Isn't it rich? Are we?
Joker. Joker.
It may be for me the movie of the year.
Because while there are many many actually very good movies
this year and we'll talk about them here.
Before the end of the year, there was no movie where I
needed to go for a very long walk after the movie.
It's So effective me in such a profound way Joker, starring
Joaquin, Phoenix and directed by Todd Phillips.
Who is my guest today? On my podcast.
Rumble, with Michael Moore. Thank you for listening.
Todd Phillips is an amazing director and he's directed all
kinds of movies from documentaries, to The Hangover
series, hilarious comedies. And And now, this the kind of
film you really haven't seen since Stanley Kubrick back it's
that profound in its in its intent and ability to grab the
audience in in such a way that, you know, this is a piece of
art. Set very much in the times, in
which we live. It's a brave piece of
filmmaking. If you haven't seen it, it's
nothing about really what you heard about perhaps it's, it's
if it's the kind, if you don't, if you don't go to Batman movies
or comic book movies, that's fine.
This isn't, this is a movie for you.
And I don't want anybody to miss out on this movie and that's why
I wanted to add on my show today.
It's going to run a little long. It's going to run about 90
minutes, but I have to tell you, I just I listen to it.
And, you know, we have a policy here of not cutting things out.
We want you to hear everything in the Raw, unedited uncensored.
And but this conversation I thought was an important one to
listen to Now, the first half hour of it isn't even about
Joker. It's about Todd Phillips, and
how he became Todd Phillips, but it's a fascinating story,
especially if you're a young person who wants to be a
filmmaker, maybe you're in school, maybe, maybe you're out
of school. He didn't go to school, like me,
you just you love the movies. How did he get to the point
where he made Joker, that's the first half hour and then, at
around the 30-minute Mark, we get into talking about Joker.
And what this film is really about the struggles, he had to
go through to get it, made the, in the days, leading up to its
release the at the absolute belief that he and Joaquin had
that they were doomed because of all the Press about what The
Press was saying, the film was about that.
It's just a fascinating insightful.
Look at how a movie like this even gets made.
And that's the that's the sixth 60 Minutes.
The of after these opening 30 minutes, it's just amazing.
And all I asked really to is that you definitely make it
listen to the last half hour of this.
It's one of the best discussions I've ever had either in any of
my movies or here in this podcast, Studio that I built in
my apartment. It's Todd Phillips gets into
talking about why we really do this, why we need to do it in a
time like this, The responsibility of artists to
stand up to fight to say something.
To be of substance, all of this hot.
So it was don't miss the last half hour of this.
And I think I'll just leave it at that and we'll get, right,
we'll get right to it. As we begin our discussion about
what is humor and comedy and satire and and who are the
people that bring us? Bring it to us.
I'm really glad you're you've tuned in to this.
We've done this now for a week. This podcast to just start it
and they reaction has been overwhelming over the weekend.
We went to number one on the charts on the podcast charts.
I didn't know that. The word podcast charts went to
number one on the news charts and number three on the overall,
all pack all podcast number three as like, whoa.
So for those of you who made that happen because you're
listening to it, thank you. Please subscribe please.
You know, rate the show make comments review it when Her
shirt with your friends, but subscribe, it's free, it's free,
it's nothing. There's no nothing here yet.
Just, I just want you to listen. I just want to be a little piece
of your life and I'm honored that you let me into that.
And it's important right now especially the way that we all
talk to each other and we have this this interaction in this
conversation and I'm so glad to to invite you into this
conversation that I just had with Todd Phillips, the director
of Joker to be clown. I have felt this way for since I
was a teenager thinking, isn't it interesting that the funniest
comedians are our funniest satirists or or?
Yeah. And I wonder how much in in in
maybe you study this too because, you know, you've made
some of the some great comedies. And in my opinion, hangover is
easily in the top, three of the modern day.
Thank you. Film comedies.
Thank you. No, I'm not.
Or the other to read Hobb bridesmaids, right?
There's Something About Mary. Yeah, I would say, Borat
stepbrothers or an odd. Yeah, I don't know where to put
Borat because it's kind of, I was a writer on board.
I got nominated for an Academy Award for brightest.
Yeah. Oh my God, worked with such on
that. So I started working the whole
idea out with him. Yeah, very rarely God.
Yeah. What was that?
Like, it was amazing. I met him early and I, there's
another angry guy. Yeah.
Again, I mean, it does, it's a lot of it mean, Because you
know, comedy is based on truth and sometimes truth makes you
angry. And, you know, truth nowadays
has become offensive and so, a lot of Comedy has become
offensive and it's very weird kind of time to live.
Yeah. But comedy has to be offensive.
Yes. I mean, otherwise, because
comedian, it has to be a reverent.
The irreverent. And yes, but comedians are
saying the things. The rest of us are afraid to say
there. They literally the job.
Yeah. So you're setting.
Self up for, you know, maybe you know, maybe people aren't going
to like me if I say this. But it's if some of these things
don't get said no matter how painful it is to listen to them.
Yeah. Then I think were the worse off
for it. Yeah, that's my feeling about
that. But I think that that I do when
I say, you know, like your film like hangover or bridesmaids
were There's Something About Mary or bore some of the others
that you mentioned, well, bore at Step Brothers.
I'm just Is that brother seat of the music?
The most reward chable comedy. See what?
I also believe as filmmakers, you know, because people will
say to me, wow Mike, you know the kinds of, I don't make the
films that you make, you know, you're so they're so among these
issues are so important and and I'm like, no, no.
My belief as all of us as filmmakers if we do nothing
else. Then after the end of a hard
week, people work hard, we work longer hours in this country
than any other country. At the end of the week, if we
can give them a couple of hours of Joy course of of, of any, of
a range of emotions. Yeah, I mean, when they were you
crying, yeah, they get mad. Yep.
Any of that? We've done a service, I think.
Yeah, I've had that so many times where I made old school or
The Hangover movies are where somebody would come up to me and
be like, I just got to tell you, I saw your movie, I'd been in
the worst mood for two weeks. I started moving it just made
me. Forget everything and laugh for
two hours. And I literally feel better
after there is value in coming. It's what right?
Sullivan's travels, right, Preston Sturges, right?
It's there is, there is value if you're adding value to the
world, when you can make a movie like The Hangover made so much
money around the world, you do the math.
You go. Oh, you made 80 million people
laugh. That's not nothing.
No, I think it's really something.
And I think that actually Sullivan's travels was on TV
this week. Oh, I just happened to cross it.
So I watched it again. Yeah.
And and if you Seen the film. It's basically the long and the
short of it is Hollywood. Film director.
This is the set in the 40s. Yeah, later later.
Yeah, late 30s. It was The Depression, right?
And he decides he doesn't want to make frivolous comedies
anymore. He wants to go make O Brother,
Where Art Thou? A serious social minded film
about the hard times. Everybody's going through.
And and so he goes out he decides to become a what was He
called a hobo right back then. Is there anybody like a homeless
person but then it was literally a hobo and like, go undercover
as a whole undercover as so. Imagine like a Hollywood
director today deciding I'm going to go undercover as a
homeless person in Downtown LA. Right.
And out of that, I'm going to make my my masterpiece, my Opus
and and so, but what he finds out along the way just to skip,
to the end of the movie, is that in the end, and of course, he's
been arrested. He's been imprisoned right
there, he's on at work. Gang in the prison and he's and
the prisoners are being taken to a church where it's, you know,
Monday movie night. They're showing it on a wall in
a movie with all. He's there with all the other
prisoners, and he's so upset, and he's just like, and, and
it's an old early early Walt Disney movie.
Yeah. All right.
So, he notices, everybody is so happy and it's a black church.
It's, it's people who were in the 30s.
Would be having it. The worst not.
That it's a hell of a lot better now, but I basically, and he
looks around the church, and everybody is laughing and
smiling and touching each other. Like, oh, this is right slapping
each other on the back, and he's like, oh, wait a minute, I used
to do this, I used to make these kinds of films, and and he came
to that conclusion, that, you know, said that rise value in
this and that he could decide to go back and make a comedy
because people needed relief. Yeah.
From Actually, during the Great Depression but they were all
going through. Yeah.
So so, so you. So you start.
Well, we actually started out as a documentary filmmaker I did.
Yeah, right. I did I started out doing
documentary graduate from film school.
I didn't you did. I dropped out.
You dropped out. You never finished college.
No, I didn't finish in Wyoming to NYU and the reason I dropped
out, wasn't some big rebellious. Reason, it was literally, I
couldn't afford the college to and finish the movie.
I was making so the project started as my junior year.
Year documentary. I went, you know, at NYU there
was two two, two ways you can go you can go narrative or
documentary. I literally went the documentary
route because I didn't know that I had it in me to write scripts
yet. I feel like sometimes you go to
film school and a lot of 18 year.
Olds don't have much to say, it's always viewed.
Documentaries is a way to kind of live life on fast-forward to
get life experience you know like to be in places and do
things you wouldn't normally do and at the same time, make a
film. I mean the first movie just to
backtrack That actually made me want to be a filmmaker was Gimme
Shelter, you know, maysles and Charlotte's weren't and film on
the Altamont and yeah, the 69. Yeah.
Rolling Stones tour. And the reason why that was is
because you remember that movie, I saw it on VHS at a friend's
house. When I was like, 12 years old,
his dad had it. It would, they filmed in the
editing room to remember that amazing where they brought the
cameras in the editing room here.
Showing the stones. What happened at Alomar, with
the stabbing. Yeah.
And I've never seen an editing room.
It was the first time I Understood that there are people
behind movies. You don't really like, oh, look
at that, and that's how I move he's made, and they really big
machine. It was an 8 plates teen back
back then, and I decided, that's what I wanted to do, and I just
went the documentary program at NYU.
So I started this. The first film I made is a film
called hated GG Allin. The murder junkies was about
this. Punk, rock band, and, and on the
scene in New York. Although they weren't in New
York band. He was actually in Detroit, he
was a, he got arrested, he was in jail and Ann Arbor Michigan.
When Started the movie, I'd written him in jail said, I want
to do a movie about you. He was going to get out in three
months, and and he broke parole to come to New York and do the
movie. So the movie was about him
putting his band back together. The documentaries about, and
this sort of tour, fresh out of jail.
He and this was in the 90s was in 91 91.
Yeah, yeah. So he breaking Parole in
Michigan in 91, you know, the state was already broke, right?
They're not going to bring them down.
Always track it. There's nobody left to try.
Yeah, he literally called me from jail.
He's like, well, you know, Do you guys either come out here
and do? Because I'm a old, I can't leave
the state and I go, I can't bring like three crew.
People out there had no money to make this your movie here, jr.
And any guy, I'm a junior in college at NYU and he goes.
Wow, if you send me a bus ticket, I'll just come to New
York and we'll do it there. And so, I literally FedEx him a
one-way bus ticket and he came and we started the movie here
and he started putting his band back together, and that's what
the movies about. But, so I dropped out of NYU
because I couldn't afford the tuition at NYU, obviously, and
finish this film. So finished it and And that's
how I got started. So, so you dropped out of NYU
and your another, your undergrad?
Yes. Oh yeah, I was in the undergrad
program. Go back.
You don't have a degree. No, okay.
Also interpreting the people listening to this, who are now
for paying forty thousand a year Masters rides.
Well, I was in New York City residents.
Oh, I got a ton of financial aid so really I was only paying
three grand a year to go to NYU. Wow, Dom people that either
that's just so depressing. So but I still had those still
to get that three grand. You do loans, right?
So you know I finish but so I needed that A grand of Junior
and Senior year to actually finish the movie.
But but In fairness, I should say that when The Hangover the
first hangover won the Golden Globe for best comedy hour.
Yes, whatever. The best film of the Year
comedy. Yes, exactly.
But it's only your parentheses comedy.
It won the Golden Globe and the dean at the time of NYU sent me.
FedEx me a diploma with a letter.
And she said, can you, please stop saying you didn't graduate
from NYU. Oh, my.
That was really sweet. I should, I should say, I
dropped out in my sophomore year of University of michigan-flint
brand. Okay.
They have never sent me. Oh, really know anything.
And in fact, Michigan State notice that that Michigan had
never done that for me. So they gave me an honorary
doctorate, oh, that's beautiful years ago, that's good, but, um,
but anyway, so okay. So, so you start with
documentaries? You start with this one?
Yeah. Then when I first met you, yes,
was yours. Second.
Yeah, it's second movie that we did for HBO, and when I was
doing frat house, he was called frat house.
And it was sort of this look at fraternities and hazing in the,
in the mid to late 90s there. And when I was doing hated after
I was also interning for Sheila, Nevins the great Sheila, Nevins
on HBO, because I was obsessed with document.write and I just
knew if I get in there, I can see how these things are made
and you know and Sheila was Going to me new, I dropped out
of school and still, let me in turn when I was dropped out for
another year there. I was with her for two years and
then I brought her this idea with a friend of mine to do frat
house and she gave us the money to do it and we went and made it
and it ended up winning the grand jury prize at Sundance
where I don't remember if you were as on the judge, if you
were on the jury because under I can't remember if that was the
era's on that. I know Nick Broomfield was on
the jury where you have. Yeah, yeah.
I well I know I was, I was there that year also because I I had
made a documentary where I travel across the country on a
book tour. Yeah.
And it was called the big one, right?
And and you know what I most remember about that?
This is January of 98, right? Okay, while we were there that
week at Sundance, the news breaks about Monica Lewinsky and
the whole thing right. Led to his impeach, right began.
I members all we were like going to movies and then trying to
watch TV, right? Holy crap.
What's going to happen? Yeah.
But so we you have to remind me how we met and so, will I just
met you because you're Michael Moore?
And I've been obsessed with you because I know documentary
filmmakers The Way, some people know, rock singers, you know,
right meeting you and Nick Broomfield there for me was, was
not a small thing, so I still have a photo of you and I think
it was your wife at the time. I'm standing in between, you
have your arm around me and I just have beaming smile.
It's literally my office in la. Oh my God.
Yeah. Oh, that's great.
Yeah. Now it's obviously somebody, I
can't remember no recording. I took a picture with but it was
a big moment for me and yes, but but my arm was around you, it
was so that's a good sign. But so I guess you were on the
jury that year if it was with Christian Troy, Nick Broomfield
you. I remember them all their yes
and so that must have been the year that I was on the jury and
the jury. Yeah yeah.
So thank you because you awarded us the grand jury prize for
this. Wow.
So so then I can take some credit It for Joker.
Yes. Are you trying to say very good
led to everything? You know, that amazing, how that
happens? Yes.
Oh, so you make this documentary wins the grand prize at
Sundance. But then, if I now remember
correctly, it did not err. Yes, it didn't are because of
some weld, it didn't are because quite frankly, we made a movie
at the time HBO was making movies called high on crack
Street and American skinhead and you know, move easily about Um,
Niche films about underrepresented, right?
People. We made a movie about rich,
wealthy white kids. How beating each other up and
write overly represented kids, right?
And the truth of the matter is, we went about it wrong.
I remember when we would approach these kids, as, you
know, making documentaries, you have to get releases signed and
I would go to these kids and say, Hey, you know, I gotta sign
this release before we start filming.
Yeah. And the kid would look, you
know, when I did that on my punk rock movie, they sign it.
They're like, yeah, whatever. Needed on frat house, they would
go. Oh, yeah.
Let me just fax this to my dad, he's a lawyer and and then I
would go cool. And then I go five minutes
later, I'd walk up to the guy who, you know, I gave you the
wrong one. I'm gonna give it to you
tomorrow and we would basically wait for them to get drunk and
stone, right? We approach them.
That was a problem. Yes, we did it wrong and they're
not, I don't, I don't know if that was so wrong.
Why because you mean? Because later, then they made
waking up a sign that I was drunk and I got party money and
daddy errands. Sue.
You their parents thought they're never going to work
again. If peoples, rather be be crazy.
Acting like animals, before Facebook.
Yes. Oh, hey, where are you?
So, yeah, fax machines, literally.
So this is so the idea is, there's now footage that's going
to be out there and this case on HBO, right?
Sonny boy. That's right.
And he's not going to get a job at one of the top law firms.
That's exactly what it was. Wow.
So then they came after HBO and Sheila, even though she's been
amazing to me. And I have never had a bad word
to say about her. She was so.
Supportive. It just became mired in a lot of
BS honestly and and it just never are it, but it's kind of
weird because in some ways it made the movie it gave you
remember Todd Haynes is film The Karen.
Carpenter's course one of my favorite of all right, but it's
almost bigger because it never is you're not actually allowed.
You can't surprise. You can watch it on VHS tape and
so Todd Haynes, whose film that he has out right now is Dark
Water. Of course, it was Robert
Gruffalo, wonderful film, And he he made a film, I actually call
it a documentary because I have a very broad view of what a
documentary is in terms of it being a nonfiction work of art,
that's right. He told the Karen Carpenter
story. The Carpenters were an old group
back in the 70s and whatever had hits like close to you, but she
had died of anorexia and she'd had quite a tough life.
He told the entire story on film with Barbie dolls, he
essentially animated Barbie doll.
Al's but real Barbie doll. Yes.
Playing Karen and her brother Richard and the parents and
everything and Mattel. Which owns Barbie, right.
Super bugs. Away.
Cease and desist. So, yes.
And so nobody. So he had it out in a couple of
theaters. I saw it in the theater in d.c.
well, and, and then it got pulled and that was the end of
that and nobody has seen it. So, my point is, in a weird way,
it's become a bigger movie by the inability to see it.
You are, I know and I still unable to To watch frat houses.
Yeah, I guess. The truth is, I feel like if I
approach those kids, if I know to get in touch with them, they
would love it because it's a great like window into a time
when they were acting like morons.
They're. All right, I'm sure have kids
now, they have jobs. They're 45 at this point, who
cares, right? But this this has been how to
reach them, but I bet you, they would love it.
Well, maybe they are listening. Yes, number one, number two, for
all you YouTube hacktivists out there.
If you can get a copy of frat house.
Oh, I'll tell you this, it's out there.
It's all another tube. Yeah.
Oh yeah. It's Like up and around.
I've seen Cod like, it floating around YouTube.
Yeah, it is, it is out there. Now, that I think about it, of
course, you just gave me an idea of a film festival in Michigan
in the Summers that I should do. One of these years, they say,
section of the Festival of these years.
You know, the other one is the the Jerry Lewis won.
The day, the clown cried. But that's the one that Jerry
Lewis doesn't want. People to remember.
His name is not to prank film. Yes.
And then I think he said you can show it after I die, so he's
lost Years old plus, there were some other additional like 10
years after I die, which is pretty pretty.
But again, but again because my festivals in Michigan.
Yeah. And there's no rules.
Yeah. You just show it.
Yeah. And and 10 years in dog years.
Yes. What if they don't quote me?
Because it might have just been two years.
I'd actually don't know. Yeah but I do there's like
movies like that that are that would be a great section instead
of like midnight madness, social the Karen Carpenter, her
chauffeur now. Yeah, the Jerry Lewis, perfect.
I think that, yes, you've just given me a great idea and And
and I will, I'll indemnify everybody.
Yeah, they said, hey buddy, gets anybody gets frankly, those kids
that you filmed back in the 90s they will probably love.
That's what I mean. I don't think they're.
Yeah, of course. Young drunken.
That's right. I think entitled cells.
I think they'll get a kick out of it at this point.
So, okay, so so okay. Now you've made this great
documentary, it's won the grand jury prize at Sundance with
these filmmakers these documentary filmmakers that you
just mentioned that are Great filmmakers, like yourself and
Nick Broomfield, and Christy. Joy.
Why I meant, I meant them. Not me.
But yes, Christine Troy, who killed Vincent chin documentary
and best hotel in Skid Row. Great, yes, Nick Broomfield,
whose epic and crazy. And then you have the yes, Britt
now. But now you have the crushing
experience of it's not going to air.
Yeah, and I know this feeling because Michael Eisner after
watching. Fahrenheit, 9/11, because
Miramax was owned by Disney. Of course, said, we can't show
this. Wow.
And we decided to, of course, and you started Xcalibur.
Of course, I remember that right?
Yeah. I let her remember.
The name didn't Harvey start. It wasn't no, it wasn't a great
way to make a makeup. No.
Know you're on the right track because he he formed a company
called based on Lord of the Rings.
The Fellowship adventure group. Oh and and then they got the
strip but only after After the New York Times that a front-page
story on how Disney doesn't want you to see this film the right
to me, right? And then it was like, that's the
like, the gift from heaven, right?
Tell the public that they can't see something like right now.
People are already trying to, they're looking up how to see
frat house, right? Yes.
Because you already have millions of fans from The
Hangover trilogy, but now this year's film, you know?
I just as a documentary filmmaker I want to go watch
this film. I wanted to I somehow I'm just
House. Do you by the way?
Voted on use. Don't remember it's fine.
Yeah, no, no, no. But that side, of course, I
don't remember. It's like 20 years ago.
How would I remember, right? Right.
No, it's like. That's when you said to me, I
think you were on the jury. I'm like, I was hot a jury, you
know. Usually judges don't let me on
juries. That's my experience.
No. But I have to what know you.
I mean, you'll give me a copy of it, right.
I don't know that I even have copies believe or not.
I swear II do that's how you required by the lawyers to say
that. No, we do.
I have DVDs somewhere in my office and we've given them out
to people. So if I I can't find the pirate
Adventure. Give it to you, of course.
All right. All right, but you're right,
that feeling what you said about Michael Eisner and you film.
There's a little bit of panic that ensues, you know, how much
work, we know what? We know who I was into, we were
over. And by the way, I thought we
might have been over with Joker this to, to where we, where the
the narrative on Joker started heading in the media, I started
thinking Jesus is going to be one of those things where
Warner's because it's owned by AT&T and yeah, you know, Warner
media too much bigger thing than Joker will ever be.
Do they just go? This isn't worth it.
Like, so you do there was a minute there.
Now, that's what I exactly thought was going to happen in
the month, leading up to Joker after you won the.
I think the top prize in Venice, Venice, Film Festival, which was
probably around Labor Day. It was exactly.
Labor day was Labor Day, okay? And they started right in on
certain media, people describing what this film was.
And I thought, no, no. And I really, he made hangover
It's like, come on and the media, just pay, they picked it
up and all of a sudden the fear level started Rising, then the
national media. The Nightly News did stories
about, they're worried that if people, if you, you know, you're
taking your life into your hands.
If you go see Joker because some people are going to come into
the theater and shoot it up or or somebody's going to come in
dressed like Joker. And in fact, if I remember
correctly, some studio, some theater chains, I don't know.
Was Warner Brothers themselves, but they put out a directive
that if you came to Joker dressed as Joker, you could not
get in. That's right to the theater.
Yeah. A couple change to that.
I don't want to say which ones because I actually don't
remember. But there was two big ones.
There's not that many where they said.
Yeah. No costumes.
And a none of that, which I get. And prune.
Understand, totally get it. But what's the message to
everybody else? I'm going to take my life in my
hand right to Cassie a Joaquin. Phoenix movie.
No, I'm not gonna do that, right?
And, and so, So a week or so before it comes out you have
your screening at the New York Film Fest.
Yes. I go to it and I can't get into
Lincoln Center because it is surrounded by police cars with
all their lights going. Yeah.
And I said to the cops what's going on here while we're here
in case there's any trouble. I said what trouble?
Well, haven't you heard? And of course I had heard right,
but I just wanted to hear what they were this.
You're gonna say and and I said, you know, these are people who
had to buy expensive tickets. Go to the New York.
I know they like donors for the festival dressed up in there.
Like there's six, SWAT cars parked outside.
That is, you know, Lincoln Center.
It was, it was, it was crazy. And, and, and it was a bummer
for us because, you know, it's hard enough to open a movie as
we all know, and you're just like, oh, is this what we're up
against even the night Joaquin, and I went out the Friday night,
it opened will finally, like, okay, it's coming out, we went
out to theaters in New York City, the theater right here in
your neighborhood and then another one, another one
downtown. And there's 88 cop cars in front
of every theater in New York and armed armed of course cops in
the theaters armed, cops in the passing them on escalators as
they're changing shifts. When's the last time you saw
police people in the theno? Well I thought we were dead.
Yeah. No no that's what movie was
dead. I thought so too.
Number one opening weekend, which counts for everything.
Yeah. People aren't going to go,
right? They've been scared away from
this. They've been told that the movie
and I'm not going to quote anybody specifically.
But in the The reports people are posting online stories.
How this? This is really a movie that
honors, the, the ultra-right, the in cells, the the the tiki
torch carrying people in Charlottesville, right?
Yeah, he's unbelievable. It must have intercourse.
Just will get to the movie about what it's about here.
But if you haven't seen it, it's the opposite of that.
And so it's the director. This just must have I would have
Been going crazy and all this effort.
All these years. It took you years to make this?
Yeah. From the first thought.
Yeah. To do it.
Yeah. And now it's going to be killed
because somebody started a rumor that started more pressed
started saying that people are going to possibly lose their
lives. Yeah, if they go some it was
literally on the ticker. I was of CNN and then I went to
London, it was on their Ticker on Channel 4 or Sky News.
I mean, you know, going across every two minutes of like, you
know, Theaters, embracing 44 issues, you know are bracing for
issues, as Joker has the theaters in two weeks and you're
going, what are you talking about?
Haters are Brit. That's what it said.
Yeah, something like that. You know, expecting the worst
are, you know, fears set in as Joker's coming in a week to
theaters. And it's like, what is going on
ROM. So here you are.
Now it's 20 years past your prize that you want it Sunday.
Yes, exactly. And and and this film I'm from
20 years ago, never makes it to the public.
And now people have tried to position.
This film is something that it isn't yet and you're thinking
that the week days leading up to that weekend and that weekend.
Well, I think after the first day you saw, Yes, because the
grosses by the end of the weekend.
Yeah, you know, we had a massive, we can, but we're still
sort of white-knuckling it, because, to be totally honest
with you, you start to think that these reports become a
self-fulfilling prophecy exact. And I don't want to say, On like
a maniac, like a Donald Trump kind of person but you start
going. I think they're wanted to
happen. There's no way.
There were news Vans you parked outside of every theater
Joaquin. And I went to what are those
news Vans? Therefore, they're waiting for
something to happen. You start thinking that they
want something to happen, seems they're going they're driving
home after the all the five or six, showings of the night
disappointed, because they expected something to go down,
it really became. It was really An absolute bummer
because it was should have been a time as you know, you put a
movie out and listen, I'm not. I'm not whining about.
I want to sound like I'm whining, but it should be a time
where you're like. All right, here we go.
You got to, you know, you're excited.
And we were just walking and I were just dreading every day,
because it was just a new report of some think piece that was
written about the movie and we had a, you know, besides all
that we had all these think pieces that came out by people
that didn't see the movie thing pieces.
That literally said, I haven't seen the movie.
I'm not going to see the movie. Yeah, you should see the movie.
And here's why, and they would write a think piece about
without having seen it. Yeah, it was really like, what
is going on is going on here and and everybody would say the
movie was political, and you'd ask somebody on the left.
Nobody could Define how it was political because it wasn't
politically movies humanist. You know, right.
But the right would say it's about Universal Health Care,
which I would argue it actually is and the left would say it's
about all right. And in cell culture which it
never was, we know the hell that was no.
It came from it was really young, but you know what?
It's what you just said before, what we were saying about Karen
Carpenter, but saying about when Disney stepped in and you're
suddenly, the New York Times is writing about it on the front
page of your film, suddenly it probably in the long run helped.
I mean, it certainly it certainly the movie was the most
talked-about movie of the fall and it was talked and half of
that chatter was all the nonsense and, you know,
craziness, right. So you know, it probably
ultimately Italy helped and certainly feels, you know,
vindicating that a movie that was exposed in spout supposed to
according to CNN. And, and, and every other news
network and newspaper was supposed to cause Mass violence
really ended up, just causing a bunch of people to go to the
Bronx and dance on a set of, you know, and staircase on the scene
in the movie heavily, indicating healing.
Joker, really, it really blew me away.
I had listened to all the Prix news so-called news about what
this film is about and the Damage it was going to cause And
and as I sat there, not ten minutes into it.
I can't believe first of all that this film got made and
second of all that the the spirit of Stanley Kubrick has
returned. That's really how it felt like I
could see that you were not going to obey the rules.
The we were told this was an origin story about a knot.
In this case a superhero but a super villain and you know 20
minutes into the film. You realize that's not going to
happen. You have not created, Gotham,
Gotham City is some sort of weird version of New York.
It is New York, right? You're just you now, maybe maybe
you'll tell me that you were just trying to save an art
Direction because you only had so much money for the budget,
but you made a decision. You have the story set in New
York but I just you know, before I get to a few sub here.
Thank you. I just, I just want to lay my
cards out on the table that this film people listening to this,
if you haven't seen, it is a masterpiece.
Is it uncomfortable? Yes.
Will you think about it for the next week or two or three?
Yes, because it's that disturbing.
Yes. But why is it disturbing and And
without giving really too much of it away.
Even though many people by now, obviously have yeah, feel free
to give it away. It's funny.
You say that because somebody came up to me at a screening and
said, to me, this movie, Comforts The Disturbed and
disturbs the Comfort, the comfortable.
Yes. And I don't have the, he made it
up. I don't know.
It's a very, it's always a famous.
Okay. I thought whoa you know one of
the great muckraker, right? The early 20th century said the
purpose of Journalism is to come Bert, The Afflicted, Ryan to
afflict the comfortable, right? And for us, they said, he said
he made it. This guy changed it.
And again, maybe it was changed, was the purpose of art.
He was basically saying was to comfort the Disturbed.
Yes. And disturb the comfortable.
And I thought that was a pretty interesting that akan the movie.
That is exactly what art should do.
And that's what what this film does, because it is, is set in
the 1970s late. These early 80s.
It looks like no dates flash on the screen but it looks that you
can tell it's not ours. Oh yeah, not now but it feels
like now not in the sense where the graffitis on the Subways and
all that, but that it's a struggle, it's a struggle for a
lot of people to get by the the we now have more than half the
country, literally living from paycheck to paycheck that awful
statistics. Hear that over 50% of the public
does not have $500 to their name, not in the bank, not in
their pocket, obviously not anywhere.
So that and the way they the story started was because
someone had loved one. Grandparent had died on the
other side of the country here and she couldn't afford the
plane ticket to go to California and back.
And that's, that was sort of the the lead of the story is that
the majority of Americans. If a loved one passed, Tonight
don't have the money to go to the funeral.
Hmm. And when it's put like that
right, it's like yeah that is the time in which we live and
yes the unemployment rates are really low but all that saying
is that people are being employed at $7.25 an hour,
right? Or $10 an hour or whatever.
But so so this film that you make during this time that were
in and and I'm sure Had the idea to make this before Trump had
been elected? Well before he was elected, but
really the idea came to me and August of 2016.
So he was already so the candidate and and it was, it was
going down, and I went there. Start out.
Tell me how you, where did, where did this come from?
So it's the year of 2016. Yeah, I'll tell you exactly what
it is. Yeah, I mean, wasn't so much
about the election at that moment to have the idea.
But the idea was really about, I had another film that I made
right prior to this called war dogs.
And you know, we make these movies, you work as hard on the
ones that do well as you do on the ones that don't do well or
don't sort of set the world on fire.
And I remember I was standing outside on Hollywood Boulevard
pacing because I never sit through premieres and screenings
that made me too nervous and I started thinking about why this
movie is not going to last, I said set the world on fire and
God, the business has really changed and it's so hard to cut
through the fog, nowadays with films.
And I sitting there smoking a cigarette staring at this
billboard for Comic book film and I'm realizing, this is
really where the business is headed and the movies.
I grew up on the movies that really shaped Me growing up
these films from the 70s, whether it's Scorsese, and taxi
driver, or Sidney, lumet films, or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest. I got, you couldn't even get
those movies made nowadays. If, if you walked in with the
with, with, you know, with that script for Network.
Could that movie even get made nowadays.
And then I said, and then I thought, well, you can make it.
If we made it by one of Those guys, literally staring at the
Boulevard and I just thought, wow, there's a way to kind of
sneak a movie through the system, a movie about something,
something meaningful. If you kind of dress it up this
way and as mercenaries that sounds, that is really what the
idea was. And so that the head of Warner
Brothers, at the time, the premiere was on August 14th.
I think he was away with his war dog of war, dog sources, August
22nd 2016. Now the, the head of Warner's
name's Greg Silverman. He Old me because he couldn't
come to the premiere because it was a week before his kids
started school and had to go on vacation.
So he knows me because I've made six, seven movies at Warner's,
that I'm always standing outside on Hollywood Boulevard at the
vermeer's. So he calls me on the phone and
says, hey man, I knew you'd be outside.
I knew you'd pick up. I just want to tell you.
I'm sorry, I'm not there. Love you.
Love the movie. You know, we're going to support
it whatever and I go, hey, Greg, you know, I have this idea.
Literally the day of the for me, the night of the parent while
the film was playing and inside, there's 700 people in there.
And he goes, yeah, what is it? And I told him, I said, Joe, you
know. So when I'm looking at that bull
bar, I thought boy, you could do it about one of these guys.
You get that movie made and I'm thinking myself I'm not a really
a comic book movie guy. I find that there are four
children quite frankly, I've always find them.
They're there they go down. Too easy for me in a way.
But I was thinking about well what if you did it about one of
the bad guys? You know what, if you took a
villain and gave him. So anyway, so I pitch it to Greg
on the phone. And he loves it.
Like literally, I have 25 minutes on it.
What it, what it is? I hadn't had worked out yet.
What? Of course at the movie that we
all see. Now, but I had the idea and he
goes, wow, I love that. You know, that sounds amazing.
Let's talk about next week when I get back, when the movie ends,
the head head of the studio Greg's boss, who was in, the
Chinese Theater comes out and says, what's going on, Greg's
been texting me for 10 minutes. He has all these texts from
Greg. He told me, you have a great
idea and he goes come. Come ride with me that a party
because you know, the parties for the premier's, this one
happened be at the Sunset Towers or there was a good drive, he
was come ride in my car with me and tell me it so I pitched it
to him in the car going to the Sunset Towers.
And by the time, we're at Sunset Towers, it's done.
Go ride at that sounds really cool.
As you know, in the movie business regimes change.
I've had a deal at Warner since 2004 that's almost 16 years.
I've seen that regime change happen four or five times at
this point. So while I'm off writing the
script with With Scott silver who I wrote it with the regimes
change. And all those people had this
great sort of pitch with at Warner's.
Now it's a new group, you know, so we had to jump through some
more hoops and, you know, using the movie, you know, it's, they
ultimately took a bold swing, but there were a lot of
obstacles, ultimately, you know, so many people say, to me what
you said, when you were doing the lead up with this, which
was, how does this movie exists? How did how does, how is this a
studio film? And I always tell the story.
A of, you know, I had lunch with a really great old-school
producer who produced in the 70s and 80s movies, we love and
famous old school producer. And he said to me look you've
made this this studio close to two billion dollars in the last
six, seven years with the hangover movies and a couple
others that we had done and he goes, you've earned a lot of
Goodwill but in this town Goodwill is perishable you need
to go out and you need to use it and that really is what I did
with it with Joker, we just used all the Goodwill, I turned over
all that. Time and money and put it all on
the table and it still was difficult.
Believe it or not because the new regimes tend to not want to
look back. They want to know what can you
do for me now and it was a risky idea on paper looking back on
it. It seems like what was the risk
but you know, we were going into their crowned Jewels, their IP
and taking something and really turning it on its head.
No, the thing that the thing that the thing that turned
around the Warner Brothers will call it the, in the turn era in
89 was when they did the original Batman movie.
Yeah. With Michael Keaton.
Yep. And they made a gazillion
dollars. And in fact, when they, when
they became the distributor for Roger me, my first film, they
essentially were using Batman's right money because I'm sure was
so flush with this cash that and the same month, they decided to
vote to buy a Time Time life. Oh, Life before the Nets, all
Batman generate well. So yes crown jewels.
Yeah, jewel. Right.
This is this gave them their that re-established Warner
Brothers, it's true, as a go-to place for the mass audience
films. You're right.
And so here you are sitting there with them.
You're telling them that you're going to do a movie about a
character. Who is a super villain that
they've has long established number of people from Jack
Nicholson? Don have played Joe, but I'm
going to, I'm going to humanize Yacker.
Right. I'm going to make him like a
real person. Yeah.
And there's gonna be a sense of humanity to this.
And when he starts out, he's not going to start out as a
supervillain, right? Like he's going to start out.
Yeah, basically a movie about a villain, where the villain is
the hero and you love them and root form until you can't root
form any longer Correll was sort of the elevator pitch.
Yeah. And but okay so I because I so I
knew those people at Warner's I can understand them Warner's.
They're their ethos as a studio that they would eventually go
for this, right? But you got to tell me when they
had to bring in the DC Comics people.
Yeah, that meeting. Yeah.
What was that? Like because how did you
convince DC Comics that you weren't going?
There was guy could this was not gonna be an action film.
Well, the truth is and I'm really said this, but the real
truth is when the regime changed with the with the, with the two
or three people that I was mentioned on the Warner's Side,
the regime also changed on the DC side.
And they put a guy in charge of DC, who's an amazing guy, by the
way, I do, but Walter Hamada, who would have been running a
small horror label at new line, so he didn't really have the
muscle to stop it. And and I'm not even saying he
would have but he didn't get it and and because I'm paper it
reads. It's crazy.
And it is especially if you're writing DC Comics.
Yeah. And you're just stepped into
this new job and really that we just made Shazam and Wonder
Woman Doing okay, to we really want to mess with the formula.
And so I really understood his point but in some ways I had
enough weight behind me at that point to not overrule it because
they could have easily said no but we just kept our our foot on
the gas and we really just kept squeaky wheel gets the grease as
you say and we just made a thing of it for a long time and truth
be told the budget was so small and I say so small in Berg in
relation to other comic book films.
Not small. You know, we ultimately made the
movie for 60 million dollars, but at Warner Brothers or a DC,
that's like an independent film to them.
So we kept it. So under the radar and so small
that in, in some way, it felt like not a can't lose but like,
okay. What could we really lose on
this if it just is a disaster? And if nobody wants to see it,
if it's boring, if it's all this, right?
So they let us go you, because you kept the budget low, you
didn't have them, breathing down our necks, and we've basically,
it was something they ignored for a long time, and let us go.
And and do it, whose idea was it to have it premiered at the
Venice. Film Festival.
Because again this isn't where a mass audience action comic book
film premieres and one of the top three festivals in the
world. Yeah.
And there's Venice and there's Berlin.
Yeah, and I would argue Venice has become really one of the
Premier ones of of launching a movie.
It's the oldest film festival. It's I don't know if you've been
there for most beautiful thing, I come.
So we It was Blair Rich who runs marketing there and me because
the one thing that the, the that Warner's was always concerned
about was confusing the audience and so they, you know, this
audience knows what DC is. And all of a sudden they just
made a movie a couple of years before Suicide Squad.
There was a joker character in that how do you separate it?
So one of those things was Blair Rich saying we're going to,
we're going to sell it differently.
We're going to, we're going to take a different road with it.
So, if the movie is good enough, we're going to go to Venice Film
Festival which we Which we did and premiered there.
So that was all part of the like we got to tell people.
This is not the what they're expecting, mainly because we
also didn't I thought one point, you know, we're going to have
mass walkouts. If you convince the quote
unquote Fast and the Furious crowd to show up to this movie
because they're going to be bored by it.
So we wanted to educate the audience that this is not your
typical superhero movie, granted we educated them and they ended
up liking it and not being bored by and low and and coming back
but we weren't sure about that. That's a, we don't want to trick
anyone into, you know, word gets out so quick on movies.
Now, the trailer was honest. Yes.
And, and I think, and I think, so, let's say you're a big
Comics comic book person. I think you'd have to go check
this out, right? At least, check it out, right?
Because these are characters, I've lived with, since I was 10
years old, right? So, so, and the fact that not
only were you not pilloried by that group, I know, which is We
that was the group, we expected, maybe knowledge is the opposite
happen and I am cuz I know some of these people I'm not
mentioning any names, but they appreciated.
The fact that you took such a risky Deep dive into the human
being, that is this character, you know, that it made it, it
made it so much, you know. Okay.
Yes, I didn't get my action scenes.
I didn't get the car. Chase the Cameo from one of the
Transformers didn't show up right there, but it's, it is,
so, it's so moving on. Here's my, the problem I have
had with my friends, on the left, especially the more
education they've had, they do not want to go see this film.
This is bad. Yeah, I know.
A few months ago. Oh no, I said no, you've got to
see this movie? Oh no, are you guy heard?
It's he just goes around and no, no stop.
First of all dumb. Everything you've heard.
All right. It's it's it's like the world
isn't flat, you know? It's right, it's right.
We don't. But the the sun doesn't revolve
around us and Joker is not some crazy film to inspire people to
be even crazier, more violent. In fact, the amount of so-called
blood in the film is the least bloody R-rated film.
I've seen in a long time. And, and, without again, as I
said, the my time giving it away, the people who died, I
have to tell you, to be honest. And I'm, I consider myself a
non-violent very non violent, right person?
The first three people that died.
And by the way, when I say the first three, there's maybe a
total of six in the whole movie in the whole move, right?
That died. The first three, your kind of
quietly going. Yes well one of the three got
away, please Joker. Go get him, go get him, go get
him. Because because because and we
live now in a time where hopefully more and more people
are sensitive and wanting to act on stopping the abuse of women
in all the forms that that takes in their daily lives.
And of course, at this particular scene, I'm referring
to near the beginning. Not at the beginning, but near
the beginning, on the subway. Yeah, I think we were Rise by
the reaction because one of the things that happened outside of,
oh, it's going to cause Mass hysteria mass murders.
All these horrible things that people were invoking was also,
as you say on the left side where I didn't expect people
saying it's just irresponsible yeah, depiction of violence and
Joaquin. And I literally when we were
making it as crazy as this sounds we thought we were making
a responsible depiction of violence because we showed how
ugly and horrific violence is to me.
It responsible to be The violence is when it's celebrated
in a movie when a character is running around with a gun
killing nameless people by the hundreds, you know, I know in
the spirit of Defending, whatever the country, this that
we're out there, and it's supposed it violent suppose,
isn't it ugly? Isn't it supposed to be gruesome
And discussing? So to us, it felt.
So if we show The Real World implications of violence, that's
such a more responsible way of treating it.
But yes, actually, it was surprising and there's a long
tradition of this attitude from the violence and in the Greek
Plays to Shakespeare to all. There's always been violence in
art, but this was not a gratuitous violence.
Yeah, Joker. And in fact, what I saw finally
I got so upset of listening to people saying they weren't going
to go to it. I started insisting that they
had to go see this film or I wasn't going to talk to them.
Yeah, it's just hard way that when people have an opinion and
then they hadn't seen it. So that's always a difficult
thing to talk about. That's what I meant about
earlier about those thick pieces.
They are writing think pieces about it without having seen it
and I'm like, you can kill a movie after you've seen it, but
you Laughter, you know, I read some of those pieces and they
they felt that they were doing something Noble by.
They didn't see anything wrong with a.
I'm not going to see this but I'm going to tell you, yeah,
well I think about it, right? And it was it was there is even
another layer that was more offensive which was the people
coming out saying, look, I this movie shouldn't exist because
while I could handle it and while I understand it, the
masses won't understand and won't be able to handle, you
know, I mean like arrogance. Yes, it's just trash.
Are you crazy? Yeah, but we realize what you
were saying about comic book fans that we thought might be.
We'd be pilloried as you say from from the that Community.
What? I think it.
What it what I was did a talk a Q&A at the wga about a week or
two ago and and what you realize is, they'd been eating processed
food for so long. And, and like, we keep giving
them and you know how Hollywood Works Hollywood.
Works. The, the audience dictates what
gets made because if they show up to it, they're just going
Make more of it. The I mean, right.
So there's been this sort of this direction where it's been
just kind of processed food over and over the same thing and it's
safe and we sort of gave them something different and because
we were able to keep that budget down, we were able to take that
chance and you realize, oh, wait, they want it.
So I said to The Writers, Guild, I was saying whether you like
joke or not, doesn't matter, but you can use Joker when you go
and you pitch movies at the Studio's.
When you're talking when they tell you, no, it's too violent
or know it. It's R-rated and it's going to
there's a ceiling or or it's weird like use Joker point to
Joker and, and let that be part of your Arsenal to push
different ideas through, you know?
Yes. Well, this is this is why I felt
so good about the fact that I was seeing something that we no
longer get to see films. Like the ones you mentioned,
Taxi Driver, Dog, Day Afternoon Network, Cuckoo's Nest.
And if this film does anything, if it does trigger A studio in
the saying, you know what, you know, the audience is actually a
lot more, you know, intelligent than we give them credit for and
they're willing to handle things and they don't just need to be
fed. The pre-processed cotton candy
sugar foods that we've been giving them.
They actually like, they like something they had substance and
that's what this film. I mean, it I just, I let I wrote
I wrote this on my Facebook page.
I said if you're thinking that you're being irresponsible, if
you go see this film, the truth is you're being irresponsible.
If you don't go see the film because we need to be talking
about this film and what? It's raising I don't mean just
I'm not talking just a political statement but right from the
beginning of the film Joaquin, Phoenix's Joker is he's putting
on his his clown, paint you. And what is Doing it for.
He's got some shit job that probably pays them under the
table. Does not even making minimum
wage and he's out on some New Jersey.
Well, Gotham street, but we should have a Newark.
Yeah, see. But is Gotham is God.
It's our version of Gotham's version.
We call it Gotham Square. Our version of Times Square and
God. Okay?
So, yeah, so Gotham Square would be in Newark but and he's, you
know, you've seen those guys on the roadside where they're
flipping an arrow or a sign around to get you to come.
In to buy a used car, or if there's some deal at the Verizon
store, that's what he's doing. And the sign, it's the sign says
everything must go, right? Then that was my moment where
I'm glad you recognize that a while.
I was like, wow, yes. Oh Mike where it now.
Everything must go. That's that's what the theme
we're starting with. That is literally the now I
don't know what's going to happen.
Exactly. Which is the best movie ever.
We're saying it about a lot of things, we're saying it also
about your preconceived notions of good versus evil that must go
or saying it about the, the system.
I mean what the movie ultimately becomes about.
We have to turn this around, you know, everything must go.
Yeah, that's and I, and his sanity, quite frankly, yes.
Right and not to make my second Greek play reference, but
essentially the course of the film where the course comes out
at the beginning, to sort of tell you, here is this You know,
this Parable, this Fable we're going to enact for you.
Here is Joker spinning, a sign around saying everything must
go. And right then you're like, oh
yeah, that's actually right. And that's scary and and wait, I
don't want everything to go, but wait a minute everything is
going pick whatever subject you want, right?
Right. Everything that everything.
That we believed a president, should be gone.
Everything that we were told that we had till 2040 to fix the
climate change problem. Now, we've just been told we
have less than 12 years right gone.
Right. If yes if that you know and in
fact I have friends who think that it's it's too late.
Yeah I've spoken to people to as well like so so everything must
go not only by the end of the film.
Are you feeling Everything? Must Go?
Everything may be gone, everything went everywhere.
Thing went and let's see what happens now.
Yeah, and it's so in. So here's this character that
Joaquin is playing. Arthur, let's reflect Arthur
Fleck and you know he just wants a break.
He just wants to he why? He loves watching the comedians
on TV, he wants a shot at it. He was told his whole life that
his purpose was to bring joy and laughter to the world.
He's told that by his mother, he believes he has a purpose.
He has this horrible Affliction where he laughs, you know, a
sort of You do bulbar effect where he where he we are.
Just sometimes breaks out laughing in the middle of a
situation which is something he can't control.
And yet disturbs people or do people find it right.
You know why that's evil sounding but it is a physical
Affliction it's a real thing. Yeah.
And but then you also begin to see as his back story unfolds
that the mental illness, that he's suffering that it's not his
fault, right? That is part of what happened to
him as a child. Old.
And then what happened to him later?
And and you see, he's struggling with it.
And you see this so-called super villain as sought help through
the social service system, to get to speak to a counselor to
try and, and that's a hard thing.
If you've known people who have certain mental illnesses, it's
very hard to self diagnose and the, the idea of them going on
their own without intervention. Yeah, to get help.
Yeah. And then the mayor of Gotham
says, too many of these Social Services.
We had a right, gotta save our money to give tax cuts to the
rich. Yeah.
And then, boom, his counselor has to tell him.
I'm sorry, you can't come here anymore because we don't have
the money or shutting down the. So, shutting down, shutting down
the social services and, and then he loses his medication,
and he loses. Yeah.
And so, take away the pharmaceutical company all
whole, the whole thing. And and, and I mean the movie
takes place in 1981. One, but we wrote it in 2016.
The movie isn't for us. It was a wee when I say us and
when Scott silver and I sat down to write it, it was really
about. Let's make something meaningful,
let's make something that addresses this loss of
compassion that's going on in the world.
You know that we all know that that's been happening.
It's not even just Donald Trump. It's been happening for years
but it's certainly been exaggerated and Amplified in the
last few years. That's right.
And this idea of the way we treat.
People that are different than us and that's how it that's sort
of where the themes. All started It, ultimately ended
up becoming as he said about childhood.
Trauma, it became about lack of love, you know, Arthur is No
Love in his life. If somebody had just put their
hand on his shoulder, if somebody just treat him a little
bit differently, you know it in the most productive way.
It's about the power of kindness.
If you watch the film and you walk out and you don't realize
it's not about the power of kindness, then you're just
missing. What we're trying to do there
and how it could affect people. And I've had so many people
write me emails, reach out to me at screenings and say, you know,
I have a sister that suffers from schizophrenia and my whole
life, it's been a burden on me and now I realize what it is for
her and I'm gonna call her tonight and treat her
differently. And I'm going to, you know, like
it's really had a profound effect on a lot of people that
live with people that have mental illness and actually
people with mental illness. You know, there's somebody that
came up to me at a The screening and I think we were in Paris.
And said the thing that really resonated for them was when he
set when in his journal he writes you know the worst part
about having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as
if you don't and that is so encapsulated for them for that
person's what it feels like the middle.
Is, if you have a broken leg, people help you out of the taxi
people, help you up the stairs, they carry your bag.
If you have a mental illness, your broken inside, nobody sees
that. So, people just Expect you to
but you look at you, you look fine.
Why are you so sad? You know, right, expect you to
behave as if you don't have it. You know, it's a very it's a
very powerful thing. So it's spoken to people.
I mean after all that stuff we're talking about all the all
the, all the things that came out and all the things that felt
like they were obstacles. It was able to cut through all
that noise and cut through the fog of just, every movie has to
kind of be that comes out, has to cut through the fog of
podcasts and zillions of movies and TV shows and and No
resonate. Some of them can't know.
I know and are destroyed by it. Yeah.
And I think, the reason yours wasn't is, I think I've and I
say this when I go to talk to filmmakers or people are
studying filmmaking or whatever, your most important job is to
make it great film. Yeah.
Because if you make a great film, it will cut through and it
will be a shield against anything coming at it because
what they can't say, is this film sucks.
Well, they did that to joke or two.
I mean, we did get a lot of that people.
Yeah. Just dismissing.
I mean, like, critics was just saying saw it.
And yeah and and it was like a little bit discouraging where
you just, you know, but I think that's as I now, you should have
not been by this point in your career.
No, I don't. We know that.
Don't we know. Now everybody to hear.
Yeah, of course. And you've got Rotten Tomatoes.
Yeah, even that it's a suit. You get quote unquote.
Friends at go. Can you believe what this New
York Times guy said, you're like, I thought you're my
friend. Why are you sending me this
note? I know, right?
Insane. Yes, so so The film as the film
progresses the story progresses, they have knots in Gotham
decided to revolt. I was at a Q&A with you a couple
weeks ago for Joker and someone in the audience asked you that
woman holding the sign resist. Did that was that just an
accident? And you said no, there are no
accidents and you make a movie. That's right somebody just
doesn't wander on the right side with a sign that says resist,
right. But but basically The Barbarians
is, as they are looked upon by their wealthy are at the gate
and they are rising up and and they think Joker is their
leader. He has no clue and doesn't want
to really lead anything, but they might come up with, like, a
mistaken. I got, I do.
Yeah, an accidental icon. Yeah, for them.
Well, there's that, of course, the Great Sea.
In the world, Charlie Chaplin film, where he's this Lumber
Truck goes by and they've got a red flag hanging out the back.
So car doesn't run into you the flag drops and Charlie Chaplin.
So he dropped the flag. I'm going to pick it up and run
after them and the right around the corner.
Comes this big demonstration, right?
And if you see Charlie, Chaplin way down, the red flag, right?
And the police think he's the leader of the demonstration, but
but it, but so there is this Uprising.
Yeah, in the film and, and Bruce Wayne's father who's running for
Thomas, Wayne mayor, Thomas Wayne in a trump-like trench
coat, which I'm sure again, was just an accident and and who
really if there is a villain in this film?
It is what will later become better?
This child is going to be Batman.
Yeah, but his his father I suppose if he would if there was
a village I would think what bill is probably the system
right in the movie. It's not that much him.
He might be the human embodiment of it to you tonight, people.
But yeah. But he shits all over Joker.
Yeah. On Chisholm right in the face.
Yes. The and but he doesn't deserve
to die. No.
But the uprising, you know, he gets he gets trapped in an alley
so it's very I think a lot of people feel and I think people
watching this movie It actually gets, I think kind of quiet in
the theater because you have the sense of.
Yeah. What is going to happen when
people say I've taken enough and I don't want to take any more
but when shit goes down, when shit goes down.
And what, and what we have seen in the last few years, and when
the 2016 election is that those people who are the, you know,
the disaffected least, the white people who were poor.
We're going to rise up and give us what we've got not because
they were necessarily. Fans of Donald Trump.
He just look like you get the president you deserve.
Yeah. Basically said yeah.
As in our movie you get the villain you deserve when the
president you deserve who's also a an accidental icon in a way
for that. You know, he's become you know
because it's very funny because a lot of people make that direct
connection that you just did with Thomas Wayne trenchcoat
Donald Trump. But I would argue there's a way
to look at this movie and realize that joker at the end of
this movie, is more playing that part that he's standing on that.
Are looking around at these thousands of people cheering him
on and realizing. How did this happen and sort of
puts his arms out and goes. All right, let's do this.
You know, there's, it's a funny movie because it really did it
really depends on where your head's at I've had, I've had
people to have both sort of reactions to it, really the lens
it, which you view it through is.
And, and that's what's been so polarizing about the movie.
And so divisive about the movies, it just has to do with
the lens with which you view it through.
So you bring up the scene at the end and he's on top of the car
and, and his hands are outstretched and, you know, in
the form of the Jesus, because your home until of yes, follow
me. So begs the question.
I'm sure you've been asked this. You know, it's does, is that the
are you telling us then that there's going to be a sequel.
I wasn't really, you know, it, but of course I'd be lying if I
said a movie that cost, In dollars made a billion dollars,
the studio doesn't come to you and goes, okay, how are we going
to figure this out? You got to figure it out, you
know, would you and Joaquin? Do it and Joaquin and I have
spoken about it. And I've said this before, it's
not necessary breaking news, but it would really be about
figuring out. If we could find something that
had real thematic residents, the way this did, because I really
it be, I don't want to go make a movie now, about the clown
Prince of Crime, it's never been interesting to us.
That wasn't why we got into this to start, right?
We want we're not on your way to making Deathwish cetera.
Right? Right, we we wanted.
We wanted to have some kind of thematic resonance if we didn't,
if we could crack that and Scott silver and I who would do it
together. If we could, if we could give it
that, we might be interested in it.
I have a filmmaker, a director friend of mine.
Who said to me? What are you doing here?
I saw my to think I know what do you mean you is, why aren't you
home writing the sequel? And I said, I don't know, I
don't know if we're going to do it.
It feels like, you know, really, you know, it's kind of beautiful
that it exists on its own. And we kind of we got through by
the skin of our teeth, kind of thing, and he goes Here's what
you're not realizing he was your movie is essentially a First
Act. He goes the the movies, such a
slow burn and it's great. That it's a slow burn, but it's
really that car. That's your end of the First
Act. I want to see two acts of Joker.
Now, I want to see what the fuck happens.
I thought that was an interesting way of looking at.
Yes. So I want to encourage you to
don't listen to the art, snobs, right?
Who are say, oh, we just doing this to make money now.
No, no, you've made this masterpiece.
You've made a film that. At when they write about this
era that were in this film will be referenced in the way that
films in the past. Right.
Were referenced about about there are has this will happen
with with Joker and but you're right that that it really is a
First Act ending. And so now the burden on you and
Scott and Joaquin is now we need to see your godfather to write
easier said than done, right? Because Equals in and of
themselves are not evil things. You can name the sequels that
were arguably even better right than the first one Godfather to.
I'd be the one for the wider audience, listening to this Star
Trek to wrapping Wrath of Khan. I haven't seen it is right,
because you don't watch comic book type movies, but but no,
but there are those few examples where and, and yes, it's Will be
a challenge to you but what we already know, first of all you
didn't need to do this. Hmm.
You I read. What you the deal you did with
hangover, right? You want to make that movie so
bad and they didn't want to make it so bad.
So you said fuck it, I'll do it for practically for free.
No literally for free. Oh okay, literally for free, if
it makes money, pay me then, right?
And of course it made a gazillion billion dollars, you
know? I mean the three of them I'm
sure it made. Billion or two to the three
movies did ya? Bill 6 worldwide.
Yeah okay so so you don't have to disclose your financial
situation here but I would guess if you made that deal and your
pay was on the percentage of the backend you you made so much
money that you didn't need to make Joker.
Oh no, I did not do joker as a money grow.
Yeah. I mean we actually know you were
having a cigarette on the sidewalk outside.
Grauman's Chinese Theater right in LA and an idea comes to you
from looking at At a fucking billboard, right?
You know that what if what if and you put the Twist on it,
right in your head? This is actually this is a
commercial offer encouraging people to smoke.
But but seriously, by the time that Warner Brothers guy in the
theater had come out, he had already spoken to the Warner
Brothers guy that you talked to on the phone, right?
And they were smart enough to say.
Wow, this is a really brilliant idea.
Yeah, because just to go back to that really quick.
It wasn't one idea what I pitched him was, we should start
a label. We should start a label where we
get great. Actors, other directors, Joker
can be the first one, but let's do a label called DC black where
we make stripped-down, no CGI. No.
Spandex quote unquote comic book movies but we do Deep dive
character studies. And I literally said, get so and
so to do this character, I don't want to name them because I've
never told these directors, right?
You get. So, and so to do that character,
and we started with Joker, and we start an entire label.
I go, why wouldn't you do? Why are you instead of trying to
be more Ville, do something that Marvel can't do?
Which is like an R-rated strip down, that Disney can't make
those movies. So instead of trying to emulate
them, go over here. But by the way, you can still do
your normal DC movies have two bites of the Apple.
So to me, it was a very like so that was the thing that they got
excited about. Was this other hole label?
That ended up going away when the regime change has happened.
And they started saying, and I understand why they did it now,
we're going to complicate all these different worlds.
Let's just if we feel like doing a movie like this will do, it
doesn't need its own label and blah, blah blah.
But that whole, when he came out of the theater, And goes.
Wow, I want to talk to you ride with me.
It was about this idea of the label.
Not just this idea of one movie. Does that make sense?
Yeah. Wow, yeah.
So that was where it all came from.
Yeah, that's wow. That's even more more amazing
story. I just want to ask you because
we haven't talked about Joaquin and they incredible performance.
What did that take out of him? I can't that must have been so
draining. It was just so, you know, I
mean, I don't think he goes halfway on any movie, I do.
Oh my God. Meaning I didn't matter that it
was that it was a bigger movie than he done recently.
This guy just goes all-in and gives it his all and takes it
very seriously. And we talked about it, a ton
before we started and of course, while we were shooting.
So it was, you know, it was a lot, but he also has said since
I've done ton of President press with him, you know, it was the
it was the greatest experience of his life.
I really do think this character Joker's sort of magical in a
way. I think it attracts people.
That are in have a little bit of Chaos in them.
I think you look at Jack Nicholson, you look at Heath
Ledger, even Jared Leto who did it.
They all have a little chaos in them as actors as people, right.
And what can certainly fits in there too, and there was
something about it that I think's really liberating for
Joaquin and we just went for it. Wow.
Well, it was, it was an ordeal to get him to do it, you know, I
mean, he did get a Joaquin Phoenix.
If you look at his last 10 years of movies, this Doing a comic
book film even though it's not really, but on paper, it's still
called Joker. It still says DC on the screen,
he was resistant for short of that idea.
And I spent three months of, but his house saying no, no, no,
there's a quick story. I said to him, I felt like I had
him clothes. I'd been up there for three
months, talking about character talking about tone Vibe, what
it's going to look like, was going to feel like and he goes
out and we, he comes to me, I kind of expect him to just go,
okay? In bubble body goes.
I'm still just having trouble because it's still maybe if it
was called Arthur. If we could just lose all the
Joker's didn't do that and I'm thinking there's no way we're
going to be made if it's called you know, like we had this is
half the reason we're getting this thing, pushed through the
system and I said I'm he goes I just don't know why I don't know
why I would do this and I said, you know, you're looking at the
movie, the wrong way and he goes, what do you mean?
I go, he got to think of it as the greatest Heist movie ever
made and he was Heist movie. There's barely any action in
this film there. Where's the heist?
First I go, no. We're going to take 60 million
dollars from Warner Brothers and we're going to do whatever the
fuck we want. I go promise you trust me.
You gotta do this, right? And, and if anybody from
Warner's is listening to us right now.
They know that story. They know that.
Yeah. They write and because it wasn't
like that she reverse Heist now because they've made so much
money. Right.
Right, right. I mean, I read that it was the
largest grossing R-rated film ever ever.
Yeah, wow, so yeah. But yeah, the idea of being
like, It worked because I knew once we got the green light,
once he was on board, they just from my past making movies,
they're, they're an amazing studio to make a film that for a
director. People have this idea that, you
know, studios are overbearing and again maybe because it's my
10th movie and I've made them a lot of money.
But we were just, we were out there.
The inmates were running the asylum on this movie.
It often felt like we're out here making a student film, you
know. Yeah.
Well it doesn't look like ass to know what, you know what I mean.
I know, I know what you mean that when you when you see Joe
Joker. It does look like the inmates
have taken over and if you're a filmmaker watching this you're
also thinking how the hell did this happen, right?
How did they get away with this? Because everybody wants to play
it safe. Everybody wants to keep their
job. This doesn't look like a safe
decision. This looks like a reckless
decision and some of our great art comes from this Reckless,
abandon to the rule, right? And what you did here and and I
think that that On so many levels.
You can come into this movie, if you just for the entertainment
value, it's there. If it's if it's the time that
we're living in and you are you feel this if you just want to
live in a world with more empathy, the film is a cry for
empathy. I don't think anybody would
disagree with we could use a bit more of that, you know, right
now. No, but it's also a cry for
resistance and and the drags as they're referred to We shouldn't
tolerate how they're being treated shouldn't put up with
this shouldn't have their Healthcare cut and and you need
to see the real life consequences of when you when
you punk on those people who are on the lowest rungs of the
ladder. Don't just think they're going
to hang on to the ladder and smile up and take it.
And I don't know if you've seen the impact that it's had
globally, you know, at some of these uprisings in Chile and
Beirut and Hong Kong where people are donning, this Of
clown mask? Yeah.
And it's I saw in hard of it. Yes.
And Chile was really big and in Beirut to and we just get it
across the news where this symbol of dissatisfaction, for
whatever their different issues going on in these countries.
But it's become this thing of like, what you just said?
Yeah, we're hanging on by this Bottom Rung.
And no, we're not just going to hang here and it's been, you
know, and if you think it's going to drive some of us crazy,
you're right, right? Some of us have been driven
crazy, right? And and You know, There Will Be
Blood. I hate you hate to say that or
think that because you don't want that to happen but if
you're so stupid that you don't realize that you could only shit
on people for so long to think that they're going to take it,
they eventually will not take it.
And and yes they may follow leaders who are insane.
Right? Right.
But they can't all be crazy, but they can't all be crazy.
No, because they're not all crazy.
They're, they're responding to something.
And that is the, that is the Deep finger that this movie puts
into the pulse of this country right now and the world.
And and that's why you had a worldwide.
I think response to this and the way that I saw that in Hong Kong
where they're putting the Joker makeup, put on in the way that
that Occupy Wall Street, people were putting on the Guy Fawkes
masks from a for Vendetta. Yeah.
And and it's and they want to scare those in charge.
They don't have the money or the weapons or the what Dever right
to defeat the system, right? But if they can, at least scare
it a little bit into, hey, just give us a little more.
Yeah, just take your foot off our neck a little bit.
That's all we really want. We just want to live our lives,
you know? It's, I don't know.
I was so profoundly moved after seeing this.
I had to go for a long walk after watching this film and I
mean, you've been doing it with your movies, your whole life,
you've been Making movies that make a difference and that
address something real. And there's something you
realize, you know, after I've had a lot of success in the
business but also a lot of opportunity.
And sometimes you go, you know what, you get older and you
realize, you could affect change with something.
You could, you could have it, an impact effect changes, actually
too big of a way of saying it, but but why not use in this time
that we're living in and this 2016, when we're coming up with
this idea, why not make something that means something.
This is the tools we have and I'm given these opportunities
and I think other filmmakers to, I mean, the best protest songs
written in the 70s were at the time when we needed them, right?
You can make protest movies. We have the power.
When we, I mean, the people making film sometimes out like
my director friends and the men and women that produce these
movies, like why not do it like? That is part of the thing.
So Joker was born out of that, you know, the reason we put
modern times the Charlie Chaplin movie, we reference And times
we're telling you. This is now generally mean, you
know, everybody goes to me that the question I get on press
junkets when they're four minutes is like so.
Tell us, how do you go from Making The Hangover 2, making a
joker and ago, we made the hangovers.
Obama was President, is all a party.
Now, like we're in like DEFCON 5 here, like should have to
change. So, we have these opportunities
artists as filmmakers as musicians as writers and
podcasters. It's our job and way too.
Kind of address these issues. So, two points to this.
Number one, you know, that hangover was not just another.
No I know but but no, but you did something in hangover cure.
The reason why it it resonated so well is that again you the
voice in your head as the viewer is saying oh he shouldn't have
done that. Oh that's not right.
And then fact that you would make Mike Tyson who should have
been given the Oscar for best supporting actor.
I agree. That I you single-handedly saved
his legacy but but it's I think because you're a Storyteller and
a filmmaker it, you can tell your story through hangover.
You can tell your story through Joker.
But what you just said you're challenged to filmmakers is that
you can make a difference or you can, I don't mean some phony
Noble, I'm up on my high horse. Yeah.
But you have the ability to leave a mark to make a
difference. And, and use you were just
saying, Us out in the in the general, you wear all year,
right. But I want to just say it back
to you as and thank you for what you said about, you know, my
films and all that. But you've been doing it for
decades. Like you managed to just say,
this is what I'm gonna do with my career.
Like, you basically have only done that and and it's admirable
to watch an amazing feel like we've spoken off-camera about
it. You're a huge influence for me
when I started in documentaries, but you've just always known it.
You're just like, hey, I have this voice.
I've been giving it. I said to Michael before we
started How is this that you haven't had a podcast before?
You feel like the original podcaster?
You've never done it. You know, it's like this is, of
course, you're going to do this. I have had it but it's been in
my head it right? So 20 years it's just an ongoing
daily podcast. But you know, but I say this so
you fellow documentary filmmaker but you who started out with
documentary. Yeah, that you Need to make a
difference again. And again and again, I encourage
you now that, you know, you are already Todd Phillips, you
already have an Oscar nomination for web and mentioned this
before, at, as one of the writers write, Borat for
Christ's sake, you talk about one of the great comedies of all
time but but we the the audience you need to after Joker make
whatever. That next thing is, whether it's
the act two. Ooh of Joker or whatever it is,
but you clearly have the ability as a filmmaker to tell a story
that can affect how people feel, how they see the world, what
they may go and do about it in their own personal lives.
That's, that's an enormous gift. It's not a sense of power.
It's a gift. And so, I encourage you to do
that, and I'm not saying go back to documentary film.
Do I understand? Stay where you're at?
Stay in your lane. Yeah.
But we've even that lane, yeah, be Reckless.
Give us more of this. And whenever that voice is
telling you usually it's that outer voice.
Your own inner one that don't do this, I'll Tata please.
Why don't I come on? Why, why are you doing this,
anytime you hear that, you know, you're on the right track,
right? For sure.
And so it's exciting to me. I think until other people who
saw Joker to think, what else you will do in the next, Two
years. The next four years.
The next 10 years. It's, you know, it's an honor to
have you sitting here. Oh man.
That'd be hearing much for having me.
One of my first podcasts and I wanted to do this with you so
badly. And you just happened to be in
New York, and, and you instantly said, yes.
And you don't know you're like a hero of mine.
I mean, outside of the movies, the, what you, the way you speak
truth to power. And and another thing I want to
say really quickly is this movie Joker, you help this, The
invaluable invaluable e, you don't even realize because you
wrote this great beautiful essay, I'll say on Facebook at
our lowest point when it looked like this movie, might not come
out when we were getting our warnings from the FBI and the
Army about credible threats. When there were not credible
threats, and you wrote this beautiful thing that got picked
up everywhere and really helped eloquently put reason on it, you
know what I mean? Like just like, let's calm the
fuck down. And talk about what we're
talking about here. Well, thanks for saying that.
And I'll, if you're listening to this, I'll post that on our
website here for rumble, right? The podcast.
And, and you can read it. I felt, I felt I had an
obligation to do that. Thank you, because I was so
afraid that the film might get lost or buried or suffocate from
the noise around it and I wasn't going to let that happen.
I just became I didn't call up Warner.
He called you right ready? Just did.
It was the stuff I wanted my friend.
He texted me, because have you seen with Michael Moore wrote
about Joker and my curse? My first reaction because I'm
Jewish and everything. All I have are negative
thoughts. I go, oh no, what did he's not?
He's just sitting bad. Oh no, no, I it was beautiful.
It's, you know, I don't like having discussions about all
this was the best film of the are you were the best actor?
You're the best, the best, the best, you know, you and I both
know that this is all a lot of crazy making this.
Herbs season and all that. But I have told everybody, I
could that they should see this film that it had a huge impact
on me. It made me.
Thank you for what you said about what I do.
But I'm a human being too. This isn't the easiest thing to
do and I if this doesn't have, this doesn't sound too corny.
I felt less alone. After I saw this film right
obviously in part, because I saw it with an audience that was
wondering, you know, how is that we're still alive.
At the end of the movie, we made it, you know, but no because you
the filmmaker who I had allegedly met only once before I
have a photo, there's a photograph at Sundance.
But but I just felt I was less alone as a filmmaker because now
there's you there's our one Little friend who made Birdman,
I think of think of you know, or V for Vendetta or these other
films of the last decade or so that.
And I think we're going to see a lot more to come and not as a
reaction to Joker. But as a reaction to what's
going on in the world, I mean I didn't think the film I
directors I talked to we all know it's part of what we do is
to sort of confront these things through our art.
I think I'm always surprised how there are no.
There seems to be a lack of it in music when we Younger.
That's what music was Neil. Young goes and writes.
Ohio, he goes off into the woods with his guitar and writes,
Ohio, these are protest songs and more surprise in music.
It happens in Hip Hop to a degree, but it never feels like
it. Takes hold the way used to take
hold and maybe there's just too much.
I don't know. But it does feel like it is a
job of artists in a way that is something we should I think.
Yeah. Consider, because throughout
history, it is, it has been the artists who who do their best
art during In times like this, and it is often the artist that
the authoritarians go after first, because they know they
have to silence them, right. That the voice of the artist
because the people like the artist, they'll you know what I
mean? You know, it's funny if you
really think about it, it can be done subtly.
If you think about what's happened in the in the mid 90s
to the through the beginning of 2000's, with the lgbtq community
be between Ellen and shows like modern family, and shows, you
know that we Slowly shifted an a a country's opinion of the gay
and lesbian community Through people like Ellen Degeneres and
television shows like modern family.
And the other one, there's been a million but we're and slowly
everybody, you don't even realize it.
Now, it's embarrassing to think about, you know, thinking of
somebody as different or let. Now it's just we've everyone
even even the people we think could Couldn't handle it.
They're fine with it. Now we have, we have a mayor
Pete running for president and it's actually like he's there
and he's being discussed. And it's not, it's doesn't even
come up all the time, you know, right.
So these things do shift, they take time with, if you think
about it, they'll, I don't know how, I don't know if it was a
concerted effort on the LGBT community or not but it actually
happened and it happened through entertainment, weirdly a lot of
it, right? Because entertainment, art
writing is these are some of the few Fields where people who are
gay and and or who are not in the majority of anything,
whether it's race, ethnicity religion, whatever, it's been a
place, it's been a refuge but a welcoming place.
Yes, I have your voice heard. It's true.
And and so like the comedian's I mentioned at the beginning of
this. Yeah the Charlie Chaplin Jewish
Richard Pryor, black George Carlin.
We We talked about George Carlin, I don't know Irish.
Oh, he was, I was wrong because I'm my family's all from
Ireland, got it. We know them all know, where em
were angry and we're dark. And if we didn't have a sense of
humor, we'd be drinking even more right, all right.
Just saying, but no Lenny, Bruce Jewish, when you go, it's it is
and it needs to be a more and more.
Now, women are best comedians are women and they have been
shut out for so long. So this is all good.
Change can happen and it doesn't need to A hundred years, right?
Or thousand years, we saw this as you just referenced, if you'd
asked me at the beginning of the 2000s, you know, you think like
there'll ever be something called gay marriage, or we will
have a black president, right? We say, are you kidding?
I mean, I'd like to believe we could, but that's never going to
happen, but don't you think that in?
Boom, right. But it happens Slowly by people
by making shows about, like, literally television shows and
movies where it's just like, oh, it's just as normal neighbor,
all he happens to have a husband that's fine and it's just like
it just sort of somehow sneaks in.
And it becomes yes, I believe that television movies, art
triggered it, but in the case, especially with an issue with
gay marriage, I think so many people, gay, lesbian bisexual,
the whole genre here came out to their friends family, right?
People at work, and it's hard to hate right when you put a face
on it, like the person that you're working next.
When you love him so much, you're going to suddenly hate
him because he says he's gay, right?
And and that took a lot of Courage. 100% - come on, but
don't you think those those shows sort of Norm normalize it
to a way where they could come out absent because they're
suddenly your co-workers talking about that show and then you can
finally go. You know what?
I don't, I'm not taking anything away from though.
I don't mean to get all the credit because it's still, it's
still now 2019. I'm sure hard to come out in
that way, but it's amazing, the shift we've made.
When you think about 15 years of it and you go, okay, it could
happen in my point isn't even about that anymore.
It's about what's the next thing, right?
You know, Oh, and you can go like we can do it and while you
know, we hit we didn't want to you know I'm think Warner
Brothers is not interested in joker as a healthcare, that's a
healthcare movie. But but but the truth is that,
when we do talk about universal healthcare often times or
Obamacare, it does not include mental issues and even in the
countries that have Universal, some of them will not cover
mental health, and that should be at the top of the list.
Now, and we need to Cheryl down effect of that.
Yes. So massive and and and the costs
that go with that, when it's not addressed are so massive.
Well, this has been an incredible discussion, Todd.
Thank you for being here and one of my first podcast, and for
people listening, if you haven't seen Joker, please go see it.
I'm certain will be on home video or streaming.
Yeah, by that, by the time, this airs, I think it'll probably be
on like the iTunes stuff. What iTunes by?
Time around the holidays. Are, you know?
Oh, that's great. So so watch this film.
If you're the kind of person who's thinking, oh no, I can't
watch this. Yes, yes, yes, yes, a is you can
you must I beg you to do that? We'll all be better as a result
of you watching this film and and I look forward to whatever
you're going to do next. Thank you.
Thank you for having me. It was really an honor to sit
here and talk to you. Thank you, Todd Phillips, thank
you very much.