Robert Zemeckis | Club Random with Bill Maher

Robert Zemeckis directed a lot of your favorite movies, including Forrest Gump, Back to the Future, Flight, and many more. Bill and Bob talk about his streak of hit movies, his work with actors like Tom Hanks, Michael J. Fox, his friendship with Spielberg, his process in making films, his new film Here and its unique premise involving a fixed camera perspective in one location over centuries, the use of advanced de-aging technology for actors like Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, the cultural impact of movies like "Saving Private Ryan" and the resonance of WWII films, stagnation in cultural innovation in recent decades, especially in music and fashion, the impact of a religious upbringing, the significance of crafting strong endings in films, and looking back on Back to the Future through the lens of today’s environment Reverse hair loss with @iRestorelaser and save on their biggest offer of the year at https://www.irestorelaser.com/RANDOM #irestorepod Go to https://www. PDSDebt.com/random to get debt free, today! Go to https://www. Shopify.com/random to upgrade your selling, today! Go to https://www. GETSUPERBEETS. COM and use code RANDOM to get 15% OFF your first order! Follow Club Random on IG: @ClubRandomPodcast Follow Bill on IG: @BillMaher Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://bit.ly/ClubRandom Watch Club Random on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ClubRandomYouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Bill Maher?

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• 1:25Speaker 01

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• 1:53Speaker 02

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• 2:22Speaker 03

  And by the way, I love your movie. You know I do. You know I love. You know I love that movie.

• 2:28Bill Maher?

  I know because you called me.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  Bill, you just stated the premise of my movie.

• 2:35Bill Maher?

  I meant to.

• 2:36Speaker 03

  Everything, everything, everything changes.

• 2:43Bill Maher?

  Robert, there you are.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Bill, please call me Bob. How are you?

• 2:49Bill Maher?

  If I have to.

• 2:50Speaker 03

  You don't have to. You can call me. You don't want to.

• 2:52Bill Maher?

  No, I'm kidding.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  You can call me, you can call me Robert.

• 2:54Bill Maher?

  You ever see that book on the name? Bob, all the Bobs in the world?

• 2:58Speaker 03

  No, never did.

• 2:59Bill Maher?

  Oh, like Bob Newhart, Bob Dylan. There was just something they found commonality because it's, it's a very common name. In case you never got my book.

• 3:08Speaker 03

  I did, but you will sign one for me, please. Thank you.

• 3:11Bill Maher?

  Hollywood royalty for a reason.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  Oh, God, I love that. Thank you. This means a lot. Thank you. It's great. It's great, by the way. I'm glad you did this.

• 3:18Bill Maher?

  Thank you.

• 3:19Speaker 03

  It's fantastic.

• 3:20Bill Maher?

  And I certainly mean that.

• 3:25Bill Maher?

  Inscript.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  I appreciate that. Thank you.

• 3:27Bill Maher?

  Well, it's undeniable. If you just go down the list of all the big ones. I mean, my friend and I were talking the other day. We're driving back from the airport and songs come on the radio and they're saying like how tough it must be to be a one-hit wonder. Like lots of, there's lots of one-hit wonders in music. You do it once and it's like the greatest six months of your life. You got a number one hit, you're on the top of the charts and it never happens again. That happens a lot in music. I guess in your business too, but you don't think, but you know, to have like the number of biggies that you've had is a. Not a lot of people in that company.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  You know what the closest to this was is back in the day, the Charlie Rose Show.

• 4:11Bill Maher?

  Oh, well, but that's TV. Yes.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  Right, but there was you, there were, and all the cameras were remote control.

• 4:17Bill Maher?

  Is that right?

• 4:17Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, you were in that black void.

• 4:19Bill Maher?

  I did it, I remember.

• 4:20Speaker 03

  And there were no, there was nobody there. Those cameras were all operated on servos. And, and you couldn't see anybody and it was just a table, yeah.

• 4:29Bill Maher?

  That's how he ran his personal life, too.

• 4:35Bill Maher?

  You couldn't see anybody, which is why he came out in a bathroom.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 4:40Bill Maher?

  It's amazing the way, uh, the number of guys in that first Me Too wave. You know, like around our age, who were just doing things that I just wanted to go, you know, it's not all of us. Oh, like can't, don't you just hate yourself that this is how you get laid? I mean, everybody's got a way to get laid. Cops pull you over. I mean, everybody's got a scam.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  Right, right, right.

• 5:07Bill Maher?

  But it's just how elegant they are.

• 5:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:09Bill Maher?

  And this was like the least elegant. I emerge from my bedroom in a robe. Like the 28-year-old's gonna go, oh, my dream has come true. I get to see Charlie Rose naked. Thank you, Jesus.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly. I hear you. No, I know.

• 5:29Bill Maher?

  I mean, you must have seen some shit on movies.

• 5:32Speaker 03

  I had this, well, I, I've always, I, I never, I, I, actually.

• 5:37Bill Maher?

  Never been.

• 5:38Speaker 03

  No, actually, no, actually, um, actually.

• 5:42Bill Maher?

  I'm getting nervous now.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  No, no, no, there was, there was one, there was one, there was one time where I, nothing could happen, but it was like I,

• 5:52Speaker 03

  it was, it was in the, it was a scene in Forrest Gump where Robin is in the dorm room with, uh, with, uh, with Tom, right? I'm sure you remember that.

• 6:02Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  And my, uh, Joanna Johnson, my longtime, um, costume designer, you know, she's very English, very proper. And she kept coming up to me with, showing me what I, if I approved what she was gonna be wearing as, as her underwear. It was all this period stuff and I'm looking at it and going, this looks like, you know, something a grandmother would wear. This doesn't, I don't, you know, and she kept showing me the stuff. I said, and I finally I got upset and I said, you know what? Get a model who get a model who has the same dimension, same body as Robin, and put this stuff on her and take a picture so I can see what it's gonna look like.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  So a day later, I hear, you know, Joanna says, or the A D comes and says Joanna wants to see you in your trailer. So I go on my trailer and there's this model with a robe on in my in my trailer. And Joanna's there and she says, well, show him the show him the underwear. So she take she opens up her robe. I said, that looks great. And then the model said, you want me to take them off?

• 7:10Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 7:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. I'm looking at Joanna, I'm saying, no, it's okay.

• 7:15Bill Maher?

  I didn't I wasn't even asking about you. I just meant that you're in show business. If you're in show business, I'm in it too. You're gonna be around some sleazy people. That's important. I mean, especially in the music industry.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  I always I always found that the I always found that the ones that were the most talented were not the sleaziest. I mean, obviously there were, but in my in my in my.

• 7:39Bill Maher?

  Michael Jackson was very talented and he was fucking little boy.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  That's true. That's true.

• 7:44Bill Maher?

  No, no, it's true. I you it's hard to. I know what you mean, like, the bigger they are, the nicer they are. That's, you know, often true. Um, it takes all kinds. I mean, I know I've never thought you could like pigeonhole show business people. It's it's a spectrum. Are they smart? Some are brilliant.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  Right.

• 8:07Bill Maher?

  And many are not. Same as humanity. Are they good? Some are awesome.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  You're right.

• 8:14Bill Maher?

  Yeah. I mean,

• 8:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:17Bill Maher?

  I don't think we'd want it any other way. We wanna recruit from the full panoply of the human race, right?

• 8:22Speaker 03

  I think you're probably right. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And everybody's flawed.

• 8:26Bill Maher?

  I mean, I don't know what your casting process is, but I'm sure you know, they once asked John Huston, what's his secret to directing? Do you remember that?

• 8:36Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 8:37Bill Maher?

  And he said, I do most of my directing in the casting process.

• 8:43Bill Maher?

  Which means, you know.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't know what that means.

• 8:46Bill Maher?

  I know what it means.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  I know what it means, but I know what he, uh, but yeah, but you could look at it. Yeah, I guess you could think of it two ways because, you know, it's like, you know, it's the old, it's the old adage, what's, uh, you know, what makes a good movie? You know, good writing and good casting. You know, that, you know, so we might have been alluding to that, you know?

• 9:04Bill Maher?

  Well, I think he, look, I mean, I don't know, I'm not a movie maker like you are, but just as a fan, I know there's so many things that can go wrong in a movie. I mean, there's so many elements.

• 9:16Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:17Bill Maher?

  You can have good writing and good casting and it could get fucked up by half a dozen other things.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:22Bill Maher?

  Editing and, you know, timing and lots of stuff. But I think what he meant by that was, you know, if Humphrey Brogad is on my team and I write his name in the lineup card, we've got a good chance to win this game.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  That's exactly right.

• 9:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's it. Yeah. He's putting out, he's getting guys up there who, you know, who are gonna, you know, who are gonna show up.

• 9:45Bill Maher?

  I mean, you use, obviously, some of the same people because you, as most directors do, you, you work with somebody, you have a good time, they fulfill your vision and you're like, you, that's, you've just solved my biggest problem in this next project. Can I, right?

• 10:02Speaker 03

  And it's like a shorthand. I mean, I've made a, I made a bunch of movies with Tom Hanks.

• 10:05Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  And he'll, and he says, he says, I can hear in your voice when you say cut, that we're doing another take. You know, so it's kind of like that shorthand has gotten, gotten to that. He, he knows exactly what I'm thinking.

• 10:20Bill Maher?

  He knows when you're not quite satisfied?

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, just from the way he hears me say the word cut. That's what he claims anyway. But that is a, but that's the great thing. I mean, I keep work, I've worked for, I've made, I can, you know, over 20 movies with Alan Silvestri, my composer. And it's just great having a shorthand where you kind of finish each other's sentences.

• 10:39Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  And, and when people are delivering and you can have that shorthand, it's great. But I've been very fortunate, I've worked with. I mean, some of the absolute greatest actors that, you know, of our generation.

• 10:53Bill Maher?

  They would say the same about you. I mean, the people in any industry, but we know at NARs, they wanna, you know, you're not doing them any favors. They wanna work with someone who's gonna make them successful too, who's gonna provide the material, provide the direction. You know, I'm sure you're friends with a lot of these people, but maybe they'll do one movie for you out of friendship, but that's it. You know, like, they wanna work on what they wanna work on, you know?

• 11:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:26Bill Maher?

  But, you know, you come to them with good stuff. I mean, you know, especially like Tom Hanks, was Forrest Gump the first one you did with him?

• 11:36Speaker 03

  That was the first one.

• 11:36Bill Maher?

  Okay, but then Cast Away, how many years later was that?

• 11:40Speaker 03

  Cast Away was like, four years later, and then we did The Polar Express.

• 11:47Bill Maher?

  I never get tired of that plane going down.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  In Cast Away.

• 11:51Bill Maher?

  I mean, the whole movie's great, but that is, I don't feel like I'd ever seen that quite on camera. I mean, it's so, a lot of stuff that's super actiony and CGI and all that kinda stuff, it's stuff that would never really happen to me, you know? I mean, I'm not worried about some monster shooting rays out of the end of his fingers at me.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  Right, of course, right.

• 12:15Bill Maher?

  But a plane crash, I mean, it's very gripping because you could be exactly in that scenario.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:24Bill Maher?

  And I guess that's what it would look like.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think the trick, and I think the thing that makes it the most terrifying, and it was, and it was a decision that I made, you know, early on, was you only see any of it from Tom's point of view. So, you know, we never cut to what the pilots are seeing. We never cut to outside the plane, you know, God's point of view. We never, it's, the whole plane crash happens just from his, his.

• 12:54Bill Maher?

  Well, until it hits the water, then we see.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  Well.

• 12:58Bill Maher?

  We saw the plane. All the shit in the water when the plane hits the water.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  And, no, he's there. No, you see, you know, you see it only from him. So it's like he, he's, he comes up on that, on that raft and then you see the big tail of the plane coming at him.

• 13:14Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  It's all, but then at the very end, when he starts floating away, then the camera pulls back up, you know, like way up into the sky as, as you just see him in that, in that black ocean.

• 13:27Bill Maher?

  How do you make these decisions like what to do? You, I mean, like, you're a little like people like Kubrick who, you know, made a bunch of great movies and none of them are like the other ones. You know, I mean, there's no like, like Scorsese would say, well, it's mostly a certain style. Obviously he's done other movies that aren't mob movies, but he'll always be, first thing in his obituary, you know, master of mob movies, you know? But you seem to be all, I mean, Back to the Future is not really anything like Cast Away.

• 14:01Speaker 03

  No, I, I.

• 14:03Bill Maher?

  Just what you.

• 14:04Speaker 03

  I've been very fortunate. I've, I've actually, I, I'm, I'm too restless or maybe it's a madness. I don't know what it is, but I just.

• 14:13Bill Maher?

  It's an artist.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  I just didn't want to do the same movie again. I wouldn't, it would be boring.

• 14:17Bill Maher?

  That's what, I feel like that's the key to art is, is that the person doesn't want to be bored.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  Exactly. I just have no interest in doing, um, I, I just would, I mean, a, a teen time travel movie. I just, I just would have absolutely no interest in doing that.

• 14:35Bill Maher?

  You already did it.

• 14:36Speaker 03

  I did it.

• 14:37Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 14:37Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly.

• 14:40Bill Maher?

  By the way, it so holds up.

• 14:43Bill Maher?

  And of course, like any movie from the past, there's things in it you absolutely couldn't do today or, or they would just jump on you.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:52Bill Maher?

  I mean, Biff is a ra- rapist. I mean, it's flat out rape, which even if he's the bad guy. They would go nuts.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:01Bill Maher?

  Right?

• 15:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know, I know.

• 15:03Bill Maher?

  And it's like, it's just like, yeah, the bad guy in town, he rapes. That's just like thing that he, you know, he rapes.

• 15:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. But yeah, but I mean, well, he, he, well.

• 15:16Bill Maher?

  People don't approve, but he.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  People don't approve it and it doesn't really, it doesn't really, but you know what the intention is, obviously, yes.

• 15:24Bill Maher?

  Oh, no, no, he's in that car.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:26Bill Maher?

  And her feet are in the air. He's plainly raping.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. And, and, and, and both of them, and, and, and Tom and Leah are so great doing that scene. And it was, it, it, it was, uh, yeah, it gets pretty, it gets pretty scary.

• 15:40Bill Maher?

  By the way, we have a sort of weird tangential connection, which you'll never guess this, but in nineteen, were you making the movie in eighty-five?

• 15:50Speaker 03

  I know what you're gonna say, Gary Goldberg.

• 15:52Bill Maher?

  You're right.

• 15:53Speaker 03

  Now, you know how come I know you're gonna say that? This is, this is great, cuz I was having dinner with Michael, Michael J. on Monday night.

• 16:01Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, he, he was, he was in town and I, I was having dinner with him and we were talking about, because I think he's thinking of doing a, um, a memoir about his life when he was, I mean, literally doing the movie there at night and the show during the day and getting two hours of sleep for, for, for.

• 16:22Bill Maher?

  So, so what is my connection to this, do you think?

• 16:27Speaker 03

  You, I was asking him this, I was saying, so what, you know, was Gary, like, was he like, like concerned about if he were getting enough rest or anything? He was, no, no, no, cuz he was, he was too busy doing another show. He was doing another show with Bill Maher called Sarah.

• 16:45Bill Maher?

  Correct, Gina Davis was Sarah.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  Gina Davis, right.

• 16:48Bill Maher?

  Alfred Woodard.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 16:49Bill Maher?

  And Bronson Pincha. We were four lawyers in San Francisco.

• 16:55Bill Maher?

  I was the office prick. And Bronson was gay and Alfred was black and Sarah was the lead. And that's who we were. And that was, yeah, Gary Goldberg, the producer, writer, he had Family Ties with Michael J. Fox.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:11Bill Maher?

  Which was the hugest hit. So we were thrilled to be on a show with TB's biggest producer.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:16Bill Maher?

  And we had a pretty good time slot. You know, it was NBC when they were kind of like the king of the hill. So I don't think we followed directly Family Ties, but we were doing fine. I think we were against Dynasty, which was not easy, but you know, come on, it's 1985. But I do remember Gary Goldberg talking a lot about how Michael J. Fox was, he had to, or he did, loan him to you.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:47Bill Maher?

  To do this movie while he was still filming Family Ties.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 17:50Bill Maher?

  Which is crazy.

• 17:51Speaker 03

  It's crazy. And it was cra- and it was, and-

• 17:53Bill Maher?

  So he couldn't have been there, you know, until he finished, like, blocking and whatever the sitcom shit that he was doing, right?

• 18:01Speaker 03

  Well, I, yeah. So I think, if you, well, I think the way, the way, I, the heavy, the heavy days in the, in the, in the, in the sitcom were always the Thursday and then the taping on the Friday, right? Those were the heavy days. And those were the days where he had to work absolutely the most. There was no wiggle room. But on Monday, I think he, I think, I think they kind of wrote, wrote him a little lighter in the show and he didn't have to sit through too many read-throughs and things like that to get a little bit more sleep.

• 18:29Bill Maher?

  Well, he was so good. I mean, he was such a natural that, and sitcoms, you know, I did three or four of them. It's gentleman's work.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  Right.

• 18:39Bill Maher?

  You know, it's not heavy lifting. And if you're smart and a real pro like him, I'm sure he could, you know, Jackie Gleason used to do it with zero rehearsal, live.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  Right.

• 18:51Bill Maher?

  He'd have to stand and do it with the other cast members and they hadn't even seen him do it. And he memorized it like, sitting in the chair drunk before the show, like, memorized the whole script and then just went, that's like baller, like, I can't even tell you.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 19:06Bill Maher?

  So.

• 19:08Bill Maher?

  But yeah, it really holds up. It's the Calvin Klein joke is one of the all time classics.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 19:18Bill Maher?

  That you think his name is.

• 19:20Speaker 03

  And the line that Michael wrote, and he is, is he came up to me and he goes, you know, he gets up and he's like, where are my pants? And the script said, over there. She, Leah says, over there. And he says, you know what? She should say, they're on my hope chest. And I said, that's great. That's going in the movie right now. You know, I got those great gems from Michael, just kept doing that. The other thing he taught me so many things about, just comedy timing. You know, he would come up to me and say, you know what? I should take three steps and say this line, stuff like that. And I go, okay, that makes, oh, that's great. That's better.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  Let's change the marks. You know, so it was, it was, it was, it was great having someone who just understood the, I'll call it, I guess, the mechanics of comedy.

• 20:13Bill Maher?

  It's funny to watch a movie about time travel when you are now 40 years past when the movie was made.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  How about that?

• 20:22Bill Maher?

  So the jokes that are funny in 1985 about when they go back to 1955, you know? Oh, if you know everything about the future, who's president in 1985? Ronald Reagan. It's, oh, right. And I'll bet Jerry Lewis is vice president, you know? Made sense in 1980. Now, looking from 2024, it's funny in a different way. It's like a double time travel.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  You know, the story of when Reagan watched the movie in the White House?

• 20:51Bill Maher?

  And?

• 20:51Speaker 03

  Well, so, so we heard this, Bob Gale heard this because his speechwriters who put

• 21:01Speaker 03

  One of our lines in the State of the Union address that he said that year. We're big fans of the movie. And they were there on the night that he ran it at the White House. And the story they told was that when that scene came on, where Chris Lloyd says, Ronald Reagan, the actor,

• 21:22Speaker 03

  Reagan said, stop, stop, back it up, back it up. I gotta see it again. They shut the movie down, rewound the reel.

• 21:31Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  And he wanted to watch that part over again. Isn't that wild?

• 21:34Bill Maher?

  Because they had reel to reel then.

• 21:36Speaker 03

  Well, it was a film. It was filmed.

• 21:38Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 21:38Speaker 03

  It was projectors. Yeah, there was no video. Yeah, you had to like, you had to like rewind the movie. Rewind the reel. Yeah.

• 21:47Bill Maher?

  Something about Canadian.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Glimmer, the new eau de parfum by Estee Lauder. An amber floral fragrance with a gourmand twist with notes of macaron rose accord, amber embrace accord, and shimmering patchouli. A glimmer is a small, unexpected moment of joy that shifts your energy and how you feel. A scent to be felt, remembered, and shared. Discover more at estee lauder.com. What makes you glimmer?

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Hosts Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are no antibiotics in their meat department ever. So carve up turkey and spiral cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 brand. And guess what? All their delectable pies are made with no high fructose corn syrup. Gourmet Thanksgiving flavors with the quality you want, only at Whole Foods Market.

• 22:48Speaker 04

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes. Para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro. Para los que están lejos, los que no ven de lejos, y los que no ven de cerca. Para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos. Para los que piensan y los que hacen. Para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola, para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.

• 23:19Bill Maher?

  Comedians, you know, like Michael is a comedian.

• 23:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, like Dan Aykroyd.

• 23:24Bill Maher?

  Matthew Perry.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:26Bill Maher?

  You know. There's something about them that like they get, they get us. They're part of us, but not completely, you know?

• 23:35Speaker 03

  Uh huh, yeah.

• 23:37Bill Maher?

  And they, I don't know.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  I don't know. I don't know what, I don't know what it is, but you're, I think, yeah, there's something about being able to look at it with a little bit of, a little bit of distance.

• 23:48Bill Maher?

  So what's the new one about?

• 23:50Speaker 03

  The new one? Well, the new one is really interesting. The new one is again, me being on my restlessness. It's called Here. And it's, um, it's, um, it's based on a graphic novel by Richard McGuire. And, um, the camera is only positioned in one view of the universe. And the camera never moves, ever. And then, but the universe moves around the camera, or the view. I don't want to say, the view the audience is seeing, which is obviously a camera recording it.

• 24:32Speaker 03

  And then it, and it goes through many, many centuries. And it's not like a time lapse movie or anything like that, but at some point, very early on, a house is built and a room is built around the camera, and it's a living room in, um, um, New Jersey. And across the street is a colonial mansion, which used to be the, um, the mansion that Benjamin Franklin's illegitimate son lived in. This is all in the graphic novel, and it's in the movie. And, um, our family now inhabits this room.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  And we watch them, we watch their lives through, uh, two generations. So we see Tom and Robin from eighteen to eighty in the movie. How's that sound?

• 25:31Bill Maher?

  Tom and Robin?

• 25:31Speaker 03

  Robin Wright.

• 25:33Bill Maher?

  And Tom Hanks are back together in this?

• 25:35Speaker 03

  And they're back together, yeah. Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, and the other, the other reunion is, um, uh, Eric Roth wrote the script with me. He wrote Forrest Gump.

• 25:47Bill Maher?

  So why, I mean, but you said the camera sees the universe.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  Well, I say universe, I mean, not, well, whatever, I mean, the world, the world.

• 25:55Bill Maher?

  What part of the world is it focused on? What are we seeing? We're just seeing this house.

• 26:00Speaker 03

  No, you're seeing, you're seeing, you're seeing the earth before the house is built.

• 26:04Bill Maher?

  The earth?

• 26:04Speaker 03

  The world.

• 26:05Bill Maher?

  The whole earth?

• 26:06Speaker 03

  No, just what you can see. Just like if you were, if you were looking, okay, so if you were looking out that, if you were looking at that wall, and then you, your view of that wall never changed, but time changed around you.

• 26:20Bill Maher?

  But what is the camera trained on that the people who are watching the movie see?

• 26:25Speaker 03

  Exactly what's there, whatever is there. So to give you an example, um, the camera is looking at the, at the, at the house, at the mansion, the colonial mansion, before the house is built, right? And the colonial mansion is always in one place after it's built. But the trees around it are now disappear because they were cut down. And then walls are constructed in frame, and then suddenly a room is constructed and then a window is there, but you can still see the mansion.

• 26:56Bill Maher?

  Do the actors age?

• 26:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 26:58Bill Maher?

  And you see them age?

• 26:59Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:00Bill Maher?

  And so you de-age them?

• 27:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 27:03Bill Maher?

  I hear that technology's gotten better since The Irishman.

• 27:06Speaker 03

  Oh, this is, uh, this is, in this movie, it's, it's perfect.

• 27:12Bill Maher?

  So you can make them any age you want?

• 27:14Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:16Bill Maher?

  Is this a union issue? I feel like-

• 27:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, no, it is. No, no.

• 27:20Bill Maher?

  I know, I mean-

• 27:21Speaker 03

  No, but it's, no, but it's like makeup. It's digi, I call it digital makeup.

• 27:26Bill Maher?

  Right, which I would assume would upset the makeup union.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  Well-

• 27:30Bill Maher?

  I mean, whenever you-

• 27:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, probably.

• 27:33Bill Maher?

  Whenever things change, somebody usually gets hurt.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:36Bill Maher?

  And then that person is gonna cry and moan. Sometimes justifiably, sometimes not. I, my view is that you can't bitch and moan too much about when things change 'cause they just are going to, so what the fuck is the use of crying, you know? That twenty years ago, Barry Sanders was like the highest paid player in football, or close to it. Now, no running back. Is even in the top 100.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 28:07Bill Maher?

  Why? Because things change. Why did it change and become a passing game? It just did. So why fucking obsess about it? That's just the reality. Uh, music became a producer's uh, industry. They get all the money. Songwriters are dying. They don't get paid anymore. Either to make a hit record, you don't get paid because of fucking Spotify. Streaming is basically where serious movies went. People are not gonna go to the theater. Look what happened to Megalopolis. I mean, I don't, I don't know if it's good or bad, but in the old days, there'd be more curiosity just to see it.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. Bill, you just stated the premise of my movie.

• 28:49Bill Maher?

  I meant to.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  Everything, everything, everything, everything changes.

• 28:53Bill Maher?

  I'm gonna pretend I meant to do that, but, but, no, but it's a great theme.

• 28:57Speaker 03

  It's a, it is. That's what fascinated me about it because it just, it's a meditation on, I hate to use that word because the movie's wildly entertaining and it, but, you know, so I don't want it to sound like it's like.

• 29:10Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  But it's, it's about the fact that everything changes. Nothing stays the same. And that's, and, and.

• 29:21Bill Maher?

  Well, let's hope that some reviewer says wildly entertaining. Because then you can put that in the ad and that always gets to me. Cause when I watch anything, I wanna be wildly entertained.

• 29:33Speaker 03

  Well, that's it. So you were talking about Back to the Future and I was having this, you know, so back in Santa Barbara over the summer, they have an old, um, beautiful, um, theater called the, um, called the Granada. And it's having its 100 year anniversary and they wanted to remind people that, you know, movies are all, you, back in the, you know, twenties and thirties, they used to run movies here. So they did a movie program, but they only wanted to use, uh, movies from people who, um, Filmmakers who lived in Santa Barbara, so they ran my movies and and people who I knew who aren't in the movie business, who are, you know, in their in their thirties and forties,

• 30:15Speaker 03

  they would come, they came up to me and said, oh, my God, we took the kids to the Granada and we watched Back to the Future. And they said, and you know what? People were laughing and and people were cheering and they would burst into applause at certain moments in the movie. And I was sitting there thinking, yep, that's, that's why we used, that's what, that's what movies, that's what we did when we, that's what movies.

• 30:38Bill Maher?

  There's something about a communal experience that makes it better, or not always, but it can. It definitely has that. I mean, concerts, I mean, yeah, there are just things that people, there's some sort of like that we get from, oh, I'm among all these other people who feel the same way about this as I do. Maybe it makes you feel not so alone in the world. Church is the same thing. We all think Jesus Christ is God. We all think that. It's just something comforting about that. I'm not in that group.

• 31:11Speaker 03

  No, I'm not in that group either. And by the way, I love your movie. I, you know, I do. You know, I love, you know, I love that.

• 31:18Bill Maher?

  I know, because you called me and I always appreciate it. I'm so glad you reminded me of that. Yes, when Religious came out in 2008, you tracked me down and called me and it meant the world to me. I'm director of the stature.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  Well, I'm so, I was, I just love that you made that movie.

• 31:35Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Oh, I loved it, too.

• 31:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, but that's, and that's, but it's, you know, it, it, it's about so much, but it's so entertaining, you know, that's the thing.

• 31:44Bill Maher?

  It's wildly entertaining. It really is. And I, you know, half the credit goes to Larry Charles, who directed it and did such a great job.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  Did a great job.

• 31:51Bill Maher?

  Put it together. And, but, I mean, we, it was a labor of love, even though a labor, I mean, um. Drapes him around the Middle East.

• 32:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course.

• 32:02Bill Maher?

  I wouldn't do it again.

• 32:03Speaker 03

  Well, but you had to get all that. You had to get all that great stuff. But here's the thing, though. I mean, the art form, though, was designed. It was always supposed to be this communal thing. I think, because the idea of seeing, well, you know what? Maybe I'm wrong.

• 32:18Bill Maher?

  No, flickers.

• 32:18Speaker 03

  No, those things, those.

• 32:20Bill Maher?

  Flickers were individual.

• 32:21Speaker 03

  It started with those little machines. Where you watch something. So that was, you watched it in isolation. You were completely right.

• 32:27Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 32:27Speaker 03

  So it just, everything, everything changes.

• 32:29Bill Maher?

  But that didn't mean it was better. People then liked it better. Of course, obviously, then we could sit down and watch it. And then Silent Days, wasn't there a guy in the theater playing the piano?

• 32:40Speaker 03

  Yep, during the Silent Days.

• 32:41Bill Maher?

  That was the soundtrack.

• 32:43Speaker 03

  And then this thing started to happen, I guess, which is.

• 32:46Bill Maher?

  Sound.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  Well, sound. And then, of course, then people were getting. I, I, I just remember, I just remember, um, the first time that I was emotionally moved in a movie, and that was the moment when I said, I gotta do this.

• 33:01Bill Maher?

  What was that movie?

• 33:02Speaker 03

  It was Bonnie and Clyde.

• 33:04Bill Maher?

  Bonnie and Clyde, yeah.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay. So there's a great scene in there where, um, Gene Hackman was shot in the head. And he's in this field and he's dying.

• 33:16Bill Maher?

  I remember, yeah.

• 33:17Speaker 03

  And I remember being a, a kid in, I guess I was a freshman in high school or something. I don't know what I, thinking, well, I am feeling real bad, really bad. I feel so sad for this. And I went, and I just, I remember having this clear thought, thinking, this is some strange power.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  Host Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are no antibiotics in their meat department, ever. So carve up turkey and spiral cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 brand. And guess what? All their delectable pies are made with no high fructose corn syrup. Gourmet Thanksgiving flavors with the quality you want, only at Whole Foods Market.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  I think this is, I gotta, I gotta figure out. And that's when I started to learn that, oh wait, there's a director and then there's a writer. And then there's, and this is, and it's not just, you know, cause I only went to movies to see special effects.

• 34:47Bill Maher?

  But Bob, you know that the Clyde Barrow gang were not really good people, don't you?

• 34:51Speaker 03

  Oh God, of course I do.

• 34:53Bill Maher?

  I'm just fucking with you.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Of course you, I know you are, but I mean, that was the experience of the movie. I mean, absolutely know that I fell in love with these people because they were just so.

• 35:01Bill Maher?

  Oh, how could you not? First of all, Faye Dunaway was so cockerific in that movie.

• 35:06Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 35:06Bill Maher?

  I mean, she was super hot when she, uh, when they're in that diner and, uh, you know, she's in this, this hot chick in a small town, waiting for someone like him to show up. And, uh, she just wants to get out of there so bad. And she's got this curlicue of her hair by her ear that's comes down a little sideburn, a little woman's sideburn. I thought it was kinda sexy, but he goes, change that.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:34Bill Maher?

  And she immediately like puts down her hamburger and wipes off the grease off her hands with a napkin and does something with it. And it was just, uh, oh, I'm sure people will say, well, that's you, Bill Moore. You like to see women dominated. No, it wasn't that.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  No, but it was.

• 35:48Bill Maher?

  It was just hot.

• 35:49Speaker 03

  It was, and it was a great moment. It was a great moment.

• 35:52Bill Maher?

  And, and sexy is not politically correct and it never will be.

• 35:56Speaker 03

  No.

• 35:56Bill Maher?

  They are, they are at loggerheads.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:00Bill Maher?

  You know, William Hurt throwing that chair through the window in body heat.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:07Bill Maher?

  Yeah. By the way, that plot, I just saw this movie. I, I watch movies that I never heard of very often, like scroll through the list to when I'm in the kitchen, you know, making food and things I don't really have to pay attention that closely to, but I like see everything. This one came on, I think the title, I could be wrong, was Be Careful What You Wish For. I'd never heard of it. It's with the Jonas.

• 36:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 36:34Bill Maher?

  One of the Jonas's, Nick, I guess.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  Right.

• 36:37Bill Maher?

  Who's fine.

• 36:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:38Bill Maher?

  You know, again, proving my point I've made many times, acting, not that difficult. Lots of people could do it. Wrestlers, bodybuilders, dogs do it, children do it. I did it. It's just not. I said this to Sidney Pollack once. I interviewed him and he was like, you are, you have no idea how right you are. And he proved it because he was a fine actor.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I worked with him.

• 37:00Bill Maher?

  Yeah, on what?

• 37:01Speaker 03

  He does what the, he does a, in, um, in Death Becomes Her, he plays the doctor that examines Merrill and realizes she's a zombie. And he is spectacular in it.

• 37:19Bill Maher?

  Yeah, Tootsie.

• 37:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:21Bill Maher?

  Um, Eyes Wide Shut.

• 37:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:23Bill Maher?

  He just stepped in, uh, the Woody Allen movie.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:26Bill Maher?

  Husbands and Wives.

• 37:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:28Bill Maher?

  You know, and he looks, he just looks like he's doing it effortlessly. Like he, as the director for so long, he knows what the deal is. He's like, you know, don't over fucking think this. Just fucking hit your, hit your mark and bark. You know, it's, it's not rocket science here. I mean, it is for some roles.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:47Bill Maher?

  You know, if you're playing Sophie's Choice, yes, it's a level of acting, but most of it is just a version of.

• 37:54Speaker 03

  Well, yeah.

• 37:54Bill Maher?

  It's a version of you in a situation.

• 37:57Speaker 03

  Right, and, and knowing, I think, the thing that I appreciate the most about the really great actors I've had a chance to work with is they understand the medium. They, they know how movies are made.

• 38:13Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 38:13Speaker 03

  And that is critical.

• 38:15Bill Maher?

  Where the camera is.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  And what, and, and when you talk about an actor like Tom Hanks, and he's so generous as an actor because he knows, this isn't my scene. You know, this is, this is, I'm, I'm here to just say this one line.

• 38:31Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 38:31Speaker 03

  And that's what I'm supposed to do here. And completely get it. And it's not like.

• 38:36Bill Maher?

  Sometimes, sometimes you hit a sacrifice fly.

• 38:38Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 38:39Bill Maher?

  And it brings in the run.

• 38:40Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 38:41Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and you did your job.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  Right, absolutely.

• 38:43Bill Maher?

  I mean, I'm sure a lot of, uh, who you choose to work with, especially as you get older and you have the esteem to. Be able to demand it is, you know, just the life is too short list. Life is too short.

• 39:00Speaker 03

  Well, it's like that.

• 39:01Bill Maher?

  With people who are assholes, who try your patients, who just a lot of lateral motion. When we could be moving forward on something because of your issues or whatever. You know, the older you get.

• 39:15Speaker 03

  Life is too short.

• 39:16Bill Maher?

  Right?

• 39:16Speaker 03

  Life is too short. I know we all have that. Um, yeah, obviously I'm not going to mention anybody, but we all have the life is too short list. And, and it's that way in, in, it's that way in the whole, in the whole, the whole thing. It's like life is too short to work at this studio. Life is too short to work. It's like life is too short all the way down the line. You know, it's like you get to the point where you just say, no, it's.

• 39:40Bill Maher?

  And yet in that book I gave you, um, in the chapter on show business, there's a good one about how. I mean, the point of it is if people in Hollywood can work together when they absolutely despise each other, which has happened in a zillion movies, why can't government? Couldn't government be as efficient as the movie Chinatown where Roman Polanski and Faye Dunaway hated each other so much that she once peed in a bottle and threw it in his face?

• 40:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I heard that story, but no, no, no, but you're right. And, and you're right, and I don't know why that is.

• 40:17Bill Maher?

  I mean, that never happened to Ted Cruz.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  Well, maybe, maybe the difference is, is the, there is not a finished product. See, one of the things I love about movies is the, the end. See, I think, I mean, I mean.

• 40:29Bill Maher?

  Well, good ones do.

• 40:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I mean, my process ends and we are at some point, it's going to be a rap and we're all going to go home.

• 40:38Bill Maher?

  I've, I've said this to many people, perhaps here before, like everyone has a great idea for a movie and some of them are, very few have the ending. The ending is the key. If you don't stick the landing, don't start down the road. And it looks like so many people. My mother used to say it, like she'd, how was that movie? She's like, yeah, it was okay, but he didn't know how to get out of it.

• 41:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, that's, well, I, you know.

• 41:10Bill Maher?

  It's true. You have to know how to get out of it.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  Well, 100% right. I mean, that's my mantra whenever I'm working with, working with writers and kicking around ideas and things. It's like, well, I, I'll say to, I'll say to writers that I'm, I'm working with. I said, I can't write, I can't start writing this until I know what, what, what the ending is. I don't even know, if I don't know where the ending is.

• 41:33Bill Maher?

  And the tone.

• 41:35Speaker 03

  Well, the tone is a critical thing.

• 41:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 41:37Speaker 03

  The tone is the secret sauce.

• 41:39Bill Maher?

  But you also see people who like, never really made a decision about the tone. Because it's more than one tone, where it's like, the tone of Back to the Future is, is one level. It's very different from, like I said, Cast Away or.

• 41:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 41:55Bill Maher?

  Or even Forrest Gump. I mean, it just, there's a different tone. Like, are we taking this super seriously? No, we're not taking into Lorian, the time travel, seriously. It's like, it's one of the, they used to say in comedy, by the premise, by the bit.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 42:10Bill Maher?

  And it's okay, you know, that's, we're, we're on here for the ride. We're not, we're not, we're not gonna, anyone who picks it apart, like picks the sides apart is like, you're just an asshole. Okay, no one really thinks this could happen. It's, we're, it's, we bought the premise, now that you bought your ticket, go on the ride.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 42:30Bill Maher?

  You know, it's a roller coaster. No, it's not real. If it was, you'd die.

• 42:34Speaker 03

  And, and, and, and I guess that's one of the hard things about doing what I love. You know, audiences seem to have a hard time with black comedy. And I mean dark comedy.

• 42:44Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 42:45Speaker 03

  No, no, you know what I mean, you know what I mean, not, you know what I mean.

• 42:47Bill Maher?

  You're canceled.

• 42:48Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, right. I don't mean, no, no, no, no, I'm on dark comedy.

• 42:52Bill Maher?

  No, no, you know what? We don't have to apologize for saying something that other people who are ignorant don't know what that means. It has nothing to do with race, black comedy.

• 43:00Speaker 03

  No, no, great black comedy is great.

• 43:02Bill Maher?

  The social justice warriors out there, black comedy means like Apocalypse Now is a black comedy.

• 43:07Speaker 03

  Doctor Strangelove.

• 43:07Bill Maher?

  Yes, but it's, it's about a subject that is very dark and very serious. And but we're still doing comedy about it.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  Right. And that's but it's always been a difficult tonal thing I found because I you know because I made a few movies that um that becomes her by the way, which is in a in a wonderfully is having a it's caught up to its time in an interesting way. Um, where you know, the tone that that comedy tone with a dark theme like that is is just hard. It's hard for audiences to to

• 43:46Bill Maher?

  Harder, yeah.

• 43:47Speaker 03

  tap in, you know, connect with, American audiences.

• 43:50Bill Maher?

  It's probably having a resurgence because there is a starvation for it now because they don't make those anymore because they don't trust the audience enough. Partly because the audience is dumber probably, but there's still a sizable number of people that keep proving it. Look at Oppenheimer. I mean, would you ever think a movie like that would have pulled in that kind of money at the box office? I wouldn't.

• 44:12Speaker 03

  I wouldn't.

• 44:12Bill Maher?

  It's very encouraging.

• 44:14Speaker 03

  It is. It really is.

• 44:15Bill Maher?

  That it's very encouraging that there the people are out there.

• 44:21Bill Maher?

  And if you just, you know, service them, but

• 44:25Speaker 03

  But the but well, yeah, there's a whole there's a whole shift going on now.

• 44:28Bill Maher?

  Fableman's do.

• 44:30Speaker 03

  What's that?

• 44:30Bill Maher?

  The Fableman's. How did that do?

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Um, I I don't think it. I don't think it. I don't think it was as successful as every as as you would expect.

• 44:39Bill Maher?

  But but for like for him, like not as successful is still like, I mean, Lincoln was

• 44:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, Lincoln was more successful.

• 44:48Bill Maher?

  Very successful.

• 44:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:50Bill Maher?

  You know, it's another one like Oppenheimer, like if you really give it to them

• 44:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:54Bill Maher?

  and make it wildly entertaining, they will eat the dog food.

• 44:59Speaker 03

  I I I completely agree. I I you know, I think we're in this strange world now of, um, well, we'll see. I mean, I made this movie which flies in the face of Of everything that's going on. I mean, it's completely original, both in its style and its premise. And it has, it's not a pre-sold title. It's not a sequel.

• 45:23Bill Maher?

  When is it out?

• 45:24Speaker 03

  November 1st.

• 45:26Bill Maher?

  Well, I want to see it, not just because it's your name on it. And, you know, there's a lot of credibility there, but, it's, I'm just so curious now, the way you describe it. It's like, it, it kind of has to be seen.

• 45:40Speaker 03

  Well, it has to be seen, and it's gonna be, it's gonna be,

• 45:43Bill Maher?

  Because I can't.

• 45:43Speaker 03

  Well, it's gonna be difficult. It's gonna be difficult, even after you see the movie, it's gonna be difficult to describe, to describe what the actual story is, but, but that can be okay. That can be okay. You know what's interesting about Back to the Future? This is back in the day, you remember Blockbuster? Of course you did.

• 46:02Bill Maher?

  I lived across the street in West Hollywood.

• 46:05Speaker 03

  They never knew what shelf to put Back to the Future on.

• 46:07Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 46:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, they didn't know if it was science fiction shelf, should be a comedy shelf.

• 46:12Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  Is it an adventure shelf? They didn't know where, they didn't know where to put Back to the Future.

• 46:17Bill Maher?

  It's a comedy.

• 46:17Speaker 03

  Isn't that interesting? It is.

• 46:19Bill Maher?

  It's a comedy, but it's, you know, it uses as its fodder, futuristic stuff, but again, it's not really in that category. Again, because we don't really take seriously, you know, the, the science in it, whereas in Contact, that is taken seriously. That's the whole point of it, is that it's serious. It's not that hard to, it's not hard to stock the shelves at Blockbuster.

• 46:44Speaker 03

  Well, and I got my greatest compliment from Carl Sagan. When I was working on, and as he said, Back to the Future is the best time travel, best time travel, I guess he said, scientific theory that I've ever seen in a movie. And, you know, I didn't tell him, well, I, you know, I took it from H.G. Wells. But, yeah, right, but that's where I guess.

• 47:11Bill Maher?

  If I was putting the other Little Film Festival, and Back to the Future was one night, I would feel like a great couple of companion movies would be, Groundhog Day, which is also great, and also fucks with time.

• 47:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 47:26Bill Maher?

  And did you ever see Pleasantville?

• 47:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:30Bill Maher?

  So good.

• 47:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:32Bill Maher?

  Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon and.

• 47:38Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 47:39Speaker 03

  But it'd be a good, yeah, well, that'd be a good, that'd be a good like little movie retrospective thing to do.

• 47:45Bill Maher?

  I was just on, I was very proud to be on TCM, you know, the

• 47:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know, but yeah.

• 47:51Bill Maher?

  Wasn't that it, TCM?

• 47:52Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 47:54Bill Maher?

  Well, Jesus.

• 47:55Speaker 03

  TCM.

• 47:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I'm.

• 47:57Speaker 03

  Oh, wait, the

• 47:58Bill Maher?

  The, the channel that shows the movies.

• 47:59Speaker 03

  The movie channel.

• 48:00Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's part of Time Warner.

• 48:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 48:03Bill Maher?

  And, you know, they do these little interviews before the show. Maureen Dowd just did Three Days of the Condor. I watched that.

• 48:11Speaker 03

  That's a great movie.

• 48:12Bill Maher?

  That's a great movie and she did a great interview about it. And I did Reds.

• 48:17Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 48:17Bill Maher?

  With Ben Mankiewicz, who sat here and that's one of my all time favorites.

• 48:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I really liked that movie. Yeah, that's good.

• 48:25Bill Maher?

  Oh, I was able to recite word for word Jack Nicholson's scene and I thought they would use it and they didn't. Where he's, where he's, he goes to Diane Keaton, you know, and she was this, you know, feminist from 1920 and he's, he's like, Jack leaves you alone a lot, doesn't he? It must hurt, remember that?

• 48:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:44Bill Maher?

  And she's like, he's got his things and I've got mine.

• 48:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 48:46Bill Maher?

  And he goes, what are they? What are what? These things of yours, what are they? And then you go, well, he has my work and I do my work and I do my thing. And he's like, are you making this up as you go along? And I did the whole thing, but then I didn't do it.

• 49:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 49:04Bill Maher?

  But it was still really good and it is a great movie and who's, who's your like, when you want advice from your peers, do you like show them stuff? I know some directors do that. They will show it. Like who, who's your kitchen cabinet that you like say, am I on the right track here? Or don't you care?

• 49:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, well, I have my, you know, I have Bob Gale, who wrote Back to the Future with me and he's my, he's my long, and he'll, and he'll tell me, I mean, he doesn't, you know, he doesn't blow any smoke. I mean, he'll say, you're in trouble with this movie.

• 49:42Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, so, yeah, and it's, but, um, yeah, and, and then Alan, my, my composer.

• 49:51Speaker 03

  He's generally, generally when, you know, when we do a rough cut, or I do a rough cut, my editor, um, and it's not really a rough cut because I don't believe in rough cuts, uh, where I make the movie five hours long, or so I never do anything like that.

• 50:07Bill Maher?

  Good.

• 50:07Speaker 03

  Um, I've always, I always kind, I can't stand watching it, so I always, you know, cut it down to where I was, I want it, I do the best that I can, and that's what I call my rough cut, my very first cut. And I always bring Alan in. And, uh, I can just, I can just tell from his vibe what scenes are working, what scenes aren't, and it's just like just the, you know, him and my editor, they're the ones that I'll feel first.

• 50:37Bill Maher?

  But no other like directors, I know you're close with Spielberg, aren't you?

• 50:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know, I haven't, I haven't, I haven't brought Steven in, I haven't brought Steven in in a rough cut, in the rough cut thing, um, not for any reason other than it's, it, it's, it's never been something where I think I've ever said, I really need somebody to tell me what to do here, like if I was in any, in any trouble, it's kind of like, it's sort of like when the movie is finished, or in the rough, in the finish stage, it'll be like, okay, is this working, you know, and if there's anything you can suggest to do that I can help, you know, that can help it.

• 51:12Bill Maher?

  Oh, I just remembered what I was talking about.

• 51:16Speaker 03

  What?

• 51:17Bill Maher?

  The Jonas Brothers movie. I mean, the Jonas Brother movie. It's, if it's not a direct remake, I guess it's just a ripoff like they do it, uh, Double Indemnity?

• 51:33Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:34Bill Maher?

  You remember from?

• 51:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I remember Double Indemnity. What movie is the Jonas Brothers movie, which one?

• 51:37Bill Maher?

  I'm telling you.

• 51:38Speaker 03

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 51:39Bill Maher?

  It's also Body Heat.

• 51:41Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 51:42Bill Maher?

  And it's, now they've redone it again. Either they real, I guess they just take the plot and it's fine.

• 51:48Speaker 03

  Right.

• 51:49Bill Maher?

  But, and the plot is great. When Fred McMurray did it with, who was in, who was that, with Barbara Stanwyck or?

• 51:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:55Bill Maher?

  But it's a, it's a hot chick.

• 51:57Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:58Bill Maher?

  Who's unhappily married.

• 52:01Bill Maher?

  Usually to some older guy who's mean to her and she wants to fucking kill him. And she picks as an instrument of her vengeance, some young guy. And because she's hot, she gets him to either kill the husband. Because she loves him so much and they're gonna go away together. And then after he does the deed.

• 52:24Bill Maher?

  She's like, see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya. And she actually frames him, you know. Because that's what you want.

• 52:30Speaker 03

  For a crime.

• 52:30Bill Maher?

  Right. So I think that's so interesting that they've done that now through all these different generations. I mean, that was exactly what Body Heat was. That was double indemnity. And somebody from the new generation saw those movies.

• 52:44Speaker 03

  And did different.

• 52:45Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 52:45Speaker 03

  Okay, we can do that.

• 52:46Bill Maher?

  We can do that. And why not? Because there's only so many stories.

• 52:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, there are, yeah, somebody said that. I don't remember who said that. Somebody said there's only like seven stories or something. I remember hearing that back in the day. I forget who said, who said that. But yeah. And then Bob Gale and I always thought that every story, every, every movie story has always been in an episode of Leave It to Beaver.

• 53:09Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 53:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, really.

• 53:11Bill Maher?

  Like what?

• 53:12Speaker 03

  Well, like, you know, just, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever Beaver's character arc has to be, the lesson that he has to learn, the moral of the story. It's, it's all there. You'll find an episode where it's there, where it's something, where, where his father has to do something. Or, or Gus the fireman has to give him words of wisdom. And you'll find these little gems in there that are always sort of like premises that you'll find in most movie stories.

• 53:40Bill Maher?

  I think that's actually more apropos for Andy Griffith's show.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  And that too, probably, yeah.

• 53:47Bill Maher?

  That, that was more, I mean, maybe I don't remember Beaver too well. But I do remember Andy Griffith when I was homesick as a kid and they would, the reruns would be on and there was always like a good lesson there, like one time Opie killed a bird with a slingshot. And, and the baby. Birds were crying and crying and Opie said, can you do something about that? And Andy was like, no, I'm gonna let you listen to them cry for their mother. So you know what you did.

• 54:20Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 54:21Bill Maher?

  We could use a little more of that today.

• 54:23Speaker 03

  Exactly. And there was one episode where, where in the beaver, where the beaver got swindled by sending in a coupon from a, from a box of cereal or something and had to learn the lesson of, of, you know, of understanding false advertising, all this great stuff.

• 54:43Bill Maher?

  It, it blows my mind, the difference in life, just life in America. I don't know about other countries, I only lived in this one. Just from when I was alive, which is, I was not really aware of life, but mid 50s, I was born in 1956. You were born in the 50s. I mean, that's where you go back to in Back to the Future, 1950.

• 55:08Speaker 03

  Fifty five.

• 55:08Bill Maher?

  Okay. So that world, now from 1985, when you go back 30 years, it was, it was recognizable, but weird. But from 2024, kids today, who, that's like the Civil War era to them.

• 55:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 55:27Bill Maher?

  Or if they even knew what that is, or the Revolutionary, or, or caveman times. It's just like, it's, it's alien.

• 55:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:35Bill Maher?

  And yet we spend the whole time.

• 55:37Speaker 03

  Right. I always have, I have a theory about why World War II movies have such longevity. Because this, it was a time, it was a time when, obviously, the whole world was at war and we knew who the good guys were and the bad guys were, and there was this incredible conflict going on. But the world was familiar.

• 56:01Speaker 03

  In other words, it wasn't like the Civil War or the Revolutionary War. The world was familiar. You know, you had telephones, you had cars, you had, you know, you had newspapers, you had movies, radios. So there was enough that was still going on where the modern audience can relate to the life that the people were in and they could then say, oh yeah, and they're in this tremendous conflict. I think that that's why there are so many of them keep getting made and why it's so powerful. That's my own theory.

• 56:28Bill Maher?

  It's also because Nazi uniforms were sharp.

• 56:31Speaker 03

  Oh, well, but the whole Nazi thing was so diabolical. It was so fantastic.

• 56:36Bill Maher?

  Well, of course.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  Dramatic.

• 56:38Bill Maher?

  Of course, that's true too, but the uniforms.

• 56:41Speaker 03

  Oh, they were.

• 56:41Bill Maher?

  It's just awesome.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:43Bill Maher?

  I mean, the cut.

• 56:46Bill Maher?

  I mean, am I wrong?

• 56:47Speaker 03

  No, no, no.

• 56:48Bill Maher?

  Can we have nuance in life? I mean, they were diabolic and evil, but yeah, the wardrobe was fantastic, especially like the generals. I mean, those, those full length leather coats, the lapels, and then the generals had the red stripe on the leg. I mean, it was all just very well thought out. Hugo Boss, I believe.

• 57:10Speaker 03

  Well, I, yeah, there's, yeah, I think I've heard that, but I don't know if it was him or his company or what the real.

• 57:16Bill Maher?

  Well, there was.

• 57:17Speaker 03

  I don't know what the real truth about that is. I've heard that though.

• 57:19Bill Maher?

  Well, a number of companies that we still have today started out supplying the Mitsubishi, I believe, in Japan, made a few planes that flew into the decks of aircraft carriers. Certainly the Volkswagen.

• 57:34Speaker 03

  Yep. And Bear, Bear Chemical.

• 57:39Bill Maher?

  What Bear Chemical? What's that?

• 57:40Speaker 03

  Well, the Bear, well, the Bear Chemical, the Bear Chemical.

• 57:44Bill Maher?

  Oh, Bear.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  Bear, what did I say? Bear, yeah, Bear Chemical, they built.

• 57:48Bill Maher?

  Bear Aspirin, yes.

• 57:49Speaker 03

  They built the.

• 57:50Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 57:51Speaker 03

  The Bergen Belsen, you know.

• 57:56Bill Maher?

  They probably also, I'm just guessing here, so don't sue me Nazis. I'm just guessing, but they may have made the speed that they gave to the German troops.

• 58:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 58:10Bill Maher?

  There's a book about that.

• 58:12Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:12Bill Maher?

  That would be a great movie. Not that I need to give you any ideas, but there's a book. You could take the book and make the book into a movie, and it's about how the Wehrmacht, where the soldiers were given speed.

• 58:28Speaker 03

  Speed.

• 58:28Bill Maher?

  To go into battle. And like, how did they get to Paris in three days? That's how.

• 58:33Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 58:35Bill Maher?

  Paris, they would have been in the Atlantic Ocean if they didn't stop them. They just jacked them up. And that's, you could do an interesting thing through history because it's, there are, we gave our officers, like, before there was a push, coffee. I don't think we gave them speed, but, you know, the Nazis were efficient like that. There are certainly tribes and more primitive peoples who would chew on certain plants that would give them cocaine, you know, the coca plant, or in Africa, something called got. I think it's K H A T.

• 59:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 59:15Bill Maher?

  It's like their cocaine that you just chew on it.

• 59:19Speaker 03

  I, I, I don't know. I don't want to, I don't want to get in any trouble, but I think maybe, I think maybe we gave our guys certainly, maybe our, some of our bomber, bomber crew.

• 59:30Bill Maher?

  Maybe.

• 59:31Speaker 03

  You know, some amphetamines.

• 59:32Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 59:33Speaker 03

  Doing those bombing runs.

• 59:34Bill Maher?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 59:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 59:34Bill Maher?

  Right. There was amphetamines back then. I mean, certainly the Beatles took them in Hamburg.

• 59:39Speaker 03

  Right. Well, I allude, I allude to that in a scene I did in Allied where he said, you know, he was saying, take this before the mission, that after the mission. So, I don't know if it's true or not.

• 59:50Bill Maher?

  Did you watch that series on, I think it was on Apple. I think it was, it was Hanks.

• 59:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, the one about the, the Masters of the Sky.

• 59:58Bill Maher?

  Masters of the Sky.

• 59:59Speaker 03

  I thought, you know what I loved about that?

• 1:00:01Bill Maher?

  So great.

• 1:00:02Speaker 03

  I loved, there were so many little moments. So, I loved all the little minutia they put in there. Like, the little things, like, just when they're coming back from the mission, they're standing there with a tray of whiskey for everybody. I just thought that was like great.

• 1:00:15Bill Maher?

  I mean, they did Band of Brothers also. Same tone. I mean, it's just like, nobody does World War II like Spielberg.

• 1:00:26Speaker 03

  No, no, and yeah, and that's one of his greatest movies, in Private Ryan.

• 1:00:30Bill Maher?

  My favorite movie of all time, and that's partly because it's personal, because, I mean, the guy who plays Ryan, the movie opened with him as an older man, was exactly my father, who was in World War II, practically in that campaign. So when I saw it in the theater, I mean, to say I was like a puddle was, you know, it was only about four years after my father died. And it was like, you know, I've never had that experience in a movie theater. Or, but, you know, he looked, Spielberg put him in like the exact sort of shirt my father would have worn in 1990, whatever, when that movie was, you know, goes back in time, and then we see him as a kid.

• 1:01:15Bill Maher?

  But, you know, that generation just is, I'm sure the kids are tired of hearing that they're the greatest generation, but they kind of were. I mean, fighting what Hitler and Tojo represented, and how close they were to achieving it, was not something people today can relate to. We're just not in that kind of dire situation where, yeah, they could have won. For a while, they looked like they were winning.

• 1:01:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:45Bill Maher?

  I mean, we were on the ropes.

• 1:01:47Speaker 03

  There were some close calls, you read the history of that thing, there were some...

• 1:01:53Bill Maher?

  Well, if Hitler hadn't been nuts, they would have done it. Because, like, there's no people in the world as efficient as the Germans. And when you put efficiency in league with evil, it's not a good combination. They were very efficient at everything they did, but he, but the guy... Guy at the top, this is their Achilles, the guy at the top was insane.

• 1:02:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:18Bill Maher?

  So he thought he was invincible. If he had just not turned against Russia.

• 1:02:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:24Bill Maher?

  I mean, they, they took Europe and North Africa all in a year and.

• 1:02:31Speaker 03

  If he had invaded England instead of, instead of go to Moscow, it would have been.

• 1:02:37Bill Maher?

  Instead of trying to do both at the same time, which was never going to work.

• 1:02:41Speaker 03

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:02:43Bill Maher?

  We cut, we dodged a bullet.

• 1:02:44Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:02:45Bill Maher?

  With that one.

• 1:02:46Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:02:46Bill Maher?

  But it could have, you know, but we were not really ready to fight a war. I mean, for four years, this country made no cars.

• 1:02:59Speaker 03

  I know.

• 1:03:00Bill Maher?

  They just shut down the car factories and said, no, you're making planes and tanks now. And nobody said boo.

• 1:03:09Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:03:10Bill Maher?

  That is just a different fucking universe.

• 1:03:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, and everybody did, everybody did do their bit. Everybody just, everybody just said, okay, we gotta go, everybody, we gotta do this. And I, yeah, it, it really.

• 1:03:24Bill Maher?

  I mean, that's, that's the spirit that Hanks and Spielberg are always after in those World War Two things. And they, and that they do capture.

• 1:03:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, that great scene in Private Ryan where Hanks goes, what's the, what's the pool on, on me now? What's the pool on me now?

• 1:03:38Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:38Speaker 03

  So I'm a school teacher. All these guys just dropped their, you know.

• 1:03:43Bill Maher?

  And the, the fact that he saved it to that moment.

• 1:03:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Bill Maher?

  When they, when he needed something to diffuse. I, I also loved in that movie, I mean, there was many firsts that they did, like they, like the first beach scene. Showing the true, what the true carnage of war looks like.

• 1:03:59Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:04:00Bill Maher?

  That had not happened before.

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  Oh, I was, no, that was, or, or just the, you know, just thought, you know, the camera going up and down out of the water.

• 1:04:08Bill Maher?

  Also, until then, like everything I'd ever seen about World War Two, I was a huge combat fan. Remember the.

• 1:04:14Speaker 03

  Oh, God, I've seen every episode.

• 1:04:15Bill Maher?

  Me too. Love them all.

• 1:04:17Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:04:18Bill Maher?

  Uh, but all the movies, all the TV shows kind of presented it like, uh, yeah, war is hell. But the thing you can count on is that when the superior officer says something, the other guys just do it. And, and Private Ryan, it's not quite like that.

• 1:04:34Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:04:34Bill Maher?

  It's not like that in the field. It's a lot of captain. We shouldn't do this. It's like, that's not how combat did it. It was like, whatever Sergeant Saunders said, they just did.

• 1:04:46Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:04:46Bill Maher?

  And of course, in the, under the heat of battle and, you know, and when they let the German guy go, they didn't agree with, and then he comes back to kill the, I mean, it's just, uh, it's the great, I always say, Saving Private Ryan is simply the greatest combat episode ever.

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  It is.

• 1:05:04Bill Maher?

  It's a combat episode.

• 1:05:05Speaker 03

  And that was, and that was, and that was what it was. It was, it was every, every great moment in combat was in that movie. It's just fantastic. Yeah, it's really, really good.

• 1:05:14Bill Maher?

  It's funny when, when the Cold War ended, you know, we had World War II as the great enemies. There were all the great World War II movies. And then we had the Russians. And then like in the nineties, people were just lost for an enemy. You know, like James Bond was fighting drug dealers. It just doesn't, come on.

• 1:05:37Speaker 03

  We didn't have any, we didn't have any.

• 1:05:38Bill Maher?

  James Bond doesn't fight drug, James Bond isn't a D A. Why don't you get him a fucking jacket with the letters on it? He's, he fights crime in a tuxedo and fucks three hot chicks every movie. That's who, by the way, in the last one, he dies.

• 1:05:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:05:54Bill Maher?

  Talk about a generational change. James Bond dies?

• 1:05:58Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:58Bill Maher?

  What? No, James Bond wins.

• 1:06:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. In Back to the Future, we got a lot of pushback when we made the, the villains, the Libyan terrorists.

• 1:06:09Bill Maher?

  Oh, right.

• 1:06:11Speaker 03

  You know, because.

• 1:06:11Bill Maher?

  In a van.

• 1:06:12Speaker 03

  In a van, you know, with a rocket launcher.

• 1:06:17Bill Maher?

  Yes. A grenade launcher.

• 1:06:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, grenade launcher. But we, you know, and, and we would get these notes from the studio and say, we can't, can, can it be the mob? I said, why would the mob want plutonium? You know, makes, it makes, it makes no sense. It's gotta be a terrorist organization who wants to, wants to, wants to build a bomb. Yeah, so.

• 1:06:42Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, there you go.

• 1:06:44Bill Maher?

  And of course, that's almost twenty years before nine eleven, so.

• 1:06:48Speaker 03

  No, it's longer than that. It was way longer. It was.

• 1:06:53Bill Maher?

  Eighty-five to two thousand and one, that's about twenty years. But that's sixteen.

• 1:06:58Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Oh, that's sixteen. It's all, yeah, sixteen years. You're right.

• 1:07:01Bill Maher?

  So. But, I mean, terrorism certainly was. Something people were aware, but it just. Moved to that completely different level. It was like something you put in a movie.

• 1:07:12Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly.

• 1:07:14Bill Maher?

  We're not really afraid of Libyans with rocket launchers.

• 1:07:20Bill Maher?

  So we could put this in the movie and.

• 1:07:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:07:22Bill Maher?

  I mean, at a certain point, they did start to bitch and moan. When I say they, I mean, the usual suspects who are looking for something to bitch about. Whenever the the terrorist was of any sort of Islam or Arab, and it's like. Okay, but like, you know, then who did do nine eleven, you know? We're not saying all Arabs or Muslims are terrorists. We're saying when that kind of shit happens, it has often been. Iranians or Saudi Arabians. That's there is just a battle going on.

• 1:07:55Speaker 03

  Yep, yep.

• 1:07:56Bill Maher?

  I mean. Don't get me started on the kids today and their protests.

• 1:08:00Speaker 03

  Well, listen, I I agree with you. Yeah, I say, anyone says, what do you think about any subject, Bob? I say, well, you know, do just watch Bill Maher.

• 1:08:08Bill Maher?

  No, thank you. That is the right thing to say, but thank you.

• 1:08:13Speaker 03

  I agree with them on all subjects, you know, but you're a hundred percent right about that. Exactly.

• 1:08:17Bill Maher?

  What is your ethnicity? What is your background?

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:08:20Bill Maher?

  You're not some sort of Jew, right?

• 1:08:22Speaker 03

  No, this is I, uh, no, no, no, I'm Lithuanian. I'm I'm, um. My my name is Lithuanian.

• 1:08:28Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 1:08:28Speaker 03

  Okay, no, my my father, um, my father's, uh, uh, first generation Lithuanian. My mother was born in Italy.

• 1:08:38Bill Maher?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:08:39Speaker 03

  And the only time you're gonna get an Italian Lithuanian combo is gonna be in Chicago.

• 1:08:45Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:08:46Speaker 03

  And.

• 1:08:46Bill Maher?

  Sure.

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  I grew up in the far side, south side of Chicago.

• 1:08:50Bill Maher?

  Oh, it's great. You don't have the accent.

• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  I don't, yeah, I don't think I have too much of one.

• 1:08:54Bill Maher?

  You don't, because I always don't like it.

• 1:08:56Speaker 03

  You mean, you mean I didn't?

• 1:08:57Bill Maher?

  I don't like that Chicago.

• 1:08:58Speaker 03

  You mean I didn't say, nah, he's up on the roof?

• 1:09:00Bill Maher?

  Roof is something, no, no.

• 1:09:02Speaker 03

  He's up on the roof?

• 1:09:03Bill Maher?

  No, it's more the Bears, you know, that kind of. I mean, they're just a certain, I'm sorry, Chicago people. There was a certain accent that I just find grating, you know?

• 1:09:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:12Bill Maher?

  But I find the.

• 1:09:13Speaker 03

  He's on a motorcycle.

• 1:09:14Bill Maher?

  I can't understand a Guy Ritchie movie without subtitles. I'm like, speak English, you fucks. Speak American, for Christ's sake. I don't know what you're talking about.

• 1:09:24Speaker 03

  Exactly. So, yeah, no, so I grew up in, and, and, and, you know, and, you know, had the, that's why I love religion so much. Because I got to, like, be, you know, go through the Catholic school thing.

• 1:09:35Bill Maher?

  Oh, you, I was raised Catholic also.

• 1:09:37Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:38Bill Maher?

  And what was your experience? Loved it, I bet.

• 1:09:40Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:09:41Bill Maher?

  Isn't it a joy?

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  I, I always think about, you know, I, I, I think that the, when I think about, why do I have an image of death in every single movie I make? It's because, I guess that's what eight years of Catholic school will do to you, you know?

• 1:09:57Bill Maher?

  Come for the fear.

• 1:09:59Speaker 03

  Come for the fear.

• 1:09:59Bill Maher?

  Stay for the shitting in your pants.

• 1:10:01Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly. No, it was, it was, yeah, it, it, it, it was scarring.

• 1:10:10Bill Maher?

  Scarring is the exact word.

• 1:10:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:12Bill Maher?

  Not that I've been scarred for life, but I bet you I've been changed for life.

• 1:10:16Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:10:16Bill Maher?

  How can you not, when, when we're talking about something at such a formative age? An age where you are defenseless because you don't know anything. So you're just at the mercy of any sort of authority figure who tells you anything. So if they are scaring the shit out of you and filling your head with bullshit.

• 1:10:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:10:34Bill Maher?

  Ideas, that can't help but be scarring. I mean, sometimes people have accused me because I made religulous and made a career of making fun of religion all the time. You know, are you bitter? I'm like, yeah. I'm very bitter. So what?

• 1:10:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:52Bill Maher?

  Yeah, aren't you bitter about certain things?

• 1:10:54Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, I mean, I'm.

• 1:10:55Bill Maher?

  If someone raped your mind when you were a child, wouldn't you be bitter about it? I was mind raped.

• 1:10:59Speaker 03

  Well, I think it was the, it was the, it was the fear and the shame. The indoctrination of the fear and the shame, which is, is, which I think is the, I don't know, I guess it's the, it's, it's.

• 1:11:12Bill Maher?

  Were you still a Catholic?

• 1:11:16Bill Maher?

  In your mind, when you started masturbating?

• 1:11:19Speaker 03

  Uh, oh, God, no, no, no. I, I, I, well, I don't think I, I'm not sure when I was ever, I never would, I don't think I was ever really. No, I didn't have any, I didn't have any hangups like that, thank God, but it was just the, the, you know, that under, that under, like, low-grade headache thing of, um, you're unworthy because you exist. You know, the shame, the shame that, you know, there's nothing, there's nothing, I, there's nothing worse that you can do to someone than shame them, especially a kid. And that's the na- number one controlling thing of that cult, in my opinion, is you, you're, you're, you're a sinner because you exist.

• 1:12:05Bill Maher?

  And you felt shamed because of specific sins you thought you were committing, that you then were announcing in confession?

• 1:12:11Speaker 03

  No, it's a feeling of, it's just a feeling of, of, um, not being, um, not being, uh, just thinking that you're al- you're always, um, you're not measuring up, you're always falling short, you know, you're, you're, you're always, you're, you're always not.

• 1:12:34Bill Maher?

  Yeah, pleasing God.

• 1:12:36Speaker 03

  Pleasing God, or, or, yeah, you're just, you're, you're, you're, you're not measuring up, you're not getting, you're not getting across the finish line.

• 1:12:44Bill Maher?

  It's so psychotic, religion, to like purposely create this being who you are always going to disappoint. Aren't you disappointing enough people in your real life? I mean, you've got your wife, you've got your family, you've got your kids. I mean, you're disappointing all of them, all the time. Is there a need to create this one more person who you're constantly, oh, I'm so sorry, God, I fucked up again.

• 1:13:10Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:13:10Bill Maher?

  Please forgive me, you're the greatest, you're, you're all merciful, thank God, because I'm such a shithead. And, and it's like, it's all in your head.

• 1:13:20Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:13:20Bill Maher?

  These things that go on just in your head.

• 1:13:23Speaker 03

  And it, and it's just, you know, and I, I, you know, it's just completely, completely diabolical, and all the rituals and the, and the, I actually liked, I think I really, I, I, I was really,

• 1:13:34Bill Maher?

  Thank you.

• 1:13:35Speaker 03

  I really was, you know, liked the drama of, of the violence and the, you know, the scourging of the pillar and, you know, the, in the. You know, nailing on, nailing to the cross and all that stuff. I was kind of digging that. But, um, you know, it's just really endless, endless, endless, you know, blood and death, blood and death, you know.

• 1:13:56Bill Maher?

  You want to team up with Mel Gibson and make, make a Christy movie. I mean, you know, uh.

• 1:14:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, there you go. I mean, that's, that, I mean, that was, that, you know.

• 1:14:06Bill Maher?

  Can't deny him as a filmmaker.

• 1:14:08Speaker 03

  No, he's great. I gave him, I presented him his Academy Award.

• 1:14:12Bill Maher?

  Good for you.

• 1:14:13Speaker 03

  For, no, I was there at the, on the day when he won it for.

• 1:14:15Bill Maher?

  Was this after he?

• 1:14:16Speaker 03

  No, no, this was for, uh, this was after I won, back in those days.

• 1:14:20Bill Maher?

  Oh, Braveheart.

• 1:14:21Speaker 03

  Braveheart, yeah.

• 1:14:22Bill Maher?

  Well, he wasn't controversial then.

• 1:14:24Speaker 03

  No, that, and you know, um, but no, so yeah.

• 1:14:28Bill Maher?

  I think he's awesome. I mean.

• 1:14:30Speaker 03

  Uh, Braveheart has got good stuff in it.

• 1:14:32Bill Maher?

  Well, you know, like, I just have little patience with the perfect people in the world who, like, as he said, some really fucked up things, he has, but you know, and is, is drinking an excuse? No, because drinking actually makes you more honest. So you can't use that as an excuse like, oh, I was drunk. I didn't know what I was saying. Yeah, exactly. You said what you, but you know, I would love to just talk to him because I just don't think he's a bad guy.

• 1:14:57Speaker 03

  I don't know him personally, but yeah.

• 1:14:59Bill Maher?

  Yeah. And I think he could be, I think he understands where he went off. And also he's got that, that super duper, literally more Catholic than the Pope Father. And we are all sort of like at the mercy of who brought us into the world. That's the theme of The Godfather.

• 1:15:18Speaker 03

  Right. Right. I think I was, I was.

• 1:15:20Bill Maher?

  I really didn't want to be in the mafia, but when my father needed me, I had to join.

• 1:15:25Speaker 03

  I had to, yeah, I had to. I had to. I think I was lucky in that, um, my parents weren't really like fanatical, you know, they weren't. But, but that thing about, you know, if the nuns, if the nuns were saying you did something and you didn't do it, the nun was right, you know, it's that kind of thing. They held that power over, you know, the parents couldn't believe that the nuns would say something that wasn't, you know, something that obviously must be, they must be telling the truth.

• 1:15:53Bill Maher?

  I remember going to confession. They started us going to confession. I remember making my first communion. That's the one you do at seven.

• 1:16:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:16:02Bill Maher?

  And there's another one you do at 13. That's confirmation. I never quite got to that one, but I had the first communion. Union, which was a lot of days after school practicing for whatever practicing. We, you stood there for a minute while the priest like gave you, I don't know, confession. But that's when you started confession and I had such anxiety. Because I was like, I'm seven. What fucking sin could I have committed? Yeah, I killed a hooker in Vegas.

• 1:16:28Speaker 03

  Right, right, right, right.

• 1:16:29Bill Maher?

  Your, your holiness.

• 1:16:31Speaker 03

  Well, I was.

• 1:16:32Bill Maher?

  Please forgive me. So I would like you to make it up.

• 1:16:35Speaker 03

  I remember, I remember, you know, you know, the difference between the mortal sin and the venial.

• 1:16:40Bill Maher?

  Yes, of course.

• 1:16:41Speaker 03

  Okay, the mortal sin and the venial sin. And of course, the venial sin. Um, if you died with a venial sin on your soul, you would go to purgatory. You have to work it off.

• 1:16:50Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:16:51Speaker 03

  Mortal sin, straight to hell.

• 1:16:52Bill Maher?

  Straight to hell.

• 1:16:53Speaker 03

  Straight to hell. No, no, no, get out of jail, nothing. You go straight to hell. And, and, and I remember, I remember this and being in this, I must have been in the first grade, second grade, talking about. Um, stealing, stealing money. And how much, you know, he says, or how much money is, what's a venial sin and what's a mortal sin? And then she broke it down there. Anything under a dollar is a venial sin.

• 1:17:23Speaker 03

  And anything over is a mortal sin.

• 1:17:26Bill Maher?

  Adjusted for inflation, of course.

• 1:17:29Speaker 03

  Well, it was like folding money straight to hell. Loose change, you only went to purgatory.

• 1:17:35Bill Maher?

  Did you, you used to put money in the basket when they came around with?

• 1:17:39Speaker 03

  We had a thing, uh, oh yeah, well, you did on Sun, on, on Sunday. I had to go to, I had to go to mass every single morning in the crazy.

• 1:17:47Bill Maher?

  Every morning?

• 1:17:48Speaker 03

  Every morning.

• 1:17:49Bill Maher?

  You had it worse than me.

• 1:17:50Speaker 03

  For some reason, in my, in my Irish Catholic, Catholic thing. But we used to do a thing where you had to buy pagan babies.

• 1:17:59Bill Maher?

  What?

• 1:18:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, you, yeah. So in other words, you would buy a pagan baby.

• 1:18:03Bill Maher?

  Buy?

• 1:18:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, yes, to, to, to, to you, the money was used to, um.

• 1:18:12Speaker 03

  Save them and and the missionaries would use the money to go and you would go buy a pagan baby like in Africa or something and they would and and and the point was instead of buying your candy bar after lunch, you're supposed to like put the money in this thing to to.

• 1:18:30Bill Maher?

  Talk about colonizers, huh?

• 1:18:32Speaker 03

  And oh, man, like I'll never forget that buy, you know, paying to buy some pagan baby. So you could we could convert them, you know?

• 1:18:39Bill Maher?

  I I don't know what the.

• 1:18:41Speaker 03

  But you know what? It wasn't that long ago. That's what I keep thinking.

• 1:18:46Bill Maher?

  What I keep saying is what's so amazing is like, I think it was Bill Gates who wanted like, if you look back over two years in your life, it's like, Jesus, nothing ever changes. But when you look back over 10, it's like it's a whole different world. And it's like in the country, too. It's like, you know, how did we get so different from 1985? You know, he's got that vest on in the beginning. It's a funny running gag that he they in 1955, they think he's a, you know, some sort of sailor because that's who else also wear that vest that.

• 1:19:21Speaker 03

  Well, in the script, it says that he was wearing a life preserver.

• 1:19:25Bill Maher?

  Right, life preserver. That's what it looked like to them.

• 1:19:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:19:29Bill Maher?

  But it but here now in 2024, it also looks weird. It's so funny because in that space of time in 1995, it was what people wore. It was not what they wear now or then.

• 1:19:41Speaker 03

  But here's a question I have for you, because I think about this a lot. I'm thinking that there's been a there's I think one of the things that is stagnated is the culture, something I don't know if it's because of the internet or social media or the, you know, technology just being the most dominant thing, but.

• 1:20:08Speaker 03

  Cars look the same. I mean, you know, I mean.

• 1:20:12Bill Maher?

  Pretty much, yeah.

• 1:20:13Speaker 03

  Music is the same. Um, if, if somebody.

• 1:20:17Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:17Speaker 03

  Went, came back, if somebody walked in, if a kid walked in here from nineteen ninety four, which is twenty, twenty years ago, we wouldn't look twice at him. If he came through a time warp.

• 1:20:29Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's thirty years.

• 1:20:31Speaker 03

  Thirty years, thirty years, excuse my math, yeah. Um, but he wouldn't, he, we wouldn't look twice at him. And why is that, I wonder? I don't know. It's like, but because.

• 1:20:41Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, I mean, there were things they were doing in nineteen ninety four. Some of they brought back like those really ugly mom jeans.

• 1:20:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:20:49Bill Maher?

  Everything bad comes back.

• 1:20:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe.

• 1:20:51Bill Maher?

  Um, there's only so many things, there were so many ways you can wear clothes.

• 1:20:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:20:55Bill Maher?

  Um, but, you know, I mean, in nineteen ninety four, yeah, there was a grunge look that I don't think we're doing massively now.

• 1:21:05Speaker 03

  If you were, yeah, if you're.

• 1:21:06Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 1:21:07Speaker 03

  Right. The Seattle. But if you walk, but if, but if somebody walked in, you know, in this, in here from.

• 1:21:13Bill Maher?

  Well, you're, you're definitely right that.

• 1:21:16Speaker 03

  Blackmore jungle. If somebody walked in from the Blackmore, you know, you'd go, oh, I know where you're from.

• 1:21:21Bill Maher?

  Right, very different. You are from the past.

• 1:21:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:21:23Bill Maher?

  No, it's true. And music, I mean, rap certainly was a, a completely different music form that, that is obviously pre, preeminent now. But like.

• 1:21:34Speaker 03

  But that was twenty five, thirty years ago.

• 1:21:36Bill Maher?

  Fifty years ago.

• 1:21:37Speaker 03

  Rap.

• 1:21:38Bill Maher?

  Fifty.

• 1:21:38Speaker 03

  Fifty.

• 1:21:39Bill Maher?

  Yeah, rap celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, yeah. Yeah, nineteen seventy nine, I like, was the first rap hit. Um, Cypress Hill, I think, or.

• 1:21:47Speaker 03

  Maybe, yeah.

• 1:21:48Bill Maher?

  Sugar Hill Gang, I think. Um, so, I mean, yeah, it's bitter. It definitely was around in the eighties. It was, it grew and, and got better, just like, I always say eighties rap is very much like fifties rock and roll. I don't like either. Like, it needed a decade to grow up.

• 1:22:03Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:22:04Bill Maher?

  Um, but the music I listened to as a kid in the late sixties, if you go back twenty five years, was so different from what my father was listening to in the forties, which is not the. Case with nineteen sixty nine plus twenty five years or fifty years, except for rap, which is big.

• 1:22:24Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:22:24Bill Maher?

  But like all other kinds of pop music and there are songs that are put out now that could have been hits in nineteen sixty nine or seventy nine or eighty nine.

• 1:22:37Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:22:37Bill Maher?

  Whereas the sound my father listened to, the big band sound, that was completely different.

• 1:22:43Speaker 03

  Completely different and I and I didn't have anything to do with that. I, you know, when I was a kid, I didn't listen to that. I learned, I, I.

• 1:22:50Bill Maher?

  Oh, no.

• 1:22:51Speaker 03

  I learned to appreciate that when I got older. But and my father, you know, and my, my uncle, they didn't, they hated it.

• 1:22:59Bill Maher?

  Oh, I still don't appreciate it.

• 1:23:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:02Bill Maher?

  I mean, it's just not my kind of, I mean, Benny Goodman, I'm sure was great and Glenn Miller. But I, I would never listen to it. I know what it sounds like.

• 1:23:09Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:23:09Bill Maher?

  Um, maybe, um, I mean, Bette Midler did Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Accompany Me, which was a World War II song and she updated, updated it great. And it made it like, made like a pop rock sound. But basically it's just, first of all, it's very clarinet driven.

• 1:23:28Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:29Bill Maher?

  Okay, well, that's not to me as good as electric guitars. That's just me.

• 1:23:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:34Bill Maher?

  But you know, that's what I grew up with. I mean, we're all products of what they put in our heads when we're helpless. That's religion.

• 1:23:42Speaker 03

  My kids, my younger kids who are in their twenty, in early twenties now, they listen to my stuff.

• 1:23:49Bill Maher?

  Being what you're.

• 1:23:50Speaker 03

  Well, well, the, the, the, they love the rock and I don't, it's not because of anything with me and I'll be, I'll be in the car with them.

• 1:23:58Bill Maher?

  That's because it's good.

• 1:23:59Speaker 03

  Exactly. And I'll say, why are you listening to that? Why are you listening to that Led Zeppelin? Like, where did that, how did, how did you find that? And they go, oh, why don't you see?

• 1:24:06Bill Maher?

  Yeah, because they have not improved upon it.

• 1:24:08Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:24:08Bill Maher?

  I mean, they've done other great stuff. I mean, there's great artists now, but, um, but they haven't quite improved on that and, and that particular sound and yeah. But I mean, there are songs that come out now that I think, oh, that could be a hit in any decade. Those are my kind of songs and I'm certainly not a music snob. I'm the, I'm the opposite. Like, I just want to be entertained. I have no music ability, so I have no dog in this fight except entertain me. I don't care about important music.

• 1:24:41Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:24:41Bill Maher?

  What a great way to have a. Shitty record collection.

• 1:24:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:24:44Bill Maher?

  Let me get the most important songs.

• 1:24:47Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:24:47Bill Maher?

  No, no, no.

• 1:24:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:24:49Bill Maher?

  I'm just, uh.

• 1:24:50Speaker 03

  And when those, and you know, and then when the, and then, you know, when the Beatles arrived, it was like.

• 1:24:56Bill Maher?

  How old were you in sixty four?

• 1:24:57Speaker 03

  Well, it's like, I have, yeah, I was, uh, sixty four, I was, uh,

• 1:25:06Speaker 03

  twelve, thirteen, something like that, I think, yeah.

• 1:25:09Bill Maher?

  How year were you born?

• 1:25:10Speaker 03

  Wait, fifty one, so what was I?

• 1:25:12Bill Maher?

  So you were thirteen.

• 1:25:13Speaker 03

  Thirteen, yeah, and it was like, life changing. Life changing.

• 1:25:17Bill Maher?

  Thirteen is like the exact age you'd wanna be when the Beatles arrived. I mean, I was eight, so.

• 1:25:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:23Bill Maher?

  I was not really into music yet, and I just knew there was some hubbub going on.

• 1:25:29Speaker 03

  No, I, when I, when I, when the Beatles showed up, it was like, you know, and then, you know, when the Beatles showed up, it was like, you know, okay, wait a minute, you know, it kinda like, you know, you know, gave you that feeling that, it did for me anyway, that, you know, maybe I could do something.

• 1:25:45Bill Maher?

  No, and I'm sure the kids, if anyone listening to this, are like, okay, Boomer, the Beatles.

• 1:25:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:52Bill Maher?

  And it's like what we said about some shit our parents were talking about, like, certain things you had to be there.

• 1:25:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:59Bill Maher?

  And if you weren't, it just sounds like two old farts who were like, getting all Gaga about something that probably wasn't that great.

• 1:26:07Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:26:07Bill Maher?

  But it was, but it wasn't, you know, completely unique in history either.

• 1:26:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:26:12Bill Maher?

  I mean, there've been other pop phenomenons, I mean, Taylor Swift, obviously now.

• 1:26:16Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:26:17Bill Maher?

  Is on a level that we rarely see in show business. I had Nikki Glaser here.

• 1:26:22Speaker 03

  I listened to that, yeah.

• 1:26:23Bill Maher?

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:26:24Speaker 03

  And I'll listen to it, and then, and then I'm gonna take her advice and listen to the Taylor Swift, uh, album that she recommended.

• 1:26:31Bill Maher?

  Well, she recommended the movie.

• 1:26:33Speaker 03

  I was gonna see that, the one on Disney Plus.

• 1:26:35Bill Maher?

  Okay, I'm halfway, I'm halfway through it.

• 1:26:37Speaker 03

  And?

• 1:26:37Bill Maher?

  And I must report.

• 1:26:39Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:26:39Bill Maher?

  My opinion has not changed.

• 1:26:42Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:26:42Bill Maher?

  I, I gave it a shot, though, I mean, I don't, and I, as I always say, when Taylor Swift comes up, I, I have the greatest admiration, simply for her success, I also have great admiration for the way she conducts herself, you know, she does, she never misses a show, she's not late, she, you know, she's a class act.

• 1:27:03Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:27:05Bill Maher?

  But I don't get the music, I really don't, I mean, Nikki was here and saying that, I said. What is the key? And she's like, well, the music is just amazing musicianship and lyrics. And I'm like, OK, great. I'm gonna, I'm gonna give this a shot. Now, maybe the second half of the show will blow me away. I mean, it's three hours long. I, I don't watch anything, hardly anything in full increments. I watch things like I read a book. I don't read the whole book at once. And especially something like this. But halfway through, uh, I, you know, but again, I mean, I looking at the audience. And it's, you know, 20 year old women. I, I, I'm almost a 70 year old man. I mean, that is just apparently a bridge too far for this particular phenomenon. Other things we do share.

• 1:27:50Bill Maher?

  But, um, yeah, I just, you know, and they are certainly into it. And it also says, maybe this is a great indication of the span of time and how much things change. I mean, Ray Kurzweil talks about the singularity. That's his great book about when we will meld almost fully with machines. We're certainly halfway there. I mean, there are people who have artificial lots of stuff and, you know, Elon Musk is working on people who can move things with their mind when they don't have the use of their arms and stuff like that. But to see everyone in the audience, not watching the concert, but watching through the phone. They're watching their phone, not the thing that they are purposely putting a filter

• 1:28:34Bill Maher?

  between something that they know must be filmed and they could see somewhere other than their own phone. That to me is a difference of kind, not just a difference of degree, a difference of kind that my generation would never want to do, to purposely put this filter. And they're all doing it throughout the show. You see, whenever they cut to the audience, it's all phone.

• 1:28:58Speaker 03

  But are they, are they trying, are they doing that so they can like zoom in? Or are they recording it so they can keep it?

• 1:29:03Bill Maher?

  I think both, but I think a lot of it is recording it.

• 1:29:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:08Bill Maher?

  Which makes no sense. First of all, you have a mind. You can remember it and sometimes that's better. And she's recording it. You can always see it. It's like, you ever see people at the, where the Mona Lisa is? I mean, they're all taking pictures of the Mona Lisa. It's. In the gift shop, you could get.

• 1:29:28Speaker 03

  A beautiful eight by ten.

• 1:29:29Bill Maher?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:29:30Speaker 03

  Exactly. Could hang it on your wall. Exact, no, I know, no, it's but.

• 1:29:35Bill Maher?

  It's odd.

• 1:29:36Speaker 03

  But it's about, but isn't it about that thing that everyone just has in their hand now that they can just, isn't that just like this thing where everything, we have to, we have to take pictures of everything I eat? I mean, people were taking, you know, pictures of their food. I mean, oh, look at this presentation. I gotta.

• 1:29:52Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they actually stopped doing that more than they used to, but the point of, like Nikki was saying it when she was here, like, she sometimes feels if some event in her life has passed without her recording it, that she missed an opportunity, which is a mindset I can't even get into. I mean, I understand it. And I think the people who are even younger than her, because she's, you know, late 30s, the kids who are like, you know, 18 or 15, they don't even have this quandary. They know you always record it.

• 1:30:28Speaker 03

  I remember, I think Bill Gates did an experiment once where he had somebody walk around with a, it wasn't a, I'll use iPhone because, but it wasn't invented yet, but like a device that every minute took a picture.

• 1:30:47Speaker 03

  So where, it was, so wherever this guy went his whole life, every, so his whole memory was put in a, was, was kept. And the reason, the theory behind that is so we don't, so we can use our brain for other things. So we don't have to, we don't have to have wasted mental space for our memories because we can always go back into this database and see where was I on this day? Let me scroll over here and then.

• 1:31:16Bill Maher?

  That is what we're moving toward.

• 1:31:18Speaker 03

  It is, isn't it, kind of?

• 1:31:19Bill Maher?

  Well, the cloud is kind of that.

• 1:31:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:31:23Bill Maher?

  Um, I don't want to be divorced from my brain.

• 1:31:26Speaker 03

  No, but I mean, but it is interesting when I've got one of those, I've got one of those um, digital, digital photo things on my desk with loaded with all the digital pictures from you know, my, all my kids and everything.

• 1:31:39Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:31:40Speaker 03

  And you know, it'll think of someone will pop up and go, oh, I remember that. Oh, it's kind of like the thing scrolling by, you know, but I wouldn't have just remembered it.

• 1:31:47Bill Maher?

  But, I mean, I assume as AI becomes more prevalent and everyone has it on their phone and every use, everyone uses it more for more things. I assume it will slowly be doing this, just taking over different parts of our brain. I mean, isn't that what AI is ultimately is a colonizer of our brain?

• 1:32:11Speaker 03

  Probably. I think it is.

• 1:32:13Bill Maher?

  And we're inviting it in and we're not, we're not really interested in putting the brakes on because now it's a race, not only between different countries like us in China to have the upper hand, but also between companies to make the most money.

• 1:32:31Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:32:32Bill Maher?

  I mean, you see even the people who started out as, we don't want to be in the profit business with this. Um, wait, what did I say? What I meant was we want to be in the profit business. I mean, come on, this is America. We make profits. So, yeah.

• 1:32:48Speaker 03

  I kind of agree with you, but I, but isn't all technology a trade off ultimately?

• 1:32:54Bill Maher?

  Totally. Absolutely.

• 1:32:55Speaker 03

  And isn't it always feared when it first shows up?

• 1:32:58Bill Maher?

  Yes. Always. That it is feared. That doesn't mean this time couldn't be the one.

• 1:33:03Speaker 03

  It could be the one, but this is the thing that could cure cancer too.

• 1:33:06Bill Maher?

  Exactly. I don't give, I don't even give a shit if they become our robot overlords because, I mean, the odds are I will certainly be dead within 30 years.

• 1:33:16Speaker 03

  That's true. We got to think about that.

• 1:33:17Bill Maher?

  Unless AI.

• 1:33:20Speaker 03

  Stops that.

• 1:33:21Bill Maher?

  Comes in and Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer's his way.

• 1:33:26Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:27Bill Maher?

  Into my heart by saving us at the last minute with his glowy nose. Because that is definitely possible. I mean, AI in thirty years could keep people alive forever. Now, the next question is, do we want to be alive forever?

• 1:33:44Speaker 03

  Well, there you go. That's the big, that is.

• 1:33:46Bill Maher?

  I mean, if I can be alive like I am now, yes.

• 1:33:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, but then, you know, the thing, of course, because I did, I made a movie about that, which was, you know, Death Becomes Her, which is.

• 1:33:56Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:33:57Speaker 03

  Well, you want to sit around and watch everybody you know die.

• 1:34:00Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:34:00Speaker 03

  I mean, or maybe, well, but then if nobody dies, then what?

• 1:34:05Speaker 03

  That's a whole, that's, you know, that could be a really interesting movie.

• 1:34:12Speaker 03

  I mean, do we want to sit around and have conversations like this for like the next a hundred years? And never, and never, never stop?

• 1:34:19Bill Maher?

  I could sit around and do this, which is, I mean, it's one reason why I love starting this podcast. This is what I would be doing anyway, probably on a Wednesday night. Taking a little break from my work week, my real job. But now I get to do it with you. Or, you know, Cheech and Chong were here last week and.

• 1:34:37Speaker 03

  That's, oh, really?

• 1:34:38Bill Maher?

  Yes, I mean, every, people come to see me like this. It's just, it's, how could I ask for anything more in life? I mean, to sit here and just be able to, and you haven't had even a drink.

• 1:34:49Speaker 03

  I have some water.

• 1:34:50Bill Maher?

  You don't drink?

• 1:34:51Speaker 03

  No, I did back in the day, but I don't drink anymore.

• 1:34:54Bill Maher?

  A lot?

• 1:34:56Speaker 03

  Enough that it got to the point where I needed to stop.

• 1:35:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:01Bill Maher?

  Like Flight?

• 1:35:02Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. No, yeah, no, that, that, I.

• 1:35:05Bill Maher?

  That's an awesome one.

• 1:35:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:07Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:35:07Speaker 03

  Well, that was.

• 1:35:08Bill Maher?

  That's a great one.

• 1:35:09Speaker 03

  There's a great.

• 1:35:10Bill Maher?

  So great.

• 1:35:10Speaker 03

  There's a great performance.

• 1:35:13Bill Maher?

  Yes, again, John Huston.

• 1:35:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, right, exactly.

• 1:35:18Bill Maher?

  But it's also like, is he the best one to do that? Probably. But, you know, it's not like no one else could have done that part. It's a great idea.

• 1:35:27Speaker 03

  No, it's a great idea, beautiful screenplay.

• 1:35:29Bill Maher?

  Yes, so good.

• 1:35:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:31Bill Maher?

  Who wrote that? You?

• 1:35:32Speaker 03

  No, John Gaitons wrote that.

• 1:35:35Bill Maher?

  Oh, so good. I mean, again, totally stuck the landing, you know? The great end. I mean, again, you gotta have a good ending.

• 1:35:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:46Bill Maher?

  And him at the, first of all, with the hotel room door and the fucking minibar. Do you know how many minibars I've been in? I mean, I've been on the road my whole life. Minibar, that rang true to me. Not that I've ever fished through the whole bar and gotten shitfaced drunk in a hotel room, but I get it. And then, you know, the switch at the end and flying the plane upside down and he's just a bad. I mean, I said this to somebody who was here recently, he is my all time favorite, like Denzel. As far as I think, I mean, I like a lot of people, but he just knocks it out of the park every time.

• 1:36:25Speaker 03

  Oh, he shows up with the goods. He.

• 1:36:27Bill Maher?

  He really does.

• 1:36:28Speaker 03

  He really does. I mean, I, I mean, I mean, he shows up and he's, and he's ready to, he's ready.

• 1:36:36Bill Maher?

  Oh, you can tell.

• 1:36:37Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. I mean, joy, just absolute joy to work with.

• 1:36:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah, he looks like no nonsense, but still.

• 1:36:43Speaker 03

  He's not warm and fuzzy. He's not warm and fuzzy. No, no, no. And he explains it to the crew.

• 1:36:47Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:48Speaker 03

  And he'll sit there and say, look, you guys have to understand something.

• 1:36:50Bill Maher?

  Neither am I.

• 1:36:51Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, he says, look.

• 1:36:53Bill Maher?

  You don't have to be.

• 1:36:54Speaker 03

  He says, you guys set up the shot and now you wanna let your hair down and relax. But now it's, no, I gotta come on and I gotta like do it.

• 1:37:01Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:37:02Speaker 03

  So I don't have time to make small talk with you.

• 1:37:04Bill Maher?

  I mean, that's, that's not what makes a good boss. I think I've always been a pretty good boss at my shop. And I'm not the pat. Everybody on the back and and learn everyone's name and all the things, you know, that people do. Ask about your wife and, but I'm also not mean and I don't yell and I don't, you know, I think, I think people appreciate it when the boss just isn't in your life at all.

• 1:37:28Speaker 03

  I think you're right about that. I mean, it's not like you have to like know what everybody's personal life is.

• 1:37:33Bill Maher?

  You need your little kitchen cabinet.

• 1:37:35Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:37:35Bill Maher?

  Who you, and then everybody else just do their job and I'm, I'm respectful, but you know, yeah, we, I, I can't be fucking.

• 1:37:43Speaker 03

  But I don't have a problem coming in and saying good morning to everybody.

• 1:37:46Bill Maher?

  Of course not.

• 1:37:47Speaker 03

  Of course not. It's like, I don't want to, you know, come in and say, why is that ca- why is that cable over there?

• 1:37:51Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:37:51Speaker 03

  You know, I don't, you know, try not to do that.

• 1:37:53Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:37:54Speaker 03

  Um, but.

• 1:37:55Bill Maher?

  No, I mean, you hear lots of horror stories about sets and I mean, there's hardly ever a movie set you hear about where there wasn't some, and I've been on some back in the eighties when I did acting. Uh, it wasn't uncommon that there is some blow up. I mean, there's just a lot of tension. You're mixing dangerous chemicals. People are just fucking tense.

• 1:38:19Speaker 03

  And it's a lot of mu- it's a lot of money and you're always under the clock.

• 1:38:24Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:38:25Speaker 03

  And, and you're actually doing pretty insane things. I mean, you're always making it rain when it's sunny. You're making it night when it's day. And it's like, it's just, it's.

• 1:38:35Bill Maher?

  And the actors are on this, you know, hairpin because their instrument is having, you know, shpilkus going around in their gut. That's what their fuel is.

• 1:38:47Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:38:48Bill Maher?

  So they're on this kind of like edge anyway. So like one guy who crosses and gets in your eye line when you're trying to concentrate and it's like, can everybody fucking, you know?

• 1:38:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:39:00Bill Maher?

  That is not uncommon. If people want to be in show business, no, that's going to happen a lot.

• 1:39:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. And you, and it does happen and, and you gotta be respectful, you know, because they're, they're under a lot of stress and they have to do it. And then by the way, it's like. Um, now, you know, when you walk into a set situation like that and you know, because you know, even though no one says it and you're going, I know that they gotta get out of here in thirty minutes. You know, and, and, and, and, and you can just see it in the director's face that, you know, he's gonna like, I can't go over, I can't come back here another day, they're gonna fire me, all that stuff that goes on in your brain. And the, and the, and the poor actor's got to step on his mark, on his mark and, and just do a great performance.

• 1:39:47Speaker 03

  And I got, I got, I got no time, you know, it's just, it's a horrible situation to be in. But we do it for whatever reason.

• 1:39:54Bill Maher?

  No, I mean, um, movies, I've always said it, movie stars, people who make movies, directors, all you guys earn. I mean, they're paid a lot and they deserve a lot. It's, it's really grueling.

• 1:40:07Speaker 03

  The hardest time for me is when you're doing a movie and, um, and, uh, well, when I, this is why I say, this is why they pay me the big bucks, is when you're doing a movie and you, you hire a, you know, really solid actor who's a day player and he's one of the first people you cast. And then you go off for six weeks and you're in with the key cast and you're in a groove and everybody's in a rhythm and everything. And, and, and, and this guy's been working on his scene for six weeks all by himself. And it's kind of, okay, come on, come on in and action and he's in a different movie. He's in a completely different movie.

• 1:40:51Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:40:52Speaker 03

  And then, and then a hundred people turn and look at me, right, the whole crew. Because they say the crew and everybody goes, this isn't the movie we're making.

• 1:41:00Bill Maher?

  It's so interesting.

• 1:41:01Speaker 03

  This isn't the movie we're making and the guy just was doing his best, he was doing his best, but he wasn't in with the, isn't, wasn't with. And then I've gotta go and I've gotta then fix it, right? And then you gotta like, okay, and that's where, that's the toughest part, you know?

• 1:41:18Bill Maher?

  Is there an example of that?

• 1:41:20Speaker 03

  I can't give, I can't give, there's a few, but I can't, I can't, but there's a few, but there's.

• 1:41:24Bill Maher?

  But sometimes there are actors in, uh, movies who are at such different levels.

• 1:41:32Bill Maher?

  That they're almost in two different movies.

• 1:41:35Speaker 03

  Sometimes, yeah.

• 1:41:35Bill Maher?

  They're just, you know, and it's obvious.

• 1:41:38Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:41:39Bill Maher?

  I mean, it's just like two people in a band playing different.

• 1:41:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that's really rough when I, I, I don't think I've had.

• 1:41:47Bill Maher?

  That doesn't happen in, no.

• 1:41:48Speaker 03

  I don't think I've had that, but I've been, I, well, you can see it in movies, I can see it in movies and, and really good movies and you, and you, and, and you sit there and you say.

• 1:41:55Bill Maher?

  I think.

• 1:41:55Speaker 03

  That, that, those are really interesting choices that actresses make.

• 1:42:00Bill Maher?

  It's an age thing.

• 1:42:01Speaker 03

  Think so?

• 1:42:01Bill Maher?

  I know so. Like actors, just like people, generally get better, smarter, wiser. They've seen the pattern go around before. So actors who are like in their 50s, 60s, they're great. Like they just, they just, it just, and when you're in your 20s, they're doing the best they can. But they're just not on that level, just like you're not in life. I wasn't, you know.

• 1:42:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:42:28Bill Maher?

  I was an idiot in my 20s. I mean, you know, just as far as maturity level, and it shows. So if there's a guy who's 25 and he's in a scene with a guy who's 60, they're kind of in a different movie.

• 1:42:39Speaker 03

  I would say that's the toughest, the toughest to work with is the, the 20 year old actor.

• 1:42:48Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 1:42:49Speaker 03

  That's the toughest because, you know, they're, they're just, yeah, they're just 20 years old, you know, and, and they're, and there's a lot of pressure on them. There's a lot of, and even when they're, and, but then again, then there was somebody I was working with, Michael, Michael J, and he was only 20 and he was just great. And that whole cast I had in that movie, they were all great, but they're the ones that are, they're the ones that are tough. I have a funny story to tell you. Like when I was, I, I just remember I was listening to Jack Warden on, I was fortunate enough to work with him on my second movie, Used Cars. And he gathered all the young actors and he was telling them, he said, you know, I was listening to this, he was dropping on this story.

• 1:43:28Speaker 03

  He said, you know, when I was, I always thought when I was starting out, that the best way to get more screen time. is to slow my performance down, right?

• 1:43:41Bill Maher?

  Who said that?

• 1:43:41Speaker 03

  Jack Ward. He said, as always, and I, so I was doing, and then I went to the movie that I was in, and I was cut out. I wasn't in it.

• 1:43:51Bill Maher?

  Yeah, because you'd drink.

• 1:43:52Speaker 03

  So now, I just say everything so fast that they can't get the scissors in there.

• 1:43:57Bill Maher?

  Buddy.

• 1:43:57Speaker 03

  Isn't that funny? Because that's what you're always saying to the, to the, to the novice actor. Pick it up, pick it up, take the air out, take the air out, you know?

• 1:44:06Bill Maher?

  Right. Just get on with it. Just entertain us.

• 1:44:09Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:44:09Bill Maher?

  Well, you have entertained me so many times.

• 1:44:12Speaker 03

  And I am a giant fan, as you know.

• 1:44:14Bill Maher?

  I know, I appreciate that, but you know, you are Hollywood royalty for a reason, and it meant a lot to me that you would come buy my crazy little Ratskeller.

• 1:44:24Speaker 03

  This has been a, this has been an absolute joy. Yeah, it's been great. Yeah.

• 1:44:28Bill Maher?

  Don't be a stranger. Keep making movies. Thank you.

• 1:44:30Speaker 03

  Thank you so much. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

• 1:44:39Speaker 03

  It's fun. It's really fun. And like I said, I had never done one of these before. So I, you know, I've done, I've done the bullshit, you know, junk where you just keep getting the same shit in your ass over and over and over again.

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