"Steven Spielberg"

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We've got to get this in. Nobody wants to wait anymore.
If you want it to be quick, just say this is Smartless. Smart.
Less. Smart.
Less. Smart.
Less. He got me.
Jay was a little late today, but it's no big deal. We've all had it.
I got to get one of those cars that go up. That would be nice.
No. That would go above the traffic.
Yeah. It's the worst feeling.
I actually had to go to a thing this morning out here, all jokes aside, and it was like, there's never traffic here in the morning because it's wintertime. There was like, I couldn't, and it turned out there was a road closed.
On Long Island, you're talking about? I couldn't make this left turn. And from a certain point, I went like, oh, this is a joke.
How am I ever going to make this turn? Did you have a daughter that got a flat tire on the way to school and you had to double back and pick her up? No, is that what happened? Is that what happened? Yeah, I had to do two separate trips to two different schools. GB, just breathe.
Just breathe. And I'm all hopped up on coffee, so I already want to kill somebody.
I know. No, no, no.
Just breathe. We're all together.
We're all together. We're all together.
Do they make a non-violent caffeine? You mean violent to make you violent or violent for your bowels? Yeah, both. You know, I actually have cut down on my amount of coffee before I play golf because I get too angry at bad shots, which I make a lot of.
No. Caffeine is supposed to make you, like, not angry.
It's supposed to make you, like, energetic. No, it's not supposed to make you angry, but it gives you energy, and if you start to feel a— I just had some.
Yeah? Well, he had a tea with sugar. So he just...
It was a vessel for the sugar that he wanted. So do you have...
What's the latest you'll have a cup of coffee now, Jay? In the day? Right now. I've tried to go to a green tea caffeine stimulant in the afternoon because I feel like it's less intense.
What about a nice sleepy time tea at night? Sure. All right.
I mean, do they make it in a gummy? They do. They do.
They make a chamomile gummy? From what I've heard, yeah, it's out there. Yeah.
Oh, my God. Wait, I'm going to take one minute to show you a picture that my sister got me.
Wait one second. He's going to take off his headphones, stand up, leave the microphone.
We're already 15 minutes late. He's walking away from the...
This better be amazing. And he knows we're doing an audio show, right? He's stopping everything for a picture.

No, no.

My sister just sent me this picture of my family that was drawn when we were kids.

And I remember sitting for it.

She's like, I'm going to throw this out.

Do you want it?

I'm like, yeah, send it.

It's a hand drawing of the whole family.

And they drew my mom's eye like a glass.

Like it was the one opportunity he had to draw regular eyes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he didn't.
I wish you could see it. I'll show it to you next time.
Where is it? It's in the closet here. Okay.
Anyway, who cares? It was really funny because it's like... No, we're definitely going to talk after this.
But you think it's like the one opportunity somebody has to draw her two normal eyes. and he went ahead and made an effort to make sure that that eye was...
Well, maybe for him, now look, as an artist, maybe it was important for him to... To be authentic.
Yeah, to be really representative. You know what I mean, Sean? For the 20 bucks it cost.
Did you ever think about the artist? How dare you? And maybe he had some baggage. Maybe he had some baggage with your mom maybe yeah were they having a thing as her chance maybe he was a little pissed off at her okay we're not gonna make our guests wait any longer okay so um guys totally lost for words for this one is huge if picking guests was a competition which it's not not i feel like i might be the winner today that's the written portion this is written portion.
He's at the top of his game in his field, but more importantly, I've heard that good old Coca-Cola is his drink of choice, which is something we have in common. That's all I drink is Coca-Cola.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, raised in Arizona. He fell in love with filmmaking at a very young age.
He was the youngest director to be signed to a major Hollywood studio long-term. Is this Steven Spielberg? We've had many successful folks on this podcast, but I don't think anyone that's had an Oscar nomination in six different decades.
Scott and I just saw his new film. We're obsessed.
Guys, it's the GOAT, Mr. Steven Spielberg.
Are you kidding me? I made Steven Spielberg wait 15 minutes? Yeah. Good Lord.
Look at this guy. By the way, look at this.
Steven Spielberg. Oh, look at that.
Will guessed it. Will, why did you, how did you know that? Because I could see how nervous you were.
I'm crazy nervous. The only person who's going to make you nervous like this is Steven Spielberg.
Yeah, absolutely. Wow, Steven, how great to have you lead.
God, I hope this was worth waiting for. I am so sorry.
It's these kids. These kids, I recommend not having them.
They'll make you late for things.

No, don't worry about it, please.

I'm just happy to be with all of you.

All three of you. Thank you for doing this.
It's such an honor that you're here, so thank you.

What an honor. I meant it.

Scotty and I saw The Fablemans the day it came out,

and the only other time

in recent memory I've enjoyed sitting in a theater

that much was watching West Side Story

last year. You did speak highly of that.
Which I wrote you about i guess which i love matter of fact i reread the letter this morning oh thank you again well thanks yeah it was that was awesome i can't wait to see the fablemans it's so good it's so good but which makes me like think just right out of the gate are you are you an avid movie like do you go to the movies still and is there anything you like recently i do go to the movies um uh you know sometimes not a movie theater per se uh during the pandemic so i was i was starved from the movie theater experiences all of us were for over two years but you keep up yeah once it broke yeah once it broke the first movie i saw the first movie i went to a theater to see uh was nope that was the first that that sort of broke my fast and and i went i went in to see it uh uh in new york so that was the first movie he's an exciting filmmaker no but not of not of planet earth as we found out is what it stands for. True story.
Yeah. Did you know that, Stephen? I did not know that.
I should know that because I am not of planet Earth either, and I should know my brethren. Yeah, no.
Now, Stephen, can I ask you, you hear that directors have to manage not only the process of making a film and the whole team that's assembled but also their expectations as far as what they imagined versus what is happening and then what is ultimately you're left with as far as the finished product. Something as close to your life as this particular film is I would imagine those stakes were even higher.
So did The Fableman's turn out exactly the way that you wanted? Well, you know something, none of my films turn out exactly the way I wanted. I don't think that's possible for anybody to achieve, no matter how much time and heart, right, and budget.
And, you know, they put in it. It's a team process.
Because it's a process that the vision is, by the way, I really think it's not distilled by having so many collaborators. It's enhanced through collaboration.
So the more talented people who help you tell your story, the better the story is going to be told. So I'm a big believer in that.
But at the same time, I have a kind of high bar that is real hard for me to really reach at. And especially with the Fablemans, because one of the high bars of this movie were my three sisters.
And I figured if I pass muster with them, because my mom and dad are no longer with us, but if they liked the movie, I was going to be okay. Right.
And if my wife liked the movie, I was going to be doubly okay. But this wasn't the kind of movie that I thought I was making for the masses.
This was something, as I've said, this was $40 million of therapy. Which is about how much it cost today anyway.
Yeah, maybe that's how much it cost. Having never been in therapy, except one time, to try to get out of the Army when I was 18 years old, and my dad said, well, you can go see my psychiatrist, and maybe he'll write you a letter.
And I saw him about five times, and then he was actually pro the Vietnam War and wouldn't write me the letter. No way.
That was the last time I actually was in therapy. That'll teach you.
But no, no, this was, I didn't have big expectations in terms of people understanding this, thinking that I was making a movie, obviously making an autobiographical movie about key moments of my formative years. Right.
Of growing up inside a very unusual family until people started seeing the movie and telling me how they felt about the film and then immediately telling me about the similarities about their childhoods and the divorces and the bullying and the anti-Semitism. And suddenly all these notes and letters and emails and texts came pouring in and I actually felt like I wasn't alone anymore.
I felt like I was in great company. How great.
My story wasn't so unique after all. Well, which, by the way, is a great lesson.
I think that all of us go through as we get older, we start to recognize, if we can look for the similarities in other people, then we can start to recognize how not unique we are as people, and certainly that's been part of my journey, but did you ever have, or do you continue to have moments when you make a film that is semi-autobiographical that does have these, incorporate these key moments from your life? Did you ever have moments where you kind of, you wake up and you have almost like a panic of like, oh gosh, that was so revealing. Or, oh, this moment.
Like, does it catch up with you in moments that you don't expect ever? I told the cast before we started shooting that I had gotten all my emotion out writing the script with Tony Kushner. And that I, because Tony was like my therapist on this and there were so many times that we were writing this and it would just be too hard.
And then we'd step away. I'd have to step away and come back.
And Tony was brilliant with me. And so was Katie, my wife.
And so I thought I got over the hardest part of telling the story and the telling of the story on paper. And then I said this to the cast that I'm going to be fine.
Don't worry about me. Just get to know the characters you're playing and let's all do this together as a family.
And then on the first day of shooting, literally the first day, and I had seen all the actors individually in hair and makeup, of course, and Mark Bridges did great costumes on it. And so Mark said the cast is coming out.
And so Michelle Williams and Paul Dano playing Bert and Mitzi, or Arnold and Leah, my parents,

they came out and I was talking to somebody else

and I guess they were standing behind me

until I finished my conversation.

And I turned around and I looked at them together

as certainly as Bert and Mitzi,

but really I turned around and there was my mom and my dad.

And I completely lost it after that whole preamble to the cast.

I'm going to be fine, I'm strong.

I got all my emotion out writing the script.

I just totally lost it.

And they immediately, Michelle ran to me and she hugged me here and Paul came behind me and he hugged me there. And it was the beginning of a beautiful three months of...
Wow. Did you really, in the movie, little Sammy, is filming his parents' divorce? Yes.
Like when they get, did that really happen? Did you have a camera filming your parents divorcing? Well, I wasn't, no, I wasn't, you talked about the scene with the divorce. Yeah.
The announcement. No, no, no, that was in Sammy's mind.
That's happening in Sammy's mind. Okay, okay.
Sammy is going through something, which we all went through, my sisters and I, that actually happened. My parents, they made an announcement.
They announced they were separating and getting a divorce. Wow.
So in my imagination, years later, telling the story, I imagine wouldn't I need to get away from the trauma by putting a camera between myself and the event. So Sammy looks up and reflected in the mirror, Sammy imagines himself with the camera up to his eyes filming the divorce.
Right, right, right. And that was Sammy's way of disassociation.
Sean, Sean, when you saw that, sorry, just that you picked up on that, did it, what kind of effect did it have on you? Because your parents got divorced. Did it resonate with you? Oh my God, I'm the only one in the theater that clapped.
No, I'm kidding. No, when my dad left, we were like, hallelujah.
But no, no, it was very touching. For all the reasons you said, it really resonated with me on so many levels.
The bullying, the divorce, the family interaction. Like all of it.
I was like, oh, my God, that's me. That's me.
That's me. But there's this beat at the very end of the movie, which I think is so clever.
And everybody in the theater erupted with, with like knowing laughter, the very, very, very last shot, the thing that you do at the end, which I don't want to give away is so clever. I loved it.
But, but it's also one of those moments that you are known for where you trust that comedy or levity that you're bringing to a moment is going to work and not be cheesy or undercut the importance of the scene.

It's such a fine line.

And every movie, there's even in Schindler's List, there was like one line that was just a little comical from, I think, Ben Kingsley or somebody.

And it was, you always ride that line. And how do you trust that that's going to work? Well, what I trust is that the audience remembers the movie I made.
You know, that the audience remembers it well enough that if I recall something, it will be recallable. You know, if the audience didn't understand the gist of that last

big scene between Sammy and his

hero, and

if they didn't listen to the content of

the lesson, that would have fallen on

deaf ears of an audience. But when

an audience pays attention, I just trust the audience

follows everything, and

that they're going to understand that that little

coda was the point that I was trying to make, that I listened, that I listened to the character of Sammy. Right.
And that scene actually happened to me in real life. I met the master when I was like 16, 17 years old.
Yeah. And that word for word, to the best of my recollection, that word for word would happen.
When he says, now get the fuck out of my office. I love that.
That's he's a little steven spielberg yeah so so steven this is steven this obviously this this this story uh has has been in your mind and with you since you were a kid um and i would imagine you've been revisiting the idea of of doing this uh for a long long time what was it about last year, I guess, when you finally decided to do it?

Was it just timing of other projects

kind of not yet fully ready?

Or what was it?

No, it was interesting.

It was the COVID pandemic.

It was sitting idle for a couple of years.

It was not going into the office

and directing is a social disease.

And writing is something that's kind of like when writers write or artists paint, you know, it's something that you can do from home. You can, you don't, you know, so all my writer friends kept working throughout the entire pandemic.
I'm essentially a director. I'm also a writer director, but I identify as a director.
And, and it was social starvation, not being able to go into the office, not being able to sit around at a writer's room with all the writers in person. Zoom wasn't quite working for me.
And I kind of also was terrified that this was an end of days, an epic level event, I mean an extinction level event that was happening to the world. By the time Tony and I sat down to seriously start engaging in discussions about writing this, we'd already lost 250,000 Americans to COVID.
And I didn't know, and I actually was saying to Katie and my family, if there was one thing I wanted to leave behind, if I got a chance to make one more movie, what would that movie be? And without even blinking, it was going to be the story. That's cool.
You know, James Gray, whoageddon times said something like and i'm paraphrasing during the pandemic we were locked away for two years and everybody got uh very introspective and that's why all these movies now coming on are personal but and he said but i think it's because we think it's all over we think this is always our last movie we're ever going to make and that's why they're making these. What are your thoughts about that? You know, I've never had that feeling until now, until the pandemic, because I was seeing that, look, like all of us, I was riveted to the Fauci reports.
I was riveted at the time to what all the anchors were saying on the different news outlets and all the experts that were coming out and the denial from that White House that this wasn't so bad. It was just like a passing flu epidemic.
And I really thought that between the denial and between the battle between politics and science, that we were not heading in a good direction and that this was not going to end well for many of us. And that just got me thinking about, you know, telling a story that has been on my mind, you know, Jason has been on my mind all my life.
I've thought about this. And I thought about someday I got to tell the story.
And I would tell episodes with your friends, you're always talking about your childhood, right? You're sitting around schmoozing about what it was like to grow up. And I would often tell some of these more seminal events that appear in the Fablemans.
And I had a lot of friends of mine saying, why don't you tell that story on film someday? That'd be a pretty good movie. And my mom even said, Steve, when are you going to tell the story? When the HBO, Susan Lacey HBO documentary came out a number of years ago.
Fantastic. My mom saw it and called me up and she said, okay, now you got to make that a movie.
That's got to be a movie that we can go out and see. And then Kate was always supportive and Tony was the one that really, Tony Kushner was the one who really wouldn't let it alone.
All through West Side Story, he kept saying. I love that.
And then for our next number, right? And so Tony was really the one that lit the hottest fire to get me to think about getting serious about this. That's so cool.

And now I read, you're gonna get to

see one of your

kids, your daughter,

direct a movie I just read. Oh, that's cool.

Are you excited about that? Destry. Yeah?

Yeah, I'm so excited about that.

She was hired based on a short film

she made, a wonderful

short film, which I adored.

And the producers behind the John Wick series saw it and gave her a movie. That's cool.
That's really great. With a respectable budget, too.
Yeah. So it's exciting for the whole family.
Was she a bit of a set rat? Has she been shadowing you for a long time? She has been. But, you know, for most of her life, she was in love with the equestrian arts.
She was a fantastic hunter-jumper, and she had horses ever since she was three years old. And we all thought that she was going for the Junior Olympics, that she was going to like Jesse Springsteen, Bruce's daughter.
She was really going to make this a career. And then what happens is, and the trainers all told us, they said, well, there's going to be a point where she discovers boys or she discovers girls.
But in either case, when she makes that discovery, that's the turning point. They either continue writing or they stop writing.
And Destry stopped writing. But she always loved movies and she'd always come to the set.
And she worked in the property department of West Side Story

for three and a half, four months when we shot that movie.

So she was on set every day.

And this was just something that she was always interested in doing.

And the other thing that Destry did so well

is she's a great stills photographer.

And her compositions and her use of black and white.

So I thought she might be the only kid

that follows sort of in my directing footsteps,

although all my kids are in one fashion or another in the arts.

Thank you. I thought she might be the only kid that follows sort of in my directing footsteps, although all my kids are in one fashion or another in the arts.
That's great. I love that.
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I want to fan out and ask you about every single movie you've ever made in your entire life. Okay, fan out.
Fan away there. Well, Sean, by the way, before you do that, I was going to say, Stephen, you know, it's so, we've had the honor when, you know, through the course of doing this podcast of talking to people who have done things that have, you know, that are really part of our culture or, you know, cultural fabric that are just woven right in there and certainly you're right at the top of that list.
Your films many many years have been like you know when people look back on their lives these are touchstone films these are films that represent different eras in people's lives and for you they have a representation too but everybody has their own interpretation because they watch it at whatever age and whatever they were going through and i can go back and think through all your films i saw the theater. I was a little kid.
I was way too young to see it in the theater, but I did for my buddy Jeffrey's birthday party because his mom was a little bit of a wingnut. And she let us go and see it when we were too young.
And I remember, this is a true story. I've never said it.
I laughed on purpose because I was so scared that I laughed in order to fool myself to not be scared. And I still have that memory.
And that is a movie that you made. And so many people, millions and millions of people like me, like us, have different memories from all those films.
Do you ever... I laugh because I'm so scared whenever I see Jason.
Is it something that you ever think about? I mean, is there a... I don't want to put you on the spot, but is there a weight to that at all, knowing that connection that you've had with the people of this planet? Yeah.
Well, you know, I can only turn around and sort of pay it forward by paying it back by saying when I saw Lawrence of Arabia for the first time, when was like 16 years old in Phoenix, Arizona at the Capri Theater with those rocking seats with everybody smoking around you in the low smoking section, you'll recall. And I never smoked.
So for me, that was kind of like desert scenes and I'm choking on people's cigarette smoke. But that was seminal for me and that was the touchstone for me that really at first made me not want to be a director because I thought I'll never, ever be able to get anywhere near what I've just experienced.
But then I kept seeing the movie. Every couple of weeks I went back and saw it again and wow.
So when people come up to me and they say, the first thing they come up to me and they say, I'm talking to someone, and they say, you know, I saw E.T. when I was seven years old, and the person telling me that looks like they're my age.
And I'm going, well, how does that make me feel? Of course, I know, of course. Speaking of the first time I ever met you, years and years ago, and I came up to you and I told you this story, which was when I saw E.T.
when I was 11 years old, my brother took me, my brother Kevin took me for my birthday, and I said, after the movie was over, and of course everybody was crying in the theater, I said I'd give anything to be him. And my brother said, Elliot, I know, to have a friend like E.T., wouldn't that be so cool? I go, no, I'd give anything to be Henry Thomas.
Like, at 11 years old, I knew that I wanted to be, I wanted that part. I knew that I wanted to be an actor in a film that that was that great.
And that's when I kind of knew. That's fantastic.
Can I dork out on a process question real quick? So you have inspired so many of us aspiring filmmakers in many, many things, not the least of which is shot design. And so I have a question about that.
You're clearly, these things, these shots are designed sometimes so specifically to augment what the scene is trying to say. So that whole sort of visual presentation on the idea of the scene, that's obviously been designed by you before actors get on set and before you have discovered where everyone's going to walk and talk.
what can you say to a young filmmaker when they've got some great shot design

and you get on the set and the actor says, well, no, I don't think I would sit in that chair. I think I'd be standing over here against this wall, which destroys your shot design and therefore might not have the same visual kind of support for what the scene's trying to say.
What do you say to that actor? I mean, I imagine you don't have that problem nowadays with an uppity actor, but how do you manage that sort of that creative collaboration and negotiation? They're fired. Immediately fired.
That happened to me in television when I was first starting in TV in the late 60s and early 70s. And when I met this actor, he had wanted to be a director.
He was much older than me, and he never had a chance to direct. He was starring in this TV movie I was making, and he wouldn't do anything I told him at all.
And he wouldn't do a single thing I told him. And I finally, on the last shot, the last shot happened to be a conference room, and he was supposed to give a speech, and he was supposed to exit at the end of the scene out a door that wasn't really a door it was a teeny little space it was maybe only three feet deep and he was going to open the door go in and close it and I was supposed to say cut and I by that time I was at the end of my rope and he was a professional and so when I when I when I said action he played the scene and then he'd made his exit he went out of the little closet and closed the door and I turned to the table of other actors and I said, okay, start improvising.
And I made them talk and improvise for eight minutes while he stood in the closet for eight minutes. And then when I finally said, cut the door open, I was expecting to get punched out in front of the whole crew.
And he walked right by me, didn't look at me, and he apparently left the soundstage, got in his car and went home. And that was the last I saw him.
Oh oh God, that's a win. I would love to know who that is.
I was going to ask you too, I think that you're, I think you're known, um, of, you know, as one of the great, uh, stagers, uh, of, of directors. Your staging is, is beyond, uh, uh, I don't think anybody's ever staged the way you do.
Is that something that you learned or is that something that you just innately knew? Like, it's just, because I think that it's kind of, the art of that is just, I don't think it's talked about enough in filmmaking. Thank you very much for that.
I've, you know, staging to me is one of the most important things I can contribute to telling a story again because I think that the shots essentially are a way to illuminate what the writer has already put down on paper and what the actors have already interpreted to be their new selves as we all work as a company. And so my part of that collaboration is to illuminate and even to strengthen some of the moments through shot study or through blocking.
And I just know growing up that I was always amazed at moving cameras and especially Lewis Milestone, the moving cameras of All Quiet on the Western Front or his Korean War drama Porkchop Hill, those amazing shots where the camera just climbs the hill with Gregory Peck and Woody Strode and Robert Blake, and they're climbing this hill. And the first thing I thought about was that is the coolest shot.
And the second thing I thought was, how many people should take the push of Dolly up a 30-degree incline? So I was always sort of behind the scenes as I was admiring what was happening in front of me. And I've just, and William Wilder's staging and blocking and certainly Billy Wilder's staging and blocking.
I just, there are just directors that I learned so much from. What about like...
Sorry, Sean, I just want to say as a follow-up to that then, because there is a very, you know, I noticed, especially now with filmmakers, not to get, again, too inside baseball, but we've become increasingly reliant on, you know, on cutting and on close-ups, et cetera, et cetera. And I remember I watch Close Encounters probably once every year, maybe every year and a half.
I can't stop watching that film. It's, for whatever reason, certain films speak to you and it's always scratched an itch for me.
And there's a scene where Richard Dreyfuss is finally losing it, and he's at home. And the camera's almost like it's on the threshold of this door between the two rooms, you know, between the living room and sort of the kitchen.
And you never cut. And it's not gratuitous.
It's not like, oh, this is one take, and you're looking for applause, because you're telling the scene, and you're able to capture that frenzy of that moment of this family that's falling apart and everybody's talking over each other but yet you can still understand it and the camera moves with everybody and i just thought it's and it's so it's such an unheralded moment and yet once you start to understand what the filmmaking process you're like this is a great way to tell this part of the story in a way that people don't realize. And I think, and thank you, and I think that that particular moment is something that did not come out of storyboarding or was not on a shot list.
Part of what inspires me to figure out how to frame or how to travel in terms of blocking the actors is, you know, getting everybody on stage and letting them do what comes naturally to them. If they get to know their characters well enough, they're going to know whether they should be sitting, standing, kneeling, or turning.
And there's an intuitive trust I have in the intuitive ability of an actor, a really fine actor, and even a real fine intuitive actor that might just be starting out in movies or television, that they bring things to the table. And I'll just let them block themselves, meaning just move around.
And usually, in terms of safety, when I say, let's just run the lines, the actors pretty much stand to deliver. They stand looking at each other, and they have their scripts open if they're still on book.
And they'll just start doing the dialogue. And sometimes, will start just traveling.
They'll just start wandering around. And it'll give me an idea.
And I won't even say, why did you walk to the refrigerator and open it? I won't even ask that. I'll say, oh, that's great.
It just seems to be an honest, like theater. And Mike Nichols is one of my favorite directors, and so is Ilya Kazan, and you look at their blocking.
Look at Nichols blocking in Carnal Knowledge

and in The Graduate.

And also, especially, maybe the best blocking

Nichols ever did was his first movie,

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

And then you look at the blocking that Kazan did

with Streetcar Named Desire.

And you wonder, you gotta wonder,

was that blocking, those brilliant blocking choices

not made in collaboration with the actors who put ideas in Kazan and Nichols' head? And that's the kind of collaboration that happens in theater, as you know from your experience on stage. That's so cool.
Yeah, I love that. So, you know, like I said, I could go through every single movie you've ever made.
It's just the effect that you and your films has had on me and like Will said, billions of people is just unbelievable. But I want to talk about, I could ask you a thousand questions about Jaws, but you're probably so sick of talking about that.
By the way, is it true that the word blockbuster came from Jaws? I don't know. I don't know where the word blockbuster came from.
It's true. Is it true? It's true.
Yes. Yeah, sure.
Because the line was around the block.

But Indiana Jones... But it was also around the block for The Greatest Show on Earth by C.B.
DeMille

and also around the block for Gone with the Wind.

Everybody thinks that Jaws was the first blockbuster

and Jaws was by far not the first blockbuster.

Yeah, but I know somebody coined that phrase, I think, for that movie, but I don't know.

Take it, Stephen.

Take it.

I'll take it.

Thank you. By the way, before I get into those questions.
And then George took it from me a couple years later. For what? For what? We used to take from each other in the old days.
Well, speaking of George, how did you meet George? And I want to go back to all those others. But how did you meet George? And two parts about Indiana Jones.
How did you meet George? And then also casting Harrison Ford on the heels of Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. Wasn't there like a concern about the audience buying him as anything other than Han Solo? Like, how did you, how did that come about? Well, in quick succession, I met George through a brighter friend of mine, Matthew Robbins, and he suggested I go to, I was at Long Beach State College, he said there's a contest between UCLA film students and USC film students happening at Royce Hall at UCLA.
And so I went to the contest, to the competition, and THX 1138 played and won everything. Of course.
Just won all the awards. Loved it.
And so I went backstage and I had met Francis Francis Coppola a couple times, and Francis and Matthew Robbins introduced me to George. So we met backstage when he had just won.
He had just beat UCLA. USC beat UCLA.
Not just in basketball and football, but in movies. And that was a good deal for them and for me to beat George for the first time.
And then, you know, George and I became fast friends and when Star Wars was coming out, I've told the story before, but when Star Wars was about to come out, George liked to run to Hawaii and hide from bad news. He was very much like me.
If we're going to get bad news, let's get bad news in Hawaii. Let's not get bad news in Encino.

It's a good idea.

Nothing wrong with Encino, by the way,

but better to have bad news in Hawaii.

And so we went to Hawaii.

George inaugurated this thing about building lucky sandcastles,

and you build it close to the high tide mark.

And then if the sandcastle the next morning is no longer there,

the ocean wiped it out, your film will be a flop. And if the castle still is there, the film's going to be a hit.
So we built the sandcastle just as the sun was going down. The next morning we ran down to the beach, and it was intact, and about, I don't know, a couple hours later, he found out on the telephone call that every single 10.30 a.m.
show of Star Wars was sold out across the entire nation. Wow, wow.
So this is before tracking. This is before tracking.
And so that's when George, in his euphoria, asked me what I wanted to do next. And I said, well, I want to do a James Bond film, but Cubby Broccoli won't hire me.
I've asked him twice, even after Jaws, he wouldn't hire me. And George says, well, I got that beat.
I got something called Raiders of the Lost Ark. You should do that instead.
And that's how I got involved in that.

And the Harrison story is very simple.

George asked me to come up and look at a cut of Empire Strikes Back

and we were still casting

for Indy

and I just said to him

what about that guy

for Indiana Jones? And George said

well that's Han Solo.

And I said yeah but he's an actor. He can play more

than Han Solo. John Wynn was in

57 westerns playing different characters

There's... for Indiana Jones.
And George said, well, that's Han Solo. And I said, yeah, but he's an actor.
He can play more than Han Solo.

John Wayne was in 57 Westerns,

playing different characters

as John Wayne.

Right.

And George started

taking it seriously.

So we sent the script

to Harrison

and he loved it

and said yes.

I love that.

You mentioned that

you saw a cut

of Empire Strikes Back.

That's something

that I just think is so cool

that you guys,

your peers

at a very, very high level

I'm going to go. You saw a cut of Empire Strikes Back.
That's something that I just think is so cool, that you guys, your peers at a very, very high level, look at each other's work at an early stage and give notes and help one another out. We do.
Is that still very, very frequent for you? And I imagine that group changes a little bit every once in a while. It was part of a wave where all of us were interactive with each other for years.
It doesn't happen so much anymore, but oh my God, in the 70s and 80s, you know, we couldn't wait to take our movies, and we couldn't wait for the royal drubbing, you know, because it was not always, our rough cuts were not always greeted with support. It was usually, this doesn't work.
You've got to fix it. You've got to throw that out.
You've got to reshoot this. You've got to reshoot that.
So it would get kind of violent, you know, sometimes. I remember when George showed Star Wars to all of us.
He showed Star Wars for the first time to about 40 of us, and I would not say it was the best rough cut screening anybody had ever seen. And I'm not saying that I was prescient or anything, but I was the only person in the room that said, this is great, it's going to make a ton of money.
And we went to a Chinese restaurant and everybody just started coming down on the film. It didn't make sense.
You know, who are these guys? Who are the guys that look like Nazis but they're all in white? You know, All this is stormtroopers. And there were no special effects in it.

You have to understand, it was all blue screen.

It was like bang, bang.

There was nothing.

Every time there was Star Wars, when Star Wars were happening,

George cut to black and white gun camera footage of P-51s

and Stuka's dive bombing thing.

Right, right.

So you went from color with blue screen

to black and white stock footage from World War II. And what were you like? You're like, this is good luck, George.
I thought it was great, actually. The only people that flipped out for it was me and the head of the studio, Alan Ladd Jr., who had financed the film at Fox.
Yeah, for sure. And Laddie and I, we thought it was going to be great.
I have a quick question from Scotty here, who's, you know, in love with you like I am, like anybody else. He says, first of all, he can sing every single word in Mandarin from Anything Goes from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
For real. He memorized the whole thing in Mandarin.
Well, my wife doesn't remember. I keep asking Kate to sing it for me, and she says, I forgot the Mandarin.
Yeah, no, he'll remind you. And if by, this is a real question, if by some miracle, this is from Scotty, you happen to be home with Kate watching TV and you're scrolling for something to watch, what is the movie you will always stop and watch even with commercials? Dr.
Zhivago because it's kind of the film we sort of fell in love with together. Oh, that's nice.
Good question, Scotty. Can I ask you about, there's a shot in Empire of the Sun, which, thank you for discovering Christian Bale, where I think it's that spot when he runs up on the roof and, you know, I forget what he says about the jet going over.
P-51's Cadillac of the sky. And I think the camera stops its pan, and in the deep, deep distance, there's a parachute coming down in the background.
It might be that shot. It might be a different one.
But I always thought, my God, it would be so easy to make that incredible shot without that parachute. The fact that you – it must be very difficult to drop a World War – what was it? One parachute? World War II.
Two parachute. And get it in the right – in the frame, in the composition of composition of that.
How difficult was that to do? And how ambitious to say, no, that's what we're doing today. And it's going to take a whole day to do an eighth.
You know, that wasn't the script. That was Tom Stoppard's contribution, who wrote the script based on the J.G.
Ballard book. And Tom just created a kind of dream world for Jim, played by Christian Bale, and he's been hugged by Dr.
Rawlings because he's sort of gone, you know, he's become hysterical, let's say, on the roof, and Dr. Rawlings is trying to calm him down, and when he embraces him, Jim looks up and this parachute's coming down, and it was just something that Tom had put in the script to create a kind of dream state for both the character and for the audience.
In order to call into question, is this really happening in reality or is this only happening in Jim's imagination? Since Jim had an overly active imagination. Yeah, but so difficult probably to...
I don't remember if it was difficult or not. I have a feeling that it was one of those things where we had the stuntman on a crane and there was probably even...
I'm not really sure. I kind of forgot how we did that.
It was a long time ago. I'll bet you probably had to drop him from a plane and just pan the camera to wherever he's going to drop down, frame left or frame right, and just kind of pivot with it.
Because I don't think you get a crane up that high with one of those old parachutes. I'm not sure.
It might have been actually just, you know, we might have cheated the shot also and lowered the roof or something. But I'm sure we didn't drop him from a crane because, I mean, from an airplane, because everybody would have just been panic--stricken hoping his chute would open.
Right, that's what I mean. It was like the shot was just amazing.
So in, I think it was early 90s, I can't remember, in the 92 or 93 or something, one of, as of many, but one of your most impressive years in your career, both Jurassic Park and Schindler's List came out in the same year. Andassic park was the highest grossing movie ever at that time and did you have any like they're so contrasting films obviously was that that wasn't by design was that just by accident like did you know when you were making either film they come out the same year and be as successful and and when they're both so different you know it was interesting was interesting because I was very much working only on Jurassic Park.
In the editing room, I had finished my cut. What was left was the mixing and the color correction.
But we had the release planned already. And I had been working with Steve Zalian on the Schindler's Lift script for quite a while.
And we went to Poland together. And we went to Auschwitz, Steve and I.
And we went to all the actual locations, saw the apartment Oscar Schindler had taken over from a Jewish family in Krakow. We went to the site of the Poshaw forced labor internment camp.
We went to all of these places. And then we both inspired and Steve had already written a like 115 page draft and I kept saying to Steve, this has got to be like 170 pages.
I mean, let's not, let's just go for it. And when he came back, he had written this extraordinary draft after several months later and I read it right in the middle of post-production on Jurassic Park and something

seized me and all I knew was I had to do the movie now I couldn't wait for another winter winter was about to come up I needed winter for Schindler's List and I kind of put the production Schindler production in onto a fast track in terms of having to cast it and having to location scout and I kind of, I went to George Lucas

and I said, George, I need a huge favor from you. I've never done this before, but I've got to make Schindler's List, and don't ask me why.
It's just in me. It's in the marrow, in the deepest parts of my, I guess in that sense, I have to tell the story.
It's in my marrow. And I don't want to wait a year.
I don't want to let this feeling wane or dissipate and will you take over the rest of Jurassic Park so George agreed and George mixed the movie he corrected the color and it had already been cut, I had locked the cut but George did everything else after the locked cut and that allowed me the freedom to go off and start shivers and the confidence that you've always. I mean, I remember that documentary you're talking about called Spielberg, which is so great, that you said when you were much younger and making your first films, once you finished one movie, you couldn't wait to start another because you felt good about yourself when you were making films.
And when you weren't making anything, you know, you had to be with yourself and reflect on who you were, the doubt, as you call them, the scary whispers of lack of self-esteem or whatever it is. When did those feelings, I'm sure they don't creep in anymore.
I mean, look at you. But how and when did that shift for you where you became, you know what, I'm going to trust the moments in between movies.
That's never, I've never taken that beautiful pill. That's never happened for me.
I mean, oh my God, I wish that would have happened for me. No, fear is my fuel.
I've often said that, and it's true. The scarier I get, the sort of more proactive I become, and I get more inspired if I'm not secure.
If I'm really secure, look at my sequels. They're not as good as the originals because I know at least it's going to open.
It's going to open really well. And so...
But you had the confidence not to make Jaws 2, which is... I don't understand.
Yes, I did. I had the confidence not to make Jaws 2 and I didn't think there should have been a Jaws 2.
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And now, back to the show.

I don't know if there's an answer for this,

but if there is one, you'd be the one to be able

to come up with it. It seems like

every year, the distance between

the films that get great reviews versus the films that make a lot of money gets further. And you have seamlessly been able to marry both commercial viability and artistic accolades in every film that you do.
It's just, it's an incredible accomplishment. What would you say to a filmmaker that was looking to, you know, make money with a film or, you know, be commercial, sell popcorn, but also really impress the most discerning of critics, viewers, et cetera.
What, what is that, what is that ratio? What's that sauce that, that's, it's not, it's not this, it's not that it's's not that, it's together? I mean, I think every filmmaker needs to make a movie that that filmmaker would not be able to live without making, would not be able to live without in their lives. So the first person the filmmaker has to please is him or herself.
I mean, that's absolutely essential that you've got to do something, you know, right for you. Then you have to, of course, be responsible and you don't want to overspend and you want to control the budget as much as possible.
The film doesn't feel like a commercial movie on the outset. You want to spend a ton of money if it's not going to make a money back for the studio because often it's the commercial success of something that gives you your second job.
Or if the film gets great reviews, by the way, and doesn't make any money, that could also get you your second job. But you've got to please yourself before you try to please the studio or try to please the critics.
You've got to say, you know, if nobody goes to see this movie and if nobody really writes nice things about it, but if I like it

and I could live with

the story I told and the work in that

story, that's good enough for me.

And that should be the main criterion

for filmmakers. Right, right.
So the story

is, so you're not thinking

I need to do this to

achieve this,

you know, so that it's viewed by

other people in a certain way and how they feel about it is secondary to how I feel about it. And that's where I'm going to...
That's exactly right. But if you want to make commercial movies, then what are you going to go for first? A high concept.
You're going to want to get into the high concept business and you're going to want to do something that's already been proven to have been successful. And the kind of movies I really admire are the films that nobody ever guessed would make any money at all.
They make a lot of money. You know, that's always really, really, when something like that happens, that's very exciting.
It seems like, lucky for us, what you seem to think is commercially viable or is super relatable ends up being very, very human stories, which is a great guess as to what is going to be commercially appealing is something that we can all relate to. We're all human.
We all have parents. There's a small little person inside of all of us that we've been with since we were little kids that no matter how old you get, it's still there.
And you always seem to... Little Jakey Bates.
Yeah, a little Jakey Bates. Jakey.
It seems like they're at the center of all of your stories, no matter whether they're big movies or small movies or black and white or color or effects or not, there is something that you just drill us right in the chest. And just thank you for that.
No question in that uh just thank you yeah thank you very much do you have a um jason kind of touched on this already and we've asked this we've kind of talked about this area a lot on on our show but does how does it make you does it bum you out that certain films you may be drawn to direct would be for streaming and not the theater now like that whole argument of like the movies that we that used to be in the theater are now on our tv when you say bum me out are you are you talking about my own work and the choices i'm sure but in terms of the business as a whole well this the streaming business has given a chance for five times more filmmakers to get their start making films than had there never been a streaming business. Yeah, that's true.
So right away, it is a huge opportunity for storytellers to get their feet wet. Yeah.
And if they have a good idea or they find a book and a streaming service wants it and the person's only done music videos or the person's only done commercials or the person's, you know, just on someone else's

recommendation that the streaming service trusts or an actor that says, I want this person to direct me. It's a great way to get started in this business.
My God, if we had streaming services back when I was starting out, a lot more filmmakers would have gotten their breaks. Right.
So I think the streaming services are very, very good. What I would like to see the streaming services do, however,

is to allow more theatrical window dressing

so that they're at least given a chance to make some of their money back theatrically where people can go out to the movies and see them before they debut on the service. Right, right.
And I think if you come out with a movie that is popular or at least is critically popular, if not commercially popular, you build up the IP. You build up a cachet is created and suddenly the film becomes kind of famous.
So when it comes on the streaming service, debuts three weeks, six weeks later, it's recognizable and people say, oh, I've heard all about that. Wow, I want to see that.
And so I don't understand the day and date philosophy, which is why I'd be terrible running a streaming service and why I'd probably get fired the first day. Well, one of the other things that streaming has given us an opportunity for as viewers and filmmakers is more the long-form approach to these stories.
And I'm sure that you've answered this, so I apologize for not knowing your answer, but if you wouldn't mind repeating it, your instinct or appetite for doing something that is perhaps a limited series, some sort of an eight-hour story as opposed to a two-hour story, where do you sit on that? I'm sure you play with certain ideas. I was willing to do Lincoln as a six-hour.
Oh, wow. Because I couldn't raise all the financing for it.
Nobody believed in it. You know, our company was only good for 50% of the budget, and I went all around town, and everybody turned me down.
I'm not going to name names, but every single person turned me down. And I was ready to make a deal with HBO to expand it to six hours.
Tony Kushner's first draft was 550 pages. So I had the goods.
I had the material. I don't know if I could have talked Daniel Day-Lewis into doing five or six hours.
But I was on the brink of that and the person that came in at the 11th hour and sort of saved it for the movie screen was Tom Rothman over at 20th Century Fox. And he read the script and he put up the other half of the money and that's why the film became a feature film.
Wow, that's pretty cool. But do you have an appetite at all? But I do have an appetite for long form and I someday will direct a long form series.
I mean if somebody had brought me Mare of Easttown, I would have done that. That was a beautifully directed story.
I love that. Great.
Let me get an email address on you real quick. Hey, Stephen, what is the...
So, Fablemans is the movie that you always wanted to make. It's the story...
Is there another story out there? Is there another thing out there that you you're like nobody will ever make it or this is improbable or like but but it's something that's always kind of i don't know maybe something you read years ago that you've always like god maybe there's a world where i could make that is there is there one out there if there was i wouldn't be talking to you guys i'd be on location somewhere shooting it i would say i'll do it next year when I'm available. I'll talk to you guys next year because I love your stuff so much.
Your podcast so much. No, I don't be talking to you guys.
I'd be on location somewhere shooting it. I would say, I'll do it next year when I'm available.
I'll talk to you guys next year because I love the show so much. No, I don't.
I actually haven't crossed that bridge yet. I don't have what you would call the next film I've always wanted to make.
West Side Story fulfilled a deep, abiding love of the idiom of the Hollywood and the Broadway musical. And it was the only musical I would ever turn into a movie.
And not to say that I didn't love the 61 movie. I adore the 61 movie.
But Tony Cushman and I found a way to make it relevant for today, for our time. And that's why I did it.
And I don't have any desire or appetite to make another musical. That was it for me.
Right. But I don't have any, I don't have a wish list that goes much beyond the Fablemans as my personal kind of love letter to my family and not so much of a love letter to the bullies in my life, but certainly the way that I was able to work out the trauma because I think we all work out trauma through the art we create.
That's how you work out the trauma. By the way, one of the greatest lines in the Fablemans is when the bully is bullying you in the hallway and you say, maybe I'll make a movie about it one day.
It's like, we're watching that movie. It's so cool.
You mentioned West Side Story. Can I ask you about the choreography in that was just so exciting.
Incredible. Not only just the dancing and the actual design of the choreography, but the way in which you guys shot that.
Sorry to ask another process question about shot design and cover strategy. But what was the call time on that? Jason really likes to get into the nitty.
But it did seem to me like the choreography had to happen first, and then you and your cinematographer,

was that Janusz as well?

Janusz Kaminski.

And so would you guys watch these dances fully done

and then decide how you're going to shoot it?

Yes.

I would watch the dances fully done.

The first thing I did was I storyboarded the choreography.

So I sat down just with a pencil,

and I sat with Justin Peck.

No paper? And I did the whole thing on paper. went to justin's office he's the choreographer with his associate now his wife uh patricia delgado and i just started uh we put on the the broadway 57 broadway you know score the broadway album and i and i basically used the broadway album and i just started doing shots and I just started figuring out what could be a sustained shot where all the dancing could take place in front of your eyes, before your eyes so it doesn't seem cheated it's all happening right before you and what things needed these staccato energy infused of montage, of editing and I figured that out but then when Justin started choreograp it, I'd go down to Dumbo, Brooklyn, and I would just watch them put all these numbers on their feet, and I took my iPhone.
And guys, I just basically shot every number with my iPhone by myself. I'd be sometimes in a chair with four casters, and they'd dolly me around.
But I got all my shots on my iPhone. I would cut it together to the music and then realize, well, that sucked.
And I would go back the next day and I would reshoot the whole thing on my iPhone. And because he kept repeating the choreography and he kept fine-tuning it, I was able to make six, seven passes and cut all those passes together with my camera device.
Wow. So by the time I got to the stage, by the time I got to the streets of Brooklyn and the streets of Patterson, New Jersey, and down to Harlem where we shot a lot of the film, it had already been shot on video, and I just went and converted that to film.
By the way, Tim Cook is going to request the tapes from this for his new iPhone commercial. Yeah, exactly.
I want to ask you one of my favorite moments and a lot of people, but one of my, to me, a profoundly funny, great moment. I want to know how much of it was planned before or how long before is that great moment in Indiana Jones when the guy pulls out the knife and the sword and he starts swinging it around and Harrison Ford just pulls out his gun and shoots him and not only just shoots him, then turns away and like back to business.
To me, it's profoundly funny. Everything about it is great.
And then beautifully recalled in the end of the trailer of the new film. That's right.
Yeah, it's recalled. I think what's funny about that, and I'll tell you in a second how that came about, but I think what's funny about that is the last thing he does when the swordsman threatens him, and I felt this was really important.

I asked Harrison to wipe his brow and in so doing fold the front of his fedora hat upwards so he looks a bit like Gabby Hayes.

And I thought by making him look a little funny looking, by taking the brim of his fedora and forcing it to go up as opposed to coolly be down just over the brow,

It took the owner of off of cold-blooded murder. Right, right, right.
That was a little thing that I was hoping would work for us. But the whole reason it happened was Harrison, you know, had some tainted lamb the night before at a restaurant where we were shooting in Carawan, Tunisia.
And he had some tainted lamb and he had a case of what we call the Theristas.

And he said that morning, he said, you only got an hour.

I'm going back to the hotel in an hour.

What can you do in an hour?

And I said, but it's a three-page scene between a swordsman and a whip.

You're supposed to fight this guy with your bullwhip. He said, yeah, but you only got an hour.
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I'm not a fan of I remember saying I'm not a fan of I remember saying I'm's a three-page scene between a swordsman and a whip. You're supposed to fight this guy with your bullwhip.
He said, yeah, but you only got an hour. And I remember saying, well, why don't we just shoot the guy? And Harrison remembers saying to me, why don't we just shoot the guy? So I don't know whose idea it was, but I know it was one of the two of us came up with the idea.
Yeah, that's great. And about an hour and a half later, we had done four shots and he went back to the hotel.

Wow, that's amazing.

That is amazing.

When I corner Jason at a party,

sometimes he calls me Gabby Hayes.

Anyway, so I have one question about...

Nobody's going to know who Gabby Hayes is, by the way.

I know, exactly.

But one question about...

And then we'll let you go

because I don't want to take up too much of your time.

John Williams, okay?

So John Williams, been nominated for 52 academy awards good lord for all of his scores it's unbelievable it's like but the fablemans was that's more than camel soup makes soup yeah yeah um but your collaboration with him in the fablemans as he now famously has made it known that he's retiring from film scoring, tell me what that was like knowing, sitting in those sessions with him, knowing that this is going to be your last collaboration together. Right.
Well, you know, we collaborated on Indiana Jones 5, which he just finished, and that'll be his last film score, which I'm, you know, emeritus now. I'm executive producer, no longer directing.
Jim Mangles, the director. But for the Fablemans, that was going to be the last score that he was going to write for me as director, and I knew that going in.
And Johnny did something very special. I mean, he always previews the scores for me, but he had come up with a tune.
We only play one time, which is in the last scene between Mitzi and her son, Sammy, the last scene they have together in the film. And John composed it just for that scene.
And then of course it recalls itself in the end titles. You get to hear it a second time over the end credits, but it was one of the loveliest pieces of music he has ever written for any of my movies.
And he did it as a gift to my mom and to my dad and to me and i'll never forget it and i'll never forget my reaction to it and the other only i've had a lot of very emotional reactions to johnny's music but the only thing that this reminded me of was when he wrote the main theme from schindler's list yeah and how how deeply moved i was and then it happened again uh less than a year ago when he previewed the score on the piano for me. Yeah, it's one of the greatest collaborations ever, you two, for how many movies? It's just incredible.
It's the greatest collaboration I've ever had in my career, ever. Wow.
Yeah, it's incredible. Which is saying a lot.
Yeah, it is. I've had a lot of great collaborations, but that one takes the cake.
Well, we haven't worked together yet, but that's okay. But anyway...
That's coming, that's coming. That's coming.
That'll be one of the great ones. Check your email, Sean.
Yeah, for sure check your email. Stephen, thank you for your time.
I could ask you 75,000 more questions, but you're very, very kind to give us even this little bit of time. This flew by for me.
I just had the best time talking to all three of you. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Stephen, we so appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Huge, huge honor.

Thank you so much.

Please keep going.

Thanks, pal.

All right.

And Jason, keep directing.

I love your Ozark episodes.

I love all your work.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

And Sean, good luck on Broadway.

And Will, good luck with everything that you do.

And I'm just very honored that you three guys chose me to talk to you.

That's so sweet.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Stephen, very much.

Have a great day. You too.
Thank you. Bye.
Yeah, who wants to start crying first? I did just a little bit already. I will say this to one of the, first of all, how incredible that we got to sit and have an hour talking with Steven Spielberg.
With Steven Spielberg. Sean, I think you win the guest grab of the year.
Was he on your guys' list too? Yeah, but I would never dream of pitching him as like, hey, let's call Steven Spielberg. He's like a Mount Rushmore of guests that I was like, you know.
Here's the other thing I can mention, and I want to say this is that when we got, when we were finished interviewing him, and we can cut this if we want, but we were able to talk to him for a few minutes after, you know, we stopped rolling for a second. And he said goodbye to us.
And to have that moment of, which we don't generally have with people. Never, by the way.
Never had a guest stay on for 20 minutes afterwards. We cut for a second and we started talking to him and he made a point to go around and ask each one of us what was going on and how he did.
I know, and like personal lines. He's so kind.
Yeah, and very kind and generous of spirit and really sweet guy. Yeah, he's got that thing that not a lot of people have where he checks a lot of boxes just in this business of being an incredibly talented man, a personable guy, a people person, like social skills are incredible.
Jason, write this down because these are stuff you should strive for. I'm looking up these terms as you're saying them.
I know. He's a people person.
That requires going around people. You have to be around other people, Jason.
He does seem incredibly generous with the presence that he seems to be aware that he has with folks. And he doesn't take that for granted.
And so he was really generous with us. And as you said, Will, made it a point to make sure that he just said, hey, how are things going on in your life and how important that would be to someone like us.
Well, and Jason, you said it too. It's hard for him to ignore who he is.
He knows who he is and where he fits within the sort of the, you know, certainly, like I said to him

on the show, culturally, the impact that he has had. And the other thing is, you know, like I said, you know, he was very generous.
I told him the story of, and you guys know this, when I came, when we were shooting Blades of Glory and we made it for DreamWorks and he had seen the first dailies and I was coming out of SNL

with, it was Sudeikis and Will Forte

and we made it for DreamWorks and he had seen the first dailies and I was coming out of SNL with, it was Sudeikis and Will Forte and we were talking after SNL and this was like 2006, I guess. And the winter of 2006 and we're standing there waiting to go to the after party and Spielberg, Steven Spielberg walks into our little crew of guys who were talking, waiting to get in the car to the after party and he goes, hey Will, Steven Spielberg

I just want to say I've seen the dailies of Blades of Glory

and you're doing such a terrific job

and then disappeared into the night gun in the car

and drove away

and I remember Sudeikis and Ford being like

what the fuck man?

Like did that just happen?

And he didn't need to do that

he didn't need to go out of his way

he knows who he is

he understands the impact

for me as a performer

Thank you. And he didn't need to do that.
He didn't need to go out of his way. He knows who he is.
He understands the impact. For me as a performer, as a thing, it was mind-blowing.
He lifted me up, and I think that that's what he does. He lifts people up.
And when you live your life in the service of lifting other people up, you get to, you know, it lifts your own spirit. Leadership stuff.

Yeah, it's incredible, man.

Incredible.

If you have like a light bulb to change

or a picture to hang,

you have to lift people up.

I think that you're going a little,

you know what you are?

You know what, Sean?

Yeah.

I mean, I don't mind it,

but that's a little,

buy the book.

Buy the book. Buy the book.

Buy.

Well done.

Smart.

Less.

Smart.

Less.

Smartless is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Michael Grant Terry, Rob Armjarf, and Bennett Barbaco. Hey friends, Jason here.
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