M. Night Shyamalan

M. Night Shyamalan is a director, screenwriter, and producer. He first gained international acclaim in 1999 for his psychological thriller, The Sixth Sense, which earned six Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Picture. Over the next 24 years, he followed with a series of high-profile films including Unbreakable, The Village, Split, and most recently, Trap. With a distinctive directorial style, Shyamalan is best known for creating suspenseful, contemporary films with supernatural plots and twist endings. His cumulative box office gross exceeds $3.3 billion worldwide. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: Squarespace https://Squarespace.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ LMNT Electrolytes https://DrinkLMNT.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Athletic Nicotine https://www. AthleticNicotine.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Sign up to receive Tetragrammaton Transmissions https://www.tetragrammaton.com/join-newsletter

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

• 0:23Speaker 00

  The system rejecting you is such a blessing. And we never experienced it that way. We experienced it as pain and confirmation that we're not worthy and we don't have merit. And all those, the imposter syndrome things that we all walk around. But how wonderful it has been for me in the rejection of it all throughout the process. And what's left is so beautiful. I was just speaking to the crowd. And I was like, the moment that everything gets burned off. And you know, all of it, the rejection and everything. And there's no way to succeed in the system. As you see it, the next thought you have is so beautiful.

• 1:08Rick Rubin?

  What's the experience for you watching one of your films with an audience? How is it different than watching it yourself?

• 1:15Speaker 00

  Well, when I'm making it, I am very much kind of like that little kid that's going, oh, they're gonna love that. And that's gonna titillate them. And then they're gonna laugh at that. And then they're gonna gasp at that. And, oh, they're gonna think this. And then I'll go this, do this. And then when I'm watching it, to be honest, it's more of a torturous experience.

• 1:36Speaker 00

  Because you know, I'm so hyper raw, like a nerve, that anyone rustling, anyone reaching for a drink in the third row is drinking, let alone going to the bathroom, getting up and going to the bathroom, which would just basically cut me, gut me.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  So, you know, and whispering and this. All the things that are humanity, the messiness of it, all feels very painful, you know, very, very painful. And so, again, I guess in each one of those, I'm just so raw. Like, when I'm directing and when I'm watching, Movie, I'm very open. So you, people always laugh at me when I'm at, watching something being shot. When I'm, because my body's reacting and so I'm making faces and I'm reacting. I'm not distant from it. I'm not an observer. I'm totally connected in an umbilical cord. And the same thing happens in the movie. But when I'm watching my movie with an audience, it's just too sensitive.

• 2:31Rick Rubin?

  Are you ever surprised by reactions?

• 2:33Speaker 00

  Always, yeah, always. They have a intuitive understanding of the bone structure of a story. It just happened, they know it immediately. They understand it and what it's, what it thinks it's doing. And when they reject something, it's related to this bone structure thing. And, you know, I tend to think of it as a kind of a pyramid of elements. And the first element is the bone structure of a story. And we might get excited about level four of the pyramid and going, oh, whoa, we're gonna do this thing all in, you know, at the beach and it's gonna do this and I can do this cinema. You're talking about level four. You didn't do level one of the pyramid yet, which is the structure.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  Then if you, if you make that error, you know, it's a humility thing, first of all, to start at the bone, the bone structure, the skeleton of it.

• 3:27Rick Rubin?

  Describe the bone structure.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  So the bone structure, so, you know, guy meets girl, you know, falls in love. She's with somebody else, you know, the bone structure, guy gets, you know, and then ultimately.

• 3:36Rick Rubin?

  Would the bone structure happen in one page?

• 3:40Speaker 00

  The bone structure is, you know, when someone says, oh, well, that scene was slow, right? When they say something like that, that means they don't know where they are in the story. That's what slow means. I don't know where I am in the story. And that's.

• 3:53Rick Rubin?

  So it doesn't have to do with the scene itself?

• 3:55Speaker 00

  No.

• 3:56Rick Rubin?

  It has to do with where we are in the story?

• 3:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:59Rick Rubin?

  And whether we're advancing the story in that moment?

• 4:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, because they intuitively, they're geniuses at understanding this. And so they're, and that's all they see. They like see an X-ray vision of the story, past the beautiful production design, past everything, past the casting, everything. And they're, and they're just feeling this skeleton of the thing.

• 4:20Rick Rubin?

  So interesting.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  It is.

• 4:21Rick Rubin?

  I never heard it described this way before, so it's really fascinating.

• 4:24Speaker 00

  Oh, and, and what ends up happening is you as an author can become resentful of this.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  If you don't understand it. And so you find that you can have disdain for the audience. Which is, I did level four, five, six, and seven, and eight so well, you idiots. And they're like, you don't get to do that.

• 4:45Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  Where's level one? And it's a fascinating thing. It's because we're always in the present, and we're always in the past, and we're always in the future. As they're watching a story, they can't help when the, you know, if you introduce a kind of a war hero coming home to a mafia family, and he's the innocent. You know, and he's introducing his girlfriend to this family. You know, we're with the innocent, learning about the family, but already something has happened, which is there's one family member that's not in the business. So the story structure's begun in The Godfather. And so it's beginning. And then ultimately, he will be the biggest and greatest godfather. It's just satisfying, incredible. Even if I'm not aware, I'm so titillated by the bone structure of it.

• 5:30Speaker 00

  And so like, in that example, which I love The Godfather, they did everything on the pyramid, but they, Mario Puzo, started us with the skeleton, you know, which is the innocent that becomes powerful and dark. And don't mess with me, don't, you know, don't push me too far, because I'll become this thing.

• 5:48Rick Rubin?

  So now, based on that, do you always start with the bone structure?

• 5:55Speaker 00

  Wow, so you can't think your way? I mean, a lot of executives do believe you can, you know? And for me, I don't want to think my way to it. So I have to kind of open up to the subconscious and the universe, that it should just fall into place. Like the, you know, the last movie, it's kind of a, you know, a dad and a daughter going, you know, to a concert. They realize there's a trap for a serial killer, and then you let in that he's the serial killer, the father. Then I'm like, the bone structure starts taking off of like, and it's a beautiful bone structure for me because it's like, the audience is like, now in the shoes of the antagonist. Now, where does that go?

• 6:40Speaker 00

  Because now, we have a new bone structure. So it's, for me, the excitement is honoring what I said to you, the pyramid, and inventing new bone structure.

• 6:50Rick Rubin?

  So the bone structure, it's not familiar because bone structures are so similar from movie to movie. You're not saying that.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  I'm not saying that, but there's an inevitability of the audience trying to-

• 7:05Rick Rubin?

  Make sense of it.

• 7:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, make sense of where they are in the story. And if they give up, and now they're detached, that's a bad thing. You want that one-to-one with the character, that sinus curve of that we're in sync with the character. You could take it anywhere, but underneath it, you know. And so some people, like, for example, like, I don't know, pick any movie like that's, you know, in the old days, like, for example, like, you know, the bone structure of like, The Exorcist is so interesting, you know. They start out with in Iraq, and then you come to a little girl's room in Georgetown, and then you build it slowly. Something's wrong, something's wrong in the house. Something's wrong with the little girl. And the mom's an actress and totally ill-equipped to handle this, but she's a mom, you know, and we'll fight. And then the story of the priests,

• 7:51Speaker 00

  and then, you know, an older priest who's fought the devil, and then a younger one who doesn't quite believe. And it's again set up for a beautiful bone structure to happen there. You can feel it growing. And yet, you and I have never seen that before. But it's so strong, it knows itself, you know? And then even at the ending of The Exorcist, of how he dwarfs it and gets the girl to save the girl, is so unexpected and beautiful, but inevitable, from the bone structure.

• 8:15Rick Rubin?

  So do you say if the film knows itself, then the audience can get it?

• 8:22Speaker 00

  That's so, you're getting very close to-

• 8:26Speaker 00

  This sublime thing that we're dancing around, that there is this, it's like whatever the veining on a leaf or, you know, something in nature that's just perfect. And yet each leaf is different. The audience feels it. When, in those two examples that I gave of The Exorcist and Godfather, and you can feel that it was, wow, I've never felt that bone structure before. And yet it's perfect, you know? And it just moves. And I sometimes describe it as you're in a relationship with this story. And so you can yell at it, you can talk over it, you can manhandle it. But that's not a healthy relationship. It's talking back to you.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  And I believe maybe the end result of whether the relationship was a good relationship is in the bone structure ultimately. Did you listen or did you jam it? You know?

• 9:22Rick Rubin?

  How different is your understanding of this now versus when you made whatever your very first project was?

• 9:31Speaker 00

  It was more intuitive when I started in my twenties. I couldn't articulate anything we're talking about, but I was just following it. I would sit and I would know the difference between artifice, emotional artifice from me, not necessarily even the piece of art, and the connection to everything. I could feel that. And then, as always, experience helps you up to a certain point and then becomes your enemy because it's limiting.

• 10:00Rick Rubin?

  Because it's not always the same.

• 10:03Speaker 00

  It's not, yeah.

• 10:03Rick Rubin?

  So sometimes we think because it happened in the past, well, that's how it is.

• 10:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:07Rick Rubin?

  But it was that time. It may not be this next time.

• 10:10Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 10:12Rick Rubin?

  That's how you mean it's a limitation?

• 10:13Speaker 00

  I do, I do. You know, sometimes I think, you know, why does the songwriters who wrote the greatest songs of all time in their twenties can't do it in their forties and fifties and sixties? What is that? You know? And it's probably, now we're getting really philosophical, but our falling in love with the illusion that is this world, this society, and that we want at it. And now it's, we're no longer really next to the open door anymore.

• 10:44Rick Rubin?

  It does feel like as soon as we think we know more than we do, things get dangerous. And not in a good way.

• 10:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe we've, it's, we're defining ourselves. We're putting ourselves in concrete, in the illusion.

• 11:01Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  And this is, this is us, you know? In so many forms of this, we talked about, just now we referenced songwriters, but it could be, you know, what they call the Oscar curse, or anything where you've defined yourself.

• 11:13Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  And you're no longer, the joy, this kind of goes full circle to what we talked about. So the joy of rejection is you never fall in love with the illusion. And you don't have that danger. So you're, you're doing beautiful things. So a lot of us have done it on the fringe, you know, from the outside. And it's a gift because the illusion is rejecting you.

• 11:36Rick Rubin?

  Would you say all of your work is biographical?

• 11:41Speaker 00

  Emotionally, yeah. Yeah, you know, it's wherever I am because I've, I've initiated most of them myself. And I would say 85% of them are original stories that just came from my head, you know? And so they're just where I am. You know, like, for example, the thing I'm writing now is romance. And I want it. I feel that way right now, maybe because it's such a cynical time that I want it.

• 12:13Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  I want to believe in something as pure and innocent as that, you know?

• 12:17Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  And maybe others do too. I've trusted that whatever I'm, I'm going through, someone else is going through and feeling these things.

• 12:25Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. I think our best chance is if it's true to us, it's likely to be true to someone else.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 12:32Rick Rubin?

  Other than, well, this isn't really true to me, but this is how other people feel. It's impossible to know that.

• 12:38Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah, the analytics of that, you know? I have, just being totally transparent, you know, we're here. I have a tough time being in Los Angeles. Maybe because it's a, the site of commodization of art and the, the, the discipline, the striving for systemization of it and repetition of it. And I get it, you know? If you have to put out a certain amount of albums, a certain amount of movies every single year, you can't just wait for Michael Jordan. You have to make. You know, facsimiles of that, you know, and.

• 13:17Rick Rubin?

  But the idea to think everything is supposed to be a facsimile is a dangerous idea.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  It's an attempt to raise the floor.

• 13:24Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  And I get that if you're here and you need to do that, and I get that. But my job, and that's what I think living 2,000 miles away has afforded me, is a perspective of the illusion and the resistance of wanting to master the system, you know, to win by it.

• 13:46Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, you seem to exist well outside of the system, and it's a beautiful thing to see. There are not so many people who have been able to do that.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  You know what, something just happened before I came here, which was super positive. And something I wanted to happen and is happening and it appears to be going really, really well. And I was driving over here.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  And I'm not good at this. The system saying, yeah, you know, great, take a seat at the table. I don't even know how to be right now. Whereas I'm so built for, we don't think that's gonna work. Oh, yeah?

• 14:29Rick Rubin?

  I'll show you.

• 14:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, I love it. Love it, right? And so I love that. Then I'm like, oh, I'm fire. You know, I can't wait to get to work and let's go.

• 14:40Rick Rubin?

  So in some ways, if it's accepted too soon, maybe there's a feeling of you haven't gone far enough?

• 14:47Speaker 00

  I hope it's not rebellion. I think that's what you're referencing.

• 14:50Rick Rubin?

  I don't know.

• 14:50Speaker 00

  I hope not.

• 14:52Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  It could be.

• 14:55Speaker 00

  I just felt, you know,

• 14:58Speaker 00

  a little bit untethered right now because of that, that acceptance. You know, getting the morsels from the illusion has been enough. And ironically, as I look back now in 30 years and, you know, my kids are in their twenties, I've been married for 31 years, I've made 17 movies. I wouldn't want it any other way.

• 15:19Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  And I'm here. And I feel like I could go for a long, long, long time. I can't keep up with the ideas in my head. But you don't want to get used to, you know, rebellion for rebellion's sake. You know, I'm trying to provoke. And there's amazing artists and stuff that do that. It's just the provocation. There was a musician that said something to me once. This musician, everybody knows. And he said something very provocative to me. And I said, hey, man, what do you want me to do with that statement? You know, but I get how he is. He's provoking because he doesn't want a floor. He almost wants me to reject him in that moment.

• 15:57Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 00

  And get the electricity going.

• 15:59Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, a challenge.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:01Rick Rubin?

  Challenge.

• 16:06Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about living in Philadelphia. Is that where you grew up?

• 16:10Speaker 00

  It is. It is. I live outside Philly. We live about 45 minutes outside Philly. But you go there all the time for date nights and all that stuff.

• 16:18Rick Rubin?

  You didn't choose it. You were essentially born into your life in Philly. You grew up in it.

• 16:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:25Rick Rubin?

  And you stayed. So the choice you made was not to leave.

• 16:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 16:29Rick Rubin?

  Because you could also do what you do anywhere other than here and still be the outsider.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. Well, it represents so many things. I think it represents why my dad and mom, well, my dad particularly, when he came from India, said, we're going to Philadelphia. That's where they created everything. The Declaration of Independence. That's in his mind, that was America.

• 16:54Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, the heart of

• 16:55Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 16:56Rick Rubin?

  the American idea.

• 16:57Speaker 00

  Idea. So when he's leaving his home in India, and the first of his family to do that, he's going towards something, an ideal that you can become anything. There's anything is available to you. And he was right. And my advantage was being born to parents that believed in that. And then being in the United States in Philadelphia. So it feels very beautiful to be there. And that mixture of having been born in ponditary India, 10,000 miles away, and living outside Philly, and telling stories to everybody in between. It feels, you know, right.

• 17:41Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Do you have a particular group of people that you tend to work with?

• 17:50Speaker 00

  This is an interesting subject because why the songwriter can't write their song and, you know, or why that artist chose to provoke me is related, is comfort

• 18:05Speaker 00

  the enemy of the artist. And I, again, it's a calibration inside. So I tend to work with new people. And not as like, hey, you know, hey, Rick, we're not going to work together again. It's a feeling, I'm totally open to working with you again if we did one movie. But I'm way open as well to finding someone brand new. So I've, you know, and I don't mind hiring inexperienced people, people that have only done a small movie and they haven't done a big movie. Well, come and do the score for my film. You live in Iceland, you only done one small thing. Or come and edit my movie. I know you even haven't edited a movie yet, you know.

• 18:43Rick Rubin?

  But you see something in their work, enough of a spark where you know, this is someone I want to collaborate with.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yeah, they're closer to the open door than I am.

• 18:52Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  And so I'm, they're not coming to me. They think that they're coming to me and learning from me, but I'm actually learning from them.

• 18:59Rick Rubin?

  Understood. It's beautiful.

• 19:03Rick Rubin?

  When a story comes, does the arc of the story come? Or does an element, like maybe a scene? Tell me what comes to you first that eventually becomes a movie.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it was David Lynch that talked about this concept, which is there's a Rosetta Stone idea in there. And in that, whatever it is, a moment, a scene, a line, a feeling of a character.

• 19:31Rick Rubin?

  But it could be a line.

• 19:32Speaker 00

  Anything.

• 19:32Rick Rubin?

  It could be anything.

• 19:33Speaker 00

  And that Rosetta Stone idea has the answers to everything. And then it shoots out from there. You know, I pictured this man named Rick. He lives here and, oh, why did he end up like that? Boom, and it goes, and then the plot comes. And, you know, ideally, plot comes from character.

• 19:53Speaker 00

  You know, it evolves, you know, like, oh, he's having trouble with his wife in Sixth Sense. He's having trouble talking to his wife. Well, what's wrong? What's wrong? Why can't he, why can't he connect with his wife? Why can't he connect with his wife? Why can't he connect with his wife? And then you come up with a plot. You know, that's actually how it happened in that movie.

• 20:10Rick Rubin?

  Interesting, so the character comes first.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  I think a lot of times.

• 20:14Rick Rubin?

  For you.

• 20:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, inside out. And there's other ways to do it. You can go, hey, we're making a sequel. It has Tom Cruise. It has to have this much action. And then, OK, let's figure out what the movie is. You can do it that way. I haven't done it that way. But I would, I would bet even those individuals that are excellent at that, do it this way as well. And they can just take a deep breath and go, OK, put aside the absolutes for a second. Let me think of a story. And then they think of a character in a spy thing and it blooms. And then it's well-written and it goes, and then it connects to these other things, you know?

• 20:48Rick Rubin?

  From the time that you have that first idea, until you have a full vision of a movie, what period of time is that?

• 20:59Speaker 00

  When you say full vision, you mean in my head or you mean a finished movie?

• 21:02Rick Rubin?

  Not a finished movie. To where you feel like we're ready to start making the movie.

• 21:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's in phases. And so I'm a writer first. That's it. I don't think with that visual mind, really.

• 21:16Rick Rubin?

  You'd say you were a writer first and a director second.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 21:19Rick Rubin?

  That's interesting.

• 21:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then the director's trying to figure out why the writer wrote it the way he wrote it.

• 21:24Rick Rubin?

  Yes. As a writer, you're writing the story, true to the story. And then as the director, you don't change anything that the writer wrote because it's a better shot or a better film. The director's job is to execute the writer's work.

• 21:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, why does that scene work? Why did the writer start it when that character said that? And why did he not talk about the other thing that's in the room? Why didn't they, huh, well, he's denying it. Oh, how do I show that? He's denying the fact that the body is sitting there, you know? This is great. I can have it out of focus. And you see a visual way to depict what the writer did by what he wrote, meaning me, what I wrote or what I didn't write.

• 22:11Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. How different are those hats? Your writer's hat and your director's hat?

• 22:16Speaker 00

  They're different. You know, and in this one, they're obviously, because the writer-directors, there's harmony there.

• 22:24Speaker 00

  And I'm that way when I'm adapting, even when I'm writing someone else's, like on television when I did Servant. If someone else wrote the scripts, I honor it. I don't try to one-up it. I'm trying to create resonance from what they wrote.

• 22:39Rick Rubin?

  Do you ever look back on... When's the last time you saw Sixth Sense, for example?

• 22:47Speaker 00

  They had a, I think, like a charity screening of it for... It's 25 years or something like that. And I got to see it with my kids, and one of them hadn't seen it, you know, the little one, you know?

• 22:59Rick Rubin?

  When you watched it then,

• 23:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:01Rick Rubin?

  did you have any new insight into the film that you didn't have when you made it?

• 23:05Speaker 00

  You know, this is touching another thing. Maybe this is a tangent, so it may not be too productive. But, you know, some directors go and they go back and they change their movie after 20 years and re-release it, right? I'm gonna remix it. I'm going to add these things. I'm gonna put in great CGI and all stuff. And every single time, they're ruining it. Every single time. There is just a fugue state that we get into, a mastery of this language that only exists at that time as the person that you are at that moment.

• 23:39Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 23:40Speaker 00

  So I'm watching it in some ways, like when you're watching Sixth Sense, I'm watching a 28-year-old version of myself, you know? 27, 28, 25, when I wrote, you know, mid to late 20s version of myself. And him at the door to the universe. Not me now, in my 50s.

• 24:00Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 24:03Speaker 00

  It's a wondrous thing. I'm about to show my kids my very, very first movie that I did when I was 21, which I bought and I had, and I just restored it. And it's, you know...

• 24:14Rick Rubin?

  Restored it but didn't change it?

• 24:16Speaker 00

  No. I mean, like, you know...

• 24:18Rick Rubin?

  Technically brought it up to today.

• 24:20Speaker 00

  Technically got, you know, made sure that it was colored and, you know, here it is so they can present it. And I was watching it with the color timer, and I was dazzled at this. Like, it's, in my opinion, terrible.

• 24:34Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  Right? Empirically terrible.

• 24:36Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  But yet, the kid, the 21-year-old, and the time that it was, 1993...

• 24:45Speaker 00

  Was so different. It's like a, it's another time period. Like the way that I thought you could talk that earnestly and be that sentimental. And it was, that was okay. That was cool. I was like, man, that kid. I admire his naivete and his innocence. Want to protect it, you know, when I, when I see it.

• 25:06Rick Rubin?

  God. How much has your approach changed over the years from then to now?

• 25:12Speaker 00

  Strangely, similar. I mean, just a creature of habit.

• 25:17Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  I mean, very similar. Like this next movie I'm doing, it'll have the same cadence. There's this weird thing that I had when we say cadence, like Sixth Sense. And you might, you might look at the back of a Blu-ray and see this slightly differently, but this is the truth. The Sixth Sense is 107 minutes. Unbreakable is 107 minutes. Signs is 107 minutes. The Village is 107 minutes. And how's that possible?

• 25:43Rick Rubin?

  And that was unintentional?

• 25:44Speaker 00

  Unintended.

• 25:44Rick Rubin?

  That's unbelievable.

• 25:45Speaker 00

  Unintended. And I think that's, you know, something again with the, with the veining of the leaves and the thing about nature and, you know, how we are, that maybe math and rhythm and, you know, is more related. What we think of as art and science or math is, is more related than we think. You know, you can do an analysis going, well, that's the way you hear, the rhythm of the way you talk and the way it bounces off the audience and how much they can take and how fast they want to hear the way you talk. But it is kind of fascinating. But to answer, you know, your question, it's fairly similar. You know, I write the first drafts and I give myself six weeks to do it from the outline, you know?

• 26:28Speaker 00

  And then the outline begins after I've committed emotionally to getting a notebook where I fill it with ideas. And when that notebook is, has enough ideas, I go to the outline, you know?

• 26:39Rick Rubin?

  And the ideas, random ideas, it's not?

• 26:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:42Rick Rubin?

  It's not linear?

• 26:43Speaker 00

  It's random ideas and contradictory ideas. He lives, he dies.

• 26:47Rick Rubin?

  It could be like this, it could be like this.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, whatever, whatever. And that, that process of free association is important, again, to get to the door. Stop thinking.

• 26:58Rick Rubin?

  You do this by yourself?

• 26:58Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:59Rick Rubin?

  Do you sit at a desk? Tell me about physically how this happens.

• 27:04Speaker 00

  That's also a game of psychology of, you know, I have as many places to sit and write in my house and in my office as I can. You know, maybe it's me hiding from my demons or whatever, but in that seat, it's coming to me. And maybe that's superstition, like sitting in the same seat during a baseball game every single time because they won the first time.

• 27:25Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  But it could be as rudimentary and primitive as that. But regardless, it's a placebo that works. So that area, the way I sit and look. And, you know, I have a tendency, you know, to, of looking up, that you look up to and you're emotionally in it. That's scientific in a sense.

• 27:43Rick Rubin?

  Is that where the imagination is?

• 27:45Speaker 00

  You know, for whatever reason, as human beings, and, you know, a doctor could probably explain this better or someone that knows the brain. But as you look down, you have darker thoughts. And as you look up, you have lighter thoughts. It's why we look up when we're trying to stop crying, you know? And you have different, your brain goes into a different mode. And so I think, you know, when I sit up, there's actually even like a reclining position in bed right before I go to bed, like I read before I go to bed. And whatever that angle is, that 45, and then my head's like, you know, against the pillow, but I'm looking up at this corner of the ceiling. I can see everything. Like I get, gosh, you know, I write that down, write that down, write that down. Oh, I have to say this, I have to call Rick, I have to do this, this, and I get 20 things. But the rest of the time, it's convoluted.

• 28:30Speaker 00

  And, and so I'm very open to that. And then also when I'm, like, for example, in that exact example, when I'm reading it and then often, because I'm reading, especially if I'm reading something I'm very inspired by, by an artist that's writing with inspiration and precision, I will glimpse the answers to the thing that I'm working on, like, almost like it's on the, right on the other side of the book. Because it's happening simultaneously. And I'm going, oh, I know, I know what to do now. I know that thing. But I'm reading a completely unrelated story.

• 29:03Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  It's just that they're reminding me how to get to the door again.

• 29:07Rick Rubin?

  Yes. It's amazing how, if you have a question you're trying to solve or a problem you're trying to solve, if you just sort of pay attention to what's going on around you, for some reason, more often than not, it seems like the answer comes. Like you're told it.

• 29:26Speaker 00

  If you believe in, you know, the brainwaves and things like that, that, you know, when we're in flight or fight, you're constricted. And when we're about to fall asleep, like I was just saying, you're just not in that headspace. You're, you see everything.

• 29:43Rick Rubin?

  You're free.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  You're free. And so it just dances and finds it and grabs it and brings it to you. And that might be that, you know, when, you know, we're here in your studio and if it's flat or inspired, it's, you know, you can panic. And then now you're in fight or flight. Now you're in the, you know, wrong wavelengths to connect with everything. And, and so it's very, you know, important in terms of, and that's why early in our careers, it's much easier because the system has completely rejected you. You're not even, you're not even really.

• 30:15Rick Rubin?

  You're not considering them.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're not considering them, right. And then later, when you've won and they've, they've anointed you in the system, wow, you can't get to the door anymore.

• 30:28Rick Rubin?

  Are you superstitious in general?

• 30:31Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, you know, I'm very much like you come to our house. I'm very, I have photos of everything, photos of every, every moment in our family, like a church to the life that we've had. Like you come in and it's like, there's the 16th birthday. There's the 30th birthday. That's the thing, that's the vacation we took. And it sounds normal, but it is a strangely like a shrine to gratefulness. And yes, the other day I was walking to my office and all my movie posters are there. And I'm walking up the stairs to go to my office to work. And God, I'm so grateful. I, you know, by the time I got to the top of the stairs, I was like, I don't know how to thank whoever for this opportunity.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  And yet every step along the way, I felt like I was suffering.

• 31:20Rick Rubin?

  Do you think that the pictures and the posters are there to remind you of something?

• 31:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, they are because, you know, when we're.

• 31:32Speaker 00

  Well, again, they're the things that I hold sacred, which is the family, you know, and our friends, you know, that are in those photos. The curation of a life and that it's not passive. And it's you're the artist. And the car wreck can happen to you. And it does happen to all of us, you know? What you do in the next moments, then you use that, using that color in the most beautiful way. And I guess I just, you know, when I have go through really bad periods, like when something, when something bad's happening to me or something, I'm not constricted by the fear of the bad thing happening to me. When things are going really well, it's classic, you know? Classic feeling.

• 32:17Speaker 00

  And so I feel so.

• 32:18Rick Rubin?

  What would be an example of something bad happening?

• 32:21Speaker 00

  You know, when I, when I worked for Harvey, you know, that was a tough time when I was a kid, you know? And it was dark and, you know, I felt no agency.

• 32:33Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  But yet again, in retrospect, getting to spar with the darkest person in our industry as a kid.

• 32:44Rick Rubin?

  Makes you strong.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:50Rick Rubin?

  What's your first memory of going to the movies?

• 32:52Speaker 00

  One memory has obliterated the others, which was seven and seeing Star Wars.

• 32:58Rick Rubin?

  So they were probably movies pre-Star Wars, but Star Wars was so important that it took over.

• 33:04Speaker 00

  It took over. I became a different person on that day. It was what I assume people feel with religious zealots, when, you know, what, what you feel.

• 33:14Rick Rubin?

  You felt reborn.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, I felt this is truthful.

• 33:18Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 33:19Speaker 00

  In some universal answers, this is seven-year-old mindset. This, this makes sense. I'm in. And I don't mean it in like a video game way. I meant it in a religion way.

• 33:33Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 33:33Speaker 00

  Whatever.

• 33:34Rick Rubin?

  Cosmic.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, cosmic, yes. Whoever was this, and I didn't know George, I was just seven years old, right? You don't know who any of these people are. Or Joseph Conrad, you're not, you don't know anything. But you know whoever did this on an intuitive level knows the truth. And so it was that, that was what I was feeling in the, in the car, in the station wagon on the way home.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  I wanted to feel it again.

• 33:58Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 33:59Speaker 00

  You know.

• 34:00Rick Rubin?

  Did you have any of the figures?

• 34:02Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I still have them.

• 34:06Speaker 00

  I have them in a little box, the ones I had in seven eight, they're there, they're sacred.

• 34:10Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  You know.

• 34:11Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, what was the next movie experience where it was like game changer for you?

• 34:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, that would be Raiders, that would be Raiders, yeah, and it was also because I can think the

• 34:24Speaker 00

  the universe

• 34:27Speaker 00

  had me go, we went there, I didn't know what archaeology was, I didn't want to go. I remember that feeling because I didn't want to, I thought it was some science thing and I didn't want to go. And we.

• 34:37Rick Rubin?

  You went with your parents?

• 34:38Speaker 00

  No, I went with my friend and they, my parents dropped us off.

• 34:41Rick Rubin?

  Star Wars, you went with your parents?

• 34:43Speaker 00

  I did, parents and my sister, but my parents obviously dropped me off at the theater in the Narbor Theater and we, and we were waiting in line, it was a huge line outside to see it. We get in there, it's old theater, I think it's sat, it's at two thousand or something, or a thousand, it was a huge theater. And old fashioned, you know, with all the ornamentation and everything, yeah, absolutely beautiful, yeah, and couldn't sit next to each other because there was no seats available. Terrified, I mean, I was a real shy kid, really, this was terror on a scale that was I don't know what to do and you, there's no phones, there's nothing, you can't call your parents and nah. He's, my friend says, I sit down and there's a couple next to me and they see I'm very scared, like I'm very like holding my hands, I'm very scared.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  And they're like, you okay? I'm like, I'm okay, you know, and they're like, and they went to get popcorn and thing and they brought, gave me it and I was like, thank you. And I was sitting there and then the lights go down and then the mountain starts, the logo. And then the logo turns into a real mountain and again, without knowing, you know, going whoa, you know, and again, we're talking like two of the masters that we're telling you like they're the game changing ones and how lucky was I, you know, to, to experience that and then. Came out of it and it was, I was changed. And I was like, I'm, I gotta keep doing this. So then it became play, a version of play to do that. And then, hey, can I-

• 36:10Rick Rubin?

  To like act out the movies?

• 36:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And then you're acting it out, acting it out. And then taking my dad's camera and saying, hey, can I, can I do this? This is, these guys are doing this. How do you do this? And then playing with the camera.

• 36:24Rick Rubin?

  How old were you when you started playing with the camera?

• 36:26Speaker 00

  At that age, 10 to 12, you know? So taking my dad's camera. And then in that era, the video camera started to come, the VHS and the Betamax cameras. But they were huge and they were plugged into your, your actual Betamax.

• 36:38Rick Rubin?

  At first, was it 8 millimeter?

• 36:40Speaker 00

  It was 8 millimeter, yeah.

• 36:41Rick Rubin?

  So you started in film?

• 36:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. That sound was so satisfying. Went in the camera and, you know? And then the play is so wonderful. The thing you did for fun everywhere. At 15, then you read a book that, there's a guy named Spike Lee and he goes to a school called the Tisch School of the Arts and you can go learn how to become a filmmaker. And I was like, huh, I can do the play thing as a career.

• 37:10Rick Rubin?

  Was there anything else you ever wanted to do besides filmmaking?

• 37:13Speaker 00

  I mean, only, I mean, I loved athletics. So I was always, that was always kind of fantasy of playing tennis or whatever it was. But this was the real, really the sole career thing. It was kind of just, you just know. And so your brain is just, oh, that's all you're thinking about.

• 37:29Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 37:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I say that when people come to me now, and my wife will have a different answer to this or a comment on this subject. But when people come up to me and go, are you gonna take a break? There's so much assumption in that statement. And I get it. The assumption from the person that's asking that is you've constructed your life in a way that you have to do something. And then you're doing that to do the other thing. And so you should take a break from the thing you have to do. So you can do the things that you want to do, right? There's an assumption because most everyone on the planet is doing that. I'm so lucky.

• 38:05Rick Rubin?

  Doing the thing you want to do.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so if it was yoga or painting-

• 38:09Rick Rubin?

  Whatever it is.

• 38:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. The thing that gives you absolute peace and connection to the, to the world is the thing-

• 38:15Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 38:16Speaker 00

  That I get paid to do. So, you know, so sometimes I pretend. I go, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna take a vacation soon. But then I hate myself for that answer.

• 38:26Rick Rubin?

  PI'd. Do you have- A passionate connection to anything else besides film and your family?

• 38:34Speaker 00

  Sports, yeah, I do.

• 38:36Rick Rubin?

  Watching or playing?

• 38:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, like I play basketball all the time. Yeah, and I have both my knees, I have two ACLs, both done from basketball. You know, the therapy, the whole thing, all in. And as an exercise to carve yourself, you know, your discipline and connection. And I, and I learn about myself.

• 38:58Rick Rubin?

  Tell me something about writing something that someone else directs.

• 39:03Speaker 00

  Oh, yes, I wrote Stuart Little.

• 39:05Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 39:05Speaker 00

  And then another person directed it.

• 39:07Rick Rubin?

  What's that like?

• 39:08Speaker 00

  That one was good and OK because it was almost like a semi-animated thing, right? Because there was a live action, there were live action people in that. But because it's almost another art form, the animation thing, and it's not something that I'm motivated or know how to do.

• 39:24Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 39:25Speaker 00

  It was totally fine and wondrous to do. And I guess I went into it wanting to write something for our child that wasn't born yet. So I was like, let me write this for whoever this is. And so it came out in that innocence way. And I felt good about it. And then I enjoyed the movie, the tone of the movie, which I would have never leaned it like that, you know? But I really enjoyed its playfulness.

• 39:49Rick Rubin?

  Were you surprised with the choices made when you saw them?

• 39:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, and that is the beauty, right? Everybody's bringing their own color to the table and pressing in a different way. And in my head, when I, when I was writing it, it had a more of a classicism and, and more of a emotion. And then when it was made, it had this really colorful, colorful buoyancy to it, which is absolutely lovely.

• 40:14Rick Rubin?

  Do you think going to a Catholic school impacted your creative choices?

• 40:21Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 40:22Rick Rubin?

  In what way?

• 40:23Speaker 00

  I mean, just look, I did Knock at the Cabin is a kind of biblical story. And Servant, four years on, on the Apple thing, number one show is about like angels. And, you know, it's, it's there. The, the mythology that I went to school with is one of the mythologies I use as genre.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  There's ghosts and then there's aliens and superheroes and there's religion.

• 40:53Rick Rubin?

  Are there ghosts?

• 40:58Speaker 00

  What do you think? I'll answer after, but what do you think? I'm really curious about it.

• 41:03Rick Rubin?

  I think yes. Do you think there are aliens?

• 41:07Speaker 00

  I definitely do. That's just mathematically impossible that there.

• 41:10Rick Rubin?

  Does ESP exist?

• 41:12Speaker 00

  Pretty close, probably pretty close.

• 41:14Rick Rubin?

  Can we become invisible?

• 41:20Speaker 00

  Man. You mean in the way that it's funny you said that because I just thought of a new movie idea.

• 41:28Rick Rubin?

  It worked.

• 41:30Speaker 00

  Is there, you know, a way that you can forget things that I do and say, even though we're right here and I'm kind of making that happen. Yeah, I think so. And it's probably some movement of energy that's not being present or something.

• 41:42Rick Rubin?

  Can we levitate?

• 41:44Speaker 00

  I love to believe that. I was that kid that just kept on looking at the cup or the pencil and says, I can make it move. I can make it move. And I swear today, I still look at it and I go, I think I can make it move.

• 41:55Rick Rubin?

  That's called psychokinesis.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  But I have, it hasn't happened yet.

• 42:04Rick Rubin?

  What percentage of the ideas that you have come to fruition?

• 42:10Speaker 00

  A high percentage, you know? Every film idea that I've had since I was, since puberty has been either made or been offered to be made. And so I don't really develop like that, you know? I have a lot of ideas that are in like notebooks, but they're just literally like a one line or one line like that. And they, they'll speak to me at the right time or not, you know? But, you know, like for example, like it's just, I'm committed to it. I'm fully committed. And so the tornado of effort and energy that I'm going to now bring and I'm going to by sheer will, make a movie exist in the universe, no matter what, you know?

• 42:53Speaker 00

  I'm able to turn it on in that way to just bring it to, you know?

• 42:57Rick Rubin?

  Manifest it.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  Manifest it no matter what.

• 43:00Rick Rubin?

  Can you work on more than one project at the same time?

• 43:04Speaker 00

  Not directing.

• 43:05Rick Rubin?

  Okay.

• 43:05Speaker 00

  Not directing, not two movies, let's say. I've done a TV show and a movie at the same time where I'm doing like one like small episode, but I didn't write that episode. So it's a different part of me a little bit that does that, you know? It was really interesting working on continuation of someone else's idea like in a TV show because, you know, sometimes, you know, art allows you to be more honest about yourself because you're not being you. And so I can, I can write a male character that has flaws that I'm like, oh, he has those flaws, but really I have those flaws. And, or she, who's a proxy for me, you know, it feels this way about the world. Oh, that's so, that's so poignant she does.

• 43:48Speaker 00

  Well, that's me that feels that way, but I can't be that honest even with myself about it. It's a beautiful aspect of it. And sometimes I feel like even when I trick myself into going, well, this is not mine. Like if you, you had something, hey, help me with that. And then I start coming up with it. There's you're getting a part of me that's not protective or tight. And so I'm coming from like a very free, loving space. And, and then if I go, and sometimes I'll, I trick myself. And even the movie that, that I'm writing right now, in fact, the last two, I've tricked myself into going, oh, that's for someone else. Because I genuinely thought I was going to just have this idea and someone else was going to do it and I produce it.

• 44:27Rick Rubin?

  Will you allow things to happen that you wouldn't allow to happen if you're protecting it for yourself?

• 44:35Speaker 00

  Probably, yeah. I was going to say some, and I couldn't form what I'm about to say, but maybe you can connect the dots was, you know, I know in like Juilliard and things, they have this class where you wear masks and then you perform and, and then you, you immediately take on this other thing, you know? And maybe it's a version of that, that I'm wearing someone else's mask, so I'm free. I'm not me, so I'm free. And then, then you're doing something that feels really great and you want to continue it. And now it's, you have to take off the mask to continue it.

• 45:05Rick Rubin?

  What do you think you're best at?

• 45:10Speaker 00

  Seeing talent in others.

• 45:13Speaker 00

  I love it. I'm so inspired by it. And that could be anything. That could be, of course, it can be the artist, the singer, the costume designer, whatever, but it could also be the waiter. And going, wow, you know, the invention that is you is amazing. And in this moment, when you're having, you are, your light is shining and this is incredible. And you're teaching all of us and guiding us in that way. But I do, I mean, I'm so endlessly inspired by, by everything. And so that, you know, seeing, like, if you're going just in the movies, you know, seeing a movie and saying, my gosh, the photography, or who did the costumes on that?

• 45:56Speaker 00

  And there's a, oh, it was this lady who lives in Bulgaria and she, I have to work with her.

• 46:01Rick Rubin?

  So you build the best team because you recognize, regardless of the context that it's coming from, you can say, whoever did that, they're really good.

• 46:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, having the humility to know that it's not a static position of, you are good, you are bad, you are connected, you're not. When I meet an actor, you know, who has an incredible, or she has an incredible body of work, it's the meeting the person is really to say, where are you today? That's it, you know, obviously you've, you've done these, these beautiful, inspired things with the universe. But where are you today? The place where you are today is human being and where I am, is that together going to make us, make this beautiful fictional creature?

• 46:51Rick Rubin?

  How difficult is it working with actors?

• 46:55Speaker 00

  I love it, especially the way I make movies is, it's unusual in that it's very, in theory, one could from, from a far away say, it's so prescriptive.

• 47:07Rick Rubin?

  Tell me what it is. How do you do it?

• 47:09Speaker 00

  So I, you know, I write the thing and that's the words we're saying.

• 47:13Rick Rubin?

  No ad libbing?

• 47:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, we, it's very, very rare, you know, to do that. The reason I didn't write um, there was a reason, so don't say um. It's a painting of colors. And then from there, it's the director and the, and on side of me and the storyboard artists, we draw every single shot out and that's what we're shooting. And so that sounds very limiting. And why would you that? Why aren't you being open?

• 47:39Rick Rubin?

  How well do you know what the film is gonna look like before you shoot it?

• 47:42Speaker 00

  I mean, identical.

• 47:44Rick Rubin?

  Really?

• 47:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:44Rick Rubin?

  That's amazing.

• 47:45Speaker 00

  Like an animated movie.

• 47:47Rick Rubin?

  Wow.

• 47:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, you could come and I could show you each movie and it's like an anime, like a graphic novel. You could watch it. And then, so you go, why I said from a distance, that sounds incredibly restrictive and prohibitive. And yet, with that honest and months and months of painting those things, the actors come in, first of all, they already know that it's already, they've heard me, I've done it so many times. And then they say, okay, this is the way we're doing this particular dance, okay? And then I come in and then they realize, wow, it's infinite, the way you can play it, based on these factors. That the camera is moving on this line because it represents your anger. So if you don't get angry, the camera's not gonna move, you know? And so you have to choose it.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  And the pace of the way the camera's moving towards you is predicated on how fast and how angry you get. And that's what I'm gonna tell the operator, you're not listening, cuz you just did a move that was even and that's not what the character did, that's not what the actor did. The actor did this kind of sinus move of like, holding back, holding, and then burst, but you didn't do that. So stare at her eyes, you know? And then they go, oh my God, and that was thought of three months ago, you know? And they get it as that it's a three-dimensional medium. And that, again, the choices of how to play are infinite, you know? And then that being held by thought, not capriciousness or restriction for restriction's sake.

• 49:13Speaker 00

  It wasn't, it was an inspired kind of, this is the visual script for the words and now we're going to add life to it. This is the frame of the painting. Now fill it with, and the messier, more real, great. So like if I'm pushing and then you see the actress, you know, gets angry and her head goes out for a second and comes in, great. You know, great, just it's that frame is is just because when we see a painting, we take it and the frame is also critical to our emotion about the painting.

• 49:49Rick Rubin?

  When did you first start working that way?

• 49:51Speaker 00

  That was Sixth Sense.

• 49:53Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 49:53Speaker 00

  And that came from a thesis of watching one of the scenes in my movie at Miramax and going, wow, that's the only scene that works. Why is that? And then breaking down, oh, that's what I did in that scene. Huh, that's what the camera did. Interesting. Oh, wow, that's also in Psycho. Oh, that's also in, in pick whatever movie, E.T. It's also in.

• 50:18Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  And you're going, huh, this principle of, you know, the art form of the visual. You know, because it's all art forms together. So honoring it, and I say that we cannot defer to one art form only. Even that art form is acting. That's one part of it. It's in a dance with everything else. It is also dance. So the blocking is so critical. It is poetry. So the words, the um is so important. It's light, painting with light, you know? It's costumes. You know, we keep going. It's all art forms together, so critical.

• 50:55Rick Rubin?

  Tell me the whole process from the time you have the script.

• 50:58Speaker 00

  So I have this script, let's say, you know, and then the next person is a storyboard artist who then comes and we spend about three months storyboarding. And during that time.

• 51:07Rick Rubin?

  And that's when you're essentially making the movie.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  Yes, in my head.

• 51:11Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 51:11Speaker 00

  Yes. And we're also at that time, if it's if it's location dependent, and oftentimes it is, you you can draw from finding the locations to enhance that, the visuals of that.

• 51:25Rick Rubin?

  Typically, relocations or sets?

• 51:27Speaker 00

  If I can't find it, then we make it. And you'll see movies.

• 51:31Rick Rubin?

  You defer to relocation if you can?

• 51:35Speaker 00

  I don't know if I'd say that.

• 51:37Rick Rubin?

  Okay.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  I don't know if I'd say that. For example, if you, if you, if you look at, you know, Signs or Sixth Sense or Unbreakable, these were all, everything was built. So, you know, built the train even, you know. And it's because I see the camera doing this and this and this and turning to the left. Well, there is no bedroom to the left. Well, we're gonna make a bedroom to the left. And it's, it's a part of the art form. So like if you see another person who does that would be like, you know, like in Parasite. You know, when there, the table is where the table is. Have you, have you seen Parasite?

• 52:08Rick Rubin?

  I've not.

• 52:08Speaker 00

  Absolutely incredible. Absolutely incredible movie. And, you know, there's a stairs and a door that's critical in the, in the kitchen. And it's this, it's right at the end of the table and there's stairs that go down. You're not gonna find that house. So he built it. And why is it so critical is the way all the shots that he came up and how he saw it. And, and that creates a specificity of audience experience. Cause they know without knowing, oh my God, the table's here and the thing here. And it creates this beautiful composition. And this man's coming up and his head first and his eyes. And then, you know, you go, wow, it's possible to find that, you know. But I built it. We built a lot of it.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  And even when I have a location like with The Visit, because it was super low budget and all, I rented a house for a year. So where we were gonna shoot it. And so I just sat in the house. And I had to move my brain around a bit to, to make it work in the same way. But then I made each shot from that.

• 53:06Rick Rubin?

  Did you know the house before you storyboarded it?

• 53:08Speaker 00

  No, in that case, cause I knew I had to find the house first. And cause I didn't have the money to build this house.

• 53:15Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 53:15Speaker 00

  So, you know, that was the first movie that I funded myself. So I was like, I guess gotta find a house and we just need to be able to rent it. So we can shoot and reshoot and all that stuff. So then I just sat in this empty house and worked out all the shots.

• 53:29Rick Rubin?

  Okay, so the storyboard happens.

• 53:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:31Rick Rubin?

  What happens next?

• 53:32Speaker 00

  And then you go, by that point, you're overlapping into pre-production, which was then everyone starts coming, all the crew members start arriving.

• 53:39Rick Rubin?

  You've already casted?

• 53:40Speaker 00

  Yes, that would be en route during the storyboarding process and then dovetailing into pre-production. Kind of the casting kind of trickles through that period.

• 53:49Rick Rubin?

  Typically, how many main characters are there?

• 53:53Speaker 00

  It really varies. You know, like a movie like Old is so many people. It's a group, it's a collective experience. And the one I'm doing now has really two main characters.

• 54:07Speaker 00

  So it can vary dramatically.

• 54:08Rick Rubin?

  Okay, so what happens next?

• 54:10Speaker 00

  Then, pre-production and all the crews come. And then it becomes very much almost like a military operation. There's all my assistant directors and everyone. And every minute of the day is, you know, film. You need to meet with the art department to decide this. You need to go to locations to do, to pick the, you know, the ice cream shop where the thing's happening. You gotta go visit seven ice cream shops. Or they're building you the bedroom downstairs. You need to go look at it. Every moment is covered. Okay, gotta meet the prop guy, you know, on and on, you know? And then you're gonna go to costumes. And then you're gonna talk through, they wanna walk through these characters today. And boom, boom, boom, boom, like that, you know?

• 54:46Rick Rubin?

  And what happens after that, next phase?

• 54:48Speaker 00

  And that builds to kind of the highest intensity till day one of shooting. And so that gets more and more and more intense. And during that latter part of pre-production, as you're getting very close to shooting in those last two weeks, that's when rehearsals, actors arrive.

• 55:02Rick Rubin?

  I see.

• 55:02Speaker 00

  And we rehearse and rehearse and talk about philosophy and try to get to know each other and in that trust way, where...

• 55:09Rick Rubin?

  Do you shoot the films in order or not necessarily?

• 55:12Speaker 00

  I try to as much in order as humanly possible. It's not that you have to do it that way. But again, when you're trying to do something so precise, I'm not sure what her anger is yet in scene 47, until we've done scene 32. And, you know, with her and I, you know, working through, is her anger being, you know, presented as detachment? We might decide that. And mostly, you would probably get there in rehearsals. But you might, you might crystallize that realization in scene 32. Oh, when she shuts down when she gets really, really angry. And it's scary. And so then in 47, when she runs in...

• 55:54Speaker 00

  It's either a break from that style of, and then you have to play that like, I'm gonna, now I'm gonna burst, you know, from being at this place. So it's so much more helpful to go in order for me, but it's not possible. It's really impractical to do it that way.

• 56:09Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 56:09Speaker 00

  You know, like say there's three scenes here in the room that we're in. We can't keep coming in and out of your house to keep shooting it. So you try to shoot all three scenes, but I try as hard as I can to keep it for you guys, the actors, as in continuity as possible.

• 56:23Rick Rubin?

  Do you ever consider in the writing phase, the practicality of the shooting?

• 56:29Speaker 00

  I do, it's inherently because I love minimalism and I love containment. So I'm always anyway, thinking that way, in insinuation and, you know, a long zillion years ago, they had offered me a movie called Troy, which was made in this big wonderful way. And but when, and they sent me the script and I was looking at it and I was like, okay, so we have, maybe I can have two guys fighting and there could be a wall behind them, an old wall, and then the real battle with a thousand soldiers on the outside, on the other side of the wall, and you're only hearing it. And it's just between these two guys. So we could do the battle like, and you could glimpse it through like a little moment, through like the wall, but that's it.

• 57:12Rick Rubin?

  That's really interesting.

• 57:13Speaker 00

  So that immediately my mind started going to the minimal version, the insinuative version of a giant battle movie.

• 57:20Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 57:22Speaker 00

  But that, I like that, that kind of, I believe in that.

• 57:25Rick Rubin?

  It's the intimacy or the personal nature of two big people on the screen instead of 50 people or 100 or 1,000 people on the screen?

• 57:34Speaker 00

  My brain just does not work that way. So when, when all of these amazing artists like, you know, Cameron and Spielberg and all these guys that can, they can see that big wonderful, complicated thing, I just panic. And, you know, I, I'm so titillated by the idea of incompleteness.

• 57:56Speaker 00

  I love that. And so I'm just showing you a part of the painting.

• 58:00Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Have you ever considered directing theater or writing for theater?

• 58:04Speaker 00

  Definitely. Yeah, I feel most of my movies could be plays. And so I've really thought about it a lot, about whether to just take six months or a year and go write a play and, you know, see how that feels. To just rely on the blocking and the written word to do most of the storytelling. I mean, you can use other aspects, of course. You know, it is very innovative these days, but fear is probably just stopping me.

• 58:32Rick Rubin?

  How would you describe your demeanor on the set?

• 58:36Speaker 00

  A mixture of temperaments, I would say. It moves from highly kind of concentrated and, you know, quiet. And, you know, my wife of pop would just say anxious, but, you know.

• 58:55Rick Rubin?

  Do you feel anxious?

• 58:57Speaker 00

  You know, I find the making of a movie matches my anxiety really well, becomes a superpower, because my mind can go to the next shot's this, you need to set up that, whisper to the gaffer this, whisper that. You know, saying, okay, we need to do this. Oh, this sweater is, you know, I have an idea for the next thing with the sweater she's wearing. In my mind, it's buzzing and I can use it to an advantage. Whereas in regular life, you have to calm it and say, stop playing chess. Whereas on the set, playing chess at 100 miles an hour is great. I'm super efficacious. You know, you're pounding all that energy. So I'll say something like to, you know, the A Ds, everybody knows my thing, which is, hey, you know, we're going to be ready. The actors should be here when we're ready.

• 59:42Speaker 00

  As opposed to, we're ready, call the actors. That doesn't work like that. And I'll explain to the actors why that's the case, that they should be waiting on the hundred of us, not the hundred of us waiting on the one person. And I say, you know, I'll use an example like, hey, let's say, I say, well, shots ready. Okay, we call that person. They come, they get off their phone in the trailer. They go to the bathroom, they walk over, come to the set. And let's say they do it really fast, five minutes.

• 1:00:08Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  Right, five minutes. Okay, what's the problem? It's five minutes. 12 shots a day, five minutes, one hour. I just lost one hour. In the end of the week, you lost five hours. In two weeks, you lost a day of shooting.

• 1:00:21Rick Rubin?

  And you'd need that day.

• 1:00:22Speaker 00

  That day of shooting. You lost a day of shooting. So, what? We're not doing that, you know? And so when I walk through, why we're doing it?

• 1:00:29Rick Rubin?

  What hours do you work?

• 1:00:31Speaker 00

  Well, it depends if it's outdoors or nighttime and things like that. But if normal, if it's stage work, I try to do kind of, you know, we're shooting by, you know, seven or 7:30 and then we can finish early. I do try to do 10-hour days.

• 1:00:44Rick Rubin?

  What is early 10-hour day?

• 1:00:45Speaker 00

  I try to do 10 hours. Recently, I've done it and outside the country and we've done 10 hours straight. Where, you know, they're more used to doing, you eat while you stand and then you finish and everybody goes home early.

• 1:00:56Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:57Speaker 00

  But here, we don't do that as much, you know?

• 1:00:59Rick Rubin?

  Where have you done that? What countries have you worked in outside of yours?

• 1:01:01Speaker 00

  We did the last movie we did in Canada. And then my daughter's movie we did in Ireland. And that was wonderful. And then we did a movie in the Dominican called Old. And all of those, we did those kind of straight 10-hour days.

• 1:01:13Rick Rubin?

  You mentioned the first movie that you funded yourself.

• 1:01:16Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:17Rick Rubin?

  Tell me what led to that happening.

• 1:01:19Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:01:20Rick Rubin?

  How many movies had you made before that?

• 1:01:23Speaker 00

  Oof, I don't know. Maybe that's 10 or something like that. You know, there was a period where I was thinking that the fear and the, the getting the morsels from the system were indicators that I wasn't doing it right. So, let me find a way to join the system. Because everyone is like, you know, tacitly saying, do it the normal way. Do it the normal way. Go do it the normal way. And then there's so many rewards for doing it the normal way. And you, you know, you could just coast and do it. So, I think there was a period of time where I joined the system, tried to join the system.

• 1:02:02Rick Rubin?

  And that was for the first 10?

• 1:02:04Speaker 00

  No, it was in the middle period.

• 1:02:06Rick Rubin?

  Okay.

• 1:02:06Speaker 00

  In this middle period. That first period was... It was a different era in filmmaking. It was a different time in the studio system because they really were making original movies. And they were, the system was geared towards that, kind of. So there was a lot of us doing.

• 1:02:21Rick Rubin?

  Was that still a leftover from the revolution of the Raging Bull, Easy Rider?

• 1:02:26Speaker 00

  Probably.

• 1:02:27Rick Rubin?

  Late 70s.

• 1:02:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, it still went through the 90s.

• 1:02:30Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, right till there, and then it started to change.

• 1:02:32Rick Rubin?

  Independent-minded movies.

• 1:02:34Speaker 00

  Yes, and that's what it was. You need to write, find the next great new story and new storyteller. That was what the system was built for. And then from there, and right when the 2000s started till now, it has become an addiction of being familiar. The framing is more important than the painting. And maybe that's indicative of how fast things are going. And people need to feel okay. There must be a real, a wonderful reason, a healing reason that saying the second movie or the third movie makes you feel really, okay, good. I know what I'm gonna get, I'm gonna go in there. That wasn't the case, you know, prior to 2000s.

• 1:03:18Speaker 00

  You know, you had your outliers, but generally speaking, it was fresh. Yeah, so that first group was still coming off of the kind of original blockbuster stuff that was really, really free and working. And then, again, as I said, I think I was feeling this, hey, maybe you don't have to be as exposed, and maybe it doesn't have to be this hard, and maybe there's a way that you can be, you know, accepted because everybody's telling you that. Just, just do it this way. Just join the system, do it that way, you know? I guess in music, it would be kind of, just put that, that voice box thing on, whatever it is, that sound that everybody has.

• 1:04:00Speaker 00

  It's, just do it, that's what everybody, that's the sound of today. And you go, is it, oh, maybe I'm being arrogant. And so I tried to join the system in that middle area. And I'm not good at it, and I don't know how to do it. And it's not about.

• 1:04:15Rick Rubin?

  It's also not why you started doing it. You didn't get into it for that.

• 1:04:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, that was a, probably if you're being very honest, I'm being very honest, probably more of a reward-centered behavior, which is pathetic, you know, that I just want the rewards, or the safety, or the, you know, concomitant, positive things that can happen by being in the system. And, but the beauty that came from that was, I wasn't happy at all, I wasn't good at it, and that brought clarity. And then, as I told you, I get very ignited when people give up, and they go, you know, ah, he, you know, he can't do that, or he can't do that anymore, or whatever it is. And they come up with a statement, I love it.

• 1:05:04Speaker 00

  So then, I was like, you know, I, I used to think if I was an NBA player, would I have in my contract a clause that says I'm allowed to play streetball? You know, most, they don't have, they have the opposite, which is you're not allowed to do any of those, those sports, you know, because we're paying for you.

• 1:05:21Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Because you might get hurt, and that would impact that.

• 1:05:24Speaker 00

  Yes, so in, in this, this, this kind of metaphor, I was like, well, let's go, just go play streetball. So, no one asked me to, to make a movie. In fact, I'm gonna make a movie that they say won't succeed. Everyone's gonna be their older child, and I'm gonna make it super funny and scary, which they said can't be done. It just can't, those two things can't exist. It was, the, the not having been connected to the illusion, or connected to the system, freed me to kind of do it differently. And I was so happy. And I, when we were making, this is before we sold it, before, you know, before everything, I was really happy making that movie, The Visit.

• 1:06:05Rick Rubin?

  And the one before that was a big studio picture?

• 1:06:10Speaker 00

  That's correct, yeah.

• 1:06:12Speaker 00

  And I didn't have really, ultimately, the say in that picture to make it what I want. But I want to be really clear, that's a cop out. Because at any moment, I could have walked away.

• 1:06:24Rick Rubin?

  Right.

• 1:06:25Speaker 00

  And I didn't.

• 1:06:25Rick Rubin?

  But you're also not a quitter, so I understand.

• 1:06:27Speaker 00

  No, I, I, yes. But there are, you know, in today's, in today's vernacular, with now, the way I am, as soon as I realize the situation is fraught with artifice, or an inability for us to do the kind of soul-searching and conversation that you and I are having, I'm out.

• 1:06:46Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. So you decide to fund the movie yourself?

• 1:06:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I made this movie, you know, went totally off the grid, made this thing, went all my instincts on it, went, everything about it on paper, any algorithm of success would tell you this is not going to work. And yet, everything in me said it's going to work. And I make it, and then I panic a little bit. And I say, I need to sell this, because I, you know, I put a mortgage on the house and all this stuff. And so I show it to everyone in the industry, basically the buyer versions of the industry, six weeks after I shoot it. So six weeks, nothing, like I just put, slapped it together, and show it to everybody. Because I just want them to give me the money and I'm safe, and I'm not going to be some E True Hollywood story of, you know, what happened and now, you know.

• 1:07:32Speaker 00

  And they all passed. Everybody passes. And one company said, I'd love to see it when it's done. But they, they didn't buy it, right? But everybody else passes. So I fly home. I'm like, oh my God, like, well.

• 1:07:49Rick Rubin?

  Do you think they passed because they don't like it? Or is there more to the story?

• 1:07:54Speaker 00

  It's so different. There's no precedent for it. They keep trying to use.

• 1:07:58Rick Rubin?

  They have no context for this movie.

• 1:08:00Speaker 00

  Yes, no context at all.

• 1:08:02Rick Rubin?

  Because it's not another one that was successful, so they could point to, well, it's just like that thing that worked.

• 1:08:07Speaker 00

  Impossible, right? So they, and they have the context of what they believe is, they've lost faith in me, in the system.

• 1:08:14Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:14Speaker 00

  In their opinion, right? So, so that's all context-related. And it wasn't quite finished.

• 1:08:21Speaker 00

  So it's like a 65% version of what it will ultimately be. So you either go, you either see the 65% or you, you go, no, it's really only 30%, you know, in your head, you're using all that context to crush it. So I come home and my daughter at that time, the youngest daughter, and I used to have this thing with me here, we'd do puzzles together, and that's what we did. We go in the dining room and take a, take a thousand-piece puzzle and dump it on the thing, and we dump it on the thing, and so I got home.

• 1:08:48Rick Rubin?

  Jigsaw puzzle.

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  Jigsaw puzzle. And she was there and I was completely like, a little bit not in my, I was, you know, not here. And I'm walking through my house, which I think we're gonna sell, you know, and she doesn't know anything, you know, she's just a little kid. And so we sit down and we start to do the thing and I'm like, let's do it. And we sit down and we're looking, looking, looking, looking for a piece, and we eventually find it and we're so excited. It took us 20 minutes to find this one piece, right? It's the beginning of the thing to make it match. And then I went, wow, you know, all I have to do is just trust that this painting is, this is gonna make a picture, and I trust it because it came out of a box, that trusted it, and there's, there is a piece there, just find the next piece.

• 1:09:34Speaker 00

  You don't have to even know how to do this whole thing, just find the next puzzle piece. And, and I went, well, that's what I just gotta do.

• 1:09:42Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:42Speaker 00

  Just find the next puzzle piece. So the next morning, I went into the editing room and we just made one line better and one cut better, and I just spent my days doing one piece at a time, one puzzle piece at a time. And then soon, I forgot that there was a mortgage, I forgot all the rejections and all this stuff, and I was just excited about the next piece, the next piece, the next piece, and I went, oh, how about if I do this? Oh, you know what, I can go back and shoot this and grab this, that'd be so fun, and do that, and then I just kept on going and I forgot all about it. And then by the time I got, months later, when I'd done it hundreds and hundreds and the painting was done, I was like, let's go back to that, that person that said they wanted to see it again, and let's show it to them in front of an audience. And we did, and that was Universal Pictures, and they bought it.

• 1:10:28Rick Rubin?

  What was it like seeing it in front of the audience?

• 1:10:30Speaker 00

  They went through the roof. They were screaming and yelling and laughing. And exactly what the thesis was, which is that the laughter would turn into screams. And then they would laugh at themselves for screaming. And it was so outrageous and provocative. Roller coaster ride. And then they would just forget to be quiet. And they're all just vocal. And it's like a rock, like a roll, ah, ah, up and down. And then the explosion and that laughter and the clapping and all of that stuff. And so it was joy. They could feel my play, you know? And then, you know, that went and became like a huge success with that movie. And then I went on and did many, many, many movies with, with Universal. And here we are still, you know?

• 1:11:11Rick Rubin?

  Did you do them that way where you would fund them or they would?

• 1:11:14Speaker 00

  No, then I did all of them funded, you know? So I funded my, all of them from then on.

• 1:11:18Rick Rubin?

  Great.

• 1:11:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:20Rick Rubin?

  Did you at one point have a relationship with Blumhouse?

• 1:11:23Speaker 00

  What I ended up doing was showing Jason Blum the movie, The Visit, and saying.

• 1:11:29Rick Rubin?

  The finished movie?

• 1:11:30Speaker 00

  Pretty much.

• 1:11:31Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:31Speaker 00

  And saying, would you, could we take one of your slots?

• 1:11:35Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:35Speaker 00

  And so I have that much more. Because even after I showed them the movie, there was, there was, there's a resistance, right?

• 1:11:41Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:41Speaker 00

  Because everyone's guessing. So they need thing. So his imperamature was critical at that moment because they really believed in him. So that combination was like, all right, we'll give you that slot. And then we, together we went and took that slot. And then it was great, you know?

• 1:11:56Rick Rubin?

  So have you made more with him?

• 1:11:58Speaker 00

  I, we did another one after that together. Yeah, and hopefully we'll make more.

• 1:12:01Rick Rubin?

  Great.

• 1:12:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:03Rick Rubin?

  What's the most interesting part of the process for you of filmmaking?

• 1:12:08Speaker 00

  The most painful is the preview screenings when you're showing it to audiences. It's the most painful because you're, what you're making and what they're seeing are not exact. And so either the process of getting it, that the thing I'm making and the thing they're seeing is this one and the same. And because it's a, it's a juxtapositional art form. So if I cut from you to, you know, you know, it's the Eisenstein theory of cinema. Like if I cut from you looking at the bowl, they're interpreting that you're hungry. But I didn't, maybe didn't mean that. And so these unintentional connections. So what they're watching versus what I intended. We have to get that in sync is a, is a process of like, you know, this feels like your soul a little bit's getting torn.

• 1:12:51Speaker 00

  But it's a beautiful thing to become one.

• 1:12:55Rick Rubin?

  How do you think being a father informed who you are?

• 1:12:59Speaker 00

  Oh, it's everything. I think I was a father even before I became a father. It was just, it's just in me. Like, I love kids and kids really, I think, are drawn to me. So like, I'll be, we'll be somewhere and a little kid will come up to me in a grocery store. Come, they come and I'll hug them and, you know, they're, they're our gurus. They're the ones that are teaching us, you know? We're teaching them about this stupid world that we're in, but they're really teaching us much, much more important things.

• 1:13:28Rick Rubin?

  Have you ever had a mystical experience?

• 1:13:33Speaker 00

  I mean, everything we've been talking about. My whole life, the whole thing, man, the whole thing. I mean, you know, you, you know, you stare at posters of like, you know, people and then they become your friends and partners when you're older and, you know, it's just incredible.

• 1:13:52Rick Rubin?

  How would you say success has changed you?

• 1:13:58Speaker 00

  Well, in a bad way, it has increased my anxieties or my, or the bad versions of my ambition.

• 1:14:08Speaker 00

  There's good ambition, you know, and we need growth, but maybe that it's tweaking kind of greed or insecurities of winning in some way.

• 1:14:19Rick Rubin?

  Are you competitive?

• 1:14:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. But it should be aimed at yourself.

• 1:14:25Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Tell me about the marketing part of the film. Do you get involved at all in the poster, in the trailer, in all of the things surrounding the film?

• 1:14:35Speaker 00

  So I talked to young filmmakers about this, this question. And I say, in 2024, and it wasn't that way, like when they put out Five Easy Pieces or something back in the day. You know, they took a New York Times ad in a And a Los Angeles Times ad, and that was it. And then everything else was it's playing at your local theater for one year, and you eventually will tell me to go see it. That's how it was advertising was. But now it's as costly or costlier than the movie, and they have to sell something. And so what ends up happening is that the marketing department has started telling you the story before we did. So the story has begun. So the storytelling is started already. So you have to be a part of it, in my opinion.

• 1:15:19Speaker 00

  Because if you're passive, then they could tell a different story than the one that you're making. And then you have a problem. So I'm very clear, like, when I'm making something, okay, this is gonna be, they're gonna tell this part of the story before they come into the movie theater, and then we're gonna withhold this part of the story. And I have to make sure that I have enough for them to tell this part of the story, because they spend a lot of money to get it in every theater in the world, a global release. Now, when you're doing platform or indie film, that's not necessarily the case. You can get closer to the five easy pieces thing, but not exactly.

• 1:15:54Rick Rubin?

  Do you make movies to be seen in the theater?

• 1:15:58Speaker 00

  That's it, only, yeah.

• 1:16:00Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. And how is the experience different seeing one of your movies in a theater with a group of people versus watching it at home on a streaming service?

• 1:16:11Speaker 00

  So many differences of that. But the most important one, the primary one, let's put aside the kind of gratuitous things that at home you're watching it while you're getting changed or doing your laundry or da-da-da-da-da, you know, putting on your makeup and you're kind of half-watching it. Put aside that, which is real and sad. But let's pretend you were watching it in an ideal form, you know, on your couch. You don't talk, you don't tell your wife, and you're watching it. When you're watching something by yourself, you are bringing only your worldview to the table, only your perspective of the world. So you will see only those things that that reinforces, and you'll be blind to the other things. You know, you're gonna, let's say, for example, you're a 50-year-old dude watching Twilight.

• 1:16:55Speaker 00

  You're gonna go, wait, come, oh, come, uh-uh. Now, if you're in a movie theater, and it's full of all ages, and you have everyone there, and there's a group of teenage girls down in the front of the theater that are laughing and gasping, and the thing, you cannot help but feel what they're feeling. You're connected like a quilt. So you become a larger version of yourself, something where we're all tied together, and I think a better version of ourselves. So she's reminding me that that's actually funny, that scene. It wasn't something to make fun of. That was something that was funny, was intended. Oh, that has wit for... And when you're commenting on what it's like to be a 15-year-old girl or 16-year-old girl, oh.

• 1:17:38Speaker 00

  And then your gravitas that you're bringing at age 50, she's feeling that in the silence, in the way you're holding that look from the father or whatever it is, you know? You're each teaching each other to see through each other's eyes in this tiny, important way. And that's beautiful. We expand. We get to be beyond our particular worldview. It's such a beautiful art form, the collective experience together of a story.

• 1:18:05Rick Rubin?

  Can you imagine ever making a black and white film?

• 1:18:08Speaker 00

  Sure. Definitely. Minimalism is lovely. And to some extent, I could argue that it's the most powerful way to do it because it really is in the language of incomplete.

• 1:18:21Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:21Speaker 00

  And you're filling in everything.

• 1:18:23Rick Rubin?

  I love the idea of the language of the incomplete. I think it's beautiful, beautiful thing to think about.

• 1:18:28Speaker 00

  Because when you try to complete it, you're obviously going to fail.

• 1:18:32Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:33Speaker 00

  It's not, it's much more complicated and beautiful than the way I was gonna define, even if it's a fictional thing, a creature or whatever it is. That's why, because the shark wasn't working in Jaws, you got to do it in an incomplete way, and thus it became much bigger and scarier.

• 1:18:48Rick Rubin?

  More poetic.

• 1:18:49Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:18:50Rick Rubin?

  And the beauty of the incomplete is the audience gets to complete it themselves. And the way we each completed is different.

• 1:18:57Speaker 00

  Bespoke for each of us.

• 1:18:58Rick Rubin?

  It's true for each of us.

• 1:19:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19:01Rick Rubin?

  If you could remake the entire movie system, how would it work differently if you were in charge of the whole system?

• 1:19:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a tough one, man. Because as I said, it's so much about giving you such a heavy frame that you already know the meal already before you've eaten it. And if you're eating a cheeseburger and you don't really rate the cheeseburger, unless it's really extraordinary, and then you kind of go. But as long as you got a cheeseburger, you're like, that was good. But if I said to you, was it really good? Was the bread great? Was the cheese good? You'll be like, well, it was okay. And you'll be like, well, actually, it wasn't. You don't even think like that. I'm sure you've heard that experiment they did with. They said, there's wine. It's a very expensive bottle of wine. How did you like it? And you drink it, and it's like, tastes amazing. And then how's this one? This one's cheap. And they drink it.

• 1:20:00Speaker 00

  It's okay, you know? And then they're measuring the brain. And actually, the receptors of taste are actually firing more with the expensive one because you've been framed that way. And so in your experience of it, it did taste better. It really did.

• 1:20:15Rick Rubin?

  The placebo.

• 1:20:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's really happening because you're experiencing it in your head. So when we're framing so strongly for them that you're basically watching the movie or experiencing it before you've seen the movie, that's a different system than the one I'm trying to do, which is, just trust me. Come to the movie theater, you know? When I understand the struggle of it, I get it. But I wish the system was geared the opposite way, which is, you know, if you say, hey, Rick, what do you want to go eat? And I did that. I texted you, and I said, where should I go eat? You know? You gave me your answers to things. And some of them are, it's just great, go, right? You didn't tell me it was Italian food. Like, that's what I wish it was. The way you did it with me, you just said, food's great.

• 1:21:00Speaker 00

  That was it. You didn't even tell me what kind of food.

• 1:21:03Rick Rubin?

  No.

• 1:21:04Speaker 00

  And so I love that. I wish we were oriented to that, you know? So I don't have to say Chinese food. I don't have to say burger. I don't have to say pizza.

• 1:21:13Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:13Speaker 00

  And you come, and I can give you different things in a different capacity. I can give you something sweet to start. And so you don't go, why am I, this doesn't, this is crazy. You know, and that you're ready for the experience, and then you're really present. And that's the way it really was before marketing became the primary driver of cinema.

• 1:21:33Rick Rubin?

  Are there any other directors who, when you see their name before the title of the movie, You have a real sense of what you're gonna see besides you?

• 1:21:43Speaker 00

  I mean, sure, there's Quentin, for sure, right?

• 1:21:45Rick Rubin?

  Wes Anderson.

• 1:21:47Speaker 00

  Wes, absolutely, yeah. I mean, and, you know, before, that was a lot of, a lot of them. But the color, you're gonna hear such a strong accent.

• 1:21:56Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:57Speaker 00

  That it's beautiful, you're coming for the accent.

• 1:22:00Rick Rubin?

  Can you imagine making a movie that was outside of your genre?

• 1:22:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I do feel like I have enough room in, in my genre that it's, because it's a mashup of genres to begin with. It's already, like, it already began with a mashup of drama and scary movie. Like, we already just started there, it was a mashup to begin with.

• 1:22:21Rick Rubin?

  How important is scary?

• 1:22:25Speaker 00

  You know, for me, I would like more to define myself, you know, and the way I do see myself is more of a thriller filmmaker, which is basically more muscular mystery, that that's where I am, you know? And then everything else is ornamentation on that. But if you go to, if I go somewhere and they're like, and someone goes, oh, I'm a big fan, and then they're with their wife or whatever, and the wife says, oh, I don't watch scary movies. And I always go, is that what I do? And I go, huh? Because I know this lady would love almost every single one of them, you know? But she has, I'm in a, I'm in a part of the store that's scary movies, and that's, that's that. So I'm, I a little bit fight that a bit, because it's one, one dance move or, you know, in the whole dance,

• 1:23:10Speaker 00

  but it's not all, all of it.

• 1:23:12Rick Rubin?

  And we think of Hitchcock movies as thrillers, but we never think of them as metaphysical. So yours tend to have this

• 1:23:21Speaker 00

  They do have that.

• 1:23:22Rick Rubin?

  otherworldly quality.

• 1:23:25Speaker 00

  Like, this conversation we have is an, is an outcropping of the same things that are in the movie, you know, so.

• 1:23:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're right. There's that. I didn't even, I don't even say that when I was saying, "What is it that you do?" But it is critical for me to make those. And I would love that lady to not say, "I don't, I don't like scary movies." As opposed to, you know, you make, make me feel things and, you know, in a way of, you know, existential thoughts and, because I can feel you struggling with them and you make characters that struggle with that and I struggle with that. You know, that lady would love that. But it's, it's because I'm, you know, she thinks it's in the corner of the store where people get chopped up.

• 1:24:08Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, it's not saw.

• 1:24:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. That's so funny.

• 1:24:13Rick Rubin?

  How do you think you're most misunderstood?

• 1:24:16Speaker 00

  I think we touched on it a bit, the whole scary thing, because I think the most salient flavor is the one that, that they call it. So, you know, the subtler flavors are unimportant. The drama, the mystery, the philosophical, those quieter colors get dismissed a bit. And then go, "Yeah, man, give me some more Tabasco sauce. I love it," you know? And so sometimes it makes me not want to do the Tabasco sauce.

• 1:24:45Rick Rubin?

  And it's interesting, the idea of turning up the psychological drama and turning down the Tabasco sauce. I'd want to see one of those.

• 1:24:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, and, but will the, will the audience, because they were framed for the cheeseburger, get pissed?

• 1:25:00Rick Rubin?

  But do you feel an obligation in that way, that they have to get certain notes?

• 1:25:05Speaker 00

  Well, now you're getting to another part of it, which is, I, I do feel a responsibility. There is a covenant to take that, that money. When they see my name, there's a relationship, a pre-existing relationship, a date that we've been on together, and they expect a similar date. That doesn't need to be confining, but beautiful. And so how can you kind of do 80% that and then 20% something new, or 70 and 30, or something like that, without it being a complete, like, "Hey, I didn't get the cheeseburger."

• 1:25:41Rick Rubin?

  Who are your favorite filmmakers? And what is it about each of them?

• 1:25:46Rick Rubin?

  That put them on the list?

• 1:25:47Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh. I mean, it's endless, honestly. Really, it really just is endless. But, you know, just I'll take a few. But, you know, Kurosawa. Because again, because of his formality. I just understand why he did everything he does. It's like, and not moving the camera. And then moving the camera. And his brilliance of blocking. And his trafficking in deep pathos. You know, amongst the plot, you know? And his characters are tortured. And I find them profound. His precision of thought.

• 1:26:22Rick Rubin?

  What's your favorite Kurosawa film?

• 1:26:24Speaker 00

  Jeez, this again.

• 1:26:26Rick Rubin?

  It's so good.

• 1:26:27Speaker 00

  There's so many. I have posters up of Rochemont in my office. And High and Low, you know, in my office. So both of those are in my office. So that they're obviously in the pantheon, those two. Akuru was also one that popped into my head.

• 1:26:43Rick Rubin?

  Incredible.

• 1:26:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:26:45Rick Rubin?

  How did you learn your craft?

• 1:26:48Speaker 00

  Imitation. And then the kind of failure of imitation.

• 1:26:56Speaker 00

  And why that leaves you empty. And what is that? And then in that space, you start to hear yourself.

• 1:27:03Rick Rubin?

  What's the Foxcatcher story?

• 1:27:06Speaker 00

  I think you're referencing The Village, my movie, The Village.

• 1:27:09Rick Rubin?

  Is that what it is?

• 1:27:09Speaker 00

  Well, no, but you're referencing the property near our house.

• 1:27:13Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:14Speaker 00

  Called Foxcatcher. And so.

• 1:27:16Rick Rubin?

  Dupont.

• 1:27:16Speaker 00

  Yes, so I would pass it every day. And this property was, you know, their family's property was in there. All these acres. And they had their own hospital and insane asylum and.

• 1:27:28Rick Rubin?

  Inside the gates.

• 1:27:29Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. And they, you know, there's a famous story of someone getting murdered in there. And, you know, all this stuff. And so it was just full of. Wonder for me, as I was passing this rusted fence covered in ivy. And now it's a development, it's gone and you know, there's all these McMansions there and all of that stuff. But back in those days, it was, we really conjure imagination in me. And I think the Village, the movie The Village, came from that fence.

• 1:27:56Rick Rubin?

  Just driving by.

• 1:27:59Rick Rubin?

  Have you worked much with CGI?

• 1:28:02Speaker 00

  Not compared to most, you know, if I can do it in camera, we try to do it in camera. It's just so hard, right, to, again, in that idea of incompleteness, it's so hard to complete something. I've found that it's best when you add obscurity to the CGI. So like, you know, so if you have a dinosaur or whatever, you should have it raining and it should be at night. And it should be, there should be other things to create the incompleteness again.

• 1:28:27Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Tell me about your spiritual life.

• 1:28:32Speaker 00

  I would say right now, I'm teetering on a place of wanting to change

• 1:28:41Speaker 00

  what it is that I think I am moment to moment, that I'm a group of thoughts that I call myself. That those, most of those, like all of us, like most of us, is passively, has been passively chosen. And I've had the wonderful ability to learn how to not do that when I'm making, when I'm creating. So it's been a respite from this burden of the passive thoughts that have become who I am. And by that means, you know, this is what you think when you're wearing your stuck in traffic. This is what you think when you find out someone stole money from you. This is what you think when someone beautiful stands in front of you.

• 1:29:26Speaker 00

  Those thoughts, and you can choose to think new thoughts.

• 1:29:32Speaker 00

  You can. You have to be aware because autopilot happens instantaneously. And so I'm trying now, been thinking for the last, I would say, six weeks now. And I feel it changing. Like, you know, the normal version of me may not get everything here that we're doing right now. I would say all these, I've always been OK with being honest with you when I'm asked, but to be here and feel this, this kind of fabric here and see you and, and take this with me forever is the hope. And convey something of reassurance to you

• 1:30:13Speaker 00

  of another, another person on the planet that is grateful and happy. Hopefully, there's something that comes across. I'm probably not succeeding, but I want that to be the case from here. When you're going, what is it you want now? You know, I want with all the scars and all the mistakes and everything, I want to go, those were all beautiful lessons to be someone better, you know? And by better, I just mean happier, you know? And so I'm trying to concentrate on my thoughts. And when you do that, everything seems wondrous.

• 1:30:49Rick Rubin?

  What do you think happened six or so weeks ago that started this? Like, how did you get on that?

• 1:30:53Speaker 00

  It's probably, you know, you hear the right thing. It was from a podcast, ironically enough, you know? You know, you have to hear the right thing at the right time. And it goes click. And then you go down, not go down, you go up a rabbit hole.

• 1:31:07Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. Do you remember what it was that you heard?

• 1:31:10Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, I'm forgetting the name whose podcast it was on, but it was this, this Dr. Joe Dispenza was talking about thoughts.

• 1:31:17Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:18Speaker 00

  And so I'd never heard him before. And then it just went click, the idea when he said, today we will have 90% the identical thoughts that we had yesterday. And I went, oh, my God, we're all in the matrix. We're in our own matrix.

• 1:31:33Rick Rubin?

  We are.

• 1:31:35Speaker 00

  And I was like, well, I don't want to have the same thoughts. And then the thought, I do believe that I've always felt like, you know, whatever you do, wherever you are, whatever your vibration is, you're gonna bring that. Because I don't think the universe, that energy or science, the quantum physics of it all, says good or bad, you know, I think, you know, so if I'm not feeling great, there's a lot more not feeling great than come my way, you know? If I feel people will betray me, oh my gosh, there's so many more people coming to betray me, you know? And so it's like, if we can resonate in a place of bad, that will come back as well.

• 1:32:10Rick Rubin?

  How much time do you spend in nature?

• 1:32:12Speaker 00

  We live on a beautiful property. That and the reason that I picked that property, because it is one of those old estates that doesn't exist anymore. And thinking of spending the rest of my life there and having, not only did we raise our kids there, but soon, hopefully, grandkids that are walking with them. And maybe, maybe if I'm lucky, like my dad, see my great grandkids on that property. And amazing, it would be amazing, just absolutely amazing. So, and it's wondrous, you know, the trees that we planted and they're all grown. And it's just, it's just absolutely amazing. I want to spend more and more time. Every year I spend more time outside.

• 1:32:53Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about your movie watching habits.

• 1:32:57Speaker 00

  It's sacred. Nothing's casual at the house, which obviously really is a bummer for my wife and kids. So it's just too meaningful, the images that come into my head. And I'll force myself to sit with them, to just be a part of their lives for a few minutes, but it's, it's literally like getting burned. So when I'm taking it in, it can be anything. I don't, I don't have like, it can be a rom-com, it really can, it just has to be exquisite, you know? And, and in that, what it is, it has to be, you know, beautiful in and of itself, its version of what it, what it is. And so. So it's not, when you see my movie collection, it's not snobbery. You have the Bergmans and all that stuff, but you do have everything.

• 1:33:41Speaker 00

  Because it's, you know, when I was the chair of the Berlin Film Festival, I said to the jurors, you know, what did, they said, "What are the criteria? How do we do this?" And I said, "We're not judging genre." So whoever achieved what they set out to do at the highest level, whoever did it the best, that's who wins, you know?

• 1:34:27Speaker 02

  Tetragrammatin is a podcast. Tetragrammatin is a website. Tetragrammatin is a whole world of knowledge.

• 1:34:42Speaker 03

  What may fall within the sphere of tetragrammatin? Counterculture? Tetragrammatin. Sacred geometry? Tetragrammatin. The avant-garde? Tetragrammatin. Generative art? Tetragrammatin. The tarot? Tetragrammatin. Out-of-print music? Tetragrammatin. Biodynamics? Tetragrammatin. Graphic design? Tetragrammatin. Mythology and magic? Tetragrammatin. Obscure film? Tetragrammatin. Beach culture? Tetragrammatin. Esoteric lectures? Tetragrammatin. Off-the-grid living? Tetragrammatin. Alt spirituality? Tetragrammatin. The canon of fine objects? Tetragrammatin. Muscle cars? Tetragrammatin.

• 1:35:25Speaker 03

  Ancient wisdom for a new age. Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day. Take a breath and see where you are drawn.