Overtime – Episode #617: Quentin Tarentino, Gillian Tett, Yuval Noah Harari

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

I get you.

Yeah.

Oh, are we on?

Yep, sir.

Oh, oh, here we are.

Okay, so Yuval, was it more difficult to write a book for children than for adults?

Yes, much more difficult.

Really?

So when you write for adults and you don't know something, you can use a lot of very difficult words and long-sentences and stuff.

And they think they don't get you.

But with kids it doesn't work.

You have to really know what you're saying.

Really?

Otherwise they don't take it.

Isn't that interesting?

I always thought you could fool kids because they're stupid.

But also

they haven't heard all the stories that we believe.

So they ask more difficult questions.

Okay.

Jillian, mortgage rates rose above 7% in the U.S.

this week.

What do you make of the Fed's monetary policy?

Boy.

Wow.

Okay.

I am the financial title.

I was just saying.

This is the boring hour where everyone goes, oh.

Okay, basically, the Fed is in a rock and a hard place in that inflation has been rising.

If it doesn't act, it could get a lot worse.

But if it acts too quickly, then it's going to end up essentially taking away the money.

Are we going to have a recession?

I mean, I see we're already losing a lot of money in the market, right?

Yeah, probably yes, unfortunately.

And how long will it last?

Will it be bad?

A lot depends on what happens.

Things like, you know, war in Ukraine, elsewhere, China.

China's slowing down.

That's pretty significant for the global economy.

It's not looking great.

One reason we need comedy shows.

The traffic is always, and also traffic is always lighter.

I'm not saying I'm rooting for one.

I'm just saying

you gotta have a, you know.

It's like when you're in Vegas,

you get insurance on a hand.

Quentin, you wrote a novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood last year.

You just published your first film analysis book.

What do you plan on writing next?

Or I guess another question with this might be, is this, you know, writing, is it, how does it compare, I would want to know, to like filmmaking?

It can't give you the kind of rush you have, but it's probably not as exhausting.

Well, it's actually, well,

it's interesting, especially like in doing something.

Well, okay,

it's interesting because one of the things that is just really gratifying about writing a book or something is the idea that I would really invest into writing these scripts that I would do.

And I put my whole heart and soul into them.

And they were like these Mount Everests I was climbing.

And this one is Kilimanjaro, and the next one is Fuji.

And so I'm just

going all out there.

Then I would invest all this time and all this energy.

And then I'm finished with the script.

Well, now I have to go and make it.

You know, and if I'm happy with the script, then now it's mine to mess up

in the directing of it.

The thing that's really kind of cool about writing a book is like you put all your time and energy into it.

And then when the book is done, you're done.

I don't have to go and spend nine months

going out and making the movie and all that stuff.

And then spending another four or six months selling it all around the world.

I still kind of do that a little bit, but you know what I'm trying to say.

Because usually when I would finish a screenplay, I would sort of like, I would question, should I just publish the screenplay?

Because I've just put everything I have into it.

And no one is ever going to read it other than the actors who are doing the movie.

I know that Spielberg had said at one point that making the movie was kind of drudgery for him because he'd already made it in his head.

Okay, I'm not going as far as that because

making a movie is like the funnest thing.

Right.

If you're in a position to make movies,

and you can kind of do a lot what you would like to do, I mean, God, there's just, that's hardly a better job than that.

I mean, it's just really great.

And if you're able to girls,

violence.

And if you're able to just like, you know, you know, I've been in a really lucky position.

I can just conjure up little interesting stories that I want to tell.

And

a cast of characters, I get to.

Yeah, the best.

You get to get to choose from the best actors, the most charismatic people, hang out with them, blow shit up.

Yeah,

it's a blast.

My sets are known.

My sets are known for being one of the funnest sets in Hollywood.

I mean, you know, the people in IATSI want to work on a Quentin movie, all right, because they're going to have a ball.

Yeah.

So you'd be hurting a lot of people if you quit.

Anyway,

will future generations be appalled by some of the current decisions?

Of course.

Current decisions are actually we're making as a society.

What are some things we do today that are generally accepted but will look bad in the future?

Well, the animals.

Well, you're the guy to answer that.

Why?

What am I doing?

Well, because you toned it out every week.

Act like I'm raping Ned Beatty in the woods.

But animals, I would say, is not.

Animals, yeah, eating animals, raising milk dimensions.

Torturing them.

Even if we

still eat them, there's no need to torture them while they're alive.

I mean, even California now is...

Drug for California has passed a law.

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments about it, whether it can stand in other states, but we passed a law that said you have to, you know, we're not stop selling bacon, but you have to raise the pigs humanely.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, they're smart, sensitive animals.

Yeah.

Probably smarter than kids.

No.

You can go and adopt a pig.

But what else?

What do you think else in 100 years?

I mean, off the top of my head, beauty pageants, I think, is probably going to go...

Well, that's cutting edge of you.

All right.

They've been saying that for 40 years.

Antibiotic resistance.

The fact that we use so many antibiotics that

society is becoming resistant to it, and we could have not so much a pandemic, but another big medical disaster from that.

That's a slightly different category, but yes, that's something that's a great worry.

I mean, we are heading toward the post-antibiotic age.

I always say, I never want to take an antibiotic, but boy, am I glad they exist, because when you need it, I mean, people would be dying of a splinter again.

I mean, that's certainly possible.

So, but anything that we are doing, that we are choosing to do that.

You know, choosing strongmen dictators to be our leaders.

I mean, I hope that in 100 years, people would look back at it and think this was as lunatic as we look back at some of the political systems back in history.

Right.

I don't know, monarchs in the grace of God ruling the country or something like that.

England still has a monarch.

But she doesn't rule.

He?

Sorry.

I think one of the dumbest things has been taking democracy for granted.

It's back to your point about 15% of kids voting.

And that is, you know, and treating politics as a reality T V show.

That's what you expect from it.

You know, there is reality TV.

Watch the Kardashians.

Don't expect your politicians to act like them and then vote for ones who do.

And maybe add to that: that you know, the expectation for authenticity.

I mean, we don't need authentic leaders, we need responsible leaders.

Authenticity,

you know,

saying the first thing that comes to your mind or tweeting it, it's good in therapy.

Right.

But politics isn't therapy.

You need to build a wall between your mind and your mouth.

Right.

And be very careful about what you let through there.

And yet some politicians love walls very much in all kinds of places, except between their mind and their mouth.

But you can't outlaw that.

You can't outlaw.

I mean, in terms of what we tolerate and what we expect.

Well, we can expect...

You have to tolerate.

That's what free speech means.

You have to tolerate things.

There's lots of things I don't want to tolerate in the world, but I have to tolerate.

I wish I could talk to you all night, but I have to tolerate closing the show.

And I must say, you know, with all my cynicism, go vote.

Do it anyway.

It just might help.

All right.

We'll see you next week.

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