The Interviews (ft. Auli'i Cravalho, Robert Mark Kamen, Matt Spicer)

25:47Chris Hewitt:Yeah. and then it kind of was there and she called up one day and said uh i'm going to open it in england in a partnership with a producer named uh kenny wax who he's done a lot of stuff his most prominent thing i guess is six right now but he's very smart very smart and understands the terrain and he said, why don't we do this? Why don't we tour it? And then figure out whether it goes to the East End. You know, it very well could come from Toronto to the West End. Yeah. In terms of writing the book, making space for the songs, making the transitions into the songs, that's something new for you?

26:38Chris Hewitt:Is it a bit like spotting a movie with a composer? With Drew Gasparini, who did the lyrics and composition. Yeah. I worked on that with him because I didn't know how to do it. And he knew how to do it. And so he came up here. We have a lovely guest house. And we sort of adopted Drew. You know, he was here for weeks at a time. I'd hear him banging away. It's only 100 yards away. I hear him banging away on his piano and singing. And then he'd come up for lunch. And then I'd go down there and listen to the songs. and was amazed that, oh, that's where that goes. Oh, okay, that's good. Oh, I hate that lyric.

27:17And 10 minutes later, he changed the lyric. Wow. It was a wonderful collaborative process.

27:23Chris Hewitt:Was there a sequence that you wanted to see set to music or wanted to see inspire a musical number? No, I just didn't want the song to be wax on, wax on. That's all I didn't want. Other than that, nothing. And he rewrote and rewrote and rewrote and wrote new songs. And I'm telling you, the show is delightful. It really is. It's so much fun. Robert, you have, over your career, you have written some iconic lines, sir, and some iconic speeches. And obviously, you're the guy who wrote the speech in Taken. I wrote the speech in Taken. You wrote the speech in Taken. In fact, the line, I have a very special, specific set of skills, particular set of skills, is the title of a memoir that Simon Schuster is publishing.

28:18Chris Hewitt:Oh, my God. Yeah. I wanted to title it, What the Fuck Was I Thinking? And because I've had a life before life before life, I've had this very unconventional, at points, very dangerous life. Okay. And I want to, and, you know, like, what the fuck was I thinking? And they said, no, no. How about this one? How about a very particular set of skills? And I said, okay, since you're publishing the thing, we'll go with that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that makes sense, I think. We'll see if it makes sense on March 16th when it comes out. I think it'll make sense. I think it'll work. That's a great line. It's a line that we quote a lot in the Empire Office.

29:02Chris Hewitt:but you know as someone who grew up because I don't have a particular set of skills but obviously I love Liam as well but as someone who grew up on The Karate Kid you know as you mentioned wax on, wax off again one of the iconic lines of all time but it mustn't have felt that way to you when you were writing it for the first time? No, no of course not I thought this was a little movie that was going to come and go that's it you know it was the early 80s it was that era of John used teen comedies I wrote a teen karate kid soap opera and I figured you know 30 million bucks at the box office would be great and then it became the karate kid the origin story is obviously quite long and detailed about the karate kid but it's quite quick Yeah, I got jumped at the World's Fair in 1964.

30:05I got jumped by a bunch of blonde-haired, blue-eyed neo-Nazis. And I ran into the New York State Pavilion, and there was a guy doing a karate demonstration. His name was Ed McGraw.

30:23And he was disarming some guy with a knife. And that Monday, I went to his school, which happened to be in Queens, where I was living with my parents. And it was in Jackson Heights on Roosevelt Avenue. And I walked into a karate dojo. There were only probably a half a dozen of them in New York at the time. And I walked into the one closest to my house.

30:49Chris Hewitt:Wow. And that was it? The bug bit you at that point? That's when the bug hit. And I studied with him for five years. And he taught me how to fight. He taught me how to hurt people. But he didn't teach me much else about the form. We do forms. We learn forms. But his main thing was fighting. He was a former Marine DI, and his main thing was fighting. So that's what I learned. And after five years, I went and trained in Philadelphia, where I was in graduate school,

31:32with Teriyuki Okazaki, who was a practitioner of Shotokan. And I had heard about a guy in New York who was teaching traditional Okinawan Goju karate, which I had always heard about and seen. And part of Ed McGrath's style, part of it was goju. And I liked that part of it. And so I took a train up to New York and I walked into a dojo there. And I had been doing karate for 10 years at that point. And I was knocked out by what I saw. And I stopped training in Shotokan. And every day for two years, I took a train up to New York four days a week, five days a week and and trained and then go back to Philadelphia and go to graduate school.

32:23And then when I finished graduate school, I just came back to New York and just kept training in Gosha.

32:29Chris Hewitt:What was different about it? What what really hooked you? The Mr. Miyagi has a sign line. It says rule number one in karate. Karate is for defense only. Rule number two, see rule number one. This system made sense to me. The minute I saw it, it made perfect sense to me. It was logical. It was, goju means hard, soft, half hard style. The striking is hard. The blocking is soft. The takedowns are soft, all that. and after having done it for 10 years I had sort of a background and understanding and this style just made sense to me so I've devoted myself to that ever since In terms of the screenplay, how did that come to be?

33:25Well, I had been doing Goju for 10 years at that point when I started writing it, 8 years and I had embraced the system. And when I was writing the screenplay, I just, I wanted two things. I wanted to create a character who is the father all of us want. The all-loving, all-knowing, kind, gentle, with all the answers character who could beat the crap out of anybody who uh who uh threatened you yeah and i came up with mr miyagi named after the founder of the system of goju karate goju miyagi and and then it just as i wrote the scenes and i was pretty much a newbie at that time i would have been writing screenplays for two years.

34:22And as I wrote the scenes, I would, you know, think up, how would you do this that it would be kind of funny and interesting and different? And I just came up with all those things.

34:36Chris Hewitt:When it comes to, for example, creating Mr. Miyagi, how did you provide that authenticity? How did you nail in, drill down into the character? Pat didn't know karate and he had no interest in learning anything. And neither did Ralph but that but he didn't need to know it it's the movies you know fake it till you make it and all he had to do was act and he was a great actor pat was wonderful yeah um and so he didn't you know and the fighting sequences were done with a double who was a karate master fumio demura sensei demura yeah um and you know they put a wig on him and uh they shot it in such a way that you only saw his back and uh and it worked it's it's one of the great performances i think pat in that movie i think he's just he's incredible he's so he got nominated for an academy award yeah i think he would have won had uh the killing fields not been nominated the same year and what one what won him the nomination was one scene was the drunk scene yeah yes that was it that was the heart and soul of the picture.

35:46Yes. And Columbia Pictures wanted to, the marketing department wanted to cut it. Why? The distribution department. Yeah. They wanted to cut it because it made the movie two hours and six minutes, which meant you could have one less show a day.

36:00Chris Hewitt:So did you fight for it? Did John Ableton fight for it as well? The chairman of Columbia Pictures was my mentor. Okay. And I didn't bother fighting. I just went right to him and said, Frank, you can't do this, please. I'm begging you. And he said, okay. He looked at it and said, you're right. They're wrong. This is the soul of the movie. And that was that. But if I didn't have that relationship, you know, they would have cut the scene. Where did that scene come from for you in terms of the writing? I had been writing a novel, a sweeping historical novel about the greatest swordsman in Japan in 1937, who was also a pacifist.

36:46And it takes place starting in 37 and goes to 47. It goes from there to LA, from LA to the internment camps, the internment camps war, war LA, LA, Tokyo, 1947. So I knew a lot about the internment camps. I knew a lot about the 442nd, which is Mr. Miyagi's regiment. I knew a lot about the Japanese American experience because I had done oodles of research. And so it was really nothing to make Mr. Miyagi. The 442nd won more medals of honor than any other company in the war. They're just these brave Japanese-American kids who felt they had to prove they were Americans.

37:37Chris Hewitt:In a way, did you have Miyagi's story and his backstory even more fleshed out than Daniel? No, Daniel was easy. Daniel was really easy. The Cobras were really easy. That was all easy. decrease because I knew I had caricatures of karate masters, karate masters, karate teachers who were like that. Ed McGrath was like that, but he was a little kinder and gentler. A man named John Slocum was like that, and he was not kinder and gentler, and I had experiences. And I saw these guys, big, tough guys, you know, with crazy ideas, and that was easy. Mr. Miyagi was hard. Robert, I'm going to let you go, but it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you, sir.

38:25Chris Hewitt:Cheers. And that was Robert Mark Kamen. And if you want to see The Karate Kid the Musical before it finishes its run in the UK, it's playing in Sunderland this week before moving to Birmingham, then Cardiff, and then it moves over the pond to Toronto in Canada. Go to thekaratekidthemusicaluk.com for details and to get tickets. One last interview, folks. Little Brother, in which Eric Andre gatecrashes the life of John Cena, hit Netflix the other week and is a fun throwback to the days when the Farrelly's ruled the earth. Intriguingly, it marks the first movie for director Matt Spicer since he burst onto the scene with 2017's Ingrid Goes West.

39:05Chris Hewitt:He's directed a bunch of TV since then but this is only his second film. He's been away for a while and so I wanted to find out what had happened and he was gracious enough to jump onto Zoom with me to talk about that, about making Little Brother and more. Enjoy. I know you've had this an awful lot on the junket for this movie. And this is a little disingenuous because you have directed a ton since Ingrid Goes West. But where have you been as well? I've been around, you know, I mean, it's, you know, I've done a lot of TV. I've done a lot of commercial work. And there's, you know, I did hit that moment too where I was like, it's been a minute since I directed a film.

39:45And it's funny how time kind of flies. And I didn't realize almost there was a moment where I sort of was like, oh my god it's been so long since i've done a film and there was a pandemic right in the middle as well which yeah look that didn't help um for sure and um and uh there was also a strike an industry-wide strike which and so there were a couple projects that i had that kind of got derailed by both of those things and so i was i was a little bit frustrated and very anxious to to make another film and um and then this script came along and it was just so fun and i love eric so much i'm such a huge fan and i'm a huge fan of john's film work i didn't really know him as a wrestler because i kind of my wwe phase sort of ended before his began um and but i just could really see this movie and see the two of them together and i knew the producer really well and there was just something that was kind of that was just really exciting about it to me because it was like nothing that I would have ever written on my own.

40:48But I, I was like, I do love these kinds of movies that I do love comedy. And so it was exciting. It was, it was kind of an exciting, it was like, we were off to the races. I think when I read the script to when we started shooting, it was about six months. So it's a really fast and then the movie came out a year later. So it was really, really fast. And I think it was, it was, you know, I think I described it to you as it was building a rocket ship as it was blasting off kind of and that's very much what it felt like but it was cool it was fun um and i had a great time making it but i think it also speaks

41:22Chris Hewitt:to you know because ingrid goes west was really really warmly received at the time but does it also speak to in a way just the difficulty of getting movies off the ground in its industry doesn't matter what side of the pond you're on it doesn't necessarily stand to reason that you'll just get the second movie off the ground immediately well you know it's interesting actually after after ingrid came out i had a meeting with michelle satter who works the sundance institute and um and she said at the at the time she said that you know the only thing harder than making your first movie is making your second movie and i didn't really understand what she meant by that at the time and until after ingrid came out i mean i don't think she was talking about i don't think she knew covid was going to happen so i don't think that was like an ominous harbinger but um she i knew what she meant because the reality is like the movie you know sort of the way hollywood works is like you know people loved ingrid and then and they said you know started sending me scripts that were kind of like a version of that right so it got a lot of two female two-hander thrillers and i was like well i just kind of i made that already i don't really want to do that again and then the other option at the time it felt like when ingrid came out was it was like you either go do a big marvel movie if you have a sundance movie that people like you go do a huge you know 200 million dollar marvel movie or you go do tv you know and that was tv was like cool at the time it was like there's so much happening in the tv space and i thought you know and and the projects honestly that had the opportunities that was getting offered in tv were just far more interesting to me than the movies that i was being sent and and the opportunities that it felt like there were to be had so i didn't really want to go make another you you know, one and a half million,$3 million indie movie.

43:06I wanted to sort of really get some experience under my belt. I was angry. It was my first movie, you know? So I got to work with some really, really cool people in the TV world. I got to do a pilot. I got to work. There was a show called on becoming a God in central Florida with Kirsten Dunst. That was a great show that I think was ended far too soon. They actually got picked up for a second season and it got canceled because of COVID.

43:31Chris Hewitt:Yeah. Yeah. And then I got to do this mini series called Angeline that was about this, you know, iconic woman who lives in Los Angeles who drives a pink Corvette and with Emmy Rossum and Sam Esmail producing, which was just the scale of that was sort of beyond anything that I had done. So it was sort of it was really cool to get that experience, like get to shoot with a techno crane and stuff like that I'd never actually gotten to work with before. And then coming out the other side of that, I was sort of like, OK, it's time to get back into making another film. and you know as like i said before that process is was not easy um but the good news is now it does seem like movies are cool again people are going to the movies again people want original films in a way that i think when i was coming off of ingrid they maybe didn't at the time it was it was like they sort of wanted the the sequels and the marvel universes and things and now it sort of feels like that phase no pun intended has ended and now people are are sort of craving more original things.

44:30And so, it does feel like, even on my end, as, you know, taking other projects out in the last year or so, it does feel like there's like a more of a hunger for the types of films that I really want to make in the way that there wasn't in, you know, 2018, 2017.

44:45Chris Hewitt:You're absolutely right, though. I mean, I think there's, you know, there's a ton of directors over the last 10, 12 years, certainly since the rise of the MCU and the return of Star Wars and the big screen, you know, people who make their mark in independent film, Colin Tofaro, Taika Waititi, Rian Johnson, Ryan Coogler, people like that, who then immediately get snapped up by the machine. And a lot of them make great works within that machine as well. But was that something that was ever a possibility for you? Were you in those rooms? Were you having those meetings with Feige and the rest? I, you know, I kind of resisted it for a long time.

45:19and then i i got i did sort of acquiesce on one project that sounded kind of cool to me and i got i would say i got pretty far down the line and ultimately didn't make it to the end but i think it was for the best i mean i i think that you know i don't i i grew up loving x-men and and spider-man and batman and all those things um and look if you if if i would say any of those three properties came my way, I would 100 % do one of those. But I think that, you know, there's something that doesn't, you can't beat having an original story to tell, I think. And I think, you know, A Little Brother, it was, you know, and Netflix in general, people kind of, I think people kind of hate on Netflix a little bit sometimes in their movies, but I will say like, they're making more original stuff than anybody else out there.

46:11They're giving more shots to, you know, filmmakers who would never get a shot at a, you know, legacy studio to direct a movie of the scales of the movies that they're making. So, you know, I will say like that kind of mid-budget movie, and I would lump comedies in there as well. Like the comedy has been done so dirty by Hollywood. They really, really stopped making them. And I think part of that is, you know, audiences are harder to please in the comedy space. But also, like, the mid-budget movie has sort of dried up. And to me, that's where, like, if you think back to the 90s, 80s, 90s, like, where all of your favorite movies from that time period, I would guess that most of them were that sort of mid-budget film that, and when I say that, I mean, like, I would say 25 to, like,$50 million movie, right?

47:03That has just completely kind of gone away. And if you look at any of the directors now, like the Christopher Nolans of the world, you know, who they all, they all sort of worked their way up. They did, you know, like use Christopher Nolan as an example. He did Memento, right? Off of that, Warner Brothers said, you know what, we've got this like programmer thriller with Al Pacino that's, you know, that we want, we're going to plug you into this movie. And if you do a good job on that, maybe we'll give you another, a bigger, slightly bigger budget. And if you do good well on that, you know, maybe we'll give you Batman Begins or whatever, you know, and so you kind of like, and then if you do well on that, we'll let you do maybe an original thing, like an Inception or whatever, you know, so you kind of like you, you could work your way up the ladder.

47:46And you did feel like studios would kind of invest in filmmakers, in a sense, you sort of see a 24 doing that, like they've invested in Ari Aster, you know, there's, there's filmmakers that, you know, have these great relationships with studios. But you just it's so rare nowadays. And I think that's a real shame. I think there's so many potentially great filmmakers, you know, who could be developed more, you know, and to end and sort of, you know, work their way into these sort of larger films rather than doing a, you know,$3 million indie and then being thrown into the machine of a$200 million, you know, giant studio movie, right?

48:26That's it's it's and it is a machine and a lot of people get chewed up and spit out of that machine in a way that I don't think they would if they were to go, you know, climb that ladder and step their way up to a movie of that scale. And I just didn't I didn't really want to get that to be me.

48:44Chris Hewitt:It's interesting as well that you talk about comedy because we talked about this a little bit already, but there is a lot of early Farrelly's DNA in Little Brother. And I can't imagine those early movies getting made now. Maybe Dumb and Dumber, because if you had a star as big as Jim Carrey, but then again, could a star like that flourish in the way that comedy is treated these days. But Kingpin, I don't think it's made. There's something about Mary that doesn't get made, I would say, in the current climate. I mean, the question is, would Jim Carrey even exist in the current climate? I don't know that he would.

49:24And anyway, I think it's a shame. And I think people say, like, why aren't there any stars? It's like, well, stars were made in those mid-budget movies. That's where stars became stars. You know, and you see a little bit like, you know, you get like a Timothee Chalamet every once in a while. Right. But that trajectory is really, really rare. And it's hard to do. It's hard to make that jump from a call me by your name to Dune. You know, a lot of people have attempted it and failed. You know, a lot of people have, you know, popped off of something and then they jump into a huge movie and then that movie doesn't perform.

50:01And then it's like, oh, well, they're, you know, they're box office poison, you know, and you're like, well, you didn't really allow the audience to build a relationship with that person by doing these sort of cooler, more interesting, still, you know, with some scale, but like, and I just, I don't, I never really understood that. I don't understand it from a business standpoint. It doesn't make sense to me.

50:25Chris Hewitt:But going back to Little Brother then, so you're reading the screenplay with six months before you started shooting. What was the scene or scenes? Because there's a lot of really, really funny physical comedy here. I'm not going to say the word gross out. There is a scene where Eric Andre pisses in his own mouth, which is impressive. What was the scene that you thought, okay, I want to shoot this. I want to shoot this tomorrow because I think I know how to do it. I think it was the pairing of Eric and John. I just thought that was such an interesting, unexpected pairing that sort of harkened back to, I think, a movie like Tommy Boy, which is one of my favorite movies, which I remember at the time was sort of written off as like a bad movie.

51:16But to me, it's like I would put that in the Criterion Collection. I just think it's an incredible film. and so funny and um something that my brother and I would we'd watch over and over and over again and quote to each other and um dumb and dumber as well um but I think it was and I think it was just understanding that like Eric is is that rare person I think can get away with stuff that you're talking about like he can he can like I loved bad trip and and what he was able to do I I mean, he gets, you know, he has sex with a gorilla and then the gorilla like comes in space and you're still rooting for him.

51:54You know what I mean? And it's just this amazing quality of it. It's like he's like, you know, to me, he's kind of like a silent film era star, like a Buster Keaton. But it's like but with like R-rated gross out humor. And it's just such an odd. But you also love him and care about him. I just think it's such a rare quality. And he's just a gem of a human and a performer. I think that's why John wanted to do the movie, to be honest. I think John is just a truly just an Eric Andre fan. So I think we were kind of all there for the same reason. We just all want Eric to shine and to have this amazing vehicle for him to do his thing and to sort of take this leap into scripted, you know, a scripted film versus, you know, his typical prank films.

52:36And, you know, I thought he was he was lovely to work with. and and one of the scenes actually i would say not to take you know any credit away from the screenwriters but there was like the scene where um eric and michelle's character talk about um you know how she can reinvigorate her marriage uh john cena taste be done yeah that was that was just like a blip in like a montage um in in the script that i read and i just remember once we cast michelle i was like i just really want to see these two characters like having a conversation And so that was one of my contributions to the script was that scene became more of a scene instead of just like this one sort of beat.

53:17And it's one of my favorite scenes in the film just because it's just so absurd. I just can't. If you were to pitch me like, oh, it's Eric Andre and Michelle Monaghan. I was like, how are these two people going to end up in a scene together and like talking about this? And, you know, to Michelle's credit, she was so game. I mean, when we cast her, she was like, I want to be raunchy and funny with the boys. you know she like really wanted to kind of hang and to do it and and and it's you know to her credit i was like look you're yeah she really classed up the joint i think is really how i how i put it like i felt like just having her there and her bringing her and she's such a sweetheart bringing her energy to it it was just like to me it just like elevated the movie and elevated that scene but just the two of them together i think that was like a scene that i i hooked into that i was like i really want to see what these two actors bring to this um and it

54:09Chris Hewitt:didn't disappoint i think with michelle people forget that she kind of got her big break and kiss kiss bang bang so she's already got this great facility for for raunchy dialogue that people don't exploit that much uh so i was glad to see you do that so the just to just to lay bare what happens in that scene the after effects of that scene what they're talking about is not to put to find a point on it analingus and which she delivers to john cena's character in a standout scene in this movie matt uh was that always in in the script anyway that scene and it was just or was it that was that yeah that was okay in there um and um and it's it's a it really it was a special scene i mean i was one of my favorite articles that i've read about the movie was praising the sort of sex positivity of that scene.

54:58Because they were like, you know, in a typical, you know, 90s raunchy comedy, there would be some, you know, that like it would somehow come back to like, you know, hurt her in some way or like boomerang back. And it was like, nope, it's just a positive thing that happens in their relationship. And it makes everything better for a brief, you know, beautiful moment. And that really warmed my heart. um but yeah it was just sort of like um I just thought this idea that that that was going to be the thing that was going to get them back together um I thought was hilarious and that Eric's character um uh I'm one of my favorite lines in the movie actually was it's one of the oldest forms of love making which uh just there's so much you know there's so much rich texture to that line um that I just think is really special.

55:49And I don't know, just, I guess I have the sense of humor of a 12 year old, but it just really made me laugh. And John, by the way, John Cena was so down. He was like, I know exactly what the scene is and what it should be. And I'm pretty sure that take of his reaction is the first take. I think we were like, all right, that's it. We got it. Let's move on.

56:10Chris Hewitt:On that note, Matt Spicer, it's been an absolute pleasure, but thanks for your time. Thank you so much. Okay. That was Matt Spicer, the director of Little Brothers. which is now on Netflix. And on that note, that is it for this episode of The Interviews. We have a major John Woo interview special and a Scott Aukerman, creator of Comedy Bang Bang interview special coming up soon. But those will both get their own shows. And by the way, if you don't already subscribe to Empire Plus, which is our new subscription service, give it a whirl as you get all these shows and more, including our spoiler specials, all totally ad free.

56:47Chris Hewitt:Okay, that's enough from me. Thank you for listening. See you next time. Bye bye.