Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This podcast is a collaboration between Costard and Touchstone Productions, and the Dads from the Crypt podcast want you to rest well.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: And a month from now, this Hollywood big shot's gonna give you what you want. Too late. They start shooting in a week.
I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the how not to Make a Movie podcast. Alan. I'm Alan Katz. Making a return visit to the podcast is my very good friend and former agent, Nick Mechanic. If you enjoyed Nick's first visit, you'll love his second. And if you haven't met Nick yet, prepare to be blown away by the inside look. You're about to get into the film and TV business. We're talking at the deal making level, where the rubber of creativity hits the road of commerce. As Nick's great stories reveal, it's a world brimming with both princes and thieves. I first met Nick during the down years after Tales from the Crypt, Demon Knight and Bordello of Blood. I'd been struggling for a while after Joel, for reasons never explained, cut me loose. It sucked being separated from the Crypt community. They were my creative family. They went on to do an unfortunate TV series called Perversion of Science for hbo, but they also did various other TV and movie project projects. One of my remaining Crypt friends back then, Scott Nimmer Fro, took pity on me and introduced me to Nick. Back then. Mechanic, that's what everyone calls him, was the young hotshot agent at a small boutique agency called the Agency. It was owned and run by a Hollywood legend named Jerry Zeitman.
Back in the day, Jerry was one of the most powerful agents in Hollywood. He repped people like George Burns and Gracie Allen, Shirley MacLaine, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Tony Curtis, Rod Serling, Ron Howard, and Frank Sinatra, big names in the late 1970s, Jerry stepped away from being an agent and became a producer instead. He made damnation alley in 1977. Just you and me, kid, 1979, and how to Beat the High Cost of living in 1980 before returning to agenting and starting the agency. Nick and I got on instantly. I had a decent credit to my name, Crypt, and I was wide open to doing anything because I needed a job. Nick was young and tenacious, fierce, aching to prove himself every day, in every way. He was relentless in pursuit of whatever he wanted. And Nick wanted to score a TV job for me. It was amazing.
He was an amazing asset to have. When Mechanic was on his game, there was nobody better. Now, as Nick and I discussed in the episode, there are two kinds of talent representation in Hollywood, agents and managers. Agents are more about making deals, while managers are more about building and sustaining careers. They're more holistic in their approach to talent. But Nick combined the two into one. He was a ferocious dealmaker agent who called you every day just to check in. Like a Jewish mother manager. Nick's stories of deals and deal making, they're amazing. He'll put you right in the room with them. And those are some amazing rooms filled with princes and thieves. Here's Nick. So, Nick, the year entered the entertainment year in review, per you. That. That's just the. That's just to get us started.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: Turmoil. I mean, you know, turmoil. And now that you have Universal, NBC being spun off. Right. Their cable division there will be. Like you and I discussed, there will be no more msnbc, cnbc.
Cable news as we know it will cease to exist.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Let's go back and talk about that, because you and I had the conversation. We didn't have it with the audience.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: No.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: So what. What you're referencing is the fact that that Comcast is going to spin off all of its cable.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: That's right.
Pieces, yeah.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: Why?
[00:04:40] Speaker B: Because there's no room for cable anymore. There's no audience for it. It's all streamers.
Everything is streamers. You can, you can now watch the fights on streamers. You can watch football, NFL on streamers. You can watch anything. You never have to leave streamers.
And on streamers, you get to watch a football game and have Beyonce as the halftime star. You can't watch that on, on cable or network. They can't afford that.
These companies have deep pockets, Alan. Like, seriously, it's called you money.
And there's kind of money.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: There is, apparently.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: And they're using it like that.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: In, in the case of Netflix, what it did on, on Christmas Day with its NFL package, huge. It. It really is. It's like it's going after NBC and Fox, cbs.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: You got it.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: And if it takes those, if it takes the. If it can somehow pry the NFL away from the networks, what do they have left?
[00:05:53] Speaker B: A third of their viewership on Netflix sat down and watched the football games. A third.
Do you know how big that is?
[00:06:05] Speaker A: A third of Netflix's worldwide viewership.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Do you know what that number is?
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Large.
I don't know the exact figures, but it was.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: It was limited, but trust us on this, it was big, man. It was big.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: So the cable companies, the networks, they're not going to be able to afford to Have Howie Long and you know, all these cats, you know that they're spending 20, 30 million a year on, you know, the former John Maddens of the world, that's going to cease to exist and then you're going to have NBA do the same. Without a doubt.
They go where the money is.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Well, capitalism, of course. Of course. Well, the athletes are expensive, so the deals have to be expensive to pay for them. Athletes.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Right now it is. You don't think the Lakers will go after a Netflix deal versus doing it on Fox Sports West?
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Oh, gosh.
What, what is Fox Sports so teeny weeny? Even the deal that they have now with.
With. Who's their deal with? With. With Comcast, right? Aren't they exclusive in LA through Comcast?
[00:07:18] Speaker B: It won't be very long and you know, you damn well know Hulu and Amazon are going to get into it.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Oh, oh, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, because that's, hey, if you can get a couple of big sports packages, you know, you got some cash flow, right?
[00:07:34] Speaker B: And they've got the same technology as Netflix. And you know, Netflix had a lot to prove with the debacle of the Tyson Paul fight. They had a lot to prove because the quality situation of the fight was horrendous.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: Well, okay, let's, let's, let's. All right, let's go at that for a second because that, that fight was, that fight was fascinating.
Did you watch the fight?
[00:08:03] Speaker B: I did.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: Okay, all right. The.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: As bad, as disgusted as it was.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: But they made, they got a lot of people to come in and, and, and suddenly be part of Netflix, didn't they?
[00:08:19] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: All right, so never mind the quality of the fight. That's, that's an, that's an almost an.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: Esoteric, I'm buying Netflix stuff going to earnings because they increase their viewership and that's how Netflix works.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: It was, you know, my, my son and a couple of friends watched all of the undercard and there were apparently. And I didn't see it. I didn't watch any of that. I was working. But yeah, we were there for the main event and they, but they said that the undercard, there were a couple of great fights. There were two women I said were amazing, just so brave, so amazingly brave. And then to see that Tyson fight, which was like a payday, just a bunch of guys going for a payday. You after the shakeout from the streaming wars, which was also quite devastating. And that right now the, the film and TV business is, and certainly in LA is in this. It's deep in the. Is it not?
[00:09:22] Speaker B: And then when you look at the. I was kind of before you, when you asked me to come on the show, and I was thinking about the movies that came out during Christmas.
They're all remakes or sequels. Gladiator, Lion King.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: Wicked.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: The. The horror movie I can't pronounce that came up from Universal is a remake.
There's no. There wasn't. There's a couple of. The Nicole Kidman movie, an independent movie, but they're all remakes. There's not. There was no original movies put out during Christmas. I get it. But what gives? Where's the creative juice? Where's the talent in the executive world?
[00:10:15] Speaker A: Well, there has always been, for the most part, not entirely, but for the most part, an absolute lack of courage in. In those suites. But on the one hand, it's understandable because, hey, failure, you, you, you. You pay with your. With your career.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: I sold a script once. I went out with it to like 30 companies. I went out really wide. Everybody passed.
I get a call Friday morning on a Friday morning that Steven Spielberg loves the script and wants to buy it. And then all of a sudden, every company that decided that they didn't want to do it all of a sudden wanted to do it. Obvious Steven Spielberg thought that there's a great idea here.
And I was just like, oh, this is wild.
But I wanted to keep my relationship with. With DreamWorks with. It was ambling. It was DreamWorks at the time. And so I'm not gonna have Steven Spielberg mad at me.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: Yeah, Steve, you have competition, dude. You maybe better add a couple more zeros and move that decimal point over.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: I like my job would have come down on me, you know?
[00:11:30] Speaker A: No doubt.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So the, The. I mean, the films that came out, they were great and they've done huge business, but there's nothing to see.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Sorely, sorely lacking.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And yet the TV world is great. The streaming TV world is great.
And there are series that I can watch over and over and over again.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: The. Let's. Let's make a distinction. The creative environment in TV is great. The production environment in TV is a tumor. Is it tumor? Is that a dying patient?
[00:12:16] Speaker B: The executive in Netflix have the power, when they hear an idea that they really like to commission a script, they don't need to go to their bosses, they don't need to go to a committee. They don't need to go to anybody. If they really like it, they go with it and they hire the writer to write a script.
End of story.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: The question is the culture at Netflix penetrating the culture as an agent?
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Is that's the thing that I, I, I keep hearing, you know, a lot of companies, you form a relationship and yeah, you know, that becomes the, you know, there's some yin and yang to, to the relationship dynamic. I've never heard anyone say they had that yin and yang dynamic with Netflix.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: No, no. But they do let you buy. They do buy, which is nice. We don't want to put some money in our pocket.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Indeed. Although the deals now ain't the deals that, that we are used to in the past.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Not even close. The people on those shows are not making the money you made on On Outer Limits.
They're not. And they're only doing six to eight. You got blessed with doing 22 to 25.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: 22 is on, on Outer Limits. So, you know, you knew whatever your, your per episode was times 22, right? Hooray.
And you wrote a fantastic business. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Scripts on top of that. It was, yeah. Those were lucrative, lucrative years.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: I remember.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: Times were good, man.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: I had the pleasure of going to Vancouver. Yes.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: We had some good time. You had some good times in Vancouver.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: I really did.
I did. I'm surprised I'm not banned from, from Canada. Like I'm banned from Mexico.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: I'll, I'll, I'll drop a funny story in here. The assistant. My first season on, On Outer Limits, we had an assistant. I don't remember her name, but you might.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Leah.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: We had, this is the name Leah. And she was very, very pretty. She was very.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: I went out with her.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: Yes. I was going to get to the you for a three day and when I first got up there, she was smoking. I would have multiple conversations with you every day, which is the nature of our relationship then. And after a couple days, Leah approached me and she said, well, you have a really intense relationship with your mechanic, don't you?
[00:14:55] Speaker B: Yeah. When I call people to this day and there's all these new people, new executives and like, you're his mechanic. I'm like, no, Nick mechanic. I don't things. I'm an old manager, producer, friend of so and so. Oh, I thought you was a mechanic. I'm like, everyone does.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: You will get, you get to make that mistake once, pal.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Once.
Yes.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: When, when you and I first started in, in this business together, you were working for a guy named Jerry Zeitman.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: God rest his soul. Yeah.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: In your mind, was Zeitman a good agent, a great agent or bullshit, great negotiator?
[00:15:42] Speaker B: That's what he was great at. The guy could negotiate deals while actually doing crossword puzzles without a problem and be hardcore. But he taught me how to negotiate where he taught me to be fair and not to ask for things that you're not going to get. And don't act like a whore or a pig unless you. Unless you have all the backup to get what you really want.
If your client hasn't had a movie made or hasn't sold anything for a while, he's not going to get a 25 bump on his fee. He's just not. Don't ask for it, you're not going to get it and you're gonna look stupid. He taught me how to be fair. But when, when got.
He renegotiated Chuck Norris's deal on that big series that Chuck did and renegotiated the entire thing for Chuck Norris and for Chuck Co. That produced it. He made a shitload of money. He renegotiated some actors deals on Law and Order, on Fresh Prince of Bel Air. He got them significant money. He was not a great agent. He lived in the past, but he knew everybody knew him. People respected him. They gave him the time of day he can get now the. On the phone.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: The past that Jerry lived in was. Was quite a past. It was, was not. It was a significant piece of, of Hollywood.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: He represented George Burns and, and Danny K and, and you and those guys, you know, I mean, the cream of the crop.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: He was at MCA when it started.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: Working for Lou Wasserman.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: Right. Which was. I mean, Lou Wasserman was. Was like a king maker.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: He owned the network and he owned the studio. So you're negotiating with yourself. And as people would always laugh at Jerry and go, you were the buyer and the seller, dude.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: You were both.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: It wasn't one or the other for you.
And he just laughed. But he would have to negotiate against Lou Wasserman, who was probably the toughest guy ever in the business.
Tougher than Ovitz, tougher than Ari Emanuel.
Jerry told me a story. They went to work on a Saturday and instead of wearing. They wore blue, gray or black suits that were their dress code. And Jerry was in a shirt and tie and Jerry was wearing a sweater. And Lou looked at him and goes, what are you on vacation?
This is a Saturday. And he's wearing slacks, a sweater and a sport coat.
It was very.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: It didn't, it didn't work in the room.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: It was, it was a great story. He had great stories to tell.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: Yeah, he did. He was A fascinating, fascinating man with again, because he, he, he worked with, he knew. He just was in so many interesting rooms with so many interesting people.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: Right. I mean at the height of his career he probably negotiated and had more TV series on the air than anybody. He was, that happened. Unfortunately. He made a shitload of money.
Unlike his friends, George Burns and all those other guys. I'm drawing a blank on their names.
Like they bought real estate. They bought Beverly Hills Real estate. They bought Universal City Real Estate.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Instead Jerry put his money in T bills.
So the other guys were worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. There was a guy who owned the land that sat Universal Studios today and he was a producer. I'm drawing a blank on his name as well. And he sold all the land that now says MCA for $20 million to Lou Wasserman.
Mull. Ed Mull MU HL. His son was an attorney at Disney that I had the pleasure of negotiating some deals with. Not only did he sell that land for $20 million, but he leased back $2 million with the sound stages for 10 years.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: Of course he did.
Wow.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: His son was very upset, went through life very jaded. That was his land.
Billions of dollars of land. Billions.
Oh wow.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: Lou Wasserman.
What makes. All right, so Lou Wasserman, great negotiator man, you have all the power in the world.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Strong leader.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: Strong leader. But all right, was he a great agent? What the hell is what makes a great agent to begin with? What separates an agent from a manager?
[00:20:49] Speaker B: Agents already has hands on managers are. When I was managing and I still manage some people, I'm there, I'm their life.
I am in touch with the agent. I reiterate what the agent says. I back up what the agent says. If I agree with it. Nothing gets done without the agent and myself included and the attorney. 98% of the time I manage their schedule. I, I, when they're, when they're flying on behalf of business, I coordinate and get all, everything handled. So it's a little more of an assistant in a way and being their handholder. Agents don't hold hands. I was an agent for 15 years. I was there to make deals. That's all I did procure deals for clients. But I acted differently, as you well know.
I was, I stayed in touch with you and I spoke every day. When you were working.
Yes, true, let alone non working, we spoke all the time.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: It was seen by its nature that, that managers in general, not in, in your case, but managers are more, more personal in their relationship with With.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: I was a very personal agent.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: Yeah, which, which was why you were the exception.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: I was at the hospital when your son was born.
Like a couple. A couple hours later. I brought you champagne.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Oh, when. When my daughter was born. Because. Because Justin was born up in Vancouver.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Your daughter?
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, my daughter was born here in la.
Tristan's a Canadian.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: No wonder why I like them.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: Which is not a bad thing to be these days. He's.
He had the right idea coming in.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: When my clients were directing. I brought him a bottle of champagne. I was on the set every night.
I owned it.
[00:22:49] Speaker A: Well, you.
You.
One of the things that.
Looking back, I. I think, wow, you. You were so. When you were on your game, there was nobody better because you can hire me.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: They did, but they knew I had a cocaine problem and their star, Turk agent Jay Maloney, had just hung himself.
Excuse me. And they wanted no part of that. And I found this out later in my career. I had no idea. I had no idea.
Lee Gabler, who was head of TV a partner sat me down because we were negotiating a deal together.
All the guys behind Chaos from the Crypt, funny enough, it was Zemeckis and Donner and Joel Silver and all those guys. And I had a series of comic books called Adventure Inc.
By Jeff. Jeff Fazio was my, My, My client on that. And they wanted to sell it with Donner, Silver, etc. The whole HBO test and package to HBO was a done deal.
But they wouldn't split the package fee with me, so we wouldn't make a deal.
So my client fired me and was hired by Got. Became a client of CAA and they ended up selling it to Showtime and it ran for a couple years. 22 episodes for like two years.
Not fun.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: No, it. Gosh, this. This business can. Can be.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: But that was my boss being. Being bad. He just wanted. We. We had no, we had the underlying property. Yeah. But we. We weren't entitled to half the package. Maybe a third.
That's. He over negotiated that one when we lost a client and lost a big deal.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: Oh man, that's.
It sucks to lose. Over that. Over that.
[00:24:41] Speaker B: We had a script, a concept for a script and a five minute videos Die Hard on an oil rig.
Show the video to Arnold Coyon and he committed to a half a million dollars right then and there to buying the underlying rights. And Zeitman said, no, we're going to sell it for a million dollars somewhere else to Simpson Bruckheimer.
I don't. I don't know if Don Simpson was still alive at the Time with Bruckheimer, Bruckheimer either, or Joel Silver. And we ended up not selling and lost. The client lost a half a million dollar deal for the client. I can do accountant stories like this. We had an animated project called A Noteworthy Tale by Ron Kasdan. It was a story about all the musical notes coming to life. And they kidnapped one of the musical notes. So there's no music in the world. Freddie Demand, Madonna's manager, had a briefcase with a quarter of a million dollars. Optioned it right then and there. Jerry said no.
He had read Madonna attached to do the music.
So I learned from that.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: God, one hopes there was.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: I don't think there was ever a deal that I didn't want to do that I didn't get done.
Yeah, I took it in the ass a couple too many times. But I also gave it as much as I got. I did a lot of probably more than I, I got.
Excuse my French.
[00:26:09] Speaker A: Hey, it's the language of, of, of art and commerce.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: I mean there isn't one agent that is worth your weight and soft that hasn't had to take one for the team, literally.
I was banned. Threatened to be banned from Universal, threatened to be banned from Fox, all because I did my job.
Ban me, go ahead.
They didn't. And I won. We had lawsuits and we won.
I was really good at what I did and I was taking on Harvard MBA lawyers, hardcore fellows and women.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: No, like I said, when you were at the top of your game because what you also did, you, you could expand upon an idea. So when I was doing Outer Limits, you suddenly were scooping up directors, Canadian directors, which was genius. I mean, what a, what a clever thing to do. And you started with the director. When I did Outer Limits, I, I, I, my episode was the first one that they were going to produce that season. And the director on the episode. As soon as you got up there and came to visit the set, you among the people.
Right. But you introduced yourself to him and you, you just instinctively, I guess you must have asked him about his representation and I guess he wasn't happy. And you suddenly started a whole sideline business for yourself.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: Yeah, and then we, we look, the both of us befriended Joey Pantaleone, the guest star, Joey Pants, who created a haircut called the Cats, the Allen Cats.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: This is an absolutely true story. When, when I, when I got the Outer Limits gig, it was the first time I'd worked in a long, long time. And I grateful I had, yeah, we were. I had let my hair grow and I had vowed That I was not going to cut my hair until I got a paying gig and I was supposed to do Outer Limits the season before for reasons that we won't get into. I did not get it the previous season. But you. Again, it was.
You were tenacious. You didn't take no for an answer. And when they.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Because the reason they didn't hire you the previous season was a stupid, stupid.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Well, yeah, like I said, we're not gonna. I'm not gonna like you. Yeah, there was. There was. There was a negative comment made about me by. By a. A former coworker if I.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: If I turned my foot, you know, turned around every time someone had a negative comment about me because they feared me.
They didn't. They were scared.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't. I don't think that was my problem.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: You grew your hair out.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: So I grew my hair out, and I'm doing the first episode, and, hey, I was already. I was working for weeks and weeks and weeks, and I just never gotten around to cutting my hair. And I'm doing the first episode, and I had written it for a Dennis Leary kind of a. An actor. But Richard Lewis, who was my executive producer, he liked to hire the leads, and he hired Joey Pants. And, hey, I worked with Joey on Tales from the Crypt. I like Joey, but different voice for the character. But anyway, Joey, on the first day on the set, Joey, after we worked in the morning, towards the end of the morning's work, Joey came up to me and he said, I got to tell your hair is horrible. You got to get a haircut. It's just. And I said, well, I was going to, you know, and I thought. I said, you know, when I get a paying gig, but I know I get a paying gig. He said, you got to get your haircut. Now, I knew, having worked with Joey, that before Joey became an actor, he was a haircutter in New Jersey.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: And he was bald.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: Yes, yes.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Bald as could be worth. Who pays on movies?
[00:30:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but, but, but he had been a hairstylist, right? And so I said, all right, Joey. Because then he. Once. It became a thing with Joey, because it's just how Joey is. It became a thing. I said, all right, Joey, you want to get me to cut my hair? You cut my hair. I'll. I'll cut my hair today if you cut it. He said, okay, okay, yeah, all right, I'll do it. And so we agreed at lunch to go into the. Into the pretties, into the hair and makeup trailer, and Joey Got my hair and in fact, and I'll. The photos, the Polaroids will be here. I have pictures of Joey Pantoliano cutting my hair and he did a fantastic job.
I don't recall what I tipped him.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: But I don't think he did. But he did the first episode and that was a great episode, a terrific episode.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Ironically, Richard Lewis, who had cast Joey without asking me, well, what do you think of Joey Pants? You know, he just cast Joe. Now, the script was written with a Dennis Leary manic energy. Joey has a much more laconic energy. It can be manic, but naturally it's much more laid back. New Jersey, right? Soprano light. It can be dark. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I get a. During this second day of shooting, the first day's dailies have gone down to Los Angeles. Richard Lewis has seen them. And I get a.
Someone on set says, you got to go to your office. Richard Lewis wants to talk to you. I go to my office and Richard, I pick up the phone, hey, Richard, how can you let Joey do this to your script?
And Richard has been a huge. The fact that it was going first was because everyone really liked the script. And Richard especially was, wow, this is a great script. We're going to do this script first.
And so when he said, how can you let Joey do this to your script? I thought, oh, me? Oh my God. And I said, richard, stop right there. I said, look, I did not hire Joey. You did.
[00:32:16] Speaker B: You did.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: I said, I wrote this script for a Dennis Leary type character type act.
You didn't ask me about casting Joey, but you did. I said, look, I like Joey. I've worked with Joey in the past, but it wasn't written for a Joey type actor. And so, yeah, that's what you're feeling is the clock. Is that conflict? He said, well, no, you got to go and you got to tell him. I said, tell him what? To act like Dennis Leary. I said, well, I'm. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to go to my actor on day two of, of working seven days and tell him how to act. I said, that's going to destroy our relationship too. He's going to resent being here. He's going to resent everything about this and we'll get shot. I said, I said, I am not as the onset producer, the writer. I am not going to do that to my lead actor. I said, now if you want to call and tell him that, please go ahead. I said, but I'm not going to have this conversation I'm not going to do it. Forget about it.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: And he didn't call Richard. Didn't call him?
[00:33:19] Speaker A: No, of course Richard did. Richard. Richard was an absolute coward. But. But the point was, what was even better was after I had that conversation with Richard, Richard never bothered me ever again. He treated me. He was really, really lovely to me. And he was. He was not lovely to an awful lot of people. He was. He was outer limits as Joel Silver.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: He was the mercurial producer who.
He was always doing things for the wrong reason. The reason he wanted Joey was because Joey had an interest in the Havana cigar room.
That's right, Beverly Hills.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: See him up there all the time. My client had a memory shape and I'd see Joey all the time, smoking.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: Richard wanted something to do with that. And so the whole point of casting Joey has nothing to do with. With the script or even the outer limits.
It was another thing that he was after. And so I think he did get.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: His locker, funny enough.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: I'm so glad. I'm so glad I could help.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: The outer limits time that. That we had, it was very, very good to me because I had a third of the directors. I had the exec producer. You. I had some actors working on the show. I had Scott Newfro doing an episode with you, one of our beloved friends who is a brilliant, God rest us all, writer, producer that. I commissioned that deal even though he had representation elsewhere. But I brought him into the deal and I was. My directors were literally directing like 8 or 9 out of the 22.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: Your persistence in getting me that gig paid off so.
So well. Yeah, really. But again, it's a testament to you. You made something out of nothing.
[00:35:09] Speaker B: I did that my whole career.
You know, when you work in a medium sized company and you're surrounded by the big boys and I was a young turk. I sold. I was selling everything and anything I got my hands on and. But my reputation, which was being a cocaine addict, you know, I lost my ability to move forward in. And get my career to the next level. And hanging out with the a listers, you know, it is what it is.
But now I'm in production with you on. On a podcast with one coming up.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: Indeed. We've got.
Hey, there is a future and I can hardly wait to get into it. That podcast is prisoner x with John Kiriakou which is about people in America and all over the world who are prisoners, but who should not be. John knows from personal experience what that's like. John was a CIA officer during our war on terror. He was in pakistan when we captured the person we thought was the number three at al qaeda, a guy who's known to ger was abu zubaydah. And for the first 60 hours that we held abu zubaydah captive, John kiriakou was his handler. And john built up a relationship with him. And. And, you know, hey, this was still a man that we were going to interrogate. But john, coming from the old school, was creating a human relationship. And that's how you elicit information from people. You eventually make them see that, yeah.
[00:36:52] Speaker B: They should do that, not what they ended up doing.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: No. At the end of the day, john learned a little sometime later that after we. He had left john, it was taken to black sites a couple different places. We waterboarded that man 83 times, even though we knew he wasn't the number three at Al Qaeda. He wasn't a prince, but he wasn't the number three at al qaeda. And he's certain. And he had actually given us a lot of really good intelligence.
But we waterboarded that man 83 times nonetheless. And that's why he sits to this.
[00:37:29] Speaker B: Day at guantanamo bay and should not be there.
[00:37:33] Speaker A: Should not be there. Although there's, as you'll hear in the episode when we finally get to drop that, I hope sometime in march, that there is. There actually is the possibility that he could get released to a third country. Now, will that be the same under the current administration?
I don't know.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: And that may kill everything on that front dead. But ironically, there are other prisoners that will talk about whose situations might improve because of having the next president we're going to have.
I can think a couple of those people who. Yeah, with a clever attorney, they could approach this new administration and say, hey, here's. You want to dance on the grave of your predecessors here? Pardon this person.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: Right. The person that should get pardoned is john kuryaku.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: Well, absolutely. Positively.
[00:38:41] Speaker B: He's not a. He's not a spy.
He's a whistleblower.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: You know, who was. Who was president when john went to prison?
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Obama.
[00:38:58] Speaker A: It'd be easier if. It'd be easier if it was a democrat, but.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: Because they're under bush.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: Well.
Well. Although I don't. I don't think this current administration cares about democrats or republicans anymore. I think that's kind of all. It's. It's. Are you loyal to the man or are you not loyal to the man? Nothing else matters.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: And then after this, we've got wall of honor, which is brilliant.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: There is A.
A wall in the CIA headquarters which the amount to be president famously dishonored not long after taking office the first time. It is filled with the names of CIA officers and agents who have died in. In. In battle, as it were, in the field. Yeah. And some of the names are known. Many of the names are unknown or will. Classified are Will. If. If we all learn those names, they'd have to come and kill us all.
[00:40:03] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:40:04] Speaker A: So that's wall of honor, and that is coming also at some point. 2025 is going to be a.
[00:40:10] Speaker B: It's gonna be a big year.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: Big year. A big year for podcasting stock market.
I'm curious to see what, what happens with. With, with that.
What are you anticipating, Nick?
[00:40:26] Speaker B: I'm anticipating a big year.
I don't think Trump's going to do what he's. He's doing. He. What he said during his campaign. He's not going to round up and deport millions of people. He's going to say he did. I was listening to an interview on Scripps News with some. Some experts, and that's what he does. He pretends like he's gonna do something. He lies. He says he doesn't. People believe him. And once that lie starts, his followers believe it. Trump did this. Trump did that. No, he didn't. Yeah, he did. He said he did, so I believe it. So shut up, you.
It's political theater. That's what he does. It's what he does better than anybody.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: Yes, it is. But that's the whole point when, When. When you don't govern you. It's all about kabuki.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: And artifice.
[00:41:14] Speaker B: It's a great word for it.
[00:41:17] Speaker A: One last thing to talk about today.
Hollywood is filled with, shall we say, princes and thieves.
We've talked, we've. We've dealt with. Well, let's start with the princes. There. You. You. There are actual princes in this town.
[00:41:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:37] Speaker A: And. And, yeah, princes.
Yes, there are princes in this town. You've.
You've a few have been your benefactors, haven't they?
[00:41:48] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. I was a young prince.
I was.
I made my career. I launched my career by selling a pitch to simpson bruckheimer for 700 for $550,000 within two unknown writers when they weren't spending their own money. And it was on the front page of Variety, and the headline was in a rare move since Bruckheimer plucks down $550,000 for triads. True story about a guy named Tom Perdue who was a sergeant in the San Francisco police. He was a detective and he worked with the triad gang.
Ultimately, the script never went anywhere and Tom got killed in the line of fire. Speaking of in the line of duty, he left his wife and kids. But that's how I started my career. And then two weeks later sold another one to mgm. And that's when pitches became hot. I started it. That's not a joke.
I became known as the pitch man. I sold scripts I never even read.
I was not a big reader for a while. I had some personal stuff. Tell me about it. Tell me what the script's about and I'll sell it. Great.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: Just give me a sentence, man. Give me a good.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: Give me a long line.
[00:43:12] Speaker A: But in. In essence, it wasn't required. You. It. You know why you. You didn't need to know the intricacies of the characters lives in the way.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: All I needed to know what, what it was about when the. When the producer or the studio exec was saying, what's it about? And I just tell them. I. I tell them the log line and say, I'm not going to tell you anything more than that. I want you to read it.
Get coverage done and read it.
[00:43:45] Speaker A: Just as well you didn't. Because really every additional.
[00:43:48] Speaker B: It's not my job.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: No, it's absolutely.
[00:43:50] Speaker B: Tell you what it's about. Read the script.
You tell me what it's about. Because I don't know.
[00:43:58] Speaker A: But really it's a. Less is more dynamic and damn if it doesn't work because it forces them to do something.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: That's right. And my company, I was always brought in from the other agents to help solve problems and help negotiate deals and put deals together. And I was a natural addict. I still am. That's what I do.
[00:44:23] Speaker A: Who were some other princes that come to mind?
[00:44:25] Speaker B: Ari Emanuel, the guys at ca. Given Uvain, obviously.
David Ellison. You know, when you're born into that kind of money and you.
And he's a smart kid. He's a smart cat. Buying Paramount. You know, those are some of the cats who are.
And the actors, of course they deserve it. They're the reason movies sell.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: Who are the thieves?
[00:44:59] Speaker B: I'm not going to name names.
[00:45:00] Speaker A: You don't have to name particular names.
Are there dead thieves who, Who.
[00:45:06] Speaker B: They're still among us. Some are dead.
Yeah, they're. They're. They're among us. Some of them we've worked with.
Some of them were producers that we partied with and, and worked with.
But I'm not naming names, but at.
[00:45:25] Speaker A: The end of the day, did you think they were princes?
[00:45:28] Speaker B: Absolutely.
I was a prince. I only hung out with royalty.
That's my life, Alan.
Let's leave it there.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Nick, I. I cannot thank you enough for.
For being the last minute guy. I frankly, I think you. You should be a regular visitor to. To the podcast because.
[00:45:51] Speaker B: I should be.
[00:45:52] Speaker A: You should be. No, and I think I look in 2025, if. Hey, my goal is for you to be a podcast of your own.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: I like that.
[00:46:01] Speaker A: That's. That's my. That's my ultimate goal, is for people to scream, hey, Alan, shut the fuck up. Just let Nick do all the talking, you asshole.
[00:46:10] Speaker B: That's right. I love you, Alan.
[00:46:12] Speaker A: And with that, thank you again, Nick. And thank you, everyone.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: We'll see you next time.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: The how not to Make a Movie podcast is executive produced by me, Alan Katz, by Gil Adler, and by Jason Stein. Our artwork was done by the amazing Jody Webster and Jason. Jody, along with Mando, are all the hosts of the fun and informative Dads from the Crypt podcast. Follow them for what my old pal, the Crypt Keeper would have called terrific Crypt content.
