Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the bob Lefsets Podcast. My guests today are the team behind the documentary Billy Preston. That's the way God planned it. We have three people on the podcast, so I'm going to have everybody introduced themselves individually. Let's start is the order they are on my screen. Paris Barklay, tell me about yourself and how you got involved in this movie.
Well, I'm Paris Barclay. I'm a director, producer, a writer, and generally a very busy guy. And I got involved in this when Stephanie Elaine gave me a call and said, wouldn't you love to do a documentary? And I said what? And she said, no, it's about Billy Preston. I'm making up this converse. There wasn't quite as much fun as that, but nevertheless I was enthralled. I know Billy Preston just like we do a a certain generation, but I didn't
know a full story. And the deeper I got into it, the more I read about it, the more I said, you know, I meant this guy is a parallel person to me, and I identify with him in so many different ways. I got to do this documentary.
How long ago was that conversation?
About four years ago? Now, right, ladies, I think it was about four years ago, is just before COVID. If you can remember those days before COVID where we actually met live and we didn't do zoom and all that stuff.
It was in that time. I have to ask you, say, you see parallels you identify can you expand on that?
Oh, Billy Preston, I had the records, I knew the hit songs, but since I didn't know about his life. It took Daniel Shaw, who was a writer and a great friend of the entire enterprise, who had written a book proposal that really laid out some of the stories of his life and how he developed and part of his genius that we didn't all see. And as I got into it, I realized, Wow, I grew up in
the church, Catholic church versus Baptist. I was a piano player and an organist, not anything like Billy Preston, but you know I did have those skills. I do have those skills actually to this day, and I had a lot of parallels in my life. My brother died at a young age around the same time as Billy Preston's brother died, and I think that was a seminole thing
in his life. I had some abusive situations in my life that I have always remembered, and I have always left a little bit of a dent in my personality which I've been dealing with. And I was an alcoholic and a recovering drug add just like Billy. So just like time and time again, as we went into the instance of his personal story, I felt a parallel. I felt a kinship, and it made it easier for me to be empathetic person and can tell me my audience a little of your history in the movie.
Business, my history in the movie business, Well, I was in advertising before I did this whole thing.
I spent ten years working in advertising in New York, which has really stood me in good stead in the movie business. And I left advertising my job as a creative supervisor to help a new struggling music video company
called Black and White Television. I was the black and my partner Joe was the white, and we created a company that was primarily about getting minorities behind scenes and music videos because there were none for very very few, and all these great hip hop videos in the early nineties were being directed by white men, which we thought was okay, but I think we could do better, and eventually I got all Kool Jay as a client and did ten videos with him, including Mamison Knock You Out,
which threw the attention of the people on the West coast. They said, this guy's a storyteller. He's not just doing a video, He's telling a story, which led to my first job in television, and from there I pretty much have stayed in television other than a couple of departures. I did a feature film called Don't Be a Menace to South Central Audrickeye or Juice in the Hood, which
is a cult favorite. And you know, I've done some television movies, but primarily I've done series now one hundred and ninety two of them, most recently The Night Agent, which is on now Brilliant Binds. I did The Menenda Story and Domer Monster, lots of shows, and from there I've learned that there's a story and then there's a story, which is part of the reason why Billy Press was both a challenge for me and of the light.
Okay, where are you from?
Originally Chicago, Illinois, which is a great place to be from Okay to Chicago. There's the South Side and there's the suburbs.
Where did you grow up?
I was in the South Suburbs, which was, you know, nice, but a little ghetto. It started out, as I grew up as a very nice suburban suburb. By the time I left, it was drugs and coke and everything and criminality. And now the town that I grew up in is the murder capital of the South Suburbs, which is something that they hold a great deal of private.
Stephanie, it looks to me like, wow, that's a title. Okay, and this is gonna sound very general, But to what degree have you experienced racism in your life and career and has that affected you or held you back? That's a deep question. I have experienced some racism, but not as much as some friends of mine, to be honest. Part of the reason why I had success fairly early. And once you're successful, color seems to sort of fade away. But when you're struggling, it's a very important thing. This
is a black director. I don't know if we need you know, it becomes a thing. It becomes a thing that makes people decide to work with you or not. I dealt with much more homophobia.
Than I dealt with actual racism in my career, and that has been a struggle. It led me to coming out quite early, unlike Billy Preston, to be openly gay seem to be the best solution to me. So I would say homophobia top racism when it comes to obst Okay, did you go to.
College after being in South Chicago? Yes, I did. I went to a little known college called Harvard, which is in Boston area, which took me five years to graduate from because A I did go to class, and B I was much more interested in music and theater than I was in the many great professors that I had. And if I had it to do all over again, I would certainly go to class. And so if you're at Harvard, now go to class, because you'll wish you did when you're my age. Yeah, I went there, and
then then I went to New York. And how did you end up in advertising? I just thought it.
Would be easy. Also, I love Bewitched, and Bewitched was filled with Darren Stevens, and you know, they always had martinis. Samantha was making him a martini as he came home and it just made advertising look so delightful and as you can tell him fairly talk to it him pretty glib.
And so it became a good job for me. And also I could do my musical you to work at night because the job was relatively easy, and I could then work on musical theater and shows in New York, which is really what I wanted to do.
Okay, And how do you know, when did you meet Stephanie? Wow? When did I first meet Stephanie? A very long time.
I think we were children back in the day. She's a producer. I've always admired She produced a lot of things that I thought were essential viewing for people, especially for black people, but for everyone. Her work with John Singleton and bringing him to the four was a very big deal. So she was a sort of celebrity.
In my world.
And her husband, Stephen Bray, is a friend of mine, and we've met socially and so we never we hadn't worked on anything together before. We just knew each other and had a mutual admiration society.
So, Stephanie, where are you from?
I am from New Orleans.
New Orleans, Okay. What was growing up in New Orleans.
Like well, I spent a couple of years in New Orleans, but my father, who was in school, drove us to California in nineteen sixty five, so I pretty much grew up in LA. I spent the summers in New Orleans with my grandma, and.
We're in La Miracle Mile, Miracle Miles. So what was it like growing up there? And this was before or after the watch riots that you give this.
We came the summer of the riots, so I think it was in July or Yeah, it was pretty it was a big deal, I remember.
But you know, we grew up in Wiltshire area.
You know, I went to Catholic school, like I don't know if Paris went to Catholic school when you were young.
I did, of course, so in my high school too.
Yeah, and I went to all girl Catholic High school in Inglewood Saint Mary's And uh yeah. My father is a was a biochemist. My mother's an educ cater. But I just fell in love with books. I fell in love with reading, and I fell in love with movies at a very very young age. So and I didn't even know there was a movie business, to be honest, I didn't know what a direct. I didn't know anything except for when I read The Godfather and then saw it on the screen, or when I read The Exorcist
and saw it on the screen. I just there was a connection there. So I went to USC, I dropped out, moved to Hawaii.
I waited a couple of questions. One what's better Godfather one or two?
I don't know.
One is so classic, but two is even better.
I agree. Okay, when you went to USC, I mean USC is legendary on the West Coast for film studies. Were you in that division?
No, I was pre law I was I was in I was yeah. I was taking and ethics and political science and things that I had no idea.
I was very unhappy.
I went to see the counselor and he said, well quit and I said really, he said yeah.
So I dropped out and I moved to Hawaio.
How long did you go before you dropped out? And what did your parents say?
I was I went for a year and a half. My mother cried. My father I can't remember what he said, but I just I was so unhappy. So I moved to Hawaii, which created a lifelong connection with Hawaii. It's still my happy place, and I realized that I actually could be in the arts. Because my parents like a lot of folks law, medicine, smart things, you know, things, professional things. There were no artists in my family. So then I realized I was transferring. I transferred to UCEE
Santa Cruz, which was very hippie dippy. I got a degree in poetry, which was even more hippie dippy.
And then I followed that by going to Cowarts for dance.
Okay, ground producer might when you're finished with Cowlarts for dance, what year are we in nineteen eighty three and you graduate from cal Arts?
Do you pursue a career in dance?
I did for a second, but then I got pregnant, and so.
Well, hold on a second, wait a second, assuming that baby was born, who is the father of that child?
The father of the child was a fellow UC Santa Cruzian who I ended up marrying and have two kids with, and then divorced and then married Stephen Bray, who, by the way, thanks you for your colonoscopee piece.
Well, before we got to Stephen Bray, how long were you married to the first husband? Ten years? Ten years? And what was he up to? Who is he?
He's a director, He's a writer director.
He has a movie now on streaming called I Don't Love You Anymore. And he's a writer director. He's a fabulous guy. He's my best friend. He got married at my house, at me and Stephen's house at our house. He lives walking distance from me, and we just made a pact when we got divorced that we were always going to be friends, and we've stayed friends.
Then what are your two kids up to?
My youngest son is Emmy nominated editor for sixteen nineteen. He lives in Brooklyn. He's going to Hunter College to get a master's in experimental filmmaking.
I don't know.
And my oldest son is a writer, director, actor from He was on Insecure for six years as an actor. But he just directed the remake of Don't Tell Mom The Babysitters Day. He's also a TV writer and he has my two delicious granddaughters.
Okay, and how do you meet Stephen Bray?
This was my only blind date?
Who set you up?
We got set up by three different people who didn't know each other, but who knew us and said you guys would be perfect. We met in the middle of one of my movies because he was making the color Purple on Broadway, and Donald Byrd, who's a very famous choreographer who was doing the choreography, said, and who I dance with, said, you guys have to meet. We met, we had dinner, and we've been together twenty years.
Okay, so you have this parapatetic lifestyle. How do you end up in the entertainment business.
Well, when I was pregnant with my first son, Wade, the only thing I knew how to do was read. And then I heard there was a job called reader, and I thought, perfect, I'm a reader.
I can read.
And my first job was at CIA in the story department. So I read books and then wrote up.
Robert, Let's start a little erway. How'd you get the job at CIA?
I knew one person in the movie business, my first husband's father's friend, Mike Glick, who was a line producer, and I don't know. He said, well, there is a story department. He called. I had to call every other week for three or four months to get that job, until finally they were like, okay, stop calling.
Take the job. It was the best job ever because.
I learned how the written word gets looked at by a reader, which is what I was, and broken down into the possibilities of being a film So and this is when there were no computers, there were typewriters. So I'd read a book, I'd go into the writing room and just bang out the synopsis in the comments and then walk it upstairs to Mike Ovitz or you know, Rick Mesita or whoever was you know, requesting my coverage.
And I was quite good at it.
So the next step, the next step is I went from that job to being a professional story analyst at twentieth Century Fox. And my mentor person who I credit with really opening the doors was Amy Pascal, and Amy Pascal hired me when she went to work for Dawn at Warner Brothers. Was Warner Brothers, Yeah, And I went
along as a reader. And then when I read for a year, they promoted Dawn promoted me to a creative executive, and five months later I was reading to replace myself in the story department with a young guy named John Singleton who really didn't want the job. He really just wanted to talk about this script he'd written, Boys in the Hood.
Okay, just to be clear from my audience, What does the story analysts do?
A story analyst is basically a reader, a reader of books, of articles, of screenplays, and then once you read it, you condense it down.
To a two or three page book report.
Basically it's a synopsis and then a page of comments how well will this translate into a movie or television show?
So how does John Singleton walk in the door?
John Singleton is a senior at USC and he already had an agent, believe it or not, a CAA agent, Brad Smith. And because he had won the Nicholson screenwriting competition two years in a row, and the one that he had just won for was Boys in the Hood, So he was you know, USC is a school in town. They matriculate folks and really try to place them and
find jobs. He'd heard that, you know, we were looking for a reader position through some friend of his, and showed up in my office because I was tasked with replacing myself in the story department.
So how did Boys in the Hood get made? Boys?
And the hook got made?
Because once I read it, I flipped out and I had the big Oprah Winfrey aha moment and it was like, this is why I am here. It was just very clear to me that I had to get this movie made. So I went to every single executive at the time. It was like Michael Nathanson and Lorenzo Debana Ventura. It was all in dawn, and I said, we have to make this movie. And then one week later the company was sold down, was fired.
John and Peter came in.
We moved all the way from Warner Brothers, where we were sharing the lot with Warner Brothers, to Culver City and.
Frank Price was in charge.
This all happened within like a month, and so I finally waited until everybody had read it. I put it on Weekend Read and the next day I came into that room where everybody promised they were going to be supportive, and they all trashed it except for Amy and Frank. And Frank said, we're going to make it, and we any did and I said, oh, but by the way, John's going to direct it. And John had never really directed anything except for a terrible music video, which I'm
sure Paris would have borne apart. I said, we're not showing this to anybody, We're just saying you're directing.
Okay. There are many steps between a good idea and a good story and a good screenplay to a good movie. So that movie came out lauded everywhere, successful commercially. Was it like your first time and this looked easy or exactly?
Bob, I was like, this shit is easy. I'm just going to do this again. I've never had.
That level of success in a movie that I've I mean I've had I've had successes, but never that.
And that was nineteen ninety one.
So there you go.
Okay, the thirty five years that have ensued, give us your greatest hits, greatest.
Hits, hustle and flow. Dear White People.
I produced the Oscars twenty twenty Oscars, which was pretty fabulous. I also did the TV show for Dear White People. My last movie I love. My last movie is this movie, which I love, love, love Billy Preston. But right before that, I did a beautiful movie called Exhibiting Forgiveness. So I produced twenty thirty I don't know movies and a little bit of television and really spent at least a quarter of my time working on inclusion and belonging and diversity
within the industry. Right now, I'm the president of the producer's guilt. I've been president for four years. I've been on the boards of Women in Film, Film, Independent, Cast and Crew. Right now I sit on the board of American Cinema Tech. Our mission is to save theaters that save that movie experience. So I'm a grandmother mother.
Yeah, my mother, she was still alive. She heard all that. She would say, well, what else have you done?
And I'll tell you. I read a children I do want to say.
I wrote a children's book for my granddaughter called Who's in Charge About Body Autonomy? And it's it's It's Penguin published it. It's doing very well.
Okay, just so I don't mangle it. How do you pronounce your last name?
Helene?
That's what I would have said. I'm not good with French, but okay, Gene, Am I correct in saying your name is Jeene Elphon Festa.
Yes, yeah, you're fine. You could call me Jane or Gene.
Okay, wait, wait, why three names?
Because my my my name is Elfon. I was born with Elfon, I married a Festa.
Okay, so it's not a middle name or something.
So my middle name is Royce.
So how some people use you know, both names other people don't. How did you decide to use it?
Because my parents were so influential in my life in a very very positive way, you know, even this film, how this film came about. They were both very, very big into music and had a massive record collection. They are they, you know, really from relatively meager beginnings, from both from Brooklyn, uh in a very My mom lived in a tenement building and my dad lived in forty second forty second in Utrecht. I hope I had that correct my Brooklyn nights. And they dreamed big and they
pushed me out. I was I was a stutter growing up. They pushed me out into just living what I wanted to live, and it was very I was very lucky. I'm the youngest of three kids, and I was very lucky.
Okay, you say they came from humble beginnings. What did they end up doing for money?
My dad wanted to be a saxophone flair, but he ended up going to med school and became a p diatrist and a quite well known one in Pacific Palisades when Pacific Palisades was like Mayberry RFD. And they bought a fourteen hundred square foot house and actually They started in apartments and then eventually bought a fourteen hundred square foot house where it would have still be standing had the fire not burned the whole town down. But yeah, they were, and my mom sold real estate. My mom
sold real estate before that, she did books. She did that, you know, taxes and things like that.
Okay, So were you born in the Palisades or living in that area?
Born in born and raised in Santa Monica. But yes, Pacific policies. I am a native Californian.
Okay. So you go to school, and then where do you go to college?
I went to Wright, went to Pali High. I went to the Fashion Institute of Design Merchandising, where I learned marketing and factoring and selling friends lines. I wrapped a children's clothing line for years called step by Step, which was in direct competition with with a Spree. I don't know if anyone remembers children's.
But we took over Slippers roller Disco at Losiena against Sannic.
Yes they did. I know, it was sad. I remember when that happened. And they also took over place here in Hollywood that I remember. Yeah, Well, I didn't wrap a spray I reapped side by side so and and it was it was a really fun time in my life creating. And I too got married very young and I'm still married. He'll be married forty years this September and have two kids. And yeah, so that was that part of my life. And then I had another part of my life.
Okay, what does your husband do for a living?
He's an insurance agent.
And how did you meet him? Yep?
Really, my mom fixed us up on a date when I was seventeen, in eleventh grade.
And it's lasting all this time.
It's last.
So what's the keto of forty year relationship?
You know, forgiveness for sure, and allowing the person to grow, just allowing it and know that there be know who you are so that you're comfortable.
That is key.
And knowing that that person needs to do what they need to do and they allow it. And that is what we have always done.
Okay, so you started fit.
Fit them fashions?
How does that lead to Billy Preston?
Well, it was another life. I mean, certainly, factoring is very similar to doing do factoring in a movie. You know, you're looking at trends, you're looking at what is the fact factoring is it's very similar to what we do when we're looking at you know, you're like thinking about pre selling your film. Maybe not so much as it is with jocks, although at the very beginning we did want to always test the marketplace to see whether or
not something would sell. So, Uh, at the beginning when of this business, that I learned from Nigel Sinclair Whitehorse Pictures. Prior to that he was doing this company, his documentary division was Spidfire Pictures that did Bob Dylan, No Direction
Home and George arsenaling Material World. Uh, that I had learned, I took the tools that I learned at the Fashion Institute, a design merchandising with me to filmmaking by knowing how to market something, knowing what people pullp I guess pulling on your heartstrings, and really becoming committed into a project. And when I mean committed, it's it's it's a passion. And if you don't have have that passion for a project, you cannot bring people to it. How else to describe that?
Okay, just to close this loop is in factory Basically, you know, in the fashion business it takes so long to get paid if there's a company that will buy your receipts at a.
Discuss exactly exactly. Now, that's not exactly the same thing as a business that we're that with film business, but you certainly are going to factor in what it is that you think that you could sell something for and what do you think you could make it. Oh okay, so it's still similar.
How do you get from the clothing business to work in the film business.
Yeah, I had a lot of life in between. I had a family, I had kids, I had uh life and death. It has a happy ending, but it didn't. You know, my my husband was very ill for quite some time. When the world became chaotic, I went and felt I needed to control things. And I went and thought, well, you know what, what's going to help me. I'm going to go into stand up comedy. And I went to
stand up comedy just to give myself a release. I ended up meeting a lot of people who actors, started taking acting classes, did a couple of commercials, obviously nothing major, and and I went to UH to. I actually was much better at selling my friends uh you know one act shows than I was at anything else. I had met a group of players who had a who were trying to put on a play. And I produced this play for years and tried to get it onto Broadway.
You know.
It was that is really how I came to be.
Okay, so you're selling this play. What's the step after that?
The step after that was the people that I literally brought intooth and nail. One of my friends and neighbors was Missus Nigel Sinclair, Pat Sinclair, and they came to this play. And in the meantime, I was also doing commercials, so I was I was also meeting directors. I brought them to the play and I was trying to pitch a story about this man, George Moses Horton, who was the first African American male whoever was published in the United States of America. And I could not get the
script off the ground. That brought me into a lot of rooms, and that is I hopefully can make that movie one day. And that is what I have a lot of KTA and I pick up phones and just call people. And I literally got people like Jimmy Iven to show up to this play, and I got, you know, a Christiemonian to show up to this play. A lot of you know, people at C a. It was quite remarkable. I was very proud of myself.
Okay, that play fizzles, ultimately, it does, So what's your next job?
My next job was putting this action into the into film. My Nigel was talking to the Weekend, you know, just on the street. I don't remember how it actually came to be. I think it was, Oh, I know what
it was. I was here, I was at the offices and and you know it was I was pushing George Moses Horton and he had said that Dave Grohl had called the office to have them do a documentary about the making of the Foo Fighters, and I chimed in and literally pushed my way into that project, quite literally, and I felt that was that was definitely my my shove into the room, and I was brought in on that team.
Okay, approximately three decades ago. Bring us up to today.
Let's see, after the Food Fighters we rolled into I had forgot. I did get a first look deal at Exclusive Media. A lot of failed things and a lot of great things we did. The Beg's had them mend a broken heart. I'm trying to go in order here. We did the Beatles eight days a week. I was part of that team Pavarotti with Ron Howard directly.
Okay, okay, you do all those things. What's your special sauce, what do you bring to these projects?
I think I'm really good at team building at the great with client relations, developing trust, that is I think a key thing in this world and in this business. I organize the the the basic research and and if you're able to go on a deep dive, I'm very because I'm dyslexic. I think I do these research documents that are very easy, easy to deep dive in it, you know, with lengths and things, so you can kind of go in and out of this of somebody's life
and not get bored. So I think that's my expertise. And of course because that helps engage director.
Okay, let's get back to the Billy Preston movie. Where does it start? Now? Everybody's involved, everybody get participate. Where does it start?
Starts with Jeanie. So yeah, it started the first time. I mean that I can't It started the first time sitting down in the living room when I was a young kid and listening to my parents' record collection and my dad loved Sam Cook and anything Sam Cook loved my dad loved he had Billy Preston's sixteen year old soul.
And where I grew up in the East Coast, that was meaningless on the East Coast. Your father was a white guy in Pacific Palisades. How does he even know about that record?
Well, he was a he loved Heartlem and he loved you know. When I lost my dad when I was like twenty six years old. He was a massive influence on my life. And he used to recall me was regale us. It was very legendary with stories about him taking his saxophone and waiting for musicians to come out of the Apollo Theater so he could play with anyone, and sometimes he would and sometimes he couldn't. But he ended up going to pu Dietary School and doing his
residency in Heartlem and absolutely loved Harlem. They fell into Pacific Palisades. You know, that is a murky story, what Pacific Palisades. They were also, you know, very involved in theater in their own in their own Jewish group. So one of their friends was Virginia Munchin, who was an actress and her father, her parents. I'm named after her, So that's why I know her name. Her father was Royce of Royce Hall. That is my real mental name,
Geene Royce. She had found this little town called Pacific Palsades, rented a tiny apartment for them. They left the same year that the Brooklyn Dodgers left four Pacific Palisades. But that's how you know fifty I think it was earlier than fifty eight.
Continue whatever, But anyway, anyway, and and you know, then sadly, my dad was in the City of Hope because he had he had he came down with tuberculosis, so what we.
Didn't know whether or I was going to live or die. But his love for music was incredibly deep. And my parents were very, very liberal, very well. Ready you didn't know they came from Brooklyn. They really took that accent out. They sounded like they were from the Upper West Side. They just were you know, my mom looked like June Cleaver, but her her politics were incredibly left, very very good.
Just for one stay second. Do you have any siblings?
I do?
How many?
I have an older sister and older brother. I'm the youngest of them.
You're the youngest, So what are they up to?
My brother and sister went to Ucla, my sisters in marketing, and my brother's a lawyer.
Okay, so you grew up with all this music in the background. How does that bring us to wanting to make a movie about Billie Preston.
Well, I always loved music, and I've always loved storytelling, and I've always loved the movies. And uh, when you know, you know, you could ask my business partner here, Nigel Sinclair. I loved Billy. I love Billy Preston. His story is sad and sweet. And he was an LA native or not from when I before I did all the research, I thought he was born and born in in in LA but he was actually born in Texas. But his
formative years were here in Los Angeles. So we knew about the good stuff and we knew about the not so good stuff, the complexities of his life. We uh, this was he was always on this list that I've got in my head of the artists that I've always wanted to tell their story because it's a because it's heartbreaking, but it's also beautiful because he did he touched upon so many genres in music.
Is this your job such a that you're always looking for material or did you have a special identification with Billy Preston from his heyday in the seventies.
I had a special connection to him because I heard him, because it was because of his seeing him on that I remember. I remember sitting on the floor watching that first SNL and I remember my dad humming nothing from nothing means nothing. I just it was ingrained in me in a beautiful way.
Okay, this movie actually got made. The nature of the movie. Business people are juggling projects. So what was the next step? You had this idea, it was on your list. How'd you gain traction?
Here's what happened. I'm driving home after a really long day and I get a phone call from my partner coming back from the mclark tunner going through pch And and he said, I you won't believe. I just got off the phone with our friend Gilly, who got off the phone with his friend Daniel Shaw, who wrote this book Proposal about Billy Preston. And he reads me the first page, which is amazing first page, and I wish ahead in front of me, I would have read it
to you. But it reads like, uh, you know, like a Zelig type of character who has been in a weaven woven inside all of these woven through all of these incredible people, and and uh and I said, okay, great, so it's a great book proposal, but I don't have it. How are we going to get to the powers that be who are running his you know, who are in charge of his leg you know his the share that people were running his life right And we knew he had passed away already. So I didn't know his manager,
but Daniel did. Daniel wrote this, which I did not listen because it takes me three times to hear hear something before I, you know, comprehend it. I did not hear that Daniel Shaw and Joyce Moore, who is his Billy's manager, had written this, this, this book proposal together.
Just to be clear for those weapons in the movie. He is the wife of Sam Moore, of Sam and Day.
Correct.
Okay, so now you know there's the manager. What happens then?
So I we I mean literally the next day we spoke to Daniels, We had a phone call with Joyce Brett per cursed cursory phone call with Joyce, and then I want to build my team. All I'm thinking was there's a person that I no shit, this isn't dribble. There's a person that I always wanted to work with, and when you're building a team, you want to build. I just thought this person would be an amazing person.
And her name was Stephanie Elaine. And we cold called Stephanie Elaine with this idea to see what she thought of it, and then the connection was just amazing.
Okay, it's twenty twenty six.
When was that conversation twenty end of twenty twenty.
Relatively recently under the circumstances. So you call Stephanie and how does a conversation go?
It went amazing? It was like it was, it was great. I mean, Steph, do you I mean, I just remember feeling the first time I spoke to you, feeling like you hear me. It was almost like what I can get emotional. It was almost like the way Olivia said, I'm gonna cry. I never thought of it. That's a good question. It was almost the way Olivia said that George said of George and Billy, Yeah you saw me, Stephanie saw me, and yeah.
Okay, Stephanie, we'd established you don't have much of a resume and no one calls you, so you know, people are working for you morning the night. What about this problem? Jack said that you wanted to give it your attention.
That's really funny. Nobody calls me. Is this is the life I live. Nobody calls me, And the.
Wait, is it because they email you or they don't contact you.
No, it's because I generate a lot of my own stuff, you know what I mean. It's and also, like you were asking Paris, do you experience you know, racism and you said homophobia. Well, sexism is very real in Hollywood, okay, And so as a black woman, I am pretty much on my own, to be honest. And so I got this call from Jeanie and I had met with them before, maybe a year before that, because they were trying to do something with Billy Holliday, who's also like my all
time favorite. So when she called me about Billy, first of all, I knew their reputation. I knew that White Horse was the shous nizzle when it comes to music docs, right, And I had never made a doc. I didn't know anything about making documentaries. And then you know, Jeanie and I have girl crush, so we we just we just hit it off. And I was like, and also I
grew up the same I'm saying Age's Paris. You know, I grew up in la in the seventies, dancing in the Baldwin Hills basements to his music, right and so, but I didn't know his story.
I don't even think I knew he.
Was the fifth Beatle until I read Daniel's proposal and I saw, wow, there's a lot here, and so you know, I said, okay, I'm in. What's the first thing we need? And Nije and Jeanie said a director.
So I was like, okay, wait when he isn't the first thing?
You need money?
Actually, no, you need the director and the concept to go get the money. So we needed a director to sery.
Okay before we tut time out, before we get to the director. Genie, when you contacted Stephanie, what were you exactly looking for?
What was your team mate? Team leader?
Really? A goal?
My goal is I everyone you know we've got We did. I can't believe I forgot to mention the Apollo Theater.
We did.
My partner and I, Cassidy Hartman. We here at white Horse. We shepherd this project about the Apollo Theater. The most important thing about a subject especially documentaries. Is you need to have the right storytellers for the right subject. So you can't have bluntly two white girls telling the story about the Apollo Theater in Harlem and and and be and have it be authentic. You could try it, but it's not gonna it's not going to go over well. And and I just was a.
Diversity for sure. Yeah, I know.
But it's a matter of it's a matter of of not it's it's a matter of building the right team. And there's no question that you are a team leader, Stephanie. You're a team leader. You look at things in they in they, You're always looking at positives before anything, and you're always pushing people out. You're making your other team members better than they than they think they are. And that's a unique gift that you have. That's a unique gift.
Okay, that's why you contact Stephanie. Stephanie established. The next step is a director. So, ay, how fast does this project moving be? How do you get a director?
So typically make a list, right, make a list of directors. To be honest, Paris was at the top of that list.
And how wait, wait wait, talking about how did you know of Paris?
I knew Paris because obviously everybody in Hollywood knows Paris. He was the you know, he's the most celebrated TV director ever. He was the head of the DGA, you know, as the head of a guild. You know, you respect. That's a big job, you get. You know what that means that person is at attention that big job. Yeah,
it's a big job. And it's and you do it for free, by the way, so you know, it speaks to integrity, It speaks to commitment to the whole, you know, and in his case, the whole of directors, in my case, the whole producers. But and also he'd been hanging out with Steven because they were talking about doing some kind of Studio fifty four musical at one point, and he was already in the studio. I was like, yeah, And I knew that he knew music, and I knew that he was gay, and I knew that he was smart.
And so I was like, what about Paris? Since they said can you get him? Can you get to him? I was like, yeah, I think so. So I cold called Paris, and you know, typically what happens is you meet I said, would you like to meet? He said yes, So we sent him some material and then we've set this meeting. And typically when you're meeting, you're interviewing, right,
you're interviewing somebody. And and so we get on the phone on the zoom with Paris because now it is COVID and we're on the zoom, and he just starts talking to us about all the parallels and his connection and emotional connection and pretty we're like on the verge of tears. And then at the end he goes, Okay, I'm in and we're like, what wait, what happened just now?
Did we just get a director?
Because typically you well like that was great, we'll get back to you whatever whatever, But it was so much exactly. But it was that kind of meeting that just felt kiss. It just felt right, you know. And so we hung up and we're like, I think we have a director. And that proved to be really auspicious because when we then put our package together to go out to raise the money, Paris is who they want to hear from. And so Paris literally had investors in Tears.
Oh don't forget chance.
Oh and Chao.
Yeah, we brought chaaw in who had also worked with but it was really Paris who sold this thing.
You know.
He he was so honest and so connected to the material that literally on the phone, investors were like, I'm in. You know what I mean, like you Typically they'll say, yeah, we'll think about it, we'll talk to our people, but we had to say I'm in.
Okay, how much money were you looking for?
I think it's typically like a couple of million dollars, you know, that's like, yeah, the which are like, okay, a.
Couple million dollars. Where did you find your list of investors? How many were there? How many said yes? Or how many said why?
I love this?
Because white Horse Pictures knows everybody. So basically like white Horse has a list of people that have invested and been paid back, you know, like what a notion. So they trust white Horse as the as the purveyors of excellence in documentaries, especially in music docs, and so we just went to their list.
And by the end of going to the list, we had the money.
And we have it.
We have usual film funds that we funders that we've gone to in the past, and the film funds so be roade, and we've got these other film funders. Chicago Media Group and uh, Jenny Raskin of don't tell everybody, don't tell everybody.
That's that's right.
Okay, okay, so yeah, that's that's true. You're right, Eric.
How many of these were individuals and how many were consortiums funds?
It was a mix, right, it was a mix.
Yeah, it's a mix. It's a mix, definitely mix, lovely mix, really nice mix.
How much did you get from each since this is in the past, Well, like your biggest.
Adventurer, some people can put in we know a million to fifty thousand.
That was a big mix.
Yeah, okay, it is the film business, I know.
But it's a documentary film business.
The right, the type of people who you know were sophisticated. No that it's not easy to get your money back.
It's not.
This is what it's so crazy, which is and I asked Genie this when we're on our stump and you know, doing our panels like Bill, why did we think we could get the money for Billy when if you say Billy Preston, only people of a certain age really know who he is. Oh, you know, nobody's like, oh Billy presdent eleve him. You've heard Billy Preston so many times you don't even know it because you don't know what
his contribution is. And so we thought we were selling it as like the Zeleig of the seventies music scene across all genres, you know what I mean, or or you know and and that, And it was hard because people don't know who he is.
But it's by association.
It's almost like Billy's life, you know, it's by association that we I think we're able to persevere, you know, m Yeah, and.
You know, of course we got you know this before you even do well, before I even would have called Stephan your called parasift to make sure that there's enough archive, that there's enough tools to tell the story. So you know, that is it. That's a that's a you know, discovery.
Okay, since you've made a number of films, what percentage do the people get their money back?
We are people get their money back in all of our films?
Wow for us? Wow was right? So the money participation, what percent of the one hundred percent does the money.
Get I really don't I don't know. I don't know that answer, but they they every what's the percentage of the people who get say, that asked me the question one we're taking.
Okay, let's say the film cost a million dollars. Let's say it made the money back. There are other profit participants besides the money. Okay, well what you recoup? How's the money split?
Water It's very trans Yeah, it's a waterfall. It's very transparent. It's like a you know, it goes into an ascraal account. Everybody sees everything. It's very you know, camera. So it's very very transparent.
Let me put it this way. I put five dollars into your movie. The movie is recouped. I got my five dollars back, okay, and I'm looking for profit participation. Well, there's a director, there's this that the other they're all gett ignored slice.
Typically investors own fifty percent and filmmaker's own fifty percent.
Okay, that goes there. Okay, so now you got your money. What's the next step.
We got to make our list?
Well, we got to make the movie.
Yes, we got to make out this between research and actually making that list of people that we feel will deliver the story, we'll tell the story. And what's crazy is you don't even know what the story is until you start doing the research and talking to people, and.
Okay, there was a lot revealed in the movie that I didn't know all They had lines if you live through that in your fan your no, Yeah, when you started the movie with this Daniel shaw a book, what percentage of the information was in that book?
Honestly, I went back to the original sort of treatment we did really just based in the book, and I'd say seventy five percent of the story was there. Would't you guys agree about seventy five percent? But it's the twenty five percent that came out of the interviews that surprised us. That David Flesh and the bones that made it real.
We thought, or I thought, at one point we were telling the story of a closeted gay man who when he got to be a certain age, came into his identity and authenticity. But then we went back and everybody's like, oh no, he was gay, like everybody knew it. So he wasn't really closeted in his personal life. He was
more closeted in his professional life. And that was that was very interesting that there were so many people that loved him, knew him, knew he was gay, and didn't have like Olivia says, wasn't a big nobody.
Nobody thought about it, Okay, but the film says that he was tortured about it.
But before we go that far, you have seventy five percent of the information you have the money. Tell me about the process of gaining the additional information and how you're going to tell the story. Well, first we oh, sorry.
The first first thing that we do so so that our directors prepared and our writers prepared, is we do a little interviews on a zoom and we just talked to people and just just say. It's almost like it puts a pre interview before we put them on camera. And you interview a lot more people than you end
up using in your in your movie. I mean, Pavaratti, it was like, you know, sixty five people we interviewed, we had twenty if we had fifteen maybe, And with same with Billy Preston, you know we had we interviewed fifty some odd people and we had.
Okay, where did the list of fifty people come from? We made it up?
Yeah, I know the research.
Okay, Billying Preston's been gone for twenty odd years, but everybody involved is not young. How hard was it to track these people down and were they reluctant or not to go on camera and tell their story.
Most everybody was not reluctant. Most everybody wanted to do it because there's just so much luck. So it's not a struggle to get Soundra Crouch to talk about Billy Preston and she becomes a key witness in the whole thing. You know, Bobby Watson and Manny Kellogg that he played with back in the day, they're there. It was a lot of work to get Eric Clapton, and we were lucky that it because Eric doesn't give a ton of interviews.
You know.
I basically had to beg him with the letter, and then Jonathan Clyde, our producer in the head of Apple, got to interview him. And they knew each other for a long time, and so that interview was done by Jonathan Clyde beautifully and becomes a pivotal, you know, a pivotal interview.
In the whole movie.
So you just you work it and you work it like you know, a drag queen on the runway until all your sequence fall up.
Okay, so you got these fifty people, you get the interviews as Stephanie said, you know, you think you have one thing, but as you get deeper into the information, you finally have something else. So just just to reestablish, from the time that Genee contacts Stephanie, how long until the money is locked up?
A few months?
I think very quickly. Yeah, okay, well.
To quickly doesn't always happen.
When you have the money. Do you have a target date to start? Yeah?
I mean, as I remember, once we got the money, then you can actually make the plan. Then you can build the team out. Then you can hire your cinematographer. Then you can decide which cities you're going to shoot in, what how much money do you have, Where are your key witnesses going to be? You know, so it becomes like a beautiful The first is like a detective work to figure out who to talk to and how to find them, you know, which.
Is super fun, you know. And then it's like then.
We talk to them and go, okay, they're going to be a good witness, and so you you know, you try to guide those questions back to the park that you liked that they said before, you know what I mean. And it was just it's such a different way of working from having a script and just trying to realize
that script on the screen. You know, because it's very amorphous, you're just pulling things together, and also because our team is experiencing all of this information together but also separately, you know, so we all have to get on the same page. It's a lot.
It's like Jess, you know, you got we're playing off of each other, and you know that is It's a lot like a jazz song.
So ultimately, is this in segments? Is it compartmentalize or are you still researching when you're assembling the movie.
We're still researching. I mean we're still finding out more people are leading us to other people that we want to talk to. You know, it just continues to expand and rarely contracts. And then when we end up ready to go in the editing room, we just have too much, which is a blessing. I mean, you really do want to have too much. And then we just started trimming it down. We just started saying what can we do without?
Who can tell the story better? And you know, it all starts to sort of go through the sieve that is the editorial process.
And as you're thinking and as you're hearing certain witnesses testify you're also thinking about well, I was thinking about a three act structure like you have in a regular narrative movie, like how how do you how do you lay this out so it has the same effect that watching you know, a narrative does, which is an emotional heart string tale that has, you know, a beginning, a big middle, and a and a and a in an ending of the second act that feels very dark, and
then a redemption. And thinking of it in that way was very helpful to me because it it just reminded me that we're still watching a too, you know, one and a half to two hour movie, and and these things apply.
They have always applied.
I used to teach Cassidy at USC and I talked about Aristotle, I talked about Poetics, which is the very first compilation of what does a two hour entertainment look like, feel like? And what does it need to be successful? And those things have never changed.
Yeah, I remember saying it has to we have to have a MacGuffin at the end of that second mid second act because and there always is in our in one life, you know, there is something and Billie's was they you know, the rests and what was going to happen.
Okay, Parish, you're the director, Ultimately you're in control. How did your vision of what you wanted it to be evolve? Well, it was.
It was helped because each of my partners here brings a different point of view and a different skill set to it, which adds to the whole thing, which is why I was so glad I worked in advertising, because advertising was very much about building the collaboration and getting the best from everyone. So Jeanie's there, and she's she's a lot. She's great with the details and everything else, but she's also all hard and she's also a lot of emotion, as you've seen in this interview, and that's
a wonderful thing. She's a great test of material and what really moves her we know. And Stephanie's got that story background that she just talked about, which is not necessarily the way I look at it because I've never been a story reader. I'm more into the ride and what's the ride like? But then that helps you shape the project. And my point of view is basically what I learned back in college from my playwriting and screenwriting teacher,
William Alfred, who said I think. On the very first day, said, if you're going to ask for two hours out of someone's life, you have to think about what you're going to give. What is the gift of the project you're making. It can't just take away time for their family or their kids or things they want to do. It's two hours of their life, So what is the gift? And I've always been driven by that. I don't want to
waste people's time. I want to make sure that there's something that they can take away from this that is valuable. And with Billy Preston's story and with the witnesses, we found that. With the witnesses testimony, we found a gift to the audience, a gift that sort of points them in a new direction, which I think is really wonderful. That's what makes it all worthwhile to me. And that's what I didn't really quite expect. I didn't know what the gift would be. I didn't know what would be
in the end of this movie. The feeling that made people a little bit different from when the story began.
Okay, if you're a fan of music from that era, you know Billy Preston's story, you may not remember that he was a band leader on a TV show for a while, but you know that. Yeah, he played on Abbey Road and he worked with the Beatles and then he was a concert for Bangladesh and he you know, he had hit records in the seventies. But the Genesis you didn't know that. You didn't know that he went on the road as a teenager. Where did you find all about footage? And how did you get that information?
It was shocking because you know, I think people sent me these documentaries all the time, and a lot of these people, you know, I don't want to diss some documentaries, but like in the Nicky Hopkins, they don't have any footage, and in this movie there's so much.
But in his mind blow you should speak to that because you've got the research department of the Angel there.
So yeah, we do we have. I mean, Patrick Ryan is our archival producer and he is he is a gift. He is a gift and he is incredibly uh you know, he just knows where where everything is. I don't know how he does it. You know, we work with Global Images g I W. Chris Robertson, Jessica Berman, Bogden. Uh, you know that team out of New York. We work with a team called Archival Ninja. We work with that. Our long standing relationship is with Reeland in the Years,
David Pax Reelan in the years. He's a co producer of this film. He is archival Library is absolutely uncanny, and he's like a He's like an oracle. I always called I was whenever I'm thinking about doing a doc and we usually call him up obi Wan. I ask him for like what he have? What what we have? Enough archive? So there's certain tests and litmus tests that you go through before you before you then go dip
into your your very loyal you know, investors. So you have to have the tools and the colors on the palette of which to paint with.
And we also had Olivia Harrison. Oh yeah, Olivia Harrison was a fountain of information, photographs of.
Music that he had boarded. Yeah, it was.
It was.
She helped us get to Peter Jackson and helped us, you know, basically get footage, not just the footage that was in Get Back, but some outtakes and Peter Jackson was generous enough to share those with us, which allowed us to tell that story from Billy's perspective which people have seen get back really kind of enjoy that because it's buried in the eight hours and it's only fragmentary.
But when we just put it together in front of them, focused on Billy, it's very very effective for our purposes. So we couldn't have done that without Peter Jackson and Apple Ringo.
Who I got to interview because Paris and Jail were gone that day we were shooting.
I have a busy career. Yeah, Okay, is this anomaloust that there's so much footage about Billy or if you have the means in the connections, does there tend to be all this footage of people from that era.
I think it's different with Billy. I think Billy was so all over. I mean, Billy is on Shindig. You know, Billy is in a movie when he's you know, ten years old. You know that not every artist is on the Netkin Cole ship the.
Zones are recording their concerts.
He is the Zelig like where we you Go?
So I think he's somewhat unusual. I don't think if you picked anyone out of the hat, you know that you could find this kind of material because he had so much hair, so many different hairs processed, afro your short and they are all these different time periods, and we had footage, but there are limitations to that. For instance,
we wanted to say more about Waretha Franklin. There's Harry's little footage of Billy with Franklin and that's a thirty year relationship that some people noted that it is not paid a great attention to in the film. But because we didn't have the movie, we didn't have anything to show you. We could only play the music and maybe show some stills of Beretha Franklin. That wasn't how we were crumpeted, you know, that wasn't how this thing was gone.
So it's unfortunate there were some holes there.
In Billy's life that we couldn't get to just because we didn't have the stuff to show you.
Very true and we have those, you know, we did have his his actual you know, book of memories. He had his whole, that whole and we.
Start with Billy's actual scrap book. Billy in his scrap book even kept articles about his assault, his in his scrap books. So when you're seeing those in the movie, those are coming out of Billy's scrap book, which I thought was fascint.
You know, you're we're lucky when you find things like that. Part of my part of that's, you know, when when when we were when I was doing research for Lucy and DESI and I went to Luciernez's house for example. You know, people can say, oh, I put everything here, this is where I put everything in these two rooms or something, and you're you and this happened at Lucy Ernez's home. I literally was stretching my back and I
looked up. I was literally bending my back like that, and I said, Hey, there's a something that looks like a lock box that's up on this top shelf. Does you think that's anything? And she said, oh my god, I think you're going to really love this. I forgot I put that up there, and we pulled it down and this is the lock box at the very very beginning of the movie that has recordings that no one
has ever heard. You know, it's so these are it was it was a gift, like all these recordings that and what was so great and what we could what we do for a lot of what we've did, we helped Olivia organize, help her organize her, you know, with with with that George Harrison Mature World, and and you could help people wantit. What you don't use in your film,
you can monetize for them later, you know. So Lucy Arnez, for example, came out with this book about the love letters because she took out this giant I couldn't believe it and started opening up these love letters from Desi Arnez. And she was like, don't you want to open them up? And I said, I do, but I don't want to
touch them. I don't want to break them. So let's go to a professional and have somebody, you know, photograph these properly, which she did, and that movie could have been like, you know, two parts as well, Les, this could have so, yeah, those are the yummy and delicious things you find when you're going through an archive.
Okay, Billy goes on the road to England at a young age. To what degree do you think that change his identity personality as opposed to someone who had just been living in their neighborhood going to high school.
Well, he was fifteen when he originally started traveling with Little Richard and as Tony Jones says in the movie, there's a lot of things going on there that maybe a fifteen year old isn't ready to see. And even though he's with the band, he's with the band that's you know, guys a bit older and they're quite probably active. And so if Billy Preshm were my son at the time, you know, I would probably say no. But his mother said yes. It was a great opportunity for him, and
sure enough it opened his horizons. And he says the first time he played rock and roll, but also probably it was a lot more than a young person should have to handle at that point. And I think that is certainly somebody that affected.
And I also think any you know, I remember the first time I went to Europe. I was nineteen or something. It's it's mind opening.
You know.
I think that beyond whatever was happening or whatever, you're in a different country, you're out of your neighborhood, you're in a different world.
It's got to affect you, you know.
Okay, being on the road and rock and roll. It is sex drug in rock and roll. Yes, in the era of that really applies if you're a gay guy. I mean, we're doing that in some in sports. Another occasional sports guy comes out and says, yes, I'm gay. Most of them retired, but when we go back to this era, no one's going to come out. It must have been really hard for Billy.
Yeah, it's just not possible. And you know, as we've talked about it, because we love Billy Press so much, we understand, you know, I get it. I get that he wasn't able to do what I was able to do. It is I mean, you know, pretty much out in my adult life and certainly out in the industry at a very early age, you couldn't do that. Then, I mean,
it's it's not he wanted to have a career. You know, Yes, the Beatles probably, you know, we certainly knew that he was gay, but they didn't have to make it an issue. But not every band is going to be there, and not every musician is going to want to play with you, and not every record company is going to want to have you on their lad And so it's sadly the shrewdest thing that Billy Preston could have done is by
just staying in the closet. But there's a cost, you know, the closet has a cost, and you can be open with your friends, but when you're not authentic and it's all hidden in your songs, like he writes songs about keep it to yourself and don't let anybody get on the inside story of your love affair. But he doesn't actually be able. He isn't able to be his authentic self. There is a price, and that's a price that I think at the end was, you know, part of his unduel the mother.
It's established and it's well known there might not have been many opportunities for black people in those circumstances. But do you think the mother acted appropriately or.
She was out of touch? Ladies, what do you think? That's a tough question. I think she was taking that Billy was a star. She knew Billy was a star. He was on TV when he was five or six conducting the choir. You know, he had so many opportunities. She thought, this is what's best for Billy. You know, let's let this star blossom and grow. And you know, as one of the coaches, I forget who says, we were so proud to see that Billy came out first, that Billy was the ship before any of us. And
so there was a certain. I think for her, from her perspective, she was just helping her son. She was helping her son get to where he dreamed.
He could be. Yeah.
I mean you look at Judy Garland, you know, and you could look at any and you know what I'm saying. You could look at any child star and their parents did something where you're like, you know, why would you give them? You know speed? You know, you know what I'm saying. So why you know what I mean? So why it didn't and you know, you had this tragic ending of Judy Garland. I mean so, and you know with with Billy, he's you know you.
Yeah, I do.
I it's it's disappointing that his mom wasn't you know, but you know, weird, we weren't there. We weren't there. You can't if you're not there present at every moment you don't know, we weren't there. I can't judge anybody because they just don't know.
Okay, you talk about his relationship connection with the Wreath of Franklin. You know, people who were not in this world think that everybody knows everybody, which is untrue. Okay, Now, one thing that is well established in the movie because if you lived through Let It Be and Abbey Road and all that in nineteen seventy, he looked like an opportunist. But it's well established in the movie. They knew him
from Hamburg whatever. He was just dropping by the studio. Okay, So but you talk about all these other people, were they tracking him down or because generally speaking, and I know a lot of them, the people behind the scenes, studio musicians, they're the best networker the ball talk because they got to work well. I think it was just juggling opportunities.
I think they were coming at him, you know, it's it's just they were looking for that sound, as you know, as Eric Clapton says later, when you wanted someone to play the B three, you went to Billy Preston. And I think people just once they heard him and his distinctive sound is something that I think we break down pretty well in the film, and people now will hear records differently. I hope because of the film, you realize that's such a desirable commodity and not everyone has it.
So they wanted that sauce, they wanted that funk ca dethic sound that Billy was providing, and they also knew man. He don't need no sheet music. He just shows up and kills you know, he does the rich Hot Chili Peppers. I think he was in Arizona them. They send him the tape and he plays over and he sends it back. You know, Billy is just that way. He was such a genius that I think when people said we could get Billy Preston, let's get Billy Preston. He played on
the Monkeys first out. You know, everyone knows the Monkeys were studio musicians. Did it with Billy Preston.
Yeah, back there, the early synthesizer stuff like you know what. You know what we talked about in the film. Billy was able to do that with his organ, playing with his the B three that before anyone else can do it.
We talked about the sex. Let's talk sex drugs, rock and roll drugs. Time for the drugs. He gets heavily involved in substances. Now that is not uncommon in this world. A lot of it has to do with a lifestyle, especially if you go on the road. You played a ten thousand people, then you're with the same idiots you've known for twenty years, and you got to get up you don't get enough sleep, and that leads to drugs.
Why it was Billy who was a church kid, Why did he end up falling off the edge with substances.
Well, I'm the alcoholic expert here, so my theory is not everyone becomes an alcoholic or drug because they use alcohol and drugs, and not everyone who used it a lot necessarily becomes alcoholic or drug act. Billy was probably born an alcoholic. His father was an alcoholic. I think he had that alcoholic gene and I also have, which just excites you. When you get a drink, it does something different to your body, and that's part of the
reason why you start to crave it. And when you start to crave it, and when it's then around you the way it is, then the addiction becomes a growth of that. It also didn't help that he had a lot of secrets and part of the reason why you know, they always thought about drowning your sorrows. But part of the reason why we love drugs and we love alcoholics.
It lets you forget for that time being. It releases you from whatever agony is going on in your mind, and if you're not really dealing with that agony, like, Billy is not going to therapy, he's not really talking to anybody or sharing with his friends what he's going on. What he's doing is masking it, and then the masking on top of the addiction becomes something that gets out of control. Now, he did recognize it later in life, and you see in the movie he got over at
different periods and try to pull himself together. He recognized that this was damaging to him, but he wasn't able to pull the deep.
Okay, this is another thing you touched on just now, that no one really knew this guy. Okay, being gay is one thing, but there were and that's a lot of stuff, but this guy was not a lot coming. Okay, why do you think he was so internalized?
Well, his friends really talk about Billy not wanting to go there, and Billy didn't want to go there, and he just in interviews, we went through all of his interviews, he rarely said anything of any personal nature at all, other than to say how much he loved his mother and how gratefully he was to God for his talent. And it seems like he's someone who's reticent to share that.
And I think it's because he doesn't want to be vulnerable, and he doesn't want to be judged, you know, and therefore he is not going to put it out there. He didn't recognize that the releasing of it, by releasing the secret is empowered, and that message never got to him, and so the secrets were safer with him if they were hell. And I feel bad for him because I think that's something that you know, alcoholics can recover learn, you know, when we say you're only as sick as
your secrets. Billy didn't get that message, and so he just kept going. And I think he's naturally reticent, and he's naturally but every once in a while he slips. Every once in a while, like in that Beatles film when in Justic's Hey, there's a piano over there, and if you want to sit in, there's one shot at billion he does this, guess this great lab of genuine excitement.
The Beatles have just asked him to play on their album, The Biggest Band in the World, and his giggle is is as close as he gets to saying, this is the most joyful offer I've ever had in my life. And that does make him a difficult subject. But if you talk to enough people he's talked to, you can get a picture it, which is where I think we're able to accomplish. We unveiled a bit of the mystery,
not the total man. We weren't inside of his head, but we got as close as we could get with the friends and the family that we talked to.
Okay, the arc of his career once hems successful is not uncommon. It's very rare that someone has hits beyond their little period. So what makes you know he has these gigantic kits in the seventies and then they dry up? They try up for everybody? Okay, what makes the aftermath of his story different from everybody else's. That's interesting, I.
Think because I think because and I credit Nigel with getting the judge to speak on Billy's behalf, because we're always you.
Know, he he.
Did something, some not great things, you know, and what And I think during the film we hear our director ask, how do you square it? You know? How do you square all the things that he's done with like how much people love him? And I think the ultimate love was the guy who sent him to the penitentiary even felt something for this man. It was part of the thing we heard over and over again from all these interviews that he brought joy, and he brought love into
the room. His love for music was infectious. And I forgot the question, but well.
I do remember. I think it's really interesting.
You know a lot about the record business and the way that it does work is you do have that hot streak. You have those records that come out. They're co written with him, with Bruce Fisher, and that was a partnership that was working for a time. But then when he goes to A and M, he sure leaves Bruce behind and he's generating his own material, some of which is working and some which isn't, and then he's
kind of dry. Then he's told the stories he could tell. Now, a modern recording artist gets new producers, they find different songwriters, and they say this is where I want to be, and suddenly they make a change and they can keep the same sound, but now they've got another contemporary groove going on. They stay fresh. That didn't happen with Billie, But they didn't find even at Motown. Well, the example
is with you on Board again. That's not a song he wrote, you know, that's a song that was given to him. That was A and R to him by Suzanne de pass and it's a hit. He really needed at this point to have someone who is really doing the A and R work to get him the songs that he could kill with that, and then he would have extended his career. And he could have still continued to write stuff, but that would extended his career.
I remember what I was going to say, I'll forget again. So which is he says, and this is his testimony that the best toy you ever had was with Eric Clapton after jail. And so the story's different, our stories different because he did spiral down, but he came back and I think that does not happen that often. And from talking with Joyce at length and Sam, those final years of his life were really great until you know that last moment when he when he apparently went off the wagon.
But but he was.
Able to redeem himself, I think, And that's what we tried to leave the audience with.
Okay, I was saying for forgiveness.
You know.
A lot of people, a lot of artists, you know, they need somebody. It was said in our film actually by Sondra Crouch that an artist needs somebody to love them and come home to and and and just let their hair figuratively, let their hair down. That's what an artist needs, and we all do essentially. And I think that a lot of this had to do with his lack of trust and his lack of ability to let
his hair down. And I'm saying this figuratively of course, and then and the lack of and you know, the lack of a good drug prof that you know, AA, we didn't have AA alcohol synonymous, and you know, it wasn't it wasn't so prevalent, so a lot of people didn't know how to help. And you know, Robert marger Leaf says that they, you know, we watched a lot of people spiral out of control that we didn't know how to help. And that had a lot to do with that as well.
Okay, so after his hit period and he starts to fall off the edge, he burned a lot of people. Okay, we experienced this maybe times five or ten with Kanye right now, once he's trying to come back, is everybody warming fuzzy or are they saying they have to stay away from this guy?
According to Bill Maxwell, Yeah, according to Bill Maxwell, people he came and played great, and people people wanted him, wanted.
And he kept playing with Ringo's All Star Band. He kept recording with John Lennon. He kept recording until his death with George Harrison. He toured with them and so people came back.
Many people said he was high and he played amazing, you know what I mean.
So it was his gift.
Will never missed a show. Yeah, well, Olivia says that.
He fell his last recording of Here we Go Again with Ray Charles. It's the last time he played with Ray Charles. That becomes record of the year. You know, he's still there. He's still doing the do and he's still getting it done, but it's you know, it's less frequent and it's not you know, the kind of glory hits that he had. Behind the scenes, he's playing Alton John's album and he's doing you know, Barbara Streiss and
Johnny Cash. So he's still doing his thing. It's just not as prominently out and solo as it was.
Okay, film is done. Did you get it?
What do you mean?
You know what I mean? You got a thing, you go in and then when it's done, you say, you know, I wish I had a little of this, or I wish we could have done that, but you can't.
Yet.
We got it. And I'll tell you how I know we got it. We got it because to sit to watch this film over and over again when you feel, God, I wish I had that, you can't watch it again and again again. So we and our executives would say that that this is a film that we got.
Yeah, this is the best condensation of everything that was given to us. Yeah. And sure, I mean there's never been a thing that I've worked on that I haven't felt, Oh, I wish I'd done this, I wish I cut the air and blah blah blah.
You're always gonna knit it. But emotionally, we were in Philadelphia, who was it yesterday? The days fly by yesterday, days ago, with the sold out crowd, you know, in tears, clapping at the pay of the bell moment that you know always brings them down, uh, and just loving the film, and we realize what we've made is connected with people. It's connected with people so much so that it's still the film for him. It was there for three days,
it's going into his fifth week week that never happened. Yeah, So it's awesome that it's actually touching people. So I just I have to believe we got something that's a value and that people are My inbox is still with people we can film with different parts of the world is saying this movie is amazing and has taken them to a different place.
That does not happen that often. No, it does, I can I can count on one hand.
Well, definitely, it's happened every single time I've directed a documentary.
Which is one exactly one hundred percent of the time that I've directed to This is great about about it.
You know what's great about all these q and a's that we have is that how many people just have, Like Paris said, there it sparks hope, It sparks dialogue, It sparks you know, discussing uncomfortable subjects. It sparks you know, to the you know, the the bridges that bind us, everything that binds us, that brings us together. That's what this movie can spark. And it reminds us that we have way more in common than we do not, and that's very important in these times that we're living in right now.
Paris, you mentioned knew how to plethora of the material had a Winnow down, what are two things you had to leave out because they didn't fit the film?
Well, one thing that comes to mind, I was listening to this morning in my car. There's a song Billy wrote in two thousand and one called Father Forgive Them Yeah, and I wrote down the lyrics here. When you look at the church, does it hurt you too, how the people of God are representing you? I mean, it's on the notes and we just had no place for it. It was it was so overtly. I mean, it would
have been great, but we had no film. And it's just sometimes things just don't belong in there, even though they are saying somebody that's really interesting. It has to be part of the woven texture of what we're doing. And I you know, we just stefaniely I especially, I've talked about this. We really wish there was a way to have this movie be just as long, but even more music, because we love hearing Billy Preston play and there's so much joy and the seeing the styles change
and the fact that he can do anything. I would love to have had film with him with the Retha playing, film with him with Johnny Cash. I'd love to see him live with these performers at the time, So it could be there could be a whole second, you know, second album of just musical performances by Billy Preston, which I would certainly watch.
Okay, people in Hollywood, the unsophisticated sake. Content is king. Content is not king. Distribution is king. If people can't and see it, doesn't matter how good it is. When you get the documentaries, when you get the inny type things. You know, there's the endless film festival circuit, then the rs you know, the sun Dance which the studios are buying less from. The film is done, you're happy with it.
What is the distribution plan and how do you maximize the film such as those who are interested have access and can see it.
That's one word, and that's a brama rama. I mean this distribution company led by Carole and I can't pronounce his last name, but is I have been so impressed with how passionate this team is, how knowledgeable this team is. We are in theaters through the end of June. This is a this is a black music doc that is playing sold out across the country. So many things have
sold out. We're having to repeat requests like it's coming back to LA to the Lenley Theaters because people still want to see it, Like you said, this is our fifth week in Film Forum.
It's sold out in Austin. It's going back to Austin.
So the way that we're unfolding the film gives people a chance to see it as they should in a theater with other people, Like he was saying, people clap after the performances, like you're actually in a live music joint, you know, And that's when we know we got them. And I think Paris, on the last pass of the edit really said, let's let's extend.
Let's shout out.
Our amazing editor, sah D Hansen, who elongated the music scenes so that you really felt like you were in a Billy Preston concert. And I think that's super satisfying for people.
So yeah, there's a way, I mean, people stiff around it, but it's I think it's so.
Sparred for us. And this wasn't a decision that I made, but this came with our producers to just stay in theaters and be in theaters as long as we can be in theaters and not just jump to you know, the distribution on you know, the netflixes and whatnot, and then we'll get there at some point. But right now, the experience in the theater is so good and I just I just encourage everybody to jump out when it
comes to your town. And I guess you can find it on Billy prestonfilm dot com, he said, doing the plug you can find out the dates and it keeps changing. I'm looking every day, and so now we're in Louisville and how we're normal, Yes.
Assess and Detroit. You know, it's just so much fun. You know obvious. We have studio releases in thousands of theaters and it's everywhere. They last for ten minutes and they're gone. I wrote about the movie and people say, hey, I can't see it. I can't find it. No, I don't want to talk about internet stuff people connecting with the information. But what is the plan in terms of distribution, I mean, what's the strategy there.
The strategy is to build an audience for the film. People these a lot of people come back more than once, by the way, because they and the experience of seeing in the second time is different because you know where you're going. You can relax into the show, you can relax into the music. We will sell this, we will license this to a streamer, and people will have a lot of access. But once that happens, you cut short
your theatrical run. Because if people know they can just go to Netflix, or know they can go to Apple or HBO Max, that's what they will do.
That's the world we're living in.
So I think the strategy is quite brilliant because it's building up the cachet for the film.
It's building up like the.
Reviews to I mean, I don't think we've gotten a bad review. This is a film that you can't get a review in the New York Times. We got three articles in the New York Times about this movie. So I think it takes to build it up as a prestige pick that you should see in theaters and hopefully when award season rolls back around, will be in the mix.
Okay, how many towns or theaters is it playing in simultaneously.
I think it's about thirty now, yeah, thirty different theaters?
Yea, yeah, I think it's more.
I think it's forty yeah.
Yeah.
And like I said, maybe they would be a one day stand, but that would sell out so they come back and make it three days or four days like That's what's happening is that people are telling their friends. The word of mouth on this movie is spectacular, amazing.
Okay, film is done. It's playing theatrically. Ultimately you'll be on a streamer where it will live forever. All those always licensing issues things disappear. What do you want people to take from the film and to what degree do you think about the legacy of the film.
Paris?
I start, well, you know William Alford and my playgrinding Teacher says what's the gift? And what I really want people to take from the film is, yes, it's an expiration of fame, of faith, of you know, family. But what I hope you'll take is summarized kind of in that very last line in the movie where she says, how do we let this boy get away from this?
And I hope it'll make people think about there are other troubled people in your life, and they may not be geniuses like Billy Preston, but they're they're having their difficulties and ask themselves have they done everything they could? You know, so many of the witnesses say I wish I could have done this. I wish I would have shared this. I wish you would have shared this with me.
And you know, now Billy's no longer with us, but there are a lot of people living and struggling with alcoholism, and living and struggling with drug addiction, living and struggling with secrets of their past life that they can't they can't get passed.
So now we have no excuse.
You know, after you see this movie, I've said, boy, I would have dealt with Corey Monteeth on Glee a lot differently after I made this movie, because I was very shy about approaching him, even though you know, he was struggling to get to said and everyone knew that he had a problem, and I just didn't really step up. And I would not do that today. Today I would step up. And today this film has sort of inspired
me to take that chance. As Sandra Krout says in the film, you may lose a friend, but save a life. And I think that's what I'm hoping people take away, not just the joy in the glory that is Billy Preston and the music, and get excited about it and
build your on playlist and do all those things. I also think you'll think more about how I can be useful and can I be more useful to people that I love, and if so, can I extend their the joy that they bring to me or to other people in the world on earth by just being the key that gets them to wellness. So I mean, that's my big hope for the film. It's not just that I'll be an entertainment, but it also will you help here in their save a life?
And I think now we feel like we got to know Billy a little bit, and I am very proud of the fact that we are reintroducing Billy to a whole new generation of music lovers who also old music lovers who didn't even know they were listening to Billy. Now they will now you can now when you hear that that organ, you go, that's Billy. That's Billy in there,
you know. And so I think about the legacy of Billy and how his very sometimes difficult life has you know, transcended in a way, and that his joy and his music will live forever.
So I'm very proud of that.
Amen. Okay, I think what Paris say is the main takeaway. But going to Billy himself. Geenie, you've made a number of these movies. A to what degree do you find that the subject penetrates the culture at large? Like you said, to involve no direction home, I could tell you exactly where I saw it. I could tell a different name of.
It wasn't involved. That's the company that Nigel that was.
Okay, we'll leave it.
I can't take credit.
I'm going to give you the credit anyway. Okay, White Oors Pictures. I mean there was Score's whatever had impact when you make these films. To what degree is it palpable that it changed the national consciousness or the international conscious on the subject.
Look, I think that I think that it's what in the mirror, what what Paris just said, and what I said a few mill mimuentes ago that when you confront uncomfortable truth in a subject matter, that it reminds us that we need we need to reconnect as the human beings. We need to reconnect. And I said this earlier. Forgive me for pitting myself, but I really, really really believe this. It will help build these bridges back that have been faltering.
And the weird news cycle, I hope it's a cycle that we are going through right now, and we need to reconnect with each other on a deeper level and forgive and love more. Love has got to override it and forget it.
And men and Bob, just to use a Genie example that they did work on that changed. You know, I know a lot of peoples the Begs documentary how do You Help? Can You Mend a Broken Heart? I thought I was going to see a story about you know, the Saturday Night by you know Fever soundtrack and blah blah blah. But what you saw was really a family drama and a family that was broken and trying to find its way back to love, which transcended the story
of the music. So the music was there and it got you in, but the family made you look at your own family and say, oh my god, should I.
Call my brother?
I mean, I have a lot of brothers to call, but should I reach out to them now? I mean, we're they're still here and some of the pain of that are not being there, And the Begs is something you can take. So I'm hoping that there's a little bit of that too. The Fellow challenge people when they look at the story and say, how can I write my story better, you know, where can I take a take a new path? And that's that's really beautiful.
Yes, yes, yes, man, You've lived through this.
Five or six year project. As Stephanie said, it's not like a traditional film everybody goes assuming you're out of town. It's like summer camp, long hours and you may never see each other again. So you've made this one very successful movie. Is the nature of the business that you did it or the three of you think, well, this was so successful, maybe there's another idea we can work on. Absolutely, yeah, there's always another idea.
There's just another idea. Absolutely, really.
I mean, we had had a difficult time, we had a lovely time, we had a fun time. We had COVID time where we're all in masks. You know, when you make a movie, you are a family, and you do go through familial you know, joys and struggles and you come out of it. And I think ultimately the plays the thing. The movie's the thing, and we all love the movie and we all put our heart into this movie and the fact that it's connecting with people is a reflection of that connection that we have.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And during this time we were all doing different things. I mean, during the making of this movie, I did Dahmer and the Menendez and the Watcher and Doctor Odyssey and the Night Agent. I mean, we do other jobs at the same time, and then we pop back in and so part of the reason these take a while is because a lot of us are very busy and have a lot of other lives to lead. So I
think it's all to its benefit too. We weren't sort of in a hothouse for very long, you know, two weeks here, shooting, two weeks here, editorial or just groups of times. But mostly we were out in the world trying to pull everything together, to keep food on our respective tables and keep by boys in college, which is Benson very expensive one hundred grand, yeah, one hundred grand and no like woof.
So Paris, I have to ask you, how did you end up with the name Paris. Yes, it's a very simple story. Uh, it's my mother. She was inspired to name me after Paris of Helena Troy than you know, so I'm basically named not after the city, which she had never been to until I took her to it, you know, later in life. But she thought that was a really cool name and all my other brothers and sisters have nice normal names, William, Robin, Brian, Mark, Monica. And in the middle there there's Paris. So I was
destined for something different. Who whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa. You're the middle child. Well, I'm close to the middle I was actually the third of seven. Okay, I'll leave it at that. So as we go forward in the immediate future, what's keeping you busy?
Paris in the immediate future, Oh my gosh, I am doing a lot of work with Dan Fogelman, who's the producer in the creator of This Is Us and Paradise. I just did a new show for him called The Land, which won't be out until next year, which is fantastic as succession in a football team, the Cleveland Browns. It's got Bill Macy edit who is unbelievable, Mandy Moore, and Chris Maloney. And then I'm gonna go and do the end of Paradise, the final season, a lot of the
two episodes of that. Yeah, it's been announced that this third season will be the last season, so we'll find out what Sterling K. Brown can do to save the world or even its possible.
So those are the things that I'm in the middle of. And Stephanie, what's keeping you busy?
I have a movie called Otis and Zelma, which is about Otis Redding and his wife Zelma, and it's a ghost story.
It's a love story.
Otis died at twenty six, she was twenty three, and it's really how love kept him alive and keeps him alive today. She's an amazing woman. It's Daniel Deadweiler and our our Otis is John Boyega. And that'll be my next movie. It's a narrative. And and I'm raising my granddaughters, which is a new thing because my my grand my daughter in law, had a massive stroke and she is covering. Yeah, And so I've got a little three and five year old that I'm helping raise with my son and the
village that is the family. It's been quite a life lesson.
Really, I'm so fortunate to have you guys.
So I'm fortunate to have them, Are you kidding?
They're like the joy?
They are the joy?
And you didn't mention that Stephen bray Is. I think you alluded to the fact that he's one of the composers of the color purple, but he also wrote those great hits for Madonna back in the day, so he's known in the music world, and I'm sure he's busy doing something awesome.
Same.
Yes, we're actually writing a musical together, a musical, that's right.
So that I got to ask you if you could tell us what's the subject of the musical.
It's called Vintage, and it's a story of a diva who was like a Millie Jackson in her day, and she's got a little bit of revived fame because her signature song is in an ed commercial and.
She just wants to come back, but she doesn't have much wherewithal so she ends.
Up going to an old folks home for musicians and she she turns the place inside out, so.
It's like a sister act. Is this legitimate theater or is this a movie?
It's legitimate theater.
It's a musical.
Yeah, it's a musical.
That's a tough road. Good luck up man. But but they're all tough.
They're all they're all tough.
Yeah they are.
Our narrative is tough.
But musicals are really tough. And Jeanie, what's up with you?
Well, we've got film that's out right now that we're promoting is Lil a fair building on a mystery directed by Ali panc And uh, we've got Fleetwood Mac. That's U that's gonna that also is coming out probably by the end of the year and on Apple. And we have got a lot of very very very cool things that are that are cooking that aren't announced. And uh, and there's a lot of very cool things coming a lot of very fun things.
Little Fear has already played. Weetwood Mac is not out yet. That's a little bit my world. I know a little bit about it. With an act that universal, that had an album that's so old twenty million copies, or in the neighborhood thereof what do you do to promote that it is a subject. It's unlike Billy Preston, We Are, you know, taking the lid off in your looking at things that most people don't know. People know a lot about Fleetwood Mac. How do you make this into an event.
Into a one one movie. It's not a two parter. That's very difficult to do. That's how very difficult it is. We're doing this with Kennedy Marshall. Frank Marshall's directing We Are. It's the it is the only film that has been authorized by all five members. So we had everybody, you know, we had that not pitch this, We had it all sign sealed and delivered right before we lost Christine. You know, we thought she just had a cold or the flu, and sadly she passed away in twenty twenty two, so
that was a shock and surprise. So it is difficult. The answer to your question, It is difficult, just like it's difficult to you know, Bob Dylan, No Direction, Home and and the Beatles eight days a week. It is a difficult subject. Somebody will and even Paul Rotti, you know, somebody will say, undoubtedly will say why didn't you cover this part? And didn't you know the story? And well, we just couldn't fit it into one, uh, you know, under two hours. So it's it's difficult, is what it is.
It is. It is a beautiful piece and well and it's not even done yet. So where it's I think you're gonna enjoy it?
I do.
I hope you're gonna enjoy it.
Okay, don't you talk about lessons you got from your professor. I can't even remember I got this lesson. Sometimes you have to leave the best stuff out that it doesn't serve the story.
Yeah, high breaking.
Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you so much for this intellectual conversation about a truly phenomenal movie. Hopefully this will spread the word. As I say, it is the story of Billy Preston, but as Paris certainly went into depth about, it is a story worry about humanity, loss, how you should treat people. Even if you know nothing about Billy, nothing from nothing, Even if you know nothing about Billy Preston, you will enjoy it and you will come out of fan. You know a lot of people
you have to their music is not that accessible. But in Billy's case, it was one accessible performance after another. And these performances by the three of you have been very accessible. And I want to thank you for taking the time with my audience.
Oh thank you.
Everybody reads you so we're so excited to get on your show.
Yeah, thank you.
You know how to do this interview? I think, Bob, you might want to think about doing it for a living. You guys, Yeah, you know, I'm.
Just going to start. I'm and I answer that because it's something and I talk about with my shrink I find it relatively fruitless to pursue things, even though I know that's the movie business. You got to go out, can you hear no more than yes? So I usually wait until someone's looking for me, because if they're looking for me, they know what the act is. They want me, whereas if they're trying to sell it, it's like, oh, come on, but enough of me, thanks again for doing
this until next time. This is bombing websites.