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Hi, I'm Alexa Rae Correa, and this is the GameMaker's Notebook podcast. podcast. The man I've interviewed today needs no introduction.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is Troy Baker.
This is a really cool episode.
If you want some really detailed stories about working on Indiana Jones, the process of becoming Indiana Jones, and a couple of really cool anecdotes from his career.
This is a really excellent show.
Please enjoy. enjoy.
Welcome to the GameMaker's Notebook, a podcast featuring a series of in -depth one -on -one conversations between GameMakers providing a thoughtful, intimate perspective on the business and craft of interactive entertainment.
The GameMaker's Notebook is presented by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, a member -driven organization dedicated to the recognition and and advancement of interactive entertainment.
Austin is a terrible human being.
That's how you should begin the podcast, by the way.
We are recording now, so...
Good. I want that on record. No, this is a little bit timely, I suppose.
you know obviously we tried to make this happen before um before dice or as as contemporaneously two dice as we could but i um that was the first time for me to meet ted price you know and i walked up to him i was like hi ted i'm troy baker um nice to meet you and enjoy the rest of your life it was weird it's it's this is one of the reasons why i love that show is because it's such not just celebration of the industry, but I've had the, and I was walking out and I was talking to Todd.
I was like, dude, I, this is not a brag or anything.
It's just an interesting observation that I'm fortunate because I've been able to work with like literally every Paragon of the industry.
I think back to, I've worked with Neil Druckmann, Ken Levine, Hideo Kojima, Todd Howard, by proxy ted price um and i'm sure that i'm missing uh several other people as well austin wintry no um but it's it's it's it's been a remarkable like holy shit this has been pretty crazy i can't believe that i've i've been able to do this but even sometimes taking those opportunities at shows like that to be able to go hey um you and i have tacitly work together but i want to let you know i'm a huge fan of you and what you do uh and i wish you the best of luck for the rest of your life it was a fun moment
fun moment for sure yeah good for him i honestly can't imagine ever leaving this job like i don't know if retirement is going to be a thing you know i think my retirement plan is pretty much uh it's kind of like bach you know that we're you just at this point the composer died and it's like in the middle of a session or something that would be that would be the best I wouldn't want to freak anybody out by by you know expiring at work session yeah but and often and I are very much the same mindset as far as like we're not this isn't a job for us like we do this I do what I do because if I don't
my head will explode and even when i hate it and they were like calls that i was on today um and maybe some actors can relate to this and if you don't then that's fine i i work i'm weird i'm a weird oddball cat in this industry i've never been the person that says uh tell me my lines in my mark and then i'm going to go to my trailer and go home i am i want to know how everything everything works.
I, I want to, I ask questions.
Um, I'm a pain in the ass, but it's always in service to the thing that we're trying to make.
And I, I asked those questions because I want to learn and I want to learn because I love what I do and I want to know every facet of it.
So I, I don't, I'm like you, I don't ever imagine, um, not doing this.
I want to keep doing this.
And at some point the industry is going to look at me and go, thank you for your service.
You've done enough.
You may now stop. Um, and at that point it's, it's incumbent upon me to figure out what it is that I need to do next.
This industry owes me something.
I, I look and the shelf behind me commemorates some of the things I've been a part of.
And if I'm lucky enough to get one of those, every actor hopes to get, just give me one of those roles, give me one of those monologues, give me one of those characters.
And the fact that I'm like, damn, it's not lost on me that this is weird. This is not the norm.
So this industry owes me nothing.
It's not like I need to beat it up in order to secure my employment.
I've done a lot. What I will always do is I will always find opportunities and find ways for me to support this industry, for me to be involved with this industry.
And ultimately, I will always find a way to tell stories because that's what I love doing.
Listen, I know you have an IMDb that's like 10 miles long.
8 .5 miles. But to me, you will always be Snow from Final Fantasy XIII.
Cool. Awesome. That's great.
Can I tell you a funny story about that?
Yeah, because I also have a story about that.
So go ahead. Okay, well, whose is better?
You go first. Well, mine is, and I know you definitely don't remember this.
the first time i met you this was like pre -career you were doing a signing for bioshock infinite and i walked up to you with a snow action figure to sign and you were so excited because it was the only non -bioshock piece of thing that someone had brought up to you like that day and you were like oh my god i wasn't what you're what i was like a child oh this was like a thousand thousand thousand years ago but that was like the first time i ever met was it this is my tea that i have to make sure i don't die um i that's a good story um i was i was that was like 2000 when we started i think it was like
2007 2008 so i i recently moved to los angeles probably within in a year or two and i auditioned and the character that i i think i auditioned for several but the the character that i got was sid and i was super stoked because there's always a sid in final fantasy yeah and so my session comes in and they go uh so you're you know your session's at studiopolis uh and you will be recording the role of snow and i went no no i'm still and what i I found out when I walked into my session was that Jack Fletcher, who remains a dear friend and still a mentor, whom I had never worked with, had told Square,
this is the cast. And they went, no, we think Troy Baker should be Sid.
And he said, Troy Baker.
Again, we had never worked together.
He goes, Troy Baker is snow or I walk.
Wow. Interesting. so when i walk in he goes hey kid both of our asses are on the line so don't mess this up that's a lot of pressure it was so it was really my i guess working audition to see if i could pull off the character and so after four hours would come out of the booth or whatever and he was like we're in good shape and i got to know jack very very well and um again he remains a dear friend and taught me so much about the process of, of specifically acting purely with your voice and being able to trust and interpret and intuit what, what the story needs, what the character needs, um, working
in that medium, working within that genre, because he's been with Final Fantasy since almost the very beginning.
He directed the movie.
He's, he's an incredible resource, but yeah, that that's Final Fantasy will always be a very special thing for me.
It will hold a special place in my heart because it was the first time I'd had a lead role before, but I hadn't really, quote, earned it.
I had been given it.
And I guess the same thing is true with Jack because I hadn't necessarily, in my opinion, earned it.
But he just saw something in me that was like, if I can control him, we can go somewhere cool with this.
And I think that's kind of been the running theme from from my entire career is that it's not that I'm lucky.
I read any actor that that comes in and like there's a thing that I'm directing now and I'll hear actors say this a lot we're just like oh yeah just just very lucky and I want to tell every actor don't ever say that don't ever say that because there's not a single casting director producer or director that wants to hire just someone who's been lucky they want to hire a skilled skilled, seasoned professional, because they're resting in the case of games, hundreds of millions of dollars on that character.
And they don't want to hang someone that's just been flipping a coin or carries a rabbit's foot.
It's not that you've been lucky.
I haven't been lucky.
I've been fortunate.
And there's a difference between those things, because what that means is that I've been the benefactor of someone else's good graces.
Someone else has looked at me and said, and I said, I see something in him that he doesn't even see yet because I've got more experience than he does.
Here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to trust him and I'm going to rear him up in the way that he should go.
Rear him. When he's older, he will not depart from it.
I have learned from everybody that I've worked with, but Ken Levine saw something in me that I didn't see.
Neil Druckmann saw something in me that I didn't see.
Jack Fletcher saw something in me that I didn't see.
Tom Keegan, our performance director on Indiana Jones I flatly turned down the role Tom Keegan come to me yeah so here's what's funny the full story is this yes I want the full I want the gritty detail how you ended up being Indiana Jones all over Travis Willingham much to his His chagrin loves this story.
I, like everybody else, saw that teaser trailer go out in like October, November of 2000, whatever, 20, 21, 20.
And I was like, they're gonna make an Indiana Jones game.
And then shortly thereafter, Travis comes to me and goes, I just got this audition.
They're casting for Indiana Jones.
And we were in his kitchen and I looked at him and I went, you don't audition for that dude.
Clearly you don't audition for that because what do you do?
Either you do Indiana, you do Harrison Ford and you get critiqued like crazy or you do something new and people reject it.
Like you don't want to be Chris Pratt.
You don't want to do that thing where you're just constantly being compared.
cut to my agent reaches out to me and says hey tom keegan again a director with whom i'd never worked with before wants to talk to you can i give him your number and i said yeah it was tom one so tom calls me up and goes hey i like you for this role And I said, okay, one question.
Do they want Harrison Ford?
And he said, they want 1981 Harrison Ford. And I said, great.
I'm going to give you two names.
You call one of these two people.
They do a dead on Harrison Ford. They got your problem solved.
I'm here to help you.
Best of luck to you.
He goes, okay, thanks for that.
I like you for this role.
and I went okay so again the rejection of it because I was afraid I don't want to put myself in a position where I look bad I don't want to fail I only want to do what people go oh my god you're so incredible and if I put myself in a position where like I don't know if I can jump that high I don't know if I can lift that I don't know if I can do that I was scared and I think Tom saw that and I said tell you what man I'll put myself on tape if you think it's good enough send it on but if it's not do us both a favor and keep it between you and I you said deal so I sent him I sent him the the tape
and he says I'm sending it on that off months of back and forth here's another scene so now i'm again we're all in the middle of covid so i set up a two camera zoom setup like a dork in the library of my house and i found a leather jacket and a fedora it's the only time i've ever dressed up for an audition by wow and i was like i want to see if you can't picture it and a lot of that thing was trying to mask this because this is not harrison ford this is not indiana jones right actually right now this feels a little bit more like nathan drake like it's giving Nate.
Um, and I, I, I, you know, did this audition by myself and it's a big, what would end up, you know, being a proto version of the scene where I fight with locusts and then a proto version of a conversation with Gina.
And he was like, okay, great.
Thank you very much. And that was it.
Maybe five minutes of a zoom.
And I'm like, all right, well, that was fun.
At least I got to do it.
And then like another month would go by and he goes, they really want to work on the voice.
I'm like, okay. He goes like, so I want to coach you through the voice and i want to see if you can get there so then we do another voice okay great thanks so much and that was it and then it's like month after month after going back with different meetings and finally tom goes there's just one last it's like riptorn in uh men in black is on one final test an eye exam i'm like this is where they go thank you so much but we're moving on in a different direction they're just being kind and so i get on zoom and there is tom there's our our creative director and there's Todd Howard. And I'm like,
what's happening? And they said, well, we just wanted to kind of walk you through the story.
Um, and they're like, why?
They're like, well, the next call after this is, is your agent.
We want to make sure that you know what you're signing up for.
And Todd, someone I've never met, I think we bumped into each other at at E3 or Dice, goes, I want you to know I didn't want you to be Indiana Jones.
Great way to come up with that.
Wow. And I was like, nice to meet you, Todd.
And he goes, when they brought me your name, I rolled my eyes.
No. What a thing to say.
No, no, no, no, because here's the reason why.
I get it. It's like, oh, let me guess.
You're just going to put Troy Baker in your game?
Troy Baker's in every game.
All I hear is Troy Baker.
It's just Troy Baker and Nolan North and Matt Mertz.
People rattle off the same names.
Now we can get to why that is in a minute.
But I was like, dude, I totally get it.
He said, and then I did a blind taste test with you and two other people.
And we did this in front of a lot of people.
And they chose you every time.
And I realized that wasn't necessarily like a huge compliment.
It was giving credit, but it was also you set the standard and that's the standard. our standard will be excellence our standard will be everyone going wow i can't believe and so much so that actually axel our our uh center creative director or semantics director sorry um mistook one of my audition tapes for harrison ford they were referencing that and they were like that's Troy.
And he goes, oh my God.
So that does not mean that I just innately inherently naturally got there.
I got there because of months of working really Tom Keegan guiding me through and teaching me things about my own abilities and my own craft. Um, and that's before we even got to set.
And then once we got to set, that's when the work happened.
I'll never forget my the first day on set we had to shoot we're still in covid we have half of the team that's in sweden and upsala and the other half of the team is here in la and in order to meet the time zones we were having like 4 a .m call times oh gosh i'm in there and we do the first day of of shooting and if you play the game the opening of the game is a shot for shot remake of raiders my favorite movie like first movie i saw in the theater like literally we start on the mountain titles come up and it's it's it's a shot per shot so after the first day of filming now it's like okay everything
you did in the audition everything that you did leading up to this replicate go and we get going and it's literally like you know we're doing the idol scene or something and it's like drop your hand down to the right now cock your head to the left because we're having to match for the frame and we're shooting our cameras on the day we have kyle klutz who's our dp who has two aries so cinematic cameras with anamorphic lenses on dollies and jibs that he's actually matching that iconic cinematography of douglas slocum from 1981 and at the end of the day i'm like well that was fun i'm totally getting
fired there's no way they're gonna do this they're gonna use some other tool besides me and the next morning i i get to work and i'm just waiting they're like well we'll get through this next few days and then we'll find a different solution and i get an email from todd and he goes hey man i just want to let you know i was watching yesterday and you're doing an incredible job wow and i was like That's what I needed.
That would start a process of slowly eroding away the insecurity and leaning more into the trust because ultimately, Indiana Jones is not an insecure character.
He's a very confident character.
It's not about the voice.
It's not about the finger wag.
It's not about the smirk.
The real thing that I needed to find was the confidence that Indiana Jones had.
that and that was the biggest challenge so how did you what was the process of finding him like like you talked about these months of auditions you put yourself in a costume you like where do you go mentally like what was your research process like like how much research did you do i mean that i think actually that became a a stumbling block for me really because yeah i i think that I'd never worked like this before and I was like you know what I'm going to I don't want to say I have a process and this is the way that I do stuff because then it means that I'm telling people you know uh you come
to me this is my process and this is how I work so you must work this way instead what I like to do is go what's your process what are you guys going to do and what do I what tools do I have in my toolkit that I can bring to that and hopefully we can going to accomplish the same result.
Do we, do we agree that this is the result?
Great. Okay. You do your part.
I'll do my part and we'll meet in the middle.
Um, but this was like, huh, I've never really done this before.
Like this, I I've done the Joker.
And that was like, I don't know, this is just what I've heard in my head is Mark Hamill's voice.
So let me come to that.
But this was like, this is different.
So I would wake up every day and I would listen to, or I've watched Raiders get getting ready.
I would, uh, watch Raiders.
I would walk to set when we were shooting in Sweden.
And I would listen to John Williams score.
And then I would at lunch, I would watch temple.
And then for dinner, I would watch last crusade and I would just rinse and repeat that.
And it's a, it was, it was a, it was a pretty grueling process.
Like we had a lot of content that we needed to get through.
It's a new crew. It's a really new process.
We're all kind of acclimating to being over in Sweden.
And so that first shoot in Sweden was rough.
And I love telling this story.
Um, we get there in the first week and Friday comes and all of the stress is just compounded and all of the pressure that I've been putting on myself and all of the finding the bumps and and and the the rough edges of the process have really worn me down and there's this one specific scene where the nature of making games is such that you don't have your script and you go and shoot it you have this you have the overall story we know what story we're trying to tell and here are the scenes in that level but we don't really know exactly what the level is we're not quite sure what the gameplay is because we're
working on those mechanics and making sure that you know design isn't necessarily online world art is starting to get there but we're not sure what this thing looks like and so there's this one thing that i needed to reference and i go what does it look like and they go we're not sure yet i'm like you want me to give a specific performance but there's something that doesn't have any specificity now this is where i start showing my lack of experience is because as i would find out later from Tom, a good actor would be able to come up with a substitution for that.
I didn't have that.
I was like, I need to know what I'm looking at so that I can be specific.
And I say the words that you should never say on set.
This should have been figured out before now.
And I just watch all of the air gets sucked out of the room.
And Tom finally is the first one to speak and he goes, And I was, well, that's not helpful.
And he was right. And I saw how I just killed the creativity in the room with my frustration.
And we finished the scene, finished the day, and I go home.
I walk back to the hotel, and there waiting for me in the hotel bar is Tony Todd.
and Tony had finished earlier.
They had wrapped him out, and he watches me walk in, and I put my backpack down next to him at the bar, and he goes, tea, let me buy you a drink, and that was about 6 .30 at night.
Cut to about 3 a .m. I've taken over the piano in the hotel lobby.
We're all gathered around, Somehow, Ms. Skull got involved.
Of course. Most of our cast is there, and I remembered what we're here to do.
And over the course of the weekend, I nursed a gargantuan biblical hangover.
I showed up Monday morning.
I didn't see anybody that weekend.
I just kind of sheltered myself.
And Monday morning comes, and Tom walks up to me, and I expect to kind of hear a, hey, you can't do that again.
We really need to keep our tempers in check or whatever.
And I didn't like Christian Bale on set or anything, but definitely it was clear that I was frustrated.
And he just walks up to me and I go, here we go.
And he goes, he looks at me and he put his hand on my shoulder and he says, just trust that it'll be there.
That's it. And so I go get ready and I start to put on Raiders and I was like, no. And I was like, Like, instead of listening to John Williams, I'm going to listen to Chopin, something else.
And I just shifted my routine.
And I went to set and I remembered that Harrison Ford isn't trying to be Indiana Jones.
Harrison Ford just is Indiana Jones.
He's not trying to prove to anybody anything.
And I was like, well, why can't I do that?
It's not about the voice.
It's not about the finger wag.
It's not about anything.
thing it's about why don't i just be indiana jones and that was that became my process of just what's the purest simplest version of this and it's remembering i think i'd forgotten that this wasn't theater and i i'm so tired of of people calling this oh it's like mocap it's just like theater no it's not it's it's sure you can draw some comparisons if you want, but number one, it's not theater because I'm putting a camera on it and theater allows the audience to look wherever they want.
Film goes, you're looking here and I'm telling you exactly what you're looking at, how you're looking at it.
And even the angle of that camera is going to determine how you feel about that.
And there's also this notion of there's no audience.
it's not theater and on top of that my wardrobe if you've seen any pictures behind the scenes of any mocap shoot they're ridiculous it's just everything is working against you the suit is ridiculous and i realized i was like oh i've got hundreds of people back at that back at the ranch as i say that are incredibly skilled artists that are working to make sure damn that looks just like harrison ford in 1981 i don't have to do that it's about us together but you did kind of have to match his physicality too right so for you said you know if you do a harrison ford impression everyone's gonna compare you
if you do your own thing everyone's gonna going to hate it.
So where would you put your Indiana Jones?
I think that for me with the, if I had to go out and do a one man show as Indiana Jones tickets better be cheap.
You know what I mean?
Um, I think that there's something that I can do that inhabits and there is a transformation because there is a way that he stands.
There is the smirk.
There is certain things that i've learned how to adopt in order to have my physicality uh inhabit that character but it is we're working in concert together by they put the leather jacket on me they put the fedora on me and then they put harrison's face on me and i've seen the behind the scenes stuff and it's like that doesn't look anything like harrison ford but man when all it's the sum of its parts and that's that's the way that i like to work i've never been a i mean i like being in a band you know what i mean i like how i could go out and i could play a solo show as a as a you know all all
credit to ed sheeran like he's an amazing artist the fact that he can do all that stuff himself but there's there's this feeling that i get and i started off in music and so i'll always kind of relate this to music but there's a feeling that i get i got i'm playing these shows right now we're um in the middle of covid um i started writing all these songs for for the last inspired by the last of us and we're finally getting out to where we're going to share these and obviously there's a lot of you know buzz the last of us is swinging back under you know into this ice and so it's a good opportunity
for me to go hey here's my thoughts just um it's not taking away or necessarily even adding to it's just a commentary about that and what would it be like if we had ever heard those songs that joel had written um and there's a friend of mine that's like you just go out with a guitar and you do that yourself i'm like that's that's not what i want to do i love the moment where i look across and my buddy c ray christopher ray is an amazing producer and he plays pedal steel like nobody's business when we're just in the pocket together and it's like we're feeling where the song is taking us as opposed
to playing the song and showing people where it goes and we've even started incorporating bringing in a local musician that we've never played with before we've never rehearsed with before we have no idea what they're going to play and the instrument changes every time like this one guy Gary in Houston we're like can we find as a local musician this guy played harmonica and trumpet my kick kick ass.
What are you going to bring to this?
And it became like this incredible blues leaning kind of thing.
And then we're going to go to a different place.
We're going to have a fiddle player and it's a completely different kind of performance.
So my whole point is saying that is that what I like best is I can go out there and I can do it on my own.
But fortunately, especially with this project, especially with Indiana Jones, Jones.
I had an incredible foundation of 40 years of this character.
I also had an incredible team of people that were able to go, we got you.
You go out there, you go for broke and you show us how Indiana Jones moves and how he responds to the problem, how he feels about Gina, how he feels about Voss, how he deals with Locus, how he is driven by his obsession for finding these ancient artifacts and the call to adventure, and then we'll put the veneer on it and we'll make it look like Harrison Ford. All you have to do is show us the spirit of Indiana Jones and we've got the rest. That's incredible.
Did you collaborate with the writers at all?
What was your relationship?
Oh, okay. Oof. I can just hear like Tommy and Ed and our entire writing department just sure it was a very collaborative uh i drove them crazy they um they they are the kindest most gracious giving it is so true it it lives and dies on the page and if it ain't on the page it ain't on the stage i just had an opportunity i'm gonna drop a name um i was at mega con in orlando florida and that green room was a fever dream it was like it was like that that whatever the painting is, where you see like all of it, just like James Dean and Humphrey Bogart and Elvis Presley, everybody, it was the craziest. Like,
I can't believe so -and -so is here.
And one of those people is Ron Howard. And I said, man, you're one of my favorite filmmakers.
And I would be remiss if I just didn't ask you as a new director, can I ask you some questions?
He was like, sure, of course.
Um, and I asked him, I was like, what's, what would you tell yourself starting off?
and he was like i don't know if any of the advice that i would give myself today would make any sense to the director that i started off to be but i would say one thing be tougher on the script you've got to be as hard as you can it has to be the best version of the script if it's not you can't make up for that later on you can't take a bad script and cover that with good performances.
It has to be a good script.
And so I take that very much to heart.
And we were hard on this script.
And that's not just me, that's everybody.
That includes our writers.
That includes our cinematics director.
That includes everybody at Machine Games, at Bethesda, at Lucas.
Everybody was hard on this script.
Our narrative department got their asses kicked.
and in the best way and i think that it made a better game but there was one line specifically that i i i don't often do this but this was one that i was willing to die on um and it's it's the line that um for anybody who hasn't played the game yet i want to spoil the game but you can you can go for it um there there's there's one line when they pitched me the game um it's this incredible moment of vulnerability that that indy has with gina and really i can spoil this it's okay yeah this is we are under the assumption that everyone has okay played played the games we talk about this is very most
of our audience is developers students people like that so we're digging into the craft so it's okay to spoil if if people have played the game they'll know what scene i'm talking about but if not it still It still even works in an abstraction, because the first time I heard it, it was without the context of the game.
But it was within the story.
And it's this moment of respite between Indy and Gina, between the bullets, between the bombs.
It's a moment of quiet.
And Gina asks Indy, was there someone?
And he said there was.
Didn't work out. wasn't good at keeping my promises fixing the porch fancy dinners and that landed on me so hard because that was the moment of revelation for me where if you look at last crusade when they are leaving the castle in austria and they're going going towards Berlin and it's like, Marcus is this way, but the grail, the, the, the, the journal is this way.
And he says, we haven't, you know, Sean Connery's character says we have to find this.
And Indy says, this is an obsession, dad.
I never understood it and neither did mom.
And I realized when he said it wasn't good at keeping my promises, is.
It was the simple things, fixing the porch, fancy dinners.
That's when he understands this is an obsession.
And I do understand it.
I understand it. I am my father's son.
I'm just as obsessed.
That was the model that was given to me.
And I understand that as a dad, what I am doing right now is modeling for my son, how a husband, a father, a man is supposed to be in this world and that's that's what henry jones senior gave henry jones junior is a father who was too busy for his kid a man who's obsessed with you told me that people who i wasn't as important as people who lived hundreds of years before and it's like he does understand that that formed him and it came to light with marion so that at the end of the movie sorry at the end of the game game um we have this beautiful casa blanca ending gina is getting on the plane
and she says look me up when this is all over maybe we can have that fancy dinner and indy looks at her and says i'd like that and he puts on the hat we hear the raiders march and he walks off into the sunset and it's at that moment where he goes that will never be me that will never happen I will never fix the porch and I'll never have fat fancy dinner that line became a big sticking point because when fear comes into play and it erodes the trust between either the team or the audience it degrades the quality of the thing you're trying to make we have to to be fearless and the second that we
make something fearful it never lands and i think there was a a fear that that line wouldn't land and maybe i understood it in a completely different way than anybody else but that's the one that i was willing to die on and it got contentious like tom and i argued about they tried to they not try to they weren't being surreptitious about it but they were like let's maybe try this line here like it doesn't work care and i won't i i won't let's just get one just in case and i was like i refuse sorry this is the one where i'm not going to give it to you so that you can have it because you might think
that it works and i'm telling you it doesn't and so it was something that we fought on and i would encourage any actor there's a difference between falling on your sword and brandishing it and what i learned through this process was there's never any good that comes out of brandishing a sword and maybe sometimes you need to fall on it um but what i've learned is like the more that the earlier on in the process i can be and the more partner that i can be in it more on the same side of the table as i can be um we're going to accomplish a better result but trying to wage that war on set or in in the booth
is the worst time to do it.
And so what I try to do is I try to get, whether I'm an actor or a director, I try to get as far enough away from that moment in the planning process so that, hey guys, I just wanna let you know, I really wanna create a clear delineation line on this specific notion, scene, line of dialogue, whatever it is, character trait, whatever.
this is one that I'm willing to die on.
I can't be that way on every line.
But then it was funny because we had already had that battle.
And then we're in ADR at this point.
So we've shot all of our principal photography.
We've shot all of our stunts.
We're just doing ADR at this point.
And there's one scene when you're in Sukhothai and the line, I'm sitting in the booth and the line is, hello Amran.
on and i say why am i saying this line and tom literally goes jesus christ troy just say the line he's so frustrated i was like why am i saying the line they're like you're saying hello why are you nitpicking and i remembered a story are you ready for a tangent yes absolutely i had a conversation with steven toblioski who's famous character actor.
Um, in addition to being in like, um, um, one of my favorite movies, uh, oh my God, I'm trying to go complete blank.
Uh, Stanley totally, uh, Stephen Tobolowsky played, uh, Sammy Jenkins in memento.
Um, but he also, before that was a needle nose, Ned Ryerson in groundhog day.
And I remember asking Stephen one time, I was like, that had had to be so much fun working on groundhog days I mean you're working with hilarious people and it's a great story it's like oh it was miserable it was a terrible talk and I was like how because what's the movie where you know famously Murray and Ramis fell out and never talked to each other again and um he said there was one moment where they're so frustrated towards the end of shooting and a PA comes to Harold Ramis and says Bill won't come out of his trailer and he's like, I've had it.
I can't. He goes and he bangs on his door and he's like, why won't you come out?
He's like, I need to know what Andy's wearing.
He's like, you don't need to know what Andy's wearing.
You need to focus on what you're wearing.
That's the only thing that matters.
Get dressed and get out.
He goes, I need to know what Andy's wearing.
He goes, please, Bill.
Please tell me why you need to know what Andy's wearing.
He's speaking about Andy McDowell.
And he goes, is she wearing her clothes, my clothes, no clothes?
And it dawns on Harold Ramis, it's the last scene.
If you've seen Groundhog Day, it's the morning after.
What is Andy wearing?
Because that means there's a lot of implications.
If she's wearing her clothes, nothing happened.
His clothes, something happened.
No clothes, we know exactly what happened.
And Bill was like, what is she wearing?
And he was like, I don't have my movie.
So he gathers the entire cast and crew together.
And he goes, all right, everybody, we're all going to vote.
What is Andy wearing?
And it came down to like key grip, something.
And he was like, what is Andy wearing?
And they said, she's wearing her clothes.
And that's what you get in the movie.
So I'm looking at this going, why am I saying hello, Amran?
What happened just before this?
they're like you just escaped from this bad trap was it bad oh yeah you barely escaped with your life okay so i've just barely escaped from a trap yeah who was with me omron what's my line hello omron how about that was close boy glad we made it how the hell did you You get out of here in front of me?
Like there's all these questions that I haven't realized.
Oh, we have even a potential design flaw because Omron can't get ahead of Indy.
So they're like, understood.
Again, it's not about every line.
But there are times when it's incumbent upon me as an actor to understand just the basics.
Where am I coming from?
Where am I going to?
What do I want? What's in my way?
It's all the basic actory questions.
But if I'm instead focused on how am I going to say this line, that's not me doing the work.
And I've really noticed this trend towards actors just not doing the work.
Show up on time. Be off script.
Know your character.
It's the most basic thing.
Instead of worrying about all of the accoutrement, on.
Let's just do some work.
Yeah. I want to touch on something you said.
You kind of read my mind because talking about the collaboration between writers and actors as a writer, I love, I love when, you know, I have an actor get my script, get my material, dig into a character, ask questions, you know, why am I saying this?
I don't feel like I would say this character.
I would say this line after they've been playing them for months or whatever, but in games it's different because you're not just it's not just the writer and the actor collaborating it's the writer and the actor and then design you have that whole that whole piece that you know to your point what you were saying earlier sometimes it's not finished when you begin shooting when you begin writing it's always in flux so how do you manage that relationship that sort of that that fight you're talking about that dialogue between the actor and the writer knowing that that there's kind of like this third
entity that is over both of you?
How do you manage that?
I think, number one, I have to humble myself and understand that I'm a cog in the wheel.
I am not the wheel, and I'm sure as shit not the machine.
So, I need to understand how this wheel is built or how this cog is built, most specifically.
But it's – again, I learned this through experience.
And it wasn't like a great process.
i would i was asking we'd go to two on the last of us uh part one we would have these great table reads and i would sit there and i would have all these super high level questions and neil finally i was taking up all the time this was no other time for anybody else to ask questions first of all and the question that's a really it's a really good point um and so he was like here's what we're gonna do we would shoot about once a month wednesday thursday friday wednesday was rehearsal shoot thursday friday so tuesday night neil and i would get a bourbon get on the phone and go through the script
and that's really where our relationship our working relationship on our friendship was born because it was let's let's fight over this let's argue let's let's push and pull and iron sharpens iron that's really good point actually i want to kind of maybe incorporate that in the script or okay there's one thing you're not understanding and so it became this very much of a respectful tete -a -tete you know fence match but before we actually got there on wednesday so that when we stepped foot onto either the table read or the stage I've got all my questions out and now it's everybody else and now I
get to react to everybody that was coupled with hey I think this line needs to change and Neil put up with that for a while probably too long until he finally came up to me and he said, I hear you.
Instead of saying, I think the line should change.
I want your first response to be, what about this scene, this story, or this character do I not understand?
And then if I'm like, huh, that's a really good point.
I hadn't thought about that either.
Now together we can work through the problem.
them. But if the punt to, as always your line that needs to change, all I hear from you is that something is bumping for you.
So let's figure that out.
I try to take that approach with writers as well.
And, and typically I would say my most contentious relationship, even more than directors or producers is writers, because I will push a writer to be the best version possible because they're pushing me to be the best possible.
They spend hours upon hours or days or or weeks or months or years working on that scene or that script.
And then they put it over to my hands to go respect this enough by bringing your a game.
And I do every time I don't half ass anything.
If I'm not, if I'm going to half ass it, I'm going to step aside and let somebody else full ass it.
You hole ass everything, full ass everything.
Um, so if I, if, if I look back and go, I think there's a better version of this.
Let's, let's workshop this together or even been better.
There's something about this that I don't understand.
Can you help me understand something here?
Um, and I've had some writers go, well, yeah, this is the, yeah, we just need to tell the player that, you know, this is what this is.
And I'm like, okay, great.
I have a follow -up question.
They don't know they're in a game.
So you having this wonderful conversation to serve of a purely systemic purpose totally get it that's what you want to do go for it but i don't expect a hud to serve a narrative or emotional purpose so don't have this cinematic or this emotional scene serve a systemic person purpose and i learned that from shadow of war where we were constantly telling the player this thing is the most important thing ever oh my god can you believe how important this thing is this thing is super important hey player you really want to get this thing as opposed to just trusting and believing that it is and everything every
scene is of course we have to go get that thing because it's important but we don't have to say that it just becomes becomes important.
So for me, it starts in prep.
It starts in, first of all, being familiar with the script.
I will ask for materials as early as possible, even if it's a rough version.
Let me see this scene.
I can see how it's growing.
I won't become attached to it.
I won't become married to saying it in a certain way.
I want to see how you evolve the script.
Then when, and by the way, this goes for auditions too, which I don't audition.
I will meet with you and we can get together on zoom or in person but the whole put yourself on tape and send it off into the ether some people that works for it doesn't work for me i don't care i'm not here to show you that i can act i'm not even here to show you that my take on the scene i want to see how you and i are going to work together do i want to work do you want to work with me do i have a sense that you know where the story is going do you think that i have a sense of where this story is going that's what the audition process should be not watch this bitch and take on this scene like
i'm gonna wow you with my choices nobody cares that you can act they need the per they need to hire an actor because i guarantee you this more actors have been cast off of a great audition that have been replaced because of poor set behavior perfect example was um and i'm sure he wouldn't be this way either but um judd nelson who was hired to play john bender in um breakfast club um john hughes's seminal incredible 80s movie that has been is so iconic he almost fired uh judd nelson because of his set behavior that's something he originally was going to cast john cusack as that character but was like
he's too nice so he hires judd nelson judd nelson was like watch this shit.
I'm going to, I'm going to be bender all the time.
And he was like razzing Raleigh Ringwald.
And Molly was like, you can't dude, I'm at crafty right now.
And I need a break from the scene.
I don't need you giving me shit the entire time.
So I want to identify as a director.
I want to identify that.
And I had a, um, we would be doing auditions and the person who was like, you know, filming the audition of this great conversation with the actors, they would come in do you have any questions about the scene do you have any questions about the character that's the first test by the way because if somebody goes no ready and razzle dazzle me if you don't have any questions i sent you a snippet of a scene from an entire story about a character that by the way that's not even their real name didn't really give you much of a character description zero information and you did you gave me a performance.
Now, something you did worked.
But oh my God, if you've got the opportunity, hi, I'm your performance director.
There's your cinematics director.
There's your narrative director.
And there's a producer.
All of these people are here to answer any question you have. Do you have a question?
Nope. I know you're not a partner.
I know you're not a collaborator.
I know someone who wants to come in and razzle dazzle and get out of here.
Great. Someone who goes, actually, yeah, I have a lot of questions.
That's okay. It's your time.
You got 15 minutes.
it's let's go we would get through that whole process and then they go all right let's start the scene and then the guy would be like just like your name for me I'm like were you not filming all of that like that's what we need to show to everybody going yeah walked in the room that was the character or did you see them transform into the character because they came in and they were super meek and then when the when the scene started they came alive it's like we need to see that that's what we're dealing with because we're not casting a character we're hiring an actor and that is a very important
distinction yeah i think with i agree with all of that and also i feel like so often maybe in this industry some people feel like oh this is the actor we cast here they are um that's not true like the actor is also a collaborator a developer if you will on the whole process that's why i like the dice award You said it in your, in your congratulations again, in your speech for Indie.
It's not just, the award is not just for the actors, for the act.
They list the actor, the writer, the creative director, like, like everyone who put everything into bringing that character to life.
And I think that some, that is something that we should remember when we get to this part in the development.
I agree. And also I want to tell actors that come in as like, listen, I joke all the time.
I'll be like, there's no film in these cameras.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like we're never going to let a bad version of this out.
And I know what it feels like to feel that weight and that threat that I impose upon myself going, what if they get a bad one, that that's the one that they use.
So I always want to tell actors, it's like, don't let your best take be on the 405 on the way home.
Like leave everything.
My job, David Milch had a great quote.
He said that an actor will either operate out of fear or faith.
And it's our jobs as creatives to provide an environment that allows them to circumnavigate that fear and operate in that place of faith.
So my job is to equip you.
My job is to remove all the obstacles in your path, other than the one that the character that you're playing is faced with.
And then just let you fly, just go crazy.
And that, that comes down to, let's just get one for safety.
Yeah. You know what?
I love what you did.
Let's just get one is written just so we have it i refuse to do that to an actor if an actor well they missed this line they said you know we need to go to that instead of this it's like i understand there's a distinction between this and that sure um or yeah i they didn't say sir at the end of that it's like okay that is that honorific really important it's like no it's just i i wrote it well let's just make make sure that the writer feels that they've been honored like the writer has done their job i'm assuming that they did a lot of due diligence a lot of preparation before they went to the page
and they finally put that page down they feel really confident about this script because they put locked on top of the page so they've done their part now it's over to us i don't want a writer running alongside our conveyor belt on the assembly line and telling me how to put that cog into the wheel it's up to us now just trust us we're gonna we know we've prepped and we're lined up and you've told us here's why i wrote this scene here's it what's at stake in this scene here's how design is going to integrate into this scene if you give me all the same got it now trust me take the training wheels
up it's okay let go we've got we got this we got you and if i look at an actor and they go perfect example is this the ranch house scene in the last of us uh the line The line in the script, and I'm somewhere I have the original.
So you can see this and I would publish this so people could see it.
Everyone that I've ever cared about has left me except for you.
That's the line. There's no shove.
There's no expletive.
what we get is shooting the scene multiple times it's okay it's good enough by the way for anybody else circle it fourth take that's the one print moving on we can go about the rest of our day and neil just goes i just feel there's something else there again it wasn't that the scene was bad it all worked we hit our marks no one flubbed a line it was landing it was good and he goes just not i don't know what it is and i said can we take five he goes take 10 and i went over in the back of the stage and i sat on the two -incher mats i'm like what am i missing i don't know what i'm missing it feels
and i'm trying to gen up something that's false and not working and i'm like maybe i need to say this line different or whatever and neil comes in comes like all right right let's get back into it no notes just go and ashley walks up and is like do you have any idea what your life means don't tell me that you were treading on mighty thin ice there i had a little bit of a tweak there mighty came out that's fun because the line was you are treading on some thin ice here i said you tried on some mighty thin ice here that's texan coming out of me so now we're starting to teeter off the rails a little
bit and ashley goes everyone that i've cared about has left me everyone shove fucking except for you now the scene goes boom takes off so much so that when they go to adapted for HBO writer ching ching everyone fucking except for you is in the script because now that's the scene what would have happened oh oh that's so oh my My God, does everybody feel that?
That was electric. Circle that one.
That's our best. Let's go one more time just for safety, and let's just get without the shove and without the fucking.
Brings the energy down.
It also conveys to the actor it doesn't matter what you do.
I'm always going to choose the safest one.
So when I say be risky, you're like, why?
why? So if there's ever an actor that does something that goes off, great.
I love that. How do you feel about it?
Maybe. Great. Let's go again.
Take all of that energy.
Now just try the words.
But if it's like what they just did, the shove and the fucking and the mighty, oh my gosh, that's electric.
Let's get it just to be safe.
I will not. And I will do that publicly, by the I won't do that as an aside.
I will do the theater, letting the actor know I've got your back.
And I will tell the writer, that's now the line.
That's now the line.
It's now changed. And as I learned from Jack Fletcher early on, that's the line or I walk and I will put my I will put everything on the line if I believe in something.
I want to talk about your directing as well, but something you just said reminded me.
I read an interview you did with GQ recently about Indiana Jones and something that you said really struck me because as a writer, I feel like I fall into this impetus as well.
And also it was just kind of funny.
um you talked about sort of your past and your acting um and how you'd beat yourself up the quote is on set this is what the writer wrote on set he would overcompensate macbething all over the place because i wanted to impress people he would cause friction by asking high -level creative questions about things he doesn't control he still often does after rapping on 2014's infamous second son director nate fox called him a very powerful force it was not a compliment moment yeah so and i i read that and the mcbething all over the place really kind of struck me because i feel like as a writer so right
now i'm working i'm actually working with the former shadow of mordor team i'm working with michael de plater and that that whole team and yeah it's crazy right um okay we'll offline about that because i want to hear how they're doing i love we will we will oh he's he's doing great shout i know he listens to the show so shout out mdp um and we're working on a Marvel project.
And so there is a lot of, I think, impetus to want to, you know, push all the way into that big, larger than life, like superhero, like big stuff.
There's, I feel like when you have that pressure on you, maybe you have a tendency to overact.
I have a tendency to overwrite and then pull back, pull back, pull back.
And that's a skill and a muscle that you kind of learn over the years.
So I want to talk a little bit about that in that headspace.
Like, do you still feel you feel that way?
How did you get yourself out of that headspace?
How do you balance that wanting to give your all wanting to, like you've been talking about for the last hour, going not just the extra mile, but the extra 10.
But still making sure that you're still grounded, like you're still here.
I learned a lot about that from Neil, what's the least amount that I can do was the least amount that I can say that conveys what's at stake with this scene.
And so like a perfect example, I heard someone listing this was, um, I think it was, uh, it was the whole nine yards.
I can't remember. It was some, uh, some prison with Clint Eastwood.
And he said, um, someone asked Clint Eastwood, they're in prison, right?
And he goes, how was your childhood?
And Clint Eastwood responds short, all he says.
And that gives you everything that you need to know.
and instead of going well i'll tell you daddy was a bastard mama drank you know it's like we don't need all of this we need to know what was the effect of whatever that childhood was and i think for me it's one of the number one notes that neil would always give me if he listened to this he's going to laugh he's going to say it along with me he's like do less just do less and i think that most actors tom keegan calls he was like man actors know how to eat a potato chip and they're like you know it's just so much schmacting going on as opposed to just what's don't underline just do it and it's
it's the it all comes down to trust i keep saying this but it's like trusting that the camera is gonna see it trusting that they're gonna put it together and they're not gonna let the bad version out if you have a thought think it but don't show me that you're thinking the thought and that's the hardest thing for an actor to let go is am i doing enough and the reality is you're probably doing too much the least what's the least amount that i can do what's the least amount that i can say and also understanding that richard burton had this quote when asked how he did the acting so well he goes it's quite
easy i will give you everything but if you give me nothing in return i will take it from you and that is understanding that I will only do what is necessary for this scene, but the scene is a beast and we must together feed the beast. And if we don't feed the beast, the beast will die.
And no one is coming to see this thing without a beast. So let's feed the beast. Let's not feed each other's egos.
Let's not set each other up for this amazing acting.
Just, just do the thing.
And for me, part of that was every actor works differently but i used to be the person who would run around after cut my playback and i you would literally hear that it was cut troy calling playback and of course all the interns there whatever trying to make actors happy so they would do playback and i would watch the scene and go oh okay i don't know what to do can i go one more more time and directors wanting to be accommodating to actors go sure let's get we had time we can do okay let's do one more time i would do it again and finally one day walking to the parking garage when we were still
at the culver stages neil came up to me and he goes great job today um so i have a favor to ask i was like yeah what do you need he goes you know you call for playback back i'm like yeah he goes i need you to not do that anymore and i went okay i know you're here um but that's how i work and that's my process he goes no i you need to trust me and your job is to be viewed and my job is to view so if you'll trust me that if i've got it then we've got it now i could be wrong but i need you to trust me and i remember like hearing a friend of mine who worked with clint eastwood one time on flags of our
fathers he clint was over here doing some scene and he and his scene partner that was playing his brother were were working out the scene and so clint comes over and he goes let me see what you're gonna do so they go through the scene clint looks back at his dp goes did you get it dp goes we got it he goes great moving on and my friend goes we were we were just rehearsing and clint stops and he looks back at him and he goes would you have done anything different no he goes then trust me we've got it and we are moving on it's like yeah you get one with clint and the same way with kojima a lot of times
he's like i just need the one so if i like it great if you i have to ask for a second take with adeo and a lot of times it's like i feel like there's something better and he's always accommodating he's like sure but i like what you did and so it's this i i wrestle and i think a lot of actors wrestle with this insecurity of like was it enough am i good enough am i going to wow people will i get that award is this what they're going to choose to clip out the daftas and at the end of the day that character doesn't know any of those things they're just having that moment in their life and i don't
need to underline it i just need to do it with as with as as little as possible and there's a difference between simple and boring and as long as you're not being boring i'd much rather you be simple so translating into your directing?
How did like, where did, when did that come to you?
When were you like, I think I want to try directing.
I think I, like, where, like, how did you get there?
How did you get here?
I asked Michael the platter, because he had to go through my, my, my boot camp.
So I, when we did Shadow of Mordor, which was so much fun, Christian Cantamesa was our director, and also the writer and also the cinematics director.
And so those are three very unique functions within a game, right?
Yes. There's no auteurship in games.
There is, it is always multiple people doing multiple things that could belong to one person in the TV or film.
So they did that process.
The game went to scale and they're like, we now need to have these responsibilities.
To begin with, Shadow of Mordor was not supposed to have a story.
It was supposed to be all, you know, procedurally generated and there was no real story that was happening there.
You might get some VO, but that's it.
And then towards the end of the process, they were like, we need a story.
So we crammed in, I think it was 12 weeks of filming towards the very end.
So the animation pipeline was banana sandwiches.
Heard a lot about that.
Yeah. It was a nightmare.
So when we came to do Shadow of War, they were like, like we want to do this differently we want to ask you as the lead who do you want to work with we've got this person who's doing vikings we got this person's doing breaking bad we've got this person and they're bringing in all these director ideas and i'm like you guys have the vision like i'm looking at the vision on the whiteboard i was up in seattle and i was like you guys have the vision all you need is someone to translate that to the actors that seems to be where you're where it's sticky for you right now they're like yeah i'm like well
most of the people you talked about are going to come in they're going to have their own vision and it's not that we need you have the cinematic language that you already have you don't need to bring someone in to kind of give it that touch you really need someone who can speak actor you you don't need a coach you need a quarterback and they went but a quarterback is on the field with the team i was like yeah they said a quarterback is one of the players and i went well what does it look like if i do it yeah so they did and I started working with Judith Weston I have her book somewhere and any
actor or director especially should read that book directing actors it's incredible and I talked to Judith and she walks me through and she's like I'm excited to work with you like there's just one more thing I should tell you this thing that I'm directing I'm also the lead in she goes and this is the first thing you're directing I said yes she goes oh and I'm like star pupil teacher's pet pet she goes very purple um you need to quit one of those jobs oh and i went well i know i can't do that she goes then i can't help you because i'm telling you for your first time out you can't do both of these
things so i did it and what i learned is i should not be the lead and be the director as well because i don't have the experience yet i try to compare myself to Clint Eastwood or Ben Affleck or Mark Duplass.
And those guys have so much experience that I don't have. So that was in 2014.
Cut to doing this new project with Lightspeed LA with Last National.
I've learned a lot.
I've learned how to trust my team.
I've learned what my lanes are and how important it is to not only determine the lanes, but the responsibility and the the accountability so that everybody knows when they're swerving in, including me to someone else's lane.
It's not about, hey, stay in your lane.
It's just to let you know you're swerving into my lane.
I've got this. Those lanes, those boundaries, those restrictions actually reinforce trust. There was this incredible sociology experiment that some think heads did where they took a flock of sheep and they put it in a pasture without any fences and the sheep bundled together and would only move as a herd and they would only move in small like they wouldn't take over the entire pasture they would stay in the middle same sheep same pasture they put up fences and the sheep scattered and explored and those boundaries and restrictions actually offer offer protection and they offer freedom to be able
to explore as we know, nothing can get in.
I know where the boundaries are.
I know I'm not going to go too far because this is telling me that.
So I've learned more about design.
I've learned more about narrative.
I learned how those two integrate.
I've learned how more about the process of making a game.
Um, I've, I've learned more about performance and how to work with an actor, how to reduce it to its quintessence and the simplicity i feel like even on this project my direction gets more simple um it's really just a question is like what's your what's your objective like what do you want to do here well i really feel like um you know my character is is trying to go for and i feel like if i can get them to uh you know feel this way and i want to make sure that i'm conveying this and i'll tell an actor i'm like that's a lot that's a lot of that's a big burden for you have to carry in this scene
distill that down in two words to what and i think a lot of actors are afraid that it's too simple and if it's too simple they're not doing enough to confront to console to comfort to a question to love to whatever it's like to what just play that if you just played it the entire time.
Let that be the scene.
And it's okay. The character is the character.
This is just the scene.
And this scene is comprised of beats.
So let this beat lead to this beat, lead to this beat.
And when we've accomplished our objective, the scene's over.
It's that easy. And then we'll move on to the next one.
You don't have to worry about tracking this character arc all the way over.
I'll let you know. I'll let you know if it's too far.
Trust us. so what what advice would you give any other actors who are thinking about stepping into the director's chair obviously don't star in and direct the same game um here's what i've learned and i've learned this through craig mason craig puts it best he goes i wake up and i have a thousand arguments that's directing oh my god um tim miller put it this way to me he said um Um, directing is 90 % meetings and every once in a while they let me go to set to have fun and it is all about the preparation.
I spend more time reading through the scripts, you know, being in Slack or on zoom with the team, syncing up with the writers, syncing up with my cinematics director, going over storyboards, um, reviewing casting auditions, all of that stuff.
And then every once in a while I get to go to set and that's going to be eight hours of my day.
And fortunately, the way that we shoot is we'll do two to three week blocks.
And so I really get to stay in it.
And that's all that I do.
And I live and I breathe that project.
Everything else goes away.
I have an incredible team that makes sure that all the other machinations that have to happen with other projects, those wheels stay spinning so that I'm really dialed in and focused on this thing.
But more than anything, it's understanding that just like an actor, just like anybody else, I have to do my prep work.
The thing that drives me crazy is when I get on set or in the booth and some director goes, okey -dokey, okey -dokey, what are we doing here?
What's the scene? Walk me through here what the story is.
I'm like, are you just now looking at this for the first time?
That can't be the case.
I don't need an on -set acting coach. What I need is someone who goes, I've got you.
I have more information than you do.
All you need to know is the information that's pertinent to you.
I will cover the rest. simplifying it to this.
You cannot direct, and I've done this and I've learned this mistake.
I failed when I said, I'm going to direct this and I have a chip on my shoulder of either trying to prove something to someone or trying to impress someone.
And you can't direct that way.
directors must submit themselves it is a constant constant process of humbling submitting myself to servitude it's not about having control it's about relinquishing control when i'm doing my job at its optimal is when i'm sitting on set and i'm watching my dp be able to tell the actors exactly where they need to be where the cinematics director is looking over and we're all doing this together Steven Spielberg says I direct directors that's all I do have a director of actors I have a director of photography a director of wardrobe a director of sets I direct direct it's all I have to do if I can watch
out everyone and even sometimes I don't necessarily like direct actors to direct each other but if I see them having conversations back and forth and they're trying some stuff great I think before I was trying to do everything and this is same thing as an actor what's the least amount that I can do what's the least amount that i can say that conveys what's at stake in this scene i love that um that's really cool i'm excited to see what happens with the last sentinel me too it's cool we're working really really hard on it it's an it's a very ambitious project we have an incredible amount of talent
and sometimes you know taking all these rock stars and and and a listeners as you were the industry and putting them under one roof can present a challenge and like how we work together as a team, because when every single member of that team comes from a studio that has a trophy case that's filled with accolades, that's hard to navigate going, well, this is the way we've always done it.
And it's just the same thing as me.
It's like, well, how are we going to find our process?
And ultimately the end of the day, how are we together going to tell the best version of the story?
Yeah. Um, so when I do these interviews with actors, I love to end with a question about what they want to do next, but it feels super weird to ask you this question because you've done, you've done everything.
So I don't know, like what, like you've, and you just, you know, you're Indiana Jones now and you're directing.
So for you, like, what is, what is next for you?
Or what would you like to do next?
Like, what is, what's your next Everest that you're looking for um to me it's very clear uh i've been fortunate enough to work with as we started off saying is like literally the best in this industry and being able to develop those relationships and learn from the neil druckmans the ken levins and the craig masons and the david finchers and the hideo kojimas and the todd howards these people i've learned from and what I want to do is because I love this industry so much is like well I've helped people make things and what does it look like for me to get people to help me make something so that's
definitely the next star on the horizon is what do I make what does that look like well I am I know me and everyone else listening is looking forward to seeing that that sounds really exciting.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for being so open and honest and vulnerable with me today.
I really appreciate it.
If you can't tell, I love talking about this stuff and I will do it ad nauseum.
So thank you for giving me the platform to be able to do that.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for joining us for the Game Maker's Notebook.
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