Brian Grazer Discusses Imagine Entertainment

and informative. With no further ado, my interview of Brian Grazer. This is Master's in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. My extra special guest this week is Brian Grazer. He is the co founder of Imagine Entertainment with his partner Ron Howard. He is the producer of such seminal films as Splash, Backdraft, Apollo thirteen, Liar, Liar eight Mile. His television offerings include such things as Sports Night twenty four and The cult Can I call it a cult favorite?

Arrested Development it is. His films have generated more than thirteen and a half billion dollars in revenue, and his television work has done probably twice as much as that. The Producers Guild of America awarded him the David ol Selznick Lifetime Achievement Award in two thousand and one. He is the author of A Curious Mind and most recently, Face to Face The Art of Human Connection. Brian Grazer, Welcome to Bloomberg. Thank you glad to be here Bloomberg.

Rather and with Barry and I helped me get all my food items for the morning. We we got you ready to go. So I'm looking deeply into your eyes. And in the book you explain how as a kid that was a problem. Looking people directly face to face was a challenge. How did that manifest itself and how did you overcome that? Okay, so, um and thank you for reading the book and having me my pleasure. By

the way, the book was very enjoyable. It's very you're you're a spiritual, philosophical cat and I found that really I am actually but thank you. Um. So, as a kid, I had acute dyslexia, but it wasn't called that then, it wasn't labeled as such. It was just like that learning disability. Yeah, learning disability. Let's put him back. I was the kid that would let the parents were talking

about every night, let's put him back, kid um. But it was but it was really just you know, the root of that was that I had no ability to read. I couldn't read one word. I couldn't even sequence a sentence. I mean I would be out way out of sequence and I'd often start from the wrong side and left to right issues. Also, I do I still have that. So I'll share some secrets with you. Discipline you can you can figure well once you're married, you know the Yeah,

that was a big deal. But I remember taking my learners Permit test and left is the hand to make the l. Every time the instructor would say make a right or left, I would go this, and he would say, what are you doing? I'm like, that's how the only way I know left from right? So so what did you do to overcome the reading issue? Well, I what I did was I avoided eye contact with all teachers all the time. They love that, No, they don't like

avoided eye contact. It just became I did that because if you look at the teacher or or if your eyes are available in fact, then you'd get picked to answer the question or Brian, come to the come to the board, you know, the chalkboard. So I just didn't want any of those requests because I never had the answer, because it was always based on the material you were

to have read. And I was incapable of reading. And I had him Mr. Paula boy who was teaching me how to read theoretically, but it was possible for impossible for him. Um just because the way the symptoms and root of dyslexi itself. So anyway, nonetheless, I couldn't read about fourth I guess around fifth grade I started to be able to read a little. And but by the way, my grandmother had had one mentor in my life at

the time. They're really believed in Brian. And she'd say, you have the gift of gab, you have curiosity, and you can talk about it. And and she'd be looking at my report cards over my shoulder that were straight f's, and I'm thinking, Wow, she believes in me. And she says, you're going all the way. She had all those isms, You're going all the way, think big b big, But there was no empirical evidence whatsoever that I was going to be the thing, big b big person. She saw

something in you admother's love. This is she she saw the hints of this super for power called curiosity, and that that is valuable. And if you can use it exhaustively with human beings, you can learn a lot, gain insights and gain hearts. And if I said that right now to her, if she were alive, she would say, yes, that's that's right. She's probably very very strong on the hearts. In any event, fifth grade, I could read, and now I realize if I can read, I can now look

at people. So I started looking at people and and and using them also as as a secondary or primary textbook unto themselves. So I would look at you today, for example, I noticed so much about you, Barry, so much. Um, well, you move quickly, you think quickly, You're very helpful, you um incredibly smart. Well sound okay, So I don't want to, but I did, but I did notice quite a bit. So um you're you're you are a judge, not with me, but you you tend to be a judge of human

nature and human character. You do this in the in the way, this is my pop observation, in the in the material you select to make films, in the casting, I know everybody works with casting director uh and others, but it looks like that's a big part of of what you do. Well. I'm really I'm very good at prospecting for ideas that have that haven't been done, that have an authentic voice, and or there'll be an idea

that's as simple as face to face. But I'm able to granulate the techniques of what face to face means in a way that's interesting and with stories, and that empowers people too, you know, get the promotion they're looking to get so that they can communicate it and they understand. And the energy someone's energy, the energy you bring into a room that millisecond is the beginning of the very story or the Bryan story. And you don't want anything

to deflect that present state of mind. And then you want to be You want to use your eye contact and I'm using this in a simple way. You want to use your eye contact as a as a tool abridge the WiFi into human connection itself. And if you're really present with somebody like just you know, genuine interest, not transactional interest, but genuine interest, you gain so much.

Every one of my movies A Beautiful Mind, Friday Night lights, empires television of course, um, any of the successful things I ever did Splash, which you referenced, it's all birth out of human interaction, human connection, and which came into play because of eye contact. Then let's say I have those insights as I did on Let's use a beautiful mind. Then I need someone to pay for a beautiful mind, you know, because then they could box it up and say, oh,

it's a movie about schizophrenia. That's not going to be a popular or sexy subject, which of course I heard to some degree. Then what I have to do is use the powers of my observational skills that I've had in the past, and okay, which one? Which? How do I approach this so that I can make it not, um, a study of schizophrenia, but a how do I make it a story that's engaging to people? How do I

make it cinematic? What perspective on this subject makes it worthy of somebody going out of their house, getting a babysitter, whatever they have to do, find the parking spot, pay for the seat, and then I feel like they've had a great time. I'd rather had a great time. So I have to invent all of that stuff. Or I have to lead the invention of all of that stuff. The invention and and those things, in the case of a Beautiful Mind, came from the just simple observational power

of meeting new and interesting people. So the story of a Beautiful Mind, what made it cinematic, was twenty years before Beautiful Mind ever existed. I met a woman named Veronica de Negre who was tortured in Chile. She was during the Pinochet regime, the dictatorship of Pinoget, and so she was sentenced to eighteen months of constant torture. And I had the opportunity to meet her through Sting, actually

because I met him a year before that. Because I was so fascinating, like I thought, how does a teacher become a rock star? And so I constantly asked myself these questions. So I got to meet Sting a year later. Stings has come over the barbecue. I meet Veronica Danegre. I say, how do you say? How did you survive it? She said, I created an alternate narrative that I would live in, another story I would live in all of

the time. So I live and fully engaged in this other story that's not actually reality, because reality was torture, so that enables her to survive this eighteen months. And I thought, well, then I'm thinking, wow, that's very interesting. Twenty years later, I transport that insight that I gained from this non transactional conversation, and I thought, that insight

completely applies to a schizophrenic mind. So if we start the movie through an alternate, alternate universe and alternate narrative like another story, which we did, it's gonna be mind blowing to people. Now could disengage them, but it can also really engage them because it then it becomes kind of a three thriller, so it changes the entire genre of the experience. So therefore, instead of being a drama,

it became a thriller and then a love story. And that's how he's John Nash survived the and coped with his schizophrenia. I was gonna say, it's not about schizophrenia. It's a love story with one of the parties sort of descending into a bit of madness, and that's the driver of the plot. I have to talk about Beautiful Mind for a minute because I just watched a couple of weeks ago, the loudest voice in the room not only is Russell Crowe so fabulous in in A Beautiful Mind, spectacular, like,

you can't believe this is the same guy. It's such a And then Jennifer Connelly, I fell in love with our in um career Opportunities, and she's just so amazing Beautiful Mind. She's just spectacular in it. She won an Oscar for that. She want an Oscar, as did you, And I said, I yes, yeah, UM, quite quite interesting. It was great, great experience. And you've said this is your this is your favorite film, it's certainly, yeah, probably

my favorite film. I may I have several that I really like a lot, but A Beautiful Mind is probably my favorite film because it triumphed in so many categories. I mean it, it became a vehicle of a message that mattered to me, which was, let's look at people directly and and treat people as human beings and try to understand them and not not apply an immediate bias. And I was one of those people. There's no caricatures

in that film at all. Yeah, And I wanted to help destigmatize mental disability so that when you were here in New York you see people in the street, they're yelling in the middle of the street, or they're screaming at a store window. And let's not just disregard them immediately. I mean, I mean, let's try to understand that they may be bipolar, they may be schizophrenic, they have issues, and and basically compassion is so powerful, so portant to success. Really,

empathy is really important to success. I've been able to sell and raise lots of money for lots of movies, billions of dollars for movie, for movies which are really ideas. But similar to a startup, like say, okay, let's do Airbnb. You know they're not that different. You know, they don't make a startup. It's entrepreneurial. You have to bring in investors, you have to bring in managers. It's it's very parallel

to running a new tech startup exactly. And it it can fail in an evening, or it can succeed or have life, and you pump more life into it. And it could be a beautiful mind for example, quite quite fascinating. But you really have to be in order to do anything well. You like, get the raise, raise the hundred million dollars, find your wife, my me, finding my wife. You have to be president open minded. So you do a lot of work that's been recognized and and awarded

and rewarded. Tell us a little bit about your process. How do you decide what films you want to produce? Is it the business side? Is it things you want to see? What? What is your process? Like? Okay, because my first success was in nineteen four about a mermaid Splash Splash, and it's it's really that became that became very helpful in the way I would start this journey.

So basically, both the people and the process, or that the hundreds of people that turned down a mermaid movie because it sounded so stupid to them, because that's the stupidest idea. It's like there's no such thing as a mermaid or it's just that the dumb idea. What you what you learn is that first of all, nobody really knows and nobody really knows the internal heartbeat of something, particularly when it's got a you know, a big premise

at the beginning of it. So the fact that I could do a dumb idea and have it be really successful meant that I should just do things that I believe in. That's that's the William Goldman quote about Hollywood, nobody knows anything. Who's a friend of mine? Who? Really? I love the book um Confessions of a Screenwriter or something like that. That's right. So he describes how everybody passed on Star Wars, everybody passed on Raiders e T. So how do you are you relying on your gut?

What are you doing to I was something by the way, like Splash, where you're working with Ron Howard, who you obviously have a partnership with. You work with Tom Hanks, who you've done multiple things. That was his first movie, of course. Oh well, he had come off of the television, did his TV series called Buddies. But we, frankly we discovered him and put him in his first movie and that worked up pretty well. Everybody, Well, we're all, we've we've I think I've made seven movies with ks. Now,

he's quite delightful. He he's brilliant, brilliant guy, brilliant actor, a brilliant A selection process for for movies or television is unbelievably great. So what is your process? What is your selection process? How do you figure out what you're interested in making? I bomb You'll relate to this, I

Bombard myself with information all the time. I make a point to go out of my way and out of my comfort zone to meet new people every day, from Uber drivers to Barista's until you saw me over there with the water getting your water, waiting to talk to someone who's just some some stranger, and I just I operate on I trust that I will constantly disrupt my comfort zone by trying to conduct a conversation with some

someone that's an expert in something that I'm not. So then I have to get through that cha lounge, you know, the challenge of the language of physics. You describe that in the book that you made a conscious decision to say, let me find someone from outside of my fields and have a conversation with them. What what motivated that? That's really not a very common approach. No, it's it's not um what motivated is? I asked myself what seemed to be a rhetorical question when I graduated college USC and

it was a very good school. But I said to myself, like the day I graduated, what did I learn? Did I learn anything? And I thought, I'm not sure I really learned anything. And then I thought, what, well, what did I learn? I continue to assault these primary universal questions, the simple questions, and you just keep assaulting. I thought, well, I think I what I really learned for sure is how to is I learned how to cope, survive, and collaborate in a bigger population of people, because that was

a certainty I went. I grew up in I was a middle class kid, went to a small schools prior to that. This was a bigger school. And I succeeded in this bigger school academically and socially and culturally. But I found the whole thing an interesting kind of challenge. So I succeeded at that part, and then I thought to myself, there's got to be a professor or a class a really really you know, grabbed me. There was.

There was a doctor Milton Walpen, who taught this very popular class, a four hundred class um on abnormal psychology, which was very interesting to people because okay, so it's a very big class. I never met the teacher, professor, because it's a class of three kids. And I thought, I'm gonna try to go meet Wilton, Milton Walpen, and so I was very persistent in trying to meet a professor at USC that and I'd already graduated. He didn't acknowledge,

you know, didn't respond any of my UM letters. So I decided I'm gonna go wait for him outside of a summer school class. I waited. He says me, didn't you graduate? I said, I did, But I was really impressed with your of the class and you're conducting of the class. I really wanted to just have a five minute coffee conversation. I turned that into an hour conversation, and I learned a lot. I learned a lot more

even in the hour. I thought, Wow, I learned more in the hour than I did in the whole class. And I like that class so that I can do this with other people. It just made me feel like, well, this is possible. And I was just a little nobody. I didn't even have a job. I was just you know. A couple of weeks later, I finally got a law clerk luck er job. Sorry, which, by the way, I love. I love the story how you got that job at Warner Brothers. Tell the story. So basically, I met with will.

I had the meeting that I just referred to a Dr Milton Walpen, and then I'm in my little apartment complex and Ocean Avenue, and in the apartment complex, I overhear these three uh law school grads because I was scheduled to go to law school USC. I hear them talking about, Wow, you know what a summer. The one guy says, oh, I had the quishiest, easiest job. So it immediately got my interest because I needed a job. And if it's gonna be quishy and easy, fantastic, even better,

let's go. So I thought, okay, So I pulled the window back so I could really here through the screen and drew the drapes so they couldn't see me with my ear to the window to the screen. And so the guy starts talking about the job. It's the legal department of Warner Brothers. Blah blah. I get the band's name. Doctor. His name was Peter Connect, who ran the legal department.

He started with Jack Warner. He's he's probably a d And I called and got a meeting that afternoon with Peter Connect and got the job at three fifteen, saying, I hear you have an opening for an intern. Yeah, I said, yeah, I'm scheduled to go to USC law school. I'm a graduate. I hear you need a law clerk love to be that person right now, and he said, you're hired, just like that, just like that. Unbelievable. Let's talk a little bit about how human connections have helped

you in your career. In your early life, you weren't much of a reader, but you learned that conversations with people became crucial to your intellectual growth and professional growth. How did you reach this insight and how has it um come come out even even to this day. How does it matter? Well, I mean the techniques of which are are embedded in these stories in this book that we're talking about, called Face to Face the Art of Human Connection. Because you can't really have, you can't get

you can't get promoted without looking at somebody connecting. You're never gonna be able to raise a hundred million dollars, which I would do often to make a movie. Is that what it takes now to make a film that much money? Well, because movies are now sort of event oriented there, the hundred million dollar movie, or a hundred plus hundred to two hundred million dollar movie is actually

easier to accomplish than the forty million dollar movie. Overseas rights and a broader audience yeah, you have to go for a broader audience. So but but I have always tried to have stories that had universal themes. So we were talking about a Beautiful Mind, which which we won an Oscar for or I did end it um. And the thing about that is that the universal theme wasn't really about schizophrenia, and it wasn't about winning a Nobel prize.

It was much more about love that loved. The power of love is which is a universal force gets you can can get you through a locked In this case, there was schizophrenia and then his ability to win a Nobel Prize in economic So basically, I found that by taking the opportunity to look at people when I walked through the street in New York as opposed to my phone. Because I can look at my phone all the time, that's always gonna be there, and I love my phone, uh,

and it provided me with so much information. But if I'm walking through the street in New York, I'm looking at people and I'm trying to but feel or into it, like what's going on in the world right now. So I bombard myself with information that I could read on my iPhone when I'm at home. Or you know or in my office or iPad. But nonetheless I I thrive on human connection because human connection is you feel people's hearts, and you don't feel their heart on an iPhone and

they don't feel your heart. And the only way to move people enough to promote you or to move or in the case of romance, move the girl to want to like you or be with you or see something in try particply valuable is through their heart, through a spirit. It's just that's just really the way it works. And so whether you're in technology or whatever the thing you're doing, you have to have face to face connection otherwise you're

just not going to advance your cause. So in the book you describe and pardon me if I'm confusing the two books books, because it's a bit of a blar. I've gone through a lot of your over and definitely so one is about curiosity. But then I realized unless you look at somebody and and and and use face to face connection, there's no bridge into the possibility of exercising curiosity. So you can't really ask people questions and have them share with you anything valuable unless you've looked.

You're looking at them because they have to be seen, they have to feel like they're seen and what they're and that what they have to say is valuable. So let's let's talk about some of the communicate you discussed in the books. Um, some people that you've engaged in conversation and it's changed, um, the course of at least entertainment and probably some people's lives. You said Oprah could

be the most successful communicator you've you've ever experienced. Explain why, Well, I mean, there's so much evidence that supports that she's probably the most successful communicator in the world right now. But but it's experiencing it that really, you know, experiencing that really makes a difference, and you see it, you really so, Um, Spike Lee, I was making a movie with Spike Lee, which film was that It was called Inside Man. Of course, got right here in Washington. It's

shot in Wall Street and with Denzel Washington. I have a great story about eye contact that made that movie happen. Actually, but explain then, well, we don't tease this, we won't forget Okay, Okay, So basically I had known Spike Leave for a while. We both were nominated for Oscars, he for Do the Right Thing, and I was for another movie and and you know, so we met each other under a very privileged situation, and I love do the right thing. It was just so inventive in so many

ways cinematically. He handled a pretty heavy subject in a in the most evolved way cinematically. No one has ever done that. And U and I always wanted to work with them. So many years have gone by and we just never could figure it out, and I put a lot of effort into trying to figure it out. Now it's about eight or nine years later, and I have a movie that that uh that that I'm going to make, and he came in to talk about it. But we

saw it a little bit differently. And I walked him to the elevator and as I pressed, I pressed the button and it's only had to go seven floors. And in those singular moments, he looked up at me. He's never looked at me before. I felt it differently, and he looked me in the eyes and he said, I'm this is the movie I want to make, and he pulled it from behind his back. It's called Inside Man. I already had another director on it. But he looked me in the eyes and I want to make this movie.

It's going to be successful, and more importantly, it's going to be a successful work relationship for you and me. I promise you it'll be a great experience. Literally an elevator pitch seven floors, that's what it was. And I felt him and I and he really probably did exactly you know, he you know, he did one of the techniques that I would describe in the book. Actually, but he did it, and I felt the power of it,

the authenticity of it. I felt. I felt that, I felt his soul and honestly, and so I said yes, and I let the other director go, which wasn't easy, and BENSI uh, he was a little It's a bit worth it because this became like one of the most profitable,

maybe the most profitable movie for Universal that year. Wow, that's that's amazing, And I know, the most profitable movie for Spike in his career, and huge for Denzel and and me and a fantast So it was a real, real big win and probably as as importantly we it ended well. He did provide me a great work experience. He collaborated, He's awesome, he's talented and collaborative. You can't

beat that. The other um, the other two stories that stand down in the book that involved that contact eminem with before eight Miles was kind of known but not exactly a superstar. No, he wasn't a superstar. Well I had this, so this, this is, this is actually an example of of what being alert and what I contact

will do. So, uh, fifteen years before eight Mile came to life, I overheard in New York in a taxi cab while I was going from from going from Soho to Midtown like right about here, and uh, a shock jock radio guy talking to Howard or someone else. It could have been yeah, um so uh talking talking talking to a guest, and the guest was named Old Dirty Bastard. Yeah,

for the wood Tank Clan. But I didn't know much about This is twenty five years ago today, so I didn't know much about the Wood Tank Clan, or even about East Coast hip hop for that matter. I didn't know about that culture. So I hear Old Dirty a guy that insists, Yeah, but he insists on being called old Dirty Bastard and that that's a really unusual thing that's normally guys, that's an insult. He insisted that you don't. That's that's what I am. I'm this guy. So I thought,

whoever is that person? I have to meet him. So I go out of my way and I make a lot of calls, and I eventually I am able to meet O. D. B. Your guy here, and we have this interesting conversation. He's really incredibly wild, very free form character, and I thought, wow, this is what East the voice of East Coast Wrap is. This is now, as you said, the wood Tang Clan. And so I started to learn about the wood Tang Clan that I sort of that.

I went and met Chug d of Public Enemy and then Slick Rick, and I realized there's sort of a comical way of all this, all this stuff, and that got me on the path of realizing that, um, you know, this music art form was gonna be the culture. It's not, you know, a subculture. It is in fact going to be the culture, which of course it is as we now know. And so I then thought, I'm gonna try

to proof this out cinematically. And American Gangster, Yeah, well, American Gangster was part of that because I was able to hire the Rizza and put him in American Gangster. But I. But I then, of course, with eight mile, I thought this is worthy of an entire movie. But studios said, oh, but there's been rap movies. Maria carry did one, but all Ice didn't one. And I said, well, this is a different type. And there's the Belly. There's

a bunch of other movies. But I said, well this is different, and and I I really relied upon all the information I got about human beings and self actualization. And it's a Joseph Campbell plot line. It's absolutely the whole Rap happens to be involved in it, but it's not about rap. Rap just is a flavoring in that broader Well that's incredibly smart, you're you're no one's ever said that to me, But you're right. It is a myth that there's been dozens of versions of that story, yeah,

wrapped up different. Only this is a unique kid in a unique location and in the whole different dimension of of hip hop on top of it. But the internal heartbeat that creates the story architecture is you're right, it's Joseph Campbell here with a thousand faces. It's it lives in that space. And um so I kind of I probably actually gravitated towards that paradigm because it gives you comfort. It's a great it's a great plot. You know that. Thank you. And then I had a chance to meet Eminem.

I saw it was so talk about the meeting. That's all. By the way, this whole digression is because the meeting that you described. He's like, yeah, who the hell are you? I'm out of here. Yeah he he did say that, Yeah, exactly. He he said it in multiple different ways. But basically I thought, it's now many years later since I met O D. B. And the Rizza and rizzzs is a big person in my life too. But I thought, I am gonna try to make a movie about this. But

then I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure out this puzzle. Eventually, I I see this guy Eminem. You know, he's being filmed on of the v M as. He wasn't winning an award. He was just in a seat, and I thought, Wow, I gotta meet this guy. So Jimmy Ivan was a very long time friend, created a music of music label called Interscope Records. Giant. He yeah, and he is a visionary. He was able. He had Eminem,

So I said kind of, let's meet him. We meet him, and out of I'm trying so hard to connect with Eminem and he won't look at me. He just wasn't happen. Guy. He's definitely not an eye contact guy. He's a brilliant poet, slight, somewhat recluse, and so he did not wanna really look at, you know, connect And so he said I'm out after about fifteen or twenty minutes, and I thought, yeah, I hear him enough. Yeah, I'm not connecting with you, man,

I'm out. And so I as his hand was on the door to leave, I just desperately said, come on, you can animate. I just that's I mean, I I have no logic for the sen tinse. I just said it. And uh. He was hesitant, but then came back and then he told his story how he grew up, and and that became the basis of the entire movie and really the story architecture for the whole movie. And he ended up winning an Oscar. Never before as a rapper one an Oscar, and he did so he's really really gifted.

And he wrote the music, wrote the the he played every he did everything. Guy did everything. The rap contest. Did he write all of that on both sides? He did everything. That's amazing. So what was it about the word, the animate word? What is it that caught his attention? Well, I don't really know, but animate means come to life, and uh, he is a scrabble he might have he might have known the full meaning of it. Was intrigued. I never have asked him. I should probably someday do that.

You definitely should. Let's talk about some of the work you've liked and helped motive eight or animate your career as a kid. You are giant James Bond fan with Sean conn Who isn't Those were just the greatest films. So those were fantastic. They took you into uh an escapism universe fantasy of like, wow, I can do anything, I can get the I can get the hot girl, I can kick guys asses and kill the bag the little bad guys, save the world and drinking Martini all

at the same time. So you don't really do action films though, you really do films with the big dramatic content. Yeah, with real emotion film. Right, if there's emotion as the destination for films, if there's action, it sets up the emotional tension like Apollo thirteen or Backdraft. Stuff happens, but it teases even the Da Vinci Code, we had him running and doing things, and it wasn't even in the book where they it was that active. But but we

we we found a way to manufacture that. So have you ever watched a movie and said, God, I could never have I never would have seen that idea, what a what a great concept. It's just so outside of my uh comfort zone. I wouldn't have done that. Or conversely, have you ever seen something and said, oh, that was a great opportunity here and these guys blew it? Oh my god, all those answers. Yes, Okay, I've seen concepts

not correctly executed where I think they blew it. But I've blown it too, So I I have movies that I could site, which I won't do now that where I've where I've kind of blown it, where I've rationalized it's one of my rules where I thought, well, this is good enough. This one decision is good enough, and one decision that is good enough is always it just is.

And you're the best judge of quality. You just have to don't yourself so and I do sometimes because you're just the endless assault of decisions you have to make to make a movie, raise the money, make a movie, turn it into some cinematic masterpiece hopefully um so um. But I have had there. The movie that a couple

of movies changed my life. Really, the one movie that got me into show business, really that made me think that everything is possible was mel Brooks's Blazing Saddle because he violated every single rule of ethics, morality and language and and uh and the fourth wall and the fourth wall and it worked. So I thought, wow, this was like the first shot comedy. And I just called it that to myself, like a shot comedy, and I thought that means you can really do anything. This is so exciting.

So the first seventeen years of my life, it's all I wrote or produced was were comedies. You know, nuttie, Professor, Liar, Liar, Parenthood. I could go on, but the point is as I just did that Boomerang with Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin. Anyway, but the movie that really changed my life with Steven Spielberg's Et because I realized when I experienced that movie at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. Everybody when the movie ended, everybody was at peace, everybody felt good. It he that

movie elevated people's moods to a really positive place. It created a transcendental moment for human beings where they didn't have to rush to get their car and they weren't aggressive, and it was it empowered you, It empowered possibilities. And I thought, I want to try to make that be my goal, like to aspire. I never reached that, and honestly, I've done really good work, but that was at a very very very high level, and uh, I deeply admire

it and became an aspirational uh professional asport. That's a touchdowne in your career. Film. Yeah, well, well to knowing the power of film. Like the power of film, great stories that have redemption, can move people, can create good vibes in the world. And that's actually my goal with even with my television shows or my movies. I just I really want to entertain people, engage them so they have a great time, but make them but put out good vibes. So, so let's talk about a touchstone and

moving people. I'm a giant arrested development fan. The voiceover narration it's beyond a meme now that has become a cultural touchstone, especially in the current era. You see it all the time. Someone says something on TV that turns out to be nonsense and in parentheses you get narrator. It wasn't the line straight from from Ron Howard's voice when you guys were first putting that together. How did

the narrator come about? And did you have any idea this was going to become as giants a little cultural touch known as it's become no No, No to all. Basically, this was a project that was primarily cooked up with the I was part of it, of course, but the collaboration of Mitch her was who created and Ron Howard, who collaborated on its birth, and of course does this voice over narration, and which is, by the way, is

just pitch perfect. Like you recognize his voice, but if you're not paying attention, you don't know who it is right away. And and his he's smart, his dead pen is perfect. And I know throughout the show there have been little hints that it's him. You see the hands of the narrator with the ring that's r H on it.

How did how did that come about? Um? I think it was probably Mitch's idea, and Ron was excited to do it and knew he could do it because he understood the tone really well and he has a great voice. He's incredibly is a really good actor, and his style of communication in real life is not that dissimilar. He's he's a very unaffected person. He's completely unpretentious. Uh, he's incredibly He's confident, but unpretentious. How did how did you

guys meet and become partners? We met because I had this discipline of curiosity conversations, and I looked out my window while I was a television producer at Paramount, and I yelled out the window to Richie Cunningham. I said Ron, Ron Howard and and then he sort of scurried away. And then I called his office and said would he considered meeting me? And then we had our first Hollywood lunch, which it was his first Hollywood lunch and because he

never did Hollywood lunches, he was just working. Again, he's just a he's a guy that just works and gets on it. But so he never did a Hollywood lunch. He did one of the Brian Grazer that worked, and then we pitched some ideas together. I pitched two ideas. One was night Shift, one was Splash Michael Keaton right and Henry Winkler. And that was the first movie we did. Even though I wanted him to do the love story Mermaid,

he wanted to do an R rated film. Um, And so he did it, and he did it really really well and relatively small budget, and it was very successful. It was immediately successful because the chairman of Warner Brothers at the time, his named Bob Dailey, who was he had just left CBS. He sold it immediately to CBS for the entire cost of the movie. So we're in profit right exactly. And then, um, where did the script from for Splash come from? Splash came because I had this.

I started this, this idea of what if I could meet my perfect girl? And what would that girl be like? What would those characteristics be, how would she communicate? Um, the purity of all of the those things. And I just kept defining it and redefining and redefining. Where would I live? I thought, well, whenever happened in l A. No, I would never meet the perfect girl in l A. Okay, where would it be? But you have which I did. But Veronica actually was from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, and she was

only in l A for a day. But you're right, very wow, you're a good reader, thoughtful. Um So, in any event, um So, I just kept assaulting the simplicity again of a question that I postulated to myself. Is it possible to meet a perfect girl? Is possible? What does a perfect girl look like? What would that be?

Then I've defined it, then I wrote it. Then I superimposed this whole mythological image of imagery of mermaid because mermaids have power, they have beauty and sex appeal, they have simplicity, and they're unattainable and that makes the love story harder and gives you a third act that's interesting and and it's phil the film I've always adored. It's filled filled with great characters. John the little cameos from John Candy are just hilarious. Well, John Candy was hilarious,

was so funny. Um But we talked earlier today on the show about my grandmother who supported me. Was a Jewish grandmother, was a little, tiny Jewish grandmother, and she had all these isms. The isms were like think big b big uh, it's just as easy to have a good rich girl as as a poor girl. Um, you have problems. Wash it down with Chris with chicken soup. She had a crazy every one of these is ms. I took all of those is ms the grandma, Sonja said, and I gave him to the character of John Candy.

And that's how they all kind of happened like that, he said, my friend. And then my grandmother had kind of a decadence weirdly, and I extrapolated further on the decadence. You know, like my grandmother smoked, she got divorced early in life when she was like in nineteen forty no one got divorced. She did all these kind of things that were that were unconventional. So I put a lot of those those things into the character that John Candy played. And then real writers came in to rewrite me because

my script was terrible embodied the idea. But but it was the first is the first draft. Um, but it was low Against and Bob Blue Mandel that were really gifted and incredibly funny. Like so you you mentioned the beautiful girl. You mentioned this, which sort of makes me think of the current environment. I don't think you can make blazing Saddles today, you can't do that. You probably could make splash today, but it would be it would

some of the more interesting aspects would be sanded down. So, given the current environment, given the me too movement, everything else, how has that affected the options you have for for making films today. It's not. It's it's not too confining for Ron and and and Brian Grazer and imagine because we operate the movies and television we make, they they just naturally operate within a value system that doesn't violate, so it doesn't face impact. No, I mean, if you're

doing I don't make those hard. Those are comedies, but it would definitely affect be constrictive that way if we if we did not gen Really, yeah, it's not really my genre. The R rated comedies and doing comedies itself is kind of hard right now in in movies and TV. I'm thrilled to do a comedy. I may. I like television and I like uh so, so I'm sensitized to it. But I I think Ron and I just by nature

are not human rights violators. Right, So you describe him as like the nicest human soul you'll ever want to eat. He is. Before I get to my speed round questions, I just have to talk to you a little bit um about the dyslexia. UM. I told you I love the left is the hand that makes the l You do this, Um, I don't know how else it manifests itself. You. I always found that if I would go out to eat with a group of people, I was always eating

other people's bread and water. But I'll tell you a neurologist at Stony Brook University Medical Center who works with a d h D kids and dyslexic kids told me another little shortcut you make the okay, and this is B is bread and D is drink. And that's how. And ever since she showed me that shortcut, I have stopped eating other people's dinner rolls. It's um what I want to ask, how did you learn to manage the dyslexia? How did you overcome that? Because that's a really especially

for someone who reads screenplays. Getting past that that reading issue had to be a big challenge. Well. Yes, in my early education zero through fifth grade, I couldn't read a word, read one word, and so it became pretty traumatizing and it caused behaviors of like not looking at people because they might pick me to come to the front of the class, and I would never have the answer because I couldn't read. So therefore, any of those kind of exchange exchanges that involved having to read to

get the answer didn't work. So so how did you overcome that? It just happened. I got I got lucky. There's you know, these sort of moments of epiphany where some flash breakthrough occurred and I could then spell. I was able to spell almost really, I remember being able to spell before I could read, and then I was able to read in sixth grade, not not well because I would always start on the right and go to

the left, and so that was problematic. But it just took discipline, and it still takes a lot of discipline. I invert words. I gets upset and I say to Ironica, I'm so upset. I press send and doesn't make any sense, and she said, well, people expect stuff like that. You don't have to be so hard on yourself. And you have trouble dialing phones. You have trouble. I don't transpose numbers. I don't dial phones. You don't know. I mean, I do transport I do transpose numbers. I seldom dial phones.

I use my smartphone, just my serie. Or early in my career worked in an investment bank and they rotate you through every department. You're on the trading desk, you and the bond was so when they rotated me through the sales department, they give you a list of clients and call all these people that lasted a day when its constantly get numbers like well, unfortunately. I mean, technology is so great right now, and I mean I I of technology, and I love the power of smartphones. I

just think they should be done independently. I think you should use all your smartphones and smart equipment to get smarter. And then when you meet somebody, be completely protatal and look at them face to face. And in the book there's so many techniques that bridge into success variable success situations. All right, so I only have you for a few more moments. Let me run through our speed round. Yes, ten questions, bang through these as fast as you can.

First car, you have her own. You're making Model A two thousand two BMW Burgundy, and uh that's what it was too, doesn't too Burgundy? BMW? I drove it on the Warner Brothers a lot and I I've met two girls very independent of one another, looking through my rear view mirror with my little BMW. One was Diane Keaton and I stopped and talked to her for a minute and I said, what are you working on? She said, The Godfather. I had no idea, I like I I was just like I was a kid that just from

the valley. I didn't even know why I was on the lot. And Tom Hanks's wife for Rita Wilson Hanks, Now like at at you know, at our she's a rock star. I mean, but she's Tom's wife. And I met her and drove her home in the daytime to Wilson Woodward Wilson Avenue, and that's what she told me. That's where they got their last name from the street there. That's so funny. What's the most important thing people don't know about? Brian Grazer? Did I cry a lot? Really?

Like watching commercials? No? Uh? Well, music, I get emotional. I celebrate the beauty of of genius or hard work or accomplishment, and I can see little bits of accomplishment and things, and I start to get emotional. U interesting. Early mentors, early mentors. Well, my grandmother first Grandma should and then early in my career, producer named saulve Zance produced Amadeus and he produced. He also produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest impeccable, well at a third one

The English Patient. I think he won two or three Oscars for Best Picture. It impeccable taste. And when I learned from sauls Ants is if you even with nothing written, I'm gonna start scouting locations. Meaning if I like something and it's it's not even written, I'm actualizing it. It's being done. So I just thought, wow, creative visualization. He was doing that early on. And someone Richard Zani Dick Zane also great taste, amazing taste. What are some of

your favorite books? Do you do you read much in the way of books. Are you so busy with screenplays you just don't get to books. Um? No, I do read. I read books more than I read screen plays. I try to read, um non fiction. But I've a favorite of many, many favorite books. But one of them that is Grit by Angela just came out last year. Yeah, it's so great, It's it's definitely have to do that. Give it, give us another one. Everybody loves this question. I look, I like uh martial arts, and I like

Eastern Thought. So Bruce Lee is an icon and I'm a fan of so. He wrote a book called Jet Want Jet Kwondo, and I like that book. Okay, quite interesting. Tell us about a time you failed and what you learned from the experience. I failed so many times. Um, I learned to keep taking risk and keep failing, keep coming back at it, keep coming back, don't Well, what I really learned is don't let He used to really

traumatize me, depressed me. I couldn't go to work. I yeah, I developed physical problems, but that doesn't happen any longer. I still don't like to fail, but I'd rather be fearless. So normally at this point I would ask you what you do for fun? But I know you surf, I know you do uh, taekwondo and other stuff. What what else do you do for fun? Play tennis? I love that. Do food videos, So go to Brian Grazer and watch my food videos. They're kind of funny. I did them

originally from my all four of my kids. They thought they were hilarious because I'm always doing something funny with food and funny parts of the world. And my kids encouraged me, and that's why I like doing that. That sounds like a blast. Uh. Within the film and television industry, what do you most optimistic and most pessimistic about today? I'm the most optimistic about the power of stories. That hardware has change, consolidation, movie companies, all those those things

have changed. But that I've seen that over over three and a half decades, that all you know, okay, movies, they're terrible now, but they're not terrible. DVD is going to change the movie business. It didn't. Um, Netflix is going to destroy the movie business. It didn't. It was good for the movie. But it's the golden age of it. It's just great stories. I think people, particularly in the tech business who didn't didn't a decade ago, value stories.

Everybody values the power of a story. And our final two questions, UH, recent college grad comes to you and said they're interested in pursuing a career in film or television production. What sort of advice would you give them? Always try to understand the language of our business, of the culture. Read the trades, Read Deadline, Hollywood, read these things that seem kind of like, you know, trashy, gossipy, but truthful of what's going on in Hollywood. First, learn

the language, That's what I'd say. Learn the language. Then I'd say find somebody that you Then I always say to somebody, do you want to optimally, do you want to work inside or outside? If you want to work inside, then you can be an agent, You can be a producer, you can be a writer. If you want to work outside, you could be an assistant director or a director. You have to think, imagine where do you want to spend

your day in or out. It's a simple thing, and then you can find another simple thing that helps you get there. But the language is going to help you because it will decode the internal workings of the business. And our final question, what do you know about the world of entertainment today that you wish you knew thirty plus years ago when you were first getting started? Um, that what I wish I say it again, what what do you know to today that you wish you knew

thirty years ago? That failing is okay? I wish I knew that failing is okay because it caused me a lot of worry and stress I think if you honestly, what I really think is if you're a good person, you work towards the laws of karma. Like just I do really believe even like smiling at people, I believe in. I believe in all of those little those little butterfly effect moments get you goodwill. Good will allow forgives you.

For failure. There are I've seen so many people, superstars to be incredibly rude, and when they fail, they never come back. They can't get back. But if you're mad, they burn a lot of bridges. They make too much noise, they're too rude, they offend too many people, and they don't create good vibes out there. You know, it's a collaborative business, and you're never You're not gonna even bat five hundred. It's sort of if you think of baseball,

you're gonna bat about three thirty three fifty. That's pretty amazing. And so basically you have to just know that success is not a straight up trajectory. And a lot of people lose their humility and they think, oh I'm good, you know, and they and they and they lose humility, then they lose manners and human etiquette. They don't look at you. They look past you, they look over you, and everyone catches all that stuff. People feel energy. That's

how you make big decisions. And so I think I've gotten a lot of breaks, uh, and I'm really grateful to all the breaks I've gotten and continued to get. Thank you, Brian for being so generous with your time. This has been absolutely fascinating. We have been speaking with Brian Grazer. He is UH television and film producer and co founder of Imagine Entertainment. If you enjoy this conversation, well look up and intro, down and inch on Apple iTunes.

You can see any of the previous two hundred and sixty or so conversations we've had over the past five years. You can find that at iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're find. Our podcasts are sold. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. Go give us a lovely review on Apple iTunes. I would be remiss if I did not thank the Cracks staff that helps put together this podcast each week. Attica val Bron is our project director.

Michael Boyle is my booker, slash producer, Michael bat Nick is my director of research. I'm Barry Retolts. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.