah, being a whole
person is very difficult today because peopledon't think for themselves. Yeah thought,
I mean now, especially young people, they got to look for their likes.
You know, it's like how manylikes that I get? Oh my
god, that that's scary stuff.Yeah, they're views likes, you know,
so that is creating even you know, compounding this concept of the schism.
Absolutely. I always hoped and thought, oh, you know, at
(08:46):
some point we're going to repair ofthis, but it only seems to be
getting worse. Yeah, I don'tknow when they're repairing stuff. I mean
individuals are repairing themselves, they are, but as a whole, as a
collective, we have a lot ofwork to do. That's because the individuals
are doing I think that's as acollective. It's only going to happen when
enough individuals do it. And thenit's flips to the other side, which
is happening. People are becoming moreconscious at higher levels of thinking, whether
(09:09):
it's um, you know, spirituality, even health, you know, our
how we're treating our body. SoI think we're going in the right direction.
But it's each individual, one personat a time. Now, I
was looking online and you came herein ninety two, But according to IMDb
from ninety three to two thousand,there's we're on a sabbatical because or because
(09:33):
there's kind of nothing that happened.So I was curious, like, well,
so so the reason why it washappening. It was just happening in
his cave because he was working sohard for saying that, because that didn't
see his family and friends, becausehe's sitting there happening at night exactly.
(09:54):
And let's say so for everybody,this is what this show is about.
The shows by educations, but educatingactors, writers, directors trying to make
it in Hollywood, and people outsidethe business on what we have to go
through. So I wanted to tellpeople, did you huddle up in that
cave from ninety three to two thousand, just twenty scripts? No? From
that time when I came here,I did. Yes. I was obviously
(10:16):
writing a lot, and as youknow, there's that whole concept of development
hell in Hollywood. Yeah, andit's a real truth, and you just
sort of waiting to break out ofthat development hell and when it happens,
but prior to it breaking out orappearing to break out, I sold a
whole lot of scripts all over town, a lot of pitches. You know,
(10:39):
I was in development most studios,and but you're waiting for a movie
to actually get made. So forthose of you who don't understand or outside,
yeah, he between ninety three andtwo thousands could have sold twenty scripts,
but you've never heard of it.Because still sitting on a shelf.
It's on a hard drive somewhere.Some studio still owns the rights to it.
He got paid. You got paidlike a lump sum, which a
(11:01):
lot of people don't understand as awriter. Back in the day. Now
writers try more to hold on toit, not give it up. But
back in the day you were happyto sell it for a twenty grand and
be like, all right, cool, but then you lost all control.
Right, yeah, although wouldn't betwenty grand. Back in the day,
it was a lot more. Infact, today it's a lot worse.
Oh is it. Yeah? Theindustry is going backwards. Oh wow,
(11:22):
yeah, oh yeah, Netflix isdestroyed at all. Yeah, it's gone
all about backwards. I don't wantanything bad about Netflix, no, no,
when I'm talking about but I'm saying, like the people I talk into
business have said, I mean,their business model, it's not a knock
on. It has really kind ofsucked the industry in a different direction.
And where the money gets allocated,how it gets spent, things like that
(11:43):
exactly. Yeah. And we're nottalking back about anybody. It's more telling
how the industry is. Yeah,and so how did you how did you
get in front I'm sorry, Idon't mean it, but all those different
students, because he said he hada script at every studio almost that's to
me unbelieving, like how did youWas it your agent that did that or
was it your just people who knewat the time, they just knew you.
(12:05):
They said, oh, we knowRobert, so we'll call Robert.
Well. It was a combination ofseveral things. One was having a good
agent. I had an agent atWilliam Morris who at the time was the
number one spec salesperson in Hollywood.And Alan Gasmer. This guy could sell
anything. He was amazing, Sothat was number one. That really makes
Did he get you in the door? For all? Yeah? Oh yeah.
(12:26):
First for people listening, how didyou hook up with him in the
first place? Well, I came. I came to La without knowing a
soul and literally, I mean thereis a story about Norman Jewison. He's
a famous director. You made youknow most people. He's been around long
time. And I studied at hisfilm school in Canada. He has a
school that's kind of like the AFIis here American Film Student in Canada,
(12:50):
Canadian Film in student. So Istudied at his film center. So when
I came to LA he immediately helpedopen some doors and that helped me to
break in and get a really goodagent at William Morris. And he personally
made calls for you. Oh yeah, oh well that's oh my god,
of course. Yeah, he's alegend. He's a legend, and I
(13:11):
was lucky to have studied under himand in Canada. And then I was
actually I had an agent, asmall agent who's now become my best friend,
and he but he was at thesmallest agency in town. So because
I was the one place I couldget, I lived. I went to
fifty places everyone said no. Andthis one guy, his assistant actually let
me come in the door. Hedidn't even know he was going to meet
(13:33):
me, which I only found outlater. His assistant just loved one of
my scripts and and put me onhis schedule, and so I could tell
he was looking at me a littlestrange was this guy sitting here, But
the assistant was insistent, we're gonnayou know. And so thanks to her
and then him taking me on,that started the ball rolling. I mean,
(13:54):
he promised me lots of meetings andI was shocked when he actually happened.
Wow. And then I was atWarner Brothers pitching a movie and they
said, well, who would youlike to direct this movie? And I
thought, well, the perfect directorwould be Norman Jewilson, So I said,
Okay, call Norman. So theycalled Norman up and then Norman finds
out that I'm one of his students, and so NEI les's say. He
was very upset with his staff thathow come I'm hearing from Warner Brothers about
(14:16):
my student. You guys are supposedto track this and being so immediately he
remedied that, and I ended upliving at his beach house in Malibu and
he just hooked me out. Butit was like kind of like a fancy
come true Hollywood. But that isso true in this town. You have
to have people helping you. Likeit. You came here not knowing anybody
the same thing, and you meetpeople along the way that mentor you help,
(14:37):
you introduce you to people open doorsfor you. That's how it has
to happen. That's why it's soimportant to network when you're here. You
knew somebody when you were here.You know what, I'm curious about the
fact that you had so many scriptsbefore and looking at the richness of your
work, and some of them area certain genre. So when you look
(15:01):
at on the Yard or you know, turn it up, or you know,
just different films, there's a lotof dancing and culture and music and
um, you know, deal withissues. Inner city Urban? Were your
scripts that the scripts that you soldwere they similar to that or they were
different? Because you've done some periodpieces as well. Well, that's a
(15:24):
good question because I often try tofigure that out myself, like how you
know, because I look at allmy scripts and I go, is there
a pattern? One of my daI was gonna ask you that later.
I'm glad you do it, becausehe has the most diverse array, like
polar opposite story, Like he's gotan urban drama, he's got dance ones,
he's got a period piece musical,he's got a comedy like he's I've
(15:46):
never met or seen anybody that has. But that's a credit to your talent,
like to be able to do allthat. Yeah, I mean,
but I mean sometimes it's easier whenyou're so specific and people go, Okay,
we get what your thing is.Right. When you're eclectic, then
they know what box to put youin. But when I first came to
LA. I remember my very firststudio meetings and I was pitching them the
(16:10):
stuff that I was into and thisexact and I'm like xaggerating. He literally
rolls eyes and act like he wasfalling asleep. And I was like a
kid, you know. And hetold me, says, Rob, you're
putting me to sleep. Man,did you have anything exciting? I said,
well, I thought these were I'mturning you my exciting story stuff.
What were well that at that timeI was really into deeper sort of social
(16:33):
drama and exploring, you know,I came from yeah and schisms. Yeah,
yes, And that didn't fly.And it's funny because it would take
twenty five years later and then movieslike High Chicago, which I wrote my
brother of Fauns directed. That wasone of the things I was pitching to
him twenty five years ago and I'dwritten it, and but it took twenty
(16:57):
five years later. Wow for herabout that so much to get made seven
twenty five years later. Yeah,And and that's been that way for a
number of my projects. So goingback to even like that idea that there
was a time when it looks likenothing happened, Well, those scripts now
are all getting made? Like yeah, wait, wait a minute, you're
saying that scripts you wrote twenty yearsago getting made now. Oh yeah,
(17:18):
that's that's an important Hey, that'san important piece to share. Well,
wow, that's amazing. That's whatI always tell you younger writers. It's
all in the bike man. Don'tthink that stuff doesn't matter. Yeah,
because thank you going for ten years. Absolutely, thank you, Robert.
That's amazing advice because a lot ofpeople get frustrated and they don't realize the
amount of times things take. Twentyyears, twenty years, Yeah, I
(17:40):
know it's gonna get made wed sometwenty years ago. That I mean,
we got great pitch meetings, NicholasCages coming. We went a huge company
twenty years ago. It's been goingon twenty years and it's amazing how time
goes. But the store will alwaysbe relevant. Yeah, and that's the
thing. Yeah. Um, soyou brought up Turn it Up. He
did Turn it Up with Yall Ruleand Jason Statham, which was more an
(18:03):
urban drama. Then he went tohe did something called codename The Cleaner was
Cedric the Entertainer, Lucy Low andWill Patton, which is a comedy.
Did you ever hear about that.But he's a really nice guy. He's
a good guy. And then whicheverybody knows Stomp the Yard now that had
Brian White. Him and I usedto have the same manager, laz A
(18:25):
Lonza. I've done a movie.I did a movie with him, Harry
Lennox, he's really tied with I'vedone a bunch of things with Harry.
We know, we both know Harry. Uh, he knows him really well.
Trick and Neo was in there,but Stump the Yard with What got
me about that was were unifraternity incollege? No, Wow, I was
gonna bet my entire now because Iwent to college in Canada and it's very
(18:48):
different than the style in the US. So and I want to go into
this area for a little bit becauseI was in a fraternity in college and
I used to love this whole thing. For those of you don't know,
it's the stepping, which is what'sthis? What's it about? And so
I'm gonna give everybody a quick historyand then you could tell I want to
I want to get to know evenmore how you got into it, not
(19:10):
having been in a fraternity. Sowhat is stepping? It's a percussive,
highly energetic art form. First ofup through the song and dance rituals performed
African American fraternities and storties, andstepping. The body becomes an instrument,
using footsteps, claps, and spokenword to produce complex polyrhythms poking word that's
her arte. Stepping has been describedas one of the most exciting dance forms
(19:32):
created in the twenty first century.When I was in college, so the
white fraternities didn't really mean what theblack fraternities. But I played sports,
saw my friends were athletes, andthey were in the black fraternity. So
I always like, I was enthralledby the stepping. Have you ever seen
stepping anthony? It is the mostentertaining, passionate and it's phenomenal. And
(19:56):
so the origins of stepping come fromthe early nineteen hundreds of African Americans began
to attend colleges in greater numbers,and once on campus, they decided to
create their own Greek letter organizations tosupport the students academically, socially, and
to serve the surrounding communities. Steppingbecame a way that members of these student
groups, known today as the Divinenine expressed love and pride for their organizations.
(20:21):
Now to give props out there forthose listening who are from the Greek
organizations. The Divine Nine is madeup of five fraternities which are men,
and four sororities which are women.Alpha Phi Alpha, Alpha, Kappa,
Alpha Kappa Alpha, Psi, Omega, Sci, Phi, Delta, Sigma,
Theta, Phi Beta Sigma, Zeta, Phi beta Sigma, Gamma row,
(20:41):
and Iota Phi Theta. So soRob, now let's go back to
Rob. You created this film nothaving been in the Greek organizations. Where
did you What was the influence behindgetting this going? Well, it's again
and we often forget like as writers, we just enter worlds, you know,
(21:04):
Like I said, you know,I've written movie set during slavery different
time periods that I obviously never wasthere, didn't experience. And in this
case, the studio Present they hadanother project that they wanted me to do.
There's that screen Gems and it didn'twork out for whatever reasons. So
(21:26):
then they came to me and said, Okay, we want to do this
stepping project. And to be honest, I passed on it a couple of
times because I didn't feel there wasgonna be enough of a good story because
they had an idea of what thestory was. So finally the head of
the studio said, all right,pitch me what you would do, like
what would be your story? Andso I spend a little time, you
(21:48):
know, spending a lot of timelooking at all these videos and but for
me, it always come back tothe story. Story. You know,
it wasn't really about dance. Itwas about who are these people? What's
their journey? And uh So thenonce I was able to concoct my story,
my version of what I felt emotionallywas the journey of these characters.
Uh then I was able to pitchthem the idea. But I also wanted
(22:10):
to take the stepping and bring inthat whole hip hop influence and that's what
you see in this and I wasn'tsure how they were going to take to
that, and you know, theyloved it, like, that's that's what
we want to do, and sothat's go ahead. Well, my question
(22:30):
so going back to because when youwatch those films and you see the energy
and the dance and the passion inthose stories and movements, and how you
filmed them culturally coming even though youweren't born in Nigeria, but culturally coming
from an African you know, UMheritage. If I may say, do
(22:52):
you think that that had any influencein just your own movement and passion within
you as a director bringing to itbecause I saw a lot of That's how
I kind of felt about it.You know a lot of Um, I
hear what you're saying and now wouldstomp the art. I mean I wrote
that one. I didn't direct thatone, so I wrote it, yeah,
and UM, I think as likeI did Beat the World after that,
(23:17):
and I've done some other dance movies. UM. Often people say to
me, are you Are you adancer? That's the other question, and
it's like, no, I've alwaysbut I've always loved dance and absolutely growing
up with a Nigerian dad and welistened to a lot of African afrobeat music
way before it was popular here andso definitely that's always been in me.
(23:41):
Like I love dance, I lovemovement, UM and story. So when
you bring those things together, yousee that and being able to combine like
for me, any rate UM atradition that everyone knows well if you're part
of those sororities and that you knowthose traditions. But um, but I
loved hip hop, and so ifI can just bring because after I worked
(24:03):
with jar Rule and Prose and them, I thought, I want to do
another movie now that takes hip hopbut takes it in a different direction.
So if this opportunity came with thisproject to do that. But definitely we're
all influenced by our cultural backgrounds,yes, and so I would agree that
that. Definitely it shows up ina lot of my stuff and in future
(24:25):
things. I think, I hope. I mean this rumor here is amazing.
Nigerian, Iranian, Jamaican and Mexican. This is this is That's why
there's so much energy and color inhere happening. It's like a rainbow of
just information and backgrounds and and flavors. I want to I want to go
back some real quickly. You saidbefore we move on, you said something
(24:48):
so important, that's about story.Now we see a million films out there
with explosions and big butts and somuch money spent on all these things.
But let's let's enforce the concept thatwithout the story, there's there's no life
to that. You can have asmany fires and explosions and worlds blowing up.
(25:11):
But if there's no story, isthat thing's not going to have longevity?
I mean, can you name anythingany big bets of that. Well,
that that comes from that's different though, because that comes from that already
a foundation with toys and has ahistory. That's a little different. We
have we talk about something that's morean original concept because things that come from
(25:33):
a book also have a story.Transformers has decades of toys, so that
has a history of fans already.So that's a little different. But how
how important to the audience to remindthem in the end story above everything right
is gonna get? Is gonna isthe most important thing? Well? I
agree. I think that whether likeI say, it's a dance movie,
(25:53):
a thriller or whatever genre, howa genre is elevated is when you fool
because on story. Yeah. Imean, like right now, I'm working
on Bring It On, the nextBring It On movie, And it's so
interesting the notes that I get fromthe studio exact that I'm working with because
they want to go deep and Ilove that. It's exciting for me when
you take something that people think ofis, oh, bring it on,
(26:14):
franchise, it's kind of light.But what will elevate it is when you
go deeper into the characters. Andfor me as a writer, I always
love when that's the note they're comingback on, what's this character really about?
Why is she doing this? Canwe go deeper? Blown away by
that because I thought the studio wouldhave been, like, we just want
pretty people, lots of dance andgood music. Yeah, well, you
know, they're they're different exacts.And fortunately on this particular franchise they've really
(26:40):
said, let's take to the nextlevel. And so I'm proud of it.
This next one we're gonna I lovethe last one we did, but
I think this next one is evengoing a little deeper into the characters.
Yes, and yeah, you'd besurprised. I mean the process of making
a movie. What people don't appreciateis that there are so many people involved
that at times things do get dropped. You start off and you have good
(27:00):
intentions and it may not be yourmain exact, but somebody else in the
line. You know, Usually it'sabout four chains of executives at a studio
that all have an opinion, sothen one of them can just sort of
throw things off and then you canget an actor who I mean. I
worked on a project I won't nameany names. Of course, I had
two leading actors who each brought intheir own writer to rewrite their dialogue.
(27:26):
Now I'm thinking, how can yourguy be writing your dialogue and you're right
here, you have to do thistogether. Yeah, I was shocked,
and so the drafts are being sentto me. I'm going, this is
crazy. I can ask you something, not the names, but were they
a listers or were they they werea listers? No, because I thought
(27:47):
if there was something that didn't like, didn't earn their keep. I mean,
at least if it's an a lister, maybe they've worked their way to
that position. But they're actors.There's nobody that should be doing that.
Yeah, the writer's right. Ifyou don't like the damn writing, don't
do the movie exactly. Yeah.Well, to me, it's even like
it's one thing if someone said,okay, we want a different writer on
(28:08):
board, but when different actors havedifferent writers, I'm thinking, oh my
god, and they're not collaborated together. They're each handing in drafts. That
who's allowing them to hand in drafts? I don't mean yeah, but there's
the studio allowing that. Yeah,yeah, that is phenomenal unbelief. I
never I never knew that existed.This I'm saying there's much of that.
Let me ask you this, isthere much did you write that you wrote?
(28:32):
It? Is that the one youwrote well? Or you were directing?
No? I wrote that? Okay, so let me I'm gonna we're
talking about depth. Do you thinkif do you think if you were a
white writer that would have happened.I'm gonna call those sons and everybody wants
waving flags to like make the worlda better place. I'm not going to
put that one down to that issue. No, that issue comes into playing
(28:52):
in certain things. But now thatthat did not, I would say that
was not a factor. It's just, you know, because insane. Actually,
I've never heard of such insanity.And I've been doing this a long
time now that I think people don'trealize how many things are being and how
they're being cobbled together, like interms of uh, you know, secret
writers, lazy directors who have anassistant here go and rewrite this stuff,
(29:18):
and you know is rewriting it andthe director shows up pretending like they that
disenhance it. I mean it's well, those are the same guys that cheated
on tests in school. So Imean that's just human beings all the time
cutting corners. But in the end, they're not going to feel good about
themselves. I mean maybe some peopledo get a paycheck. Yeah. My
(29:38):
first THO is like, if I'mcutting reporters, I don't care how much
money I'm making. I'm not happyreally okay, not at all. Money.
If and give me the money,I'm not putting in the work,
come out. I know you're likethat. Robert no No, I agree
with you. My middle name isRobert, so that's my dad's name.
Robert no No. I agree withyou. And I I like I said,
(29:59):
I'm even if I'm working on somethingthat's, uh, you know,
kind of a middle of the roadshow, I put yes, I want
to feel that way. You comeacross like that. You come across because
it's an art form. You haveintegrity matter whether we're doing a show for
five year olds. You know,you go and say, what's going to
be in the mind of that fiveyear old? How do I make it
though that kid? It's gonna lovethis show? That's what you should speaking
(30:22):
of next level and putting in onehundred and ten percent. Let's talk about
stand Now, you didn't do yourresearch, so you wouldn't know, I
know, you know, with almostalmost opposite. So this this is awesome
(30:42):
because then here's this period piece andnot only is it a period piece,
but it's a musical and it's gotmulticultural you know, you know things happening
here like upheaval, and it revolvesaround unions, right, yeah, union
stuff. So the thing is isI feel, I don't know about you,
(31:02):
that musicals are having a resurgence.Yes, and it's not just you
know, obviously everyone says Hamilton,but in the Heights is coming out west
Side story. I think it startedeven years ago when high school musical blew
up, like people realized, oh, I think people like people singing on
screening again. And that goes backhundreds of years. I mean I started
(31:23):
out doing musical theater. You know, that was the first time I didn't
I loved it, but for somany years they thought the audiences wouldn't appreciate
it. It was too it wasn'tentertaining enough. But I think people are
ready for it again. And soyou created this and in a nutshell.
Yeah, we could go really deepinto it. But had you ever directed
(31:44):
a musical before, like on stageor anywhere before? Now? And you
know again, And I was broughtonto this project as a director primarily because
of the work I had done witha lot of dance in my films,
a lot of music, and sothe producers thought, well, he'll be
a good match. He's been doingthese uh very sort of visually, you
(32:06):
know, almost like a musical,and it's all prerecorded stuff. They're dancing
too, so now you're adding theirsinging as they're doing it. But the
thing surprised me when the script cameto me, Number one was that there
was no no black people. Itwas all white. And I thought,
wow, yeah, there was nowhite people. All those characters in there
of color, that all happened onceI got the script, I said,
okay, so what's going on here? Folks? Oh my gosh. And
(32:29):
my producer and who was the writerof the movie. He's willing to admit
it. He goes on the recordsaying, you know, when when we
went to Rob, we had noidea. We had whitewashed history and the
story. I'm so sorry. Canyou repeat that well, he just said,
no. This is what I sayabout Hollywood all the time. Hollywood
(32:50):
isn't racist. They don't purposely doit. They don't know. Yeah,
he just said it. We haveno idea that we whitewashed history, because
as a Latin actor in this townI've dealt with it over twenty years and
people were, as I'm asked,racist, Why they always give you these
stereotypical roles. I'm like, it'snot. They purposely do it. That's
all they know. They don't knowanything else. We have to educate them
(33:13):
something. I'm about what you wereabout to hear? Right, that's right.
I mean because it's set in Canadanineteen nineteen, and I know Canadian
history, and so I said tothem, hey, you know, how
come you don't have any people ofcolor, and on top of that,
no indigenous people, which is abig part of Canadian history. And they
were like, well, you know, we did our research, and you
(33:34):
know, they were showing me thesebooks and they're gonna look at there's no
black people in here, said,well, who did this book? Like
what woot? See? That's important. So they did do the research,
It's just that their research was skewedwell, because they didn't go hard.
I mean, if you're not tryingto find the total truth because you don't
know what the truth is. Yea. I already knew what the truth was.
Yeah, So I was able tovery quickly point them to books with
pictures and they're like, oh,I never seen this because we haven't written
(33:57):
books written by black folk talk abouttheir history and uh. And the way
I put it to the producer andhe always likes used his example as I
said that, you know what wehave to do is widen the lens because
the black folks are standing right there. There are women standing right here,
indigenous people. But the photographer hasbeen told just take a picture of these
folks. Yeah, but if you'rewiden the lens, you suddenly go oh,
I love that, and widen thelens because they're there. They just
(34:21):
dropped them all out. They proppedthem all and so they did their home.
My goodness. They it really impactedthem. It just changed even for
them as human beings. They werelike, wow, I grew up here
and wrote a movie about this place, no idea. There's a huge To
this day, they did not realizeit was a huge black community. Tists
around the corner. Yeah, theydidn't hear about it. And indigenous especially
(34:45):
like well Sudbury where you grew up, has an indigenous foundation, Yeah,
called the OLG. What's it called. Do you know what the name?
Oh, well, we have anumber of different indigenous groups out in that
region. So I'm not read itearlier very instand I didn't realize that.
It's It's really interesting because it makesme think about which is this is a
great, great topic to talk aboutbecause just as a writer and a director,
(35:07):
and what you said earlier occurred aboutyou know, people don't know.
I think there's a difference between cultureand color, right. So it's like
a lot of times I think peopleright, but they don't really do the
background study of culture because even thoughyou might be black, there's black Jamaican,
Black African, black Brazilians. There'sso many different shades of you know,
(35:30):
Spanish or you know, wherever you'refrom, you know. So I
think it's so important that we areaware of that and making those decisions in
our writing and are directing to showa much wider lens as you put it,
you know, So that's very inspiringjust you know, talking about that,
because even Withstand, one of thelines that was in that film,
(35:52):
you know, musical. The morewe do nothing, the more nothing change.
And I think that's very powerful becauseat the end of the day,
it's like we are responsible as artiststo as Nina Simons as to change right
the culture right um and address thetimes that we were in. So I
(36:12):
definitely I am sure we look forwardto see all that you have that you
know. Yeah, and good foryou for making those changes and making them
aware of that because could you imaginethat film if it was done without you,
Well, yeah, it would havebeen a different movie, if you
know the wrong. Yeah. Thatmakes you wonder how many movies out there
did you add? Did you wereyou able to add a divisionist people like?
(36:36):
Ok? Yeah? The title ofthe movie became Stand because there was
an Irish woman character, and Isaid, you know, let's make her
African American. And Lisa Bell,who's a phenomenal actress singer, sings the
title song in the movie, whichwe then changed the title of the movie
to that song Stand, and thenwe gave her three more songs. I
said, look, we have thiswonderful person, Let's make her storyline an
(36:59):
eight storyline instead of burying it.Uh. And we also follow the story
of this indigenous character who was actuallyalso like an Irish Canadian, and we
said, look at indigenous people werein World War One. They fought for
the country, and why are theynot in this story because a lot of
our story revolves around these soldiers comingback home after the war. Wow.
(37:20):
So by bringing in an indigenous personone of the I mean, people love
this actor and what he does inthe movie, but there's this moment where
he talks about why he doesn't wantto take off his uniform because until he
wore that uniform, he never gotany respect, you know from white people
around town wearing the uniform, andit's like it was chilling, and that's
(37:43):
that's a powerful someone's gonna steal thatputting another film. Well, that that
actor comes from a tradition. Hisfather was very involved in a lot of
legal fights and battles for Indigenous people. So this actor really felt it,
I mean came through. It reallycame through. But those were all things
that we were able to capture.Good Well that you know that came natural.
(38:07):
I mean, I I don't evenwant to take once I enlightened the
producer and the writer to what wasI give them credit for then going back
and now did you write that partof it or you just told him as
the writer and then the writer wrotewrote that. I mean, once you're
at that stage of collaboration, itstarts to become like, you know,
we're very engaged. I'm something collaborate. Yeah, And I never like to
(38:29):
take credit away from writers, evenif i'm, you know, as a
director giving them stuff. You know, it's only exists because initially they start
with it and then we can jam. But uh, you know, but
really we found deep levels with andthe same with the women character because I
feel, as a person of color, I identify with all these different issues.
And so where there was a malecharacter who was kind of leading the
(38:52):
white group that was fighting for thecause, I said, you know,
why don't we make it a womaninstead. There was a woman who was
in the story, but they'd givenher like a little part and the guy
was like her husband was the mainpart. So I said, you know,
let's let's forget the guy. Inthe history books, this woman went
to prison and jail, all thesethings. Why isn't it about her?
(39:15):
Yeah? They agree, they said, yeah, Oh my god, it's
amazing. So her character then becamea major player. Everybody's listening to this.
This guy isn't gonna make huge changesin this industry. We are for
you. We need more of him. And I'm so glad that you're really
going to start taking a grip inHollywood because these are the changes that need
to be made that you've already beenstarting to do. And thank you.
(39:37):
Like that just gives me hope,man, because we need that. Well,
you know, if I find whenyou bring it out people are open
to it, yes, you know, they just yeah, they just don't
know, they don't know they youknow, it's biases. That's why we
need to have women behind the camera. We people color behind the camera.
We need people of different you know, sexuality, all these yeah, yeah,
and yeah that's why behind the camera, which also the influences what's in
(40:00):
front of the camera. You know, I absolutely keep thinking we can get
more black faces in front. Sowhat gets them in front is getting us
behind. Yes, that's what we'llget, the casting directors, all of
us that are helping to put theimage of a movie together. Now,
one more question about stand before wemove on. Was the whole union thing
back then, how do you feelthe state of unions are today and the
(40:23):
world compared to back then. Well, it's tough because I mean I feel
we're about to have an upswingly Yeah, partly because of the Biden administration.
I think that he's pro union.And you know, people just forget our
history. But how many of thethings we have right now that we take
for granted came out of all thosefights that fought for I grew up in
(40:45):
a mining town where we were onstrike for a whole year when i was
a kid, and yeah, that'sthe old way unions stuff. Oh yeah,
it was a hard, long foughtstrike. Did your dad work on
the mind? Yeah, my dadwas talking at the mind, So he
was on strike for a year.That's I mean. Yeah. And so
we're kids now, I remember thatperiod like there was no food on the
table, but as a community wecame together the Union really, you know,
(41:07):
I remember Christmas was the Union givingup little gifts to you know,
so the kids would have something.Um. So that's my you know,
recollection, that's my feeling because I'vegot deep reunion roots. Yeah. And
uh, while I got working onthis movie, what surprised me while we
were raising the money, because Iwas also involved with them in the raising
(41:27):
the money. Part was how smallunions are today compared to thirty forty years
ago. Yes, exact, drunktremendously. Now in Canada we still have
over I think it's still in twentyfive percent penetration here, it's only around
seven eight percent. It's yeah,it's exactly. The big corporations have come
in, Oh yeah, and they'vedestroyed the unions because the corporations don't want
(41:49):
them. I mean, obviously you'redaga like four different are you still sad
to not? Sorry? I leftthat long time. I give up the
acting. But now exactly. Thesad thing is that it's not just that
the corporations are raiding the unions,is that workers don't realize they need the
unions. And so there's so manypeople who vote against their own self interest
(42:14):
and they don't know it. Yeah, no, and that's that's or don't
vote at all. Well, theydon't vote. But I'm telling me,
even like when a shop has anopportunity to become unionized, and so many
people vote against it because they've beentricked into believing that, oh, unions
are just taking all your money andthey're having a good time. And you
know, well I feel I feelthat way a little. I mean,
because again it's funny he's in everyunion but sag and trust me, djaw,
(42:39):
they're way better, you know.I feel like I called Gabrielle Can
the president's office two or three timesand asked for a call. But I
hope they hear this a lot ofnever got a call back, and I've
paid hundreds, like thousands and thousandsof money in dues. And the reason
why I wanted to talk to heris because I feel her friends sitting right
(43:00):
next to year. Oh well,you can tell gabriel She's never returned my
calls and and I'd left really lovelymessages with Barbara her her you know,
Barbara her assistant. Okay, Iget and this is what I'm saying.
So when you tell somebody like meright now, who is a union guy
but then has paid all this moneyinto a union and it's getting no benefit
(43:23):
and actually seeing our rights and ourthings erode as artists, I'm starting to
get pissed. And so I'm gonnaask you, what where is the union
going wrong? Is it the leadership? Does her friend need to be replaced
by somebody. Okay, I don'tmean I don't mean by that. No,
No, I don't want to putyou in that home. Who takes
(43:45):
responsibility for that. I hear whatyou're saying, and trust me, because
the debate is on, Yes itis. You start talking about unions,
so like talking about politics, it'slike talking about religion. But in this
case, we're all in unions.We're coming from a different perspective. This
(44:05):
is Rob This America's podcaster Kirkus Saraswith my co host Zan Mari Antonia z
Z. Yeah. Oh, Ican hardly wait for you to guys,
come back to part two. Youcan already here on intelligent wise, how
to distinguished? How educated? Howtalented? Rob is just way tell you
(44:27):
it brings us back a part two. We love you all. We love
our fans, friends, family,everybody who listens follows us. We do
the show for you to educate you, to help you understand what happens in
Hollywood Seeing Part two
Ladies and gentlemen, please take yourseats. The show is about to begin.
Microphone check, everything's wrong so Ican hear it. How sounding?
Microphone check? Let's hear you're Mike, Robert. How are we sounding here?
That's good? That's good talking likethat. That sounds good. Yeah,
(00:20):
that's good. So I'm good.Maybe a little closer, a little
closer, right, Okay, that'syour love? Love that all right?
I feel good. You're perfect,you guys, so you don't have to
wear them now, you're good.I know I look better on camera without
him anyway. Yeah, there's not. Every woman assist in the chair never
wears them because they don't want tomiss it. Now you're going to say,
see my hair, that's just Iwatch for those things. How did
(00:42):
you right? Yea perfect? Allright? This is it? Three two
one. Welcome to What Your NameAgain? The podcast? Because Americans podcaster
kirkis Sarah's back at you. I'mgoing to stay in this because I got
some amazing co host today. Theseare people that I love very much,
(01:03):
and they're amazing human beings. Imean, that's who I bring in here,
amazing human beings who are good people. Because I believe in bringing good
energy into the studio so that wecan bounce it off our guests every single
episode. So I'm gonna start overto my to my right, ladies.
First, this is her first timeco hosting on What's Your Name Again?
First time co host name in MyShows. She's a past guest on roll
(01:26):
called podcast I Have here Straight fromJamaica through New York, Josan Marie,
Welcome, What's Up? What's goneon? Welcome? And she showed up
with a notebook with like no one'sever done that, And I'm so unpressed.
I already called to her co hostfor her right. He's fired after
(01:46):
the he doesn't even come prepared,but shows done. Thank you. I
love it she can because I liketo do things, you know, all
the I don't like the stock withcreativity, you know what I mean.
It's like those actors that try theimprovised, they don't want the lines.
You know, those guys that walkin there and they go, I don't
want my line because I don't wantto still, you know, my creativity
(02:07):
it's just a bullshit. It's basicallybullshit reasoning for being lazy and not doing
the job exactly. And that voiceyou guys here fans of the show,
you heard him many times. That'smy boy, my brother. We got
Anthony Z. What's up. Thankyou, thank you for showing up,
you guys. This is a great, great next here and we're here for
(02:29):
this, for this amazing guest.And he was referred to me by Tony
Gee, which Benny of you guysknow from a previous previous episode. And
this guy is He is a writer, director, producer. He's Canadian born
from Sudbury, Ontario, congratulated fromYork University in Toronto, study communications and
(02:49):
sociology. We have Rob out oftwo ye. What's up? Thank you,
thank you for being here. AndI always like to tell whenever I
have Canadians on or whenever I meetin person. All the decades I've been
(03:13):
meeting Canadians like you guys have thisodd friendliness about you that's so genuine and
it's real. And I say thisall the time. When I first met
Canadians, you guys were so friendly, and I thought it was fake,
because growing up in America, alot of times people are fake. When
they're friendly, you can't tell.So I would meet Canadians and they'd be
genuinely care about me, I'd belike this dude, no, he's up
(03:36):
to something, man like, he'sgot an agenda. But genuinely, Canadians
just like you because you're a humanbeing, which is how it should be,
and so it's pleasure to have you, Canadian you. You came in
with great energy. Even when wefirst started communicating about coming on the show,
you were just so excited and communicationwas great, and I was like
this guy. See, he's attentiveand I appreciate it. So thanks for
(03:57):
coming in. I appreciate that.But I gotta tell you something I figured
out this recently is that Canadians arepolite, they're friendly, but when they're
behind the wheel, this is whatI figured out. Canadians behind the wheel
a little crazy driving driving. Whenthey're driving, that's when they let it
out. So when Canadian friends cometo LA and they drive around, they're
almost kind of like, why isno one cutting me off? And I
(04:17):
realize Canadians that cut you off.So when they're behind the wheel, that's
what that's crazy, because there's isn'tit. What's the percentage of wilderness in
Canada. It's it's mostly rural becausethe big city. So I would just
think that everybody's just driving slow,you know, just chill. But so
(04:38):
they're cutting people off like I doin other countries. That's bad drivers.
Well, not that they're bad drivers. I'm just saying they get their aggression
out aggressive behind. That's what I'msaying. Not bad drivers, dangerous aggression
danger when they're driving. That's whyI can be chill all the rest of
the time. So that's how youdrive well. And see, I've been
(04:58):
here for so long now, I'vetaken on the La Chill kind of style.
So that's why I say, whenI'm in Toronto, if I put
on my blinker to turn, ifI have a Canadian passenger with me,
don't don't do that. They're gonnacut you off. They're gonna know you're
trying to turn ya, butn't thatyou gotta let them know. No,
no, no, Just so Ilove how he said I've been in LA
long enough, I have the chillattitude. I don't. I don't consider
(05:20):
I don't consider La chill for driving, right exactly. No, it's pretty
laid no, totally right there,right, yeah, yeah, perfect,
LA's chill for driving compared compared tolet you go to Toronto and be on
the road. You'll see there's somestuff going on. I love New York.
I guess well, New York's differentaltogether. It's a weird island that
(05:41):
you know, the mentality of NewYork. It's not really a proper driving
city to start, right, that'strue. Yeah, no, you want
you want to take the public thesubway, it's right, exactly. But
I love Toronto. I've worked theremany subway you get murdered, I mean
the murder rate, that's a rollcall. Now you're scaring people who've never
been in New York. You'll getmurdered. So did you come to LA
(06:06):
to be in Hollywood or for anotherreason? No? No, Yeah,
I knew it was time, youknow, as it happens to everybody.
Did you get your degree in communicationssociology which film? Well, I know
it sounds like it's not, butI knew I was going to be a
writer. I was already kind ofworking at it. I was. I
started off as an actor and thenI thought, okay, I should go
(06:28):
to university. My dad was reallyon me because I was actually playing on
skipping that I was just I wasin Toronto acting and I hadn't gone to
university after high school. So thenI said, Okay, I'm gonna do
it. And I started off inthe film program at York University, and
I realized very quickly that they're tryingto tell you how to point the camera.
And I said, you know,I don't want to learn how to
point the camera. I understand thatI need no about people. Yes,
(06:50):
And so that's what really I fellin love with sociology, and I took
the film theory courses, but Ireally focused on trying to understand what people
are about. And that's so onceI love that, then I made the
move to la, what's your conclusionabout what are people about? Oh?
You know, in general, ifyou can say, take out race,
(07:13):
take out, take out, takeout gender, take everything out? What
are people about? Robert? Fromyour perspective of a true gentleman? Here,
I do have a theory, andso I've never tried to put it
in one line, but it talksabout the schism that exists in all of
us, and that's really what thisis all about. It's about repairing the
schism that happened thousands and thousands ofyears ago in human evolution, which relates
(07:39):
to the idea that you know,we were once hunted and gatherers, and
you did everything, you know,you you created your god, you created
your food, you did you oryour own everything, your medicine, you
did everything. And suddenly we're ina fragmented world where you got a priest
over here, you have someone thatcooks your food over here. Everything's fragmented.
And a schism occurred some long timeago. That's my person. That's
(08:01):
interesting. Yeah, you could goto the bank with that one and a
schism and then more schisms kept itjust kept going exactly and now we have
the ultimate, the ultimate of schismsright now and decide, in my opinion
is like social media and to allthese tictoks and Instagram and again, yeah
we're sounding old, but man,that's just divided, that's just yeah.
(08:24):
Yeah, the idea had a holein it. Yeah, being a whole
person is very difficult today because peopledon't think for themselves. Yeah thought,
I mean now, especially young people, they got to look for their likes.
You know, it's like how manylikes that I get? Oh my
god, that that's scary stuff.Yeah, they're views likes, you know,
so that is creating even you know, compounding this concept of the schism.
Absolutely. I always hoped and thought, oh, you know, at
(08:46):
some point we're going to repair ofthis, but it only seems to be
getting worse. Yeah, I don'tknow when they're repairing stuff. I mean
individuals are repairing themselves, they are, but as a whole, as a
collective, we have a lot ofwork to do. That's because the individuals
are doing I think that's as acollective. It's only going to happen when
enough individuals do it. And thenit's flips to the other side, which
is happening. People are becoming moreconscious at higher levels of thinking, whether
(09:09):
it's um, you know, spirituality, even health, you know, our
how we're treating our body. SoI think we're going in the right direction.
But it's each individual, one personat a time. Now, I
was looking online and you came herein ninety two, But according to IMDb
from ninety three to two thousand,there's we're on a sabbatical because or because
(09:33):
there's kind of nothing that happened.So I was curious, like, well,
so so the reason why it washappening. It was just happening in
his cave because he was working sohard for saying that, because that didn't
see his family and friends, becausehe's sitting there happening at night exactly.
(09:54):
And let's say so for everybody,this is what this show is about.
The shows by educations, but educatingactors, writers, directors trying to make
it in Hollywood, and people outsidethe business on what we have to go
through. So I wanted to tellpeople, did you huddle up in that
cave from ninety three to two thousand, just twenty scripts? No? From
that time when I came here,I did. Yes. I was obviously
(10:16):
writing a lot, and as youknow, there's that whole concept of development
hell in Hollywood. Yeah, andit's a real truth, and you just
sort of waiting to break out ofthat development hell and when it happens,
but prior to it breaking out orappearing to break out, I sold a
whole lot of scripts all over town, a lot of pitches. You know,
(10:39):
I was in development most studios,and but you're waiting for a movie
to actually get made. So forthose of you who don't understand or outside,
yeah, he between ninety three andtwo thousands could have sold twenty scripts,
but you've never heard of it.Because still sitting on a shelf.
It's on a hard drive somewhere.Some studio still owns the rights to it.
He got paid. You got paidlike a lump sum, which a
(11:01):
lot of people don't understand as awriter. Back in the day. Now
writers try more to hold on toit, not give it up. But
back in the day you were happyto sell it for a twenty grand and
be like, all right, cool, but then you lost all control.
Right, yeah, although wouldn't betwenty grand. Back in the day,
it was a lot more. Infact, today it's a lot worse.
Oh is it. Yeah? Theindustry is going backwards. Oh wow,
(11:22):
yeah, oh yeah, Netflix isdestroyed at all. Yeah, it's gone
all about backwards. I don't wantanything bad about Netflix, no, no,
when I'm talking about but I'm saying, like the people I talk into
business have said, I mean,their business model, it's not a knock
on. It has really kind ofsucked the industry in a different direction.
And where the money gets allocated,how it gets spent, things like that
(11:43):
exactly. Yeah. And we're nottalking back about anybody. It's more telling
how the industry is. Yeah,and so how did you how did you
get in front I'm sorry, Idon't mean it, but all those different
students, because he said he hada script at every studio almost that's to
me unbelieving, like how did youWas it your agent that did that or
was it your just people who knewat the time, they just knew you.
(12:05):
They said, oh, we knowRobert, so we'll call Robert.
Well. It was a combination ofseveral things. One was having a good
agent. I had an agent atWilliam Morris who at the time was the
number one spec salesperson in Hollywood.And Alan Gasmer. This guy could sell
anything. He was amazing, Sothat was number one. That really makes
Did he get you in the door? For all? Yeah? Oh yeah.
(12:26):
First for people listening, how didyou hook up with him in the
first place? Well, I came. I came to La without knowing a
soul and literally, I mean thereis a story about Norman Jewison. He's
a famous director. You made youknow most people. He's been around long
time. And I studied at hisfilm school in Canada. He has a
school that's kind of like the AFIis here American Film Student in Canada,
(12:50):
Canadian Film in student. So Istudied at his film center. So when
I came to LA he immediately helpedopen some doors and that helped me to
break in and get a really goodagent at William Morris. And he personally
made calls for you. Oh yeah, oh well that's oh my god,
of course. Yeah, he's alegend. He's a legend, and I
(13:11):
was lucky to have studied under himand in Canada. And then I was
actually I had an agent, asmall agent who's now become my best friend,
and he but he was at thesmallest agency in town. So because
I was the one place I couldget, I lived. I went to
fifty places everyone said no. Andthis one guy, his assistant actually let
me come in the door. Hedidn't even know he was going to meet
(13:33):
me, which I only found outlater. His assistant just loved one of
my scripts and and put me onhis schedule, and so I could tell
he was looking at me a littlestrange was this guy sitting here, But
the assistant was insistent, we're gonnayou know. And so thanks to her
and then him taking me on,that started the ball rolling. I mean,
(13:54):
he promised me lots of meetings andI was shocked when he actually happened.
Wow. And then I was atWarner Brothers pitching a movie and they
said, well, who would youlike to direct this movie? And I
thought, well, the perfect directorwould be Norman Jewilson, So I said,
Okay, call Norman. So theycalled Norman up and then Norman finds
out that I'm one of his students, and so NEI les's say. He
was very upset with his staff thathow come I'm hearing from Warner Brothers about
(14:16):
my student. You guys are supposedto track this and being so immediately he
remedied that, and I ended upliving at his beach house in Malibu and
he just hooked me out. Butit was like kind of like a fancy
come true Hollywood. But that isso true in this town. You have
to have people helping you. Likeit. You came here not knowing anybody
the same thing, and you meetpeople along the way that mentor you help,
(14:37):
you introduce you to people open doorsfor you. That's how it has
to happen. That's why it's soimportant to network when you're here. You
knew somebody when you were here.You know what, I'm curious about the
fact that you had so many scriptsbefore and looking at the richness of your
work, and some of them area certain genre. So when you look
(15:01):
at on the Yard or you know, turn it up, or you know,
just different films, there's a lotof dancing and culture and music and
um, you know, deal withissues. Inner city Urban? Were your
scripts that the scripts that you soldwere they similar to that or they were
different? Because you've done some periodpieces as well. Well, that's a
(15:24):
good question because I often try tofigure that out myself, like how you
know, because I look at allmy scripts and I go, is there
a pattern? One of my daI was gonna ask you that later.
I'm glad you do it, becausehe has the most diverse array, like
polar opposite story, Like he's gotan urban drama, he's got dance ones,
he's got a period piece musical,he's got a comedy like he's I've
(15:46):
never met or seen anybody that has. But that's a credit to your talent,
like to be able to do allthat. Yeah, I mean,
but I mean sometimes it's easier whenyou're so specific and people go, Okay,
we get what your thing is.Right. When you're eclectic, then
they know what box to put youin. But when I first came to
LA. I remember my very firststudio meetings and I was pitching them the
(16:10):
stuff that I was into and thisexact and I'm like xaggerating. He literally
rolls eyes and act like he wasfalling asleep. And I was like a
kid, you know. And hetold me, says, Rob, you're
putting me to sleep. Man,did you have anything exciting? I said,
well, I thought these were I'mturning you my exciting story stuff.
What were well that at that timeI was really into deeper sort of social
(16:33):
drama and exploring, you know,I came from yeah and schisms. Yeah,
yes, And that didn't fly.And it's funny because it would take
twenty five years later and then movieslike High Chicago, which I wrote my
brother of Fauns directed. That wasone of the things I was pitching to
him twenty five years ago and I'dwritten it, and but it took twenty
(16:57):
five years later. Wow for herabout that so much to get made seven
twenty five years later. Yeah,And and that's been that way for a
number of my projects. So goingback to even like that idea that there
was a time when it looks likenothing happened, Well, those scripts now
are all getting made? Like yeah, wait, wait a minute, you're
saying that scripts you wrote twenty yearsago getting made now. Oh yeah,
(17:18):
that's that's an important Hey, that'san important piece to share. Well,
wow, that's amazing. That's whatI always tell you younger writers. It's
all in the bike man. Don'tthink that stuff doesn't matter. Yeah,
because thank you going for ten years. Absolutely, thank you, Robert.
That's amazing advice because a lot ofpeople get frustrated and they don't realize the
amount of times things take. Twentyyears, twenty years, Yeah, I
(17:40):
know it's gonna get made wed sometwenty years ago. That I mean,
we got great pitch meetings, NicholasCages coming. We went a huge company
twenty years ago. It's been goingon twenty years and it's amazing how time
goes. But the store will alwaysbe relevant. Yeah, and that's the
thing. Yeah. Um, soyou brought up Turn it Up. He
did Turn it Up with Yall Ruleand Jason Statham, which was more an
(18:03):
urban drama. Then he went tohe did something called codename The Cleaner was
Cedric the Entertainer, Lucy Low andWill Patton, which is a comedy.
Did you ever hear about that.But he's a really nice guy. He's
a good guy. And then whicheverybody knows Stomp the Yard now that had
Brian White. Him and I usedto have the same manager, laz A
(18:25):
Lonza. I've done a movie.I did a movie with him, Harry
Lennox, he's really tied with I'vedone a bunch of things with Harry.
We know, we both know Harry. Uh, he knows him really well.
Trick and Neo was in there,but Stump the Yard with What got
me about that was were unifraternity incollege? No, Wow, I was
gonna bet my entire now because Iwent to college in Canada and it's very
(18:48):
different than the style in the US. So and I want to go into
this area for a little bit becauseI was in a fraternity in college and
I used to love this whole thing. For those of you don't know,
it's the stepping, which is what'sthis? What's it about? And so
I'm gonna give everybody a quick historyand then you could tell I want to
I want to get to know evenmore how you got into it, not
(19:10):
having been in a fraternity. Sowhat is stepping? It's a percussive,
highly energetic art form. First ofup through the song and dance rituals performed
African American fraternities and storties, andstepping. The body becomes an instrument,
using footsteps, claps, and spokenword to produce complex polyrhythms poking word that's
her arte. Stepping has been describedas one of the most exciting dance forms
(19:32):
created in the twenty first century.When I was in college, so the
white fraternities didn't really mean what theblack fraternities. But I played sports,
saw my friends were athletes, andthey were in the black fraternity. So
I always like, I was enthralledby the stepping. Have you ever seen
stepping anthony? It is the mostentertaining, passionate and it's phenomenal. And
(19:56):
so the origins of stepping come fromthe early nineteen hundreds of African Americans began
to attend colleges in greater numbers,and once on campus, they decided to
create their own Greek letter organizations tosupport the students academically, socially, and
to serve the surrounding communities. Steppingbecame a way that members of these student
groups, known today as the Divinenine expressed love and pride for their organizations.
(20:21):
Now to give props out there forthose listening who are from the Greek
organizations. The Divine Nine is madeup of five fraternities which are men,
and four sororities which are women.Alpha Phi Alpha, Alpha, Kappa,
Alpha Kappa Alpha, Psi, Omega, Sci, Phi, Delta, Sigma,
Theta, Phi Beta Sigma, Zeta, Phi beta Sigma, Gamma row,
(20:41):
and Iota Phi Theta. So soRob, now let's go back to
Rob. You created this film nothaving been in the Greek organizations. Where
did you What was the influence behindgetting this going? Well, it's again
and we often forget like as writers, we just enter worlds, you know,
(21:04):
Like I said, you know,I've written movie set during slavery different
time periods that I obviously never wasthere, didn't experience. And in this
case, the studio Present they hadanother project that they wanted me to do.
There's that screen Gems and it didn'twork out for whatever reasons. So
(21:26):
then they came to me and said, Okay, we want to do this
stepping project. And to be honest, I passed on it a couple of
times because I didn't feel there wasgonna be enough of a good story because
they had an idea of what thestory was. So finally the head of
the studio said, all right,pitch me what you would do, like
what would be your story? Andso I spend a little time, you
(21:48):
know, spending a lot of timelooking at all these videos and but for
me, it always come back tothe story. Story. You know,
it wasn't really about dance. Itwas about who are these people? What's
their journey? And uh So thenonce I was able to concoct my story,
my version of what I felt emotionallywas the journey of these characters.
Uh then I was able to pitchthem the idea. But I also wanted
(22:10):
to take the stepping and bring inthat whole hip hop influence and that's what
you see in this and I wasn'tsure how they were going to take to
that, and you know, theyloved it, like, that's that's what
we want to do, and sothat's go ahead. Well, my question
(22:30):
so going back to because when youwatch those films and you see the energy
and the dance and the passion inthose stories and movements, and how you
filmed them culturally coming even though youweren't born in Nigeria, but culturally coming
from an African you know, UMheritage. If I may say, do
(22:52):
you think that that had any influencein just your own movement and passion within
you as a director bringing to itbecause I saw a lot of That's how
I kind of felt about it.You know a lot of Um, I
hear what you're saying and now wouldstomp the art. I mean I wrote
that one. I didn't direct thatone, so I wrote it, yeah,
and UM, I think as likeI did Beat the World after that,
(23:17):
and I've done some other dance movies. UM. Often people say to
me, are you Are you adancer? That's the other question, and
it's like, no, I've alwaysbut I've always loved dance and absolutely growing
up with a Nigerian dad and welistened to a lot of African afrobeat music
way before it was popular here andso definitely that's always been in me.
(23:41):
Like I love dance, I lovemovement, UM and story. So when
you bring those things together, yousee that and being able to combine like
for me, any rate UM atradition that everyone knows well if you're part
of those sororities and that you knowthose traditions. But um, but I
loved hip hop, and so ifI can just bring because after I worked
(24:03):
with jar Rule and Prose and them, I thought, I want to do
another movie now that takes hip hopbut takes it in a different direction.
So if this opportunity came with thisproject to do that. But definitely we're
all influenced by our cultural backgrounds,yes, and so I would agree that
that. Definitely it shows up ina lot of my stuff and in future
(24:25):
things. I think, I hope. I mean this rumor here is amazing.
Nigerian, Iranian, Jamaican and Mexican. This is this is That's why
there's so much energy and color inhere happening. It's like a rainbow of
just information and backgrounds and and flavors. I want to I want to go
back some real quickly. You saidbefore we move on, you said something
(24:48):
so important, that's about story.Now we see a million films out there
with explosions and big butts and somuch money spent on all these things.
But let's let's enforce the concept thatwithout the story, there's there's no life
to that. You can have asmany fires and explosions and worlds blowing up.
(25:11):
But if there's no story, isthat thing's not going to have longevity?
I mean, can you name anythingany big bets of that. Well,
that that comes from that's different though, because that comes from that already
a foundation with toys and has ahistory. That's a little different. We
have we talk about something that's morean original concept because things that come from
(25:33):
a book also have a story.Transformers has decades of toys, so that
has a history of fans already.So that's a little different. But how
how important to the audience to remindthem in the end story above everything right
is gonna get? Is gonna isthe most important thing? Well? I
agree. I think that whether likeI say, it's a dance movie,
(25:53):
a thriller or whatever genre, howa genre is elevated is when you fool
because on story. Yeah. Imean, like right now, I'm working
on Bring It On, the nextBring It On movie, And it's so
interesting the notes that I get fromthe studio exact that I'm working with because
they want to go deep and Ilove that. It's exciting for me when
you take something that people think ofis, oh, bring it on,
(26:14):
franchise, it's kind of light.But what will elevate it is when you
go deeper into the characters. Andfor me as a writer, I always
love when that's the note they're comingback on, what's this character really about?
Why is she doing this? Canwe go deeper? Blown away by
that because I thought the studio wouldhave been, like, we just want
pretty people, lots of dance andgood music. Yeah, well, you
know, they're they're different exacts.And fortunately on this particular franchise they've really
(26:40):
said, let's take to the nextlevel. And so I'm proud of it.
This next one we're gonna I lovethe last one we did, but
I think this next one is evengoing a little deeper into the characters.
Yes, and yeah, you'd besurprised. I mean the process of making
a movie. What people don't appreciateis that there are so many people involved
that at times things do get dropped. You start off and you have good
(27:00):
intentions and it may not be yourmain exact, but somebody else in the
line. You know, Usually it'sabout four chains of executives at a studio
that all have an opinion, sothen one of them can just sort of
throw things off and then you canget an actor who I mean. I
worked on a project I won't nameany names. Of course, I had
two leading actors who each brought intheir own writer to rewrite their dialogue.
(27:26):
Now I'm thinking, how can yourguy be writing your dialogue and you're right
here, you have to do thistogether. Yeah, I was shocked,
and so the drafts are being sentto me. I'm going, this is
crazy. I can ask you something, not the names, but were they
a listers or were they they werea listers? No, because I thought
(27:47):
if there was something that didn't like, didn't earn their keep. I mean,
at least if it's an a lister, maybe they've worked their way to
that position. But they're actors.There's nobody that should be doing that.
Yeah, the writer's right. Ifyou don't like the damn writing, don't
do the movie exactly. Yeah.Well, to me, it's even like
it's one thing if someone said,okay, we want a different writer on
(28:08):
board, but when different actors havedifferent writers, I'm thinking, oh my
god, and they're not collaborated together. They're each handing in drafts. That
who's allowing them to hand in drafts? I don't mean yeah, but there's
the studio allowing that. Yeah,yeah, that is phenomenal unbelief. I
never I never knew that existed.This I'm saying there's much of that.
Let me ask you this, isthere much did you write that you wrote?
(28:32):
It? Is that the one youwrote well? Or you were directing?
No? I wrote that? Okay, so let me I'm gonna we're
talking about depth. Do you thinkif do you think if you were a
white writer that would have happened.I'm gonna call those sons and everybody wants
waving flags to like make the worlda better place. I'm not going to
put that one down to that issue. No, that issue comes into playing
(28:52):
in certain things. But now thatthat did not, I would say that
was not a factor. It's just, you know, because insane. Actually,
I've never heard of such insanity.And I've been doing this a long
time now that I think people don'trealize how many things are being and how
they're being cobbled together, like interms of uh, you know, secret
writers, lazy directors who have anassistant here go and rewrite this stuff,
(29:18):
and you know is rewriting it andthe director shows up pretending like they that
disenhance it. I mean it's well, those are the same guys that cheated
on tests in school. So Imean that's just human beings all the time
cutting corners. But in the end, they're not going to feel good about
themselves. I mean maybe some peopledo get a paycheck. Yeah. My
(29:38):
first THO is like, if I'mcutting reporters, I don't care how much
money I'm making. I'm not happyreally okay, not at all. Money.
If and give me the money,I'm not putting in the work,
come out. I know you're likethat. Robert no No, I agree
with you. My middle name isRobert, so that's my dad's name.
Robert no No. I agree withyou. And I I like I said,
(29:59):
I'm even if I'm working on somethingthat's, uh, you know,
kind of a middle of the roadshow, I put yes, I want
to feel that way. You comeacross like that. You come across because
it's an art form. You haveintegrity matter whether we're doing a show for
five year olds. You know,you go and say, what's going to
be in the mind of that fiveyear old? How do I make it
though that kid? It's gonna lovethis show? That's what you should speaking
(30:22):
of next level and putting in onehundred and ten percent. Let's talk about
stand Now, you didn't do yourresearch, so you wouldn't know, I
know, you know, with almostalmost opposite. So this this is awesome
(30:42):
because then here's this period piece andnot only is it a period piece,
but it's a musical and it's gotmulticultural you know, you know things happening
here like upheaval, and it revolvesaround unions, right, yeah, union
stuff. So the thing is isI feel, I don't know about you,
(31:02):
that musicals are having a resurgence.Yes, and it's not just you
know, obviously everyone says Hamilton,but in the Heights is coming out west
Side story. I think it startedeven years ago when high school musical blew
up, like people realized, oh, I think people like people singing on
screening again. And that goes backhundreds of years. I mean I started
(31:23):
out doing musical theater. You know, that was the first time I didn't
I loved it, but for somany years they thought the audiences wouldn't appreciate
it. It was too it wasn'tentertaining enough. But I think people are
ready for it again. And soyou created this and in a nutshell.
Yeah, we could go really deepinto it. But had you ever directed
(31:44):
a musical before, like on stageor anywhere before? Now? And you
know again, And I was broughtonto this project as a director primarily because
of the work I had done witha lot of dance in my films,
a lot of music, and sothe producers thought, well, he'll be
a good match. He's been doingthese uh very sort of visually, you
(32:06):
know, almost like a musical,and it's all prerecorded stuff. They're dancing
too, so now you're adding theirsinging as they're doing it. But the
thing surprised me when the script cameto me, Number one was that there
was no no black people. Itwas all white. And I thought,
wow, yeah, there was nowhite people. All those characters in there
of color, that all happened onceI got the script, I said,
okay, so what's going on here? Folks? Oh my gosh. And
(32:29):
my producer and who was the writerof the movie. He's willing to admit
it. He goes on the recordsaying, you know, when when we
went to Rob, we had noidea. We had whitewashed history and the
story. I'm so sorry. Canyou repeat that well, he just said,
no. This is what I sayabout Hollywood all the time. Hollywood
(32:50):
isn't racist. They don't purposely doit. They don't know. Yeah,
he just said it. We haveno idea that we whitewashed history, because
as a Latin actor in this townI've dealt with it over twenty years and
people were, as I'm asked,racist, Why they always give you these
stereotypical roles. I'm like, it'snot. They purposely do it. That's
all they know. They don't knowanything else. We have to educate them
(33:13):
something. I'm about what you wereabout to hear? Right, that's right.
I mean because it's set in Canadanineteen nineteen, and I know Canadian
history, and so I said tothem, hey, you know, how
come you don't have any people ofcolor, and on top of that,
no indigenous people, which is abig part of Canadian history. And they
were like, well, you know, we did our research, and you
(33:34):
know, they were showing me thesebooks and they're gonna look at there's no
black people in here, said,well, who did this book? Like
what woot? See? That's important. So they did do the research,
It's just that their research was skewedwell, because they didn't go hard.
I mean, if you're not tryingto find the total truth because you don't
know what the truth is. Yea. I already knew what the truth was.
Yeah, So I was able tovery quickly point them to books with
pictures and they're like, oh,I never seen this because we haven't written
(33:57):
books written by black folk talk abouttheir history and uh. And the way
I put it to the producer andhe always likes used his example as I
said that, you know what wehave to do is widen the lens because
the black folks are standing right there. There are women standing right here,
indigenous people. But the photographer hasbeen told just take a picture of these
folks. Yeah, but if you'rewiden the lens, you suddenly go oh,
I love that, and widen thelens because they're there. They just
(34:21):
dropped them all out. They proppedthem all and so they did their home.
My goodness. They it really impactedthem. It just changed even for
them as human beings. They werelike, wow, I grew up here
and wrote a movie about this place, no idea. There's a huge To
this day, they did not realizeit was a huge black community. Tists
around the corner. Yeah, theydidn't hear about it. And indigenous especially
(34:45):
like well Sudbury where you grew up, has an indigenous foundation, Yeah,
called the OLG. What's it called. Do you know what the name?
Oh, well, we have anumber of different indigenous groups out in that
region. So I'm not read itearlier very instand I didn't realize that.
It's It's really interesting because it makesme think about which is this is a
great, great topic to talk aboutbecause just as a writer and a director,
(35:07):
and what you said earlier occurred aboutyou know, people don't know.
I think there's a difference between cultureand color, right. So it's like
a lot of times I think peopleright, but they don't really do the
background study of culture because even thoughyou might be black, there's black Jamaican,
Black African, black Brazilians. There'sso many different shades of you know,
(35:30):
Spanish or you know, wherever you'refrom, you know. So I
think it's so important that we areaware of that and making those decisions in
our writing and are directing to showa much wider lens as you put it,
you know, So that's very inspiringjust you know, talking about that,
because even Withstand, one of thelines that was in that film,
(35:52):
you know, musical. The morewe do nothing, the more nothing change.
And I think that's very powerful becauseat the end of the day,
it's like we are responsible as artiststo as Nina Simons as to change right
the culture right um and address thetimes that we were in. So I
(36:12):
definitely I am sure we look forwardto see all that you have that you
know. Yeah, and good foryou for making those changes and making them
aware of that because could you imaginethat film if it was done without you,
Well, yeah, it would havebeen a different movie, if you
know the wrong. Yeah. Thatmakes you wonder how many movies out there
did you add? Did you wereyou able to add a divisionist people like?
(36:36):
Ok? Yeah? The title ofthe movie became Stand because there was
an Irish woman character, and Isaid, you know, let's make her
African American. And Lisa Bell,who's a phenomenal actress singer, sings the
title song in the movie, whichwe then changed the title of the movie
to that song Stand, and thenwe gave her three more songs. I
said, look, we have thiswonderful person, Let's make her storyline an
(36:59):
eight storyline instead of burying it.Uh. And we also follow the story
of this indigenous character who was actuallyalso like an Irish Canadian, and we
said, look at indigenous people werein World War One. They fought for
the country, and why are theynot in this story because a lot of
our story revolves around these soldiers comingback home after the war. Wow.
(37:20):
So by bringing in an indigenous personone of the I mean, people love
this actor and what he does inthe movie, but there's this moment where
he talks about why he doesn't wantto take off his uniform because until he
wore that uniform, he never gotany respect, you know from white people
around town wearing the uniform, andit's like it was chilling, and that's
(37:43):
that's a powerful someone's gonna steal thatputting another film. Well, that that
actor comes from a tradition. Hisfather was very involved in a lot of
legal fights and battles for Indigenous people. So this actor really felt it,
I mean came through. It reallycame through. But those were all things
that we were able to capture.Good Well that you know that came natural.
(38:07):
I mean, I I don't evenwant to take once I enlightened the
producer and the writer to what wasI give them credit for then going back
and now did you write that partof it or you just told him as
the writer and then the writer wrotewrote that. I mean, once you're
at that stage of collaboration, itstarts to become like, you know,
we're very engaged. I'm something collaborate. Yeah, And I never like to
(38:29):
take credit away from writers, evenif i'm, you know, as a
director giving them stuff. You know, it's only exists because initially they start
with it and then we can jam. But uh, you know, but
really we found deep levels with andthe same with the women character because I
feel, as a person of color, I identify with all these different issues.
And so where there was a malecharacter who was kind of leading the
(38:52):
white group that was fighting for thecause, I said, you know,
why don't we make it a womaninstead. There was a woman who was
in the story, but they'd givenher like a little part and the guy
was like her husband was the mainpart. So I said, you know,
let's let's forget the guy. Inthe history books, this woman went
to prison and jail, all thesethings. Why isn't it about her?
(39:15):
Yeah? They agree, they said, yeah, Oh my god, it's
amazing. So her character then becamea major player. Everybody's listening to this.
This guy isn't gonna make huge changesin this industry. We are for
you. We need more of him. And I'm so glad that you're really
going to start taking a grip inHollywood because these are the changes that need
to be made that you've already beenstarting to do. And thank you.
(39:37):
Like that just gives me hope,man, because we need that. Well,
you know, if I find whenyou bring it out people are open
to it, yes, you know, they just yeah, they just don't
know, they don't know they youknow, it's biases. That's why we
need to have women behind the camera. We people color behind the camera.
We need people of different you know, sexuality, all these yeah, yeah,
and yeah that's why behind the camera, which also the influences what's in
(40:00):
front of the camera. You know, I absolutely keep thinking we can get
more black faces in front. Sowhat gets them in front is getting us
behind. Yes, that's what we'llget, the casting directors, all of
us that are helping to put theimage of a movie together. Now,
one more question about stand before wemove on. Was the whole union thing
back then, how do you feelthe state of unions are today and the
(40:23):
world compared to back then. Well, it's tough because I mean I feel
we're about to have an upswingly Yeah, partly because of the Biden administration.
I think that he's pro union.And you know, people just forget our
history. But how many of thethings we have right now that we take
for granted came out of all thosefights that fought for I grew up in
(40:45):
a mining town where we were onstrike for a whole year when i was
a kid, and yeah, that'sthe old way unions stuff. Oh yeah,
it was a hard, long foughtstrike. Did your dad work on
the mind? Yeah, my dadwas talking at the mind, So he
was on strike for a year.That's I mean. Yeah. And so
we're kids now, I remember thatperiod like there was no food on the
table, but as a community wecame together the Union really, you know,
(41:07):
I remember Christmas was the Union givingup little gifts to you know,
so the kids would have something.Um. So that's my you know,
recollection, that's my feeling because I'vegot deep reunion roots. Yeah. And
uh, while I got working onthis movie, what surprised me while we
were raising the money, because Iwas also involved with them in the raising
(41:27):
the money. Part was how smallunions are today compared to thirty forty years
ago. Yes, exact, drunktremendously. Now in Canada we still have
over I think it's still in twentyfive percent penetration here, it's only around
seven eight percent. It's yeah,it's exactly. The big corporations have come
in, Oh yeah, and they'vedestroyed the unions because the corporations don't want
(41:49):
them. I mean, obviously you'redaga like four different are you still sad
to not? Sorry? I leftthat long time. I give up the
acting. But now exactly. Thesad thing is that it's not just that
the corporations are raiding the unions,is that workers don't realize they need the
unions. And so there's so manypeople who vote against their own self interest
(42:14):
and they don't know it. Yeah, no, and that's that's or don't
vote at all. Well, theydon't vote. But I'm telling me,
even like when a shop has anopportunity to become unionized, and so many
people vote against it because they've beentricked into believing that, oh, unions
are just taking all your money andthey're having a good time. And you
know, well I feel I feelthat way a little. I mean,
because again it's funny he's in everyunion but sag and trust me, djaw,
(42:39):
they're way better, you know.I feel like I called Gabrielle Can
the president's office two or three timesand asked for a call. But I
hope they hear this a lot ofnever got a call back, and I've
paid hundreds, like thousands and thousandsof money in dues. And the reason
why I wanted to talk to heris because I feel her friends sitting right
(43:00):
next to year. Oh well,you can tell gabriel She's never returned my
calls and and I'd left really lovelymessages with Barbara her her you know,
Barbara her assistant. Okay, Iget and this is what I'm saying.
So when you tell somebody like meright now, who is a union guy
but then has paid all this moneyinto a union and it's getting no benefit
(43:23):
and actually seeing our rights and ourthings erode as artists, I'm starting to
get pissed. And so I'm gonnaask you, what where is the union
going wrong? Is it the leadership? Does her friend need to be replaced
by somebody. Okay, I don'tmean I don't mean by that. No,
No, I don't want to putyou in that home. Who takes
(43:45):
responsibility for that. I hear whatyou're saying, and trust me, because
the debate is on, Yes itis. You start talking about unions,
so like talking about politics, it'slike talking about religion. But in this
case, we're all in unions.We're coming from a different perspective. This
(44:05):
is Rob This America's podcaster Kirkus Saraswith my co host Zan Mari Antonia z
Z. Yeah. Oh, Ican hardly wait for you to guys,
come back to part two. Youcan already here on intelligent wise, how
to distinguished? How educated? Howtalented? Rob is just way tell you
(44:27):
it brings us back a part two. We love you all. We love
our fans, friends, family,everybody who listens follows us. We do
the show for you to educate you, to help you understand what happens in
Hollywood Seeing Part two
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