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1:07

WTF. Okay, okay,

1:09

okay. Lock the

1:12

gate! All

1:21

right, let's do this. How are you? What the

1:23

fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck, Nick?

1:25

How's everyone holding up here in the

1:28

final stages of civilization

1:31

and occupancy of the planet

1:33

Earth? How's it going

1:35

for you? Are you staying busy? Are

1:38

you staying busy in these

1:40

trying times with worry and

1:43

panic and some

1:45

maybe some, you know, tanning? I

1:47

don't know what you're doing. Are

1:49

you scrolling right now? Are

1:51

you on the treadmill? Have you given

1:54

up on that? Are you just eating

1:56

whatever the fuck you want because today

1:58

it doesn't matter anymore? Just. Doesn't matter

2:01

if I wake up tomorrow I can start over

2:03

again with what I'm supposed to be doing but

2:06

today Today I feed the

2:08

whole Today I feed

2:10

the whole where those t-shirts,

2:13

huh? So only a couple

2:15

kinds of people in the world. There's fuck

2:18

you people and there's um fucked

2:20

people Sadly, that

2:22

means everybody's kind of fucked But you

2:24

know the fuck you people seem

2:26

to have a the upper hand cuz they don't give

2:28

a shit Morally or

2:30

empathetically or or Spiritually,

2:34

you know so today

2:36

on the show my friends Robert

2:39

Zemeckis is here. He's the director

2:41

of the back to the future

2:43

movies Forrest Gump Who frame

2:45

Roger Rabbit castaway flight lots more?

2:48

Used cars. Yeah, go see how

2:51

that one holds up his new movie with Tom

2:53

Hanks and Robin Wright is called Here

2:55

and I saw it. It's very interesting There's

2:58

a device to it that that

3:00

works and it's not it's like nothing

3:02

I've seen before in terms of dealing

3:04

with time cinematically

3:08

He's a kind of a risk taker in terms of

3:10

I don't know if it's a risk-taking thing but he

3:12

enjoys and embraces the

3:14

possibilities of technology

3:16

to tell a human story and

3:20

I walked out I walked into that movie

3:23

not expecting it To

3:25

open with the the dinosaurs Yeah,

3:28

literally opens with the dinosaurs and

3:31

moved right up into the present day

3:33

all on the same piece of property

3:36

without moving the camera What

3:39

do you what do you think of that? And

3:42

also, you know, I watched Roger

3:45

Rabbit You

3:47

know when I was preparing to talk to

3:49

Robert I was watching,

3:51

you know Roger Rabbit And

3:54

I don't think I'd seen it since it came out

3:56

and I gotta be honest, man. It's a fucking great

3:58

movie It's It's

4:00

just a great movie. And

4:03

the whole template is there for how

4:06

he, you know, thinks about things. But

4:08

even the effects hold up because they're

4:10

simple. And

4:13

the actors played so beautifully

4:15

with the cartoon. I can't, it

4:17

doesn't even feel like me saying this,

4:19

but you should re-watch that. If

4:22

you just want some entertainment with

4:24

a lot of heart, you

4:26

know, watch Roger Rabbit. I mean,

4:29

outside of the device, Bob Hoskins

4:32

is fucking a marvel. I

4:35

don't know how much time you

4:37

spend appreciating Bob Hoskins, but

4:39

I would say it's time to start. And

4:41

I would go right from Roger Rabbit to like

4:44

Long Good Friday. Get the

4:46

full spectrum of the Hoskins. I

4:49

wish I'd talked to that guy. I'll be at Dynasty

4:51

Typewriter in Los Angeles on Saturday, October

4:54

26th. The

4:56

rest of my tour dates are scheduled for

4:58

next year. You can go to wtfpod.com/tour to

5:00

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rocketmoney.com/WTF. That's

6:11

rocketmoney.com/WTF. I

6:13

had a major breakthrough on set last week if anyone

6:16

cares and I can't really go into it, but eventually

6:18

I will be able to. But I did a scene

6:20

with a movie star, one of the

6:22

great actresses. And

6:26

I got to a place I've never gotten before and

6:28

now I can never go back. I'm

6:31

a changed man because

6:33

of the work I did with this woman. Changed

6:36

man emotionally, creatively,

6:38

and every other way. I went and did comedy

6:40

the other night after I did these two fucking

6:43

scenes last week that kind of took me to

6:45

a place that I never thought I could get

6:47

to. And already it's

6:49

had an amazing impact on

6:52

just my standup. I

6:55

can't even explain it right now, but hopefully I'll

6:57

be able to. But

6:59

boy, man, we did something and

7:02

I can never go back now. I

7:05

just got to a place and I'd rather save

7:07

the story for when I can

7:11

really tell it to you because it was

7:13

pretty powerful. And

7:15

it's going well. I'm tired, there's a lot of work. And I

7:17

just want you to know, look, you guys, I'm

7:20

trying to put the pieces together. I understand now

7:22

a bit more about how the

7:24

fascism is going to work. You

7:27

know, look, if this election goes one

7:29

way, it's going to be fucking terrible

7:33

beyond anything we can imagine.

7:36

That's one outcome. The other outcome,

7:38

it's going to be manageable

7:42

and probably a bit

7:46

hopeful, just in terms

7:49

of holding back the tide

7:51

of hateful monsters. And

7:54

here's the thing about

7:56

the way, what's

7:58

happening, especially in show business. to

16:00

be to make the illusion true. Well,

16:02

I had a curiosity when working with actors, and

16:04

this is not, you know, this is sort of

16:06

an off-road question. Do you find

16:08

that most of them sort of load up

16:10

right before the scene? Like, they kind of

16:12

do their line work the night

16:15

before or what have you or have

16:17

sides on the set and stuff? Like,

16:19

Tom, how's Hank's work? No, I don't

16:21

know. Tom is... I

16:23

don't know, because I never ask actors about their

16:25

process ever. But

16:27

I'll tell you what I see, Tom will be

16:29

on his mark, finishing

16:32

a joke with a

16:34

crew member, another cast member, and

16:37

they're rolling the camera, and they, you know, they

16:39

mark the shot, and he would finish the punch

16:41

line, and I would say action, and he would

16:43

do the scene. No kidding. So I wonder if

16:45

that's his way of getting into the present. Could

16:47

be. It could be kind of like a, you

16:50

know, kind of like just kind of a... some

16:52

kind of a, you know...

16:55

Not some kind of a verbal Zen

16:57

thing or something? I don't know. So

17:00

here's what I thought of like moments

17:02

before you came here in terms of

17:05

what seems to be a through line, even up

17:07

to this new movie. But

17:10

there's something about time travel and

17:13

you. Mm-hmm. That it... because it

17:15

seems like there was a perfecting

17:19

of time travel. In

17:21

this movie, there's some sort

17:23

of... in the movie here, there's...

17:25

it's almost like an organic approach to

17:28

moving through epochs, you know, literally thousands of

17:30

years in a way that is

17:32

smooth. I

17:35

mean, you know, with Back to the Future, it's

17:37

actually a time travel movie. Right. And

17:39

with Gump, you're inserting a

17:41

guy into actual history through

17:44

images. Right. But I mean,

17:46

is that something you think about? I don't

17:48

think about... I don't think about... Well,

17:51

listen, now that I've made a bunch of movies,

17:53

I think that I think about this time travel

17:55

thing. And here's what I think might be the

17:57

reason, I don't really know, is... Nothing

18:01

does it better than movies. Sure. I

18:03

mean, and movies are actually time

18:06

shifting art form. Yeah. I

18:09

mean, film was going through, well, the old days,

18:11

film was going through a gate or like what

18:13

we're doing now, it's a cursor moving across a

18:15

timeline. Yeah. And that's what you call

18:17

it, the timeline. Right, sure. And

18:19

so that might have something to do with it, but I

18:22

just, you know,

18:24

I just fell in love with the

18:26

book here, the graphic novel. Yeah. And

18:29

just immediately saw the movie, saw

18:31

the movie that I made,

18:33

you know, I just saw it. And I, you

18:35

know, when I watched it, I didn't know it

18:37

was from a graphic novel, but the way the

18:39

technology works, it's pretty clear you're

18:42

honoring with

18:44

the squares. The panels. The

18:46

panels. Yeah, yeah. That you're honoring a graphic

18:48

novel format. Right, exactly. But do you think,

18:50

like, now with all this discussion

18:53

about AI and everything and about technology in

18:55

general, seeing that, you know, you were at

18:57

the cutting edge of all this cinema technology.

19:00

I mean, you obviously don't think it's

19:02

a threat to anything and it's obviously

19:04

an amazing tool, but

19:08

are you concerned about the human element?

19:10

Well, look, I mean, I think, look,

19:13

OK, I'll go into my whole feeling

19:15

about it. My feeling about it is,

19:17

first of all, every new technology is

19:19

instantly feared. Yeah. So that's

19:22

that we know. I mean, people were

19:24

terrified of electricity. They were terrified of

19:26

steam trains going faster than 30 miles

19:28

an hour. You

19:31

know, they thought the human body couldn't, you know,

19:34

it was impossible, you know, it would be bad

19:36

for your health to travel that fast. Faster

19:39

than 30 miles an hour. 30 miles an hour, right? Yeah.

19:43

So we'll get through that. But

19:45

yeah, but I think that it

19:48

certainly can be misused. I

19:50

mean, we're going to see it big time in

19:52

this election. And

19:55

then on the other side, it's there. I read things where

19:57

I said, well, this could cure cancer. I

24:00

mean, it's gonna come, here's what, here's, okay,

24:04

so it's supposed to be a medium

24:06

that's entertaining. Yeah. Okay, so

24:08

we have to entertain. Yeah. Okay,

24:10

and. That was all,

24:12

that's all you ever thought of. I

24:14

always understood that I'm in a mass

24:16

entertainment industry, that's what

24:18

I always understood. And that was your

24:21

goal. Because that's what I

24:23

loved. I loved going to movies and

24:25

I had a thing happen, in

24:30

my hometown of Santa Barbara. Yeah. Just

24:32

like, a couple weeks ago, this summer they

24:34

ran, there's an old theater

24:37

there called the Granada,

24:39

and they're celebrating its 100th year.

24:41

Yeah. And they're gonna remind

24:43

everyone that they used to run movies there

24:46

as well. Right. And they

24:48

only wanted to run movies from local filmmakers. Okay.

24:51

So they ran all my big hit

24:53

movies. Yeah. I have people

24:55

who aren't, and they come up to me and they

24:57

were saying, and they're much younger than me. I am,

24:59

and go, oh my God, we went to the movie,

25:01

went so bad to the future. And people

25:04

were cheering in the movie and they

25:06

were laughing and they were applauding when

25:08

things would happen. And I'm thinking, yeah,

25:10

well that's what it used to be

25:12

like to go to, when you weren't

25:14

watching stuff in isolation. Yeah. And

25:17

that was, well that's the human side of

25:19

it. I mean, I guess that's the counter

25:21

to the mass entertainment or being

25:24

sort of involved and compelled

25:26

to push the envelope technologically,

25:29

is that in your mind, you

25:31

have to sort of accommodate the idea that most people

25:33

are gonna watch this at home. And

25:35

they're gonna be alone. Or they're gonna

25:37

be with the, Yeah, that's hard for me

25:39

to, I'm having a hard time wrapping, but

25:42

I can only, well let me put it this way. I've

25:45

decided that I can only do what I used to always do

25:51

and see what the

25:53

movie feels like. I mean, seen

25:55

here in a full theater, like

25:57

when we were previewing, it's got in a moment.

26:00

emotional wallop. Yeah, did it play? You

26:02

felt it? Oh, God, yeah. Yeah.

26:04

Oh, yeah. So, I mean, but was this,

26:06

do you remember your first experience with movies? When I was a kid? Yeah.

26:09

Oh, yeah. Like the one that was like, you

26:12

know, oh my God. Well, I can tell you

26:14

the movie, interestingly, I can tell you, I'll tell

26:16

you the movie that, so

26:18

when I was a kid, you know, I

26:21

loved going to movies, I loved going to see

26:23

war movies, and anything with special effects in it,

26:25

you know, monster movies. Did you go with your

26:27

dad or something? I would go with my dad.

26:29

I would go, you know, where I grew up,

26:32

you know, we was far south

26:34

side of Chicago, and we'd

26:38

go on Tuesday nights because ladies would get in

26:40

free, you know, that kind of thing. And

26:42

I mean, they took me to see Psycho. I

26:45

mean, you know, I mean, it

26:47

was great. I

26:49

remember the first movie I ever saw, ever,

26:51

and it was The Blob. I

26:55

remember it vividly. So when I was

26:58

in high school, all

27:00

the kids in school were saying, hey, you got to

27:02

go see this movie called Bonnie and Clyde. Yeah. And

27:05

it's got this great machine gunning thing at the end. It's

27:07

great. You got to go see

27:09

it. And so I talked my dad into taking me to

27:11

see Bonnie and Clyde. Yeah.

27:13

And which is one of

27:16

my, obviously, it's one of my favorite movies, Arthur

27:18

Penn, great director. Yeah, I

27:20

rewatch that again, you know,

27:22

the layers of the

27:24

sexual elements of that movie. You

27:27

can't take that in when you're a kid. I can't

27:29

take it in when you're a kid. But I did

27:31

fall in love with those characters. Yeah. Yeah.

27:34

And then there's that great scene when

27:38

Gene Hackman gets shot in the head. Oh, yeah.

27:41

And he's dying in this field. Cars

27:43

parked around with the headlights on. And

27:46

I felt so horrible. Yeah. And

27:50

it was the first time I really remember saying,

27:53

wait, something's going on here. I'm

27:55

saying this is really, this is

27:58

powerful because... I'm in

28:00

this movie theater with these people and

28:02

I feel really bad for this thing

28:04

that doesn't even exist. Right,

28:07

these shadows. And these are criminal. And these are

28:09

criminals. And I thought, and that's what I said,

28:11

I gotta figure, I gotta find out what this

28:13

is. The magic? The magic.

28:15

And then I started understanding, oh

28:17

wait, there's writers. And then there's

28:19

a director. And I started learning

28:21

everything about how films

28:23

were made. The magic works. And

28:26

where all that came from. And

28:28

then I just had

28:30

to do it. Well, so how did your parents feel

28:32

about this obsession? I

28:38

mean, were they supportive? What kind of family you come

28:40

from? Was it a working class family? Oh, working poor

28:42

family, yeah. Well, we thought we were middle class. But

28:44

when I look back on it, we were. No,

28:47

it was. Were they

28:49

immigrants, your folks? My mother,

28:52

interestingly enough, came over. My mother,

28:54

my father, my name is. My

28:56

father's Lithuanian, his family. And my

28:59

mother is Italian. And

29:01

that's a combination that can only happen

29:04

in Chicago. Chicago's an amazing city. Yeah,

29:06

it really is. And so my

29:10

mother came over when she was one

29:12

year old. So she was born in Italy.

29:14

Yeah. So

29:16

anyway, that's the family I grew up with.

29:18

Your dad grew up, he was born here?

29:20

My dad was born here. Yeah. And

29:23

what was his business? He

29:25

was a carpenter. He

29:28

was a trim carpenter. And

29:30

he would make cabinets in the

29:32

basement. He had a little working shop. Oh,

29:34

wow. That didn't strike

29:36

you as an occupation.

29:40

I can't hammer a nail straight

29:42

or do a saw cut. I

29:45

can't do one speck of it. So

29:47

you grew up with that saw in the basement? The sound

29:49

of it? Oh, yeah. All those DeWalt

29:53

Rotor songs. All

29:56

that running down there all the time. You

29:59

have brothers and sisters? The

36:00

HX. Yeah. The student film.

36:03

Right. And it was like, holy shit. Yeah. This

36:06

is a high bar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was very

36:08

dramatic. Did that appear to you as an art film? To

36:13

me, that was just, no, that was a science

36:15

fiction story. Yeah. And it

36:17

was like a spectacular student

36:19

film with just, I mean, a

36:22

student film that takes place in the future. Yeah. So

36:25

that was in real life. It was like

36:27

giant, brilliant, huge production. Right. And

36:29

you realize there's no limits. Yeah. It's like you

36:31

can do anything. So what did you start? Because

36:35

I noticed my

36:37

girlfriend brought it to my attention that the tracking shot

36:39

at the beginning of Back to the Future,

36:42

and then you got to go back. You must have watched Touch

36:44

of Evil. Right, too. I mean, that

36:46

seems to be anyone, anybody who does it, I think Alvin

36:48

did it in the player too. Anytime

36:51

you're opening with a tracking shot that lasts a half hour,

36:53

you're just trying to beat well. Right, right. There

36:56

was one cut in that shot though, but yeah,

36:58

because the timing of the dog

37:01

food didn't hit

37:04

the thing. So

37:06

anyway, it almost was a Touch of Evil

37:08

shot. But I had to put too much. Did you have

37:10

that in your head? Yeah. No,

37:13

that was exactly the idea. Yeah, yeah.

37:16

To pay homage. No, I

37:18

wasn't thinking, it is a homage, but it was

37:20

just kind of like, hey, you know, this is,

37:24

I guess what

37:26

I was thinking was

37:28

there's nobody here. This

37:31

is just us showing all this to

37:33

the audience. And then the character walks

37:35

in. So the way to, again,

37:38

the way to do that is in the most

37:40

entertaining way that you can think of doing it.

37:43

Well, also, you're kind of like

37:45

an amazing storyteller at the base

37:47

of all this and a writer.

37:50

And it's like, even I noticed that in Roger Rabbit,

37:52

you just go around that office

37:55

and you get like an hour's worth of

37:57

story. Oh, yeah. You know, just

37:59

shooting that day. desk in those pictures and it's like, all

38:01

right, that's done. We know exactly

38:04

who this guy is. Yeah, that's true. That

38:06

was exactly the point. Exactly the point of

38:08

that shot. And you did it

38:11

with Dr. Brown in his lab. You kind of

38:13

like, you laid out, there's the whole movie. There

38:15

it is. Let's fill in the gaps. And

38:17

then, yeah, and in that shot in Roger Rabbit,

38:20

you're also transitioning through time.

38:23

We start at night and then we come by the

38:25

time that camera shot is done, we're in the next

38:27

morning. Where he wakes up. Where he wakes up. So

38:30

what was the relationship with

38:32

Spielberg? I

38:35

watched Used Cars recently. Oh, yeah.

38:38

That's one of my favorites. I like them all.

38:40

But yeah, that's a good one. That's

38:42

a good one. Oh, god, yeah. I mean, Jack Warden.

38:44

I mean, come on. Jack Warden and

38:46

Kurt Russell's fabulous in that movie. Oh,

38:49

yeah. But so were these, do you

38:51

look at those movies as you figuring

38:53

it out? Well, of

38:55

course, because you're always

38:58

learning something new. As

39:02

a matter of fact, I will say I could

39:05

never have made here, I

39:09

don't think, as a novice filmmaker. No. I

39:11

think I had to have a whole lifetime

39:13

of work in a body, of work to

39:15

figure out how to do that. And also

39:17

the confidence of not moving a camera shot.

39:20

Exactly, because I've done

39:22

enough what we

39:24

call singles or high concept

39:27

shots to know what the problems are

39:29

going to be. What were they? Well,

39:32

you got actors that are different heights

39:34

in different sizes, and you can't adjust

39:36

the camera to accommodate anything. With the

39:38

one shot. The one shot. So we

39:40

had elaborate trenches and ramps. Oh, wow.

39:42

Each one for different actors with their

39:44

sizes. Oh, my god. So that they

39:46

could all walk up into their close

39:48

up and back. And so

39:50

it was a, and then just the amount of

39:53

weeks it took to figure out what lens to

39:55

use. It took that long.

39:57

Yeah, because everything had to work. Yeah.

48:00

said, we need to give

48:02

us some notes. And he read it and he said, oh, this is,

48:04

I really like this. But he said, you know, Bob, you should direct

48:06

this. Literally like that. I

48:08

said, you should direct this. I said, I

48:10

know, I know, but how am I going to do that? He said,

48:12

let me make some calls. Now,

48:14

don't forget, this is after he made Jaws. Yeah,

48:16

right. So he had a lot of juice. So

48:20

he called Sid Scheinberg at Universal

48:23

and Sid read the script

48:25

and said, yeah, okay. And then we had, you

48:28

know, he said, yeah, this could, this is a, you know, the

48:30

young kids running around, Beatles songs.

48:32

All right, this could work. So he looked,

48:34

so he, so I made that. That

48:37

was it. You know, that was one of those experiences you

48:39

were talking about earlier where we were at a preview and

48:41

it was like, they

48:44

loved it. Yeah. We thought,

48:46

okay, this is amazing. Yeah. Obviously,

48:49

no, no, didn't make a penny. And. What

48:51

do you think that was about? I

48:55

can tell you exactly what it was about. I was thinking

48:57

back, it was about, I remember driving

48:59

into the lot every day, making a

49:01

movie. I'm going, I can't believe this.

49:03

I'm making a movie in Universal Studios.

49:05

Are you here at Culver? No. Over

49:08

here? Over here, yeah, Burbank. And

49:10

I'm driving in every day and I'm thinking, oh

49:12

my God, I'm like in the, I'm in this

49:14

giant infrastructure. This is

49:16

great. And

49:19

then when it's time to release the movie, we had

49:21

our first meeting with whoever was the

49:24

head of the marketing

49:28

department said, oh,

49:30

so, oh, yeah. What do you want us to do?

49:33

Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know

49:35

I'm supposed to do the marketing too.

49:40

I'll go try to figure some

49:43

stuff out for you. Yeah. So

49:46

that was an important lesson. They didn't know how to sell

49:48

it. Well, and it was like, kind of like, oh yeah,

49:50

this movie's here. It was kind of like it was one

49:52

of their, some little movie. It wasn't

49:55

on the, you know, it was. Yeah, but

49:57

they didn't, they didn't ice it intentionally. It

49:59

was just. that it had bigger fish to

50:01

fry. Right, right. And you had to get

50:03

into the pecking order system of

50:07

how these movies are. And

50:09

understanding that your job isn't just to make. It

50:12

wasn't like this giant

50:17

studio that was protecting you. Yeah. And

50:19

it wasn't like that. It was just

50:21

kind of like, OK, every movie has

50:23

a fight for itself.

50:25

And also, at that point, in being in penal

50:27

school, you've got to realize at certain

50:29

point that this is

50:31

post-studio system. But they used to make

50:33

hundreds of movies. Exactly. That would go

50:35

nowhere. Exactly. And every time

50:37

you see them, you're like, how did I not

50:40

know about this? Oh, because they made 50 other

50:42

movies that year. Yeah, exactly. And you're just in

50:44

the competition. Right, exactly. But

50:46

after that, you direct these cars.

50:49

Used cars, and that flopped at

50:51

the box office. And

50:54

what's interesting about that movie is

50:56

everybody somehow came. It

51:01

didn't make any money at the box office,

51:03

but it

51:05

exploded right at the birth of

51:07

cable television. OK. So everybody sees

51:09

that movie of mine. It was

51:12

like a giant cable television, early

51:14

cable television hit. But

51:17

that doesn't add up with the meat

51:19

encounters at the studio. No, it didn't.

51:21

And didn't. But it got you the

51:23

directing gig on Romancing the Stone? No,

51:25

no. Yeah, yes. Yes, because Michael loved

51:27

it. Michael Douglas loved the movie. He

51:29

liked used cars. And he liked used

51:31

cars. And he liked my directing style.

51:35

But what we had done, Bob and I,

51:38

we had gone to Columbia.

51:41

And Frank Price was the head of the studio. And he

51:43

liked used cars. And he made used cars. So

51:46

we went and we pitched him an idea. And it

51:49

was the most spectacular pitch that Bob and

51:52

I ever did. It

51:54

was one minute long. And

51:57

we went in and he said, OK, and, you know, Frank

52:00

was great, he put his feet up on the coffee table, and he

52:02

leaned back at his chair, he said, okay guys, what do you got?

52:04

And we said, the high school kid goes

52:07

back in time and meets his parents in high

52:09

school. He goes, done, deal,

52:11

go right. And

52:15

that was it. And that was it. Why

52:17

not? Why wouldn't he say anything else? What

52:19

does he got to lose? Exactly. Consequently,

52:21

he didn't make the movie or put it

52:23

in turn around. And so, put

52:26

the movie in turn around and. Did

52:29

you know that Back to the Future would be

52:31

an ongoing story for several films? No, no,

52:34

never. Yeah. Never. Not

52:37

even after we made the first movie,

52:39

we never had, because I

52:41

wouldn't have put, I wouldn't have put

52:44

the girl in the car. Right. If I

52:46

knew where it was gonna be a sequel, because we

52:48

had to write her out. Right, right, right, right. Get

52:51

on with the story and the sequel. But

52:54

it's interesting, so Romancing the Stone was kind of

52:56

a surprise hit. So you had a little juice

52:58

going in, right? Well, what happened

53:00

was, what happened was, we got

53:03

turned down from every single studio on Back

53:05

to the Future. I mean, 100%, even

53:07

after, sometimes twice. Yeah.

53:14

And the only person who said,

53:16

I really love this is Steven.

53:18

Yeah. And I sat down with

53:20

him and I said, you know, Steven, you produced two

53:23

of my movies. Yeah. And they didn't perform.

53:25

Yeah. I think if you produce the

53:28

third one and it doesn't perform, that might be the

53:30

end of it for me. Yeah. And he

53:32

saw it and he went, I think you're right. He

53:34

said, I think you're right. Yeah. So

53:37

then I looked for the other, and

53:40

all I kept getting offered

53:42

were these teen comedies. Yeah.

53:45

Just as a director, you mean. A director,

53:47

and then finally, Michael

53:52

gave me Romancing the Stone. And then fortunately,

53:55

that was my first hit movie. Yeah.

53:58

And then everybody wanted to make Back to the

54:00

Future. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and so Bob and I

54:02

said hey, we're gonna go to the guy who

54:05

The only guy who ever had any faith in it

54:07

go back to Steven Well, he did it and so

54:09

he did it. Yeah, and the other like you're very

54:11

protective of the franchise. Oh God,

54:14

yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, there can't be a

54:16

for yeah, and also no one can do a TV

54:18

thing or no And it's like

54:21

yeah, I mean it no we don't we

54:23

have a musical which is yeah, yeah fabulous

54:25

But that's sort of a companion to the

54:27

movie. It's not a remake of the movie

54:29

or anything Or yeah of our sequel to

54:31

the movie. Yeah, it's a and it's fun

54:33

that you somehow another locked in on to

54:36

Christopher Lloyd, you know

54:38

for that character, but also for who frame

54:40

Roger Rabbit. He's a singular kind of guy.

54:42

He's great Yeah, he's great and He's

54:46

great. I'm only and you know,

54:48

he would do this thing. He would ride his bike

54:51

Across the country. Yeah, and

54:54

I had sent him the script to We

54:57

had to find him and send a script to a

54:59

hardware store in North

55:01

Carolina. Yeah Where

55:04

he was somewhere on his bike and I sent him

55:06

the Roger Rabbit script and I got a call from

55:08

him A

55:10

couple days later. He said I just want to make

55:13

sure this is I can't do yeah. Yeah, he goes

55:15

I just want to make sure I got

55:17

this right Uh, I'm

55:19

a tune right? I said,

55:22

yeah, you're a tuna great. I'm in I'm doing

55:24

it As

55:29

a character Yeah But then you know I can

55:32

have this amazing run but it's interesting because you

55:34

know with the back of the futures then Forrest

55:36

Gump And in what lies beneath castaway like there

55:38

was a few other movies in there that I

55:40

don't remember seeing that as an insult But

55:43

I mean you were just making movies Yeah,

55:45

and you had enough freedom to do it

55:48

that you know If one didn't perform as

55:50

well as the other you didn't it didn't

55:52

kill you not no not I Yeah,

55:56

no, I was I was fortunate that most

55:58

of the movies that

56:00

I was making in the 80s and the 90s and

56:04

the early 2000s were connecting pretty

56:06

good. Yeah. And what was the

56:08

relationship with the, it's interesting. I

56:10

just realized there's another time travel element to

56:12

the new one is that you cast Robin

56:14

and Tom again. Yeah. But

56:17

that was only because, well, I made

56:19

quite a few movies with Tom. I

56:21

know. Yeah. And I made

56:23

quite a few movies with Robin. But we

56:25

never did anything together. And when Tom

56:29

signed on to do here, I said,

56:31

you know, Tom, I think, you know, you know,

56:33

it would be great. It would be, you know,

56:36

we should, or is Robin. And he went, oh

56:38

my God, that's fabulous. I called her, immediately

56:41

sent her the script, and she said, I'd

56:43

love to do it. And so there's the

56:46

three. So four of us from Forrest Gump

56:48

are, well, and plus there's a

56:50

whole bunch of crew people, too. Yeah. But

56:53

Eric and I, you know,

56:57

Eric wrote Gump. Yeah. Tom and Robin were

56:59

in Gump. Yeah. And I directed Gump. So

57:02

with Gump. But it's not Gump. No, of

57:04

course not. No, it's just interesting that the

57:06

pairing is sort of a romantic

57:09

pairing. Like, I always wonder, because I've done

57:11

a little acting, but like, you

57:13

know, you always assume that everybody stays friends and they know

57:15

each other. It's not the case,

57:18

you know, really, for most people. You know, they

57:20

work together and they go have their lives. But

57:22

I imagine for those two to get together in

57:24

a romantic way again, there must have been some

57:26

sort of sense memory

57:28

to the whole thing. Yeah, no,

57:30

it was great. I mean, most

57:32

movies are really, you know, people

57:35

will see my movies and go, oh my god, that must have been

57:37

so much fun. I go, no, it's fun

57:39

to watch. But

57:41

believe me, it wasn't fun to make.

57:45

But here was fun to make, because

57:47

it was like, OK, and

57:51

seeing Tom and Robin working together, it

57:53

was fantastic. And when

57:55

does this sort of like the obsession or

57:57

the compulsion to stay on the cutting edge?

58:00

of technology really kind of quick into

58:02

place after Roger? No,

58:05

I never really, you

58:07

know, I mean, here, you know, people think that

58:09

Back to the Future is a special effects movie and

58:11

it's only got 30 shots in it. And most

58:13

of them are lightning. Yeah. I've

58:17

never put that cart before the horse. Right.

58:20

But I do like to use every tool

58:22

that's in the toolbox. Right.

58:27

If I can, if I can afford it and if

58:29

I think it can work. And I love the idea

58:31

of saying, hey, how can we present something we've never

58:33

seen before, which I think is what filmmakers are kind

58:35

of supposed to do. Well, that's the thing about Roger

58:37

is that like, you know, I don't think I've seen

58:40

that before or again in the

58:42

same way. And I think a lot of it

58:44

had to do with the, you know, having license,

58:46

being able to license those characters that we all

58:48

grew up with. And that was Stephen's magnificent

58:52

contribution. He was the, and that's the

58:54

only thing, the only way that that

58:56

movie could have gotten made is

58:59

with that one guy who was the

59:01

executive producer who could

59:03

call every studio and say,

59:05

hey, I'd like to put your cartoon

59:08

characters in this Disney movie. Yeah. And

59:10

that'll never happen again. And it was a

59:12

miracle that it was able to happen. But

59:15

I'd forgotten even Betty Boop shows up. Oh,

59:17

yeah. And it's just like it's, and the

59:19

jokes are so great. And all the actors

59:21

were able to get that tone of that

59:23

period and those type of movies. It was

59:25

like, it was, I was, you know, and

59:27

it's just in my mind from last night,

59:29

I was completely taken with it, you know,

59:31

as a grownup. Yeah. And that's the weird

59:33

thing about movies, as we were talking about,

59:35

even with Bonnie and Clyde, that if the

59:37

movie is worth its whatever,

59:40

that it grows with you, that you're always

59:42

going to find new stuff. Yeah. No,

59:45

I think so. I mean, and the thing that's interesting,

59:47

I mean, but, you know, I made Roger for adults.

59:49

Yeah, of course. I mean, it's got cartoons in it,

59:51

but it was never supposed to be a kids' movie,

59:54

although, you know, why not? I pulled a couple of

59:56

punches with the patty cakes, but it was... Well, yeah,

59:58

but that was... right

1:06:00

around the year 2000. Okay. So

1:06:03

it kind of coincided with a lot of that

1:06:05

in a way. Yeah, but that was, yeah, exactly.

1:06:09

And they

1:06:11

have a volume in there now for performance

1:06:13

capture. They have a giant IMAX

1:06:16

theater in there or something. Do you teach? I

1:06:19

did. I took, before

1:06:22

that, in the early 90s, I

1:06:25

did teach a entire film

1:06:28

production class. And

1:06:31

it was a ton

1:06:33

of work. It was a ton of work.

1:06:36

It's interesting when you enter that, you're

1:06:38

like, well, sure, I'd like to share

1:06:40

my experience. And then all of a

1:06:42

sudden you got a job. Well, my,

1:06:44

well, it was my favorite

1:06:46

professors took

1:06:49

me to lunch one day.

1:06:51

And they said, it's time.

1:06:56

I said, okay, how much you

1:06:58

want? And they said, no, no, no, we

1:07:01

want your time. Oh, yeah. And I said, oh,

1:07:03

okay. And

1:07:06

then after you're like, I just write you a check next. Yeah,

1:07:08

right. And so

1:07:10

anyway, I taught this class and it was

1:07:12

great. And I insisted

1:07:14

that my screenwriting teacher co-teach

1:07:19

it with me because I wanted to combine

1:07:21

directing and writing because I'm

1:07:24

a big believer in that. Yeah.

1:07:28

Stories are the utmost importance. Well, yeah.

1:07:31

And I really think that the writer and the director have

1:07:33

to be tied to the hip. Yeah.

1:07:36

And I've never replaced the writer on any

1:07:38

movie I've ever made. And when you were

1:07:40

with, was Bob always on set with you

1:07:42

and all the writers? Oh,

1:07:44

yeah. All my writers

1:07:46

and some of them, very

1:07:49

few of them say, I really, I got

1:07:51

other stuff to do, but most of them

1:07:53

are always there. And I like having them,

1:07:55

I mean, I like having them

1:07:57

sit right next to me. Right, so you can

1:07:59

problem solving the money. moment if you have to.

1:08:01

Yeah, exactly. Now, where does flight come from out

1:08:03

of nowhere? So you do this, I'll just... I

1:08:06

was... Yeah, the script showed

1:08:08

up and I completely, you know, I just

1:08:10

completely got it. It's a beautiful script. Oh,

1:08:13

it's a great movie. Yeah, it's great. Oh

1:08:15

my God. Yeah. And like, you know, I

1:08:17

mean, you know, Denzel, I mean, that

1:08:19

guy, you just put him on screen. It's

1:08:21

like, you know, he's... He is the real

1:08:23

deal. Yeah, and you got to... You're worried

1:08:25

that like he's going to upstage the plane.

1:08:29

You know, because he's like so good. He's

1:08:32

great. I mean, he's fantastic.

1:08:34

He's just absolutely fantastic. I mean,

1:08:36

he's just... He is... I

1:08:39

mean, I can't say enough about him. But he's

1:08:41

different than Hanks. Completely different.

1:08:43

In the sense that like, you know,

1:08:46

as great actors, what makes Denzel like

1:08:48

so awesome? I

1:08:52

don't know. I mean, because he would

1:08:54

put these earbuds in him and he would show up... You

1:09:03

never knew... You never had a call for him

1:09:05

because he would... We would still be set up the shot and

1:09:07

then all of a sudden I'd look in the corner and he's

1:09:10

sitting there and he's in his wardrobe and

1:09:13

he's ready to go and he's got these

1:09:15

earbuds and he's just sitting there and thinking,

1:09:17

okay, well, this is his process. And

1:09:21

then he gets on his mark and he just... Just

1:09:23

perfect for this. Whatever he does, just

1:09:25

blows your mind. It's just perfect.

1:09:28

Wow. So we're starting to edit

1:09:31

the movie and

1:09:33

I was telling the story to my editor. I

1:09:35

was saying, you know, I noticed he's listening to

1:09:37

music before he... And

1:09:40

he said, I said, well, maybe give me... I know what that music

1:09:42

is because, you know, maybe I can use it. And

1:09:44

I said, hey, Denzel... I

1:09:47

noticed that you're listening to this music. You

1:09:50

mind if you share the playlist? He said, no way. No.

1:09:54

I said, okay. Thank you. I said

1:09:56

no. You

1:16:00

know, yeah, that's the problem right? Well,

1:16:02

I hope people see it. I enjoyed it. Well, I hope

1:16:04

you yeah Well appreciate that. Thank you. It was great talking

1:16:06

to you great talking to you That

1:16:13

was what you call a nice deep

1:16:17

good talk about film

1:16:20

and stuff Story stuff

1:16:22

life stuff great guy

1:16:24

that guy Here opens

1:16:26

in theaters on Friday, November 1st hang out for

1:16:29

a minute folks Did

1:16:33

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1:16:36

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fees may apply don't sit

1:17:17

this one out people Hey

1:17:20

people on Thursday I talked to country star

1:17:22

Keith Urban and Keith was actually on the

1:17:25

show once before for a few seconds It

1:17:27

was back during the pandemic when we were

1:17:29

doing stuff over zoom and when I talked

1:17:31

to Nicole Kidman Keith Made

1:17:33

a brief cameo Wow a

1:17:36

country music star and a movie star

1:17:38

in the same I

1:17:43

do I got a lot of guitars right behind me. Yeah,

1:17:46

what does Keith play? What do you usually play?

1:17:48

What's your guitar Telecaster? Everything Telestrats

1:17:50

Gibson's Les balls. What's your favorite one

1:17:52

though? It changes you like that single

1:17:54

coil sound I just got a I

1:17:57

got 62 s Paul jr. Few weeks

1:18:00

ago. Oh, 62, very nice. Right,

1:18:02

with the just the 1P90 on there, it's

1:18:04

great. There's nothing like it. I know, it's

1:18:06

a good rock guitar. Great rock guitar, yeah,

1:18:09

Billy Armstrong agrees. Bye.

1:18:11

Nice to talk to you. That's

1:18:16

who you should be talking to. That's episode 1191, and

1:18:19

you can listen to that for free right

1:18:21

now, wherever you're listening to this episode. To

1:18:23

get every episode of WTF ad free, go

1:18:25

to the link in the episode description or

1:18:28

go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF

1:18:30

Plus. A reminder before we

1:18:33

go, this podcast is hosted by Acast.

1:18:36

Here's some guitar after I listen to

1:18:39

Pink Floyd at the gym. Bye.

1:22:01

Boomer lives,

1:22:03

monkey in

1:22:05

the fondant,

1:22:07

cat angels

1:22:09

everywhere.