Quentin Tarantino

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] I'm Dan Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Minica Mouse.

[3] Hello.

[4] Hi.

[5] Minica.

[6] Yeah, that's kind of nice, right?

[7] That is.

[8] It's a mixture of miniature and Monica.

[9] Minica.

[10] Minica.

[11] What a day.

[12] What a day, what a day.

[13] It was a Saturday.

[14] It was a long Saturday chat, afternoon chat.

[15] And if anyone's listened to this, I'm sure they've heard me say this.

[16] But, I mean, the sole reason I got interested in movies is Pulp Fiction.

[17] I thought, what on earth is this thing I've just?

[18] scene and how does one write something like that?

[19] How does one direct something like that?

[20] Tarantino's my just all -time favorite filmmaker.

[21] So enormous privilege.

[22] We left the interview and we hung out on the deck and I was pretty euphoric.

[23] Yeah.

[24] It felt so fun to get to talk to someone I idolize like that.

[25] What a brain.

[26] Incredible.

[27] Okay, so you know, Quentin is an Academy Award winning and Golden Globe Award winning film director, screenwriter, producer, author, and actor.

[28] Pulp Fiction, of course, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, In glorious bastards, jango and chain, reservoired dogs, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Volume 1 and 2, death proof, the hateful eight.

[29] Oh, my God, what an epic career.

[30] He has a new bookout called Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

[31] It's a novel version of the movie we all loved.

[32] So please enjoy Quentin Tarantino.

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[37] It seems we're the exact same height.

[38] Oh, you're six two?

[39] Six to and change, right?

[40] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

[41] Yeah, no, no, that's, that's strange.

[42] I didn't think stuff like that was variable, but I. Yeah.

[43] I just got to say I'm so, so fucking thrilled you're here.

[44] I truly, truly am.

[45] I've been hoping for 20 -some years I'd get to chat with you.

[46] I always kind of figured we would bump into, we know so many of the same people and everything, and it just kind of never happened.

[47] In tall guy meetings.

[48] We're both in and out of tall guy meetings.

[49] But also, a really good cool member of my crew, Darren, who works on the sets and everything.

[50] He worked on chips.

[51] Oh, he did.

[52] Yeah.

[53] Oh, okay.

[54] I can never tell you exactly what his exact job is.

[55] He's like making sure that the set direction is correct and is right in the way, but he's not the set decorator.

[56] Okay.

[57] He's sort of like the guy that makes sure that everything is right and, whoa, what the fuck you're doing with that?

[58] Move it back there.

[59] That doesn't go anywhere.

[60] Okay, now we've got to move all this shit over the left side of the room.

[61] Okay, now we move everything to the right side.

[62] So he's like visual continuity.

[63] Yeah.

[64] Maybe.

[65] All of these are bad descriptions of what he does and I'm sure are totally insulting him.

[66] He's actually, especially when it comes to the script to revise where he's like, he's essential.

[67] Yes.

[68] Oh, wow.

[69] Did he say mean things or nice?

[70] No, he said really nice things.

[71] Okay, good.

[72] Oh, this is a great first question.

[73] So during that exact same time, some crew of mine had come directly from Revenant, or they had quit, or I don't know what they did.

[74] But I heard enough tales about the experience on that set that I started getting insecure and thinking, I guess you got to be an asshole to make a perfect movie.

[75] That's what I started buying into that notion.

[76] But then I'm looking at you and I'm thinking, I've certainly not heard that reputation about it.

[77] you that you're a fucking asshole and screaming at people i don't know why i never think of you when i'm trying to make a counterargument you can be brilliant and nice so you're kind of a joy to be around on set yeah well the thing about it is hmm it's good question you're saying i'm trying to figure this right oh no i know exactly what you're talking about me when i'm making a movie that's one of the happiest times of my life and i really want the crude we're like a family and also i've i've made enough movies now that now I've got a bunch of people that I use again and again and again.

[78] At least I've been using them, some of them, one, in particular, all the way back to Reservoir Dog, my script supervisor, but everybody else, pretty much since the 2000s, I've been working with a lot of them.

[79] We just have the best time together.

[80] And so it's like every three years or so, we get back together and we make a movie, and it's amazing.

[81] And my whole thing is, especially for the crew members who are coming in who haven't worked with me before, My whole thing is I want them to feel, as we're getting down to the last few weeks of the movie, I want them to feel, oh, wow, the next job's going to suck.

[82] Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great goal to give somebody.

[83] And it becomes a mantra, all right, that they say to each other, like, boy, after this, the next job's going to fucking suck.

[84] That's a beautiful way to try to practice it.

[85] In a more Machiavellian way, it's also what you might think of like when you're breaking up with a girl like, I hope her next boyfriend sucks.

[86] Yeah, right.

[87] So by comparison, I've seen what I was a real gym.

[88] Hope she gets a fucking loser the next time around.

[89] Well, if you're the one breaking up with her, she probably, that's not going to go the way you want it.

[90] Oh, is that your theory?

[91] Boom, boom.

[92] I'm just here to say that.

[93] Bear in the Labanza.

[94] Bear with us, Quentin, we've got to patch through a couple ex -girlfriends and find out if that's been the case.

[95] Yeah, please hold.

[96] I don't know.

[97] I guess did that ever even cross your mind as you were like an aspiring director of like, oh, what's the personality?

[98] type at the helm that can get these amazing results.

[99] Did you even worry about that kind of thing?

[100] Look, when I was younger, I was like, especially making Reservoir Dogs, I was 28 or so.

[101] So like, I couldn't believe they were letting me make a movie and basically, except for the PA's, everybody on the set was more experienced than I was.

[102] Right.

[103] So, like, if the key grip had a tantrum, I'm not stopping him, I mean, you know, I was able to lead by respect.

[104] Yeah, yeah.

[105] Now, as time has gone on, I've changed.

[106] Like, no, this is my set, and I actually understand everybody's job, and I know when you're not doing a good job.

[107] And there has been times that I have had a problem with crew members because they weren't up to stuff.

[108] They weren't good enough.

[109] And the biggest difference between, say, maybe reservoir dogs and pulp fiction compared to, say, the last 20 years, especially the last century, is, if I've got a problem with you, You're fired.

[110] Oh, okay.

[111] Yeah, no, I don't got time to fuck around.

[112] Oh, okay, okay, okay.

[113] No, I'm not talking about somebody messing up for the human error.

[114] However, there are some departments, no, that's not okay.

[115] Uh -huh.

[116] Messing up in human error in camera, you're fired.

[117] Okay, all right, okay.

[118] Camera is like the Air Force.

[119] You're dealing with expensive equipment, and the thing is, if camera fucks up, then everything everybody has done has been a waste of time.

[120] Yeah.

[121] I mean, absolutely a waste of time.

[122] Oh, yeah.

[123] The stress on them.

[124] There is a slight military aspect to crew dynamics.

[125] And the thing about camera is they're the Air Force.

[126] They're officers.

[127] Every member of camera is an officer.

[128] Even a camera PA, a camera intern, is an officer in training.

[129] Uh -huh, uh -huh.

[130] Because they're responsible for the most important machine on the entire set.

[131] And so even if it's like the cool girl that everybody loves, because she's so sweet and she's so charming and she's starting out and it's great.

[132] If she gives you daytime film on a nighttime film shot, she's gone.

[133] Right.

[134] And that's the way it's got to be.

[135] Of all the people, camera has to know there's a price to be paid for a mistake.

[136] I'm so terrified to be in the camera department.

[137] But you understand.

[138] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[139] But when you direct, I think you start getting, of course, I was acting forever.

[140] So a lot of these things were blowing over my head or I just wasn't noticing, but you come to find out quickly when you're directing.

[141] that camera works the hardest of everybody.

[142] They're there before lighting, then they're there where they're shooting, then they're moving.

[143] Like, they don't fucking stop.

[144] Lugging those batteries and lugging those boxes, up and down hills.

[145] Yeah, dolly track, all the shit.

[146] Everything's heavy.

[147] Everyone's got stuff on their shoulders.

[148] And because of that, I got to say if I had to give a department the coolest vibe, like guys you want to be stranded somewhere with or women you want to be stranded.

[149] It's got to be camera.

[150] Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[151] Yeah, your plane goes down over the Andes.

[152] If I have a crush on anybody on the set, it's always the camera girls.

[153] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[154] You know, for actors, the appeal I've figured out of camera is, so we're all approval junkies, that's why we got into acting.

[155] And then these people stare at you all day alone, completely dead -faced, right?

[156] Because they're just operating the camera.

[157] And so you spend three months with someone that never even smiled at you while you were being your most charming.

[158] And then so you're just, you're insatiably want their approval.

[159] I'm sure you had to have a situation where, as an actor, where you and a camera operator were grooving.

[160] You vibe.

[161] And so the director said this or that or the other, and then you get back there, and then the camera operator takes his eye off the lens and just gives you a look.

[162] You're doing good.

[163] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[164] Andy on Parenthood, immediately I know who.

[165] And he just knew how to know where I was going.

[166] Yeah, it was a very intimate, wonderful, cool thing.

[167] Okay, so as a super hyper -fant, I just get it out there that Pulp Fiction for me is just the number one movie ever made.

[168] That movie and raising, Arizona were the first movies that I saw were like Raising Arizona I was like probably 14 or 15.

[169] I was like, why is the chase scene so different?

[170] Oh, I know.

[171] You know what I'm saying?

[172] Like it comes out of the pickup truck and you're running through the house.

[173] The whole Raising Arizona from beginning to end.

[174] Yes.

[175] There's something weird going on.

[176] And if you're in Michigan like I was and you're young, you're like, why?

[177] Well, they're heroes in Michigan.

[178] Sam Ramey and the Con brothers.

[179] I mean, they put them on stamps.

[180] Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

[181] But just watching it going like, oh, something's different.

[182] Like something's different about this.

[183] movie than the other movies I like and why is it.

[184] Prior to that, Smoking the Banner probably was my favorite movie.

[185] But then Pulp Fiction, I saw that and I was like, how did that happen?

[186] I mean, literally, like walking out on fire, like I've heard the three best albums of all time, like I just discovered drugs, like everything just going, oh my God, someone figured out how to put on screen, how people talk.

[187] The whole thing just made me curious in a way I don't think I could have ever gotten curious about film and television.

[188] So I just fucking love you.

[189] he's not blowing smoke up your ass it's real but what you're talking about is like I mean I think there's certain key movies not to necessarily put myself in that group but I think there are certain key movies like that where it's like something like the wild bunch and you go well what the fuck was that well that's a movie well then how come that's not like anything I've ever seen before yes yes yes yeah it's like those are movies this is something other yeah and there's magnificent movies but then there's some that are just oh no that's a whole new language Yes.

[190] Yeah.

[191] Oh, my God.

[192] It's so exhilarating.

[193] But my favorite thing you do, I think, as a writer, it's the thing I try, my heart is to steal or replicate is the way you start scenes where someone has the power and through this elaborate turn of events that are so unforeseen and so subtle.

[194] And then all of a sudden there's a flip.

[195] There's a 180.

[196] Now this person has the power.

[197] Can we agree that's one of your signature moves?

[198] Or just that you're a master at it?

[199] Well, you know, that's one of those weird things where it's like, I'm smiling as you're saying that because I've read pieces about myself where they talk about the power dynamic.

[200] But unless it's a plot point, that's not necessarily where I'm thinking about as I'm writing the scene.

[201] That's just what happens as I'm writing the scene.

[202] I'm so fucking grateful right now I have goosebumps.

[203] I wanted that to be your answer because I wanted to know if moving to Torrance at three years old, so I'm childhood, or single mother, all this stuff.

[204] I think we share a bit of that stuff.

[205] Move to Torrance.

[206] Mom gets divorced again at 10.

[207] You move back to Tennessee.

[208] I don't know how that went for it.

[209] Not good.

[210] I can't imagine it went great, is my point.

[211] And I just wonder if in your head, as I had, I felt like, I don't have the fucking power in its atrocity.

[212] And I'm going to someday get the power.

[213] I just wondered if that's true.

[214] By the time I got to be 15 or 16, it bugged me so much.

[215] not to be 18.

[216] I just acted as if I was 18, like from 14 on.

[217] And my mom would say, she goes, look, the minute you can do this shit and it's not my fault, go ahead.

[218] But right now, it's my ass.

[219] Yeah.

[220] But did you think socially growing up, how black was your neighborhood in Torrance?

[221] We lived in a housing track that was like incredibly integrated for, like that time in this I think it was one of the selling points at that time yeah but then I went to a school that was pretty much like 80 % black so that was from like pretty much six grade on yeah and and we're talking about the mid to late 70s so like right at a time when black culture is like fantastic especially as far as soul music is concerned I didn't want to associate with anything that would the term white boy would be involved right right right yeah I didn't listen to kiss oh right I was the that didn't listen to Kiss.

[222] Oh, I despise Kiss, all right, because they represented something I did not want to be.

[223] Yeah, ultra whiteness.

[224] Yeah, no Black Sabbath, no Ozzy Osborne, no heavy metal whatsoever, I mean, whatsoever.

[225] It was 1580K Day, all right, the soul station out here, and instead of Kiss, it was Parliament.

[226] That was our jam.

[227] Yeah, yeah.

[228] It was Bootsie Collins.

[229] Uh -huh.

[230] He was your ace freely.

[231] Yeah, exactly.

[232] He was absolutely the ace freely.

[233] So I grew up in a Detroit suburb And I just was hyper aware of the coolness gap Between me and the black dudes I was around Well, I wasn't an other They were my friends They were who were around me for five, six years So I talked just like them My point of reference was exactly the same point of reference At least pop culturally Was the exact same point of reference We saw the same movies We watched the same television shows we were listening to the same songs.

[234] When we talked about albums, it was the same albums.

[235] We listened to the same radio station.

[236] Yeah, yeah.

[237] What year did Black Belt Jones become popular?

[238] Early 80s?

[239] No, no, that was like 74.

[240] That came out.

[241] Oh, okay.

[242] That was Jim Kelly's follow -up to Enter the Dragon.

[243] I was going to say, I know Enter the Dragons really early, but I grew up, and I'm, I don't know, six, seven years younger than you, and Black Belt Jones was a new thing to me, other than having seen him and entering the Dragon.

[244] Right, yeah, uh -huh.

[245] Well, the one, the Jim Kelly movie is, is three of the hard way.

[246] Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, and Jim, I mean, the trifecta.

[247] Yes, yes.

[248] That was, in the black community, when that movie came out, like the three biggest star, starring in a movie together, I mean, it was a seismic event.

[249] Right.

[250] I mean, that would be as if Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, and Steve McQueen all did a movie together, and they all kicked fucking ass.

[251] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[252] There was room for everyone to beat some ass in that movie.

[253] So when I go through your nine movies, there seems to be, as you point in the movie.

[254] it out a pretty predictable pattern, which it's like every few years in general.

[255] But there's six or seven years between Jackie Brown and Kill Bill.

[256] And I wondered what's your explanation for that?

[257] Oh, I'm surprised that more people don't ask that question, actually, because it is an anomaly.

[258] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[259] It doesn't fit.

[260] It's like someone forgot to put one in the order.

[261] Well, the reason, basically, was after Jackie Brown, I had got so famous.

[262] Yeah.

[263] Bob Dylan has a song on the Planet Waves album called Tough Mama.

[264] It's a song about an artist dealing with his muse.

[265] Mm -hmm.

[266] And Mews is a tough mama.

[267] Uh -huh.

[268] And he has a line at the end, prison walls are crumbling down.

[269] There is no end in sight.

[270] I've gained my recognition, but I've lost my appetite.

[271] Uh -huh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[272] And so I wasn't going to quit or anything, but I was over it a little bit.

[273] My 20s wasn't that great, even though in retrospect now, it seems pretty terrific.

[274] But at the time, it didn't seem that great.

[275] And I was broke all the way through it.

[276] Okay.

[277] Women found me hideous, and I was broke.

[278] So I did have my problems.

[279] But then I saw a lot of movies, and I had some good friends, and I had a fun time at the video store.

[280] So in my 30s, I looked better than I did in my 20s, and I had money, and I was famous.

[281] Sure.

[282] So I decided I was going to live my 20s.

[283] in my 30s for at least three or four years.

[284] Well, the scene has flipped, and now you finally have that power.

[285] Like, it happened.

[286] Yeah, exactly.

[287] The own seat of my life.

[288] Yes, yes, this is the moment.

[289] There was a 10 -year buildup.

[290] So I was just, like, living for a while.

[291] I was just living.

[292] I moved to New York, and I had a group of friends, and was just having a good time.

[293] I was in no hurry, and what I was doing was writing in glorious bastards.

[294] I thought that was going to be the next movie.

[295] And so I was writing a glorious bastards, and people were thinking that I had writer's block because it just wasn't coming, even though they heard I was doing it.

[296] I had the opposite of writers' block.

[297] I couldn't stop writing.

[298] And I was a little precious because I knew it would be my first original after Pulp Fiction.

[299] But, I mean, it was just getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

[300] And I was like, okay, Quentin, get over yourself.

[301] What do you say?

[302] You're too big for movies?

[303] Yeah, but I mean, I was even thinking at that time, I could do it as a mini -series, but nobody was doing that.

[304] I was just going to say if that was happening today.

[305] Oh, no, right now.

[306] It would be no question.

[307] Yeah, yeah.

[308] It would be no question.

[309] Yeah.

[310] So I just couldn't stop writing.

[311] I couldn't get the story started because I kept coming up with another cool vignette before we actually get down to the plot.

[312] Yeah.

[313] And so finally, I put it away.

[314] I go, okay, let me write something else.

[315] And then I'll attack this again.

[316] And after I've done something else, I'll probably.

[317] have more discipline to attack this.

[318] And so to get over my epicitis, I did Kill Bill.

[319] Uh -huh.

[320] Cut to Kill Bill part one and two.

[321] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[322] And it's like, okay, oh, this is your anti -epic?

[323] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, a four -hour extravaganza.

[324] Marshall, it's extravaganza.

[325] What was going on emotionally, though, because there's two things I thought of in theorizing on what that break was about.

[326] One is, if I'm you, Pulp Fiction comes out, It's a paradigm shift, right?

[327] All these kind of lackluster attempts at making it start coming out pretty quickly.

[328] I'm not going to name them because I don't, everyone, it's hard to make a movie.

[329] But we know which movies came out.

[330] And I wondered if you started feeling like, oh, fuck, they're bastardizing my thing to a degree that I don't know that I can now do my thing.

[331] Oh, no, not at all.

[332] That didn't happen.

[333] No, not at all.

[334] As a matter of fact, I dug that.

[335] You felt flattered by it.

[336] I felt completely flattered by it.

[337] I mean, I always kind of thought of pulp fiction.

[338] One, I thought about a little bit like a rock and roll spaghetti western any old way.

[339] But I did feel that it was an attack at gangster film similar to what Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns were to Western movies, the standard Western movie.

[340] So the way he would be doing his operatic version of a John Ford film or a Bud Bettaker film or something like that.

[341] I was taking this cheeky pop culture gen X thing to the Martin Scorsese movies, which are like the more traditional gangster films at the time.

[342] But the thing is, when Leone did the Dollars trilogy, I mean, he started an entire subgenre, and then there was like 150 spaghetti westerns that came out all in the wake and they could be different, and they can go this way, and they can go that way.

[343] But the father of them was absolutely the Sergio Leone movie.

[344] Yeah.

[345] Well, I was excited.

[346] I was like, one, I thought it was really cool that people liked my writing so much that they were trying to copy it and sometimes rip it off and I kind of dug that because I didn't think any of them did it anywhere near as well as good as me. Had one of them been awesome, it might be a different story.

[347] If one of them had been awesome, I would have been genuinely like, oh wow, hey, good for you, man. Oh, okay.

[348] Yeah, I would have given them the tip of the chapeau.

[349] But the thing is, though, the fact that now I started a subgenre in gangster films and crime films where I was obviously the godfather of that subgenre.

[350] Well, my God, I've literally done what Leone did in a really profound way.

[351] Big time, man. Did you know that at the time or in retrospect now you can feel it?

[352] Oh, no, no, I saw it at the time.

[353] Well, you couldn't help us see it at the time.

[354] There was that weird time in the 90s where like every second gangster film, but then what you call old Tarantino like, well, they're blowing people up and then they're making sargonic jokes.

[355] Everything is ironic, which I don't think is the way my movies are.

[356] I think my movies are actually, I think there's a lot of emotions in my movies.

[357] Oh, I think they're super sincere.

[358] Yeah, and they're very sincere.

[359] And I hold back, but the characters don't hold back.

[360] The characters are not removed.

[361] I'm removed.

[362] My point of view is removed.

[363] But it's like intense emotions going on on camera.

[364] For sure.

[365] Let me also give you the compliment of it feels every single character you have in a movie, and there's often dozens, they're all ensembles.

[366] It's as if you treat each one as the lead of the movie.

[367] Whereas these other knockoffs of yours were kind of like they used archetypes and they didn't care about the people that they were giving the line to that was supposed to be provocative.

[368] And also what most people at a certain point called Tarantino -esque was like, hey, do you remember Speed Racer?

[369] You know, as the gangsters are driving or something.

[370] Rice the roadie, the San Francisco treat as they blow somebody away.

[371] Oh, I guess that's Tarantino -esque.

[372] Okay, now my other thought was simply, did it rattle you at all that?

[373] reservoir comes out of nowhere and it's spectacular for the budget and it really launches you into Pulp Fiction and then Pulp Fiction is just something again.

[374] When Jackie Brown didn't do as well as Pulp Fiction, did you at all have like a moment of fear or doubt?

[375] Oh God, not at all.

[376] But one, Jackie Brown did okay.

[377] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[378] I'm just saying when you were charting the trajectory, it seemed like your third movie should be Star Wars.

[379] Yeah, no, I didn't feel that way.

[380] My whole thing, what had been going on for, with the exception of Raising Arizona, what had happened time and time again to such a degree that it was practically a cliche is these young independent filmmakers would come out with these wow just blow the top of your head off drop your jaw first films that just blew you away and they had the worst movie they ever did as their sophomore film well it really follows their trajectory of musicians too the first album you wrote your whole life and now you got three months to write the second one yeah And that had happened so much.

[381] It was actually a cliche.

[382] It was practically expected.

[383] Right.

[384] And not just even independent filmmakers.

[385] There was all kinds of filmmakers that I would see their first film.

[386] And like I saw everything.

[387] And boy, I was really into first films.

[388] And when I saw one that was fantastic, I ran to the movie theater to see their second one.

[389] And it was usually at the very least not as good, if not like, what the fuck is this?

[390] Sure, sure.

[391] I mean, if you've seen Thief and then you go see The Keep, you go, what the fuck is this?

[392] Oh, that's my favorite drama of all -time thief.

[393] You're talking about the Michael.

[394] Yeah, but then you go see Michael Mann's next film, which isn't horrible, but it's sort of like, what the fuck?

[395] Yeah, where's, where's thief?

[396] And also, there was also the situation where I was really known on, like, the college scene with Reservoir Dogs and the independent film scene and like Village Voice, LA Weekly.

[397] It was big in the punk rock community, that's how I found it.

[398] And they're really big in the grunge bands.

[399] Kurt Cobain Nirvana, they all really liked the film and they thanked me on Uterio on their second album and I'm sure it was because it's a great tour bus movie.

[400] Oh, sure, sure, sure.

[401] Like, once you know it and you like it, then you can just put it on in the...

[402] And then you don't even have to watch it anymore.

[403] You can just listen to the dialogue.

[404] Yeah.

[405] But the thing is, though, that was in America.

[406] In England, it exploded.

[407] Oh, really?

[408] And I became like a pop star.

[409] Wow.

[410] in England.

[411] And when Reservoir Dogs opened up, I mean, it just took over culturally.

[412] Political cartoons, they made jokes about it.

[413] And it was like, it was doing so well, they asked me to come back to London to do some more regional press and just more press because they were like, it's one of the hottest movies in town.

[414] Yeah.

[415] And I'd had a nice little art house hit.

[416] But when I landed, I saw the difference.

[417] I saw the difference between having a nice little art house hit or when you've truly punctured the consciousness.

[418] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[419] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[420] Of the zeitgeist.

[421] And so everyone was like, well, what's going to be next?

[422] What's going to be next?

[423] And everyone was betting that I was going to fall in my face.

[424] Uh -huh.

[425] And then it was Pulpiction.

[426] Yeah.

[427] So it was like, Wow.

[428] Wrong bet.

[429] Well, I'm going to ask you potentially an offensive question.

[430] But as you're describing the appeal of reservoir dogs, which again, in the punk rock world in Detroit, that was the movie.

[431] You have such a fucking eye for what is cool in an uncanny way to the point where it absolutely everyone in the culture adopts it, whether it's the music that was on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, you couldn't go to a fucking party in the 90s in L .A. and not hear that soundtrack.

[432] Wasn't at one party without it.

[433] Do you yourself fancy yourself as someone that's cool?

[434] And if so, where is it coming from?

[435] Why can you identify what is so fucking cool?

[436] Well, I think I'm cool.

[437] That's a good question.

[438] It's kind of a hard question.

[439] You need to sum up for me why you know what's cool, which you probably don't know.

[440] Well, I don't know, but rather than wimp out, I'll try to answer the question.

[441] But it's literally me trying to.

[442] I'm thinking about what you're saying right now.

[443] I think there's something, especially to the Gen X generation, is they didn't have a lot, but they knew what they liked.

[444] They really absolutely knew what they liked.

[445] And we were all too cool for school.

[446] But I wasn't.

[447] I wasn't too cool for school.

[448] I really, really liked this stuff.

[449] I could be cynical and flippin about other stuff, too.

[450] Well, what I was going to say is the reason I say maybe you're not cool in the conventional way is that you are, the most beautiful thing about you is you're so fucking enthusiastic.

[451] Yeah, I'm...

[452] Which is kind of antithetical to cool.

[453] Fonzie didn't come in and go like, oh my God, this burger, where'd they get the pad, you know?

[454] No, no, no, that's true.

[455] To me, actually, cool is an aesthetic, not necessarily an attitude.

[456] Okay, okay.

[457] I know what you mean, but I've never looked at cool as necessarily an attitude of being above things or hands off or do you come to me. You come to me, I don't come to you.

[458] I never thought of that.

[459] That is cool.

[460] I thought about taste, what you dig, what you like, what turns you on.

[461] Yeah, yeah.

[462] Yeah.

[463] Who wins in that fight at the bar between Vincent Vega and Butch?

[464] Has it been asked?

[465] No, but he's a boxer.

[466] I know, but the way he says, you heard me just fine, punchy, I think, oh, he's ready to go.

[467] Well, he is ready to go.

[468] Well, he is ready to because he doesn't know he's a boxer.

[469] Oh, okay, okay, okay.

[470] He doesn't know who this guy is.

[471] Okay.

[472] Oh, no, he does know.

[473] I take that back.

[474] No, he does know.

[475] He does know.

[476] He does know.

[477] But also...

[478] He's got guns.

[479] But, yeah, Butch is a civilian.

[480] He's a boxer.

[481] This guy's a killer.

[482] Yeah, I just love that because you've met Butch and you're like, oh, yeah, this dude's fucking bad.

[483] And then you see him against Tarantino and Tarantzino.

[484] He doesn't give a shit that he's bad.

[485] I don't know.

[486] It's fucking wonderful.

[487] Let me finish the question you asked him early on about Jackie Brown.

[488] Yeah, yeah.

[489] So, Pope Fiction, like, just to give you an idea, with Pulp Fiction, I was hoping the movie would make.

[490] about $30 million.

[491] Okay, from an $8 million budget.

[492] That was achievable.

[493] That would be a decent studio for me doing on a bigger canvas.

[494] Yeah.

[495] That would be good.

[496] That would be really good.

[497] I could have, I would have been able to make another movie after that.

[498] Yeah.

[499] And everyone would have made money and everyone had been very happy with.

[500] I remember around the same time, Damon Waynes came out with that movie Mo Money.

[501] Uh -huh.

[502] And that made about $30 million.

[503] So I kept saying, Mo Money.

[504] That's what we're, we're off for the Mo Money audience.

[505] Yeah.

[506] Yeah.

[507] And then my producers was like, okay, but his movie was 97 minutes.

[508] You're going to make less money at two hours and 37 than no money.

[509] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[510] What's up, guys?

[511] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season.

[512] And let me tell you, it's too good.

[513] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

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[515] And I don't mean just friends.

[516] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[517] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[518] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

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[521] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing.

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[523] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[524] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[525] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[526] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[527] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[528] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[529] So even when we won the Palm Door and all this excitement and everything, the last thing I wanted was to come out and then be a disappointment.

[530] So I was like, okay, guys, don't lose your mind.

[531] This is still Hollywood.

[532] We're still coming off of...

[533] Let's not start sucking each other's dishes yet.

[534] Exactly.

[535] We're still coming off of the 80s.

[536] The audience hasn't changed yet.

[537] They will change, and this movie will partly change them.

[538] But that hadn't happened yet.

[539] So keep it in mind.

[540] I had also had the experience with true romance, where it was like, everyone loved it.

[541] But the audience didn't know how to take it.

[542] But they could have.

[543] Like, if they had been primed.

[544] If they could have gotten it, it could have been huge.

[545] Yeah.

[546] But it wasn't.

[547] Yeah, yeah.

[548] And it made me think, well, I guess I've got a small audience.

[549] I guess that's the way it is.

[550] So anyway, when it came to Pulp Fiction, then it comes out and it does what it does, and it becomes this thing.

[551] $219 million.

[552] Just a little above 30.

[553] Yeah, yeah.

[554] To me, that was, that's a phenomenon.

[555] That's nothing I'm ever going to be able to duplicate.

[556] That's not going to be my track record.

[557] And you had that presence in mind to think that.

[558] Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

[559] It's got me out there.

[560] I'm set now.

[561] I can make movies for the rest of my life.

[562] In my mind, I'd be like, I could probably make three bad ones.

[563] Like, I'll be able to get three out.

[564] No, I don't want to make any bad one.

[565] No, but like me go.

[566] Worst case scenario, I bet I can get three going.

[567] No, I'm thinking, okay, I make a good.

[568] great one, but no one goes season.

[569] I'm still good.

[570] But the thing is, I was never in competition with Pulp Fiction.

[571] Oh, good.

[572] So it's like, oh, the next one might make 50, and then this one will make 60, and then this one will make 45.

[573] Yeah, I figured I was just, and then maybe I'll get lucky, and that will happen again.

[574] Yeah.

[575] Also, there was the whole thing of, I wanted to go underneath Pulp Fiction.

[576] And you're not going to try to top Pulp Fiction.

[577] Yeah, yeah.

[578] So I wanted to go underneath it.

[579] That's why it's kind of has a different tone and it's not trying to blow your mind or anything.

[580] No, it's so much slower immediately.

[581] You're like, oh, the pace is much different.

[582] I remember some guy, some financier at a film festival or something, he goes, so tell me Quentin, now that everything is said and done with Jackie Brown, do you regret casting Robert Forrester and Pam Greer in the roles and do you wish you had cast bigger actors in the roles?

[583] And I go, well, I mean, I was really happy.

[584] Forget about the He's talking simply money.

[585] Yes, of course.

[586] And I go, well, I was really happy.

[587] A Pam Greer, Robert Forster movie made about $35 million.

[588] That's pretty fucking great.

[589] And he goes, well, yeah, but that's all you.

[590] I go, lucky me. Yeah, yeah.

[591] Great.

[592] Okay, I'm famous enough that I can cast Pam Greer and Robert Forster as the star of my studio film.

[593] Yeah.

[594] Absolutely.

[595] You've worked with so many enormous movie stars at the peak of their powers, what makes you good at it?

[596] I mean, I'm guessing that you're just so enthusiastic and such a great cheerleader that, or have you clash?

[597] Do you clash?

[598] I haven't had serious clashes.

[599] I mean, especially not with any of the leads.

[600] Okay.

[601] Of the movies.

[602] It's usually a situation.

[603] I wouldn't want to work with an actor, especially a star situation that was just completely enamored with me and just wanted to have a Tarantino film in their filmography.

[604] I don't mind that being.

[605] a, you know, sitting in the back seat or in the rumble seat or something.

[606] But that can't be the driving reason why they're doing it.

[607] It has to be because they read the script and they really like the script.

[608] They think it'll make a really terrific movie and they really like their character.

[609] Yeah.

[610] That normally is the situation.

[611] Yeah.

[612] They like the script.

[613] They responded to the script.

[614] And if you read my script, you can kind of see the movie.

[615] Oh, yes.

[616] I've read them.

[617] For people who have not read scripts, there's a very, very traditional format.

[618] Every single script abides by it except for Quintons.

[619] Quintons, you're like reading prose.

[620] It's like you get this 200 pages and the movie's there, but it is not in the format and tough shit.

[621] And it kind of reads like novels.

[622] The most fun I've had reading scripts has been the few of years that I've read.

[623] Thank you.

[624] All the vibe that's in your movies visually and sonically with the music you choose, it's all in the writing.

[625] Like when you read it, it's all fucking right there, which is kind of crazy.

[626] So when the actors are coming up, it literally is a situation where they want to play this character.

[627] They know the story, they like the story, they like the character.

[628] And they know since I wrote it that I know this character.

[629] Like when Robert De Niro did Jackie Brown, he's famous for going and finding a real person to base it on and that's his process.

[630] Well, he knew I knew the character.

[631] So I was the person he asked questions.

[632] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[633] And how much, because actors often really love to request that you write something specific or make a change, is that on the table with people?

[634] Well.

[635] That's a no. a hard one, though.

[636] I wouldn't want them to, but I'm just curious, certainly.

[637] Here's what I would imagine could happen.

[638] Okay, yeah, give me a scenario.

[639] So what I had heard about our shared love movie, Raised in Arizona was that Nick Cage and them didn't get along all that well.

[640] One of the only experiences they had where they didn't get along that well.

[641] Maybe the greatest performance in any of their movies.

[642] Absolutely, absolutely.

[643] But what I heard Nick Cage say later or read, which would make a tremendous amount of sense is that he said, everybody after Raising Arizona had the benefit of raising Arizona And all I had was Blood Simple So these people are asking me To do some pretty outrageous shit And they're filming it in a pretty outrageous way For the way he's been making movies So he's pretty scared He doesn't know if they know what they're doing Right yeah And I would imagine for you Reservoir Dogs could have had that Post Pulp Fiction people trust you But I wonder even if I'm Pulp Fiction That you have a huge star in that You have Bruce Willis And really you just have Reservoir Dogs And now this thing's getting bigger Well, it was an interesting thing.

[644] I mean, look, if anybody was going to fall into that camp, it would probably be John and then maybe a little bit Ouma, not Ouma when she was shooting the movie.

[645] Right.

[646] But in trying to visualize what this movie was when she read the script.

[647] Yes, yeah.

[648] Bruce, it wasn't anything because he loved Reservoir Dog so much.

[649] He was like one of the biggest stars in the world at that time.

[650] So part of the reason the movie was made was because he said yes to it.

[651] And he was just down, like, 120%.

[652] And he got to look so fucking cool.

[653] It's the coolest he's ever looked.

[654] And it's not that John love me and John loved the character.

[655] It was out of his comfort zone, is what I would imagine.

[656] But everything you're saying was only in the script stage when they're figuring it out.

[657] Once we're in rehearsals and doing the movie, it was everyone was 100%.

[658] But John Travolta was a little bit like, okay, so I'm shooting heroin.

[659] and I'm killing people and I blow some guy's head off and it's a comedy?

[660] It's a reasonable question.

[661] Well, again, no one had seen, outside of Scorsese where you find yourself they're shoving the mailman's head into the fucking oven and you find yourself laughing and you don't know why.

[662] Other than those experiences, it was a pretty unique.

[663] Well, I mean, it was one of the things I was really pleased with was probably my favorite writer of all time is the film critic Pauline Keel.

[664] And she quit the business just before my first movie came out.

[665] So I never got an official Paul and Kale review.

[666] But they interview her every couple of years about stuff.

[667] And everyone wanted to know what she thought about Pulp Fiction.

[668] And then she said, I'm going to quote Pauline Kale's review about my own movie.

[669] Well, it's not officially a review.

[670] All right.

[671] I'm quoting a line she said in an interview.

[672] She said, well, everyone's like saying that it's revolutionary and it's rewriting movies and everything.

[673] Okay, it's not all that.

[674] Okay, they're making too big of a deal about all that.

[675] It's not that revolutionary.

[676] Other movies have done things like that.

[677] Structurally, she meant?

[678] Yeah, exactly.

[679] It's not all they're making it out to be.

[680] And the annoying part about them making such a big deal about all this accoutremae is the fact that they're not talking about what he did that really is unique.

[681] And she goes, what he did is he created a new style of comedy.

[682] Because that kind of violence had never really been connected to comedy before.

[683] I guess you can say something like Mighty Python on the Holy Grail, but my stuff is not the same.

[684] The only thing I think is similar is just Scorsese.

[685] That's the only time that you kind of find yourself.

[686] But he's not full -on comedy.

[687] He's not.

[688] Yeah, there's actual comedy, you know, especially in that third story.

[689] Not all the way through, but especially the third story.

[690] Yeah, yeah.

[691] Which is the grossest part.

[692] And then she said, it works because it's really funny.

[693] It's a really funny movie.

[694] So what he's doing that actually is revolutionary, he's not getting enough credit for.

[695] Oh, that's such a...

[696] Were you happy with that kind of?

[697] Thrilled.

[698] And the sincerity of the acting in a comedy.

[699] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[700] Mixed with all of that.

[701] It is also so different at that time.

[702] No one's.

[703] Well, they're giving great comedic performances, but they're not...

[704] They're not played comedically.

[705] Yes, exactly.

[706] No one knows they're in a comedy, which is the best part.

[707] Okay, I just got to geek out on Brad Pitt for one second because I would leave my wife for him in half a second.

[708] You must have felt that way about him as well, yeah.

[709] Well, I don't know that.

[710] You're not going to leave your wife for him.

[711] I don't know, I don't think I'd leave my wife for him.

[712] Yeah, I just find that annoying, frankly.

[713] That he looks like that?

[714] That he's so fucking good looking.

[715] Oh, I know.

[716] It's maddeny.

[717] I don't dig that about him.

[718] I find it fucking annoying.

[719] And I never want to have a photo taken next to him ever.

[720] Oh, my gosh.

[721] I love Brad, but I don't want to do photos with him.

[722] He still, still looks so good.

[723] Well, especially and once upon a time.

[724] I know.

[725] Okay, so maybe you're kind of answering my question, but I was just thinking someone who has such an eye for aesthetic of what is cool.

[726] And that motherfucker is just so cool.

[727] Him opening the dog food, just I'll watch him.

[728] He could have made a fucking buffet bar.

[729] You could have shot the whole thing I would have watched it.

[730] It could have been six hours.

[731] Do you get lost in watching him?

[732] Oh, absolutely.

[733] Absolutely.

[734] I mean, it's just great as a writer or a director in that situation where, like, I mean, the reason I'm stopping the movie, some could say, to show four to five minutes of Brad opening up dog food in his trailer filled to the brim with a bunch of shit.

[735] But it's filled to the brim with a bunch of shit because those are all of his possessions.

[736] and you're seeing who he is by all that stuff was so you two get to know Cliff and Brad is not given enough credit for what a behavioral type actor he is he knows who the guy is and you just allow him to just do his behavior which is dealing with the dog and cooking his mac and cheese and popping his beers doing the wolf tooth dog's food and it's that's all you need you can go I could watch that for six minutes Yeah, oh, I was, I wish there was more.

[737] I could have watched five more minutes of him watching Manix.

[738] Yes, yes.

[739] Yeah, it's like a theater performance in a way watching that.

[740] I imagine most of the times when you're writing now, what percentage of it?

[741] You're writing four people generally, right?

[742] No, no, no, no. Oh, no. It's a mix.

[743] Oh, it is.

[744] Did you write that role for him?

[745] No, I couldn't write for Brad Pitt and Leonardo Cap.

[746] I don't know if I'm going to get those guys.

[747] Come on, you must know.

[748] They're the two biggest stars in the world.

[749] Yeah.

[750] I guess as opposed to anybody else, I have a pretty good chance at it.

[751] But that doesn't, but that doesn't mean that like scheduling.

[752] Yeah, exactly.

[753] You almost would have to expect that one of them's going to be on a big nine -month project at the same time.

[754] Yeah, yeah.

[755] While you're trying to get on, I'm not going to wait nine months, all right?

[756] Right.

[757] And when I have one of the guys ready to go, because I'll lose that dude.

[758] Yeah, yeah.

[759] So, yeah, they were a dream team.

[760] I had about like five or six different combinations of, okay, well, maybe him, maybe him.

[761] But they actually had to be genuine combinations because the guy had to be the other guy stunt double.

[762] No, no, no, no. So there had to be a cemetery to them.

[763] The guy had to be able to double for the other dude.

[764] Yes, yes.

[765] Okay, in making Inglorious bastards, had you met Duffy?

[766] Duffy who?

[767] You haven't.

[768] So I'm wrong.

[769] What I thought watching that movie is Brad has a cliff.

[770] Oh, okay, uh -huh.

[771] Duffy, who was a Navy SEAL in real life, a bad motherfucker who's been his trainer forever.

[772] Oh, really?

[773] And they're best buddies.

[774] I don't think I ever met Duffy.

[775] Okay, so if I was interviewing Brad right now, I'm almost certain he's playing Duffy because he's fucking Duffy.

[776] He's stoic, he's fearless, he's all these things.

[777] Well, the thing is, you probably had a Duffy going on, but one of Brad's heroes who he was also, like, channeling is Steve McQueen's guy.

[778] I'm spacing on it right now.

[779] But he's the guy who actually did the motorcycle jump in Great Escape.

[780] Yes.

[781] It's Steve McQueen's dude.

[782] Okay, okay, that makes sense.

[783] And so he knows all about him.

[784] he has pictures of him and McQueen hanging out with their shirts off.

[785] Brad Pitt wants to be somebody else.

[786] Yes.

[787] That is insane.

[788] Well, that was the thing.

[789] In the book, I talk about the idea that he's watching Manix and then it says there that Cliff like, Cliff would like to be Manich.

[790] Yes, of course, yes, yes, yes.

[791] When you came up with that archetype, who were you thinking?

[792] Because I was also thinking very much of Bert Reynolds and Hal Needham.

[793] I never thought of those guys.

[794] Okay.

[795] For two main reasons.

[796] One, Rick wishes he was Bert Reynolds in 1969.

[797] If he was Bert Reynolds in 1969, he has no problems.

[798] That's true, that's true.

[799] As far as he's concerned.

[800] And Haldian was like the biggest stuntman in the world.

[801] Cliff is so fucking fringe.

[802] Well, he's pot committed.

[803] He's all in on it.

[804] It was funny because actually I talked to Buddy Joe Hooker about it.

[805] And he goes, no, we've all known that stunt man. Yeah.

[806] where he's done enough to officially be legit.

[807] Right.

[808] But not enough to take him to the next step in the career.

[809] How Needham is not going to put him in lead wagon on a $300 ,000 stampede shot.

[810] But usually, like, they make friends with some TV actor.

[811] And they're their double for the time that they're popular.

[812] Yeah.

[813] But then something, if they have a falling out, usually.

[814] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[815] Something goes sideways after a night of drinking.

[816] So I did have a guy.

[817] An actor told me about this one stuntman, and I found him fascinating.

[818] I found the idea of this guy fascinating.

[819] And I won't say his name, but I would bring his name up to old timers and go, oh, yeah, him.

[820] And the thing about this guy was, he was very unassuming, but apparently he was like, the baddest ass in the world.

[821] He had two combinations.

[822] One, he was the baddest ass in the world, and he was absolutely positively indestructible.

[823] He couldn't be hurt.

[824] Right, right.

[825] He would do nine stairfalls that would any three of them, two of them would put you in a hospital, and he could get up and do it 12 more times.

[826] He just could not be hurt.

[827] So I remember the guy who told me about him, I asked him, I go, okay, so now, if your guy fought Bruce Lee who would win and he goes oh well my guy would win he'd be Bruce Lee he goes my guy didn't know any martial arts or anything like that what would happen is Bruce Lee would do all of his stuff to him and he wouldn't be able to hurt him sure and then when Bruce Lee got tired that's when my guy would fuck him up no I mean every time you bring up a scene I'm like yeah it's my favorite scene in the movie the dog food I was like yeah it's my favorite scene in the movie and now the Bruce Lee thing I mean, that one I was so excited about.

[828] And I love Bruce Lee as a kid.

[829] What a fucking, I mean, he's a Burrishnikov or something, right?

[830] But I don't think in the Octagon, he makes it pass any round.

[831] Did that feel sacrilegious, especially because you love kung fu movies?

[832] Bruce Lee was a fantastic athlete.

[833] And I do think he was a fantastic martial artist, especially in demonstration tournament style fighting.

[834] I don't think he would beat Jerry Quarry in a real fight.

[835] But I'll tell you that, especially why.

[836] he's a fucking actor he's an actor yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah he's not fighting Ali with a broken jaw for five rounds right right okay he gets a luth tooth the fight's over yeah we're talking about like who could beat up Humphrey Bogart and you're like yeah he's the fucking actors what's their face starts getting fucked up the fight is over okay okay stop stop stop what the fuck man this is my livelihood I do actually think he was phenomenal athlete, and I agree with you.

[837] I think he had a Nureev -like ability, especially, like, he had that thing that Nureev had where...

[838] Wait, what's Nourriov?

[839] Oh, what's Nourriov?

[840] Oh, okay, okay.

[841] Before...

[842] I exhausted my ballet references with Perrishman.

[843] Prousticke's your one and only thing.

[844] That's it.

[845] Okay, before, the guy just before.

[846] Okay, okay, okay.

[847] And before that, there was Nijinsky.

[848] Oh, my God.

[849] So he had that thing that Nureev had where it's like, he seemed.

[850] could make a leap in the air and stay up as long as he wanted and then softly land like a cat as he decided.

[851] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[852] I don't know why I'm just, now that you're saying that, I just want to ask you, is Jackie Chan the most amazing stunt guy to ever live?

[853] Do you geek out on, I just have been showing my kids his movies?

[854] He comes from the tradition of Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton.

[855] Oh, totally.

[856] My other favorite person is Buster Keaton.

[857] Now, you know the thing about Harold Lloyd, all this stuff he was able to do, he was doing it with only half a hand.

[858] Oh, really?

[859] He blew off this much of his hand.

[860] Okay.

[861] On the clock tower, he's...

[862] Yeah, on the clock tower.

[863] He has a hand prosthetic.

[864] Oh.

[865] Because he was holding a prop bomb.

[866] For a photo, it ended up being a real bomb and it exploded in his hand and blew...

[867] Oh, my God.

[868] And literally, it blew like three fingers in this little section of the handoff.

[869] And so every time he did movies, he had to put on a thing.

[870] Oh, my God.

[871] They thought it was a fake bomb, but there was a real bomb.

[872] Yeah, I know, exactly.

[873] Like, how could that possibly happen?

[874] And, like, we're talking about the 20s, so it's probably a black roundball with a big fuse that says bomb on it.

[875] I mean, for real.

[876] From Acme.

[877] Oh, my God.

[878] X, X, X, X, X, X, X. Oh.

[879] Well, fuck, I read Hell Needham's book.

[880] I'm obsessed with Hell Needham, and I watch this great show about him talking about the stunt.

[881] And, oh, you would know.

[882] Use cars, yeah.

[883] Yeah, yeah.

[884] Trains going by.

[885] there's one empty lowboy train, a big huge duly truck just jumps over it.

[886] Right, it times perfectly, right?

[887] And when they're asking Hal about that stunt, and he goes, well, you know, it was one of those stunts that we thought, we're either going to be high -fiving at the end of this, or we're going to be walking low with our heads down at the funeral tomorrow.

[888] And it was like just that kind of cut.

[889] I got to, I got to tell you, one of the funniest things that you could ever have happened.

[890] When they started doing the Academy Awards where they give the special life achievement Oscars was in a separate ceremony, and I go to it one year, and it turns out that Hal Needham is getting an award.

[891] And they asked me to speak about him, and so I did.

[892] Yeah.

[893] You love them, obviously?

[894] I've always got a kick out of his movies.

[895] And look, I agree with it.

[896] I think Smokey and the Bandit is actually one of the most entertaining movies ever made.

[897] Ever made.

[898] And you know it's like 30 -page outline for the movie.

[899] I mean, and one of the things about it is, other than like the charm of Bert Reynolds and Sally Field and all that, I don't know why it's so charming.

[900] I mean, other than them, I don't know why it's so disarming.

[901] But it's one of those movies where, like, every time you commit to watching it, when it's over, like, wow, that was a good time.

[902] Wow, I'm sad, it's over.

[903] I like writing reviews.

[904] I cannot write a review for that movie because I can't even remotely get, there's an alchemy to it.

[905] There's a moment and time aspect to it that makes it so incredibly enjoyable.

[906] Yes.

[907] That is undefinable.

[908] Oh, my God.

[909] Achievement Award.

[910] Sorry.

[911] So the thing is, I'm there and I do a little talk.

[912] And then the producer, Albert Ruddy, who also produced The Godfather and he produced The Longest Yard.

[913] He produced a couple movies with Hal Needham.

[914] And so he's telling a story about Halenheim.

[915] And he goes, well, I remember when we were doing Megaforce.

[916] And he starts telling this log story.

[917] I'm like, oh my God, he's talking seriously about megaphors at an academy function.

[918] And there's no humor about it.

[919] He's talking seriously.

[920] And then he tells another story about Megaforce.

[921] And then he tells a third story about Megaforce.

[922] I go, this is the greatest Academy Award night ever.

[923] Megaforne, which we called Mega Farse, is getting this much attention with all the big people in the world.

[924] Sitting there in the room.

[925] Having to treat it seriously.

[926] Yeah.

[927] Most blue -collar director probably to ever have.

[928] any success.

[929] I would say that yes and no. I mean, he was the pinnacle of his profession.

[930] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[931] At the same time, though, there is this aspect about the idea that stunt guys are in it for the stunts.

[932] It's almost kind of like, I don't think this is the case anymore.

[933] The stunt guys today are really more cinema literate and they're really out to make the best movie.

[934] But there, in his day, they were coming more from a daredevil perspective.

[935] They liked Westerns.

[936] They liked this.

[937] They liked that.

[938] But they weren't so completely connected to the movie.

[939] They were into doing the stunts.

[940] They were into living this wild life that they had.

[941] They were into getting work.

[942] They were into making the money to do the wildlife and to have the adventures.

[943] I have to tell you just really quickly.

[944] So I did a movie with Bert Reynolds.

[945] I became friends with him and he told me Hal Needham's story and I want to tell it to you because I can't imagine you've heard it.

[946] But they lived together.

[947] This was a period where they lived together.

[948] And Bert came home from work and Hal was on the couch and he said, bird i need you to take me to the hospital and he said uh why he said i broke my back today at work i don't want anyone to know and burr goes well i don't think you you broke your back you wouldn't be able to walk home and all that and he's like bert i broke my back take me to the hospital so he takes him in the hospital in san o monica there and a nurse comes in i guess hell's pretty flirty with the nurse according to bert then the doctor comes in and according to bert the doctor's picking up on the fact that he's flirting with the nurse and the doctor doesn't really like that now bert's theory is they had a thing going who knows point is that give him an x -ray, and they discover he has broke his back.

[949] And additionally, there is a lot of fluid that is accumulated in his lungs.

[950] And the doctor says, I'm going to have to take the fluid out of your lungs with this needle, lean against the wall, and Hal is in one of those gowns.

[951] And he asked the nurse to stabilize his legs.

[952] So when he puts the needle in case he loses his balance, have you heard this turn?

[953] No. Bert said he plunged this, like, six -inch needle into his back, into his lungs, and Hal immediately shit on the nurse.

[954] Oh, my God.

[955] Now, in all the directions, I thought this story was going, because he takes a good 20 minutes to tell it.

[956] And I'm thinking, I'm thinking he's going to come.

[957] All those things were red herrings about the...

[958] I was writing it myself.

[959] I know.

[960] When he hit that punchline at this dinner, I go, I am so sorry, this whole story was leading up to someone shitting on someone's story.

[961] incredible.

[962] I pray it's true.

[963] Not for the nurse, but for us.

[964] I had a situation where a stump person on my movie broke their back and didn't know they broke it until years later.

[965] And I can tell you exactly what shot it was.

[966] It was Monica Staggs, who was doubling for Daryl Hannah.

[967] Okay.

[968] In Kill Bill.

[969] So you know the shot when she opens up the trailer door and the bride comes in and just pile drives her just jumps right into her chest, knocks her back into the stereo cabinet?

[970] Yes.

[971] Okay, well, that was Zoe Bell.

[972] as the bride coming in and there was a stunt woman a terrific stunt woman named Monica Staggs who was playing Daryl.

[973] She broke her back.

[974] No kidding.

[975] But she didn't know it.

[976] Yeah.

[977] And it was about a year later or so she was doing something and then she got an x -ray and the doctor goes, so when did you break your back?

[978] And she goes, I didn't break my back.

[979] Oh, yes, you have.

[980] You broke your back.

[981] And there was evidence of it.

[982] Yeah, it was healed.

[983] Yeah, it was right.

[984] Yeah, it healed but it was right and the x -ray.

[985] And she knew exactly when it was.

[986] Yeah.

[987] Oh, wow.

[988] Like, no matter how hurt they are, they will not say it on set.

[989] They just refuse to say it.

[990] I broke my wrist doing a stunt.

[991] And the stunt corner, and it's like, you didn't break your wrist.

[992] Just keep going.

[993] Like, don't say that.

[994] Or you'll never be able to do a stunt again in something if you want to.

[995] Oh, wow.

[996] So there's a code.

[997] Yeah, yeah.

[998] So what made you get into movies?

[999] I mean, I know that's like the most generic question ever, but I know you're like a movie connoisseur as a viewer.

[1000] So were you just young?

[1001] Well, my question would be like on that question, what emotional thing was it doing for you?

[1002] Were you lonely?

[1003] Was it an escape?

[1004] Well, I guess I was a little lonely, not in a pathetic way, but in an only child kind of way.

[1005] I didn't have anybody else in the house.

[1006] And also, my parents were working a lot.

[1007] So I was kind of left by myself or with babysitters for a long period of time.

[1008] But the thing about it, I really loved it and it became a movie expert and that became how I defined myself.

[1009] But at the beginning, it was just like the way.

[1010] Any kid is attracted to baseball, you're attracted to sports, boys like cars.

[1011] I like movies.

[1012] Yeah.

[1013] That was my thing.

[1014] Somebody else that would be football.

[1015] Somebody else would be, they're drawing pictures of cars all the time.

[1016] And they take buy car magazines and put car stuff on their walls.

[1017] You know, I was about movies.

[1018] I remember, like, my mom was dating a football player.

[1019] And he goes, so about your son, does he like football?

[1020] He likes movies.

[1021] He likes movies about football.

[1022] Yeah, if you want to, he likes football movies.

[1023] Well, another Bert thing, and this relates to you, is Bert told me this story where he did punch out a director.

[1024] You probably know what director it is.

[1025] Dick Richards.

[1026] Okay.

[1027] And then he got sued.

[1028] And he had to pay out quite a bit.

[1029] I forget what the number was, but in the hundreds of thousand.

[1030] And again, he tells this whole long story, and then I had to pay a thing.

[1031] And then his punchline is, it was worth every penny.

[1032] Like, basically he's saying he would do it again and again.

[1033] I heard a story about that, that knowing how set protocol is, I can't imagine it's true.

[1034] And you've been on sets, you can't imagine this is true.

[1035] But apparently what happened was after he punched him out, he punched him, he knocked him out.

[1036] Not only did the crew not go crazy.

[1037] Not only was there like, oh my God, do, do, call the ambulance.

[1038] Not only was there not that.

[1039] Not only were they're not producers flipping the fuck out.

[1040] Yeah, yeah.

[1041] Apparently somebody took a piece of chalk.

[1042] And as he laid out on the set floor, drew a chalk outline around him and just left him there.

[1043] He must have been really loved as a director.

[1044] I mean, but like knowing how a set works, I can't even imagine that.

[1045] I mean, the minute people started getting angry at each other and raised voices, be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[1046] Oh, yeah.

[1047] Stay tuned for more armchair experts, if you dare.

[1048] So likewise, Monica, I don't know if you know this, but Quentin famously punched a producer over some bad blood at a restaurant.

[1049] And I didn't know this was the outcome of this until today.

[1050] And it made me laugh for about five minutes straight.

[1051] So this person who Quentin punched sued him for $5 million.

[1052] And can you say what he was awarded in court?

[1053] I hope this number's true.

[1054] 30 ,000.

[1055] Oh, it's totally wrong.

[1056] This said $450.

[1057] And I was going to say, that's not even.

[1058] Like 1 ,000th of a percent of what he was after.

[1059] Still, though, 30 grand.

[1060] 30 ,000 still.

[1061] Okay, so in a Burt Reynolds way, worth every penny?

[1062] Oh, yeah, that was absolutely.

[1063] Especially that guy.

[1064] It was absolutely worth every penny.

[1065] I've actually seen him since then, and actually, we all got it out of our system.

[1066] Oh, you did?

[1067] Actually, going through the whole arbitration process actually did purge.

[1068] Yeah, it was cathartic?

[1069] Yeah, it was cathartic.

[1070] But the thing about it, though, basically is, if you're famous and you have money and you punch some guy.

[1071] It doesn't even matter if it's your fault or not.

[1072] You're going to pay $30 ,000.

[1073] That's pretty much the going right?

[1074] That's a going right.

[1075] Okay.

[1076] Now, if it really is your fault and you are seen to be a bully or seen to be the aggressor in this situation and you have no really good reason why you did this then it could be who knows.

[1077] You could even go to jail.

[1078] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1079] Okay, I have two more questions and we're going to talk exclusively about once upon time in Hollywood the book and I'm sorry.

[1080] I'm so grateful to have you.

[1081] This is, again, 30 years of my fantasy coming true, so I'm having a hard time reining myself in.

[1082] Arklight Cinerama Dome, this is the most horrendous thing, yeah.

[1083] I don't think it's going to be as bad as that, because they're not going to demolish the Cinerama Dome.

[1084] Somebody's going to buy it.

[1085] There's so many different options that could work out, and I'm not that worried about it, frankly, to tell you the truth.

[1086] Okay, that's good.

[1087] Now, movies versus shows right now, I didn't think I would ever in my life say this, But if I had to give movies in general a grade over the last two years versus shows, there's no comparison for me currently.

[1088] There just isn't that many great movies, and there's fucking a boatload of unbelievable shows.

[1089] Well, I would say, I know what you mean, but I wouldn't quite go there.

[1090] And I'll tell you what I mean by that is, yes, there are stories that you can get caught up into.

[1091] Big time, yeah.

[1092] And you can get caught up in the stories, and you can get caught up in the stories, and you can get caught up the fact that they're not stuck to a two -hour, two -and -a -half -hour format.

[1093] So you can really get to know the characters and this thing can zing off here and zing off there if you're watching the Americans or you're watching billions or whatever you're watching.

[1094] It's still TV.

[1095] They still have a TV budget.

[1096] They still have a TV shooting schedule.

[1097] Yes, I could have done once upon a time in Hollywood as a miniseries.

[1098] Right.

[1099] And I could have shot everything I ever wanted for that miniseries.

[1100] And that would have been fantastic.

[1101] And Say I even had the same budget, which was $95 million.

[1102] That's a good budget.

[1103] That's a great budget.

[1104] Still could be $95 million stretched for eight hours.

[1105] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1106] As opposed to $95 million stretched to two and a half hours.

[1107] Yes.

[1108] So if I need seven days to do a sequence, I have seven days.

[1109] If I need two weeks to do a sequence, I have two weeks.

[1110] A TV director is not going to have that.

[1111] They have to make too much product.

[1112] They have to shoot too much material.

[1113] Now, if it's just about getting the material shot, great.

[1114] Yeah.

[1115] But you're not going to have the sense of scope and grandeur.

[1116] Yeah, you're not going to have that kind of time.

[1117] Yeah.

[1118] Although there are a couple that pop into my mind that are like a little bit of exceptions where it's like the quality is fucking there.

[1119] Well, one of the anomalies would be something like, not that I ever watched it, but would be Game of Thrones.

[1120] They had the time and they would spend three weeks on a battle scene.

[1121] Absolutely.

[1122] Yeah.

[1123] They would shoot for 11 months.

[1124] Yeah, exactly.

[1125] But really that, in Band of Brothers, and after that, forget about it.

[1126] Nothing else really has that kind of scale.

[1127] Yeah, but just to counter that, you also then have, like, Fargo.

[1128] Do you watch Fargo the TV show?

[1129] No, I don't actually.

[1130] Okay.

[1131] Unbelievable.

[1132] And when you're watching it, you're like, how are they making something this good for $3 million an episode?

[1133] Okay, but again, it's probably script -based.

[1134] Yeah, it's phenomenally written.

[1135] Yeah, it's script -based.

[1136] Well, script -based you can do.

[1137] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1138] If you're talking about scenes that people talking to each other, and dialogues.

[1139] And I'm not putting that down.

[1140] Obviously, I'm not putting dialogue scenes down.

[1141] Yeah, yeah.

[1142] You can do that.

[1143] That's doable.

[1144] That has come now where that is our outlet for it, because in general, and I'm not one that's always hating on Marvel stuff, I'm not.

[1145] But a scene that's six pages long, that's all dialogue, you're not seeing that in a script unless you go make a movie.

[1146] It's pretty much not happening in movies, so it's only happening on TV.

[1147] And that was my favorite part of movies.

[1148] No, no, no, that's genuine.

[1149] I'm sure you watch much more television than I do.

[1150] But of all the limited series that I've watched, and I've heard other people say this, so I don't think I was just the only one.

[1151] I've heard a lot of people say this.

[1152] The only one that actually felt like a movie, it was just a seven -hour movie, was The Queen's Gambit.

[1153] Oh, my God.

[1154] Wasn't that fucking great?

[1155] But that was not a TV series.

[1156] That was just a seven -hour movie.

[1157] Or did it see like a TV series to you?

[1158] No, I agree.

[1159] I agree.

[1160] It did feel just like a full A -to -Z movie.

[1161] It was a movie, yeah.

[1162] It just felt like.

[1163] like a movie.

[1164] You're right.

[1165] Yeah.

[1166] Okay.

[1167] I was going to propose the Great is for me that way as well.

[1168] Which one?

[1169] The Great on Hulu.

[1170] It's about Catherine the Great.

[1171] Oh, okay.

[1172] But it's a satire.

[1173] It's got the craziest tone.

[1174] I fucking love it.

[1175] And then the other one I'd say is the Patriot.

[1176] Did you see that show on Amazon?

[1177] Okay.

[1178] If it's on Amazon and Hulu, I haven't seen it.

[1179] Okay.

[1180] Okay.

[1181] You're not a big streamer.

[1182] I'm not a big streamer.

[1183] Okay.

[1184] Everyone knows this.

[1185] You famously said you're going to do 10 movies.

[1186] You've done nine movies.

[1187] You must believe Semut in the simulation, because you happen to pick your 10 movies in the time where movies were still thriving and awesome.

[1188] And I don't know that one, even with your talent, could go make 10 movies going for it.

[1189] I'm just not sure.

[1190] It's like, what a timeline you picked for us.

[1191] Oh, I know.

[1192] There was this aspect about 2019.

[1193] It was like, whoa, were we the last movies to fly through the window before the window was slammed shut for all time?

[1194] Yeah, I mean, literally.

[1195] I mean, I think, Even if movies come back, will it be like that?

[1196] I know.

[1197] No. You're one of like three people that can get something made that isn't a part of some IP.

[1198] Will that world even exist anymore?

[1199] One of the things that Tom Rothman always said about once upon a time in Hollywood is it's like, look, we're Sony.

[1200] Yeah, we have our own Marvel stuff, but we don't have the Marvel stuff that Disney has.

[1201] Yeah.

[1202] And we don't have the D .C. stuff that Warner Brothers has.

[1203] And we don't have Harry Potter and we don't have all these different, you name the franchises.

[1204] Yeah.

[1205] We don't have all that.

[1206] We're about asses and seats.

[1207] We're not about doing this.

[1208] If once upon a time in Hollywood is going to be a success, it's because we got people to leave the house when they could do anything in the world they wanted to do that night, and they went and paid to see a movie and sat their ass in a fucking chair.

[1209] Yes.

[1210] And then if it's a movie's a hit there, then it'll be a hit and all the other things down the line.

[1211] But we have to make it a hit at the theaters.

[1212] Is a $300 million take on a movie like, once upon a time in Hollywood, which was only two years ago.

[1213] Is that possible in the future?

[1214] I do not know.

[1215] And about asses and seats.

[1216] I'm not saying a movie like that can't make $300 million, but can it make it from just movie ticket sales alone?

[1217] Yeah.

[1218] Not streaming, not this, not that.

[1219] Yeah.

[1220] And this is a valid question before 2020.

[1221] And now the infrastructure's crumbled.

[1222] A lot of the exhibitors are gone.

[1223] Like there's other now hurdles.

[1224] Some of these exhibitors that, are going, like I never like any theater closing, but some of these exhibitors are going, they fucking deserve to go.

[1225] They've taken all the specialness out of movies anyway, some of these chains, where they're showing commercials all through it, they don't turn the lights down, everything is stadium seating, plastic shit, and it's all about popcorn, and it's watching a movie of fucking Chuckie Cheese.

[1226] Like, I mean, there used to be even a tad of presentation going on.

[1227] So it was like, those guys, shut down.

[1228] They've been writing their own epitat for a long time, but they just figured the business would take you along.

[1229] I mean, it's been crazy during my whole career to see how this cinema experience is lessened.

[1230] Yeah, yeah.

[1231] For the viewer, like every five years, it's lessened by another big jump.

[1232] However, I do think boutique cinemas will actually thrive in this time.

[1233] And I'm not talking about the lazy boy order nachos and margaritas and, and, and, and, and, And six bean salad.

[1234] Yes, exactly.

[1235] And roast beef.

[1236] I mean, actually, I like the Alamo draft house a lot.

[1237] I love the Alamo draft house.

[1238] But I'm not down with that whole layout.

[1239] Like, I got a living room.

[1240] I want to go to a movie theater.

[1241] I don't want to recreate my living room in an outdoor place.

[1242] I actually like feeling the audience.

[1243] I'm not in my own little sofa.

[1244] But, like, for instance, when we opened up the New Beverly about two weeks ago in June, again, and like we've sold out every single show.

[1245] Wow.

[1246] Well, that's promising.

[1247] And I'll announce one thing here that people don't know yet.

[1248] I bought the Vista.

[1249] Oh, my God.

[1250] I love the Vista.

[1251] Oh, you did?

[1252] Yeah, we're going to probably open it up around Christmas time.

[1253] Yay!

[1254] Oh, my gosh.

[1255] And again, only film.

[1256] Oh, boy, oh, boy.

[1257] But it won't be a revival house.

[1258] Okay.

[1259] It won't be a revival house.

[1260] We'll show new movies that come out where they give us a film print.

[1261] Yeah.

[1262] All right, we'll show new stuff.

[1263] It's not going to be like the New Beverly.

[1264] The New Beverly has its own vibe.

[1265] Sure.

[1266] The Vista is like a crown jewel.

[1267] Mm -hmm.

[1268] Mm -hmm.

[1269] Mm -hmm.

[1270] Kind of thing.

[1271] And so it'll be like the best prints.

[1272] And so we'll show older films, but they'll be like older films that like, you know, can hold a four -night engagement.

[1273] Yeah.

[1274] Well, Archly did that in a really cool way as well.

[1275] Yeah, no, they did a lot of cool stuff like that.

[1276] Yeah.

[1277] Yeah.

[1278] Bad it wasn't always film.

[1279] No, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1280] That's your religion.

[1281] Okay.

[1282] Now, you're here not to talk about all the things I talk to you about, but you have now a two -book deal and your first book of that two book deal is once upon a time in Hollywood and now it's a novel.

[1283] So you take the skeleton of the movie and then just start filling in all these other areas.

[1284] Do you flashback?

[1285] Like how do you approach that?

[1286] I guess I vaguely take the skeleton insofar as in those two days that takes place at the beginning of the movie, it goes in that timeline.

[1287] But no, I didn't just take the script and turn it into novelistic prose and then throw in a couple of scenes that were cut out of the film.

[1288] I rethought it as a novel.

[1289] And I had so much material.

[1290] And I'm talking about material I shot that I didn't use.

[1291] I was writing it for like five years.

[1292] And I wanted to really know stuff about these characters and know this world.

[1293] So when I wanted to know stuff, I wrote it out.

[1294] And so I wrote out little scenes to answer questions.

[1295] And I wrote out things about Rick's career.

[1296] And I wrote out stuff.

[1297] When you write those out, are they being told in dialogue?

[1298] No, when they get into dialogue It turns into like script type of dialogue But a lot of it's very prosy And the thing about it though was like I mean most of this stuff I never even bothered to type it up Because it's never going to make the movie Yeah, yeah I'm not gonna have a 40 minute scene in a bar Where they talk at the end of the Lancershoot It's not gonna happen to the third act of the movie Right All right but I learned a lot from writing So I had all this material That I could put into it And I like movie novelizations anyway I grew up with them They were like the first adult novel I ever read when I was a kid in the 70s were movie novelizations.

[1299] And so I thought, hey, it wouldn't be cool to do one.

[1300] And I go, well, my first thought was to take Reservoir Dogs and turn it into a novel.

[1301] Oh, sure, sure.

[1302] And I wrote about two chapters of that.

[1303] And then I go, well, wait a minute, what am I doing?

[1304] The latest one was once upon a time.

[1305] And I have all this material, and people seem to like it.

[1306] So, I mean, that really should be the one I do first.

[1307] Yeah, yeah.

[1308] And so I did it.

[1309] When you're creating characters, are they all fantasies of, like, like what you'd want to do or what you'd want to be or how you'd want to act.

[1310] Is it all kind of personal fantasy?

[1311] Not necessarily.

[1312] No. I mean, look, I think like, look, when it comes to somebody like Cliff Booth, I think every man would like to be Cliff Booth.

[1313] Oh, my God.

[1314] Every man would like to be as capable as Cliff Booth.

[1315] Every man would like to be as Zen as he is in the face of every kind of confrontation and know that you can deliver to that degree.

[1316] Yeah, yeah.

[1317] Yeah, we would all like to be that.

[1318] But again, it was a real.

[1319] real guy that I was basing it on.

[1320] Yeah.

[1321] Maybe that was the wrong way to ask it.

[1322] When you're writing these things, do you get the excitement of like, oh, this would be the greatest response?

[1323] Or this would be the greatest way to walk through this situation.

[1324] Like, do you get that?

[1325] Well, let me put like this.

[1326] I wish I talk the way I wrote.

[1327] That's what I'm saying.

[1328] Yeah, that's kind of what I'm saying.

[1329] When I write, it's as if I have the vocabulary of the ages at my disposal.

[1330] When I'm talking, I don't have the vocabulary of the ages.

[1331] Right, right, right.

[1332] I'm like everybody else.

[1333] I use the same words again and again and again.

[1334] But when I'm writing and when I'm being different people and voices, turns of phrase from the 1890s are just right there for the picking.

[1335] It's amazing.

[1336] It's like, I'm in an orchard and it's not words, it's more phrases.

[1337] It's more expressions or slang or turns of phrase from the 1800s down are all like apples hanging off of a tree.

[1338] Yeah.

[1339] Yeah, and they're just coming to.

[1340] to you, right?

[1341] Yeah, and I'm just, okay, this one, boom, pick, boom, boom, pick, pick.

[1342] It's not like you're trying to get the right sentence for 10 minutes.

[1343] No, I'm not trying at all.

[1344] I mean, the thing about it, look, any kind of it's a situation where when you're particularly good at something, it's not a big deal to you because it comes too easy to you.

[1345] It's like, I just get the characters talking and it's seemingly as if they do all of the work.

[1346] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1347] And I'm just like, I'm a court stenographer writing it down.

[1348] Yeah.

[1349] I am so, reluctant to say I relate because I am no way I think I'm the writer you are.

[1350] But as someone who's written many, many screenplays, there are characters within the things I write where it's like, I can't wait for it to be their turn because I can just diarrhea for the rest of my life as this person.

[1351] Right, exactly.

[1352] Yeah.

[1353] You know what I'm saying?

[1354] And then there's a couple people who's like, I've got to kind of work out what they would say.

[1355] But then this person and this person is these little touch notes.

[1356] And usually when you have to work out something that they have to say is because they've got to tell the story.

[1357] Yes, yes, yes.

[1358] Now you've got work to do.

[1359] Yes, yes.

[1360] Now, how do I get them to do the work so it's not standing out?

[1361] I so hate exposition that I bury my exposition inside of 20 -minute rambling scenes.

[1362] So you do not realize you're being told exposition.

[1363] Right.

[1364] You think it's just the random nothingness that they've been talking about through the whole 20 minutes.

[1365] It's only 20 minutes later that you realized you had been told a plot point.

[1366] Yes.

[1367] That's going to mean something to you later.

[1368] Yeah, it's not.

[1369] But it's never, here it comes.

[1370] Right, right.

[1371] But when you have like me the luxury to have 20 -minute scenes, well, yeah, you can bury shit.

[1372] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1373] Yeah, a lot of real estate.

[1374] But the thing about it is you talk about the dog food scene.

[1375] Mm -hmm.

[1376] Well, wow, he just stopped the movie for about six or six minutes to watch Cliff feed his dog.

[1377] But I'm also telling you how well -trained brandy is.

[1378] Of course, yes.

[1379] And so now you're not asking, well, wait a minute.

[1380] Why isn't that dog making a noise?

[1381] Why isn't that dog winding when the Manson guys are there?

[1382] Why isn't the dog?

[1383] Why isn't he being a dog?

[1384] Yes.

[1385] Well, because you know why.

[1386] Yes.

[1387] Because when Cliff says, you don't fucking move.

[1388] All right.

[1389] He doesn't fucking move.

[1390] It actually, when you're watching the viewer, or at least I thought, oh, you're telling me about Cliff.

[1391] Like, this is a scene where I learn about, oh, he has this cool connection with this dog.

[1392] I know guys like that.

[1393] I'm telling you about branding.

[1394] That's the plot point.

[1395] That's the work.

[1396] That's the storyteller work.

[1397] Yeah, but when you're watching it, you're like, oh, I'm supposed to be learning about Cliff right now.

[1398] Okay, I see how he lives, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then that thing.

[1399] And all that's true.

[1400] Yes, that's true.

[1401] Yeah, that's just bonus material.

[1402] I am just supposing his homestead with Rick's house.

[1403] With all that said, can you think of a very favorite character whose speeches you liked writing the most?

[1404] Can I guess?

[1405] Go ahead.

[1406] I'd have to imagine it's a Christopher Waltz or it's a Sam Jackson.

[1407] It's both.

[1408] Okay, okay, okay.

[1409] Good job, Dad.

[1410] Yes.

[1411] It would be Colonel Hans Landa or any.

[1412] of the Sam Jackson Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1413] I would put a third one in there.

[1414] Christopher Walken's speech in Pulp Fiction.

[1415] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1416] Knowing I was writing that for Christopher Walkin.

[1417] It was the longest speech I've ever written.

[1418] It's three pages long.

[1419] Yeah, yeah.

[1420] I kept this uncomfortable piece of metal up my ass.

[1421] I'd be damned.

[1422] Little man. Little man. Oh, my God, what a fucking scene.

[1423] Oh, my God.

[1424] Okay, so once upon a time in Hollywood, did it take you the similar length to write it?

[1425] Is it easier to write a book for you, or is it harder?

[1426] Is it so liberating to write a novel where it's like, and then the fucking thing blows up and this happens and you have no obligation to figure out how to shoot that.

[1427] Well, okay, I will tell you one of the things that was really great about it was knowing that what I was done with the novel I was done.

[1428] Yes, yes.

[1429] That was fucking mind -blowing.

[1430] Yeah.

[1431] To know that, oh, I'm done now, all right?

[1432] I'm not going to spend the next year and a half of my life shooting this.

[1433] Just being completed.

[1434] Oh, wow, this is it.

[1435] I am finished.

[1436] Yeah.

[1437] That was awesome.

[1438] But at the same time, it was also a situation where I'd never really written a novel before.

[1439] And it was a new style of writing.

[1440] So I had to get used to that.

[1441] And it was a lot of fun, but to me, scripts are really easy to write.

[1442] So this wasn't easy.

[1443] I'm not saying it was crazy hard, but it wasn't easy.

[1444] Yeah, it's not the format you're bringing.

[1445] things in.

[1446] You know, it had to be more literary.

[1447] It had to be, you know, it had to be more a lot of things.

[1448] You can get away with a lot of stuff in scripts.

[1449] I mean, you can literally just interior bar, bob and tedder at the table.

[1450] Boom, and right into it, you know.

[1451] Yeah, yeah.

[1452] And that's kind of okay on a script.

[1453] Yeah, especially if Tim Ross starts talking immediately.

[1454] So what we must discuss before you leave is Fred Raskin, your editor.

[1455] Yeah, yeah, Fred.

[1456] Who's a friend of mine, he edited the first movie I directed.

[1457] He was one of the editors on, and I just fell in love with him.

[1458] and he loves Stern, as we know, and you were kind enough to bring him up on Stern, which I was like, oh, I'm so happy for Fred.

[1459] Oh, I know, I was so happy for Fred.

[1460] Yes, yes.

[1461] And then even when, like, how cool Howard was, because I brought him up, and they're like, hello, Fred.

[1462] Oh, my God.

[1463] He gave him a shout out.

[1464] So Fred is spectacular.

[1465] Really oddly, we just were talking, I guess Vincent and Offrey -on, it just came up.

[1466] It just came up.

[1467] We were talking about how women have had a better role editorially than they have in the rest of the business historically.

[1468] Like there's some magic, I guess, Scorsese and his editor.

[1469] And then you and Sally obviously had some just beautiful thing.

[1470] And when she died so unfortunately, I wonder creatively, did you have any panic?

[1471] Just to have done everything with her and to have the relationship you guys had.

[1472] I didn't have panic, but I know it's worth doing, but it was like, oh, wow.

[1473] Wow, this is never going to be the same again.

[1474] Yeah.

[1475] And will it ever be this fun again?

[1476] It was just heartbreaking.

[1477] It was heartbreaking.

[1478] Yeah, if I talk about too much, I'm going to start crying.

[1479] Yeah, yeah.

[1480] We had a whole ritual, and the idea that that ritual will never, ever happen again is really, really tough.

[1481] Then there was also just another layer.

[1482] It was like, while me and Sally were these magnificent partners, and while we were really great, friends and we were these really great artistic collaborations considered sally like the greatest artistic collaborator i've ever had it was almost like she was a co -writer to some degree because editing is like the last draft yeah i always say that a script is the first cut of the movie and the edit is the last draft of the script yeah and then and we literally sat next to each other yeah all day long right connected right to each other but there was another aspect about it was she was almost like my mother She was a motherly figure.

[1483] She was safety.

[1484] And she was a great mother.

[1485] And she has that kind of spirit.

[1486] And she was just old enough, and I was just young enough, to have that energy.

[1487] And especially as time went on.

[1488] But even right from the very beginning.

[1489] So it was like, I had my mother as my greatest artistic collaborator.

[1490] And she loved me like a mother.

[1491] She was fierce.

[1492] She was as crazy.

[1493] She was as protective as a lion.

[1494] about our movies and about me. Yeah.

[1495] And so like to lose all of that, which I thought would be there to the end of time.

[1496] Sure.

[1497] Do you think having had dudes coming in out of your life as a kid?

[1498] I personally have a hard time hearing criticism.

[1499] Anything from men.

[1500] Fucking can't stand it.

[1501] Women I can take it from.

[1502] I trust them.

[1503] I feel safe with them.

[1504] I almost wonder, could you have even had?

[1505] that relationship right out of the gate with a male editor.

[1506] No, I could have it now.

[1507] Now, well, you have it with Fred.

[1508] Yeah, I have it with Fred.

[1509] I have it with it.

[1510] But I could even have it with like an older man. But when you're young, I didn't want to deal with a man at all.

[1511] In fact, the only thing I knew was I wanted a female editor.

[1512] Yeah.

[1513] Because they're going to know more about editing, especially on my very first movie than I'm going to know.

[1514] But I know more about my story.

[1515] Yeah.

[1516] But the thing about it was I didn't want anyone playing it.

[1517] Let me tell you how it is, kid.

[1518] Right.

[1519] I didn't want that.

[1520] I wanted somebody who would nurture me. Yes.

[1521] I wanted somebody who would take care of me and bring me through this process and bring the best out of me, not try to win arguments, but bring the best out of me. Yeah.

[1522] And I wanted somebody to take care of me. Yes.

[1523] Well, and maybe you feel differently, but also when you go away and you shoot a movie, you're so in the experience of shooting it.

[1524] And then you go to this little room in the weight of like, well, I got to turn that into something.

[1525] I find that scary.

[1526] I think that's the scariest part because you got what you got.

[1527] And now let's see if you can put it together in a way you imagine.

[1528] I'm always having a blast at editing.

[1529] You're not depressed when you see a first assembly?

[1530] I don't watch first assemblies.

[1531] Oh, that's smart.

[1532] I've been some of the worst days of my entire life was seeing.

[1533] Oh, no. I got to call people and say, sorry, I took your money.

[1534] No, no, no, no. No, I would never watch a first assembly.

[1535] And look, I'm not telling Sally or Fred much of anything during the shoot.

[1536] Okay.

[1537] Maybe we watch Dailies together for the first three weeks.

[1538] But now, okay, I can't keep watching the footage.

[1539] Like, makes me want to edit.

[1540] And like, I'm here.

[1541] I'm doing this.

[1542] doing this.

[1543] Yeah.

[1544] So to me, the first assembly is simply them getting familiar with the footage.

[1545] They have notes.

[1546] They have from the first AD is, oh, quitting like this take, quitting like that.

[1547] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1548] This was his favorite.

[1549] But I'm not sitting there talking, okay, so I'm thinking that we start here and then we do this and then let's hop the line over here and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[1550] No, just have at it.

[1551] Do whatever the hell you want.

[1552] And that's them getting familiar with the footage as I am.

[1553] And so then when we start editing, we start okay, scene one.

[1554] Here we go.

[1555] Boom.

[1556] We start with scene one.

[1557] And I've made my notes for what I want to do.

[1558] Okay.

[1559] So Fred, let's see what you did.

[1560] So I watched the assembly of that scene.

[1561] Yes.

[1562] Okay.

[1563] Great.

[1564] Just before we start.

[1565] So you don't go all the way through and then go, oh, here's the global notes.

[1566] You just start scene by scene, get the scenes right, and then watch it for global thoughts.

[1567] See, I watch all the footage, I mean, all the takes for that given scene the night before.

[1568] Oh, okay.

[1569] And I make all my notes.

[1570] Yeah, yeah.

[1571] About everything.

[1572] And then I get, from watching the takes that work and the takes that don't work, I start building a structure to how I want to put it together.

[1573] Sometimes it doesn't work, but most of the time it does.

[1574] And I never look at the notes to see, well, no, I don't want to know what I thought was great on that day.

[1575] I want to know what I think is great now.

[1576] Yeah, that's hard.

[1577] Yeah.

[1578] And what means you're looking a lot of fucking shit.

[1579] And so I'm working all night long, making all these notes.

[1580] And like, every time so -and -so says this line, good, well, then I write it down.

[1581] Yeah.

[1582] So now I know exactly what I want to do when I show up at editing the next day.

[1583] But we start, okay, let me see what you did, Fred.

[1584] Great, yeah.

[1585] And then I see what he did.

[1586] And if he did something better, if he had, maybe he had a neat idea that I didn't think about.

[1587] And oftentimes, like, the little cuts of the inserts are, like, fantastic the way they do it.

[1588] That's really great.

[1589] And I can, oh, you know, okay, let's see.

[1590] See, I was going to do this and this and this.

[1591] I think I still want to do this and this and this, but let's end it the way you did.

[1592] I like that ending.

[1593] I like that's a good ending.

[1594] Let's end it that way.

[1595] Yeah.

[1596] If you had to guess an average of how many takes you do, could you say?

[1597] Is there an average?

[1598] It's usually around 6, 7, or 8.

[1599] Okay.

[1600] Sometimes 4.

[1601] Sometimes 3.

[1602] And then your second book is going to be nonfiction about movies, yeah?

[1603] It's a cinema book that I'm writing.

[1604] I think, I assume it's going to be called Cinema Speculation.

[1605] And the idea of it is the whole concept of New Hollywood, more or less starting in 1967.

[1606] and I think I consider the end of it officially, like 1981.

[1607] Okay.

[1608] But that means that I grew up going to the movies during that time.

[1609] I mean, I remember going to see movies in 1967.

[1610] I mean, I'm four, but I remember going to see Bullitt.

[1611] Right, right.

[1612] I saw Planet the Apes at the theaters in 1968.

[1613] You probably saw Smoking the Bandit.

[1614] Oh, yeah, of course I did.

[1615] I've only seen it on TV?

[1616] Yeah, of course I saw it.

[1617] I saw it the weekend it open.

[1618] That's something you would do in your time.

[1619] machine.

[1620] Oh, I would.

[1621] I'd go fucking Friday night.

[1622] No, I saw it the Hawthorne Six.

[1623] No shit.

[1624] AMC.

[1625] Hawthorne Six.

[1626] I can remember every theater I've ever seen any movie.

[1627] Wow.

[1628] That's amazing.

[1629] And then I just choose a few movies from that span of years.

[1630] Yeah.

[1631] And I write reviews about them, about like what I think about them.

[1632] I usually give a lot of history about it and what I think about them.

[1633] But I also have had to have seen them then.

[1634] So I also talk about how my perspective, either what it was then or how it's changed.

[1635] or maybe it's the same.

[1636] You now have two kids.

[1637] One kid.

[1638] Oh, you have one kid?

[1639] One kid.

[1640] Okay, you have one kid.

[1641] How old?

[1642] Fifteen months.

[1643] Oh, Jesus.

[1644] Okay, you're not there yet.

[1645] I want to interview you in seven years because I'm now at a phase of my life where I'm showing my kids.

[1646] Oh, I can't wait for that.

[1647] Oh, well, sometimes it's fucking great.

[1648] It's everything you'd want it to be.

[1649] And other times, this is a specific example.

[1650] Oh, totally.

[1651] They're going to totally like shit on something you fucking love.

[1652] More than that.

[1653] Let me tell you, I showed my eight -year -old daughter.

[1654] I am six -year -old.

[1655] They were probably seven and five then.

[1656] I showed them, Pee -Wey Herman.

[1657] I'm like, I fucking love Pee -Werman.

[1658] I was their age when they showed.

[1659] I put this movie out.

[1660] Did you show them the movie or did you show him Peewey's Playhouse?

[1661] I showed them the movie.

[1662] You got to show them the kids show.

[1663] Yeah, they were wrong.

[1664] You started out with a fucking narrative.

[1665] No, you show the show that was shown on Saturday morning.

[1666] You show them an episode of Peewee's Playhouse.

[1667] It's a kid show.

[1668] That was second, though, wasn't it?

[1669] No. Chronologically, the Playhouse was first?

[1670] Yes.

[1671] Oh, my God.

[1672] You know, you know, you know, show them a fucking movie at that is.

[1673] You show them the kids show.

[1674] I shit the bed, but let me just tell you their experience watching it.

[1675] A, they were terrified.

[1676] Yes.

[1677] Oh, they didn't get large Marge.

[1678] Oh, wow.

[1679] Your five -year -old little girl didn't understand large Marge.

[1680] But let's also get more conceptually, they asked me a question that I had never asked myself at eight years old.

[1681] didn't have an answer for, which is they were like, is he a kid or an adult?

[1682] I'm like, I don't know.

[1683] Great question.

[1684] I don't know if he's a kid or an adult.

[1685] And if he's an adult, then that opens up more questions.

[1686] Like, what's wrong with him?

[1687] Well, he's a Jerry Lewis Lou Costello child adult.

[1688] It's unanswerable.

[1689] I can't wait for you to show your child, Bui Herman.

[1690] Well, again, I would do it the right way.

[1691] I would start with me as playing.

[1692] And maybe show him HR puffing stuff and lead up to people.

[1693] Maybe even get some footage of him at the growling's fucking doing that character for the first time.

[1694] I've actually watched at 15 months, I've actually watched my first movie.

[1695] Oh God.

[1696] What was it?

[1697] With my son, Leo.

[1698] So he watches like normal baby TV stuff.

[1699] Like the show that he really likes is this thing called Sam the Fireman.

[1700] But the thing is, like, they're made for toddler.

[1701] They're made for infants.

[1702] So they're all about like 15 minutes long And they have like And then there's a familiarity about them And you know, 15 minutes is about as long As you can hold a kid Yeah At that age.

[1703] So I try not to go on Netflix But I went on Netflix and I was like Let me find something better for kids to watch with him What a hilarious moral conundrum That he has to not watch Netflix It's very funny, very unique And so I see the minions up there So I think oh okay well this would be good He might enjoy the minions Yeah So I hit it and I realized no, it's not the me. It's despicable me too.

[1704] All right.

[1705] And I go, well, I wasn't going to choose a movie, all right?

[1706] But he seems to be watching the opening credits.

[1707] So he knows what opening and closing credits are because that lets them know it's starting and lets them know it's over.

[1708] So, okay, well, let's just see how this goes.

[1709] And so it starts with this crazy, big action scene.

[1710] And he was really into it.

[1711] He was really into it.

[1712] He's not clapping or smiling or laughing, but he's just like watching mesmerized.

[1713] with like the mouth open.

[1714] So he was watching that, and I'm studying his face, and this may be me reading, projecting the little bit.

[1715] Yeah, projecting.

[1716] This may be me projecting what he was thinking.

[1717] Because I watch his face when he watches these other shows, because I'm fascinated by him taking in entertainment and the fact that he likes it.

[1718] And what does he like and what does he not like, what is he attracted to, and how he watches it.

[1719] and the look of wonder on his face, it did look like he was recognizing, oh, wow, this is much better than the stuff that I watch normally.

[1720] Right, right, right.

[1721] This is much more sophisticated, even though he doesn't know what the word sophisticated means.

[1722] Yes.

[1723] It's much more sophisticated.

[1724] It's much better done.

[1725] This is like, I mean, this is something.

[1726] Yes.

[1727] I would imagine, like, from my age, it's like, okay, you're a little kid and you're watching Lost in Space.

[1728] Then you see 2001.

[1729] Okay, there's a difference.

[1730] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1731] So the thing is, we watched it for about 25, almost 30 minutes.

[1732] I mean, that is an incredible amount of time.

[1733] It's a percentage of his life.

[1734] Oh, yeah, yeah, for a 15 -month deal.

[1735] And the shows that he likes, he sees the same episodes again and again.

[1736] I think that's annoying, but he obviously likes that.

[1737] Yeah.

[1738] All right, because it's comfortable.

[1739] I know what this is going.

[1740] This is a pizza episode of Sam the Funnels.

[1741] even though he doesn't know what a pizza is.

[1742] So when he finally, the spell was broken and he started doing something else, like two days later, when I was hanging out with him, I moved the film back about five minutes from where he last watched it, and we watched it for like another 15 minutes.

[1743] Yeah.

[1744] 15, 20 minutes or so.

[1745] And then a few days later, I picked it up again, and I took about five minutes back and we watched it for like another 15 minutes until we eventually saw the whole movie.

[1746] Yes.

[1747] So, isn't that wonderful?

[1748] I will always now know the first movie my son ever watched was Dispicable Me Too.

[1749] On Netflix.

[1750] I tried to ignore that aspect of it.

[1751] It would have rather it be a Blu -ray, but you can't have everything.

[1752] Exactly.

[1753] Don't emphasize that part.

[1754] I'm sorry, I had you.

[1755] I had you.

[1756] The best analogy would be like, you basically own the small town hardware store and you ordered some shit off Amazon.

[1757] And you just fucking had to do it.

[1758] I just, I needed the nail gun tonight.

[1759] Yes.

[1760] Oh, well, Quentin, it's been such a pleasure.

[1761] And Fred Raskin, we love you because he listens.

[1762] Thank you, Fred.

[1763] Thank you for it.

[1764] Yeah, thank you so much for coming in.

[1765] I really appreciate it.

[1766] My pleasure.

[1767] You guys were great.

[1768] This was really fun.

[1769] I think about as long as one of your movies, too.

[1770] Yeah.

[1771] Not quite.

[1772] We'll do volume two.

[1773] Yeah, yeah.

[1774] All right, thanks so much.

[1775] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1776] Hello.

[1777] You are really dressed to the nines for this fact check.

[1778] Thank you.

[1779] Can we just acknowledge that?

[1780] It wasn't for the fact check.

[1781] Let's be honest and open like we always are.

[1782] Okay.

[1783] Yeah, we're in the middle of a televised interview.

[1784] That's right.

[1785] Literally real time.

[1786] And we're pretending to do a fact check, but guess what?

[1787] We're not pretending.

[1788] We're really doing one.

[1789] Welcome to the layers of our world This is very meta Rob, can you give me a little more Give her a little more, give her a little heat A little more me Yeah, a little more me Thank you, thank you Ooh, that's nice I like your sweater, you're very autumnal Do you want to tell people about your new Atominal wardrobe?

[1790] Yeah, so on the game show Nicole Chavez who is the most incredible stylist In the world She styled my clothes right this second That was no mystery to me I mean not that you couldn't have done this yourself but that's got Nicole written all over it as well.

[1791] She's so talented, and I think more she decided you're going autumnal, you're going pink, you're going salmon, and by George, I loved every item of it.

[1792] Yeah.

[1793] I would never go into a store and be drawn to the salmon section, and especially not in a food store because I don't like fish.

[1794] Well, yeah, maybe that's why you're tying it in with the fish.

[1795] Yeah, conflating the color with the...

[1796] We know you don't like fish cooked in the house.

[1797] No, no, it should never be prepared indoors.

[1798] That's the rule of it.

[1799] There was another fish dish that, fish dish.

[1800] Oh, fish dish.

[1801] That I saw recently that I think I want to try.

[1802] Oh, gosh, indoors.

[1803] What is it, a catfish?

[1804] No. It was a, I think it was a halibet.

[1805] Oh, sure, a sturgeon.

[1806] A halibet is very light to the nose.

[1807] This is the sales pitch of every fish.

[1808] It doesn't taste like fish and it doesn't smell like fish, which always begs the question for me, then why not eat something else?

[1809] No, because it's healthy.

[1810] But if the best thing about the item could be that it doesn't, resemble the item.

[1811] That's a weird item, right?

[1812] People be like, you don't like fish?

[1813] Try swordfish.

[1814] It tastes just like steak.

[1815] And I'm like, is there an embargo on steak?

[1816] Why not go right to?

[1817] It's healthier than steak.

[1818] So say some.

[1819] So say some.

[1820] So say me. You know that old saying.

[1821] So say some.

[1822] Anywho, atumnal.

[1823] So you made your way to the Salman section.

[1824] Yeah, I guess, you know, this part of maybe grown up into metropolitan Detroit area, only black folks wore pink these colors it's because it looks so beautiful on the stand yeah like I remember Arsenio Hall you'd watch Arsenio Hall and the color suits that he would wear versus like Letterman or Lennar or all these people there were just so many colors that look great on black folks and I felt like it wasn't my domain they were just cooler and more willing to like play in the clothing department yeah higher on the soul spectrum at any right here we are and I'm in a mustard not yeah you're in a mustard today, you had a raspberry sweater.

[1825] Oh, wow.

[1826] Oh, my gosh.

[1827] Really took my breath away.

[1828] Okay, this episode.

[1829] Oh, my gosh.

[1830] Unreal.

[1831] I was telling you the other day, I was saying, man, you did a really good job being cool.

[1832] Like, you told him that he was...

[1833] My idol.

[1834] You're number one, but you played it cool.

[1835] Oh, my gosh, thank you.

[1836] Yeah.

[1837] That was a Saturday.

[1838] We rarely do a weekend interview.

[1839] Yes.

[1840] So we came out of here and we walked directly into the house and people were over and I was saying for me personally, like of course Bill Gates I like, I worship in a certain way.

[1841] Yeah.

[1842] But to have someone who actually did the thing I was trying to do felt so different.

[1843] Like I just left feeling like perhaps the most excited I've been about interviewing someone like, oh my God, this person I've thought about for years read, studied, wanted to be admired.

[1844] in the thing I pursue.

[1845] Yeah.

[1846] Yeah, it was really awesome.

[1847] When they have a very specific impact on your life, that's how like Amy Polar was for me. It changes the level of gratitude.

[1848] I was so happy that you got that opportunity.

[1849] I was very worried I'd be too much for them.

[1850] You weren't at all.

[1851] So I'm glad to hear that you think I did okay.

[1852] Maybe you didn't even do enough.

[1853] Oh, no. Oh, no. I'm just kidding.

[1854] I'm just kidding.

[1855] he told us an interesting story after of course about a brian de palma oh right right right right right we were asking him kind of like who is your eye oh yeah who are you trying to be like i was trying to be you yeah who are you trying to be and i guessed i said is it oh all the spaghetti westerns what's the guy's name i don't know i don't know sergio leone oh right that's who he most like probably stylistically has done similar things too but he said for his him personally, Brian DePoma was the guy.

[1856] He just worshipped DePoma.

[1857] And after Reservoir dogs went to Sundance and Brian DePoma's wife was there, she told DePoma, you should watch this movie and he did.

[1858] And then DePoma called him and said, let's have lunch.

[1859] Yes.

[1860] And it's just so funny and interesting to hear the person that you know is at the pinnacle, wanting to be someone else.

[1861] Yeah, everyone has heroes.

[1862] Yeah.

[1863] Yeah, I guess maybe that's the appeal of like, oh, being out loud about your heroes because there's a certain humility involved and to hear him to recognize that oh he has all this humility as well and it was a ding ding ding because in the interview we were talking about Brad Pitt and how Brad wants to be that stunt guy yeah yeah yeah Brad Pitt wants to be somebody else like none of us have a chance of ever just being comfortable in our bodies yeah until maybe a certain like clearly Quentin has full acceptance and acknowledgement, not in an egotistical way, but he definitely knows what the hell he did in film.

[1864] Yes.

[1865] You know, he is in the Cecil B. DeMille category of legendary.

[1866] But he's also really like normal and cool.

[1867] Curious and still enthusiastic.

[1868] Not over anything.

[1869] No. I wonder how you keep that alive.

[1870] That's probably what separates the real legends from the non -leges.

[1871] The faux tours.

[1872] Is that what it's Well, Autour, right, is a term for a super talented.

[1873] And they say faux tour.

[1874] Oh, my God.

[1875] For someone who, like, everyone thought was a genius and it was revealed they weren't.

[1876] Roo.

[1877] Oh, what is a spaghetti western?

[1878] Why is it called that?

[1879] Because they were, like, this huge rash of American westerns that were shot in Italy.

[1880] Oh, wow.

[1881] Yeah.

[1882] So Sergio Leon was an Italian filmmaker making all these American westerns.

[1883] that's funny.

[1884] And that's where Clint Eastwood got his start.

[1885] He was in these like B movie westerns in Italy, but then they turned out great, like fistful of dollars and all these.

[1886] And that's what got him into dirty hairy and all that stuff.

[1887] Oh, my.

[1888] Yeah.

[1889] Okay.

[1890] Should we do some facts?

[1891] Yeah.

[1892] Thanks guys.

[1893] Thank you.

[1894] Yeah, our pleasure.

[1895] As you can hear, the live section is concluding.

[1896] That's right.

[1897] We weren't interesting enough for them to stay any longer.

[1898] Now we're going to get real.

[1899] Yeah, now we're going to talk about pooty and stinkies and pee -wee -wee and woo, and everything in between.

[1900] Were you guys dressed like twins?

[1901] Who?

[1902] Oh, we both had salmon on.

[1903] Ding -ding -ding?

[1904] Yeah.

[1905] I mean, I had pink, but he was calling it salmon, and I rolled with it, of course.

[1906] Oh, my God, but that was before the game show.

[1907] Yeah.

[1908] So you were wearing pink.

[1909] You know that.

[1910] My Hellcat has the pink front end and the pink.

[1911] I've been really embracing.

[1912] I got the pink come and go shirts.

[1913] Oh, right.

[1914] Yeah, I've been really exploring pink for about two years now.

[1915] I wear it a lot on top gear because I feel like it counteracts all the hyper masculinity.

[1916] Yeah, that's true.

[1917] Okay.

[1918] But Sam and I was a stranger to.

[1919] And same with most of the atominals.

[1920] I then discovered mustard with that sweatsuit I have that I wore in Kimmel.

[1921] So I started falling in low with mustard over the last four months.

[1922] But it's all new.

[1923] It's all really new to me. Okay, okay.

[1924] Still very exciting.

[1925] For people who are wondering why he doesn't like Netflix, it's because he likes movies on film.

[1926] In the theater.

[1927] In the theater on film, film prints.

[1928] That's why his new movie theater is going to be film prints.

[1929] Most theaters aren't even film anymore.

[1930] Correct.

[1931] That's why his...

[1932] So he shouldn't just hate Netflix.

[1933] No, it just came up.

[1934] It just came up that he didn't like Netflix.

[1935] You weren't here wrong.

[1936] Well, I also think he sees it rightly so as part of the reason movies are dying.

[1937] Yeah.

[1938] Because people are getting amazing entertainment in their living room.

[1939] Yeah.

[1940] Used to be, if you only had network television, you couldn't see an R -rated anything unless you went to the movie theater.

[1941] True.

[1942] And now, boy, it's fast and loose on all these platforms.

[1943] Okay, I know you love guessing stuff.

[1944] So what would you guess is his highest grossing film ever.

[1945] We're not going to adjust for inflation, obviously.

[1946] I would guess inglorious bastards.

[1947] Django.

[1948] Get the fuck out.

[1949] Django Unchained, earning over 425 million worldwide.

[1950] Wow.

[1951] Oh, wow.

[1952] This is also worldwide, not domestic.

[1953] And on my night.

[1954] Oh, wow.

[1955] Okay.

[1956] Do you have a full list?

[1957] Yes, I do.

[1958] So, is Inglorious number two?

[1959] No, once upon a time, number three, and then Pulviction number four?

[1960] No. Fuck.

[1961] Fuck me. Number two is once upon a time.

[1962] Oh.

[1963] $371 million.

[1964] That's right, worldwide.

[1965] Three is Inglorious Bastards.

[1966] Finally.

[1967] You just had this.

[1968] Oh, my gosh.

[1969] There was a picture of B .J. Novak.

[1970] I forgot he was in that.

[1971] Mm -hmm.

[1972] So jealous.

[1973] Four is Pulp Fiction.

[1974] Here we go.

[1975] Five is Kill Bill Volume 1.

[1976] Six is the hateful 8.

[1977] 7 is Kill Bill Volume 2.

[1978] Oh, that's one.

[1979] Wild, the movie split.

[1980] Yeah, very weird.

[1981] Eight is Jackie Brown.

[1982] Reservoir dogs rounding out.

[1983] Nine is death proof.

[1984] Okay.

[1985] And 10 is Reservoir Dogs.

[1986] Okay.

[1987] I've never seen Reservoir Dogs.

[1988] Would I like it?

[1989] It's a play.

[1990] I love plays.

[1991] Yeah.

[1992] There's a crime, and some mastermind is brought together like eight people.

[1993] They're all strangers to each other.

[1994] They all are given names that are colors.

[1995] So Mr. White, Mr. Blue, Mr. Black, all that.

[1996] And then it all goes horribly wrong, and they're kind of stuck in the safe house, unraveling all this stuff.

[1997] Oh, that's cool.

[1998] Yeah, it's really cool.

[1999] I bet I'd love it.

[2000] And it famously starts with a long scene at a diner.

[2001] Steadicam going around them as they all talk, but they're talking about what the best Madonna songs are.

[2002] And they all have really solid opinions on it.

[2003] And it's funny to hear the gangsters.

[2004] Yeah, well, after this interview, I restarted Pulp Fiction, because I haven't seen it in so much.

[2005] long.

[2006] So I rented it that night.

[2007] And that opening scene is also in a diner.

[2008] Yes, yes.

[2009] It's Tim Roth about to rob the place.

[2010] Yeah, they're about to rob the restaurant.

[2011] And that super sweet woman that he was like, get on your knees, you fucking cock suckers.

[2012] Yeah.

[2013] So good.

[2014] It's incredible.

[2015] It's incredible.

[2016] Then you go straight into the car with Travolta and Sam Jackson talking about Europe.

[2017] Yeah.

[2018] You are, you're just on a ride the whole time.

[2019] It's incredible.

[2020] He, I mean, yeah.

[2021] What a masterpiece.

[2022] One of the facts is how much did Jackie Brown make, and that's on the same site, obviously.

[2023] 39 million worldwide.

[2024] Hmm.

[2025] That's it.

[2026] That was everything.

[2027] Yeah.

[2028] Not very many facts, but a lot of cool factor.

[2029] He's so tall, right?

[2030] Yeah, much taller than I expected.

[2031] Big boy.

[2032] He's a big boy.

[2033] Well, one thing we didn't talk about was the foot fetish, but I'm not going to bring that out.

[2034] Oh, right, right.

[2035] Did you wear open -toed?

[2036] I forget.

[2037] Yeah, I took my shoes off.

[2038] Oh, my God.

[2039] And you took your shoes off.

[2040] They were slides and I just slid them off.

[2041] Oh, my God, you were trying to tempt him.

[2042] Well, I just wanted to see if he was going to look at them.

[2043] Perk up.

[2044] Yeah.

[2045] All right, because you heard he has a foot fetish.

[2046] Or that's very well documented.

[2047] Yeah, it's...

[2048] It's something that people with pretty feet now.

[2049] Or did maybe Eric tell you?

[2050] No, I told him and he liked that.

[2051] Oh, right.

[2052] Because Eric has a foot fetish.

[2053] And did we already talk about that?

[2054] He graded my foot?

[2055] Eric.

[2056] Yeah.

[2057] Would he give it?

[2058] No, grated with a cheese grater.

[2059] Oh, my gosh.

[2060] Was this the most oddly erotic thing to witness?

[2061] Not erotic for me, but clearly for Eric.

[2062] So Eric has a, he doesn't wear shoes.

[2063] He only wears flip -flops.

[2064] So his heels get a tremendous amount of callous buildup.

[2065] And so he's taken to taking a cheese grater to them.

[2066] That's right.

[2067] And then, and then moisturizing them.

[2068] And he has a whole, like, three -step process.

[2069] Yes.

[2070] And he said, do you want me to grate your heels?

[2071] And you said, yes.

[2072] Yeah.

[2073] So I was just watching.

[2074] You guys were in the backyard of his house.

[2075] And he was, like, tenderly and carefully.

[2076] It felt so nice.

[2077] Grading your feet with a cheese grater.

[2078] Oh, my God.

[2079] This is real.

[2080] And then he put that aquifer on for a long time.

[2081] And he put a sock over it.

[2082] And then he put a white, fresh sock over it.

[2083] It was.

[2084] For both of you, it looked very.

[2085] It was intimate.

[2086] Sensual.

[2087] I liked it.

[2088] He, Eric, worked at a shoe store when he was young.

[2089] Yes.

[2090] So he has a bit of a proclivity, a foot proclivity.

[2091] Yeah.

[2092] And he has commented on my feet before.

[2093] He likes them.

[2094] He likes that they're small.

[2095] Uh -huh.

[2096] And he thinks they look nice.

[2097] Yeah.

[2098] And I like that he likes them because he's the expert.

[2099] He's been dying to get at those piggies for a long time.

[2100] And he was there and I was happy for him.

[2101] Yeah, me too.

[2102] It felt really good.

[2103] Yeah, because it's an innocuous, by the way, that's the whole thing in Pulp Fiction.

[2104] He says Marcellus Wallace pushed a guy out of a window because he gave his wife a foot massage.

[2105] And he said, that's the beauty of foot massages.

[2106] There's something more going on.

[2107] Exactly.

[2108] So when I rewatched it and that part came up, of course, I was like, oh, this makes sense.

[2109] Because Word on the Street is he likes feet.

[2110] Yeah.

[2111] And Word on the Street was used in the movie.

[2112] Oh, my God.

[2113] ding ding, ding, wringle, pringle.

[2114] Anywho.

[2115] Yeah, that was awesome.

[2116] That was really, really awesome.

[2117] I could have done it for another five hours.

[2118] Yeah.

[2119] I started getting really self -conscious about how much time we were used.

[2120] Because that was a long one, right?

[2121] It was long, but everyone was engaged and never felt like.

[2122] And I guess I was kept telling myself because his movies are so long that he appreciates long form.

[2123] You know, like he wants to take some time with it.

[2124] He does.

[2125] I didn't get to say it in front of them, but I will just, I'm going to put at the very top of the most dramatic, stressful scenes I've ever seen is that opening scene and Inglorious bastards where they're hiding under the floorboards.

[2126] Oh, my God.

[2127] And Christop Waltz is like walking on top.

[2128] I mean, what a master the way that thing.

[2129] Yeah, it's incredibly.

[2130] It's assembled.

[2131] Intense.

[2132] Oh, all right.

[2133] Well, I love you.

[2134] I love you.

[2135] It was interesting to have a film crew staring at us there for the first half.

[2136] I hope it didn't.

[2137] The content didn't suffer.

[2138] Oh, my God.

[2139] Well, if it did.

[2140] If it did, we'll be back next week.

[2141] Yeah, you can air your grievances on Instagram as tends to be the method of clapping back.

[2142] I love you.

[2143] Love you.

[2144] Bye.

[2145] Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[2146] You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[2147] Before you go, tell us.

[2148] about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.