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The doors would close on the L and we would just sit there like idiots. 15 minutes. Forever. As the clock is ticking and I feel my career just like literally. Sliding away. Sliding away. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally.
Today is a great one. You may or may not know the name Ed Zwick, but you know the movies the man made, starting with About Last Night, a little movie that he made with me that kind of really made me in many ways. The movie Glory, the movie Legends of the Fall, the movie Last Samurai, the movie Blood Diamond, a little television series called 30-Something.
One of the, notoriously one of the smartest, most erudite. Get your vocabularies out for this one. I pride myself on my vocabulary. I think vocabulary is great. And Ed Zwick puts me to shame and he's gonna, I'm sure he'll unveil some great ones for us. Be listening for those. He has a new book coming out February 13th called Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions. If you're interested at all in movies, directing,
navigating Hollywood. It is sweet. So it's time for a little About Last Night reunion with my buddy, Director Ed Zwick. ♪
The fact that it took you writing, by the way, great book, which we'll get into, that it took that and then me hosting a podcast to get us reunited is a goddamn crime. I was so tempted to drive to Santa Barbara just for the sake of sitting in the room and seeing you. And, you know, life has somehow interceded. You can't do it because we're all so fabulous and important. But I really, I have to tell you two things. First of all,
You know, over this time, however long it's been, you've not written one, but two books, both of which I've read. And I figured this would actually be the perfect conversation because you've gone through that process of reinventing yourself and your own image. And all the various vagaries of what that really means when you're writing that book.
But also, Troy, my assistant, had done some, we've been going through these archives because we're putting all this stuff on. I'm not a writer any longer or a director. I'm a content creator and a marketer. Yes, of course you are. Promoting myself. But anyway, he came across this little clip, which I'll send you, of you doing an interview during about last night, talking about Special Bulletin.
And it's so charming. You are so earnest and so enthusiastic about it. It touched me. And I'll tell you why that it pertains to my life at this moment, too. But I just thought you should know that. You know what? It's so funny. I was thinking about you and your... I mean, unfortunately, or fortunately, this conversation could go on for five hours. But I was thinking about fucking Special Bulletin, which...
a lot of people don't know. It was TV. It doesn't really live on. It was so ahead of its time. It was so good. Like, is there a new version, a new iteration to be made? Well, that's, well, that's in fact, we're working on something which I can't really talk about now, but,
There are certain ways in which the culture has caught up and yet we could stay ahead of it in a different way. And maybe offline, at least when we're done, I'll tell you a little bit about it because you were into it in the day. And it will, I think you'll dig it. So the answer to that is yes.
Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, where does one begin in the storied? First, okay, let's talk about the book. I'm just going to go greatest hits through the book and no particular chronological. Okay, so how did you figure the sweet spot of being truthful, authentic, and then when it came to stuff that maybe...
someone behaved badly or whatever, because you did a great job, man. And I'll tell you, that was for me, that's the thing. You've got to be able to write. If someone was a dick, they were a dick. Right. And it's your life and you're writing about it and you have to be authentic or not write about it. Well, you went right to it because that was the question that I kept asking myself, which is that
I was determined to be authentic. And it's almost when you are in relationship with someone artistically and you praise them, but your praise only has legitimacy if you're willing to criticize as well, because it gives it, you know, it's bona fides. It keeps its creds. And I wanted the book to have creds. And because this was important to me, this was about things that had meant so much to me in my life.
So I think what I was trying to do is in those circumstances in which people have behaved badly,
I also went to some length to try to understand, to empathize where they may have been in their lives at that moment. And to suggest that that had perhaps changed over time and that I was not immune from my own complicity in some of these interactions. And I tried to be as honest as I could be while still serving people
what I know an audience wants, which is the sort of the inside baseball stuff. And it's not about dish, although it becomes that. It's about entertainment too. This is a book that I want people to enjoy. And I want them to take a ride because I was on a ride. I've been on a ride my whole life in this regard. And so that was, it was, and some of it,
Only in very, very, very rare instances was there any sort of sense of payback. Right. Well, in fact, there were a couple times where you did not name a person who clearly wanted to pay back. Right. I was like, who is it? I've got to figure it out. I know that executive team. I was at TriStar myself. I had an office there. Do you remember there used to be – there was this site that used to have blinds, blind items.
And who is the director who is doing this with this actress? And everyone would play that guessing game. I remember that a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. You, uh, the other thing I thought was great when people who I know write books that I love, like when, when Springsteen wrote his book and he talked so much about, not so much, but when he talked about his depression. Mm-hmm.
And I thought, look, it's not like we're close, close, close, close, close buddies, but I've known him for years. And, you know, as you know, we put a Born in the USA poster up in my apartment in about last night. Yeah, I remember. But that element that he wrote about made me look at him and his work in a completely fresh way. When you write about the sort of the stuff about your father. Mm-hmm.
I thought was really quite beautiful, really well-written, really, really beautiful. Beautiful. Well, it's funny. You know, I have a couple of really, you know, close readers, first readers. I mean, Marshall, certainly among them. And then Adam Gopnik, who's an old friend of mine and a brilliant writer and editor. And,
They both read it and both of them in their various ways said to me one thing. They said, you know, this is really good and this is going to work, but we're going to say something to you that you have probably said a hundred times to actors or other writers, which is to say, I really like this, but I don't feel you in it to the degree that I want to.
And I was taken aback for a moment. And of course, like all great criticism, it just galvanizes you. And I began to go deeper. And of course, what I've learned in my own writing, but see, Rob, I mean, you'll dig this too. I'm accustomed to writing revealing, scabrous, sensitive, provocative things, but putting them in the mouths of other people.
Putting them in, you know, I have that little firewall between me. And so they're these beautiful people lit well, and somehow it gives me a remove and a protection. And to then to begin writing in the first person made me feel very vulnerable. And it led to some very confrontive moments personally that I managed to avoid, I think, by writing.
that remove. But I think you as an actor have maybe dealt with that a little bit more because you're out there and your fate, you're really out there. And I've chosen a life which gives me a slight remove. Yeah. I'm behind the camera. I can, I can have that little bit of detachment. And in this case, it's just all,
Make it, you know? I thought it was super, because again, with books like this, if you enjoy movies, if you enjoy entertainment, movie, history, culture, this is great. I mean, this is up there for me with the Lumet book. And particularly if you want to direct, if you're curious about what directing is or producing, it's great. But what it has, which elevates it, is like with the bass notes.
of this stuff about you. And there's a caption about shame, which is fucking unbelievable. Where it's like, it waits derisively in the corner and puts its hand on you and you're behind the monitor and goes, oh, really? You know? And it's so true. It's so true. Well, I mean, ironically, those things that you are most afraid of
are the things finally that other people relate to. They're the things that they find are the most universal.
And I know that in my partnership with Marshall, that at times the value of a partnership is when you say, all right, I have this thing. I know it's stupid and I'm afraid to say it because it seems it's unflattering or it's ungainly or unappealing or whatever. And you sort of, it's like this little dingleberry that you don't want to shit out into your work. And you finally do. And then the other person says that, that's it.
Write that. And it gives you a license and a permission to do it. And that's probably the value of a partnership, too, of a collaboration. It's okay if you aren't ready for kids right now. It's okay if you don't want to be a mom now or even ever.
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Reese's peanut butter cups are the greatest, but let me play devil's advocate here. Let's see, so... No, that's a good thing. That's definitely not a problem. Reese's, you did it. You stumped this charming devil.
I also think in books like this, it's what people don't say. It speaks as loudly as what they do say. There's not a lot of 30-something in it. Is that merely because you... Do you have conflicted, interesting thoughts about it? Or is it just that you got so busy with the movie career at the very time that it kind of exploded in the culture? Only because...
30-something is a seminal, seminal. I always sat back with a little bit of jealousy going, you took our fucking movie and made it a TV show. Where's my place in this? Thanks very much. That's sort of true, Rob, because in fact, Larry Kasdan had done The Big Show and John Sayles had done The Trial of the Secaucus Seven and we did About Last Night, which was just about the stuff of a relationship. And then it was, but nobody had done it on TV.
At all. And we went, okay. And now the irony, of course, you know, at that point, everybody was a fireman or a cop or a doctor on television, right? But nobody was a person. And now it's like the telescope has been turned around and all the television is, seems to me, is various excuses to create these places in which people are in these intimate relationships with each other. That is true. That's the norm.
Yes, it wasn't. You're absolutely 100% correct. Yeah, the funny thing is that to really write about 30-something would have had to be write another book. It was the intensities over four years at that moment in our lives, which were so seminal and so formative, and we were the same age, and we all came out of it in different ways. And yet, I think there was some
Yes, for sure.
self-absorbed and so and working so hard that I'm not sure that that even I could talk about it without really, you know, devoting more. So I gave it its due and I tried to be
and truthful, but how could, you know, it was four years of my life. I know, I want more. Well, second book, listen, I found a second book. I found a second book in me. I hear you. Because, you know, you'll go, I mean, at least for me, what I was so conscious of in the first book of like, I think in a good way of the, I'm asking somebody to purchase a book
sit down, devote time with all the other entertainment things and read it. So you better fucking deliver. Yep. Yep. I mean, because there are plenty of you just, I think, maybe take the money and don't give a fuck, but that's never been me. But in thinking of delivering, there are certain fundamental truths we know as storytellers. And, you know, it's kind of like making an album. Have I written any hits in this album? What's the first single?
Yeah. Are there too many ballads? Yeah. You know, that's really the way I thought about it. And then when the book did really well, then I thought, okay, I'm going to now do a book without thinking about any of that and see how that does. Well, that's funny because I know, I mean, I'd always wanted to write in this voice. I'd done it in college. I'd written journalism. I'd done other things. I'd done some stuff for the New York Times over time. But I never wrote a book because I didn't think that I had a subject.
until I realized that, in fact, I'd had a subject for all these years and all I needed to do was actually look at it
And the question that one asks, you know, in terms of now is, well, is there another subject that I know as well as that? Or do I dig deeper or is there another way to approach it? But I'm not ready quite to have that conversation, but I will admit that there have been those stirrings because also when I wrote
screenplays or TV shows, there was a form. It was dictated. It was like a scansion of a poem or a sonnet has ABAB, the rhyme scheme, and it's all there for you. The thing about a book is
which I did not know, it's a little bit like sort of body surfing and getting caught in the washing machine where you don't know what is up and what is down and how long should this be and how short should this be? And should I go deeper internally or can that be, you know? And what you're saying is that finally I decided that the key was to try to make each thing intrinsically a readable chapter.
Yes, it related ultimately to some larger thing, but everything had to have its own gravity. And that was how I decided to write the book. I also like the little punctuate it with the lists. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I mean, there is one other truth that, look, I've taught a lot.
And I really feel that there are two audiences for the book. One are people who might know the work and might have engaged in it in some way or the other. But there's a whole world of younger filmmakers and younger writers. And it's a book that I would have liked to have read when I was that age. Somebody telling the truth, talking about process, but also trying to represent something that's in disrepair.
the idea of a certain humanist approach, the idea of dimensional characters or political, you know, agenda or cultural observations, things that are, you know, have fallen away from movies to greater degree. And I feel I want to sort of
you know, put in a pitch for that to some degree. Well, listen, the movie that you and I made about last night would be a six part Netflix. Yeah. It would not be a movie. Can you imagine? When I was reading that, I'd forgotten about last night was a big, well, I don't know if it was big, but if it came out when it came out, it was big. Oh, no. A summer studio. Granted, it was TriStar. Right.
Whatever. But they were studio, but a summer studio movie. And it was four people in an apartment and bars talking brilliantly written and, and, you know, she directed. And I think the acting was, was great. It's a great movie. I'm I, one of my favorite things I've ever done. It remains to this day. One of my favorite things ever, but today that's not a studio summer movie, not even a movie.
That's right. That's right. And then, of course, one asks oneself, what is a movie now? I mean, you know, a movie, we know that it's an e-ticket, you know, thrill ride. We know that it's a piece of IP. We know that it's something that is somehow already pre-sold. But, you know, what's happened to me is when I look at those things, some of them that have been made by streamers, they feel, I feel like I can hear the meaning.
I don't feel like I can hear the screenplay. I hear the meeting and the design to design with the cliffhanger, that it's designed to make you anxious and want to see the next rather than have one unique experience that has some unity and some catharsis and some shape to it. It doesn't seem to have come out of
some individual's crazy mania about what to write a story about, but rather, and this I think is the legacy of Silicon Valley, is the team. When you pitch something now, it's not to one person, it's to a group. And they are already looking for consensus in that group. And consensus is
can be the death of art can be, you know, if something, the eccentricity of one person talking to one person is different than, than trying to please and establish this sort of unanimity because that leads to sort of the middle ground. Well, particularly if you have a certain sensibility. And for me, I can identify it and articulate it best when I'm talking about comedy. I always go, if I go to theater,
The joke that makes me laugh the hardest and loudest, if it's a theater of 100 people, I'd say 20 are laughing at the exact same joke that is destroying me. Yes. And the joke that I maybe smile at, maybe, is the joke that 90% of the people are laughing at. Right, right, right. So consensus for me is the death of...
for sure. Let me ask you about directing
Yes. Actors. That is a focus of the book. By the way, just as an aside, your stuff about Matthew Broderick and Gloria is really great because it's you dealing with an actor who is at a difficult part in their life and is a complicated person, a great actor, and it's a moment in time. But I just have to tell you as reading it, I, at that exact time, found myself at a place called Café Vivaldi.
in the village with my then-girlfriend, Melissa Gilbert, who you will remember well. Well, who's now with Timmy, yes. Who's now with Timmy. Can you believe it? Yeah, there you go. Okay, got it. I mean, you can't make it up. You cannot make it up. No, but go ahead. And there was a couple behind me. I didn't know male, female. I didn't know what, but I knew there were two people. And this woman was filibustering and henpecking and heckling
As I kind of turn, I saw to be a young man for an hour. I mean, ruthlessly henpecking filibustering. And I look and it's Matthew Broderick. Oh, lunch with his mother. I knew where this story was going. Yeah. Yeah. And, and this is exactly your, what you're,
I love the notion of her being flown down in the private jet to rewrite Matthew's dialogue. It's amazing. When we have no budget to pay for, you know, the explosions and the fourth. No, it was, you know, I can't believe some of the things when I looked at, by the way, I also looked at about last night and I, you know, I'm not the kind of person that looks at old work and I don't think I'd looked at it very, very long time.
And I had such a good time. And that's a conversation to have too. But I also looked at glory and some other movies and I look at them and I kind of go, did this really happen? What was I thinking? And then that led me to those relationships. And finally,
I don't think I could, if I were, my life depended on it, could describe, you know, as all the scenes and all the movies or the episodes or whatever. But the relationships, those moments of real intensity with people that I genuinely loved or genuinely disliked or, but was in deep relationship with, to think that they had somehow vanished into the ether and
And to ask myself, what were they? What did that mean? Did it serve a kind of promiscuity of mind that we all have, that we want that, or possibly even in knowing that those things are going to end, that we abandon ourselves to them, give ourselves to them with the guarantee that there's some end stop about them? And is that part of the allure?
Anyway, it led to a lot of questions about the lives we've chosen. We should talk about about last night. I have so many great memories, not the least of which is being on a bus driving through the French countryside, cuddling a very cute little baby. I have the pictures, Rob, of you holding my six-month-old at that moment. Of course, I remember. Amazing. Yeah.
I mean, it's like funny because, you know, those, those were the themes about listening. It was a theme of, you know, do I say, I love you? Do you move in with me? What is monogamy? All of those things. But then the next step was kids and family. And I was all already like, I did not know. I didn't know that, that raising kids was going to be the great love of my life, but moments like that. Yeah.
were an inkling for me. How great is that? How great is that? And, and I've had other moments like that. I remember when I was making glory and I had, um, Jesse, he was about three and a half running around and Morgan Freeman, uh, who, you know, has this extraordinary moral authority, um, had met, met him and hung with, with Liberty and with me. And he sat me down one day, he said, so
Why don't you have another kid? And I said, oh, well, you know, things have been so crazy in the career and the whatever. And he just gave me that look. And that look was saying, what the fuck are you talking about? He said, you know, you got to get it together. And that was my version. You know, I was maybe, you know, three and a half years ahead of you in that regard. But still, I was then not yet ready to take that next step into chaos and
and into the incredible bounty and joy that awaited me that I was somehow hesitant to take on. And then you just think of the chronology of it, how long ago all of it was. It's like, I just... So many...
I love the story you talk about Belushi. Yes. When we were trying to do the flat, like the doors would, I remember that so well when the doors would close on the L and we would just sit there like idiots. 15 minutes. Well, forever. As the clock is ticking and I feel my career just like literally- Sliding away. Flying away. I, oh my God. You know, I've had Jimmy on the podcast and he's,
Like all of us, he's like a different human being. Oh my God. Oh my God. I've seen him too. Yeah, it's kind of beautiful. It's really a beautiful thing to see him
Own his size and find some center and calm and things that would not have defined him then. And it does suggest there is a possibility of change for people and for all of us. No, no. Delightful, in fact, is what he's become. And to me, I texted just this week. So I have a one-man show. And in my one-man show, I show very selected clips. Yes. And I showed the last...
where we're dewy-eyed and loving each other and running across Grant Park. She's dressed like the farmer in the Dell. That's the end of the movie, by the way. Shot it on the first day, as you well remember, which is amazing. That's amazing to me that we were able to and chose to shoot the
Ultimate sequence on the very first day. Be that as it may, that scene with no buildup in the one-man show absolutely crushes people. Yeah. Yeah. It crushes people.
And, but, but I see it all the time. And then she gets on her bike and her farmer and the Dell outfit. And it just makes me laugh. There's like, there's no way in today's Hollywood, there's no way somebody at the studio goes, I'm sorry. What is she wearing? Well, by the way, what you'll remember, and this, I have very fond memories of, you're talking about working with actors. We had a week of rehearsal. We literally had the luxury of,
of being in a room, talking about our characters, doing some exercises, trying things out. And I think without that, I mean, obviously you guys knew each other. So there was already that. That's great. You're right. But still, that...
that familiarity, that sense of comfort that you get to create when you have a minute like that is so rare. And, and that actually, I think that helped it too. But I also, but I would also, I said something else. I think I even put it, you haven't seen the book yet. I'm going to, I will get you a real copy of the book when it is out, which is soon. But I, I look at it in terms of you and your career as a very seminal moment about understanding the,
where you can be in comedy as opposed to just doing straight stuff. Because what I saw in that thing, yeah, you can look at Jimmy's performance as this really towering comedic moment, but you need a straight man to make that work.
There is no Hardy without Laurel. And you said, okay, I'm going to go there. And obviously, since then, you've done things that are broader and more obvious. But in fact, that was the subtlety of understanding the role that made that work. I mean, you know, Fred Astaire...
Ginger Rogers had to do everything that Fred Astaire did, and she had to do it backwards and in high heels. That's right. And that to me was a moment for you, a marker, I think, where after that there was the possibility of taking a left turn. And that's what you did. Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's no West Wing without the flax suit sequence. Exactly right.
I mean, there's, there just isn't. And like, people were always like, when I, when I, you know, whenever I,
Aaron Sorkin and I were working together, you know, people come in and people either heard the music or they didn't. And the first time I heard the music was, that's right. It was, it was, it was mammoth, right? You bet. And, and by the way, Aaron, in a, in a very generous way has written a blurb for the book. He's read it and he wrote a great, a great blurb for the book. Oh, great. Yeah. It's, it's, it's super fun. Yeah.
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Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. Give me some Tom Cruise stuff, baby. Come on. Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. I forgot. Of course, we do share all these different connections. Isn't it unbelievable? It's like we go, every time I see him,
My heart just bursts. I love him so much. Yep. You know, it was, it was kind of amazing because I know when I went into Warner brothers and said, I want to make a movie about 19th century samurai and, and, and, you know, American go there that it was one conversation. And when I went in there and said, I want to make a movie about 19th century samurai with Tom Cruise. Yes. It became a movie.
And without his absolute, crazy, gonzo, utter, you know, pedal to the metal approach, something like that would never have happened. But he also, what was remarkable to me, was his generosity to our vision, that he was there to serve that movie and to serve us.
And not to say I'm putting myself over the marquee. He's done movies since then in which they're different and, you know, in which he is the prime mover and should be and deserves to be. But that he, his approach to this was remarkable. And every director, you know, tells you this story about him that, and if you say, listen, I'd like you to do this take twice.
you know, upside down, standing on your head while blowing bubbles, he'll say, well, we'll try that. You know, he'll go there. He'll have his own thoughts about it that he'll want to be heard to as he deserves to. But...
I do. There's a thing that you probably know that I had not known because I had met him. I met him with you and Emilio and Demi first then. And we even talked about Legends of the Fall once, he and I. But he does this thing...
where it maybe happened two or three times, you know, two in the morning and it's raining and shit's flying and you're behind or whatever. And somebody comes up to you and like grabs you on the shoulders and say, you know what we get to do today? Yeah. We get to make a movie. Yeah.
It's so great. I thought about that. By the way, I thought, I thought I, cause I'd forgotten it until I read it in your book. And, and he does say that. And I had, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm shooting something right now and I'm, you know, it's hour 12, whatever it is. And, and I'm like, oh my God. And I thought, you know what I get to do today? Yeah. I get to make a fucking movie or TV show or something. Um,
Yeah, I was shooting West Wing when you guys took the lot, Warner Brothers lot over and made it 18th century, 17th century Japan. I couldn't, it was one of the great Hollywood, but I didn't realize you used that stupid swamp on the back lot. Gilligan's Island. You used Gilligan's Island? Yes. Oh my, that is unbelievable to me. Yeah, yeah. You know what they say, a rock's a rock, a tree's a tree, shoot it in Griffith Park.
That's the famous DW Griffith. Um, okay. There's so much good stuff. Okay. I got to ask you about, um, legends of the fall is another one to ask you about. Um, that score. Oh yeah. That's, you know, James Horner, we did three movies or four movies together. Um,
And in his studio, when you went into the studio, it was full of airplanes. They were hanging down. He loved models and he made models and he loved flying and he loved airplanes. And the day that I heard what happened,
because he would do trick flying. I tried to imagine that moment of him being up there and seeing that it had gone wrong and thinking about just those last seconds in his life because he was this very, very dear, very punctilious, very precise composer and that was part of it for him.
And yet he was capable of such depth. And that's what flying always seemed to me to be to him, to get out there into this ether. And yeah, it's a score that it kills me. You know, I've been really lucky. I've worked with Hans and with James Newton Howard and with James Warner. And there are people who are freaks for what those guys do.
But I think actually too few people understand just what that genius is. And he was one of them. And it was a tragic loss. You also were mentored by, I feel like he was not underrated in his lifetime, not in any way. But I feel like right now, if you were to go and ask a 25-year-old actor or an executive about Sidney Pollack,
I would hope that they would know who he was because when I look at the filmography of that man, he was, I mean, it's just a bummer to me that I never really got to know him or work with him because he's
His movies, bro, forget it. And, and his, his acting. Yeah. Oh, well, acting. Yeah. I mean, you know, he began, he was at the studio as an actor and he, and Mark Rydell and all the other, all those other guys. But I guess to me, having someone like that in your life and it was a complicated relationship. It wasn't, you know, like Mr. Chips or anything, but he was, he was remarkable in so many regards and,
But now it's also an important lesson to understand the impermanence and the ephemera of anything that we do. Because his work was, it was gigantic in the culture for a good period of time and influential in a hundred different ways about what movies are and what acting should be and how to cast movie stars as actors and to have them give performances of
complexity and depth in movies that were not simple in some of their characterizations or even plots. And then to understand that there's a generation now who just don't know, and you can't blame them. There's a lot of culture now that's competing for their attention.
But I can't help but feel that my reverence for earlier movies, for the movies of the 30s and 40s, even 50s that had preceded me, or even the 70s that I was raised with, right? I'm not sure that some of that work by people like him is revered and studied to the same degree as
by some contemporary filmmakers, and I'm not sure I know why that is. It maybe has to do with the availability and the immediacy of culture in front of you on your computer and on your phone. We would go to movies, and that was the only thing to do. And there was no hope of seeing them ever again.
And you would see them once and you would then stay up all night and talk about them and you would hope that someday you'd ever get to see them again. But somehow it dug in. And I'm not sure that it has that same kind of stickiness anymore. I think about, there's so many things I'd love to ask him about. Do you happen to remember the moment where he's two weeks into Out of Africa and Redford's doing an accent? Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Do you know the story? Well, go tell it. It's great. It's a great story. Well, so look, Redford is one of my icons and he's a fucking amazing actor. He is. And I can give you chapter and verse in specific moments. In the natural, when he says, God, I love baseball, I can give you line reads. I can tell you
Don't sleep on Robert Redford, but he's also the biggest movie star we've ever had. Right. And, and, you know, there's something about movie stars where they're, I'm not, listen, you know, all this stuff, but I'm setting the story up. It's what you invest in is, is them. It's not me. The first thing you love about is something of their essence first and foremost. And you cover that essence to your peril when you're a movie star. Yeah. Yeah.
And so the notion of Redford doing a Danish, Danish, was he Danish? Yeah. Haddon Finch. Yeah. Haddon Finch. Yeah. So Redford's working with Meryl Streep.
who is the greatest actor, and by the way, not a movie star. Stars in movies. But also does the best dialect work of any actor. And does the best dialect work of anybody who ever lived. Right. You know, and so Redford's like, well, this guy was a real guy. He was Danish. Meryl's doing their South African thing, and he does an accent in English.
Out of Africa. By the way, one of my favorite movies of all time. Obviously, if you've seen the movie, you know there's no accent in it. So what happened? Well, I'll tell you, the relationship between Sidney and Redford is so interesting. You know, here's this God, this blonde Southern California God, and this Jewish guy from New York. And yet they become a kind of alter ego to each other. And
They would love each other deeply and be utterly infuriated with each other just as much time. Because there's another story which pertains to the same thing, which is about Jeremiah Johnson. Yes. At the end of Jeremiah Johnson, Redford is supposedly 25 years older, and he comes up against a brave who goes out to kill him, who is his son.
And it's in the script. Milius wrote it. They're getting ready to do it. And Redford goes into the makeup trailer and they put on the age makeup and he looks at himself and goes, no, I mean, there is, they're, they're in, they're in, they're somewhere in Sundance, Utah before, you know, they're, they're in the snow and whatever he goes. No. And if you look at that movie, it's a good movie, but it's sort of just doesn't end. It just sort of,
No, it ends and it plays that stupid song. Jeremiah Johnson went his way into the mountains. You never forget that song once you hear it because it's so bad. It's really bad. But maybe the reason you remember it is because the ending is so bad. It's never occurred to me. Let me ask you this, though, in defense of Robert Redford. Is it possible that he was right? That he didn't like the makeup? I don't know.
Listen, I did something. I made a movie with Daniel Craig and the movie was written to have a bookend of Daniel in his 70s. It's about a man who became a hero and then utterly denied it and then went to live anonymously in New York as a cab driver. And we start the movie as he's in a cab as this old man and this other person gets into a cab and recognizes him and you go back and then you come back at the end and you look at it and
We shot it and he looked good. And we looked at it and we went, nope, not the story. Cut, cut. And Redford is a filmmaker too. Right. I mean, he became a real filmmaker, right? And he maybe also had an instinct to say, this is not who the audience has fallen in love with. This is another person. Right. And that's not, and what you said, which is so interesting about needing to hold onto some of the self, the thing that is,
the thing that has drawn us there and yet find that slight adjustment. Yes. That, that suspends disbelief that he's someone else, but it's a balance, a very precarious balancing act. And the precarious balance clearly didn't work the first two weeks of out of Africa. Can you imagine? So I just imagine like knock, knock. Hey Bob, you got a minute? Yes. So, um, do you want me to do it? You're like, I, I want to write something.
I'm obsessed with writing like parodies of amazing moments. And that's one. That's one. The other one I want to write, this is so dark, but you remember me. I'm Rob Lowe. I'm dark head. Do you remember when there was a diet candy that everybody took called AIDS candy?
No, I don't. Oh, yeah. Very famous. Everybody took it. And I'm kind of obsessed with the day where somebody goes into the CEO's office and goes, um...
Did you read the paper today? Oh, God. But anyway, I digress. My true fans will appreciate that joke. Tell me, so what did Sidney say? Anything, do you know how he said, hey, Bob, let's talk about the accent? No, I actually don't. He was discreet about that, but you could see there were things that would happen. I mean, there are wonderful stories about Redford being late
and, and Sydney being early and, and, and them, you know, not wanting to like confront each other at the start of every day because of it. And, but it was, it was somehow baked into the relationship. So I, I don't, I don't know. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm very punctual. I think you got to,
Everybody's on the clock. Tell me what is next for you. What do you got other than this new special Bolton thing, which you're going to tell me about offline? Yeah. Well, we're writing an adaptation of a Stephen King book that came out last year, which we had to stop because of the strike.
a very interesting book, a book called Billy Summers, which is not, uh, it's, it's, it's Stephen King and the humanist tradition is more in the world. It's not, it's not horror. It's not fantasy. It's, uh, it's about people. Um, and that's something that we're, we're really enjoying. And, um, uh, we've also written something on spec because there was that time, you know, that we were all just sitting around and, and, uh,
I don't do well with idleness. Me neither. I really, I only have one speed. And so, so there is something we've written and we're finishing, which I think is something we're pretty excited about, but you know, it's funny to do what, what, what, what we do every time that I would make a movie, I would come back into the world and see that the entire movie business had changed. And I think,
even now during this period of COVID and then the strike, I think it has changed again. Yes. We have to reorient ourselves every time. I feel that in some way I'm still trying to then recover my sea legs. Yes. To know what it is, it's not just only what I want to do, but how does what I want to do fit into this new culture?
I do know that I was really privileged always to be able to do big grown up adult movies at scale. Yep. Scale is a very important thing to a director, right? Particularly with certain subjects. Scale gives you the edifice on which you can put these performances, but you have ideas. I think, I think of, I mean, I've made what, 15 movies, something like that, maybe more, but I don't know that I could make 12 or 13 of them right now.
Because yes, you can go make glory, but it'll be eight guys in the woods while something else is happening around them. You wouldn't have the majesty or the sense of verisimilitude because that's not what studios, people are giving the big money to do. The money, money for the actors, the money for production is in the Marvel universe and is in the IP and these things that are
different. They're asking a different thing of an audience. And there are still very interesting movies to be made of serious subjects and complex, challenging dramas. Yes, of course, but not at scale. And it's not like I went after scale for its own sake.
But it was such a luxury to create. They talk now about this whole thing about pitches now is world creation. Yes. And what they really mean is fantasy world creation, because it's actually much harder and more expensive at times to do real world creation, a real-time, real-scale creation.
And, you know, I was pleased with Oppenheimer and with certain movies that are now at least beginning to take all of the tools of CG and use them not as a thing that pulls you out of reality and puts you into some fantasy, but to, in fact, create certain reality situations where maybe for less money, you could do some of the things that we were able to do. There was no CG in Courage Under Fire. Those were real tanks.
There was no CG when we shut down 40th to 47th Street in the siege, you know, or the beach at Glory or Steven Spielberg on the beachhead, you know, at Omaha Beach. So that's the real question, I think, for those of us who want to make movies still for grownups, how to do that, how to do that within the financial models that they have for you.
Yeah. It's a, when you figure it out, will you call me? Yeah, exactly. Please. Uh, your book is great hits flops and other illusions. So it's, it's genius. So good to see you. I can't believe that it took this. It's,
I mean, you have a very, very, very, very special place in my heart and always will. And please give Liberty a huge hug. Oh, my God. We didn't even get a chance to talk about her. Ed Zwick's people as one of the most beautiful, lovely wives. You married well. Yeah, well, she's managed to keep me around this long. Yeah, exactly. That was great. Love you, Ed.
Told you the man had a vocabulary. Super inspiring. Super, super, super inspiring. I hope you guys had fun. That was, what a great, thoughtful, amazing chat as always is whenever I get a chance to reconnect with Ed. And go watch one of the movies that we talked about. Talked about so many different movies, but pick one, any one of them and go watch one tonight in celebration. Thanks for listening. I will see you next time on Literally.
You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Nick Liao. With help from associate producer Sarah Begar. Research by Alyssa Grawl. Editing by Jerron Ferguson. Engineering and mixing by Rich Garcia. Our executive producers are Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself for Team Coco, and Colin Anderson for Stitcher. Booking by Deirdre Dodd. Music by Devin Bryant. Special thanks to Hidden City Studios.
Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally with Rob Lowe. It's okay if you aren't ready for kids right now. It's okay if you don't want to be a mom now or even ever. It's nobody's decision but yours. But do you know what's not okay? Not knowing how effective your birth control is. Talk to your doctor about effective birth control options so you can make an informed decision. Tap to learn more.
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