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At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
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1:44
This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where I deconstruct world-class performers to figure out what makes them tick.
1:52
And moreover, what are the tools, tricks, tactics, routines, books, whatever, secret snacks that you can replicate, that you can actually use in your daily life or in your career, or in your personal endeavors and your journey into life itself. Wow, that was profound.
2:13
Anyway, my guest for this episode is just a tremendous tremendous man.
2:16
He is an actor, writer, director, and producer. His name is Jon Favreau.
2:21
I've been hugely impressed by Jon and we've had an opportunity to spend some time together.
2:28
He is a man of many talents.
2:30
He burst onto the acting scene with his role in Rudy, then he established himself as a writer with the iconic cult hit Swingers, in which he starred and many of you have seen it.
2:39
We have a lot of stories about Swingers, which I was surprised by and I'd done a lot of homework.
2:45
Then Favreau made his feature film directorial debut with Made, which he also wrote and produced.
2:49
His other directing credits include Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Cowboys & Aliens, Elf, and that was a real turning point for him.
2:57
So we dig into that and I did not know that he was involved with Elf before I really dug into it.
3:02
Zathura and Chef, which he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in.
3:07
And the way he approached making Chef was very, very fascinating and as someone who's trying to create myself in more than one way, I suppose.
3:17
I'm creating books and podcasts and now TV shows and I have news coming related to that.
3:24
very, very interested in how he approached doing Chef, which I fell in love with.
3:28
And that's actually how I ended up connecting.
3:31
It was through Chef and I went on Twitter and then we connected, had a a short exchange on Twitter and we also ended up investing in a couple of startup companies together. Okay, so lots of commas.
3:43
This guy does everything.
3:43
Some of his recent acting credits include The Wolf of Wall Street and Identity Thief and he's done much, much more.
3:53
He is currently directing the live-action feature film that I'm dying to see because I'm obsessed with The Jungle Book.
4:00
This is Disney's adaptation, which is set to be released in April 2016.
4:07
So, without further ado, I invite you into the mind and story uh some of which are very funny the stories of Jon Favreau.
4:19
Jon, welcome to the show. Thank you.
4:21
Thank you so much for taking the time.
4:23
I've really been looking forward to this. Oh, good.
4:24
And I suppose we could start perhaps at the beginning.
4:27
And one of these questions that I I like to sometimes ask is what albums or bands you listened to in high school.
4:38
What were your go-to What was your go-to music? Uh let's see.
4:43
I liked the earliest music I listened to that I can remember actually have like an album of was I remember the Animal House soundtrack, all the old music like the '60s music. And then um Billy Joel.
5:00
I grew up in New York, so Billy Joel.
5:03
Uh and my first rock album I ever bought was uh was Led Zeppelin. It was Led Zeppelin.
5:08
I was in I was in I was in high school already. Mhm.
5:09
And then I was I was in high school in the '80s, so then you had like the Ramones around in New York and Queens, where I'm from.
5:15
So, it was a it was an interesting time.
5:18
And then I, you know, there was a little bit of overlap with CBGB's as I got older in high school, but that was more for the scene cuz it was cool rather than the music itself, which I don't find myself listening to too much.
5:30
I ended up getting into Billy Joel myself.
5:32
I was always a Metallica sort of heavy metal head, and I got into Billy Joel because I was a busboy and waited on him at one point on Long Island, and he was the coolest Oh, that's nice. guy I'd ever met.
5:42
He would uh buy a cup of coffee and give me me as a tip, which was a lot of money to me at the time.
5:48
That's a big That's a good thing to remember.
5:49
It was a big deal, by the way. Yeah.
5:51
That's That's pretty good.
5:51
That's not And, you know, in the greater scheme of things, he could probably afford it, but it made It made a big difference. Look at that. Look at that.
5:59
He made He made a fan out of you.
6:01
I still I still remember it to this day. remember.
6:02
How Now, when uh we We may not have the same exact frame of reference.
6:06
What are you I'm I'm 48 years old.
6:07
So, I'm 10 behind, roughly. I'm 37 right now.
6:10
So, that was a golden oldie.
6:10
You were listening to the oldies, right? Right.
6:14
I was He was still recording when I was when I was listening to him.
6:16
Yeah, he was still I mean, everyone the the hush came over all the waitstaff when he came in. Yes.
6:21
And in Long Island, especially, cuz it's kind of Absolutely, up by Montauk.
6:25
And the I remember the waiter's name, Gavin.
6:27
He was supposed to wait the table, and he said, "All right, I'm going to do you a favor today, Ferris.
6:32
I'm going to give you that table."
6:32
Cuz he knew you'd get wrote out so hard. Yeah, exactly.
6:38
What was your experience in in high school? What was it like? Can you paint a picture?
6:41
High school was um Let's see.
6:44
I was I had just gone to uh Bronx High School of Science, which was a public school that you have to take a test for in New York.
6:56
It was a very good school.
6:56
It had been around for a while.
6:59
And and the New York public school system uh was was very good at the time. I think it still is.
7:05
If you're If you do well, that you you will never outgrow this the public school system.
7:10
There's always room for people who are who are you know, have you know, who require different education needs on in every way.
7:19
And I know my my dad was a public school teacher, and and you know, I feel pretty strongly about that system.
7:28
And especially having lived in other cities, too, I really grew to appreciate it.
7:32
And And the Bronx High School of Science was was one of the flagship schools for That Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech.
7:40
Uh you know, all of these free schools, uh, but I did have to commute all the way from Queens to the Bronx.
7:44
It was about an hour and a half each way.
7:48
But I was around other people who were more academically inclined.
7:52
But I also met people from every different borough and all different walks of life cuz the, you know, the the one thing that unified us was that we all passed this test.
8:00
Uh, and and you'd have a lot of different socioeconomic backgrounds because, uh, again, it was a free school.
8:08
And so I I had the good fortune of meeting the brightest from every community.
8:13
So everybody that I met, if I met a kid from Harlem, he was the he was a really smart kid from Harlem.
8:16
If I met someone from Brooklyn, from Riverdale, you know, so you really had all walks of life.
8:22
I didn't realize it at the time cuz I grew up in New York, so diversity was just something you grew up with.
8:28
Especially as you traveled through different boroughs, you know, you just met new people from all over the place or if you worked in the city, you met people from everywhere.
8:37
Uh, and and, you know, that was a I mean, that was a good experience, too. You learn a little bit.
8:41
I know you're you you like to speak a lot of languages.
8:44
You get to know how to curse in every language.
8:47
That's usually what you pick up first. It's what you do.
8:49
Greek and yeah, you could do it it, uh, in in Spanish.
8:54
So, but it was See see you met a lot of great kids.
8:56
But they were kind of nerdy kids.
8:58
They weren't big on sports teams, things like that.
9:00
Long commute time, lot of lot of homework.
9:04
Um, so I I early on the the first thing from high school that I got into through that crowd was Dungeons and Dragons.
9:10
That was something I was really into.
9:13
Uh, then I kind of outgrew that a bit, um, more socially than anything.
9:16
But I always liked fantasy.
9:17
I always liked that swords and sorcery stuff and science fiction.
9:23
And then it then I moved more into, cuz remember I graduated '84, so it was the early '80s.
9:28
That's when also punk rock was was kind of in its heyday and and there were a lot of clubs downtown that were going strong that you could go to.
9:36
So and and we were from all the different boroughs, so we were very comfortable going into Manhattan.
9:39
That was kind of the central point for us all.
9:42
This was still in high school. Still in high school.
9:44
Um never really was a The The kids from the city, from Manhattan, were more the a a little bit more socially advanced and and could actually get into these clubs.
9:53
Yeah, I you know, we were we were from the you know, we're the bridge and tunnel crowd.
9:56
So, we didn't really uh end up in the nightlife too much.
9:58
Uh but but you were exposed to it and you were going down to Greenwich Village and hanging out in Washington Square Park and and and also that was a lot of when I got introduced to to cinema because it was pre-VCR.
10:13
Uh the only way you'd see a movie is if it was in a movie theater or if it was on television.
10:17
And so, I remember going to a lot of the revival houses uh first with my dad when I was younger.
10:24
And then and then, you know, when I was in high school going on my own down to like the Cinema Village.
10:29
Uh all around all around NYU down there.
10:32
There were a lot of great revival houses and seeing the films of like Kurosawa, Scorsese, and um just being introduced to a lot of stuff I would not otherwise have access to.
10:41
Was there any particular film that was the inflection point for you wanting to focus on that craft yourself?
10:49
I didn't want to do it till much later.
10:51
I It was never a realistic option for me.
10:54
So, all the way through high school, college, it was never something that I thought I would do.
10:59
It wasn't until I was 22 that I actually decided to try in earnest to to get into the entertainment.
11:05
But I always enjoyed acting and I always loved movies.
11:07
Uh and I was an usher actually during high school at an old uh ex-vaudeville house, the RKO Keith's in Flushing.
11:14
And and as a as an usher you got to see, you know, movies over and over again and it was still the architecture, the projection room, all of it really felt like something out of a time machine.
11:26
So, I you know, was exposed to that side of the movie business first.
11:29
And uh and it was you know, it was really cool. I liked it. I like movies.
11:33
It was an old rundown theater. It's not there anymore.
11:37
Uh but it was really wonderful seeing the you kind of could see the history of it if you look behind the curtain.
11:42
Cuz first it was an old vaudeville palace and then it started showing films and then and then eventually it got broken up into a triplex.
11:50
So, you had this beautiful elegant Moorish style uh just you know, again, the the movie palaces of of of the of the vaudeville era and the post-vaudeville era uh broken down into the multiplexes that didn't have a lot of personality back in the in the '80s.
12:09
I guess the '70s started that.
12:09
But it still had some of the gloss of it and some of the beauty.
12:15
And but, you know, of course, there were still the dressing rooms from the vaudeville days and there were sub basements and you went behind the the screen in the big theater and you saw, you know, all the the ropes and rigging from its its live theater days.
12:30
So, it was kind of it was kind of nice and there was a sense of nostalgia, but it was also just overrun by mice and it wasn't just it wasn't well maintained.
12:39
So, there was a a sadness to it.
12:39
So, there was a and this I have a nostalgic feel towards the movie business even from, you know, even from before I was around because I was exposed to all that stuff.
12:48
And of course, old movies keep keep the legacy alive as well. Yeah.
12:50
And and that was part of the fun part about coming out here.
12:54
Even when I was just auditioning uh for the first time for for bit parts, you would audition on the lot.
12:59
You would go, you'd get a drive-on and then you'd be walking around like the Fox lot and see the New York streets or Warner Brothers and see all the backlots as you're walking from your parking to the appointment.
13:09
And and you just felt so lucky to be in the business.
13:11
You know, you were like, "I'm I'm you know, I'm somehow connected to this industry."
13:17
And and even though we were just like the guy sweeping up after the parade, we we still were, you know, want to give up show biz, you know?
13:22
Even the guy shoveling after the elephant, it feels like he's part of the show.
13:25
And I, and I was that guy.
13:27
And you, uh, you dropped out of college, is that right? I did, yeah.
13:31
It was, well, uh, misleading cuz I took a I took a You took a lot of credit.
13:37
to go to I got a job offer.
13:39
I got a job offer to work, uh, on Wall Street. Got it.
13:41
For a friend's dad who needed to hire an assistant.
13:44
And I worked there for a year.
13:46
And, uh, it wasn't a great fit for me.
13:50
But I had not been a great student in college.
13:51
I'd gone to a a very, uh, academically oriented high school, as I said.
13:56
And then I was on the waiting list for Cooper Union to go to school for engineering.
13:59
Cooper Union's a great school in Greenwich Village that is, uh, it's all scholarship.
14:04
It would have been a great it would have been a great fit for me.
14:07
And again, my family was uh, you know, my my dad was a teacher.
14:12
So there wasn't a lot we didn't have a lot of dough for a private education.
14:18
But the idea of Cooper Union, I would have gotten a great a great opportunity.
14:22
Uh, waiting list never got called up.
14:22
I ended up going to Queens College, which was a a city school, good school, too.
14:28
Um, and but never really found my footing, what I wanted to do.
14:33
Was more interested in the, uh, what was going on socially at school, rather than academically.
14:37
I didn't really have a major.
14:39
I didn't find myself excelling.
14:41
I got by, but, um, but I didn't excel.
14:46
And then after I'd worked for a year, I went back to school.
14:47
Then I got Dean's List, straight A's, because that that year of working in the real world really, uh, seasoned me a bit.
14:53
And and I got me, uh, I think matured me a bit.
14:58
And then and then after I was back in school and back on the Dean's List, that's when I went cross country.
15:02
And that's when I discovered, uh, people doing improvisation in Chicago and decided I wanted to join that circus.
15:10
And that's when I dropped out. Got it.
15:11
And the when you came back and were more seasoned and hit the Dean's List, was that because of the structure of working in the adult world, or was Is because you saw the benefits of focus rewarded and say a company or a Well, kind of the opposite of that.
15:28
I felt that that you you at school if you worked at all you got it got recognized.
15:32
There's every once in a while an teacher that I you know, bust my ass and the guy's still giving me bad grades like but that's like a rarity.
15:39
Usually if you're working usually if you're not doing good in school, you don't like the teacher, you're not you're not coming halfway, you're not doing your job.
15:46
But if you do your work you'll get an A.
15:50
And there's something real you know, really egalitarian about that whereas in the workspace you you're expected to bust your ass and rarely do you get recognized for the work you do.
15:58
Cuz somebody else is either they're either oblivious because they're so hung up on what they're dealing with your boss or somebody else is the you know, there's weird office politics or you're just it's just expected of you to do your work.
16:13
So it it it felt like a whiff of reality of the real world where it's not revolving around you.
16:22
Whereas in school even if you're part of a big lecture hall at the end of the day it's about you.
16:25
You're the you're paying money to be there.
16:28
They're going to give you a grade based on the work you do and it's focused around how you absorb and and fit the work and how you fit into the system.
16:38
In the work play workspace you're a cog and you can figure out how to move your way up but it it's not incumbent upon them to recognize you.
16:46
You have to make your own way.
16:47
So it felt like a very a much it felt like I was going back to a kinder gentler situation when I went back to school where I put in the same work I would have uh at at you know, on Wall Street and then I was getting straight A's.
17:03
So it felt good but I also felt in in another way that it let some of the air out of the balloon that I got a whiff of what real life was.
17:12
What was waiting in the wings?
17:13
It was kind of scary that was like okay, now I'm I'm to work 50 weeks a year to get 2 weeks off.
17:18
And I'm going to live in those 2 weeks because pretty much everything happening during the week, you're either recovering over the weekends or you're or you're you know or you're you know you just it everything's about getting ready for work.
17:31
I just came home from work uh decompressing and and just getting back on the horse the next day.
17:38
And especially in Manhattan where you're you know I was commuting from the boroughs also.
17:43
Um and and and then I had gone cross country and seen how everybody was living and I had What sparked that cross country trip?
17:49
I think it was I think it was that I had worked for a year, right?
17:58
Um and I'd saved up enough money for a for a motorcycle and that was sort of a fantasy to go you know you watch like Easy Easy Rider.
18:06
I was just going to say What that's the thing oh man you know uh and and so I went cross country and I was there was a a motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota that happened to be lining up with when I wasn't in school or something.
18:18
I don't even remember I was still it was in school.
18:21
It's going back many years now. In the 80s.
18:25
Uh but I remember saying oh let me go check this out and then once I was all the way in South Dakota um a girl I was dating at the time was in San Francisco and I was it looked close on the map and I was like let me just You're like it's only 3 and 1/2 inches. I'll never be closer.
18:42
Um and that's back when You know I was just thinking about this the other day.
18:46
It was back before you could just go online and get a map like you had to belong to like the AAA and trip tick something where they would send you maps with highlighter showing you the route.
18:54
So you had this map that was like folded up in your in your in your saddle bag and you would look at it.
19:01
It really was like the old west and you know you're like a on horseback going cross country and it was such a long harrowing trip and I remember how many people in the country look like they weren't enjoying themselves the way they lived, the way and some people were having a great time.
19:21
But like there's there seemed to be a lot of um variety in the way people lived and the lifestyles people had and I I think also having grown up in a big city I I didn't realize what what rural America was like and really how big the country was and how how much variety there was.
19:42
And and also the other thing was how how uh personable people are.
19:46
And I was you know here I was on a motorcycle and I was young and I wasn't you know I I was not user-friendly.
19:51
I didn't have the you know Buckminster Fuller banker look.
19:54
I was you know a guy climbing all you know covered with dust and young and New York plates on my bike and and people were really cool to me.
20:03
Like people really when if I broke down people helped me out.
20:08
I helped other people out.
20:08
You know you sort of develop a sense of how you fit into the world and how it's not about you.
20:14
You're one little piece of the whole thing.
20:17
And you start to appreciate how big the world is and and that you have to figure out how to fit into that.
20:22
Whereas I think your whole life especially the way I was brought up it's more about how does it fit into my world.
20:27
So it's that perspective that you know I think we all continue to struggle with as we get older.
20:34
How we fit into this whole thing, how this whole it's not fair feeling is is one that you feel a lot more when you're young than when you're older.
20:44
The uh there's something magical about motorcycles, too.
20:46
Being part of the environment as opposed to inside the the the bubble that is the chassis of the car. Yeah.
20:53
Would not recommend it by the way. Very dangerous.
20:57
I I'm not I my buddy is in a wheelchair now who introduced me to it.
21:03
Uh it's it it fits in really well with your sense of um invulnerability that comes at that age.
21:09
Uh not something I I would do.
21:11
I would thought If I could afford one, I would.
21:13
So, let me just say to the people listening out there, I don't want to turn this into something where I'm proselytizing for it because it's not it's not something that I do anymore.
21:22
But it but it was definitely a a bit of a a transcendent experience that you're flying and you're you are so vulnerable and so much uh you know there there you're just you're just taking it in in a much different way.
21:35
It it's it's like a ride.
21:37
So, I'm going to uh love to ask you about Chicago.
21:40
Uh the motorcycle also just as a side note for folks, I totaled a bike and at that point sold it because I had a friend get uh fantastic rider had a car run a red light hit him at an intersection, cut off one of his legs. Yeah.
21:55
And uh when your body is the bumper, my mom actually calls motorcycles donor cycles because she's been a PT for Brain injury patients with perfect organs.
22:05
So, uh and it's not the it's not the rider.
22:08
It's the people around you and and um and under the right circumstances, it's great.
22:12
But the way I I'm very fortunate that that I made it out uh intact because it's it's um bad odds.
22:19
You're play You're playing You're playing slots at the It's not It's not the best game. Yeah.
22:23
It has nothing to do with how good you are as a rider, like you said.
22:27
So, dialing back the clock a little ways, so and I I won't spend too much time on this, but I was a runt up until about 6th grade.
22:32
Got the living hell beat out of me all the time. And D&D was my refuge. Oh, really? Okay.
22:37
So, uh I still have all of my modules.
22:39
Uh I'm one of those guys.
22:42
Uh now, I'm completely self-conscious about the fact that I played.
22:45
It's like takes a lot for me to talk freely like this about it.
22:47
But I feel like I feel a weird shame.
22:49
Why do you feel Why do you feel shame about it? I don't know why.
22:53
Because I feel this I kind of wear as a badge of honor in a way because I run into so many people who who also had that shared experience.
23:02
Well, I think I've grown into it.
23:02
Like I think I'm accepting of it now.
23:06
But it was such a way I had been defined myself for the first few years, like for like a freshman and sophomore year in high school.
23:14
And that was like what and then when I didn't do it anymore, you're so quick to say cuz I find that there's nothing more embarrassing than whatever the last phase you just went through was.
23:24
But I I continue to feel that way. Yeah.
23:25
You know, thank god my life is not, you know, all the things that it weighs you embarrass yourself.
23:29
All the haircuts you've had, the ways that you've dressed, the music you listen to.
23:33
to have a rat tail growing up. Exactly.
23:35
And now, you know, I'm of the age where you know, for for the the children's generation of this age, that's all going to be well documented and very hard to escape. Right.
23:44
Uh every single Facebook, you know, picture you've put up will be there on some level.
23:50
Uh so but uh but I you know, you're right.
23:52
I think that there was um tremendous value in it.
23:56
I have an affection for it.
23:56
I remember too much of it.
23:59
Um you know, it really took up a lot of my brain space uh when I was when I was around that age, whatever 15 or 14.
24:07
I forget what age I was playing.
24:11
Um but it also created uh a set of I think it I think it um encouraged a set of skills that is not that unlike um uh filmmaking.
24:25
Uh cuz you're telling a story and the people who are experiencing in that story, especially if you're like a dungeon master, you're telling the story in a way that um where the people who are participating, who've signed on are experiencing it in a very subjective way and there appears to be a certain level of spontaneity or free will and there is built into it.
24:45
But you're creating a context in a world and experience that's very uh specifically curated.
24:51
So you're guaranteeing a sort of experience regardless of what they do within it.
24:55
And I think when you're watching movies, the the um the illusion is that you're you're you're subjectively experiencing the film as an individual, and you're kind of making those decisions in a de facto way through the character that you're following the film through.
25:15
If a character in a film ever makes a decision that the audience doesn't feel that they agree with, it it changes the experience.
25:20
It becomes like a horror movie where, "Don't go in that room."
25:24
You know, it becomes a much different type of experience.
25:26
Or you're Or if you're watching a character that's um that's not you know, that you're you're watching because they're they're an anti-hero.
25:37
You know, when you're watching Travis Bickle is is a different experience than most films because most films you're going to walk through it, experience the things that the characters do.
25:45
They're going to do a smarter version usually of something you would have done, and they're going to be facing a lot of consequences, and you're rooting for them because you and them are kind of riding next to you're you're you're the co-pilot of the of the protagonist.
25:57
And And in role-playing games, there's it it's a similar uh experience, but but a different medium.
26:05
Were you Did you have a particular uh race of preference?
26:09
Were you a dwarf, a uh an all those.
26:12
And I didn't like the elves so much. I liked the dwarves. I liked the hobbits.
26:15
I I was always a gray elf.
26:17
That was always Were you?
26:17
That makes sense for you for you.
26:19
I don't remember what's the gray.
26:20
Is the gray different from I I like the I Are they wood ones?
26:23
Yeah, they're also drow I think it was the drow elf.
26:26
Those were the dark elves.
26:27
Those are the dark ones then.
26:28
They they were the I remember more from the Tolkien stuff now.
26:30
It sort of replaced it cuz I I was introduced to that.
26:33
they do blend together, but They do.
26:34
Well, yeah, we're very close.
26:36
But I like the hobbits cuz I read the book The Hobbit before I ever played the game.
26:40
It was a very important book to me.
26:42
And I always liked I I I kind of relate to the to to that character cuz he just wants to be comfortable and living in like the nice environment, but then is drawn out into the adventure and then returns.
26:52
It's very Joseph Campbell.
26:55
Um that that reluctant hero.
26:59
And I think that that's a good metaphor for for what I've experienced is that the you know, I'm I've never jumped into the stuff.
27:06
Uh you know, I guess I guess you maybe there's been a little bit of boredom or unrest in earlier in my life but but generally I kind of like I I I like some kind of things kind of boring.
27:21
But then every once in a while I just there's a little bit of that that adventure blood in me that forces me out of it.
27:27
I think we're different people from reading knowing You have more self-preservation instinct.
27:32
Is it that or it's complacency or something?
27:33
But I do it kind of in spite of who I am as opposed to because I'm I have this wanderlust and I and I can't sit still.
27:43
I just get bored sometimes and I want variety or I get um something captures my fancy and I get really curious and want to try something new. Uh I'm an only child.
27:57
I tend to do it more for me I find than to show other people.
28:02
I tend to be very What is the itch that you're scratching with that that that novelty satisfies? Do you think? know.
28:10
You know, I think it's different as I get older cuz now it becomes about what impressions I had from younger in life and things you know, on that checklist of you know, how people buy the car that they never could afford sure later or they you know, or they date the girl they couldn't date.
28:23
You know, there's a sense of of of somehow you know, working on your scorecard.
28:28
But for me it's like um like I want as I get older especially it's like I wanted it to try to sculpt.
28:37
And I and I started Sculpting literally? Yeah.
28:40
Yeah, literally like sculpting and I'm lucky that I work with such talented people of all different diverse skill sets in the movie business that when I want to sculpt I talk to somebody who's an expert sculptor sculptor and they and they put together a little package for me of and and a list of tools I need and and next thing you know without a lot of wasted time um I'm I'm sculpting. I always drew. Yeah.
29:03
And I always would sculpt a little bit here and there whatever if I was in like a class or playing with the kids Play-Doh and daddy was always good at at at making Step aside Step aside kid.
29:10
Let me Let me show you how it's done. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:15
You get a lot of You get a lot of You know, when you go to parent-teacher day or whatever the kids would bring dad to school whatever that thing is when daddy could make something cool out of Play-Doh you get you get you know you get respect around the school. cred. Yeah.
29:28
So, what material were you or are you using?
29:32
Chavant something called Chavant which is one of those um I I think it's petroleum-based or wax-based uh clays that doesn't dry and um you have to heat up to get it to be pliable.
29:43
get these blocks that look kind of like plastic explosives I guess.
29:45
I know what you're talking about, yeah.
29:48
And and uh it was developed I think for the automotive industry so you get some really nice textures out of it.
29:50
And uh it's just fun to do cuz you you're doing better than you thought you could.
29:55
Now, why sculpture as opposed to I wanted to be a comic book penciler for about 10 years so I did a lot of illustration.
30:03
Why uh why sculpture as opposed to uh something else like watercolors or Oh, cuz uh I don't know.
30:09
There's something fun I I did it because you could uh give it to people. Yeah. Okay.
30:18
it's like a thing it's like a a substantial thing that you have or you could display or you could give or or cast into a metal or I don't know.
30:24
It just seemed kind of cool.
30:28
Uh I was I was messing around on the on the set of Jungle Book with uh we had blocks of wax because there's a sequence where that we have a big beehives that we had to cast and we had to cast it out of wax, so it interacted in a way that was realistic.
30:44
realistic. And so, we had blocks and blocks of beeswax around, and so, while I was on the set, on the many hours sitting at the in the director's chair, I had a block of wax sitting there for about a month, and then next thing you know, I I asked for something to carve
30:58
it with it uh it carve it with, and I got like some little carving tools, and next thing you know, I was carving a bear, and next thing you know, it's like I pull over the all these artists that are working on the So, well, what's how how such Well, the bear the ears are a little far back. Move this a little And
31:11
Move this a little And so, I was getting pointers, and and everybody who would pass by Well, hey, it looks like a bear, you know.
31:15
So, it's it's um a little bit of what a good boy am I, and something of to see at this age.
31:21
Honestly, it's like um I'm very happy to be working in the field that I am.
31:26
I feel like I'm learning constantly.
31:29
But, I understand why I think like Nick Nolte, I heard like loves glass blowing. Like, I get it.
31:33
I get why that's exactly the type of thing to be doing.
31:36
And I did actually my experience was with cooking. With I by the way.
31:41
I know I've told you this, but let me tell you this on the I appreciate that. podcast. Uh the Four Hour Chef.
31:45
Uh when I was preparing to do Chef, uh I always like watching Which blew my mind.
31:50
I've said it to you, and I've said it on the internets, but Uh-huh.
31:54
Just I I'm we're going to dig into that. Okay. But, we lovely movie. Thank you.
31:59
It was a great movie, an important film for me, cuz it it it just you know, it it allowed me to deal with themes that I felt were important, but but also it gave me the excuse to learn from great chefs, and work in the the kitchens of great chefs to prepare for acting in in in the film.
32:16
And I loved cooking, and I loved and I never Roy Choi, the the the chef who really was was my partner in this, um as he was preparing me when when we first started, he said, "You're You're a chef when a chef" cuz he was telling me these things to teach me, but also to understand insight as I told the story to make the film, one that he and the community would like.
32:38
He said, "When a chef sees a bag of shallots, they get excited because they're going to get to peel all the shallots."
32:45
And and um which I thought was it was confusing at first, but then after going through the culinary training and everything, there's some It's true.
32:53
There's something very meditative about uh preparing your mise en place because you you're dealing with sharp implements and you have to get it perfect and you can't hurt yourself.
33:05
And you can't really do anything but this thing, but it doesn't require all of your brain at the same time.
33:10
And so you get into this really cool zone where you everything's so thoughtful that you're doing.
33:18
And by the time you actually prepare a meal with all of this mise that you prepare that you that you get ready, there's a a tendency to be very tuned in to what you're tasting or what you're presenting to your guests because they know the work they've been watching you put work into it.
33:33
And so the mindfulness uh that it implies and and and demands in its preparation, but it also asks of the people um who who you're sharing it with.
33:48
Uh it it creates a um a nexus point of all the people where you're all sharing a common experience at one moment, which uh is something I've grown to appreciate and and is a very elusive dynamic.
33:58
As as a dad, it's it's very you know, being very very present as as you um you know, spend time with your kids, making sure you're not checking your emails when you're tucking the kids in, you know, it's and and with friends and and as a husband, there's a it's not something I did effortlessly a decade ago.
34:23
And it's something I've grown into and I find that people as they mature, they they start to value that more.
34:27
And so everything I look to do, whether it's sculpture or you know, I would be a glass blower.
34:32
I would love to play with that.
34:33
It seems fascinating or you know, any of these hobby type things or the cooking is all about being very present in that moment and um and it's a good it it's a good counterbalance to the intensity with which I approach my the work that I do.
34:55
I I think the the word mindfulness is so appropriate for cooking and I found that what used to create so much stress such a stretch response in me which was preparing food is now become like you said almost this meditative practice where I could meditate in the mornings and I tend to do that but I also find that if I just make food make dinner two or three times a week and you have these knives so you have to be present stay aware.
35:21
It's it has a tremendous decompressing effect.
35:24
Are there any particular ingredients that you're playing with these days?
35:28
Well, I like I've ever since I I made chef and met Aaron Franklin down in Austin I've been over and over again refining my smoked brisket the Central Texas style smoked brisket.
35:40
And to me that's like alchemy.
35:42
You know, it's it's there's there's a certain amount of technique in the trimming and in the way you but mostly it's about leaving alone.
35:52
It's almost like baking in that way like it's it's it's it's chemistry and changing little factors but it taking whatever it is 14 hours to see how it turns out.
36:00
There's something really rewarding about that and it's also a flavor that people don't get anywhere else.
36:06
So when you do it right and people get to taste it it's it's kind of a fun it's kind of a fun thing to share cuz it's special and it's only it's only good for a short amount of time too. Yeah.
36:14
It's you know, it's like a It's like coffee and then it kind of goes away. And then I like that.
36:20
I like um simple pasta dishes very simple ones.
36:27
You know, like there's a there's a pasta Scarpeta, the restaurant Scarpeta makes a really good pasta that's just in a tomato sauce that you could find online the recipe for, but it but making the pasta from scratch, infusing the oil, uh
36:42
starting the tomato sauce from Roma tomatoes that you blanch and peel and slow cook and mash down into a sauce and then mixing it with the infused olive oil and then uh cooking that with the pasta water and getting the right texture. And
36:55
And again, it's amazing, but it's only good for just a few minutes.
37:02
And and then and then with the pasta dish it's great cuz you you pull together group of people who are interested in doing it.
37:07
It's like it's a great thing to do uh if the family's all vacation someplace or you're over at a relative's house.
37:14
Especially cuz I have less and less things to talk about cuz my my context is so different from everybody else's that, you know, if we talk about movies, it's not, you know, I'm thinking about the other things than the people talking to me were thinking about.
37:27
Uh and, you know, it's there's so little um overlap with most people that I meet that cooking is great because it creates this context where everybody is on equal footing and everybody has uh a different skill set and it becomes a real uh a task that you have to be you're interdependent with and and it it I find I have a endless patience to spend time with people that I don't know very well if you're working on a really exciting cooking project.
37:55
And then at the end we all serve it together and we really feel like we fought a war together.
38:00
And it's a great it's a great bonding thing.
38:02
I'm working on a kitchen at my at my house that's geared towards having like groups of people cook.
38:06
It feels more like a restaurant style. Big tabletops.
38:11
Yeah, and all like open shelving and you know, everything that you'd see, you know, beautiful in a way restaurants beautiful, not beautiful for a house, but but the people who like to cook, it's it's like the perfect like uh like a lab.
38:23
And uh it's it's fun because you know, you're all gathered around and and uh I did it my experience I the first time I did it like that was at the uh at the Skywalker Ranch, which is where we we mixed the sound for a few movies.
38:38
I've been working with them I think since Iron Man.
38:40
Uh but for those of you who don't know, it's it's a it's a a 5,000-acre ranch uh in Northern California and in in Marin that George Lucas uh put together and and and oversaw the architecture for.
38:57
And it's uh started off as just a sound facility.
38:59
Very high very It looks very low-tech.
39:02
It looks like a winery almost, but beautiful rolling hills with cattle grazing.
39:05
Uh Victorian house on the hill that he's that where he does his editing and where he he uses his home base and other technical buildings that have cropped up around it.
39:17
And it's state-of-the-art mixing facility, sound facility, uh recording stages.
39:24
Um so it's this very strange and then a bunkhouse uh with themed rooms for the people who who work there because you you stay there when you work there because it's so remote.
39:36
And so each uh room is themed for either a director or a writer.
39:41
And uh so you have like the John Ford room that's Western-themed, a Kurosawa room, Dorothy Parker room.
39:45
And so you stay there and during the day there are restaurants that are open on the facility.
39:51
At night, everything closes down, but there's a commercial kitchen in the common area and a walk-in a walk-in fridge.
39:57
And so as we were making Chef, you know, you're looking at these scenes over and over again listening to the crackling of the you know, the frying food and the the pasta and the olive oil and the the garlic simmering and your your mouth's watering all day.
40:11
And each night we would pick another uh recipe from the movie and all of us uh me and the editors, the sound crew, uh we'd all get together and we cook together at night.
40:21
And we cook all the dishes from the movie and it was so much fun.
40:26
Uh because here we were in the middle of, you know, in the middle of nowhere, really, in a very remote spot and and just together, you know, the fireplace going, all of us cooking together, and then you sit down for the meal, and you sleep good, and then we hit it the next morning, and we would do the next reel.
40:41
Sounds like a hell of a a hell of a routine. That sounds amazing. It was really wonderful.
40:45
So, that's what I want to try to see if I can capture some of that at home. Yeah.
40:47
The uh the uh one thing that's always struck me about a well-designed kitchen is just the elegance and the economy of movement that it provides for a chef, uh where they're they're they're never reaching too far for anything.
41:03
Everything I mean, you have everything in its place, right? The mise en place. Right.
41:06
And how quickly a good line cook or chef can work if they have all their items in the right place. Yeah, it's true.
41:14
It it's it's uh it's interesting cuz I did part of the training I did was work in first first I went to some pretty accelerated culinary training that Roy sent me to off with a a French chef uh to get that a context before I ever entered a professional kitchen.
41:29
And so, I I went through all my mother sauces and my knife cuts and basically an overview of what the first year culinary students would deal with.
41:38
Then I got to come into his kitchens.
41:38
He has a few different restaurants and food trucks, too.
41:44
And I spent time uh floating from restaurant to restaurant.
41:45
First, they they let me like prep cook.
41:47
So, I was picking parsley and You know what I mean? I've done that. Micro basil. Yeah.
41:53
They're like, "You're holding up my station first." I'm like, "Oh god."
41:54
Like that's all they trust you with.
41:56
And it's so like labor-intensive.
42:00
And so, you finally do that, and then uh then eventually I work my way up to the hot line.
42:07
And on the hot line, then I started working and And and then I worked the pretty Midway through I started working on one of his Kogi trucks.
42:13
And it reminded me because there you're in tight quarters, too.
42:16
It reminded me very much of bartending, which is what I did uh to make a living uh in college and after college when I moved to Chicago, I was a bartender.
42:26
And you know, there's that dynamic of of getting in the weeds.
42:29
It's kind of halfway between being a chef and being a uh a server.
42:33
Because you're preparing things, but you're also dealing with the public and you're not doing anything that complicated.
42:38
So, you don't have the um there's not the elegance of of being a chef, at least the type of bartender I was.
42:44
I wasn't like a mixologist uh like you see now.
42:47
But uh but there is this you do get into the weeds and you have to do this dance with the people in a very small space.
42:56
And I found that that rhythm was coming back to me as I was working especially on that truck.
43:00
Well, you know how to get out of the way, you pop in, you pop out, you reach around uh on somebody's left, on their right, you're behind them.
43:08
You're not crashing into each other and you're helping each other out and you're becoming like this big octopus together.
43:14
And when you're working on the hotline, it's even more that way because there's, you know, behind you, you know, there's like hot food coming through, people are speaking different languages, you're um you're being asked to do things, you're being instructed to.
43:24
That's the other weird thing.
43:26
It's not like they prepare you ahead of time and say, "Here's how you make everything. Let's train."
43:32
Maybe when you first open a restaurant, it's that way.
43:33
But when you're working in a in an established kitchen, they basically just throw you on the line.
43:39
And then the rush comes and and then they show you once how to do something and then you just copy them and maybe they show it to you again.
43:46
And then the chef's watching you from a distance and saying, "Hey, you only put mayo on one side of the bun. It goes on both."
43:51
You know, there's a certain quality control aspect that the chef's That's really what the chef's job is is overseeing other people doing the work and keeping the standards to a certain uh consistency.
44:02
And so, there I was, you know, working and little by little, you know, first it's I'm just doing the popcorn at A-frame and then then I'm next thing you know I'm pulling the burgers out or doing the you know, assembling some sandwiches.
44:13
Next thing you know I'm plating and then So by the end of the Saturday dinner rush, you know, there's a half dozen plates I'm helping with.
44:21
And you start to appreciate how good these other people are.
44:26
You know, the people who worked the broiler or the saute cook, you know, who The grill station.
44:31
nailing them, you know, making it perfect and timing it just right.
44:35
And then and then the one that I remarked at the most was the was the was the bus boy who knows just when to walk up to you with that with that deli container full of ice water.
44:44
And like it's the best water you've ever had.
44:46
Like I didn't even know I was thirsty.
44:48
And then this guy hands me this like 16 oz, you know, the quart size you know, like you get wonton soup in that clear container.
44:54
So those are all over kitchens, right?
44:56
Those are deli containers.
44:58
And they they'll give you one full of ice water and you'll drink it in like one sip and it's the best thing you've ever had in your life.
45:04
And um and as I was mentioning that to Roy, he says, "Now you're ready to make the movie.
45:10
That's Now you've had that That experience is what how I know you're ready."
45:14
So speaking of of moments, uh when did you decide to write Chef?
45:18
I'd love to talk a little bit about the writing process.
45:23
Chef Chef was Okay, so I Remember I I you know, it's kind of hard out of context with with what the Swingers experience was.
45:30
Well, we can we can bounce Well, let's talk about both.
45:34
So it was With Swingers it was um that I had I had not known I was going to be a writer.
45:38
I had received from my dad uh um Final Draft, which was a a program that is pretty user-friendly and and and formats your writing to look like a screenplay.
45:49
And and and for people who are writers or want to be writers, there's a lot of it is um there are subtle things that much like a let's say a job like a resume for a job.
46:03
There's certain standards by how you're going to put that together so that when somebody receives that resume, it looks professional. The formatting. The formatting. All that stuff.
46:09
I don't know that much about just regular jobs, but but I know like a lot of effort goes into the resume. A headshot for an actor.
46:18
For a screenplay, as people receive the script, they're making a lot of little subconscious calculations and decisions about you based on what they're seeing.
46:26
And a screenplay that's not formatted properly is something that's completely dismissed.
46:31
And what was fun was when I received the program, I just typed a little bit.
46:35
Next thing I know, it looked just like a real screenplay.
46:36
And I've read enough of them from being an actor.
46:40
And this was after I had already done Rudy.
46:41
I had moved to Los Angeles.
46:41
I thought that was going to be my big break.
46:44
But things weren't really popping for me.
46:47
But I had read enough scripts and knew enough about acting to um feel comfortable tapping away at a screenplay, never thinking it was going to anything was going to happen with it.
46:58
Uh more to show my friends.
46:58
And you know, you tap you type for a half hour, an hour, two hours.
47:01
Next thing you know, you got like a stack of eight pages.
47:05
And it feels like you've had got a piece of a screenplay there.
47:08
And so then it becomes like I just want to try this.
47:11
You know, it kind of goes back to the earlier conversation we're having about why why do you why do you do things?
47:18
You know, for you it's that you can't sit still and you're and you're super curious and you got a lot of energy and you you kind of hunger for it.
47:26
I think with me it's it's it's it's a little bit more erratic than that where I just get I just get something bites me in the ass and I want to try something.
47:34
Like I'm just curious about something, if I could do something.
47:38
But it's um it's so much subtler and I just tap away at it and peck away at it and then it starts to look good and as it looks better, you start to build up um like with doing sculpture, like messing around a little bit.
47:51
Next thing you know, oh, it kind of looks like a bear.
47:54
Well, let me carve it a little little better.
47:55
Let me try a little bit more.
47:56
Let's see how far I could take this thing.
47:58
And and so with the screenplay it was kind of like that and uh showed it to some friends, showed it to the acting agent I had.
48:04
People felt good about the Swingers screenplay and then we How long did it take you to get it to a first draft, let's just say?
48:11
Very fast because there was no pressure.
48:13
I didn't have any I didn't have any I would I would outline maybe a few pages ahead of where I was.
48:17
I came from an improv background from Chicago.
48:21
So it was really just characters talking to each other.
48:22
The improv that I did was something called the Harold which was uh Del Close and invented.
48:26
He was a great improv teacher in Chicago. The Harold? The Harold. Okay. Like the name. Yeah, okay. Got it.
48:32
And it was one of those things like what do you call it? Harold.
48:35
You know, it was one of those.
48:37
That's how it got its name.
48:37
Uh like the Beatles haircut, I think. Yeah, okay. Got it. had a name.
48:40
I forget what the name was.
48:42
Uh but but there's uh it's long form so you would start off and take one suggestion and do three different scenes with different characters that were unrelated all inspired by this one suggestion.
48:55
And then you would have three beats of those scenes and by the end they would all interweave and connect and come to some greater statement about the the um the suggestion than just a short form joke uh oriented improvisational skit would.
49:16
So it's looking to bring improv into revealing uh uh as a higher form to reveal greater truths about about the suggestion by forming group mind with a a team of improvisers who are used to working with one another.
49:30
That was the aspiration for that.
49:32
But it did give me a a set of skills having done that in Chicago for a while that you know, you're self-editing, you're you're knowing when each scene should end, you're bringing the next scene to begin maybe after some time had passed or with a plot point that had occurred and you know, you're you're learning story.
49:48
You're learning story the hard way.
49:49
You're learning the in front of a bar full of people who paid $4 to be in there and they want to be entertained and laugh, but the laughter doesn't last if there's no story.
49:59
Story is the king and you know, you think it's about the laugh, but really it's about investing in the story being drawn in.
50:05
And and so I I I guess I had enough skills from that and also read enough screenplays and maybe the Dungeons and Dragons and stuff of being a storyteller knowing how to create a little bit of a world that uh you know, here here I was uh unfolding the story about this group of friends in Hollywood uh set in the same world I lived in.
50:25
I had broken up or been broken up with at the time about a year earlier, so it was still that was fresh in my mind, so that was one of the characters' dilemmas and you know, although it wasn't really uh autobiographical, there were enough things that I could draw from.
50:40
You know, what's the expression from Glengarry Glen Ross?
50:44
Always tell the truth, it's the easiest thing to remember. Yeah.
50:47
Draw upon, you know, if you're going to talk about a neighborhood, talk about the neighborhood you grew up in.
50:49
Talk about the neighborhood you know, even if it's not you.
50:53
But you're going to have a more consistent world that you're developing than if you're putting them on Mars and you don't understand Mars.
50:58
Uh so you know, a lot of things got slugged in and and I wrote it um pretty fairly quickly, about 2 weeks. 2 weeks? It was very quick.
51:07
Uh and it didn't change really that much after that. Did not change?
51:11
Did not, but I had remember I'd written my sketches and things.
51:12
Did you write it start to finish Did you write it You You wrote it from the beginning to the end? Beginning to end.
51:19
Few things changed, not much. 10%. Got it. Over time.
51:24
Um and that was in Final Draft. Yeah. Yeah.
51:28
It was a good It was a good script.
51:29
the same way that you did it start to finish?
51:30
So Chef I didn't, you know, I'd written Made after that few years later.
51:35
And then I had been hired as a writer based on Swingers to do script doctoring and things.
51:41
And that's where it gets tough cuz when you start getting paid to do something that you used to do for fun, you don't want to do it for fun as much, and and um what was nice about it is that you can you can make a living enough to, you know, for a a single dude to be able to buy a house over a few years, and
51:59
you know, drive a a new car, you know, a newish car, but you can make a living just being a a writer for hire, cuz they're always looking for people with fresh takes and new ideas in the writing area, cuz the very established writers are all, you know, they're busy, you know, you get hired to do one thing, that could keep you busy for a year. So, there's always room for another
52:16
So, there's always room for another writer once you kind of make that list.
52:21
Uh unfortunately, if you're not on the list, you can't get in the door.
52:22
And Swingers put you on the list.
52:25
Swingers put me on that list.
52:25
So, I went from an actor, and also people kind of knew me for my acting from Rudy, and so there's a bit of a novelty of being an actor that they recognize and know, and you're already used to being in those rooms, you're already people know who you are, you know who they are, you already have representation, so it's easier to get into that system.
52:44
So, uh that was a a a bit of a I won't say it's a life hack, but uh but it's um Am I using that term properly?
52:52
I think you know, I think I think that uh you could I'm trying to sound like I fit on your podcast here.
52:59
Oh, you already fit on the podcast, you're doing great.
53:00
The I think the uh the it seems like you gave yourself sort of more tickets in the raffle, so to speak, than a lot of people, because you had the writing, acting, directing irons in the fire, not not all necessarily Eventually, but in the beginning, remember, I'm trying to break into another field. Right. Right?
53:22
So, I'm like seeing how far I could take this thing, and the acting thing got me more raffle tickets in that sense.
53:29
Um but it was an interesting way into writing, and much like how acting was a really interesting way into directing, because in directing, one of the disadvantages that most people, other than me, had was that if you're going to direct, the only way you can show people you're a director is by directing.
53:48
There's no apprenticeship, per se, in directing.
53:51
It's not like assistant directors, there's an apprenticeship.
53:54
You could work your way up from a way up from a PA, work your way up to second second second AD to first AD.
54:02
You will hit the top of the food chain in in by learning from other people who are better than you.
54:07
There's no room on the set for another the the director's assistant is not another director.
54:13
The director's assistant is somebody who was a PA, somebody who worked in development, somebody who's, you know, uh most I don't think I've ever met a director whose assistant was was a director in training.
54:24
Uh and even then you're not getting that experience, but as an actor, I got to have front row seats for to every director that I worked with.
54:32
So, by the time I ever directed, I already, you know, there were a half a dozen directors that I thought were great, and half a dozen I thought weren't great.
54:41
And I emulated the ones that were great.
54:43
And being an actor, you're kind of modeling yourself, i- i- imitating what the people you respect do.
54:51
And that's kind of what musicians do, too, right?
54:53
If you, you know, you're everybody practices Hendrix licks first, and then they come up with their own style.
55:00
But there is a there is a uh this uh mimicking phase of learning.
55:03
And and it's tough to get those 10,000 hours under your belt just by going to film school.
55:11
Now, maybe it's different, because now people can literally take a camera, go out, film something, edit it, put it up, get feedback, see if people like it or they don't, and they could g- hit the drawing board again.
55:23
It does not cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
55:27
Uh they can they can do that thanks to technology.
55:30
By the time I was coming up, that wasn't that wasn't even an option.
55:33
Swingers was done as cheaply as you possibly could for that quality of a film, and that was uh almost $200,000.
55:38
And Clerks had been done even cheaper than that. The budget was $200,000?
55:42
Uh 175, something like that.
55:44
But Clerks had been done for I think 10,000 or something ridiculous like that.
55:48
And that's a, you know, that's a feat. Oh, yeah.
55:50
Because it was done at a time when it wasn't quite that straightforward. very inspiring to us.
55:54
It was before we had done it, and we were like, "Why can't we just do it?"
55:57
Because instead of trying to sell Swingers, we ended up making ourselves.
56:01
Uh so by the time I had done Chef, it was like I I had been wanting to do something everything I was developing I was trying to work in as a chef into.
56:10
Because I wanted to be something I wanted to learn about.
56:11
So if I was working on a TV pilot or working on a uh developing something for producing something for somebody else, it was like, "Well, what about it in a restaurant? What about a chef?"
56:21
Cuz it seemed like it was a very uh from watching Top Chef and following chefs, reading chefs' biographies, reading Kitchen Confidential, which is the first one that I read by Bourdain. Great book. Great book.
56:31
And it seemed like there's something here.
56:35
Uh but it didn't seem like something that warranted its own I couldn't see the way to make it into its own thing.
56:42
So that was kind of bubbling around my head.
56:43
And then something about I doing something about being a dad, being um we're talking about mindfulness, about mindfulness and parenting, about how a few simple overseeing a few important things in your life over the course of many years can ruin your life if you don't invest enough into the the things that are important but not pressing.
57:04
So if you put everything into your career and not into the things that won't this not things that aren't the squeaky wheel but are important but not in the short term, over time you'll find yourself in a in a situation you don't even understand how you got into.
57:19
You know, and you see it a lot in the chef world, you see it a lot in the movie world, uh a lot of fail families that where it doesn't work out.
57:25
And a lot of it's because the the career demands so much time, so much effort.
57:30
And creating that balance, which which, you know, fortunately I've done, you know, the the older I get the better I get at it.
57:37
And and and now uh things are, you know, I think well-balanced for me, but I want to make something about somebody where they weren't well-balanced.
57:45
What if I had made different decisions in my life early on?
57:49
And and then looking at it through the idea of the culinary world and and having really stories about growth spurts.
57:55
It's about, right, coming of age.
57:57
I'm a big mentioned Joseph Campbell before.
58:00
I'm a big fan of Joseph Campbell. Huh? Sorry?
58:03
Oh, no, I was saying just the monomyth.
58:04
I find you know, Joseph Campbell.
58:06
mono Well, see, he talks about I I've become fascinated by Joseph Campbell in the last few years.
58:11
Uh also the the how these archetypes Right.
58:16
uh translate across all cultures and indigenous tribal of a thousand faces. Yeah. Yeah.
58:23
You ever seen Speaking of Skywalker?
58:23
I think the first time I ever saw the Skywalker Ranch was on the Power of Myth where Joseph Campbell's interviewed by Bill Moyers in the Skywalker Ranch. I haven't.
58:33
That's one of the first uh when when video first came out, that was one of the first things that was uh available in that realm and it still holds up. It's great.
58:42
I'm sure it's easy to get your hands on.
58:44
Uh The Power of Myth and he's being he's in sitting in the library at the Skywalker Ranch being interviewed.
58:49
Of everything back from, you know, from Adam and Eve and earlier all the way through Star Wars.
58:53
And it's like a four-part or six-part series from PBS, I think. And it was great.
58:58
That was my introduction to to Joseph Campbell.
59:02
And then there's books about relating that uh archetype rise of the hero storytelling to screenplays and how there's less variation than you you might think.
59:14
And the more you stick to it, the better you it's just is it's it's those are great instruments to fly with.
59:20
And with Jungle Book, I really am, you know, going back and doubling down on that on on just going back to the to the old myths and it worked so well for for Lucas.
59:30
Oh yeah, I mean it's I've been I'm fascinated by by screenwriting and I haven't spent a lot of time looking at the format but I took the story seminar by McKee and have read a handful of books.
59:44
That's that's pretty intense.
59:46
Yeah, that is that is intense.
59:47
Even that book is I don't know if I've ever gotten all the way through it. I found it very dense. I found it difficult.
59:51
There there are a handful of others like Save the Cat that I found very helpful for for me personally just to think about the storytelling mechanisms.
59:58
There's there's one called if if I may Oh, of course.
1:00:02
the writer's journey The writer's journey.
1:00:04
journey and I I'm sorry I'm a loss.
1:00:06
I could look it up while we're while we're talking here.
1:00:10
Oh, I'll put it in the show notes as well.
1:00:11
Okay, you'll you'll put it in.
1:00:11
Okay, you'll you'll put it in. Okay, cuz it what it does is it takes Joseph Campbell and refines it down from the perspective of somebody I think it was a story executive at Disney and and and breaks what breaks apart what that what those archetypes are and how they apply to movies that you would have seen breaking down movies using that and and also talking about three-act structure
1:00:36
as it is a as it pertains to the the mythic structure that Campbell talked about with the the calling, the refusal of the call, the entering into the extraordinary world the entering the inmost cave the um killing the dragon, taking the elixir, going back and healing the land and um even back when I I even looked at I was I had already read the book by the time I had done Swingers and looked at Swingers. Oh, the writer's journey. So it's been
1:01:10
Oh, the writer's journey.
1:01:10
So it's been around for a while.
1:01:12
it's been around for a while and I had remember reading that book and seeing if it if I was structurally correct with Swingers and and I was satisfied that I was.
1:01:23
But, the trick, I think, is not to use it as a map to write, because you have to write I think you just have to brain dump when you write.
1:01:31
I don't think you could try to control your writing too much. Um for me.
1:01:39
Some people are very different.
1:01:39
People who come out of, you know, where they're creating series arcs for a television show, it becomes, you know, you have to develop a group mind, and you go you use the dry erase board, and you plot things out, and it may change, but it's very well thought through, and and I find that people that have come from that background tend to like to outline a lot.
1:01:59
And then there are other people who just come from prose and creative writing, or you know, story, you know, short story writers that where they just want to you know, the routine has more to do with what time of day they write, how much coffee they have before they do, you know, getting into that you know, uh getting into the creative routine.
1:02:18
Uh that's where their structure is.
1:02:20
There's always some form of structure.
1:02:21
Sometimes the structure is in the writing, sometimes the structure is in the writing, the act of writing.
1:02:28
Um but I found I find that for me I like to do I like to outline a little bit.
1:02:32
I like to I first I do So, so here's what you're getting back to Chef.
1:02:36
So, with Chef, I those two thoughts of wanting to write something about the chef world, and wanting to do something about mindfulness and parenting both crashed into each other, and I got the idea, the epiphany hit me that um that I this is this could all come together in a project. Let me write this thing.
1:02:55
And I and I took out I like composition, I know you like the minutia. I do. I love the minutia.
1:03:01
So, composition, Mead composition notebooks, you know, the black and white flecked cover cardboard sewn spine.
1:03:08
Looks kind of like a zebra, the black and white on the cover. Exactly.
1:03:11
I like those because I find um I think it's from my drawing days.
1:03:15
Um when I used to get like a really nice leather bound drawing paper sketchbook.
1:03:23
I'd be so reluctant to to defile it.
1:03:25
Yeah, like is this drawing good enough for my because it would always feel like a showpiece whereas the the notebooks seem like, um, because everybody grew up with them like is their first notebook that there's a freedom in marking it up but you can't rip pages out.
1:03:41
Right, so you can't self edit because if you do the book falls apart.
1:03:44
So it's not like a spiral, you can't use a spi- for me, you can't use a spiral.
1:03:49
So I have for everything I've done and there's a lot of incomplete projects.
1:03:53
I'll I'll get a composition notebook, I'll date it, title it, and then just start filling it with, uh, sometimes stream of consciousness, sometimes, um, a list of movies that I want to look at that relate to this, a book, a image, something and it becomes my you know, that's where I where I just brain dump.
1:04:12
And so for for, uh, chef, I was actually meditating.
1:04:15
I was meditating and the two things hit each other.
1:04:19
And usually if if I'm meditating, uh, which I try to do at least once a day, um, although I don't always, but it I find that in part of the distraction of meditating, uh, creative thoughts might pop into my head but that seems to be a distraction so I have to push past those.
1:04:36
It's it's kind of like on the highway entrance, first you have everything you're worried about hit you, then you start to have, um, creative thoughts that are interesting and inspiring, but those will those will trick you into not meditating, too.
1:04:52
So like these are all obstacles that you have to kind of pass by, um, and then and then you get into the the good part if there's such a thing.
1:05:01
I know you're not supposed to judge it or think about it any, but but you get into that brain wave or whatever that that thing is that seems to be the experience that that when you that you that you seek.
1:05:14
Um that kind of baseline thoughtless mind where you're in the full the voidness floating in the void.
1:05:22
I don't know if I get as far as the void but For me that's how I feel but Yeah, that's good.
1:05:25
I don't know if I'm that good How do you meditate? What type of meditation?
1:05:28
Just you know, um Do you focus on your breath?
1:05:31
Do you focus on something else?
1:05:33
that TM or breath or uh I try different things but now you know honestly it's like I don't even it's it's it's it's more of like an exercise now like I I know how to get to I think it's a it might be a brainwave pattern I don't know but it's a state of mind that I could hit without really tricks.
1:05:50
I kind of just need to takes me about five or six minutes and I could get there.
1:05:55
Do you sit in a chair with your feet on the floor or you like folded?
1:05:58
Different I tried to lay down cuz you fall asleep right? Yeah. Um but I try to do that.
1:06:03
I used to do it um I haven't found a place in every it's nice when you could do it the same time every day.
1:06:10
I just switched from production to post production on this so I don't I don't I haven't gotten into my routine.
1:06:15
I haven't been doing it as much as I should.
1:06:17
But otherwise I'd like to.
1:06:17
But otherwise I'd like to. But but in the middle of it I I got the the idea for Chef hit me and I let myself stop which I don't usually do and I took out a pen and I just drew scribbled out like eight pages of of of ideas and thoughts and um and left it alone and then read it and it it had you know if I look back on it and read those pages it really had 80% of the heavy lifting done as far as
1:06:42
what it was about who was in it, who the characters were, um what other movies to look at, what the tone is what music I would have in it, what type of food he was doing, the idea of the food truck and the the Cuban sandwiches and Cuban music and
1:06:57
and uh he's from Miami and um and so it all sort of grew out from that and then I went ahead and I have enough half written screenplays that I just forced myself to keep writing every day. Uh and so this only took me a few weeks
1:07:12
Uh and so this only took me a few weeks too to get the first draft.
1:07:14
Um but the big thing was I was so scared of of of it's like the Kubla Khan dream the poem Kubla Khan, right?
1:07:23
It wasn't that the story that that that it was a dream and only part of it was written down cuz he forgot it all.
1:07:30
Uh the poet I think I have that I think I have that right.
1:07:33
Going back to school, I don't remember some of the details right.
1:07:37
But the idea that sometimes you feel like when you're writing a a story or screenplay, if you let enough time pass in the first draft, you get off of that that kind of um creative the zone. on your own. Yeah.
1:07:50
Cuz I don't think it's something you control.
1:07:51
I think it's something you access and and um I don't think I'm not not to say it's from some other mystical place, uh but whatever that part of your brain that it comes from is a is not a part of your brain that you necessarily can force to do what you want. not fully domesticated. Right. Yeah.
1:08:08
You got to kind of you got to kind of trick it into doing its thing.
1:08:12
And when you did the the brain dump down into the composition notebook, do you take then I'd imagine these are not necessarily in chronological order.
1:08:20
It's just a full-on brain dump.
1:08:20
It is it's what you know some of it's chronological then you go back and hit another part of it and then run it through again.
1:08:27
And so it does it does go on little tears.
1:08:29
It's like a pitch session except you're alone.
1:08:30
And when you said tone, what would be an example of of tone for a movie?
1:08:34
How How would you sort of write that down or describe that?
1:08:38
like each rank man woman opening.
1:08:41
Like that that stuff, right? Fantastic movie. Um Big Night.
1:08:44
Um you know a lot of it's movies.
1:08:46
A lot of it is Buena Vista Social Club soundtrack.
1:08:51
Um food truck food Cuban sandwiches.
1:08:56
Cuban sandwiches uh the sun the there's a divorce the they've been separated but they get along.
1:09:05
Get along and he's with he's stuck he's with a he's there's a critic coming.
1:09:12
Yeah, this is a that's Ratatouille.
1:09:12
It's only so many there's only so many cooking restaurant movies you can make.
1:09:18
And the guy is preparing the he goes to the farmers market and brings his kid with him.
1:09:22
Like so there's there's moments there's vignettes there's um images.
1:09:27
Um and some of them are sequences and some of them are movies and sometimes it's movies that are in your memory and then when you see the movie it's not that but it's the version in your head from what you remember of a movie.
1:09:38
And then you and then Kitchen Confidential I remember referencing that a lot and and who the characters are.
1:09:45
And I wanted very let a lot of uh Latino cast members because that's what was really Kitchen Confidential I remember like that's really what kitchens were and what I saw and what it was and never what was depicted.
1:10:00
And how does that the the how does the vibrancy of that culture with the music playing in the kitchen and then they're cooking food that's not that?
1:10:11
And then in in being uh re um inspired he's inspired by that who the people that are surrounding him the music he's listening to and where he came from in Miami.
1:10:24
And maybe that's the type of food he used to cook and now he's cooking very trendy you know uh user-friendly food that wasn't inspiring to him and and then being frustrated by not being inspired by his his art is no longer inspiring him and he's hit a impass and it also the impass is affecting both his professional life but in a way he's not aware of his personal life too.
1:10:47
He's he's stuck spiritually stuck.
1:10:52
And on the on the show business side of things this is something I know very little about but in terms of the the the actual making, selling, distributing of the film.
1:11:02
And feel free to correct me if I get this wrong, but I've heard you refer to, I think, making Chef as going back to basics. Yeah.
1:11:08
And sort of constraining the size or the or the budget so that you could do certain things, like have the language you wanted to have in the movie, for instance. Be authentic.
1:11:18
Uh How how did you make this movie?
1:11:19
And I I know that's a very novice question, but uh I've I've talked to people sort of indirectly who've gone through the big studio process and have had a very rough time of it.
1:11:30
What made Chef different?
1:11:32
How did you uh Or Swingers, you could comment on on any Yeah, you know, again, I think I think it's all a matter of um It's it's all a matter of of adjusting to what the of what the environment is at any given moment and adjusting in a Art of War kind of way.
1:11:51
I don't think about it in those terms.
1:11:55
But but acknowledge what the terrain is.
1:11:58
And I think a lot of what seems like uh in my career in general as though I've had this vision for how my career was going to change and things I would try to do and and to get things accomplished was was more a reaction to what the circumstances were.
1:12:17
So for example, I thought Swingers would open a lot of doors for me acting wise. It didn't.
1:12:22
Uh I got to do a little bit of stuff here and there. It was fun.
1:12:26
But I was very sought after as a writer after that.
1:12:30
And so the writer door opened up.
1:12:33
The actor door was you know, kind of more of a more of a small you know, a a little cracked open door that occasionally I could poke my nose through, but it wasn't receiving me, but the but the writer door was wide open.
1:12:48
So I started to do that and I learned a lot about storytelling and interacting with executives and what the system was by being involved with projects, and none of which that ever got actually produced with the versions that I wrote.
1:13:00
But, I was part of a chain of writers on on on certain projects.
1:13:04
Um so, I would I was pretty good at at adjusting to what path was available to me, and finding something interesting about what was available, but without ever feeling that I was compromising, but just trying to check out something that could be cool, and not getting in my own way of saying, "Why shouldn't I be a writer on this?
1:13:24
Why not pitch this take on a movie?"
1:13:27
Even though I've never done a rewrite, why why not go in there and talk to them about this?
1:13:30
And and so, I've had I think I've had enough confidence to um not be scared to try something new, which I think is something that gets in a lot of people's ways.
1:13:40
I think people get in their own way a lot.
1:13:43
And there's certain things that I'm, you know, that I have been scared of, but but for some reason, career-wise, maybe it's my early upbringing, I don't know what, but I I never feel um intimidated when I'm in a room with people, or if I'm on stage in front of people.
1:13:59
Like, I don't I don't get that.
1:14:03
My My heart doesn't doesn't race in those situations.
1:14:06
Was this even before the improv? Yeah.
1:14:08
I've always been comfortable like getting in front of people and talking, and I've been a bit of a ham when I was little, like loving to jump up in front of the family and put on shows.
1:14:16
I just think certain people Why are now that I have three kids, it's like you're just kind of wired a certain way, and certain people are you know, kind of you know, they kind of have certain things that they like, and certain things that they're good at, and you could adjust them and change them, but you're kind of you're kind of working with a you know, you're kind of handed it.
1:14:38
It's like it's like poker.
1:14:39
You get a deck you know, you get you get dealt a hand, and you can play those cards well or poorly, but but you're definitely working from um you know, you're definitely inheriting your properties and risk at the beginning of the game. You know what I mean?
1:14:54
You're you're you're starting from a certain vantage point.
1:14:56
And then then and then it's what do you do with that?
1:15:00
With with a movie like Swingers for instance, and again this is these are just things that I've heard quoted, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
1:15:07
It's It seems like everyone has seen Swingers.
1:15:09
I mean, it gets it gets quoted all the time.
1:15:12
Um the box office was around 6 million. if that. If that.
1:15:17
was considered you know, so so just to give you a perspective we, you know, trying to get it made for a year, nobody gives us the money.
1:15:25
Doug Liman is able to raise the money and we make it together.
1:15:30
What is his uh he's the director.
1:15:32
Got director of the film.
1:15:33
But when I had met him, I was trying to set it up as a director.
1:15:36
I was trying to direct it, and he had already done a film.
1:15:39
Uh he was just part of a circle of friends and he didn't not very uh I wasn't very close with him, but I knew him through somebody else and he was somebody who had directed, and so I had, you know, bought him a cup of coffee.
1:15:48
He talked me through lenses and was preparing me for when it was time for me to direct.
1:15:53
And then in that process had said, "Look, I know you you know, hopefully you will get to put this thing together, but um but I can raise the money and and so we agreed to creatively be partners on this thing and and um and we made it in a much smaller budget than I thought was possible.
1:16:08
This was the 200K that he This was 200K that he was able to bring and figure out how to bring that movie to the screen with that budget, with the experience that he had had.
1:16:17
So, uh so that it happened.
1:16:19
We tried to get into Sundance.
1:16:22
And not to interrupt, but was he that financing from some of the independently wealthy individuals, or was it from Yeah, I think companies or I think it was more like that.
1:16:31
Yeah, I think it was more of the connections that he had from growing up in town and being involved with uh you know, there were there were people that he knew that were willing to bet on him.
1:16:39
As some of it was based on stuff he had done already and some of it was um you know that he you know had passion about this thing.
1:16:48
But he was able to get the secure the financing. Got it.
1:16:50
So So the the first experience was that um Then then we made it and that was real seat of the pants and then we didn't get into Sundance which was our goal was to get in.
1:17:05
That was the be-all end-all for us and I don't know if it was that it wasn't finished enough or we had just just pulled it you know a cut together for them or it was screened on videotape versus a screening.
1:17:15
Who knows what it was but it was incredibly disappointing us.
1:17:20
So I felt like all was lost.
1:17:22
Then we put up after Sundance festival when everybody had gotten back we had done our own screening in Los Angeles for the cast and crew and invited some distributors to it as well.
1:17:35
And it played extraordinarily extraordinarily well there.
1:17:36
And then we had multiple buyers and you know you don't have to be in Hollywood to know what that means.
1:17:42
You know more than one person is interested it's a whole different dynamic.
1:17:47
And now there was a a bit of a bidding war over it and it ended up selling for $5 million and those are distribution rights. Distribution rights.
1:17:57
And um and so we were we were riding high.
1:18:00
It was you know and all the all everybody wanted to interview us and everybody wanted to feature us in their magazines and we were like the next thing and and so in like the year between when it was acquired and when it came out we were riding very high.
1:18:14
Vince had I think gotten cast in the sequel to Jurassic Park which is as big as you can get and everybody who was nobody was now had a seat at the table had another shot you know uh and and then by the time the movie came out it opened first weekend is in whatever two theaters, four theaters, it was huge box office.
1:18:42
And then a few weeks later nobody cared, and it made $5 million, and and it was considered a failure.
1:18:50
Yeah, at the box office-wise.
1:18:50
Cuz you got to figure on one side of us was like Sling Blade that made $100 million and won Oscars, and on the other side was um Goodwill Hunting that won Oscars and made like $100 million.
1:18:58
So, we were kind of the disappointing uh underperformer at Miramax at that point.
1:19:05
And so, all of it kind of ebbed away.
1:19:08
But again, it was it was enough to get my foot in the door as a writer, and uh I had already Now, I had not just been the guy who was in Rudy as a as a character actor, but now I I had been in this movie that, as you said, everybody has seen.
1:19:19
So, uh thanks to video and later DVD and earlier on laser disc, everybody had seen this film.
1:19:25
And it become part of our culture.
1:19:27
And that's when I kind of learn that it's not always the movie that does the best, that has the most impact, or is the most rewarding, or does the most for your career for that matter.
1:19:38
Even though in the short term um success is is celebrated here, and failure's unforgivable, uh but over time, I think that it that shifts a bit.
1:19:49
And I know, for example, like Vince had gotten Jurassic Park on the heels of Swingers.
1:19:53
He's far more recognized now from Swingers that grossed one, you know, not even a tenth, uh maybe a hundredth of what that movie made, but for some reason, this one has had more impact on his career, even though uh far less people went to see it in the movie theater.
1:20:15
So, you never know what's going to And I And I find in my own career the same thing.
1:20:19
It's not always the things that make the most money.
1:20:20
It's the things that the performances were There's something about certain projects that stick in people's memories more. Yeah, the staying power.
1:20:27
I mean, I was I was astonished as I started studying film more and looking at movies that had a huge impact on me or were these landmark iconic films among the, you know, high school and college males who were the majority of my friends.
1:20:40
You had Fight Club for instance.
1:20:41
And I was astonished that it wasn't some massive massive hit.
1:20:45
Bull, you know, was you know, all these movies that are sort of failures in the in the in the uh in the beginning end up or Rudy was my first experience with a movie coming out.
1:20:55
It didn't do well at all.
1:20:55
Didn't even do number one at the box office.
1:20:58
Uh was considered also an under performer.
1:21:00
But now everybody knows it.
1:21:02
It's a cultural um you know, that it's it's it's a cultural point of reference.
1:21:07
Uh I hear the music everywhere.
1:21:07
I people will refer to it constantly.
1:21:10
So, like those are the ones where you make the ripple. The cultural ripple.
1:21:14
And that's honestly the the thing that's is most exciting.
1:21:19
That that's the most appealing to me.
1:21:21
Is how can you impact how can you make that kind of impact and affect people and either touch them, entertain them, make them laugh, uh make them feel connected.
1:21:31
You know, that's the that's the part that's the most rewarding at this point in my career.
1:21:38
And uh I am keeping an eye on the time.
1:21:39
I know that uh you've been very generous with your time and I'll I'll only take a few more minutes.
1:21:43
Uh the I would it would be remiss of me if I didn't mention that a number of my fans have said to thank you for Chef.
1:21:49
They've rented it five to 10 times just to show friends.
1:21:53
So, I think that that I think that's going to be one of the movies.
1:21:55
I think it's what That's really what That's was kind of the thing.
1:21:58
I know with the within like the the chef community, they accepted it, the ones that I've met.
1:22:04
So, that was a big scary part of it for me cuz if if everybody if people had liked it who didn't know about that world and but then the people who are in the world didn't like it, it would have been uh mixed it wouldn't have felt good to me.
1:22:19
Um but the fact that people are seeing it now like I uh I'm spending more time with my son after seeing the movie. Or, you know what?
1:22:31
I'm going to try to open up my own business that I've been putting off forever.
1:22:36
And that's when you feel really humbled and good and flattered because you feel like you're connecting.
1:22:44
It's uh, selfishly just a very good feeling to know that that you're that you're you're me being on this planet has changed somebody else's experience, like in a in a good way.
1:22:57
And it feels it feels um, it feels you feel connected to people, which I think is kind of part of the the trip here.
1:23:07
It's part kind of part of the goal. Oh, for sure.
1:23:08
Well, I think anything with a basis in storytelling at some point, I mean, you're making a lot of connections through this.
1:23:15
I think there's we are hardwired for this this Joseph Campbell-like experience even in our own lives.
1:23:23
Um, I'd love to ask just a couple of rapid-fire questions.
1:23:26
Um, the first is when you hear the word successful, who is the first person who comes to mind? Wow.
1:23:34
Oh, I like listening to this on your show.
1:23:36
I don't like answering it. Um, let's see.
1:23:42
I guess I just I just I just knee-jerk Nee-jerk Gates. Okay. And not be You know why?
1:23:49
Because because um, not because of the richest guy, but because of his because of how he shifted his um, his priorities.
1:24:00
Because he's now making tremendous impact with the hand he's been dealt or the the the pot that he's built up.
1:24:10
Um, that he's making uh, that there's one there's like there's like the Bill Gates from there's the Microsoft Bill Gates and there's the post-Microsoft Bill Gates.
1:24:19
And and to me there's something fascinating about that.
1:24:23
And that he was be able to be effective in what his goals were for the first chapter and then what his goals are now, which are very different.
1:24:32
So, he was able to shift his entire um shift his entire uh agenda and and and be effective.
1:24:39
Be completely effective in the in the very similar metric driven hardcore approach.
1:24:46
And I don't know a lot about honestly about this is purely layman's perspective of hey there's a lot of this is how many lives have been saved by this or this is the um this many people have agreed to have charitable donations, but it's just a there's something that that that he's just the first name that popped into my head.
1:25:05
Any particular director who comes to mind?
1:25:08
Director or writer in film?
1:25:10
there's a few, you know, and they're all different.
1:25:12
Like I worked with Scorsese.
1:25:14
Um and I think that he's been I think there's a certain it must be what when I came up and what he represented and then I got to meet with him and see him work and so he's inspired me as far as what his body of work and and who he is as a person.
1:25:32
Uh but I also think of like the Coen brothers who've managed to tickle their own fancy and enjoy everything they're doing and have tremendous variety and entertain people as well, but seem to have maintained a certain balance, a healthy
1:25:52
balance between their work and and and their private lives and they haven't dealt with them that much, but they seem like genuinely like well-adjusted normal nice people who happen to make really exciting cool movies. Uh and then Jim Cameron who's sort of
1:26:07
Uh and then Jim Cameron who's sort of the other end of the spectrum who's kind of the guy who's reinvented aspects of the industry over and over again with tremendous uh enthusiasm and uh and and and also just sh- a sharp intellect that's into solving problems and changing the way we do the magic tricks.
1:26:30
And and I'm sur- I've certainly inherited a lot of what he uh the ground that he broke uh with Avatar, with Jungle Book, a lot of the same technology, a lot of the same people I'm working with.
1:26:39
So, there's a I've you know, a healthy respect.
1:26:41
And then Walt Disney is another one who um I had researched quite a bit back around the time of Iron Man 2 when we were referencing him in a in the Stark Expo and the Stark the old Stark archives.
1:26:54
Uh but he was a bit of a techie at his time and a bit of a storyteller, too.
1:26:59
And so, he was doing the you know, what what he was doing at his time is like seems like what Pixar's doing now.
1:27:04
It's like cutting-edge technology, great stories, great emotion.
1:27:08
Uh telling stories with a different set of tools that nobody ever had before.
1:27:13
And there's something there's something really uh to me, I think he was he's one of those key key figures. Oh, total hacker.
1:27:19
Uh they they display a bunch of his old cobbled-together MacGyver-like rigs at the Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. Yeah, which is amazing.
1:27:31
What is the book that you've gifted the most to other people?
1:27:35
Um actually, The Writer's Journey was one of them. I've given your book.
1:27:38
I've given Four-Hour Body to people, too. Thank you for that. I've given that.
1:27:41
Uh Um those are the biggies.
1:27:44
I'm trying to think if there's anything else. Hmm.
1:27:51
I did grow up when I first started off in acting, I gifted Grodin's book to my family.
1:27:55
Uh his first book, It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here, because it really told the story about how difficult it is when you're first starting off trying to be an actor.
1:28:05
And he had such a great voice.
1:28:07
Uh other than that, I can't not none are jumping none are jumping to mind. That's three though. That's That's plenty. That's plenty.
1:28:14
Uh last question uh actually there there two of them. They're pretty quick.
1:28:18
The first is what advice would you give to your 20-year-old self? Wow.
1:28:23
Um Well, he won't listen.
1:28:26
How about 30-year-old self?
1:28:32
Um I think to not confuse how you feel about something with how that thing really is.
1:28:48
I think you think you're being more objective than you really are.
1:28:52
And you're colored by emotion more than you think you are.
1:28:57
In in positive ways and negative ways, but but it's um perspective is is um is much more subjective than you think.
1:29:06
You think you're a lot more uh uh objective than you than you are.
1:29:08
To me, specifically at 30. Yeah.
1:29:13
And And 20, I don't even know.
1:29:13
I wasn't even a human being yet.
1:29:14
I don't even know what I would say at 20 because it's part of it is just the ignorance of of walking into, you know, the the the forest and not knowing where I was going.
1:29:23
And whatever was getting me through it, you know, thank thankfully I had enough something in the back of my mind told me to just take that road and walk not knowing where I was going.
1:29:35
And so that was um So I'm very grateful. I like where I am.
1:29:39
Uh I like what the experience of my life is.
1:29:41
I like every year I like better. I like who I am better.
1:29:44
I like what my life is better.
1:29:45
Um so uh it I'm very reluctant to interfere with the way things were.
1:29:52
But I think a lot of it is how I feel about things and and what I do to to how I've how I've kind of balanced things out um in a way that is is uh that I'm proud of, that I like.
1:30:04
Well, I love your work and thank you so much for the time.
1:30:08
Where can people find out uh more about you, find you online? Hey, let's see. I don't know.
1:30:12
I uh I'm on uh Twitter and Facebook @Jon_Favreau uh on Twitter and then Facebook I think it's just Jon Favreau.
1:30:23
And Instagram, Jon Favreau.
1:30:23
It's pretty Pretty consistent.
1:30:27
I've been I've been working, so there's not a lot of stuff up there.
1:30:28
Uh you know, we'll I'm on there we do like we do pop-ups once in a while in Los Angeles.
1:30:33
Maybe we'll do one up north uh for the from the food from Chef. be great.
1:30:38
So, we we've been doing that since that's coming up.
1:30:40
not only Cuban but the grilled cheese sandwich.
1:30:42
I'm sure you must hear about that a lot. Yes, I've cooked them.
1:30:44
I cooked them for the crew of the movie.
1:30:45
I cooked them for my kids.
1:30:47
I cooked them here at the uh in the editing rooms. Uh but I enjoy cooking. We've cooked together.
1:30:53
I think we Can I reveal that that we you and I have uh cooked cooked beignets?
1:30:59
Beignets, that was an amazing experience. for a Super Bowl party. So good.
1:31:02
You had never done that before. I know it was.
1:31:03
That was what we're talking about. Here we were.
1:31:04
We we didn't really know each other that well.
1:31:08
I read your stuff, you saw my stuff, and then lo and behold you put some some hot oil there and the focus is no longer on one another.
1:31:16
So, keeping your your uh fingers out of it.
1:31:18
scalded keeping all your fingers.
1:31:21
Well, Jon, thank you so much.
1:31:21
Uh there's there's tons more to explore.
1:31:23
Everybody, I'll put uh links in the show notes to where you could find Jon.
1:31:26
And thanks so much for your time. Great, great. And thank you, too.
1:31:29
I love I love the podcast, but I uh you've um I know this is about me, not about you, but I've I've I I got to know you through your writing and uh I was very you're very uh intriguing.
1:31:45
I get pulled into your work.
1:31:47
You make it very easy to read your stuff.
1:31:49
It'd been recommended, I think Four Hour Body was recommended to me, and one of the things you just pick a chapter here, chapter there, next thing you know you're reading the whole thing.
1:31:57
And your approach to uh questioning things and curating research and fact-based but not being you know that it seems like there's always you always are either dealing dealing with the scientific method where something has to have been through a double-blind study or a completely anecdotal.
1:32:13
There's there is no middle ground.
1:32:16
What's interesting about about your stuff is you'll say hey look here's what I've experienced, here's the sample that I've seen this experience with.
1:32:23
experience with. It's not something that should be looked at scientifically but there are certain indications that this is worth looking into more and here's what I do and here's what I've done and it it makes it much more inviting than either the very walled-off world of traditional academia academia and then also this uh
1:32:46
I don't know science that's more based on on anecdotal information that doesn't take science into consideration as much but to acknowledge that science has importance to it but also looking at how uh what has not yet gone through that machine might have some truth to it too and giving full disclosure of your context and why makes it not um intellectually offensive. You know what I'm saying? It
1:33:09
You know what I'm saying?
1:33:09
It it feels like you're could be responsible uh intellectually not flying in the face of science but but you're also opening it up to new ways of thinking. Yeah.
1:33:17
And and you know I think it relates to the way you your context the the whole world that you're the whole Northern California way of ethos of looking at things and how to how to how to be more effective and efficient in uh in approaching problems that we still face.
1:33:35
So uh I love looking your stuff and like I said the three the four-hour chef was really was a great uh counter-balance to the other chef um biographies that I was reading or autobiographies or uh cooking books and documentaries I was watching and then here was the very concise version of a lot of the same information um that was a a really good really good counterbalance.
1:34:01
Well, I I I really appreciate it and I love watching your experiments.
1:34:05
I love watching you do the the huge blockbusters then do Chef.
1:34:07
I can't wait to see what you do next.
1:34:11
Well, I know I guess I'm waiting for Jungle Book Jungle Book and it's going to be amazing.
1:34:16
It's going to be something different and cool and you know, just like everything else the doing doing one with this level of technology which I you know, I got a taste of here and there with Iron Man and but to really throw the throw the whole thing into have the whole movie rely on that magic trick working is uh it's it's um exhilarating.
1:34:37
But if it all works as well as it looks like it will it's it's it'll be something nobody had seen before.
1:34:43
So it's it's exciting stuff. I can't wait to see it.
1:34:46
Well, John, to be continued.
1:34:46
Thank you so much for the time. Great, my pleasure. And uh this was fun. It's quick and easy. Quick and easy. All right. All right. Thanks.
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