‘Before’ Director Richard Linklater

Lemonada This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Frigoso. Welcome to the show.

Today, my conversation with writer-director Richard Linklater. Linklater belongs to a class of independent filmmakers that you can identify by just saying their last names. Soderbergh. lee tarantino fincher bigelow the cohen's all of whom shaped the indie film boom of the 1990s but for many young wayward aspiring filmmakers it was link later who offered the clearest road map A way of making movies on a budget, outside the system, far away from Hollywood.

instead he told stories in and about texas where he came of age in the seventies and eighties from there he built one of the most distinctive filmographies in american cinema slacker dazed and confused boyhood bernie everybody wants some the before trilogy school of rock films often grounded in the rhythms of everyday life we sat last year around the release of hitman

his neo-noir screwball comedy starring glenn powell as a fake hitman for the new orleans police department now only a year later linkleader has returned with not one but two new films in theaters this month the first blue moon starring ethan hawk and margaret quali tells the story of a songwriter struggling with alcoholism and mental health during the opening of oklahoma the second film nouvelle vague is a playful homage to french cinema

part essay, part narrative experiment, that revisits Jean-Luc Godard's early years, from writing film criticism to creating, alongside Francois Truffaut, the treatment that became his first feature. Taken together, the films reflect the duality of his work, the inward personal stories and the outward, more ambitious gestures towards cinema and culture itself. It's a rare moment, two films released at once.

from a writer-director who has always resisted easy categorization in this talk we trace the flashpoints of his career from an ambitious and broke twenty-something in austin to running a big budget set on dazed and confused to today where he continues to create stories from the fabric of his life. We also wanted to re-release this episode because it's now fully available on YouTube.

You can find it by searching Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso on YouTube. We've also included the link in the show notes of this episode. We'll be back on Sunday with a brand new conversation with author Salman Rushdie. Until then, here is Richard Linklater. Richard Linklater, nice to meet you. How are you doing, Sam? Good to be here. This has been a long time in the making. How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good. I can't complain. I tell people.

I can't complain about anything, but I will if you want me to. Yeah, when people say they can't complain. Oh, I can complain forever. I just don't know you well enough to be that complainer, but I have people I can complain to. No, I try not to complain that much. Yeah. I don't like working with complainers. Is that a big, is that the big like. criteria when you hire people? Are they complainers or not? No one would admit to being a complainer on their application. You can sense it. No.

A little bit. Making films is solving problems, not complaining about them. Should we start with this new film of yours? Whatever you like. I'm here. That film, it's already in theaters, which is nice. I want to start with Hitman because there's a line in your film. where'd you go bernadette where your character who's an architect says i've got to inhabit a space before i know what it wants to be truer words were never spoken

From my point of view of creating something. That's what I imagine. So if that's the same process of making a movie, can you walk me through how you began inhabiting this new film? It's so funny. Like the filmmaking process, you go from inhabiting your own brain and your own storytelling, you know, impulses and ideas, but at some point you are, you're building up to inhabiting a real space, you know, so.

By the end of it, I really need to be, like, on the set, rehearsing on the actual location to feel what the scene wants to be. You know, I'm taking that all the way to the end. But Hitman. starts in 2001 when I read an article in Texas Monthly by Skip Hollinsworth, who I make another film with from an article of his, Bernie, years later. But at that point, I'm friends with him. So I just call him up and start talking about this.

unusual occupation that this so intriguing character Gary Johnson has. He writes about Gary in Texas Monthly, is that right? And what stood out to you about the piece? I think movies do... occupations pretty well it's fun to see a job you never think about but if your lead character does that job it's like oh that's a job you know i haven't thought about that so but this is the weirdest job in history you know you're a fake hitman

For those who haven't seen it, set it up a little bit. Well, in any police department in a major American city, you have to have, I guess. Someone who'll go in and do an undercover sting, if someone out there is shooting their mouth off at a bar about, hey, I'm trying to bump off my spouse or my business partner or something, law enforcement has to kind of respond.

to someone who's talking about murdering someone. Most people who murder, they don't talk about it. They just do it. These are people who are kind of in the myth of the American consumerist dream that you can. just buy someone's death, which is a total myth created by the movies, I'm proud to say. I mean, we're good myth makers. But just the idea that there are people out there at a retail level. And the film becomes this...

The film kind of deconstructs this idea that there are hitmen out there that you can have do this. But anyway, it is someone's job to put a wire on them and act the part. And, you know, Gary Johnson just happened to be particularly good at it in the Houston area, which.

Houston being Houston, I would imagine had a pretty high incidence, a high solicitation rate. We ended up making the movie in New Orleans, which is also a city that it seems very plausible. But yeah, you hear about it all the time. people being arrested.

trying to solicit. You never hear of a hitman being arrested. So I've known this for years, since the 80s. I remember this underground press, there was like a hitman manual and I got it just because I was underground punk. I just thought that was funny, but I heard that that manual was written. by like a housewife somewhere. It's just all BS. It's just all bullshit. This thing, it's all myth. It's all movies and TV and...

books. And it's a great character in the American psyche. It's just not real. So I'm in a real debunking mood these days, but I have been for years. So I just thought it's funny to take on this cultural notion, but also a film.

notion you know we're sort of in the hitman genre we have a series in the movie that he has to be all these different hitmen for the different clients he's sort of tailoring his look for and it's a comedy too make no mistake you know it's we go pretty pretty deep into that but it is very grounded in this real guy gary johnson who did that for a living most

Intriguingly, he taught at a college, too. So that, to me, was the duality right there. He was a philosophy lecturer? Yeah, psychology. And I think he taught some philosophy. Yeah, just kind of a student of the mind, lived alone, had a little... Zen garden and cats and this total introvert and then had this, you know.

He's playing a murderer, an assassin. I don't know. I just thought that was so fun. And the movie becomes kind of this story of a transformation about identity. Can you change? Can you become? So he sort of becomes...

a more extroverted version of himself. But the psyche and mind of a criminal, I've noticed this pattern around the release of the Newton boys, Bernie, and now Hitman. You've said the minds of criminals are similar to the minds of artists. I think I could have been a good criminal. Art and crime are close. It's all getting away with something. I am a good criminal. I got away with a lot. Like?

Oh, just, you know, you do things, getting your first films made. You know, it's real gray market stuff. You know, I could say, I don't know if it. bends into felony areas. But, you know, you do what you have to do. You know, you borrow that piece of equipment, you give it back, but technically you're stealing. You cut every corner. You don't have any money. You have to, when you're so passionate about what you're doing.

You think it's justified. Right. It's the same mind of a heroin addict who's robbing an old lady for her purse. It's like if she I'm not a bad person. If she knew me. She would understand my needs, that this might be bad. I'm not trying to hurt. I just need the money so I can get it and everything can be OK with the world. I'm not a bad person. I am OK. I knocked her over, but I'm not a bad person. So I was that same guy, you know. OK, I'm going to.

Do this, do that. So it's criminal, you know. So filmmaking is a crime of passion. Kind of, yeah. Especially at that stage. But you think about it, the careers go similarly. If you think of the guys in... organized crime, they have a good run, like in Goodfellas. They have a good run there, but then they all go to jail for a while. It's the same in art. So you get a good run. You get a few movies made in a way, and then something bombs, and you just got to go away for a while.

You know, you don't suddenly people don't want to fund your next film. You feel like, oh, I'm, you know, then you have to kind of scramble, regroup. You get out of. You get out of jail and then you start it again. You get the crew together. You saying filmmakers have a good run when you've been on a run since 1989.

That seems to be unending. I mean, there's some interruptions maybe, but I could, you know, you look at an 18 month gap or a two year gap and it's like, oh, that means I was trying to get films made and I just couldn't. Right. Maybe they were too big.

budget for what I where I was or something. You figure it out. I want to talk about you in that period where you're starting to make films, you know, but like when we find Gary, you know, he's this kind of lifeless teacher living sort of middle class. monotony and this job kind of gives him purpose and it sparks something like a new in him well you know he's a lecturer so it's not like he's a total

You know, he has he's living a life of the mind. He says he I like my inner life, you know, but he's living in the suburbs with his cat, suburbs of New Orleans, you know, watering his plants, feeding birds. But I think he finds his calling. He says it in the movie.

You know, oh, you know, this hitman thing, he took to it. He just liked it. It was a perfect kind of use of his skills, what he knows about people. A lot of performers are really pretty shy. They're just looking for that stage, that character they can. dissolve into and then they can be all these things that they're they're not being in their day-to-day life i can i can relate to that you know so you can yeah i'm i'm an introvert i don't

I don't ever seek a stage or a mic. I never look forward to it. being in public ever. I really don't. I have to do it all the time. It's like, oh, you got to do it. You know, but I don't, I'd rather be watching a movie. I'd rather, I mean, I'm talking about everything. I love that you're saying that to me, like looking right into my eyes as we're doing a podcast.

What? That I'd rather be in my library listening to music and reading? No offense, of course. I accept where I am at all times and run with it and try to make the best of it. But you know what? I do this because... Like Gary, I kind of like being forced in that situation because it's not my default mode. Making a movie, you have to be around a lot of people. You have to work with people. You know, and the mode I'm in now, I have to come out and talk about my movie. I got to.

Talk to people. And that's that's good. I know that's good for me and I actually enjoy it, but I have to be kind of forced into it. OK, I'll slowly nudge you in the direction. Please do. I need to be nudged. You know, Gary plays all these fake hitmen.

from all over the world. And I couldn't help but juxtapose the nature of Gary, the middle class monotony that we're talking about, with the opening scene of Before Sunset, where the Ethan Hawke character is in a bookstore. And an interviewer is asking him, are all the books autobiographical? Do all the stories come from your life? And he says, well, I mean, isn't everything autobiographical?

We all see the world through our own tiny keyhole, right? I mean, I always think of Thomas Wolfe. You know, have you ever seen that little one-page note to reader in the front of Look Homeward Angel, right? You know what I'm talking about?

Anyway, he says that we are the sum of all the moments of our lives and that anybody who sits down to write is going to use the clay of their own life, that you can't avoid that. So when I look at my own life... you know i have to admit right that i've i've never been around a bunch of of guns or violence you know not really no political intrigue or a helicopter crash right but my life from my own point of view

has been full of drama right and uh so i thought if i could write a book that that could capture what it's like to to really meet somebody you know i mean the most exciting things that's ever happened to me right is to is to really meet somebody, make that connection, and if I could make that valuable, you know, to capture that, that would be the attempt, or... Did I answer your question?

In this film, you literally inject guns and violence and intrigue into Gary's life. And I just love the juxtaposition of that. But that line about creating from your life.

The clay of it. I want to understand where that kind of begins for you in the mid-1980s, which I think happens, if I'm getting this right, in the second semester of your sophomore year of college. You're batting third. For Sam Houston State in Texas on a baseball scholarship. In the preseason, yeah. Just right up to the beginning of the season. When you're playing the outfield, like you're deep in left. Mm-hmm.

How often was your mind on baseball? Well, in a game, I'm dialed in. I'll admit that I was I was focused enough to that. But in practice, you know, you have these lengthy practice, you know, four hour practice. And you do a lot in practice, but out there I was just kind of going, wow, I'm starting to get jealous of some of my, I was in a playwriting class and some literature classes. It was, it was great. I was.

always a writer, but I was really meeting people and professors and, you know, I was really realizing I was behind in my reading. You know, I thought I was kind of well-read, but I wasn't. Of course, I was discovering so much. So I suddenly had this greed to be reading more. And so out there for four hours, just on a baseball field, which I loved. I dedicated so much of my life to and loved.

But I was kind of thinking, well, you know, there's another world out there, you know, maybe I could be, you know, I'm missing out on something a little bit. Or, you know, I realized there was such limited time. And I kind of wanted more time for this other area. And boy, and I was given it immediately. The way in which you were given it is pretty unexpected. I know. I don't believe in like fate or some kind of divine intervention or something. It just so happened that.

I found myself kind of dizzy and aware of my heartbeat. And I had this thing that's easily curable now, but 40 years ago, it was kind of like this atrial fibrillation. They didn't really have a thing for it. So my heart was just off track. ran my heart rate would go up to like 200 and be highly inefficient i would see white and kind of fall over so i couldn't run anymore it caused like arrhythmia yeah it was an arrhythmia thing

So I just couldn't run. And especially me, I was a bass stealer. I was fast. That was my whole thing. So everything went on hold. And I was like, oh, I can just walk to the library every day. finish that play. And I'm out at noon. I'm out at noon because you have all your classes in the morning. And then I had, I felt like suddenly I had all the time in the world. I had from noon to like 1130 at night when the library closed. You don't believe in faith.

Like you're standing there in the outfield. I know. Wondering, how do I get more time to do the things I want to do, which is to write plays, to read, to watch movies. And then suddenly you're. Body fails you. I know. If not fate, what is this? I mean, yes, we're all fated. Life makes sense backwards. I don't want to corner you into fate. It's kind of like... I mean, what looks like a curse, everybody's like, oh, you must be really depressed. You're not playing ball. I was like.

Not really. Yeah. Yeah. I was kind of like, you know, I loved it. I could have kept playing and I was doing fine. But you've got to be open for what the world's throwing at you, I guess. And I just took advantage. But you know what? Looking back. I did bring that kind of athletic dedication, the way you're all in, to what I was doing next. I was very systematic about it. I read books on the French New Wave or whatever I was studying. I watched films. I kind of always...

I was still locked into that kind of all-in approach to what I was doing. I mean, artists have to do that anyway. I just brought, I think I've been accused of that even as a director, bringing in kind of an athletic.

you know, I guess I'm the coach now approach. So, but it works for me. I want to talk about that dedication. When you're 20, 21, a college dropout, living back at home in Houston. Watching some 600 movies a year at River Oaks Greenway Plaza and the Rice University Media Center. And the Museum of Fine Arts. And the Museum of Fine Arts. Even for 1982.

Pre-internet, pre-iPhone. That is a lot of movies. Like, on paper, this reads like your Beatles in Hamburg chapter. But on the screen, in those dark theaters... Which worlds created by filmmakers did you find yourself most attracted to? All of them. All of them. You didn't discriminate? Uh-uh.

yeah i just you you love the medium so much you know i that's i love you know world cinema i'd love to film from india the film from africa you know whatever i was documentaries shorts experimental films you know epics, you know, it was just all I was just taking it all in. But I think that's not uncommon, you know, musicians who kind of love all kinds of music. And at that moment, I probably couldn't have totally guessed what kind of filmmaker.

I would be. I just loved film. And I realized I had films in my own head. You know, that was me discovering my art form. I'd written a short story in college. And then I thought, oh, what if I adapted that? You know, I could see all the shots. I started thinking in terms of visual storytelling. What was that story? It was a Reagan era, and come to think of it, kind of a zoo story inspired.

There's this guy who just gets slowly more and more unhinged and dies at the end, who seems kind of out there, but it is. Autobiographical. Yeah, I was pretty unhinged. You know, at that age, you're kind of on fire. You don't know where it's going to go. You think, oh, I'll be lucky to be alive when I'm 25. Not that I was doing anything with my body to endanger myself. I wasn't doing anything dangerous.

in my own head. Did you worry like the stack of books were going to fall on your head? No, no. Just an inner feeling of kind of craziness and intensity and where to put all this, where to put all this stuff inside your head, you know, so. That's an artist looking for a medium. That's the healthy version. Other people can act out in other ways. You know, when you do interviews, this is true when filmmakers are interviewed. They're always asked about the directors that have inspired them.

But you have this quote that you gave McConaughey in some interview where you said that my early life, I didn't know what I wanted to be, but I knew what I didn't want to be. that's ultimately why i wanted to be a filmmaker you're more motivated by the films you don't think work by the films you don't like what's to be avoided i don't think that works i don't think in that genre i don't want to do that you're defining your own sensibility

and what you want to communicate vis-a-vis what you don't find satisfying. And I would say that quote is getting a little closer to making films. I think the first rush for me of cinema, I kind of loved everything. In addition to house theaters, double features of the classics, I was watching every film that came out between 81 and 86, most of the commercial films of that time. But once you start making your own films.

the world closes in a little bit you know it's like oh i guess i do think this way and then you get a little more critical it's like oh that's not my feelings at all actually the more i really think about cinema and have learned more it's like yeah i don't I don't agree with that kind of cinema. There's a purity here I'm looking for. I just started to have theories about film itself and acting and everything. You know, you become a little theoretician of your own cinema.

So what did that theory start to sound like when you're making your first two movies? Well, before I made my first two feature length films, I had made probably 20 shorts. Right. Those were mostly just technical exercises. I wasn't trying to say too much. It's amazing how patient I was with myself. I knew I didn't have the technical. skill yet, formal abilities to pull off deeper things I was trying to explore. So they were really just technical. I was just teaching myself.

We skipped over. I didn't get in film school, and I just started doing it on my own, which was my nature anyway. The Stanley Kubrick film school? Yeah, yeah. Just buy a camera and start doing it. You know, I'd saved up money that whole year as I was in Houston. Again, pretty methodical. I knew people in their early 20s. I was 20, 21, 22, turning 23. I just saved up a bunch of money back then. It was like $18,000, but that could go a long way.

as a young person then. So I lived on that for years. So I had created a lot of time for myself. That was part of it. And then I could watch films all the time. So I was being pretty methodical about how I approached it. Yeah, looking back, I'm amazed. But you know, at the time, you're just doing what you feel compelled to do.

I mean, even my goal, I was studying careers and they all said, here I am, you know, 21, 22. And they say, you don't really get to make your first feature till you're about 30. Godard complained about that. And I said, well, you know, I want to. move as fast as I can, but that seems realistic. So I had a long-term goal.

aspiring filmmakers. It's going to take twice as long and cost twice as, you know, just everything. You're going to have to work twice as hard and it's going to take twice as long as you can even imagine, but you have to enjoy it. You have to love every step of the way. So, which I certainly did.

Well, it's funny when you sat down here, you were like, it's weird. I've been hearing the show and I'm thinking like in my 20s, I didn't have a real job. Like what? I thought you were a filmmaker. What are you doing? This is what I said to you. You said to me. Yeah, your job, your success here, Sam, could actually be your impediment. It's my impediment.

I'm not saying it isn't. Only you can answer that, Sam. I was just lucky. And maybe I rigged the deck because I probably could have been good at a lot of things had I gotten a degree. I was one of those people that they kind of expected to do stuff. And I suffered through those years with my family and everybody going, hmm.

Maybe in listening to advice from everyone, they start worrying about you by about 24, 25, when you don't have anything showing for yourself. And, you know, and I was like, you know, I'm kind of watching a lot of films. I'm doing that. So, you know, I suffered through. All that. But I already had a plan, you know, this hit me in my late teens. Right. Actually, I was looking around the world and I said, you know, I don't want a normal life. I just want time to do what I want to do.

And I would say interviewing you is not a normal life for me. Oh, okay. Well, you set it all up. We all make it work for ourselves, don't we? We're going to see. I think by the end you'll tell me if it's a hindrance or not. Okay. I'll let you know. I'm judging you every second of the way. Believe me. Oh, trust me. I feel it from here.

But I didn't listen to advice. You know, I looked at the world as like, these are really well-meaning people, some who love me, but I don't really want their life. So I'm not going to do their advice. I'm going to do the opposite. The whole world's doing this.

I'm going to do that. I quit watching TV. I said, if I want to accomplish anything in the world, I've got to just do this whole thing differently. I just dropped out of consumer society. I didn't watch TV. I didn't read newspaper. I just wasn't in the flow.

From my late teens on, I was just going to do my own thing. It's fascinating you're saying that because when I'm thinking about those first two movies, it's impossible to learn to plow by reading books and slacker. The visual language of those films. exist in stark contrast to the MTV occasions that was happening in that moment. Yes, those are underground fuck yous to the mainstream. Both of those. Right. And the way you use the camera, the way you're thinking about the camera.

How did you begin to understand your relationship to... your own visual language at that time. And in my mind, those films are polar opposites within that language. The first one, the camera never moves. Every shot is a lock off. Every shot is a composition. And you're also making it basically by yourself. Yeah, so that too.

I couldn't kind of create a nice dolly shop. There's a lot of movement within the frame. It's a road movie. There's a lot of movement in the frame, outside the windows and all that. But it's about being kind of stuck in a world. And there's hardly any dialogue, too, which people would find rare, you know, from me. So the next film, I said, well, what if this guy burst forth? You know, what if he started speaking?

And what if we let what was it was all about the interiority. You know, that is a very suppressed movie, the first one. And this like, oh, well, what if he opened his mouth and started talking and. what if the camera started moving so i'm really that whole movie trying to get this flowing feel also one take i'm not cutting a lot but i did want this flow and i was able to

For a no-budget film, incorporate, you know, a crane shot, a long steadicam move. We stole a dolly, a lot of dolly track. And, you know, so it had this continuous flow. Continuous flow. This is the criminality that you're talking about. Yeah. Which if you give back, you didn't steal. You borrowed. Right. I borrow. Temporary. Yes. Permission is a... You grant permission to yourself.

Come on, let's face it. It's just property. Who cares? Oh, I want to thank Best Buy formally for helping me make short films. Allowing that two-week return policy. Yeah, we like that. I want to thank Kiko's. I did get caught with my own little...

The thing you plug in that counts your thing. I ended up with one. But that's more. I'm doing that on behalf of the Austin Film Society, making flyers. So I have this parallel life to my own films you're talking about. I was also programming films and showing films and starting a nonprofit. I had a really busy, fun life. It just didn't make one penny, but I was happy doing what I was doing to get back to the underground nature of those first two films. I think I had turned the corner.

Like I think a lot of... writers do when you start to view your own life, what's right in front of you as your own subject matter, like that that was worthy. And that's a big leap psychologically to take for any artist in any level. You study careers and you see the early work of painters or anyone. And it starts off derivative usually. You know, even Mark Rothko, you see the reason, oh, he's doing, he seems of his time.

The first 10 years, you know, it's like, oh, and then you see him kind of find their voice. And, you know, you see it in painting, you see it in music, you see it everywhere. And so it's like, oh, yeah, I was just burning through all this. And primarily in those short films, those 20 short films. I got out of my system so much of the MTV impulse, quick editing, all these things, excessiveness that wasn't really me. I got to do a lot of things that I could just discard.

as, I don't really like that. It's not how I think. That's not what I want to do, but I tried it. So it's not really there for anyone to see. So by the time I'm doing the other things, I really do stand behind those first films as, you know, they're full.

fledged attempts for me to express something that was going on inside of me. Well, let's take a look at a piece of work we can see. This is a clip from the opening of the film Slacker by Richard Langlater. There was this book I just read on the book. Well, you know, it was my dream, so I guess I wrote it or something. But, man, it was bizarre. It was like the premise for this whole book was that...

Every thought you have creates its own reality. You know, it's like every choice or decision you make, the thing you choose not to do fractions off and becomes its own reality, you know, and just goes on from there forever. I mean, it's like... You know, in The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy meets the scarecrow and they do that little dance at that crossroads and they think about going all those directions, then they end up going in that one direction.

I mean, all those other directions, just because they thought about it, became separate realities. I mean, they just went on from there and lived the rest of their life, you know? I mean, entirely different movies, but we'll never see it because we're kind of trapped in this one reality restriction type of thing. Another example would be like back there at the bus station. As I got off the bus, the thought crossed my mind.

you know just for a second about not taking the cab at all but you know like maybe walking or bumming a ride or something like that you know i'm kind of broke right now i should have done that probably but uh just Because that thought crossed my mind, there now exists at this very second a whole other reality where I'm at the bus station and you're probably giving someone else a ride.

I mean, and that reality thinks of itself as the only reality. I mean, at this very second, I'm in that. I'm back at the bus station, just hanging out, probably thumbing through a paper. Probably going up to a pay phone. And I'll say, this beautiful woman just comes up to me, just starts talking to me. She ends up offering me a ride. We're hitting it off. Go play a little pinball.

And we go back to her apartment. She has this great apartment. I move in with her. And see, if I say I have a dream some night, then I'm with some strange woman I've never met. Or I'm, you know, living in some place I've never seen before. See, that's just a momentary glimpse into this other reality that was all created back there at the bus station. And then, you know, I could have a dream from that reality into this one.

that, like, this is my dream from that reality, you know? Of course, that's kind of like that dream I just, you know, had on the bus, you know, the whole cycle type of thing. Man, shit, I should have stayed at the bus station.

That was from Slacker, your second film. I really, I think the movie still really holds up, but it had this odd winding rollout. You made it in the summer of 89. It plays at a theater in Austin, I think, in like 1990. Summer of 90. And then it finds itself as part of this Gen X wave of what was happening. The Douglas Copeland novel.

you know nirvana's never mind eventually the movie lands at the sundance film festival january of 91 which is basically the dream every young filmmaker has and there's a lot i can ask you about in that period. But there's one moment that I want to hold, which is you're at the festival and you see Robert Altman across the room. What do you remember about that interaction? And what did you say to him?

He was there with, I think he had rebooted Tanner. He was there with Gary Trudeau and showing some episodes from his latest. TV thing, which were brilliant television, by the way. And he was just kind of hanging out. I don't. I really try not to be the obnoxious fan. I'm really shy. I wouldn't normally do this. But I kind of got in proximity to see what he was doing. And I realized he was just in between things. So I kind of sidled up to him. Did you have a beer in here?

No, I wish I could have offered a joint or a beer, but it was at a reception. But I just kind of wandered up and I said, oh, you know, Mr. Altman, that scene in The Long Goodbye. Ellie Gould drops a cigarette, you know, whatever, some little moment I said that, you know, that changed my life. And he got a weird look on his face, looked at me and says, I can't be responsible for that now.

You know, it was funny. It was funny. I said, no, I'm here with the film. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. You really inspired me. And he just, he was really nice. And then, you know, cut to six years later, when I joined the Directors Guild, he signed my card. And cut to another decade goes by or so, and I'm agreeing to be his backup director. He was going to shoot a film in Austin.

He passed away right around this time, but he was planning a film in Austin. And because of his age and health, you need a kind of a backup director for insurance purposes. I think he hired PTA. Yeah, Stephen Frears in London, PTA, you know, in. L.A. And then I was going to be his Austin guy. And even though I was kind of busy, a producer came by. He didn't ask me like a producer, hey, you know, will you do this? So anyway, I was like, I have to anything.

someone like that ask me. And I've done that for a few other directors, too. And I hope someone does that for me someday. I'll stand in. Yeah, I'm going to ask you, Sam. I mean, you can ask maybe Jeff Nichols. He seems like a good candidate. I know it's a joke and I know it's a bit...

And I know I'm teasing you by bringing it up. Yes. But the moment where Elliot Gould drops his cigarettes, what about that changed your life? Here's the thing. It's something I would cut out of a movie, frankly. It's an imperfection.

But it's kind of an improv. Altman works much looser than I do. You're more rehearsal based. Yeah, very much. I'm not even sure. Long Goodbye, one of my favorite Altmans. It's either Sterling Hayden or Ellie Gould. Someone drops a cigarette and he goes, oh, you dropped your cigarette. You know how they just kind of...

keep going it was like a real just a real random moment but in my cinematic thinking i was like oh that's so hardcore it's real and it happened but you see people strive for that in such phony ways I don't really believe in real and cinema so much. I believe in the reality of the atmosphere you can create and actors can get to somewhere very real, but never mistake that it's all a big construct. I'm not looking for...

total randomness. But you're trying to approximate something real. Yes, absolutely. That's the effort that goes into it. I want the viewer to think something real is happening in front of them. Real films is not, it's a documentary. It's not that compelling story-wise. So I'm too much of a writer, storyteller to let it just float in the breeze. But I do appreciate the feel.

of of those films that you know you're in the character's reality so that's it's simple that's that's what I'm always going for in the spirit of you embarrassing yourself with Robert Allman I'll embarrass myself a bit here and pinpoint a a moment from Dazed and Confused that I have long thought about and that feels like one of those cigarette dropping moments. It's at the baseball game. Wiley Wiggins, who, by the way, I have gone to...

A whole lot of cities in this country, and it doesn't matter which city I go to, someone somewhere always comes up to me and says, I look like the character from Dazed and Confused. You kind of do, Sam. You have the hair. Put on a ball cap and you'll be Wiley Wiggins on that field. And I say to them, that character is 12 years old. No, he's older than that. 14 years old. 14. He's going to be 15 soon. Tough to be compared to a...

14-year-old. Well, that's what you get for looking so young. Oh, thank you. It's a comment about my youth, not my long hair. I think so. Constant touching on the nose. You do have Wiley Wiggins hair. I do. But he's on the mound. He's pitching poorly so that he doesn't get paddled by the upperclassmen. But the moment comes after the game when the teams shake hands and say, good game, good game, good game, good game. Good game! Good game!

I remember doing that as a kid. No one likes doing that. Every little leaguer in the world. Has to do that. You don't want to. Whether you won or lost. That's why they're going game, game, game. It's ridiculous. It's by rote. But it's a tiny moment. Yeah. And it's a moment that I believe was this close to being cut.

Oh, absolutely. Well, there's so many moments, probably a lot of your favorite moments from that movie were probably close to being cut because I didn't have enough, you know, I was so squeezed. That film, I still have PTSD from the production of that. And that was just my trial by fire. I was suddenly making a... low-budget studio film. And I was just thrown into that world and, oh, lunch penalties and overtime and you got to do this.

tight budgets and schedules, and they cut my schedule right before. So every day at lunch, I have this producer around who's like, well, you know, we can cut that scene because, you know, it doesn't really advance the story. I'm like, what story? I'm not trying to advance the story. I'm trying to find a great moment that...

I just have in my head. I couldn't explain myself. I'm like, I just want to do it because it's the film in my head. You know, it sounds so weird or arrogant to describe it that way. So anyway, I almost came to blows with that guy a few times.

You know, I haven't had that much trouble since. You kept a running diary on set of that film. I wrote it all after. You wrote it all after. OK, well, in August of 92, which is when you're making the movie. there's that day where that scene that I'm talking about is potentially going to get cut. I remember everything. So I wrote, that was a, I poured out this. I was wondering if you wanted to read this for us.

What? You don't want to read it? I don't want to read it. You read it. Why are you forcing me to go back to like the worst moment in my life? This is not the worst moment. This is a telling. This will tell the story. This is after one of those lunch meetings. I walked back to the set after lunch in a daze, as depressed as I've ever been in relation to this project. This is when I would have a lunch break, and I'd have these long-faced...

producer types, even my own, you know, people in my camp going, okay, so we're behind and we have to cut this. I think we can cut that and maybe we can make it through the day. I'm just seeing my dreams just go down the drain. every single day and everybody's against you. It was hell. Don't ever make a movie. It wasn't even my second film. It wasn't even my sophomore slump. It was my third film, and they're treating me like I'd never made a film before. Anyway, that's not what I'm saying here.

Okay, depressed I've ever been in relation to the project. What could have been an interesting film is going to be a compromised piece of shit. And then at the end of the day, I'll get blamed for the underachievement. Fuck them all. I have a frighteningly real urge to just keep walking, get in my car and leave. If they have it in their minds how I should make a film, then maybe they should just do it themselves.

Every director thinks this way, Bob. Since we're at a baseball field, the proper analogy hits me. Always sports metaphors with me, isn't it? They are sending me up to the plate with a 28-inch bat and with two strikes on me, but expecting a home run.

As I walk by, I notice Wiley is on the pitcher's mound working on his wind-up and pitch. Unlike his character Mitch, Wiley's never really played baseball and can't throw or catch at all convincingly. Yeah, Wiley was really not an athlete. For the record, I can pitch.

Okay, good. I played baseball. Put me in, Coach. That's where the comparison's at. Good, good. I've told him that through the use of a stunt double in close-ups and various details, I had to get very clever here, I'll have him looking like Roger Clemens before it's over.

He just has to have a tough, competitive expression. But he still looks fairly awkward, and I know most actors would be embarrassed and have a horrible attitude about being the focus of the set and not be good at what they're supposed to be doing.

take after take. He had all these little leaguers just mocking him, everything he did. But he's nothing but professional and positive. I hear Wiley tell one of his friends, if I have to stay out here all night, we're going to get this right, exclamation point.

This sends a chill through me and brings me back to life. I'm moping around, ready to quit, and then I realize that people who matter are busting ass for the film, for their commitment, and I owe my absolute best to all of them. Things have a way of turning on a dime. Very true. That's indicative of the mental rollercoaster ride of being an insecure filmmaker, making your first big film with a lot of pressure.

and really hanging on to it. But just your own lack of experience and insecurity matched with the pressure of that. And so that was the one I had to survive and get out alive. i always say to another sports metaphor i've used this before in relation to that you know before you fight the title fight in boxing right there's always a match before that it's like oh i won the title four matches ago when i beat that guy you know it's like

people look at the final result and go, oh, but it's like, no, this game was won way back then. And that, for the rest of my life, that film is the one that made or broke me. I could tell, even while it was going on, I was like, okay, I can't.

I just got to double down. So you have to find some inner strength to get through it. It's so funny because it's like a light, it's a comedy. It's a hanging out party, fun movie on the surface. But I just happened to go through hell on it. And the cast had a good time. I think I sheltered them from a lot of the...

turmoil I was going with. But it was just, you know, classic film industry, art meets commerce. You know, that's why people are intrigued with the film industry and how it works, because it's such a collision of those things. So, but I got good at it and I never had those problems again, ever. I've never had a bad experience. And that was not a, you notice they didn't take the film away from me. It is my film. I did get everything I wanted. That's just, I was.

tweaked out about how I had to go about it. You know, so it's been nothing but easier ever since. You're right. Like it's such a easygoing joint smoking film. Absolutely. But what it took to make it. The make or break, the alternate path where you do just go home or you don't get out of the trailer or you just go, you know what?

We'll have the standby director finish it. I'm out. Or just how about the worst would have been, OK, I'll cut that scene. Right. Or in post-production. OK, you can bring in modern music. The compromise. We can play modern music. Over the credits, that'll get us an MTV rotation. We can have a 90s band recreate a 70s song. We can do all that. Yes.

I'm so desperate to work in the industry. I will do all those things. Please give me another opportunity. No, I was like, fuck them. You got to go down. Every film since it's like, if this is my last film, so be it. I'm going down with the ship. but in your early 30s having only made two films yeah why didn't you budge why i'm sculpting this thing to be this way why you know you can't i asked that because you more than anyone yeah

No, the history of cinema is filled with people going, I'll take the scene out. I'll sleep a little bit easier and I'll get this job done and I'll move on. You said. I would rather move on without the movie instead of making the movie the way they want to make it. Well, I think that was me counterbalancing. And they weren't even demands. They were just persistent kind of this thing.

I knew I could outlast them. I was more dedicated. This was my life. This was my life on film. And, you know, this is my future life. This is my past life. So it means a lot to me. And I realized they're on vacation. They're walking their dogs. They got five other films. I just sussed it out. I go, you know what? I care more. I can out. Passion wins out. I can just outlast them.

And I will win here. And that's exactly what I did. This is the athletic. Yeah. Yeah. I'll go. I'll win this in the 15th round. Yeah. Not the second. I'll go 19 innings. De Niro and Raging Bull, you never got me down, Ray. He never hit the canvas. He lost. He got the shit beat out of him, but he didn't hit the canvas. That was my metaphor. I was like, hey, no, no, keep, keep punching. Which also, by the way, is a perfect comp because Raging Bull was one of the earliest films.

that told you that film could be art. Absolutely. I remember seeing Raging Bull. I was in college by then. And I was like, holy shit, film can do that? You know, it can be that. And I kind of related to Jake LaMotta, his environment, that kind of... you know, obsessiveness, jealousy, you know, I was a fucked up 20 year old, you know, whatever mindset you're in at 19 or 20, you know, you're just like, oh, gosh, but I thought it was so beautiful, too. So it really affected me in that way.

in a great way. After the break, more from writer-director Richard Linklater. This episode is brought to you by MUBI, the global film company that champions great cinema. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there's always something new to discover with MUBI.

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Days and Confused is lightly, loosely sort of based on your freshman year of college. And I've heard you say that American graffiti is the upbringing people wish they had, days that the upbringing were stuck with. And it's inspired by your freshman year. And yet you do. High school. You said college. So the film's inspired by your freshman year of high school.

And yet you do kind of resist nostalgia in the movie to some degree. Yeah. I mean, there's a character comes out. Well, they're talking about decades. Well, the 50s, because there was a 50s revival, you know, like 50s are boring. There had been that. And then 60s rock. And she comes out and says it, Marissa Rubisi's character. And she's like, the 70s obviously suck. I was trying to show how just kind of boring. It was really not the era, but it was just the...

When you're stuck, you're just riding around doing nothing. So, but I realized, oh, well, that's cinema. I clearly believe that was cinema. I wouldn't be making a movie, you know, of riding around like, oh, that's life. That's what I'm really trying to capture here. That moment to moment reality.

just the teenage mindset of just trying to fit in, trying to be cool, looking for a party. That's what being a teenager was for me. So I get into a genre, I think, well, here's all the tropes of the genre, but what was it like to me? It was this. It was just hanging out. I want to talk about that because I was a high schooler who saw that film and thought, oh, my God.

That seems like a lot of fun. I had a lot of reverence for it. It did feel nostalgic. But I'm thinking about Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, where you seem to be working in this personal historical present. I think Nathan Heller wrote that in The New Yorker. He said, a kind of Polaroid of the moment developed by a man farther along in time. A Polaroid of the moment. Do you feel like that's an...

accurate description of how you're thinking about time and memory in these films and your experiences? I'm definitely trying to recreate a space and time and mostly a feeling. between people or what the atmosphere was like. You know, teenage people look back and say, oh, that looks like a lot of fun. And it is fun, maybe sometimes more in retrospect. In the moment, you're kind of like...

You might be in a fight any second. You're worried about your girlfriend, whatever's going on there. There's a lot of angst. There's so much angst in the air. uh mixed signals and it's all crazy so i don't know if it's technically that fun you look back and say that was fun my fun started with more like college my college comedy my spiritual sequel today's everybody wants something now that's fun i realized

When I was doing days like, oh, this is really, I'm revisiting a kind of a dark, there's some dark places here that I'm going to. I'd be on set and I'd look up and I'd have these. weird flashbacks, like, oh, gosh, I'm visiting these sorrows of another era. Believe it or not, I know the film's a comedy, but it was dark edge to me.

Whereas once I was in college, I was thinking the same thing. I got into it. I was like, no, no, this was all fun. It was all freedom. We were on our own. It was a blast. It was in the moment. And in my mind, it still was. To me, one's about oppression.

and being stuck and riding in a circle. And one's about freedom, getting to do whatever the fuck you wanted. And that is what I aspired to as a young person. I couldn't wait to get older and just have old people.

out of my face let me do my thing you want to be the old person yeah or just not be encumbered by old people or anyone it's so funny because like on all these films are you know we talked about in the beginning taken from and built with the clay of your life yeah i mean before sunrise i've said it before and i'm i'm the one who'll own up to the autobiographical aspects of my movies because i don't think the film

It's a construct. You're casting. It's this other thing. But I will admit the autobiographical inspirations. to every movie. So in that, yeah, I did meet this young woman. We spent a night walking around Philadelphia. And even while I'm doing that, the curse of the filmmaker, I'm thinking like, oh, this is a movie.

I even mentioned it to her. I was like, hey, this she's like, what? I don't know. Just this feeling we're having. So cut to, you know, five years later, I'm telling Ethan, I want to make a movie about a feeling. It's just this thing. And I think it relates to that quote you said earlier about I've never been around a scientist. Like, that's really dramatic as a human when you're in that. That means everything in the world to you, those moments. So it was just about attraction and...

that energy that runs between people. And, you know, in a way they could have been saying anything. It was really just about that feeling. You call that the filmmaker curse. I guess that's what I want to sit with for a second. This compulsion to make a movie. out of your life does it interfere with the lived experiences happening in front of you like does thinking about how you may transmute a moment in film

take you out of the moment you're living in real life? Inevitably. But yeah, I've always kind of been hyper aware of that. I remember reading Ingmar Bergman. He wrote several autobiographies, but one of them, he speaks of this, even his parents dying. And he was there thinking, oh. This is a scene in a Bergman film. You know, it's like, oh, wow. I recognize. I was like, yeah, what is that? What is that thing? It's so funny. Most of these flashpoint.

emotional, what I'm finding now, those are still, they're youthful. They're under 30. There are these big moments that happen. And now... I find much fewer, but that's a good thing. Like if I were to make a movie now, it's like, oh, a guy hanging out in his library is pretty, there's not a lot of conflict there. There's not a lot of.

There's not a lot of, I'm like, it's kind of a happy person proceeding through life. Like middle age and beyond is much more difficult because it's just the stakes get seemingly lower. I have done these. I have. done these movies. And I don't, as far as I can tell, no one likes them. Last Flight Flying, where'd you go, Bernadette? You know, it's like, no, I'm taking on a certain age and what it's like to get older, be a parent, to suffer loss and to, you know, and even before midnight.

You mentioned it's like, yeah, this is what it's like to have kids and to deal with this shit. It's just not as sexy and romantic, but it's real. So there's a real challenge there to make that compelling somehow. And thinking about.

Before Midnight and especially Boyhood, you've made them pretty compelling. Well, but that's the challenge. You know, that's the hard part. You made a documentary in 2019. I think it's called like a day in the office. And it was like a film you were forced to make by the Pompidou because they were doing this big retrospective. Yes. And they said, we need you to make a film about where you're at in your life.

I know. What an assignment. And I've seen it a couple times. Oh, wow. You're one of 100 people. Yeah. There's a quote in there. I used to think the arts were some kind of calling, but now I think it's just the right therapies for the right conditions. I'm thinking about how you see filmmaking at this point. Like, is it a calling or is it a coping mechanism? That's the revelation I really had in that. And over the years, you interpret your youthful passion

And all this stuff is as some kind of calling, you know, like, oh, I'm really compelled to do this. And you feel chosen. You feel it's a great feeling. But you get older and you see and you know everybody else who's. does it you know all your friends and you kind of analyze why do some people do it why do some why do some people do you know and i'm like oh we're all a little a little crazy we're all a little wired you know spectrumy

Not uncommon in film directors, especially to be, you know, I was kind of realizing, oh, yeah, you've got ADHD, dude. I was the undiagnosed generation. It's like, oh, yeah, that's what allows me to focus. And I know so many others there, you know. ocd asperger's all that so i think that's the under told story of a lot of artists and so i was just kind of having fun with that realizing that in myself it's like oh that's

Yeah, what I thought was a calling is just me. But what's the difference? You know, it's, you know, you know, it's all it's all coping, but it's a it's a very I think it's a very healthy coping. That's why I really love. anyone who's pursuing the arts, I just find it beautiful because they could be doing much more harmful coping. You know, I just realized at some point.

It's just the way I process the world, whether it's coping, whether it's, you know, whatever it is, it's a great way to go through life, you know. So you've always been unwavering. Yeah, I don't I don't really relate to. I mean, I can understand getting depressed because I've, you know, you saw it in that film. I'm kind of at a loss to...

what film I'm doing. I had to make that film for the Pompidou and I make fun of it, but I'm in meetings and getting stupid notes from young executives. I was trying to do this thing. It's just kind of, I try to make it entertaining, but it was just kind of. a moment of down like oh man the marvel universe is taking over where do i fit in this world and you know and then i go from that and get a bunch of films made so i seem to

be landing on my feet fairly consistently, knock on wood. But yeah, there are all these low moments, but I never, I never said I'm done with filmmaking. In that doc, you have that notes meeting. Oh, it's a fictional film, by the way. I mean, it looks like a doc. Of course, of course, of course. But it is recreated. It's scripted. It's recreating the notes process. Anyone who's received notes from a company.

We're not saying Netflix, of course. No, that wasn't Netflix. They would never do that. But anyone who has received creative notes from folks that are not so creative, or they're asking about the stakes of a movie or... The tracking of characters. And why should someone care about them? That's always the big one. It's fascinating because we're in this moment in the industry, post-pandemic, post-historic double labor strike.

The box office is in tremendous trouble. It's had a hard time rebounding. It does seem like people under 25 don't want to go to the movie theaters. There's so many things that we could talk about. But you have this quote in The Hollywood Reporter where they're asking you, do you think someone could have the kind of career you've had in the modern age? And you said, it feels like it's gone with the wind.

or gone with the algorithm sometimes i feel like sometimes i feel like i guess i was born at the right time i was able to participate in what always feels like the last good era of filmmaking

That's one of those questions. You do an interview about something else and it's the last question. I know. And you just kind of throw something out off the top of your head. I'm of two minds. But I want to hold that genuinely with you, not not as a last question. Yeah. And I'm not saying it's our last question, but, you know, you throw something out there and.

I'm like hesitant to be the prognosticator of our industry because I just don't have my ear to the ground. I don't read the trades. I really. blissfully out of it i only know how it affects me like oh i can't get funding for this oh they're out of business but you're also can i give you some credit also like you're also

still making a ton of movies. You have the Austin Film Society, which you're majorly part of. And I'm around a ton of young filmmakers. You offer grants to young filmmakers. Yeah, they're all making their first film. So I do... Worry. Yes. I'm with you. This is something you give a shit about. Very much, very much. The film culture is the thing I care about the most in the whole world because it's the thing everybody talks about. But, you know, everybody always has, you know, just because I.

participated in 90s cinema and people are looking at that like, oh, that was great. It's almost like looking back at the 70s and that was great. It's like I lived there. They kind of sucked. 90s, you know, there was conflict. There was all these problems. Here's how, you know, you go back and read. Pauline Kael from 1969 saying it's over. You know, the studios are now run by bean counters, executive, you know, the corporate guys have come in and take it. Hollywood's always been over.

It's the good days were behind us. So that's just a given. No one ever says, hey, we're in a great era right now. But I've seen it change significantly. three or four times it feels like i just think what they're experiencing now is what everyone's experiencing like the ebb and flow of studios and funding and distribution that's always going what what we're experiencing now

has jumped the track to what everyone's experiencing in every field. You said, oh, young people aren't going to the movies. Well, why is that? They have a phone that they're watching TikToks on. So the attention span has been attacked. The human consciousness is under assault. So the world's changing. And I can't think of one field that hasn't been widely.

you know, affected. Think of journalism, every field. When someone asked me this question, well, how about your industry? How about that industry? How about everything's consolidating? The world we knew of a certain era is... is rapidly having to adjust, change, go away. I don't, you know, I don't know if it's even film now. I think it's this bigger thing, which is depressing. I'm against, you know, by the way, what's the bigger thing you're getting at?

Just technology, you know, social media, technology, this thing that's invaded our consciousness. That's, you know, like boredom. Just take that. And this isn't an original thought, but an important one. Punk rock didn't. These things come out of boredom.

My movies just kind of there's a boredom and a sameness to the real world that you're trying to change. I'm going to write a song. I'm going to do a painting. I'm going to do a play. I'm going to make a movie because I want to shake this up. I want to blow someone's mind. I want to jostle. people and say, hey, look over here, this is fun, but this stuff sucks, you know, the world. But if everyone's kind of content with the world by, you know, never being bored and just being distracted.

with really, really low stakes, not very deep material, what can you do? There's not enough disgruntlement in the right way for appreciation of art or the need. For art, you know, so I don't know. I'm a big read more, be alone, follow your own subjective thoughts, find something and just don't let your.

consciousness be so invaded you know if you want to be original in this world you got to put away everything and find out who the hell you even are what you think when we're talking about our own consciousness i can't help but think about the fact that we're entering this AI age, where they're trying to literally take people's consciousness, take people's work, recontextualize it and spit it out through a machine. You have worked with...

Every kind of newfangled technology, rotoscope, going to DV cam, film, digital. What do you make of this? Like, does it intrigue you? I've always had a more optimistic bend toward. technological tools, you know, digital this and, oh, we can, you know, anything that helps, you know, for post-production or colorization, you know, everything's just a tool to help you express yourself. I guess time will tell to what degree.

It's so weird the way the business world is so excited about AI. And I just think it's because they can replace workers. You know, they can short circuit the labor force or the process needed for certain things. I myself haven't utilized it. I tested it a couple of times and just saw how lame it was for what I could possibly use it for. But I think, as always, I think we are slowly becoming the Philip K. Dick world that he predicted in the 70s.

of ubic his book it's like oh okay so but i just don't believe they're going to be able to fully do it i still believe in it's not going to write the great novel or make the great movie. Good luck. It'll fill in a lot of things. It might be your personal assistant. I look forward to helpful things maybe this technology can do, but I think we're probably a little too paranoid.

You think so? Just a tad, a tad. I've talked to some people who are closer to it, a lot closer to it than me, and it's like they're not going to eat us alive, but I don't know. I don't think AI will ever be able to make a Richard Linklater movie. I'm not worried about it. If I was doing like CSI Miami or something, I think it maybe could write certain scripts to, I'd pick out one TV show.

Because they're kind of rehashes of rehashes. But the fear would be a world that doesn't need originality, anything special anyway. The greater fear is an audience that demands a certain, that wants something. But I have more faith in it.

humans than that. We're looking for novelty. We're looking for something, some kind of connection. I don't know if that can provide that. Well, all I know for certain is that God willing and, you know. 15 16 years there'll be this film that you've been working on merrily we roll that you've been working on in a kind of boyhood way yeah in your office do you still have that photo of of john houston up

I do have that photo. And can you tell people what that is and what that means to you? Oh, there was just a photo. There's John Houston dying of emphysema hooked up to a, oh, you know, a breathing mask because his lungs. He's breathing, you know, he needs help there. But he's making his last film, The Dead, what becomes his last film. And I was like, oh, he's in his...

What is he there? Mid 80s, I guess. Yeah. Even as a younger person, I like that. So, OK, that's how I want to be. Minus the mask. I hope to be. But I just I love that in film is. There's been a lot of great films by older filmmakers, for sure. Look at the age we're living in now. I can name five right off the top of my head that are making films in their 80s. So I don't think it's too far-fetched to think if you get lucky, health and, you know.

whatever wise you you could keep doing this it's i mean it's very much a young person's medium but then it's an old person's medium too so it's a it's a person medium i don't think it matters you know like this like desire you have to keep making work into your 80s and 90s you know you talked about everybody wants some earlier which is kind of based on your freshman year of college and there's a scene right at the end of the movie with the two characters on a river

And the guy, the one character is saying, he's talking about how the Greek myth relates to his own life and Sisyphus and base fall. Is this your first choice school? No, I applied to a few, but this is the best school that also offered me a scholarship. You mean you had to write a bunch of essays and all that fun stuff? Just one. What did you write about? The topic was to take a Greek myth and relate it to your own life.

So you wrote about Aphrodite and being a baseball slut. Kind of. Shit. No. I just took Sisyphus in baseball. I just kind of... You wrote about that for your... How did you even, like... Those two things together. Yeah, I did, believe it or not. I mean, the point of the whole thing is that the gods intend for Sisyphus to suffer, right? Right. Well, my point was that they'd actually blessed them with something to focus on.

something that he could potentially find meaning in. And it's a gift to be striving at all, even if it looks futile to others. Yeah, that's true. I mean, yeah, it's ridiculous to roll a boulder up a mountain over and over and over again, but so is everything else in life.

When you really think about it, especially a game. Things only mean as much as the meaningfulness that we allow them to have. That's where I tie it into baseball. Just accepting whatever comes my way, you know? Good, bad, doesn't matter. What matters is just getting in that groove where the whole world kind of goes away and just doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Yeah, that was me mixing in that myth.

via Albert Camus, probably 50s interpretation, and then in a youthful college-ish mindset of an athlete, you know, but I guess I've always felt that way. you know, that propels you forward when you go, well, everything's perhaps very meaningless, but so why not do everything you want to, you know, what are you waiting on? You know, it can give you strength to see a kind of a lack of meaning in things.

It can kind of empower you as an individual to not see yourself in this meaningful thing. It's like, oh, you know, I've always kind of gone on that side of it. Yeah. The Sisyphus pushing up a boulder is that. And when you're thinking about being in a groove, you on set making movies, is that what you're imagining? Definitely not a boulder. I pushed up a boulder once, which we talked about, you know, that producer I was working with on that boulder movie.

He kind of said, you know, producers and directors. Yeah. And we're cats and dogs. He kind of like a lot of war metaphors, a lot of war metaphors. I'm like, give me sports metaphors. It's a little more fun, a little more entertaining. You know, I was kind of like.

yeah i don't i don't want to struggle i don't want to i just want to you know work hard and and make it work and it's not competitive and that's where the groove you can find the groove in there somewhere and truly enjoy it even though it's you know it's a lot of work, a lot of time, but you can, at the end of the day, you feel fulfilled because you kind of maximize something. So that's a much better feeling than you went through some huge, you know, but anyway, I'm not.

I'm not seeking out like a lot of conflict in what I'm doing. Some people do though. Some people work from that. Again, you know, there's as many ways to do this as there are people doing it. But when you're on set and you're an introvert having to be an extrovert. And you're in the groove. Like, is that the place where you feel most like this is what I'm supposed to be doing? Oh, absolutely.

And making a film to me is not extroverted, you know, it's just where I belong, you know, so that's it. I remember Johnny Carson quote a long time ago, you couldn't be more high profile, come out, do your thing, host a talk show. And he says.

He felt most comfortable there. Like his own life kind of tweaked him out. But that little moment of hosting a show was that 90 minutes or whatever. And I was like, oh, that's kind of weird. Do you think that would be? No, he felt comfortable there. I remember as a kid going, what's that? Make me nervous. do that and i kind of feel the same way you know it's like oh i feel most comfortable rehearsing making a movie that's just

That's just where I feel like I'm not wasting any time, like I'm meant to be. It's a good feeling. It's how I look at it. Arts are great that way. It's all about maximizing yourself. Self-actualizing and everyone you're working with, you're just trying to actualize, manifest the best version of what you're trying to do. So the assignment's pretty simple in the big picture. The assignment for you.

at least the way you've done it, is to excavate the parts of your life and make meaning of it by turning it into a film. And I read that quote from Before Sunset where he's talking about the clay and how you shape it. And I thought we'd end on... That note to the reader that Thomas Wolfe has in his book, Look Homeward, Angel. Do you want to read it? Yeah, start there.

This note, however, is addressed principally to those persons whom the writer may have known in the period covered by these pages. To these persons, he would say what he believes they understand already. that this book was written in innocence and nakedness of spirit and that the writer's main concern was to give fullness life and intensity to the actions and people in the book he was creating now that it is to be published

He would insist that this book is a fiction and that he meditated no man's portrait here. But we are the sum of all of the moments of our lives. All that is ours is in them. We cannot escape or conceal it. If the writer has used the clay of life to make his book, he has only used what all men must, what none can keep from using. Fiction is not fact, but fiction is fact selected and understood. Fiction is fact arranged and charged with purpose.

would turn over half a library to make a single book in the same way a novelist may turn over half the people in a town to make a single figure in his novel this is not the whole method But the writer believes it illustrates the whole method in a book that is written from a middle distance and is without rancor or bitter intention. a beautiful disclaimer. I'm going to piss off a lot of people in my hometown of Asheville, North Carolina. My next book, I'll talk about that.

Angel there. I've been to there a lot. I always look up there and think, oh, Thomas Wolfe. You can see why he was such a hero to the beats and everybody since. He was just ahead of them. And that thing, that leap we talked about, making your own life fodder for your art. You know, there's something very fundamental about it.

You have to make that leap mentally. No one can do that for you. You have to find that in yourself and think, okay, I'm going to go down this path and I'm not going to worry so much about how it affects everyone. I care about what I'm expressing here. And, you know, I might ruffle a feather here or two, you know, sorry. It's not with bitterness. It's with, you know, and he's basically saying he's doing an amalgam of all these characters, but they know who they are.

You know, be friends with a writer at your peril. You know, you're going to end up in their novel. Well, I have to say, I thank you for making that leap. And for, what is it here? Selecting and understanding fact and turning it into fiction. and charging it with purpose which you have done for a long time now and not every film i do comes from the absolute but you you personalize it you take it in and you you you cycle it through your system so

A good story can come from everywhere, but I do find myself pulling from my own life to an unnerving degree sometimes. Well, it's been to our benefit, and I so thank you for it. Well, Sam, it's really great talking with you. And I'm still on the fence if you're spinning your wheels here and you should be doing something. I don't know. I'm having trouble judging you. You're so good at what you do. It would be kind of...

weird in this world to encourage anyone to not do something they're very good at. But I will remind you, I turned down a lot of things I was good at to go out on this other path that no one encouraged me to. That was my own. That was kind of like. So being good at something can kind of be a curse. It can get in your way. I'll throw that out too. Is this a hung jury? Maybe. Maybe. A little bit of a hung jury, Sam.

Only you, again, you and the depths of your being can really decide where to allocate all your time and full efforts and exist in this world at the same time. Another challenge. This is a lot to put on me at the end of a podcast. It is. I've turned it around on you, buddy. You know, you put it on me for an hour plus. I will turn it on you, man. You got to figure it out. You got to figure out what you're doing with your life energy. You got to get on with it.

Well, we have to go, so I'm going to say I thank you for caring. And I appreciate you accepting this invitation to come on because it means a whole lot to me. Well, no, it's wonderful. It's wonderful to talk with you. I'm a fan of your show. I get a lot out of it. Again, as an introvert, you sit there alone. This is my chance to be around smart people. I get something out of because I don't alone in my library so much. Hence the birth of a great medium podcast. Richard Linklater.

Thank you for coming on. Well, really nice spending this time with you.

And that's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode with Richard Linklater, be sure to share the program on social media. Tag us at TalkEasyPod. If you want to go above and beyond, you can leave us a review on Apple. Spotify. I want to give a special thanks this week to Janet Pearson, Ethan Hawke, Nathan Heller, Sarah McRae, and the Academy Library. I also want to thank the teams at Paula Woods Consultants, Detour Film, Netflix, and of course, our guest,

Richard Linklater. To learn more about each of his two new films, visit our website at talk easy pod.com for more episodes with other great filmmakers. I'd recommend Steven Soderbergh, Francis Ford Coppola. and Ava DuVernay. To hear those and more Lemonada podcasts, listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. You can also subscribe to Lemonada Premium, which includes ad-free listening at LemonadaPremium.com.

You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at TalkEasyPod. If you want to purchase one of our mugs, they come in cream or navy. Visit TalkEasyPod.com slash shop. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Genexa Bravo. Today's talk was edited by Roman Richard and Finn Nolan. It was mixed by Andrew Bastola, and it was taped out of Podstream Studios in New York City. With special assistance...

from iHeartMedia. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Krista Shenoy. Photographs today come from Kyle Manning. Research assistants, Austin Kelly. Graphics are by Ethan Seneca. I also want to thank our team at Lemonada Media. I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here on Sunday with author Salman Rushdie. Until then, stay safe and so long.