Gus Van Sant | Club Random with Bill Maher

Filmmaker Gus Van Sant joins Bill Maher for a candid conversation that pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to survive in Hollywood. Van Sant opens up about the scrappy, crowdfunded reality behind Dead Man’s Wire, studio politics, and why critics may have saved his career. The two dig into his iconic films (Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, To Die For, Psycho) and trace the lineage of comedy from Lenny Bruce to Saturday Night Live – along with the strange psychology of actors and directors on set, including a jaw-dropping story about literally throwing rocks to get a performance. Support our Advertisers: -Go to https://www.zbiotics.com/random and use code RANDOM for 15% off your first order -Get $10 off your first month’s subscription and free shipping at https://www.nutrafol.com and enter promo code RANDOM -Go to https://www.hellofresh.com/random10fm to get 10 free meals and a free breakfast for life -Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/random #rulapod #ad Subscribe to the Club Random YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/clubrandompodcast?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Watch episodes ad-free – subscribe to Bill Maher’s Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://billmaher.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you listen: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/ClubRandom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Buy Club Random Merch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clubrandom.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM Bill Maher rewrites the rules of podcasting the way he did in television in this series of one on one, hour long conversations with a wide variety of unexpected guests in the undisclosed location called Club Random. There’s a whole big world out there that isn’t about politics and Bill and his guests—from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Jordan Peterson, Quentin Tarantino and Neil DeGrasse Tyson—talk about all of it. For advertising opportunities please email: [email protected] ABOUT BILL MAHER Bill Maher was the host of “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC) from 1993-2002, and for the last fourteen years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 40 Emmy nominations. Maher won his first Emmy in 2014 as executive producer for the HBO series, “VICE.” In October of 2008, this same combination was on display in Maher’s uproarious and unprecedented swipe at organized religion, “Religulous.” Maher has written five bestsellers: “True Story,” “Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? Politically Incorrect’s Greatest Hits,” “When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden,” “New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer,” and most recently, “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass.” FOLLOW CLUB RANDOM https://www.clubrandom.com https://www.facebook.com/Club-Random-101776489118185 https://twitter.com/clubrandom_ https://www.instagram.com/clubrandompodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@clubrandompodcast FOLLOW BILL MAHER https://www.billmaher.com https://twitter.com/billmaher https://www.instagram.com/billmaher 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone. And including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO, and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal. Network freedom and flexibility, that's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding.

• 0:43Speaker 00

  Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 1:00Bill Maher?

  Ho, ho, holy shit. Have you seen our revamped merch? Woo, whether you're celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, or just the miracle of your family actually getting along this year despite everything, we've got you covered. New designs, new items, premium hoodies and tees so soft they make Santa's beard jealous. Plus bar essentials that'll transform your holiday gatherings from holiday fear to holiday cheer. Eight nights of Hanukkah, that's eight chances to remind everyone that good tequila and great merch bring people together. All exclusive at clubrandom.com. 'Tis the season to get random.

• 1:42Speaker 02

  The guys we don't like, they're like, yes. And the guys we do like, no, they wouldn't have done that.

• 1:49Bill Maher?

  No, I'm not saying that.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  The contestants, the people up for the award.

• 1:56Bill Maher?

  Nominees, you mean?

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Nominees.

• 1:57Bill Maher?

  We're not contestants, gosh for Christ's sake.

• 2:03Bill Maher?

  Great pleasure to meet you, sir. How are you?

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Good.

• 2:07Bill Maher?

  You comfortable?

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Yes. Very.

• 2:10Bill Maher?

  Are you comfortable doing conversations? This is not an interview, because I never prepare anything.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Oh, good, alright.

• 2:17Bill Maher?

  It's just what I know about you, which is I'm a big admirer of your movies.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  Oh, thanks.

• 2:22Bill Maher?

  And I saw the latest one, liked it a lot, Dead Man's Wire.

• 2:28Bill Maher?

  Are you excited about the upcoming Oscar season?

• 2:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's coming up today.

• 2:34Bill Maher?

  What?

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Today is the first day that it plays in a theater.

• 2:38Bill Maher?

  Oh, really?

• 2:39Speaker 02

  It plays in two theaters, one is in L.A., one in New York. I think to qualify for at least Oscars.

• 2:48Bill Maher?

  And then it goes to streaming?

• 2:51Speaker 02

  No, it's not a streaming project.

• 2:53Bill Maher?

  At all?

• 2:54Speaker 02

  It's a completely independent...

• 2:56Bill Maher?

  That's rare these days.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  I don't know if you saw the end credits, there was a hundred producers. So kind of a crowdfunding...

• 3:04Bill Maher?

  A hundred producers?

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:07Bill Maher?

  Come on.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  Because I think each one put in like a hundred thousand dollars, added up to...

• 3:11Bill Maher?

  Oh, I see the money.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Ten million dollars. Yeah, the money. It was all about the money.

• 3:15Bill Maher?

  I mean, every director of a certain age that I've talked to in recent years, you know, some very big names like you. And it's always about getting the money.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:29Bill Maher?

  I mean, maybe it always...

• 3:30Speaker 02

  I mean, kinda, this is such a low budget, that there were a lot of things that weren't like, you know, if you're, if you're, it's a hundred million dollar project. You know, it's, there's a lot of things that are about the money. But this was so low budget that there were a lot of things that weren't.

• 3:44Bill Maher?

  What's low budget these days?

• 3:45Speaker 02

  Ours was ten million, ten point eight million. So...

• 3:49Bill Maher?

  Do you know how much Cleopatra cost?

• 3:52Speaker 02

  A million? One million.

• 3:54Bill Maher?

  And they went...

• 3:54Speaker 02

  Really? And that was a big deal.

• 3:56Bill Maher?

  Well, it was nineteen sixty-two, so come on, but still...

• 3:59Speaker 02

  That was around, that was around.

• 4:00Bill Maher?

  It is pretty funny that they went batshit about that number.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:05Bill Maher?

  You know what a ticket for My Fair Lady cost on Broadway? The best ticket in the house in nineteen fifty-six, the year I was born?

• 4:15Speaker 02

  No.

• 4:15Bill Maher?

  Six dollars.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  Wow. Those were the days.

• 4:19Bill Maher?

  Well...

• 4:21Speaker 02

  But a car was like fifteen hundred dollars and.

• 4:25Bill Maher?

  That's the interesting thing. Somebody put out a great article recently pointing out that the poverty level, you know, what we call the, you know, below the poverty level is a certain thing where you qualify for government funding, you know, food stamps and stuff. It's based on something like from the 50s where you have, it's like a third of your money goes to food. Back then it did. But now, not nearly a third of people's money goes to food. Food is cheap, but housing, college, medical, childcare, all that shit, you know, was way cheaper or didn't even exist.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:07Bill Maher?

  My childcare, yeah, I had, we had childcare. It was called my mother.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Same with, same with us.

• 5:14Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  My family.

• 5:15Bill Maher?

  I mean, you're from the, Mike May born in the 50s, right? Grew up on the East Coast.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Fifty-two. I grew up, my family was from Kentucky. Part, first six years were in Colorado, Denver, Colorado.

• 5:30Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  A suburb.

• 5:32Bill Maher?

  What was that like back then?

• 5:33Speaker 02

  It was very suburban, like new, the new houses were, you know, whole section of the city.

• 5:41Bill Maher?

  It's kind of a western city. I mean, Denver is, is, I always found it fascinating, that whole state. It's what they call a purple state because, you know, it's sort of like, it's got like fucking hippies, you know, it's like, there's a big.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Neil Cassidy came from Denver.

• 5:58Bill Maher?

  Neil Cassidy?

• 6:00Speaker 02

  One of the beats.

• 6:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah, sure, I remember. With Ginsberg, right?

• 6:05Speaker 02

  But he was from downtown Denver. Kerouac was from Massachusetts.

• 6:10Bill Maher?

  But they were all in the same coven together, right?

• 6:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, they met at Columbia.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  In New York. And Neil was just driving through, you know, it's like. And Alan was like, this guy is amazing, and introduced him.

• 6:25Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I feel like your early movies that made you famous, the drugstore cowboy in Private Idaho. That's sort of that milieu. It seems like you were very inspired by that when you were a kid.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was. It wasn't really.

• 6:39Bill Maher?

  See, that's the, four years were different. The little, that's just a little before I was.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  It's true, yeah.

• 6:47Bill Maher?

  Like, when you were a young teenager, like, that was a thing you would, as a smart thirteen-year-old. That's something you would be interested in. Whereas, in that era, I was just into baseball cards.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:01Bill Maher?

  You know, and didn't really, nineteen sixty-eight, I'm twelve. That's like, a really, the first year, I like, I sort of became aware of the world outside of me. I was suddenly into music.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:15Bill Maher?

  That's a big difference. From baseball to music.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  It's huge. So it's four years, basically. So I was sixteen in sixty-eight.

• 7:25Bill Maher?

  Yeah, very different. And if you're sixteen in sixty-eight, the number one, where were you have?

• 7:32Speaker 02

  Was the draft.

• 7:32Bill Maher?

  Is the draft.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Which came up, and my number, then they had a lottery. My number was four, but I had a student deferment. So I was a student.

• 7:46Bill Maher?

  You and your fucking white privilege. How dare you even sit here and drink with me, you fascist. White privilege. Well, it actually was. I mean, you know, I mean, they overuse that phrase, but back in that day, it kind of was, like, you could. And not just that day, George Bush famously, the first, I mean, the second George Bush, famously. Was in the National Guard.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:16Bill Maher?

  When he could have gone to Vietnam and when he ran against John Kerry, he was always like, "Stop denigrating the Guard." And like, "We're not denigrating the Guard. We're denigrating you for having your congressman father pull strings and let you in the Guard."

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 8:34Bill Maher?

  Because the Guard was, you know, it wasn't the... When he was prosecuting the war in Iraq, he sent a lot of National Guards. But when he was in the National Guard, they didn't go to Vietnam.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  No.

• 8:48Bill Maher?

  Because we had a draft.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:50Bill Maher?

  Your background there, like in a place that was this sort of cross-currents. I feel like you get the... I mean, Denver, Colorado can be a redneck place.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, we left when I was six and we traveled around. It's like Chicago for two years, San Francisco area for one year, and then Connecticut. So I was 10 when I got to Connecticut. So a lot of my... I pretty much grew up in what you were saying, Connecticut. Darien, Connecticut.

• 9:24Bill Maher?

  Darien. Oh, I know the area well.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  You do?

• 9:27Bill Maher?

  Well, I was a pot... I was a pot dealer in college. I went from never smoking to dealing it in six months because it's certainly the best way to afford it. And my pot dealer, when I got out of college, I kept the... I started in college, but I kept the job because I had to... I was a comedian. How am I going to make a living? You know, like you have to... comedians are really great at like just figuring out ways to not work in the day and somehow survive. And that was my scam. Not a scam. I was an honest drug pot dealer. And I went to Westport, Connecticut.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Oh, well, to sell?

• 10:09Bill Maher?

  To buy.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  To buy?

• 10:11Bill Maher?

  To buy, to sell.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  There seemed to be like a lot of pot in my... in the area.

• 10:15Bill Maher?

  It was just lucky that there was this guy who I... It was introduced through a friend. And I think this guy's brother was in the mob. And he just got like tons of pot. And so the prices were great. He was just a sweet guy. I think he wanted people to come over and sit and smoke pot with him, you know, like drug dealers do.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:35Bill Maher?

  You have to like talk to the drug dealer for an hour.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Right. And you become their friend.

• 10:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 10:41Bill Maher?

  So I would go up there, you know, with my briefcase that my mother gave me for Christmas. Looked like a businessman's briefcase, dressed like, you know, I was 22 and had shitty clothes. I must have stood out, thinking my briefcase was gonna make me look like a businessman. I'd have like a $99 coat from Macy's that I was wearing. But I go there and I would fill that briefcase up with a couple of pounds of pot. And that's my, and bring it back to the city, take the train.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  And so you grew up in New York City?

• 11:12Bill Maher?

  No, I grew up in New Jersey, but then I was living in New York. After college, I moved into New York, dirt poor, living in shitholes. You know, you gotta start somewhere. Were you poor ever?

• 11:26Speaker 02

  I mean, just on my own, when I was just starting out, I was technically poor.

• 11:31Bill Maher?

  It's great. It's great when it's not, not great when it's happening. It's great when you look back and go, you know, cuz I never went to war. And there's nothing like bravery, the bravery of the soldier. Whoever else is brave, they say it about actors, you know. She's so brave, oh, fuck, she put on a fake nose for a movie. Okay, that's not exactly D-Day, you know, brave. But I'm glad I had something that I could look back and go, wow, that was a trial to get through those 10 years where I really was, you know, poor. Living in shitty places and worrying about every penny and scraping by. It makes everything after, don't you think, more?

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was pretty much here in L.A. during that period.

• 12:17Bill Maher?

  Why? Cuz you moved to Hollywood.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  After college, I went to college and my student deferment. And, yeah, ended up here and got a job in Beverly Hills.

• 12:28Bill Maher?

  But you came here because you wanted to be in show business?

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:30Bill Maher?

  Or you, you knew all right away?

• 12:32Speaker 02

  Filmmaking. I thought it, I thought of it as filmmaking, but now, now, today I realize it's just show business. It's like entertainment.

• 12:41Bill Maher?

  Well, it's both.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Both. And I worked for a comedian, Ken Shapiro.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  And he lived, he lived on Summit Ridge Drive. He made a film called The Groove Tube.

• 12:54Bill Maher?

  I know, with Richard Belzer.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:56Bill Maher?

  Who I started with.

• 12:57Speaker 02

  So that.

• 12:57Bill Maher?

  I mean, he was my mentor.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Right, so Ken and he were like, close.

• 13:01Bill Maher?

  The Groove Tube, of course.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:04Bill Maher?

  That was a legendary underground movie, but I get, I mean, we're talking about early seventies, right?

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Seventy-two, yeah.

• 13:11Bill Maher?

  And it was edgy comedy.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  It was like, just like Saturday Night Live, except it was a film. And.

• 13:17Bill Maher?

  Before Saturday Night Live?

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and Lorne Michaels worked for Ken as a screenwriter. When he was pitching Saturday Night Live.

• 13:25Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  And, and comedy did tend to have like, lots of different things, like spoofs and, um. In his, his case, he had the news and he had musical numbers and things like that.

• 13:37Bill Maher?

  Can we still see The Groove Tube?

• 13:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:39Bill Maher?

  If we.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  You can see it on YouTube, yeah.

• 13:43Bill Maher?

  How ironic.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah, cuz it was almost forecasting that. Yeah, I, I remember, Belzer, that was one of his big credits. When I used to bring him onstage at Catch a Rising Star.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:56Bill Maher?

  He was starring in The Groove Tube.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  And Chevy Chase.

• 14:01Bill Maher?

  And you were, you wrote on it?

• 14:02Speaker 02

  No, I thought I would write for him, maybe, um, but I just became a production assistant and he had a lot of comedians come in. He had a Paramount deal. And when Lorne Michaels went from LA, Lorne Michaels was writing one of the scripts called Ma Bell, which is about the phone, phone freaks.

• 14:25Bill Maher?

  Freaks?

• 14:26Speaker 02

  That were like, cracking into the phone system and like, calling the White House, you know, they, they.

• 14:33Bill Maher?

  You could do that then?

• 14:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, you could do funny tricks with the, with the phone and, and the guy they were writing about was, um, was hacking into the phone system, uh, headquarters and having them send him like trucks and telephone poles and like, you know, uh, uh, computer chips that he would sell to the rival phone companies.

• 14:55Bill Maher?

  Computer chips in nineteen seventy-two?

• 14:57Speaker 02

  Chips of whatever kinds of, uh, boards they had, you know?

• 15:01Bill Maher?

  Telegram chips.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, circuit boards. And he would sell those to Western Electric for big money. And, uh, he, so he was a millionaire at sixteen. So they were writing that script, which never was filmed. And Lorne Michaels got an OK to do at least one Saturday Night. That they were traveling and setting up Saturday Night Live. And he offered Ken to come with them to do it. And Ken had worked in New York TV for, since he was a child, since he was 10. He was on the.

• 15:38Bill Maher?

  And he turned this down?

• 15:39Speaker 02

  He turned it down. He had, as a 10-year-old, he was on the Milton Berle Show.

• 15:43Bill Maher?

  What a bad decision.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  It was.

• 15:45Bill Maher?

  It's like the guy, remember the guy who turned down the Beatles? He couldn't manage the Beatles.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  It was just like that.

• 15:49Bill Maher?

  I don't think these mop-top groups are going anywhere in the industry. Frankie, Avalon has a new hit record out that I think the kids are gonna go crazy for.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:00Bill Maher?

  They just, sometimes you just totally get it wrong. Is he still Rue the Day?

• 16:06Speaker 02

  He died from cancer, but.

• 16:09Bill Maher?

  Oh, well.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  He, he would watch Saturday Night Live. I would join him, watching every week. And some of the bits were hangovers from.

• 16:18Bill Maher?

  I'll bet.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Their previous period when they were, they had a storefront comedy theater. And so he was always saying, I'm gonna sue them for that, for that bit, or that. And.

• 16:29Bill Maher?

  It's always the roughest when they, because capitalism is just blood and tooth. It is as raw as it gets. They will fucking slit your throat. That's the nature of it. And great things do come out of it. It has provided more wealth and taken more people out of poverty than anything. It's not even close. But it is tooth and claw. And if you have an idea, they will steal it. If they, if they can get away with it at all, very brazenly. It's, it's tough, like if you're an inventor, because like, you almost don't wanna go for the patent because they'll find out about it and do it.

• 17:13Bill Maher?

  And they're a big company with lawyers and they'll just take it and do it before your thing. It's.

• 17:19Speaker 02

  For sure, yeah.

• 17:20Bill Maher?

  One of the rotten parts, but, I mean, after all, we are not communists.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  And it feels, maybe it feels good if somebody steals your stuff. It's worth stealing.

• 17:32Bill Maher?

  That's a very charitable way to look at it, because I am not as nice a person.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  I mean, if they steal your idea, they're never gonna be able to do it like you would do it. So they steal the concept.

• 17:40Bill Maher?

  That's true. That's true. When my show Politically Incorrect went on in 1993, there were a bunch of imitator shows, and I remember worrying about that. And my producer at the time, such a smart guy, he said to me one day, he said, "Bill, we can't teach people here how to do it, like the writers." And I was like, this was a very new concept. He said, "We're trying to tell them how to do it, and they don't get it." You know, they did eventually. But, so, you're right about that, but they also can just... It depends on the kind of idea, but yes.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 18:19Bill Maher?

  I mean, look at... in music, there's always these lawsuits about, "You stole my song." "That is my song, and you just put a tambourine on it," or whatever. And sometimes I hear it, and sometimes I don't. I mean, Robin Thicke got sued for doing Marvin Gaye with Blurred Lines. I never heard the similarity.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:41Bill Maher?

  And George Harrison famously got sued for My Sweet Lord, from the Shifans, "He's So Fun." I get that.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  But that's definitely similar. But then that, it was such a classic rock and roll song that it's just as almost...

• 18:56Bill Maher?

  But until they had the lawsuit, it never... I knew the song "He's So Fun," even though it's before my time, but it was an iconic song. But I never, when I was listening to My Sweet Lord, ever thought that. Once they said it, I heard it. To me, that's, you know, come on, man. It's like in football now with, you know, the replays. It's like, "The guy just made an amazing catch. Let him fucking have it." Do we have to go over this like this Apurta film? And like, throw shit out because it's not perfect? You know? But you've done well with the critics, don't you think? They... I feel like you're somebody who has gotten generally great notices.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:38Bill Maher?

  Because it's great work.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  The critics are the ones that probably saved me.

• 19:43Bill Maher?

  To Die For is To Die For.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  Awesome.

• 19:45Bill Maher?

  One of my all-time faves.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  Well Buck Henry.

• 19:49Bill Maher?

  Buck Henry wrote it, I know.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  He's good.

• 19:52Bill Maher?

  And if kids don't know, he also wrote The Graduate.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  The Graduate.

• 19:55Bill Maher?

  Just to give you an example of what his pedigree is.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was just watching The Graduate.

• 19:58Bill Maher?

  And it was on the first Saturday Night Live.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Oh, the first one?

• 20:01Bill Maher?

  Well, maybe the second.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  First season, yeah.

• 20:03Bill Maher?

  He was one of the first hosts.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  He loved it.

• 20:06Bill Maher?

  He's the one who was in the sketch, the famous Samurai sketch that John Belushi did.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:11Bill Maher?

  Belushi is Samurai-ing him.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  That's awesome.

• 20:14Bill Maher?

  Yeah, isn't that great? Is he still with us?

• 20:17Speaker 02

  No, he's not with us, but um, he, yeah, I was watching The Graduate and saw, you know, like, the style of comedy that was in To Die For. You could see his, like, imprint.

• 20:32Bill Maher?

  That film, what year is that film?

• 20:35Speaker 02

  Sixty-seven.

• 20:36Bill Maher?

  No, To Die For.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  To Die For, um, ninety...

• 20:43Bill Maher?

  Ninety?

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, ninety, um...

• 20:45Bill Maher?

  The nineties, though, wow.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Ninety-four, I think.

• 20:47Bill Maher?

  Holy fuck. I would not have guessed that long ago.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:52Bill Maher?

  Because it is, wow, then it's even more ahead of its time. Because, I mean, that media-hungry character, I feel like that only got more relevant.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:03Bill Maher?

  Not that it didn't exist then, obviously enough for you to do a great satire with it. But evermore, I mean, in the age of influencers. I mean, that's exactly what her mentality is, wouldn't you say?

• 21:16Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 21:17Bill Maher?

  You should redo it.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Before any of that happened, yeah. I guess it was sort of happening on cable, because cable allowed a lot of first-timers to do the weather and to start out, so they kind of had their version of TikTok on cable. But, um, yeah, now they're everywhere.

• 21:40Bill Maher?

  So what about redoing it, Gus? What do you think? We use Sabrina Carpenter, Nicole Kidman role, and she's married to Nick Fawenty.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Right, let's do it. Do you have any sources of money to do?

• 21:57Bill Maher?

  Yeah. What about crowdsourcing? I mean...

• 22:00Speaker 02

  That's what we've been doing, yeah.

• 22:02Bill Maher?

  No, literally, like...

• 22:03Speaker 02

  I mean, The Hundred Producers really is like a crowdsourced type thing.

• 22:08Bill Maher?

  So do you have to beg every single one of them?

• 22:12Speaker 02

  I mean, Noor helped us like find like, you know, probably twenty of them.

• 22:16Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  Because she was.

• 22:17Bill Maher?

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Mixing around and like.

• 22:21Bill Maher?

  That's, that's a.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  And, and making it sound like a really good, fun thing.

• 22:24Bill Maher?

  Perhaps the most essential part of the, you know, operation.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:30Bill Maher?

  You know, sometimes people say, you know, who's the most essential part of your operation? And I say, well, I'm about to be seventy, it's the makeup girl. And then they laugh. I'm like, I'm not kidding. It's the makeup girl, okay? Everything else, I have great help and great people, but I couldn't do it on my own like this. No, I'm just doing this. Not that it's, whatever it is, but, but makeup? No, no, no, no. That's, we, we need the good makeup girl and the good lighting and, you know, I mean, I. You know it's time to go and you can't even look good with lighting and makeup. There's a time to get off the stage and hopefully AI will solve that. I think it will. I've been saying for.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  On camera?

• 23:16Bill Maher?

  For decades that what they should have come up with, and maybe they will, is what I always called the thin mask. When you're thirty-five, they take a mask of your face. And then, when you're older.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  You wear the mask?

• 23:32Bill Maher?

  You're always thirty, like thirty-five.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 23:35Bill Maher?

  And it just fits on and it's just perfect, but it just, it's. And then you have the best of both worlds. You have the good brain that you get when you're older, the one that doesn't make all those unforced errors of your youth when you're fucking stupid, especially as a man. And you still look like you're thirty-five. I mean, can you imagine what a baller you could be then?

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it'd be amazing. People are trying it, just surgically, but.

• 24:02Bill Maher?

  But that, I mean.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  It's hard to make it work.

• 24:05Bill Maher?

  It's hard to make it work. I mean, I've seen it work. I think we all have, like, wow, that's very good. I mean, certainly Kris Jenner now is lauded. Like, she's the Rosa Parks of plastic surgery, you know? She somehow found this genius doctor and so she, okay. And she wears it proudly and it is a great, I mean, you know, it's as good a job as they can do. And a few other people it's worked for. Other people, it settles after about, you know, right away it looks terrible. But five years in, you're like, okay. But then you still gotta, you know,

• 24:47Bill Maher?

  for five years, you're a man and you look like a Chinese schoolgirl.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:52Bill Maher?

  Okay, wow, is that good? And then, okay, great, five years down the road. You know, it's the same with tits, you know? Not that you'd know.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  I wouldn't know.

• 25:03Speaker 00

  Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 25:37Speaker 03

  Check engine, ABS or maintenance light on? Take the guesswork out of your warning lights with O'Reilly Veriscan. The service is free and provides a report with solutions verified by ASE certified master technicians. And if you need help, we could recommend a shop for you. Ask for O'Reilly Veriscan today.

• 26:04Bill Maher?

  Never saw any tits?

• 26:06Speaker 02

  Never.

• 26:06Bill Maher?

  Never was interested, not even you?

• 26:09Speaker 02

  No, mildly interested, yeah.

• 26:10Bill Maher?

  Mildly?

• 26:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 26:13Bill Maher?

  When did you realize tits were not for you?

• 26:17Speaker 02

  Maybe Playboy magazine. I was like.

• 26:21Bill Maher?

  Like this isn't.

• 26:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was sort of thinking, I'm supposed to think, I'm supposed to really.

• 26:26Bill Maher?

  Playgirl.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  Playgirl, which was a little after my time.

• 26:32Bill Maher?

  My first, the very first press I ever got was Playgirl magazine. I was interviewed in Playgirl. I was thrilled that a magazine wanted to talk to me. And when it came out, you know, there's a table of contents page at the beginning of a magazine. So between each story, they had a little picture from the story. So there's my face from my interview. And right above me, there was the story about naked firemen. And there's a guy, and his dick is like coming right down almost into my picture. And I still have it, and I'm still very proud of it.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  That's cool.

• 27:11Bill Maher?

  Both the picture and the dick.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  I never saw, I didn't, wasn't really aware of Playgirl for, I was reading, I guess, National Lampoon or something like that.

• 27:19Bill Maher?

  Oh, that was my bible.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was amazing, right?

• 27:22Bill Maher?

  Oh, I mean, when I was younger, it was Mad magazine.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too.

• 27:28Bill Maher?

  Which.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  I had a subscription.

• 27:29Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I had a subscription. I still have the covers. I had, there's some covers here. There's one on the wall somewhere around here of a Mad magazine. Like, it was from the 60s, and of course, they're like, sort of making fun of the hippies. That was a new thing, you know? But also.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  And the blockbuster movies.

• 27:49Bill Maher?

  Blockbuster.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  They were, you know, do the cartoons about Mutiny on the.

• 27:53Bill Maher?

  Sure.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  Mutiny on the Bouncy, as they called it, which were hilarious.

• 27:58Bill Maher?

  And the fold-in, remember the Mad?

• 28:01Speaker 02

  The fold-in, yeah.

• 28:01Bill Maher?

  In the back? But it was, when, when I, I got to be the age where Lampoon came out. It was like perfect timing because I was ready to graduate from Mad, which, all respect to Mad, but it was not Lampoon. Lampoon was definitely a step up sophistication-wise and gutsy.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it was fantastic.

• 28:25Bill Maher?

  And not liberal, by the way. It took a, because it was, because really, if you look at something dispassionately with the most jaundiced eye, you're gonna find, as I do now, a lot of problems with liberalism, even though they're, I think they were basically liberal and I am too, but they didn't shy away from making fun of hippies and all that kinda stuff. That came along right when I needed that in my comedic.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  PJ Orrock.

• 28:55Bill Maher?

  PJ Orrock, I always say.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  And John Hughes, his pieces were very Samuel Beckett-like.

• 29:02Bill Maher?

  But PJ then became the editor, I mean, the main guy, and some, I still have those issues. I mean, the amount of really funny stuff they packed in was impressive, and he's also somebody whose DNA goes into Saturday Night Live, because Lampoon was also.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, they had.

• 29:21Bill Maher?

  Sourcing that, they had a.

• 29:22Speaker 02

  They had their plays, Woodstock, their Lemmings.

• 29:25Bill Maher?

  Yes, they also had, like, National Lampoon Off-Broadway.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:31Bill Maher?

  I have the album.

• 29:32Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, the albums were great.

• 29:34Bill Maher?

  Bill Murray is singing on it.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Chris Guest.

• 29:37Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 29:38Speaker 02

  With some.

• 29:39Bill Maher?

  And Michael O'Donoghue, I think was involved with that, and so, a lot of that just came straight through, and I was talking to Dana Carvey and David Spade, I was just saying, like, I have my issues with Lorne Michaels, but you cannot deny the, just the overwhelming influence that One Factory had on, I mean, the way it pipelined, like, almost all of our comedy movie people.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:09Bill Maher?

  From Eddie Murphy to Bill Murray and Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig and Tina Fey, I mean, everybody, you know, like.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Everybody, Will Ferrell.

• 30:18Bill Maher?

  For such a long time.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  And still today.

• 30:22Bill Maher?

  Still today, sure.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  Hanging in there.

• 30:24Bill Maher?

  And probably after he goes. The show still will be doing that. The show will survive.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  It'll probably crash right after he goes.

• 30:31Bill Maher?

  You think?

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Because of, I'm assuming, maybe unless somebody learns his, his nature, somehow Lauren himself seems to hold it all together, even through the thick and thin.

• 30:43Bill Maher?

  And you don't think anyone else can do that?

• 30:45Speaker 02

  I mean, I just think it's one of those magic things that like when the actual guy goes, they might feel like, why are we doing this? And you have to have that guy that's, because I want to do it.

• 30:58Bill Maher?

  I don't think so, because I think Lauren has anointed people like Tina Fey or Colin Jost, who does The Weeknd. They've been around a long time. They know his ways, they're respected. They, they kind of make, a succession does kind of make sense.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  I'll make, I'll make a bet.

• 31:17Bill Maher?

  Okay, great.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  Hundred dollars.

• 31:19Bill Maher?

  Oh, fantastic.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  How many years?

• 31:22Bill Maher?

  Well, you know, Gus, we're gonna be around for a very long time. So let's say in 25 years.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  That's too long.

• 31:27Bill Maher?

  When AI has its, no. Okay, let's say, well, I don't know, it depends on when he quits. He may never quit.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 31:33Bill Maher?

  Um, let's say, two years from when he quits.

• 31:37Speaker 02

  Okay, gotcha, hundred dollars.

• 31:39Bill Maher?

  Hundred dollars, which you're worth nothing then. It won't be worth the paper it's printed on. We'll be living in the Weimar Republic, Gus.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  That's a, six dollars.

• 31:50Bill Maher?

  No, I think the key to that show is casting. The way they are able to always replenish the well. Not, they don't go eight for eight. Nobody's terrible, but they just, they do find stars, people who, and you go, well, you're right. You, you know, whoever had that eye and said, oh, this, you know, guy, this comedian, woman is gonna be, and, and they, there's always people who you are like, oh, wow, what, Kate McKinnon, you know, came along and, and all the, and you're like, wow. Just amazing the way they do that. That, that is what will make that show live or die, I think, more than anything else.

• 32:34Bill Maher?

  Will they be able to, was he the one who actually did that? Or was there somebody, I don't know the answer to that question. But if there's somebody else who was doing it for him, or with him, or could do it without him, the show will go on. If not, I don't think it will. I feel it's probably him or his wife. I think he has a great sense of like people who are funny but also have a likability. You know, Bill Hader, I mean, I could go on with all the people who really came out and I just were just a joy to watch. And Blue Sheep almost was almost fired. Right, the first crew, you know, I mean, so I don't know. I don't know what was with that first crew because like Bill Murray and Chevy Chase.

• 33:20Bill Maher?

  Both genius comics in their own right, but both have terrible reputations. Just like, like you do not want to be on a set with this asshole. And, you know, I don't, I, I, that's so odd that both of them would be on the same show at the same time and then become that person. I don't know why, but, you know, I'm sure you've been on your share of sets with people who are, you know, I mean. Don't get along. I mean, look, I, I was on acting sets for about 10 years in the 80s when all us young comics came out and were on sitcoms.

• 33:59Bill Maher?

  And we thought that's the way to get ahead, silly movies and, and I don't remember any set where there wasn't some blow up or some, people are so on such a hair trigger, you know, that's their instrument. I don't have to tell you about their instrument because I'm sure you hear about it from them all the time. And it's true, you know, they want to tap into an emotional thing. A lot of times they, they keep themselves unhappy. That's why you never want to go out with an actress. Yeah. You know, you don't want her doing Sophie's Choice and coming home with that chick, you know, it's not going to be. I can't get in the mood tonight. I had to cut a baby in half.

• 34:40Bill Maher?

  But a set is sort of like a, a boiling pit anywhere. It's always ready to, I feel like it's always ready to explode. Yeah. And a little thing like you're in my eye line and then you're. I, I don't really experience that when I'm shooting. Oh, good. Maybe because.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  I don't know why. I mean, I have. Cause you're nice. I have exploded on a set, but. You have? Yeah, but I have never seen. No, I've never talked to you before and you're a delight to talk to, but I, you just don't, I can't see you exploding. I can explode. Really? Well, when it really gets, I guess. And what would make you explode? Maybe when the actors are, um. Unprepared? No, not like, nothing like that.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  Arrogant. Or if they just, they, there are certain actors that I've, I've had a couple of times, very rarely. Would that need you to explode or else they're not gonna be happy. Wow. So they, they keep misbehaving just so you explode and as soon as you explode, they're like really happy. And so I go, oh, that was it? Which ones? I'm not gonna say. Come on. Some of the early ones that you wouldn't know. Matt Dillon? No, no, no, not, uh, not films that you would have seen. Oh. Well, Malinoches, you know this? Who? Malinoches was my first film. No. So there was a lead actor.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  You know, it was a very low budget film. It was a $20,000 film. So the lead actor, it's on Criterion, you can see it. It's a film that exists. But he, Tim Streeter, he, um, he was from the theater and his friends had told him, look, you know this filmmaker, he's never, the filmmaker is never gonna finish it. He's just wasting your time. You? Me. The filmmaker, yeah. And so he acted like that for, you know, a week or something like that, until finally I was, um.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  He was trying to like make a car like hit a mark, which is always really hard. And I was saying, no, just right, line it up with the, with the rock that's on, next to the tire, you know, that kind of stuff. Until finally I was throwing rocks at his head because he was complaining. And it was from the day of before and the day before, the day before. Throwing rocks at his head? Yeah, through the open window of the, of the car and didn't hit him. My aim wasn't good and he had to get out. Could have taken a different turn. And run away because I was still throwing the rocks. And then I was like, oh my God, now my actor is gonna quit. And I found him in an orchard. I sort of doubled around so I would like not, I would corral him.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  And I stopped him and I said, "I'm so, so sorry." And he was like, "No, it's great. It's fine. It's great." And I was like, "You're kidding. You're happy now?" He's like, "Yeah, yeah." And I was like, "All right, okay."

• 37:42Bill Maher?

  What a gangster you are. We didn't know all this side of you.

• 37:46Speaker 02

  I mean, you would have probably done the same thing.

• 37:48Bill Maher?

  Are you also telling me that you've seen this syndrome again?

• 37:54Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:55Bill Maher?

  Fuck.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  But it's usually the actors that I think they need that, the certain, just...

• 38:01Bill Maher?

  But what is the psychological providence of that? I've never heard of such a...

• 38:06Speaker 02

  They have to see the director is committed.

• 38:09Bill Maher?

  Committed?

• 38:10Speaker 02

  You know what I mean?

• 38:10Bill Maher?

  So it's commitment issues?

• 38:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:12Bill Maher?

  Ah.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  So I don't see like I'm committed, like when I'm directing.

• 38:16Bill Maher?

  Is it always men who do it, or women too?

• 38:18Speaker 02

  So far, yeah, just...

• 38:20Bill Maher?

  That's interesting.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Maybe not, maybe not. I can't remember if women do that, but, um, yeah.

• 38:28Bill Maher?

  Well, I guess a director is kind of a daddy role.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have to be the dad.

• 38:33Bill Maher?

  You're the dad.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  I'm not a very good dad.

• 38:35Bill Maher?

  And discipline is love. One reason kids are so fucked up today is because we forgot that very essential part of human nature. To a child, discipline, not over-discipline, not beating them and shit, but discipline translates as love. And you have to be able to take your child's wrath, because they will be mad at you, and just take it. Modern parents are such pussies that they can't handle that. They can't handle their kid being mad at them. So they're constantly coddling them and mollifying them and kissing their ass and pretending they're just shorter adults whose opinions are just as valid, certainly worthy of debate.

• 39:18Bill Maher?

  And they're not. They're stupid. They're like dogs. They're children. To me, that's like the providence of all our cultural slide. Is that parents just fucked up their kids. And by the way, fucked up their own life. Because when you spoil your kid, now your life is fucked. Because you're their chauffeur, you're just always over them. You have no free time. They come first always. My parents weren't like that. I doubt if yours were in that era, right? Were you free range?

• 39:51Speaker 02

  No, I mean, there was discipline.

• 39:54Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, like Orson Welles used to fire somebody on the first day in front of everybody. So it was the script person or the DP or so he would fire them loudly.

• 40:07Bill Maher?

  Just scare the shit out of everyone.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  So everyone would see and then they like continue.

• 40:11Bill Maher?

  That's kind of brilliant. I mean, not good for the, but again, you know, capitalism. I mean, what's, what's, what's more important? That a script girl got her feelings hurt, I feel bad. Or, but we have Citizen Kane now.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:27Bill Maher?

  Or, what do you think of Citizen Kane? I, I, I watch it like every five years, hoping to find, not that it's bad, it's good. But hoping to find the thing in it that has always landed in it. Like the number one greatest of all time.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  And you don't see it.

• 40:44Bill Maher?

  I don't, I don't see it, do you?

• 40:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I saw it when I was.

• 40:49Bill Maher?

  No, do you see the thing that makes it that great? You do, tell me what it is.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  I do because, but I started by watching it in, when I was 14 in English class. So we were, you know, watching a movie in English class, which is kind of like goofing off. You know, you get to see a movie.

• 41:06Bill Maher?

  We didn't do that.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  I know, it was a progressive class.

• 41:10Bill Maher?

  Fuck.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  And I think it was simple enough, like the, you know, the idea that there was this, this word that he said when he died, that this, you're gonna spend the whole, the whole movie looking for the secret and that nobody finds it, but you see the. Spoiler alert, it's led at the end. And you're like, oh, it's like his childhood was, you know, it's answered. The question is answered, but only you know, the audience had a lot of charm to it. And as a kid.

• 41:38Bill Maher?

  No, that's definitely a great part.

• 41:39Speaker 02

  And then all the, all the things in between, the characterizations and him playing at 25 years old, playing like all these different ages.

• 41:47Bill Maher?

  And also the Romano clay, that it's really William Randolph Hearst.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, plus the real, the reality behind, yeah, exactly. That's amazing.

• 41:56Bill Maher?

  I mean, some of it is taken right from Hearst's biography, you know, you give me the, I'll give you the war if you give me whatever they said about the Spanish.

• 42:07Speaker 02

  And then Rosebud was secretly on the DL, you know, on the down, on the down low.

• 42:12Bill Maher?

  Who was?

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Well, the name Rosebud was the name of his lover's vagina that he had a pet name.

• 42:20Bill Maher?

  Orson Welles?

• 42:21Speaker 02

  No, no, Hearst.

• 42:23Bill Maher?

  Randolph Hearst?

• 42:24Speaker 02

  So it's just a little jab.

• 42:25Bill Maher?

  Which one? The one who's portrayed in the movie, the movie girl?

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, Marion Davies.

• 42:30Bill Maher?

  Marion Davies?

• 42:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:31Bill Maher?

  And, and she wasn't that, I mean, the way he, they had her in the movie, she wasn't like the greatest piece of ass of all time. What was it that like enraptured him to her so much?

• 42:43Speaker 02

  Well, it was Rosebud, it was her vagina.

• 42:44Bill Maher?

  Oh, the pussy. She had like the magic pussy. Some chicks do.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Which is within the movie and within the jibe to Hearst, who was like, you know, our Elon Musk or something.

• 42:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  It just seemed so.

• 42:58Bill Maher?

  Or Rupert Murdoch.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  Subversive. Well, at nine years old, I didn't know that part of it, or at 14 years old.

• 43:07Bill Maher?

  But you quickly rejected it.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  But I think that, I think that people now, like younger filmmakers can't quite get, it's, it's slipping off the list of number one pictures, like my, our age could appreciate 30, 30s movies, late 30s movies.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  And the kids now are like just uh.

• 43:33Bill Maher?

  But I watch old movies frequently and some of them do not hold up.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 43:39Bill Maher?

  I mean, I was recently watching both What's Up Doc, which was a remake of Bringing Up Baby. And then watched, tried to watch Bringing Up Baby. It's, it's, it's, I've said it before, but it's a heavy lift to bring nineteen thirty-five to twenty twenty-five. It just is. It's a century almost. And the remake in seventy-two or whatever with Peter Bogdanovich did it with Streisand and Ryan O'Neal is fantastic. It's fantastic. And that, yeah. And that's already, that's a seventy-two, that's a very old movie, but not as old. And, and, and still sings with contemporary music. The other one, you know, it was just too.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  Dyes.

• 44:25Bill Maher?

  Too ancient. But some of them, like Sunset Boulevard, totally holds up.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:30Bill Maher?

  Crackly, dialogue, cynicism.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Wilder, yeah.

• 44:33Bill Maher?

  Yeah, Billy Wilder.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  Really had it.

• 44:36Bill Maher?

  You know, You Can't Ever Get Me Off Gone With The Wind.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 44:41Bill Maher?

  You don't like it?

• 44:44Speaker 02

  It's one of those movies that I, well, I haven't seen it recently, so maybe I have to see it again, see whether it holds up. It's, um, it's, it has really good things about it that I like.

• 44:55Bill Maher?

  Wasn't Scarlett a kind of a gay icon?

• 44:58Speaker 02

  No, I don't think so.

• 44:59Bill Maher?

  Scarlett O'Hara?

• 45:00Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 45:00Bill Maher?

  I think.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  Judy Garland.

• 45:03Bill Maher?

  Judy Garland, we know. Chair and Streisand.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  Not the gay world, I traveled in.

• 45:08Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 45:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:09Bill Maher?

  I thought she was, because, you know, she was like Survivor.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:13Bill Maher?

  You know, like, I will never starve again.

• 45:16Speaker 02

  That's true. She should be. She should be.

• 45:19Bill Maher?

  Research it. I think, I used to, I think, I think she kind of was.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  There's so many strong, like, female leads that are gay icons always, you know, like for every.

• 45:28Bill Maher?

  She's the perfect one, though.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, she probably is.

• 45:32Bill Maher?

  Although, you know, maybe, maybe it's because she's kind of a cunt. Like, the, the, the movie really doesn't make sense because she's, she pines for the stiff.

• 45:44Bill Maher?

  That Ashley Wilkes, who's like about as sexy as oatmeal.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  Ashley.

• 45:50Bill Maher?

  As someone once said of Doris Day.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 45:53Bill Maher?

  And she's married to the bad boy. She should be married to the stiff and pining for the bad boy. That makes sense.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  Maybe that's why I didn't like it that much. As much.

• 46:05Bill Maher?

  But it just shows charisma and smart, snappy dialogue of very talented, good-looking, charismatic guy can make up for a lot. There's lots of movies that make no sense. Casablanca makes no sense.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  Frankly, I don't give a damn.

• 46:22Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Which isn't as snappy today, but.

• 46:26Bill Maher?

  Well, in 1939.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, unbelievable, yeah.

• 46:30Bill Maher?

  It was, they had to put it as the last line in the movie. The word damn, because otherwise people would have walked out. So they put it at the very end when they're walking out anyway, which was kind of, that's so fucking gangster doing that. Like, OK, we're gonna get this in. But yeah, can you imagine how, again, to ask a movie from 1935 to be relevant or interesting today, when we're talking about an era when the word damn was so outrageous that people would leave a theater? That's a big gap.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  It is.

• 47:06Bill Maher?

  To try to bridge. Did you ever do a period piece?

• 47:10Speaker 02

  No, let's see. I think I was always stuck in the 70s. Most of the films were in the 70s.

• 47:17Bill Maher?

  I guess that's a lot more work.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Dead Man's Wire is the 70s.

• 47:21Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  But, no, I never, you know, I haven't ever done a period piece and I wonder if I ever will. Probably at this point I won't, but.

• 47:31Bill Maher?

  So, yeah, Dead Man's Wire is what years? Because you could tell by the.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  77.

• 47:36Bill Maher?

  77. So I was 21. I was at Cornell. I was not happy. But I didn't think about putting a shotgun to my head.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:49Bill Maher?

  But I don't remember that story. See, when you-

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, me neither. I think that it was probably-

• 47:54Bill Maher?

  Oh, you don't remember it at the time?

• 47:56Speaker 02

  No.

• 47:57Bill Maher?

  Somebody brought this to you and-

• 47:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think if you're reading, scouring the papers, it would be in the papers, but-

• 48:02Bill Maher?

  Today, it would be the most viral thing in the world. A guy with a shotgun?

• 48:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:07Bill Maher?

  Like, attached to his head because another guy, Luigi- Because I, the first thing I thought of was Luigi Mangione.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:15Bill Maher?

  Which is so relevant today. I mean, I hope your movie company is advertising it that way because-

• 48:20Speaker 02

  Kind of.

• 48:21Bill Maher?

  They should. It's like, this was Luigi before Luigi. This is a guy-

• 48:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:27Bill Maher?

  Fucked over by the system and money and the people with the, who have the money. And again, capitalism. It's not an untrue critic, criticism. Capitalism does fuck people. It's the, it's the nature of it.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  And the mortgage comp- I mean, real estate in general is, you know, favored by the government because it's some progress.

• 48:50Speaker 00

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like, offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone. And including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal. Network freedom and flexibility, that's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding.

• 49:34Speaker 00

  Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 49:51Speaker 02

  Building.

• 49:52Bill Maher?

  Look, look at just, in our business, how many people- Have had to to get the money the studio owed them sue them. Like this almost.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  Audit them.

• 50:06Bill Maher?

  And sue.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  And sue.

• 50:07Bill Maher?

  You know, it's almost like accepted that they're just not going to give you the money they rightfully owe you. They're gonna have accountants and fucking asshole lawyers.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  Have you have you audited and actually had cash come just pouring out or sued?

• 50:22Bill Maher?

  No, cuz I'm not in your business. I'm a salaried employee mostly, you know, but in the movie business, you can have points and such. Such and and so even if the movie is a big hit, they will find a way to say, well, it wasn't, you know, we we had to spend money on. Whatever it is, they're lying and then you sue them and then you get your money, but. That's again.

• 50:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:49Bill Maher?

  The nature of our system is just like.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, the movie business is like that.

• 50:53Bill Maher?

  It's dog eat dog. It's a kind of a recapitulation of nature, you know, I mean, if I was God and inventing. The universe and life, I don't think I'd have the system be, well, everything's trying to kill each other. That's the nature of it. When when I eat meat and I am a Peter person, but. When I do, I don't feel that bad because it's not like I'm doing something to an animal that they don't do to each other.

• 51:25Bill Maher?

  But why design a system where like everything is always trying to kill each other? If you're starting from scratch, you know, why the Hunger Games for everything out there? The hawk is trying to eat the mouse and the mouse is trying to eat the lizard and the lizard is trying to eat the.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's just. The way it happens if you just let it go.

• 51:46Bill Maher?

  It's the worst system.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:49Bill Maher?

  It's just why it's cruel.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  But even the little, if you look at um, single cell organisms, they're trying to eat each other.

• 51:57Bill Maher?

  They are?

• 51:57Speaker 02

  Like, yeah.

• 51:58Bill Maher?

  Are you sure?

• 51:58Speaker 02

  Amoebas, yeah, they're like biting and like consuming each other.

• 52:03Bill Maher?

  Really? I didn't think.

• 52:06Bill Maher?

  I guess, how does it get nutrients? By, by, so they're cann-

• 52:10Speaker 02

  I mean, maybe there's other ways, but like-

• 52:12Bill Maher?

  So you're saying amoebas are cannibals? They'll eat their, their own-

• 52:15Speaker 02

  I mean, in certain cases, I don't think, I don't know if every, every, um, single cell organisms are cannibals, but certainly some of them are.

• 52:26Bill Maher?

  And what's your religious take, if that's not too personal? I mean, do you have a religion? Are you an atheist, agnostic, are you spiritual?

• 52:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have a take.

• 52:35Bill Maher?

  Yeah. What do you-

• 52:37Speaker 02

  I mean, I might as well, at my, um, my take is that we, we aren't smart enough ourselves to figure it out, to know what it is.

• 52:48Bill Maher?

  That's exactly my take.

• 52:49Speaker 02

  Everybody's trying to figure it out. But you never, you won't, because as soon as you die, it's like, oh, that's what's going on.

• 52:56Bill Maher?

  Whatever you think it could be, it's not gonna be that.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  It's just not gonna be us figuring it out.

• 52:59Bill Maher?

  I could not agree more. I say it all the time, that religious people have this imagination, this thought in their head, that there's, I picture a wall, and on the other side of the wall is the answer to what happens when you die. And if they just jump a little higher, they'll see over the wall. But they don't realize that the wall is a million miles high.

• 53:19Speaker 02

  I feel like I am an agnostic. I think that there is something.

• 53:22Bill Maher?

  It's the same thing as an atheist. It is.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  It's very similar, yeah.

• 53:25Bill Maher?

  Yeah, well, atheists don't-

• 53:27Speaker 02

  But atheists are saying there isn't anything.

• 53:29Bill Maher?

  No, atheists are not, atheists, it's just, as Dawkins says, atheism just means atheism. It's just, you are theists, you believe in gods. We don't, it doesn't mean-

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Without atheism.

• 53:42Bill Maher?

  We're saying we know. We're just saying, we don't do that. And he always says, you know, in ancient times, they believed in hundreds of gods, and then it got down to one, and we just took away that last one.

• 53:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 53:58Bill Maher?

  But, uh, but a lot of your stuff is about mortality. I mean, you, you do seem to think, even including this last one, is really, again, a guy with a shotgun to his head. It's, it's like, you, you do seem to think about death a lot in your pictures. No?

• 54:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:14Bill Maher?

  Am I wrong about that?

• 54:15Speaker 02

  I do, I think, as a convention, as a, um-

• 54:23Speaker 02

  You know, a conflict that the characters have to face. It's compelling as a story device. And it's also, I think, compelling in life, you know, like in general. But so that's probably why. I don't think it's by design either. I think I've adapted a lot of pieces that are by people that are thinking about death, not necessarily myself.

• 54:52Bill Maher?

  I mean, I was gonna say, the older we get, the more it's on our mind. But then I realized, no, wait a second. I thought about death more and a lot in a much more serious way when I was 19. When I was first off to college and my life sucked. And no girls, no, it was cold, you know, new place, no friends, really. It was just bleak. And of course, if I could have gotten laid once, I would have stopped being suicidal. But, I mean, death was on my mind in a way it hasn't been since. And that's young. So it kind of is never not on your mind.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  Like the Woody Allen movie where the, you know, seven-year-old is upset. And they ask him why. And he says, the universe is expanding. He says, don't talk about stuff like that. That mom gets mad.

• 55:42Bill Maher?

  It's him as a seven-year-old.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:44Bill Maher?

  I think that's in radio days.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:47Bill Maher?

  He was here recently.

• 55:48Speaker 02

  Really?

• 55:49Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 55:49Speaker 02

  Oh, cool.

• 55:52Bill Maher?

  What a, what a...

• 55:54Speaker 02

  He's funny.

• 55:55Bill Maher?

  Prolific. Yo, so funny. I mean, you ever listen to those early albums? Really funny.

• 56:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean...

• 56:01Bill Maher?

  Do you remember when he came on the scene? Because you would have been around that age. That would be very interesting.

• 56:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, he was, he was really popular in the 60s.

• 56:10Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  He represented like...

• 56:12Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 56:12Speaker 02

  Hippie culture, kind of.

• 56:13Bill Maher?

  There was three artists who came about almost at the exact same time, all of whom Streisand, Bob Dylan, and Woody Allen. All of whom were, I don't think people can imagine. Yeah, you can. Taylor Swift certainly was on that level. But like, really took over pop culture and changed it. And a couple of years after that, Muhammad Ali in sports. I don't know if people know, I mean, again, this is a little before my time to understand it while it was happening, but soon after I was, it wasn't that long ago that I could, oh, wow, that was so cool, and Muhammad Ali was cool to me, and it was a very fervent

• 56:54Bill Maher?

  time for like, and Kennedy in office was a very big breath of fresh air.

• 57:00Speaker 02

  The youngsters were taking over. Kennedy being youngish.

• 57:04Bill Maher?

  Yes, but I feel like took over and made it better, maybe that's my nostalgia, whereas, I don't know if I would trust the young people to take over today. I mean, I don't know if I can.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  And they will, anyway.

• 57:21Bill Maher?

  Well, they probably have already, I mean, you know, it's inevitable, but they have some just really screwy ideas. I mean, when I see them marching with the kafiyas for Hamas and like, wow, you somehow found your way to championing the most oppressive people in the world in the name of how much you hate oppression. And like, I don't know if I can trust that mind that learned everything on TikTok to take over. And it's one reason why, by the way, the Democrats get accused of being geriatric, Nancy Pelosi and Biden, yeah, they are. And part of it is because they don't trust their own young people.

• 58:03Bill Maher?

  The young people on the left are kind of crazy. The young ones on the right are just like, I mean, they're goofballs, they're bros, you know, like, love macho shit, like blowing up boats, but yeah, they're dangerous, but there is a kookiness on the left.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  What is, like, Manjuni?

• 58:25Bill Maher?

  Like that, yeah. I mean, they, they think communism is worth another try, because again, they didn't learn anything in school. The schools failed them, stopped teaching them shit. Whatever they get through TikTok is filtered through somebody's agenda. Maybe China, maybe, you know, just some woke people, maybe on other sites like Trump's Truth Social. It's the other way. It's just MAGA things. Nobody's getting the full story. So, you know, I don't, what's swimming around in their brain was not shaped by the school system dispassionately as it was in our day.

• 59:07Bill Maher?

  I mean, I don't remember any politics in school. They were not indoctrinating me into anything at any level, including at Cornell. Just teaching me, just educating me.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  What about the other students, though? Were they opposed to the war and getting dropped?

• 59:28Bill Maher?

  You know, that's the, interesting you say that. It's the one moment I remember where there was a little politics. There was, I had a history teacher, Mr. Jaeger, or Jaeger, I forget. But we kind of knew he was kind of like a Bill O'Reilly, you know, kind of, that's how I think of him, you know, conservative and, but again, it was very, it was not overt. And there was a, there was a mass demonstration or something against the Vietnam War in 1969. And I think we were talking about it in class, which we didn't used to do, but it's, somehow it came up

• 1:00:08Bill Maher?

  and we could tell he cast a dim view of protesting what the government was doing in Vietnam. But that's about the only-

• 1:00:17Speaker 02

  What about McCarthy? McCarthyism?

• 1:00:19Bill Maher?

  Joseph McCarthy?

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:21Bill Maher?

  Well, that's-

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  And Roy Cohn and-

• 1:00:23Bill Maher?

  I mean, that's way before my time.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  But I mean, we could have studied that or we would know about it in school.

• 1:00:29Bill Maher?

  I don't remember ever studying it. But you can only imagine that something like that today could never be studied dispassionately. Somebody would be like, Whittaker Chambers, blah, blah, blah. And the other one would be like, who was the other guy? Whittaker Chambers and the guy who had the secrets in the pumpkin. Remember that whole scandal?

• 1:00:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:55Bill Maher?

  Oh, the Rosenbergs, you know, the same era.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  They just, yeah, they seemed like shafted by Roy Cohn.

• 1:01:04Bill Maher?

  You think? So you think the Rosenbergs did not pass secrets to the Russians?

• 1:01:09Speaker 02

  I think that, yeah, I think that just knowing Roy Cohn, no. Or knowing about Roy Cohn, I never knew him personally, but.

• 1:01:19Bill Maher?

  Did you see The Apprentice?

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:01:21Bill Maher?

  So great, right?

• 1:01:22Speaker 02

  That's really great.

• 1:01:23Bill Maher?

  That's a great movie and a great portrayal. I mean, usually, now that is a fun movie, even if the performances weren't so great, which they both were, but normally, I can't enjoy a movie if there's just a great performance. You know?

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, you need the context of the performance.

• 1:01:50Bill Maher?

  To me, it's like a guitar solo. It's like, it's gotta be, I like the song.

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  You need the song, yeah, of course.

• 1:01:55Bill Maher?

  But I feel like.

• 1:01:57Speaker 02

  I don't think there is such a thing as just a great performance.

• 1:02:00Bill Maher?

  What do you mean?

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  A movie that is known for only the performance without like what the performer is supposedly performing.

• 1:02:08Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that it has to have a basis. I mean, it could be something simple, but.

• 1:02:13Bill Maher?

  Bet you I could find one, but you may be right. I mean, Lenny, that Dustin Hoffman did, I thought was a great performance. I don't think it was a great.

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  The movie wasn't a good movie.

• 1:02:24Bill Maher?

  You're right.

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  You know, actually, I don't think that. Fortunately, Dustin Hoffman, who's still alive.

• 1:02:30Bill Maher?

  You say unfortunately, that he's still alive?

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  Unfortunately, no, no, no. He's still alive.

• 1:02:36Bill Maher?

  Oh, I thought you had beef with him.

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  Unfortunately, he's not funny. He's funny like as a character in The Graduate, but he can't deliver a joke.

• 1:02:45Bill Maher?

  But to me.

• 1:02:46Speaker 02

  In Lenny.

• 1:02:47Bill Maher?

  That is.

• 1:02:47Speaker 02

  So every single time.

• 1:02:49Bill Maher?

  You're right.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  He's going, I liked it. And it's not funny. When Lenny does it, it's fantastic.

• 1:02:55Bill Maher?

  As a comedian.

• 1:02:56Speaker 02

  Because you have that footage of Lenny really doing it.

• 1:02:58Bill Maher?

  We hate it when people play comedians because you can't play it. It always looks bad. You're right. But.

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  But the context of Lenny also was kind of fabulous that he was trying to just allow language to live. And in the open, as opposed to like the six, seven words.

• 1:03:19Bill Maher?

  He's a great pioneer. I stand upon his shoulders.

• 1:03:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:23Bill Maher?

  The fact that I could have spent my life traveling around this country saying whatever the fuck I wanted in theaters from Mobile, Alabama to Maine, and nobody ever threatened to barge into that auditorium and arrest me because I was saying pussy and cunt and fuck and fuck Trump or whatever it was, that I owe to somebody. And if people don't know, that was not the case in the sixties. He was arrested nine times. I think he had six trials. I mean, he was always fighting the law.

• 1:03:59Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:04:00Bill Maher?

  I mean, we basically had blasphemy laws. It's crazy.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  On his own, too. He just, he was the one man.

• 1:04:05Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  Ban, kind of.

• 1:04:07Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:07Speaker 02

  Decided that these words should be said.

• 1:04:10Bill Maher?

  And thoughts, not just words, concepts.

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:04:14Bill Maher?

  Questioning religion and, nobody talked about, you know, sex, sex in a raw way, like anal sex. That was just something that, even the edgiest comic, and certainly Morty Gunty and Jackie Mason were not talking about fisting and, you know, and he just went.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  And he did.

• 1:04:33Bill Maher?

  Where everyone, where no man feared tread, you know?

• 1:04:36Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:04:37Bill Maher?

  He was, but funny, you know?

• 1:04:42Speaker 02

  I mean, just the performance of Dustin as Lenny, but then Lenny himself was just innately, I mean, he, maybe he learned how to be that way, but he, he was definitely funny. Delivery.

• 1:04:57Bill Maher?

  You think Lenny Bruce was?

• 1:04:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:59Bill Maher?

  See, when I've listened to the records, the pacing is so different than today. Again, times, they just change, they do folk. It's just so much slower before he gets to something sometimes. And we have been trained, including me, I think, and certainly the way I did comedy, you know, I would just never let that long a time elapse.

• 1:05:25Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:05:25Bill Maher?

  Before I got to something that was making people laugh.

• 1:05:27Speaker 02

  But, and towards the end, he's reading his transcripts from.

• 1:05:31Bill Maher?

  And then there's that.

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  There's that.

• 1:05:33Bill Maher?

  That's.

• 1:05:33Speaker 02

  But he's definitely was fast.

• 1:05:36Bill Maher?

  He was?

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, depending on which, which recording. But just reading the, the book.

• 1:05:43Speaker 02

  Lenny Bruce, ladies and gentlemen, Lenny Bruce.

• 1:05:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  Is like just the history of the, you know, New York comedy scene and all the bars and the guys that owned the bars and the comedians that like Danger Feels and the comedians that they were stealing from, you know, their material from, the table comics that couldn't go on the stage, but like Lenny could learn from them and like actually present them on, you know, impersonate them. He might not have had like his own funny soul, but he adapted it, you know, and in that book they're sort of describing him coming back from San Francisco and all of a sudden he was this full-blown comedian.

• 1:06:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah, he was a rock star to a certain group, but I feel like in that era, again, we're talking about late 50s, you know, you know, that, I mean, he was, you know, sort of the John the Baptist for the ones who came a little later, like Woody Allen, who became the stars.

• 1:06:48Speaker 02

  But then in the 50s it would be like jazz and then like a comic and then some more jazz, you know, they would like trade off. The comics were always kind of there.

• 1:06:57Bill Maher?

  Yeah, the beatniks, weren't the beatniks.

• 1:06:59Speaker 02

  Like Duranty, people like that.

• 1:07:00Bill Maher?

  Who, Jimmy Duranty?

• 1:07:01Speaker 02

  Jimmy Duranty, yeah.

• 1:07:02Bill Maher?

  Was what?

• 1:07:03Speaker 02

  He'd be onstage, you know, between the jazz acts.

• 1:07:06Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:07:06Speaker 02

  You know, and the jazz, the comic comedian club or the jazz clubs were, you know, partly like comedy. And then the beatniks weren't even, they were maybe listening to the jazz, but they didn't seem to figure into the comedy.

• 1:07:22Bill Maher?

  There was a show called Dobie Gillis.

• 1:07:24Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:25Bill Maher?

  You remember that?

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  Yes, really well.

• 1:07:27Bill Maher?

  Okay, that was just when I first was watching TV. I didn't think I got it all and maybe it was on a little too late for me, but my recollection was College Kids and there was a character, Maynard G. Krebs, played by Bob Denver, who later became Gilligan.

• 1:07:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:44Bill Maher?

  And I think he was the beatnik, right?

• 1:07:46Speaker 02

  He was the hip, yeah, the hipster beatnik, yeah.

• 1:07:49Bill Maher?

  And that was like, you know, it was like, when you look at it, we're talking about 59, 60 or something like that, like that was this weird new thing and you could see that there was this. In a new generation, you know, just the seeds of an idea that ten years later with the hippies.

• 1:08:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:08Bill Maher?

  Then it would full flower, you know, free love and the women's movement and, I mean, certainly when I was first, you know, thinking about girls.

• 1:08:20Bill Maher?

  Free love was just like a really new thing.

• 1:08:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:24Bill Maher?

  Like, they would, like, really, you could, you could fuck this girl without marrying her? You know, it was a very new, exciting idea.

• 1:08:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:32Bill Maher?

  Very exciting to me, because I wanted to both fuck and not marry.

• 1:08:36Speaker 02

  Love the one you're with.

• 1:08:37Bill Maher?

  Love the one you're with, yes.

• 1:08:40Speaker 02

  Lyrics to like Jefferson Airplane or something.

• 1:08:42Bill Maher?

  No, no, that's Stephen Stills.

• 1:08:44Speaker 02

  Stephen Stills.

• 1:08:45Bill Maher?

  Okay, I think, maybe with Buffalo Springfield.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:08:48Bill Maher?

  Something like that. Well, you must, you were at an age when you could have actually, so you could have gone to Woodstock. I was thirteen, I couldn't.

• 1:08:56Speaker 02

  I was on my way, I was sixteen.

• 1:08:58Bill Maher?

  No, you were gonna go to Woodstock?

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I had a job in New York and I couldn't leave until Friday afternoon. And by Friday afternoon, it was a national, it was a disaster area. And the, the forces, you know, the president was flying in food and water because, and we were still gonna go. My friend and I were gonna hop in a car and drive to Woodstock, which was only a couple of hours from Connecticut.

• 1:09:24Bill Maher?

  But sixteen?

• 1:09:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:27Bill Maher?

  You could, what, you didn't ask your mother, or you didn't have to, or she said, go?

• 1:09:30Speaker 02

  Well, no, they said, you're not going there, you're not, and on the news, you could see the footage of like the sea of people. And we said, well, we're gonna meet, you know, Jim and Tim, they're in front of the stage, we gotta meet them. And my parents were just refused to let us go. So we listened to the parents, because we thought, yeah, it is kind of like an odd, you know, natural disaster.

• 1:09:56Bill Maher?

  But you went, you said?

• 1:09:57Speaker 02

  No, we didn't go, I was on my way.

• 1:09:59Bill Maher?

  Oh, I see.

• 1:10:00Speaker 02

  But I was stopped.

• 1:10:02Bill Maher?

  So what's your, what's your, got your eye on next? There now, this movie, hopefully will get the Oscar recognition it deserves. The lead guy certainly should get a, something, he's great.

• 1:10:13Speaker 02

  Who?

• 1:10:14Bill Maher?

  I don't know him.

• 1:10:15Speaker 02

  Bill Skarsgård?

• 1:10:17Bill Maher?

  I know the other Scar's guards.

• 1:10:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:20Bill Maher?

  He was kinda new to me.

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  He was the lead in It. He was It.

• 1:10:25Bill Maher?

  I never saw It. Is that the one about the clown?

• 1:10:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's more like for, almost for kids, but um.

• 1:10:32Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:32Speaker 02

  He was the scary guy in It.

• 1:10:34Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:10:34Speaker 02

  But he's done a lot of work and I had seen him in a number of films and um.

• 1:10:42Speaker 02

  Just thought he was great. I'd worked with his dad in Good Will Hunting. Stellan.

• 1:10:47Bill Maher?

  Love him. Love him.

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  Who's um.

• 1:10:50Bill Maher?

  He is. I think he's up for something.

• 1:10:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, their movie is up for Golden Globe.

• 1:10:53Bill Maher?

  Yeah, because I'd said to, I was, I saw my friend Sean Penn on Thanksgiving and I said, you are definitely gonna win for um.

• 1:11:03Speaker 02

  Absolutely, I agree.

• 1:11:04Bill Maher?

  What's that movie?

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  Uh, One Battle After Another.

• 1:11:06Bill Maher?

  One Battle After Another, which I liked. Um, I.

• 1:11:10Speaker 02

  I loved him and I, it took me a while to figure out, oh yeah, he's gonna win because who else is gonna? He's perfect.

• 1:11:16Bill Maher?

  Well, he's gonna win, first of all, he's a great actor. There's no doubt about that. He's also like somebody who is woke approved, so that's good. And then the movie is woke approved, so that's good for the Academy. And also icing on the cake, at the end of the movie, spoiler alert. He is horribly disfigured and so he does the last two scenes with a super fucked up face. Oscar, I don't think we have to look any further.

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  So he needs to make room on the shelf.

• 1:11:46Bill Maher?

  Like he's at that age where they wanna give him a victory lap and he deserves it. And even if he wasn't, it is a great performance. Like, you don't have to apologize for it. All these things make it easy to give it to him, but it also is an awesome performance.

• 1:11:58Speaker 02

  And it's supporting.

• 1:11:59Bill Maher?

  He plays the bad guy in a movie that liberals like, which is like, oh great. Somebody had to do that. Somebody had to like step up and take a bullet and be the bad guy, be the conservative.

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  I wonder if he knew that going in, probably.

• 1:12:12Bill Maher?

  Sean knows everything, but um, he.

• 1:12:17Bill Maher?

  But he definitely is just, you know, he's just, you know, one of those actors that comes along, you know, maybe, you know, one or two in a generation, who just kills every part, you can't take your eyes off him. And maybe it's because, you know, as a person, he is, I always say, Sean will never find a movie part that is as interesting as his own life. You know, everybody else in this town is a phony who talks and talks and talks, and he walks the walk. He goes to Syria, he gets people out of prison, he goes to Katrina. You know, he is the most interesting man in the world.

• 1:12:56Speaker 02

  Have you gone with him?

• 1:12:57Bill Maher?

  What?

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  Have you gone with him?

• 1:12:59Bill Maher?

  Fuck no. I told him, I don't go anywhere east of La Brea, okay? I'm not Mr., I'm not hero man. He is, great, you know, I don't feel bad for him. It's an old saying, don't pity the martyr, he likes his job.

• 1:13:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:13Bill Maher?

  You know, he likes doing it, and he's good at it. And he's a man of action, El Chapo, that, all that, it's insane, this guy's life.

• 1:13:23Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:13:23Bill Maher?

  So, for him to find a part that's like, interesting like that, like in that, again, spoiler alert, when he has to like, get a heart on, just from looking at this girl at his age, good luck with that. And I say that as a over sex, heterosexuality, but it was, I mean, I assume that was the part of it where I'm supposed to say, and I did say, and I was happy to say, this is a black comedy. Wouldn't you say that's a, it's a black comedy, that movie?

• 1:13:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:56Bill Maher?

  So it's To Die For?

• 1:13:57Speaker 02

  To Die For is, as well.

• 1:13:58Bill Maher?

  Totally.

• 1:13:59Speaker 02

  Which...

• 1:14:00Bill Maher?

  Maybe my most favorite genre.

• 1:14:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a great, I mean, also, One Battle After Another is not just a black comedy, so otherwise, I think it might be in trouble, but it's like, really easy for the studio, or not easy, but it, it's...

• 1:14:19Speaker 02

  It gets by and it, you know, it's gonna win the Oscar.

• 1:14:21Bill Maher?

  You think?

• 1:14:22Speaker 02

  Sci-Fi never had a chance. It was too dark, I mean.

• 1:14:25Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:14:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:27Bill Maher?

  Too dark, wow.

• 1:14:28Speaker 02

  I mean, especially for the studio. They wanted to sell it as a romantic comedy. And they tested it as a romantic comedy. And the tests were like really low, like thirty percent or something like that. And they couldn't figure out why.

• 1:14:42Bill Maher?

  Yeah. I guess it gets harder and harder in the age of Spandex and AI and shit to sell people on, you know, thoughtful stories, you know, like the one you have up now that's like, you know, about something but still entertaining, you know. I don't wanna watch a movie and just be sad. I did a piece one year about the Debbies, Debbie Downer, you know, cuz all the movies were like super downer. Remember Nomadland and, you know. It's one thing to make me think, but don't make me go home and wanna get in the bathtub with a toaster, okay? You know.

• 1:15:23Speaker 02

  That won the Oscar, though.

• 1:15:25Bill Maher?

  Of course, because, because the Academy changed from having the Oscars be a ceremony that was about, "Look at what good pictures we make," to "Look at what good people we are." I mean, I saw the list for the Golden Globes. I'm sure there's some great movies there. I hadn't heard of a number of them. The only one I heard of, for sure, I think, was the one we were just talking about. Other ones were like...

• 1:15:54Speaker 02

  One battle after another.

• 1:15:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and then it was like something from Brazil, some, maybe Korea, Iran. You know, like, I'm sure these are great movies, but they're not exactly the crowd pleasers that, you know. And, you know.

• 1:16:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:13Bill Maher?

  I'm debating whether to go to the Golden Globes. I'm nominated, nominated for my stand-up special.

• 1:16:19Speaker 02

  Oh, excellent. Congratulations.

• 1:16:21Bill Maher?

  Yeah, thanks. I've never had a great experience with award shows and I think, I just think the whole thing is kind of barbaric, the way they get these people who are needy, and certainly no one is needier than show people, to like sit there and like, "Please, please say you like me." And it's like, you know, I had that mentality the first 25 times or whatever they nominated me and it was like, "Okay, you know what, I get it." I'm not award show bait exactly, you know, kind of like with your "To Die For" thing with what you were saying.

• 1:17:03Bill Maher?

  But, so like, why torture yourself? And, you know, be in a room where you're put in, it's just...

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  I love the expressions where people, they have the stills of all the the contestants, the people up for the award.

• 1:17:24Bill Maher?

  Nominees, you mean?

• 1:17:25Speaker 02

  Nominees.

• 1:17:25Bill Maher?

  We're not contestants, Gus, for Christ's sake. You treat us like animals? Is that what you think of us, we're contestants? Well, you're right.

• 1:17:33Speaker 02

  But, one of them wins, but all four, all four of the other nominees, they have to do something. So sometimes they, they look sad.

• 1:17:45Bill Maher?

  They have...

• 1:17:46Speaker 02

  But a lot, a lot of times they're like, "Great." And you know they don't mean it.

• 1:17:50Bill Maher?

  They're actors.

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  They're acting.

• 1:17:52Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:53Speaker 02

  It's, it's...

• 1:17:54Bill Maher?

  Well, see, that would be number, problem number one. "I'm sure I'll never win, and when I lose, I'm not an actor." So I'd just be like, "Fuck, let's get out of here." Because that's what I would be saying, is like, "Okay."

• 1:18:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's go.

• 1:18:07Bill Maher?

  "I came, I lost, and, you know, let me, let me get out of here." But... It is tempting because I have lost over 20 Emmys. I lost at the Grammys for A Spoken Word. I was almost nominated for an Oscar for my documentary Religulous, and they felt so bad about not nominating me, they asked me to give out the award. I was the presenter. So I'll count that as losing an Oscar. And also a Tony, and a play, a stand-up on Broadway that was nominated. Didn't win that.

• 1:18:47Bill Maher?

  So I would be like the anti-Egot if I also couldn't somehow not win the Golden Globe. I could have a full panoply of a total empty shelf. Yeah, well, you're gonna win or not. I mean, I, first of all, I resent the words "win" when we talk about award shows. Because they say it in the same way they talk about sporting events. But it's not the same. It's not. You know, when the Eagles won the Super Bowl, it's because they actually beat the other team. It's not somebody's opinion that they beat the Chiefs. Yes. They actually did it. That's true. This is just somebody's opinion, okay? A vote, it's like a political.

• 1:19:31Bill Maher?

  But, anyway, I hope you win. I hope you're nominated and you win all these awards. Because, you know, if you do, suddenly the money gets easier to get, don't you think? Yes, even if you're like coming close to it, the attention, yeah, is good. That's why it's, you know, again, it's just ridiculous where they talk about it like, "He won, like God proclaimed." No, some people thought that was good, lots of others didn't, okay. But you, but it affects the actual commerce. Yeah. And you know, the whole thing, the Oscars were started because the actors wanted to unionize. And Louis B. Mayer said to distract them. He said, "Hang medals on them." Oh, wow. And they'll forget about it. I didn't know that. Yeah. 20s or? Yeah.

• 1:20:17Bill Maher?

  Or maybe the 30s, probably the 30s. 30s. Well, no, because it started in the late 20s. I think the first one was '29 or something. Wow. Didn't Wings win the first? Yeah, yeah, that's 20s. The Howard, Howard, um... Howard Hughes movie? Yeah, Howard Hughes, that's right. It's depicted in Scorsese's biography of him, right? Where he shoots... The planes.

• 1:20:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:45Bill Maher?

  And then he's like, oh, we gotta throw it all away. We need clouds. Because without the clouds, people don't see. They have nothing to see how fast the planes are going. It doesn't look real.

• 1:20:57Bill Maher?

  You gotta love that.

• 1:20:57Speaker 02

  Good old Howard.

• 1:20:59Bill Maher?

  Well, just that kind of dedication.

• 1:21:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:01Bill Maher?

  That there are people like that.

• 1:21:02Speaker 02

  And he had the dollars to do, just redo it.

• 1:21:06Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:08Bill Maher?

  Are you always an on-budget guy to this?

• 1:21:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just stay on the budget.

• 1:21:13Bill Maher?

  They trust you to be on time and on budget?

• 1:21:16Speaker 02

  They, they, I think technically they can't just trust you. I think the insurance companies have to like draw blood.

• 1:21:23Bill Maher?

  Plenty of movies have gone over time and over budget.

• 1:21:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you're in a studio, I went to Die For, for instance. There were so many little bits that I was afraid that we didn't have enough days and I was not, I was edging back from signing the contract. Cause you have to sign this promise that you will keep on budget. And I couldn't, I couldn't guarantee. So I didn't wanna sign it. So I called the president, I think I got, wasn't the president, it was Amy Pascal, who was a vice president. And I said, Amy, I can't sign this because I can't guarantee with all these. She says, you know what happens if you go over budget? And I said, no, what happens? And they said, we, we fly over there. We tell you to, to stop and be on budget and then we fly away.

• 1:22:11Speaker 02

  And like that's the whole, and you keep working.

• 1:22:13Bill Maher?

  And they're just gonna.

• 1:22:14Speaker 02

  They don't fire you.

• 1:22:16Bill Maher?

  But what are they gonna, so they're just gonna?

• 1:22:18Speaker 02

  They're just gonna give you more money. And tell you not to, you know, abuse the, the money they're giving you.

• 1:22:25Bill Maher?

  But they're not just gonna eat the money that they've already invested in this.

• 1:22:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, they won't. They'll slap, they'll slap your wrist and then that's it.

• 1:22:31Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:22:32Speaker 02

  Because you told me it's okay to sign, so I just signed it.

• 1:22:34Bill Maher?

  It's kinda like the old thing about if you owe somebody like a small amount of money, it's a debtor. But if it's a lot amount of money, it's a partner.

• 1:22:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:42Bill Maher?

  You know, they, they can't, they don't wanna eat this, so they kinda have to.

• 1:22:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:46Bill Maher?

  But there are stories about directors who kept, I mean, Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut, I think, kept Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman for like a year.

• 1:22:57Speaker 02

  More time than they thought.

• 1:22:58Bill Maher?

  Than they thought.

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and he didn't pay him more money.

• 1:23:02Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:23:03Speaker 02

  No, it doesn't, yeah, everyone, that's the thing about Kubrick films. Everyone's working on a flat fee, but there's no guarantee of how long it's gonna be. The crew too. So I think there could be trouble sometimes on his films. But I think that Nicole and Tom probably were like, you know, we believe in this filmmaker and we're making something good, you know.

• 1:23:22Bill Maher?

  Well, it was Kubrick.

• 1:23:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:24Bill Maher?

  Kubrick, after all the amazing movies he did.

• 1:23:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, so he had power.

• 1:23:29Bill Maher?

  I could see why they thought this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I bet you they don't regret it.

• 1:23:36Speaker 02

  No, I don't think so either.

• 1:23:37Bill Maher?

  You know, even with all that it put them through. You either go with it, or you can just laugh at it. I mean, it's so over the top. If people don't remember, like, again, it could be a dream sequence.

• 1:23:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:51Bill Maher?

  But he stumbles upon this secret society of, you know, the rich, powerful men. And what they do is they get together at this awesome mansion. And there's like hundreds of people there. And the men are wearing masks and cloaks and it's very ritualized. And there's all these beautiful girls naked, walking around. They have the mask on and they have like a, they're holding a staff with the ritual of this, you know, and there's ceremonies and it's sort of semi-satanic. And he doesn't belong there because you have to be a.

• 1:24:22Speaker 02

  He snuck in.

• 1:24:23Bill Maher?

  He snuck in and this is, but, and it, he goes upstairs and it's just room after room of people and they're fucking in the background and whatever. It's just, you know, it's guys, rich guys getting laid. You don't really need to rent a mansion and get masks to do it. Okay.

• 1:24:39Speaker 02

  But it was a, you know, Vietnamese version of it in the, you know.

• 1:24:43Bill Maher?

  In the.

• 1:24:43Speaker 02

  The 30s, 40s. Epstein's the junior power monger that had sex rings with teenage girls and powerful men.

• 1:24:54Bill Maher?

  We don't know that as a fact.

• 1:24:55Speaker 02

  We don't know that. They weren't powerful men.

• 1:24:57Bill Maher?

  Oh, they were powerful, well, we, we're talking about what we know as a fact.

• 1:25:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:02Bill Maher?

  What we, like Bill Clinton, if he was here, he'd be getting blown. No. If he was here, um, he would say, yes, you have the logs. I was on Epstein Island. But did I ever, you know, get more than a massage? There's a picture of him getting massaged. He's got his clothes on, but there is a girl behind him massaging him. Maybe that's all there was to it. We don't know for a fact. Being Bill Clinton, who Hillary herself once described as a hard dog to keep on the porch.

• 1:25:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:25:36Bill Maher?

  I can imagine there was a little shenanigans.

• 1:25:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:41Bill Maher?

  And certainly Epstein was having sex. He himself was having sex with underage girls and deserved to go to prison.

• 1:25:51Speaker 02

  Not every guy that walked in the door. Like Woody, I'm not sure.

• 1:25:55Bill Maher?

  Prince Andrew, yes. We know that for sure.

• 1:25:58Speaker 02

  The guys we don't like, they're like, yes. And the guys we do like, no, they wouldn't have done that.

• 1:26:05Bill Maher?

  No, I'm not saying that. They're all dirty dogs. They all would do it. Anybody who was on Sex Island, you know, I'd say at least a 50/50. Alan Dershowitz, Bill Gates. You know, I always said this about Epstein. When there's a guy who's like super rich and you don't know what he does, he's a pimp. And guys like Bill Gates, who are nerds, who are the opposite, they need a friend like Epstein.

• 1:26:32Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:26:32Bill Maher?

  That's what it is. It's not because he's some financial genius.

• 1:26:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:26:38Bill Maher?

  Did you read the emails to him and back? Because he's like this, this love guru.

• 1:26:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:47Bill Maher?

  To these men who are asking him advice, like, who's the dude at Harvard? Larry Summers? I think out, he was the Treasury Secretary under some Obama's. You know, very powerful guy, still as a voice on the economy. But he's writing, you know, "Dear Jeff." There's this Asian girl in the office who I think likes me. "How do I make my move?" Signed, frustrated, on Wall Street.

• 1:27:20Speaker 02

  There's like all the exchanges of money, though, as well, that goes along with those messages and letters.

• 1:27:28Bill Maher?

  Money?

• 1:27:29Speaker 02

  Money.

• 1:27:29Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:30Speaker 02

  That appears in Epstein's. Either he's a good investor, or they're just...

• 1:27:35Bill Maher?

  Oh, I see, yeah. Well, I don't think he was a bad investor, but I think he probably was doing something a lot of people could do. But he had this extra side game that was like, you know, "Invest with me and you'll get, you know, 4.5% return."

• 1:27:53Bill Maher?

  Invest with this guy, you'll get 5.5, but with me, you'll also get blown.

• 1:27:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:27:59Bill Maher?

  You know, that, this is like, okay. But that would be a good subject for you.

• 1:28:05Speaker 02

  Yes, I know.

• 1:28:06Bill Maher?

  Really? You would do that?

• 1:28:08Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, until the, all the information. Yeah, the, oh, the death is so interesting, too.

• 1:28:15Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:28:16Speaker 02

  How little it was investigated. And how they just were like, okay, he killed himself.

• 1:28:21Bill Maher?

  What's your judgment on that? Did he kill himself?

• 1:28:24Speaker 02

  Somebody like did it.

• 1:28:25Bill Maher?

  You think somebody did it?

• 1:28:26Speaker 02

  I think somebody did it.

• 1:28:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:29Speaker 02

  I mean, until everything's sort of in, it's hard to really make the story. It's halfway.

• 1:28:34Bill Maher?

  I mean, I, from the photos I saw, I'm just speaking for myself.

• 1:28:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:39Bill Maher?

  I'm not exactly a Boy Scout, but I don't know how I could, if I wanted to, kill myself in that situation.

• 1:28:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:48Bill Maher?

  I mean, maybe he was great with the sailors not. I, I, I know, I, there didn't seem to be enough room to do it.

• 1:28:57Speaker 02

  I'm with you, yeah.

• 1:28:57Bill Maher?

  You know, so, but also, people are, I don't know, I don't care. But, all right, so what, so if you're not gonna do that, and we're not gonna do the remake with Sabrina Carpenter. Cause you once did a remake, you did Psycho.

• 1:29:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remade Psycho.

• 1:29:17Bill Maher?

  Loved it. I remember it.

• 1:29:19Speaker 02

  You did?

• 1:29:19Bill Maher?

  Oh, very much, I remember it vividly. Yeah.

• 1:29:23Speaker 02

  It was a, it was a sort of proposal.

• 1:29:26Bill Maher?

  Vince Vaughn was perfect.

• 1:29:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's.

• 1:29:28Bill Maher?

  He's a little creepy, I like him, but, I mean, he's, he's got the factor.

• 1:29:32Speaker 02

  He has a side.

• 1:29:33Bill Maher?

  He has a side.

• 1:29:37Speaker 02

  But I was, I was making that mostly because

• 1:29:42Speaker 02

  I, whenever, when I was starting out with Drugstore Cowboy.

• 1:29:47Speaker 02

  The actors were sort of wanting to work with you. So that meant that the studios wanted you to direct something because they knew the actors would go with something that you would direct. Of course. So I would have meetings at studios, really based because of actors, not so much because Drugstore Cowboy did well, which it didn't really do well. So I was always in Casey Silver's office at Universal, who had Psycho. And, you know, every year or two, whenever a film would come out, the actors would go like, "We want to work with Gus." And so Casey would call me and say, "Let's get something going." You know, you can... And he introduced me to people that handled the library of films.

• 1:30:30Speaker 02

  You could make a film from an old script that Billy Wilder wrote that hadn't been done, you know, that kind of thing. Or you could remake one of the library pieces. And I was, at the time, in the 90s, early 90s. They were remaking everything, from The Brady Bunch to The Flintstones. They were remaking because audience recognized those characters and they would be drawn to it. And those two films, you know, of course, the kids could go too. But I said, you know, "Why don't you really remake the film instead of kind of remake it, changing the ending?" Because they always changed the dark ending from the old movies, because the old movies

• 1:31:14Speaker 02

  had darker endings than our 90s movies. And they would just laugh and say, "No, we won't be doing that anytime soon." And then, next time I went, same thing. I said, "How about, like, how about we do this?" Because they want... They seemed to want to do anything with me. So Psycho, remake it, you know, don't change anything about it, just the actors will be different. Copy every shot and they would laugh at me and then Good Will Hunting was came was coming out and it was the awards it was nominated for like ten Academy Awards. So all the studios they they they want to get those people sort of signed up to something

• 1:31:58Speaker 02

  so that when you if you win they can lean over and say we've got this next film. I think that's the reason they want you it's just really so they could do that.

• 1:32:06Bill Maher?

  Well, your your superpower is that the stars want to work with you.

• 1:32:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's why I was even involved.

• 1:32:12Bill Maher?

  Because that especially back going back in time, I mean still today to a degree, but there are less people who they themselves can open a movie, but going back, I mean, the star had all the power and so if the star wants the director, now you have the power. I mean, the stars want two things, they want a script that makes them look good, you know, or challenges them or, you know, is interesting to understand how much power they have and how much they're willing to, you know, risk their career. Certainly, some of them are like, no, I'm not playing anyone who the audience doesn't see as a hero, you know, and there are other ones who want to go in the opposite direction and be challenged. Whatever it is, they need the script.

• 1:32:57Speaker 02

  And they need the stockholders when they ask the studio head to say, how could you make that decision and you would they would have an out?

• 1:33:04Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 1:33:05Speaker 02

  It's like, no.

• 1:33:06Bill Maher?

  Because George Clooney wanted it.

• 1:33:08Speaker 02

  George Clooney wants it, yeah.

• 1:33:10Bill Maher?

  So. But it's a good tribute that they like that they like.

• 1:33:14Speaker 02

  I was like being set up at different studios and so at the last minute, Universal called my agent and said they just they want to know if there's a movie that you you can say you would do with them just before, you know, like in case tomorrow you win. And I was and then I said, of course, Universal, Casey Siller, Psycho, don't change anything, you know, copy it and the stars will be different, but keep it the same. And the answer was, we think that's brilliant. Let's make it, as opposed to laughing at me every other year. And I was like, oh shit, they really wanna do it.

• 1:33:52Bill Maher?

  They saying that this town is full of a bunch of phonies, Gus. I don't burst my bubble, that's not.

• 1:33:59Speaker 02

  But then the onus was on me because then they said yes. And I was like, oh shit, I have to actually do it. And certain people were saying, you know, that you'll be killed by the critics. And I thought, well, maybe that's okay, maybe that's, I can live through that.

• 1:34:17Bill Maher?

  Critics don't matter, stars matter. And the fact that they like you, that's what matters. You know, the fact that they feel like they're in safe hands and, you know, I mean, it's, there's a million ways a movie can get fucked up. But certainly, right from the beginning, as a director who doesn't know what he's doing. And I'm sure if you're in, I've been on sets with the director who I didn't think was good. And it's like, every day is kind of a slog. Because you're fighting against the person who's making the thing. And it's just, you just kind of know from the beginning, it's doomed. No, you know, they, they have to, you know, and especially in the days with women, when they didn't feel safe always with the director.

• 1:34:57Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, there's some bad stories about, you know, just, it was very, the industry was misogynistic up until very recently. I don't think people dared try what they used to get away with. You know, they used to call, you know, in the 30s, like George Kukar. You know, a gay director was called a woman's director.

• 1:35:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:20Bill Maher?

  Because he could bring it, because probably Katherine Hepburn was like, please get me this guy, he's not gonna chase me around like, you know, Louis B. Mayer was, you know. Wasn't Judy Garland even pressed into service for the four o'clock blowjob that the studio head's got? I mean, that's a real thing.

• 1:35:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I understand.

• 1:35:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:41Speaker 02

  Especially Mayer, yeah, Mayer.

• 1:35:44Bill Maher?

  Oh, they were bad. But, you know. We didn't do it.

• 1:35:51Bill Maher?

  We don't have to end it. So what, what is the next project? Can you give us a hint?

• 1:35:58Speaker 02

  There isn't really a next project.

• 1:35:59Bill Maher?

  What do you want to do?

• 1:36:00Speaker 02

  I have to sort of choose from a bunch of things that are possibilities. So there's not really a project right now.

• 1:36:09Bill Maher?

  All right. Well, whatever it is, I will look forward to it. I wish you great good luck at the Oscars. You certainly deserve a victory lap.

• 1:36:19Speaker 02

  Great, thank you.

• 1:36:20Bill Maher?

  And I hope everybody sees Dead Man's Wire. It's really good.

• 1:36:23Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 1:36:23Bill Maher?

  Thank you so much, sir. For coming by to my crazy place.

• 1:36:26Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:36:32Bill Maher?

  Take a picture with me?

• 1:36:34Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:36:34Bill Maher?

  Okay.