13: Under Siege 2

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Mmm, Hello everyone, and welcometo the Ensagal Podcast. I am your

(00:32):
host, Kristash you, and I'mjoined as always by my co host from
the West Coast. Oh wow,yeah, oh, I thought you were
no co host or the West Coast. Yeah, you beat me to it,
My god. Sorry. And alsoon the West Coast. He's here
because he is this film's biggest fan, also close friend, writer, writer
of soon to be published moth matterotica known as Touch My Wings. They're

(00:55):
quite furry, No horror, Igo. We'll a bit DC Titans,
Mothman prophecies. Writer, writer ofthe script of this film. One of
the co writers the script of thisfilm, my good friend and yours,
mister Richard, had him, Ican tell you what to write. All
you gotta do is write it.That is a quote from Steven Seagal,
said directly to me and Matt Reevesin his living room when we met him

(01:21):
in pre production for Dark Territory Undersiege. Two ladies and gentlemen, nothing can
beat what Richard just said on anyonethat we've had of this podcast yet.
Richard has met and been in thesame room with Steven Seagal, the man
that Yeah, the man that wespent the last twelve episodes of our show
talking. Yeah, so if youcan't tell, on this episode of the
show, we are going to betalking about the sequel to under Siege.

(01:44):
Under Siege too Dark Territory. Lasttime we had a guest on our show
was for the original under Siege.That's what we had our good friend mister
Verne on. Now we're having Richardon. Verne is amazing. Yeah,
he's a funny guy. Got allof his books up there on the shelf.
I love vern verns a trip,so right out of the gate here,

(02:04):
Richard, I don't even how dowe want to talk about this movie?
Well, I want to talk aboutit by trying to tell some stories
I haven't told, because I feellike I've told so many in so many
different venues and I don't remember literallyon my other show, we've we've had
a I interviewed you, you know, sit down, ask you questions about
the movie. Yeah, that waslike a year ago. Maybe I don't

(02:25):
know when it was, and Idon't know exactly what stories I told.
But I was trying to go backthrough my mind, going, well,
did I talk about this and Italk about that and there's some early like
stuff about Matt and I. Sothe movie was co written by Matt Reeves,
who you may have heard of.He's got a little movie out right
now called The Batman. Oh isthat new indie flay? Yeah? Right,
yeah, yeah, you're gonna haveto I think it might be on

(02:46):
TV pretty so so too, Ithink, isn't it. Yeah, again,
it will be. But I cantell you, I mean sort of
based on that. I mean,I'm trying to go back to the earliest,
earliest, earliest development of the scriptand some various things we did.
But then I can also talk aboutthe infamous meeting we had with Steven Seagal

(03:06):
that Matt and I talked about tothis day. On when his movie opened,
we were texting to each other andwe just started joking. We just
started sending each other quotes from StevenSeagal from that meeting because we still joke
about it. Because The Baman openedthe day The Batman opened. Okay,
so the day The Batman opened,I was in Toronto for production of Titans

(03:29):
on HBO. Max were filming seasonfour, so I was up there for
that. So I was hanging outin my hotel room. It was that
Saturday, like March fourth or something. Matt was at that moment quarantined in
a London hotel because he flew toEngland to do publicity and for the big
premiere of The Batman, and hegot COVID like the day of the premiere,

(03:52):
went to the premiere, but itresulted in him being quarantined in a
hotel room for ten days while themovie opened. So then, you know,
but then you know, I mean, he was okay, obviously got
over it and then flew home,and you know, we've talked since then,
but on that day we were justlike texting back and forth and we
weren't even talking about Batman. Like. It started with me sending him a

(04:12):
picture of the of a big displaythey had at Eaton Center in Toronto.
I'm like, oh my god,look here's here's a big thing for your
movie in Toronto. And within liketwo texts, we were just like just
talking about thirty years ago and whichis what we typically do, and just
texting each other quotes from Steven Seagaland what we consider the horrifying, terrifying

(04:35):
day we spent at his house.So before we get to that day,
tell our listeners a little bit.Let's talk a little bit about where this
idea comes from, because initially,I know you've talked about this before on
my show and other places. Thisscript for Under Siege two, this even
Seagal book. It takes place ona train, not on a boat.

(04:57):
Same concept as the first movie.Though somebody that is on X vehicle,
Steven Ziagle happens to be there aswell. Things get out of hand,
Steven Seagle saves the day die Hardon a Blike, So, where did
the idea come from? Well,I mean came from die Hard, right,
because this was originally also not aSeagal movie. Correct, Well,
I mean not in our minds okaysnineteen eighty eight hearts. Though in our

(05:19):
hearts we just we knew. Well, listen, I literally I started crying
today when I read that Deadline dotcom article about Bruce Willis. Oh yeah,
he's stepping away from acting now becauseof aphasia and other health issues.
It sounds like he's maybe suffering fromsome sort of early dementia, early Alzheimer's.

(05:42):
He might a stroke, even he'sonly in his sixties, he's like
sixty seven or something. Yeah,I mean it's shocking that he's only a
little bit older than me. Butit's but I literally teared up because the
picture that his family sort of sentin the tweet or in whatever press release
whatever do they send out, wasa really early picture of him, and
it was just like, Oh,I've known this actor my whole adult life,

(06:06):
and now it's over for him,and we're getting you know, we're
getting to that. I'm older thanyou guys. I know, I'm older
than Chris, I swim, I'molder than Trevor. I'm what do you
forty two? Okay, I'm fiftyfive. I'm a place where people people
are gonna start to die. Anyway, The fact that Bruce Willis isn't feeling
well and it's stepping away from heartbreakingto me because die Hard was a transformational

(06:30):
movie for people of my generation,even though it was not acknowledged as such
at the time, because everyone feltlike, well, you know, I
mean, it's it's not a MartinScores easy film, so we can't really
say that it's brilliant. But fromMoonlighting, come on, yeah, it's
like, oh, you got toplay down how much you liked it.
But but Matt and I loved it. I mean we we The minute we

(06:54):
saw it, it was like,this is superior filmmaking. I mean it's
it's it transit ended every action filmof the time, and we didn't know
it at the time, but itsort of obviously was now setting it's at
a bar. Yeah, we lovedit. I mean we loved it.
That was an eighty eight and thatwas the summer we graduated film school at
usc And it's funny you mentioned Diehardbecause this has come up a couple of

(07:16):
times on the culture cast, thisidea of like perfect movies. And I
would contend that Diehard is a perfectmovie. It's perfect, like perfectly cast.
Almost every bit of storytelling is pitchperfect, all the performances are great.
It's a perfect movie. It isa no frame of that film is
wasted. So it's one of thosefilms like it's what I call a no

(07:39):
bathroom break film because you don't wantto miss a damn thing in that film.
It is just every scene, everyframe is just something, just a
wonder to behold, and it's justterrific because you know, and it's kind
of funny because it was underestimated,because Bruce Willis was underestimated because at the
time action starts with were like StalloneSchwarzenegger. I think Van Dan was just

(08:03):
about starting up Bruce Wolves was kindof just like this, this kind of
regular Joe smartass on Moonlighting, youknow who was just playing this semi romantic
kind of if will they want thething? And they weren't thinking a serious
action to start with. This guy, John McTiernan took a chance on him,
and it, you know, turnedinto this amazing five movie franchise that's

(08:24):
you know, still talked about tothis day. I mean, it's definitive
film of the genre to some people. Absolutely, and it was. It
was during a time when there wasa very stark division between movie stars and
TV stars, and for a TVstar to suddenly be in a movie,
it was kind of like, atalready it's down a notch. So the

(08:46):
fact that this movie was so brilliantand then of course led to a bunch
of terrible movies in it. Areyou talking about sequels or movies that ripped
Diehard off? Why not? Both? Actually to be fair well well,
but you know what it happens withevery movie, I mean with Silence.
Silence of the Lambs then led toa bunch of really crappy serial killing movies,

(09:07):
but it also led to seven.Okay, okay, but you know
what I mean, like good withthe bad though, right then this led
to Batman, The Batman seven kindof yeah, yeah, I mean it
kind of did. And then Iwould argue that the sixth sense led to
a lot of crappy movies, someof them, by end my channel in
were all predicated on a late arrivingtwist that that that I would say,

(09:31):
almost universally, there's only one moviethat I think did it, and I
don't think it was trying to copythe sixth sense, but had a very
very late revelation that made you,Okay, let me, here's what I'm
trying to say. In the sixthsense, you enjoyed the movie while it
was playing, and you didn't needthe twist to make the movie work.
At no point doing the movie wereyou sitting back going, wait a second,

(09:52):
there's something missing here. They're holdingsome cards back. They weren't.
And that's what's brilliant about it.That twist was not at it until like
a late, late, late draft. The movie worked okay, but then
it led to a bunch of othermovies where you just sat the whole time
going Okay, well, clearly thisain't the whole story. So now I'm
just kind of looking at my watchand waiting for them to play the card,

(10:15):
and with every passing minute you're thinking, well, this better be a
pretty fucking good card. The onlymovie that did it, I think is
The Others with Nicole Kidman. Interesting, I mean, but those all things
are those are also inspired by anddraw from like easy comics, because those
easy comics did the same thing.They told that story, and then they
have the twist at the end,the little inversion at the end to change

(10:39):
the story, and that's I mean. Shamalan mentioned this only because Cam has
no surprise to me that Shamalan wantedto and was in talks too and was
going to at one point reboot Talesfrom the Crypt. They couldn't get rights
to the Crypt Keeper. But whenI heard it was Shamalan, I was
like, this makes perfect sense.His entire career has been drawing from that
well of utilizing the medium and thenhaving a twist that changes the interpretation or

(11:03):
in a lot of cases Tales fromthe Crypt it does very little, which
is almost later Shamalan films traffic andtwist that do nothing for the narrative at
all. Well, I think Ithink he kind of got trapped into it
because I think he felt like expectation, he felt like ever since the Sixth
Sense was predicated, well, eversince the Sixth Sense is known for that
twist that every film he makes hasto have a twist to to play kate

(11:26):
the audience, and you know,I feel like, kind of I feel
I feel he felt kind of trappedin that whole thing because I mean he
had the heat, not the happening. Well, he did have the happening,
but the one after that, Unbreakablehad that, you know, the
twist where you know, apparently GruceWillis and Sam L. Jackson our hero
and villain, and that kind ofworked, I thought, kind of worked.
The Shamalan redid that twist one moretime from the Sixth Sense was Split,

(11:52):
that ending of Split where it turnsout that it's actually like in that
universe and speaking of Bruce Willis,he's like that for me was like,
Okay, you kind of changed,you kind of changed the makeup of this
movie because now what's been going onmakes sense because we're in this universe where
his powers aren't that weird because otherpeople also have powers because Bruce Willis's character

(12:16):
is there in this grounded superhero universe. Then they ruined it with the last
movie. But you know, well, I mean as you do, and
back to the others, I agreewith you that twist. If I hadn't
known about the twist, I probablywould have been more shocked and more impressed.
Unfortunately, that twist has ruined forme by the most random of places,
a mad TV skit, Because there'sa skit where Michael McDonald plays this

(12:41):
really annoying box office agent oddly enough, and this woman's trying to go see
a film and he's like down talkingevery film and the only film he'll recommend
to her is Shrek. And soshe gets tired of hearing about all these
films. She goes, Okay,I'll just what about the others, you
know, She'll go see the othersfine, and he, you know,
and being a dick, he tellsher, Oh, and the lady and
her kids are dead and it's allbeen they're all in purgatory or whatever,

(13:03):
good night, And people just getpissed him and start throwing shown like and
then we was still in theaters whenthat skit came out. So I'm that
sort and they're like, motherfucker.I still watched the others because it was
still a film I wanted to watch. And it's a brilliant, atmospheric,
moody, you know film. Andyou know the fact that they go not
just that they're dead, they're inpurgatory. That's the whole thing. That

(13:26):
was a more interesting That's a part. That's a really interesting part of the
twist, because you know, whenit comes to like twists about people being
dead the whole time, it's reallythey rarely talk about, oh, they're
in heaven or they're in heal.They don't rarely talk about purgatory because that's
more of a Catholic ideology. Buthow explicit was the purgatory concept. I
don't. I can't remember. Well, I mean, from what I remember,

(13:48):
it's been a wastin I saw thefilm. From what I remember,
Nicole Kidman plays that this very deeplyreligious other of these children. Um,
I think she I think at timesin the film she tells them or warns
them about purgatory. Oh wow,okay, I think so, don't quote.
She could be wrong. I couldbe wrong. But yeah, I
think, you know, because she'splayed a very protective religious mother, you

(14:09):
know, wanting your kids to begood, you know, Catholic, you
know children, and yeah, andthat when that came about. Yeah,
I'm now I want to see itagain and then again, Richard, I
could be wrong. Don't quote me. Well, don't at me. Yes,
yeah, I'm gonna have me.I don't care about at you on
Twitter. He's wrong. You couldadd me on Twitter. I don't.
Okay. So but if you goback to you know, the summer of

(14:33):
nineteen eighty and nine, I think, okay, which is when Matt and
I are like, god, wegotta we're out of college. We got
nothing. You know. We wentto USC Film School. Thought that was
going to do something for us.It didn't, you know. Spoiler alert.
Boy, that's just makes makes youfeel good, doesn't it. Yeah.
I say the same thing about mydegree. Twenty five years later.

(14:54):
All film stings out there don't losehope, right. I mean it's funny
because people are like, well,do you need to go to film school?
And I'm like, well, youdon't need to go to film school,
but if you do, you mightmeet Matt Reeves and then become best
friends with him, and then andthen partner with him on your films,
which is like partnering with the smartestperson in science to be your lab partner.

(15:18):
And then suddenly your game comes upand uh. And also, you
know, being Matt Reeves, youjust you just laugh harder than you've ever
laughed in your life. So andyou also have a very you know,
deep emotional you know kind of youknow, he's like me, he's a

(15:39):
neurotic guy. I mean, wecan sit around and just go, oh
my god, I've never been moremiserable than I am right now. Oh
no, this is hell. We'rein hell. This is the worst thing
ever. Like we would that becamethe funniest thing in the world, was
to sit at the little, youknow, Cafe eighty four at USC and
just go, we're dead. Arethe project we're working on is terrible.

(16:00):
We've got nothing, We're going tofail film school. And then we started
making jokes about how about how thecafeteria workers because we would always be the
last people as they're like turning outthe lights in this place, and we're
like, it's like later when theymake the documentary after we've killed ourselves.
What it's like. They'll talk tothe cafeteria workers, going. I remember

(16:22):
I saw them that night. Theywere sitting there and they were laughing,
but they heard the world. Theymust have known even then, they must
have known. I mean, wewere the most miserable people. It was
unconscionable how miserable we were. AndI'll talk about our misery more as the
interview continues, but let me continue. It was nineteen eighty nine, it's

(16:45):
the summer, and Matt's like,we should just write a movie. We've
got to write a movie and tryto sell a movie. We've got to
do something. And I'm like,please, because I've been trying to write
movies on my own, and letme tell you, it ain't working out.
So we do what you do whenit's nineteen eighty nine and you want
to write a movie. We wentto Blockbuster and we're wandering through Blockbuster going,
oh, my god, King ofComedy, this was the greatest movie

(17:07):
of all time. And then wejust talked about it. It's like,
let's just rent this and watch thisjust for comfort. No, no,
no, we gotta figure out,we gotta fare all. We're gonna write
looking in this movie and that movieand oh my god, these great Martin
scoresazy movies and these great you know, the Star Wars movies and all these
things. Die Hard. Oh mygod, die Hard. Let's watch die
Hard. And then and then itwas like, what if we wrote a

(17:29):
die Hard movie and it's nineteen eightynine, No other die Hard ripoffs have
come out yet. We didn't nineteenyears old. We're like, well,
maybe there won't be any more dieHard ripoffs. Maybe you know, this
is it. I'm sorry, weren'tnineteen we were like twenty two, and
it's like, it's like, well, let's watch Diehards. So we rented
the vhs, went back to hismom's house in Santa Monica, put on

(17:51):
the VHS and watched it, andwhen it was over, we're like,
this is the great. We couldnever ever do this movie. It's too
brilliant. And then we thought,well, what if it was not in
a building, Like, what's anotherplace where all these sorts of events could
happen? And then we thought,you know what a train, it's die
Hard at one hundred miles an hour. Let's do that. Let's just write
that, and we're like, okay, We put vhs back in the VCR

(18:15):
and we started watching it again,only this time we paused it at every
scene, and he got out ayellow legal notepad and a pen and just
started writing down everything that happened.It's like, okay, first scene,
you know, airplane meets guy,fists with your toes, scene too,
you know, meets our gyle,you know, whatever the beats were in

(18:36):
Die Hard, we just wrote themall down and then and then sort of
divided it up based on what weknew of screenplay structure. Okay, this
is probably the end of aact one, here's the end of AAC two.
This is act three. But wehad pages and pages and pages where we
had broken down the structure of Diehardscene first scene. We basically now had
an outline, and now, usingthat, we were like, well,
now that we sort of know thestructure of this kind of movie, let's

(18:57):
figure out what our character is andhow that's going to work. But let's
try to but let's really stick tothis structure. And it sounds very cynical,
but it wasn't. It was becausewe didn't know what we were doing,
and we were doing it out oflove, I will tell you that.
And we were just like for allwe know this will be die Hard
too. In fact, that wouldbe the greatest thing in the world.

(19:17):
Let's write a movie that someone looksat and says, I think we have
found our die Hard too. Andthat was our dream, of course.
So that's how we did it.That's how it started. So Richard,
I have to have to mention thisnow that I've heard you tell this story
a couple of times, this singularmoment in your life at that Blockbuster is
the one moment in your life that'sunchangeable. It's like that fixed moment in

(19:37):
time because there's like the if youhad rented anything else, right, yeah,
right, yeah, not to befatalistic, but like if you had
rented anything else, who knows.Well, here's the joke. You know,
Matt is, you know, anartist, and if you've seen any
movies that he's done, you knowit's pretty clear which you should, You
totally should. And you know he'sgot a deep, deep, deep knowledge

(20:00):
film and love for film, butobviously has a deep, deep love and
understanding of genre and and we bothdo. And that's what makes things like,
you know, an action movie,like a really well made action movie,
a really well made thriller, suspensemovie, a really well made horror
movie. Those things resonate not becauseof their genre, but because they are

(20:23):
definitive of their genre. I wouldn'tsay that Matt loves horror movies, but
the handful of great ones, Exorcist, the Shining have become part of his
visual language and narrative storytelling language,and then the same thing in various genres.
And you can obviously see that inThe Batman. But yeah, we

(20:45):
were like we had no shame,and at USC everyone just said, you
know, some creative executive would comedown, you know, from you know,
United Artists Films or something, whoayeah, yeah, and they'd be
like, you know, you know, and we you know, we we
go home with a pilot scripts everyweekend, and all we're looking for is
a new voice. And you knowwhat, and we're not looking for the

(21:07):
latest, you know, Star Warsrip off. You know that one gets
put down, you know, butwe just want a new, new,
original voice. And everyone at USCis telling us to write about that summer
with Grandpa at the you know,the farm in Vermont, and Matt and
I are like, Matt grew upin Santa Monica. I grew up in
you know, East LA in MontereyPark. All we did was watch TV

(21:30):
and movies. We're like, whatdo we have? We have nothing in
our lives except we're idiots who satin front of a TV our entire lives.
We have nothing to share, Sowe can't write that movie. So
let's write die Hard plant any Andlet me point out that everyone who went
to USC film school at that time, for two of the ones that actually

(21:51):
found a career, really yeah.Always, I've always wanted to ask you.
I've always wanted to ask you andnever have, like because it's I
feel like that's a little too personof a question. Jim Blake, did
anybody else you know ever have thesuccess that you and Matt have had?
Not, I would not say,in our group of classmates in our years.
And then he went on to gradschool in the early nineties and I

(22:17):
did not because he wanted to makea movie. So he's like, you
know, I think I need toget personal grad school right, because he
wanted to direct. That was alwayshis goal. His goal was not run
just like just like Alex Winter didthe same thing. He went to grad
school at NYU made movies. Iwant to make a movie. So he
went. He made a movie,an amazing movie his and we worked on
at the summer of ninety one,we worked on his grad school project,

(22:38):
which was great. Matt was oneof those guys in the very first week
of film school, you know,they tell you, Okay, go out
and make a movie and bring itback into class next week. And it's
all based on the word whatever.And everyone else goes out and Len's cap
is still on and the cameras pointedbackwards and there's no focus and you can't
see anything. And and week afterweek after week, Matt brought in these

(23:03):
little gems, these these perfectly crafted, wonderfully edited friend of ours from the
music school would write an original score. He was making movies, and all
of us are just like, okay, we should just jump off a building,
right, or jump next to him, or jump next to him right
exactly. Yeah. I was like, okay, maybe I can learn something
here, right, And I willtell you that in the writing of this

(23:26):
script, I learned more from Mattbecause Matt was writing from with a director's
eye. When I wrote, Iwas just like, oh, this,
this and this and this and this, and He's like, but what do
you actually see on the screen minuteto minute to minute, and I'm like,
oh fuck, I've got to dothat. But the you know,

(23:47):
three four or five years we spentwriting this movie, that's what I learned,
and that's what I took forward withme, and I had a huge
impact. Well, you know,I do not have nearly as prolific a
writing career as you do. Butit is funny as someone who likes to
write like I do and read,it's funny that you say that, because
again, people have a hard timereally understanding that when you look at a

(24:08):
script versus a book, it doesn'tcost Like in comic books, it doesn't
cost anything to put Spider Man andIron Man on the same page together.
It costs nothing, zero. Itcosts them nothing additional other than someone has
to draw those characters or write thatcharacter's name down on the pay. But
like you said, there needs tobe this counterbalance of like, if you
don't keep in mind that there isan actual budget attached to this and actual

(24:30):
expectations and reality, otherwise you willjust get completely turned upside down. Well,
and not only that, but Ialways felt like, well, my
job as a screenwriter is to dofifty percent. You know, I'm going
to write this story, but thedirector is going to come and decide how
this is shot. What I learnedfrom Matt, which was really important,
was no, you've got to doeverything. You've got to write off this

(24:51):
had the script has to be themovie. You've got to know. And
that doesn't mean you know close up. You know close up. You don't
have to write in such a waythat you're directing the eads imagination and you're
also providing an emotional experience. Andthat's something that you know. When I
teach classes at UCLA, I tryto impart, which is like, if
you're writing a comedy, I needto be laughing as I'm reading your script.
You can't just say, well,it is a comedy and you know

(25:14):
Judd Apatol will make it funny.No, if it's a thriller, I've
got to be scared and turning pagesand like, oh my god, I
gotta put the script down. Well, you had all the time with books
and other things and scripts. Whenpeople talk about the scripts that they've worked
on, their favorite scripts, it'slike I couldn't put it down. I
read it in one night, andit's like it has the script has to
be the movie, right yea.And for me that means emotionally it has

(25:37):
to be the movie, but forMatt it literally is the movie. I
was lucky enough to read drafts ofthe Planet of the Apes movies that he
directed, Let Me In Remake andThe Batman, and I what I realized,
you know, years ago, wasif I read one of his scripts,
I've seen the movie, right,sure, there's two weeks ago when
I saw The Batman, I'm like, yeah, up, Now, that's

(26:00):
exactly exactly to the word, tothe beat. Every single thing that you're
seeing on screen was written in thescript in a way that you experienced it
the way you do in the movie, not just in a dry listing of
shots. Emotionally, you're experiencing itin exactly the same way. And that

(26:22):
is something that he just instinctually knew. And I don't think he considered himself
a writer. I think he doesnow, but then he didn't. But
he knew if I'm writing, Igotta know what I'm seeing. And that
was a lesson to me because Iam not a visual guy. Well,
I mean, it really does saysomething that even the fact that you read
the script first before you even sawthe movie. The fact that you knew

(26:42):
what beats were coming in the film, the film was still you know,
successful and still well made. It'syou know, that's if if you can
put the same passion in the scriptthat you can put it on the screen,
that says a lot about you asa filmmaker, because you know,
I mean, there's probably been abunch of scripts that were really good,

(27:03):
but when they put them on screensomething fell apart. Oh oh god,
that's a that's yeah, sure,that's like half of every failure in Hollywood
is good script, bad movie.Yeah. So, like I'm saying,
it's saying something that a script aswritten shows up just as good when it's
finally produced and it you know,it still gives you that emotion what makes
me Again, Matt and I talkedabout this all the time. It's like,

(27:25):
if we went back to that tosort of our ultimate draft of Dark
Territory, which at the time Iguess it was called me it was called
Dark Territory, might we might havechanged it to end of the line for
a particular reason. That's so goodthough, come on, end of the
line almost don's like a one liner. Cigal would say, in the film,
Yeah, end of the line.And it's not as I wouldn't be

(27:48):
as good as Harrison Ford saying noticket, no ticket, get off my
airplane. Yeah, that's a goodone too, you know, Richard,
before you kind of expounded what you'regonna expound, and I did want to
ask because it kind of ties intoit, what you know, and not
from the shooting script because that's acompletely different story obviously, But when you
and Matt were working on the scriptinitially, what were some original ideas that

(28:12):
you guys had kind of kicked aroundhot and like different places you thought about
going before you initially decided one hundredmile an hour train speeding can't stop die
Hard? Like, what was kindof where else did it go versus where
it ends up? You know,with the you know, shooting script aside,
Well, conceptually, die Hard ontrain was the first thing we came
up with, and we just thought, well, it's just so perfect,

(28:33):
we've got to do it. Theimmediate problem we ran into was it makes
no sense. You said it,not me. It's it's fucking nineteen eighty
nine. No one rides on trainsfor any reason. Why would weirdos ride
on train? Yes, I know, Trevor, Trevor, I was That's

(28:56):
what I wanted. Trevor go whatNo, honest to God, don't like,
if we're talking twenty twenty two,I'm more apt to get on a
fucking train than an airplane. Wellyeah, but I mean you don't.
It's not a thing people are.It's not like everyone talked to us like,
oh yeah, no, I've beenon a train a million times.
But if you have a train stationin your city, then you might have
stand up comics. Don't don't standup. They're going, you know,

(29:18):
what is it with train bathrooms?Yeah? Yeah, it's not a shared
experience. So we're like, well, well, okay, so some people
want to steal something it's on thetrain. Is it like a diamond.
It's like, well then why notjust steal it before it's on the train.
And then we're like and if it'sa diamond, who cares? Like
No, one's like that's not Thestakes are pretty low and they don't really

(29:42):
need are they going to take peoplehostage? Like what what could it possibly
be? And then we're like,well, maybe someone has something really important.
And that's where we went through things. We're like, okay, For
a while, it was a gasadditive, which sounds stupid, but we
were re searching stuff and at thetime fell like for a fuel. Literally

(30:03):
it was like what if, whatif? What if you know, like
Dow Chemical devises something that makes gasolinelike twenty times or fifty times more efficient.
Sure, so that right, wecould use that now actually, but
that's yeah, the gas companies wouldnever want anyone to have it because then
they would have to buy a lessgas, right, And then we're like
and they're like, oh, sothat's like that could be worth like it's

(30:25):
the electric car thing. Yeah,my god. It lead to a Steven
Seagal speech at the end of thefilm, all right though, shit,
oh fire, that's that's like that'sfired down below too. It is Native
American fringe. Yeah, when willwe learn to live in peace? Coal?
It's bad for you and the environment. No shit, Stephen. So

(30:48):
then it was going to be that, and then it was going to be
either wanted or they want to squashit. Then then for a while it
was a cancer treatment, a cancercure very specific like this is a this
is it's all about sort of aschematic for like a blood test that just
identifies where cancer is. And nowand again it's like the terrorists are stealing

(31:12):
it on behalf of the pharmaceutical company, right deep six it. Then we're
like, well, but then couldn'tthey just then they just deep six it.
So there was all It took usa long time and a lot of
research to sort of go, okay, it has to be a train so
that it can be so that theycan be undetectable. It's like we're going
to be on the move and it'sit's all going to happen right now.

(31:33):
There's going to be people on thetrain who have a thing that is you
know, that is worth money,that is that is a you know,
a defense Department of Defense thing.They're going to get on the train and
then then they're going to stay onthe train and actually conduct a worldwide auction
from the train, and then they'regoing to crash the train into another train.

(32:00):
I kill everyone, kill all thewitnesses. They'll get off the train
in a helicopter at the very lastminute, and and no one will ever
be the wiser. And it's like, great, this this is going to
be we can maybe barely make thiswork. And then a version of that
is what you see in Underseage two. Very very cool. So why not,
so, Richard, I have toask why not a boat? Well,

(32:20):
because it had already been done.Oh no, I haven't been done.
No, it happens. I waslike, no, no, no,
no, I'm sorry, like becausebecause what you just said, Like
I like listening to you, Ican hear you and Matt in a room
together twenty thirty years ago, justgoing but no, but then they would
just take it before, they wouldjust take it before. I can like
hear you guys going through it.And it's like, cinematically, a train

(32:43):
is a million times better, rightexactly. It's like you you set yourselves
up for like immense amounts of explanationarywork right at step one, because it's
like, how do we make thetrain a believable thing? Well, I
think trains are. I think trainsare just a more exciting form of transportation.
When you're trying to keep something hiddenfrom the military, you know what
better than something that goes like hundredsof miles an hour and end up.

(33:05):
And the train became a metaphor forthe movie and in our draft the train
never stop and our and that wasour rule, our rules. Once we're
on the train. The train neverstops, so you're on it. It's
almost like it's more like speed ina way. It's like you're on it
and you can't get off it.Okay, I mean you're fuck you know,
it's not stopping. One of thefirst things that our thing. One

(33:27):
of the first things they do isthey go into the engine car. They
kill the guy and they rig upthe thing, and it's like, okay,
we are now going at top speedand you can't jump off. You
can crawl outside. It can beterrifying. You can have a fight on
top of the train. You canduck for the tunnel. But but the
train doesn't stop. Now in themovie they stop the train. Bad idea,
and then they started up again whatever. But our victim was the train

(33:52):
doesn't stop until it explodes head onwith another train. Richard, What you
didn't know is that when you werehaving that conversation, Yost was behind you,
listening and writing all this ship downand said, m what about a
bus? And then well, Imean, I think Speed. Look,
I actually think under Siege is anoriginal. The first one is a fun,

(34:14):
entertaining movie. I think Speed ismore fun and more entertaining for a
million reasons, not just the bus. Yeah, but yeah, okay,
so Speed has something that neither underSiege movie has. Keyan New's not on
the bus. He has to geton the bus, which presents a whole
which presents a whole exciting scenario thatneither under Siege movie has, not even

(34:37):
die Hard has it. And that'slike its own weird, like exciting thing
because it's like, this fucking thing'snot stopping. You gotta get on it.
And it's this whole set piece that'slike twenty minutes of the fucking movie.
And it's like, there's twenty minutesright there. You don't even have
to worry about. It's it's aset piece on its own. Thing about
I think about see under Siege andSpeed. Speed is more kinetic. Speed
is more kind of boom boom boomboom and never stop. It never stops

(35:00):
under Siege, you know, Imean, it is a amazingly well made
action film. It may not belike Fast Furious, you know, kind
of everything happening all at one time. It's very kind of methodically, kind
of directed by what's his name again? I forget oh Andrew Davies and Andrew
Davis we all know became who allwe all know is a terrific director,

(35:22):
can really do action. And hedid The Fugitive, which you know,
in all accounts it's a movie withnot that much you know, frenetic action,
but he makes it work and hemakes it exciting because he knows how
to direct it. And I thinkunder Siege works in that regard because he
really knows how to tell the storythrough the through the camera. Well,

(35:44):
what what Matt and I loved aboutdie Hard was that it did a lot
of what does not get done alot in this particular way. It's got
a lot of planting and payoff.Yeah. And also in rewatching die Hard
recently, they're still rolling out storyin the last ten minutes of the movie.
Okay, you're still learning crucial informationthat adds to your enjoyment, whereas

(36:07):
many die Hard esque movies they seteverything up in act one and then the
rest of the movie is just sortof like, well, Okay, now
we know everything we need to know, and now we're just watching a guy
kill a bunch of other guys.Right, But Diehard, you're still you
don't know about the whole Bearer bondsthing really until the last eight minutes of
the movie. Yeah, that's whenhe explains his whole plan and Bonnie Badelia

(36:30):
says, you're nothing but a commonthief, and he says, I'm you
know, and I'm an excellent thief. You know, I'm sorry. He
says, who are you? That'smy favorite part of the movies. Alan
Rickman's American acts, American accent,Yeah are you? You're one of them?
Yeah? I prefer that Alan Recommendwho says, mister Takaga will not

(36:52):
to bear joining. I just lovethe way Alan Rickman, just the way
he says that lie would not bedrawn at all. The rest of you
and just oh Man a count ofthree, there will not be a four.
So, Richard, I am curiousabout something else from the the initial
pre you know script that before itends up going into where it goes with

(37:15):
the shooting script, which is itsown thing best I can tell, right,
because it ends up getting really changeda lot after you guys sold it,
right, well, it changed,It never changed really structurally, right
with why Matt and I retained soulcredit sure because it was rewritten by Brian
Helgland and then it was another rewriteby Jonathan Lemkin, and then yet a

(37:38):
third rewrite by a writer whose nameescapes me at the moment. And it
wasn't Josh Wheden, is what you'resaying, Josh Weason script doctor of the
early nineties. Yeah, yeah,No, it was never Josh Whedon,
that's for sure. And it wassort of like our movie was here,
and then Brian Hellegland like, well, let's make it this way. Brian

(37:59):
Helligland changed it a lot, makingit much worse, but making it more
of a Steven Seagal movie, whichwas never our intention. Right when I
say about what I mean is there'sa fundamental difference between a movie about a
person on a reluctant, unprepared herowho, against all odds, saves people

(38:20):
from twelve armed terrorists and a movieabout twelve terrorists who picked the wrong trained
Uh yeah, yeah, man,I think you bring that up. That
really does it? Really? It'slike, yeah, Seagal has never played
the everyman, never played the everymanwith like people underestimate because he's not well
well, well, well hold on, technically, under Siege one is that

(38:45):
movie, because under Siege one isa complete rip off of die Hard.
Yeah, and it's oh, I'mjust the cook. I'm just a cook.
And of course Steven Seagal doesn't havedoesn't have the ability to ever play
the Jeopardy. Bruce will Us playsthe Jeopardy. He has skills, he
can fight, he can shoot,but he's terrified, right yeah, and

(39:06):
and and losing the entire time.There's a point where he's got him on
the run, you know, heis maybe one second and then it drops
back, which we had to knowin our bones as we wrote, We're
like, okay, but we gottawe gotta do this so that he's incrementally
holding his own big things out butnever running the board. Yeah, he's

(39:28):
will always, you know, oneagainst a million. And that's something that
Harrison Ford can do weirdly does itin The Fugitive. Yeah, and other
actors can do it. But Schwarzeneggerin Indiana Jones too, in Indiana perfect,
perfect, Indiana Jones is like theperfect one against a million character.
Yeah. Well, there's nothing youcan have, doctor Jones that cannot be
taken away from you fight me.Yeah, that's I mean, like you

(39:50):
said, I mean, that's thething about a sense, you know what,
go one step further That's the thingabout literally every single Steven Seagal movie
is he is is immediately when hewalks into the room. He's the best
at whatever it is, and thereis no one that could do anything to
harm him. We talked about thison almost every episode of our show.
Steven Seagal never gets beaten for themost part, aside from one movie China

(40:13):
Salesman. Oh yeah. But otherthan that, Steven Seagald beats whoever the
antagonist of the movie is immediately.There's no threat to them, there's no
threat to him. It's that's It'slike that thing from Watchman where it's like
you're not I'm not looked in herewith you. Yeah, you're locked in
here with me. It's that sameshit, right. We talked about this
like you and I. Like Isaid, we mentioned this lot. He

(40:34):
never takes a hit. You neversee him bleed, you ever see a
scratch on him. His hair isalways perfect. He never takes a hit.
And I think I know who's whowas who thought about who whose idea
that was? And the only timewe've ever seen him killed, I mean,
other than like executive decision was thewhat was the name of that film?
We just watched it was in generalCommander he dies in a perfect weapon.

(40:58):
He died perfect weapon. Even whenhe dies in imperfect weapon, it
turns out note that was his twin. Yeah, and he still lives in
the end to sequelvate us that willnever happen. Well, they're almost,
they're almost subgenres. It's its ownthing in the genre. And and and
believe me these are there's still greatmovie like Bruce Lee movie or you know,

(41:20):
it's like Shorts and Air Bruce Chan, though Jackie Chan is more of
the Harrison Ford Bruce willis right.Yeah, and his action is more kind
of I wouldn't say lighthearted, buthe is. It is totally. It's
he likes to play for the spotfor the last and the fall. Yeah,
you never feel like he's you neverfeel like there's any like he's in
any like mortal danger. You don'tthink he would die. And that's again,

(41:43):
Hey, James Bond movies, thereason James Bond villains have to be
so big is to put James Bondin at least a minute or two of
Jeopardy something throughout the movie. Butgo into the movie waiting for James Bond
to prevail, right, and that'spart of the joy. Same thing with

(42:05):
Schwarzenegger, same thing with Segal.So it's just a different kind of movie,
right, it's its own, it'sits own. Well. With Seagal,
I never feel that he's indeed inright right, But I don't with
Schwarzenegger either. But the problem isSegal in a lot of these later movies
there his charisma is never it's neveralways there. He has it from time

(42:27):
to time. You can see it. It is there. I'm not going
to discount it completely, but it'snot like Schwarzenegger, who's just effortlessly charmed
with charm in this film. Inunder Stage two, you can tell he
has a bit of charisma in thisone, a little bit kind of you
know, he has a sense ofyou know, it's not that much.
It's the charisma of Look, it'slike he is who he is. Yeah,

(42:47):
Clint Eastwood is who he is.Dirty Harry isn't gonna lose. Dirty
Harry is there to make you feel. There's a character right now in America,
in fiction and now on television thatis the embodiment of I just want
to watch this guy win and kickass while he's Jack Reacher. Absolutely,

(43:08):
you nailed it. And that's whatthat and that's the joy of the character.
I've got all the books right there. I love him. I'm enjoying
the TV show. I'll have totell my mom Richard, she loves those
fucking yeah. I mean, neverread a single one, but oh you'll
read. Oh you're gonna read books. Read Killing Floor, read Killing Floor.
Yeah, yeah, and read them. They're fun. But that's what
it is. It's like, youknow, Jack Reacher's gonna win. It's

(43:30):
gonna be tough, and he doesbleed and he does take his punches,
but you know he's going to endup on top and and and that's the
agreement between writer and audience or performerand audience. Now, yes, we
know that Bruce Willis is not goingto die in die Hard, but we
also know that the way the storyis told, we are being asked to

(43:51):
believe that he is a vulnerable humanbeing, and so we understand the story
in those terms and we enjoy itfor those values. And that's that's the
song we were plant well. Andthat's why the later Diehard comes four and
five especially weren't as successful audience wise, is because they turned Bruce Willis into
a superhuman right, He's like he'sjumping cars into hell. He's John McClean.

(44:12):
He's, well, he's playing JohnMcClean on steroids. But no,
no, But John mcclein meant nothingin the first movie to Be. John
McClean meant jack shit in Diehard.To Be. John McClean only meant anything
in two, three, four andfive because at that point he's the guy
who didn't stop Natomy Plaza. Butyou know, in two and three,
I still felt the vulnerability of JohnMcLean. In four and five, he

(44:34):
just he just kind of became kindof a just he became what they were
trying to avoid him, becoming hardyhim himself. Basically. I mean,
I still enjoyed four. Sometimes there'sa bit of it. I still enjoyed.
There were stuff to enjoy in it, But like after three, the
series just didn't know what to dowith him and didn't know how to make
the everyman vulnerability thing work for afourth or fifth time, I would I

(44:57):
would, I would cut them.The lack of saying that it literally almost
mathematically becomes diminishing returns. You can'tyou can't continually ask an audience to suspend
their disbelief of an everyman being caughtup in over the top situations. An
audience can't can't do it, Butwhat they can do is accept a more

(45:22):
primitive hero tale like Hercules, whereit's understood we're not asking for any sort
of twentieth century you know, depthof character. We're just looking for stereotypes
and those work, and and andin the crime genre in books and in
movies, yeah, it's typically thelatter. It's usually not John McLean,

(45:44):
it's usually James bond Well and andyou know, as you know, you
mentioned the you know books. It'sfunny like in books like say, uh,
you know something I've been reading,like cad Veil. He's a Benedictine
monk who solves mysteries, but thesemysteries keep happening where he is. But
in books, but in books,I just kind of don't care. But
in the movies with Diehard, it'slike, now it's unbelievable because it's a

(46:07):
scope thing too, Like all ofa sudden, he's he's wrapped up in
one of these things again, andit's this big thing with multiple moving parts
and all these things. It's like, why is he here again? Well,
just have goddamn happenstance. Well,even in Diehard Too, he says
it. He goes, how canthe same thing happen to the same guy
twice? That's hanging a lantern onit, That's hanging a fucking lantern on

(46:29):
it. He realizes the situation he'sin. He's a character who knows he's
in a movie. For one linein ane And also it goes back to
this this joke people make about murder. She wrote, it's like every time
there's a murder, she happens tobe in the place where it's happening.
That's a literary thing where Jessica Fletcherhappens to be in that place, right,
I mean well, And the thingis is that is that you also

(46:49):
have to take into account that thecharacter themselves, they are aware of their
own personal history. That's what leadsto a line that you quoted, how
can the same thing happened to aguy twice? But it doesn't. John
McClean inserts himself into die Hard two. Right, die Hard one, he's
given no choice. Die Hard threeis sort of a hybrid, and after
that it's whacktown and the stakes havebeen raised. Diehard three is my favorite

(47:15):
after the first one. That's yeah, yeah, because it kind of isn't
a weird way it becomes goofy,but also he feels like he's sort of
jumped into it with no choice.It's sort of I've got to play this
madman's game. If I'm going tosay, because it is about him,
it's about him. It's about himbecause Simon Gruber played, i mean played
wonderfully by the way, by JeremyIrons. That's another thing that made Diehard

(47:37):
three work is that Jeremy Irons wasa terrific villain. So Bill Sadler though,
yeah, I mean you know whatI mean with that, with that,
with that naked ass there at thebeginning of a move, So I
mean, yeah, Jeremy Irons,that's one of the greatest introductions to a
villain in fucking film history. I'msorry. Just him doing his fucking tai
chi in front of the screen isjust it's great. And none of thing

(48:00):
that Jeremy Irons does that Hans Grouperdid is make them think it's about one
thing, but it turns out it'sabout another thing. Because at first John
thinks it's about revenge for killing hisbrother Hans, but in fact, no,
it's about them knocking over the FederalReserve taking all the gold and common
crook, the common crook, AndI just you know, that's why I
think the film worked a lot.Plus he had Samuel Jackson, which is
the only time, well not theonly time he's had a psychick. He

(48:21):
had justin long and knee fourth one. But yeah, but I mean Samuel
Jackson, they worked off each otherbetter than his other sidekicks. I think,
yeah, these these are tricky movies. And you know, looking back
at it, well it was therewas a lot. There was things going
on, obviously in our lives andin you know, the lives of everyone
in the world at that time.It was eighty nine and then ninety.

(48:43):
So we started, we started writingthe outline for the movie in nineteen eighty
nine and then and then we stoppedand didn't take it up again until the
summer of nineteen ninety. And thenwhen we did, it was like,
we got to get this done.We got to do this because we're running
out of time and sequels are gettingmade, and we got to get this
done. So it was really thesummer of nineteen ninety into the fall of

(49:06):
nineteen ninety that we outlined and thenwrote the movie Okay. And the way
we did it was I was livingin Pasadena at the time and he was
living at his mom's house in SantaMonica, and so we were on a
four day a week schedule Monday throughThursday, because I was living with my
girlfriend who I later married. Shewas my first wife now since divorced.

(49:29):
But it was like, Okay,Monday through Thursday, we can do this.
And I was working another job becauseI was living on my own.
He was living in his mom's house, so money wasn't quite like earning money
wasn't as quite the issue for himas it was for me at the time.
So I would work during the dayat Tony Roma's or at al Manser
Court, which was a golf coursebanquet place in Alhambra, and I was

(49:52):
like working lunches, and then atfive in the afternoon, I would drive
out to Santa Monica, get tohis house, get subway or something for
dinner, and then the goal wasfive pages on the script. The goal
was five pages a night because wefigured, okay, work four days a
week, that's twenty pages, sowe'll work for six to eight weeks and

(50:14):
we'll get a script. So butfirst we wrote a very very very detailed
outline where every story problem was solved, every scene was created beginning middle end.
We had a whole map set outfor ourselves, and then we wrote
the script. So that was summerof ninety to fall of ninety and then

(50:34):
in January of ninety one, ourlawyer Carl Austin, who was a guy
who was our age. He waslike, you know, early mid twenties
and just starting at an entertainment lawfirm, and Matt knew him from friend
of a friend and from an evenearlier project that Matt was trying to do,
and we gave it to Carl,and Carl sent it around town and

(50:57):
it went to every single studio.It went everywhere, and everybody passed on
it. January of ninety one wasalso like, you know, the Gulf
War, like there was a lotof stuff going on. Whatever reason,
no one bought it, so thenit was like, what are we going
to do. Well. Two producers, like young guys just starting out,
got a hold of it and saidcan we option this? Can we pay

(51:21):
you five hundred bucks for the nextyear and let us try to set this
up. Well at that point,we had we had nothing else going for
us, so we're like, sure, Martin Wiley and Jeffrey Newman, and
they said, here's the thing.We think we might have some financing from
Japan. Okay. I think itwas from TDK. I think it was

(51:45):
like a literally like cassette company.It was a Japanese company that wanted to
get into making movies and they werelike, we want to do this,
and we want to do it inJapan on the bullet Train, but we
want to do it with an Americanstar. So we're like, okay.
So we did an initial rewrite,you know, based on their notes,
and then we were trying to developit, and early on it was talks

(52:07):
where that it would either be KurtRussell or ironically Richard Gear that is ironic
wouldn't have been something huh yeah,And I'm like, wow, Richard Ker
writing a movie for Richard Gerr.Yeah, would that be like, uh
you could say it was a prophecyof things to come? Oh yeah yeah.

(52:27):
But they were considered like like actorsyou like who had a high profile
and had like international fame, butweren't as expensive as Harrison Ford, It's
like, okay. So we werelike, fine, are you kidding?
You're gonna send us to Japan tomake our movie? That would be like
we would be the superstars of everyonewe know. So we we wrote it,
we did it, and we weretrying and we're writing it to these

(52:49):
specifications and oh we don't know yet. Oh we're trying to find out.
Oh we don't know. So thiswas like in all of ninety Wait,
hold on a second, this waslike ninety two. Maybe let's see.
Hold on, this is like inninety one and early ninety two. All
this stuff was going on. Thenlate summer of ninety two, Gary Goldstein

(53:10):
got involved. Now Gary Goldstein wasa literary manager and he worked with screenwriters
and tried to get their movies setup at places. And his biggest client
was j. F. Lawton,writer of Under Siege and Pretty Woman.
So he got a look at thescript Martin and Jeffrey got the script to
him. He read it and hesaid, okay, let me come on

(53:32):
as producer and I will walk thisinto Warner Brothers. Okay. And what
that means is based on my relationshipswith the people at Warner Brothers and based
on the fact that I produced abig hit for them. In other words,
I was J. F. Lawton'sliterary manager and provided that literary material
for you. And now you knowthat I have access to good material,

(53:54):
and now I'm bringing you another thingthat could fulfill your dream of making a
sequel to under Siege. Let medo this, And Martin and Jeffrey said
okay. So they cut him inon the deal and new contracts were drawn
up. But meanwhile, Matt andI hadn't really been paid much, like
five hundred dollars for you know,two years of work. But that's fine,
because you do the work on thehope that something big is going to

(54:15):
happen on spec ladies and gentlemen.Exactly. It's fun. It's oh boy,
it's fun. So in late ninetytwo we did all this work,
all these rewrites, all the wayup through Christmas and then and then early
in ninety three it was like,okay, we're going to send the script
out again. Only here's the problem. A very close version of this script

(54:39):
written by these same two guys usalready went out, went through every studio's
you know, coverage process, andwas rejected. What we're going to do
So what they did was they changedthe title of the movie from Dark Territory
to end of the Line, andthey put pseudonyms on. So I was
like Andy Ack and he was somethingthey just came up, and there's invented

(55:01):
two names. That way, itwould not trip up any of their files.
Any studio getting it would go,note, we have never read the
script, We've never done coverage.It's pretty smart. Yeah, And they'd
all be new people. Most ofthe executives had by then moved on and
switched places and everything. It gotsent out again, but primarily it was
being given to Warner Brothers and throughGary Goldstein, to say, here is

(55:24):
this product. Can it be thesequel? And then the story that I've
told a million times is that WarnerBrothers had already commissioned an in house script.
It involved stealth votes for the military. That was the big premise of
the movie somehow. And there wasanother script that Matt and I were aware
of, called Mailstorm. But weweren't aware of was that it was written

(55:47):
by another one of Gary Goldstein's otherclients. So Gary Goldstein basically had two
out of the three movies, sohe was going to win the odds were
stacked and Gary Goldstein stave, it'slike representing the same people on both sides
of a deal. I'm gonna wineither way. I mean, look,

(56:07):
there was nothing illegal. There wasnothing even about it. It was just
like, look the guy smart,you know what it was the one lawyer
can represent the same two different partiesin the same deal. That's not illegal
either. It's you know, ithas like it's like an agent representing two
riders and going on your interview.Both of these writers to this movie.
So it was all good. AndMailstorm was an interesting movie. Mailstorm was

(56:30):
and again this is all about Innineteen ninety three, Mailstorm was about a
giant bank heist against the backdrop ofa hurricane. So Storm of the Century
will be our cover for knocking offa bank or maybe a series of banks
in an East coast coastal town.Interesting. And the one and the one
you know, local yokel cop whowho asked to battle the storm and the

(56:54):
and the robbers to shut it alldown. This sounds familiar. I mean
it's a you know, I mean, it's been done since then, but
this guy did it first, ordid it because it sounds I think it
became hard rained, didn't it wassomething I'm not sure if it was that.
Wasn't there a movie that came outlike last year or the year before
that was essentially this as well,called like f F five or Iah the

(57:15):
Storm or some shit. Yeah,right, it was the same thing.
It like takes place in New Orleansor something. I'm pretty sure it's I
mean, it's a great idea,right, I mean, in a way
it follows the tradition of Cliffhanger,which is, you know, again,
die Hard style storytelling against a naturalbackground. Natural it's die Hard in the

(57:36):
Mountains and it had just come outthat year. So and I've never seen
Cliffhanger. It's one of those moviesI really want to watch. I just
know it's die Hard in the Mountains. Oh yeah, check it out.
It's fun. It's a fun movie. I was more when that movie came
out the same day as another movie. I was more interested in singing Christens.
I'm talking about Angus Mario Brothers.Oh, super super Mario Brothers.
It's being it's gonna be, it'sgonna be re It's gonna be reappreciated later

(57:59):
this year, my friends. Yes, Richard, I have a. I
have a question, and I don'tremember if I asked this to you last
time we spoke. But you know, again, you have the hindsight now
of twenty years past this movie,twenty plus years, right, twenty years
thirty right if if if you andMatt, like when you and Matt,
I'll be okay, when you andMatt were writing the script, who were

(58:19):
you writing the lead from in yourmind? Were you writing it as Bruce
Willis as the actor? It waseither it was never Bruce Willis, it
was always Harrison Ford. And thenin later rewrites we were led to believe
we had a shot at Mel Gibson. No, but I'm asking you,
like who you you two were thinkingabout when you were writing, like who,
That's who you wanted. That's whoyou were writing the character as was

(58:43):
this is going to be? Sowhat we did? You have the mannerisms
of a Harrison Ford's style character.Exactly and even more I mean almost almost
like the Indiana Jones who's teaching atthe college. That's who we wanted,
Okay, right, yeah, exactly? I mean again, like that's the
more interesting character for this kind ofmovie. Our character was had never touched
a gun. In his life.In the original script, he was an

(59:06):
investigator, a rail investigator for theNTSB, the National Transit Safety Board.
In other words, we decided,let's just make a character where his only
advantage is he knows the playing fieldbetter than they do. He knows everything
about trains right right, fuck it, which is a fucking brilliant brill I
mean that the movie that you wrote. I swear to God, that movie

(59:28):
is probably it's as good as dieHard, right, I know, I
genuinely believe, and I've seen thethings that you've made yourself and then the
things that Matt has made. Thetwo of you. If that movie had
been made the way that you wantedit to be made, we you and
I would probably have never met,do you know? But you know what
I mean. I mean, Ithink it would be regarded in the same

(59:49):
way as die Hard, because thatis, for me, the perceived potential
of the parties involved. Because ofwhat it was, it could never be,
It could never exceed die Hard.It could only considered one of the
honorable mention in the die Hard.There are a few of those, so
very few of those, um soso our thing was and then and then

(01:00:10):
we're like well, we need togo find out. So we hauled the
National Transit Safety Board branch office inLos Angeles. Again, this is pre
Internet, pre everything, you know, fucking white pages. And we met
a guy named Mark Garcia who workedin the LA office, and we set
up a meeting with him, andwe're like, we're two college students who

(01:00:30):
are thinking of writing an action movieon a train, and we just have
some questions for you. Went andspoke to him and and and we were
like, well, we want wewant there to be this thing where some
people could make it so that twotrains could be heading right at each other,
but we don't know if that's veryrealistic, and we don't really know

(01:00:52):
how to do that, and wejust want to know if that's a stupid
idea. And Mark Garcia said,oh no, that could happen, but
it could only happen in dark territory. And Matt and I like rab each
other's arms, like the moment ofclarity, it's it's kist, it's yes,
Well, you're filled with divine gracein that moment that the heavens open

(01:01:15):
up and the light shines down onyou. What do you what is it
called dark? What is well,what what are you talking about. Well,
dark territory is any section of unsignaledtrack. And there's some tracks way
out there, because you know,most of the tracks in America are one
hundred and fifty years old, andthey've they're not laying and they're in the
middle of fucking nowhere. The middleof nowhere because that's the point you had

(01:01:37):
to get from North Dakota to SanFrancisco or whatever. Yeah, but they're
so far out there that they're thatthey have not been updated with signals.
So all we need to know.The way that internet, you know,
national rail travel is arranged is thatanytime a train is goes into dark territory,

(01:01:58):
you know exactly when it enters andwhen it leaves, and you have
to make sure not to send atrain in there. And once it's out.
Now you can send a train goingthe other direction, but you just
have to know that that's dark territory. And we're like, wait a second.
So but theoretically, if someone fuckedwith that, you could send two
trains. He's like, oh yeah, oh, you could do it.
We're like, oh my god,oh my god, because once they're both

(01:02:22):
in there, they can't do anything. About it. Once it's there,
no one knows what's happening, andyou can't do anything about it. So
that's like, okay, great,And which is the greatest fucking conceit?
I mean, that's such a goodconceit. Where is this? It's such
a bummer to me. This islike the greatest conceit in this entire idea
is there in there and you can'tdo anything about it. God, the
guy didn't get suspicious of you twoasking Hey, is there a way we

(01:02:44):
could possibly Yeah, in this fuckingday and age Richard, you'd be in
some you'd be in some FBI filesomewhere, asking the wrong questions. Screenwriters,
we're trying to ready film. Wewant to know if a train could
possibly get into another train. Listen, Trevor. I gotta tell you every
TV writer has this joke where it'slike, oh, yeah, I work

(01:03:05):
on criminal minds. If anyone lookedat my Google, I would be in
prison for the rest of my life. Right. It's like when I talked
to the guys who did Poughkeepsie Tapesmovie, they were like, oh yeah,
we had like fucking boxes full ofthese, like graphic crime scene photos
and books about serial killers and shit, and they were like, we didn't
know what to do with it.By the end of it, we just

(01:03:27):
didn't want to really just throw itaway. It's like yeah, but at
the same time, somebody sees that, They're like, what are you doing
work on TV accurate right now?With all the podcasts, the true crime
podcasts. Yeah, yeah, everyoneis just google searching every beheadings, you
know, the worst of the worstof the worst of the worst on the

(01:03:49):
internet. Yeah. It becomes thepoint where Faces of Death is like,
that's passe. Yeah, well wenever forgot Mark Arcia. I still have
his business card. It's an arteffect for us. It's like that was
that was the thing that unlocked everythingfor us. And then then the other
thing. The only other research wedid was we went to Union Station and

(01:04:10):
we rode an Amtrak train to Fullertonand back. We're like, let's just
get on the train, let's walkit end to end. Let's look at
the dining car, let's look atthe bar car, Let's look at how
much space there is. And wewent on the amtrack and we discovered that
everything we were writing would never everwork to tall trains, way too small.

(01:04:30):
They don't have overhead areas where youcan a person can hide. You
can't get from car to car inthe way we needed. You can't the
windows don't open, the bar.It was just like we were devastated.
And then we just we went backto his mom's house and we're like,
Okay, this is the moment wherewe say we're gonna leave actual, actual,

(01:04:51):
you know, reality behind and we'regoing to build a new reality.
And what we very consciously decided was, let's let's design our train in a
way that makes basic sense. Decidewhat it is and what it can do.
That that's not crazy, it doesn'tfly, but let's just figure out
what it is, and then let'sjust write about that particular train because no

(01:05:12):
one's gonna know, because the downsideof no one being on a train is
followed by an upside of no one'sever been on a train. Yeah,
let's go, well, I'm onan MP drug is unintended benefit of lack
of knowledge, right, It's it'shappened a lot before with some with a
lot of action films. The herois on this brand new thing that it's
the grand opening of this of thisnew thing, and nobody's ever been on

(01:05:34):
it, so you're figuring out thehero is also figuring out the epis and
downs of the whole thing. It'sbrand new technical and oh a terror sticking
over the very same day. Soyeah, right, it's yeah, what
what a what a coincidence? HuhYeah, Well, we just figured no,
we want this guy to be atotal nabbish and and he's a he
hates airplanes. He because he's afraidof flying, and so that's why he's

(01:05:57):
a rail investigator and all that stuff. And his divorced and his daughter's on
the train and that's the that's theyou know, Holly Gennaro stand in and
we're like, we won't have eurotrash. Our idea was it was going to
be for a long time, itwas billionaires boys Club. It's a bunch
of like twenty year old Harvard assholes. One. Yeah, and so if

(01:06:21):
that that was it for a longtime. And then it became, well,
if it's military, it's probably gotto be people that have some sort
of connection in the military. Andand then it became very a lot more
like what Eric Bogosian represented in theactual movie, who was one of the
real bride spots. Oh my god. Yeah, god, his I mean

(01:06:42):
one, it's Eric Bogosian. Youdon't usually think of him as playing well,
especially in these types of films,because he is a very serious monologust
playwright, very serious, you know, very you know, well respected,
and now he's playing this absolutely insanevillain that I thought was just as if
not better than Tommy Lee Jones's villainin the first one. I don't even
think he's insane. He's so damncharismatic, like well, and he's smart.

(01:07:06):
That's the thing, right Mark,he doesn't have to be no physically
opposing because he's got he's got yeah, Richard Richard. You know what I
noticed this time watching the movie,Eric Bogosian's character has Richard had him energy.
I never met him, he nevermet me, so I know it's
not that's sad. It's wild though, because when I watched him, like

(01:07:29):
he's got like Richard's energy where it'sjust like it's just like I love that
confidence that his character has, becausethat's what you need. Oh yeah,
that makes a good villain, rightis the confidence, the confidence to be
like I am the smartest guy inthe room. It's like it's it's the
you fired me big fucking mistake.You're you're done exactly exactly, that's exactly.
I'll make you pay for it.I'm gonna make you pay for underestimating

(01:07:53):
my brilliance, and you'll do ye. Assumption is the mother of all fuck
ups. Yeah, we didn't writethat line. I know you didn't write
that line. That's the that like, that is the other good line from
the movie, and I know youdidn't write it. There's only one line
that everybody really remembers from this movie, and it's the Richard Adam line.
No, No, that's the linethey remember because it's it's pithy and it's

(01:08:13):
short. Oh. No, oneline. The only line of dialogue that
remains from our draft is ladies andgentlemen, this is your captor speaking.
That is the greatest line in themovie. And you know that it is
kind of speech that follows I meanliterally word for word, the whole thing,
you know, federal regulations required thatwe kill you. The whole was
was We wrote that in the summerof nineteen ninety, you know, on

(01:08:35):
Matt's you know Macintosh, you know, in his mom's house, and we
were rolling on the ground with glee. We were so happy And here's why
I say the movie that you guysmade that never got made because the entire
script is gutted, would have beensomething really special. Is because anyone I
know who has seen this movie,and Verne even mentions it, and Trevor

(01:09:00):
and Father Malone and everybody I knowpoints to that goddamn line in the movie
as some like really like this islike one of the better parts of the
movie is because it's so it's sowell written and memorable, and then you
think to yourself, well, ifthis is it for that from you guys
in the script, what was thatscript like? Well, he's arguably,
arguably he's the best character in thefilm. He's the character I love.
But the tone is set for thecharacter from that scene. It's that scene

(01:09:25):
that sets the tone for the entirecharacter. Oh, this guy is a
dickhead, but a very smart dickhead. Oh exactly. Yeah. Our goal
was to build a machine in theway that Diehard is a machine. And
and the thing that we talked abouta lot was action as contraption. It's
sort of like in Raiders of theLost Arc there's that sequence where that really

(01:09:48):
burly guy, the bald headed Naziand the airplane, and and it's like
this whole it's this very intricate sortof almost a mouse trap. It's like
I'm trying to get in, butI can't. You know, Marian gets
in but gets trapped. Now thething starts moving. Now I've got to

(01:10:08):
fight this guy, but I've atank. Now Here comes the airplane,
but now here comes the gas tank. Now the propeller, now here comes
the flame. And now now she'snow that it helps that but hurts this.
It's this weird Rube Goldberg of actionthat Matt and I love, and
it's present in certain movies, andRaiders is one of them where every little

(01:10:30):
you don't just go, hey,there's a big fight. It's like,
no, You've got to explain exactlywhere the fight turns. You know.
It's like, then this thing happens, which is good, but then this
thing happens, which is bad.So we wrote this. So the end
of the movie that we wrote thatwe were so excited about was that,
and there were all these things wherejust you know, they've got to figure
this out, and they distract thebad guy, and this happens. The

(01:10:53):
trains are are streaking toward each otherand Meanwhile, there's a helicopter. But
but you know, our guy,you know, the character eventually played by
Morris Chestnut, gets up into thehelicopter and takes over the helicopter. And
now our character gets his daughter ontothe rope ladder and she goes up and
now and now it's now seconds tocollision, and our guy is you know,

(01:11:17):
is going to jump, and helooks back and here comes the bad
guy running at him, and soour hero jumps onto the ladder, the
rope ladder, okay, And helooks back and the bad guy has now
run all the way to the backof the train and has a gun pointed
straight at him. They're only aboutten feet apart, and our hero is
dead. He's come all this way, he's saved everyone, but he personally

(01:11:41):
is going to die. And theireyes meet and the trains collide, and
our bad guy is thrown off hisfeet as you would be according to the
laws of physics, toward the pointof impact and is killed as he's firing
the gun. And our guy issaved, and the bad guy is killed
by his own plan, which ofcourse was also something we really wanted to

(01:12:04):
have happened, because that's what youwant. Yeah, right, another sorry,
sorry, well it was the mostbeautiful moment. It was. It
was like, we have achieved exactlythe machine we wanted to build. Yeah.
Now, what the movie did wasthe trains collide, but Steven Seagal
is running away from the point ofit, and there's just something weird about

(01:12:25):
it. And that's when you realize, oh, right, you you can't
do that. That's exactly the opposite. When two cars hit, the two
drivers smash into the windshields. Theydon't fly backward. You can't, especially
if you're inside the train, right, But matter because Steven Seagal was superhuman.
Yeah, us, that was like, well it's over. You already
miss you already missed the goddamn pointthat was. That scene in particular was

(01:12:49):
a scene that ciscuently Ebert were pointingout in their review of the film,
and they still enjoyed. They stillgave it a thumbtime and still recommended it,
but they did They were talking abouthow fucking ridiculous the things in the
film. We're at we're at theyou know, at at the moment because
yeah, I was, as Iwas watching, I was watching that clip
they were showing you see the trains. Basically, it's it's almost like um

(01:13:12):
fitting us, you know, fittingus around object into a roundhold. They
it just fits so perfectly. It'salmost like the other train is like the
condom that the Dick train is fittinginto. And I'm thinking to myself,
no, this does not work.I it's fun to watch. It's arguably
it's very fun to watch. It'svery exciting, and it's very kind of
kind of entertain you to watch.But you're not in a minute thinking this

(01:13:33):
could actually happen. And at thatpoint in the movie, you know,
you're just you're just there for theride. You're enjoying it. The big
budget movie balls in It, begoesIn, is in it. There's enough
to enjoy. I mean, I'vegot no complaints about that movie. I'm
still getting residuals and they're decent.So so I should have rented it last

(01:13:54):
night instead of just Risus Server.It could have given you a couple more
bucks. People are affectionate about themovie, and I've taught about this too.
The longest time, I was embarrassed. I know that Matt, who
was starting his directing career at thattime, really didn't want to be associated
with that movie, and I don'tblame him, you know, I mean,
frankly, neither did I. Youknow, I wanted to go on
and do other things action movies orwhatever. But it wasn't thrilled to be

(01:14:15):
like, oh, I've got aSteven Seagal movie. It was nice that
it made a little money. Itwas not a big by the way,
and did not do the box officethey wanted it to do, but did
okay. But you know, ultimately, twenty years on, twenty five years
on, people who watch that movienow have a lot of affection for it
because of its excesses. All right, I mean, sorry, go ahead

(01:14:35):
now, I was just gonna say, I mean, no one comes to
me and says, oh, yeah, that movie was horrible. What I
get is and almost universally it's aguy usually around my age, are a
little younger like Trevor your age,and it's someone saying, oh my god,
Underseas two, my dad and Ilove that movie, and it's this
movie that guys watch with their dads, and that just I mean, that

(01:15:00):
breaks my heart in the best way. I'm like, you know what,
then then then then I'm proud.This gives you a great memory with your
dad watching a goofy action movie.Yeah, I'm I'm proud. I have
a little different story because my dadhated Seagal. He really fucking hated Seagal,
like there was a lot of things, like he hated Van Damn.
Even though for my fifteenth birthday Ihad him take me to see Street Fighter.

(01:15:21):
I could tell in all the wholetime he was watching it he was
in pain, but it was mybirthday, so he relented. Anyway.
I don't know if I told youthis story about how I saw underseaes you
for the first time. I thinkit was the summer and when it came
out, I was I got wasjust out of high school, was just
out of my freshman year of highschool. It was July nineteen ninety five,
Okay, so I was just Iwas just ended my freshman year of

(01:15:42):
high school during my summer break,and originally I called my friend Bobby Simpson,
who usually was the guy I sawmovies with. I said, Hey,
do you want to go see Cluelessbecause I want to see Clues because
if you just opened it looked reallygood to me, Bobby, which I
think, by the way, Trevor, I think for me like this story,
would you tell it? It summarizeslike eat you for me so perfectly.
This is why I love you todeath. As one of my friends

(01:16:04):
is like, I wanted to gosee Clueless. We saw Underseage two.
Well, here's here's how it happened. I'd say, Bobby, do you
want to go see Clues with me? He goes, Noah, I want
to see understage two. And Igo, let's go see Clues. He
goes, no, Underseage two.This one on for like three or four
more times, back and forth,until I relented. I'm like, fine,
we'll see unders each two. We'llgo see understage two. Um.
I think I don't know how wewere able to get the tickets. I

(01:16:26):
think either his dad Bottom or mydad bottom, or my dad just told
the ticket taker it was okay togive him to us. But we saw
Underseage two in the theater. Itwas my first Seagal film in the theater.
I think it was my last Seagalfilm in the theater. Yeah.
And so me and Bobby went tothe Mount like nine in Seattle and we
saw, you know, we wentand saw Underseage two, and you know,
in THHX and Dolby Digital surrounds sound, and I just had a blast

(01:16:48):
watching it. I thought it wasa fun movie and still remains to me
one of, if not my favoriteSeagal film because it is a lot of
fun. It is it is.I know under Siege is a better made
film, but under Siege two forme, just has that just just kinetic,
more fun kind of action that Iyou know that I like. Under
Siege is a fresh cheese. UnderSiege two is an age cheese. It

(01:17:12):
has a little bit of funk onit, but that's what makes it fun.
Yeah, but it's still cheese.It's still cheese. I mean under
Siege two for I, honest togod, I've seen under Siege one twice.
I've seen under Siege two six orseven times. I think that speaks
for itself. I've seen Undersiege twoas many times as I've probably seen other
action movies that are considered quote betterunquote. I just remember just like,

(01:17:35):
wow, this is And I don'tknow if I've even seen an Undersiege one
yet I had. I saw Undersiegetwo before I saw Undersiege one. Yeah,
I think that's what happened. It'slike I was like, oh my
god, this movie is great,the villain is amazing. Oh my god,
they just fucking they just annihilated awhole city with this, with this
weapon that they don't necessarily make clearwhat it does, Like they say,

(01:17:57):
like causes earthquakes or something, andanother scene and now they make it sell
like it's something different, right,mid air earthquake machine. Yeah, and
like kurtwood Smith and the other guyare talking about like and all the time,
I'm thinking, why the fun wouldthe government make this? Like our
earth weapons not good enough that wehave to have us are you? Are

(01:18:18):
you critiquing this man's movie in frontof him compliment about an earthquake satellite?
What's that? Didn't it say itcaused earthquakes? It was an earthquake?
Yeah, But Richard said, whatdon't you get about earthquake satellites? Why
would the government make it? That'smy question? Why not? Okay,
why not? Why wouldn't they?Dude? The government's made worse things.

(01:18:40):
The government has made things like aliteral gay government's made a literal gay bomb.
You think of earthquake satellites. Outsideof the question, they made they
made something in the wad makes thefrogs gay. Oh yeah, Sorry,
Richard, I love you. Ilove the movie. I don't want you
to think that I you know,No, I'm just worried. I only
ust you is did you finally seeClueless on video? Wow? I saw

(01:19:03):
it on video? Good. Ijust think, think Richards, one of
those residuals that you got was fromTrevor. I would I would more watch
Underseachs two again. Thank Cluless.I still love Clueless, but I love
Underseachs two a bit more because yeah, yeah, Matt and I were were
heart heartbroken. We were heartbroken whenwe sold it. I've told the story

(01:19:27):
before. One of Matt's best friends, JJ Abrams, they went to school
together and they, you know,the day it's sold, and and the
story broke in Variety and the HollywoodReporter when they were actual like you know,
newspapers. JJ came over with abottle of champagne to congratulate us,
and we were like, no,JJ, you if you believe what you

(01:19:48):
read. We did not get paida million dollars. It's a million dollars
deal, of which we're splitting aboutninety thousand dollars. Yeah, which even
then was a lot of money Iwas in. That's a lot of money.
Well, I mean, but notwhat deal like people were people were
selling scripts for a million dollars.I mean people, it was every week.

(01:20:09):
It felt like someone from somewhere wasselling a script and making way more
than we made well or as wehad all those dreams and we thought,
oh and so we were all depressedand like, no, it's nothing and
it's gonna be Steven Seagal and it'sa disaster. And JJ was like,
you guys are idiot. You solda movie. Do you have any idea

(01:20:30):
of the number of people in theworld who are jealous of you right now
and who wish they were you rightnow? There's a lot of people out
there who did not sell a movietoday, okay, And yours is gonna
get made because there's already a starattached and a franchise, so your movie
is gonna get made. I wouldsay that ninety nine percent of the people
who sold a movie today, thisis the last money that we're gonna get

(01:20:51):
because that movie ain't gonna get made. Yours gonna get made. So if
you can't enjoy this, get outof the business now. Because J.
J. Abrams talks like he's ina movie. Yes, like, I'm
in a film myself. Here hetalks so cinematic, I believe it.
Yeah, so we're like, you'reright, you're right. And we drank
a little champaign with him and andand it's like then then then movie got

(01:21:13):
rewritten, and then uh, andthen we had to go through Writers Guild
arbitration to to get our credit becauseBrian Hellglenn was the only of the other
writers who challenged us. He wasthe only one who said I want my
name on this movie too, Whichwas ironic because when we went back and
you know, they sent us allthe drafts, they would send us the
drafts of the people who rewrote usand asked us to comment. And that

(01:21:38):
was so painful. I mean,I know it sounds crazy bother me at
all, but at the time,it was almost like, this is like,
you're the girl that broke up withyou, sending her new boyfriend to
you to get tips on how tofuck her with pictures fucking her too.
Yeah, We're like he was themost. It was so painful, Right,

(01:22:01):
Matt and I are already people wholive on the edge of pain.
It's like we're we're importing pain.We haven't even paid for yet yeah,
and now it's being served up freshdaily. It was brutal and leave these
drafts and just go what is happening? And then we'd give notes, but
it's like why are we even doingthis? And so we would we experienced

(01:22:24):
all of this and then and thenit was weird about it was Brian Helgeland
arguing for credit, but his drafthad been rewritten even more than our draft,
like the subsequent drafts actually brought itcloser to us. So we're like,
of all the writers who might havea claim to credit on this,
he almost has the least. Buthe submitted for credit anyway, because there's

(01:22:46):
a lot of money at stake.He wouldn't need a lot of money,
you know, and and at acertain point, you know, money's money,
So that's why he did it.So we had to write. The
way the Writers Guild works is youhave to write sort of a whole defense
of why your draft is the draft, And we both twenty five page document,

(01:23:06):
page by page by page, comparingour draft that we sold to the
shooting draft and basically saying, youknow, it's like, yeah, characters
are different, everything's different, butstill here's where they get on the train,
Here's where the terrorists take over.Here's the first moment of you know,
here's the exact you know moment.You know, we just went through

(01:23:28):
the structure because the structure never changed. And at the end of it,
the Writer's Guild panel was like,yeah, it's still their movie. You
know, dialogue's different, but dialoguedialogue, the same beats are the same.
It's your movie. And for usthat meant, you know, a
decent amount of change at a timewhen we really needed it. So Richard,
I think we would be remissed becausewe really haven't brought him up very

(01:23:50):
much honestly in this episode. AndI think, you know, kind of
obviously there's a there's an inflection pointhere where we need to kind of talk
about the the elephant in the roomoffense to his weight. But mister Steven
Seagal, elephants, Yeah, no, offense to elephants. Really shit.
So Richard, I know, youknow, every you know, it's kind
of a thing now, like youknow, Tom Ford, a bunch of

(01:24:11):
these comedians have they all have theirlike Steven Seagal story, Right, there's
like everybody has like a Seagall story. But I would say, you know,
Richard, you and Matt kind ofhave an og Seagal story. This
is before Seagal stories were a thing, So would you would you mind telling
our listeners the age old meeting betweenMatt Reeves Richard had him and Steven Seagal.

(01:24:31):
Well, I okay, So I'mI'm at Tony Romas during my lunch
shit and the manager. I walkinto the kitchen and the managers. The
manager says, your wife is onthe phone, you know, come take
the call. And I'm like whatlike? And you have to realize there
were no cell phones. So sothe idea that I'm sorry, it wasn't
my wife, it was my girlfriend. He's like, there's she's called the

(01:24:55):
woman who became my wife. Let'shold a whole lot of things. This
is ninety two, ninety three.No, we were married. We were
already married. So he said,your wife's on the phone, and I'm
like, okay, someone's dead.My parents are dead. How would you
ever get a call at work?Right? You're literally living in an episode
of Seinfeld. Oh I don't havea cell phone? Man to call?

(01:25:15):
The passating to Tony Romas. Ithad never happened. I'd been working there
for two years. Right, younever called me at any job I'd ever
had. You didn't do that.Why would you. I pick up the
phone. She's like, hey,so I just got a call or you
just got a message. There's supposedto be a meeting today. They want
to know if you can make ittoday. You need to call Gary Goldstein.
And I'm like, okay, SoI call Gary Goldstein. He's like,

(01:25:38):
can you get someone to cover yourshift? I'm like, what's going
on? He's like, we havea meeting today at three o'clock at Steven
Seagal's house. You have to bethere. We'll do whatever. We'll tell
Tony Romas, we will pay forsomeone to cover your shift. It's a
lot of nineties movie industry bullshit,though you're gonna say it's a lot of
nineties movie tropes in one scene ofyour life. But it's a lot of

(01:26:00):
like like there was a there wasa feeling even in the nineties, of
the way the lifestyle of movie peoplewas supposed to be right, drop everything.
It's fast, exciting car, youknow, a lot of like what
I'm like, I have a car. It's like it's three o'clock. I'm
like, that's fine. I canleave now, I'll go home, take
a shower. Yeah, it's allfine. Well he lives out in Bennedict

(01:26:21):
Canyon or whatever. It was,okay, great, we all converge their
three. Matt's there, I'm there. We're like, what is going on?
And of course it's Matt and Iand we're nobody. We don't know
what the fuck is going on.So we're terrified. We're like, what
is happening? We're in dreamland.We're going to Steven s Gall's house.
How old are you at this pointin your life? Twenty five? Holy

(01:26:43):
shit, that's wild with anything.I mean, I'm not a movie guy.
I don't come from a movie world. Matt didn't. We're not people
who are like, oh, meetingof Seagal, I mean picture yourselves suddenly
like you gotta go and meet butat work to work with him, Well,
you got to nail this meeting oryour movie. It's like, oh
right, it's not just your meetingSteven Seagal. Question, before you met

(01:27:06):
Seagal, what was your experience witheither Seagal films or your opinion of Seagal
films or him as an actor asa person. Beforehand, had never seen
I'd never seen one, but understoodthat they were cheap. Yeah, you
weren't real movies. They were Youdidn't have any preconceived notion. Yeah,
it was. I think it wasa fairly accurate assumption that it was,

(01:27:28):
like, he's not much of anactor. Apparently he's a martial artist.
But these are not movies that thatwide audiences see. These are movies that
you know he's he was like aprofessional wrestler. That's how he felt to
us. Yeah, yeah, Ithink that's it's a he's his own thing.
He's his own thing. He's nottrying to act. He's just striding

(01:27:50):
out on stage and being himself.And it's like that was no great interest.
To remember when Charlie Sheen was doingthat whole tour where he just went
out and like talked about how weirdit was to be Charlie Sheen. That's
like Steven Seagal. It's like,we're there's no gimmick, it's just you.
It's a Stephen Seagal movie. Thenit is a very it's a narrower
thing. Yeah, he's got hisown niche. But everyone was telling us

(01:28:13):
rightly, they're like, you guysare crazy he's this is going to be
a summer tenth pole movie. Don'tyou don't turn up your nose to this?
So we go into this house.It's it's Matt myself, Gary Goldstein,
Lorenzo di Bonaventura. I don't know. I don't know if John Peters
was involved. Oh wow, talkabout a head of hair man. Oh

(01:28:36):
he may he may have been therewhatever reason. I don't remember. But
he was basically brought on as anuber producer to be the Seagal whisperer all
Wrangel Seagal, don't you worry,you know, to put a giant,
fucking mechanical spider in your movie?Yeah right, talk about somebody making a
bookoo bucks off a one story forthe rest of their lives. Good lord.

(01:28:58):
Okay, So we so we goto his houses. How some many
you know, big branch style mansionand very you know, obviously expensive place.
We only were in the living room. I will say this. I
remember when we were like in thedriveway and people were sort of meeting up
and we were like, well,should we go in? Well, you
know, because again no one wastexting anyone because it was nineteen ninety three.

(01:29:20):
Yeah, So suddenly the door opensand Steven Seagal is there, and
I do remember he filled the doorway. He is tall. He's a big
guy. Not every actor is notevery movie starters. Most of them are
shorter than you expect. And you'veheard this from a million people. I
was like, oh my god,I met so mus just alone. He's
like this tall. Seagal was like, oh shit, this guy is,

(01:29:41):
you know, Sasquatch. We gointo his house. We sit down and
and he sits sort of at thehead of the room in this chair,
and we're on couches and he startstalking. They're all joking and oh my
god, you know you're so greatand under siege and blah blah blah,
and Matt and I aren't saying aword. I mean, we are,
you know, just that hangers onhere and and Segal starts to pontificate.

(01:30:03):
He's like, well, I readyour script. That's okay, but you
know, you know, you gotto really get into it, you know,
you gotta get into the I seethis guy's CIA, you know,
and I think we gotta do,you know, reveal that he's part of
the CIA and all this stuff.And we're like, what is he taught
for real, like, do wehave to do this? And he's like,
you know, the guy who didmy last movie, you know,

(01:30:23):
I don't know. I had to. I had to tell him count hair
by count hair what to do.And while he's talking, there's this a
guy comes like down the hall andis standing next to him and is standing
there and standing there and standing there. Finally Segal turns and goes, what
the fuck do you want? Andthe guy's like, I just wanted to
know if anyone wants anything, andSeagal says, I'll have a cup of

(01:30:46):
tea. Stuff standing there like somecocksucking faggott. Oh my god, that
sounds like Seal. Oh what aninsufferable piece of shit. Oh yeah,
sounds like this guy, this guywho was like the head of his company,
the nicest guy, the guy welearned was like the nicest guy in
the world. His job is totake ship from this asshole. And so

(01:31:11):
he looks around at all of us, but Segal doesn't say anything, and
we don't say anything. So thisguy walks away and comes back a few
minutes later with one cup of teafor one person in the room. Good
lord. Yeah, And that's whenSegal. He's like, let me tell
you. I'm gonna He's like,we can get out. I can tell
you what to write. All yougotta do is write it. He's like,
I'll take you to my island inmy private plane. And Matt and

(01:31:34):
I are like what. He's like, yeah, just you and you and
me, three of us on myisland. And we're like, oh,
that is never happened. I don'twe know that's gonna end with us being
hunted at the island of Doctor Moreau. Dude, it's the most the most
dangerous game. Yeah, son.So so we're like, ha, yeah,

(01:31:55):
it's gonna be great. It's gonnabe great. So we leave and
everyone's like, oh, yeah,that went great. That went great.
If you don't understand what just happenedthere, it was great. And we're
like okay, because for us,it was the worst hour of our lives.
Like this guy was worse than anythingwe ever could have expected. But
we don't know. When we're twentyfive and we don't, you know,
It's like so then in subsequent years, I would go to meetings on my

(01:32:16):
own and people would go, WHOA, So, Steven Seagal, did you
ever meet did you ever meet him, and I'm like, oh, yeah,
so what did you think? AndI'm like, oh, I don't
know. It was weird, youknow, it's kind of weird. And
they'd go, well, let metell you what happened when I met him,
of course, and then people wouldstart telling stories like what we experienced
or worse, so I would say. After about a year, I began

(01:32:40):
to realize, oh, okay,so I'm not gonna ruin anyone's reputation or
shock anyone by saying he was obnoxious. Yeah, because people were literally telling
stories and I was like, oh, did he pull a gun on you?
Because he brought a gun to WarnerBrothers when I met him and put
it on the table and started talkingabout how many people he'd killed and why

(01:33:03):
really everyone had everyone's story about Steven'sadult was worse than the one before,
while I'm like, okay, it'slike an aristocrats joke, right, It's
like, he didn't threaten to killus outright, So I guess what happened
to us wasn't all that, youknow, amazing in terms of people at
all. But but it was hardto picture, Like we knew at that

(01:33:25):
meeting this guy was over it's like, this doesn't last. He doesn't have
the talent to pull this off.Even guys who have talent, you know,
this this kind of bullshit doesn't reallyage. Well, no, because
his attitude you could tell, youprobably could tell that this was going to
bite him in the ass. Well, it was tough. It was nineteen
ninety three. You know, it'snot like it's not like things are now

(01:33:48):
where people actually value people being decenthuman beings. Yeah, it's all about
reputation. Yeah, I mean,you know we talked, you talk about
quote unquote, you know, cancelculture, but back in the night these
there really wasn't any it was more. And plus you know, word of
mouth about a person didn't go didn'tget sent out as fast as it does
now. Or you get today youhear today about things that happened back then

(01:34:12):
that like, oh my god,I didn't know this person did this back
then, But of course you didn'tbecause there was no outlet for it.
I mean, you had the gossiprags, but they weren't ever really taken
serious. Well, it's you know, you say that, you know,
I'm gonna here's here's my take oncancel culture, that it simultaneously, has
always existed and doesn't exist at all. In other words, a lot of
people canceled Cassius Clay when he changedhis name to Muhammad Ali, and a

(01:34:35):
lot of people canceled Cat Stevens whenhe changed his name to Yusef Islam.
People have been getting canceled for along time. It's only now that are
news streams and social media streams areare so are so quick. Yeah,
the Dixie Chicks were canceled. Peopledo canceled. Having said that, it's

(01:34:58):
not canceling, it's simply announcing whoand what you are. The Dixie Chicks
simply said, even though we're countrymusic or we're known for that, yeah
we're not right wing Republicans. We'reactually left wing Democrats, and which should
have been your first fucking clue.And now all it is is listen,
guys, see anyone say whatever youwant. All you're doing is saying out

(01:35:21):
loud what audience you want and whataudience you don't want. No one's getting
canceled. For anyone getting canceled.Believe me, they're replacing every one of
those lost fans with a different kindof fan who likes the bullshit that they
know. Do you think Richard,that celebrities are becoming less quote unquote phony

(01:35:45):
and being more who they really aretoday, or do you think that they're
more inclined to try to hide it. I don't know. Some people have
been Jane Fonda, she got canceled. Oh yeah, that whole Hannoy Jane
thing really fucking blew up in herface. You know, Sean Penny has
always been very open about what hesupports and what he doesn't support. I

(01:36:05):
would say that, um, alot of people in the music field.
John Lennon, you know, waspretty clear about his political views and and
and gained fans and lost fans.Yeah. You know, well, one
of the one of the biggest,one of the one of the most prevalent
ones that I know that really kindof took a took a took a like
a bullet to her career with SinadO'Connor. I mean she never really quite

(01:36:27):
recovered from sand O'Connor. I mean, you've got to You've got a question,
you know, what was her fanbase and did it really cheat?
And also what she did was puzzlingeven to people who later when they understood
what she was doing and why portedit, so it wasn't a thing that
she did. People immediately understood,Oh, I know exactly what that is,

(01:36:49):
and I'm on board. Well,oh, is that what she was
doing. Oh, that's not sobad. I wish she'd said it more
clearly. I think I would haveagreed that. You know, I also
believe in birth control and gay rights. Yeah. I didn't realize that her
singing that song and tearing up apicture of the pope meant that. Only
learned later that her carrying up thepope was more about child abuse in the

(01:37:13):
in the in the Catholic faith andthe priest. Yeah, but no one
want to that. So it justappeared puzzling, worrisome, and and then
and it was during a time whenI'm not even sure she was necessarily known
for being hugely political. But maybeI'm wrong, I'm misremembering it. Yeah,
I'm always expecting that we'll say that. Oh, speaking of SNL,

(01:37:35):
people who are never going to beback on the show. Oh, Sinad
O'Connor, Steven Seagal getting getting axedfrom the future guest hosting pool for his
terrible takes on rape sketches. Ohgod, yeah, I told it.
You've heard this. Have you heardthat story about rich about what Steven Seagal
had an idea for a sketch orhe would play. He would play a

(01:37:55):
therapist to Victoria Jackson, who isa rape victim, and I think at
the end of the sketch he wouldproceed to have sex with her at the
end or something that effect. Oneif his sketch ideas got on the air
where he like beats up this wholeoffice full of executives and he ends it
with this is what happens when youcause global warming, and that's where the
sketch end. Wow, or somethingto that effect. He was a prick.

(01:38:19):
No one in the cast. It'spretty unanimous that he is the worst
host ever. Every single cast memberagrees that he was the worst. And
he was never ever aspect of youknow, admittedly, because you need to
have a sense of humor about yourselfto be successful on SNL. Yeah,
it's I don't know, it's weird. You know. His career after Undersiege

(01:38:41):
two, there weren't a lot ofmovies. There were very there was a
small handful of theatrical releases. Therewas Executive Decision stands out as a movie
that he did not star in,but played an interesting role in. I
think for a lot of people theywere like, Oh, that actually is
a really good sign because he candeploy his personality in a variety of ways.

(01:39:01):
And when I was briefly working withand for Stephen J. Candele,
when I was writing one of theearliest incarnations of the eighteen movie that never
got made, Candele even said,oh, yeah, he was one of
those. Candle was one of theguys who said, do you ever meets
a goal? What was your experience? And I told him and he's like

(01:39:24):
yeah, I'm like, why didyou meet him? And He's like,
I was actually thinking of casting himas the bad guy in a movie because
I think he has that energy andcould really play a really great heavy But
man, I had one meeting withhim and he just sucked all the air
out of the room, and Ithought, life is too short, It's
not worth it. I think hegoes back to like what I said,
he doesn't seem to have a senseof humor about himself and he sense of

(01:39:45):
self awareness? Is there no selfawareness at all? He takes himself way
too fucking seriously. I mean,someone who says count here in a business
meeting clearly does not. I don'tthink understands the world around them or or
perceives the way around them the sameway a lot of us do. I
think he took the little bit ofpraise he got early in his career and
just ran with it. Never hethinking he was untouchable the whole time.

(01:40:08):
Well really got But but I willsay, being being the old st in
the room, that there there wasa culture, like, like I became
aware of Hollywood culture in the nineties, Hollywood culture in the nineties was wildly
misogynist, maybe even maybe even worsethan it had been in certain decades past.
It was it was why I mean, this was the era of Joe

(01:40:30):
Esterhouse and you know, show Girlsand just a lot of like, hey
ha ha, we're going to senda hooker over to your house as a
thank you for your rewrite kind ofbullshit. I mean a lot of really
shitty, shitty boys club bullshit.And Matt and I were terrified because we're
just like because that it wasn't usdidn't get it, and we're like we

(01:40:55):
can't do this, Like we can'tfake this. There's no if this is
what Hollywood is, We're not goingto last too long, and luckily it
began to ease off. Like Ithink even ten years later, it was
less, and I think it's it'smuch less now. I'm not saying it's
great now, but I'm saying it'sa lot less. Like like, misogyny
was a badge of honor with theseguys. And and there are books you

(01:41:16):
can read about the movie business inthe eighties and nineties where it'll give you
a real good picture of what thatwas. So he was part of it,
and believe me, he was gettingrewarded for it. Not a person
in his life was telling him,Hey, I would to tone it down
on being a fucking asshole. Yea. Even if they had, it wouldn't
work. But still yeah, Imean, Hollywood is very slow to adapt

(01:41:40):
when it comes to any type ofcorrectness or awareness. They seemed to love.
They seem to not take anything seriouslyuntil the worst case scenario happened.
Well, because because psychopathic behavior hasalways been associated with show business, even
before the moves existed, there's alwaysalways been the insane artist. So until

(01:42:00):
I mean very recently, like inthe last five years, there's always been
this feeling of well, but that'skind of the business we're in. We're
about one century away from the circus. Well, we're dealing with the artists
and they're crazy, but crazy israre and profitable. So somehow, NNA,

(01:42:23):
you just gotta owe I know howto control this, but no one
knows how to come anyway. Butif it can turn a dollar, it's
worth it. And there's always beena self perpetuated belief that that is something
to value and to indulge. You'vegot to be crazy. Saturday Night Live,
we have to be there all nightor the sketches won't be good.

(01:42:45):
Really, you can't write them sketchesduring the day. Now, it's got
to be all night. And inthe seventies it's got to be with cocaine.
Twenty years later, when Tina Feyand Amy Poehler were on the show
and Will Ferrell all they were drinkingwe're fucking smoothies and you know, almond
milk, and they were all doingyoga and working out and nobody smoked.
And let me tell you, sketcheswere fucking hilarious. It doesn't take that.

(01:43:09):
And then there's writers that I dealwith now who are like, well,
people say I should go to therapy. But if I go to therapy,
I'll never write again. No,no, no, you'll write again.
You'll write better, and you'll writeeasier, and you'll be happier.
So I think hopefully we're moving intoan era in general in show business where
it's okay not to be crazy,and it's okay not to be an asshole.

(01:43:29):
In fact, it's super valued.You don't have to put on the
airs of being a dickhead constantly.Well it's always really not even the airs.
Just let that part of you outright. In an environment that begs
you to be an asshole, manypeople who are not assholes will find,
you know, an opportunity because weall have a shitty side. There'll be
an asshole just as easily. Ifyou're an environment that says, no,

(01:43:51):
we don't really want that or needthat. Guess what, Suddenly it ain't
showing up every day. Well,it's always fascinated me how a right mind
actually works when they're writing, Likewhat is going through their head emotionally?
Like does the does their experiences inlife affect how they write a thing that
has nothing to do with their life? You know how they always say right,

(01:44:13):
what you know? Right? Whetherwhat if you're writing something completely like
genre specific, that has nothing todo with you, nothing to do with
anything in your life. How muchof your you know, how much of
you emotionally is in that script?Like what is going through your head?
And what? Like? How whatis there? When is your Like?
Do you have a certain place youhave to be to write successfully or a
certain mindset? You know what Imean? Does that make sense? I'll

(01:44:35):
answer your question. First of all, the longer you do it, and
if you're lucky enough to get work, you learn very quickly to work under
any circumstance. So whether you're ina great mood that day, or it's
the worst day of your life,or you've got the stomach flu or you're
hungover, your craft has been developedenough that you can get it done.

(01:44:57):
It's like, Okay, I feellike shit, but I know how to
write it. Scene between these twopeople, you know, and he's breaking
up with her. I can writethat scene. I know what the needs
of this deular project are, right, what you know? The biggest misunderstood
rule of writing and the one thatwas designed and purposely phrased in that way
to shame, humiliate, and keepwriters out because that's another thing. You

(01:45:20):
know, writers of past generations believedtheir own bullshit and got high on their
own supply of I'm magic and notwriters are born. You can't teach writing.
You have to be born a writerand you've got it, you know,
and then you've got to go,you know, you're everyone's got to
be Hemingway and you shouldn't pick upa pen until you've gone to war,

(01:45:41):
you know, against the you know, the Spanish fascists. It's like no,
no, no, no no.And Matt and I had that problem
because it's like, write what youknow what, I'm going to write a
movie about two white guys from lawho went to film school. L Smith
did it with Clerks, right,but what Richard right? Asshole to put
again? Like that again for allintents and purposes, right, like yeah,

(01:46:03):
and you know, you know peoplewho've been to've been in war,
Yes, they can write about war. And it's like, oh, okay,
I get it. And that copwrote a really cool cop thing.
Whatever. Here's the thing. Everyone'sbeen to high school. Everyone's had a
crush, everyone's seeing that crush havea crush on someone else. Everyone has
gone to a dance with someone thatthey love and it's the greatest moment of

(01:46:26):
their life. And sometime that eveningrealized that the person said yes for reasons
that I have nothing to do withyou. Everyone has gone through a lot
of everyone has disappointed their parents.Everyone has felt unequal to the task,
whether that task is your high schoolhistory final, or going out and getting

(01:46:47):
a job at McDonald's, or askingsomeone out, or dealing with the scary
guy. And that's what we mean. When people say write what you know.
They don't mean write about the Coastguardbecause you were in the Coastguard.
They mean in any story you tellif you're writing about vampires. I've spent
half my career writing about vampires.But I'm never writing about vampires. I'm

(01:47:10):
writing about people with a drinking problem. I'm writing about people who got to
have some every night and they wishthey didn't, but they do, And
how does that play hell with thelife they're trying to live. Yeah,
So for me, a vampire,a werewolf, I am writing about me.
I'm you know, I'm as longas you know what the metaphor is,
Carrie, that's easy. Stephen Kingdidn't write a great book called Carrie

(01:47:34):
because he knew about psychokinesis, heknew about high school politics and the way
high school kids carry each other's skinoff. And he found a metaphor through
which to tell that story. Andthat's why it's the story that it is,
and it lived for fifty years.And another thing of Stephen King I

(01:47:55):
heard in a video once, likewhen he wrote The Tommy Knockers. This
was after his drug or drinking problem. He wrote it as kind of an
allegory to his about his drinking ordrug problem, because the whole thing is
about these people who become more creativeand more you know thing after they get
this substance, alien substance in themand they want more of it. And
so Stephen King wrote that as anallegory to the fact that he couldn't write

(01:48:16):
unless he was on something, sohe was afraid that, you know,
it's actually direct allegory to Robert Townand his creation of Chinatown and his subsequent
fall from grace afterwards. He needsthe magic dust to feel anything you can
go through, and believe me,entire college courses I'm sure designed to do
this. Nothing would be more funand going through you know, just say

(01:48:39):
the first ten fifteen years of StephenKing novels and just going, Okay,
what's the metaphor here, what's theallegory here? And sometimes they're very close.
I mean sometimes it's almost just like, I mean, misery is like,
well, there's no metaphor. It'sabout it's about the voracious fan.
You know. It's like and it'sliterally about a voracious fan. It's like,
Okay, the Dark Half is literallyabout how you know, you know

(01:49:02):
what, the freedom of the pseudonym, but the curse of the pseudonym,
you know, and then then youcan just go back to you know,
it's like, well, okay,so really the dark half is Jacqueline High,
Yeah, you know so, oris it Frankenstein. I Mean,
there's nothing more fun than doing thatmath. But that's what the best writing
is. So yes, sometimes aperson lives a life in New York and

(01:49:26):
then writes bright lights, big cityor less than zero. But for the
rest of us, we're trying tofigure out what zombies have to do with,
you know, our lives, andit's not that hard to figure it
out, and then writes right,because the best zombie stories the zombies are
an allegory for something else. Anyways, Yeah, Romero did it perfectly,
and so did Dan O'Bannon. Thefirst Turn of the Living Dead the first

(01:49:46):
night I have Living Dead about youknow, racism. Dawn of the Dead
was about consumerism, and I forgetwhat. I forget what the last one
was about. Day of the DeadDead, Yeah, forgot, it was
about about war. Kind of so, Richard, because this episode has been
going on for quite some time now, I think it would be only app
since this is probably the last timethat I will ever be talking to you

(01:50:10):
about this movie in a recorded narrative, because this is the second time now,
I wanted to kind of seed thefloor to you, for you to
kind of give your your kind ofwhat what under Siege two ultimately means to
you thirty years later and kind oflike where you're kind of like again,
you've already kind of talked to ita little bit, but like I just
I guess I kind of want toknow, with hindsight being what it is

(01:50:31):
now, what does under Siege twomean to you? Know? Sitting down
and rewatch again, Well, it'sI can enjoy it now much more than
I could then because for the formany years, all I was seeing were
the missed opportunities and remembering all thescenes that we wrote and the way we
want things to play out. Andthen and then then you sort of turn
a corner after a while. Andluckily, other things happened in my career

(01:50:54):
that I was very proud of andand happy about, and I got to
feel that I did express something ofmy self, primarily in the Mothman prophecies
and in the television show that Idid Miracles, which which is very mothman
esque, very much sort of thatsame mood and tone and of those same
concerns. But after that, itwas like, oh, you know what,

(01:51:15):
people watch the movie, people enjoyit, people have good memories of
it, even though they don't obviouslyhave you know, you know, Steven
Seagal is not anyone that you know, people are really proud of or excited
about now, but back in theday when he was making movies, I
think people do have good memories ofthe summer they saw that movie, or
if they saw it with their dad, like I said, which is great,
I mean, and that's all.That's Look, a lot of people

(01:51:36):
don't really know what movie stars arereally like. The vast majority of them
are fantastic people and then some arereally really not. But the movie you're
watching, you're allowed to enjoy it. You're allowed to enjoy whatever you want.
You know, it's a work ofart. It isn't the person.
I got past my own personal historywith it. I came to enjoy it.

(01:51:57):
I went to a twenty fifth anniversaryscreening of it in Los Angeles a
few years back, and it wasreally fun to see it with a crowd
of people far younger than me andsee how they reacted to it and what
their feeling was. And they justlooked at it as this odd artifact,
like this is nuts. Those effectsare precgi, the stunts are bizarre.

(01:52:23):
The logic and tone and just assertionof what the values of the movie are
are so not the way movies aremade today. That that it's a revelation
for people, and if they likemovies, they really find it. I
don't really find a campy maybe campyas part of it, but they certainly
get a lot out of it anda lot to enjoy. So I have

(01:52:45):
I have all you know, goodmemories. I love Verne's book, I
love Vern's coverage of it, Ilove Verney Away, and and when I
look back on it as a timewhen I learned how to write, and
when I was spending you know,hours and hours and hours. I mean,
I've never I've never spent as muchtime with Matt since because he went
off to direct and I went offinto television, which was always my number

(01:53:10):
one goal. And we've remained friendsever since, and we've seen each other
and we've even worked together. Hedirected The Miracles pilot, which is And
yet that was when we were youngand hungry and terrified, and both of
us utterly convinced we would never workin this business, that the odds were

(01:53:31):
just against us, and that andthat who were we to ever think we
would ever be able to work inHollywood? And if there's a lesson to
be learned, it's that, youknow, spend the time. You know.
We didn't do it as a lark. We worked for years on it
before it ever was read by anyoneelse, because we wanted it to be

(01:53:54):
the best action movie that had everbeen made, even it was based structurally
on something else. That's what youdo if you if you sit down to
write a romantic comedy, you watchevery romantic comedy of the last eighty five
years, and you all of thatinto the one that you write, and
there's certain things that are always goingto be there, you know, structurally,
And that's what we were doing,and we did it with love,

(01:54:15):
and we wrote a script that welove more than anything we'd ever done.
And I think even when we lookback at it, we're like, God,
that script, that was the onethat was the one that told us
that maybe we had we had whatit took. Do you still have a
copy of it? The original?Like first rep? I guess the question,
I guess the real question, Richardis is that it for that script?
Oh yeah, yeah, neither oneof us. It's like, yeah,

(01:54:36):
we did that. There's you know, he's working obviously on his stuff.
I'm doing my things. It was, you know, what happened happened
one way or another. It gotus both to our next steps. Um,
you know, with me, Ikind of had to start over because
it's tough when when you're when you'rewhen you're moving forward as a writer.
People saw that as well, thisis co written and we don't know who

(01:54:59):
wrote what, so now we needyour thing. And it wasn't until actually
nineteen ninety five, the year thatmovie came out, I wrote another movie
that never got made, but itwas the movie that got me every every
job, at every meeting, andit was the first one that I ever
wrote on my own that was reallygood. And then two years after that

(01:55:19):
I wrote for three years after that, I wrote Mothman Prophecies, and then
that one got bought and eventually made, And then that was the one that
really sort of cemented me as,oh, okay, he's a writer on
his own. What was the onein between under siegeed Mothman Um. It
was a script that was originally calledTruther Consequences because it took place in New

(01:55:41):
Mexico and there's a city in NewMexico. Yeah, yeah, and then
and then and then and then Ichanged the title to Day of the Dead,
but that was confusing because people thoughtit was the zombie thing, but
I'm like, no, it's Diade los Mortos. That's weird that we
just mentioned that too. Yeah.And then it was in development for a
while under the time Little Redemption,which I never loved, and for a

(01:56:01):
while it looked like it was goingto get made, and then and then
ultimately it just it just fell outof development and never quite got made,
but it got me the job writingthe A Team movie in nineteen ninety six,
which was you know, at thattime, The eighteen was my favorite
show. Was kind of the reasonI got into TV writing. So being

(01:56:23):
able to work with Stephen Cannell andwrite that movie was the greatest year ever.
But but ultimately that draft never gotmade and fourteen years later they made
a different version and That's Fine,which was a movie I enjoyed. And
then our version more lighthearted, morelike the spirit of the show. Yeah,
I think so, I think becausethe Joe Carnahan film, I mean,
as entertaining as it is, it'sa really entertaining film, but it's

(01:56:45):
it's darker than the eighteen usually is. Yeah, but it was enjoyable.
It was made it a different timeand and you know Candell always wanted to
do He's like, the tone Iwant this movie to have is True Lies.
I wanted to be over the top, but not to the point where
you dismiss it and check out.But it's got to have that feeling.
It shouldn't feel like, you know, whatever the barn identity or aside from

(01:57:12):
the problematic stuff in True Lies,it's a great movie. He loved it,
like it's funny, but it's big, over the top action and that's
what So that was what I wastrying to do with my draft. And
then but then, but then,then Moffman was was like eighteen didn't get
made, was considered that script wasconsidered a failure. I was kind of
like Underseiege two would come out,you know, was not considered anything great

(01:57:32):
and I only had shared credit.I was kind of nowhere, and and
that's when I decided, I gotI'm going to write a movie about the
supernatural with no guns. I wasgonna write something totally different. And I
had no money, I had nooffers, I'd know nothing. And I

(01:57:53):
wrote that script and then a coupletwo three very lucky things happened and it
got made, and then that ledto the show Miracles, which got me
into TV. And the fact thatthat got made was a miracle. So
make no mistake. Yes, yougot to be talented and then you have
to be lucky. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I know the feeling.

(01:58:15):
It's just you literally don't know.Well, now, let me ask you
something like after Underseage two got releasedin theaters, like, were you ever
approached to by this year? Waslike, hey, what about Underseage three?
Do you have any ideas for thatone? They just come out because
because Matt and I did not continueas a writing team immediately. Yeah,
if we had wanted to, andif if Matt's goal was to direct,

(01:58:36):
and at the time, it didn'tseem like us like us co writing things
was going to lead to him directingthings. So he, you know,
in the early nineties, also wentto uh grad school and then and then
was like, I want to makea very small film for my first film,
and his agents hooked him up withJason Kadam's and they wrote The Pall

(01:58:56):
Bearer and that, and that wasdesigned to be his his directorial debut.
And while he was doing that,I was writing the eighteen movie and other
big action things and then ultimately Mothman. So his movie came out, and
then Mothman got purchased, and thenover a number of years ultimately got made.
And so we're just sort of beenon different paths and and and so,

(01:59:18):
so we never got a chance totake advantage of under Siege two.
Yeah, So the Paul Barr youmean the David Schwimmer glance, Oh,
I didn't I wrote that. Ididn't know that that's interesting co wrote and
directed it. I didn't know well, and you know it's you know,
like you've kind of mentioned, youknow, in this you know, this
Undersiege two story. The other thingis, I mean, you know your

(01:59:40):
original script wasn't Undersea, wasn't anunder Siege sequel to begin with? Right,
you know. It's like it's likeall those things that that were essentially
you know, scripts for X Filesepisodes that God turned into movies like the
one like Final Destination. Right,It's like, we've got this great script.
How do we take advantage of preexisting things? Yeah? Well it's
like what Dihad the Vengeance that wassupposed to be a lethal weapon film original?

(02:00:00):
A lot of films turn up we'restarting out is like other things fact
scripts for other ideas. Yeah,So, I mean a lot of people
don't know. Die Hard was basedon a book called Nothing Lest Forever by
Rodert Thorpe, and the original quoteunquote original starred Frank Sinatra as I think
was called the Detective, and hewas supposed to be in die Hard.

(02:00:21):
Yeah, he had the option tostar in diarc. He had the option
to star and Diehard, and heturned it down, and they went to
Bruce Willis and the rest is history, because I really can't see Frank Sinatra
going hey, yippikaya, motherfucker.That would have been pretty great though that
was more Telly Savalis than than FrankSinatra. But whatever. So Richard,
I do want to thank you forjoining us. This has been I think

(02:00:43):
about as deep of a dive intounder Siege two as I don't think anyone's
covering this movie because I don't know. If there's an there must be an
action movie podcast out there. Therehas to be. I just I don't
understand why, like some of theseSagal movies are so fun and they just
kind of get discounted because there's Sagalmovie. Like, yeah, well,
that's what we do with the podcast. We do what Richard says, we'd
kind of we we we see thefilm and not the artist. Yah.

(02:01:06):
We watch well yeah, I meanbecause because I don't think we've hidden it
very well that sometimes we do kindof shit on the on the pod.
I mean, he has some prettyterrible opinions about stuff so well. I
mean, and some of those movies, especially like more directive video stuff,
feel a little more self indulgent andthen we kind of have to talk about

(02:01:27):
that because you can't really not talk, you know, when you when you
go back and read anything about Hollywood, you know, I mean, go
go back to the eighties, theseventies, the sixties, fifties, go
even further back. It's really readingabout who these people were, from the
studio chiefs to the directors to theactors. But there's a lot of genius
and a lot of really reprehensible behavior, and some of it's a reflection of

(02:01:50):
the time, and some of it'sa reflection of Hollywood culture and and indulging
artistic misbehavior and putting it, youknow, and ascribing it too well,
you know, what do you expectfrom an actor, a director, a
writer, you know, the musician? Yeah, you know, And then

(02:02:10):
of course, and then of coursewe realize, oh wait a second,
But it's everybody. It's it's it'spolitics, and it's business, and it's
Wall Street, it's everywhere, it'sit's anywhere people are given power. That
power will be used to allow somepeople to do some pretty shitty things to
other people. So so it's like, you know, it's just more interesting

(02:02:32):
with Hollywood because you know the nameswell, and you get to end.
They're making a product that I thinkis universally consumed. You know, you
know they're they're like you said,I was having this conversation Earlier's like,
they're terrible people in all these industries. It's just they're not making movies that
people watch. We don't. There'sno way to really connect up with the
shitty behavior of the people at youknow, you know, Hewlett Packard.

(02:02:55):
Yeah, some some tech firm orsome you know, auto firm, or
some oil firm. It's like,yeah, okay, whatever. Definitely an
oil firm because Segal will just yeah, He's show up and kill you,
especially if you look like Michael Caine. So so Richard would you're not here?
Where could people find you if theywere looking for you or things that
you have worked on? They canfind me on Twitter at Richard HadAM And

(02:03:16):
if you want to know what I'vebeen doing for the last few years and
I'm still doing now, check outTitans on HBO Max. The first three
seasons are available for streaming, andwe're working on season four right now filming
in Toronto. Jesus Christ. Therecould be five and six, and seven,
and eight and nine, ten,who knows never Sky's the limit.
Sky's the limit. When you're talkingabout comic book stuff. They like to

(02:03:39):
run things into the ground, andgod damn it they will. Oh yeah,
let's do it, baby. Thisis how you explain morbous. That's
why they made morbious. They wantedto milk the Spider Man teat as much
as they could, exactly, andMorbius is more. Yeah, exactly.
What about you, Trevor, Wherecan people find you? Well, you
can find me on Twitter at adVertigo. Yeah, basically on Twitter because

(02:04:02):
Instagram is something I don't really usethat much Twitter. I mainly used to
troll Scientology, but you know,yeah, you can find me on bed
Forgo. You can also find mefrom time to time on the Culture Cast
with Yours truly Chris Stashu. Yeah, that's where you can go find me,
and please find me. I needto be found. I don't know
where I am right now. HelpI'm lost, man and ask man.
Prophecies's a good one. And asfor me, you can find me at

(02:04:27):
c Stashu dot com, cstacchiw dotcom. That's my link tree. Go
there. I Richard and I workon a podcast together called rankin on Bass.
It's a waking nightmare for Richard,a true fever dream of an experience
every time we get together and recordwith our dear friend who's also has his
own show, mister Mike White ofthe Projection Booth podcast, who I work
with on other shows like Barney Miller, Colombo other things that Richard has been

(02:04:51):
on, actually on episodes of bothof those. So you can find all
that at c Stashu dot com.As for this show on sagal dot com,
and that's it where you can go. We have a Facebook Twitter,
but we just post the episodes.Come on, we're making the content.
Come listen. By the way,Underseage two is a ponytail up. Yeah
it is. Well, it's likeit's better than under Siege. So there
you go, which I think wetalked about Underseage like three hours. So

(02:05:14):
and big thanks to you, Richard. This has been a long episode.
I think this is probably the longestepisode that you and I have ever done
together for Trevor and I. It'sprobably I think as long as the Verne
episode, almost as long, maybea little longer. We're at right now,
we're at two hours and forty oneminutes, so it's it's been feel
bad for the guy who has thisshow. But you know what, though,
it's it's been a great two anda half hours because this has been

(02:05:34):
a long time in the making.Like when I first mentioned Erse, I
said to him, we gotta getRichard, we go, we gotta talk
at Richard, and then I brokeyour heart and I was like, Richard
and I have technically already talked aboutit together. Richard and I have probably
talked about under Siege two together forlike five fucking hours at this But I'm
a stubborn son of a bitch.Chris, I know, it was like,
I need we want average another.I was like, okay, bye,

(02:05:56):
I gotta talk to Richard Man.Chris knows that I, you know,
I like to talk. So gettingme to talk about anything, but
especially under Siege two, you knowthat's not a big ask. I'm happy
to do it. And it wasso so great to be here, and
I'm so happy to talk to youguys, and hopefully you guys will keep
going with I don't know, someother podcast and I can go back and
just not Cigal, nothing fucking Cigal. He's no more cical, no worse atal

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