Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs Part 17

We had a partner's desk-a desk very similar to this-with a part.i.tion that came over this way. He sat on one side and I sat on the other, and I could always overhear his conversation, so I kinda learned as he was working with the talent, and-we were collaborating. It was a very close relationship. It started as being friends. I used to be his roommate. I'd just gotten divorced. I moved into a big house he lived in with some other guys.

We had very similar taste and very different backgrounds and personalities. He was very self-destructive. And eventually we split up because of that. We split up about six, eight months prior to his death. Because of different-lifestyles. I guess. Or not the lifestyles as much as different interests. Because he'd gone off and-producing movies really didn't interest him much anymore and it's hard when your partner-you know, we were really just interested in different things.

You know, it's just life. On the edge. He forgot about that. In this business, you're always feeling like you're hitting a breaking point. But when it's time to work, it's time to work. And barring that, you know, if that's not happening between you and your partner, you become less and less interested in the process. So. It was during The Rock that we split up. And then he died.

And since that-things are different, you know? They definitely are. It's nice to share some incidents and things from work with a partner that you like and have a close friend around. And I don't have that anymore. But it's not-you know, we'd split up already when he died. So it's not like I had to start over. I'm still basically doing the same thing.

What you try to do is-well, first, you try to find a good idea. Good characters. A good story. It might come from a book, a screenplay. Top Gun came from a magazine article. It might come from a guy walking into your office. Whatever. Good ideas are good ideas. When we get one, we option it, get the film rights to it. Then we get some money. Hire some writers. Get a script. Work on the script. Work on it some more. Do more work on it as the director gets involved, and the actors start getting involved. Everyone brings something to it. We have characters in mind and we try to take these characters on a journey.

I'm not incredibly articulate. I think my talent is just recognizing good ideas and recognizing talent. I've had enormous success picking people who have a real gift and then managing the process to get the Armageddons, the Top Guns, the Beverly Hills Cops. They're all young, talented people. Flashdance, we had Adrian Lyne, Tony Scott-we believed in them. Tom Cruise wasn't quite yet the Tom Cruise he would become. He had been in one or two smaller pictures, like Risky Business, which did good business here but didn't travel well. So Top Gun gave him the opportunity to show how talented he is worldwide.

It's a real collaborative process-to make that idea come alive. And it's very time-consuming. You can tell usually right away what's working and what isn't. Is there drama? Is there an arc to the character? Do you believe what you're reading? You know, what's the bulls.h.i.t factor like? I think everyone has personal themes that come up, that resurface again and again in their work, and I guess in a lot of my movies there's a theme of personal triumph that emerges. But usually I'm really just trying to work with the character and the story. I want to make it take people on a ride.

It's a ton of work. I'm at this twelve to sixteen hours a day. Seven days a week. And I never really take a big vacation or anything. The longest I've been away is maybe ten days. And that was a long time ago. But I love it and it's like, that's what it takes.

As far as having a formula for success, sure, I have some rules. Sure. Don't bore the audience. That's my hard and fast rule. Keep the plot and characters moving forward. When you preview an audience and you sit there and watch and they start squirming around, you lost 'em. And you gotta fix that. It can be very tense.

By the same token, for me, the coolest part of the job, I think, is watching audiences. There's an enormous amount of gratification you get from actually being in the theater and watching them, simply because you started with an idea-you've created something that's actually moving people. You're transporting them to another place, taking them out of their own lives, away from whatever they want to escape from. They come to a film and for two hours they can forget about what's going on in their lives. That's my goal, anyway.

It feels great to put these things out there and sometimes there's a hit song from the movie, or you influence the popular culture, and change people's tastes, you know? Like after Flashdance, how everyone went around wearing ripped T-shirts? Or after Top Gun, with the leather jackets? It's fun to have that influence. I'm not saying I'm really deeply changing the culture. I don't have any pretenses of that. I create entertainment. That's it. But it's fun.

I can't say I've done everything I've wanted to do yet. I think everyone wants an Academy Award. Which I haven't won-but I've gotten plenty of accolades. Lots of awards of all sorts. And I'll probably get some more. I'm fifty-five. And I'll keep doing this until I can't, or until it gets boring. Which I can't imagine.

If you need a lot of sleep, you're dead.

FILM DEVELOPMENT a.s.sISTANT.

Jerrold Thomas.

I work for a Hollywood producer who's done some very big movies. He's made some huge f.u.c.king buddycop movies. Like huge movies you've heard of and seen. Let's call him "Brad," okay?

My t.i.tle-Development a.s.sistant-refers to scripts. In theory, development a.s.sistants help develop scripts into movies. [Laughs] That's the theory. And I do do plenty of script stuff. We get new scripts in the office every day from the big agencies and I read them at night and all weekend long. And then I write what's called coverage on them, which is like a summary-a few paragraphs about the story followed by a few paragraphs of my opinion. And Brad doesn't read the scripts. He reads my coverage. Basically, his "opinions" about scripts he's supposed to have read are actually my opinions. Which is kind of exciting.

But scripts are really just a small part of the job, like something I do in my spare time. [Laughs] 'Cause Brad doesn't really care about the scripts. I mean, he cares, he reads my coverage and we're always optioning new scripts, but there's so much else going on here. We have a filing cabinet over there, the biggest filing cabinet money can buy. It's got ten drawers and each drawer is a project. Brad juggles ten projects at a time. I mean, he knows his summer movie for the year 2000, for 2001, all the way up to 2010. He's in total control.

This is a small office. A small staff-just me and Brad's personal a.s.sistant and a couple of unpaid interns from UCLA. And the reality of it is when you're an a.s.sistant to a producer-that's the main thing you're doing. a.s.sisting. You have to forgo your individuality and become an-what's the word-an appendage to the producer. You're running the office for him, renting cars for him, you're taking in his dry cleaning, handling his wife, his ex-wife, you're taking his kids to "baby gym." I even had to stand there once and sing all these f.u.c.king stupid Barney songs.

It's possible to work a twenty-hour day here, which I very often do. Show business isn't a nine-to-five job. If you watch the clock-if, for some reason, you have to leave by six o' clock, you're dead. If you need a lot of sleep, you're dead. I usually get in at about six or seven in the morning because people start calling from New York three hours early, and I have to be here, in person, to pick up every call- Brad throws a total f.u.c.king fit when the answering machine picks up a call. He likes "the personal touch," as he says. And sometimes Brad stays in the office till eleven or even midnight, and I have to be here every step of the way. In the film business, if you can't stay till midnight, it means you're not dedicated. Or, as they say over at Disney, "If you can't come in on Sat.u.r.day, don't bother to show up on Sunday!"

So a typical day, say a Monday, I get here around six-thirty, start taking calls, making sure the weekend grosses are on Brad's desk, arranging his call sheet so that the important people go on top-that's really important because if Brad finds out he just wasted a minute on a call that I could have taken or an intern could have taken, there's h.e.l.l to pay. I also type up all my coverages for the scripts I read that weekend-they have to be on Brad's desk when he gets here or he goes absolutely apes.h.i.t. And I make sure the fridge is full of sodas in all flavors-Brad says it's really important to offer guests a drink the second they come in. Then, when he gets here, I'm basically at his beck and call until he goes home. And even when he goes home-and I go home-he calls me with stuff he needs me to do. Getting a call to do some work at three in the morning is not uncommon.

I like the job. I mean, granted, it's constant stress. But in a way, I kind of thrive on it. A lot of people last only weeks or days working for an entertainment executive. Brad had like ten a.s.sistants in the four months before I came on and they dropped like flies because they couldn't handle the pressure. But I just kind of don't worry too much when he bullies me and calls me stupid and stuff. I know that he has a good heart-he gives to a lot of charities-and in a real way, too. You know? He cares and he can be very nice. He gives me great presents. Christmas last year, I got an Ermenegildo Zegna suit. [Laughs] Those suits don't wrinkle, even if you fold them up in a f.u.c.king suitcase and f.u.c.king jump on them, you know? So I forgive him all his s.h.i.t.

But G.o.d forbid I'm not there antic.i.p.ating everything that Brad wants. He'll cut my f.u.c.king b.a.l.l.s off in a heartbeat. And he has, believe me. Once, Brad was behind a "closed door" in a meeting with this big director. Now, for people who don't work in Hollywood, the most important thing you can learn is that the "closed door" is totally sacred, almost like an altar. Brad came out of the meeting for a second, asked me if I would run and get the director a pack of cigarettes and would I hurry back as quickly as I can. So I went out to the cigarette machine, right? I run back, I gently knock on the door, and I go in and give the director his pack of cigarettes. A few minutes later, Brad comes out and he actually starts f.u.c.king strangling me, and yelling, "Are you stupid? Don't you know to never, ever, ever open a f.u.c.king closed door?" I told him that he told me to do that-and when I said that, he just totally jumped on me and started whaling away at me with both fists! The director was a really nice Argentinian guy and he looked like he felt bad for me. Two other people from the office had to hold Brad off me. Brad didn't apologize, but the director guy sent me some shirts. One of 'em's the one I'm wearing now.

Another time, I was driving Brad to a meeting with Clint Eastwood, and he was just sitting in the back seat of the car screaming at me. I got so nervous that I got a flat tire-I ran right into a phone booth. So then Brad just chewed me out for about a half hour in front of everybody walking by. [Laughs]

I'm laughing because it's funny to me now. [Laughs] It wasn't so funny then, but I understand. I mean, of course I wish that Brad would just be a little nicer to his underlings and not yell. But I also know that's not a realistic wish, because there's just way too much money at stake for everybody to behave like f.u.c.king saints, you know?

I've been with Brad since '93, and I'll probably be here until I have some kind of a nervous breakdown. Yeah, they'll have to wheel me out. [Laughs] Before this, I was with a bunch of other producers for like five years. And before that, I was in film school. Which I no longer put on my resume. Film school is a total f.u.c.king waste of time. People hate you if you went to film school. Studio producers will laugh you out of their office if they find out you have a film degree. 'Cause most of them don't have much education past high school- they came in through other ways. [Laughs] Brad didn't even finish high school. And he's proud of that.

So forget about whacking off in film school for five years-this is what it's all about. Everybody wants to get into this business. I mean that literally-everybody on earth wants to be making movies. Just ask around. But people should be much, much more realistic about what that entails. Because, look, the entertainment business is filled up. It's at capacity. We don't need any new people. So if you still want to get in, you have to want it more than anything in the world, and you have to weather years of being treated like s.h.i.t.

I love movies. I still, even after everything, f.u.c.king love movies. I was at a premiere last night-Bowfinger-just cracking the f.u.c.k up. Just being around the business is a thrill. I mean, I still love it when somebody famous like Melanie Griffith comes into the office. Or like Sean Penn-Sean was here Thursday and [laughs] I got to order his breakfast-it was a huge platter with, like, lox and tomatoes and olives. And after all my trouble, Sean didn't even eat anything off of it, he just had a paper cup of water from the bathroom. But you know, whatever, it was exciting. I mean, you know, Sean Penn! What's more exciting than that?

I always planned on getting into movies. Ever since I was a kid, it's all I wanted to do. It's all I've done. I didn't know I would be doing the same thing-development-for so long, but it takes time. I mean, I would rather be making my own movies. I would like to become a producer myself. But one problem with being an a.s.sistant- even though you're very close to everything-once you're an a.s.sistant, that's usually where you stay, unless you really push, and you find a nonthreatening way to get your stuff done-a way that doesn't threaten the person you work for. Because generally when you work for a producer, telling them that you have your own projects is death. That's a sure way not to have a job working for a producer anymore. They want to think you're totally dedicated to them. Fortunately, with Brad, I've been with him so long, I can, once in a while, mention a few things I'm interested in developing. Things I've been working on at like, you know, four in the morning. And Brad has said he'll help me out if and when the time comes.

Will it definitely happen for me? I have no idea. I hope so. But for now, it's cool just to work in the business with all these great people-everybody, really, that I respect. I mean, it's an honor. It really is, even though it sounds stupid. [Laughs]

There are very few benefits to being a

woman director. But one of them is that

you can ask girls to dance with a vibrator

and they won't think you're a big perv.

FILM DIRECTOR.

Tamara Jenkins.

I really had no ambitions whatsoever as a teenager. My life was quite bad. I was working at a dry cleaner's. [Laughs] It was a work-study job, which is really funny. Because work-study is supposed to be, like, learning something. Like working at a newspaper or something kind of educational. My work-study was at a dry cleaners. Imagine the possibilities.

Me and one of the other girls at the place, we would go back into the fumes, in the area where they cleaned the drapes, and we would do these huge inhales like-[sniffs]-and get high. And then like walk back out. "Do you want starch?" [Laughs] And that's how we would get through the day.

I had, you know, a crummy family and stuff. I was very unhappy. And then my big brother, who is an amazing person, he sort of appeared. He was ten years older than me and he had been out of the country for a while. And I'm like fifteen and I'm smoking and working at the dry cleaner's and dating this Vietnam veteran. And my brother kind of pointed out to me that my life was pretty bleak. I didn't even know what it looked like from the outside. He was like, "What do you want to do with the rest of your life?" I had no idea, so he said, "Well, I'm going to graduate school at Harvard. Do you want to come with me?" I was like, "Okay."

So I moved to Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts. And my brother was the first person who started telling me I had any sort of interior life, or a sort of point of view that was unique. He was like, "You have a good sense of humor and you're a good performer, a good storyteller." I was like, "What are you talking about?" But his encouragement got me interested in wanting to become a performer or an actor.

We didn't have any money. I remember having some internal family argument where somebody said, "Yeah, but she doesn't-she's not working." And I felt all this shame. Because-you know, I was supposed to be at the dry cleaner's. My big brother came to my defense and he said, "I don't want her to work. I want her to be in high school and I want her to learn and do stuff." It was really moving. It's actually really sad. It's making me sad. He was just so significant in giving me a little license to explore things outside of labor, things that, you know, had nothing to do with like making a living or making even minimum wage.

I started writing and performing my own theater pieces. I wrote a forty-five-minute show called Family Alb.u.m, about my parents. My father used to run a strip club in the fifties and my mother was a hat check girl and I had all these amazing photographs of them that looked like stills from fifties' movies-these great-looking black and white Weegee-like pictures. I was just kind of going through the whole wreckage of our family, using these huge images to put a story together about these two people, the strip club owner and the hat check girl. At the time, I thought of it as performance art, but in a way, it was kind of like the lowest budget movie you could ever possibly make.

Based on this show, I got an artist's grant. And I got good reviews and I started coming to New York to do it, because there was like this whole performance scene going on here. Pretty soon, I moved down. Me and a girlfriend threw all of my slide projectors in the back of her Dodge Dart and like rattled from Boston to New York. And then I spent a few years here dragging my slide projectors around from like bas.e.m.e.nt theater to bas.e.m.e.nt theater, working waitress jobs.

After a while, though, trying to be an actor became so painful for me. Auditioning and getting agents and all of that stuff-I was too neurotic and too beat up by life to handle that kind of rejection or scrutiny. I just couldn't bear it. I also started feeling like what I was doing was really limited. Just me on stage, blabbing. I wanted a bigger way of telling a story. Finally I decided to go to film school.

I went to NYU and, well, the first year sucked. A lot of the people had had experience with cameras. Like they grew up making- they had equipment when they were kids. I had never even seen a movie camera. I really felt like a complete loser.

But then the second year the emphasis changed from doing little technical a.s.signments like figuring out the f-stop to telling a story or writing a fifteen-page script, and all of a sudden it was something that I could do. And then my life got better. My background made sense for where I was, and I was like, "Oh, I guess it's not a mistake that I'm here." So I started writing these little things.

My first sync sound film was called Fugitive Love. I shot it at my grandmother's house in New Jersey. It was about this woman moving in with her mother after she'd been dumped by a guy and it's sort of all these old women who are stuck-the mother and the grandmother and the aunt-in this living room. It's this weird little gothic mother/daughter suburban bourgeoisie Italian thing.

It was really well-received. It won first prize-like the highest honors you could win in school. The Mobil Award. And it toured around and I got to show it at a billion film festivals around the world. And I was very lucky because then I got this grant that meant I didn't have to sc.r.a.pe together-I mean, to make this first one, it was a thirteenminute film-it cost literally ten grand. But then I was offered this one-hundred-and-eighty-thousand-dollar grant, which I used to make another short film about a mother and a daughter and their conflicts called Family Remains. And that won a prize at the Sundance Film Festival for the best, whatever, short thing. Then I got to travel around the world again, showing that film. It was pretty fun. On these two short films I got to see the world. It's crazy.

All of this led up to my quote-unquote "feature." My first fulllength movie. It's called Slums of Beverly Hills, and it was released in theaters last year. It's a story, very based on the way I grew up, about a girl living in this poor, motherless household with her father and brothers, on the outskirts of Beverly Hills in the seventies. They're trying to survive in this kind of eccentric, nomadic way. And it's about this girl's s.e.xual and emotional coming-of-age without any role models or female guidance.

The whole experience of making it was-it was just hard. For a lot of reasons. I mean, I wanted to be able to tell larger stories. And also, as a filmmaker, you can't survive off making shorts. You have to make features to earn a living as a filmmaker. But it was actually very difficult for me to work in longer form. I was very good at short films, but they're totally different ent.i.ties from feature films. I guess you could say it's like the difference between a short story and a novel.

The problem with making bigger films is you need a lot of money. And getting somebody to want to spend-well, in this case it ended up being like five million dollars-on your story-that whole process-I don't think there's much anyone can do to prepare you for an experience like that. Hustling to get people to believe in you and to raise that kind of money-it's kind of mind-boggling. Like, what's worth five million dollars? [Laughs] Feeding a country? You know what I mean?

I ended up getting financing from a studio. And that meant, well, it was just very painful for me. It was the first time I had ever actually dealt with the corporate world. All of a sudden, instead of using grant money, or loans or something, I was spending somebody else's money, and I was obligated to, you know, deal with them. I didn't know how to behave. I kept feeling like a weirdo. I'd never been in an office! And these executives were all men, and I would be explaining the story, saying, "Well, it's about this girl, and she's got these b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but she hates her b.r.e.a.s.t.s." And they're like, "Well, don't women love b.r.e.a.s.t.s? I love b.r.e.a.s.t.s!" And I was like, "No, she's having a freakout about her body." It was so complicated.

It became two years of talking to people, explaining, changing things to make everybody happy. And something happened in the process. There was something about having to explain everything constantly-every little move. And I don't mean it like, "Oh, I'm an artist and you should understand." These people are giving you a lot of money, and you should be able to explain it. But there was something exhausting about this whole process, changing everything so many times in order to make everybody happy. You know, this scene is too strong, or we think you need more of this, or that, or whatever. I think there was this unintentional chipping away of my original vision that I don't even-I'm not blaming anyone. I'm sort of blaming myself. It was just too many cooks in the kitchen.

I think that if something succeeds or fails it should fail because one person came up with a plan, you know? Like, I don't know, say you want to make pasta with chocolate sauce. Okay? It might be a crazy idea. To put chocolate in pasta sauce. And you know, it might be like the most amazing pasta sauce or it might suck. But at least you tried this wild thing. Like it was your obsession.

But then people are like, "Well, you know what, how about just a little chocolate? We don't want to make it too crazy." And you're like, "No, no, I'm telling you, we need two pounds of chocolate!" So they're like, "How about a quarter pound of chocolate?" Da, da, da. So that little chipping away of how much chocolate you're supposed to put in dilutes the original intention of having this crazy chocolate pasta sauce.

But that's just the way movies are. Because more than any other art form, it's this collaboration between hundreds of people. So, like, it wasn't just the studio, you have to explain things to the cinematographer, the actors, the set design people, the people moving around props in between scenes. And as a result of all these various people's interpretations, your idea changes. It mutates. There can be beautiful mutations, where you're like, "Oh my G.o.d, that pause the actress is putting in there-the way she coughed in the middle of the scene, it's so powerful! I would have never been able to write that." Or, "Oh my G.o.d, the way the art director put that blue couch in the room with the shades drawn, it's so sad. It's such a beautiful scene-so much better than I wrote it."

But a lot of times, the changes aren't for the better. They're just compromises. You have only so much money, so you start making compromises-with the choice of actors, locations. And this goes on and on all the way down to, you know, costumes-maybe the wig somebody's wearing or whatever-and you can end up with something that's just a husk of your original intention.

When we started shooting-I liked production for one week on this movie. At the beginning, I remember thinking, "I am the luckiest girl in the whole world." I was excited and happy and it was great. And then it went downhill from there. We didn't have enough time. This was a union movie and there are a lot of very strict rules about how many hours a day you can shoot, and you have to work within that or it gets very expensive. I wasn't used to that-not being able to go fifteen hours a day like we did in film school.

So after the first week, we had to rush, and that was really painful. Because aesthetics just go completely out the window. It got to the point where I remember thinking, look, the only thing that matters is acting, the only thing that matters is acting, the only thing that matters is acting. Everything else is bulls.h.i.t. Because when push comes to shove if you have to go for good acting or a great-looking movie, it's about how to get the actors doing it right. But still, you're watching everything else go out the window-you surrender the shots, you surrender the look, you surrender everything.

And then, when the production was over-you know what a test screening is, right? Where they drag people off the street and have them come watch your movie and they fill out these little forms and they're like, ewww, you know? They score it. Well, I wasn't prepared for going through that kind of mechanistic thing where all these people are commenting-I mean, I still have the forms. They're really funny. "I think this is an amoral film filled with deviants, perverts, and freaks." Or, "I never knew there was Jewish white trash." And this is a movie about my family! [Laughs] You know what I'm saying? It's my f.u.c.king family! I just was like, "Ai, yai yai." Going through that, the whole process, the material was so personal and it was supposed to be a handmade thing and it was being treated like it was made in a factory. But then it kind of was made in a factory.

I don't know. I mean, the movie was well received. It went to Cannes. And people liked it. The New York Times gave it a nice review. The Wall Street Journal loved it. That was my favorite review. I was really moved. He mentioned all of my favorite writers. He was like, "Oh, it's like Philip Roth, it's like Mona Simpson, it's like-" It was as if he came to my house and looked on my bookshelf.

But at the same time, he also criticized things that I hadn't wanted to do. Things I had fought against. He was like, "Did she really have to do this facile, blah, blah, blah?" And, ooh. It's painful. I mean-I don't know. I'm very lucky that I got my movie made. I know that. I know many people that don't get their movies made. But it took me a year to recover from this experience. I needed a lot of time to get centered, to remember who I was, why I started making movies, why I was interested in telling stories, what I wanted to do next and blah, blah, blah.

It's a weird job. When you make a movie, it becomes like public art, kind of. Like a public sculpture. And then people p.i.s.s on it and s.h.i.t on it, or some people stare at it and really like it. It affects some people, it doesn't affect some people. But once it's out there, you have to surrender it. You can't protect it. So I was trying to let go and sort of forget about having made the movie, so I could move on and make something else. And it wasn't really working.

But then, like a year after I made the movie, I mean, it was totally out of the theaters and I thought everyone had forgotten about it, I got this amazing phone call. My lawyer called and she said, "Hi, Tamara, I just wanted to tell you that Francis Ford Coppola watched your movie, and he loved it." I was like, "That's not true. Who's playing this game with me? I can't believe it. This brilliant filmmaker is watching my mistakes and my pukey disgustingness?" I was so ashamed I was sick.

And then I get another phone call. "He's going to be at this party, on this evening." I wasn't even invited to the party. But because the person throwing it discovered that Francis wanted to meet me, I get invited.

So I showed up and it's this very fancy, hip party. There are all these really talented young filmmaker people there. And I was feeling small and weird and stupid. And then there's Francis Ford Coppola. He's sitting on a couch, holding court. I'm thinking it's going to be like, "Hi," and then he's going to be like-"Yeah, anyway."

So this woman says, "Oh, Francis, this is Tamara." I'm standing there looking down and saying h.e.l.lo. And all of a sudden he breaks from the conversation he's having and he starts to talk to me. He says, "I really loved your movie." I'm like, "Oh G.o.d, get out of here." He's like, "No, I really identified with it." I was like, "That's weird. It's about a teenage girl with big b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Are you obsessed with b.r.e.a.s.t.s?" And he said, "Yeah, but in a different way." [Laughs]

He was very funny. He was so warm. He said, "It reminded me of the way I grew up. I was really emotionally touched by it." And we ended up spending a few hours the next day together! Like me and Francis walking through Little Italy.

He turned to me at one point and he said, "How did you get those girls to dance with that vibrator?" I said, "Excuse me?" He's like, "How did you get that scene? How did you do that?" And I said, "Didn't you make Apocalypse Now? I mean, weren't there helicopters flying all over and like bombing a supposed Vietnam village? Didn't you have like Wagner and things in unison flying and exploding?" He said, "Yeah. That's easy. But how'd you get those girls to dance with a vibrator?"

I was like-[laughs]-"Well, there are very few benefits to being a woman director. But one of them is that you can ask girls to dance with a vibrator and they won't think you're a big perv." He said, "It wasn't just that. It was very honest. That scene was so loving and so respectful. You are a director." He was totally sincere.

I was so-it meant so much to me. I'm sitting next to this guy who I would call a legend. He's made movies that are f.u.c.king incredible. And he's saying this amazing stuff to me. It just blew me away.

Then he sort of hunched down and he said, "I heard you had a hard time with your movie." And he starts talking about Peter Bogdanovich, and he says, "I remember when Peter had the first screening of The Last Picture Show. After it was over, everybody just leapt to their feet. They just went wild. I remember sitting there and I was happy for Peter and everything-but I just thought, "G.o.d, n.o.body's ever reacted to one of my films like that." I was like, "Francis, didn't you make The G.o.dfather?" He was like, "Yeah, but I never experienced what he experienced."

Then I started sort of figuring it out. Because when he made The G.o.dfather, there's all these famous stories how there were people on the set. He was under an enormous amount of scrutiny. The studio was like, "Oh, the footage looks too dark and the footage is this and the footage is that and you're crazy." It was just constant tension with the studio. Like-he was going to be fired. They had a second director standing by on the set just waiting for him to f.u.c.k up and then they were going to send him in. So he didn't even experience what happened with that movie.

And I was sitting there and he was telling me this story and I thought, oh my G.o.d, I, too-I mean, in a much smaller scale-did not allow myself to enjoy the process. It certainly wasn't like Francis's experience, which was a much-you know, he had Marlon Brando and like huge-it was a much larger-scale thing. But I think emotionally it was actually similar. You're just so scared throughout the process, because the bosses or whatever are looking down on you and not making you feel like you're doing good work. I mean, you're just trying to get through the day, but you feel like you're in trouble basically for the entire shoot.

It's not like I'm going to quit. I'm actually working on a script right now about Diane Arbus, the photographer, and I'm doing this little thing for HBO. But I think I have to figure out a way not to be in so much pain throughout the process. Maybe I won't experience it quite the same way because it won't be so like "devirginizing," you know? Maybe I'll be used to being f.u.c.ked. [Laughs] Or maybe I'll be better at negotiating what's important to me.

For a long time after my film, I kept thinking "What did I do wrong?" And what I finally realized-I read this quote one time from George Lucas. And his advice to filmmakers was that you should always make movies with your friends. And I didn't do that. I wasn't surrounded by my friends.

Because for you, it's like a soul thing. It's a very personal process. But for most of the people involved, they're not interested in your, like, little expression. You're all jazzed and inspired, but for a lot of people who make movies, this is just another job, another project, another product.

It's not a gig for me. It's not just like a job that I'm doing. And I should have surrounded myself with people that have similar relationships to their work. Like people who, you know, our values are on the same plane.

And you do find those people. Whether they're your friends, or-often you find these people that are amazing and beautiful and their whole life is about like-there are Foley artists, you know, sound effects guys, and their whole life is about trying to make this perfect "plop" sound. They're like, "Oh, if you drop a stone in this metal basin with just the right amount of water in it, it will make a perfect "plop' sound." These craftsmen nuts, that's all they do. They're just geniuses. It's beautiful. People who want to do the best that they can do even on something that most people don't notice. And those are the people you want to find. You really want to do it with people that believe in movies in the way that you do.

The audience loses their mind when

you swear.

ACTRESS.

Debra Messing.

I will never forget going into New York City and seeing Annie on Broadway. I was like eight and literally climbing out of my seat trying to get on stage. I mean, I just thought that I had found my home. I turned to my mother and I said, "I am going to be Annie. I have to do this." And she said, "Honey, you can't be Annie. We're living in Rhode Island and you can't be Annie." [Laughs] But she was still very supportive. My parents started bringing me down to New York to see theater as much as they could. And every time, it was just-it was magic to me. I saw these actors on stage and I thought, my G.o.d, they're just playing. I want to do that. I have to do that. There was no question, there was no wavering.