Jim Cummings • Films To Be Buried With with Brett Goldstein #175

It's fucking amazing. Every week I'm avit a special guest over. I tell them they've died. Then I get them to discuss their life through the films that meant the most of them. Previous guests include Barry Jenkins, Kevin Smith, Sharon Stone, and even Ked Brambles. But this week it's the brilliant actor, writer, producer, director, artist, all around genius mister Jim Cummings. Head over to the Patreon at patreon dot com forward slash Brett Goldstein, where

you get an extra twenty minutes with Jim. I think we go deep. We talk about beginnings and endings. You get a frankly insane secret from him. You also get the whole episode uncut as a video. Check it out Patreon dot com. Forward Slash Brett Golstein Ted Lasso Season two is now all available on the Apple TV Plus. You can watch the whole show in Mongo Have a Laugh and a Cry. Super Bob, the film we made in twenty fifteen, is now available on Amazon Prime in the States and in the UK. So get to that.

And you can watch Soulmates on Amazon Prime. So Jim Cummings, Jim Cummings is a truly inspiring artist. I rarely use that word artist, but I think it applies to him. He's everything I want in an artist. He had a vision, he went out and he made his own shit. He's fucking amazing. He makes his own films, rights, directs, acts, producers, get shit done. It's incredible and they're all fucking brilliant. He's got a new film out called The Beta Test,

which I saw and it's brilliant. I would recommend it. We recorded this a few weeks ago and it was a lot of fun. There's some lovely stuff in here, and I think really gonna love it. So that is it for now. I very much hope you enjoy episode one hundred and seventy five of Films to be Buried With. Hello,

and welcome to Films to be Buried With. It is I Brett Goldstein, and I am joined today by an actor, a writer, a producer, a creator, a hero, a man who will make shit happen, a man who will not let any system or studio or any ol fucking bullshit get in the way of being a true artist. He is a legend. Here is an inspiration. He's also a very lovely boy. Please welcome to the show the brilliant.

It's mister Jim Kabegs. Thank you, Brett. I'm glad that you said he will make should happen, and not make shit, which is all of our other areas. He will make good shit. You'll make good shit happened. I'll tell you this right, Let's just tell let me let I'm very excited to see you. So let's just fucking climb down a second, shall we. It's fucking Oh can't dad listen?

Oh great good, let's do it. I first heard of you because there is a brilliant comedian in England and filmmaker called Rachel Stubbings, Rachel and Stubbings, and she has a night that she puts on where she puts on like amazing work, and she put on your original short for thunder Road plus another short I'm afraid I don't remember what it was cooled, but where a guy is being resuscitated by the pool. It's already's okay, It's already's okay.

And she put them both on and she was like, this guy is the fucking shit and they blew all of our little minds and then I think I'm message. I think I posted that short and I was like, you gotta watch this, and then you message and said I've seen you in Derek, and I said, what is

going on? And then we add a cudo. It's been so so My story of that is exactly that of like you were the first real supporter of my shorts, and I was like, this is this is somebody who I deeply respect in comedy because he's so good and Derek and so lovely, but also this complicated performer. It's very, very, very good. It was one of the first like real

role models in modern British television. I was like, oh, I could I could do that I could do that, and and then you were doing stand up at south By Southwest the year that we won for the short film of thunder Road and we had been pen pals. No, you won for the feature that was it. Then that's when you won for the feature that was your audience Award. Yeah, I was longer than I thought. Whoa whoa wo wo woa, and then and then we were trying to meet up

and then we didn't. But then I think it was that same year I was in a bar in Los Angeles and I saw someone that looked just like you across the bar, and I DM and I said, there's a guy that looks just like you in this bar in Los Angele And you were talking to someone and then you laughed and then looked at your phone and then looked up like mere cat. If you're like, where is this? Is you here? And I was like, oh my god, And then we doesn't hang up for a minute.

It was great fun. It was really great. Now for those of you who don't know if anyone is listening and doesn't know, I mean, you really do have to watch all the Jim Cummings Jim Cummings eziz is work because it is really a phenomenal. But the thing about you, which is, you know it's not usual. You really fucking made shit happen. You just don't give a shit. You just you. You made a short and then you made a feature. You just did it. Yep, and you didn't let anyone get in your way. Tell me how your

brain works? What were you ever were there? Was there any point in the process. Let's take Thunder the Road, which is a critically acclaimed, beloved film quite rightly so, that you made from a short in which you starred, wrote, produced, directed everything. Yeah, it's a it's a heck of an undertaking. Was there any point in the making of any side of that, the short and the feature where you thought,

I'm what am I doing? What I've done every point, at every point you're doing of course, it's that like if you're making an independent film, it's every day you are questioning yourself and following into these like inadequacy traps. But I had had success with the short, and I had done it because I was a producer a college humor making the sketch comedies, and none of the stuff that I was doing was that impressive. As a producer

and none of it was very important. And then I thought, I'm just going to make something that I think could be good, and I'll shoot in a Saturday. And I booked a date two months out and I was like, I have to write something perfect for this thing. And that became the Thunder a short film. It was this pettiness that had built up to become admission in me. And then we shot it and it did very well.

It won Sundance in south By Southwest as a short in twenty sixteen, and then nobody would take it seriously because the budget was so low. I think to make the feature it cost us one hundred and ninety grand American and so we ran a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to make the movie and we did it, and it became the feature that kind of blew up

and became the sensation around the world. But I suggest now everybody do it, like there's no difference between what we did and what you can do and what really anybody else is doing, Like you could totally reproduce that on your own if you wanted to. I agree, and I'm always telling people that, but I also think watching your stuff, I'm genuinely curious about it. I watch your stuff, and I guy, yes, you may do all this yourself.

You did it all yourself as an incredible achievement, but it's also really good, Like I do think you have to have some talent, like you happen to be very very good at acting and very good at writing and very good at directing. Like it's not just I don't know. I just wonder, like how much of it was trial and error on your partner? How much of it? Like did you storyboardy? Did you know exactly what you wanted? Like how did it? I knew exactly what I wanted.

I didn't storyboard because I'm a terrible illustrator, but I shotlisted it and I thought about how the thing should be, especially for the future, and then for the short It was this Saturday that we had booked out that we had this like funeral home for six hours, and I had rehearsed it, you know, two months in advance on

my drives to work. So I had a forty five minute drive to work in a forty forty five minute drive home, and it was just me doing it several times and crying and traffic and having this nervous breakdown that became the film for two months and it became Forensic Comedy. I was talking to Steve Coogan about that recently and he was like, oh, yeah, all of alan has to be very specific. It's like when he was coming up, it was all sketch and improv and he was like, no, this could be a different way to

do it and nail it down. And I'm not good at improv. I'm terrible at improv, but I'm decent at planning all this stuff out from seeing it from the outside lens and then making it. So really, when I'm acting, it's just this kind of self directing. It's like I know how it's gonna look, and how much I should turn so the camera can't see me, all of that kind of stuff. It's really weird. We're like in the mind while you're doing it. I'm never giving into the experience.

It's more like all of the technical stuff, but because it rehearsed it so much looks okay, you can't tell the difference. I'm told by people, Wow, yeah, really weird. But no, really, all of the process of making things and growing to where we are now has just been a necessity of like nobody taking seriously and then how you have to make things to get it out of your body to like tell the story that you want

to tell. And I think we're not alone in that, Like most independent filmmakers are struggling to getting ready taken seriously. And I mean my raison deetra is to be like there is no difference. If you do it on your own, you'll get it done faster. I mean, yeah, yeah, you know, I agree. I may that I've made to all that. Tell me this though, Like I've watched your I've watched your new film which which is just about to come

out or has just come out. It's come out in the UK on the fifteenth of October and it's out in America on the fifth of November. It's called The Beta Test. It is fucking brilliant. I really really loved it. It's fucking great. It's really great. It's great, O the ways that you're really great. It's really funny, it's really fight It's got one bit in it I wanted to tell you. I'll have to tell you off the name, which I'm like, that's one of the funniest moments I've

seen this year. Like it's just such a funny original idea. There's some really funny stuff in it, but it's a very serious. It's a whole load of tones, something that you're particularly good at. Wait, what's the funny thing. You can spoil it? There's nothing. It's okay. It's a history. It's out. It's an historical diet. She talked about it. Yeah, she said it. Oh my god. It's my favorite moment

because we do this whole montage. So what he's talking about is, there's this moment where my assistant says something to me, and then I'm thinking that she said it, and she says that she said something else, and then it goes into this weird, like Giallo style, spooky montage where I'm thinking about whether or not she said it, and then we completely debase that filmmaking by having my character at the end of ago now she said it, and then it cuts to me confronting her again, and

it's this punchline. It's my favorite moment of the film. It's such a good gag as well, because those it's so far away. The punchline is so far away from the setup that you're like, I think we've moved on to you feel like you're in the home and you've seen it's really funny. It's really funny, but it's also like you do a thing quite especially like different very different tones. It's very serious and it's dark, and there's also if I may say, I was thinking about this

because I keep debating sex in cinema. You see, you know, there's not much of it anymore. It's not much of it anymore, which I think is to do with pornography, and there's always an argument of do you need it, what's it for? And does it blah blah blah. I think there is a really excellent sex scene in your film, and it's really it's like a really good bit of story storytelling, and it's really good acting and like it's quite like a lot is going on to fight scene. Yeah,

there's so much happening in that scene. It's really just happening in their faces and how it's fucking great. And I also, I imagine not easy to film. No, it's very uncomfortable obviously, but because of that, because of this like generational political shift towards sanitized filmmaking, it's very difficult to get any of that shot where like even in my mind I'm a I'm an American, I'm like the most puritan person that there is, and so I'm nervous

about doing any of this stuff. But we had an mmacy coordinator for both scenes, and it was this kind of like it was more of a kung Fu scene in the practicing of it, and so both partners got to enact it as a comedy where like we both understood that sex is not supposed to be this like,

it's not supposed to be pornographic. It's supposed to be hilarious, and so like in showing it, we got to lean into that stuff where it really feels like a fight scene between Virginia Newcam and me, and we were just laughing the whole time. It was great, Oh great, it's really good. It's great sex scene. Oh good, great sexy,

great film, so much in it left it anyway. And yeah, and it's also you have that thing of which I like, is there are there are arguably sort of themes in all your films, and they seem to be the thing that connects them. Possibly is something to do with the death of masculinity and yeah, and yeah, but they're also a completely different, almost completely different genres and and they're wild, like I love that. You can't, guy, what is this

is this film? And yeah, it's thoroughly entertaining. I mean, just prittyan, I mean, thank you. Yeah, I mean that's stuff with the three movies that we made where I'm the lead actor. It's all about somebody pretending to be someone that they're not and that facade, because that I find to be very comedic and dramatic. As soon as you break that facade, I guess that's what comedy is. You set up like a social standard and then somebody

breaks it and that's what's funny. And then the same thing happens with like dramatic punchlines as well, where it's you know, you show somebody in the worst day of their life or you know, having a problem with their family, and it's not funny anymore, but it's you get to see them break that social boundary of asking somebody for help and it's tragic. But no, I realized, like that's the majority of the stuff that I do is watching somebody have a meltdown in the parking lot because they

find it to be so hilarious and endearing. It's I fascinating that you I've heard, like I remember hearing about Russell cry was being interviewed about making The Nice Guys, and there's a scene in it where you know, he kicks in the door of a toilet and Ryan Gosson's in the toilet and the door guys back and forth about ten times, and he was like, we were forensic on it. We tried nine times, and we tried eleven times,

and we found that ten times was the funniest. And I find it very interesting that sort of forensic like it sounds not fun. It's amazing, like as in I can see all the maybe every however you get there.

I suppose it it, but no, I think it is this weird like psychological thing with watching video as well of like watching Roy perform, Sorry you perform, and it's like it seems to be very improv in these moments, and then the audience feels like a voyeur and enjoying, like real off the cuff, lightning in the bottle, Whereas with the stuff that I'm doing, I'm trying to recreate what you're doing. Of like I have all of this construct of the camera, movement, long takes, and then I

try to produce authenticity and it's incredibly difficult. I'm very bad at it, but most people can't tell it seems Christ it's so amazing. But you're crying. I mean when you're crying, you're crying, right, Yeah, yeah, how's that happening? I have a list. I'm really bad, dude. This is

such a confession. Nobody's asked me. Uh I A. I have a note memo on my iPhone of all the things that make me cry, and I like chart them anytime I'm watching a movie and I'll write it down and then when I need to cry for a scene, I'll bring up the iPhone and then I'll like read these things that made me cry. And it's pathetic of like inside out. Is that how you do it? I mean like, I don't know any other one, No, no, no,

I'm just fascinating. I'm absolutely fascinating anyone. There's there's one photograph of Prince William and Prince Harry at their mother's funeral and Prince Charles and he looks dumbfounded and confused and lost, and it's Prince William looking down at Prince Harry and she's obviously a bit older, and he's looking down and the photograph tells the story of like my dad's an idiot, I'm gonna have to raise this kid.

And it's this heartbreaking photograph and I pull it up all the time and that's the thing that helps me to cry. It's so sad. And then like I have these anecdotes of like every flower shop in England sold there, gave their flowers away for free for the funeral, Like all of these things like that that I know will mess with me when I read them on set, and then it helps me to perform amazing. And then how and when you're directing as well, Oh yeah, that's what

I want to ask you. That's the thing I never fully get about if you are an actor director is do you watch back every take on the monitor or do you how does it work? No? So well, So for the thunder Road short, we did six full takes, and the sixth one, I was like, I think we got it, and then we watched that one. And then for the thunder Road feature, we did eighteen takes and we watched the eighteenth one and I was like, I

think we got it. I think that was it. But but legitimately, if you're acting in the thing and directing. There are moments where you're feeling it and you go, now, I can do it better, And there are moments where you'll say that seven minutes into a thirteen minute long take and say, no, we got to do it again. It was like the last take that we did was better than this one, So I know I won't use this one. We can scribe and then move on to the next one. So it's really just a practical answer

of like, yeah, that's not going to work. Amazing, amazing, And so you're I mean, it's not like that, that's not something you learned in acting school, Like I didn't go there, and so because because I didn't, this is just the best one that I know how to do it. But you're you're what you're describing, and I get you

know what. I think I can relate it more to stand up, which is in stand up is something that like Steve Martin talks about in his book amazing book Born standing Up, where he talks about kind of I can't remember its exact word for it, but how your brain is in two places at once. You're you're in the moment, you're present, and you're reacting to the audience laughter, but your brain is also ten steps ahead, going okay,

so now I need to do this. They're reacting to this, so I need to do this, and you are equally and equally standing back and analyzing everything. Your brain is just doing both at once. And that's you acting on film that you're directing. So yes, it's that living in the moment of like trying to make it seem authentic, but then also trying to live up to the script and the podcast. So, dude, when we do a screenplay, I'll record it like this in this very microphone as

a podcast, and we'll do it. I'll play all the parts, and I'll put in music and sound design so that anybody that shows up on set can hear the movie a couple times before they show up, and it just becomes us trying to enact that and raise the ceiling of that podcast version of it. But it's a really effective way to make sure that the comedy and the drama and horror is working. And I feel like that's

the only reason we know. Like most filmmakers and they show up on set have never heard it come out of human vocal chords before, and so they don't know if it's going to work before rehearsal. That's like the one litmus test that we have before shooting. That's really really helpful, and so we already like Hitch apparently when he was on set, would be very bored and would eat the whole time because it was like, the movie's already done in my head. We just have to shoot

the thing. And I find that to be so honest in a weird way with my kind of filmmaking, where it's like we just have to elevate the podcast version of it, and the actors are given that and they have to make it better and we kind of all speak the same language of the film before we show up. I've never heard that. I've never had that done that way that it's really really interesting, and you know what, it really works. It clearly really really works, because it

also doesn't the films never look like that. They never feel no, they never feel machine tool to live in and ship their lives, you know what I mean. They feel alive. And that's fascinated. Every scene of Parasite was storyboarded and like every movement of the camera was part of the DNA of that thing, and bongingh is like a huge share of mine. David Fincher is the same way of like everything is done before they show up

and they just have to make it work. I don't think it's a very fun experience for actors to live in that space, But I love of working with actors and then having them come up with better stuff than I ever could have imagined. With the movie, it's so free, incredible. It's not it's incredible. Tactical, tactical. Yeah. Last question, last question, we'll wrap this up. Last question. Do you know what starts the next project for you? As in, is it one idea, is it a scene? Is it you know what?

What is the thing that makes you guy? That's what I'm doing next with my second movie, The Wolf of Snowhallow. I was watching True Detective Season one and they kept on referring to the bad guy as the tall man. And then when you meet him, he's not that tall. And I was like, it's fine, he's a great actor, you know, it's fine, it's a great it's yeah, exactly. It's one of my favorite TV shows of all time,

on my favorite seasons television all time. And uh, and then he's not that tall and then I was like, that'd be so cool to have the bad guy be referred to as this tall guy and then at the end of the film you just see him stand up and it's like, yep, that's the bad guy. I just think I thought that was like such an interesting by a logical reveal, like a hitchcocky and reveal. And so that was the thing where I was like, that could

be really cool, and I work backwards from there. But then with our new stuff, it's just the stuff that makes us actually laugh and actually cry. The things that we know that we specifically could do knock out the park of like, oh I could tell that story, I wouldn't be good at this one. We have a thousand ideas for movies, but like the ones that really end up getting filmed, the ones that we know we love

like truly affect us biologically. Of like I always say, if you have to ask if you're having a heart attack, you're not having a heart attack, and it's true. It's like you know it when it hits you and you have to call nine one one, And that's kind of us racing to screenplay format to make the thing. Jim Cummings, I I should have said this before we started fuck. I feel like an idiot. Actually I should have. I should have valued him with days and then we could

have added with a nice chap. But I'd just say it. You've died. You're dead. Okay, you're kidding me. No, dead, dead, You're dead? This is it. How did you die? Probably the drink. Really the drink, the drink got you? How old? How old were you? It sounds like I was born in eighteen sixty if I'm calling it the drink, um, I'm thirty five years old and I died. You died at thirty. I'm so used to this thing, man, like I'm so used to thinking that I'm dying tomorrow. Oh

really tell me about that. Hang on, You literally drank yourself to death on purpose, by accident at thirty five. Certainly by accident. I got I got too excited watching like a Palos Ortentino film, and I fell down a flight of stairs drunk. Certainly, Okay, that's it? Yeah, okay, so they still let's be clear on this. You felt you've died fully down at flat stair. Let's not blame the drink. The drink was ass. I blame the stairs. She fell down the stairs. You were very very equally

to blame. Yeah, I was very excited. I was raving about this movie, talking to myself about the future cinema and fell down the stairs and instant death neck break. I think, so Jesus, I'm so sorry. Do you worry about death? I don't because I was dead for a long time before I was born, for millions and billions of years before I was born. So I think I'll be Okay. What do you think happens after you die? I think the people that loved you will feel very sad.

Do you have a better answer? That's I'm wrong, tell me everything. There's a lot you genuinely. I mean, I'm not like I'm I'm impressed. I'm not sort of I'm not making fun of you when I say it's like you're genuinely like at peace with the idea of but there was nothing before, that'll be nothing after. It doesn't

like you're like genuinely at peace with it. I'm very frightened by the process of not being able to breathe or with the last year, it's been horrifying to here are stories of I'm going to talk to your family through an iPad and that graphic violent death is not theft is not lost on me, But no, I don't.

I try not to think about it because I'm I have such trouble engaging with life, Like I watched these Ghibli movies and I'll put on like long YouTube videos of Ghibli music and that kind of life pornography I forget to enjoy. And so because of that and me chasing that, I don't. I try not to think about death too much, even though I know it's it's right behind me, it's right in front of you now, So do you are you? Are you stressed by it? Sometimes?

I definitely have that feeling of running out of time. My buddy Dan told me that he said there was a moment he had a panic attack in the parking lot. I was walking with him and we went to go pick up some light bulbs from a grocery store, and he walked out into the into the parking lot and he was talking about death, and he said, I feel like I'm walking out into the ocean and the shore keeps getting farther away, and I keep thinking, oh, I'm

getting pretty deep out here. And at that moment, he dropped the light bulb packet and they all broke and he was like he had to go down on his knees and he was like, I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know what's happening. And then I had to get him into the car. It was very terrified, but it was laughable for me, you know, as a non believer. I was like, Oh, you got nothing to worry about. Kids, It's fine, but it's terrible to see someone really stress out about the thing. And it's not

from lack of understanding it. Like I feel like I spent my entire youth being thoughtful of mortality and you know, thinking about Christopher Higins on his deathbed and saw the geal cancer and like actually understanding the thing. But then, you know, pancakes are so wonderful and there's so much to life that you can love. You know, Yeah, yeah, I think it. I think it makes It's why I I'm sure I've said this before, but it's why I like con to bide small talk. I cannot abide it

because I'm like, we're all gonna fucking die. I've noticed that I've seen some of your interviews, and it's really funny to watch someone ask you about your work and you're like, I don't know. Yeah, I did that thing. It was one day of work. What do you want me to say? It's really funny. We're all gonna die. Oh yeah, So you're living constantly in the seventh Seal and you just want content, but we're all gonna die. You think this will fill a day? Sure? Anyway, Look,

good news, good news. Actually there's a heaven surprise surprise, and that is a surprise I know. And it's really nice that stays filled with your favorite thing. What's your favorite thing? Quoran movies? It is wool to wool Quaran, like just everyweek, can't move for the stuff. It's everywhere. You can't move for our fun. Sorry's everywhere, all this stuff. And he's knocking about asking answering any questions do you have about any of his stuff. He's very open to it. Anyway.

Everyone's very excited to see you, they really are. They're huge fans and they want to hear about your life. But they want to hear about your life through film because that's what they like. And the first question they ask you is what's the first film you remember seeing? Jim Cummings. I remember my babysitter taking me to see one hundred and one Dalmatians in the theater, and I loved it. Obviously, it's so well it's so funny and so well made and so beautiful, and the music is wonderful.

And that's the first movie where I remember thinking that was really cool. I'd love to make something like that, or like that's an entire world, a universe where you could create whatever you wanted to, and it didn't have to be filmed, it could be entirely animated. I remember I remember watching that as a six year old or whatever and going, yeah, that was pretty cool. Where was this?

Where did you grow up? I grew up in Metory, Louisiana, which is like fifteen minutes outside of New Orleans, and it would have been the Canal Place cinema in you know, nineteen ninety one. Probably love it. You tell me before we started, if I may, how many siblings are you? How many are you? I have five sisters and two brothers, so there's eight of us together. I'm second to last.

Too many, same parents, same parents. But the old joke, the older hal roach joke, was we had to put my mom up on a pedestal just to keep her away from my dad. Too much sex. That's outrageous. That's outrageous. I mean, that's fucking mad. Oh minute, that's too listen, that's too many people to have dinner with. Let line. Yeah,

every night, especially every night, you get so bored. It's it's it's a bunch of Mormons basically that point, it's it's brutal one of eight and you're and you're number seven, lucky number seventy seven. Yeah. So when you, I mean, how, here's here's my problem with more than more than three kids, very difficult skides to Disney World. You can't keep track

of them, you know what I mean. Yeah, you gotta keep you gotta keep some unleashes, the younger ones, and then the older ones have to keep the other ones unleashes. And then you just look, you need to train, train, and you can't trade at that point, and you kirk enjoy anything. I don't think, and it's it's so weird to go. So we used to go to Europe. We used to go to Italy and it was nineteen of

us with the extended families. We have to go to the imagine going to the fucking Vatican when nineteen people to enjoy the sixteen chapel and you're like, yeah, it's great, but we got to find a table for nineteen for luck because we're all starving. It's awful. At least at the Vaticans, the pipe's going good good. They definitely don't use contraception. Get good, Oh full blessing respect. Yeah, yeah, you get the double, You get the double, Pope, you

are welcome anytime. I hate kids, and I mean, it's no wonder you ended up performing a bit. It's it. It's weird because my older brother, my brother John, is two years older than me, and he was always the consummate performer and still is. And he's a lawyer for the CIA, so he's like not a yeah, so he like should have gone to SNL but then did the legal work. I'm sure he's listening right now, but I was always the observer of the rest of my siblings.

He's listening the CIA. He's picked this out alive, Like, hey, my boss told me I should listen to his pocket. He fight, no, yeah, we didn't say CIA. We didn't say CIA. He said CIA. He was doing with anacy. Okay, bye bye. But he was always the performer, and I got to watch him be a comedian in high school and at the dinner table, and so I was always taking notes in a funny way. I was never the comedian.

And then because I had such great surroundings as comics, I felt like I was the student of human behavior. And then that kind of made me a writer. But then I stole all of that to then, I guess perform it to pretend to be those types of people. I'm an introvert in real life, but then I pretended to be this extrovert in the films. Incredible. What's the film that scared you? The mice? Do you like being scared? Do you get scared? Oh? Man, this is so bad.

I saw The Conjuring too, the James Juan film. It's unbelievable. I'm so glad to hear you say that. Every time I say that, people are like really, I mean, come on, like really good. It's unbelievable. And I was in the cinema and I'm a huge fan of James Juan. I have all of these like drunken dms to him in the middle of the night, being like, I'm such a

supporter of yours. It's embarrassing, but I love that filmmaker so much, and we went to go and see it in Los Angeles and I took my girlfriend with me and we go in. It's probably four pm and the movie starts about ten minutes in and I said, I think we have to leave. It's like it's too this is too frightening. I hate this experience. We need to leave the movie. And then she was like, give it

another ten minutes. We'll wait ten more minutes, and then she just kept me saying that all the whole movie of just like ten more minutes, ten more minutes. And

the whole time I'm freaking out watching this thing. And the movie ends in such a beautiful way where it is this couple Eda Lorraine Warren and they're dancing listening to Elvis and they finally put on the Elvis song they've been talking about the whole movie, and the whole time, I'm terrified that somebody's gonna jump out and get them. But it's this fusion of romance and horror, and I've never seen that before done so well. He is such a master, and I was really floored by that expert.

That's the scariest movie I've ever been to. It's a great. It is a fucking great guys training that film, Like, it really does its job extremely well, and I think it's underrated. I'm sure talked about it once, okay before, but it's underrated in terms of like because it's a sequel, because it's the country and it's kind of mainstream. You guy, like, it's the best version of that type of film. It's

so well done. Fuck, it's scary, great, great shout. So you don't generally like horror, but you made one, Yeah, you made one, your cheeky boys, wrong with you? I did? I mean too basically, yeah, the Wolf Snowhall is aware all film that. I don't think it's come out in the UK yet, but it was basically me trying to pretend to I guess like do Zodiac as a comedy where it's like a detective story with laughs and then

and then this one. Yeah, this one's very frightening. The opening is very very frightening, and throughout the film it's a bit scary. But no, I love horror. I guess they function a bit like comedy where it's set up and payoff with it like set up and then a punchline. It just happens to be a scarer rather than a joke or like, you know, something to make you cry. I'm not surprised Jordan Peel has had such a great career in horror bea because they line up so well. Agrees,

what about crying? What's the film that made you cry the most? Team Cummings, no question. Inside Out, no question. I can't talk about it without crying. There's the moment in the film. I think I can talk about it. It's okay. Spoiler alert in the Pixar film Inside Out, where they're trying to get out of the situation and they have to use this magical wagon to fly out, and jes dude, it's fucking brutal. It's a suicide in a Disney film. Yeah, and it's like it's self sacrifice.

It's unbelievable. And I'm watching it in a movie theater, and the whole time, the whole forty five minutes leading up to that, is teaching the audience how they think and the emotions in their brain. And then Bing Bong jumps off the back of the wagon and kills himself so that Joy can fly up and make it. And then he says, hey, fly to the moon for me, and then he disappears. He dies in this crazy moment,

and I'm crying in the movie theater. Music is blaring at his beautiful and then I'm also thinking about why I'm crying, because the movie has taught me this literally like media literacy lesson I'm watching it is a It is an unbelievable gift that Pixar has given to young people to help them organize their brain. And I've never seen anything like that. I've never seen a sense it's unbelievable. I stand by. I think it was the greatest film of the last decade. I think it's truly incredible piece

of work. Like it doesn't but that bing bong thing. Look, it's probably the most heroic death in all the film because not only does he make a sacrifice, but the sacrifice he makes will never be remembered. And he lies to her and he says, hey, I got a good

feeling about this one. And then they get on the wagon and it goes sing louder and then jumps off and it's like and then the music swells and it's like, fuck you Pete doctor, you fuck her like and I'm crying in a theater full of people, and I'm humiliated, and it's well, I guess it's a paradox because ing Bong is killing himself and she'll never remember, but we'll

never forget, and that's it's so great. So you just made the joke that they make in the film where at the end of the thing, Joy makes the top and it's just brutal experience that the filmmakers know that the audience is crying and Joy goes goodbye bing Bong and it's the dumbest name of all time, and the audience goes back to laughing, and then we go home with the rest of the movie, and it's like a complete cleanse of that horrible sadness such as life. Oh boy,

out greats out. What's the film? People don't really like it. It's definitely not critically acclaimed, but you love it unconditionally and you think everyone else is a dumb dumb So so you reached out. You sent me that question. And I had written The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor because I had watched half of it and I was like, you know what, people are talking shit about this movie

and they shouldn't be. And then I watched the second half and I was like, Yep, nope, I understand why people don't like this film, so I have to redact it from my list. The film that I think gets the worst reviews that is actually one of the best films of all time is The Beach, the Danny Boyle film with Leonardo Dicaprion. What an interesting shout interesting. It

has like a twenty one percent on Rotten Tomatoes. It was panned when it came out because Homeboy had just done Titanic and all the sixteen year old girls that saw Titanic and fell in love with it. I love

Titanic as well, but they were expecting something different. And The Beach is such an iconic, well made narrative about that type of dude at that age, and the soundtrack is amazing, and the cinematography is made the story to visual storytelling is amazing, and you just get to watch this guy grow up a bit and not be an asshole in this beautiful setting. He falls in love with this French girl. It feels like the kind of aspirational life that I wish I had at that age, you know.

And I I saw it when I was about sixteen or fifteen, and it really became this anthem for me of what life could be. And I think that movie is so underrated. Yeah, I think that's that's a really

good shout. I also think about that film because that was Danny Boyle had made three films Oh with Yuan McGregor, and I believe the legend is, yeah, he and Hu and McGregor fell out because you and McGregor was going to be in the beach, or assumed he was going to be in the beach, and then he kind of recast him and added and I wonder about people's lives, as in, at what point can you move on? Do you always? Did he owe it to him? I don't know.

Life's complicated. Isn't it so terrible that even after being Obi wan Kenobi, like, even after getting put into those things, you still wonder what your life could be because of these like inadequacy traps that you set up in your mind as a performer, really like, oh I could have maybe my life could have been so much better if I'd done this thing. But that I mean, the movie flopped kind of. The movie wasn't well received. So what do you do? What's the film that you used to love?

You loved it, and then you watched it reacently and for whatever reason that is your own, you don't like it anymore. Jim Cummings, Yeah, I watched. I watched Mission Impossible too, which was like a go too love it, which was a go too for me in high school. And I remember watching this like early John Woo stuff and be like, this is the height of cinema. This is like slow mode, doves flying, this is it. This

is romance. And then I reached the age of reason, it seems, and watched it again and I was like, this guy is so cheesy, like like Tom Cruise is just so cheesy in this movie. Question what happens? I think about this a lot. You know the song Careless Whisper by George Michael. Do you know that song? Is that the burn? No? Yeah? Yeah, no, yeah, yeah you do know it? So that song for about since it came out for about I don't know how many years,

fifty twenty years. Every year England they do the Hall of Fame where people would vote on their favorite song, and I'd say for twenty years, Careless Whisper was number one, and then one day, all of a sudden, Careless whisper wasn't cool anymore. The sound of someone playing the saxophone was suddenly cheesy? Did it? It is loudly cheesy, but it used to be Like the day before it was the coolest thing ever. And I feel the same way about John Wu and Slow Moo Doves and all that

there was. It was very cool and then suddenly suddenly it was very not cool. What happened? I think it's one of those things where it's like this uncanny valley where someone makes fun of it a whole bunch or tries to reproduce it in like music videos, and then it becomes the mainstream rather than this like iconic, you know, style of Chinese cinema, and then because of that, the guy can't do it anymore. And it's quite sad. Where it's like when you go back and watch some of

these earlier films like Hard Boiled, that same stuff. It's like Hard Boils dope, you know, Like there's there's so many old films of his that use the same style and it works. But when you watch Tom Cruise hit it, it does. It does change things. I don't know, maybe we got older, Maybe it wasn't. It was never cool. And I was just fourteen when I saw it for the first time and thought it was dope. But I don't know. I think it is this kind of like

media literacy. Where got to a certain point with media literacy where it's like, oh, I know how to do that. That looks cheesy, Now what's not cheesy? I guess we're all kind of chasing to authenticity, and like cinematography matters in that sense. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Like I guess that's just evolution. That's just like the evolution of audiences. We get we get more media literate, those same tricks don't work on

us before. I do think, Yeah, I think in oh that guys Is, it becomes a thing of It's kind of been used so much by other people that it feels like a parody of itself. Perhaps, But when the when the original pleasant and guys back's doing it anyway, Jim Cummings, what is the film that means the mice to you? Not necessarily because the film itself is any good, but because the experience you had around seeing the film that will always make it special. I saw this film

called Kreasha at south By Southwest twenty fifteen. I was a producer at the time and I hadn't done anything kr I Sha. It is unbelievable. And it was shot for thirty five grand in the director's house, in his mom's house, Tradeward Schultz, and I saw, Yeah, he made it, comes at night and waves, He's amazing, He's amazing. This

is his first formalized feature. He had shot it once as a feature and it failed, and he turned it into a short film no joke, and then got the financing based on an award that he'd won to do it as a feature again, and that became the Kresha feature film that we all know today. But I saw it in a theater at south By in twenty fifteen, and it was shot for nothing and had great actors, and it was funny and tragic about something very important.

And I left the theater. It was at noon, and I sprinted down Congress Street in a suit to get there and got in, and I was friends with the team already. But I spent the next two hours crying and calling family members while walking around the river in Austin, just because I was so blown away by the film, and that was in the March of twenty fifteen, and by October I was shooting the thunder Road short film. It inspired me more than anything to get off the

couch and that anybody could do this stuff. That's really great. Also, of course, it took you two hours to call your family. There's fucking eight of them, that is, I only spending five minutes of eight. And he did the mad Yeah, it's a solid joke. It's a good joke. I walked right into it. That's lovely that you spoken to him about that, right, they changed your life? Oh, no question. And then I became an associate producer because they didn't like the sound mix on it, and I was like,

anything you need, like, I'm happy to do. And so I knew the guys at Skywalker Sound and so we drove up from LA to northern California to go and mix the film with Michael Simanic in the next like three weeks because I knew the movie had to be perfect.

And then it hadn't been bought yet, and so during that time we were trying to send it to different people, and then A twenty four bought it with like I guess A three Picture deal for Trey, so it was like this huge moment for him, and I was like, all it takes is making movies in your backyard, literally casting your mom and your aunts and yourself as the

lead part, and you know I could do that. I felt like watching David Fincher and Steven Spielberg and these behind the scenes videos, it was just like I could never do that. Those movies look too big. But then like seeing Trey do it, I was like, Oh, I could definitely be that guy. You know, I love that, love it. What's the film that you must relate to? Jim Cummings. I mean, Children of Men is like the movie that I I saw in theaters a bunch and I was like, this is the guy like Clive Owen's

character in that film. THEO is such a nice guy and it's so he's also drunk, but he's also this like heartbreaking figure where he lost this child and then when this child comes into his life, he'll do anything to protect it as this love letter to his son. And it's so brutal and beautiful and had me laughing and crying and just in awe with the cinematography. I think like if there was one film to put on my headstone, even though it's not mine, it'd be that one.

I'm sure I'm not alone. It's fucking unbelievable. Okay, you can have that. Yeah, yeah, you can have that for sure. Jim Cumming, what's the Yeah, what's the sexiest film you've ever said? Fuck? Man, that's a personal question. Yes it is, yeah, something, it's the screen in theaters. You got to clarify that, um sexy film? Yeah, I think uncut Gems is up there. I mean the Julia Fox is Soul that's a big one. Those those scenes are so perverted and so much fun

to watch recently. That would be the big one. But then um yeah, but then match point, match point, match point, Yeah, match point. Although it ends in a you know, a couple of brutal murders, uh yeah, that stuff. And also like the way that the natural progression of flirtation then leads to this affair is so authentic and beautiful, I

would say, and terrifying. I would say that that movie is probably the sexiest because she's such a tease and it's so aspirationous, like, oh, of course I want to stay with this woman, and then you realize why you shouldn't, and she's a nightmare to be around. And I think that kind of seduction and temptation is just so perfectly done that in the bait your test, riddle me this. There's a subcategory to this question troubling bone is worrying?

Why dones? What's the film you found a rousing that you were joy you should I saw this movie called The Lore on the Criterion Channel and it's about mermaids. You know, it's one about mermaids. Yeah, it's a musical about mermaids. And I watched it recently and you have that feeling of like, wow, she's really hot. I know she's half she's half of a fish and they show the like fish vagina and it's really gross and you're like, no, that's that's not right. But also, unless I don't know,

maybe it's like it's very confusing. It's a very confusing film. Um, that's what I would say. It was like half spookiness and then half boner time. I guess it's the internal question do we laundry? And she just looked at me like, what is this one? What are you talking about? It's the internal question if you had to have sex with a mermaid, and you could have the top half as a woman or the bottom half as a woman, but the top five as a fish. Obviously you go with

the top half. Obviously you go to the top half because because otherwise you're you're stuck with conversation. You spend the rest of your life with this person. The conversation bed be good. I'm just talking about you're you're having a fling. The Mermaids been very clear that she doesn't want anything more than one night. Then the bottom half the Mermaids. The Mermaids. The Mermaids in town were like a conference. And then she's going to be leaving and

she's like, listen, nice rings. You're staying at a hotel. She's at the bar and she makes eyes at you before you get an elevator and you've got your groceries. And then you think, I don't you know, I don't know, and she says top half a bottom half half human, but it has to be the same all night. I think at that point i'd have to say bottom half, I'm so sorry. You want the bottom half as a woman. So you've got like a content and then you have to hold hand, eye or legs with the with the

fish in the elevator. Yeah no, that never mind. Change I changed my answer. Its top. Yeah it's too late. You've you've got a top half fish nomad says. If she was asking with it, she you know what, she was flat. If she's with me, she'd definitely be happy with it. Yeah, no question, Yeah, okay, that's a lovely story. Um. Objectively, objectively, what's the greatest film ever made? Might not be your favorite,

but it's the greatest work in cinema. That's a really tough one because the difficult things is that, like sometimes filmmakers will make something that's incredibly well crafted that's very small and doesn't encompass all of humanity. So I'm thinking about like what you would print on the gold disc before you set it out into space to document humanity?

Like that's the one film mhm, dude, I mean I hate to say it, Like Children of Men is so good with that of like it's so broad, it's like women and men's stories incorporated, and it's about life and pregnancy in the preservation of life, which is such a human you know story. I don't know, I think I think it has to be that. But then also like Citizen Kane is so great about ambition and failing and male ego, but then that doesn't really apply to half

of humanity. Really, I don't know. I think I think i'd have to say, children, men, Okay, you can have children men. It's really something you can have. It. Okay, great, you can have That was the film that you could or have what's the most over and over again. I have the actual answer. The actual answer is home Alone because I used to watch as a kid, and instead of calling him Kevin, I used to call him home alone.

So I would scream get him home alone, and my mom would make fun of me for it, even as an at all, Surely as a child of a home alone is a real aspiration. It's the best. You get to beat up the bad guys, and you're smarter than your parents, and they've wronged you somehow. It's great. He gets some fucking space. Jesus. Yeah, it's all I wanted, as like all these kids, I just wanted to have

the house to myself. But then there was a time in high school where I watched Fight Club countless times, and then The Royal tenebombs countless times, and then I think the last Crusade is probably the movie that I would answer of like a movie that you've watched enough times to know every line in every moment. Right. I

fucking loved the Last Crusade. I love it. It is unbelievable and to think that that, oh my god, he goes off the cliff in the tank and his dad has to watch him go off and then realize that he's lost his son, and then he climbs up behind them and it's a joke of like, yeah, no, I made it, and then we're all looking over at this tank. It's so funny. It's beautiful, really funny, the final bit where he's reaching let it go, let it go, Indianna. It's great, it's great, good, it's so sad. Yeah, okay,

we don't like to be negative, Jim Cummings. Everyone is doing their best. So this isn't just because you think it's bad. What's the worst film you ever saw? So okay, I mean there's it's bad. There's a plethora these days.

The politically incorrect version of myself would want to answer a much more modern film, but I won't, and instead I saw a film recently that was on the Arrow Video channel, which I suggest everybody get it is an unbelievable gift that they have given us, But you have I think it's four bucks a month, and you can watch all of these like Sartana and Django movies and like all these crazy Giallo films from the nineteen sixty and seventies. All this stuff I would never have seen,

but they have restored and it's an incredible service. Having said that, there's a film on the platform called The Baby from the nineteen seventies and you start watching it, you're like, Okay, this is this psychological thriller shot in the same style in America, I think Italian directors and team and I had to turn it off and then I skimmed through it and I was like, yep, that's

kind of where I thought it was going. And I watched it again recently, and I don't know how it got made, or rather like how the team didn't revolt in making the film of like this is not good, this is not going to be a good no. So that would be my answer to The Baby. I think it's seventy three. Baby is about kill baby. It's not it's about a woman. I won't spoil it, but it's about a guy in a diaper and this woman who's taking care of him, and it's very bad. Okay, okay, okay,

maybe I'll miss him. You're in comedy, you're very funny. What's the film that made you laugh the most? Jim Cummings The Alan Partridge feature, Alpha Papa, the feature film. It's unbelievable. It is unbelievable, and I show it to people who aren't familiar with Steve or Allen and it works totally where it's like it's complete introduction to the guy in his fifties, you know, sixties, whatever it is,

and it's a belly laugh every minute. There's like and the way that the comedy works is that there's such a specific character and you get to see how the how his cogs and his brain are working, and that's the comedy. And as soon as you learn that language, it's like the height of comedy to me, of watching somebody lie and trying to keep things together. It's so much fun to watch. And um, I'll that's the movie. I cannot tell you how many times of laugh watching that.

There's a bit in it as well that is like, in one line, incredibly moving and tells you everything and I can never fully remember it. Web Forwood, But like the Darren Boyd is, he's the placement, like holds him down. He says, yeah, do you remember? Yeah, what does he say to it? He goes, they're joking about it, and he's like pulled the gun on him, and he goes and he goes, he goes any last words and he goes, tell my kids I love him or yeah, you know, they don't call me, so I guess, um, I guess

it's fine. It's like this super sad moment. I was like sad, Oh my god. Probably probably, he says, I probably just tell my kids said love him? Yeah, yeah, why don't you call me? No, Actually I should just tell him, yeah, tell him. It's a very sad moment. Um. But there's a joke in it that I've never I've never done, I've never heard so well in the word economy of comedy, where it's like how few letters and words you can put into a joke to make it work.

And it's a moment when the guy who Pat Ferrell kidnaps everybody in the in the studio, he's holding everybody hostage, and he goes, um, he goes, this is my wife, and he holds up a picture of his wife and he goes, that was three months before the angels carried her to heaven. And sidekick Simon goes, there must have been a couple of them, and he hands it off and you never see what's in the photograph, but it's clearly a fat joke, and it's so brilliant, and it's like,

you don't need to see the photograph. He tells that whole story. There must have been a couple of angels. It's so funny, it's so ugly. That's great. Well, Jim Cummings, you have been wonderful as completely as expected. However, if I may, when you were thirty five years old, you add what you called a little a little too much pleasure with the drink, and you were watching the Paolo Sarrantino film Life. You're watching Life, the underrated Life, so

that's called Life Youth, Youth. You're watching the Underrated Youth, and you were like, this, why has this been underrated? This film is fucking great. I am loving this. And you had a glass of port in your hand because you're like and the eighth and you and you ran around the house looking for your fiance. You're like, you got to see this film. It's so good, it's so fucking good. You scream and she says, I'll be up in a minute, and you go, no, come up here now,

I'm gonna trag you up. And you at the top of the stairs and you tripped and you went bish bash bush broke your neck dead at the moment of the stairs. Would you won't even bother the back because you're not scared of death? And you think it's nappy. I'm walking by with a coffin, you know what, I'm like, I knock. I'm like, I'd like checking on Jim. Tell him I enjoyed this film, answered the door. Your fiance is in a right state. I'm like, what's the mad baby?

Don't call me baby. We've never met I'm so sorry. I was I was being too casual that that was like a joke. But I realized we've never met it. So I realized, actually, the whole big fair my husband just died. So what do you do? I said, I said, I'm just looking for him. She goes, Jim is just falling down the stairs. I go, it wasn't a drink, was it? She said, yeah, you've heard O fucking come down the stairs. You're a state. Your legs are over your head, your hands are behind your back. It's a

it's impressive, but a mess. And I I do what I can. I picked the bits of you I can get, but I have to crack off bits of you because there's such a state like pull bits off like a chicken leg. Put you in the coffin. Your fiance helps me. I say, don't worry, you're you're you're probably in shock. Go and sit down. Watch the rest of you. As he goes, he did say it was good. Yeah, it's actually really underrated. Go and enjoy yourself. She pops upstairs.

I've put you in the coffins. I had misjudged the size of you. You're taller than night than you look on screen, and it's the smaller coffin. I thought, I put all the bits in the coffin, but it's jammed in there. He's jammed, jammed packed, and I mean there's no room in it. There's only enough room for me to slip one DVD into the side of the coffee with you, for you to take across to the other side, and on the other side, it's movie night every night.

What film are you showing everyone when it's your turn? On the other side, Jim Cummings go the temptation to say children men again, but I'm not going to. The answer would be being there by how delightful? Okay good. I think that film says a lot about humanity and is about somebody pretending to be bigger than they are, and that's how we all feel together. And I love that film so much. It's really great at film. He's

whatever whatever people project on it. Yep, he's nothing. It is unbelievable what they're able to do with that film where everybody can love that film. And he's a specific kind of goofy I understand, like funny Peter Sellers. But still it's so humanizing. It's still so much of our personalities of watching someone succeed, and that's how we all feel.

I was in Doeville and I talked to Michael Shannon about it and he was, like, everybody says that I'm a great actor, and I look at these films that I've been in, these clips of me and movies, and I don't remember being on set. I don't remember any of these things. I am Chauncey Gardner, and people shouldn't be giving me the credit that I deserve. I'm a phantom and I go into a room and I act, and then that phantom disappears and I go on being myself.

That is that is Chauncey Gardner, and I relate to it wholeheartedly. Interesting. Well, Jim Cummings, You've been wonderful, is it? And then you would like to tell people to watch, to look out for, to listen to. I'd say your next film. If I was, yeah, you've done this before. No, man, Yeah, see the beta tests. The beta test is out right now. It's quite fun and I get to play an asshole talent agent and subvert the power dynamics of Hollywood. Oh oh,

so I love how much you're shitting on agencies. I absolutely love it. I love it. I'm a huge fan of that. Dude. I was so nervous. We've gotten so much trouble. So I got dropped by Wome the week it came out. The day it came out, and I was very nervous, and I was like, oh no, did I do the wrong thing? Was I offensive? Was as terrible as I an asshole? I got sent to the principal's office and the next day Christopher Nolan's casting direct to reach out and was like, hey, Chris, thought you'd

be good for this part. I was like, cool, if nothing else ever happens to me, I've done something cool well, and my heroes like it, and that's all that matters. Did you get done by your agency because of your films? Like enough? Agencies? The press that came out they don't watch independent films, so it was the press that was surrounding it that was like, oh, Jim is making fun of agencies, and they said, you know what, we're gonna leave you. We're gonna be cheering from the sidelines. It's

what they said. Wow, that's funny. And it happens. It's normal. I mean, yeah, you make something radioactive and then it becomes radioactive. I should have expected it. It happens. Jim Cummings, you're a legend and an inspiration and your films are very very good. Thank you for doing the podcast. You have a wonderful death and enjoy the rest of heaven. I'm working on it. Good day to you, sir. Thank you so much. Brett. It's great talking to you. It was lovely talking to you. So it was episode one

hundred and seventy five. Head over to patreon dot com forward slash Breck Goldstein for the extra twenty minutes of chat, secrets and video with Jim Cummings. Go to Apple Podcasts give and five star rating, right about the film that means the most of you and why it's lovely to read, helps numbers blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Thank you so much to Jim for doing this show. He was brilliant. Thank you for listening to it. Thanks to

Scrubius pipping the distraction pieces and Network. Thanks to Buddy Piece for producing it. Thanks to ACAS for hosting it. Thanks to Adam Richardson for the graphics at least allow them for the photography. Come and join me next week for a brilliant episode. We're one of my favorite comedians, mister Rory Scobell. Oh, I hope you're all well. Thank you for listening. So that is it for now. In the meantime, have a lovely week and please be excellent to each other as apress sh