"RE-RELEASE: Paul Thomas Anderson"

Italian candy expert, amateur filmmaker (and recipient of 11 Academy Awards) Paul Thomas Anderson joins us this week to dig into the businesstry and take a bite outta’ life. Motto panukeiku! Hai? This episode was originally released on 3/7/2022.

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

• 0:00Sean Hayes?

  This episode of Smartless is sponsored by Google Book. So the other day, I wanted to make invitations for my dog Ricky's birthday party. And I've got three things open on my laptop. An adorable photo of Ricky, a picture of a birthday cake, and the RSVP details. Thing is, as much as I look like one, I'm not a canine birthday party invitation designer. That's where Google Book comes in. It's a whole new kind of laptop with a feature called Magic Pointer. I just click the photos and different elements on my screen, and boom, Magic Pointer designs a customized birthday party invitation for Ricky. Click anything on your screen to create whatever you want. Visit googlebook.com. Available to 18-plus users.

• 0:44Sean Hayes?

  Compatibility and availability vary.

• 0:49Jason Bateman?

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• 1:29Sean Hayes?

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• 2:06Sean Hayes?

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• 2:45Jason Bateman?

  Okay, here we go. This is gonna be a Smartless episode. Let's tune up the ears, get the wax out.

• 2:50Sean Hayes?

  What are you doing?

• 2:51Jason Bateman?

  The papers are getting set. The prep is done. Okay, ready? Here we go. You guys ready to talk?

• 2:58Will Arnett?

  Guys, guys, guys!

• 2:59Jason Bateman?

  What are you, what?

• 3:00Will Arnett?

  It's an all-new Smartless!

• 3:01Sean Hayes?

  Oh, God.

• 3:20Jason Bateman?

  Okay, hey, guys, look, wait, check this out.

• 3:22Will Arnett?

  Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, start right away.

• 3:24Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, start, have you been preparing, Sean?

• 3:26Sean Hayes?

  You see the, look at the sign.

• 3:27Jason Bateman?

  Construction?

• 3:28Sean Hayes?

  No, that sign where my finger is.

• 3:30Will Arnett?

  Chicago Theater.

• 3:30Jason Bateman?

  Oh, wow, wow, wow, wow. Did you know that a week ago? That you were gonna be staying in that apartment?

• 3:36Sean Hayes?

  I knew, I knew the name of it, but I didn't know where it was.

• 3:39Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, Sean, for the listener, Sean started his stay there, what is it gonna be? Like a multi-month stay in Chicago, right?

• 3:47Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, like three months, yeah.

• 3:48Jason Bateman?

  The first night he was there was Valentine's, and appropriately, he and Scotty saw a couple consummating Valentines right across the street. And, and like, in kind of like, it wasn't even like, it was, all the lights were on. It was somewhat impromptu. We won't get into the graphic details of it, but it was clearly

• 4:13Sean Hayes?

  It was an office building.

• 4:14Jason Bateman?

  Not a planned consummation.

• 4:16Will Arnett?

  No, all parties were upright, is the point.

• 4:20Jason Bateman?

  It was, it was half a wobbly H, okay?

• 4:23Sean Hayes?

  Isn't that wild? And Scotty's like, I go, what are you looking at? And he's like, come over to this window.

• 4:28Jason Bateman?

  Wait, how long was he looking out the window before you noticed he was staring?

• 4:32Sean Hayes?

  Quite a while.

• 4:32Will Arnett?

  It was a minute. And he kept saying, and he kept saying, come look at these people in love. Right? He kept saying, look at these people in love.

• 4:41Sean Hayes?

  They were going at it.

• 4:42Jason Bateman?

  Sean, this is love. In case you didn't know, it's Valentine's Day.

• 4:45Will Arnett?

  This is what love is.

• 4:46Jason Bateman?

  Okay?

• 4:47Sean Hayes?

  Now, do you think they wanted to be seen? That's why the shades were up?

• 4:51Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 4:51Jason Bateman?

  No, I think people are just used to living, well, Will, you can speak to this. You've lived in New York City. Do you just get used to the fact that people might be watching you? Or do you, well, that?

• 5:02Will Arnett?

  I think you go back and forth. I think that you, you have moments where you're like, oh my God. And then you also have moments where you're like, you just live your life and you don't think about it. You can't, you can't think about it all the time.

• 5:12Jason Bateman?

  I mean, you could pull the shades down.

• 5:14Will Arnett?

  Sure. I will, I would suggest that those people who are engaged in that, in that moment, uh, didn't care. Uh, and, and in fact, that that probably was there to heighten their experience.

• 5:28Jason Bateman?

  Now, Shawnee, you're, you're, you're back out on the road.

• 5:30Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 5:31Jason Bateman?

  Um, how's, uh, we'll get to our guest here, apologies, but Shawnee, how's the first few days of rehearsal going?

• 5:36Will Arnett?

  Oscar Levant? How's, how's Oscar Levant?

• 5:39Sean Hayes?

  Good.

• 5:39Jason Bateman?

  So Sean's doing, uh, it's not a musical, right? It's got some music in it, but it's a play.

• 5:43Will Arnett?

  No, no, it's a play. It's a play.

• 5:43Jason Bateman?

  Okay. So he's going, so he's there now. He's a week into rehearsals and, uh, it's pretty arduous to, to rehearse a play for the listener. And Sean, are you loving it or, or having regrets?

• 5:54Sean Hayes?

  Oh my God, I love it so much. I mean, it's a ton of work, but, um, thank you for asking. It's, it's, uh, yeah, it's a ton of work, but, but really rewarding. You know what I love the most is the, we're, we're in the process of sitting around talking about the play page by page, making sure everything makes sense and the backstory informs what the characters are doing. It's kind of.

• 6:13Jason Bateman?

  Is it the first time the play is being done?

• 6:14Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it's a brand new play by Doug Wright, who won the Pulitzer for I Am My Own Wife. And he wrote the movie Quills and amazing writer.

• 6:22Will Arnett?

  Well, let's plug Doug for sure, you know.

• 6:24Jason Bateman?

  Does he have a website?

• 6:28Jason Bateman?

  Jesus.

• 6:29Sean Hayes?

  Oh, by the way, it's called Good Night Oscar. It's called Good Night Oscar.

• 6:32Will Arnett?

  We know and we have told every

• 6:34Jason Bateman?

  Where can people find their tickets?

• 6:35Will Arnett?

  Audience across the country knows Oscar Levant backstage at the Tonight Show. Nobody's gonna go to the play now. Everybody feels like they've already seen it.

• 6:44Sean Hayes?

  Well, maybe they'll check out Murderville again.

• 6:45Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, exactly. Let's give that another

• 6:47Will Arnett?

  That's not a bad idea. That's not a bad idea.

• 6:48Jason Bateman?

  How's that doing? Well, people seem to really be enjoying it.

• 6:51Will Arnett?

  It's been very nice to see people enjoy it and have fun with it.

• 6:54Jason Bateman?

  Listener, that's a show on Netflix called Murderville that Will Arnett brought to all of us. It's very good.

• 6:59Will Arnett?

  And, you know, well, so we go from that, so from Good Night Oscar to Murderville to the other big question we got a lot on the tour was, Jason, when are the final six episodes of Our God, I'm Out?

• 7:12Jason Bateman?

  It's seven, but not a big deal.

• 7:13Will Arnett?

  Seven?

• 7:14Jason Bateman?

  I don't

• 7:14Will Arnett?

  Well, I wanted to surprise people with the seventh. Sorry.

• 7:17Jason Bateman?

  There's a bonus. Yeah. After the credits, there's one more. They're gonna announce that soon, but it's

• 7:24Will Arnett?

  So you can't say?

• 7:25Jason Bateman?

  I cannot say, but it will be soon. All right, here comes our guest, y'all.

• 7:28Will Arnett?

  Okay, okay, all right.

• 7:30Jason Bateman?

  Sean, well, today I get into a little bit of trouble with you guys. I apologize. I know that you hate it when I bring an academic on or a scientist, big brains in general, but this guy seems to

• 7:43Sean Hayes?

  None of those.

• 7:44Jason Bateman?

  Just hold on. He seems to really be liked by those who have taken his class, all right? He's been teaching filmmaking for almost 30 years now and out of some of the top institutions in town. He's taught his students mostly through doing in that he's managed to gather the funds necessary to himself make nine films on subjects as odd as a single-digit, nighttime mucus, party drinks, hemophilia, major golf tournament, addiction, haunted textiles, and Italian candy. And if you can believe it, these films have yielded him 11 Academy Award nominations. Most importantly, though, he's got four kids, a house in the valley, and married to the coolest woman we three know, gang? It's Paul Thomas Anderson.

• 8:24Sean Hayes?

  No.

• 8:24Jason Bateman?

  Yes. Oh, my gosh. Hello.

• 8:29Sean Hayes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  Hi, guys.

• 8:31Sean Hayes?

  It's so good to see you.

• 8:32Jason Bateman?

  Did you guys have a guest with that list of of subject matters?

• 8:35Will Arnett?

  You really had me reeling on that.

• 8:37Jason Bateman?

  Did I bury it good?

• 8:39Speaker 03

  That's a great intro.

• 8:41Jason Bateman?

  I worked on that for a full nine minutes this morning.

• 8:44Will Arnett?

  Paul, would you have been able to guess yourself with that intro?

• 8:49Jason Bateman?

  Come on, now, now, let's, let's guess it. So a single digit, which one is that, man? I did it in order. A single digit, obviously, is Heartache.

• 8:56Will Arnett?

  Heartache, yeah.

• 8:57Jason Bateman?

  Nighttime Mucus?

• 8:59Speaker 03

  Nighttime Mucus?

• 9:00Jason Bateman?

  Come on. Boogie Nights, y'all? Party drinks?

• 9:04Will Arnett?

  Oh, my God, oh, my God, sorry.

• 9:06Jason Bateman?

  Okay, party drinks. We've got Punch Drunk Love, Humophilia, There Will Be Blood, Major Golf Tournament, Obviously the Master, Addiction is Inherent Vice, Haunted Textiles, We Know and Love Phantom Thread, and Italian Candy, out in theaters now.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Oh, wow, you really did your-

• 9:24Jason Bateman?

  The Valley Famous Licorice Pizza Record Store.

• 9:26Speaker 03

  That's incredible.

• 9:28Jason Bateman?

  All right.

• 9:29Speaker 03

  Pretty good.

• 9:29Jason Bateman?

  I'm so proud of myself, Paul. Can you see, I'm just beaming on it?

• 9:36Jason Bateman?

  Guys, we can't do early morning records. I'm still up from last night.

• 9:40Will Arnett?

  That's like the USA Today crossword version. You know what I mean?

• 9:44Jason Bateman?

  Oh, man.

• 9:46Speaker 03

  Wait, but Oscar Levant is one of my heroes.

• 9:49Jason Bateman?

  Really?

• 9:49Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 9:50Jason Bateman?

  Oh, you go. You two, you two go.

• 9:51Speaker 03

  He's amazing, isn't he? Yes. You know, there's a great Oscar Levant show that he did that was here on KTLA Channel 5, and Fred Astaire was one of the-

• 9:59Jason Bateman?

  That's exactly right.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  It was impossible to find forever and ever and ever.

• 10:03Jason Bateman?

  I have the whole thing, if you want it.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  No, well, here, but I remember it was this impossible-to-find thing, and then, um, when this thing YouTube came around, I remember thinking, "I'll see if this thing can really find something I want." And I put in the Oscar Levant show, and there it was. I said, "Oh, my God, um, I like YouTube." It was there, there it was.

• 10:23Jason Bateman?

  They're great, yeah, yeah.

• 10:23Will Arnett?

  Dear Mr. YouTube, great job.

• 10:27Jason Bateman?

  What's your, uh, while, while I'm thinking of it, because my brain doesn't hold stuff well.

• 10:32Jason Bateman?

  The first shot in Magnolia was that, when, when, when you go through the hallways and you go onto the soundstage, isn't that the Tonight Show stage?

• 10:42Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:42Jason Bateman?

  At, at, yes, right?

• 10:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:44Jason Bateman?

  Speaking of The Tonight Show, Oscar Levant, all that stuff.

• 10:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, what is it called officially? It's NBC, it's where The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, you know, they did that, but they also did the local news there. They, they had, you know, I remember a big deal was that we were shooting, and we had to, uh, we had, it was the days of Paul Moyer. Do you remember Paul Moyer? And, um, we just needed to move his space over, you know, a couple of spots. And it was like, you know-

• 11:10Jason Bateman?

  Oh, no.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  -three days of negotiations to prove- To move Paul Moyer's spot.

• 11:15Jason Bateman?

  I do remember.

• 11:16Speaker 03

  He was not having it. And it was on a Sunday. He wasn't even shooting.

• 11:19Jason Bateman?

  Oh, my God.

• 11:20Will Arnett?

  He wasn't even there. He just didn't want his stuff messed with.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  He just didn't want his spot messed with.

• 11:24Jason Bateman?

  Somehow I remember, I don't know how I'm remembering this, he had a bright, I think it was a bright red 911 DP Targa. Like, one of those with the big whale tails.

• 11:35Speaker 03

  I like it.

• 11:36Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 11:37Will Arnett?

  Did he cut you off once on Olive?

• 11:39Jason Bateman?

  No, I just remember being taken that a local newsman would have some big ass flashy cool car and he pulled it off. That guy, very, very cool.

• 11:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. He was a hand, it was a hand to hand fight with him and Ron Burgundy would be great. It was a very similar kind of, you know, thing.

• 11:56Jason Bateman?

  Speaking of cool, uh, network, uh, uh, newsmen, kind of a little bit of a reach. Your dad was the voice of ABC for all of my years growing up in Los Angeles.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 12:07Jason Bateman?

  Yeah. Like, if I, if I played that voice for you, you would, it'd knock you out. You'd be like, oh, my God, that's Paul's dad? Uh, no question there. I just want to mention that as something very, very cool.

• 12:19Will Arnett?

  Well, actually, so Paul, we've talked about this briefly before once, because you mentioned, um, your dad was the voice of ABC, as you said, and he, he, he, he was like the original real promo guy on networks.

• 12:32Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 12:32Will Arnett?

  And, and my recollection is, and so I'm going to say this, and then you can tell me what you know about this, and if I'm wrong. He would record the promos for all the network, and the promo guys are, when you watch a show, when you're watching a network and you hear, coming up tonight at 8:00 PM. It's an all new blah, blah, blah, followed by, but.

• 12:48Jason Bateman?

  Oh, that was your dad? That was your dad?

• 12:50Will Arnett?

  And your dad would sit in the, in the room with the engineer, right next to the board, and he had a 416, a shotgun mic, and he was the first guy to do that in that way. Is that right?

• 12:59Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I, I don't know for sure if that's exactly that, that technical thing, but that, the image of that shotgun mic, uh, you know, he would never go into the booth. He wanted to do it in the control room.

• 13:12Will Arnett?

  Was he, because he was actually? In real time wanting the, telling the guy how to modulate his voice and do all the EQ and stuff.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  I think that had something to do with it too, and I think he, I think he was smart enough or had done it enough to know like, "I'm not going in the booth, I'm gonna be with you guys, you know, it's gonna be exactly the same, I'm not, you know." He also liked to smoke while he was doing it too, and I think the other guy was weird.

• 13:36Jason Bateman?

  Willie likes that, Willie does a little of that.

• 13:38Will Arnett?

  Not in the booth, not anymore, but, but I will say that like, and then we'll get out of the weeds on this. So traditionally, all the voiceover guys, especially in New York, where a lot of it used to be done back in the day, everybody used the mic that's a very company that I do have over here, and what we refer to as an 87, a U87, and it's a great microphone.

• 13:57Speaker 03

  Oh, thanks, Willie.

• 13:58Will Arnett?

  Of course. Your dad changed that by using that shotgun mic, and he forever changed, and it became the west coast microphone. That all, so when I would come out here and go to a recording studio, they'd always have a shotgun mic, and it was because of your dad that that became the standard out.

• 14:15Speaker 03

  Is that like the Johnny Carson one that was on his desk, is that what a shotgun mic is, what is that?

• 14:19Will Arnett?

  No, that, no.

• 14:21Speaker 03

  Okay, bye everybody.

• 14:22Will Arnett?

  Oh, see you later, Sean.

• 14:25Jason Bateman?

  So, Paul, you did not know that, huh?

• 14:28Speaker 03

  No, that sounds fantastic to me, and it doesn't seem too far from, from accurate, even, you know. He, he, he did obsess over that kinda stuff, and I probably passed a little bit of it on to me.

• 14:41Jason Bateman?

  Were you close to him?

• 14:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, very.

• 14:44Jason Bateman?

  Oh, that's nice.

• 14:44Speaker 03

  I got to go, you know, I had, had that opportunity to go to Prospect and Talmage was where he would go to work, at ABC. And, you know, generally, that was sort of my first taste of being around anything that was show business related, and that was magical to me.

• 15:02Jason Bateman?

  How old were you at that point?

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Uh, anywhere between the ages of probably five and, you know, nine, 75 to 79.

• 15:11Will Arnett?

  Did it, did it strike you as being like a peculiar thing for your dad to do? I can say from my own experience, and I ask this because I say to my kids sometimes, like, it's, when they do stuff, or I do stuff, they come in a work-related environment, like, it's weird, right? That this is what you're, because it's weird to me, if my dad had done it. And I sort of acknowledge it, was it, did it seem strange, or just because it was your dad?

• 15:36Speaker 03

  It seems strange only because it was not, I was proud of him, but no one else could recognize this, the pride, you know, it's such a behind the scenes gig. There's nothing, there's nothing kind of famous about it. You know, you don't walk down the street and somebody say like, wow, there he is, you know, or your dad's a baseball player, he's hitting home runs, like, well, you know, there's no recognition to it, really, it was this, but that's what he loved about it so much, was that he could just kind of have this independent life, coyote-ing around town and, you know, doing his work and getting paid for it.

• 16:10Jason Bateman?

  So you're sitting there, you're watching kind of the sausage get made for television in some aspect, and were you, were you at that point starting to gather these images and interest in this process and what it, oh, these are the people that are behind the curtain that create at least this lane of fake life? And that started to build an idea for you about what you might want to do, or can you, can you track the moment that you thought, I want to do something like this?

• 16:41Speaker 03

  I can't remember because for as long as my memories are there, I've wanted to make films, for sure. But you have to remember, I mean, Jason, you'll remember, that there was like such a dividing line between making films and making television, you know? Television back then was like, you know, anybody can do it, you know?

• 17:02Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 17:02Speaker 03

  Movies was like, this, this gold ring, like, not everybody gets to make movies, you know?

• 17:08Jason Bateman?

  Right. So you started to experiment with little home movie, it's not, it's not an uncommon story, right?

• 17:14Speaker 03

  No, it's the same exact story as everybody else, but I had the, I had the camaraderie in that, which is so crazy now, I mean, I look around my, my life right now and I see my relationship to all the people in dark rooms that I work with, engineers and things like this, through the entire process of making a movie, and you're like, this is exactly what my dad did, you go to a dark room each day and... You know, trying to make something happen and the friendships that he had with those guys, I look back and I think, wow, I was really inspired by it. I always just thought that's what a friendship was, you know, these kind of... He was very close with all these technicians and guys that he worked with. So those are the people that were around our house.

• 17:57Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, one of my first experiences were people that were very, very close with the crew, or at least a full understanding of the importance of the crew, as opposed to sort of this terrible, traditional kind of look at like, oh, you know, that's... You know, some people look at crew as sort of soldiers and that, you know, the folks that are in front of the camera are the ones that are super important, when the opposite is actually the truth. And so was that... Did that start then, understanding that, oh my God, this is really difficult and there's actually nobody on the set there that doesn't need to be there?

• 18:36Speaker 03

  Well, the only people that don't need to be there are like studio executives and producers. And you know, that's what I learned probably from my dad. It was like, whoever's, you know, kick all the people out of the room that are not completely, completely essential to the product, you know? You learn pretty quickly who isn't, you know, they scatter.

• 18:55Jason Bateman?

  Yeah. So grabbing those early video cameras, movie cameras, stuff like that, that's sort of a pretty common story where you kind of point a camera at stuff and you kind of take little kid films and little army men and that's not uncommon. But what about the writing part? Do you remember your first experience looking at a blank piece of paper and trying to figure out how to start from zero? Do you remember that being humbling or surprisingly easy?

• 19:25Speaker 03

  That's a really good question because I think you're right that the story of, you know, the filmmaker with the eight millimeter camera and then onto the video cameras, like there's a million of them and that's generally how everybody starts. But the writing part... Always excited me because I liked it. I think I got lucky that I liked it. I liked putting paper into a typewriter and typing out ideas. And I liked, I liked seeing it on the page. I liked, I liked looking at that idea. I don't know, from an early age, I've always liked writing and formulating things on, on paper. And when you learn on a typewriter, you learn how to make it write the first time.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  Because the last thing that you want to do is, you know, is go through that. And I had, and I had the one script-

• 20:17Will Arnett?

  You still use a typewriter?

• 20:18Speaker 03

  No, I don't. I mean, from time to time, I will, just for fun, to mix it up. But no, I don't use a typewriter anymore. But I remember the one script that I had. I, I think I have to credit my mother for this, is I had the script for Holy Grail.

• 20:34Will Arnett?

  Oh, wow. Monty Python.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  Monty Python? Monty Python. It was published as a little book and, and I loved that movie so much. This would be like probably eight, seventy-eight or seventy-nine, whenever it came out.

• 20:44Will Arnett?

  By the way, they're both like Monty Python. No, the actual Holy Grail, you fucking dumbass.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  We're helping Tracy, okay? So I, I had the, what, what was the script for that? And I, and then I just copied that. I just copied how the formatting was of that. It was a great way to learn. So I, I can't think writing is either something that you like doing or you don't like doing. I mean, you know, it's, it's, yeah.

• 21:09Sean Hayes?

  I, I got a dumb, dummy question. When you-

• 21:11Will Arnett?

  No, sure.

• 21:13Sean Hayes?

  When you drive, when you're just driving around, like the, driving around during the day with your kids or whatever, do you constantly think in images or see images and think of filmmaking? Like, do you, is it hard to turn it off?

• 21:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, no.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  It's easy to turn off.

• 21:34Sean Hayes?

  Oh, okay, never mind.

• 21:36Speaker 03

  No, I don't like walk around like Rain Man or something like that.

• 21:39Sean Hayes?

  Because I always think of like, like whenever I'm driving around, I always see like images. There's like, God, there'd be such, and I see like a frame around it or something. I'm not a filmmaker.

• 21:48Jason Bateman?

  Especially when you're like, when you're listening to music, do you find that happening, Sean?

• 21:52Sean Hayes?

  All the time, all the time.

• 21:53Jason Bateman?

  You basically start cutting videos, right?

• 21:55Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, don't you do that, Jerry?

• 21:56Jason Bateman?

  On the big beat change, your eyes go right, you know, and I dork out like that.

• 21:59Will Arnett?

  How many, how many Wham! inspired movies have you made, Sean, in your head?

• 22:03Sean Hayes?

  Oh, there's gotta be like 12. I mean, you know, they, "Wake Me Up Before You Go" was my holy grail.

• 22:08Jason Bateman?

  I understand.

• 22:08Sean Hayes?

  You know, they're like, I was like, I can't believe there's this.

• 22:10Jason Bateman?

  Just lends itself to a real cinematic.

• 22:12Will Arnett?

  Paul, what was it?

• 22:13Speaker 03

  This could be the best interview, just, I like, I just.

• 22:15Jason Bateman?

  You don't get to talk, Paul.

• 22:17Speaker 03

  I know, and this is why I like it. I just wanna hear you guys. I have to tell you, my favorite, I heard, listen to, I don't, listen to.

• 22:25Jason Bateman?

  You haven't listened to this.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  I have, of course I have, but the one joke that stuck with me forever and ever and ever was Will saying something about your father, Jason, and he, and by father, he meant the security guard at the 20th Century Fox.

• 22:45Sean Hayes?

  That sounds about right.

• 22:46Will Arnett?

  Don't make Jason cry. Don't make Jason cry.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  It stuck with me where I think about, that's what I think about, Sean, when I'm driving down the road, every once in a while, I'll, I'll think about.

• 22:57Sean Hayes?

  About Jason's dad.

• 22:58Speaker 03

  Something pops into your head, you think, God, that was really, really, really, really funny, and I'll, you know.

• 23:02Jason Bateman?

  It's surprising when you're in the car and you're driving around, you're not thinking about Sean's dad peeling away from the house.

• 23:09Will Arnett?

  Cause he was real handy in a car.

• 23:10Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, still hasn't come back.

• 23:12Sean Hayes?

  Exactly.

• 23:14Jason Bateman?

  And we will be right back.

• 23:17Sean Hayes?

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• 24:02Sean Hayes?

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• 24:15Sean Hayes?

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• 24:59Sean Hayes?

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• 25:18Sean Hayes?

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• 25:53Sean Hayes?

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• 26:22Sean Hayes?

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• 27:07Sean Hayes?

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• 27:31Jason Bateman?

  And now, back to the show.

• 27:33Will Arnett?

  Paul, and forgive us for just being such fools. I'm sure we ruined many of your days having to listen to it.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  Wait, I want to know about, I want to know about.

• 27:41Will Arnett?

  Okay, definitely.

• 27:42Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, just cut them off, Sean. If you get an idea, start talking.

• 27:47Jason Bateman?

  Go ahead, Will.

• 27:47Sean Hayes?

  I just want to get this out of the way.

• 27:48Will Arnett?

  Real Oscar Levant over there.

• 27:51Sean Hayes?

  I think I've seen, I'm pretty sure I've seen every single one of your films.

• 27:54Will Arnett?

  Okay.

• 27:55Sean Hayes?

  And always been amazed by each one. But I just want to get this out of the way before I forget. Boogie Nights, is it true that Leo was up for the part, but Mark got it? Or Leo turned it down because he did Titanic? Or is there any truth to any of that?

• 28:07Jason Bateman?

  Sean loves the dirt, Paul.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  That is very true, is that I asked Leo to be in Boogie Nights. And he spent many, many months agonizing and debating about it.

• 28:19Jason Bateman?

  Months.

• 28:20Speaker 03

  And ultimately, what I didn't realize, or kind of came to realize about halfway into that, this sort of long decision-making process, is that he was, he had a choice to make, which was to either do Titanic or to do Boogie Nights. And he chose to do Titanic, which of course, in the long run catapulted into this massive worldwide fame.

• 28:41Jason Bateman?

  Boogie Nights would have been the same.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  But on the other hand, I think possibly, but I think it was, we laugh about it now, but he, you know, regrets missing the experience and doing it. But yeah, that's, that's true.

• 28:53Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, that's right. I just always wondered that.

• 28:54Will Arnett?

  It'd be, well, now you know. So.

• 28:57Sean Hayes?

  Well, see, I would have never, never known.

• 29:00Jason Bateman?

  Will, was your question as good as that?

• 29:02Will Arnett?

  Not as good as that. Actually, that was very interesting and well done, Sean.

• 29:05Sean Hayes?

  Thanks.

• 29:05Jason Bateman?

  Congrats.

• 29:06Will Arnett?

  I like the idea.

• 29:07Jason Bateman?

  Back to Google. Back to Google, Sean.

• 29:10Will Arnett?

  I thought you were gonna say, I thought you were gonna say, and to this day, I still think Leo made a huge error in judgment. That you'd never let it go. But, but what was, no, the question actually was just simply, what was that first thing that you, that you wrote and you said, "I should film this"?

• 29:28Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 29:29Will Arnett?

  And that you, first thing you actually put to film, that you, from your own words?

• 29:33Speaker 03

  Well, I did like short treatments and shot lists and things like that. But really, funny enough that when I was 16, just about to turn 17, I wrote a short film that was called The Dirk Diggler Story, that was what Boogie Nights became. And it was like a 20, it was like a 23 or 24-page script. But I did it in the format that was sort of popular at the time. And all I had was this sort of bad video camera. So I realized it wasn't gonna look good. It wasn't gonna look like a movie. So I wrote this thing that was about 23 pages long. And it was interviews with people looking back at the life of this guy Dirk Diggler. Oh, A Current Affair was a very popular show at that time. I don't know if you remember that.

• 30:17Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  But they would always have these insanely overdramatic, you know. And it was so preposterous that it was so trying to find a way into the story that I thought was interesting, which is the pornography that had surrounded me my whole life, living where I lived. Like, it was so obvious what was around me. And then writing it in this format was like a doable thing. Like, okay, I can get somebody and do an interview with them, you know. I mean, it's a format that's still at work, you know. But at the time, it was really like the most convenient and plausible way into a story with the equipment that you had at hand.

• 30:54Will Arnett?

  Wow. Have you transferred that from VHS?

• 30:57Speaker 03

  No, it was 8mm, 8mm video, so a high 8, I think they would call it.

• 31:02Will Arnett?

  Have you transferred it to something that'll last? And are we ever gonna see it?

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Hopefully not. Hopefully it's somewhere. No, it's transferred within an inch of its life. It's available. I think maybe it's on YouTube. I'd have to look again.

• 31:13Will Arnett?

  Oh, really?

• 31:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm not sure.

• 31:16Will Arnett?

  Wow.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  It's not terrible. There's still some jokes that are the same and things and some pieces that, you know, remained in Boogie Nights. You know, what was great about that was that what I didn't even realize at the time in terms of the writing, in terms of really learning how to write, was that I'd created this kind of, these fictional characters in this fake documentary, right? And then I realized what I had to do was adapt that. Adapt these fake lives into a movie. And I spent the next, well, probably about 10 years doing that. So I like wrote a 90-page version of this documentary. And then I realized, well, I don't wanna do that. That's not the right format for this. I wanna write this as a fictional film.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  So I did that, you know, for 10 years. I guess it was the way that I learned how to write, really, was practicing telling this story in multiple different ways.

• 32:09Will Arnett?

  It's funny, that seems to be a recurring theme with a lot of filmmakers and writers. I know, you know, Kenny Lonergan used to do, back in Naked Angels, in this theater company in New York in the 90s, he did- Various scene nights on Monday nights where he would do the scene about a brother and a sister. And then just this guy who was kind of lost in his twenties in New York, et cetera, et cetera. And it took on a bunch of different incarnations, a bunch of different scenes, which eventually then became This Is Our Youth, the play.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Right.

• 32:39Will Arnett?

  That my then girlfriend, Missy Jaeger, was in with Mark Ruffalo and Josh Hamilton. That then became kind of really, I think the inspiration for You Can Count on Me. You know, and but it was like this similar story, similar theme that he told in various ways over at least fifteen years before he kind of landed on that.

• 33:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:04Will Arnett?

  I'm sure you can probably relate to that.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  For sure. You know, maybe there's leftovers and you're just, I don't know. How deep is your well, I guess you just keep.

• 33:14Jason Bateman?

  Well, to that point, I mean, do you find that it was basically a peel in the onion further and further back on a specific theme that you thought this sort of story was a fun example of? And if so, what is that theme?

• 33:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, but that's a, can you write a theme? I can never write a theme.

• 33:34Jason Bateman?

  Well, I mean, but I mean, you tell me, you know, you're doing a theme of being, let's say, the irresponsible chase of fame.

• 33:44Speaker 03

  No, I never, I never have anything good like that. I always have like, just like, no, like, I never ever have. I have more like facts, like, well, what would, what really happens here? And some steal from real life, like, every story was essentially the same, you know? It was like if the exaggerated version was the guy who steps off the bus and, you know, kind of comes to Hollywood with big dreams.

• 34:06Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 34:06Speaker 03

  And takes his pants off, and then the next thing you know, he's a big star. And it was any classic rise and fall story. So I'm always just sort of following any steps of reality. I mean, I don't know, I never, I get so scared of writing to a theme or having anything like that beforehand. I can remember at a certain point, maybe needing help, like, what is the story? And. Luckily enough, coming across Singin' in the Rain and being like, oh, right. It's just the same thing as like silent talkies, you know. It's this transitional time in whatever industry. They're going from shooting on film to shooting on video. Like, use things like this to tell your story and whatever themes will just emerge later.

• 34:48Jason Bateman?

  Well, yes, so you write a story and you basically just write a script because it's, to oversimplify it. You, this, this, this event runs to this event and this event and this event. And now we have an ending and it's a fun story. And now you shoot it and all that worked out well. Now you're in the editing room and you start to shape this, pardon the phrase, experience for the audience. And it starts to sort of present itself as a film. And you start working with either temp music or the actual score. And maybe themes start to develop for you as a viewer, as you're viewing it, trying to keep the optics of a viewer.

• 35:28Jason Bateman?

  Do you allow that to happen? And then does that inform the way you finish the film? And, and oh, here's, here's a little theme that's existing underneath this crunchy story that's kind of fun. Does that, does that, do you find that that happens?

• 35:42Speaker 03

  I find that that's exactly what happens with the exception that, that it does happen a little bit earlier. You know, that, that once you, I mean, listen, I'm not blind, you know, as you, as you're writing something, you maybe, you're fighting off the idea that the theme is right in front of your face, just because you want to try to tell something factually. And what ends up emerging emerges and you can't fight it. Hopefully you like it, you're, you're enjoying what's happening. But you, I think, and you, you keep a half an eye on it, but really you keep the other eye on what are the facts? What are the facts? What are the facts of the story, you know? Why, why is that? Because, I don't know, I find films that overindulge in...

• 36:28Speaker 03

  Telling me the theme are annoying, you know, and boring. So, but yes, to your point that once you, and then you get into shooting and you're seeing dailies and you're seeing stuff emerge that is really exciting or stuff that is unexpected and you either embrace it or you say, perhaps this is not going in the right direction. But very, more often than not, you can't stop what's coming, nor should you, that you have to kind of be, surrender. You're guiding a ship, but you're also surrendering a bit to the path that's happening. And, you know, performances kind of get bigger or smaller, whatever ends up happening. And then it just keeps on going and you keep refining that through the editing and all that.

• 37:13Will Arnett?

  One of the, if we can get into staying on the idea of themes, one of the themes of, it seems to me of your films is that they're very specific visually and stylistically, each one different in its own way and, but you, they do seem so specific in the writing. And, and so what is your relationship like, again, going deeper into the weeds on filmmaking, but what is your relationship like with your production designer and your, and your DP leading up to when you actually shoot? Because it does seem like all of your films, I told you once, at, at risk of further embarrassment to myself and, and to you, that, you know, for instance, There Will Be Blood, I, I feel

• 37:54Will Arnett?

  like it should be just hung in, in MoMA and left there for people to watch. It's an incredible piece of art in every way, from the writing to the direction, to the, to the art direction, you know, production. What is that like for you, leading up to actually rolling film and working with those departments?

• 38:14Speaker 03

  Well, it's the great joy of collaboration, particularly when you're doing it with somebody that you love and, and work with. Like, for instance, on that film, I, I had never worked with Jack Fisk, who's one of the great production designers, who started his career with Terrence Malick and David Lynch. They kind of go back to their beginnings together. Anyway, I contacted Jack Fisk and, and had written the script and I needed to kind of create, I needed a lot of help with making Oil Derricks and the recreation of an early California town. And there was only one person that helped do that, so it started a great collaboration.

• 38:51Speaker 03

  Jack Fisk was... You know, we were kind of trying to learn how to get oil out of the ground and really trying to be really, you know, do our research. And he said the greatest thing, he's like, you know, I've found that if we can just get a children's book about this, it's really better than trying to really understand how to do it with all these kind of books that are this thick. And it was one of these great lessons and like, yeah, get the children's book first and don't be, you know, because it'll have drawings, it'll be simple.

• 39:19Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 39:19Speaker 03

  And it was like, wow, Jack Fisk gets the children's book first. All right, that's really good advice. But we had the incredible joy of going to scout locations together and find a place to make this film. And I learned from him, one incredible trick that I still try to make true is that the more you can have a location where everything's close together, the more freedom you have.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  Here's what I mean by that, is that if you shoot a scene, you know, over here and you see it a few days later, you think that's the worst scene that we've ever done. We should really try to do it again, is that you can go do it again. You know, you kind of create your own, you create your own backlog, you create your own universe and try as much as you possibly can to not move too much, but to have a variety of different looks and things happening. So that, I don't know, I'm lost in whatever your question was, it was kind of like the collaboration, that's...

• 40:21Jason Bateman?

  Well, the simplicity sometimes yields some of the most complex and sophisticated results, perhaps, yeah.

• 40:27Speaker 03

  Sure, that's my role.

• 40:28Jason Bateman?

  Yeah. Was there a similar process with Johnny Greenwood, who did the, for Tracy, was the composer on that film? I believe it was the first time he'd composed music for a film and first time you guys worked together?

• 40:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. There was a piece of music that he had written for orchestra, because he was already well-versed in how to write for string instruments. It wasn't like, don't let him fool you. I mean, I know he's...

• 40:54Jason Bateman?

  But obviously, his score was incredible, as was everything else in the film.

• 40:59Speaker 03

  It was really incredible, and it's an opportu-- you know, look, I think, no, there was no kind of crazy weird instrumentation or something like that. He does do funny things with instruments where he'll detune certain pieces of the orchestra and keep others in tune. And so he has the ability to make it sound very familiar. You're hearing string instruments, but that sounds just out of body enough that you can't quite place it. So he's brilliant like that, but that sort of stuff, it's, you know, it's nice, it's trickery, but he writes beautiful music that complements the film and they go hand in hand. And it was the beginning of a beautiful collaboration.

• 41:37Jason Bateman?

  Do you consciously keep that in mind when you're writing, like spaces or do you listen to stuff when you write?

• 41:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, I had all kinds of, the stuff that I was listening to was stuff that he likes anyway. Was it Penderecki or Schubert or, you know, even the piece that he had written for the BBC Orchestra. So that was already kind of informing where my head was at. And it was nice to go to him and say like, you know, the movie lends itself too to just, to like wide open spaces and like a huge opportunity to fill long gaps of silence with music that can either be gigantically loud or even just simmering underneath. So it was quite a good entrance into the game for him.

• 42:19Jason Bateman?

  I love that.

• 42:20Will Arnett?

  What's the music that you put on when you go like pick up the kids from school or whatever? Like what are you, what are your bands?

• 42:27Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, what's the music you have to take off the stereo when your kids get in and put on?

• 42:33Speaker 03

  Well, they're already sick of that Smile record. They've been hearing that enough. They're like, they're like enough with that, enough, enough, enough. So, well, come on.

• 42:41Jason Bateman?

  What's Pearl listening to right now?

• 42:44Speaker 03

  Pearl is listening to, well, you know what she's listening to is anything, and I don't know in any of the, many of the artists, but we just, we're kind of obsessed right now with this film, The Worst Person in the World.

• 42:58Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  I don't know if you guys have seen it.

• 43:00Jason Bateman?

  I saw it in the trailer, it looks great.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  Ah, it's fucking magical, this film. And it's got this great soundtrack, so we've just kind of been listening to all this variety of songs on that soundtrack, which is everything from like, Harry Nilsson and Todd Rundgren, to a lot of new stuff that I've never heard in my life, you know?

• 43:15Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 43:16Sean Hayes?

  I want to ask you something about, you know, streaming versus wide release and where we're at in the business of that, and, you know, I was having this conversation with a friend, and we were talking about how, for example, West Side Story, or Licorice Pizza, or whatever it is that's out there that's fantastic right now, how that would have fared with a really long wide release run, would anybody see these things? Are we really, truly at the point where we just want to see stuff in our homes? But to the filmmaker, I imagine, you want it to be seen on that big screen for, because of the genre of filmmaking, right? Because of the thing that lends itself to that. So what are your thoughts about that?

• 43:59Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, I mean, I, I don't know, I kind of, I don't know, I mean, I like everything, you know what I mean? I mean, I really do, I sound like Daniel Plainview, who's like, I like all kinds of religions, they're all fucking, you know, fun to me.

• 44:13Jason Bateman?

  And then he sticks it in your back.

• 44:15Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 44:16Sean Hayes?

  But when you make a movie, isn't the idea in your head, I can't wait to see this on the big screen?

• 44:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 44:22Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 44:23Sean Hayes?

  And so with the, with the business of this business, it just seems to be less and less that if it's not one of these big superhero movies, it's gonna...

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Well, listen, that's exactly right, I mean, to that point is, um... There's probably, you know, thirty theaters in this country where it would look great and sound great, and the rest are fucking filth. I'm sorry, but it's like, you know, and that's the sad truth of it, is that I can understand why everybody says like, "Oh, piss off, I'm staying at home." You know, "You want me to pay for babysitter and pay for parking and come in and look at this shit? And look at it on a fucking screen that you guys haven't even, you know, I don't know, it's hard to defend at a certain point."

• 45:06Jason Bateman?

  Yeah. But I'm sure that if, God forbid, the business became a place where it's only event movies in theaters, and the only place that you can expect your film to be seen is at home, based on it's not a big effects thing or whatever, you'd much rather people see a film, be able to make films and have them see it at home than make no films at all.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  Right, but, I don't know, I think that's kind of bullshit too, because the reason why is, when all these theaters were opening up again, you know, you have these huge gigantic twenty-five plexes and stuff like that, and everybody was crying, "Oh, they're empty." It was like, "Well, what did you fucking think was gonna happen?" But if you go to any of the great theaters, let's say in Los Angeles or New York, that are playing specialty programming, they're packed with people.

• 45:57Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 45:58Speaker 03

  They're all turning out. They're film lovers, they're people that you know are gonna come out and turn out for this thing, and because there's one theater with four hundred seats that they can fill, and they can do two shows a day or three shows a day, and people will still turn up. It was like, everyone's scratching their head, "No one's coming back for the movies." It's like, "Well, they're not coming back to these weird horrible pyramids that we've built."

• 46:20Will Arnett?

  But Paul, I think that what you're, maybe you're saying, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but is there, there is a little bit of, "Well, of course they're not gonna come back, because look what you're putting in the theaters," is part of the problem, A. And I can say that, and I know it's hard for you to say because of your position in the films that you make, and you probably don't want to be that guy who says that, but you make the kind of films that you want, that are really incredible films, and at the same time, you don't seek out recognition for yourself in a way that a lot of other filmmakers seem to do. It's never about your own sort of, you know, increasing your personal...

• 46:59Jason Bateman?

  Fame, so my question to you is, how much of that are you aware of show business in fact? Or are you kind of in your bubble of making the films that you make?

• 47:07Speaker 03

  No, I do and then I don't. I slip in and out of it because I love, part of loving movies as much as I do, the history of movies and my, you know, my obsession with this work, which has been with me forever and is what I've made of my life.

• 47:26Speaker 03

  It does involve being fascinated with the way that it moves, you know, like we were talking about before, Singing in the Rain, you know, that's a fantastic story, the way that what happened to the movie business when it changed from talkies to... So I constantly try to keep an eye on that or try to understand it or have enough friends in this business from over the years that I can call up and ask, you know, what does this mean? What does this mean when this film is doing well? Or what is going to happen here? What ties do you see turning? And it's nice to gauge that stuff. I love this business and I love movies so much that I have a real interest in seeing it survive. But more often than not, the volume of my day becomes more about film preservation, you know,

• 48:12Speaker 03

  and film history and trying to keep that stuff alive. And then just sort of looking to see what's happening and reacting, I suppose, but I don't know.

• 48:21Jason Bateman?

  How often do you collaborate with Quentin Tarantino on those efforts? Because I know he's got a real passion for the history of cinema and turning people on to stuff that perhaps they haven't seen.

• 48:32Speaker 03

  He's great about all that, but he's amazing about it, one of the best. But he also really runs in his own lane, you know, because he... The person who I collaborate the most with that is Scorsese because he has the Film Foundation. He, since the 70s, since the late 70s, early 80s...

• 48:50Speaker 03

  Went around to every studio in town and said, "Look, you know, this is when it was really tragic, when the products they had made since their existence were really fading away and dying and weren't being taken care of." You have to, this is just on the cusp of VHS coming around in home entertainment. So he was really out there at the very beginning with the Film Foundation, saying, "This is the biggest cultural, historical thing that this country has to offer, and we have to preserve it, and we have to take care of it. We have to invest money and time and manpower into figuring this out." So being a part of his Film Foundation has been, I mean, one of the great honors of my life. It's great.

• 49:33Sean Hayes?

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• 50:15Sean Hayes?

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• 50:41Sean Hayes?

  This episode of Smartless is sponsored by Duluth Trading Company. Guys, Duluth makes gear for people who work their butts off. Duluth exists for doers and was founded on the philosophy that there's gotta be a better way, which explains why their flannels are both comfortable and practical. Armpit gussets-

• 51:00Sean Hayes?

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• 51:42Sean Hayes?

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• 52:22Sean Hayes?

  All right, back to the show.

• 52:24Will Arnett?

  Paul, I know you're a huge, you're a big comedy fan and, and you've obviously collaborated with, with Sandler and you-

• 52:32Sean Hayes?

  And married the funniest woman in Hollywood.

• 52:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:34Sean Hayes?

  Or in the world. Maybe we can just say the world.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  Or Tracy.

• 52:37Sean Hayes?

  Maya Rudolph, Tracy.

• 52:38Will Arnett?

  Maya was one of our first guests.

• 52:40Speaker 03

  I said that to her. I said, you were one of the first guests. She was like, no, no, I was. I said, I think you were. She was like one of the first two or three, right?

• 52:47Will Arnett?

  Yeah. Maya is one of those people, as you know-

• 52:49Speaker 03

  Did you give her a piece of the pie? Because-

• 52:51Sean Hayes?

  No, no.

• 52:51Will Arnett?

  You should have.

• 52:52Sean Hayes?

  We sent her a cake, though.

• 52:53Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 52:55Speaker 03

  She should have.

• 52:55Will Arnett?

  But she is one of those people that anytime you're doing anything funny, you go, so then it would be great. And then, God, if we could get Maya.

• 53:01Sean Hayes?

  Just to stamp it.

• 53:02Will Arnett?

  Yeah. You know, because she's so just-

• 53:05Sean Hayes?

  How did you guys meet? Where did that, where, where'd that, as Will was saying, you've been a huge fan of comedy for a long time. Was it just, did you just fan out on her and, and say, will you have dinner with me?

• 53:16Speaker 03

  It was just like that.

• 53:17Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it's simple, right?

• 53:20Sean Hayes?

  Or did you swipe left or right? How does, I don't know how it works.

• 53:23Will Arnett?

  See, Paul, see, Paul? It's not easy, is it? It's not easy to bite your tongue with Bateman.

• 53:29Jason Bateman?

  He wants to hurt me, I know.

• 53:31Speaker 03

  I, you know, it's funny. I'm not sure what it is that it's, I guess it's like anything like, you know, I don't know. There's like, you know, actors that wanted to be rock stars or, you know, musicians wanted to be actors. Like, people that making serious films really just like, the one thing they really loved was comedies, you know? Like, I had made these films, I thought that they were funny, but people were saying like, well, no, it's not.

• 53:58Jason Bateman?

  You're, you make really funny shit.

• 54:01Speaker 03

  Well, I think, I think.

• 54:02Jason Bateman?

  Really, really. You never ask for a laugh, and that's what makes it so goddamn funny. There's no winking. It's great. Sorry, go ahead.

• 54:08Speaker 03

  Thank you. Cause I, yeah, because everything, everything that, that I watched or in my daily kind of existence was just like, I just devoured that stuff. And I met Maya when she'd started SNL.

• 54:23Speaker 03

  And yeah.

• 54:24Jason Bateman?

  What, what was that meeting? How'd you guys meet?

• 54:26Speaker 03

  Well, you know, the funny thing is, is that I.

• 54:28Sean Hayes?

  Does she make it laugh at home too, Paul?

• 54:33Sean Hayes?

  But she sure makes us laugh.

• 54:37Sean Hayes?

  She just must be a cut-up at home.

• 54:41Will Arnett?

  Somebody once said to me, that reminds me, I think I told this once, somebody said to me, you know, when, when Amy and I were married, they said, what's it like being married to the funny, funniest person in America? And I said, you'd have to ask my wife.

• 54:58Speaker 03

  I love that. Do you find that funny people are generally pretty serious when they're at home?

• 55:03Will Arnett?

  Yes.

• 55:05Jason Bateman?

  Nothing funny about it.

• 55:06Sean Hayes?

  But I do want to know that, how, how did you meet, Paul? How did you and Maya meet? I really do want to know.

• 55:10Speaker 03

  We, we, we.

• 55:12Will Arnett?

  At SNL, right?

• 55:13Speaker 03

  At SNL. I, that was at the time with Will Ferrell and Molly Shannon, and I had met Molly Shannon. And she said, you know, you could come and you can see how we do this. And at the time I was writing Punch Drunk Love, and I was obsessed with, with that time that Sandler had been there. So I accepted that offer to come and look and then watch, you know, behind the scenes. And then Molly said, "Well, you know, you can direct a short." So I directed a short with her in it and just got to kind of witness the inner workings of this whole thing. And at that time, I was also getting to know Sandler and asking him about his time there. I was getting ready to make Punch, Drunk, Love with him. And as I was getting ready to leave after my week there, my head was spinning. I was like, "Well, that was great, but I don't want to fucking do that again."

• 55:58Speaker 03

  Because it was so much, it was a different pace of work. And I was thrilled to have done it, but that was enough of a taste. They said, "There was a piece of paper that somebody had put in my hands or something like that." And I looked at it and the information was on it that there was a new cast member starting next week, and her name was Maya Rudolph. And I can remember seeing her name on that piece of paper. I don't know if you've had any feeling like this, but you see something for the first time and you realize, "That's, my life has just changed. I don't know how. I don't know why. I don't know what just happened." Wow. But you know, quickly you kind of move on. You just, whatever, you have something else to do. You have to, you know.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  But looking back, I, obviously, that impulse, whatever that kind of, that shining kind of feeling that can happen to any of us if we're open to it, happened. And so I, I roamed around and then I saw her on television and I saw what she was doing. And I had stayed in touch with a few people from the show and I was like, "My God, this woman's amazing." And on my way back through, I stopped to watch and we met at the show. And then I had to go on to London and I, to work on Punch, Drunk, Love. And then I got to London and I said, "Well, something didn't feel right." And I just came back to New York.

• 57:29Will Arnett?

  Wow.

• 57:30Speaker 03

  And I came back and then uh.

• 57:32Will Arnett?

  That's fucking beautiful, man.

• 57:33Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 57:34Will Arnett?

  For real.

• 57:34Jason Bateman?

  So you come back to New York because you felt drawn back to her and called her and said, let's go out?

• 57:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:41Jason Bateman?

  No way.

• 57:42Will Arnett?

  I wanted to make a joke in there so badly, but I love that story. I wanted to say that.

• 57:46Jason Bateman?

  He melted my cold heart.

• 57:47Will Arnett?

  Sean had that feeling, that same feeling of seeing something written when somebody pushed a flyer for a new Vons that was opening around the corner.

• 57:54Jason Bateman?

  Oh, I thought you were saying when he drove by a new Chin Chin and he had to double back and.

• 57:59Will Arnett?

  He knew his life was.

• 58:00Speaker 03

  I had to turn back and I haven't left since.

• 58:03Will Arnett?

  Jason, Jason felt the same way when he found out the deadline in Hollywood had an app.

• 58:09Will Arnett?

  But, but, but that is, that's fucking incredible, man.

• 58:14Sean Hayes?

  I love that. Maya reminds me too, Paul, that you and I born the same day, same year. Every year she reminds me.

• 58:20Speaker 03

  I think of it all the time. We're, we're, we're one in the same, Sean.

• 58:23Sean Hayes?

  That's right.

• 58:24Speaker 03

  June 26th.

• 58:24Will Arnett?

  Are you guys?

• 58:25Speaker 03

  June 26th, 1970.

• 58:26Sean Hayes?

  June 26th, 1970.

• 58:27Jason Bateman?

  You two guys are.

• 58:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:29Jason Bateman?

  But what city were you born in?

• 58:30Sean Hayes?

  Chicago, Evergreen Park. I was born in the hospital, Evergreen Park, but I just say Chicago.

• 58:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:36Sean Hayes?

  You?

• 58:37Speaker 03

  I was born um, uh, here in Los Angeles at what is now the Scientology uh, center, which was um, Saint uh, Johns? I guess it was. It was, no, it was Cedars of Lebanon, it was called.

• 58:50Will Arnett?

  On Franklin? Or no, no, the far east of there.

• 58:53Speaker 03

  Right there where Sunset and Hollywood meet, that, that big, they, blue building.

• 58:56Jason Bateman?

  Almost near Prospect.

• 58:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, right, right around the corner from there.

• 58:59Sean Hayes?

  It went from Catholic to Scientology, that building?

• 59:02Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 59:03Sean Hayes?

  That's amazing.

• 59:04Jason Bateman?

  Hey, um, you know, you mentioned Sandler. Uh, what was it you saw in Adam earlier than anybody else did?

• 59:12Speaker 03

  Well, I always liked it when Adam would get angry, you know, the violent part of him would come out.

• 59:20Speaker 03

  And it was like, and I, I guess I saw, um, the story that I remember, there was a sketch called The Denise Show, um, where he's talking to his ex-girlfriend Denise, who's played by Shannon Doherty. And, and it's a funny enough premise and, and he, he keeps trying to woo her, woo her back. But there's a moment when he starts screaming, um, I think he's, I think his dad calls up, like, and is on the speakerphone and he starts screaming at his father. And there was a moment where Sandler, Sandler screamed, he, he's so invested in it that the whites of his eyes turned black and it like, and I could just, there was a level

• 1:00:01Speaker 03

  of anger and commitment to this performance. I said, that is something else, that he's not just screaming and being like, he, he, he, he potentially is, is completely psychotic underneath all of it. And I loved it.

• 1:00:14Sean Hayes?

  That's great. I love that.

• 1:00:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it was, um, you know, he has a great physical way about him and I, um, yeah, loved working with, with Adam.

• 1:00:24Will Arnett?

  Do you ever have any desire to, especially now that there makes so many of these sort of limited series, does that ever, does that ever appeal to you, the idea of being able to tell?

• 1:00:32Speaker 03

  400 page script?

• 1:00:33Will Arnett?

  Over a longer, yeah.

• 1:00:34Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:00:37Speaker 03

  I'm, I don't know. I want to be careful what I say here because I only in the past couple of weeks have become a little bit preoccupied with the, what seems to be a real unfortunate turn of events, which is 80 minute stories being turned into like nine part, you know, things that it just seems to be the kind of, the call of the day. Like this is what we're doing.

• 1:01:01Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:02Speaker 03

  When in fact, you know, it's like piss off. I, I don't, this is, this is stretched out way too much, you know? I mean, I was watching, um, The Purple Rose of Cairo last night, which is about 92 minutes and absolutely perfect. And it's packed so much story.

• 1:01:19Sean Hayes?

  You know, it's so interesting because people say that all the time. They're like, did you see so and so? Did you see the new series blank or whatever? And they're like, I tried to get it. Well, no, you gotta wait nine episodes in.

• 1:01:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, just wait till the third one.

• 1:01:31Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 1:01:31Speaker 03

  I know. Fuck, piss off.

• 1:01:33Sean Hayes?

  Can it be good off of the first one?

• 1:01:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. No, so I, but I only have been really feeling this lately when I'm, and I, I don't have a leg to stand on because I haven't really, I don't, I don't want to sound. Like an asshole here, but I haven't seen much of it because my viewing always goes like if I have an opportunity to watch TV, I fucking end up, I'm watching old movies, you know, it's just sort of like my gravity pulls me that way with the time that I have in the day. But, um, you know, you know, sometimes you have a story that's very large, like a large scale story, any kind of epic stories and and those are great and there used to be this opportunity, they would have like The Winds of War or, you know, Roots or these sort of these huge mini series. It was like, okay, that's fantastic.

• 1:02:19Speaker 03

  That used to be a kind of work of art in and of itself. But now I feel this kind of slow motion turn towards stories stretched out.

• 1:02:30Speaker 03

  Too much, I think. I guess underneath it, I have a fear that the painfully difficult challenge of telling a story in preferably under two hours, hopefully 90 minutes, will start to get lost. Because I think it's a very, very valuable storytelling to, you know, that structure is great.

• 1:02:50Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  I don't want to see that get lost.

• 1:02:53Will Arnett?

  There is the, the, the risk that we rewiring how we appreciate those things and I watched that, the story of Neville Chamberlain, uh, you know, signing the Munich Agreement with Hitler over the Sudetenland, et cetera, et cetera, trying to avoid war.

• 1:03:07Jason Bateman?

  This was just to unwind the other night.

• 1:03:08Speaker 03

  Just unwind.

• 1:03:09Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  On Tubi, I think it was on Tubi.

• 1:03:12Will Arnett?

  What was interesting was, was he was telling this really simple story that was just a snapshot of that time and of that very specific story and these two guys who tried to alter the course of. And I realized halfway through, I thought, to your point, I, I was like, I'm surprised that they didn't try to stretch it out and that they'd actually made this film became quite surprising to me while I was watching it. Because we've become so accustomed to and our brains are wired to, you know, great, there's gonna be 12 episodes of this now.

• 1:03:46Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 1:03:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Jason Bateman?

  Um, well, let's talk about the opposite, uh, trailers. Um, I think you love trailers.

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:55Jason Bateman?

  Based on how incredible your trailers are, and I think you cut them yourself.

• 1:04:00Speaker 03

  I love trailers. Trailers are their own little art form and.

• 1:04:03Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 1:04:04Speaker 03

  I, I've, I have cut them in the past or collaborated with people. Um, the last one that we did was, was not cut by, by me. It was cut by a guy named Joel, um, who's got a company called Aspect Ratio and it was one of those great moments where I just handed the film over and said, can you do something? And, and it was so perfect right away that we didn't say anything. We just said, that's it, you know?

• 1:04:27Jason Bateman?

  Really?

• 1:04:27Speaker 03

  And that was a really fun feeling, but yeah, I always, um, that was one of the joys to me of going to sit in a movie theater. I guess there's people, there's probably two types of people in the world, people that like to sit down and watch trailers and then people that like to watch the credits of movies, you know?

• 1:04:48Speaker 03

  People like to watch credits and people that don't like to watch credits. I like to watch the credits.

• 1:04:52Jason Bateman?

  I do too.

• 1:04:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:54Jason Bateman?

  You once described having four kids in the best way I thought possible. I think I mentioned this when we had Maya on, um, which was, and I'll, I'll mash this up, you correct me, uh, that having four kids is like having four cozy fires burning in the house. Just hearing them run around and, and it sounds like you're as much of a homebody as I am. How do you manage to work as hard as you do and still be an incredible father to not one, not two, not three, but four kids?

• 1:05:23Speaker 03

  Well, I hope so. I mean, time will tell. Um, yeah, this is very dangerous. I remember there's these great, uh, episodes where Lucille Ball, um, doing these radio interviews from the, the mid 60s.

• 1:05:35Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:35Speaker 03

  I don't know if you've heard those. They were on Sirius XM for a little while and they're the, and you hear all these people, um, talking about their strengths as parents. And then you sort of realize, you know, that time has really proven quite differently that, you know, they're these people talking about, you know, we really spend time on the weekends and everything else. And you're like, uh huh, uh huh.

• 1:05:55Will Arnett?

  Stay tuned for the book.

• 1:05:56Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah. But, um. I don't know, you know, one of the benefits of writing, I suppose, is the ability to work from home, the ability to be present at home.

• 1:06:08Will Arnett?

  And shooting movies about the valley.

• 1:06:09Speaker 03

  Well, that helps too.

• 1:06:11Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:11Speaker 03

  To not go too far away. But even still, I think that, you know, I don't know. When I went to London to make Phantom Thread, they did come for some of the time, but then they understood that for two months, you're not going to see me, you know. But that's okay. Out of 12 months in a year, as long as I'm with you the other chunk of time, you won't miss me that much.

• 1:06:34Will Arnett?

  Sorry, Jason, when he says be present, it means that you are where you are and that you're aware of the surroundings and of other people, etc.

• 1:06:42Speaker 03

  Got it. Not just getting filled in.

• 1:06:44Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:44Speaker 03

  Right. Understood.

• 1:06:49Will Arnett?

  Paul, I will say, I do love, and this is such a, this is almost trite to say, but your affinity for your love of telling stories about Los Angeles in so many different ways and so many different times. I find it really fascinating. You tell stories about the experience of California unlike anybody else. And because I think that there's always been that rub that California is not as interesting because it's newer, that it's not the East Coast, and it's always kind of looked down on in this way. But you tell these stories about actually how rich it is. It's just different.

• 1:07:30Jason Bateman?

  Mm-hmm. And they've got the Dodgers, right, Paul?

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  Yes, they do.

• 1:07:35Jason Bateman?

  You know?

• 1:07:35Speaker 03

  Well, yes, they do.

• 1:07:37Will Arnett?

  Are you a Dodger guy?

• 1:07:38Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, I catch them up with one.

• 1:07:39Speaker 03

  Come on.

• 1:07:40Jason Bateman?

  Hey, so Tarantino says, "Any great filmmaker only has 10 films in them. You've made nine." Tell me that's not true.

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  Oh, that's horseshit. I don't know. I don't understand what he's on about that.

• 1:07:52Jason Bateman?

  Okay, great. Because I need more than one more from you.

• 1:07:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. You got it. I mean, I don't know.

• 1:07:57Jason Bateman?

  Are you gonna do it like Clint Eastwood until they cart you off?

• 1:08:05Jason Bateman?

  Yes.

• 1:08:06Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 1:08:06Sean Hayes?

  You have to. What else are you gonna do?

• 1:08:09Speaker 03

  I think, yeah, what else are you gonna do?

• 1:08:11Sean Hayes?

  You have to.

• 1:08:12Jason Bateman?

  Because I would imagine your perspective on stuff changes as you get older. In other words, you would have made Hard Eight differently today than you did then. No better, no worse, just differently.

• 1:08:22Sean Hayes?

  You haven't made one bad film.

• 1:08:24Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, I want to see what your, what your brain is like when you're 85. What's interesting to you and how you compose shots and all that stuff. So, don't stop, please.

• 1:08:33Speaker 03

  Well, thank you.

• 1:08:33Jason Bateman?

  Keep going.

• 1:08:34Speaker 03

  Thank you for saying that.

• 1:08:35Sean Hayes?

  Thanks for making really good shit, Paul.

• 1:08:37Will Arnett?

  Yeah, Paul, your batting average is insane. You're one of the fucking greats, man. I always tell you that when I see you in person, because I can't, there's no other, I can't dress it up. I just can't dress it up, man.

• 1:08:47Jason Bateman?

  You have, you've really honored us with hanging out for an hour, Paul.

• 1:08:51Speaker 03

  Yes, thank you, Paul, so much. Are you kidding? Thank you, guys, really.

• 1:08:54Jason Bateman?

  Please say hi to my ass.

• 1:08:55Speaker 03

  I sure will, I sure will.

• 1:08:57Jason Bateman?

  Our love.

• 1:08:58Speaker 03

  I hope I see you guys in person for real soon. I can, I hope I can come see your Oscar Levant play, Sean. I am really, genuinely, I'm like, I love Oscar Levant.

• 1:09:08Sean Hayes?

  I would love for you to.

• 1:09:09Speaker 03

  Are you playing, who's playing Oscar Levant?

• 1:09:11Sean Hayes?

  That would be me.

• 1:09:12Speaker 03

  You're playing Oscar Levant?

• 1:09:13Sean Hayes?

  I'm playing Oscar Levant, yeah.

• 1:09:14Jason Bateman?

  You should hear him play Rhapsody in Blue, too, on piano. You know, he's a classically trained pianist. It's insane.

• 1:09:21Sean Hayes?

  Paulie, thank you for being here, we love you.

• 1:09:23Jason Bateman?

  Thanks so much, Paul.

• 1:09:24Will Arnett?

  Honestly, thank you, man.

• 1:09:24Speaker 03

  Are you kidding? Thanks, guys.

• 1:09:26Jason Bateman?

  Hopefully we'll see you out at the stadium if baseball gets their act together.

• 1:09:29Speaker 03

  Fingers crossed, they will, they will.

• 1:09:31Jason Bateman?

  All right. Have a great day, man.

• 1:09:33Will Arnett?

  See you, man.

• 1:09:34Speaker 03

  All right. See you, bye, Paul.

• 1:09:35Jason Bateman?

  Bye, buddy.

• 1:09:36Speaker 03

  Bye, Paul.

• 1:09:38Sean Hayes?

  That was good, good, Jay, I loved him.

• 1:09:40Will Arnett?

  Jay, oh my god.

• 1:09:41Jason Bateman?

  I mean, I've been working this for a couple of weeks with you guys, saying, I booked somebody that I'm excited about. That you guys won't be excited. I tried to, I tried to kind of fake it a little bit.

• 1:09:51Will Arnett?

  I can't believe it.

• 1:09:52Sean Hayes?

  Oh, no, it's a nice. You know, it's true, though, you know, when you, when you name all his movies for Tracy, again, I know you said at the top of this episode, but it's Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, um...

• 1:10:04Jason Bateman?

  There Will Be Blood.

• 1:10:04Sean Hayes?

  There Will Be Blood, Licorice Pizza that's out now, and...

• 1:10:07Will Arnett?

  The master.

• 1:10:08Sean Hayes?

  He doesn't miss, he never misses.

• 1:10:10Will Arnett?

  Phantom Flick never misses.

• 1:10:12Sean Hayes?

  And there's so many years in between him making those, that you're like, oh, that's why it's so long. Because he invests everything that he is into these things, that's why, what you said, nine, right? He's only made nine?

• 1:10:23Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, yeah, and they've all been great. Yeah, he's, uh... What a, what a talent, that guy. I'm really, I'm just, I'm, I think I seemed pretty casual all the way through that, but my goodness is that guy a hero to me.

• 1:10:35Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, he's amazing.

• 1:10:36Will Arnett?

  Yeah, same. I, I, you know, I've known him just a little bit over the years from, through Maya, and, uh, every time, I think that every time, I'm always right on the edge at risk of embarrassing myself. Um, and I do end up saying stuff like, "Your movie was incredible," and I can't get over it. And then I have to walk away. Most of the time, I have to walk away.

• 1:10:58Jason Bateman?

  I really, I would, I, I'd love for him to make some big, broad comedy, the ones that I know he's a fan of.

• 1:11:05Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I know, I know.

• 1:11:07Jason Bateman?

  The stuff that, uh...

• 1:11:08Will Arnett?

  I was gonna ask him that.

• 1:11:09Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, I mean, I'm sure he gets that question a lot, so I'm glad, glad none of us did, cause I, I wanted to ask him that too. But like, you know, you think about his affinity for that

• 1:11:18Will Arnett?

  I wanted to ask him first.

• 1:11:19Jason Bateman?

  kind of comedy, you know? Monty Python, um, SNL, uh, I bet it would just be stunning, but, um...

• 1:11:27Will Arnett?

  Yeah, he used to be around SNL so much, obviously, and, and, uh, I used to see that.

• 1:11:32Sean Hayes?

  He must love it. But you know, I liked our, I liked our conversation about, you know, the streaming versus the, the wide release stuff, because, you know, the wide release movies, when you go see them, you have to pay for them. But when they're at home, they kind of feel like they're free, so you don't have to buy it.

• 1:11:50Will Arnett?

  The race to the buy from you is so remarkable.

• 1:12:23Sean Hayes?

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• 1:13:29Sean Hayes?

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