0:15

Pushkin.

0:20

I've had such a exceptionally

0:22

curated career.

0:26

Every movie I've ever written since eighteen

0:30

has been greenlit

0:32

to be made into a movie. You've seen everything

0:34

I've written, you know, except

0:37

for this one

0:39

that we're going to talk about.

0:42

So it's interesting, always

0:44

a twist. Yeah,

0:49

Welcome back to Development Hell, our mini

0:51

series about the lost scripts of Hollywood.

0:54

Today, I'm talking with m Night Shyamalan, one

0:56

of the best known filmmakers of the past generation

0:59

suspense fillers and supernatural

1:02

psychodrama. You know whose movies I'm

1:04

sure, Unbreakable, the Sixth

1:06

Sense, Split Glass,

1:09

something like fifteen films

1:11

in the last thirty years, which collectively

1:13

have grossed billions of dollars. M

1:16

Night Shamalan's stories have haunted

1:18

a lot of people over the years. This

1:20

episode is about the story

1:23

that haunted m Night Shauma.

1:29

We've talked a lot so far in a series about

1:31

movies that never got made because there was something

1:34

wrong with the story, or because someone

1:36

on the outside had a problem with the script.

1:39

This episode is about none of those

1:41

things. There is nothing at all wrong with the

1:43

story Shyamalan has never told, and

1:46

maybe that's why he never told.

1:55

There was the first real script that I

1:57

felt kind of lightning

1:59

bolt inspiration that came to me.

2:02

I was twenty two and

2:04

i'd just.

2:04

Been married, just got married, and

2:06

I wrote a kind of a love story, Labor

2:09

of Love, and I was writing it, and I wrote it

2:12

because I almost remember everywhere I wrote

2:14

it, because it was such a special experience

2:17

of writing. By that time, that was my third

2:22

third feature that i'd written. I

2:24

had made

2:27

made a movie already in India.

2:29

Tell me, tell me this a little bit about

2:31

the story. What was Labor of Love about?

2:34

You know?

2:34

Labor of Love is essentially a

2:37

story about an older couple and

2:40

the wife saying, hey,

2:42

it's an anniversary and he forgets

2:44

and all of this stuff and they've been together a long

2:46

time, and she's just like, you

2:49

know, essentially expresses I do all

2:51

these little things for you our whole life,

2:53

and you don't. And I'm

2:55

not sure what you want from you know,

2:57

I'm not sure you love me. You know, I'm

2:59

not one hundred percent sure. And that's not a great

3:01

feeling, you know. And he's

3:04

baffled, right as all guys are just baffled

3:06

at this, And.

3:08

I mean, what do you mean? I mean,

3:11

I mean what do you want me? I love you goes.

3:13

To work every morning? Who goes to What

3:16

are you doing that for? Okay?

3:19

Good, good, I get it.

3:22

She I don't want to say too much of it because I tend

3:24

to think of these things as magic. And

3:28

yeah, and she

3:30

she passes away unexpectedly and

3:34

very tragically, and before

3:36

she died she said, he said, uh,

3:38

you know, what do you want me to do to prove my love to you? You

3:40

want me to, you know, swim across an

3:42

ocean, or climb a mountain or walk across the

3:44

United States?

3:45

What do you want me to do?

3:46

She's like, just walk to the store

3:48

and get me something on your own, because you were

3:50

thinking, you know, something small like that. Anyway,

3:52

she passes away. He's an older man.

3:54

He's in a you know, late sixties seventies

3:57

kind of thing, out of shape, and

3:59

he's so devastated he makes a

4:01

crazy decision to start walking across the

4:03

United States for nothing else but just

4:06

to show his wife who's passed away, in

4:08

case she can see. And this

4:10

isn't I wrote this in nineteen ninety

4:12

four, right, so no

4:15

cell phones, no nothing, no internet,

4:18

And he just begins this track

4:20

and it's a kind of

4:23

like a vision quest a little bit. He starts to think

4:25

about his life and his time with his wife and

4:27

from when they were kids, and he's physically

4:29

in threat as he's doing this, and slowly

4:32

the country starts to get to hear

4:34

about this guy, and they're trying to urge him

4:36

do it to get there and it's so crazy,

4:39

Why are you doing this?

4:40

Why are you doing this?

4:40

And then the country kind of gets

4:43

on board with the feeling of doing

4:46

something irrational to show your love

4:48

for the person that.

4:49

You care about.

4:51

And I'm not going to tell you the ending, but it's really

4:53

poignant, the idea of just

4:56

doing something so the other person can hear you.

4:58

So you're twenty two, you're

5:02

very much in love. You've just married your

5:05

wife, who you've known for how long at that point.

5:08

I met when I was eighteen,

5:10

so owner for four years at that

5:12

point.

5:13

So the and

5:15

in this period of love

5:17

struck youth. When you are,

5:20

you know, in love with your young wife,

5:22

you write a story about an older

5:25

couple, Yes, where

5:28

the question of the man's devotion to the to

5:31

his wife is in doubt. Yes,

5:33

and he had In other words, I thought you were

5:35

going to say I wrote this at

5:37

twenty two. I was just married a mention love. It's about

5:40

this young couple who embark you.

5:43

You jump back, you jump forward forty years

5:46

when you start looking back.

5:48

Yes, so yeah, in the period.

5:50

Where you are of greatest infatuation, your

5:53

impulse is to go to the end of

5:55

the relationship and work backwards.

5:58

Yeah.

5:58

I mean, I think I've always been driven by

6:01

familial nightmares,

6:06

you know, the sanctity of the family

6:09

being jeopardized. You

6:11

know, later it changed into aliens

6:14

and ghosts and you name it, But

6:16

ultimately it's still about families

6:19

and whether whether they

6:21

can survive.

6:22

What is it about you at a period of young

6:25

love, when you're already thinking about

6:29

the kind of not the dissolution of love, but the

6:31

final stage of it. You why would

6:33

you jump ahead? What's it?

6:36

No?

6:36

I guess I guess you're thinking about your

6:38

life and what you wanted to be and

6:40

where it could go wrong. And

6:43

maybe I was thinking about what is it?

6:44

What is it? What do I want this to be at.

6:46

The end of the journey, you know, forty

6:48

years from now, fifty years from now.

6:51

I hope, I hope I've lived

6:53

the life the right way and of course

6:55

there's going to be a lot of mistakes along the way. But

6:58

I don't have fears like the other

7:00

people have fears in the sense of, like I knew

7:02

I was going to marry the second I matter, you

7:05

know, like those things. I fear getting

7:07

a call that's something bad happened,

7:10

you know, And that's very prevalent and

7:12

still thirty years later.

7:14

Yeah, but you're asking yourself the question

7:16

of what is the most

7:19

tragic outcome of

7:21

young love? Is that what is

7:23

what you've described is that one one

7:26

party loves and the other party doesn't

7:28

realize they're being loved. You put your finger

7:30

on something that's like it

7:35

does a deeply resonant anxiety.

7:38

It is I probably fund the dynamic

7:40

of me and my wife that you know, she

7:43

married a dreamer,

7:46

someone who's completely content

7:49

to stare out in an empty

7:51

room and just do that all day

7:53

long and think about an imaginary

7:56

world with imaginary

7:58

people and feel fulfilled. And

8:01

she's like, well, I'm right here, you know, what

8:03

about what about the real life where you're.

8:05

We're living, you know, And.

8:07

And so the struggle has been you

8:09

know, I've heard all of those stories of you

8:12

know, from you know, f Scott Fitzgerald

8:14

to you name it. You know all our heroes

8:16

and how they struggled with their personal

8:18

life versus their artistry. Is

8:22

it a one or

8:24

the other equation? We

8:27

sometimes it feels that way, and for a lot of people it feels

8:30

that way. I've tried to see if

8:32

they can be feed each

8:34

other and it feeds the

8:36

movies, the feeling

8:38

of love for your wife or for your

8:40

kids or you know, and what does

8:43

that mean?

8:43

How can you imbue it?

8:44

And you guys feel it when you see the movies

8:46

and really the stories that

8:48

I mean.

8:49

And the hardest thing to explain to

8:52

your spouse in that instance is that to

8:54

them you seem inaccessible in that dreaming.

8:57

But from your perspective, I'm

9:00

putting words in your mouth, but there's a certain

9:02

amount of commonality between the way I approachest

9:04

the way that you do. What's

9:06

hard to explain is that not

9:09

being inaccessible and in fact, the

9:11

relationship we have with our loved one is

9:13

what makes our dreaming possible.

9:16

M hm.

9:16

Right there. They're

9:19

the engine of it. They're not outside

9:21

of it. It's their presence

9:23

and support and structure and love and whatever

9:26

that permits us to wander off

9:29

and in our imagination and

9:33

feel find comfort

9:35

and joy and all of that. I don't know, it's like that.

9:37

It's a very hard thing to

9:39

to explain to someone that they're that our inner

9:41

lives are contingent on someone from

9:44

the out on the outside.

9:45

Yes, you know, So finding

9:47

love and then building a career from there felt

9:50

felt the right, the right building

9:52

blocks, and so that

9:54

movie was the beginning of that. You know,

9:57

when writing this movie, Labor of Love, it was

9:59

it was coming from such an interesting place,

10:01

and I was writing ahead of my

10:04

abilities at that point.

10:05

It was just kind of going by this inspiration

10:08

of love.

10:08

I think, what do you mean by writing ahead of your abilities?

10:12

You know, I didn't have as much craft at that

10:14

time. This is oftentimes your career is

10:16

an equation of craft and inspiration,

10:18

and so lacking in craft

10:21

and at twenty

10:23

two, but the inspiration was out

10:25

of ten. You know that feeling

10:27

when I was writing it, what this feels beautiful,

10:30

This feels this feels lovely. You

10:32

know, I love this feeling how it's coming

10:34

out and how I can see the characters

10:36

and in retrospect now thirty

10:39

years later, can see that. You

10:41

know, I was really listening to the characters

10:44

almost like a novelist, and following

10:46

it. And so the end result is I

10:48

wrote the screenplay that ended

10:51

up becoming a bidding War from

10:53

my parents' guest bedroom where me

10:55

and my wife were living in

10:57

the guest bedroom. The best bedroom was pink.

11:00

It was for my sister. Was It

11:02

was just a you know, we had to get out

11:04

of here kind of feeling. And

11:07

this script went out and there was the bidding war and someone

11:10

offered this amount of money and then that amount of money, and it

11:12

was crazy.

11:12

And I was a kid.

11:13

I'd run down and I'd be like, mom, they offered

11:15

this amount of money.

11:16

It's crazy.

11:19

But I only directed this little movie in

11:21

India, and they saw it as a big,

11:23

big movie. And this

11:26

was back in an era of Hollywood

11:28

where the entire system was

11:30

geared at original movies.

11:32

The system was built to nurture original

11:35

movies, and the spec screenplay

11:37

markets, screenplay is done on speculation

11:41

was the kind of gold rush,

11:43

and so if there was an incredible screenplay

11:46

that came out, everyone would read it immediately

11:48

and it would go in this bidding war because that was

11:50

the food that was feeding the engine at that time

11:52

to the movie theaters, and

11:54

so I was luckily kind of grew

11:56

up in an era where what I love

11:59

to do, which is original movies, was really

12:02

celebrated and promoted, and

12:04

so everyone bit on it and we sold the tunch

12:06

of Fox. You know, I was

12:08

attached to direct, and then I flew out

12:10

and I put on my graduation suit,

12:13

which I didn't because I didn't have many suits, so I wore

12:15

my old suit and then they

12:18

they listened to me about how I would direct a movie,

12:21

and then they subsequently fired me off the movie.

12:23

So it

12:25

was devastated. Just absolutely

12:28

What did.

12:28

You do wrong in your

12:31

pitch to be a directly?

12:32

That's really interesting a question I would

12:35

say. I wasn't a director yet. I

12:37

had more practice at writing than directing.

12:39

And of course, sitting in a room telling a chairman

12:41

of a studio how you'd make a film, and

12:43

they're asking certain questions, and you know, I

12:46

don't know if I had a chance at all, you

12:48

know, before I walked in there.

12:49

In retrospect night, you're now hold

12:52

fifty three. Yeah, you

12:55

look at fifty three,

12:57

you look at thirty, at twenty

12:59

two, you must have looked twelve.

13:01

You're absolutely correct, you're absolutely

13:03

correct.

13:04

You know what's going to give you fifty

13:06

million dollars to direct a movie when

13:08

you it's like a twelve year.

13:09

Old Yeah, and I'm in this ill fitting suit

13:12

which makes me even look younger because you're liked

13:14

you wear your big brother's suit

13:17

or whatever it was.

13:18

I remember the feeling.

13:19

I can remember the feeling pitching it

13:21

to the chairman and then the heads of the

13:23

studio and going, I'm

13:26

not I don't I don't believe what I'm

13:28

saying, and

13:31

I'm guessing. I was like basically, I was like, I don't

13:33

know. I'm gonna learn, you know as I do this,

13:35

because I can see it in my head,

13:38

you know, so I'll I'll learn.

13:40

And they took me. I was very

13:42

painful.

13:43

Then I ended up, you know, they talked

13:45

me into kind of pay rewrite it for some

13:47

other a list directors of that time. So

13:49

I had a chance to be in the room

13:51

at some you know at that time, the top

13:54

directors, and they would say do this, do

13:56

that, and I just couldn't. I would

13:58

rewrite it and it would get worse in

14:00

retrospect, some kind of mojo

14:02

curse I put on it, and it

14:05

could never get it never, It could never

14:07

bloom into So there was

14:10

lots of directors that try, two or three directors

14:12

that tried. So what

14:15

was really weird about this movie represented

14:17

some kind of you know, connection

14:20

with the universe. And I think

14:22

for a little bit I thought that was a one

14:24

off and that that's never going to happen

14:26

again.

14:26

And that was the fear.

14:28

That screenplay just became something

14:31

of a mythic thing for me, like,

14:33

oh, I'll never get that back again.

14:36

M night. Shyamalan writes his masterpiece

14:39

and then he's haunted by it

14:41

more after the break. Wait,

14:57

so what's the next stage in the

14:59

saga of Labor of Love?

15:01

So sixth sense happens,

15:04

right? I wrote it, you know a few years later

15:07

and wonderful outcome. Everyone

15:09

wanted to make movies with me, and I said

15:11

to Fox, I would love to have that screen

15:13

light back.

15:14

They said, oh, do you want to make Labor of Love?

15:16

And I said, well, no, I'm thinking

15:18

about making another movie, which was

15:20

Unbreakable that I was writing at

15:22

that time about comic books, even

15:24

though no one had making comic book movies,

15:26

and I thought no one would ever see this movie.

15:29

But it was something that interest me and I

15:31

said, you know, I was really into genre.

15:33

Now.

15:33

I was like, okay, genre

15:35

is my way. Labor of Love is

15:38

very it's a very

15:40

emotional movie. I think I have that

15:42

as my base tendency to be emotional,

15:45

and I think until I found genre

15:47

to balance

15:50

it, I was too much for people

15:52

because like I start at a nine, like

15:54

at emotion. If you and I are talking over drinks

15:56

about time, I'll be I'll be like, I'll

15:59

be already emotionally to be

16:01

you know there. And

16:03

I think genre helped me balance that. You

16:05

know, you have to meet the audience

16:08

where they are. This is something I learned in

16:10

my mid twenties. When

16:12

you're telling a story, meet them where they

16:14

are and don't lecture

16:16

them and demand that they come

16:18

to you. You come to them, so you start

16:21

tonally where they are. So

16:23

it's a tough world and

16:25

we have a little we have cynicism. That's

16:27

how we get through our

16:29

lives, you know. We balance that to protect

16:32

our software parts. And genre

16:35

does that. It comes in and it

16:37

balances. I have this feeling

16:39

about movie making, our art

16:42

that it has to have the right balance of

16:45

light and dark, and that's when

16:47

it rings true. The love of a

16:49

mother to a child has a selfish

16:51

component. You have to

16:53

have, you know, a controlling component,

16:56

then it rings true. There's

16:58

also the beauty, the pure love you

17:00

know, of a parent to a child. But if

17:02

I can get both things in there, then

17:05

it rings true and you start to see yourself

17:07

in it. I think genre allows

17:09

me to show you that the light side, you

17:12

know. Because of that, I

17:14

can go very dark. I mean I've killed

17:16

off more protagonist than anybody. This

17:19

is like dark stuff, but

17:21

that's because underneath, I do feel

17:24

the universe is a benevolent place, and

17:26

I feel that from that.

17:27

So genre has helped me balance things.

17:30

Is it fair to say that genre, particularly horror

17:34

or supernatural, it

17:36

lowers the stakes in a certain way. What

17:39

does it allow you to? What's what's the

17:41

best way to describe the way

17:43

it It's it's.

17:45

Protective when you get really down to it.

17:47

I'm just this sentimental

17:49

dude that's overly earnest.

17:52

When I speak to people, they think it's gamesmanship.

17:55

It's not.

17:55

There's no game at all. I'm I

17:58

love it, I hate it. I I'm

18:00

terrified. I'll tell you openly,

18:02

you know everything, and when

18:05

we do things like comedy and

18:08

all this stuff. Those are ways to protect

18:10

ourselves which I understand

18:12

and I can use as well. And genre

18:15

is if I can show you edgy dark

18:18

things and show you because I do have an agi

18:20

dark side as well. I just deploy

18:22

it at the right times that allows

18:25

me in the in the balance of things

18:27

in the audience's eyes and their emotional

18:30

journey.

18:30

It's earned.

18:31

Then when I do the car

18:34

scene in sixth sense with the mom and the child,

18:36

you know I've earned it

18:39

by by by titillating

18:41

them and scaring them in a certain way. There's a

18:43

balancing act that goes on which I think is

18:46

important for me to

18:48

acknowledge that this is a conversation

18:51

with the audience, that it's

18:53

not just a lecture.

18:55

Yeah, labor of love is

18:57

are you saying there's there's no supernatural It

19:00

is a straight.

19:03

Pretty much? Yeah, just a straight you

19:05

say pretty much, pretty

19:08

much? Pretty much.

19:09

The reason I say pretty much is there's a tiny

19:12

bit of spirituality and love, and

19:15

so that I do represent

19:17

that in there, that things are bound

19:19

a bit, that there's some inspirational,

19:23

magical things that happen sometimes you

19:25

know that's

19:27

related to love. So that's all. But there is

19:29

no genre in it.

19:31

That's we were.

19:33

This opportunity came, I would

19:35

say, you know, fifteen years later

19:37

where I could make that movie

19:39

with literally the best actor in

19:42

the world and the

19:44

person that I would want to make a movie with

19:46

more than anybody. It was being

19:48

squeezed between another movie

19:50

that I was making for a big studio,

19:53

and I made the wrong decision

19:56

and I didn't make it. And

19:59

when I think back on it now, knowing

20:01

me and who is the actor,

20:04

well, I don't want to say just because

20:07

just because, because

20:10

it's more about the emotional

20:13

stuff that we're talking about rather than the kind

20:15

of the titillation of it, of the names

20:17

and things like that, if we can, because

20:22

just because you know, it

20:24

meant so much to me and him, and I didn't

20:26

do it, And it was

20:28

literally because I just wasn't in the

20:30

right place and I was making

20:33

destructive decisions at that time.

20:35

In retrospect and now having gone

20:38

through, you know, iteration after iteration

20:40

of who I am in front of the public eye,

20:43

I with absolute certainty

20:46

can tell you, I tell you I should have made it at that time.

20:48

Dig into a little bit more why you didn't. Is

20:51

it on some level terrifying

20:53

to actually make

20:56

make real something that you think of as being

20:58

so perfect

21:00

or something that if something comes in a

21:02

lightning bolt, is it scary.

21:05

It was a lot.

21:06

No.

21:06

I wish I could say it was something that

21:09

defendable. It

21:13

was literally I think I wanted

21:15

so much to be accepted. I was

21:17

in a phase of my life where I was willing

21:20

to, I think, give away

21:22

the things that were prescious to me to be accepted.

21:25

And I was so tired

21:27

of fighting the fight all the time, these

21:30

original movies and you know.

21:32

Doing things.

21:33

And then I didn't have the protection of genre

21:35

with that movie. It would just be me and this incredible

21:38

actor. And at that time, I felt like

21:40

that's a very vulnerable thing,

21:43

and that it's just an emotional

21:45

movie and the world's going to just shit

21:47

trash me and trash us, and

21:50

and that's the That was the fears. But

21:52

I was perhaps

21:54

scared of giving up what I had had not

21:57

very admirable reasons.

21:59

They were coming from wanting to be accepted,

22:01

from wanting money, you know,

22:03

you know, in other forms, or needing money or

22:05

whatever it is. And so you

22:07

know, I I failed

22:10

it because I was impure.

22:13

That's how I feel about it and should

22:16

have one hundred percent done it. This particular

22:19

actor was, you know, sad by

22:21

the decision. I would

22:23

say maybe another eight years

22:25

later it came up again, and

22:28

then this time I was the one that

22:30

said, hey, let's go make this, and the

22:32

same actor wanted

22:35

to do it, and then went off and did another

22:37

piece, a big kind of thing

22:39

that they were a part of.

22:40

And it was successful the thing they did.

22:43

But a little bit of it was we missed each

22:45

other, you know, we missed our moment, you

22:47

know, a little bit.

22:49

But the movie wasn't done with m Night Shyamalan

22:52

yet not at all. Back with more

22:55

after the break? How

23:13

does the way you relate to the movie? How has it changed

23:16

over the years you're now if thirty

23:18

years have gone by, Yeah, do

23:20

you look at it and think about it and see

23:22

it differently now than you did when you were twenty two?

23:25

Right now, I wouldn't change

23:27

anything about it, and we'd make it as a

23:29

period piece in nineteen ninety four.

23:31

The music the more is the time,

23:34

you know, which sadly

23:37

feels incredibly innocent. It almost

23:40

feels like, you know, let's take a stroll

23:42

around the garden, you know, think Oh, I'm so

23:44

tired from the stroll. Let's lie dout. It's like, you

23:46

know, when we will see a period piece, we're like, wow, that

23:49

really were you out to go walk around the garden?

23:52

Yeah, And that's how we feel

23:54

about like nineteen ninety four. Oh,

23:57

we were thought we were really being really bad

23:59

when we did this. You were just talking with your

24:01

boys in the basement. How

24:03

sweet, and you were just all

24:06

of you just talking about girls because

24:08

you love God.

24:08

You know how sweet?

24:10

You know, like it feels that way, and I when

24:12

I think about it, it's very nostalgic of

24:15

a time gone by now and a

24:17

way people might have

24:19

reacted.

24:20

Oh that because the way

24:24

as the hero goes on his journey,

24:27

as he's walking across the country, the country is

24:29

responding to him in a way they wouldn't

24:31

respond today. Is that your point that in a kind

24:33

of internet age it would be different.

24:35

Yeah, it's so hard now to unwind

24:38

it and think of a moment when you

24:40

didn't have access to every piece

24:42

of information in the history of man.

24:45

You don't know where your your.

24:46

Cousin is, and where your uncle is and where your sister

24:49

is right now. No, you don't write

24:51

you know, ninety four, we didn't know where anybody

24:53

was right, and you get

24:55

a letter or you would if something happened,

24:58

it would take a while for you to find out

25:00

all of those ideas of being present.

25:02

Primarily, it's gone. Our

25:05

understanding of what it is to be a human

25:07

being is on us

25:09

gone because we're never just here

25:12

anymore. And this phone

25:14

that's sitting near me as I'm doing this podcast

25:16

is pulling.

25:17

Me right now. I can feel

25:19

it. It's pulling me.

25:20

So I'm partly here with you, but

25:23

it's stolen my soul a little bit, you

25:25

know. And that was just a different

25:27

era, and that's

25:30

all part of them, that time

25:32

period. When I you know, when I try

25:34

to rewrite it, when I'm trying

25:36

to make it better, I'm scarring

25:39

it. It came out in one

25:41

thing like that, you know, as this kid

25:44

was just feeling something.

25:46

When was the last time you read it?

25:48

I probably read it.

25:50

It came out

25:53

a third time with this with

25:55

this particular actor.

25:57

A third time. It

25:59

was four years ago.

26:00

So I read it four years ago, four

26:03

years ago when we talked about.

26:05

It again, what

26:07

do the eyes you'll actually do it?

26:11

I'm just a strange creature.

26:12

Bro so if I say to you absolutely

26:15

never, as soon as a week click off here, I'll

26:17

probably go make it right.

26:19

I've thought about it a lot.

26:20

Do you do it more as a

26:23

as a ritual almost to honor

26:25

that part of you in all of us that came

26:28

from a pure place, regardless

26:31

of its success, regardless of

26:33

what would happen.

26:34

There is a kind of a.

26:35

Wise warning

26:38

about labor of love, that there's

26:40

something where you're blind

26:43

about the labor. Oh, I always wanted to make

26:45

that movie about blah blah blah whatever it

26:47

is, or I always wanted to write that thing.

26:49

It's a labor of love for me.

26:51

That automatically

26:53

means you're blind a little bit. Some

26:56

massive you know, blind spot exists

26:58

there. There is that wisdom

27:01

acumen to be careful of.

27:02

Your labor of loves.

27:04

That meant that you were you were kind of obsessed

27:06

in a way about something. I don't

27:08

know if that's the case here. I feel

27:11

even as we talk about it, like, you know, I

27:13

could go do this in another year

27:16

and do exactly the way I said it.

27:18

It's funny.

27:19

I had this conversation with someone

27:21

in my office about it. I said, I

27:25

don't know if the world even

27:27

wants to remember feeling this

27:29

way anymore.

27:31

It's painful to remember that

27:33

we used to feel this way, and it.

27:35

Was

27:36

was It was okay and wonderful and celebrated

27:39

and calm.

27:40

When you say feel this way, you mean

27:43

get swept up in what that man was

27:45

doing.

27:46

Well, yeah, this amount of the

27:48

expression of love, you know, whereas

27:51

today it's our relationship to our emotions

27:53

is so being

27:56

attacked. We're not supposed to have

27:59

our own feeling anymore.

28:00

We're being manipulated by algorithms

28:03

constantly and

28:05

distraction, and so the

28:09

AI world is already deciding

28:12

how we live and experience our

28:14

lives. And maybe that's the absolute reason to make

28:16

it.

28:16

I don't know.

28:17

As I'm talking to you, this is probably the

28:19

deepest conversation I've had about it, because

28:22

it is it is a kind of like are

28:25

we still Are you still torching yourself

28:27

about this movie?

28:28

Bro?

28:28

After thirty years?

28:30

This odyssey is that there's

28:33

been opportunities and there is one now

28:36

of a wonderful filmmaker that

28:38

wants to make it themselves the

28:41

same story.

28:44

And whether I'm okay with.

28:45

That, are you?

28:51

Bro? I don't know. I don't know that

28:53

feels like I

28:57

don't know, I don't know.

28:58

I'm almost shutting down when you're asking me that question,

29:04

and I haven't. Actually I've actually shut down

29:06

in that process too.

29:07

So you know this.

29:09

So someone just called you up and said

29:11

someone famous calls you up and says, night,

29:14

I've read I've read the secret screenplay.

29:17

Yes, how did this person get a hold

29:19

of it? They just heard through the great thing.

29:21

Yeah, And it's happened before. It's happened

29:23

before. Somebody wants to make

29:26

it. Every few years, somebody wants

29:28

to make it. And

29:32

I could just let it go, just

29:34

let it go and and and let someone

29:37

put their point of view on love.

29:40

So it's this screenplay that represents

29:43

the purest version of me that's

29:45

on a page, and it has been chasing

29:48

me like a ghost or haunting me.

29:50

It started my career and

29:54

I've got to do all these amazing things. I continue

29:56

to just have these incredible opportunities.

29:59

And really it's like a part

30:01

of me that I betrayed

30:03

at one point, and now I

30:05

can make it now. I mean today,

30:08

I can make it right now out and I think

30:10

probably with the same actor. And

30:13

even as you and I are sitting here

30:15

I have all these reasons that are holding

30:17

me back. So I

30:20

don't know what this screenplay is

30:22

to me and what this movie is to

30:24

me. Maybe it's the softest

30:26

part of me and so

30:30

scared to show you guys

30:32

that.

30:33

You said that your great fear at the time

30:35

when you wrote it was that

30:38

you would never have anything write

30:40

anything so pure again.

30:44

But listening to you, my fear

30:46

about it is that

30:50

had you made it, then

30:53

what followed may not have happened. In other

30:55

words, having as one of

30:57

your very first screenplay

31:00

is something so perfect, like

31:03

fueled all of this extraordinary productivity

31:07

that came afterwards, And

31:09

that had you made it and had it been a big success,

31:12

maybe you would have been kind of paralyzed by

31:14

that. Like the fact that it's it's

31:17

unrealized allows

31:19

you to keep going and right

31:22

if it's think about the what is the curse

31:24

of the one hit wonder? The curse of the one

31:26

hit wonder is someone who is unlucky enough

31:29

to have written their greatest

31:32

song. First, it's just

31:34

bad luck, and everyone looks

31:36

at the second and the third ones and says it's

31:38

over for you. Well, it's not over for you. It's just out of

31:40

order. Right, whereas the same

31:43

the same thing only put

31:45

the one hit Wonders breakthrough

31:48

hit ten years

31:50

into their career, and we think, oh, what a progression

31:53

right towards.

31:55

Yeah, I mean, you know, for me, I keep you know, maybe

31:57

you're right, the unfinished nature of that

32:00

is keep driving me. You know, the movie

32:02

I've just editing now and finishing.

32:05

When I think of it, I have a little

32:07

bit of magic feeling about it, and

32:09

I'm like, oh, this is reminding me of labor of

32:11

love. When it's feeling effortless

32:14

and right, You're going, well, where

32:16

did that come from?

32:17

How do you do that? And you're like, oh, yeah,

32:19

that's how it felt to twenty two.

32:21

But then here's the other fear I have

32:24

that what if you made it and it wasn't

32:27

magical, then you wouldn't

32:29

have You would also have destroyed this thing

32:31

that you've been able to look at throughout your entire

32:33

career.

32:34

Well, I can tell you if I at twenty two, I

32:36

wouldn't have made it a particularly great

32:38

movie that at that moment, I think we've

32:41

been you know, up and

32:43

down, flawed and this and that, And

32:45

then when we jumped forward to the first

32:47

time with that, the most incredible actor. I

32:50

wasn't in the right emotional

32:53

space to have made it

32:55

properly. Now that we're

32:57

really getting serious about it, Yeah, so that wouldn't

32:59

have worked out either, because I just was not

33:02

where I am right now.

33:05

One last question, what is your What

33:07

does your wife say this

33:09

president the creation?

33:11

That's a great question, I

33:13

would.

33:14

I think she's seen

33:16

me torture myself for thirty years about.

33:18

This in her mind.

33:20

You know, for a while she kept asking me why do you keep

33:22

killing off the wife?

33:23

You know, like in signs.

33:25

And

33:27

He's like, why do you keep killing off the wives?

33:29

And I'm like, no, no, no,

33:31

it's because I'm so scared to lose

33:33

you. You know, she knows I wrote it for her,

33:36

and so it's kind of already in our lives.

33:38

Is it already happened? It already existed,

33:41

and what was made and was so lovely?

33:43

You know. I have this check from back

33:45

when we used to get checks and from twenty

33:47

century Fox, and it was my first

33:49

check that I got, and I have it framed. It's in

33:52

my office, so

33:54

it's if you come to my office, which you will, and it's

33:56

there, and then if you go into the cafeteria.

33:59

There's a poster of a mock

34:01

up of a poster the twenty century

34:04

Fox made for Labor of Love, and

34:06

that's hanging on my wall, so on my walls

34:08

all the movies. I'm mad in a movie

34:10

that wasn't me.

34:11

It's your own ghost. You've you've

34:14

created your own ghost.

34:19

Night.

34:19

This has been so much fun. Thank you so much. I

34:21

really really really enjoyed this.

34:23

You're so lovely. Thank you for having me.

34:26

I was learning something about myself too

34:28

as we were talking. You're a good therapist, man. I was starting

34:31

to get there.

34:42

This episode was produced by Nina Bird, Lawrence,

34:44

and Tali Emen, with ben at Alphaffrey,

34:47

editing by Sarah Nix, original

34:49

scoring by Luis Gara, Engineering by Eco

34:52

Mountain. Our executive producer is

34:54

Jacob Smith. I'm Malcolm

34:56

Glamo.