Ron Howard: Rejected by George Lucas, 47+ years of marriage, The Andy Griffith Show | Full Interview

what was it about what Paul McCartney said to you that impacted how you viewed speaking about being a child star yeah it was really interesting because I'd interviewed Sir Paul a couple of times and he had seen eight days a week our documentary about the Beatles in their in their touring years and really felt good about it and he said you know I used to feel like I I couldn't afford to spend too much time talking about the Beatles Because it might cast a shadow over what I was trying to do you know with my with my work you know in the present moment and he said I've a couple of years ago I just put that aside and I just recognized that my work today stands for itself for what it's worth but here's this part of my life that was defining means a lot to me it means a lot to other people but it means even more to me and I haven't been really sharing that and um it's it it's it's been really liberating to to be more open and feel free to talk about it and I I just recognize the wisdom of those words and I um you know and I feel that way about about talking about it and I'm I'm glad I came to that conclusion before writing the boys I know Tom Hanks in a way provided the kind of early kind of nudged us people would ask me from the publishing world what you know did I did I ever think I would do an autobiography or at Martin and I always said no don't think so uh but I asked Tom one day and he said well if you ever do it focus on your childhood that's what everybody's most curious about when our dad passed away rants um Clint and I were spending time sort of clearing out the house and preparing for this memorial service that we were gonna you know stage on Dad's behalf and telling a lot of stories and having a lot of laughs and shedding a few tears and and and uh and and I said you know here's what Tom has always said um do a book about the childhood I don't want to do that by myself but I would I wouldn't mind doing it with you and you know what it would be a chance to share a lot of these stories and feelings uh and the uniqueness of our of our family you know Mom and Dad were um you know they were immigrants I mean they they their examples of um of that kind of American dream of no no inside track into show business but a tremendous passion and they were they were of a generation just right after the war they had that kind of confidence and enough resources to just by God take a shot at it whether their family wanted them to or not and uh you know and they did and they and they changed the course of of uh of the family I don't I wouldn't have been that kind of pioneer uh your mom it seemed like really dedicated her life to making her kids and her husband as big of a success as possible what was it that uh you did that makes you regret uh how you handled things with her well um in retrospect my mom probably had OCD some version of OCD um and and some anxiety disorders um she had some health issues she smoked even though dad was constantly trying to get her to quit smoking which ultimately did but not until she had emphysema um and that bothered you that she didn't quit it bothered me my dad was you know had incredible self-discipline and I felt like she wasn't taking care of her health and I I disrespected that it wasn't until later as I started to have kids myself and as I began to see her deal with even more serious illness and I could see what a warrior she was and I would have these kinds of conversations with my dad where I would begin to recognize how profoundly she had influenced the course of his life and therefore our lives in in her belief in in what a career in this business could be like and her excitement around that I I had misunderstood her I had underestimated her and uh and I think I told her but not enough um you know and then she and then she was gone in doing the audio version of the book where I I really kind of almost broke down a couple of times talking about her in in in reading the passages that that I'd read that I'd written about her I was going to say I can even now see it like touches you thinking about it well I have so few regrets in my life and you know to to feel that in some way you didn't communicate to your mother everything she meant it it does it uh hit me it hits me hard what does it make you think about um the the well gratitude more than anything because uh um you know I may not have expressed everything that I wish I would have but uh but I also know um that she knew how to be happy and she in and she really appreciated what they had achieved and she was very proud of the life that she and dad had made and she was and she was proud of me and proud of Clint um and and um you know in in our careers and in our lives so that gives that gives me a lot of you know that gives me a lot of Pride um the note that she gave you oh that was beautiful um that was amazing so um you know she's in the hospital for the last time she was trying to say something and so we got her a yellow pad and a pencil took her a long time to write this very weak but she was writing and finally I could see that she'd written rants my dad's name loves to Act and that's what she wrote that's what she wanted to tell me and I told it to Cheryl and she says she wants to make sure you take care of your dad that's what she's wanting that's what she cares about uh so cast your father whenever you can of course which I always happily did you wrote about your dad here he was in his first full year of living and working in California expecting to At Last fulfill A Dream Deferred by the Korean War and then some good fortune broke his way but it wasn't in the form of a bonanza of work for him but for his little kid of all people maybe that turned into his superpower in terms of being your acting coach I mean it was basic actor Studio stuff it was stanisloski but distilled and presented in a way that that I at four and five and six years old and Clint even earlier two three four we could understand it and participate in a in a in a process and line by line he would sing see here's the situation now Opie doesn't want to do his homework and of course his dad wants him to do his homework but he Opie's trying to explain why he doesn't have to do his homework or whatever the scene might be so when he says this line all Paw uh I don't think that's really very important you know that he's just trying to get his dad to to stop pressuring him you know so you just break it down in the most granular way to the point where sometimes there'd be a scene in The Andy Griffith Show where Opie was getting away with something I sort of remember asking him geez would that work for me and my my dad very quickly said no this is a scene in a TV show and in real life he would not get away with that uh so don't even try it I want to take you to if I could a moment where after the Andy Griffith shows wrapped you're 14. it's a wrap party and Andy gets on the mic and says he wants to say something all right take it from there we didn't really have big wrap parties at the end of each season but this was different we were the number one show in television and yet Andy wanted to move on and that's what was going to happen and I was okay with it you know I wasn't like all year tormented by this I had I was really interested in sports already beginning to think about directing loved going back to regular school even though there were always some challenges there but when it hit on that last day of shooting and then we went to the wrap party that this was this was it for The Andy Griffith Show um and Andy was up there on the microphone talking I just started sobbing I realized I was leaving something behind that was you know more than a job it was a way of life it was a big part of my life these people were like family and I was going to miss them terribly and I didn't suddenly didn't know what it was going to be like to not have that show in my future and those people in my future almost 20 years later uh we did a reunion movie of the week and uh I was asked to come back and be grown up Opie and I was directing by then I'd left Happy Days I was busy but Andy asked if I would do it I sure would said I would do it and my sense of who they were as kind of wonderful people and how lucky I was to to to know him and to be working with him um was completely unspoiled by my experience with them 20 years later it was just great that I could realize that those childhood memories were accurate so it's the eighth season of Happy Days you have already at this point had as much success as any child actor could possibly have yet you make the pretty extraordinary decision to leave the show right to pursue directing yeah why well um the entire time that I was that I was under contract and doing Happy Days my dream was to be a filmmaker and I felt like that the Clock Was ticking a little bit on me I was 26 27 and I'd been directing for a few years I was just I had you know I lost patience with not being able to devote I mean all my energies to making that transition and giving that it's its chance a lot of it just came from the fact that um I really wanted some guarantees from Paramount Pictures and nabc that they would that they would allow me to direct not happy days we had a great director Jerry Paris I wanted to direct a feature and I wanted them to facilitate that and they simply would not make any kind of guarantee but do you think that the fact that Paramount wouldn't make that guarantee to you looking back's the best thing that could have ever happened I was already in motion if if they had if they had made those commitments I would have done the show and made the movies I might not have fallen in in step with Brian um and uh and I think uh you know I think that partnership has really you know been a huge defining factor in my my um in my career as a director why is directing less exhausting to you than acting um I thought I was naturalistic I thought I had good comedy timing I thought I was a good soldier but I didn't feel particularly creative acting as soon as I began directing I felt like I'm I'm this is what I'm really suited for I'm a more creative person when I'm working behind the camera than I ever ever was in front of it I know you call yourself an actors director Brian though says too there is a point at which you will shut an actor down regardless of their their stature if you were adamant in your Creative Vision you know I'm The Keeper of the story so if if if an act if an actor isn't realizing a pivotal moment a key moment that's a building block toward realizing the potential of the story then I that's where I have to intervene and now you'll do what it's easier now that I with my resume and and credentials and so forth by but um just dig in and say you know we need this moment but the other thing is is that if you demonstrate over and over a leadership style which is which which covets input which is excited by other people's ideas and people recognize that you're thrilled to say yes to an idea that that works early on I was so terrified that I I was the youngest person on the set with with all the responsibility and and I I kind of had to I couldn't forward to ever show any weakness I thought that that meant I had to have all the answers and when I began to to recognize that that I could create back and forth a creative interaction that could up my game and and bring out more of you know the actors or great cinematographers production designers editors composers then you know my work got a lot better so uh Bryce says she's never articulated this before but she thinks it is not coincidental that your two marriages in life are both to people who are almost Larger than Life type personalities yeah that's interesting yeah I'm curious your thoughts on that with the other one being Brian Grazer well when I sort of found him and we began working together and found we had that kind of professional chemistry and we were friends and we could really get things done together he was very very clearly a solution to a problem in my mind which was that despite the fact that I was getting gaining experience as a director that I was you know on a top television show I had a name in the industry going back to the 1960 with the Andy Griffith Show all the movies and American Graffiti and Music Man and other things it was turning that corner and and actually getting feature films made Brian just had a Clarity of purpose and he's also very creative so it wasn't just a business guy he understood the whole process at a very young age he knew how to get things done and somehow The Leverage that I had to offer combined with his energy and focus and experience and we could we could accomplish things we got night shift made and we were each getting a lot done separately but we you know when we began to have conversations about you know should we just should we just align and and build a company I think we both just felt that dark our creative chemistry could just broaden our reach and the capacity of what we could do and and what we could and what we could earn and and the opportunities that we could offer other people too and that continues to be sort of what supercharges imagine uh Brian's obviously an emotional guy but the singular point he got emotional and our conversation the other day uh was talking about you not getting nominated for best director for Apollo 13. oh really yeah and it was surprising to me that even all these years later it was still very like visibly painful for him wow your thoughts on that well you know it's um we root for each other you know and we don't compete with each other I mean sure somebody has an idea and gets their project done that's fun it's exciting but we're all I both of us are really really mutually invested in the company and therefore each other was there ever a moment where you thought we need to part ways you know what we've never assumed we were going to go on forever but we both love the company and have kind of heart and soul committed to it and it continues to to service us what's really changed is the company is now evolving and growing in a way that uh and we recognize the excitement of creating opportunities for other people for our Executives to grow for creatives to come in and and really make imagine you know a place where they not to just do a project but you know to sort of set up shop and we're doing more and more of that in in our sort of saying you know neither of us are tired of doing what we're doing creatively um but as a business let's let's get bigger let's let's create more opportunities for other people and it suits both of us I had my eye on Cheryl we hadn't dated yet I haven't gone out on a date but I I really wanted to try to find her and so I thought okay well if she walks home only a few routes that she can walk home and I started zooming around and so these are the streets that I would sort of haunt trying to find her uh and finally I just got up the nerve and called her but uh even awkward teenage 16 year old stuff can sometimes lead to you know four kids and six grandkids and 47 years of happy marriage I was going to say it worked out it worked out how resistant were your parents initially to Cheryl when she started coming in the picture well outside of very early on at 16 you know just they were concerned that I was just falling deeply in love and focusing a lot of energy which I really was and so they were putting a lot of restrictions they were fairly strict anyway um and you guys got into it a little bit yeah we did we did and uh uh it was I found it really frustrating and and uh they they'd only wanted me to have like I think it was one date a week or two dates a week and I kept negotiating and pressing because I thought that was really unfair and I just wanted to hang out you know over there with Cheryl as much as I could and uh so then I started going to church with Cheryl and they said Well church okay you know that's if you want to go to church we're not going to stop you from going to church then I then I said I was joining I was going to try out for the cross-country team I had no real intention of doing that but I knew that would buy me some training time so I would I would jog this sort of mile and a quarter or whatever it was over to Cheryl's house um and uh hang out with Cheryl for a while then she would drive me back and then I would sort of Sprint four or five blocks so that I would just come in completely exhausted and and sweating like I'd had a hell of a run hell of a run and you were you were pretty early with throwing around the I love views and marriage I was I felt such confidence about our love and our relationship and just and just um Cheryl is a you know it's just as a as a as a person and what it brought out in me but way more so than she did early on I think so she was you know pretty directed and focused on what she kind of wanted to do in her life and she wasn't really thinking about romance much but um nor was I particularly but I think I am a romantic and I I I and I but if that's the case you have what might be one of the worst proposal stories in the history oh yeah well I had asked Cheryl to to get married a couple of times seriously and she'd know she wanted to get further along closer to her degree and I was thinking about it and now 20 21 but we've been together since we were 16. and uh asked Anson Williams who played potsie on Happy Days you think I ought to get married he said Howard you've been married the whole time anyway it's not like you're taking advantage of the of the of being on a number one television show out there playing the field uh you know what are you waiting for and uh we were literally on the on-ramp getting onto the Ventura freeway uh and uh um and as we were turning around I said well do you want to get married seriously do you what do you think and she said yes no ring no no no prep when I fell in love and found Cheryl I had a sense of of uh um focus confidence excitement about something that had nothing to do with Show Business it was this relationship and what it could mean what do you think's allowed it to last almost 50 years you got to be conscientious and I think communication is the key I think the one thing we've learned is how to problem solve you know uh marriage counseling has helped us from time to time she said the counselor said uh that in the counselor's 30 years of doing this that you two were the most sensitive couple to tension yeah and conflict or witness yeah neither of us want to be in a fight not you know we don't get any charge out of that it doesn't do anything for us it's not romantic it's not fun it's not it's not cleansing the advice Cheryl gave price was to put the marriage before kids uh that means what that was something that I think I brought to our relationship that I I learned from from my dad and mom which was even as though even though Clinton I had really active careers that we were living their life and they're they they they had each other and they had their dream and this marriage and we were the children that came um um out of that there's some security uh in in sort of knowing where you fit in to to this unit and it's great to have that kind of uh leadership on the kids front um why was your biggest fear going into that wondering if you could measure up to your dead oh well my you know I think my father was a kind of a genius level parent you know Dad really had a knack for it but he also had time to commit and uh and I have always had a burning ambition a career that meant a lot to me that's incredibly demanding Cheryl's always been supportive of that and I knew that was going to be this very different Factor so as a parent you know I I really wanted to feel that I could I could live up to uh you know the the the kind of parenting that I that I received my career does demand a certain modicum of of selfishness I mean you have to be ready to move your family around you have to be ready to say you know let's work we have to work with this this is my life as the Howards built their young family they were faced with the unique challenges and pressure of Ron's Celebrity Status including a frightening period that would Inspire one of his most powerful films when I read that script Brian had had found it brought it to me uh I had been looking for a project about kidnapping because we'd been through this horrible experience where our home had been targeted and it was unclear as as to what the objectives the criminal objectives were but it was not it was not good but the police had gotten wind of it and we had stakeouts at our home and it was very traumatic but thank God no crimes were committed and but I just the pressure of anticipating that possibility um I found fascinating and in in my own again ongoing quest to understand all sides of every issue that people experience and go through I kept wondering what was going through those kidnappers heads what were they thinking why and of course I had no answers but but the question was there well this script Ransom um sort of answered some of those questions or at least positive a possibility so I projected all that emotion and anxiety and kind of empathy that I had for that crisis that situation and and poured it into that story and it's the only time I've really wanted to do a crime story because you know I don't want to celebrate crime and I don't necessarily find it cool or intriguing but this was emotional and raw and personal for me you you had to move homes we'd moved um yeah we didn't feel safe staying in that in that place anymore it was there a moment during that process where you could breathe a sigh of relief where you just knew this is over we're good the reality is once you've felt that vulnerability I think you're Forever on your guard you go on and you and you figure out ways to to live with it but you can't forget about it why was it so important to Cheryl to move the family out of LA we could just see that um that la could be pretty constricting emotionally um reductive you know we were hearing stories about kindergarten kids being taunted by other kindergarten kids saying my dad's hotter than your dad it wasn't about me but I mean just that kind of thing we just Cheryl did not want the kids subjected to that on a regular basis and um and I she really began to feel passionate about that particularly as as I also started building a company but it was a big leap and it meant a lot of travel time for me the year we launched imagine was the year I actually moved out of La Brian Brian was always trying to get me to move back was he oh he would he'd say uh oh we had a horrible earthquake and he said you know property prices are really going to crash have now that we've had this earthquake this might be the time for you to buy Ron and what do you think come on back but by the way you're on the you're on kind of your version of a farm yeah Cheryl was was you know very focused on trying to somehow imbue the kids with an understanding of of real value Cheryl was raised without a lot of means my parents you know came from a farm in a small town were very frugal and uh so you know we weren't living a big lavish lifestyle ourselves but we did have a great home and some people working for us but that didn't mean that the kids didn't have to make their own bed and so that raising them that way you think worked out how I'm really proud of my of them and and sort of who they are um the way they live they're very principled they're creative they're engaged they're they're um they're good problem solvers so I'm really proud of them I wanted to mention something uh that Cheryl told me she said sometimes I don't feel he understands his power or worth in a given moment what do you think uh Brian says a similar thing to me sometimes um you know I mean I have a lot of pride in what I've accomplished and and it means a lot to me and um and people's respect means a lot a lot to me I feel I've that I've earned it um but there's something about this business that I I cannot take that status thing all that seriously I don't know if it's because I grew up in a household of work a day actors who didn't have that kind of status or or whether it's I just recognize that it's a way of life there's a lot of Showmanship there's a lot of hype I sort of refused to invest too much in status or rankings or whatnot I I think that notion of what have you done for me lately is um is Central to to this business because the Dynamics of making anything good of creatively realizing the potential of a project it it demands excellence in the moment and experience factors into that you know pedigree and brand value can help in the marketing but it doesn't help in the creation of a moment that is going to be memorable I want to rely on my on my experience and trust it and trust my own instincts because at the end of the day a filmmaker has to do that but I I never want that to shift over into a laziness a kind of intellectual laziness and that concerns you that concerns me that that you can have so you can have so much experience behind you that you begin to say well in this situation here's what we do and then the scene's over and we got it and you know I have that kind of I can be glib about that kind of creative problem solving but I don't want to fall into that trap and I also love engaging collaborators so sometimes it's not really insecurity sometimes it's I know what I have to offer what do you have what do you got who you you know please speak up yeah and let's elevate my game Let's Elevate our game because I always have I always have my instinct to fall back on I'm thrilled thrilled so excited when a better idea comes along and I and I think people uh enjoy working with me for that reason you said the trait you most deplore in yourself is the emotional Reliance for other people's approval yeah how does that come out in you I spend a little too much time actually sort of giving about what people think and in what ways look what the critics have to say about a movie or a TV show you know it affects the future and the viability of that on a kind of commercial level but to get lost in that it's just uh it just dissipates your energy I do kind of kick myself when I allow those insecurities that in a way fuel my drive continue to fuel my ambitions you know if it begins to cloud my thinking too much then it's it's in the way and it's not it's not fuel anymore it's creating a barrier so I know you love rehearsing um somebody else that loved it quite a lot was John Wayne well yeah the very first time that I met him I arrived in Carson City Nevada I was met by the director Don Siegel um in in the hotel and Siegel says let's take you up and meet Duke and uh you know this is this was his last movie The Shootist um but but you know he was it was epic in every in every way so we're heading toward the elevator through the hotel lobby we walked by this sort of the gift in Sundries shop and there uh is the magazine stand and right there is is a TV guide and that week Henry Winkler and I happened to be posing in our Happy Days costumes on the cover and he said oh this is great I'm gonna buy this and and and show Duke and I was like well I I don't know are you sure you want to show the Happy Days thing I you know I I don't know he said oh no he'll love it he'll love it so he bought it we got in the elevator we went up opened the door meet John Wayne he's giant he doesn't have his hair piece on those he's a giant bald man and it reaches out his hand good to meet you and it just dwarfs my hand I mean just uh uh I don't know how tall he was six six seven but his hands were like a seven footer I mean he was just huge and just like I've shook hands with Shaq O'Neal it's kind of like that yeah and so then Don Siegel says hey look Duke uh look at this and he hands them the hands him the TV Guide John Wayne sort of Squints at it looks at me looks back down at it looks at me he says Ah big shot huh and I thought oh man I'm screwed now but had a fine meeting and as we started shooting you know I realized we had a lot of dialogue together but I just could see that he was fighting the lines and and I was a little nervous about it too and I said you want to run lines and he said yeah we went to his trailer and started running the lines and he loved it so that became my ritual and people were otherwise kind of on edge or terrified of him people were really careful around him and you know it's not that he was throwing fits and kicking over c-stands and you know throwing boxes around or anything but you know they gave him space he was the Duke right and I just realized that other people weren't engaging with them but he was an actor and you know and wanted to make sure he had the scene under control and we developed a a great Rapport you know six months after filming crept he was interested in working with you again yeah we we crossed paths at uh AFI dinner honoring Henry Fonda I had done a TV show with Henry Fonda so I was invited and I saw him and he said I found a book I want to make it into a movie and it's you and me or it's nobody and by this time we also kind of knew he was ill and declining and so it was really poignant to first to see that he still had that drive um but also to know that he you know he wanted to work together again which made meant a lot to me you know I worked with John Wayne I worked with Glenn Ford Shirley Jones um Henry Fonda briefly with Jimmy Stewart I directed Betty Davis um uh there was something that I was learning early in my career from all of these people very different personalities and so I was working with people who were you know fully established Superstars had won all the Oscars they were going to win and yet still wanting to work and when they showed up it was it was winning time it was time to be good it was time to try to be great how much did John Wayne's wish that he had directed more stick with you well it certainly impressed me um and you know and he was such a big star and and also at a time when actors just didn't really do that but um you know this really fueled my dream and my ambition how did you charm Betty Davis she was hard to charm that was an important step for me Anson Williams came up with that idea for that project it was called Skyward it was about a paraplegic girl who dreamed of flying and uh Betty Davis was going to play this sort of crusty aerobatic pilot who would eventually be her instructor and and give her this opportunity to soar disagreements with her about the character and and I was having to you know over the phone sort of tell her here's who I was going to cast and here's here's how I thought the character should look and there were it was back and forth it was kind of tense and she kept calling me Mr Howard and I I said well Miss Davis uh you know just feel free to call me Ron please and she said no I will call you Mr Howard until I decide whether I like you or not and hung up the phone so now I've never worked with a superstar at this point I've worked with friends and family and people my age and peers and people who just felt lucky to have the job you know on the movies that I'd done up to that point and I was tossing and turning and it was my dad who said you know just don't be afraid to direct her because she's she's a major Talent she's a multiple Oscar winner she knows she needs Direction every good actor knows they need leadership so you know don't get in their way but respect her process but do your job and so on that very first day we were shooting in Texas Plano Texas in August it was like hitting 100 degrees by you know 8 A.M in the morning we were shooting out on this Airfield and uh I knew that William Weiler was her favorite director great director but he always directed in a suit and a tie so I showed up in a suit and a top and I went up to give her her first Direction and she really overreacted in this big Betty Davis way she said oh you startled me I saw this child walking up to me and I wondered you know what what of any consequence could this child possibly have to say to me does the big Betty Davis laugh all of this is loud enough for the crew to hear and so I did I laughed too and gave her the direction anyway and walked off and was popping Tums and just thought oh man this is going to be a long long one it's gonna be a long road now it's about 4 30 or 5 and I said well Miss Davis you're you're finished for today we have another scene to do but uh great first day uh see you tomorrow she said okay Ron see you tomorrow and then she patted me on the ass uh and I thought well I okay we're on the Betty Davis ride uh but I'd won her over didn't mean that there weren't arguments and tense moments ahead but when it was all over she said keep it up you could be another Wilder I haven't turned out to be as great as Weiler uh he's in the ultra Elite uh but it certainly gave me a lot of confidence what about Jim Carrey and the contact lenses on the Grinch I felt like I was it was the Spanish Inquisition and I was The Inquisitor I could tell that the costume and you know especially the contact lenses were just tormenting Jim he was having panic attacks uh to the point where you know literally he'd be breathing into the paper bag in between setups just trying to hang on because he just he felt claustrophobic in the costume but we'd already filmed it he wanted to wear that costume he wanted to create that character I tried to do things just to cheer him up you know like like one day I put on the Grinch suit so that I could suffer along with him and and I could let him know just yeah I could see now how miserable it really was was it that bad uh yeah it was terrible it was itchy it was on you know and I didn't even have to have the contact lenses which made it worse so he appreciated that I was at least willing to suffer with him one day I surprised him he loved Don Knotts Don Knotts played Barney on The Andy Griffith Show and I hadn't seen Don in a long time but I called Don and I said would you come over and hang out on the set one day Jim Carrey idolizes you and he's going through hell on this project and so I snuck Don in and I threw the speaker I said uh hey Jim look over here look at look at me um there's somebody down here who wants to see you and he looked and he squinted through those contact lenses and he could see it was Don Knotts and I wish I'd had the camera rolling because he immediately went into his Don Knott's impression Jim's a genius impressionist and he did a perfect Don Knotts in the Grinch costume the whole crew was just laughing he came down spent an hour hanging out with with uh with Dawn and it really elevated him but I also I you know I also understood the kind of Agony he was going through and you know whatever he had to do he'd have to do Robert De Niro you said he's not a guy who invented he was reflective uh how did that impact your future process well I directed Robert De Niro in Backdraft I wanted to sort of recreate that the whole cowboy mentality and the environment around the Chicago Fire Department which was unique in that in that at that time at that time in a lot of ways very old school Robert De Niro came in to do a role it was only four weeks of shooting he could have phoned this in but instead he really doubled down on his own research as this sort of forensic fire investigator and once we started rolling I realized that he had met three different fire investigators and now he had he had the body language of one of them the speech Cadence and of another and and the sort of the cocky attitude of a third and I realized that these Vivid characters that he had created um so memorably we're not coming from his imagination they were coming from what he could observe and learn and then sort of meld and you know and share through you know his instrument him as an actor it kind of blew my mind and it taught me in a way how to how to research the next film was Apollo 13 which was all about accuracy and authenticity and slowly but surely I just began to find real joy and creativity Ingenuity through the research through the fact finding and then finding ways to use everything that I learned about drama and comedy for that matter to sort of present these ideas to audiences in ways that could be really you know compelling and entertaining but rich with detail you mentioned on the walk this morning your Mentor George Lucas yeah tell about auditioning for him six times and then the one-on-one meeting everybody my age was going in for auditions on on this it was you know I had a crazy title American Graffiti but at this point I hadn't read a script and it was described as a musical I went in for my first meeting and I Met George I did say I hear this is a musical and I I know I haven't read a script yet or anything but I want to let you know I know I did the music man but they must have thought it was cute that I couldn't sing because I'm really not a very good singer and he said nobody sings nobody has to sing it's it's a musical but nobody sings when I finally read the script I still didn't understand why he was calling it a musical and later I realized he had written every scene with a specific 50s rock and roll song in mind and the the sort of the soundtrack of the movie was what made it a musical to him but again that's George with his lateral thinking I mean he's just an outlier finally I was teamed with Cindy Williams who sadly just passed away and we want won the role but it was our sixth audition over a period of about six months and uh I asked George about it later and he said yeah it took me that long to find the cars too uh so again he was looking at this thing holistically he was creating a world we were a part of it but he didn't want to direct us too much he wanted us to be very naturalistic and I told him then that I'd been accepted to USC film school and that I wanted to be a filmmaker and he said oh great he said make sure you study animation because it's that's pure filmmaking animation is pure filmmaking and he said you know you don't have to worry about the actors and things like that I thought well this is kind of a crazy thing to say to one of your actors in your one meeting before you're going to go off and shoot the movie but you know George wasn't censoring himself he was trying to be helpful and you said that George never quite figured out how to talk to actors how so George is very result oriented and he has something in his head and he counted on the actors to get it there but he didn't think of himself as a performance Whisperer and yet you look at the performances in American Graffiti and they're very very Cutting Edge I mean they were they were he's so honest and that Honesty was just what that movie needed just as the sort of the um faster more intense direction that he gave everybody over and over again in Star Wars that was his main Direction faster and more intense but that was right for Star Wars so he I think more than anything great eye for casting you missed that one right uh Star Wars I couldn't even get a damn audition for Star Wars but you didn't think anything of it when he first brought it up to you right I was saying to George well do you know what you want to do next and he said maybe I kind of I'm just starting to kind of write the story for it and I said well what would it be and he said what would be science fiction you know but it would use all the special effects and the technical breakthroughs that you could see in 2001 Space Odyssey so I'd want to do what Kubrick did but but I wanted to be fast and I wanted to be you know full of action um kind of like Flash Gordon and uh and that's about all he said and sounded really terrible to me I'm really lame that man a vision clearly knew that I didn't fit into his vision because I couldn't even not only did I not to get get to read the script I couldn't even get in for an audition

Channel: Graham Bensinger

Views: 475,919

Keywords: Graham Bensinger, In Depth with Graham Bensinger, Sports Interview, Feature Interview, Sports Journalism, ron howard, happy days, andy griffith show, hollywood, director

Id: M5AY1ArWDoo

Length: 49min 56sec (2996 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2023