Brian Grazer: Oscar-Winning Film Producer

34:41Anyway, bottom line, Lynn Swan said, Grazer, you took 26 units. Because we were kind of friends, well, kind of. And he goes, so everybody started calling me 26. So I immediately had a nickname at USC. So having a little bit of this identity plus a nickname. Hey, 26, come on over here. You know, like it was always 26. That was my name. And that was kind of helpful, too. Your parents, when you were growing up. Yeah. I believe reasonably tough upbringing. How much would they fight when you were growing up? Well, yeah, they fought with each other a lot. They weren't mean to me. They weren't mean to my brother and sister.

35:26They just, there was no reason for them to be married. They shouldn't have married each other. and they weren't really, they were good people but ill-equipped to be parents basically. They just weren't, you know, it was just hard because they were so incompatible. And so they'd fight raging fights every night. About what? He'd come home, he was a criminal lawyer. and criminal lawyers they live the life of criminals they live in the in the ethos they live in the morality they live in the language of criminals and I even made a point when I became successful look get off that to meet the most famous criminal lawyers in the world and And they just do, they rationalize truth.

36:25That's how they win. So my dad would stay out very late, to two in the morning, probably with other women. And it just, they fought about everything. And so it was just terrorizing. I'm getting divorced. My mom might say, your dad and I are getting divorced. I think be prepared for him to move out. And then it wouldn't happen. It eventually happened. It wouldn't happen the right way with a clean break. Everything, nothing didn't work. So I really admired what I thought were normal families. So I want, yeah. How do you think they terrorized you? Because I'd hear it because my bedroom was 10 feet away from where they'd fight all night.

37:17And so you're just hearing it. You're hearing bad words. You're hearing horribly loud voices. You're hearing yelling. You're hearing no hitting, just yelling and screaming. It was just terrorizing. What was the interaction like between you and your dad? No connection at all. I mean, he wasn't of the generation. He wasn't the kind of dad that ever said, I love you. So, you know, that just creates a different thing. When you like reflect back on that as older now and, you know, a parent of yourself, how do you think that impacted you? I'm still trying to figure it out. But, you know, on the most superficial, on the first layers of how it impacted me is it caused me to define all the traits that my father had that I didn't like and don't do them.

38:17And I did that pretty early in life, you know, pre-20. You know, like I exercise religiously. I don't stop exercising. I care a lot about medical and physical health. I was going to say mental and physical health. Yeah. And that's probably why I do curiosity conversations because it ignites a lot of cognitive tools that should be in place and activated all the time. So it helps me solve creative puzzles. It helps me solve human communication puzzles. So I do all the things that he never did. He didn't do any of those things. I don't drink excessively, eat excessively. I do everything in moderation, but I do it.

39:12What about you and your mom? She was a really good person, but unfortunately, because the marriage was bad, she wasn't confident enough. And then her mom, your grandma... Well, her mom, meaning my grandmother, was kind of everything to me. She was stable and empowering, super empowering. Like she'd see because I'm acutely dyslexic She'd see these straight F's on my report card and she goes you're going all the way Think big be big, you know, she was really serious. She was positive. I was gonna be successful Positive and I would say There's really no empirical evidence that proves that to be true and she just would override all logic or, you know, the logic of optics.

40:05And so she just was a believer. And the difference you think that made in your life was what? Substantial. You just need, I believe you just need one person that's consistent, that consistently can be around and believe in you and find features in you that have value. You know, she'd go, you have a gift of gab, you'll go all the way. A gift of gab meant to you. I could talk anyone into anything, which I kind of could, actually. How about football tryouts? So I did a lot of sports. And I was a pretty tough kid, like really tough, like the toughest kid in my elementary and junior high school. I could beat anybody up.

40:53If you saw a bully, you wouldn't have any of that. Yeah, I often would beat up bullies. You know, it wasn't like a Robin Hood complex. I just didn't like bullies. So, and then it got to be a point where, you know, playing football and all this stuff, all my friends became between 6 '2 and 6 '5 in high school. And I was 5 '4 in freshman. And then junior, I was like 5 '8. But nonetheless, so I went out for high school football. And Coach Ogawa decided after Hell Week, which I barely made it through Hell Week, but I did, that everyone, 300 kids, were going to all be in this big auditorium. And the job was, say your name and your status.

41:38Perry Shellmeyer, tailback. Richard Cox, my best friend, quarterback. Brian Grazer, tailback. Incorrect! And I go, I think, incorrect? He says, cut! So he cut me in front of the whole, you know, of all divisions of the football team. So that was embarrassing. Devastating? Devastating. Absolutely horrible. And so I immediately went out for, I just didn't know what to do. It was devastating, Coach Ogawa, to this day. And so I decided I'd go out for swimming. Because that was the only thing that left. And I could get out of a class. I didn't really swim much. Anyway, bottom line is we have our we have a city meet, which is a pre city.

42:29And the city of Los Angeles was 65 schools. And I the guy goes, Coach Wiley goes, Grazer, Lane 8, 100 butterfly. And I broke the city record that moment. And the enthusiasm from that stuck with you for a long time. Yeah, that was good. You mentioned the grades were a struggle when you were growing up. But you had a resourceful eye that helped in improving the grades in high school, right? Well, I would challenge every grade. And challenging every grade was, you know, was improving my grade through conversation. So I'd say, oh, you know, my C should be a B, and I would like to justify it. Will you take the test?

43:12Yes, can I do it verbally? Oh, why don't we just do it right now? And I would just like was I was good because I I kind of get the inner game of things But you also like Were you know pick the right people to sit next to right? Are you means like cheat? Yeah, right? Didn't really didn't know I might I might have said that jokingly. I can really do that I mean I did a version of that once like the way Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd did it in in a movie that I produced called Spies Like Us. Got it. It was really obvious, you know. I did do that, but that wasn't a, it wasn't very, maybe if I were better at it.

43:55I just didn't find that to be a solution. So you, when you improved your grades, it was through, you know. Yeah, by challenging them. I would challenge them. The teachers? Yeah. How old were you when you could read and write? Well, I struggled. probably the fifth grade I could begin to read and spell and then I got better as time went and then in college I became rather good at taking tests because I found I developed a system for myself constant re-synthesizing what I'd learned so I'd have a massive information and then I'd synthesize it down to something that I could understand again the mechanics of what was the application of things.

44:43So once I could understand the application of something then I could remember the essential ingredients that it would take to of what would the test would be. So I would remember I would have all that yell you know underlined in yellow. I would expose myself to that right before I went to bed the night of and have that enter my subconscious and I found that very effect very very very effective what specifically would you struggle with reading especially early on like in terms of the process when you're actually seeing the words oh I well I immediately go from right to left instead of left to right is that what you're asking yeah yeah I mean first I just could not pronounce a word.

45:33I still find it kind of hard. I mean, if I look at a word, I'd have to, you know, sound it out phonetically, this, that. It was just impossible, literally impossible. And how did you teach yourself how to do it? Well, Mr. Polivoy was my teacher. That didn't work, but he tried, really tried. It just kind of happened like an epiphany almost. I had this moment where things started to have clarity or line up, you know, where words weren't spinning around. So that happened. They never, to be accurate, they don't spin around, but they just can't, I can't compute them. um in the issues the dyslexia created for you was what um resourcefulness i mean it teaches you you have to get good grades and you have there's certain things you have to you know if you create goals for yourself those things have to be achieved and i'm very goal-oriented we all have that dream trip we've been wishing we could go on but too often life or usually price gets in the way.

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47:27Why do we rack? For the hottest deals. Just so many good brands. Join the Nordic Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. So I wanted to achieve those goals, But I was unable to do it conventionally through reading. So I found other ways. And so being resourceful can be applied to anything and everything. And that's what these, you know, tech entrepreneurs largely do. Your oldest son, Riley, during the day I'm wrong, lives in an assisted living facility.

48:03He does. I think works at Whole Foods. How did your dyslexia growing up, you think, prepare you for figuring out how to handle that? I just thought this boy was going to have the greatest life in the world. He was so beautiful.

48:25And just a second. Sure. And so, you know, I think I was a very good dad. His mom's a very good mom. And so we wanted to get him in groups of people. And so I remember with other kids, and I just remember at a soccer game at Pepperdine, he was running in the wrong direction all the time. I mean, literally running in the wrong direction. Just everything was out of coordination alignment. If you threw him a ball, instead of two hands, he'd try to hit one hand. It would just, you know, just things were out of alignment. It was very, very difficult to diagnose. And we went to a lot of effort to try to find ways, you know, tasks to diagnose his disability.

49:16And I worked at it very hard. His mom, Corky, worked at it very hard. Anyway, eventually, you know, we found that it was, you know, pretty acute form of Asperger's. That was the classification of it. and so he's, you know, he has some skills and some not, but how it affected me was more, I became not a type A personality exactly, but not far from that. So I was already successful and so therefore I was just like a force. I was like so much energy of a force going forward with my career that this was like an interruption of the way I saw the world. So Riley's inconsistencies in disability, I didn't see the world that way.

50:09So I thought, wow, I have to help Riley. And I don't think it was deeply connected to my earlier disability because his disability was so different that it was so unrelated. but it was more like I just better wake up and change the way I see the world the world is full of unpredictable events it's full of things that aren't right you know there's so so it just caused me to be the better part of me how cool was him running for student council president okay so that was amazing so Riley was always in a you know it was always in those special ed classes but mainstreamed into Malibu High which is a very big and cool high school Malibu High so I've now found he's been in Malibu High for two years and almost all of his classes are you know are these special ed classes that are only a couple kids in the class I always felt to be really important for him to be in a school with a larger population because I just know being in larger populations and dealing with large is valuable, maybe the most valuable thing you can do.

51:24So I've now found the perfect school that's not Malibu High because I can see he's never going to make it. Never. And I said, I found this school in Pasadena and I thought he'd be thrilled. He goes, oh no, dad, I'm not going to go there. I go, why not? You wanted to go. No, no, but I've decided now I'm going to run for student body president of the whole school. I said, oh, really? And I said, I think you're going to really like this school. He goes, no, no, no, I'm running for office. I'm running for student body president. I go, I'm a treasurer. No, no. And so he ran for student body president against these really sharp kids.

52:07You know, one kid was a great kid. He's the son of one of my very good friends, Eric Roth, who won an Oscar for writing Forrest Gump. And this kid was a gifted kid, too. and Riley ends up winning. He won student body president. And I was too freaked out to show up for it. So I sent my assistant there to film it. And I get this call, Riley won. It was just amazing. How did it make you feel? Well, it made me feel like he definitely made the right choice to run for office. But it made me feel, it gave me a lot of knowledge about parenting that you want your kid to own something. And owning something, even if there's no prevailing logic that says, you know, like Riley's not going to be student body president and it's just not possible.

53:01Like there's no, no, no, it doesn't add up, you know, that he owned it and he, whether he won or not, he was owning something that he really wanted to do. And when you own something as a kid or in life, it's probably the most meaningful thing you can do, like is to work for something you can own. How did Riley influence your decision to make a beautiful mind? Well, he influenced it because I saw people, you know, kids do mean tricks on Riley, you know, and I thought, wow, it's tough enough for him to just cope with, you know, deal with this disability. Now he's got to be stigmatized for it. And then I started, not only saw Riley that way, I started to see other people in the world, you know, the Muzak of the world, you know, where you don't really notice that guy banging his head into a garbage can or a telephone pole or a post.

53:59I start to see those people. They start to pop out at me and I start to realize they're people too. And they're people like any version, any, you know, versions of Riley, you know, Like they're more extreme than Riley, but they're versions of they're all versions of one another. And I thought it's hard enough just to deal with the disability. Why do we as human beings have to stigmatize them and make it harder and cause isolation for them, which is the worst thing? What was the epiphany you had one day while watching The Shining? to, well, watching The Shining, there's a sequence, very important sequence, where the protagonist is talking to imaginary people.

54:48And I thought that that plus this woman named Veronica De Negre that survived torture by living in an alternate reality. Who Sting introduced you to. Yeah, that Sting introduced me to. so between seeing it physically cinematically in the shining and hearing Veronica Denegre's story of survival of being tortured unpredictability unpredictably every day for I think it was 18 months or two years living in this other story means I think I should start a beautiful mind in a false reality you know in a false reality in an alternate reality that lives in the mind of a schizophrenic, which is multiple realities.

55:33So it was organic to that movie, and Ron was very good at it, and Akiva Goldman won an Oscar for writing it. I just simply had slight inspiration, but he created Akiva. Why was it the most gratifying film you ever made? Because it succeeded commercially in a very huge way. It succeeded critically in a huge way. We won Oscars and it succeeded at helping people. You know, wherever I went, people would go, oh my God, your movie helped my cousin. Nobody understood him. And you know, so it was enlightening that way. When you won the Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, you said it was as if every dream or fantasy that never happened in my life happened in that single moment.

56:29Explain why. It's just what happens. I didn't know the show was that emotional.

56:40I tell stories for a reason. Because they interest me, and if they're good, they have an impact on the culture. And so this story had an impact on the culture, succeeded at a dream, like having tremendous impact on the culture and by helping the way we embrace and understand humanity. And so...

57:10That's fundamentally my singular goal. All right, so take me to an earlier Oscars when you mistook Braveheart winning for you winning. So, okay, on Apollo 13, all of a sudden this movie that we didn't think was going to be commercially successful is enormously successful commercially. And then we think that story ends and we just victory, you know, through the uprights. But then we get invited to go to the Oscars because we didn't realize, wow, we could even get nominated. And the movie got nine Oscar nominations, the most important Oscar nominations. And everyone said, you're going to win the Oscar.

57:53It's Apollo 13. It's patriotic. It intersects with the anniversary of the space program, NASA, and all these things. and I'm positive I'm going to win now. And I've written my speech. It's in my tuxedo pocket on the left side. I'm certain I'm going to win. Every odds maker in the world has said Apollo 13 is going to win. And I'm sitting at the edge of my chair along with the other four, so a total of five, you know, producers that produced Oscar-nominated films, and I'm sure I'm going up. So I'm looking at Sidney Poitier right in front of me, the Oscar-winning actor himself, very deliberately, slowly, methodically open the envelope to the Oscar.

58:41Who's going to win the Oscar? And he says, and the winner is, opens it up slowly. I'm like at the edge of my chair and I see what looks like a bee rolling off his lip. I just thought it was me saying Brian and I got up to get the Oscar and they say Braveheart and this was literally so embarrassing because I'm standing in the aisle when he says Braveheart so I have to walk backwards to my seat and there's Ron and Tom Hanks are next to me and the further seat out is Jim Lovell the actual astronaut and he reached across them and grabbed my wrist and said I never made it to the moon either and that just put the whole thing in a bigger perspective again wasn't very funny but it was really truthful didn't a studio exec too like give you the oh yeah the studio exec that that actually yeah went like loser on my forehead when I look back up like that only 40 million people were seeing it.

59:54So Tom Hanks once said about you, he really knows how to get talent, how to interest them, how to get them involved, and how to please them. What do you do? Well, you try your very best, you know, use all of your intuitive powers, because there's no scientific powers, to match the skill of the actor, which there might be a thousand traits the actor has or a hundred traits but only one is their superpower so it's you find that exact superpower and you say that superpower is realized or actualized in the role that's written and that you try to match that and and that that that's hard and then it's just making sure that the actor is always utilizing and operating with that superpower.

1:00:51So when it's off the narrative or the vertical line of that, you help the director and you help the actor to get on that very thin line, that vertical line, which is the story and the superpower. But managing people and managing probably extraordinary egos in some situations. I mean, I will sublimate myself completely to get the best work out of it. Well, and that's what I heard, too, like just some of the extraordinary lengths you've had to go to, you know, play into the actors' needs. Well, let's say Tom Cruise, who I love to work with. He has the greatest work ethic known to man. with him I immediately had the intuition to shift the power I have to give to him I said basically we need a role model we need a team captain knowing that's theoretically that's supposed to be me would you be that and he goes absolutely I'll do it and then he does it and his power is leading the charge and there's no one better than him leading the charge because he's tom cruise because he has an outstanding work ethic ethic and he's he doesn't say grind people he's just a role model you want to live up to that work ethic and um and so so you know that seems not hard to do but it's there's a lot of juggling and logistics you have to do to to keep his superpower in alignment not not his i don't say it that way but you know there's some actors you know an oscar-winning actor that i have to had to listen to him play music all night i would have to just a lot of intolerance how about the most difficult situation you ever encountered with an actor and how you worked your way through it Well, that might have been this Jim Carrey on the movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

1:03:00Because he is a genius. His genius was being completely suffocated in this epoxy suit he had to wear that took five hours, six hours sometimes to adhere to him, to be the Grinch. But he was determined to do it until he had to put on these contact lenses, these big frisbees on his eyeballs to make his eyes green because he was a stickler for authenticity and I said we could do it digitally no no I'll wear the thing and he then one day he said I quit what do you mean he quits it was before we could start shooting like two weeks out he said I have to quit this is killing me this is torturous and I'll give all the money back and I will give all the money back plus interest.

1:03:49I just can't do it. It's too torturous. And so I thought, would you give me the weekend and decide on Monday? And he said, I'd do that. And I knew a man that worked for the State Department that trains you know how how soldiers can survive torture and CIA FBI Navy SEALs this guy is the number one expert in the world at teaching survival techniques in situations of torture being buried alive for two weeks how to survive so this guy Jim is being tortured I'm gonna call him his name is Richard. I call Richard. I say I'll pay you. Come out here. Spend the weekend with Jim Carrey. He did and then Monday Jim Carrey says I'm in.

1:04:47I'll do it. It was amazing. Why will you sometimes go on set incognito? I want to see how the crew is being treated. I want to watch. I want to be I want to see how the power dynamics are working. And there was a set, there's been a few sets, where I was an incognito, as you said, and I went to the caterer to try to get some food, because I was entitled to get food. And they were really meat-busive, like, get to the back of the line. I said, well, there is no line right now you know and they were really dicky about it and then the first assistant was the one that caused them to be dicky and so then this first assistant learned that that was actually me i'm so sorry oh yeah i didn't know it was you i go that's the point and so that wasn't good what'd you do as a result of that let him go explain why if uh somebody screws you over or you'll never address it with them?

1:05:56I just don't think there's a point. You screwed me over, what are they gonna do? They say sorry, or say sorry a lot of times, but they just revealed who they were, basically. Sometimes being screwed over is just part of the game and doesn't mean you can't get to the goal you've got. It just means that person that you thought was a friend or is an impediment. And then you just figure out how to get there, knowing that that person's an impediment. How true is it that you have enormous social anxiety? Well, I like to be a good guest, so I do have a lot of social anxiety. It doesn't ever look like I have social anxiety, ever, to anybody.

1:06:44But like, in what ways will you have it?

1:06:49Just demands I put upon myself. like demands to well the insecurity of fitting in the demand of myself of of when I do fit in that I'm exceptional that I I don't grab the limelight but when a subject that's coming that I can field any subject at any time which I I think I can well because I do so many of curiosity conversations and I research them and they're not Zooms where you forget the location of what you're doing. You get to ground what you've learned in an experience, in a location, in moments, in pupil dilation, in facial recognition, in physiogamy, in all body language. You know, so it becomes emotional.

1:07:48And so I remember a lot. And you said you aren't outgoing, yet you put yourself in situations where you have to act that way all the time. I am most comfortable when I'm uncomfortable. I feel like I'm getting the most done by disrupting my comfort zone. because I have to rise to the occasion of being, again, you know, not a bragger, but one of the, you know, smarter, the smartest kid in the room. I want people to understand that I understand. That's important to you. Yeah, it's important to me.

1:08:31That I get it. And why? Whatever the thing. Why? Yeah, especially now. I mean, after like all the success you've had. Because people are, our culture is evolving and becoming smarter and smarter. And, you know, tech entrepreneurs are becoming smarter and smarter at certain things. And they're digging holes in the earth deeper and deeper and deeper. And I want to understand it. I want to be able to communicate with those people. I don't even need to get I just wanna I want to get it and I want them to understand that I get it. So why did Ron Howard used to think you were on cocaine all the time?

1:09:17Because I was really high strung. When I'm going I talk very fast and I I talk with a lot of energy I speak with a lot of energy and it and so 30 years ago was way less refined and so we just thought this dude's coked up Which I wasn't. How superstitious are you? Very. Any penny that is on the ground, I put in my left pocket. I've done that for 30 years. I don't care if I'm riding a bike, a motorcycle, whatever I'm doing, I stop, I turn around, I get that penny. My version of superstition also interfaces with karma. I'm really karmic. So my outgoing nature is to be, is to be friendly, really, really friendly, like overly friendly to people like, hey, how you doing?

1:10:09You know, or, you know, to interns like, what are you working on? Or, or like, hey, look good. You know, like always, because I feel they feel it. And I know I would feel it at the time that, you know, at that age. And I think it's just, I want the tip on the jump ball, you know, in life. I want things to go well for me. I want to have good health. I want to, you know, and I think karma factors into that. You said before that you've been motivated by the fear of not having money. Explain that. Yeah, I'm not motivated by greed. I'm motivated more by fear. And fears, I have a lot of fears. Of what?

1:10:58Well, you said money. I don't want to have no money. But I mean, there's some people that are much wealthier than I am that still have that fear. You know, they have that thing, that little seed. What else am I afraid of? Complacency? Definitely compla - yes. Definitely it would be complacency, atrophy. Like, not physical atrophy, although I don't want that either, but just mental atrophy. That's why I create all these thought puzzles all the time. In fact, I even paint - the only one painting I would probably let you see is I painted a Schroediger's cat, you know, which is a thought experiment, of course.

1:11:38and I thought everything else is the stuff that you saw my art studio it's a all-girl bands Barbies that never existed and those other Barbies that are against the the the wanted ads you know that kind of thing but basically those uh women um but based so so yeah mental atrophy So I try to do things that, you know, engage thought, engage all sorts of, you know, mentally cognitive puzzles. Two people I'm going to be talking to coming up about you are Bob Iger and Ron Howard. So I wanted to ask you about them. First, on the Bob Iger front, how did the two of you meet in the first place? Well, I don't, you know, we met, I think we were both going through divorces around that time.

1:12:35And I was making a lot of movies in New York. And he was, you know, a very big deal at, he was running ABC in New York. And then he came out to L.A. and ran ABC. So I probably met him in business first. And then, you know, we just liked each other right off. I think you guys grab coffee basically once a week. Yeah, we definitely make a point to see each other once a week. I know it matters to me. I have, you know, to maintain male friendships. That's success for me. What about him do you think made you two hit it off? Maybe I'm at his alter ego. Oh, go on. I think he's a very, very curious guy.

1:13:19He's used his curiosity to build Disney. you know, like really, like what if I could actually get Pixar, even though Steve Jobs said no. Then he does it. He has a curiosity that really drives his life, and I have a curiosity that drives my life. So there's an access point there. Neither one of us want to be bored. When we're not interesting, we go, okay, see you tomorrow, or something like that. So we like the challenge of being able to interest one another. Ron Howard. Yes. How well do you recall your first meeting with him and the fact that he really didn't want to be there? I remember it vividly.

1:14:05So basically, Ron Howard, I was meeting a person every single day, and I didn't get my quota of having that one person. I looked out my window, and I see Richie Cunningham, Ron Howard. I yell out the window Ron Ron Howard like that and he just darted away from me I mean it makes sense it was I scared him and then I called his office said to his assistant Louisa what it went down and she said well I'm sure I could get him to call you and then he did and then he came into my office and I just remember it was like this golden aura around him and I thought wow this guy is a special person and the aura itself just like you know brought goodness into the room and I thought that was a really unique sensation that a human being could have that it that he emanated that kind of aura and then You said you decided almost immediately that you were going to bet on him.

1:15:16Yeah That I would bet on him. I immediately said I have two stories that That I'm gonna make in the movies and they're you know, they're they're down the road One was called night shift about a call girl ring run out of the New York City morgue R-rated, of course. And the other was a PG-13 movie about a man falling in love with a girl that turned into being a mermaid. It happened to become a mermaid. And so he wanted to do the R-rated movie. Because he had a mustache, you know. He wanted to be a different guy. He didn't want to be, you know, he, of course, you know, was always grateful that he could become, There was one of the biggest stars in the world.

1:16:03It was like a American icon But he wanted to be do different things. It wanted to have more edge and So he wasn't didn't want to be doing a mermaid movie to start in speaking of the mustache Tell about the Andy Warhol painting that could have been okay I also knew Andy Warhol and I had a great curiosity conversation with him and became friends like I could see him often in New York And one time he's Andy said to me you know it occurred to me that you have a partnership I believe with Ron Howard he's an American icon I would love to shave his mustache off and and turn it into one of my silk screens I'd like to do before and after one giant photograph that would be with the mustache that would become a silk screen and then the after.

1:16:59I tell Ron, I said, Andy wants to do this thing and he's going to give you the original. No, I don't want to do it. I go, it's Andy Warhol. No, I really like my mustache and it's become part of me. Nothing, I'm not shaving my mustache. I said, okay. So I tell Andy, he goes, oh, that's too bad. I go, what are you going to do now, Andy? What are you doing this week? I'm going to be doing a love I'm acting a love boat. I thought, wow, this guy's so eclectic. And that was the story of that. Now the postscript is that about four or five years later, Ron and I were used to when a movie that we made came out, we would go to the movie theater on Friday.

1:17:47So I had this movie called Cry Baby. It was either gonna be a smash hit or a flop. Johnny Depp's very first movie. and I said, Ron, let's go, let's see it together. And he said, well, I have a, you know, a flight out of here at midnight to go back to New York, but I could do it. We go to the movie theater, 600 seat house. There's seven people in the whole theater. Total wipeout flop. And Ron goes, wow, what do we do? I said, I don't know. Let's go back to my house and like get drunk or something. He goes, yeah, we could do a version of that. Go back to my house drink a bottle of red wine Then I say let's start watching drugstore cowboy to make it make us more morose And so and then we start watching that which is really good and effective movie But then we drank another bottle of wine and he went to the airport And he got there early and he went to the bathroom because he was there early and she decided to shave and odd things and he was kind of drunk and he shaved his mustache off for free So we never got those Warhols.

1:18:57And he thought it was funny, and I thought it was funny and ironic as well. You said you guys work well together because you never tell one another what to do. Yeah. Explain that. We don't use declarative sentences, really, on each other. We don't fight. We're very respectful, very, you know, we talk about everything, and we're friends. But we're respectful and polite, which is kind of a Midwestern way, which is Ron. So I'm more rowdy but I conform to that and I respect it. I respect it and I think it works and that's what makes partnerships work. Respect. There's a movie he wants to direct and I don't want him to.

1:19:41I think it'd be a big mistake. I just go, you know, you can do whatever you want Ron, you've earned it, but you know, I don't know. And he goes, well would you do it? No, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't recommend you doing it, but I could never say don't do it because you've earned through all of your hits to do what you want. Or if I don't like a movie score, he's had two movie scores I didn't like at all. I hated one of them. I thought it stopped the momentum of the film, like destroyed it. And so normally I'd just go, he'd say, what do you think of the score? I love it. And I'd go, I don't know.

1:20:21And that means, he knows that that means I don't like it. But I don't ever go like, that's terrible, man. I hate that. And we just don't talk like that. Longest relationship you've ever had? Ever. It's a lot longer than anything. It's been almost 40 years. It's the longest partnership in all of Hollywood's history. How do you view marriage? Well, I'm so happy in marriage. I love it. I mean, I have respect for it and I'm hopeful. and I was disappointed when the ones that didn't work didn't work. But I got great kids, and those four great kids are, you know, very unified in our family, you know, very, you know, I'm their father.

1:21:04Veronica's a stepmother. They love her. They talk to her often before they call me, you know, like, hey, will you help me with this? Because she's very left-brained. She can solve any problem at any time, literally anything. What do you think you've learned about yourself through your marriages? They were trial marriages. They were trials. And because life is trial and error, you know, it's so I got these four good kids and all that. And, you know, life's an experiment. How do you think you do at marriage? I think I believe in it and I think I do well at it. You know, it's really knowing yourself and really knowing the other person and being truthful about those things.

1:22:05And so, you know, you have to be in exact alignment on those, what you are, what they are. and then chemistry defines you know how that feels and then um you know it's it's that i read uh somewhere you said after your last divorce you told yourself you were never going to get married again um yeah that was like at least 10 years ago yeah like when did you have the realization that like oh my gosh like this is it? Well I mean in terms of like you're gonna do you're gonna get married right here with 350 people right on this area here so basically I just think my wife has so much goodness in her I'm very very attracted to goodness I'm very aligned with goodness I think I'm a good guy.

1:23:06I think I have a good heart and I think I do good things. And I think Ron is an exceptionally good person. And I think my wife is an exceptionally good person. It's their nature. My goodness is, I think I have a good heart, but I do things that are, I'm conscientious of goodness. I think they are just good. What's the distinction? Some people are very, like my wife, is very charitable, very generous with her time, helping in multiple organizations, very conscientiously, very uniquely kind to the kids, and not babies them, because that's not going to work, But, you know, there's those kinds of people that are just more giving than taking.

1:24:04I like to, I take more than they do, meaning Ron and Veronica. I would probably be, I'm not a taker, but I take more than they do. So I want to completely shift gears here and talk to you about the sports movies that you've been involved with over the years. I think I told you a little while before he passed away, we spent two days with Nicky Lauda in Austria and Belgium. Oh, yeah, you did tell me that. Taping an episode. So how about Rush? Like just what comes to mind for you from that experience? In the making of a movie and in the cutting and post-production of a movie, it can have a remarkable change.

1:24:50like a and so Ron you know who directed a movie his rough cut like I thought oh boy and then he just kept working on it work that that things can movies can completely transform from what they what they were you know when they're finished as a rough cut to a final cut with music and mix and sound. That movie really benefited from sound effects and music and style and it had a lot of things that were optically and sonically exciting and enriching and stimulating. And those things all came into play at the final final cut of that movie. I also like, you know, I like the characters so much. I like that Niki Lada was just so determined but wasn't really very sexy.

1:25:48Whereas, you know, the other character played by Chris Hemsworth James Hunt. James Hunt, sorry, was really sexy and seemed like everything was so easy. Getting girls was so easy. Winning was so easy. And in life, you know, the more solid values, you know, the Niki Lauda character, its character is more powerful, more solid, and probably the right way to go. Cinderella Man. And I think you guys actually screened that at the White House, too. We did. We screened Cinderella Man at the White House for George W. Bush. And I went that day, because anytime I do anything, I pack in stuff. I met with Barack Obama, who was a senator and then in the office, the 99th office of the Senate, which you have to take a monorail to.

1:26:42It is like going to the Department of the Motor Vehicles. I met this man, this senator that delivered one of the greatest speeches of all time. And he's just sitting there with his arms out like this, real relaxed the way you see him with his arms spread out. And I just thought, wow, this dude is so cool. Like, and he's fine with being in that office number 99. And he was just as comfortable being president, you know, like, uh, so that was awesome. And then I went from that office to the number two office, John McCain, which I think was Thomas Jefferson's. And he could just walk right out the door and be on the Senate floor.

1:27:20Whereas Barack, of course, had to get on the monorail and do from room to training, a lot of transfers. and it was I just was very delighted and privileged to be able to do all that stuff and we did squeak we did actually screen Cinderella Man and I met a lot of presidents you know in my you know life and I found that George W Bush was really the most comfortable in his own skin there was no president more comfortable in his own skin and more satisfied with his present job being president. A lot of other presidents are also want other stuff. They're lobbying other things. There's something behind it.

1:28:09You know what I mean? There's ambitions and ideas that are, you know, not bad that are behind that job. George W. Bush, he was so present and he's just a guy that's just thrilled to be just, not just, thrilled to be the President of the United States. He didn't need an entourage. He didn't have an entourage. He didn't sit with an entourage. Picked up his own tray, put the food on the tray. No frills. I thought it was beautiful. Friday Night Lights? Well, Friday Night Lights, I loved that movie. so much. Pete Berg directed it. It took me nine years to get that movie made correctly. I had other directors that I just changed my, you know, they just weren't right for me.

1:28:56But Pete Berg was just so honest about how he approached, you know, Odessa, Texas and football and small town living. So Billy Bob Thornton blew me away. I mean, that's his speeches, his style, his power, his charisma was beautiful. The Pele duck? The Pele duck never turned out to be as good as I wanted it to be or dreamed it could be. And I didn't know that much about soccer, but I didn't even see him as a soccer player. You look at Pele's top 10 shots, they're beyond soccer. They're some extraterrestrial force that's coming into play. Like, they're magical. And so I thought we were going to be able to capture that magic.

1:29:46And we did a little bit, but I loved the journey. And I got to know Pele. And I flew to, you know, the Cannes Film Festival with him. Or he actually flew my daughter there. I said, my daughter's in New York. Would you mind? And he said, no, we'll pick her up. It was like that thing. That was kind of cool. How about the day sports stood still? It was Chris Paul's idea, because he had it happen to him the day NBA stopped. And he called me that night. I got this idea. It's the day that sports ended. And he said a few more sentences. I said, I'll get this thing done right away. And that minute, I put Justin Wilkes on the phone, who runs our documentaries, and it just happened like that.

1:30:34Justin is an amazing artist and storyteller and documentarian, and Chris is a force. When Chris gets behind something, it happens, and it happens correctly. So changing Hollywood business models and all of that, I mean, obviously it seems like every decade or so, everything shifts. So this is nothing new. But I wanted to ask you about the, you know, late 90s, early 2000s, these rich production deals that, you know, some of the best producers were getting. Explain how you saw that start to shift in present day and why. The 80s and 90s had some similarities. They still maintained the romance of Hollywood, where there's a studio boss, and the tippy-top studio boss is usually a role model kind of person, where there's certain things that that studio boss wants.

1:31:42You know, Warner Brothers always wanted stars, because their predecessor, Jack Warner liked stars, Steve Ross liked stars, Bob Daley and Terry Semmel liked stars. So when the bosses like the stars, the storytellers that are doing tour de force movies that could potentially be a star, you know, Warners chases it and we chase them. So there's points of intersection. So Paramount, you know, was kind of always a high concept company, you know, to me, in the 80s and 90s. So they all had personalities and the personalities were sort of, you know, were built out of origin stories beginning, you know, in the 30s and 40s and then went further on into time.

1:32:30And when I say romance of Hollywood, romance of Hollywood means that stories were inspired, they were inspired by something personal. All stories were like personal. That studio chairman, whether they're stars or high concepts, whatever they are, they're built out of pride. It's a personal statement. And I think now it's less personal and just straight money. So the motivating factor today with streamers is we need to get content into our pipe. and as much content as possible quickly. And so therefore the motivation, they're sending out this signal that, hey, if you can do that, we're interested.

1:33:27And if you can do hits and do that and scalable, we're really interested. And meaning we will make a gigantic production deal with you. And in the early days, 80s, 90s, and even 2000, it was more like, are you passionate for this? They bought passion. And now I don't think that is the commodity that's saleable. It's not not saleable, but it's more data and logic. The biggest challenge on your end from going from a first look deal with Universal, which you had forever, to now imagine being an independent standalone company? I like it. Well, because we basically, you know, we try to, you know, work within, you know, a value system.

1:34:21I mean, we like our movies to work within a qualitative value system that we've done for, you know, 25, 30 years. And we fail at stuff, but it's not within the intentionality of the piece. You know, the intentionality of the movies or television shows is to try to do something that's original, that hasn't been done, and to do something that has redemption. So, yeah. The challenge, the biggest challenge, though, you've encountered in doing that would be what? I mean, going from the universal long-time deal to being a standalone company? Well, the challenge was to get financed, and then we did that.

1:35:05I got financed. Well, I made a deal with a banking company that I respect called Rain. How does the satisfaction on your end compare from being at Julio, your really talented young producer and I were talking a little bit about this, about how you've gone from being a boots on the ground producer to a little more of 30 ,000 foot view running standalone company? How does the satisfaction for you from one to the other compare? um what i i never did the boots on the ground that you're that i think you're referring to where like julie's boots on the ground she is on the set of the lin-manuel miranda movie tick tick boom yeah i only did that i never i only did that twice no three times in my whole life and i produced like 80 or 90 movies um i don't like to go to sets every day i don't feel i'm valuable at a set every day i don't think i'm impactful on a set every day now some other people it's sort of to each his own or her own um i felt like i have more impact having objectivity and not getting sucked into the drama or psychodrama of this new community called a movie because then pretty quickly you're taken for granted you're just and i think it's better to be away and then give thoughtful notes based on dailies, based on...

1:36:37you have to know the people. Like I absolutely make sure I know the department heads, I make sure that I know the actors, the stars, I make sure I you know I'm in service of the stars still. But the boots on the ground thing I never did and never thought was important to the way I do things. I like to build stories. My curiosity conversations quite frankly are much more valuable to a movie than me going with my boots on the ground. Imagine Impact Systems. Yes. How did the idea come about? It's called Impact. It's definitely its own standalone company. It's a startup that's on a path to success already.

1:37:19Three years ago, I saw that streamers were going to dominate the distribution and the making of movies and television, all content. They were all going to be streaming systems. And streaming systems will be very, very competitive with one another, even more competitive than the analog studios. And what they're gonna want is the crown jewel, is storytellers. Stars can only work if there's a great story and a well-written story. So the most important thing is original voices. So we wanted to break down the basic sort of the medieval Hollywood system, that caste system, and say, we're going to open this boot camp to the entire world, democratize access to Hollywood, to the entire world, and say, if you have an original voice, apply to impact.

1:38:26and many hundreds of thousands maybe we're approaching millions of people apply to impact so impact is this global funnel into this company called impact which then goes which then picks that then has a population of 30 ,000 writers now after about a year and a half that can work on projects without having to be at the bottom of the rung of a ladder at a studio. And if you get into the boot camp, which will create a boot camp like Y Combinator, which is a startup accelerator in the valley, then you get hundreds of people in the boot camp. They have to apply. They get through the admissions program and they have eight weeks to actually write and complete a script.

1:39:22That's their contract. They have to complete the script. Otherwise, they can't be boot camp. We've had tremendous success. Our first one was a kid from Zimbabwe named Godfrey who had$12 in his whole life. He had a four-way bidding war to buy his animated movie. Netflix got it. He got$400 ,000 and now millions because they're making this movie. Long-term goals with its what? I mean, you've done a lot with it already in the year and a half. Long-term goals are to create a unified system that creates transparency for the marketplace of our workforce in Hollywood. There's$180 billion spent on the workforce, meaning caterers, electricians, transportation, everything.

1:40:16And they don't, and it's so disaggregated. You know, we have people working in Atlanta right now on my Genius series on Aretha Franklin. They don't know where their next jobs are because there's no centralized system that says, oh, there's jobs in Alaska. Oh, wait, there's right to work state in Detroit. Oh, there's this. That's not an effective system. It's not effective for the workforce. It needs the jobs. It's not good for their families. So it's designed to unify all these jobs and make it transparent and give them the ability to interact on trying to get their next job. Thanks for listening to my chat with Brian Grazer.

1:40:59For more content, including a bike ride and tennis match with Grazer, plus a tour of the award-winning producer's property. Go to youtube.com slash Graham Bensinger. Remember to give us a rating and review. Thanks again for listening.

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