"J.J. Abrams"

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Speaker 1 Hey, Jason, did you hear Bennett wants us to do an intro where we're at the dog track?

Speaker 1 Should we be worried?

Speaker 2 Right, well, he's got great creative ideas, usually,

Speaker 2 but he looked a little drowsy this morning. You think he might still be up? It was a long weekend.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm worried because he keeps mentioning the dog track, and I'm like, dude, stop mentioning the dog. Who's going to the dog track these days?

Speaker 2 We live on the West Coast. We don't go to dog tracks.

Speaker 1 We don't go to High Lie either. Yeah, we're not going to.

Speaker 2 Boy, take a nap. How about here comes Smartless? Smart.

Speaker 2 Smart.

Speaker 1 Let me ask you, anyway. Yeah, go ahead.
Why do you wait literally until? I didn't wait. So listen to me.
No, I'm just saying, you, first of all, finish eating. Can I just say that?

Speaker 1 No, just to me, you always wait until right before we start recording to shut eight pounds of food into your hole. Well, listen to me for a second.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So it's now, I'm on the East Coast, you guys are on the West Coast. It's one o'clock.
So I was just, I was with all the kids.

Speaker 1 I had four kids walking into town and the dog. Yeah.
And it took us 90 minutes to go there and back. And by the time I got back, I thought I'd have more time.
I'm like, shit.

Speaker 1 And I worked out right before, and then I did a five-mile walk. So I'm like,

Speaker 1 I got to eat. And I got back.
I had four minutes to go. I hastily put together a turkey sandwich on some country white, okay, a little bit of mayo and some salt and pepper.

Speaker 1 And Jason's peeing, by the way, that's it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Jason's peeing. That's why we're starting the show already.
And so I started with some sliced American

Speaker 1 on there as well. And then I hammered it down.
And I didn't bring the HAL's chips, the kettle chips, into the equation. But now that you bring it up, I'm going to have a couple.

Speaker 1 Geez.

Speaker 2 Wow, that was a five-minute piss, and Will's still eating.

Speaker 1 Says you, by the way, you have a gallon of electrolytes, and you're giving me shit for eating.

Speaker 1 You're eating, what the fuck, you drink water.

Speaker 1 But wait, Will, do you ever, do you guys ever go to like a regular gym? Will just get back from the gym. You mean, is there like a little setup in your house or do you actually go?

Speaker 1 And when you go, like I do, like normal people do, Are you like a germ phobe? Like, because I can't. Not in my own house.
I'm not. No, no, but you ever go to an actual gym? No.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't because of that exact thing.

Speaker 2 I will say this.

Speaker 1 I used to. I still do.
I used to go to the gym. I belonged to a very popular gym

Speaker 1 conglomerate for many years.

Speaker 2 Is it hot dudes? Is it hot dudes?

Speaker 1 It's called hotdudes.com. Did I already tell you this? Yeah, you did.
Yeah, yeah. I started to tell you.

Speaker 1 Hot, easy dudes, it It was called

Speaker 1 hot, by the way. All dudes are easy.
Who's kidding who?

Speaker 2 Hey, um, I don't want to paint the picture that you know, us, uh, you know, uh, I've been told this, I'm not calling ourselves it, Hollywood elites have their own gyms on the

Speaker 1 pandemic and

Speaker 2 that, and also, like, you don't need your own gym, like just running outside or doing a push-up or sit-up at your house, like, as opposed to still talking, uh, going to a

Speaker 2 going to a gym where you're sharing bodily fluids with people. It's just even before the pandemic.

Speaker 1 You're not sharing bodily fluid. You're just

Speaker 1 doing it. What are you doing at the gym? Well,

Speaker 1 listen,

Speaker 2 I'm a friendly fella.

Speaker 1 All right,

Speaker 1 let's get to it.

Speaker 2 Will, are you done done snacking? Can we

Speaker 1 go? I didn't start the show snacking. I snacked right before.
Did it bleed into the show a little bit? Yes. All right, here we go.
Right.

Speaker 1 You guys are, i don't want to tell you how you're going to feel but you're you're going to be blown away this i love this guy so much because

Speaker 1 he is the funniest most talented uh person in so many areas he also has really we'll see

Speaker 1 he also has really cool funny hair and if he's not careful and lets it grow it will consume his face but this guy's okay how about this the guy's first gig in the movie business was when he was 16 years old he wrote music for a horror flick called night beast

Speaker 1 he also did he i want to ask him about this next thing. He developed or some kind of something, animation, something for Shrek.

Speaker 2 Nice research. Nice research.
Yeah, thanks.

Speaker 1 By the way. Hang on.
Wow. Are you telling me that this guy, something or something, something? Something to do with Shrek.
I got to ask him about that. Wow.
So wait. And also.

Speaker 2 Sean, you're the best journalist I've ever met.

Speaker 1 Also, wait a minute, you guys. Listen to this part.
This guy directed.

Speaker 1 Star Wars, Star Trek, Mission Impossible. It's J.J.
Abrams. It's J.J.
Abrams. There we go.
Oh, I guess it.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Look at this. Look at this fella.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's got a real shallow depth of field on that webcam.

Speaker 3 I got Darius Kanji to do this podcast.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 2 We appreciate that.

Speaker 1 You know, it's funny, JJ, you always know when I email you because I start every single email I've ever sent you with, hey, JHH, HHH, HHH, HHH, HHA. What's up?

Speaker 2 He must love it.

Speaker 1 It's great. It's funny.
Never gets old or funny.

Speaker 1 What is JJ, by the way?

Speaker 3 Jeffrey Jacob.

Speaker 2 Got it. Oh.
Never Jacob Jeffrey.

Speaker 3 No, never, not once.

Speaker 1 No, that's because it's not his name. Yeah.

Speaker 1 How are you guys doing? Real good. We're doing great.
How are you, JJ? Wow.

Speaker 3 I love this podcast. I can't believe you're having me on.
And I actually think

Speaker 2 I haven't listened to this.

Speaker 1 No, I haven't listened to this. No.
No, no. I've seen not one thing I'm going to do.

Speaker 3 No, I will, though. I'm going to, after this.

Speaker 1 You'll listen to our episode.

Speaker 2 You'll listen to your episode and you'll send us notes.

Speaker 3 No, it's, honestly,

Speaker 3 I love your show. And I'm honored to be on.
You're very sweet.

Speaker 1 Thank you. We're honored to have you.

Speaker 1 First thing I want to say, and Sean kind of tipped on it right in the intro how much stuff you've created and worked on and done and how incredibly busy you are and it leads me to my question which is i see some guitars in your background i'm thinking when the fuck does j abrams have time to play guitar when he's scoring shrek i guess and and did you score shrek i was i was in the middle of shrek and i just got inspired to get away from it i didn't know you wrote but i left out you also wrote the themed songs to like alias and lost and like is that true i didn't know this about you what what what what instrument did you start learning and how old i only did those theme songs because i could because i was the one who said okay like no one would ever let me do that right but you can write music like how did you learn music like was that a thing i can't read music but i've i've always played and i've always you know i remember we had a piano when i was a kid and i would just you know bang on the piano my dad would walk by and say stop

Speaker 3 that's encouraging but i i always would think you know god i wish there was a way that that was you know a string section or something, you know, an orchestra. And later on,

Speaker 3 yeah, I was lucky enough to live in an era where they actually started to make synthesizers and samplers and things where that could actually happen. Yeah, that's so cool.
So now that's what I do.

Speaker 1 Where did you grow up?

Speaker 3 Where was that? Born in New York and then raised in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah. That's very similar to me.

Speaker 1 And your parents were in the biz, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah, my dad still is a TV movie producer, which is unbelievable. He's made a ton of TV movies.

Speaker 1 I didn't know this either.

Speaker 3 Wow. And my mother was also, she was a lawyer and all sorts of things, but she also was a producer.
And so I was very lucky to get to grow up and visit Seth.

Speaker 3 My dad had an office at Paramount Studios when I was young, young.

Speaker 3 And I remember at like 13, 14, I'd go and visit, and I got to know the guards and they'd let me in to watch them when they were rehearsing like Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley and Morgan Mindy.

Speaker 2 I went into Happy Days set once.

Speaker 1 I mean, it was amazing.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Wow.
What was your memory of that?

Speaker 2 Oh, just watching Jerry Parris direct and watch these three huge cameras rolling around

Speaker 2 and all the marks on the floor and you know really

Speaker 1 I mean it's it was it was awesome yeah I mean and somebody like me who grew up in the Midwest watching the show like I went to a taping of Laughin' that's in the 70s when we were kids god you're ancient which by the way you've talked about on the show yeah it's it's just to prove that i've listened yeah that's true wow good for you good callback oh that was the uh amy said that okay

Speaker 2 14-3 minute marker exactly

Speaker 1 but but to know that you guys were were in the thing that people just watch. Like, we had no idea how it was made or anything.

Speaker 1 We were just like, oh my God, look at these characters coming out of our screen. And you guys were there.
That's so cool.

Speaker 3 I've always thought that would be a fun book, like called Fourth Wall, that would be like, what was the fourth wall we never saw of all those sets? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, you got two guys right here who would never read it. Hey,

Speaker 1 JJ.

Speaker 2 It's like flipping the reverse button on the iPhone, right, to see the other way. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 I would have said, like,

Speaker 1 I grew up in Toronto, and maybe I'm like the only guy in showbiz. I didn't care.
I didn't really care about how it was all made. I didn't really care that much about showbiz.

Speaker 2 You didn't want another magic trick?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't know. I didn't really.

Speaker 3 How do you feel about it now?

Speaker 1 I love it. Of course, I love it.
And once I started doing it, but when I was younger, I wasn't like enthralled with it. I mean, I didn't, I grew up watching TV in the 70s.

Speaker 1 I don't know how old you are. I'm 51, so I was born in 70.

Speaker 1 When I was a kid in the 70s, we watched TV, but I hear about people. I'm like, it wasn't huge in my experience in that way.

Speaker 3 It's funny. I don't think I thought about it, the sort of how-to of it at all either until I went to the Universal Studios tour.

Speaker 3 Because that was the thing that made me realize that it was a thing to do.

Speaker 3 I mean, that God just didn't make episodes of Batman.

Speaker 1 It was Burt Ward of Adam West and those friends.

Speaker 2 Yeah. There was,

Speaker 2 I did Silver Spoons on the Universal lot, and Ricky Schroeder and I used to, to get sort of the wiggles out, we'd ride our bikes around the back lot there.

Speaker 2 And he had this aquarium aquarium in our schoolroom there that had fish in it that would only eat other fish, these just vicious, you know, huge-mouthed fish.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 2 we'd go to the Jaws Lake and collect goldfish in plastic bags to feed the fish. So we'd get out in the middle of the lake, which is only about three feet deep.

Speaker 2 We'd roll up our pant legs and wade, you know, and try to get these fish.

Speaker 2 And eventually our parents got a letter from Studio Services saying, hey, so we're trying to scare people on the tram when when this big white shark comes out of the lake, and it ruins things when we got the two 12-year-olds out there, you know, netting goldfish.

Speaker 2 Can you, can you leash your dogs, please?

Speaker 3 That's amazing to grow up on those studio lots.

Speaker 2 It is twisted, yeah.

Speaker 2 So, listen, so about that, so about being a kid and getting into sort of an excitement about the business and stuff, is that where your attraction to making stuff came from, your parents, the fact that your dad was and mom was doing it?

Speaker 3 It was funny. I just remember being, a kid and going to sets and sort of watching, and whether it was something that my father was producing or my mother or just visiting

Speaker 3 Mork and Mindy and watching those people in their civilian clothes rehearsing, like I just desperately wanted to be part of it.

Speaker 3 And it's funny, I remember that my father pointed out, because I was obsessed with Mary Tyler Moore show. I love that show.

Speaker 3 And I remember that he pointed out Jim Brooks' laugh, you know, and his laugh is just, you know, the.

Speaker 3 what's amazing about his laugh, and if you watch any episode, you hear it, and taxi and everything, is that it's not just that you hear his laugh, but it was where he laughed that was so interesting.

Speaker 3 He would laugh in moments that weren't just the sort of mass audience laugh. Like, he would laugh before a thing was happening.
And he would laugh. And it was this weird...

Speaker 3 I remember as a kid, like being in an elementary school watching episodes of Mary Tyler Moore and hearing that laugh. And it was like, it spoke of the rehearsals.
It spoke of what he knew was coming.

Speaker 3 It was a kind of encouragement to the actors. It was this kind of.

Speaker 2 He was conditioning the audience, too.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 But it was this, yeah, it was this weird sort of thing that was happening that was like, it felt like a closed caption process of like of Mary Tyler Moore just because of that.

Speaker 3 But I just, I was always aware of it, but I wasn't really, you know, determined to have some part in it, whatever I could do, until I went to Universal Studios.

Speaker 2 Yeah, where does comedy sit for you? I don't think you've done any comedies or a lot of comedies. Do you want to?

Speaker 3 I've never done a comedy and I would love to.

Speaker 3 Comedy was, you know, for me, obviously, the Carol Burnett show,

Speaker 2 I Love Lucy, All in the Family, all those, yeah.

Speaker 3 Every Norman Lear show.

Speaker 3 I was obsessed with all of it. And

Speaker 3 Three Stooges, I loved. And I just, there were so many, like looking back as a kid, yes, I'd watch, you know, I'd watch Batman and I'd watch The Twilight Zone.
I was obsessed with The Twilight Zone.

Speaker 3 But everything else was, you know, the old Dick Van Dyke show. I just loved talking to Jerry Paris.
I just loved comedies.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Did you, so how did that start with you then? So like, how did you start as a showrunner, first of all?

Speaker 1 I know that, was Felicity the first show that was yours that you show ran, that you were EP of that you created?

Speaker 3 It was the first TV thing that I did with Matt Reeves.

Speaker 3 Um, I'd been working on a bunch of movies, I'd written some and I'd been rewriting a bunch, and I was in this kind of weird cycle of doing rewrites for things that I was just sort of feeling lost as a soul.

Speaker 3 I was like, what am I doing?

Speaker 1 You know, how old were you at that point?

Speaker 3 Um,

Speaker 3 25, 27, whatever.

Speaker 1 So you're 25, 27. you're kind of like in this weird gray area where you're doing rewrites, you're getting hired, you're a rewrite guy, but you're also trying to get TV shows off the ground.

Speaker 3 No, I'd never thought about doing TV.

Speaker 1 You hadn't thought about it.

Speaker 3 No, I just was, I just happened to get into writing films, and I was, I had written a bunch, and I was just sort of feeling like I'd lost any sense of purpose or joy in what I was doing.

Speaker 2 Had you studied writing in college?

Speaker 3 Yes, I took a writing course with a great teacher who I adored. And

Speaker 3 I didn't know if I was going to, what I was was going to do. I thought maybe I was going to be a novelist for a while.
I had no idea. I just wanted to do stuff.

Speaker 3 I remember in my senior year feeling like, oh, it's over. Like college is about to end and I better make a fucking decision.
I better do it.

Speaker 3 And I had this weird thought, which is like, and it was such a weird practical thing. I was like, I need an agent.

Speaker 3 I don't even know where that came from, but I was like, if I'm going to succeed and do anything, I need that person who's going to help.

Speaker 2 And there's no writer showcase in college, is there?

Speaker 1 No. No, there wasn't.
They don't come to the college looking for you.

Speaker 1 Jason's actually actually asking you if there is because he pointed out before he doesn't know anything about college and it scares him and also did you guys teach roofing at your college

Speaker 1 sorry

Speaker 1 joke

Speaker 1 wait wait so you but you come out and you do this thing you do you don't know what you want to do and all of a sudden so you kind of like back into

Speaker 1 felicity in a way if you i'm putting words in your mouth but what happened was i i met Katie McGrath, who is now my wife, and she's the best. She's the best of all the people.

Speaker 1 She's the best? Yep. She is.
Of all the people.

Speaker 2 He found her. You should meet her.

Speaker 1 Yep. Okay.
She's awesome.

Speaker 3 So she reminded me of the thing that I should not have forgotten,

Speaker 3 but we can only remember so many things at one time, which is write things you care about. Write what you love.
I was like, oh, that thing. So

Speaker 1 be authentic, Will.

Speaker 2 Don't be full of shit, Will. Does it mean, you know, come from the heart, Will?

Speaker 1 Go ahead, JJ. Sorry.

Speaker 3 Please.

Speaker 3 So I told my friend Matt Reeves, who I had known since we were kids,

Speaker 3 about this idea of a girl going to, following a boy to college, like doing something really ridiculous and making a crazy mistake, but realizing it was something that actually was good for her.

Speaker 3 Anyway, so we started talking about what that would be. I wrote this pilot.
Matt said he would direct it. We showed it to Imagine, who had never made a television show at that time.
Wow.

Speaker 3 And they just brought on someone who had never produced TV before, Tony Krantz from CIA. He was an agent there.
So none of us had made TV before. And suddenly, you know, they bought it.

Speaker 2 It's amazing that Imagine, Tracy,

Speaker 2 for Tracy,

Speaker 2 that's a company run by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. And Ron Howard, being the man who basically started television, had not yet produced a television show.
Please continue.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and I was so excited to get to be working on a show with the guy who I used to watch rehearsing Happy Days. And so we did this show, and it was madness because none of us had done it.

Speaker 3 So we didn't know what the hell we were doing. And it was really fun.

Speaker 1 It's cool. Big success.
So you do Felicity with

Speaker 1 my friend and your friend too, Carrie Russell, whom I adore, one of the best people.

Speaker 3 I cannot say enough things.

Speaker 1 I just heard about your wife, but I always thought Carrie was the best. The best.
But now I understand that.

Speaker 3 Carrie is another one of the best.

Speaker 1 One of the best.

Speaker 1 She's just the best. To me, she's the best.
But so you do, but you do Felicity and to great acclaim.

Speaker 1 I remember when that show came out, and it was, obviously, it was the first big thing for Carrie, and it was huge, and it really put her on the map. And also, people were talking about you a lot.

Speaker 1 And then to the point that when you did Alias, it was like from J.J. Now Now it became from JJ Abrams, the guy who did Felicity.

Speaker 1 My point is, your trajectory, even though you were unsure at 25, pretty soon you were able to sort of course correct and you start doing Felicity.

Speaker 1 And from that moment on, did you have any sense that you were going to become JJ Abrams, who not only

Speaker 1 shepherded Star Trek, but also Star Wars? The fact that you did Star Trek and Star Wars is both.

Speaker 2 It's not sustainable, JJ. What's going to happen?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it is not sustainable.

Speaker 1 is the only way it is down. Yeah, absolutely right.
You're going to crash for sure.

Speaker 2 He's got Katie, though.

Speaker 1 He's got a Katie running shot. I really hope you saved a lot of money.
Because I don't know what your monthly nut is, but honestly, I'd pare it down.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God. Will, you're like my conscience.
I know.

Speaker 1 Everything you're saying. I would pare it down.

Speaker 3 It's like just before I fall asleep at night, every night.

Speaker 3 No, the truth is that when we did Felicity, we were on this network, which is no longer the WB. Right.
And the WB did this crazy thing, which I thought, you know, made no sense at all, which is...

Speaker 3 The frog?

Speaker 3 The frog was one part.

Speaker 3 People are listening, like, what the fuck?

Speaker 1 Tracy, the frog was the mascot of WB. Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 3 They would put on all of their posters and materials for shows

Speaker 3 from producers as if it mattered.

Speaker 3 Like they treated the people like no one who knew who Joss Whedon or Kevin Williamson or J.J. Abrams or Matt Reeves were.
And they put our names up there as if it meant something.

Speaker 3 So I sort of blame them because

Speaker 3 it made no sense. It was like, who the fuck cares? It's from J.J.
Abrams and Matt Reed.

Speaker 1 We've done nothing.

Speaker 2 Tell me if the frog likes it. If the frog's liking it, I'm watching it.

Speaker 3 It was like they needed to fill the space or something. I don't know.

Speaker 1 They did all their shows. Well, that is one of those things that we do, and we see in show business.

Speaker 1 And for Tracy, when you see that thing that says, from the people who brought you, there's a really good chance that those people have no idea that this thing exists.

Speaker 3 It's a lot like when the movie Seven came out and the title sequence was so incredible. And then the people who did the title sequence all broke up into like eight companies.

Speaker 3 And suddenly, every title company that was out there was like, yeah, we did seven.

Speaker 3 And it was just like, you know, from the people who brought you the title sequence, it was seven comes the title sequence.

Speaker 1 It's also like you meet a lot of the executives in this town.

Speaker 1 I remember people being like, you're hearing, like, and you know, you'd see them, they'd move from one company to the other, and then you'd see Variety, and they'd have so-and-so.

Speaker 1 And he worked on Arrested Development. And I'd talk to Mitch, and Mitch would be like, I have no idea who that person is.

Speaker 1 But they happened to be in the building the day that Arrested Development was green lit or whatever. Yeah.

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Speaker 2 All right, back to the show.

Speaker 1 JJ,

Speaker 1 for me, you being on the podcast is not only just an honor that you're here, truly.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 great for me.

Speaker 2 No, there's a butt coming, JJ.

Speaker 1 Hold it. Okay, here we go.
Yeah, yeah, you're waiting for the butt. Yeah.
No, yeah, because it's coming.

Speaker 3 I I got to go, guys.

Speaker 1 He's got the good part. He just got the good part.
It was an honor.

Speaker 3 Clay.

Speaker 1 That is survival. You got to go out on top.
I wish you learned that years ago. No, so this is great for me because in the podcast form, I get to ask you all the things I've ever wanted to ask you.

Speaker 1 But when we see each other socially, I can't really be like, what was it like working on Star Wars? Yeah. Right.
No, but I get to ask dumb, dumb questions.

Speaker 1 Like I've always wanted to know, like, two questions. What was your favorite movie as a kid? And what was the first movie you ever saw? And were those inspirations to you?

Speaker 3 I think Mary Poppins or something was the first thing. But I remember seeing the hunchback of Notre Dame, the Charles Lawton version, and it just crushed me.

Speaker 3 Like, it was this weird thing where I was like, I knew while I was watching this, I was like, you know, seven or something. And I knew while I was watching it, like, this is crushing me for life.

Speaker 3 This is like, this is an adult. Because it's like, this is a story of, you know, of fate and love and oppression.

Speaker 3 And, you know, and I just remember just being this kid, just feeling like I didn't know how to process it. It was so, and it was heartbreaking.

Speaker 3 And that this guy was, you know, at the end when he's like, you know, if only I was born in stone, it's like, you know, I was a puddle for, you know, I think decades.

Speaker 1 That's heavy. That's a heavy burden.
Oh, my God. That movie.

Speaker 3 That movie's amazing. And then, by the way, when you go to the Universal Studio Tour.

Speaker 1 I love that it's Mary Poppins, a Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Speaker 3 But you go to the Young Universal Studio Tour and they're like, and this this is where we shot Hunchback of Notre Dame. You're like, what? It was like as a kid.
I'm like,

Speaker 1 it wasn't there.

Speaker 2 Now, are you the kind of guy that watches a bunch of...

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, he's got to answer what his favorite film was. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 I think,

Speaker 3 you know, I loved,

Speaker 3 as a kid, if you're asking me, as a kid,

Speaker 1 both, both. As a kid, but also of all time.

Speaker 3 Well, one of my favorite movies of all time is Philadelphia Story, which

Speaker 3 I love like crazy.

Speaker 2 Tom Hanks, Tom Hanks, and Denzel Washington.

Speaker 1 Just

Speaker 1 fantastic performances.

Speaker 1 No, go ahead. Keep trying.

Speaker 3 And North or Northwest, too.

Speaker 2 North by Northwest. North by Northwest.
North by Northwest.

Speaker 1 What about you? North, yeah,

Speaker 1 by Rob Reiner. Rob Reiner, he killed us.
Oh, no, that's North.

Speaker 1 When I was a kid,

Speaker 1 I was 11 years old for my 11th birthday. My brother took me to Northwest.
You were 11 years old for your 11th birthday?

Speaker 1 No way. My brother.
That's a coincidence.

Speaker 1 How lucky were your parents on that,

Speaker 1 right? Sorry. Yeah, school wasn't wasted on me.

Speaker 1 I went to go see, my brother took me for my birthday to see E.T. And I'm sitting there, and everybody in the theater all crying at the end when E.T.
leaves, and

Speaker 1 Elliot's there. And I said to my brother, I said, Oh my God, I'd give anything to be that kid, right? And he goes, Yeah, Elliot,

Speaker 1 all these kids probably want to be Elliot and have that experience. How cool is that? And I go, No, I'd give anything to be Henry Thomas.
Like, I knew at 11 years old, I wanted to be an actor.

Speaker 1 The opportunities ahead of him. I wanted to be that kid.

Speaker 1 God.

Speaker 1 No way.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. I told Spielberg that I was.
I was just telling my kids, we were walking on this big walk, and I was talking about, they were asking about Star Wars.

Speaker 1 My 11-year-olds asked me about Star Wars, and I said it was the first film that I remember seeing in the theater. And it was the only film that I've ever seen.
I saw it four times in the theater.

Speaker 1 And they took my whole, that was 1977, so I was seven. My whole school went to see it because it was such a phenomenon.

Speaker 1 It was, nobody had seen, and I said, I was trying to say to my kids, nobody had seen anything like it before. There was nothing else.

Speaker 1 There was no other sort of frame of reference for it. It blew everything away.

Speaker 1 And now they're so, of course, you know, Friday, my, my son is waiting for Black Widow or they're waiting for Loki to come out every day, you know.

Speaker 1 But back then, this shit, that was incredible.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you remember, do you, as a guy who's now a director in the Star Wars and part of the whole Star Wars machine, do you remember having an impact on your life at that age?

Speaker 3 Oh my God, not only was it, I mean, for anyone of our generation, it was obviously such a massive and insane, transformative thing. And those movies were in the theater for over a year.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like they'd come out and they would just stay.

Speaker 3 You know, which is crazy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, isn't that where the term blockbuster was?

Speaker 3 Yeah, Jaws was the

Speaker 1 round the block. The line was around the block.
Oh, is that, is that right? Oh, my God. I just.
Wait, wait, is that true? I just felt like such a Tracy in that moment. Yeah.
Yeah. I think that's true.

Speaker 2 JJ, do you know the answer to that question?

Speaker 1 Is that true? I believe that that's the answer.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Lines around the block.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I guess that makes sense.
Sean, see, well, he's not stupid. I don't know.
I feel bad about him all the time. I feel bad about my text I just sent you.

Speaker 1 I feel really bad about that last text I just said. Can I tell you, JJ, I got to say, I love, first of all, we don't really know each other.

Speaker 1 We've said hi to each other a bunch of times over the years.

Speaker 1 But there was a time a mutual friend of ours, I don't know if you remember this, a mutual friend of ours about 10, 12 years ago was sending an email out to everybody and he forgot to BCC, so he CC'd everybody.

Speaker 1 So everybody in the A's and B's in

Speaker 1 his address book got sent this email and we all saw each other's email address. And it included you and me and it was

Speaker 1 the woman who did Hurtlocker, that great director. Catherine Bigelow.
Catherine Bigelow. Can't believe I forgot her name.
Annette Benning, a bunch of other people.

Speaker 1 So he immediately said, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry that I sent, I forgot, I should have BCC'd and I CC'd. I'm so embarrassed.

Speaker 1 And I sent out an email at the time and I singled out a bunch of people and I was like, hey, listen, Catherine Bigelow, big fan. Hey, Annette Benning, I've got half a script.

Speaker 1 I'd love to get to you if you've got a minute. And I said to JJ, hey, can I want to be in some of that space shit?

Speaker 1 I was just bored. And I sent it out, right? You immediately responded to all, and you were hilarious.
You're like, you're in, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 I need your sizes.

Speaker 1 Anyway, you're so super funny, and you always seem really, really down-to-earth.

Speaker 1 I just love that about you.

Speaker 1 I want to say this. You've got great vibe.
You've got great vibe.

Speaker 3 That's very generous.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3 Thank you. And yeah, it's funny.
Even though we don't know each other, I always sort of feel like we do, which is completely unwarrantable.

Speaker 1 So I know. Well, I'm a warm guy, too, on top of it.
So I think we're both warm guys.

Speaker 2 And before I ever met you and confirmed how great and warm and cuddly you were, I'd always heard about it from Grumberg all these years.

Speaker 2 Greg

Speaker 2 stay.

Speaker 2 He's a friend of yours.

Speaker 1 He's an actor and

Speaker 1 you guys were roommates together, right?

Speaker 2 You guys have stayed so close for so long. I just think that's such a great, great sign of someone.

Speaker 3 He's he's,

Speaker 3 we met in kindergarten and,

Speaker 3 you know, it's, it's just, it's, it's surreal to now be old men.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like, you know, we've known each other for so long.

Speaker 3 It's like, it's so bizarre because, you know, you see that our kids are now so much, you know, older than than we were when we met right it's like you know it just it confirms that we're all gonna die that's really obvious

Speaker 1 but but but JJ to all to all of that to the point of all of that the the who who in the world taught you how to manage so many personalities with a smile on your face because you always do everyone that deals with you feels respected and valued and and I've seen it firsthand you're always so kind and generous and and giving people time to listen to them and respect them.

Speaker 1 And of course, that makes you an I'm sorry, I just wasn't listening.

Speaker 3 What were you doing?

Speaker 3 Okay, so an even better director so who is is there something or somebody that taught you that this is the truth i i'm so grateful that you again super generous and probably not warranty but i would say is this is that everyone has their own different reasons for getting into this business and for doing whatever they do or at least wanting to get into the business um of course there are no guarantees and i i know for me it was that i just never i was never good at anything in school i was not a very popular student i was not a very popular social kid i was awful in any sports context.

Speaker 3 It was just one of those things where like I just knew, I remember being in elementary school, literally walking through, I remember where I was when I had this epiphany.

Speaker 3 And I was like, I just remember this is not my moment.

Speaker 1 Like just fucking get through this.

Speaker 3 Like I remember feeling like I can't, this is not any good. And when you're a kid that is either, you know, bullied or not particularly popular, it's not like I didn't have some friends.

Speaker 3 It's not like I wasn't a happy kid, but like I just.

Speaker 2 You had Grumberg, but you guys were not crushing ass is what you're saying.

Speaker 3 Grumberg was doing great. I mean, Grumberg, he was one of those kids that like, no matter what we played, Greg was like a superhero.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So he'd get up to bat and you just knew that that ball was going to just go, it would land in another school.

Speaker 1 Like it was.

Speaker 3 And I was just the kid that was going to strike out.

Speaker 1 And so he carried you early on and now you're carrying him. That's kind of a great.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Honestly, he was always a great friend, but it's not even that. It's just that feeling of knowing what it's like to not participate.

Speaker 3 And I think that when you're someone who, I mean, who knows what, but when you're someone who isn't particularly seen or getting any kind of respect, like you, you just, you feel for and have compassion for people who are for people.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And then some people, when they're given the privilege of oversight and leadership, they will now exercise all the bitterness that they have and make everybody pay.

Speaker 2 Although some people, like yourself, remember that experience, hold on to that empathy,

Speaker 2 they relate to that and then they then make that uh that circumstance better for everyone later yeah and that's why you're a great admirable i think

Speaker 3 it's nice for you to say i mean i'm also you know obviously equally um

Speaker 3 you know tyrannical frustrated and oh yeah not tyrannical but like you know i'm katie's going to cover it all in her book you don't you don't need to waste your time here oh she

Speaker 1 do do not mention her book he doesn't know her book guys is there a book i will say this jj what do you think about this so jason's got this theory that once he's had a certain level of success, it will afford him the ability to then be very generous with other people.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's still waiting. It's true.

Speaker 1 By the way, it's true. Right.
Wait, Jason, what's the theory again? You said it to Ron. You can't wait to be.

Speaker 2 Oh, no,

Speaker 2 I said when I was sitting there when things were not going great for me whatsoever, and I was confused about whether I should posture when I go into auditions and I should act like I don't really want it, but inside I was desperate for it.

Speaker 2 And I was watching him do an interview once and he was so friggin kind and warm and unassuming, as he always has been.

Speaker 2 And I remember watching that going, God, I'd so badly want to be that kind and that warm because that's how I feel inside.

Speaker 2 But I feel like if I go into these auditions and I'm that nice, they're going to think I'm desperate. And so I thought if I ever had success where people wouldn't misunderstand that.

Speaker 1 You can be kind to people.

Speaker 2 Then I can be as kind as I want to. And I don't know if I'm there yet, but,

Speaker 2 you know, Will's laughing his ass up. It was a real deep moment for me.

Speaker 1 It's my favorite. Motherfucker.

Speaker 2 Look at the, you can just see the blackness in his heart right there.

Speaker 1 How is that blackness?

Speaker 2 The laughing.

Speaker 1 I want to get to the stuff that I want to ask you. Do you have any great Broadway stories?

Speaker 1 Actually,

Speaker 1 JJ produced a great, great, great Broadway show. What? Come on.
Called. Called?

Speaker 3 The Play That Goes Wrong?

Speaker 1 The play that goes wrong. And it's a huge physical farce and it's hilarious.
Really? It's great. And was that the first Broadway show you produced?

Speaker 3 That was the first one, yeah. Yeah.
And then we did the Darren Brown Secret show, too, which was really cool.

Speaker 1 Wait, you did? Amazing. Yeah.
Do you know him? I do. I've known Darren for a long time.

Speaker 3 That guy's amazing.

Speaker 2 So, JJ, I have a question about

Speaker 2 stepping up from something that would seem to me very sort of manageable as far as scale goes as a director and then making a leap into an apparatus as enormous as the things that you are now rightly known for.

Speaker 2 And to make it relatable for those that might not be in the industry, can you talk a little bit about what it is that makes you capable of taking on an enormous amount of responsibility?

Speaker 2 And to Sean's sort of earlier question, embracing that kind of responsibility of leadership.

Speaker 2 And just for listeners out there that might find themselves in a moment right now where they could either step forward into something that might be a little bit uncomfortable, but they think they might be capable of it.

Speaker 2 And what's that process for you?

Speaker 3 Well, look, obviously, all creative endeavors and collaborations are a leap of faith.

Speaker 3 You just don't know what's going to happen really until you're in it.

Speaker 3 And what I found is that there's actually very little difference between doing something as relatively small as Felicity or Alias and doing something that is

Speaker 3 far bigger, like a Star Wars or Star Trek movie.

Speaker 3 Of course, there are a million differences,

Speaker 3 and yet the fundamentals are the same. And I just feel like, in a way,

Speaker 3 it's less about the managing. I did this years ago.
I did this panel with Chris Rock, and someone asked, how do you hire people to work with? How do you find them?

Speaker 3 And Chris said this thing, which I thought was so smart, which was that he's like, I try to hire my boss. Like, I try to hire someone who's going to show me how it's done.

Speaker 3 Like, not the person I have to, you know, and I think that's, you know, when you work with people who are as

Speaker 1 teachers. You should do that, though.

Speaker 2 You know?

Speaker 3 Well, but I think that it takes,

Speaker 3 I guess it does on one hand, but to me, honestly, it's like it is so moronic to go into something that is so enormous where everyone is the same importance.

Speaker 3 And to not have people who will show you or offer better ideas is insane. So for me, it's every time I'm working on anything of any scale and I feel freaked out or unsure or adrift, I look around

Speaker 3 and I find incredible comfort in that. So I think that the analogy, it's like once you have led, you know, there are teachers out there.

Speaker 3 And if you can like wrangle a classroom of students, you know, you can probably manage, you know, almost anything.

Speaker 3 It's like there, there's a kind of, I think, you know, through line to just knowing how to deal with people and how to spin plates and make sure that things are, you know, juggling a lot of stuff.

Speaker 3 But the truth is that the process, of course, the stories are different, the sets look different, the special effect budget slightly higher on Star Wars and Felicity.

Speaker 3 But when you're, when you're working on things like that, the experience of just trying to tell a story,

Speaker 3 having a camera on two people, it's weirdly, the important stuff is weirdly the same.

Speaker 1 Did you find it difficult for Star Wars working on Star Wars and Star Trek to kind of

Speaker 1 navigate wanting to tell your own original story as a director, but it was created by

Speaker 1 somebody else? And because there's so many people coming to you every direction, it's like, why would you want that job? It just seems,

Speaker 1 what made you say yes?

Speaker 3 Hubris and stupidity probably. I mean, the truth is, and you all sort of know this in different ways.
When you get involved in something that pre-exists you,

Speaker 3 you're immediately on your heels because no matter what you do, someone's taking it personally. Right.
And

Speaker 1 we live in a world where you hear about it too.

Speaker 3 There's no, there's no quiet. There are no internal thoughts anymore.

Speaker 3 And so that is, that's a fucking nightmare.

Speaker 3 That aspect is awful.

Speaker 3 But the truth is, and I'm not joking when I say hubris, because to say yes to something that is not just enormous and a religion for people,

Speaker 3 but also, you know, that has a release date

Speaker 3 and not a script.

Speaker 2 But having walked through that fire and landed in such success,

Speaker 2 can you say to that listener out there that don't worry, the confidence that you wish you'd had at the beginning actually exists on the backside of walking through something that you wonder if you can handle.

Speaker 3 Two things. I think that both the sense of confidence can be the greatest asset,

Speaker 3 and it can also be the thing that blinds you

Speaker 3 to the reality that you're only human and you can only do so much in so much time.

Speaker 3 And so like I look, and this is not, you know, it's a funny thing when you get involved, and again, I'm sure you've had versions of this too. So I'm not complaining about this, but I know it's common.

Speaker 3 But when you're involved in things that matter to people, no matter what you say, no matter what you say, it is somehow taken out of context and then spun.

Speaker 3 And there are so many like reporters who I love and admire. And, you know, especially in this moment when like journalists are getting their asses kicked,

Speaker 3 you know, it's more important, I think, than ever to celebrate them. And yet there are some that are just kind of clickbait whores, let's be honest.
And we'll do

Speaker 3 like I was being interviewed by someone and they were like, what do you say to people

Speaker 3 who hated The Last Jedi because they think it's a feminist, it's feminist propaganda or something? I was like, what?

Speaker 3 And I said, if you, I think if you hate a Star Wars movie because you probably have bigger problems with it. And like the headline was like,

Speaker 3 J.J. Abrams, Colin, if you didn't like The Last Jedi, you're anti-feminist or something.
It was like, I was like, holy mother of God, that's an incredible math problem that you just actually.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 here's the problem in the world where we existed. One of the things,

Speaker 1 and I'm, by the way, you should know I'm on this crusade to get deputized in the small town on the East Coast that I'm living in right now for the moment.

Speaker 1 Because I want to go around, I'm going to get people. I'm going to spend all my time getting it.
I keep talking about it with the guys, getting people for not using their blinker. And I'm going to.

Speaker 3 By the way, wait, wait, I have to say one thing. I can't wait.
So, this makes me insane.

Speaker 1 This not blinker, like blinkers don't matter campaign,

Speaker 3 the anti-blinkers.

Speaker 1 What I would say is this: what I have not heard about this. Oh, my God.
What are you talking about? I haven't heard it either. People don't use the fucking blinker.

Speaker 3 I mean, it's like, it's like, I don't know when it became uncool to signal to human beings whose lives are in your hands, I'm turning left.

Speaker 1 I'm filling the jails.

Speaker 1 So here's the thing.

Speaker 3 The Tesla, apparently, has the, you can make your own horn.

Speaker 3 Don't you think that people should have, use your blinker as the horn?

Speaker 1 Oh, that's great. I'd love to bring you in.
It makes me nuts. I'm going to bring you in to speak to the community.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Wait, how did I start this question? I had a really great question, and then we just got.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you were talking about critics.

Speaker 1 Oh, critics. I was going to say, you know, we live in this world where the critics, of course, they're looking for clickbait because their livelihood depends on it, right?

Speaker 1 So like they can go, whomever it is that they work for can take a look at the data and say, your stories aren't getting clicked on. So therefore, and by the way, that goes for reviews, too.

Speaker 1 You can read a good review for a film that has a bad headline.

Speaker 3 But I think it is yet another way that money has corrupted yet another thing. It's like, it's exactly right.
It's all about, you know, the clicks aren't just clicks.

Speaker 3 It's like, well, you're going to keep your job if you get a lot. You know, it's, it's, everything has been corrupted.
It's a nice.

Speaker 2 It's nice, though, that Rotten Tomatoes has somewhat mitigated that by aggregating all these interviews and just, you know, reducing them down to just a number.

Speaker 1 A little bit, but it's still those same people. So, but JJ, let me ask you this.

Speaker 1 So having said all of this and kind of going off what Jason said, and again, this is for sort of for Tracy and for all our listeners and for me, too.

Speaker 1 Are there moments that you can go back and you can look objectively and say, wow, I've done a lot of pretty cool things and I've done some great things. Is there, do you have those moments?

Speaker 1 And I know a lot of people say, well, I can't really, I got to keep my pedal down and stuff, but you've done a lot of really cool things.

Speaker 1 Do you ever allow yourself that? I mean, at all?

Speaker 3 It's incredibly nice of you to say that, but honestly, it is so not how I see what I have done.

Speaker 3 I mean, I know I've been given incredible opportunities and certainly chances to do things that I don't know if I necessarily deserved.

Speaker 3 And certainly people, there were other people who deserved more than I did.

Speaker 3 But when I was asked to direct a Mission Impossible movie, you know, when Tom Cruise gave me that opportunity, that was something that I could never have predicted.

Speaker 3 And literally the day before he asked me, I could never have predicted. I didn't know that was coming at all.

Speaker 1 Really? At all.

Speaker 3 I mean, it was, I was.

Speaker 1 He gave me a heads up about it, but I didn't. I wanted you to be surprised.
Well, you didn't want to freak him out. Yeah, I didn't want to freak him out.
I wanted it to be surprising. We loved that.

Speaker 1 I love that. I love the one that you did with Carrie in it.
And

Speaker 3 she was so good in that um but my point though is that is that i feel like i've gotten incredible opportunities so i feel very lucky to have done that but i also i don't like learning lessons on other people's dimes and i feel like you know when it's when it's it's when it's a dime as big as you know mission or or star trek or star wars and whether it is you know a little fumble or a big fumble or a thing that i i wished and you know no one else sees or a thing that a lot of people saw that could have been what it wasn't or whatever it makes me wonder because i never in a million years thought i would be doing versions of movies that existed when I was a kid.

Speaker 3 I never thought that was where I was going to go. And I just ended up kind of getting sucked into these things for various reasons and blame no one but myself when things go wrong.

Speaker 3 But like the things that I love, you know, that I've been involved in are a lot of things that are just, you know. Usually the sort of the original stories that when Matt and I did

Speaker 3 Felicity or Damian Lindelof and I did Lost, it's like those are stories that like, you know, it was it was especially fun because they weren't about extending a universe that was already created.

Speaker 3 It was about building one from the ground up, which was

Speaker 1 a lot.

Speaker 1 You built Bradley Cooper's career. You gave him a career.
He can't.

Speaker 3 That's what I keep saying to Bradley. And he's like, I know.

Speaker 1 Bradley should end up putting him on notice. I'm just taunting him so that he'll get mad enough to come and do the show.

Speaker 2 And we will be right back.

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Speaker 2 Okay, and back to the show.

Speaker 1 Do you go crazy when you're not working? Do you like to keep busy? Are you one of those people like when you're younger, all you want to do is work, work, work, work, work. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But then you get into an age. Are you still, are you there yet? Are you like, God, you know what? I'm sitting around.
I can't, I hate feeling idle. I need to just work.
Or are you enjoying it?

Speaker 3 So Will's earlier question of when do you find time to do music? It's like, I do like making stuff. Like, I can't help that.

Speaker 3 And so working on songs or working on, you know, like literally ridiculous art projects or like, you know, I got involved in this crazy modular synthesis thing, which is a rabbit hole I beg you to not go into because it's literally, it will take over everything

Speaker 1 in your life. What is your risk?

Speaker 3 Wait, what is it? What is it? It looks like

Speaker 3 an old-timey sort of telephone operator switchboard where you have these cables and you're connecting different things. And it's like a means of making music.

Speaker 3 And it's a bizarrely sort of meditative, kind of fantastic, weird.

Speaker 1 Wow, I want to see that. What's it called? Modular system.

Speaker 3 I could show you, but no one could see it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's okay. Sure.
We'll describe it.

Speaker 2 Sounds like Johnny Greenwood kind of stuff. It is.

Speaker 3 It's exactly that.

Speaker 1 It's exciting. Can you see? Oh, wow.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Listener, we're looking at a, that's like a mission control type thing.

Speaker 1 Wait, JJ, that thing makes music?

Speaker 2 It can. Have you ever considered scoring one of your things?

Speaker 3 I have, but like I said, you know, like, I don't know when I'm talking to people like, you know, Michael Jacchino, or of course, like John Williams, and you're like, you know, all you want to do is just disappear as a human.

Speaker 3 Because these are actual masters. So

Speaker 3 again, in the category of like, you want all the help you can get. I don't know if my scoring my own thing would, you know, because you want them to elevate your stuff, not destroy it.

Speaker 1 So let me ask you, you mentioned before about you not wanting to fail on somebody else's dime. Do you have a regret sort of professionally?

Speaker 1 Do you have like, we talked a little bit before we had Bob Bodenkirk on here, and he and I were both lamenting that Brother Solomon this movie we worked on wasn't better that Will Forte wrote that we always wish it was a great script and we wished it was better I mean but there were things about it that were like I wish we had done this like and I I have such vivid memories of like I wish in that scene I had done this and I wish that this had do you have those do you have those moments do you have those is there a scene or something that sticks out that still bothers you to this day that you wish was different I mean first of all I will say this that anything that I have worked on it's a massive collaboration So I can't speak ill of any particular project without it coming off as some kind of awful, you know, comic.

Speaker 1 Right, and we're not going to put out a headline that says J.J. Abrams, you know, regrets Star Trek, Star Wars, Felicity, Ali.

Speaker 2 But casting Bradley was a mistake. You've unleashed it.

Speaker 1 It was a huge mistake. And that will be the headline for sure.
Yeah, we got it.

Speaker 3 But the answer is 100% yes. Of course, there are...

Speaker 3 In everything that I have done, I look at something and think, oh, I wish this had happened.

Speaker 3 You know, there are times I wish I had been stronger enough to say to a network, no, we're not ready to do this. We're not ready.

Speaker 3 Because there have been shows that I have been involved in that I know had potential to be something that was not realized because we were trying to please an arbitrary timeline that was decided by someone who, you know, wanted to make an announcement, but had nothing to do with the actual creation of it.

Speaker 3 And I don't blame anyone. You know, it's my fault for any of the things that I feel like could have gone this way or that.
I mean, I'd like to think we all make the the best decisions we can as we go.

Speaker 3 And it's so easy to look back and go, that's when you should have said no, or that's when you should have done X or Y.

Speaker 3 But I have a ton of those feelings about some holistically about projects and some within them. And, you know.

Speaker 1 God, I just look at you and I just think like,

Speaker 1 what that must feel like to have made good movies. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't share that. I have no idea what that sense is.
Because of that, because of that, JJ, and all of that tremendous success, is there a genre that you haven't tackled?

Speaker 1 I know said you touched on comedy yet or that you're afraid to, because you can probably pick anything you want to do. And what is that next thing?

Speaker 3 There are so many movies like I'm sure with you guys that I just I love and I look at and I think oh my god like that is so you know you look at something like broadcast news to talk about Jim Brooks again like it's like it is so

Speaker 3 unbelievably brilliant or Tootsie or Back to the Future or you know there are these movies that you just think holy what the fuck like what magic like it just it's they're so deeply good.

Speaker 1 Magic is right. You hit that, that word.
They are, all of those movies have magic in them.

Speaker 2 Well, but you know what, what's different, though, about those movies versus some of the big sort of effects movies and summer tentpole stuff that really, you know, deservedly drive our business.

Speaker 2 Where do you stand on how those types of movies, like a broadcast news or a Kramer versus Kramer or Tootsie?

Speaker 2 You know, I'm not going down Dustin Hoffman's career, but where do you stand on those existing on a streaming platform, right? Not a theatrical release,

Speaker 2 that there's a possibility that those films could be made more often nowadays if we all accept that maybe those are not going to get a theatrical release.

Speaker 2 In other words, they don't need to be seen in a large format.

Speaker 2 Would you be okay making those movies and the studio saying, listen, it's going to go to streaming because these types of movies don't drive the kind of box office attendance that warrants the huge marketing spend that we would have to make?

Speaker 2 Can you pull the question out of that, that word, Salis?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, first of all, I think anything that allows a movie that is as good as any of those you just mentioned to get made in any format, I think is a good thing.

Speaker 3 For too long, obviously, there hasn't been an outlet for that size movie.

Speaker 3 But having said that, and despite what Barry Dillard just said about the movie business being over, which

Speaker 3 that was just a ray of sunshine, I thought.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 3 I think that there is a human natural need for us to gather and not virtually.

Speaker 3 And I think that you can't, like the fact that people are at the first opportunity rushing to restaurants and games and bars, you know, like it is a sign of like people hungry to live.

Speaker 3 And it's not necessarily like, oh, it's going to be the Roaring 20s. It might.
And I kind of hope it is.

Speaker 3 But the fact is, I think that watching a movie on your iPad lying in bed is fine and it could be even great. But as we know, there's nothing as good as being in a big theater and people screaming.

Speaker 3 It made me think of this time just to, because I can't not talk about Ron Howard every five seconds.

Speaker 3 I went to go see, this is now years ago, but they were showing a Harold Lloyd movie,

Speaker 3 Safety Last, at UCLA and Ron was there and there was an organist playing the music live and it was like 2,000 people.

Speaker 3 And when I tell you that people were screaming at this movie that was made in like 1917 as he's climbing the clock tower, like screaming.

Speaker 1 I watch all of those. They're hilarious.

Speaker 3 And he was amazing. And by the way, do you know the story about his hand, by the way, way, the Harold Lloyd?

Speaker 1 No, yeah, well, that he didn't, that he was missing fingers or something.

Speaker 3 All right, you can just, you can ruin it. Sorry.

Speaker 1 No, he doesn't. I'll cut that out.
No, go. What are you talking about his hand? Why have JJ on? Why don't we just interview Sean, Jason?

Speaker 1 No, sorry. Wait, we'll pretend we're not doing anything.

Speaker 3 The audience was going insane for a movie that you would not typically be watching. So I just think remembering the audience reaction to certain moments of Bill Murray's in Tootsie or something,

Speaker 3 there's a power and a memory that gets made being in that room with those people that you just don't get when you're sitting on your bed watching.

Speaker 3 And I just feel like, yes, we can see movies, but to experience them, I think that, you know, being in the theaters is the greatest. And I'm hoping

Speaker 3 as we go back, you know, to the world, hopefully sooner than later, that that will become more popular and that movies of that size, because I think the success that all sorts of size and shape and form movies are having on streaming doesn't mean that they they need to be limited to streaming.

Speaker 3 I think they could exist anywhere.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 3 That was a more word-salad answer than no, I love it.

Speaker 1 And can you give us a little, all of that that you just said, can you give us the tiny bit of a little nugget of what's coming up next for you? What you're super excited about working on?

Speaker 3 Yes, I'm going to, I wrote a pilot that I'm directing at HBO called Demi Mond that we are going to shoot early next year.

Speaker 3 What's Demi Mond? It's a big swing show for us that I hope, without getting into the story, because anything I start talking about will sound shitty.

Speaker 2 What's the genre?

Speaker 3 It is, it's such a weird one. It's like, it's a funny thing when I think about my favorite movies, they're usually these weird combos of things.

Speaker 3 Like I loved, I mean, it could be more different than this, but like American Warwolf in London for me is like if a Snickers bar were a movie, it would be that.

Speaker 1 It's the perfect specimen.

Speaker 1 Remember Alien was like a horror film, but in space? It was like, wait, what?

Speaker 3 And of course, now it's like, well, it's Alien, of course, but at the time, it was a crazy mashup.

Speaker 3 So this is a bit of a mashup of different genres, but it's the characters I really love. And I, again, I'm thrilled to be working on something that is an original concept.

Speaker 1 And J.J. Abrams, when can we expect to see that?

Speaker 3 I would say end of next year.

Speaker 1 Fantastic. Sean? I'm excited.

Speaker 3 Nice.

Speaker 2 And are you, talk a little bit before we let you go, because we thank you for this time. Talk a little bit about family being so busy,

Speaker 2 shooting on location sometimes, not having the flexibility to come back and forth. Also with that,

Speaker 2 the incredible opportunity that you and Katie have to be working together, like how much of a joy that must be that you guys don't have to separate at the beginning of every day and come back together, you know?

Speaker 3 It's a hugely important part of why I think Bad Robot, our company, works at all is because of all the work that Katie does in it and for it.

Speaker 3 And it does does hit me every once in a while that most people don't get the opportunity to, and that a lot of people don't want the opportunity to get to work as closely with their partner.

Speaker 3 But to me, the idea of working with someone who I trust a lot, like, you know, or trusted the most, it still wouldn't compare to working with Katie, who I just know we have mutual, all our interests are aligned.

Speaker 3 But the family part is, you know, I just rely on pandemics to say, look, we're just going to be a year, year and a half.

Speaker 3 No, the truth is it's a strain. Sometimes you do certain things like, you know, on Force Awakens, our daughter came with me to London with a friend.
So she was there for quite a bit.

Speaker 3 On the last Star Wars movie, our oldest son came with me. Like, we've figured out ways to try and make it work better, but it's just hard.

Speaker 3 And as you all know, having a family that, you know, it's at a certain age, you can't just like up and move.

Speaker 2 Yeah, just because they want their social and school continuity.

Speaker 2 100%.

Speaker 3 So the truth is is it's been a challenge and

Speaker 3 except for the two Star Wars movies, you know, I haven't shot anything outside of LA with the exception of a few weeks here and there.

Speaker 3 So I've actually not been away, those two movies were like two years, so it's not like a blip.

Speaker 3 But I guess I'll say this, is that it's just such an important value to me knowing kind of what sort of parent I wanted to be.

Speaker 3 And I'm sure as we all are, we are just fucking it up and making mistakes that we can't possibly quantify.

Speaker 3 But I feel like there are moments when I'm with any one of our three kids, and I just thank the universe that those moments exist and that we are as close as we are.

Speaker 3 And I do think, no joke, that the pandemic was this crazy galvanizing, you know, with all the pain and agony for so many people during it.

Speaker 3 I've heard from a lot of people, and I think we felt this too. One positive that came from it is just you could not help.
but get closer. And it was just, that was the beautiful aspect of it.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was my experience too.

Speaker 1 And we, I will say this: that again, kind of going off what you were saying, that, yeah, of course, there were so many people around the world who suffered a great deal.

Speaker 1 And so, not to minimize that at all, but for my family, my own personal experience, because we live in a world where we just only talk about our own experience.

Speaker 1 And if it doesn't line up with my experience, then fuck you.

Speaker 1 It's got really ugly. But I know.

Speaker 1 With me, it gets ugly quick and out of nowhere.

Speaker 3 I didn't realize I was in a pitch black room.

Speaker 1 And that turns are often violent.

Speaker 1 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 it was a great, yeah, in a lot of ways,

Speaker 1 it was a great experience for us, too.

Speaker 2 There's our quote. We got it.

Speaker 1 No, but I was going to say the quote is really that JJ loves show business more than his kids.

Speaker 1 And I think, hats off, because it's not for me to judge you. And Jason wants to know, he wants you to make it okay for him to feel the same way.

Speaker 1 And so once we get you signed off, because you're you're really a titan in this industry, then he'll be okay and he'll have enough success to be nice to people.

Speaker 1 Well, JJ, thanks for coming on the show.

Speaker 1 Seriously, JJ, thank you for being here. You're so kind.
It's such an honor. We're all such huge fans.

Speaker 3 I'm such a fan of yours and the podcast as a whole. It truly is.
So you should charge guests.

Speaker 1 Oh, you're getting invoiced. You're getting invoiced.

Speaker 3 At the very least, you should have the guests do one of the commercials.

Speaker 1 You really should.

Speaker 1 I would love to do that. That's a good question.

Speaker 1 We're going to get you in.

Speaker 3 No joke. Thank you so much for having me on.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. Thank you.
JJ, thank you. Thank you, pal.

Speaker 3 We love you. It's so much fun.
And you guys are awesome.

Speaker 2 Thank you. So are you, man?

Speaker 3 Have a good day. I hope to see you all in person soon.

Speaker 2 Me too. All right.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Bye.

Speaker 2 All right. So I said to Will a couple days ago that, you know, I was listening to the podcast.

Speaker 2 And every time we sign off with a guest, you know, they go away, we just go into this big puff piece kind of like, oh, aren't they great? And so down to earth and all this shit. But we mean it.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm sorry, Will. Should we wait? We'll take a tight five while you eat.

Speaker 1 You know? Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 But there goes JJ. And I can't think of anything but just the most puffy.

Speaker 1 You're the one who brought this up. And now.

Speaker 2 I know, but like we, I guess it's just maybe it's our fault because we're, we book nice people. Yeah.
And I don't have a nasty thing to say. I don't want to say anything.

Speaker 1 He's just great. For me, you know,

Speaker 1 like I said, I see JJ socially, but I never get to fan freak out on him. Like about you guys have game night or something?

Speaker 2 What are you talking about? What's going on?

Speaker 1 What do you mean you see him socially?

Speaker 1 What are you trying to hide? I see him socially. By the way, I wore my Tatooine hat today.
I just noticed that. God, that's incredible.
That's pretty cool. Jason, do you even know what that is?

Speaker 2 Sure, I see it on Dork Chat every once in a while when I watch.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Listener, Sean's

Speaker 2 wearing a Star Wars hat. Yeah, Tatooine.
But like a real deep-cut one that just says,

Speaker 2 isn't that where the Ewoks live?

Speaker 1 Do I have to do that? No, it's where Luke Skywalker lives, asshole. See, so I get kicked out of dork chat.

Speaker 1 But so for me, like, I.

Speaker 2 I try to say something nasty about JJ. You can't.

Speaker 1 You can't. I revere him like people do Spielberg.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 he's a great interview, a real hero of mine.

Speaker 2 My God.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Jason, you're a director. Do you ever want to do big stuff like that like JJ does?

Speaker 2 Of course. Of course I would.
I mean,

Speaker 2 and that's kind of why I was asking, like, if I ever got one of those calls that he got, you know,

Speaker 2 one day he's not doing Mission Impossible. The next day he gets a phone call to go direct.

Speaker 2 Like, what?

Speaker 2 Okay. Am I capable?

Speaker 1 Would you step in one of those franchises, though?

Speaker 2 In a second. In a second.
I would.

Speaker 1 Let me ask you this, because

Speaker 1 you... You are starting to really establish yourself as a director and a really good director and a sought-after director.
That's nice of you.

Speaker 1 Well, Well, it's true. And you're really fortunate.
You're a really, really good director. And I can give you a lot of shit about Ozark, but you're really good.

Speaker 1 And you can tell the episodes, and I don't mean this as an affront to the other directors. I can tell the episodes that you direct because you pay attention to all the right things.

Speaker 1 And I do like the way, and you and I joke, we hate the term storyteller, but you do tell a great story. I know.
God don't say it.

Speaker 1 But I will say this. So then you see a guy like J.J.
Abrams, who you guys are not dissimilar. You both grew up in L.A.
You both have, he was,

Speaker 1 you know, great hair. Great hair.
Well, he was a writer and a director, and you were a performer, but you guys both ended up in this, in similar lanes.

Speaker 1 He is servicing, to Sean's point, movies that other people came up with. A lot of, like, he's doing a lot of Star Trek and Star Wars,

Speaker 1 and he does it really, really, really well. Imagine what it would be like.
And he kind of touched on on doing this pilot where he gets to tell his own story. I think it's incumbent upon.

Speaker 1 him to bring back the Tootsies. It's on him to bring back those great movies that we talked about, the networks, all that stuff.

Speaker 1 I would way rather than see you step into one of these franchises that I don't want to do.

Speaker 2 I would just love to challenge myself with just the responsibility and

Speaker 2 no matter what the movie was. It's just the process of

Speaker 2 going right to the edge of what I think I can handle.

Speaker 1 I get that part of it, but there are, we do live in a time, I think JJ's right, we do live in a time where movies can really come back in a real way and we have a chance now to reset.

Speaker 2 But I think that's what streaming and, frankly, Netflix Netflix is allowing for. You can make these smaller movies that aren't super sticky and loud conceptually and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 There's a place for them now. Well,

Speaker 1 it's great. Well, would you please make it? And you and JJ.
Right, totally. But I have to say, in this country, once you introduce a convenience, it's hard to take it away.

Speaker 1 And that convenience has been introduced.

Speaker 2 I think both can coexist. And I think the industry can still be healthy and whatnot.

Speaker 1 Coexist. Coexist.

Speaker 1 Coexist. Oh, that's what your bumper sticker meant.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, with the co-exists. And now that car, that car that you had the bumper sticker on, did you lease that or did you

Speaker 1 buy it?

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