Ep05 - Jeff Bridges / "Hell or High Water"

I nailed it? Um. We were just talking right before we started recording here, and we literally were were not just saying that a little trend that Janelle was picking up on on some of the female performances this year. We're all of the supporting that you were talking about, um, except for uh, Susan Surrandon, Yes, go ahead, and oh yeah. I was just now, I am not a parent. Um.

I know you are a recent parent. Congratulations you kids still alive well as I. But I was really struck by how many performances this year um sort of centered on or had the theme of motherhood in them. And I don't want people to to think that I'm being dismissive because like sometimes when you say you know actresses, they only play mothers or girlfriends. But these are people who are delivering heartbreaking, amazing performances that happened to be

tied to motherhood. Um, Nicole. The reason that came up was because I just saw Lion and Nicole k I think it's still crying. I think were we in the same screen, were oh my gosh, Okay, Well, then I apologize for the you probably heard for the last twenty I was silently ugly crying. I was sure. I was just like had my hand over my face, like nope, I was saying, I want to start rating movies on an ugly cry scale, like how many tears and how much snod is pouring out of my nose? In line

would like tip the scale. It was a good cry I want. I don't want to scare people away. It really builds like naturally to that place to like you know, you you kind of know where the narratives is gonna end up going. But even once it gets there, you're just like, oh my god, this they did it really well.

It's really well done, and uh, part of the reason it works so well, as Nicole Kidman and what you might be considered a small performance, but like, it's just she is the face of love, the face of unconditional love, and plays the adoptive mother of this um Indian child who at age five was separated from his family, and um,

even just talking about it, I'm getting like emotional. Uh. And it reminded me of another one of my favorite performances, which was Michelle Williams and Manchester by the seat talk about yeah she it's and again, um, I think Michell was only in like a couple of scenes. Yeah, it's like the Beatrice straight yea, and it just blows in and that especially in that one scene and crushes it

and you're we walk away thinking about it. We talked about that scene a few weeks ago, and I mentioned earlier that um Amy Adams delivers two amazing performances this year and then Nocturnal Animals end Arrival, and I think that for a lead actress nomination, I am would lean towards Arrival because you know, there's a lot about motherhood. She plays it so beautifully. It's very emotional. Um. And then there's some smaller movies Molly Shannon and other people.

It's quite wonderful Uh. Susan Sarandon and the Midler was a big movie I loved. And they don't all have to be good mothers. Naomi Harris also kind of a small role. You know, I say this knowing there are no such thing as small roles. Well, we talked about that and specifically with her how she shot it over three days, but the places she had to get to within those three days on the schedule amazing. It is an interesting little trend with these performances. Are your hormones

saying something to you? You know, oh good Lord, don't even go there, but it is interesting, It is interesting. Uh. We were also going to talk today about some movies that are floating around in September. You know, September seems to be like this, I guess, for lack of a better term, dumping ground right before the season. A lot of people don't give these movies. They're fair shake, uh for whatever reason. I mean, I feel like Black Mass last year is a good example. This year in October,

didn't you know it was September? It was September. It was right after the festivals, which you know, I think might have been part of the problem, the release date. But uh, Deepwater Horizon is coming out this week. Sorry laughing because and I really like Black Mask too, so I'm not just picking on you, but I just imagine you like sit at home at night carving you. I talked, but that's gonna be fun fodder for all of my

fans exactly. Uh no, no, no, I I just think, uh, well, I've talked to the people involved with the film, and I think a few of them thought a different release date might have been smarter. I think your your adoration is refusal to let it go is actually quite adorable. Well, you just see how they did with Gravity and Argo and where they placed those movies this year. They've got the accountant in that release slot, which is Beard. Who does anyone know anything? I'm playing into the marketing? Who

is the accountant? What's going on with the accountant. I haven't talked to a single person who's seen the movie neither, so I don't I don't know what's going on there. I really like Gavin O'Connor's work most of the time, and obviously I'm an affleck fan, so I'm very curious. Yeah, me too. Well, Deep Water Horizon is uh the September movie this year. That I think really stands out personally. I thought it was you know, I like Peterburg as far as it goes fantastic. I think you can do

a lot of things really well. And this one's really interesting. I just mentioned this somewhere the other day. It has a lot of his uh you know, his mentors, Michael Mann. They shared I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, they had the office space up here. And because you know, like Michael Mann is my least favorite filmmaker really, yeah, least favorite.

Yeah that's a whole other podcast. Yeah, I guess so well that, yeah, he's kind of his mentor and they share an office space up on the West Olympic up here actually, and uh, I think a lot of Michael Mann is in this movie actually, right, like, especially in the way it's edited and it's captures all these like fleeting moments that kind of build towards the bigger mixture. But in general, you saw the movie, right, I did, and I think I think it's great. I think the

cast is fantastic. I think, um, Peter Berg, you know, he also made Lone Survivor, which was another movie that I thought, you know, should have been in the Oscar Race more outside of you know, sound editing or whatever was nominated for. And first of all, Um, he just seems to love to torture Mark Wahlberg. Martin Walhburg seems to like it. Yeah. Well, he's really good at it, um, and he's assembled a great cast. I mean, Malcolm ches in this hurt Russell, Malovich just playing like a Disney

villain and the best possible. Yes, I mean it as a compliment a creole Disney villain. It's it's like he's right out of Princess and the Frog or something. But but he's really good and it really angry. The movie angers you, yes, it does in the best way. And it doesn't manipulate you to that point. It just tells you what happened, shows you who said what, who acted how, And at the end of it, if you're not piste

off at BP, then you don't have a pulse. It was really fun to watch with an audience who was so into it and reacting so much. And I spoke to Kurt Russell afterwards and said, you know what, Um, when this oil spill happened, we all you know saw in the news that it was the worst oil spill in history. And you know, lots of animals were covered in oil, But I literally did not even know there were people over a hundred people on this oil rake. Yeah, and I didn't know that the event was just massive

is it was like the explosion and right down. I mean, the thing just goes up in flames in such a spectacular way in the film, and you're just riveted. And you know, regarding the below the line nomination's Lone Survivor, God, I think this deserves consideration too, because the way that's part of the experience, it puts you on that thing, and the sound and the visual effects to an extent, it's all part of the part of the mixture that that puts you there. And I like Burgo. I mean,

going way back to the Runda. I love the Runda. I loved Um. I'm so I'm blanking on it. Very Bad Things. Oh yeah, I shouldn't say loved. It disturbed me in a very good way. We watched that right before my bachelor party, not for like homework or anything. I swear it was just like, let's watch very Bad Things. But yeah, A huge fan of that movie. Um and the performances he got out of I think it was as a director, and um, you know he wanted Adam Sandler in the Jeremy Piven roll. Yeah, which I think

would have been fascinating. I'm trying to picture it. I wish you people could see Chris's condari face, because Piven nails that he kind of slime well like back then, especially like Judgment Night is. Yes, but that's I think it's that. Um, Jeremy Heaven was great, but almost too obvious a choice. Although the obvious choice doesn't mean, as David Fincher said about Ben Affleck and Gone Girl, just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's wrong, right totally. Well,

maybe deep Water can get somewhere. It's a Lines of Gate movie, and they've got a lot of movies this year. They've got another Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg. I sort of feel like Deepwater Horizon is sort of paving the way. It's made me really excited about Patriots Stand because again, Peterberg is dealing with a real life event. Pairing with Mark Wahlberg. Um, I'm sure he'll put him through hell. Yeah, And I've really really I was always a fan of

Peterburg as an actor in Chicago. Hope oh yeah, yeah, Peter Peters. What was the speaking of Michael Man? What was the movie he was in? The Michael Man movie Collateral. He played that cop in Collateral. Remember I love this movie The Kingdom. Do you remember that? Yeah, Jamie Foxx. Yeah. Again. He makes these movies that I actually think should be Oscar movies, and he's busy. He shoots a ton of commercials.

Like I'm trying to get him on the podcast. Peter, if you're listening, I want you on the Podcas asked Man, I want to talk to you about Peter. If you're listening, I apologize for not like you Michael Mann. We should have you interview about Michael Man specifically. What else are we going to talk about today? We uh ah, right, But well, the New York Film Festival is starting this week.

It's opening with Able du Vernes. They think they removed the I think it's now just about essentially mass incarceration in America and this loophole language in the thirteenth Amendment that kind of makes it okay for slavery if you're convicted of a crime. So she this is a documentary she directed, and tal did it kind of on the slide like she told She told me first about it at our Power of Women event last year, and uh, I was like, I didn't know you were working on this.

I think at the time she was going to try to take it to Sundance or something. But it's opening New York and that's a big deal actually for a documentary to be opening New York, and uh, I don't know that I can say much about the movie because it's opening tomorrow. I do think it's amazing. I do think documentaries that are amazing should be considered in the Best Picture race has a documentary ever, because they can so easily get a wise it in the documentary feature.

But I would say the same about animated films, and it's been Yea and thorn films, but they occasionally sneak in, especially with let's come on with these ten nominations, Well now it's between five and ten, and I think that's why we haven't seen an animated movie nominated, uh since Toy Story three, which was the last year that I

didn't know that was nominated. They had ten nominations like guaranteed at that time, and that's back when they would force everyone to pick ten movies and rank them now that everybody wants to rank five nomin He's like usual, So it's hard to get everybody, you know, enough people putting an animated movie in their top five movies, I guess is the logic as to why it hasn't happened in the last three or four years. Toy Story three

was nominated for this picture. Sorry, I'm bad at my job along Oh well up, oh god, you want to see Ugly Tears? Show me the first fourteen minutes of up. Yeah, that'll do it. But yeah, I just it would be nice if movies like that, that are you know, a certain form, that aren't immediately considered Best picture contenders should be considered Best picture contenders if they capture the zeit geis in a fantastic way. And I think that this

movie opening the New York Film Festival does that. Also, playing New York this week is our Next week is going to be uh, twentieth Century Women, and then wrapping it up as Lost City of Z, which I don't even think will come out this year. I don't even know this again, I am terrible at my John on the New York has kept it kind of low key this year. I mean they've got the Youngly movie. They're

gonna they're gonna, which I'm dying to hear anything about. Yeah, and they might not even do a screening in l A because they got that's like a million dollar projector or something. They need to run this high frame rate stuff. And I hope it's not like a hobbity look. Well, that'll be It'll be different because it won't be the

whole movie. It'll be the battle scenes and it will kind of set the tone in those scenes and you know, come back to the stadium where he's getting Oh so it's okay, it's a little hyper alves maybe, Yeah, I think that's going to be the deal. By the way, I was about to agree with you about your whole spiel about documentaries making into the race, and I was going to say, I agree with you one, it's my work for this week. Riley has spoken. Well, we're gonna

wrap it up there. I'm talking to Jeff Bridges after this. By the way, stay tuned and how I water. We talked about that. I think one of the first things we don't think he really can get a nomination out of that should feel like he could do. Yeah, I mean he's we've talked about it. He just tears into that role. So and any case, stick around for that. We'll be right back. Brother. I'm gonna get that money. They're going out their doors. You got a gun on you all man, You're damn right. I got a gun

on me. You'll are gonna steal my gun too. When you steel from you were sent from the bank. Well you hear about these bank robberies. They get to have some fun before they send you off to the rock and chair. Yet one hunt left me having that been a while three months bank breathing out her neck. Everybody get on. You'll been here for a while long. That's watch. Bank getting rob has been robbing me for thirty years. These boys all exactly what they're doing. It's kind of

raised a certain amount. That's my dish, Toby. It's a good thing he does more Dona very step of the way. Welcome back everyone. I'm here with Jeff Bridges, the dude himself, which I just actually read something that said you were you were okay with just being called out as being the dude for a whole generation. Thanks for being here, man, really appreciated. Uh, we're gonna talk about Hell or High Water, which is a great film at the end of the summer.

I think people were starved for a real movie at the end of the summer frankly and responded in kind. But before we get there, I just wanted to backtrack a couple of years here. I remember early November of two thousand nine, Fox Searchlight had this little movie called Crazy Heart. They weren't sure what they were going to do with it, and they screened it, and I remember the first thing I said I walked out of there, I said, this is the I just saw the best

Actor Oscar winning performance. Sure enough. And then that was like when a great experience that was. I hit such a good time on that one for so many reasons. Yeah, I got to work with my dear friend t Bone Burnett and uh and this brilliant young director got Cooper who since his loved by the way, Oh yeah, he also wrote crazy Heart, and as you know, he's turned out some pretty good movies since then. Yeah, that experience of of winning that Oscar, I think so many people

really wanted that for you, and it was. It was a great speech, dedicating it to Dad and everything. What was it like being up on that stage, and that was a dream I guess come true in a way. But no, not even come true. It just seemed like a dream. I mean, you know, it was an out of body experience, you know. Yeah, where do you keep it? Well, we're we just moved, so it's kind of I don't know where it is, in a box somewhere right now. Yeah,

well that's regarding that. Like I said, I was just on the set of of Hostiles, his his new his Western, good shooting. I gotta get you in another Western. Yeah, I was over there making a movie recently called That Mountain with Josh Brolin, and we all got together with the other the other team, you know, Scott's movie being made, and hung out a bit. It's great to see him there. Yeah. I just missed Ryan Bingham. He was coming in a

couple of days. Me too, I just missed him there too. Um, what do you think you think you and scottill worked together again? By the way, I hope so anyway to get you guys together again. Well, regarding Westerns, you know, Heller high Water is kind of a neo Western. I guess you will. I think it gets to a point where if there's Stetsons in West Texas involved. Then people want to call it a contemporary Western, but this has

some of the tropes. You know. Uh. I loved watching you in this movie because you seem to relish playing the part, like you know, gut out, just chewing on that accent, just like you look really comfortable in the role. And I'm just curious if is that a hard place to get to where you're that comfortable in the skin of a character. Well, it's always a challenge, you know, You're you're trying to find the tone of the movie.

So everybody in the movie seems like they're in the same world, you know, and uh, you know, starting out, uh, I find I'm quite anxious before the first couple of days of shooting because you're, you know, the guy isn't um there yet until you've captured him on film. And once you've captured him on film even one day, then you can start to apply kind of more clay around this. You know, your initial armature there, and it helps terrifically if you have a role model or you know, several Um.

I was very lucky to have Joaquin Jackson, who was no longer with us, but was one of the most formidable, you know, famous Texas Rangers of old time, really and he was there helping me get it, get it right, as well as m Taylor Sheridan, the fellow who wrote the script. His cousin, um Parnell McNamara, was a marshal in Texas. And when I first read that script, I said, God,

this this writer knows what he's talking about. It felt so authetic, and I proved to be right because when I met Taylor, turned out he grew up in Texas, had this cousin who's uh, you know, a marshal and uh, and so having those guys to talk to, Joaquin and Parnell that helped tremendously. Yeah, and it's something I noticed and a lot of your work, honestly, I I it's obviously they're in the Big Lebowski. I see it. I'm

gonna talk to you later about the Contender. But it's it's it's it's in that just this this quality of feeling so confidab in the characters skin, and I feel like it's got to be a hard thing to pull off. I mean, maybe it's just alchemy to you, and it's part of the process and you're not thinking about that, and as an analyzer, it's something I'm picking up on. But it's got to be a the kind of quality

to actors strive for. Yeah, yeah, sure is somebody else I gotta mention, along with role models, especially plating anyone from Texas, is my dear buddy Lloyd Catlett, who's my stand in and I think we must hold the record for actor and standing. We've done over seventy films together. We met on the Last Picture Show and he was a young kid, a sixteen or something like that, Uh, living in with your tall falls, and he's kind of he's the thread through all of my movies, you know,

kind of a constant. So it's wonderful to have a pal like that to go through all this stuff with. You know. The socio political context of Heller high Water is obviously fascinating, uh, very much of the moment and the zeitgeist and dealing with banks kind of just banks

running people over essentially. Uh. And it's interesting too because you've got this guy from Scotland comes in and directs this movie with all these kind of American tropes and ideas, working with David Mackenzie who directed Startup, What What How? Did you find. Yeah, well, Uh, he was a big plus, a big draw for me to come to the party because I saw a start up and was so impressed what with what he did with that story and with very little money to pull it off, and you know what,

he did build all those great actors, the performances. And I thought this would be a great marriage between Sheridan's script and uh and David as director. I thought that would be a wonderful team. And man, I thought it was. David was so great. You know what I look for from a direct or. Uh is was creating the kind of the vibe for all of the actors and the artists that he's assembled the cook you know what, what kind of and he did something that was really terrific.

We shot at Albuquerque in New Mexico, and these days they cut movies, you know, they edit the movies right along while you're making them. And Uh there was an old log cabin set up in the middle of town where the editing was taking place. And every weekend David would invite the cast and the crew to come over to this little cabin and check out the week's work

all assembled, and also to party a bit. You get to know each other, you know, uh, and to relax and uh, you know what you what you mentioned about what was the term you used about feeling comfortable in the character or what did you say? It? Just feeling comfortable in character skin. Yeah, comfortable in the character's skin. And a lot of that I think has to do

with this environment that the director creates. Uh. And I think you feel more comfortable in your character's skin when you're relaxed and you can kind of tap into this thing that was to be born, you know, through you. You know, let's let all the the art flow freely. And that happens, I think when the atmosphere is right, you know, when you're when you feel encouraged from the director to you know, just let it all flow. So it was a pretty tight group of people. Yeah, it

was a wonderful group of folks. I got most most of my scenes were with a wonderful actor, Gil Birmingham, who played my partner in the movie, and we had a great time. Like the odd couple, Yeah, and this, you know, getting to this relaxed, comfortable in the character's state. You know, a lot of that, uh, comes from a certain degree of intimacy that you but you achieved with your with your team, you know, and the actors that you're working with. And one of the ways that Gil

and I did that was to play music together. He's a great guitarist and I love to play, and so we were constantly breaking out our gets and you know, picking a bit. Yeah, and that that brought us closer and made us, uh, you know, work easy. I just want to venture out a little bit here. I just saw Rod Laurie's new film Killing Reagan. Oh yeah, I got a screener for that. Is that based on what's his name? Is? Based? So wild? And how was it? It was good? It was good. You know, to Matheson

plays Reagan and he's great. Oh, he's a good it's really interesting casting choice. Oh guys, I gotta so. Oh that's great. You got me thinking about the contender obviously directing another president, a fictional president since and uh, I've always been curious, like, that's another role where you look like you had a lot of fun playing it. But what was the most fun you had being able to

play a president on film? Asking for the Shark Sandwich or whatever it was was one of my That's something that I remember a little piece of business that I enjoyed seeing myself to wash when he's putting his shoes back on after bowling, just kind of smelling his shoe. But Rod, again, that's another example of a script being written by a guy who really knows the turf, you know.

And Rod certainly, certainly yes and did. One of the interesting things about Rod Lourie is um, many years before we did the movie together, he was a, um, how do you are you a journalist? Is this what were journaling? You journal? Yeah? Yeah, because he's a journalist. And he told me that I was his first assignment, right, Yeah,

you heard that before. And then he said, uh, he said, you know, the reason I became a journalist was because I wanted to become a director, and I thought that'd be an interesting path, you know, kind of like Trufaux or beg Donovich. Yeah. And I often would run into other journalists and ask me, oh, do you know Rodd Lori And they go, oh yeah, and their eyes would roll.

I think, why are your eyes rolling? He said, Well, we'd be in these you know, interviews with directors around table or something, and he'd be asking all of these technical questions, you know, trying to you know, not be not to put him in his article necessarily, but just because he wanted to direct and learn. But I think that was a great idea. You know, here's an audience for that, especially now I think you've got designs for that. Well.

You know, I think I think a lot of people involved in this industry and some the or another want to create at some point. Oh yeah, but yeah, it's I think it's great to talk to people and just get underneath the just how it works and kind of convey that to people who might be interested. I do think there's an audience for that, so many different ways to do it. Yeah. Um, And you know, regarding the contender, I'd be curious if any stat hounds out there want

to track this down. I mean, I can think of Anthony Hopkins for Nixon and Daniel day Lewis for Lincoln, like getting nominated for playing a president, but I don't know if there's been a fictional president where someone played and got nominated until you I was. I found out, what's a couple of days ago that my guy, my pres is Obama's favorite movie President. That's pretty um, you know, I just wanted to talk about two movies recently, uh

r I P D. And Seventh Son. These are two movies that they didn't work with critics or at the box office. And I'm curious how you take it when something like that happens, because these happened back to back, and it's a bummer. You were on this high with a couple of movies that True GrITT and Crazy Heart

that happens. How do you usually take that kind of thing? Well, when you bring those, when you bring those two movies of a couple of things popping into my head to answer your question, not too bad because normally I'm onto something else right away. You know, when a movie comes out, it's a bit like you got a Horse in the Horse ration. You say, come on, alright, p D. Come on, Oh no, no, it's anything ship alright, alright, now you're

going with the rest of your day, you know. But both of those movies, um man, they were disappointing on an artistic creative level, far more than the financial box office deal. Um They tend to do this with these big budgeted movies. They castrate the directors, man, and they they think the suits have a better idea about how to paste the thing together. And they screwed up you know, both of those movies. I think if they left it in the hands of the filmmakers, they would have been

a much better movie. Yeah. I've had this conversation with with people a lot this year about uh, studios seem kind of ramshackle by by I P Lately. It's like their studios are becoming more IP management companies than they are what's I like, an intellectual property, So like you know, Star Wars, d C comics, Marvel, like they're they're kind they seem to be in the business of that, whereas

in the past that they were. Yeah. Yeah, they show business at the business side of things, you know, overpowers that sometimes. Yeah, I mean it used to be that everybody at the top, but we're film people, and now it seems like everybody at the top tends to be more on the on the business side of the spectrum. And yeah, it seems to me that you know, you've got these have they got to three million dollars movies

yet I don't know what they have is it? Yeah? Probably? Yeah, probably, And they bitched about Heaven's Gate got it costing forty million bucks. But what I'm happy to see is that maybe in response to these giant budgeted movies, you get movies like a Tangerine. Have you seen that? Beautiful? Yeah, it knocked me out. It's shot on an iPhone. Man, and you're a big fan of Once Once and I just saw I think it was his next film Street. Yeah. But those shot for nothing, and you know they're as

far as entertainment value, I think they're much better. They entertained me certainly more than you know, all the C G I stuff. I remember we had a conversation a few years back and you were talking about Iron Man. Was like they didn't have a script basically, but now that now, that is a whole different story. They set the release date, but were they the Iron Man? Uh? You know there's many roads to Rome, where's the success or whatever? And you know, many ways to do the

thing I Iron Man. Um the script wasn't quite right when we got it, and Jon Favreau and Robert Downey knew that wasn't quite there. We spent a couple of weeks the three of us honing the script, and then the day before shooting, Marvel threw it out said no, we don't want this, and we said, what do you tell ship and Uh. We were so fortunate to have Jon Favreau as our leader because he was able to keep his cool, manage it and make the movie in

this bizarre way that it was made. Many days we would muster in my trailer, uh with Jon Favreau, Robert Downey and all the suits from Marvel, and we would try to write the scene that we were going to shoot that day while all the crew was tapping their foot inside in the studio. And you know, John would say, oh, I know a writer he might have. What's that let

me call him. He called the France. Now here's the scene, and you know, we would switch part you know down He would play my guy, I would play his guy. Tried to come up with some things, you know, and it was driving me crazy because I like to kind of know my lines, you know, as other actors prepare a little differently, you know. But this is why I liked it, and so it was frustrating from me until I made a little adjustment in my head and that

made all the difference. And that adjustment was, Jeff, will you please relax. You're making a two hundred million dollar student film. Just relax, Just roll with it and so that's what and then and we had a ball and it was great fun and just you know that relaxing Uh again, it's that the the director who can create that atmosphere. And I got, you know, hats off to John to be able to create that kind of relaxed atmosphere in this panicked state that he was in. And God,

he's turned out some wonderful work. That's a jungle Book. I saw A jungle Book was incredible. Chef rocked me out. I mean, because he can go back and forth between something like something like jungle Books and then Downey. Of course, we were blessed to have him as Iron Man. He's you know, so so talented and improvisation which was you know which that movie really required a lot of and

he just keeps going back. Um, I looked back. I wanted I didn't want to ask you this if you had been asked a lot and it's like the only time you really addressed it was a time around the time of The Giver, whenever you were doing press for that, and that is uh Robin Williams who passed away right around there, and I just wanted to do you still think of Robin? You know, the magic you guys made together on Fisher King with Terry Gilliam. Oh yeah, I

think him thinking about about him a lot. I mean, even as we mentioned him, all kinds of you know, different memories you know, are flowing in my brain. Really where to what the share we are? Well? That the film you made together, I mean that that magical scene in Grand Central and and just yeah, all of those. I mean, you know, when I first got on board that movie, I was, you know, a bit concerned because well, there's a lot of funny stuff in it, there's also

some quite dramatic stuff. And I had this long monologue that I've got to give to Robin while he's in a coma there, you know, And I had these visions of him looking up at me and you know, screwing around with me, trying to make me laugh while I'm into this saying. And the opposite proved to be the case. He was so supportive in the most kind of zen like way. You know, how can you you know, be supportive without saying anything with their eyes closed, but just

feeling that support radiating off him. And I learned that his comedic talus was just one of many in his actor bag. You know, he studied Juilliard and he was you know, I'd love to see his movies, his later movies when he's playing bad guys, you know, wonderful like insomnia, Insomnia. What was the other way? He photo and our photo? Yeah, he was so great in that. And that's a wonderful, wonderful guy. You produced the give are speaking of that?

You're interested in doing more of that? More producing? I like I like doing that. Um. I produced a couple of movies, uh do one called American Heart that I really dug that and one called Hidden in America that my brother Bo started. And it's nice to uh, you know, get the get the whole run of the movie. It takes, you know, quite a while to the Giver at God, I was maybe twenty years you know, and trying to get that up on the screen. I remember reading that book,

like the book when it came out. I remember reading it in school. Yeah. Yeah, I have a I think on the extras on the DVD. I'm not sure if this is true or not. Is it Jean? Maybe Jean was my publicist. She's sitting here, um, but some mut I don't know how many years ago it was over many years ago. I think I wanted to direct it the movie and produced and directed. I wanted my father Woodbridges to start in it, and so these, you know,

thirty years ago wherever it was. I assembled my whole family in my father mom's house, and my father we read the whole book on video, and my young nephew, who played led the young kid in you know, and my mother played Meryl Streeps parts, you know, And of course Merrill wasn't casting at that time, but we shot the whole book and that I think is available as the extras on the DVD or some of it. Go

pick that up and check it out. Well, closed by talking about the movie, you're you're I guess you just finished right in New Mexico. Are you still doing? Yeah? You're working with your tron director on this. Is that why you've got seen your face in a while? Shad get the short hairs after something? Uh? Well before that, I was in England making the sequel to Kingsman and that had clean shape and that's one of the things.

You actors were constantly changing our stuff stuff. Yeah, working on this film with the Joe what's it called again? I'm sorry, granted amount Granite Mountain. It's about the firefighters, right, yeah, in Arizona. How how was that everything is being shot in New Mexico lately. Well, that's because they give us the yeah, the text stuff, and I wish, wish California would do that. It's kind of crazy they don't. I don't know what the downside of it is. I think

North Carolina just got rid of theirs or something. I'm wondering about some reason it doesn't work for some people. I don't know. How How was it working on that film? And that story is amazing obviously, I remember when it was going around as a possible project. Yeah, tragic, you know, these four team firefighters losing their lives. I got to work with Josh Brolin, whom I had worked with and True Grit. Actually we didn't have any scenes together. We

hung out a bit and True Grit, but it was great. Uh. He's a wonderful guy, amazing actor. I look forward to that and everybody go check out Heller high Water. It's doing well at the box office, which is nice for a movie like that, a little movie to be trucking along. Yeah, it's a good one. I'm really pleased with that. It

was called Commancharia at one point. Well, I think it's in some countries, you know, in the in France and Spain, Mexico will be still called Commanchari, referring to this large expanse of land that was once ruled by the Comanches. Taylor is an interesting writer. I thought, Oh, isn't he great. We're gonna only heard he just directed his first film too, So we're gonna be hearing a lot from that guy. Yeah, I think so. Well. Thank you for coming on today, man,

I really appreciate it. Good luck better right, Thanks for listening everyone. Remember to subscribe and check back next week when I'm talking to Sully and Bleed for this Star. Aaron eck Art, you've been listening to playback at Variety,