🎵 Music
It's the movie Kraps!
And welcome to another edition of the Movie Crypt. I'm Adam Green. I'm Joe.
Joe Lynch.
The conversation you're about to hear was recorded on Tuesday, May 12th, 2026. And as you hopefully noticed, it is actually a rare movie crypt part one of two. Yes, our guest is so amazing that we had to have him come back in a second time just to try to cover like half of his work and of course we're talking about the great American screenwriter, Mr. John Logan. Uh this is fantastic because, as you're about to hear, at the last second, Joe had to miss this one.
And such a bummer. John is such an amazing guy that he offered to come back in, I think it was what, two weeks later. And then sit down with us again and we got to talk about everything else uh which you will hear next week. By the way, we also saved your viewer mail questions for next week. Phenomenal questions.
And when I say we saved them for next week, thank God John came back to do a second round because I was having such a great time talking to him. I completely forgot. And the viewer mail questions are so good. So you'll hear those next week. To our friends in the Michael Jackson community who might have gravitated over to this episode but don't usually listen to us, you're gonna get a lot about the writing and the making of the Michael movie.
I if you're a fan of Michael, this is a very Michael centric episode. Yeah.
But if you're a fan of everything else.
We cover everything else. Well not not everything, but mostly everything else in part two.
So look forward to all of that next week and right now enjoy part one of my conversation with John Logan. Okay, this one starts with a quick story, and I really am gonna try to be quick with this because I don't want to get uh too emotional. Um, but go back in time with me, if you will, uh especially by the time this episode airs. Uh in March, I was turning 51 and I think a lot of us when it's uh a birthday you sort of reassess, you know? And um it's just things have been tough, really tough.
Um, for starters, most of you guys know last year, beginning of twenty twenty five, I went to Malta and shot a movie, Ascent. It was a incredible experience. And nothing has happened with it since we wrapped Uh it's now been like a year and a half longer than that since any of us were paid. Uh but the producers and their investor apparently in some sort of legal standoff. Uh I don't know because they hide.
Um but that's obviously been a huge bummer. Um been in a fucking hostage situation with the rights for another thing? Uh and then right there on my birthday, uh another project that I'm working on, a major component that the project is centered around suddenly quit and dropped out. Uh and on top of all of this This is hard to talk about because I know this isn't gonna air for a while. Um but
Arwen has not been well. Um she's gonna be turning fifteen soon at the time we're recording this. Um but it's been hard. It's been really, really hard. I'm not gonna get into it now, but I worry that I worry that by the summer she might not be here. Um, and I was at such a low point where I was trying to just be honest with myself. Is it time to maybe move on? Like Is it enough yet? And then I get an email out of the blue, and it says it's from John Logan.
And I'm like, Oh, it's gotta be somebody else named John because immediately, you know, you recognize the name but you're like, No. And then I start reading it and I'm like, Holy shit, this is actually John Logan. And I sat on it for a s like, I don't know, a few minutes and then got my wife and I'm like
Do you know where John Logan is? And she's like, I know I've seen the name and I started naming the credits and she's like, he wrote you an email? And I'm like, Yeah, he's a he's a hatchet fan. And he it was just the nicest thing to get out of nowhere. And
But it like it saved me because it's like, holy shit, somebody at this level even n knows that my stuff exists. And it was like, all right, whatever this is that I'm getting dealt, like, I got And the day after my birthday we had lunch together. And it was awesome. And then within an hour, I think, or tw sorry, twenty four hours of getting home, it was the next day, that component of that one movie that had suddenly quit.
called me being like, that was all a big mistake. I'm back. Like and everything started working out. But you guys know as the listeners that for about eight years now I have been in such turmoil Over the Michael Jackson biopic. Like, oh my God, are they gonna get this right? Like this is the this has to be good. This I and then you see who's involved.
Antoine Fouqua and J and and and John Logan and you got like just and Graham King is producing it, you're like, all right, this is gonna be good. This is gonna be good. Um and then to hear from you a few weeks before it comes. I mean, I was counting the hours and I was up at 6 a.m. the morning that the early screening tickets went on sale because I wanted to see it.
with other people who wanted to see it bad enough to be awake at six in the morning to have that ticket. And oh my God, did it deliver? And uh anyway, you know his work. You know, I'm not even gonna I'm not gonna use the screen. You know his work from s f forget all the years as as a playwright. A Tony Award winning playwright. I'm sorry, I read one six of seven Tony Awards, right? Okay. And then there was a little movie called Any Given Sunday, Gladiator, right? The Aviator, Hugo
Rango Star Trek Nemesis. Twice with Skyfall and and Inspector, Sweeney Todd. I Penny Dreadful, one of the one of the greatest fucking gothic series to ever be on on T V. Uh, and now of course, Michael, which is breaking Every record at the time we're recording this, we're recording this conversation uh on May twelfth. And right now it's just past six hundred million at the box office. It hasn't even opened in Japan yet. Like it is insane. Please. Welcome to the movie crypt, John Logan.
Pleasure. Honor to be here. Pleasure to be here.
Thank you so you have no idea what a honor this is. And Joe is killing himself right now that he couldn't be here. So I I I promised him I would ask right up front, uh, you gotta come back at some point, maybe Orchithon or something.
Uh nothing would make me happier. Anytime you want me, I'm here. Any chance to talk about horror, I am there.
also wanted to say'cause I didn't I wasn't aware of this I think when when we had lunch. I'm so sorry that that you and your husband lost your house. Yeah. And the fires last year.
Yeah, it was it was something, obviously. And I you know, many friends and colleagues sort of lost their houses and y you know, I'd live in the house for twenty five years. I'm like a native Californian, I'm a California boy. And my entire life was there, you know, sixty-four years of my life. Every script I ever wrote, every draft, every memento, you know, and every photograph, you know, through my entire life was in that house. And it was one of those things,
that it was a sort of blessing that our house was completely destroyed. There wasn't there wasn't a teacup left. There was nothing. So it wasn't like I was a Chekhov character, you know, rooting around the ashes, picking up like a broken plate. There was nothing. You know, and it's it was devastating, but then it very quickly became very uplifting. Because I'll tell you something. You know, a particular community came through for me. And it was the horror community.
You know, the first person, Kathleen Lee Scott from Dark Shadows, a friend and we're putting out a book about Dark Shadows, brought me a collection of books and said, This is to rebuild your life. Oh and like everyone, you know, Danielle, Penny Dreadfull, Mark DeWidziak, everyone was coming through with stuff, sending me collectibles, saying like I pr you probably lost your Barnabas Collins model. Here's mine, you know.
And so when I I you know, I don't do interviews, I don't talk about myself much, I don't do profiles. The only thing I do is embrace the horror community. you know, because they have embraced me and and, you know, horror and Shakespeare are the two things that made me a writer and really made me a human being and Star Trek, you know, made me who I am. So So, you know, a shout out and a thanks to this incredible community.
The it was the same year as any given Sunday was bats, right? Yeah. It was the same year.
Absolutely.
Like two completely different movies and that's like your introduction in the feature world. That's
Yeah, it well it was like it was in a way it was like the perfect introduction'cause one of them was like this big brawling studio picture.
Oliver Stone.
Oliver Stone and that was like that you know, how that came about was was just unbelievable because but to put all of this in perspective, I had been a starving playwright for ten years in Chicago. You know, I graduated from Northwestern in eighty three. You know, I'd written my first play there, so I've literally been doing my job forty years, forty years plus.
And like I went to work in the Northwestern Law Library in Chicago and I shelved books and I worked at the front desk for law students, you know, so it was it was it was a day job And I had no money. You know, it's like w people back then who had no money learned a few things. You learn how to like buy chicken parts'cause they're cheaper and how to debone them. Or like, okay, I'm gonna live on tuna fish. To this day I cannot face tuna fish. You know, and it was cold.
You know, Chicago's a a a glorious city, but it's a challenging city for for most of the year. And I live in this tiny little studio apartment that backed onto like uh like a car stereo installation place. So they tested car alarms and car stereos all day. I had to put blankets over the windows'cause it was so cold. You know, but it I never expected anything other than that.
I didn't I wasn't empowered in any way. I didn't think people needed to give me something. So like I did my day job and I wrote play after play after play. So when I got the call from Oliver Stone I was thirty. I was a grown up.
But how did that how did that happen? What did he read of yours?
Well it was it was uh a sort of a long process, you know,'cause I'm writing these plays. And there's some are successful, some are not successful, but they're all great'cause I'm learning how to be a playwright and how to work with directors and actors and producers, which was really the most important part of it. I was learning what a dramatist does in a business setting, in a professional setting.
And I was writing just whatever I wanted, because it's the theater. And the theater's all about do it for the love, you know, even more than cinema. And I hope we talk about that about The only reason to do it is because you love it so much. And the actual act of making it is satisfying enough. Yeah. And it doesn't matter if people like it or dislike it. It's like if you enjoy the job, and I love getting up early and typing and writing and taking notes and doing research.
So I'm learning all that over these years and I have no money, but I meet a man named Brian Sibirel and he worked at HBO Showcase in New York, which is an old division of HBO. And he really liked this obscure play I wrote about a heresy trial in the Catholic Church. Um and he said, hey, I I want to try to develop this for like a low budget HBO movie. And I was like, great. And I I loved movies, so I was excited to get the chance to like see how that works.
And he called me one day and said, you know, HR is not going to do your movie because I'm going to CAA to be an agent. Do you want to be my first client? And I didn't have an agent. You know, I had a great lawyer who's still my lawyer by the way, uh who like he's the guy you call when you want to bury a body. And uh and so I said, Great, yes, I don't have an agent, I want to do movies.
And they couldn't sign me because I hadn't written anything. So I was like a hip pocket client, you know, and Brian Cerberal is still my agent today, you know, because he believed in me when I literally knew nothing.
about writing. So I was r I was exploring like, okay, I wanna write things that I love. So I wanna write a horror movie about bats. You know, I wanna write like a William Girdler Grizzly movie about a bats because I love bats and it's a cool idea and and it's my genre. It's my like sweet spot. And I love football. And you know, I lived in Chicago when the Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl. And it was an amazing.
Against the Patriots.
Oh yeah, sorry.
I lost five dollars on that one.
Yeah, but our city gained prestige and the world? Yeah, and the world gained refrigerator Perry, you know? And it was and the Super Bowl shuffle, if you're not sure.
Bury the bears.
Exactly. So so I loved football and conversely I truly dislike baseball because baseball to me
Boring as fuck.
Cyclical. You just go round and literally round and round. Where in football you are fighting forward and backwards to and fro. So like the the physics of it were are are inherently dramatic. Um so I wanted to write a football movie. And I said, you know, to Brian, I want to write a football movie. Um what should I do? And he said, Well do the research you can and take a year off writing plays to really do that.
So I did, and I had no money, but I hung out with the Chicago Bears, I watched every football game I could, and my whole my whole sort of like idea was to do King Lear in the NFL. And I wrote this movie called Any Even Sunday. So I gave it to Brian, I said, Good luck. I don't know, it's expensive and big and I don't know anything about it and there's a lot of long speeches. But anyway.
So you said great. And I was off in Adelaide, Australia, working on a new play with this group called the Independent Theatre, which is this theater in Adelaide that I love. And I got a call saying, sit down, Oliver Stone's calling you in five minutes.
Oh my god!
Seriously. And I'm like I'm in the director's like living room being like, I have to take a call in five minutes and it is literally Oliver Stone. Saying Logan, what is that Irish? I love the Irish. I gotta see in Tokyo in three days. Okay. So he was doing uh Junket for Nixon in Tokyo. And so I took a few days off rehearsals for this play and I got on a first class ticket
Oh man.
Never. Who knew?
Changes your life though,'cause how do you go back? You know.
Oh baby, how do you go back? And and then I'm in Tokyo, I'm meeting with Oliver Stone, and I always say like The people who made me Are Brian Siburrel Jim Bagley, my lawyer, Oliver Stone and Ridley Scott. Oliver Stone taught me what a screenwriter is. He taught me what to do, what the job is.
This is what's so amazing about the story though, that he was willing to do that. And and at and at at that point in his career wasn't get me whoever the top A list, whoever just wrote whatever that other big thing at him. Like that he that he worked with you like that.
He did. He he got the kinglierness of it. uh and I got not I didn't know what a movie was. I just I didn't know how a movie was made, except from reading like Little Shopper Horrors, you know. And the it was an amazing sort of learning experience in every way, but business and and artistic, particularly artistic.
Because I learned the humility that is required of a screenwriter that is the opposite of what is required of a playwright. Because in a playwright, you walk in and you are Harold Pinter. Or you are William Shakespeare, or you are you are Ibsen, and you are given that respect. And that can lead to a fulsome sense of pride about what you've created. With a screenwriter, you have to adapt so neatly to what a director's vision is.
'Cause if you were directing a screenplay of mine, and I hope you will one day like So do I. That's why I'm asking you like have you written an exception movie or is it just an idea? Because I do have an idea. And and like but if you were directing it
We would have to learn to speak the same language. Yeah. And I would have to learn your language and your set of references. With someone like Oliver or Ridley, we're enough of the same generation that I understand when when you know Ridley talks about e lean comedy. Or he talks about Kindheit and Coronets or he talks about this. I we have the same set of references. You and I would need to build a set of references.
Perhaps less so because we have such a love of the genre. So, you know, it was it was an amazingly rare opportunity for me. But what was weird about it is like when I talk to emerging screenwriters, I'm like I don't know how useful my story is gonna be because I was a an emerging playwright and dramatist.
But this is this is what we're always trying to stress is I think people who are looking to do this or maybe they have been and they're just not where they want to be yet. Um it It's so hard to look at somebody else's story and say, Okay, then that's what I have to do. Everybody's story is different. Everybody found a different way in. It happened at a different time, a different way. And I think it's important for people to hear that'cause you start thinking
I'm just terrible at this. Why is nothing happening? And it's like it it's different for everybody.
Yeah, it is like i you know, when we were in college, you know, at Northwestern we kept saying like You know, the the the you know, David Downs who was the big acting teacher guru and I went through his year his class for three years and he taught me how to read a play, you know, we kept saying, Oh, he's gonna give us the word one day. He's gonna pass down the word of wisdom and we will understand art and the profession.
And you realise, you know, you are on your own road to Damascus pal. And if you're gonna have a if you're gonna have uh a conversion or a transformation, it's gonna happen to you in your unique way when you're alone. You know, i I can't follow in uh you know, I w I can't follow in Stephen Santheim's footprints. I can't I can't walk anywhere. Um you can only you you know, I will say to people, like, run your own race.
That's when people say are you competitive with other movies and other screenwriters? Uh I say absolutely not.
Near mine. I feel like that's been to my detriment. I maybe I could use a little more of it, but I'm not. Like I'm always happy to see anybody win because thank God somebody won. Like it there's so much losing. So when somebody wins, it's so inspiring, it's such a great thing. And and this was we've talked about this before, but why I kinda g left the comedy world where I started at first. It was
It just w horror is they're just such great people and they're such normal people. Comedy it's more miserable. It's more but anyway, but the the way in it's different for every
Yeah, and it's also it's also, you know, what are the what are the valuable traits that are required as you try to make your way. I mean to me, the most important thing is, you know, tenacity. You must stay at it. You must have an insane belief in yourself. You must love your art form. And more importantly, be train be trained in your art form. Because it's very arduous to learn your job as an artist and you have to take it seriously. That's why
You know, I almost think that if someone writes one great movie, I'm like, that's fantastic or directs one great movie, or gives one great performance like fantastic. You're building a lifetime and a career, not one performance. And to do that you have to take it really seriously. And like when I used to teach playwriting, I would always say, like Unless you can talk about Aristotle, unless you unless you've read Hamlet so many times you understand it.
Or Sam Shepherd or Harold Pinter, you know, or Hamilton, and you understand why the score is working out the way it is. Don't talk to me. Don't even talk to me. Because that is the work you have to do. You know, if I'm talking to if you were a screenwriter, so where do you start? And I say, okay, so what screenplays have you read? And you say, Well, I've read Tarantino and I've read Adam Green, I've read it I'd be like, Well have you read?
Do you know who D. Del Griffith is? You know, because the continuum of your art form is so important, maybe just me, but but it is important.
It's funny when when you're young and somebody tells you that Yeah sometimes your first reaction is that's all old shit. I don't like yeah, I don't need to know that. I need to know what they're doing now.'Cause I remember being told to buy in college a book of like uh it was screenplays by Preston Sturges. It was a whole like collection of And I'm like, why am I read by the time I got to the end, I had learned so much about comedy, especially, timing, like and using fewer words especially.
Yeah,'cause it'cause all the all the sort of the masters that that came before us, like the men and women who who created the art form who did who did significant work They all have something to teach us. You know, it's like it's like if you're if you're like a writer who's writing dialogue, if you're a dramatist and giving words to actors.
By God, you have to understand poetry, you have to understand prosody, you have to understand w how many syllables are in a word and w in a sentence and what it means and the different rhythms it can have. Well ask you, when you when you write This is such a cliche question, I'm sorry, but do you hear it in your head?
Yes.
Ja, mig tæt.
Yeah, and I I act it out sometimes poorly.
Oh that's
And then I use action figures. And even though they're, you know, usually Star Wars or whatever and nothing like what the but if I can see it and especially kills and action to actually
I get that, but I think I think every writer kind of does their version of that. I mean, I actually don't use action figures. But if you gave me some I would. Like particularly the Jason or the Victor Crowleys, I'd use them more.
But like I think we all have our version of that where like there's a scene going on, it's two it's you and I sitting across a table. It's like if I imagine it in my head in that sort of perfect cathedral of my imagination, it's the same as you acting it out with with little people. Um, you know.
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Okay. Well then speaking of process, did anything change when you moved from exclusively writing plays to now you're writing screenplays? Did your process change at all? Like how you approach things, how you
Not remotely. I mean I think I think you know, I look at the two art forms and television as as different animals. But they all were the same fur for me. And you know, I always say, I'm sure I said this to you when we met, it's like This should be on my tombstone. You know, I wake up every morning to do the same job, which is to write great words for actors and great scenes for directors.
That's what I do. And whether I'm working on the book for a musical or a play or a movie or a scene from T V show, it is the exact same job for me. Um and and yeah, of course the form's different, it looks different on the page. Uh you know, obviously cinematically you're also thinking about visual metaphors that you may not when you're working on a stage play. And when you're thinking about a television series, you have the temporal awareness that like, oh, I have ten out.
And I can keep cutting from this location to this one. It doesn't apply your kind of
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it's and it's in its you know, I remember the the big transition I made when I did Penny Dreadful, which was my first T V show, and like what a great experience that was. is, you know, I had spent my entire career and it was a long career at that point writing for the two hour box. I mean occasionally with Marty Scorsese it's the three hour box, but s especially the two hour box.
And because I loved nineteenth century novels so much and I love Dickens so much, I was like, what would it be r like to have the freedom to tell a story over ten hours or twenty hours or thirty hours? And so I wrote the first season of Penny Dreadful as a very long movie.
So there was a there was already a sort of a temporal adjustment in how I was telling the story. And then I sat down with David Nevins, the head of Showtime, who was a a genius when it comes to television, and said, look, the other thing you have to remember about television is it a living organism. If an actor does something, you need to be able to respond to it. If if Billy Piper, for example, um, I love Billy Piper, she came in to play one part.
And I loved what she did so much, I expanded that part. You know, and so suddenly that that ten hour movie becomes an ongoing, like, epic that just has no end to it, pi hypothetically. Except that almost had an ending in mind.
Some something a lot of people don't realize is that with T V credits are very different. Producers are often writers, but it's really as much as there's a director on set, the showrunner is kind of like the A superior director in a way because the showrunner is the one you're hiring the director because you believe in that director's vision. You know that's the right men or woman for that job.
But you're still overseeing everything in a way that normally as a feature writer at a certain point in most cases the script is sort of out of your hands.
Yeah, and and sometimes very happily so. Sure. It's like people say, Oh do you like being on set? I'm like, no. I mean like being on a movie set for me, if unless I'm
Even when they're directing?
Uh yeah, no, I like people what I'm directing, but but it's like if you were directing a movie, if you're directing you know, I would love to come see you work and ha and hang out and have fun. But when when like David Mammoth once said, the great Chicago player, by the way, you know A screenwriter on a film set is like a plumber on a honeymoon. It's like useful if you need them, but otherwise they don't serve a purpose. And and like in the best of circumstances
You know, you hand the piece over. I mean obviously I've been on set a lot for various movies because directors want it or actors want it or it's it's required.
But then when it was all eyes on you, what are we doing? How are we doing this? How are you was it exciting or were you nervous that first especially they them, that first day of
Yeah, I was I was super nervous. You know, thankfully we scheduled the first day was Kevin Bacon's big speech, sort of welcoming the the kids to the camp. Um so I was in the hands of a very confident partner. you know, in that and I'd spent so long prepping, just like drawing little pictures of like every so I had a little script and I on the on the verso of every page I had a little drawing
Of blocking. Because blocking from theater is all I know about how to move people around in space. I don't know anything about moving the camera. Yeah, but you know what was was not good is I wasn't uh I just didn't have the responsiveness to moving the camera through space. I always looked at the thing as a proscenium arch.
You know, and so that's something I had to tr kind of learn, you know, on the fly. And Lynn Moncrief, the DP, was incredible at just spending time with me and letting you know, looking at the shot and talking about what movement might do to a scene. Because as a pure writer pretty much y I just think it's like well you let the actors act and don't distract from the actors acting, you know. Um but that's not the heart of cinema, as you know.
You know, the heart of cinema is is visceral, it is kinesthetic, it's moving.
And it's and it also so much of storytelling comes down to your voice, which we talk about a lot with writers. It's finding your voice and you though from football epics to gladiators um to Sweeney Todd to James Bond to El How do you but yet your voice is prevalent in everything you write.
I don't know.
What are you?
I don't think I don't think that's true. I mean it's it's well I'm glad then then then you'll have to tell me how because other than a certain awareness of literacy and a certain like the facilit facility with dialogue. you know, I when people talk about um a dramatist voice You know, like you can always tell a David Mammoth. You can. You can tell Sam Shepherd. You can tell Bert.
Like whoever's
Smith, Kevin Williamson, you can tell.
Yeah.
I don't think for me that's a good thing. For me personally. Because for me, what has to be true on the stage is the character and their voice. And if Mark Rothko in my play Red had a a hint of Maximus and Gladiator or Sweeney Todd, it would be inorganic. It wouldn't be right.
So I don't worry about my voice being being heard at all. I worry about James Bond's voice being heard, you know what I mean? Or Michael Jackson's voice being heard. And part of my job is channeling whatever the spirit of that person is into some kind of language. And people ask me all the time. I think I'm asked more than anything. It's like, why do you write in so many different genres?
Every single genre. Like, I mean the fact that you like we said, you came out of the gate with a sports movie and a horror movie about bats. Yeah. That's and in some cases that could be a problem because then nobody knows what box to even put you in at all.
Well I think it was for a while. I mean added to the fact that I'm gay and sort of I was writing muscular movies, you know, and when people met me for the first time I was the last thing they expected. You know, I I'm an Irish American, not particularly, you know, striking gay boy. And they expected like like Kane Hodder to walk in and be like, let's talk football. Let's talk slam around.
I kind of know the feeling because when I started doing conventions because people knew the movies, not me, they'd see like Hatchet and Expect somebody who looked more like Rob Zombie, and then there's me with my little dog and my Yankee candles, and my they'd be so disappointed. I'm like, I'm sorry, I know.
The first time I saw a picture of you, I said, oh, it's another gay boy in horror. Especially with Arwen. I'm like, oh, honey.
It's easy.
He's a liberace of horror. Uh Uh yeah. But it's like it's like I uh I just love different things. I love I love being challenged with new things, you know, and that's like I remember Wes Craven talking about that once. It's like w being challenged with something you haven't done before
It's so exciting.
Is so exciting and and risking failing. And I have failed magnificently. You know, it's easy to look at my career and say, wow, Oscar nominations and Gladiator and James Bond and Michael Jackson. That is not my career. My career is there are there are films that or plays that hit for a certain reason and there's a lot that don't. And all of those are part of who I am. And the the failures are some of the things I'm most fond of, you know, that's as as I think we
It's like we all love we all love the run to the litter in a way. So it's it's easy to love Skyfall. Yeah.'Cause it's great. And I th I I agree it's great. And part of the reason it's great is me and part of it's a lot of other people. But it's not as easy to love s things that don't necessarily work. Like plays that close, you know, are just the most heartbreaking thing in the world. I the the saddest professional moment in my life
Is if if you're doing a play or a musical and it closes and they when they tear down the set and you just realize that's a bit of my history and art history and theater history that will never occur again. Because if a play fails big, it doesn't get revised.
If a play hits
It is the everlasting joy of your life because you know as we're sitting here, there are productions of red in France, in Korea, in China, in South America, happening right now. And so something I did lives on. And movies movies live on, but to me they're They're dead the minute they're done. You know, but a play because it's because it is
Every time it's performed it is new because it's a new audience responding to it and the actors respond to that and it so it it has to sort of the you know, the DNA has to shift with every performance. It's it's a premiere.
But you just went through something that very few people will ever go through and pulled it off. And it is such a miracle.
And uh this is why the the way things worked out with Joan not being here, I'm like, thank God, because now I can monopolize this conversation. Um but you how did Michael come about for you so people understand? And Just to get this out of the way so people stop saying it, by the estate being involved, did they ever tell you, here, lie about this, don't say that, do this, do this, do that.
The biggest m misunderstanding about Michael is that the estate had any creative involvement at all.
Thank you.
You know, I I know John Branca, I know the people of the state, not one note, not one suggestion. They didn't get a vote, they didn't have an opinion. I mean they may have had an opinion, but at at no point, you know, and I've been working on this for eight years. At no point did the estate put their thumb on the scale about anything artistic to do with this movie.
So y th one of the whenever I talk about the movie, I'm like and then I heard finally they're making Michael Jackson biopic and then when they announced you, it's like, Oh thank God that's not me because i it it's in I would think it's an unwinnable situation because you're talking about the most famous human being to ever live on this planet.
and everyone's got an opinion and everyone thinks they know and then you have fans who if they don't see every little thing that they know about this man on that screen, then it you it's a mess. It's a m so how did you I'm assuming as with anything, the first thing you did was start researching. Yeah. And that was my first question for you when we met was all right, so I'm sure you did all the research. The audience uh unless
Unless you just found the show, I had a nervous breakdown over this shit in twenty nineteen because I didn't know what to believe. I was very for the first time I was shook and I'm like, what the f what if I you know? So I I did all the research. This is such an impossible person to reach. There's so many books. There's so many stories. The Jackson 5, how did you compartmentalize? How did you approach? How did you not get overwhelmed?
Well I had I had access you didn't for one because I was doing it. Um you know it all came about because Graham King, the producer who I did the aviator and and Rango and Hugo with, called me. And said I've just acquired the life rights and thing to to an artist and I really want you to write it. Um I said, Who? He said, Michael Jackson. And I said, You're out of your fucking mind. Um
But then I said, but you know what, let me let me just do some due diligence. Um because the figure was so controversial at that point. You know, go flashback eight years. Uh Neaving Leaving Neverland had just come out. It was it was it was the height of of controversy.
Uh you know, but I knew in my bones there was a great American story. And like Thriller came out the year I graduated from college and it was like you could not live in Chicago, you could not draw breath without being being aware of thriller's significance, you know, both musically, creatively, uh racially, culturally.
And so I knew there was a great story there. And I'm not f afraid of complicated characters. You don't write a movie about Howard Hughes or you don't do a play about Mark Rothko. Um Or you don't embrace Sweeney Todd if you have any fear of darkness or any fear of going into a maelstrom of conflicting impulses in a character. So I did I spent a year doing the research.
You know, I read everything and then but I had also had access to interviews. So I talked to the Jackson family, I talked to people who worked with Michael, I talked to a lot of people. I talked to people who'd been at Neverland, kids who'd been at Neverland, employees.
You know, I had access to um the archives, which is sort of unbelievable,'cause it's everything. You know,'cause when they died, everything went. All the furniture from Neverland, all of his records, all of his writings particular. And there were these binders of his notes to himself. And that was the most useful because, you know, page after page after page for hundreds, thousands of pages.
are little notes he would scrawl to himself about his career or about his personality or about his loneliness or his drawings and those were the most useful to try to get some access into the character. And then I did w what any writer would do, which I I I charted out a little bit.
a structure. I worked really closely with Graham King as we sort of developed it, you know, hand in glove, you know, because because he knew Michael, he knew the Jacksons, you know, I certainly didn't. Um and that's how it all came together.
So, all right. So you do all that research and you have access to to all that great stuff. How were you able to kind of pick and choose? Sure, that was a big moment, but it it doesn't need it to to be a f because th what I love about this movie is it works so well for the masses, for general audiences, and that's hard to do. It's really hard to
Yeah, it's it's just not getting fetishistic about the details, you know, because if you're like, Oh well, that was a different belt buckle. in that performance outfit, you're lost. And so you know, I've dealt with a lot of historical material over the years and it's sort of b my bread and butter actually. And, you know, so part of the discipline I bring to it is saying like
This is a really fascinating life, but it's not necessarily a fascinating movie. So picking the elements that will feed the narrative of the story you want to tell is all that matters. And anything that doesn't fit in that story just goes away because a a life like Howard Hughes or Michael Jackson or Mark Rothko. It's too big, it's too much. You know, you just have to winnow down to the historical events, incidents, and attitudes that support the story you're telling.
I mean it sounds simple, but it's it's like Yeah, it's not at all. Yeah, my first play was a history play, so it's it's also what I've been doing for forty years. It's like all of the all of this prepared me to write Michael Jackson for eight years, you know, and to work on the movie for eight years because it was I'd been preparing for this in a way.
So you you write the movie, I'm sure there were drafts and all that, but then it goes into production, it's shot, and then you guys get the news. Oops, there is a legal thing and uh that stuff cannot be addressed. Right.
Yeah, the original, you know, draft and original movie dealt with the allegations. Um, very honestly, and that's what that's that's what the story is we were telling. And then we got the legal news that oh no m you can't do that. So you have to kind of um take what you have, reimagine an entirely new movie. With entirely new structure and entirely new.
reason for being. And it was like that was that was a dreadful call, you know, that I got from Graham King. And but we just sat down with Antoine and we we talked about it. We talked about and we took so many different approaches.
for how to salvage some material, how to tell a different story, and it quickly became apparent we needed to reshoot a lot. Because we decided on the story we wanted to tell pretty quickly, which is The young man, the troubled, sad young man escaping from the dominance of his father to become a solo artist.
You included such an important line and I know it and most people would probably be like, Well, sure, whatever. I don't know what it was about it, but when Joe Jackson says you're gonna surround yourself with a bunch of yes people, how's that gonna work out for you? And I'm like, what a f- Fucking great way to set up the the next one if
Yeah, that's that is my favorite scene in the movie when Michael and his father talk in his bedroom and because it is. It is, you know, part of part of my job as a dramatist dealing with an historical character is foreshadowing things you're not saying.
Like the end of the end of the aviator, h you know, Howard Hood's had a big triumph. He's just flown the spruce goose, but he ends it looking in a mirror saying the way of the future, the way of the future, the way of the future. So he's going into an episode. that is what will then take over and destroy his life. So that that scene was was suggesting that that the the complications and troubles for Michael are coming.
based on the fact that he has achieved a solo success and will soon be the king of pop.
Joe Jackson is such a complicated character and I think a I think most people especially if they're fans of Michael Jackson or the Jacksons, they know like Joe Jackson did what he felt he had to do to bring his family out of their situation and, you know, believed in a dream. How he went about it, I don't know.
Um, but what a lot of people forget is in two thousand five when Michael was on trial for his life, who was there, who did he want there? Who was there with him as dad? And uh like it is such a great story i i in that way. But this wasn't Joe Jackson's story or movie. So what was that like then? Cause you ha he's such a layered guy and the the affairs, the others like how do you how did you kind of Was it just uh yeah, that is true, but this is uh I'm laser focused, I'm just on
Yeah, there was there was a lot more. There was you know, there were there were drafts when I went deeply into Joe's private life and the affairs and Catherine's response to him. And the various other family members' response, his relationship with Don King and the money. There there was there were many drafts where I sort of dialed into all of them. But as the story emerged, you know, we realized that that Joe needs to be the the spark the anvil to which Michael's hammer is gonna back.
you know, and so those were the scenes that survive while always realizing and I think this is this is imperative for every dramatist, which is like you have to love all your characters. You have to love the villains as much as the heroes. And you have to invest them with with humanity.
And so even though what Joe did in many ways was domineering and barbaric, you know, you have to understand where it came from. You have to turn the other side of that as well. You have to understand his insecurity and his need to protect his family. Because, you know, the reality is once like off the wall and then Thriller was released, suddenly the brand was no longer the Jacksons or the Jackson Five, it was Michael J.
And how do you deal with your son or your brother becoming the most famous human being on the planet in your profession? Yeah. You know, it's like You you think of like Frank Sinother Jr. It's like are you really gonna record an album? You know, how do you how do you do that?
I loved that, uh, because the you know, the critics came out with what they had to say and and there was just a lot of like Because of the estate's involvement, this is a whitewash. This is this and that. And just by watching it, how I c could tell and why I was smiling so big when you said no, the estate didn't meddle creatively. is if if the family or the estate had meddled, they would have wanted to be a bigger part of it. They're it's not about the brothers. It's not about the and like and I
I was just on the the MJ cast, uh I think the episode's out at now. Well definitely out by the time this airs. But um I was saying we have the Jacksons in American Dream, that's all about that nitty gritty. That's not what this is. This is the Michael movie. How did you pick Which songs you were gonna Showcase'cause thank you for human nature. First of all,'cause th that's probably my favorite, and to have the whole song in there was just
Uh you know what? It's uh talk about sometimes in our sometimes in our profession they feed you candy. And and like the Michael Jackson song catalog is like a feast of candy. There's so much to choose from. You know, and so we tried different s you know, in the discussion phase, it's obviously not filming because that's like way expensive. You know, we tried different um different songs, like how does this sound, how does that sound? And I'll tell you something.
It's when people say like, oh, I get approached all the time since I've since I've done some musical books, especially Moulin Rouge, to do musicals, like uh bit with people's song catalogs. And I'm like I I can't wake up to that music every day for years. I just don't love it enough.
And, you know, I love Sweeney Todd from the moment I saw it on Broadway to all the way through the movie. I could always wake up to that score and I could always wake up to Michael Jackson. You know, to any album still like excited me. The process of picking the songs was mostly about where Michael was in his journey emotionally and what the what the audio what we wanted the audience to feel.
Whether we wanted to that that access into his soul with something like human nature, or we just wanted them to fucking get up and dance, you know, like bad, which is obviously there because it is the the triumph of the kid the poor kid, lonely kid you see. crying in the bathroom in the first ten minutes is now at Wembley Stadium doing bad with thousands of people cheering, including the people in our audience.
What's so amazing about that moment is if I was forced at gunpoint.
To erase the
one Michael Jackson song from existence, it would be for me, it would be bad. That's the one that's just the one that I like the least. I still like it, but it's the one I like the least. And if I could have gotten up on my feet in in that moment the first night. And then the other two nights that I saw it or one of them was actually a a morning show in four DX and it was full.
on a Tuesday and I just kept watching the other people, the smiles on their faces, everyone's like moving. They can't help it. When was the first time you saw Jafar in full makeup perform?
I saw you know, I saw Jafar's whole journey, you know, because as I'm sure you know, he spent a year Studying and dancing.
He had to audition for this.
He did, because he never really acted before.
That's another misconception that people have. It's like, oh well, cool, is his it's his nephew, so of course he's no.
It was you know, I I credit Graham King, the producer with a lot of genius. And we said from the very beginning, my God, who's going to play Michael Jackson? And like they auditioned a lot of people. And Graham King one day said, what about Jafar Jackson? And he auditioned, he was great, but he wasn't the dancer that he needed to be. So he spent a year doing it. And along the way I would see clips of him just getting better and better and better and better.
And seeing him sort of embody that thing. And then we shot all the performances the first thing. That's the first thing we shot to get them out of the way so we could just work on the the acting.
Isn't bad like the first thing they shot?
I think it was, yeah. It was. Yeah. And so I was there the first day because, you know, it's the first day, plus I had work to do, you know, on the script. But it was it was amazing seeing it.'Cause like you just realized this is channeling. This is not acting, this is channeling. And what I love about Jafar's performance is, yeah, he he's doing Michael Jackson, but he's not doing a Michael Jackson in imitation. This is Jafar bringing himself to.
And so it's if you look through the double lens of what we know of the performance of Billie Jean, for example, and what Jafar does like Yeah, the moves are practically identical, but the spirit is not. There is something extra to what he does. It was it's extraordinarily gratifying when a writer sees an actor Grab a part he embraced.
embodied it. Yeah. Like it wasn't um an impersonation. It wasn't because there's so many dancers out there who can do in like fits and bursts, they can do some cool Michael Jackson stuff, like street performers and stuff. But he just
Yeah, and we filmed all the performances straight through. There was never a cut. He performed them flat out. There were like twelve cameras going from every angle and he just went through m again and again and again. And like when you see the stuff that's coming up in the second movie, which I cannot speak about, you'll be dazzled. And we'll talk about it off off mic, but it's like there is stuff coming that is extraordinary.
So okay, I wanna go back though because when you find out the entire like backbone of the movie that not that just that you wrote, but that has been shot. Now that's going to change. Was there ever a like, this is not the movie that we said we all said we were making? So no, I'm not, I'm out. Was there ever a
No, it was everyone um with the exception of one actor. said, yeah, you bet. Let's pitch in. What do you need? How can I help? They were incredible. And, you know, weirdly enough, you'd think, Adam, that at the moment I'm sitting down with Graham and he's talking about the legal problems, I would feel pressure. And I didn't because Of two reasons. First of all, nothing that you will ever go through in the movies or television compares with the pressure of live theater.
when if something goes wrong in a preview there's a real audience there and you're sitting with them and you have to fix it in real time and you only have three hours of rehearsal. You know, that is that is pressure. And any playwright who can stand up to that and and survive any pressure in the movies is a piece of cake. Not necessarily the pressures of the profession, but the pressures of the creation.
So I wasn't I wasn't nervous because of that and also I felt incredibly supported by Graham King, by Antoine, by Lionsgate, by Universal. They all left us alone. to do the work. And I felt supported. I felt like okay, we we will figure this out. All we need to do is be professional and be artists.
How do you not crack under that kind of pressure?
You know, very early on, the first thing I ever wrote for the screen, my first like screenplay, um this guy named Yanni Saivatsu, who used to run Propaganda Films, which was a great old film.
So many music video directors came out of there.
Exactly. He h weirdly hired me out of the blue to write a movie about Edith Piaf. And like It was so exciting and but I was that then I was very frightened because I'm like, okay, I have to really learn the form, which I did through studying two scripts, you know, Joseph Spano's Psycho Script and Robert Towns China.
you know, and I love movies and I I have a a deep bench of movie knowledge, you know, as a fan. But I really was nervous. So I went to this man named Frank Galotti who who taught at Northwestern when I was there, and I have just graduated practically.
Um and Frank's a member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company and he I mean he was now, you know, and you know, he did that great adaptation of Grapes of Wrath that won the Tony Award. Fantastic writer. And he'd written The Accidental Tourist and was Os Oscar nominated.
And so I said, you know, okay, here's all I'm thinking. I don't you know, can you give me some advice? He gave me two great pieces of advice. He said don't ever write the stage direction, he picks up a teacup. Write the stage direction. A hand reaches in, quivering, picks up A teacup that has a crack in it. So you're giving emotion with stage direction. Do not be functional in how you describe. And he gave me one of the two pieces of advice I give to every writer. Relax and be an artist.
And so when Michael hit its roadblock, I remembered Frank Galati sitting in his office in refreshment and saying, relax and be an artist. Don't be a technician, don't be a craftsman, don't be a businessman, be an artist, because that's what you are.
When was the first time you saw it with an audience of like real people, not uh industry people?
Uh I waited for that. I waited to the premiere on a Hollywood Boulevard, you know, in the Dolby Theatre.
You didn't go to the Berlin one?
I did not. I wanted to see it in my hometown in Michael's hometown. I want to see it with a hometown crowd and my friends there. And uh, you know, I'd seen screenings of it obviously. I hosted a screening of it for some friends, but that was the first time I saw it with an audience.
You know, and as soon as that opening music s kicks in, people are screaming and I I know that's like a biased audience of like inviting people, but there was also th like a thousand fans there who just like done allowed her to get tickets. Um it was one of the great nights. For me it was one of the great nights'cause you think like
This could have failed. This could have been the most embarrassing thing. This could have this could have gone south in so many ways. But every single person, every woman and man working on that movie did their best. And it's like when movies you know this. It's when movies come together, it's because all the pieces somehow click into place. Skyfall was that for me. Gladiator was that for me.
Sweeney Todd was that for me and Michael's that because every artist w gave their all and it all fell into play.
And so how do you, after all these years, how do you deal with Critics. Do you not read the reviews or do you how how did you'cause at some point we all have to learn how to accept it for what it is and it's not the end of the world and it doesn't It's an opinion and it it sometimes it's like Do you ever find if it's too positive you can't accept it either though, where you're like nah
Yeah. It's it's you know, Chekhov in the Seagull has a playwright character who says, you know I I'm paraphrasing, but you know the thing about reviews and critics is whatever they say is not good enough and any negative thing they say you're gonna remember the rest of your life.
And so
You know, I would read reviews. In the theater you kinda have in the old days you had to read reviews because because if Frank Rich gave you a rave you were gonna run, if he didn't, you were gonna close. So in the theater I have I had I had in the past more response to reviews because it it's part of my art, my profession. Um And I wrote I wrote The Last Samurai and there was this website called the I Hate John Logan website because people were really like mad and like y jealous of my my career.
From that day to this, I have never read a comment, a review, a Wikipedia, a Google, because you know what? It hurts and I I don't need to be hurt. And it and it's like it's like Especially now in the atmosphere we live in. Because I hear things, you know, people talk about Michael, I talk with Graham King about the first movie and the second movie and and you know The toxic creep of negativity toward the arts is so pernicious and so dangerous to an artist.
Because whether you create it yourself or whether it's created for you by a studio or a writer's collective or you know, you need a safe space. You need a space to fail.
And
If you fail, Adam, you know when you fail, and I know when I fail. And nothing anyone's gonna say is gonna make that any better.
Nothing.
'Cause we live with it. Yeah. Um so for me now I have reached the anvil position of I don't care. Um, I can say that now because I can pay my mortgage, you know, and I've had a career. If I never did another thing, you know, I have a good obituary, you know.
It's sad and I think it's like this for so many people. Like I try to be really good about being grateful for whatever whatever it is that I have. Um but when when you're still struggling, when you still can't pay your rent, you can't pay for it's so hard to ever feel like anything you've done was a success. Because well then why am I struggling like this still? What's the fuck? What's
And I tell you, as much as you'd like to think you can provide your own validation, you can't. You know, the the cosmos have to give you some love, have to have to tell you you did well. You know,
Do it to entertain strangers. And if they're not entertained, fuck.
Yes. But but then there's this. Then there's this. My great friend Michael Grandich, who directed my play Red and some other s wonderful British director of both film and and theater. Said something I'll never forget. He said, you know, any night in the theater, the person in B twelve is having the worst night of their life and the person in B thirteen is having the greatest experience of their life.
That's what audiences are. And he always called them the beast. And I do the same thing. The audience is the beast'cause you cannot control them. They're gonna think what they're gonna think. They're gonna hate that line, they're gonna love that line. You know, they're gonna hate your play, they're gonna love your play. you cannot do anything about it. All you could do is be the best artist and craftsman you can be. To fulfill the job and do do your best.
Well, I think Michael is one of the best examples where it f it just feels like you said, everybody involved Was making the same movie. Everybody did a great job. And the movie worked for the audience it was made for, which was the world. And so the It was a couple of days before that Friday, I think, when probably the embargo lifted. And any Michael Jackson fan worth their
Worth their sequin glove knows it's gonna get savaged by critics'cause it's a Michael Jackson thing and they're gonna So all of it was expected. But what I did kind of enjoy And I I'm kinda like you. I don't usually look. If the publicist sends the one sentence, you know, positive, negative, mixed, whatever, I'll look at that, but I'm not gonna sit and read every review, especially'cause too many reviews These days do blow by blow descriptions of what happens in the mo I don't tell me that.
Um but they if they were never gonna be happy with it and all they did was complain about what it wasn't. D review what it is. Review the movie that was made and that you're watching. Yeah. Not oh, but wouldn't it have been cool if Boba Fett showed up? No. Shut up.
I know. It is like that's that's like uh that's maddening.'Cause people s will say that to you. Like I remember when when um You know, here's here's my semi-snarky experience with that is when I was doing Penny Dreadfall. Someone said to me once, you know, well you know what? Uh I don't think you should have used um doctor Frankenstein as a character. I say, you know what, pal?
When Showtime's doing your hundred million dollar T V show, you don't have to you do that, baby, you know. It's yeah, it's like everyone's gonna have their thoughts and bless them and I'm glad they do, and God knows I do, you know, I watch you know. Although it's so easy to do because I d I I was praising, you know, digging up the marrow, which I watched shockingly for the first time last week. And I like I love that so much. Obviously my first question was like
Is there a second one? Can I write it? Um and and and my other my other thought was like Wow, I wonder if they should have gone down into the marrow more and then they should have found a clue, which like a rosebud to lead to the next movie. I'm like, shut the fuck up, John. You know, take what they did.
But the the sequel was it's supposed to be the almost the entire movie.
My version's very different though. My version's a musical, so
I just love that you got it'cause that was another example of one of those ones that's like we just want to do this to do it because we think it's cool and only we could make this exact movie. Yeah. And that's why we did it.
That's the thing though, you have just hit it. It's I remember Gore Vidal saying, who's an author I admire a lot.
You know,
When he looked back at his career, you know, he did like books that you know, he did like Burr and Lincoln, you know, these amazing books. He said, No, no, I'm most proud of Myra Breckinridge, which is this very obscure novel he wrote. Not obscure all it's very popular at the time. I don't know. It's sort of like there's a movie with Raquel Welch and Rex Reed.
That is and Farrah Fawcett, that is notoriously like one of the worst movies ever made. Myra Breckinridge, do check it out. But anyway, and he said I'm most proud of Myra Breckinridge because only I could have written it at that moment. Meaning his life experience led him to a very particular thing. The same way your life experience led you to only you
to digging up the marrow. Or even hatchet. You know, there was something about the influences that like people you knew and the hills have eyes and things that have in informed you that made you singularly the person to do that. When I wrote my play Red about Mart Rothko, it was coming off a lot of stuff. It was coming off dealing with huge directors like Scorsese and Michael Mann and Ridley Scott and realizing
Dealing with a mentor that you respect is a challenging proposition when you want to step away from that mentor. And that's what Red was about to me. And, you know, the reason I wrote it is because I got to know Steven Sondheim really well when I was doing Sweeney Todd for years, like studying his score and being there on set and, you know, being one of the producers of the movie and being deeply involved with Steve and the and the movie.
And, you know, at a certain point I said, I've got to say something about this, about the idea of being in the theater like Stephen Sonahim is and dealing grappling with gigantic mentors.
I don't think anyone could have written red at that moment in that way, but me, because of my individual experience. The same way, you know, whatever the experiences that led you know, to Texas Chainsaw Massacre were very unique to his experiences in Austin in life before that with his parents, you know, in in in a certain way.
So I guess I yeah, I guess that's like if there's a lesson in that, maybe it's like celebrate who you are, because you are s unique. No one has walked in your shoes and write that. Which is not which is this which is different than saying write what you know because I reject that entirely. You know, it's like write who you are.
Yeah, you're the best example of rejecting the just write what you know. Um, because what do you know about being a gladiator? But you've done it or being in space with an alien or being a spy or d do I ch how did you how did you lose the fear though? The fear of I'm not the right one. Like why me for this one or or that one? Because you've done you've literally done all of it and you have worked in beloved
franchises. I mean Alien is revered. And so to get to to to write an Alien movie is incredible. James Bond, uh fucking people love it. Michael Jackson, my are is there ever a Oh fuck, what if what if it I'm not the right one? Like
No. I wouldn't do it then. But you know
What do you get the I don't know. I just see I d I don't know. I guess I guess you you've had enough success where you the confidence could build up, I would just be so scared. Because what if you screw it up?
Yeah, but the the the way I deal with being scared, you know, is I do the work. You know, it's like I'm not gonna walk here's my favorite story about Hollywood. It's early on in my career I had done I had worked on Evogen Sunday. It hadn't come out yet. I mean Bats may have come out, I don't think so. And Brian Tibbell said, You know, I hear Ridley Scott wants to do a movie about the making of Citizen Kane.
I said I was born to write that movie. I love Ridley Scott. I mean there is no better movie than Alien or Blade Runner. It's just the man is clearly a master and my whole raison d'etre entering movies was I want to work with these directors. He was like top of the list for me.
I said, Well get just get me in the door and I was like, No, Ridley only sees really experienced screw knives. He's not gonna see some like fucking queer playwright from Chicago. But I said, Please, please get me in the door and I spent months preparing for one meeting. Months. And finally this woman named Diane Minter Lewis, who worked for Ridley, finally said, Oh, okay, you could you're gonna get like fifteen minutes with Ridley.
as a favor to CAA. But I had prepared and I walked in, I had a boom box with music ready to play. I had notes. And I said, Okay, such a pleasure. I can't wait to talk about the duelists, but let me tell you what I'm thinking. And I knew I had fifteen minutes. And I pitched him the whole movie, the story, I played the music cues, and like we ended up talking for three hours. And the lesson in that is be prepared because when the opportunity comes
Yeah.
have to be ready and if you have to lose sleep to do it, you know, then do it. And if you don't do that, you should not be being a screenwriter or a playwright. Because b doing that stuff has to be just as joyous as taking a bow or winning an Oscar. Because you're in it for the r I think you're in it for the wrong reasons if you're in it to get, you know, a Saturn Award or an Oscar or an Emmy.
What's it like to be nominated for an Oscar though three times? To get to go and be there and sit there.
It's like I I you know, yes. Yes and no because I'm not you know, I'm a very anonymous person. It's like I don't go to Hollywood parties, uh ever. It's I value my blankness, the fact that I can go to the Ralphs, that I can watch people, that I can just live my life and go hiking and do what I do. And the Hollywood um lifestyle or the high society lifestyle just doesn't it does not appeal to the people.
The only thing that appeals to me is like I have a very quiet life with my husband, I go hiking every day and I do my work.
What is your 'Cause you're an early riser like my s are you obs like obscenely early?'Cause I'm like two AM, I'm up like
Yeah, but the difference between you and me is like I I go to bed at seven, so I'm like I bet you don't.
I go to bed by like n nine or ten usually these days if I can.
I haven't seen ten o'clock in years.
But I just like I have to be up super early'cause that's when I can get things done.
Exactly. It's like I used to be, you know, in the theater you you do have a nocturnal life. 'Cause obviously the show ends, th you have to go out, there's notes, you know, so so my whole my whole sort of body clock changes in the theater. But in movies you start very early, as you know. And it just became my process to get up
early enough to work when it's silent and dark. Yeah. You know, I like people say like I'm like, Well what did you do today? Well I went to the coffee shop and I wrote. I'm like, Did you
I can't I can't uh like I I fa I'm like my desk faces a blank wall and a big like dark shadows poster and that is it. And a hatchet poster when you give me one. You know. But like I can't the idea the idea of like of like You know, trying to actually write in the cut and thrust of a Starbucks is like okay, g good good for you, but I can't do that.
I mean I can write I can write on the set if needed and I've done the like the the most I'll tell you the most heroizing thing is like wow so and so won't come out of their trailer because they don't like that line. And you have hundreds of people looking at you and you have your and I okay to carry a stenopad and a b black flare pen and you walk to the corner and you write something and you tear it off and you hand it over.
And I've done that countless times with things because it's required. But again, this is where the training of being in the theater helps, because like everything has to happen so quickly.
Do you subscribe to the a lot of writers do the whole like every day for six hours, even if I'm writing garbage? I don't either. I think it's a waste of your time.
No, it's like the the like if the muse is there, seize it and pin it to the w like an entomology with a butterfly on a pin it to the wall. But if it's not, you know.
And you're still writing when you're thinking about it. It's not just when you're pr pushing buttons.
Yeah. But but I can also turn can you turn it off? I can turn it off.
Um, I've I'm starting to get better at that. I think when I hit like forty nine,'cause I was an insomniac my whole life and it it it was awful, awful, awful to live like that. And all of a sudden I started sleeping and now I think somewhat I can I can turn it off. And it also helps too this was the other question I was gonna ask you. I know it's different now'cause you're kinda in between homes.
But
Do you go to an office or do you work at home? But it's kinda separated where when you're
an upstairs area that was just separate. So I had my own staircase and I could just get up there and work quietly with my little Dachshund shaft in the corner, you know, and just and just do my thing. You know, and around me were monsters. You know, so I'm looking around here, I'm like, this is my this is my office. I didn't like
Like did did I have a gladiator figure? No. I had mm Freddie Krueger. It's like I had those people who made me who I am. I had a Buster Shakespeare and a lot of monsters because those are the two things that shaped me.
Looking back at the whole process, from what the original script was that you wrote to the movie we have now, God willing a second one coming, what do you hope the takeaway is from people who watch this story about Michael Jackson?
Great artist who didn't have any. You know, I think I think the man creativity and influence uh was and is profound. You know, he's a man who believed that music could change the world and that music could take people and lift them up. And that's what his music did. I think Michael is the a celebration of the artist. and some beginning of understanding of the man.
I just love that he's back on top of the world and how happy it's making people. Like I haven't experienced, I mean, three different times joy like that in a movie theater.
Yeah, I mean we're not going to be able to do
I need that so bad right now.
We do. I mean we we have said frequently, talking to to Graham King or Antoine, Michael was looking out for us because if we had made the movie we were intending to make It would not have been the right move. It's like it's like Michael Jackson himself. said that is not me right now for the world. The me right now for the world is this
Um, you know, and I hope there's another story to come that will be a different iteration and examination of, you know, part of his life. Um But for now, looking around the world, reading the headlines, I am so glad that people going in to see the movie Michael will feel the same way I did as a poor, struggling
Okay. Um so the final question we usually like to ask. What was the point and I'm sure there's been many, but in your journey so far where where things just seemed so bleak and hopeless and in that moment, how did you not give up?
Yeah. You know, in my sort of Chicago uh starving artist Period. Pretty literally. It got very tough because I had no money and I lost my job shelving books because I had the nerve to go away and do a work on a play, w go to the Edinburgh Theater Festival with a with a Chicago Theater Comp. So I had no job. And no money. don't have money, they couldn't help, you know. And it became very difficult to live.
And, you know, did I think about just getting another day job and keeping going? I said, No, I have to m either make this work or not You know, and I have to earn my living through my pen. Or maybe it's just never gonna happen for me. Um I survived because people helped me. That's the only reason.
Was your family supportive of you pursuing this or were they like you might want to do something else that pays?
Very supportive. And, you know, I just had people who believed in me. And when I couldn't pay my rent, my friend Molly Hagan lent me money, you know. other people helped me out until I found my way. You know, and that way wasn't fast, you know, uh but I kept at it. So the most desperate I've ever been was then. Um But then out of the blue, a telephone call from Oliver Stone changed my life.
Um okay, this is something we used to do uh often and then we we phased it out and we only bring it back on special occasions. Um So in twenty fourteen I went through uh like nervous breakdown basically, divorce, death, the TV show, uh The network getting dissolved all in the span of like a week. And I think if it had just been one of those things I probably could have handled it better, but like it just everything fell off.
And I was in such a low place. And then um a friend of ours who's been on the show, Casey Thibault, uh, who directs Arismith's live show. was like hey I'm doing this movie and Steven Tyler's playing a character in it. Would you go meet with him at his house and coach him a little bit, give him some ideas for this character. And in that moment I hadn't left my house. I had
I don't know if I've talked about this before. I tinfoil over all the mirrors in my house so I wouldn't I couldn't look at myself. And um and I went and I'm the biggest Aerosmith fan. My cats who've both passed away now are named Tyler and Perry. I'm sitting there and there's Steven Tyler, who I've seen on stage a million times, but there he is. And then halfway through he just suddenly stops and he goes, Oh shit, man, I'm sorry I forgot to say congratulations.
And I'm looking at him and I'm like, For for what? And he's like your movies, your T V show, your studio, your has anyone ever said congratulations? And plenty of people had, but not Steven Tyler, you know. And he's one of those people, you're the only one in the room when he's talking to you. I don't care if it's a fan, meet and greet or whatever, for those few seconds, it's only you all alive in the world. And that's such an amazing quality to have, especially in a celebrity like that.
But he said, This is the problem and he's like, as artists you have to take the time to look at each other and say, Congratulations,'cause only they know how hard it is. So Uh Stephen Tyler, congratulations to you, sir. Thank you. It's unbelievable what you've done and and what you're still doing. And I it just the kindness that you showed.
To a complete stranger and just taking the time to reach. Thank you for doing that, because you you saved somebody and it means the world. So thank you for that.
Uh my my great pleasure. It's a it's an honor to meet People you admire, and I've admired your work for a long time.
Thank you. Um and thank you for knocking it out of the park with Michael because he I couldn't love it more. And thank you for that. Um all right. You need to come back, uh whether it's Yorkython or something else, or Joe will stab me in the face'cause I know he's so sad right now. Um but thank you so so much. And where can people follow you anywhere? You're not online, right? I'm not.
I had like an Instagram thing. You know, and I don't even know what the number is, but if you want to join that you could. So my four thousand followers could have more followers. You don't even
followers. You got you got movies to make.
True.
What I miss. Part two next week.
🎵 Music
Oh my god, it was so much fun! Movie crap!
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