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Edward Norton is an actor, writer, producer, director, and filmmaker. His new film "Motherless Brooklyn" opens in theaters on November 1.
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Brian Raftery, Best. Movie. Year. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen
James Clavell, Shogun
John Grisham, The Rainmaker
Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn
Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Tarantino, etc.
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we go i always know the conversation is going to get off to a good start when i
meet a fellow
lenny bruce fan yes yeah that was and i i you know there's that line in fight
club the things
you own end up owning you and i generally am not a stuff guy but when i came in
here i i did find
myself going this is the right kind of place to keep stuff yeah and i was i've
been wandering
around looking at things and that was my favorite thing that i saw you have
that a couple of the of
great lenny bruce posters yeah one of which i've never seen which one although
the one with his
where he it's really wild he looks like an indian guru or something staring
into the middle distance
that's that's an amazing photograph of him yeah i kind of bought as much
vintage lenny bruce stuff
as i could find and i this place has sort of evolved into a semi gallery you
know it's it's i would like
to have a house with nothing in it and then have this place just filled with
shit no i i kind of
agree though also i think that it's fun when you have people come through a
space so that you're
actually like sharing the things like it's sort of like you're letting someone
come in and wander
and some of the best museums in the world are people's individual curation some
of the best art
collections ever made are better than any museum because they're put together
by someone and you're
finding like the threads and things yeah so i i think when you can when you can
assemble like
things that have meant something to you but you can put them in a space where
other people can bump
into them it's better than just like than letting them just collect dust in
your own home where they
you stop looking at them you know you have a very unusual perspective for
someone who makes a living
as an actor what do you mean why do you think so you're a very thoughtful
person very thoughtful i know
a lot i know a lot of thoughtful actors i do too i do too yeah but it's not
common you got to find them
you got to curate those folks yeah i um it's a funny it's a funny it's a funny
gig by like by definition
it's like if you think about all the like the the yin yang in it the paradoxes
in it it's like on the
one hand with guys actors there'll be a lot of um you know there's a certain
kind of uh not not macho
but there's like you know men will look to play intense roles and right these
things but what
you're doing is like it's it's you're playing dress up like you know you're you're
you're like
and i i always liked uh i always like the dorothy parker the famous new york
you know writer said
scratch an actor you'll find an actress i think it's the greatest line it's not
and it's not how it
sounds just be a little you know like it's that's not an uh a knock on actresses
no no no but that's
the real truth of the whole thing is like we put on makeup we put on clothes we
play dress up and we
pretend to be other people and it's like it it really is like you know um when
people are like
you know sometimes my brother and sister will laugh because i've done these
certain things
that have a certain kind of iconic intensity or whatever right like and they
look at me and they're
like are you kidding like you ever seen the size of his ankles they're like my
brother's like he's
such a twerp like he's such a he's my brother's like two inches bigger than me
and 30 pounds bigger
and way stronger you know my little brother and he's uh and it's always like he
is the he's a theater
nerd he's not like tough they're like don't buy the hulk yeah no but um or
american uh american history
acts yeah i do but i do i do think there's um there's sometimes there's a it's
really funny the
way there's a posture in it sometimes there's like a pot there's like a public
facing posture that some
people who are in this trade this weird thing will adopt and it's like it's
like hey man i hate to tell
you but like like you don't have to live into some you don't have to live into
it i sometimes feel
like people are compensating for the fact that what they do in fact is play
dress up right do you
do you think it's also that they have to kind of uh project this image to
ensure that they get more
of these tough guy roles or maybe maybe i don't know i don't know i i think um
or or maybe it's like
that's who they wanted to be maybe in a weird way they're living into um some
some people i think
they they relish the opportunity to change the story of who they are you know
what i mean they're
they're they're they're getting to through through getting well known they're
getting this chance to
sort of like wipe the slate yeah of whatever it is they were getting away from
and they're getting to
you know the the chance to sort of create a create a persona that they're they're
happier with
than than what than before you know right like what they wish they always were
yeah and their darkest
times yeah or or um you know yeah there's there's uh i also think there's a
funny thing which is
there's this history of famous actors right so and it and it i do think it sort
of begins with brando
because brando had such an enormous effect on the psychology of men in in america
he really he
really like and if you look at what i would call like the great generation of
american actors the
the dustin hoffman robert nero robert duvall gene hackman um al pacino morgan
freeman merrill
like this you know the whole post that's all like the post brando generation
all of those people
literally all of them wanted to become actors because of marlon brando and and
he he so rewrote
the idea of what it was what it could be that you had got a whole it was like
what bob dylan did
in in the culture it was like it rewrote like it just rewrote the game or like
what lenny did with
comedy yeah absolutely lenny bruce and there and i and there are these people
who come and they have
they have like a kind of a a permanent they're a permanent before and after yes
in in a certain
kind of field you know what i mean hendrix with the guitar and yeah yeah yes i
would say so i would
say so in rock guitar yeah uh although it is interesting when you go back and
look at rock in
that era there's that famous story of i think of i don't remember if it's like
pete townsend making
eric clapton come with him to hear hendrix and clapton crying yes you know
about it yeah i heard
that story but you can't but you also can't discount what clapton in in you
know there's those famous
photos of the wall clapton as god like like there's it's it's hard to like you
can't really underrate
what clapton did to guitar and guitar you know in that era too right no he was
phenomenal but it was
a different thing it was a different thing yeah jimmy hendrix was was a protean
he seemed like he broke
through to a new dimension yeah i could pop through the membrane of existence
into this new sound
and there's guys that are like there there's people that have a distinct set
like are you a gary clark
jr fan no i can't gary clark jr is a phenomenal blues guitarist okay and he has
a sound that's almost
instantaneously recognizable as gary clark jr you hear him and you go oh my god
there it is like
everyone who works with them is just like they just walk away sweating just
going jesus christ wow
it's phenomenal i feel that way about willie nelson i think willie nelson is
legitimately in
in country music like there's before and after willie nelson like and and you
can say that he you
know that hank williams jr or whatever that he but willie willie nelson to me
is the hinge around which
it goes from being something that had you know then it had a nashville kind of
grand old opry kind of
polished to it and he basically took it he reclaimed it in as this like
american roots
thing and put jazz in it that's what's so crazy is people anyone who plays
music knows like willie
nelson is essentially a jazz guitar player like and and he's he you know redheaded
stranger is
to me that's a before and after kind of a thing too like there's that out that
whole outlaw thing and i
think there's a whole lot of it's almost like after that there's two camps
there's still going to be
like the you know the um steve earl in his copperhead road thing is more the
posh thing but then there's
like steve earl roots steve earl you know what i mean it's like he almost like
straddled it but
but my point about brando was just that like he he he changed the he changed
the idea of the type of
person that male actors wanted to be they want suddenly it was like they wanted
to have like
a patina or a reputation as a visceral they wanted to be visceral not polished
they wanted to be muscular
they wanted to be masculine they wanted to be um you know uh intense like those
were not the kind of
words that people when you think back on like jimmy stewart carrie grant like
that that is not what
right that is not what movie stars were aspiring to they were aspiring to
polish a kind of a polish
before brando and there was an authenticity right yeah there's a there's a some
there's something to
his performances where you go oh well this is more like real life than a fit
like on the waterfront
like the i could have been a contender thing yeah like when he's doing that you're
like well oh this
is how someone would actually behave if they felt like their life had been a
disaster and it could have
been avoided well you just hit on something though that it drives me nuts
because when people sort of
talk about brando they're like you know they're sort of the like the stanley kowalski
um the the brutal
masculinity etc the thing about brando is he is beautiful he's in he's kind of
this enormous roman
looking guy but it's it where he kills where he really kills is this kind of
broken sensitivity that
he had and and i could have been a contender is not a tough guy speech right it's
the opposite it's
it's a broken tough guy it's a guy practically crying saying like you were my
you were my brother
and you should have looked out for me i needed you looking out for me and my
life is my life's gone
down the toilet because of that in that moment you didn't look out for me it's
it's you know it's
it's like tearful it's not and and even even the best moment of stanley kowalski
and streetcar
is is really it's like when he falls on his knees in front of his wife and
cries you know what i mean it's
like that's what he he was way better in in a lot of ways to me it's the fact
that he was actually
kind of in touch with his emotional life it's not that he was right so macho at
all it's that he he
looked that way but he was but he actually had this like poetic sensitivity yes
and it was it it resonated
real like it felt real yeah and if you watch actors before him there was a
certain
undeniable theatric element to what they were doing that was like oh this guy's
acting yeah whereas he
was he seemed like a guy who was really living the scene yeah yeah and some of
it it's sometimes i think
it sounds silly to say the instrument of a person but he he has this crazy he's
he looks the way he
looks but he's got this marble mouthed he doesn't he's not articulate he doesn't
come off as
like there's a mushiness to the way he speaks and a kind of a um yeah it it it
doesn't have uh style
you know the the guys before that it was you felt there you felt that they were
working on their
style yeah and and he seemed to be sort of like scratching his ribs and and mumbling
and and um
you know in a t-shirt and he just was he was kind of present in the moment i
think it was all
accentuated by the way he ended his life like the end of his life he was
enormous yeah gigantic fat guy and
he just just given in to all of his vices and he was just this guy he was a
beautiful man yeah he
just didn't seem to give a fuck about that at all yeah i think he said
something to me one time about
how um how much he was enjoying his life when he was like 23 and and he's like
i you know even when
he was doing the play streetcar that made him famous he was telling me like he
would get with his
pal diego and go up to harlem go to clubs and hit on girls and all these things
and and i said you
weren't aware of what was going on you know and he goes well there was i was
aware of a certain amount
of noise rising and then one day i woke up and i was sitting on a pile of candy
that's what he and um
and i thought what a really wild way to say it and i do think i'm not even
joking to me it's like
what you said it was like after that they were just it was like there was no
boundaries he was
like they gave he was getting every everything was he he wasn't gonna be able
to resist he wasn't
disciplined yeah he wasn't a super disciplined person he was a very poetic
person i and i don't
think he was disciplined and i think that a lot of what happened you know he
had like something like 17
children um and and he got you know he had appetites and he had these things
and i i think that um
i i do think that he
you know struggle struggled to
to deal with all the things that came with being that famous yeah and being
that famous when there
wasn't really a lot of examples of how to do it right or wrong before you yeah
uh sort of the elvis
thing right it yeah it's the elvis thing the the flip is like dylan who i still
find myself like when
you watch the new scorsese have you seen that thing rolling rolling thunder it's
really worth watching
that um or the original scorsese doc about him one uh no direction home like
here's this guy he's like in his early 20s and they're coming at him with all
this like
voice of your generation all this stuff and he's like that's nothing i can
relate to man
you know and he's and he's going like i can't help wondering if lenny bruce
loved dylan he i don't
know that but i would think that lenny bruce was tuned in to dylan because dylan's
thing was like
don't ask me what it means man i wrote it i i you know i don't know what it
means what what do you
think it means he was just constantly going buzz off man i'm not picking it
apart for you i'm not
i'm not gonna pick it apart for you i'm not gonna like buy into this stuff you're
putting at me and
how did he have he he was 20 20 21 years old like who resists who resists
people falling all over them
to call them great when they're that age nobody right nobody has that kind of
like sensibility sensibility
to go everything you're bringing at me is going to be bad for me and i it's it
it's like watch the
if you watch those interviews with him when he's that age it's pretty
astonishing because to your
point like you're like a thoughtful actor whatever i look at him and i'm like
nobody has that discipline
at that age yeah it's amazing how uniquely qualified he was for that position
at that point in time and
that very strange tumultuous time in history as well and not only that right at
the moment that that
like joanie bias brings him out on the stage at the newport folk festival and
basically goes
this is the prince this is i anoint you he's the one he's neo he's the he is
the one and the next
year he doesn't even take one year to go to go let me just let me just lean
into your love the next
year he comes with an electric guitar and plugs it in at the newport folk
festival and people start
screaming in agony like going what are you doing like you're bob dylan you're
the king of folk you
can't plug in a guitar and people are like running to try to cut his chords
with an axe in this thing
like that's how much of a betrayal and he's like there's people yelling traitor
at him and he's going
i don't believe you you know i think you're a liar like any any turning around
robbie robertson and go and
play it loud i mean the guy is so punk rock wow he's so totally punk rock he he
was as punk rock as
anybody ever i think he probably had to be just to resist what they were trying
to box him into
yeah and by but there's never been anybody who was more like oh you like what i'm
doing i'm gone i'm
over here like enjoy you're gonna not like it because you like what i just did
now where i'm
going you're gonna be discombobulated and upset and eventually you're gonna
catch up and then when
you catch up i'm gonna move on to something else like it's it's really it
really is amazing is amazing
because how many people do you know in any of the things we all do who get a
taste of a thing and don't
like lean into it for a while right like who don't kind of go well this feels
good you know maybe i'll
just hang out right here and well it's always weird when you see somebody lean
into something and it's
not really them and they become what people want of them you know and yeah you
like a great example in
comedy was kinnison kinnison when he made it uh everybody wanted to lay these
gigantic lines of coke
for him apparently they're like oh it's him it's him he's here right they just
laid some giant line
of coke and he would joke around about it like i had to do it oh and you know
he would do you know a
giant line yeah i was having a heart attack right i can't not live into the
thing because then then
yes they'll stop trusting it right but you become a caricature you become this
thing like dice clay is
another example like dice clay used to be that used to be one part of his act
his name is andrew
andrew silverstein so he would do his act and then the dice man was a character
that he would do but
people loved it so much when he would do that character that the character
became his whole act
and then he became the character where you see him in real life he's wearing
like weightlifting
gloves and you know he's walking around in a gold's gym t-shirt he became that
guy he's hilarious
still but he's that guy now but now he's kind of out the back side of that when
you say in in what way
well now he's like acting in things he does do that and act well yeah but he
still does the same
kind of stand-up really if you go see him it's still hilarious irreverent just
complete like not
of this era well let me ask you a question because i um i think it's
interesting i think uh in that
vein like if you look at howard stern who i i've met only a couple times but i
had i found him to be
like extremely extremely thoughtful guy like and i i don't mean that he just
was very very intelligent
really smart i mean that's again but he's also like um i don't know the
conversation we have mutual
friends and i and i um and i really enjoyed talking to him like i thought i
thought like oh
there's nothing tricky about him at all he's really like down in his shoes he's
interested he actually
asks questions i mean there's some people you meet and you're just like oh my
god they're talking in
a mirror that you're you're a mirror and they're just looking at themselves
while they speak to you
they're waiting for you to get done talking so they talk yeah yeah but he um
but i think what i think
is really interesting is like so howard imagine imagine the pressure because i
i grew up in the
baltimore area he was on dc radio he was on dc 101 um i remember i remember
that the shock of him
literally and um imagine you know the pull to deliver on what you've built
which was obviously
you know a huge audience that wanted this thing to me it's really interesting
and impressive that
howard's kind of and i'm saying it like i know him i don't know him but
watching it to me this idea
that he's kind of said hey look i i you know i'm i'm gonna be honest about
where i'm at and uh
in some measure i'm gonna say there's things i've done i regret there's ways i've
treated certain
people in the interest of the show that i'm kind of i'm kind of done with that
i don't really want
to be that guy and in some measure you know he's kind of saying to his audience
like you got to deal
with me where i am now yeah you know what i mean um now it's not like there's
like a huge risk in
that because his audience is gigantic right um well it's also he's so
successful and so universally
praised as being the most important figure in the history of radio like there's
no one who does like
what i do podcasts there's no a gigantic debt of gratitude to howard stern the
fact that you know
he was getting fined by the fcc i mean they were hundreds of thousands of
dollars he kept getting
fired from radio stations we kept doing kept doing it the way he did it and it
changed the way people
do talk radio honestly the fact that we can even the fact that we've talked as
long as we've talked
up to now is a function of him proving that there was a tolerance for long form
basically you know
what i mean i mean it's like people knock on netflix or whatever i'm like i'm
like anything
there's an amazing thing going on in the world right now which is people are
people are re reproving or
reconnecting with the fact that for all of what goes on on facebook and
instagram and twitter and all
this bullshit like the truth is people people like and have the appetite for
and their brains enjoy
longer form conversations yes and longer form stories more than than it was
assumed they did you
know what i mean and like popular culture feeds us a lot of like fast food and
xanax in like a speed
ball of of you can't handle anything you don't want anything more than than
literally like a little bit
of junk food with a little bit of xanax because you just want to lie on your
couch and watch someone
else save the world that's i know that's all you want but that isn't that is
not true and i think
like you know you look at things like like from peaky blinders to chernobyl to
like the ken burn
civil war series like we're going through this thing where people are realizing
like no that's not actually
true people actually like you my foul dax you know shepherd who's got a great
radio show people like to
listen to people have actual conversations well they're also listening and it's
a new way of
ingesting entertainment like you're getting it in your car you're getting it in
your ears when
you're at the gym yeah when you're on the subway or bus or a plane and it's you're
getting these
stimulating long-form conversations that maybe maybe people didn't even know
they wanted you know yeah
i agree i agree everybody loves a great conversation with someone so it's like
you get to have that
conversation without participating right right and and and stern definitely was
like
we're talking about before and after like i and there was talk radio but that
but it kind of starts
there i think i think you you started to be like i can listen to this guy for a
long time yeah he broke
through the membrane like we're talking about hendrix entering into a new
dimension of sounds
he he broke through the membrane of talk radio and what he's doing now is well
now he's a man in his 60s who's
extremely wealthy and he has some i'm sure some regrets as you were talking
about the things that
he's done in the past and said in the past and he's also like this is who he is
now he's not going to
pretend right that he's just wants to bring strippers in and have them ride the
city in every
day and when people get upset that he's changed well i hope you change too man
yeah i hope everybody
changes no that's what i mean i admire i mean true it's true it's it's not
quite dylan when he's 24 and
being anointed plugging in a guitar but i do think it's when people sort of go
hey uh i'm i'm gonna
i'm i'm gonna be where i am yes and and you got to deal with it right uh uh
that's positive i think
well it's definitely better than leaning into it and being what people want you
to be and be
struggling with that and tortured by that i actually think most of the most of
people who i think that
mostly ends up badly yes yes yeah i think whenever you don't go with whoever
you actually are and
whenever you don't acknowledge that whoever you actually are has changed you
know if you're growing
and learning and having these epiphanies and these realizations about yourself
and where you fit into
your own life and how you've interacted with people in your life you're not
making adjustments and you're
only doing it that way because you think that's what people expect of you well
you're you're a prisoner to
your own first incarnation yeah you know the the first thing that people saw
and that was kenny said
and he's a kind of a prisoner to that forever yeah and acknowledged it yeah it's
why it's why anybody
who um any it's not even act two anybody anybody who sh who can who keeps doing
interesting things through
phases is is even more impressive yeah that's also is it hard as an actor too
if you if you get an iconic
role and then you are sort of always remembered for being that guy in that
thing like how how much of
uh is is it a hard transition to go from an iconic role to going into your next
role would people still
want to talk about the the big movie that you were in just a year or two ago um
it's never that hasn't
been a big thing for me i um i think uh i take i tend to take a bit of time
between things um and also
i i don't know when i you know like the first thing i did what kind of popped
off pretty hot and then
and then everyone's like sending me like this is you know psych psychotic right
psychotic interesting
characters i was like well i think i'll do a musical with woody allen you know
what i mean and um wear a
plaid jacket and yeah do a dance number and harry winston's like switch it up
yeah or or and um
and then what's really weird is i did that first i did a i played this lawyer i
played a young lawyer
in the larry flint film right which um and off of that i got i got this
distinct vibe of like hey the
next john grisham movie is kind of like the way you were talking in court in
that movie you would kill
in this john grisham thing as the young lawyer or whatever and um and uh i
remember i met um francis
coppola was going to direct the rainmaker this grisham thing and i was up for
it i didn't get
it matt damon got it um and i didn't do some ballsy thing and like say that's
not for me i was like
i was like francis coppola i was like i want this you know yeah i think but
when i was talking to him
about it um and thinking to myself a little bit like this seems a little square
but it's like francis
coppola you know what i mean and it's like uh and and he when i was talking to
him about it he was
like well what you know what what are you interested what are you working on
what are you interested in
and i was telling him about my friend david who had written uh this american
history x and that we
were working on i was kind of telling him what we were trying to do with it and
how we wanted to make
it is this kind of like gorilla you know thing and and he was like you should
do that you should do
that immediately and i was like well i want to i i was like don't don't i was
like don't cancel don't
don't you know i still want to do this with you he's like no no i think you
should do like the way
you're talking about that and he said if you do that now they'll never they'll
never know what to do
with you like they'll never be they'll never be able to put you in a box right
kind of um uh because
that's just you know if you pull that off and and i kind of was like i you know
it it i did have an
agent at the time it was really old school really funny and he was kind of like
he didn't understand
that he he was like he was like find something big let's find something big big
director big film
big franchise whatever and i i remember thinking like nah i think i'm gonna do
this and um and we
knocked that off and the funny thing is you say well does that become a trap it
that wasn't a trap
that was like a liberation it's almost like doing that part it was like a
permanent hand grenade on
it was like now it was like well uh we never know what to expect now right so
it's it becomes like
liberation on us at a certain point because like i weigh 150 you know like i'm
not big so like once
you do something like that it's sort of like hmm when this guy's this guy's
this guy's kinky what
the hell are we gonna do with him you know what i mean um right and then it's
just sort of like
uh you get to decide for yourself in a way that's brilliant yeah like robert
downey jr as amazing
as he is it's always going to be iron man like that sometimes you get one of
those roles you know
like uh thor chris helmsworth he's fucking thor dude you're thor forever you
know you flirted with
that it depends on and i think it depends on how many of them you do but when
you did the hulk were
you worried about that a little bit was there any hesitation because i was
surprised when you did that
i was like this is an interesting choice as is evident i got more worried about
it uh you know
i i i was i was very interested because i loved it i i i'm not like snobby
about i loved those like
comics and i i subscribed to them yeah i subscribed to hulk i um all the darker
stuff like dark knight frank
miller the whole all of it was really you know it was it was um it it was it
was something i really
latched on to and and i love the bill bixby uh hulk yeah like he's it for me he's
always for anyone
our age like he's you know him walking away at the end of the show yeah that's
it um and i i so yeah no
i i i thought uh i tend to get
just the way i felt about american history x i actually thought american
history x was sort of
like othello or macbeth i thought it was that's what i said to david he had
written this kind of
edgy thing with the drug plot in it and i was like i think you strip all that
away and you literally just
make this about rage destroying a person who's got a lot in him it's like it's
like a shakespearean
tragedy but it's just it's skinheads you know and that and that really lit david
up and that's where
we went with that right but hulk had hulk is like the um it's uh prometheus
right the guy who steals
fire from the gods for people but he gets burned doing it and is cursed right
he he he's trying to take
like the power of nature back out to people from the gods and he gets burned
and that's how i that's
how i thought about it i was like if we could do something like that that leans
into
this guy who thinks he's going for something good that's going to help humanity
and he cracks open like
the backside of god and and take something out that is not meant to be taken
out and now he's cursed
like cursed you know that that's what was amazing even as silly as the show was
on some levels bill
bixby was cursed like that's what and the end of every show you were like oh my
god he's still cursed
like alone in the world and cursed right and there's something pretty pretty
heavy in that like pretty
cool in that and uh and so so it was it wasn't um it you know i i thought it
was like really worth a
crack i loved it how did that scene come to play where you were with hicks and
gracie
oh because i because i was i studied aikido when i was in college um i i was
studying aikido um and then
when i was studying aikido uh um hoist gracie won the you know that was when
the fighting championship
that was like the late 80s right 1993. 93 okay close yeah so right so but he i
became aware oh no
that's it that you're right you're right because i was in new york i was
studying aikido in new york
and and hoist gracie won that first ufc and like i said i'm i'm six feet tall
but i literally if i'm
in shape i weigh like 155 right and hoist when he won that was 176 like six
feet and under 180 right
yep and i remember it melted everybody's mind yeah i mean it melted everybody's
mind and i um so i i
became interested in them and and what they were doing honestly do you do you
know that um you know
in the story in their nat family's whole crazy story about being um you know
they were scott
the grandfather was scottish right and he was like a consular he was a customs
he was a customs official
in brazil and because he had a good relationship with the japanese consul and
helped was very generous
in helping japanese people get their papers to come through and in the japanese
consul i think the
story is who's who knew aikido and jujitsu offered to like teach his sons yeah
it was count maeda right
yeah who came to he came to brazil and taught carlos and horian and and helio
well mostly the father of
the hoy six in generation and then ilio's oldest son i think i think uh horian
was the oldest son he's
the one who created the ultimate fighting championship but hickson the reason
why was so significant that
you had him is that was the champion of the family like right undeniably undisputed
everyone everyone
throughout jujitsu this it's very very rare that one figure is universally
recognized as being the
superior product of jujitsu and that was hickson yeah you always i yeah if you
followed that stuff
at all you kind of yes heard that breakdown of it and yeah i thought i thought
a part of the story i
think hickson told me when we were in rio i think what he said to me was that
the reason gracie jujitsu
became its particular derivation and its particular kind of things that allowed
hoist
to do so well was because their father was smaller than his brother that's ilio
right and he and because
and they were all bigger and because he was smaller he adapted yeah you know he
adapted the style to
work for a smaller person against a bigger person yeah obviously and um and
then that kind of like reached
its its pinnacle with hoist winning that yes that tournament which which which
this this gets down
in the weeds for people who aren't into this stuff but the but it was i mean
that was that you talk
about these things the cracking through moment right yes that was a cracking
through moment it was like
wait a minute a guy his size just literally won in all form all size tournament
like how is that possible
you know what i mean and it was like it was like jaw hits floor and to me what
was really interesting was
i was really little all the way until literally the end of high school i was
very small i grew a lot
um in my like when i was like 17. but i was really interested in japan and i
was interested in martial arts
and you know james clavell's shogun like not you know and um and i would take i
i took like a karate
class and it scared me i it was people if they were bigger and faster it was
just scary if you were little
it was like i can't it doesn't matter if i can do these combos or whatever in
truth i'm terrified of
anybody bigger than me and i don't feel that this is teaching me anything that
i would have
the confidence to to use to defend myself right that's how i felt as a kid and
when i when i bumped
into aikido i it completely changed my mind the guy there was an incredible
teacher in new haven when
i was in college and he was small he was like you know maybe smaller than hoist
gracie or whatever
and the guy was unbelievably like potent like just in one of the most potent
teachers in anything i
ever had i was riveted by this guy and um and uh and it kind of started to make
me believe that with
grappling and locking which there's a lot of there's a lot of jujitsu in aikido
and i was sort of like i was fascinated i started feeling like this this this
makes me feel like i
it's not like kicking someone's ass at all it's just more like i feel more
empowered i feel
i feel able able to handle an authentic situation yes um which is mentally
empowering more than like
i want to get into scraps right and it was just kind of amazing it's like
having a secret in a way
like whoa there's a secret to a much smaller person being able to lever a much
bigger person and then
that thing happened with the gracies and it was sort of like the whole thing
cracked open it was like
this it was like proof yes in a way you know and and if you were interested in
that stuff it was an
incredible moment but because my interest in that for years when we went to rio
rio and i had been
working on the script of that movie and stuff and i was like i was really
interested in this idea
that banner is is desperate for control right that he desperately desperately
needs to control his heart
rate his breathing that it's a massive liability in his mind if he can't
control his emotions and his
adrenaline and i was like well who in the world and i had seen the videos of
his i'd never met him or
any of them but i'd seen the videos of him doing the um amazing stuff with his
stomach yeah the yoga
yeah and the breathing fire and i was like and i i just was like we have to and
everyone was like who's
that i was like i was like philistines you're all philistines like i was like
and i was like find me
hicks and gracie and ask him if he'll do a scene with me in the movie being the
guy who's training
banner to like calm himself and he was there and he and he did it with us and
it was like i was like
yeah there it is right here yeah yeah when i saw this in the movie i was like
oh yeah like what a smart
move yeah and i was like i was i was like yeah see i got i forgot this holy
crap i haven't looked at
this in a long time he's look how charismatic he is he's amazing i mean the guy
the guy could have
been like charles bronson 100 a movie star did you ever see choke the
documentary yeah one of the
greatest documentaries in in in history and like pumping absolutely yeah
absolutely for martial arts
and it it uh it details hickson's uh journeys to japan to fight in japan valley
tudo which was around
94 which is right after his brother had won the ultimate fighting championship
and the story was that
if his brother lost hickson was going in like the idea was like we'll bring in
hoist because it's
more impressive he's a smaller man he's not physically imposing whereas hickson
in that video there he was
older when he was young he was you know very fit and he was big into yoga and
physical fitness and
he had the strongest body of all the greats he's like he looked very formidable
right whereas hoist
looked unassuming and it was a more of an advertisement of jujitsu of hoist
could beat
everybody and hoist wound up doing but if at any reason right if they needed to
bring in the big gun
it was going to be hickson and hoist always talked about it like hickson could
tap him left and
right and everybody was like that doesn't even make sense right hoist is the
ultimate fighting champion
he's the guy but his brother would just run right through him he run right he
would run right through
everybody he would they would have a line of black belts and they would all
wait for their turn to get
tapped and they would roll with hickson and he would just dismantle everybody
people that thought
they understood jujitsu it's so there's so many levels and layers to jujitsu
that even though it looks
like what is the difference this guy's doing an arm bar you're doing an arm bar
there's specifics in the
intricate aspects of the positions that hickson understood that they just didn't
understand
and then on top of that he had much greater control of his body because of his
yoga background
i mean he he became obsessed with yoga and breathing yeah some breathing and
and something called
gymnastic uh uh natural which was like a a style of movement that was like sort
of like vinyasa yoga
with all these like flowing postures but also with a bunch of like almost like
animal movements to it
too and it was a very physically demanding thing and he became outstanding at
that as well all right
but it's people don't from the outside when you start talking about things like
jujitsu and ultimate
fighting you think of like as brutal violent but it's an intellectual pursuit
and it's a spiritual pursuit
because to be the person that can overcome all the obstacles you have to have
incredible control of
your emotions and your thought processes and your understanding of who you are
and that i think
is one of the things that separated hickson from everybody i do too i also
think that um i think
that people don't realize that um a lot of a lot of stress a lot of aggression
um it's like aggression
actually is like paired with stress usually you know what i mean you it's hard
to be aggressive super
aggressive without a little bit of like adrenaline pumping and stress and all
these things and
the truth is like um there's so so much of the training if you're actually
training this stuff what
you're training yourself to do is be calm that and that's like totally counterintuitive
because people
think no you got to go in there like rocky and you know want to win and it's
like well in a fighting
config in in a competition sure on some level but really really really great
people kind of in any sport
but it's even more counterintuitive in fighting is is they is you need to
cultivate calm yes and the
ability to to to to be clinical and think calmly control your breathing because
like you get exhausted
if you can't control your breathing and and the truth is is that those are life
skills that are actually
very this they they cultivate a very upbeat calm they it helps you cultivate
calm in life and the thing i
always really liked about aikido um is that there aren't attacks in it it it it
was developed by a guy
more hayeshiba who was a he was an all-round bujutsu master he was like in jujitsu
kendo um karate all
these things and he he developed aikido because he had joined the global pacifist
movement he he he was
like a one of the most respected like cross form japanese martial artists and
he became he joined the
same um movement for pacifism that gandhi was a part of in like the 20s and he
he believed that martial
arts could contribute to uh pacifism if they refined and he and aikido was a
refinement of kendo jujitsu judo
um and and he basically said i'm going to develop a non-aggressive martial art
that has all it has no attacks and there's an
uke in it like for the thing but it's only a defensive and it's like that that
phrase we all
hear redirection of energy yeah the conversion of negative energy into into
neutral that's like the
that's his that is really his contribution he was like you can take you can
take the most aggressive
energy and you can neutralize and you can neutralize it very peacefully or you
can neutralize it with a
little more teeth in it depending on how aggressive the person's being but i
loved that i thought that
was amazing because it was like i i wasn't like looking to be in fight but i
loved the idea that
you had that you could have control and you could like neutralize and and i i
think i think there's
something kind of amazing in that i think it's like actually aligns with like
yoga with with meditation
with all all things surfing i mean i i that's what surfing is it's like there's
all this energy coming at
you like and it's gonna like put you into the rocks or rock you or flip you
over hurt you and you but
you you don't you don't let that happen you kind of you look at it you look at
a million waves you
figure out how to move yourself you get in there and you get the exact opposite
of getting torched you
get like the best thing ever right and i i think things like that that are
where you have to those are like
zen you know what i mean and i think like jujitsu what real what you're saying
is really ultimately
like why he was great is he had he had he had like the deepest zen yeah of
anybody in the whole
thing because he was the calmest and he had like the micro micro micro micro
understanding of
forms but really like it's something deeper it's like he it's like neo in the
matrix he's like
seeing it with more granularity yeah he had everything he had the full package
of it did you
ever see any of steven zagal when he was very young when he was teaching in japan
i was totally
fast i mean it's like it's really it's weird right like me right like act like
like serious actor
thoughtful actor i'm like what did you you know but i like above the law yeah
because i was into all
that stuff when above the law came out and there was the scene in above the law
and he's in an aikido
you know gi with the black thing and he's doing this thing and i was i was like
oh my god like like
this is so cool like when have you ever seen this in a movie yeah and um and he
was a you know big guy
and he made it violent yeah it's very unusual sort of contribution to martial
arts because in
martial arts movies yeah he made it realistic yeah it was one of the most
realistic martial arts movies ever
yeah it was and you know when you look back on it it it there's things about it
that don't date super
well of course but he was undeniable literally like literally what you just
showed the thing the thing
of the guy coming it's that simple thing that thrust and the break and the
thing it's yes he also in
the film um when the guys come at him in i see this shows you how it burns your
brain there's a scene
where there's in a like a bodega and the guy i think he smashes a bottle and he
comes at him and he does
like a move in aikido it's called like kota gaishi it's like he um it's like
the wrist you know it's
like the the wrist break flip over and it was just like oh my god like he's
doing he's doing like you
know nuanced aikido moves in a big action movie it was kind of cool well he was
one of the first i think
the first westerner to run a dojo in japan i mean he was a legitimate aikido
master yeah and i think but
what's interesting is when i studied over there he was it was contrary it was
slightly controversial
because i don't think he was he had broken away from like like yushiba aikido
he was doing he was
doing like the way that gracie jiu-jitsu is not pure japanese jiu-jitsu he was
doing something with this
it was somehow it was associated more with osaka than tokyo where the honbu dojo
and aikido is
and i there was some controversy yeah there was there was just you know like
the way things are
with schools of thought but um but yeah he had a certain legit kind of thing
and it's really wild
because people like mike ovitz who was like the power agent of all of hollywood
in the 80s you know
mike got a black belt training with cigar like he was really serious aikidoist
um i didn't know that
yeah that makes sense yeah it does but he's a cautionary tale too though i mean
not even ovis i
mean uh seagal you know yeah what did he become i guess i honestly my my i i
don't know anything
about him uh past a certain point like i i i don't know what went on there um
yeah but
leave it at that yeah i i i don't um tell me about your new movie let's leave
it at that um
it's called motherless brooklyn uh it's it was you know it was kind of a big
swing
because i wrote it and i produced it and this is the first time you've done
that directed it um
i know i i produced and directed the the first movie i uh directed is keeping
the faith with
it's um it's me and ben stiller play a rabbi and a priest who are best friends
and they and they both fall for the same girl uh do you ever see that one no i
didn't it's funny yeah
you'd like it um ben is hilarious in it uh that was obviously lighter um that
was a lighter uh
kind of movie but it wasn't i'm i've lived in new york there almost 30 years
and i like making movies
in new york a lot that was a pretty light one this one is more um this takes
place in the 50s in new
york and it's kind of um it's got a chinatown la confidential kind of a noir um
bent to it it's a
it's a mystery a murder mystery of kind of that leads into some of the stuff
that happened in new
york in the 50s that is hard to believe um because new york was new york was
run by um
and it was run by basically a darth vader like figure who was never elected to
public office and
excuse me people thought he was the parks commissioner of new york but he was
for from 1930 to 1968 he had
uncontested authoritarian power over new york city and new york state and he
made every significant
decision about the way that the modern infrastructure of new york was built
where the roads went where the
bridges were built what was torn down where the projects were built he um and
he was very racist
and he baked like really discriminatory things that almost sound like
conspiracy theory they're so
wild and intense into the decisions he made he was responsible for the dodgers
leaving brooklyn and
going to la and nobody knows this like they you think of new york is the great
that's like the great
egalitarian melting pot city where democracy works except that it was run by a
total autocrat for 38
years yeah for for he he's largely it's broadly accepted that no mayor or
governor of new york could
do a single thing without his say so from basically about 1930 to about 1968.
how is that even possible and how
how come no one knows about this how did you find out well people do there's
there's there's huge like
in one of the big um burns brothers documentaries about new york there's a
whole literally almost a
whole episode on him um there's a great book about him uh that won the pulitzer
prize and there's uh
his name was robert moses and he you know there's robert moses state beach in
new york and but literally
people think he was the parks commissioner but he was and he was like anakin
skywalker i he he was like
a jedi knight he was a big liberal progressive believer in progressive change
and government reform
and in his early years he got crushed by tammany hall and and the power brokers
and he went he went dark
went complete yeah that's not the most imposing picture of him that you've got
up there's other ones
that's a that's an important one of the ones of him find one of the ones of him
standing in front of
his models there's famous ones of him that looks like a man yeah actually to
the left of that and
keep going to the left of that um because there's a scene in our movie where
alec baldwin
is literally like that yeah that alec baldwin essentially plays a character who's
based on
and him inspired by him i should say it's not at all in my film it's not the
true story but yeah there you go
um and um but i think this idea i was really interested in this idea you know
what's great
about chinatown as a film is um it's mostly sexy the you you don't know what
the hell is going on in
that movie like until the until 20 minutes before the end you have absolutely
no idea really what's
going on in that movie but it's just sexy it's like the music is amazing the
photography is incredible
the actors are like adult and real and he's he's nicholson right you know the
hook is like nicholson
is so cool you really will kind of follow him you'll watch the way he deals
with anything and just you're
just laughing and enjoying it right but underneath it all when you're done you
go did that is that true
did la is la basically built on stolen water is that like the like la's
original sin is that
people made fortunes the valley was just farms and they stole the water from up
north and
you know rigged the game and made these gigantic fortunes by irrigating san fernando
valley and
you you you you come away with like you come away with an awareness that like
the california story is
not exactly what it's cracked up to be right it's there's some big crimes
underneath it and and the
people who and and that in that movie it's like yeah that people ripped
everybody off they fake droughts
they they created fortune cells and the type of people who did that also raped
their daughters
literally that's like what that movie is about it's um and it and it's pretty
bleak it's like
you can't make a difference you cannot change anything like and if you try the
person you're
trying to help is going to end up with a bullet through her eye dead on the
steering wheel like
it's it's a really dark movie and people forget that because you just go nicholson
fade down away
it's like no that's a that's a really really bleak movie but i love i love the
idea that
that you can do things where like the the the pleasure of it is like the
pleasure of movies
it's grown up it's kind of what we've been talking about it's like like if you
said to most people if
you showed chinatown to most critics today they'd go long boring whatever it's
like you want to say
off like off like what what is it that you who why are you why are you assuming
people can't handle
grown up you know what i mean and and i think that that i really dig those
things where you go
through the movie starts you look at it and you go this looks really good this
looks really grown up
this is big the actors are like like adult and authoritative the dialogue's
great the music is
great it's hypnotic and your brain just goes i don't know what's going on i don't
care i'm bought in
and then and if there's a character in it that you can hook into you float you
float through those
movies you just kind of go where's this going what's going on i don't oh man
that guy she's great he's
great wow like this is just all juicy and great and by the end you get
somewhere and you kind of go
i'll be damned that actually was about big things did those things really
happen
you know that's i really dig those movies i dig chinatown la confidential um i
think the godfather
works that way the godfather is about immigrants you know it's about immigrants
normalizing in america
you don't it's like that's a long movie yeah you just settle in for that movie
right your brain settles
in and just goes this just couldn't be better i couldn't be happier to be
watching this scene after
scene after scene and i and i wanted to make i wanted to try i wanted to try to
make one of those
you know uh myself like i wanted to try to to um make one of those because i
don't it's it's cliche
to say like they don't make those anymore but it but i think you know they were
always hard it's not
like they were easy once and now they're hard they're all they're always hard
but i i would look at
people like warren beatty he made reds you know which is one of the great
movies from that era
even like spike lee doing do the right thing i don't know if you remember when
that movie hit
sure it was massive it was a huge deal to me i was like 18 or 19. yeah i saw
that movie and i was like
he just rewrote the game like this kid who the hell is he wrote it he directed
it he acted in it he got
public enemy to do the music yeah it's about his neighborhood in new york but
it's about like
race in america it's like oh my god that guy just took like a huge swing and
connected on like every
level and it didn't even give you some bs kind of like don't worry it's going
to be okay in the end
right it was like martin luther king says violence is not the way malcolm x
says sometimes it's the only
rational response what do you think you know what i mean it was so ballsy it
was so ballsy that movie
and i think like after a while it's sort of like i just started feeling like
well you know i don't
really need to gig i might as well i've worked with a lot of great people i've
worked with some pretty
great directors including spike and i was kind of like i've been in new york a
long time and i just
thought it was really weird no one knew that story and i was like i'm gonna try
to make one about this
you know as someone who doesn't make movies i always wonder like what happened
between like say
steve mcqueen's lamans you did you ever see that movie remember how there's no
dialogue at all for
like the longest time and i remember i watched it recently over the last couple
years and one of the
thoughts was i don't even know if they could do this today if anybody would
allow them to make a movie
where no one talks for a long time they're just sort of setting the stage of
what it means to be a
race car driver and what's the atmosphere of the races it's just the the idea
that you were saying
earlier about having this short attention span theater this this the these
movies that are designed
for what they believe is a populace of people that don't have the interest in
something that's more
unique or something that requires thought something that drags you in and that
was much more common
in the past like why was it more common in in that era of mcqueen and all those
other movies that they
did like that and what has happened and like these rare examples like when a
guy does break through
with something like do the right thing or a few other examples why doesn't that
stimulate the the appetite
for more well is it that hard to do on one level on one level yeah it's it's it's
it's easy to recognize
when they're great but it's still not it's still not easy to make them great it's
still
we're talking about people who are some of our greatest artists or directors
you know what i mean
they and lots of people they try on some level um they try on some level but
they just not everybody is
spike lee right you know what i mean um not everybody is francis coppola or you
know it's it's like it
it it people people sometimes people make things and they actually are slow you
know what i mean like
you know what i mean you're like yeah it misses yeah it's like it's like in
spinal tap when they're
like it's a it's a fine line between stupid and clever you know no it's a fine
line between clever and
stupid you know what i mean it's like it's it's um i think people try but uh i
i think i think that uh
there are some people who really do think jaws had a big effect on movies
because it it was
it was like the first true blockbuster right and i don't know you know what
actually though i'm i'm
i'm wrong i i think that what happens more often than not is adult people get
the jobs at the big
companies that make the decisions about what to make right and at a certain
point they sort of age out
they start to age out and they don't actually have any idea what what the vibe
is they don't know what to
make for the coming wave of younger people and so these little windows open up
now and then where
in that era they needed there was they needed new people they needed like you
know george lucas making
american graffiti nobody thought that movie was gonna be a hit nobody you know
um they they open up they
say we don't know what to do do something different and a couple of new voices
like come in and they make
things that are really different you know but the idea that that was only then
like there's a whole
book right now about 1999 you know there's this book that came out about how
1999 was one of those years
where because the studios had kind of lost their sense of exactly what to do
and miramax was making
a shit ton of money on on auteur driven movies made for low cost and the
studios all went and set up
little mini miramaxes right and the result was that like in that year you had
like you know paul thomas
anderson wes anderson alexander paine spike jones david o russell fincher the wachowskis
like an
unbelievable array of directors made really really memorable films in that year
and i think it was
because it was like another one of those moments like we we don't know what to
we don't know what to
do we're just gonna have to like close our eyes and go you kids you kids figure
it out you know what
i mean well that's the thing about films it seems to me it's such a
collaborative effort and when you
have so many moving pieces and so many people involved that have a and a say in
the decision
making process it's got to be insanely difficult to get something out that's
pure yes that's true
that's true i francis coppola said that um the best thing about making films is
that they're
collaborative and the worst thing about making films is that they're
collaborative
he also said it's the last it's the last moral totalitarian um job in the world
like being a
director or something i can't remember but it's true you you it's it's a very
um because like i
made this movie i had like i had um a fraction of like the budget of the irishman
right i'm just
which i'm naming only because it was a a period piece you know mine's in the 50s
that one's crazy things
and and i had like like less days to do it than i had on my first movie that i
directed how many days
did you ever do it like 46 which for perspective fight club was 130 day shoot
um and and 46 days is
less than most movies i've made and this was a big 1950s like period film with
a huge like french connection
style chart car chase in the opening running through harlem across the bridge
down into queens you know
we weren't like making a little kitchen sink drama um and to figure that out
that is like you can be
like i'm the i've got the vision we're gonna do this but there's a kind of
madness in saying this is
what i want to do i want to recreate the old penn station that doesn't exist
anymore right which we
have in the film like my character goes into the old penn station that was torn
down in 1963 or whatever
and um and you only pull that off with the most kick-ass justice league of
collaborators imaginable
like they make you look like you're a visionary or know what you're doing
because you get these people
with crazy talents of their own and i don't mean just cast although i had that
too in this i mean like
some of the very very very best people bring their their talent to like making
that work and um and so
that's like when you say like your job is is more to say i have really talented
people i've got to get
their frequency wave in line with mine if i can get their frequency wave in
line with mine then it can
be my my idea my vision my weird ideas can be in there but it's with it's
executed with the help of
people who believe in it and buy into it you know that's that's the key is like
you're you're you're
marshalling people um to get to it in sync with you and um and you know i have
a sick cat it's like
uh bruce willis alec baldwin willem defoe bobby cannavale um michael k williams
who's like omar on
the wire wow uh this great actress gugu and bath the raw and and leslie mann
and you know on and on
and on and i got and all these people did this as a favor to me because i didn't
have any money to do
it so starting with bruce bruce was like uh you know he said to me a long time
ago i'll if you have
something good i want to be in it i really want to do the kind of stuff you're
doing and i really
mean it i'll do anything you want to do and help you get it done i was like he's
not gonna remember
that you know he's gonna be like sure sure but i'm doing die hard like for the
rest of the year
and he didn't he was like where do you need me i told you i'm in wow let's get
it done and
basically bruce alec willem people like that i practically call them co-financiers
on my film
because they i only got it done because they deferred everything you know and i
think that's
really cool that's amazing yeah when you write something like this car chase
scene through harlem
i mean i would imagine the logistics of pulling something like that off it's
got to be insane
yeah it's nuts how does when you wrote it and you brought it to the people that
are the the stunt
people the people that coordinate these chase scenes where they're like oh fuck
people get people yes
you know doing the things is not hard getting permission to do them in manhattan
is is tricky and there are people who look at you like you're dreaming man like
you're not and
and and you what you do is you go out and scout and you start you say look this
is we can do this
here and this here and this isn't hard this isn't hard we only need this one
block cleared and things
then you like find that place where you're like i want him to do a huge screeching
turn onto
frederick douglas boulevard because it has a nine block stretch where there's
very few buildings
that don't look like they're in the 50s right leading up to a bridge that you
want to go over
the bridge and then you get with like the guys at the nypd and you beg like you
just beg you go look
we're going to be like the dirty dozen we're going to have the we're everything
is going to be so well
planned and ready to go we'll be able to we'll say just shut it down and then
20 minutes will be done
you know what i mean like you you start 20 minutes well no just for a shot you
know it's like we just
need to do this once or twice to get this this turn of the car around the
corner and headed up the avenue
with 80 cars from the 50s and you're using legitimate 1950s cars as well yeah
so those
things handle like they're horrible they're boats with wheels on so any car
that's actually got to be
doing anything like going fast or making a big turn you have to have four of
the same model that you've
painted identically because they're going to break like they will break you'll
push one hard it will
break and then you have to like bring the other one in wow you know what i mean
so you you you
and you you basically can't make them go fast you know they don't have pickup
right so you're you're
figuring out like what are the moves we can make that make it feel like this
thing is really bombing
and um and uh and how do we cross cut around the fact that it takes three
blocks for it to
accelerate i mean like literally to go from you know 10 miles an hour to 40 you
need like literally
like three or four blocks so you have to like get it up to speed for the
section that you want it going
fast and it's it's it's um i'm not doing another period movie i'm doing the
next movie i'm doing
is going to have tesla p 100 d's that go like zero to 60 and 2.4 now when you
cord when you write this
out like how much time is involved in preparation of writing this and then
doing all the scouting and
then trying to implement this whole it took me a couple years to write it
because um i haven't even
said in um i think you have to know yourself i'm not bogart i'm not like jack
nicholson the magic
they bring is the magic they bring and the character i put at the middle of
this is the detect the
detective that i play has tourette syndrome um and obsessive compulsive
disorder so he he can't um
like when he hit you know when he meets a blonde at the bar he's like the
opposite of bogart he
he tries to lighter match and can't stop blowing it out because it doesn't
sound right to him so it's
he's kind of a train wreck like he's the opposite of of a cool detective um and
in fact bruce willis
plays the cool detective who he works for so like bruce willis is nicholson um
but when something bad
happens to him and my guy has to like step out of the assistant role you know
he's just like his
operative because he has a great memory he has like a photographic memory and
some really weird ability
to like because his brain is is chaotic and crazy um he has certain little
gifts that bruce willis
like relies on him for and believes in him but when but when he has to sort of
figure out what happened
to his boss and solve this mystery like he kind of has to come out on his own
out of his comfort zone and
kind of become a detective and um and it and it's like you know he's ticking
and twitching and shouting
and doing things that make it very difficult for him to move in the world so
that's kind of like
i had that part of it and i was grafting it into this story of um of of what
happened in new york in
the 50s and it took me a long time to write it and get it right but once i had
it right um you know
we probably prepped the movie for like nine months we we we were we were
actively like scouting new york
you know and imagining like where can we do this and how can we do this but i
live in new york so i
loved it i like get on my motorcycle and go up to harlem and washington heights
and and literally
like cruise around just cruise around i know the area really well anyway but
sometimes you just have
to like just and that's where a bike in new york is really great like because
you can just sort of
float around float around float around mentally mapping like where you can do a
thing and um
and it was it was pretty fun that's such a bold move riding a bike in new york
city no it's not it's
not la is way way way more dangerous because new york no one's going that fast
right um
you can be i can't explain it in new york there's a rationality to the way
people are moving but i'll
tell you the number one main thing new new york require new york driving it's
so stop and start
and it's the things nobody has time to be on their phone and in la if i'm on a
bike
i would say i regularly look to my right and i look to my left and both people
on either side of me
are texting do you ever see i mean yes all the time all the time when i'm in my
truck especially
because i can look down yeah and you realize you realize that in this town 60
of people at any
given moment are texting on their phone and it's just appalling and it's so
dangerous yeah and i'll
be on if i'm on a motorcycle in la i'll look at people they're texting for so
long and finally i'll
have to like hit the horn or something and look at them i've gotten past like
you know anger and
literally just looked at people flip my thing up and gone like please like
please get off your phone
like you're going to kill somebody and kill yourself but but we can't we can't
break the addiction people
cannot break the addiction um and and i i it's not a more you you realize it
isn't a character flaw it's
not it's not like what an it's everybody it's your mom it's your sister it's
your friend everybody is
doing it because we're addicted like a device addicted but but when you're on a
bike and you realize like
i am floating in a sea of people who are going to mess up someone is going to
mess up and they've got airbags and
you know new modern stuff and i you're on this but like you don't have anything
yeah i don't i think
i think i think i think this is way more dangerous riding um than than new york
that makes sense when
you talk about things like the 405 or the one-on-one when people are flying by
and passing and changing
lanes and the texting too yeah and also the big avenues people get up you know
wilshire boulevard
whatever they're looking at thing and they blow that red light right all the
time and half the times you
hear about or see bad accidents here um especially if they involve motorcycles
i mean it's like it
would the it's not like the person screwed the the person on the bike didn't
screw up someone went
through a red light right and just broadsided them or they t-boned them you
think you know it's it's just
it's like do you really want to make the bet the huge bet on yourself uh where
what you're riding on
is other people's um concentration you know it's were you riding when you were
living out here
i've never i've always lived in new york so when you've been here it's only
from a few months at a
time yeah no or i've i've i've i have i've spent winters out here i i like to
surf and um
i'm and i'm by the way i'm like not a i'm not like a pro experienced like
veteran motorcycle rider at
all i just enjoy it and like out here it's fun you know like go up the angeles
crest road or something
yeah like that you know i love driving up there yeah it's really it's really it's
cool there's california
la la is hard no one likes being on a motorcycle in la sucks it's like just hot
and everybody's in
your face but but the you know california is incredible there's there's there's
so much
there's so many amazing places to go in california and um and i kind of got
hooked on it out here and
so then when you were in new york you just said it this is actually a good
place to ride a bike no
i it's not it's not even that i ride bicycles too in new york i i like it but
it's more just that
the thing that pulls you in i mean i have lots of i you know i like to surf i
fly planes i like
there's a lot of stuff that i think is much much much that's thrilling that's
much safer than riding
motorcycles it's not like my jam but once you have that skill set once you can
do it if you have a bike
there are those times in la and in new york too where you take a look at like
the gridlock and
you're just like i'm gonna be if i'm gonna be in this for at forever and on a
bike you can
lane split and just get you know you can get where you need to go and in new york
too you can
you can zip around um in ways that is uh efficient so how long did this i mean
how long did you sit
on this story how long did you know about this and how what was the process of
having this sort of
building your mind to the point where you wanted to write it direct it produce
it cast it um honestly
i read the book exactly 20 years ago i read it in the fall of 99 when i was uh
when fight club came out that's right around the time as i read this novel
motherless brooklyn but
but the novel's about the theoretic detective who's trying to solve um the
murder of his his only friend
basically but it takes place in the 90s it's not about any of that stuff about
um new york in the
50s or anything it's just and the character is just amazing though like amazing
so when i read it the
hook was the character i was like i was like what a great character it's so it's
such a wild he's like
just this hot mess of of he's smart but he's totally messed up he's he's funny
but also really
it's pretty painful and lonely and it was just everything and i was like that's
i i could get so
into trying to figure that out um for reasons that are a little hard to explain
the tone of the book
feels like a 50s detective novel but it's set in the modern world and i was
afraid in a movie that
would feel a little bit like the blues brothers like guys in fedoras but a prius
is right and so
you're sort of like maybe this would just be cooler if we set it in the 50s and
i talked to the
author about that and he was super into those movies and so he said okay wow so
then then but
then the middle period was the period of mashing that up with the with these
sort of stories the
new york chinatown kind of of it the the the deep dark history of what really
went on in new york and
that took a long time and then i i had it ready in 2012 i was really ready to
go and i just couldn't
get it to i couldn't get bruce said he was in and that was kind of angry but i
couldn't get everyone
i wanted together at the same time and i couldn't get the the amount of money i
needed or that i thought
i i wanted and i couldn't get a studio to to back it um because honestly you
know number one like i'm not
like you know i'm not like a green light anything he does kind of an actor that's
it's just you know
i think that's a that's a a different sort of thing but also i was out there
saying it's sort of
like rain man meets um la confidential and people's eyes just kind of cross
they're like they're like
bring us the next one like they're like we don't get it we don't get it um we
don't get yeah it's like
uh and also i got like i had like this idea of getting i love radiohead and i
like jazz and i
wanted to like i got tom york to write a song for the film but i got wynton marcellus
to do all the jazz
and stuff and people were also they were like this is these things are not
going to go well together
you know and then they went to get like a lot of people have said to me which
is not it's not me
taking a lot of people said to me it's the best music in a film that they've
heard in many many
years flea flea played trumpet and um and bass on tom york's track in the film
and and flea you know
flea's like a really good trumpet player and his dad was a jazz musician and i
didn't know that flea
came out of the movie like crying he was like that's honestly my favorite music
that i've ever heard in a
film um and i think and and and but you can't you can't tell people that you
you i thought that would
work i thought this mashup would work because i knew tom and i knew he loves
charles mingus and
and i knew wynton was capable of doing he's really interested in dissonant
weird um edgier kind of
modernist music as well and i was like this is going to work and it and it did
it's it's really
the music's amazing in the film um it it's like its own like the record the
record's out now and
people are flipping out about the just the music and the movie hasn't even come
out yet with such a
crazy combination of factors and details that you smashed all together yeah and
it's got to feel
first of all it's got to be a tremendous relief and also feel amazing that it's
you did it i i do feel
that i feel um like it would have haunted me and i it it it was rattling around
in my head such a long
time i felt very discouraged about it at times um because i was kind of like
you know i've done a few
okay things like i've done some stuff that was weird and that people didn't
understand and it's it's come
together pretty great you know what i mean and um and uh uh you sort of go god
i never i never expect
anybody to give me money to make something like that's that's just risky like i
would never put
money into making movies never like it's too risky you know and i get it so i'm
not like i deserve this
like right but but it was more like i sometimes i was just like am i going to
be able to figure this
out or not am i am i going to get this done and uh and i think getting it done
and having it um not
having quit on it uh and in some ways feeling not actually knowing that it's
better that i made it
now i know more i was more if i tried to do it 20 years ago i couldn't i didn't
have the chops to do
some of the things like working with spike lee and alejandro and uridu and
people like that really like
it upped my sense of how to do i learned a lot about how to do a big thing
without all the money in
the world now this is released nationwide worldwide like when it's released on
this friday right yeah this
friday it's everywhere after tomorrow broad over america yeah um yeah it's a it's
a wide release
here um i hope yeah and i think honestly like the day it comes out like you can
either see terminator
like not a 9.11 or or ours there's like not and i i like certify on the joe rogan
experience like
there's not a grown-up human being who will not um be stoked about this film
like i i can say that
people who are seeing it are are very very very into it and very bought in
because it is one of those
like um it's a it's a big meal but it's a really like it's a really rich good
meal and it has amazing
amazing performances i i don't think alec baldwin has ever been better in a
movie honestly and i think
william defoe is amazing um michael k williams is amazing and uh the music is
great and and it's a
it's a cool story and i think um i think it's kind of one of those things that
it's worth going to the
theater to see but i i guarantee you it's more worth your time than another
terminator movie
well it sounds like it to me i'm i'm really excited about it and i will see it
for sure
thank you and uh it was a pleasure talking to you man i really appreciate it
thank you very much
for coming in here man absolutely thank you bye everybody
you're still training you do like serious