Stepping Out: Filmmaker Rob Moniot Talks About Making Movies, Working in Hollywood, Defining Success

0:05 So everyone, this is Rob Migno. Should we be Robert? This is my friends. Call me. Rob. OK, this is he's a director and I actually just shot a short talking about how excited I was because this man's dreams. Like you don't give up. No. And you're demanding and I love both of those things about you. I'm like, I'm not married to you. So I totally love them. I don't know about Steph, but I'm sure she knew the package. But I would love to talk about a little bit about the ice cream man and what keeps you going and like your journey into filmmaking. Right, Because we met in LA when we were children, we call it right. 20s.

0:52 Yeah, yeah, you're one of my. Oldest and dearest or longest and dearest friends? I won't say oldest. You know, even longer than me, but I and our friendship has had many. Like just like life, we're times when we're closer and not and times when we really understood each other and not. And I think having those friendships also when you're a creative person, like the person to be like you can do it and shut up. I don't want to hear from you right now because I'm in my own turmoil is really valid and important. And another thing that I think that's missing from the world where we can disagree on some things or not go about it the same way, but it doesn't make either of us wrong or bad.

1:37 And I kind of want to dissolve some of that. So tell the world how amazing you are. Oh, please. Well, I mean, it's, it's great to be here with you. I mean, any excuse to hang out is is super awesome. I guess I talked to them, not to you. Really. You can just talk to me. Talk to us. Just talk to me. They're eavesdropping. Yeah, well, so everyone should know that. Holly and I have known each other, like she said, forever. We were roommates in the house, so we know each other really, really well. Me and three guys, it was awesome. Was. It three of us. Yeah, Matt. Matt, you and John 4, let's not go.

2:21 There's no Internet. Then we don't have to go there. No. And, and this was this was, this was, you know, everyone going to Hollywood and, and, and chasing their dreams. I was working as a, as a stuntman at the time. I got my first job as a stuntman in Hollywood at the during the Wild West stunt show at Universal Studios and falling off a a building head first into a pile of wood 6. And how bad is your back now? Really, really bad. My bad. I can't feel my toes. Kids, do not, do not be coming to that. I, I I knew you. Toured with that Wait, I want to go into this because you toured, you got to go to Japan. Yeah, I, I got to go to Japan on a live show that was based on all of George Lucas's movies.

3:06 So I got to dress up and be a stormtrooper and fight Indiana Jones and met George Lucas twice and like, didn't just like, meet him, but like, had drinks and chatted for an hour and a half per time. You know, just the two of us. Really. When you say Georgia Lucas, 'cause then I jumped to Steven Spielberg and getting to pitch a DreamWorks with you. Yeah, well, I had done as a stuntman. I'd done Hook. I was a pirate on hook. And I didn't become friends with Steven, but I I got on his radar in a big way. And I did become friends with his then assistant and ultimately producer Bonnie Curtis. And Bonnie and I have been friends for a long time, too. And yeah, after we made pH 2, I think it was Pearl Harbor 2 Pearlmageddon, you and I went and pitched say was it before it was? After.

3:55 It was after. It was definitely after. She she'd seen the dancing cow, but she was impressed with me as a director and she showed it has a, you know, as right. So if people don't know we're talking about short films that Rob held its direct and produce. I'd like to say I gave the budget, man, that budget was mine because I had ran away from LA because I got divorced and he did my sabbatical in Denver. But you didn't let me go And I like that about you and you were in down alone and you got you're like, we need a budget. I'm like, so when we started working together, I was more of a producer at that time, and you were a director. I had worked at Spelling Television as a coordinator, not really high up in the ranks at all.

4:36 But I had access to a lot because spelling corporate really liked to have a spy in theory on set, and they considered me a spy, although they didn't want to pay me. So I really wasn't a spy and I learned a lot about producing there because I had like $3,000,000 to spend a week. And the first year I negotiated contracts with like Iatzi and the DGA and all the grip and electric equipment and camera, blah blah. I was like a bugger. I was like the, I forget his name, but Lightning works. What was the really big Grip Electric company back in the day? Good question.

5:16 Yeah, anyway. I think it was. So I negotiated with this guy. I was 2425, I was young and he literally came to set because my last, my maiden name is Balbinder and I got ball binder jokes forever. And he was like, I want to know who this ball Buster was that, you know, whatever. And then I realized I didn't get any of the money that I saved spelling. So I was like, why am I saving the money? And instead I learned to forge relationships. So I was like, this is the number I need. Let's do this. How can I help? Let me give my best boy grip and you know, whatever, let me buy some Expendables for them. Make everyone want to work for you, which was my only talent. Like I wasn't very good at schmoozing. I couldn't kiss ass.

5:59 That wasn't that wasn't your only talent, but it. Really. But it it was because I even when we did what short was that? It was the Sony thing. Yeah. And the crew came up like the best boy, didn't he was. He just tested me every which way. And at the end he shook my hand. I was like, yeah, you could have shook my hand at the beginning and it could have been so much easier. But I do think that was my thing. I don't have the capacity to Hollywood. Well, I again, I know what you mean, but I disagree with you because if you decided that you wanted to you, you definitely had the tools and, and, and, and the chops and, and the talent and, and the, the, well, I mean interpersonal skills.

6:48 I mean, I always felt like I understood it completely, but I, I, I felt like I missed out on, you know, having one of the best producers in the world. Oh, this is I'm. So that. Was true it's true I mean because because I mean we finish each we already finish each other's sentences right and we're good friends and we we don't really fight ever I mean the the tips we've had of have passed like 30 seconds and. Yeah, but my favorite tip of ours was you. I forget what you wanted. Do you remember? This is my favorite us working together story. It was we were in Venice in the what was? What did you and Taz call yourselves then? It was. It was built D. Oh yeah.

7:28 Built D Media. Yeah, yeah. And we were in. I'd like to direct yes. And TAZ by the TAZ, by the way, is my former business partner and Holly's lifelong childhood friend. Yeah, we knew it. Yeah, totally. And talented as well. Very, very talented. So we're not talking about him because he's in here, but we were working on that. I guess it was the Sony project. It must have been the Sony for whatever event they were doing. And you wanted something impossible. I can't remember which impossible thing it was because that's what you always do. And I was like, dude, that's impossible. And you barked at me. Your job is to get it, not to tell me.

8:09 No. I was like, snap, you're right, but fuck you. But and I think I tried and I think I might have made it happen, but I can't. Remember, I think, I think I remember that you did make it happen and you really, really made me pay for it. Probably. Probably in. The best possible way? And on that same shoot, I would like to tell people these are the things you overcome on set. We were shooting on the Sony lot. To this day he will deny it, but our location manager, it wasn't Rick Wolf. It was the other guy was hungover and drunk and didn't show up to unlock either. He didn't come to unlock any of this. Like was like the wardrobe and hair and makeup where everyone was getting ready. So hair and makeup arrives earlier, at least an hour and a half earlier than the crew and everything is locked. Our grip truck was stuck in reverse. Our steady Cam broke down that morning and I remember I was wearing it was very the 90s and I was like in overalls and I had like a wad of petty cash in my front pocket and I was like, So what do you can you show?

9:09 Oh, Henry's here. We got steady Cam. Let's get the steady Cam out. We were just like, solve it, solve it, solve it. I don't think I got to sit near the monitor ever because it was like you're. Too busy. Yeah, it was crazy. And I, I remember that day, we were, we were 2 1/2 hours late before we, we rolled anything, I, I or I before camera was even up and we. Had a kid woo Hoo and we had three. Kids remember. Oh, that. Yeah, three kids. And do we? We had a fan box, then we might have had an animal. I think we did. I definitely know we had the crane like we had this. Well, and then we had right. And then we had the tech. We had a 30 foot techno crane. We had an Academy Award winner.

9:50 Ken Ralston on set has the talents. Yeah, it was. It was crazy. So you can only. Do those when you dream. I find as I've gotten older when I when I knew too much, things became harder. You get in your own way, right? And, and I, I think, I think we all when we were younger were benefiting from, you know, both an arrogance of youth and an ignorance of inexperience. So jealous. I'm so envious of that still. Well, but it's still as an adult or more of an adult, you know it it's it's it's still such a good lesson. You know, talking about the ice cream man, my most recent short film, and we can explain why all I've ever really done is short films in a minute.

10:42 But, you know, I, I stepped into that project. Should I talk a little bit about the? Yeah. Absolutely. So so my wife is the United States diplomat. So I made my first short film with Taz, my former partner and Steven Spielberg bought it and got a lot of hype off of that. Made our second short film that I directed this time, and HBO bought that one and then I wrote a feature script based on that short film and New Line Cinema bought it and Bruce Willis and Jeff Goldblum and Ed Harris and. And I was at the table read 1. Of my favorite stories and Elizabeth Banks and all these other amazing people all signed on to to be in that movie. So it went from a $12 million movie to a $48 million movie overnight. And, and for three years at New Line and then four years at Sony and then three years at Odd Lot and then four years at MGM, that movie kept getting set up with me attached to direct it with all these stars.

11:41 And so I effectively was under contract to prep a movie for over a decade. And I would write scripts and try to sell them and try to get them set up, but I wasn't, except for some commercials and some television, able to really do anything else. And I hadn't had my big break yet. And then right around the time that that all kind of started to to come to an end with that movie never getting made, it just kind of fell apart under its own weight. My then girlfriend, who at the time was a pretty high-powered film and television executive, decided to become a United States diplomat. And I was like, are you breaking up with me?

12:24 And she's like, no, I just wanted to see if I would get in and don't worry, nobody gets in. And I'm like, you're going to get in. And she took a test and then she took another test. And a year later, after all these tests, she was in and I had already been shopping for a ring. So I had a big decision to make. Do I, you know, potentially kill my Hollywood career and, and go on the road with her? Or do I, you know, let the woman that I knew was probably the only person I'd met that a marriage could work with after all those years of dating in, in LA? And so I I made the right decision and asked to marry me and a year later I moved to the Caribbean where she was posted. And that began what is now a 15 year journey on the road. We've got 4 kids and and it's been a very cool existence going from country to country on Uncle Sam's dime and I kept. Writing a different perspective, I think part of why I'm having these conversations.

13:24 I'm really trying to get better because I used to be much better at turning off my phone earlier. But you know, they made it addictive for a reason. But it's not helping us, right? And it doesn't help my creativity. It actually makes me a bit lazy. Yeah, well, it's I anything could be like that, right? I mean the computer that I edit on has YouTube on it Lookout, you know, forget about it. Then again, if I need to figure out how to do something in an editing program, it takes me 6 seconds to learn it on YouTube. So pick your poison and pick your tool set, right? Well, this will go. On YouTube too. So yeah, YouTube, but but I want I want to kind of flick back to the table read because that was one of the coolest days for so many reasons. So you had this amazing project and new line back in the day was right up there with Harvey back in the day while we were there, right it was where the new material was. But if?

14:21 There is such a thing, the good version of. I never heard a. Good story about him and was it because? He knew that I met the. Producer who had the anthrax beard guy. That was a trippy thing, too. OK, that's a whole other one. So many stories. But I think for that table read, we're in Beverly Hills and I walk in and there was Bruce Willis. And especially knowing that he's what he's fighting right now, knowing that I met him and he was exceedingly private. He wouldn't talk to anyone. He wouldn't look at anyone. He had bodyguards with him when I was down in the lobby before we walked in. I think Bradley Cooper hadn't done but the he'd. Done Wedding Crashers and that was kind of his biggest and alias on TV that was yeah, but he didn't.

15:01 Do what's the his big one that made him the he? Hadn't done damn me. The one where he's in Vegas and everyone is waiting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone in the comments just. That's when. No, no, not. That's what party dude Bradley Cooper movies anyway. I can't believe. I'm blanking, I know. I know anyway we. Were in there and I had worked with Jeff Goldblum, wedding manager friend Maestro, Guardians, Avengers Hangover Hangover the. Hangover one country, Yeah, so. It was right before. I don't know if he was sober then I can't remember. I remember he was like the main character talking. About Bradley.

15:42 Bradley. Yeah. In the movie, in in Hangover. No, like in reality. Oh. Was he sober? In reality, I don't think so. 'Cause he was super edgy then at. That point, at that point, I don't believe he was sober yet yeah, so I'm. At we were in the table with the executives and I was like off on the thing and there's Jeff Goldblum and he kept looking at me and I'd worked with him and that man tried to get me fired for making a wrong turn as Apai had to drive him. So many stories but he remembered me and after the table read and after he. I don't know this. Story. You never told this story. OK, so. I worked on a movie as a so I worked at Shannon Clear Films, won so many Academy Awards. I chose to an intern there because someone from college who I didn't think was that smart got a job there and I called them on a Friday. This was after I visited LA twice and I was like, hey, are you hiring any interns?

16:38 They're like, can you start Monday? I was like, yes, and they're like, OK, we'll see you Monday. Number one, I didn't even know where the fuck the building was #2 I never took a film and TV class. I just know someone stupid could work there. And if they're stupid and I know I was smart, then that was a possibility. And I knew Taz, right? So, and therefore I knew you and I crashed on Taz's floor. I left my roommate in DC four months rent and left, got a borrowed car and a borrowed LA 411 map and showed up at Hollywood and Vine because that's where the office was and Jonathan Sanger was there when it so he was a huge Academy Award winner. And even though I didn't know much, I knew that and I just went in there green and eager and I think I worked 22 hour days for nothing and literally nothing for a long time. Eventually got to be the assistant to the producer on Lush Life and and one of my lucky jobs was I got to be transpo and I got to pick up Jeff Goldblum who had just let left Geena Davis and she and I have the same birthday. So this is probably why he didn't like me. Picked up Jeff in his Hollywood homes that he was sharing with Laura Dern because I think they had just done Jurassic Park. And the first day he waited 15 minutes before he came out. And if, you know, production time. And so he was in the Hollywood Hills and we had to go downtown off the 1:10.

18:03 And I had never driven there. And I had like a little Honda Prelude, right? Like this man barely fit in my car. So he came down and Laura's like, honey, I love you. And she was doing her full Southern, which I can appreciate now because I live in the cell. I love you, baby. I love you. He's like bye, bye. And he gets in my car and he proceeds to touch every fucking button in my car. And he's like, yeah, OK, you know how he he does that? It's not an act That is him. That's who. He is, That's who he is. And as a 23 year old girl who is lost, who has a print out because there was no maps, no, no one dinging you to turn. I lived in the valley, I did not know Hollywood. I didn't like nothing.

18:46 So I am holding this fucking piece of paper. You would think the star would have actually gotten a transpo driver. This fucker fucker was stuck with me. We stop at a red light. He leans to make sure the people next to us could see him. He was so Jeff, Right? And I was like sweating and I couldn't talk and be charming because I was so afraid of being lost. And then I was like on the 101. And you know where the 110 splits? Yeah, I turned the wrong way. He. Went SI did. So. But I realized it right away and I got off with the first exit and get. Around back and Oh my God. So he said he's fired, yes. So I realized it was the wrong one. I turned back around and I got back on the right one and he's like, I gotta and I was like, Oh my God, seriously? Maybe you're the one who showed up so fucking late. And now I'm rushing, right?

19:45 I get to set, he gets out because he was on his Jurassic Park kick. He ate three lean chicken breasts and six eggs every morning. And I, it was my job to drop him off, get him and hair and makeup and then go get the food because, you know, I was APA. I did everything right. So by the time I got him his breakfast, the 80s were like, he wants you fired. You made a wrong turn. I was like that. I didn't get fired, but I got in a lot of trouble. I was like, fuck you. And I was like, someone else can drive them. Like I have no problem with that. Like, I don't want to drive this motherfucker. He's annoying and late. I had to keep driving him. Did it? How? Did how did the relationship end? I mean, what happened when he saw you at at at the table read? Oh yeah, OK.

20:31 So Fast forward or at the table read and he's he's doing that. You know that Jeff, you see him, he's got an ad now when he leans forward and he's like bad face, right? Like his whole quirkiness. And after we read, because I also remember him nudging Ed Harris because Ed wasn't getting the jokes because he's so dry. Do you remember that? I remember that. So he's like, and we're walking out and he goes, how are you? I'm like, I'm good. He's like, I know we've worked together. I was like, yeah, man, I was the driver on Lush Life. He's like, so good to see you. And I was just like, he did all the right schmoozy things, which is why I couldn't work in Hollywood. But it was the perfect example or the epitome of be careful of the toes you step on.

21:15 They might be attached to the ass you have to kiss later. So he was very kind. I was impressed that he remembered me because it had been many, many, many years at that point. But he did make it difficult. Like he, I would open the door and he'd be in his underwear. I'd be like, you got a great body, Jeff, But we got to go. I caught him in the room with other people, like, you know, like all the stuff you see on set. So I just think that I didn't, I didn't play along. Yeah, because. I was so. Busy doing my job and that's. Exactly why I say you, you if you'd made that choice, would have been one of the best producers in the business because that you, you need to be able to not play along to do that job successfully, especially when you are dealing with egos of stars, you know, that's I mean, or, or egos of anybody, really.

22:03 Yeah, it doesn't have to be a star. It could be ADP and. And I mean, I, I, you know, maybe he was having a bad day. You know, we've seen that too. Where totally. It's it's. Like, you know, not saying anything bad or you know good about Jeff because my, my, the, the some of my experiences with Jeff Goldblum were he said my table removed an amazing time of the table read. Then he was kind enough to go to Take Me Out for breakfast and we had a great talk at breakfast and then he invited me to come here as band play and he had me get up and sing. And then he was blown away that I could sing. And so, you know, like I have these great Jeff Goldblum stories, you know. Absolutely. Like, like if I was the adult and I wanted to get on set on time and I wanna, I would probably be annoyed at the PA who didn't know how to get there either. But I think I would have been annoyed at production for not giving me a teamster.

22:48 Well, so, so here's a funny story, too. So I was doing a a thing called Commitment to Life, which was an APLA AIDS project Los Angeles. I remember that, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Do every year. And they'd have a big concert and they'd raise a bunch of money. So the year that I helped produce that thing, I was kind of the talent coordinator. And it was a big year. We had Billy Joel, we had Elton John, we had Eddie Van Halen, we had Barbra Streisand. She's tough, she is tough, but I know people who've. Worked with her. But but but but also very committed to getting it right. And an artist, and everybody is an artist knows that you you're terrified half of the time about what it is you want to do and whether or not people are going to understand it and whether or not you can pull it off.

23:38 And I had the rare, rare pleasure getting off the story for a second. But David Foster was in the in the concert hall, and she came in and the orchestra was on stage, and the place was packed with people that had kind of been sitting and watching the rehearsal. And he cleared the room, but he asked me to stay, and I never really knew why. So I got to watch Barbra Streisand working with David Foster and the orchestra all by the Zintech myself, you know, and got to see a version of her that was very unguarded because she was working with her very, very good close friend David, who's a long time collaborator of hers and the orchestra, who she thinks of as family.

24:19 You know, they're pros, right? And she was, she was scared and she hadn't sung for a long time in public. I think I remember. And, and she she was, she was very vulnerable, but also incredibly creative in the best possible way. But the story I was going to tell you was so I've I've got all these huge stars that I'm juggling and no money and no time and, and, and somebody dropped the ball. And the person that was supposed to go back and forth between talent holding and the backstage area as the show was live didn't get back in time. So I'm getting calls on Milwaukee to bring Eddie Van Halen immediately to stage and he's looking at me and I'm not sure I know how to get backstage.

25:10 I know how to go around the front of the building but there's people there cuz the show's live and Billy Joel's looking at me like I'm an idiot. Elton John had just farted and and so I say to to Eddie and Valerie, OK follow me and proceed to lead him and them. They're still married on a on an on a goose chase that ended up with us being outside the back of the auditorium pounding on the backstage door. And Eddie Van Halen is giving me this lurk. Right. You know, and Valerie too, like, like I, I had been on, I was their favorite person right up until that happened. And, you know, I never got a Christmas card. Let's.

25:57 And it wasn't my fault. That was nothing. It wasn't my fault. I was just trying to help, you know, no. I mean, I had amazing conversations with like my one of my favorite conversations I had was with Forest Whitaker. I drove him home one night. It was, we'll say that for a different episode. It was just he was such an introvert. I think the interesting thing as I'm listening to us have a conversation and remember what it was like to be like young and so ambitious that way. Because I still have ambition. But me as a producer is a different part of me because I get and now have empathy that I didn't for the creative thing. Because when I go to speak, I have been in environments that weren't welcoming and where the people backstage and the people who run it were rude to me or cruel to me or just they kept calling me. You're so quirky and I'm like, now I'm going to run you down with my knowledge because I have the fuck you in me, right? Because right.

26:59 But when I am in my creative space, which is what I was yearning for, which what I see, they make me cry to what our relationship has always been because you're like, no, let's write together. No, can you read this? Can you give me your input? Because you know and trust my creativity and that's a gift because so much of what we do is never seen. It's seen by you and you have to keep going and be vulnerable. Like when I get critiques on my work out, like I just pout. I just own it. I am like, wow, it wasn't what I wanted it to be. It didn't come across. What I thought was there is not on the page. No one's getting it.

27:39 How come you don't get it? I suck. What am I doing? How do I fix it? Fuck you. I think I thought is like pretty much my process and then I take a deep breath, I might go dance or mutter and then a day or two later I can get back to it. I often I have learned that I really need space away to be able to fix something. And like my longing in the industry was to be seen as a creative input and receive credit for it. And I think that was my big disconnect that I felt like I never did when I was sharing all these ideas. Like I remember when Amelie came out and the use of the color green, and I could probably still talk about that for hours. Like how the lighting mattered, how all of that mattered so well.

28:24 You invented Dancing With the Stars before anybody else did. I did, Mother. Why did I listen to? Yeah, I Really. Why didn't you? Yell at me. Why didn't you yell at me? I was. You were busy. Busy. But but I but I did. But I did agree with you, you know I did. I had a show idea to do, to show people dancing and to show people like in their 30s who could have been or were professional on how they could still dance and what they could do. And I had the idea of profession. I had the whole thing and I pitched it to someone I really like, really like him. He's like, no one would ever do that. We were working on a Food Network show then, and I was like, really? They wouldn't even open the door. They wouldn't even like open the door because he only knew me as Taz's friend, as the coordinator. Whereas I was like, I just moved back to LA and I just need to work.

29:17 And I remember being insulted that Taz didn't go to bad for me. Yeah, but. That's that's that's an amazing example, though, because it's like no one, even your friends in certain circumstances, no one usually will really go to bat for you unless they're getting something out of it. I know. At least in Los Angeles, Right. Yeah. And that's, that's part of the disease of that town. And like what you were saying with, like, you know, going backstage and being treated badly. And now that affects how you hope to treat people. I mean, when I'm on set, I, I I tell everybody at the beginning, like, I'm gonna be stressed. I'm gonna be too busy to see straight. I have a resting bitch face when I'm thinking, so it might look like I'm glaring at you.

30:04 Remember that PA on that one shoot that thought I was really, really mad at her and she quit because she kept thinking I was the blonde? I. Can't remember, but AJ was standing next year by the monitor and and she's like, why is Rob mad at me? He's like, he's not mad at you, That's just what he looks like. And and and she's like no. And so I go sit down there at crew meal and like how's your day going? She's like, fuck you. I don't. Remember that I remember all of you guys had like he was definitely before Steph so don't get upset. But I think like all all everyone had this crush on this blonde and I couldn't stand her work. She was not good. Like she wasn't bad. She was like the beginning of reality TV. I found her lazy. What did she do? She worked. On what was the pilot we did for Fox? The one that I wasn't part of?

30:50 Yeah. You wanna know something funny about that? So that was pain management, pain management. Pain management. I mean, I shot second unit on it, but I didn't come. I produced it. Location managed it pretty much coordinated the girl who was supposed to be the coordinator. Everyone liked her but like she was like the minimum. I'm like it. It's a three person crew. If I'm doing 4 jobs, you could do more than make a phone call. So that show was a really funny pilot that my friend, our friends Taz and Joseph put together with, with Burn Off it, my other good friend who I moved to LA with from Arkansas. And and so you don't know this? I don't think so.

31:31 So Steph was an executive on that show, no? Well, I find that. Years later that my now wife pre then girlfriend was she one of the. Executives there she was, one of the fox. Executives on that show. I love that, isn't that? Great small world. We totally could have been on set at the same time and just not even known it. I don't think any. Of them came to set. That's when I met Maggie too. It was a couple because she said, well, she said she met Joseph before meeting me on that set. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, because. Maggie again, last name I'm forgetting. Who was, Was it Janice on Friends? Yeah, Maggie. Wheeler, Yeah. She was on that show.

32:12 She and I loved her like she's an I. I wish she gets. I even know she could still act. I wish she would get more attention. It's, it's what I miss about content. Now I'll just, I'll do really blanket content because I'm going to go across all media in the industries. So film, TV publishing, right? Like is that franchises have taken over where there was a thing called IFP, which was independent film projects, where Miramax filled these niches, where people who were creative, there were B movies. It was before we had like all this free content where people with these amazing ideas could fill the space and move up.

32:59 That's like where I always wished like, I don't know why the timing for you didn't work because all those moving parts were there, right? And I was like, why aren't they getting a break? Like I, I think you and Taz like I'll we'll include him because I met you guys like you know him longer than at that point. I was like, you guys have the talent and you're funny. I think at one point for me, I also backed away. I think I said this to you. I don't think I said it to him. You and I have a much more honest relationship. But I was like, it's the same joke. You're selling the same joke. And it's been 10 years. You gotta change the joke. You gotta like, something's gotta shift. Yeah. Well, you know, there's a whole I mean, Taz and I were were joined at the hip and and we were selling ourselves as Co directors and the only people that had success with that were brothers.

33:48 Yeah, they were. Chowski's. Right like you you if if you if you were selling yourself as a Co director and you weren't physically related in some way, the students were were really suspicious that there was something wrong with with you like you maybe you weren't a good enough director by yourself or something. At least that was my take on why we didn't get more actual, you know, jobs based on the success that we had with the things that we went and paid for and made ourselves. I mean, having Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard and David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg and and and Paul Allen buy your first short film and have it be front page News and Variety, it normally gets people who have that kind of experience a movie deal. Yeah.

34:34 And we, we had ideas that nearly got set up and, and it so I, I do think that the dynamic between Taz and I in the room was, was part of the reason that that kind of stuff didn't happen. But honestly, I also really think that I was just being protected because if I'd gotten the success that I was hoping I would get at that young of an age, I would have killed myself. I, I, I would have drank it away or, or, you know, gotten something horrible. You know, it just it was because it eats you up. Well, and. Plus, if, if, if you get success where I was at as a human, if you get success at that point, then you're right. It not only eats you up, but you you buy your own press, you know, you believe, you believe all the bullshit that they hand you, and you turn into a really, really, really mean person a lot of times.

35:24 Yeah, I started. Becoming what I hated, I got. I was becoming more and more edgy. I had my own. I had so many of my own demons. I had so much of my own healing to do. I think it's a great transition cuz I wanted to talk to you about your faith and your work. Yeah. Right, because I think you need something to ground you and it has to come from within you and be more than you at the same time. Like because relationships, especially in LA or entertainment, are exceedingly challenging. So my husband and I've been together I think 22 years, but seven of them were in LA and we count them in dog years. See, you understand why the minute that man got a ring on his hand, women would hit on him in front of me. So my husband it everyone it didn't like. I don't really, you know, we'll just I'm using the I should go. They they everyone, but the temptation whatever. And in Lai was like mid at best, right, because there's always someone younger, thinner, prettier, blonder. What you know, beauty standards there, especially when I was there was the heroin chic.

36:34 You had to be like a 00 or you were fat. So for me being out there and my back story is that my dad is an addict and that I lost my home to a fire and an earthquake. I had so much loss. I had been lost my virginity to sexual assault when I was 15 and I hadn't dealt with any of it. My, my coping mechanism was to show you I could do it, that I could overcome, that I could manage. I knew how to deal with all the bad things, which is why I couldn't survive in the industry anymore because I don't have the need to prove that you're an ass. Yay, next. Like I don't need to fix it or make it better for you. I do still love the medium of storytelling that is film and TV.

37:23 I just know that I can't be in that creative process and handle all the stuff or I haven't been able to for a long time. Like, that hasn't been my goal that like, for me, the shift when I got divorced was, Oh my God, there are all these emotions that I don't know how to identify. There's all this pain in me. And if I if I let it out, I don't know if I could put myself back together. Right. And so. How about for you artists? Well, I, you know, I, I was engaged briefly and, and it was at that point in my life where I, you know, cuz, cuz I always imagined if I got married that we would definitely have kids, whoever I got married to.

38:10 And, and, and having been in the rat race on the treadmill for so long in, in, in Hollywood, I wasn't at the point when I was engaged the first time. I wasn't at the point where I, where I would have in a million years given up anything for the woman that I was engaged to. I wouldn't quit my job, you know, or my career. I wouldn't quit my, my quest, you know, I, I, I probably would use the excuse that I was too busy to, to really take any hard looks at myself and, and, and do any kind of work on myself. And so, and I kind of realized that at a certain point, a crucial point, and this was tough because this was a, this was a family friend.

38:57 So I, my, my mom and her mom were really, really close. And, and so I ended the, I ended the engagement and, and that was a hard choice to make because it would have been easier to just fake it and, and, and go through with it and, and, and try to just kind of, you know, keep my demons at Bay. But I was also at A, at a crossroads personally, where I, I, I had, I had realized that I'd seen enough very, very wealthy, very, very, very successful people in Hollywood to know that that wasn't going to fulfill me even if I got what I really wanted to do. And it's tough when you feel like you have a calling. I do feel like I have a calling.

39:41 I don't feel like I have a choice whether or not to be a writer, director, you know, I, I really feel like that kind of artistry, whether it's the music part or the photography part or the acting, all of these things that I've always really, really not only enjoyed, but craved that those kinds of experiences. You know, I, I knew that even the, the, the, the slightest success or the the most grand version of success in my, in my field, you know, was not going to.

40:26 Provide me a, a, a, a fulfilling life. And so, you know, around that time you, you speak you, you spoke of faith. I mean, I, I did start going back to church kind of like examining all the things I've been taught as a kid. You know, we were raised Presbyterian. I didn't particularly, you know, other than going to youth group and stuff like that. Have a have any kind of like, you know, really strong base of, of faith. You know, you get to a certain point as a as a, as a young adult and you realize that everything you know is what you're taught by your parents and you've got some decisions to make. But I did, I did in storytelling and in cinema, see a recurring theme throughout the centuries, you know, of, of good versus evil and sacrifice and hope and faith and love.

41:24 And movies that combine faith, hope and love, which is in the Bible, typically resonate so strongly with people I found and I continue to find, you know, I, I, I, I love that theme. Because it's so you because your daughter's name and and we don't have to share that because I don't ever talk about my kid. But the other part is as you're talking your. Name is cinema. Your name is Cinema. The other thing I'm thinking is I remember you read a story I wrote at one point you're like, and it's just missing an explosion. Like this just needs an explosion. And I was like, it's so rough. It's like what you're talking about. Like they an explosion. They just blow something up.

42:08 Well, true, cuz I, you know, cuz I'm also a huge fan of, of spectacle, you know, I mean Greek tragedy, come on. But, but I, I, so I was at this point in my life where, where, you know, I, I decided that I needed to look at myself before I could be really looking at anybody else. And then I completely didn't listen to any of what I was telling myself. And I got into another relationship right away, but we started going into counseling and I had what was, I think six years in that relationship of, of, of couples counseling. That was really me just working on myself. I mean, I, I learned a lot about relationships and, and, and expectations that you have, you should have in a marriage and, and ones that you shouldn't.

42:54 And then I continued to to see my my therapist after that young lady and I parted ways amicably even. Though it was difficult. I have a story. About this like around this time, because I think that's when I, when I was married and I was in my own real really dark place because I had a plan. I was 23. I was like, I'm going to be married by 24. I have a kid by 26, another 1 by 28, my third 30, and then I'm going to pull up to the Oscars and open air Jeep and a fucking gown and my hair just messed up by the wind. Like that was like, that was my dream. And I was doing everything to tick off those boxes. That's why I married my first one. He's also all the pain that I hadn't addressed in a human.

43:38 And so as I was healing all of that, you had a similar journey. We weren't really close then, but I remember when you found God and everyone that we knew mutually was like, Rob's found God. Oh my God, he's found God. And they were like as if it was a rash, right? I was like, OK, they're like, you don't understand. But it's but his faith is now and he's really into it. And I don't know, when we reconnected, I was like, it's awesome. What are you talking about? Like, I don't know. I don't know why faith rattles people in California if it's not like woo woo, which I am woo woo, but I'm also very grounded in my own faith, right? That's our traditions of the things that I have my family rooted in, I think is a good way or the part of the foundation of the love and trust is that when you found God, you then were, I don't know the right word, but you were more committed to real, real conversation. Cuz you would always banter, right? You would joke around and banter and everything would be can I lure you?

44:42 Can I lure you? Can I draw you in? Right? Which always kept me a little like, no, you can't. No, right. And but then that went away and then it was just Rob. Yeah. And I look right. So that's amazing. Well. There was, there was this like there was this thing that I did because I was abused as you were especially that abuse really tore my family unit apart growing up. I think that there's a history of abuse in my for generations preceding me. So I think that if that is true, and I don't know for sure, but you know, it's just a gut instinct. I, I, I can see why my parents both have the separate reactions that they did.

45:32 So I don't hold it against them, but and mom, if you're watching, I love you and dad, I love you too. But you know, I had spent so much time with my checklist like yours and also this mask. What is the hot young Hollywood, you know, director supposed to look like and wear and clock like and and and who does he know? What parties does he go to and and all of that bullshit and and and and I realized that, like people that I thought were my friends were just tolerating me. You know, you know, I wasn't going to get invited to anything.

46:15 Like if someone was having a special dinner or like a private thing, I wasn't going to get, yeah, like I was someone that they worked with. And maybe they didn't mind. But but a lot of people, I suspect didn't really like me when that started to become clear, because a good friend of mine who was a friend of mine, because he had to be, because we were just always stuck together. I thought I was really, really good friends with a mutual friend of his and mine. And he goes, he is not your friend. And I was like, what are you talking about? And then I started seeing the truth and I and, and, and that's when the the walls came tumbling down. So I had to completely rebuild from scratch who I thought maybe I was deep down underneath at all, but hadn't paid any attention to since I was 10, really.

47:09 And then, with the help of therapy, figure out who I wanted to be. Yeah. That's the tricky part, right? That's. The real trick and who you're. Supposed to be, or what you ought to be, or what you need to be, or what everyone thought. You were going to be, yeah. Who are? You. And who do you want that entity to mature into? Yeah. Maturity and still have that magical drive to be creative and tell stories. You can still be both. I think that is sometimes the tricky thing, like because as a mature person you have to make choices. I I. Don't I don't get to just run and be creative and selfish, right?

47:53 Like I have a family, I people I love and sometimes they need me more or I feel like I'm better served being there. I the one strangely traditional thing about me because overall I'm not really is I believe in motherhood and that is really important and that I chose to be home, especially when my daughter was young and stayed there and made those needs of her knowing her worth of what value she is and really tried hard not to give her minor roses. Like I'm sure she'll end up with therapy for something. I'm not perfect, but like, she also has a sense of self that I don't think I had until I was in my 30s.

48:37 And she has a teenager's crippling doubt. You know, it depends on what day it is, right? Because she's a teenager. But those things I think are gifts as we mature. Like I said, like even when I process, I wonder how you are when you process, like, feedback. Sometimes I devour it and I'm glad, but I still go through my whole pout routine and I just allow myself it because if I deny it then this old version of me kind of trickles in. I think, I think feedback for me is, is, is always a little different cuz, cuz it kind of depends on, on what I'm doing. I mean, one of the things that's true about my journey as, as a, as a creative, as a film maker is that I when, when Taz and I started out, you know, if you wanted to make it a Hollywood, you either made a horror film or you made a comedy. And we chose comedy, which is harder. But I didn't, I didn't I, I don't I, I there's some horror movies that I've enjoyed.

49:38 Like, I thought Scream was unbelief. Yeah. So that was brilliant. When it first came out, that was brilliant, yeah. Because. Because it was Poltergeist. Yeah, Poltergeist. When you're yeah, exactly Poltergeist and even even you know, I mean alien, you know, and then and then alien. But those that's not true horror, but you know what I mean. So I I I do remember the thing. Speaking of scream, like Drew Barrymore getting getting killed the way that she is in that movie, realizing that I'd just seen something that I was never gonna be Unsee, able to Unsee. You know, that that there was a part of my psyche. And and then later I realized my spirit that that, you know, I think when you take stuff in, it does have a real deep effect on you, whether you think it does or not, or whether I don't watch it.

50:31 Because like, so as an empath, it's like too much or I also don't watch disaster movies because I watched a movie called The Disaster in time and then Northridge earthquake happened, then I lost my home. So like, I don't, I won't watch like when Twister was big back in the day or all these disaster movies. No, you enjoy it, go to town. I'm just gonna, I'll be over here. Yeah. Well, so I so feedback for me when it when it, when it, when it cuz it cuz like I was saying, like it took a long time for me to realize a really long time for me to realize that I actually had something to say. It wasn't until really the Ice Cream Man the the short film that we did. We finished it last year in 24.

51:16 And. I won a bunch of film festivals and a bunch of awards and made the shortlist for the Academy Awards, which was incredible, a very a very interesting and cool experience. And the good news was, since we always plan on giving the movie away to museums, into schools, into libraries, that the Oscar attention is has helped facilitate a way to do that. That's that's really exciting, but but feedback for me, you know, I, I've gotten, I think I don't want to say good enough. I've, I've, I've, I've written enough scripts now that if someone reads it and gives me notes, I, I've learned that every note is valuable because if anybody is bumping up against something in a, in a screenplay, anything, even if you ultimately decide that it's OK and you'll leave it, you really, in my opinion, should, should investigate hopefully with a, from a powerful position, from a, from a position of strength, from a, from a position of ownership, from a position of creativity and, and improvisation, right? A willingness to, to say, OK, well, you know, OK, so you don't like this.

52:36 Can you help me understand why? And if you don't know, let's talk about it for a while and maybe we'll osmos into some sort of version of what it might be that's that's bothering you. And that has been so valuable to me because on on the ice cream man, a good mutual friend of ours just at a certain point was not understanding the script and was not into it. And then when he saw the movie, didn't really like or get the movie and and there was nothing, you know, he wasn't trying to be mean there, there, you know, he didn't have, you know, a chip on the shoulder. It was nothing like that.

53:18 It was just it was not for him. What was fascinating about that was the the ice cream man is is a story with a Jewish protagonist. And I realized, and this was great because I felt bad. I was like, I wish, I wish he really would. I get it because he was a fan at the beginning when I told him the idea. But then every draft he kept saying it was getting, it was getting worse and worse. I was trying to do too much blah blah blah blah. And and I realized it's a Jewish story and my friend is Jewish and and I realized that I was making a movie that the Holocaust looms large over. And I realized, oh, he is so steeped in this history that there was no way that anything that I could do could compete with all the stories, many of them I'm sure personal, from his relatives that were either survivors or victims.

54:17 Generations of stories from that time period. I was just never gonna be able to tell a version of the story I wanted to tell in a way that he could relate to. Yeah, maybe he just has the. Generational trauma that he and it's too triggering. He's not even aware of it. I don't even think. It was that I think really I think what it came down to me and this was so freeing, was I was as a non Jew, the nerve. As. A goyim. And I'm like, this is my take on it, not anything he never said to me. I was making the Michael Bay version of the Holocaust for people that don't know anything about the Holocaust.

54:58 And when I say Michael Bay, I mean Armageddon. Like a good. Version like, like I was making a movie for people that had probably never even seen Schindler's List. Like I was making a movie for people that had no connection to the horror and the truth of the Holocaust. And the fact that someone who'd been raised in the Holocaust wasn't on board with what I was doing was because he was. He was not my audience. Yeah, I get that. I think there's SO. Many things I think that I love that you took on this project not knowing. I think growing up and being Jewish and coming, my grandparents were, some of them were Orthodox, so like, you know, very and kosher and all that, all that stuff. And in a time where being Jewish is dangerous again, where where the ancient like lies about Jews are coming back again, where social media can pump the lies, where terrorists have manipulated really much better than the Jews like been able to share a story.

56:08 What I found amazing about you taking on that was that we grow up when we go to let's we go to Sunday School, which we don't go to Hebrew school, but let's just say we like go to Sunday school. We learn all the history as children. We learn that we are not liked. We learn these are the pictures that the Nazis took and these are people who have been skinned and these are the people who were murdered and they didn't care. And the mass graves like, oh, and your grandfather and your aunt and like we grow up, even though our families might have secrets, they tell that right? It's we can't never forget means never forget. And we share the stories. But since we're only .2% of the world's population, 99 point whatever doesn't know.

56:54 And so history fades. And in today's climate, it's easy to make a villain, right? Cancel culture, whatever. What I liked, the whole point is what I liked is you were curious and when you were asking questions and receiving feedback, I could feel you processing it. But I love that someone not Jewish telling the story with compassion and learning so much and being like, I didn't know, like why would you? I also don't fault you for not knowing right, right. So I think there's some of that people are like, how could you not know? We teach it in class. Well, I got to tell you I got a kid in high school learning history.

57:37 They're not actually learning about it anymore, not like how we did. So I I wanted you to grand scale it. That is part of your give it to me. I want it director. I mean, you had a full scale orchestra like who does this for a short who who goes all over the planet to to shoot and have locations and get the yeah, like you do that. That's. You right. I don't dream of it. I remember my first Hollywood dream was to get my name in the credits. Was it in variety? When they would do list production, they'd tell you who The Who was in the staff the first time. Like I'm sure that little piece of paper is somewhere in a box in my life, but like my that was like my big thing and like rolling credits.

58:18 So I was like, woo Hoo, that's my name really fast. And the only people who in production will sit and read all of that. But I think the magic of you as a creative person is every story you tell, you tell like that. Well, I thank you. I, I, this was a story that I, when we found out we were, we were at the White House and we found out we were being stationed in the Netherlands and we'd never been to Europe before, not really. I'd been to a Film Festival in Spain and I just Googled the closest beach to our house and and beautiful photographs of this amazing beach. And Google in the right hand bottom corner said this is the beach where the Nazis executed over 300 resistance fighters during the war.

59:01 And I got this picture of this guy with a blindfold on standing on that beach. And then I read the story of Aaron's Khan, the hero of the short from the ice cream man that I wrote and directed. And this was a guy that had fled Nazi Germany with his family to escape, you know, death and settled in Amsterdam because in World War One, they were neutral. So everyone assumed that that the Netherlands would be neutral again. And they were wrong. And he was targeted, arrested, tortured for for 10 days and ultimately executed by Klaus Barbie, who even I knew was one of the most sadistic Nazis ever to walk the face of the planet. And I couldn't believe the, and I won't ruin the story for, for the folks at home, but but I, I couldn't believe the impact that this one man had and, and a very, very difficult decision that he had to make.

59:58 The, the series of dominoes that that started, that that made start to fall. And, and it really gave me this, this picture of the oversized effect that one person can have on their community. If they're willing to stand up and do the right thing in impossible circumstances. And you know, the tagline for the educational program that's based on the movie is, you know, what do you choose when you have no choice? And instantly I knew that I wanted my kids to know this story. And instantly I knew that I wanted to to do it justice and make it as big and as realistic and as Spielberg as any, you know, Nazi movie, you know, should be, you know what I mean?

1:00:45 And we, you know, I went literally to people's living rooms and told them what I wanted to do and why. And we raised nearly $1,000,000 from private donations and I love that. Because only Rob can do that. So it's like that's what a dream can do when when you don't buckle and you can have bad days. By the way, we all have the bad day where and we're or we're not creative or whatever. And it's the discipline of holding onto a dream rooted in faith and family and desire and fucking burning desire. I'm dropping a lot of F bombs. Just get over it. Whoever's listening. Like that just happens. This. Is our religion the only? Part of New York, of me that is like, remains just the only. Pot not the only pot left.