SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to a fresh face in hell. I'm your host, Jonathan Evan. Every week we talk to someone new and interesting, somebody intellectually curious, somebody who will hopefully renew our faith in this cold, cool world we live in. A Fresh Face in Hell. Alex Cox's Repo Man has uh long been a staple of the punk canon, along with rock and roll high school, Suburbia, the decline of Western civilization, and a handful of other 80s films. And I had a great time revisiting it last week in preparation for today's guest. I also had a chance to view an early screener of Alex Cox's newest film, Dead Souls, inspired by Nikolai Gogal's 18th-century novel by the same name, Duggett. Uh big Alex Cox fan, so it's a real treat to get to talk to the man this week. Alex, thanks for being our fresh face in hell.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Thank you very much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Uh, so the Western genre is uh it's full of tropes, you know, the the rancher versus the dirt farmer, the reluctant gunslinger, the retribution narrative, the ex-Civil War soldier turned bounty hunter. But this is a brand new angle. Um how did you arrive at Gogol for an inspiration? Um, it's a great conceit collecting the names of the dead for unknown reasons. How did you arrive at Gogal?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Well, it's, I mean, I was reading all of this Russian literature and I'm always looking to make a cowboy film, but you can't really turn Dostoevsky into cowboy films. It's a little bit difficult. Uh, whereas um Dead Souls is about a mysterious character dressed in black, riding across this vast landscape on a wagon, collecting lists of the dead, you know. It sounds very much like a Western. Um and uh and really I think it fits into one of those Western forms because there's either either Westerns are about revenge or they're about getting money.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

And a stranger coming to town is another trope as well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Yeah, but he's come either for revenge or to get money. You know. Um and so in this case, it falls into the latter category, although although there is revenge in the film, but it falls into the get money category.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

So I'm going along. I I watch a ton of Westerns, so it was right in my wheelhouse, and I'm going around, and then oh my god, that hard right turn you take about 70 minutes into the film. I mean, I'm gonna try to avoid spoilers here, but holy shit, the Strindler's List thing, I had no idea where you were going with that because I know you take some big swings, but all of a sudden, you know, I'm trying to talk about this without uh without spoiling anything. But the idea of dreaming the future, that was so rad. Um what were you trying to say with that sweet mince? Or is it pure cinema obscura?

SPEAKER_00 2:54

No, it's not obscura at all. It's perfectly clear what it's about. Um help me out. Strindler, I'm not gonna explain the film to you. It's very it's the the scene is obvious, and what the scene is is the scene is completely overt about it. It is exactly what it appears to be. Um Strindler has a dream of the future, and also Barracho has a dream of the future as well, and his dream is also really clear.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Okay, fair enough. Uh, but my miss. My miss. Uh so Dead Souls, of course, is new.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Why do you think you like Westerns? What are your favorite westerns?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Oh, uh, Death Rides a Horse is one of my favorite. Uh I like uh uh let's see, let's in I mean I love McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Yeah. Another one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

I like Ride the High Country. Uh I mean I'm kind of all over the place. I'm not yeah, I'm not so much the studio John Wayne Westerns. I like the spaghetti westerns, and I like I like the, you know, when they started to subvert the Western a little in the late 60s. But um, yeah, I and I don't read a lot of Louis Lemour either. I mean, I I I read a lot of Larry McMurtry or whatever, but it's not the canon of literature for the Western is not great.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

No, I haven't read much Western literature. I've read The Virginian and I've read the Oxbow Incident and Blood Meridian, but that's about it. I don't even think I've I mean and I think I've read Shane as well. I think I've read it at school.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Yeah, and so the Virginian is, you know, credited for being the the first Western. Um and I think I've read uh what was it, uh the quicks what is it, uh Writers of the Purple Sage, but it's been many, many years. Um so you've been attracted, I mean, God, you made a Western in 1987. And uh so this is not your first.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Well, it's but it's I mean, Walker is kind, I mean, Walker takes place in Mexico, in San Francisco, and in Nicaragua in the mid-19th century. So it's I mean, it takes place in the West, but it's really more, it's like a biopic, really. So I think that would be the generic term for for Walker. It's a biopic about this guy who who was a filibuster and who made himself president of a foreign country, the first American to be the president of a foreign country.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

So you got Joe Strummer, Elvis Costello, Dick Rude, the Pogues, Courtney Love, Grace Jones, Dennis. Oh, that's straight to hell.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

I thought you talked about it. Oh, straight to hell.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Oh, right, I moved to straight to hell now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking, how on earth did you assemble that cast? And and talk to me a little about working with all these big personalities.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Well, they uh Joe and the Pogues and Elvis and some other musicians were all going to go to Nicaragua and do like a solidarity tour in support of the Sandinistas. Um and I had them all booked because I'd done a Sandinista benefit concert in London with those same guys. And it was very popular. It was like a 2,000 sellout um at the fridge in Brixton. We had 2,000 people couldn't get in. So it was terribly popular. So we thought, okay, we'll do a rock and roll tour of Nicaragua, and uh we'll pay for it through the, you know, we'll make a deal to sell the DVD or sell there weren't DVDs, sell the VHS or sell it to Channel 4 or the BBC, you know. And so all of these musicians made themselves available for the month of August, August whenever it was, I I guess 1987, 86. And um we couldn't raise any money at all. No financial entity was interested in funding our rock and roll tour of Nicaragua. Uh, we couldn't raise a penny. And it was an embarrassing situation because all of these musicians had committed to this month-long break in their schedules. Um, and so luckily the producer of the rock and roll video that never happened suggested that instead we should make a feature using those musicians and but also actors. And uh so Dick and I wrote a script for um Straight to Hell very quickly, and uh and we we wrote it for those people who had uh promised to go on the Nicaragua tour so they would have something to do in August and wouldn't be disappointed.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

So you had no idea, uh I mean, I think maybe you had an inkling that Joe Strummer could act, but you had no idea how these people would be on screen as actors delivering lines from a script because it's not easy. Like I can get in front of a mic and talk all day long, but give me a script and I am one wooden motherfucker. Like unless I write the line myself. So how I mean, was how did you feel like working with them compared to working somebody who's accustomed to being an actor?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Well, I think it just depends on the individual because some people are natural actors, and I don't know if Tom Waits or Courtney Love have ever had an acting lesson, but they're both natural actors.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yeah, and I've watched Tom Waits improve. Like I mean, I think he just keeps getting better since I think the first thing I saw him in was uh Stranger Than uh the other the other.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

The other one, the one after that, down by law.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Yeah, yeah, down by law, yeah. Um, so I read you guys also ran out of money halfway. So you got some funding, but then you ran, didn't you have to? It was all credit cards by the end, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Well, no, I think what happened was that we were trying to shoot it in three weeks, and then it became apparent because I was quite indisciplined, uh, and also because the script was so was kind of tentative in some ways, um, that we needed another week to shoot. We needed four weeks instead of three. And uh and the producer, again, a brilliant man, he just went away uh to London uh to uh Island Pictures, which was the entity that was funding the film, and came back with a big bag of money and um and and and funded the extra with the extra week of shooting. So it was all very well, it was very well produced that film.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

So you just told the story kind of how that you and Dick Rude put the script together pretty quick, and you just used the word the script being kind of tentative. Is that always the case for you? Is the square script kind of something that gets workshopped as you're shooting? Or I mean, was it this just kind of a uh result of the fact that you wrote the script quick so it wasn't quite fully?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

In those days, I used to think that the script was merely a blueprint, which the uh director uh could continue to mutate throughout the filming process and change quite radically. Um but that's when I made a film called Habby Patrolman in 1991, uh the script was by Lorenzo O'Brien, and the script was so good that I we didn't make any changes in it at all. Um and ever since then I've been much more script-oriented because if you can get the script right before you go, then you can shoot in three weeks instead of four, you know, you can and you move more efficiently. And uh I think the actors like it. I mean, I think people like to improvise. Some actors like to improvise as well, but I think all uh all the actors like a bit of discipline. All the actors like to show up and and believe that, you know, they're gonna do what they thought they were gonna do and what they learned their lines from, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yeah, I'm gonna end up you'll notice I'm gonna ask you a lot of kind of film craft questions as we go along, too, because I'm directing a feature documentary, Different Animal, obviously. What's it about? It's about a punk club that was open for 11 months in 1982 in Seattle. It was a real watershed moment, not just because everybody that kind of met there went on to bigger things. I'm kind of subverting that story. This is really about the people that it's about how relationships were forged that still lasts 40 years later, how it was a safe space for people, how it was uh, how it was just so unlikely that this place occurred at that time place. I mean, it was truly like a zeitgeist. But when you talk to me about how um, you know, it makes it more efficient when you're working with the script so forth, uh it occurs to me it would be so much different in editorial too. Like if you're allowing that script to sort of like um be malleable or whatever on set and you're shooting little things that weren't scripted, or you know, because film just tends to be such a photographer's medium at times, you know, all the setup for each shot and stuff like that. Like it seems to me that would be you would have to be more involved in the editorial process. The more, the more you get away from the script, it seems like you would have to be more involved in the editorial process, right? That's probably right, yeah. Yeah. How much time are you actually sitting in there with the editor?

SPEAKER_00 11:49

It depends. You know, it depends on on the project. Um in olden days, you know, we would have an editing room and you would go to the editing room and sit there with the with the editor, you know. But now people tend to work from home. We don't really have a base anymore. We're very dispersed. And so um more recently, I've just the editor, I just, you know, I've talked to the editor about it, and we talked about the takes that we liked, and then he just went away and did it. And and then came back with stuff and we'd make adjustments.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

So I dig Joe Strummer as an actor. You've been working with him for a long time. He was iconic and mystery train. Not your film, I know, but I just that one comes to mind. Um, I'd like to talk about your musical collaboration with Joe. Was Sid and Nancy your first collaboration with him? Can you talk about how the two of you worked together on scoring your films?

SPEAKER_00 12:38

He oh, I don't really have any musical talent, so I just leave it to the composer. And the good thing of uh of Joe was he was so musically diverse, he could do a number of different things. So even though he wrote officially he wrote two songs for that film, but in fact he wrote half a dozen. You know, there is there's reggae music playing, there's country and western music playing, all on the soundtrack of the film. Um, and all of that stuff is uh by Joe, you know, under pseudonyms, because the record company only wanted him to provide two songs.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

I take anything Johnny Leiden says with a grain of salt. Um I I find his persona at this point to just be rather odious. Uh, but every time he opens his mouth, his legacy kind of suffers, I feel like, at this point, because he was such a hero to so many of us in 1976. But he was critical of Sid and Nancy. What was his beef exactly?

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Well, rightly so. I mean, he had I don't remember his exact his his exact objections, but he was probably right to object to it, you know. I mean, here was a film that, you know, some guys had come along and made a story about the life of a very close friend of his, and they made him a character in it, you know. Outrageous, you know. And he was very kind to it.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

You didn't talk to him before you made the film.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Yes, I did. I know I did. I went out there to meet him and and to New York where he was living. He was living in a hotel in New York, and I went there and I met him. We drank Singapore slings. I drank a ton of Singapore slings and got really drunk. And then um he invited Drew Schofield, who played him, to come to New York and uh and follow him around and learn the way of life, you know. So he was he was very supportive, you know. Um and also even when he when he condemned the films, that it was a disgraceful, a disgraceful thing, you know, um, it that helped the film too, because that generated controversy. And the Sex Pistols, you know, were born in controversy, and he knew exactly what he was doing. He was helping us when he when he condemned the film.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

So was there an actual chasm between the expectation he had meeting with you early and talking to the actor and then what he saw later? Or was, as you say, was this more of a design like Malcolm McLaren-esque uh promotional tension?

SPEAKER_00 14:58

No, I think I mean because he had no reason to promote the film either. Um, I think that he his note to me was that we should get away from the actual sex pistols and tell a story like that, but not get bogged down with the history of the sex pistols. So his advice was to fictionalize the band, but still tell the story of Vicious and Spongeon, you know, but just at one remove. And and in the end we didn't do that, but it was a perfectly, perfectly reasonable idea. Um, it was it was a perfectly reasonable approach to the project. Uh it might have might have been even better. Um, but then again, there was also the fact that that Sid and Nancy were were kind of historical figures, famous at the time, infamous at the time, and that that probably helped us in terms of raising the funding for a film.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Can we talk about uh the climate in the late 80s and in independent film, the late 80s and early 90s indie film compared to now? I just remember that moment where uh like when the avid, remember when the avid came around and all of a sudden, I think that was more mid-90s, but all of a sudden everything was wide open. Anybody could make a film in a way that before, you know, there was like four, four of the big cameras in the world or whatever. Like it just seemed like things were so much open, more open in terms of like um I mean, just the fact that someone gave you a million dollars on a whim to shoot straight to hell is pretty remarkable. Like, how do you find the climate now compared to to then?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

The system that that I was involved in then wasn't so much technology based, although, as you say, Avid came along at a certain point, you know, nonlinear, digital editing came. But and and and digital photography came. Um but really it was always about the money. It was always about finding money. Um, and in those days, uh so the 1980s, 90s, films were made in kind of two tranches. You'd get you try to raise the money for the US from one source, and you try to raise foreign through a uh a sales agent, you know. So you'd have two revenue streams that, you know, together would would amount to the budget of the film. And then you could go to a bank, and if they believed your figures, you could borrow the money to make the film, and then you know, you'd receive the funds when the film was delivered. Um and in those days, uh the films that I was making and the film that the films that Jim Jarmish made were supported, you know, to a considerable extent by the Japanese. JVC put uh money into all of Jim's films in that time frame. And I I got money from a Japanese conglomerate called Marabeni and from a company called a distribution company called Cable Hogue. So um it was a different world. How people raise money now, I don't know. But that idea is. You know, um negative pickup, you know, with Japan being a big player, that was what it was like back then.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

So, I mean, was it more challenging now? I mean, for dead souls, uh completely different, uh, completely different paradigm in terms of how you went after money or well, it's always challenging to find money, but I'd done two crowdfunding projects before.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

So I was familiar with um I was familiar with um crowdfunding. And uh and we were very fortunate on Dead Souls because we actually we didn't ask for very much, but we got a lot more than we asked for. So as a as a fundraising technique, I mean that was very successful.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Was that is that how you raised all the money? That's where we started. You know, we did it, we got more than we asked for, but like the amount we asked for was uh we decided really that the crowdsourcing in that case was really kind of more about creating interest and creating getting some traction on the street and stuff like that. It gave us enough money to shoot, but now we're still like, God, we got to find money to license all this shit. You know, we got a film, but like we got to license this argument.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Oh, you haven't got the music. Yeah, the music licenses are gonna be Yes, I know.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

I'm learning all about most favored nation, et cetera, et cetera. The one thing we have going for us in this case is like I know everybody in these bands, and they're not major labels in in almost every case. I mean, most of them were never released. I mean, I'm like working from demo tapes and stuff like that. It's like late great. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

And if you know the if you know the bands, then it's gonna be much easier.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

So you you said that after Walker, I think I read this somewhere. You were you were essentially blacklisted by Hollywood. I mean, do you you what specifically made your persona non grata there? And do you think do you think it was the politics of the film, the production itself, or just the refusal to operate within the studio system?

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Well, I think you'd have to ask um the people in studios, you'd have to ask what why they were so offended by Walker, what up what upset them so much. Um but uh right after we finished Walker, um Tom Pollock, who was the head of Universal Studios, told my agent that I would never work for a studio again. And thus it was. I never ever received any funding from uh a studio or a or a streaming company um subsequently.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

So I mean that seems as an artist, that seems sort of liberated, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:36

I mean, you have I I mean my my what what what to be denied funds to make films? Well, yeah, but for years at a time? How is it?

SPEAKER_01 20:47

I'm thinking more in terms of like just the lack of artistic obfuscation. You know, I've got this idea that like, you know, the idea of the the money person going, I want a big explosion at the end, like in Ed Wood or like this. I just I just feel like with the studio, all of a sudden you've got 10 clients or something, and everything's got a test with the with the executive and the money people, and they gotta like it. And all of a sudden, like it just seems like a formula to have your our artistic vision obfuscated or subverted or wandered.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

You're talking about something else, though. I mean, you're talking about actually working within the studio system. I never did that. All the films I all the films that I made, I mean, I made two films for Universal, but they were both times negative pickups, which meant that Universal just saw the screenplay and then didn't see us again until we delivered the film. Oh, I'm talking about there was no involvement of the studio in the in the day-to-day production of the films.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

But there was in, say, Repo Man, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:43

No, Repo Man was a negative pickup for Universal.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Oh, okay. All right. Well, here I'm here I am learning. Uh 90 yeah, what was it? 1998, I believe you were slated to be the director of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. If if I have this, and and then you were replaced by Terry Gillard. What what happened there?

SPEAKER_00 22:02

It was a very sad affair. You know, Hunter S. Thompson was very was very poorly. You know, I mean, he was he was addicted to alcohol, he was addicted to drugs, um, he was hoovering up coke like a madman, and was very clearly kind of suicidal. And the one occasion that I met him, I and my co-author went out there to Woody Creek to meet him, and it was a we were like his care workers, you know. And there were all these guys like Johnny Depp and Rhino pictures and stuff, and they're all encouraging him to, oh, be crazy, Dr. Thompson, do something crazy, shoot a propane tank with a shotgun, you know. And poor guy was ill. He needed to be taken care of, he needed an intervention, he needed friends, you know, and he had no friends.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

So it's very sad. You call this a boring story. I think this is fucking fascinating. Because it's really sad though. It's really sad that I kind of got the idea that these people these celebrities started to sort of glom onto him because he was some kind of icon. And I I've never, what I do know about Johnny Depp doesn't seem like the like he's the the deepest, most thoughtful, uh, caring person. Or I I I just something I to me this this sort of confirmed something I sort of suspected. It seemed kind of an exploitive relationship to me between Johnny Depp. And I and I had little insight into that, but that kind of sounds what you're describing.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Like it really was very it really was very sad, and he had a lot of demons, and he needed he needed an intervention and he needed friends, you know. And that's he had no friends. Um no one that would stick up for him, no one that would help him.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Um, we talked so much about 80s punk rock culture in this pod, so we got to talk about Repo Man some more, which of course was your directorial debut. How was that experience? You said I I didn't realize the studio just bought it. I thought I had heard that there was some trouble with the studio. They had one expectation for the film and you made a different film.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Oh, they didn't like the film when it when it was finished, for sure, but that's inevitable. I mean, they you know, the studios have a history of of of commissioning very interesting films, very, very low budgets, and then turning against them, you know. Um, that wasn't very surprising.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

So, like you you w when the studio saw the final film, I mean, the film is done. They didn't try to lean into you and make it a different film, it's just too late at this point. So, what do they do?

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Just pull marketing budget or like I mean, yeah, just don't distribute it, just uh just stick it in a couple of a couple of theaters and then go straight to video. Um But what was interesting, what saved the film um was the soundtrack album. Because Universal at that time was a subsidiary company of uh MCA Music Group and MCA were releasing the uh soundtrack album, which was like a sampler of LA Punk at the time, plus Iggy. And uh at one point Irving Azoff, who's the big kind of big hon show at MCA Records, calls his homologue over at Universal Pictures and goes, Hey, there's this uh album, Repo Man, it's selling a lot of copies. Is there a movie that goes with this? You know, and so MCA forced Universal to re-release Repo Man on the basis of the soundtrack album. So that was how Repo Man made it into the theaters.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

I it's your your involvement with punk rock and film just seems sort of inevitable. I mean, punk rock kind of followed you here from the UK. You came to UCLA, I believe, to film school in the late 70s, punk rock had broken in England, you get to LA and all of a sudden Madame Wong's is popping up in the LA punk scene, you know, this Harwood.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

I saw Devo in the basement.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Yeah, it was great. So, but you were you into the were you into the music? I mean, the music had captured your imagination in the 70s. Yes, oh definitely.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Because that's how we knew that's how we knew the the circle jerks to to ask them to be in in repo, man, was because he went to all their shows.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Dude, and Keith Morris still rocks. Office so great, man. The guy, the the man is uh timeless. I love it because I have a lot of old friends that are 60, 65 years old, and they're still fucking punk rock bands, man, and they're still like they're not phoning it in. Um I don't know how to ask. I mean, look, you're not you're not 35 anymore, right? I'm I'm 57 and I'm I I find myself slowing down and I know how I know how long shoot days can be. You know, if you're the director, I mean, maybe, you know, for the union guys, it's like eight hours, ten hours, I'm out. Do I get a bump here? But for you, you're just cogitating constantly. Just because the shoot day's over, you're still. I mean, this takes such a vast amount of energy. At 70 or ish, are you, I mean, do you find that you're slowing down? Is it more of a challenge or or no? Or have you found shortcuts, workarounds? Do you work differently?

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Oh, I think it's partially that if you just work on the script, you know, if you actually if you stick to the script, or if you change the script, then you stick to the changes, um, it makes it much easier. Because it's really all about making a film is all about casting and about the crew. And if you have, if you cast it right, you're gonna have really good actors uh who are gonna bring all of their own genius to the to their roles. And if you have a good cinematographer and a good art department, good sound recordist, man, they're gonna take care of all that, you know. You just have to hang around and watch it happen.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

So, see, that sounds ideal in terms of like you believe in the collaboration, but that's so much, so much of that, and I notice, you know, a lot of filmmakers that have long-shelf lives that have been making films for decades and decades, tend to surround themselves with the same DP, the same AD, like some of the same crew because they've built that trust and that that collaborative uh, you know, that juice. I mean, have you been blessed in that respect?

SPEAKER_00 28:11

I mean, are you still working with I know clearly you're working with some of the same talent, but yeah, but in terms of crew, no, because what happens is I tend to work with people like Robbie Mueller or um Bob Richardson or uh uh who else? Roger Deacons at the beginning of their career, you know. So I kind of give them their entree, but then they're blow up a video film, then they go to get to work for Tarantino, you know. So it's um yeah, that's so I haven't really had that. I haven't had that experience. I tend to work with with crew with camera people and crews at the very beginning of their careers. The the guy, the American cinematographer who shot um most of um Dead Souls is like 26 years old.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

So, how do you build that trust? Because you're so trusting. It's like if I work with these great people, I mean, that's when you're at that the top of the creative hierarchy, that's kind of the dream to be able to just pass something off and trust that it's going to be handled well and not have to micromanage and stuff like that. And so, like, if if you're Scorsese and you're working with the same people for 40 years, that trust is kind of already built. So, like, whereas you got to kind of reinvent and refine that trust each time, how how do you build that trust with a 26-year-old DP or whatever that you don't really have any experience working with?

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Well, you just do it. You just do it. You just say, okay, you're gonna shoot the film, all right. You know. If something goes wrong, then then you know, but nothing goes wrong. Nothing goes wrong. Everything, everything you plan for everything to go extremely smoothly.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Really? You that's interesting. I would think you had planned for everything to be just a complete shit show and disaster so that you would have a million contingencies. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Just plan for it to go extremely smoothly. And it's contingencies in the sense of if the weather is an issue, you know, suppose you need to match something, you know, outside and you need a certain type of weather, you may need a contingency in case the uh the weather doesn't comply. But other than that, just make a plan and stick to it, and all will go well.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

What if the talent doesn't comply? What if uh uh uh a crew member doesn't comply without mentioning names? I mean, have you ever ran into a situation where you had this idea like this this person's gonna be perfect in this role?

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Uh they There have been a couple of times when I cast an actor and they didn't turn out to be um as good in the role as I thought. And that was my fault, you know. For and and on one occasion I was able we were able to recast and reshoot, and on another occasion we just kind of moved things around so that actor wasn't as prominent frame. Um but uh I can only think of a couple of times that that that happened. Luckily, I've been very lucky with actors and it's a really good one.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Since since you said you had to re-re-cast and reshoot, like I mean, how how much casting and reshooting are we talking about? Like half the film or just like a few scenes, a few keys.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Oh no, no, so no fragment, fragment of the film. It was on Walker. We had cast another actor. We originally wanted to cast uh Peter Boyle as Vanderbilt. Um the the sort of the power behind the scenes in Walker. Love Peter Boyle. Wonderful actor, yeah. And he originally didn't want to go to Nicaragua because he was concerned about because the country was at war, he was concerned about safety issues and stuff like that. So we cast another actor, went down to Nicaragua, shot the Vanderbilt scenes with him, but they weren't, oh they just there was something lacking, you know, something lacking in the authority of the character and the and and and the power of the character, the insanity of the character. Um and so we went back to Peter Boyle and said, look, Lorenzo, who was the producer, said we've still got some money left over. Let's do a reshoot in in Tucson, and we'll shoot Peter's scenes in Tucson instead of in Nicaragua. And Peter was, You would do that for me? And um and we went, Yeah, yeah. And he goes, Well, then I won't charge you anything. You know, and so Peter came down and did Vanderbilt for free.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Um Well, that's pretty rad, so you didn't have to actually replace him. I mean, well, we did.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

We replaced the other actor. We replaced the actor whom we had originally used with Peter.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

And uh, I mean, have you ever been like have you ever been working with a DP and you're like, you you see the dailies and you're like, this isn't working? I mean, have you ever had to do you?

SPEAKER_00 32:28

I mean, how No, because all the DPs I work with have been really good. I mean, Robbie Moeller, Roger Deakins, Dave Bridges, Tom Richmond, uh Miguel Garcon, uh Steve Feerberg, um, all really good. Chance Faulkner, really good.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

So, how how much, I mean, how cinematic are you? Like, uh, I mean, some directors like really see the shot and they're like, hey, this is how I want you to shoot it. I want to, I want you to go wide here. I I want this long Laszlo Kovac style dolly shot. How much of that do you just leave up to your collaborator? Or do you say, look, this is what I'm trying to capture with this scene. This is what the feeling I want. You figure out how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

No, what we do is we tend to have a rehearsal. First thing in the morning before the actors go to hair and makeup, we'll um we'll have a rehearsal. And then when we've got the scene more or less blocked, show it to the DP, and then I just say to the DP, how do you want to shoot it? You know, how do you want to break it up and kind of leave it to them. Unless there is, unless, as you say, there's some specific thing we want to do, like a long tracking shot. But um, but other than that, no, I just, you know, we rehearse it and and then let the DP and his and his or her team look at it and then uh and then go shoot. Alana Murphy, I also work with her, she's another very good DP. She's working in Atlanta now.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

It seems to me, and the more I get into this process on this little level that I'm on it, and the more I I talk to you, that filmmaking, because it's such a collaborative effort, just requires so much patience. Like for me, like I'm used to writing novels. So, like, if there's a problem, I solve it. And I can go out into the garage and solve it that night. You know what I mean? I can address it, but like if there's a problem with a film and you have all these people to move around, you have to reassemble a crew, you have to, you do you struggle with the patience? Because you got this vision in your head. You want you have this story you want to tell, but instead of like, I can write a quarter of a novel in a couple months if I can just, you know, keep my head down or whatever. Do you ever struggle with patience in terms of like it's so long and there's so many moving pieces involved from your initial creative impetus to the completion of seeing the film as you saw it?

SPEAKER_00 34:54

That's the nature of it. It takes a long time, especially if you don't have much money. If you don't have much money, things are going to go very slowly to achieve a good outcome. But um, that's just the way it is. And you have to like it all. You know, you have to enjoy spreadsheets. I spent a lot of time with spreadsheets, you know, just trying to figure out schedules and budgets and how how best and most efficiently to do things, how to consolidate the actors so that uh we use them efficiently and don't pay them unnecessarily or keep them hanging around. Uh so you have to enjoy it all. You have to like spreadsheets, you have to like writing, you have to like editing, you have to like being on set, and you have to like actors. If we don't like actors, it's more difficult.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

I'd say enjoy it all is amazing advice. I mean, I've given that advice to people that are like, I'm a novelist, but my publisher says I have to have a I have to have a social media presence and I have to promote. And I'm like, dude, either learn to love it, you know what I mean? It's helping you pay the bills. Either learn to love it or don't bother because you're not bringing much to the party. So it seems like I'm a big believer in this idea that limitations help art. When we have to work within limitations, sometimes those are budgetary, sometimes those are talent, sometimes those are thematic, depending on what you're working on. It seems that making films the way you make them has sort of forced you to really sort of understand filmmaking from the ground up. And I don't know if that's the case with some kid who's related to Gene Hackman who went to AFI and he's a director and all of a sudden walks on set and gets a feature. Like, I don't, I don't know that they're gonna have the same top-to-bottom understanding of how everything works. And it seems like you've had to because of limitations, because of not working within the studio system, because of having to scramble to get money and to be creative and and use those limitations to cut corners. I mean, to me, that's the biggest thing about the creativity is that it's the limitations that cause you to be really creative and creating these shortcuts to achieve your goal without all the infrastructure. Do you find that to be true in terms of like the fact that you know how to do the spreadsheets? I don't know if the kid that walks out of AFI with a you know director's degree or whatever it knows all that.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

No, because they're probably hoping that they will have a production manager and a production coordinator and an assistant director who will do all that for them. Um but it's good to know how to do it as well. I mean, I'd say because that's also easy, because that's all office work, you know. Um it's a little bit harder to be a cinematographer or a gaffer, you know, because that take or or even you know a sound recorders because that takes real talent and real skill. Um But do you need to be conversant with all those things and so that when when a DP starts talking about something, you at least understand what the what the TP's talking about?

SPEAKER_01 37:50

So I've been on set with a lot of directors that were kind of like I've been in kitchens with a lot of chefs that were this way. Very temperamental, very um impatient, very um how would you characterize your style? And maybe it's different now than it was then, but how would you characterize, say, your temperament on stage? Are you like my way or the highway? Are you sort of open and like, you know, like like let's do team building unsaid? Or like how how how does that play out for you?

SPEAKER_00 38:21

I've never I've never had enough money to be an asshole, you know. I mean, you have to have enough, you have to, if you want to behave like an asshole, you have to have money, you know, and you have to have movie stars on your side, you know. You can be a, you know, you can be a you know, king tough guy, asshole director if you've got, you know, you know, if you're Brad Pitt's guy, you know. Um but really, if you're just living in the real world, it's much easier to stay on good terms with people and to be nice to people, you know, and encourage them. And if things go slowly, things go slowly. Things go a lot faster now. I mean, we used to wait a lot more on movie sets in olden days, you know, when we were shooting on 35 and doing a lot of lighting. Now shooting digitally, we don't light very much. And things go faster, you know. So not much to complain about.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah, it seems to me that you're a people person though, in terms of again, limitations. If you're working, depending on who you're working with, it seems to me that you're somebody that can just with interpersonal skills and an understanding of their job, because you understand all of the facets that go into this giant collaboration, that you would be able to find the strengths of that person and get the best out of them.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Well, that would be nice. That's the idea. You know, because everybody wants to do a good job. Nobody goes to, nobody goes to work on a film set thinking today I'm gonna do a really shitty job, you know. Everybody wants to do a good job. Everybody wants to feel like they're part of the team and they're being approved of.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

It seems like there are some actors who are maybe on the uh whatever, maybe on the um advice of their agent or something like that, have taken a role that they don't love, but they think it's a good career move, or somebody's telling them it's a good career move, that come to the set with a bad attitude. I mean, it seems like of all the people to work with that the actor seems like typically kind of potentially the most complex sort of personality type, because this is somebody who's just by the nature of their job projecting something that's maybe not necessarily them. Then you hear stories about actors that are a pain in the ass on set because they refuse to get out of, you know, character and they bully other people in the cast, and they're like, dude, we're not shooting right now. Can you just this is a little intense? Like it seems like you have to have uh uh uh either you're gonna be just a like a low of the boom, like off my fucking set if you're uncooperative, or you have to be a person that's able to absorb and sort of uh cajole or or curr, you know, kind of finesse a person. I mean, have you ever had to work with an actor that really took a lot of finessing?

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Yeah, but in but in a sense, and and and I mean there are, I don't think even the even that there are some people, like you say, they're not doing the part because they like the part, they're doing the part for strategic reason reasons. And those are aspirate movie stars. Those are people who are they really want to be a movie star because they they lack there's something there's something they're suffering in a way, and they think if they achieve movie stardom, then it will be fixed, you know. And I'm fortunate in that I have again, I worked with that type of actor early in their career, but not when they became stellar, you know. And that's a real pleasure because when you work with actors, man, they just want to please. An actor just wants to do a good job, you know. Now, and and and and sometimes they are really in their own space, you know. There are some actors who can just bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, hanging out, you know, and then you know, clap a board and they're immediately in character and do it. And there are other actors who really need their space, you know, and they don't want to hang out with their extras talking about the movie that they were in six months ago, you know. They just want to be in their space, you know. And so it's it's interesting knowing who is who, you know, knowing what actors need their space and need to be, you know, a little bit private and need to have kind of fools kept away from them, and the actors that don't mind, you know, and that are happy to sit there telling endless stories.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

See now, this is fascinating to me because here you you have to be kind of the culture builder on the set. You're with these people for three to six weeks or whatever, you have differing personalities. Say your leading man or woman is this person that needs to be left alone, so they seem unsociable or standoffish to these other actors that may be excited to work with the aforementioned actor, or the you maybe you have somebody who's like wants a few more lines, or like it seems like you have to manage so many personalities. I mean, do you have a P I I mean, and it seems like it kind of has to come from you. You can't just delegate, like, you know, go talk to Jim in his trailer, tell him we'll keep so-and-so away, and like, you know, uh uh t tell Sarah, you know, we're gonna kind of caress those lines so she's more. You kind of have to deal with this, right? I mean, you have to sort of I mean, almost like a football coach in a locker room or something.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Or a diplomat. It's diplomacy. It's diplomacy, you know, but you just have to like see in the West we lack diplomacy. We don't know how to be diplomats anymore. But if you look at like Sergei Lavrov in Russia or Wang Yi in China, you know, these are guys who have been diplomats for decades and they're really good at it, and they know how to deal with people. And they also know what they want, you know. So they're able, but they're able to attempt to achieve what they want in a diplomatic way without um without appearing to enforce their will, you know. And that's the thing about directing, too. You don't want to barch around like you're The Terminator or something, you know, demanding things of people. You want to encourage people, you know.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Did you ever get, maybe early on, I don't know, maybe you didn't, just because of the nature of the thing, there's so much pre-production involved and so much pre-thought that goes into a film before you start shooting. Did you ever something you just said made me wonder did you ever get midstream in a film and shooting where you're like, this wasn't what my original impetus is? Somehow this isn't lining up. I don't actually know exactly what I want, right, Mammar? Or or or I mean, did you did you see what I'm getting at here? Did you ever end up in a place where like you have this creative impetus, this idea of what you want to be in the thing? Then when it starts happening, anything could happen. It could go away that surprises you, and maybe you want to follow that a little bit, or maybe it's just not going the way you want it to. Have you ever been in a situation where it's like you're in the middle of actually shooting a film or making a film and going, This isn't what I originally wanted or started?

unknown 45:02

No.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

And that means never. So it couldn't be like we could okay, what's it?

SPEAKER_00 45:05

I mean, there's been things I've done things that maybe, you know, I mean, I've made occasionally I made a film that wasn't very good or that I shouldn't have made. But once you're in it, it's too late. You just gotta do it anyway, you know.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Okay, yeah, yeah, okay. So that was my direction.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

If you as a director reveal that you have doubts and that you don't really know what you're doing, um the whole thing's gonna be terrible.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

Um But you're saying if you get in that situation, you just gotta finish making the terrible film because there's nothing you can do to try to save it.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Well, I wouldn't say that I've made a film that was entirely terrible, but I've made some films that were, or made at least one film that was pretty bad. And you just have to go along with it, you know. Just have to go along, carry on, finish it, do the best you can. Um improve it to the maximum.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

Take your lumps, learn from these.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

I did a film called Revenge's Tragedy, and um there was with Chris Eccleston and Eddie Izzard and Derek Jacobby and Diana Quick and other actors, Drew Schofield in England, and there was a flashback in the film, which was to a wedding. And we were gonna we were trying to make it like one of those English rom-coms, very romantic, very charming, you know. Yeah, well, everybody in you know is fully dressed up in tuxedos and or you know, uh morning coats. And um, so I thought, okay, this has got to be different from the rest of the film because the rest of the film is very dark and dystopian. So I thought, um, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna have any ideas at all. I'm just gonna go to the set and not have any ideas and let the scene unfold. You know, just get let the DP and and and the you know, and the lighting guy start setting it up, you know, and and Chris Eccleson said to me, he came up to me at one point and said, Something's wrong here. Something's wrong today. What's wrong? And so I explained what was going on. I said, Look, I'm not having any ideas today, okay? I'm just letting it happen. Because I want it to be really different. I want it to be like one of those empty-headed rom-coms that they make down in London, you know, because he was shooting up in Liverpool. And uh and Chris goes, I get it now, yeah. You know, and so that was very funny because he was the lead in that scene. It was his wedding day, you know. He was marrying this woman, a beautiful, beautiful red-haired dancer, who then and then they're all poisoned, you know. Um, and so but that was playing, that was sort of playing a mental, a mental game to make it different, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Um so once you had that conversation with Chris, did things start going more smoothly?

SPEAKER_00 47:36

No, it was going smoothly already. He just didn't understand what was going on.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Why is it so different today?

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Yeah, because well, it seems to me in a situation like that, it's also going to depend on the cast you have as well. I mean, I think of somebody like Christopher Guest, and I I mean, I really know don't have any idea how much of that stuff they workshop, but he's got these trusted people. He's got his Fred Willers and his Kathleen, well, they're all dying now, but and and he can kind of like maybe give them a sort of a block of like give them an idea. This is the these are the parameters I want you guys to work with in Go.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

Oh, yeah, because they're improvise. I imagine with with with uh his stuff and with the spinal taps, there's a lot of improvisation involved, you know.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

Yeah, and how much improvisation would you say there are on your films, if any?

SPEAKER_00 48:18

No, it's not because of the um because of the scripting. It used to be long ago. First three or four films I made a lot of improvisation, but not not much since then.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

And and and why?

SPEAKER_00 48:29

Because I rely on the script.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

Yeah, so you discovered uh when you first came to filmmaking, it seems like you were more of a we're gonna let the camera.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

I said earlier, I said it was I thought of the script as a blueprint, you know, from which you could deviate. But um and it is different because not all actors are word perfect either. I mean there's there's a there's various types of actors, and some are word perfect. Some come to the set with their lines learned and they say them exactly as they are written on the page, and others never say them as they are on the page, always kind of paraphrase them as they speak. Um that's fine. I mean it's not like they have to, it's not like this it's not like David Mammoth. They don't have to say the words exactly as they are written, but they have to say they have to communicate the idea in the same amount of time.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

So tell me something if if such a thing is extant at this point, but tell me something hopeful about how the film industry is changing. I I'm looking at distribution models right now, and I don't know where it's going, but it just seems like things are sort of wide open, and you know, it just seems like film has obviously clearly been in trouble. I mean, the the theater culture has largely died, except for like whatever Avengers films, you know. The studios aren't really developing films like they used to. Like I had a book at that was that at uh it was at uh focus for like seven years. They had a script, they had a director, they had everything. And then they finally just said, uh, look, we're really just not developing stuff anymore, we're just acquiring it. Like it seems like everybody's kind of turtling up on the developmental side. Um, what does the landscape look like out there? I don't know. Um well, you're still managing to get it done.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

I mean, like I mean, we're lucky in this case because we have U.S. distribution. Um we're in theaters at the moment, the film's playing for it's got a week-long run in Los Angeles, could be two weeks, you know. Um, so that's I mean, for an independent film, that's very good. And and while it's true that the studios have they've driven themselves into the pit with this the Marvel Comics model, but um in terms of repertory theaters, in every city pretty much there's a repertory theater, whether it's Seattle, Portland, uh, Eugene, Corvallis, uh, I'm just thinking Oregon here, but I mean, you know, all over the US, all over the world, there are repertory theaters who are playing interesting, independent and foreign films. You know, and so that's the world that we that we live in and that we've always lived in. You know, we're peripheral, we're marginal, you know, but that's where the but the margins are where the most interesting art gets made.

SPEAKER_01 51:08

Yeah, and it seems like actually it'd be a very hopeful time to make films in the sense, if you're willing to starve for your art, kind of thing. Like there's so much uh there's so many screaming platforms that are clearly desperate for content, if I'm judging by the content that's up there now. And if if if if if if focus isn't out there to give you developmental money to do this, it seems like if you're a filmmaker with ambition and hustle that can put together the right crew, the right actor, have the right idea, and make a film on the cheap, it actually seems like kind of a hopeful, it almost seems like it's more horizontal than any day it's been since since we talked about earlier with the with the avid, where it just sort of opened up access to filmmaking.

SPEAKER_00 51:52

Yeah, but you're right. You the you have the people have the means of production. Uh distribution is something else, but but but we have the means of production, so it's not meant to stop people if they've got a little bit of time and don't mind it not making any money, going out and making an independent film. Why not?

SPEAKER_01 52:07

Yeah, and and the I you know, everybody I've talked to that is sold there, like my my the the adaptation to my book was a Netflix original, but Netflix just ended up buying it at Sundance, you know. So they really had nothing to do with the production. I actually found them to be pretty awful to work with, like they wouldn't give us any key art so I could put it on the paperback tie-in for my book or anything, which would help drive sales. They were just total jerks about it. Um the good thing about it is it has a long back, long tail in terms of because it never goes away because it's their original content. But like everybody else I've talked to that's worked with one of these streaming services just says it's impossible for them to make any money on the back end because they have to have like uh a hundred hours of engagement to make two dollars or something. And so that means 50 people watching your entire film to make $2. How how how do you avoid that as a as avoid it because it's like it's like cable?

SPEAKER_00 53:00

You never knew how often your film played on a cable station. You never know how many people have actually seen the stream because you rely on the cable company and the streaming company to give you the give you the figures, you know. So it's impossible. Hey, look, my little dog wants to go for a walk. You see my dog good. Hey, he is okay.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Well, we had Mark Arm's Pomeranians last week. What kind of it looks like a little healer?

SPEAKER_00 53:21

He's a cattle dog, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

Yeah, yeah. I have a I have a uh border collie. Oh knife for clever. They can be neurotic little fuckers, though. Like they you you gotta you gotta work them. They need exercises.

SPEAKER_00 53:33

Yeah, well, he's gonna he's gonna go down to the shore now. He's gonna go for a roll on the beach or something.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

You need to walk your dog, but I gotta ask you one question that I've been dying to know for years and years. It came from a mutual friend of Jason and I. It was a rumor we heard years ago. Always been dying to know if it's true. If not, forgive me. Uh, did you really get in a fight with Oliver Stone at the 1986 Academy Awards?

SPEAKER_00 53:55

I've never been to the Academy Awards.

SPEAKER_01 53:57

Okay, well, so true. Jason, call Davy, call bullshit. There we had this friend that story that you had fought with Oliver Stone at the and I just I needed to hear that story. Well, another great legend. What were we supposed to be fighting about? I don't know. That's what I wanted to get out of you. Like, what was that about? I think the way you told the story, Oliver Stone kicked your ass, too.

SPEAKER_00 54:19

I'm sure he did. The guy's a fucking bruiser, man. I don't fight with people, never fight, don't fight with people. Um, I would never I've never attended the Academy Awards. You didn't seem like the fighting type to me. I don't fight. I mean, it's not necessary to fight with people. If you if you if you get involved in in in in you know in brawling with people, you've already lost. You know, you don't want to get you don't want to go.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

He is Alex Cox. He's a cinematic legend. His dog needs to be walked, but do yourself a favor, get out there and find his new film, Dead Souls. It's in theaters in LA right now. Where uh where where can we stream it online?

SPEAKER_00 54:54

Oh, uh via Kino. Kino Lorba are the distributor, and they are going to be bringing out not only the streaming variant, but also the DVD and the Blu-ray variants as well. So very soon. They're just doing the theatrical thing right now, and as soon as the theatrical is done, then the streaming will be open.

SPEAKER_01 55:11

Well, maybe this is your year for the Academy Awards, because I I think one of the one of the uh things to to be eligible for the Academy Awards, you have to have a theater run in LA or New York, is the thing. So maybe this is the year you deserve it.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

Uh Oliver and I will be there together. All you'll kick his ass, okay? Kick his ass.

SPEAKER_01 55:29

I want to thank you for being our Fresh Face in Hell, man. You've been a pleasure. Appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00 55:33

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

A Fresh Face in Hell with Jonathan Evison is brought to you by Fresh Face Pods and produced by Jason Botkin and yours truly. Check us out on Instagram, YouTube, or at our website at FreshFacepods.tv. Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter for updates and special content. And if you love the podcast, by all means run it and buy all of Jonathan Evison's award winning novels wherever books are sold.