Episode 146 - Tamra Davis: How to Direct 90s Cult Classics (Billy Madison, Half Baked, Guncrazy)

Welcome back to DMR's Legends of The Lense Series!

In this episode, legendary Hollywood director Tamra Davis joins us for an unfiltered deep dive into her incredible career. From shaping the 90s music video landscape for hip-hop and alt-rock royalty (N.W.A, Beastie Boys, The Smiths, Sonic Youth) to helming defining cult comedies and thrillers—including Billy Madison, Half Baked, CB4, the intense cult classic Guncrazy, and Britney Spears' Crossroads—Tamra shares what it was really like behind the scenes with legends like Adam Sandler, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Drew Barrymore, and the late Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Whether you're a film buff, an aspiring director, or a massive fan of 90s pop culture, Tamra breaks down her creative process, the grit of indie filmmaking, the power of her acclaimed documentaries, and her essential advice for creators today.

Chapters

03:08 – Tamra’s Background: Breaking into the Film Industry

08:25 – The Golden Era of Music Videos (N.W.A, Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth)

17:26 – Guncrazy & Crafting 90s Cult Thrillers with Drew Barrymore

25:53 – Making CB4 with Chris Rock & Mocking Hip-Hop Culture

29:44 – Directing Billy Madison: Working with Adam Sandler at His Peak

38:14 – The Story Behind Half Baked & Dave Chappelle’s Comedy Genius

44:01 – Crossroads: Directing Britney Spears & the Pop Culture Phenomenon

50:52 – Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child & Deep-Dive Documentaries

53:31 – The Best Summer & Independent Filmmaking Journeys

56:47 – Directing Episodic TV & Navigating Modern Series

59:54 – Tamra’s Best Advice for Filmmakers & Creators

1:07:20 Outro

Be sure to grab you 30-day free Audible trial on behalf of DMR, link below:

https://amzn.to/4pGWOKf

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We filmed in Toronto. So yeah, it was loved Toronto. Yeah, it was really fun. We all stayed in the same building, the same hotel, Set and Place Hotel. It was like Adam, me, Farley, David Spade, because they were making Tommy Boy at the same time. Gwyneth Petro was there making some movie. Like it was just like this hotel filled with like the troupe. We're like vaudeville actors or something. Like just this troop of crazy people in a hotel.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Alright, alright, alright. So welcome back to DMR. Thank you for tuning back in as always. Much obliged. So the Legends of the Lens series continues. And today's guest is Tamara Davis. So Tamra has a large list of credentials over many different sectors in Hollywood. She started in the 80s directing music videos with the likes of NWA. You've also got Sonic Youth and Hansen later in the 90s. Then she directed a film in 1992 called Gun Crazy with Drew Barrymore, a thriller, very gritty, and it got Drew a Golden Globe nomination. Then have a listen to these very well-known staple comedies that she directed. We've got CB4 with Chris Rock. Then you had Adam Sandler in Billy Madison, one of the best and well-known comedies to come out of the 90s. Then you had Half Baked with Dave Chappelle. We've also got Britney Spears in Crossroads in the early 2000s. She's also been involved in a fair few TV series and episodes, and she's directed episodes for Grey's Anatomy. You've also got shows like Dead to Me, The Politician, and P Valley. She's also directed documentaries, and she's got one that's coming out next year called The Best Summer, which is basically found footage from the Somersault alt rock music festival here in Australia in the mid-90s, and she was being evacuated from the Malibu fires last year, and as she's frantically trying to get out of the area, she comes across this box of tapes, and it's the music festival tapes. Now I haven't seen the documentary comes out early next year, but just some amazing stories that Tamara has throughout her career from the 80s right up until today. She's got some great advice for people looking to get into the industry, especially with directing and whatnot. So buckle up, it's a cracker of an episode. You're going to enjoy this. Welcome to DMR's movie reviews.

unknown 3:06

Enjoy the show.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Welcome back to DMR. Thank you for tuning back in as always. And today or tonight, we've got a very special guest, Tamara Davis. Welcome to DMR.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here and talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

I know, I know. I've been looking forward to this for a very long time. You're in a very nice little backdrop there in LA. It's summer over there at the moment. How is it in LA this time of year?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

It's beautiful. It's summer here, and there's also waves. So there's a swell right now. So I'm really excited because, yeah, my kids are surfers, so it's nice. A good time. Yeah, one of them almost tried to leave to go to Australia because you guys just got some waves. So I was like, no, stay here.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

We did, yeah. I actually, whilst I'm not a surfer, I'm actually a uh I haven't told you this yet, but I'm a drone operator, a drone pilot. So at the moment we are smack bang in the middle of humpback whale migration. And the best way I can describe filming these animals, these amazing aquatic beasts, is it's like it's like Jurassic Park.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yeah, I'm sure you see them when they're oh my god, how fun.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Yeah, it's amazing. And they get here, they get as close as 50 meters offshore, and you can actually hear their blowholes when they're going past with their young calves. So it's amazing, it's very, very cool.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

It's amazing. That's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

So you spend a lot of time by the ocean by sounds like with your kids, and so do I.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yeah, yeah, right here on the ocean. It's so nice. And yeah, Sydney's so beautiful. I I haven't been there in a while, and I just like when you fly over Sydney and you just see how it just is like all the all those beautiful waterways and how big it is, but it's just like hugs the coast. It's just stunning. I just thought it was the most beautiful city.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Yeah, it's very cool. Thank you. It's very cool. Like, I've got a corporate job, and my main office tower overlooks all of Sydney Harbour. So I'm in there twice a week. Yeah, it's it's it's an amazing place. So thank you again for coming on. So today we're gonna be doing a bit of a deep dive, called it Legends of the Lens. So when I came across your profile, obviously you've got some very big cult classic films that we'll talk about shortly. But I wanted to rewind the clock and discuss like how you got obviously into the movie industry, but before that, where you started, where you grew up, what you studied, how you got into the entertainment industry.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Wow, well, I'm excited to talk about that because I actually just wrote a book kind of trying to describe it. I know I'm excited about it, but it's mostly that because you know, the way anybody starts, everybody's path is so different. And then I just was like, yeah, being a girl, it's a very different trajectory. But I grew up in Hollywood. I grew up in Hollywood, California, and um I wanted to be an actress at first, and then I became an then I decided that I wanted to have more control, so I became a director. And um I went to film school at LA City College, which was just super cool as like the local college here. Um and then I I thought like I was gonna make a feature film, but instead I was only like 23, 24, but I felt like guys are doing that, you know. And I basically like got laughed at when I went into like my big meeting. And but the good news was I I had made a music video for a band, and it was right at the beginning time of like when music videos and MTV was just like crushing it. And so all of a sudden out of nowhere, I became like a music video director, and they didn't care that I was a girl, and it was like I had a cool style, and I just had the best time in the world, and I did music videos. So that was kind of how I started.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

How cool is that? So, how long were you at film school for?

SPEAKER_01 7:17

You know, I think it was probably like a two-year program, but it probably took me more like three or four years because I was like working, you know, going to school. But yeah, it was a it was really nice though, because it was kind of a film program where it was the LA City College, so it wasn't just like all people who had money who could pay for it who thought they were like already privileged or something. It was really like local people, and um, and so there's something nice about that because when you made films, it felt like you showed them to the people that are at the movie theaters, not just critics. And so it really made me understand that like that people are going to the movie, you know, you're trying to have all different kinds of people enjoy your films, not just like the whatever that group of cool critical people. Like it's films are equal, you know, they're they're very you should appeal to the Armenian woman and the two black kids and the punk rock girl and the old guy, you know. So I kind of really saw that going to a community college. Um, and then yeah, so I feel I don't know. So that was I think that that was like a good, a good background.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Yeah, okay. So MTV, like that came out, was it the early or mid-80s when it came out? So I'm an 85 baby, so I kind of grew up in the early to mid-90s.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

So when did like MTV like they came really I think like they came out in the 80s or like towards the they were really getting popular more in the late 80s?

SPEAKER_03 8:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

And then I guess I started trying to think, like I met, yeah, because I met Mike in 1988, and that was like by then I was kind of like a a pretty not established, but I was doing like a bunch of rap videos at the time. So I probably started doing videos around 86 or something like that. Okay, yeah. Do you remember when it was like and at the time, like the difference was was like when MTV started, it was all these like slick kind of big hair bands, or like it looked really kind of a big lighting and all that kind of stuff. And what I did is I had filmed a band with my Super 8 camera from the checkout from the film school, and it had this, and I was like in the pit getting bumped or on the side of the, you know, it was like just handheld look grainy, black and white. Yeah, and um and that nobody'd really seen something shot like that, other than like their old home videos or something. So to put it in a way uh for a rock feel, it kind of made it feel really cool and edgy. And so I think like that was kind of what was cool about MTV is that they let people who had like a new style and just yeah, yeah, and it kind of shook it up a little bit. And I think that that was a fun, a fun entry. And I got to do all these cool alternative bands at the time, so that was really neat.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Nice. So you work with some of the people like the groups like NWA Sonic Youth back then. So what was it like during that time? Because like in the like mid 80s, rap was basically exploding, and then it kind of shifted a bit to like a different style, like in the 90s, I suppose, with all that gangster rap and all that kind of stuff. So what was it, what was it like back then, especially like in Hollywood, LA, with all that genre of music?

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Well, I had I was coming from it from like a couple different places. One, I grew up in LA, so I knew LA culture, but also like my early films, one of my early films was called Via Loca, which was about gangs in the San Fernando Valley. And then one of my first TV shows was like about yeah, so I I'd like grown up and filmed gang stuff, gang activity. And so I kind of knew about I knew about the world a bit. Yeah, and then um and then I worked, I'd been doing like rap music, like I did tone Loke Wild thing and bust a move, and like kind of like, but that was kind of like it it was like blending black and white worlds together because that was the music that I was listening to when we went to clubs. Those song, those songs were produced by this guy, Matt Dyke, who was my best friend, and he had a club called Power Tools. And um, and so like we were all dancing to like black songs, and uh, and so when Matt made that song and I made the video, I we like really blended the crowd. So we wanted it to show like this is what was going on in the club scene, but on MTV, it was just like black videos, like it wasn't like a crossover at all. Like you were either a black artist or you're a white artist, yeah. And so, like when I made the tone look wild thing video to have this black guy like humping up against these white girls, it was definitely we did it for I made it for $400. It was like super low budget, like we were having fun, and it became the biggest music video on MTV, whatever it was gigantic and sold so many records. So, you know, and then Bust a Move was like me also, you know, blending that culture. That was like what was going on at LA at the time. So I so that was super fun, but you know, like Tone Lok was from that world, like he he was rap, you know, he was definitely he lived, he lived in that world. Um yeah, that's a that's a gang name. I didn't we didn't know what it meant. We just thought tone like local crazy. I don't we didn't know what it meant, but he he was it's a gang name, but um and yeah, and then when I worked with NWA, that was just really fun. Like, yeah, I met with Easy because I had done those videos and they made they were gigantic videos, and he wanted to hire the person that made those videos. And so then I started working with him, and um, yeah, and his world was for real, like it was for real. Like those guys were they were definitely from yeah, from Compton and had probably just been you know doing their thing like a year or two earlier. Like, you know, it wasn't like they were it was pr it was pretty, it was pretty rough. But I don't know, I felt I I got along really well with Easy. He wanted to make movies, he really loved Hollywood, he liked that I wanted to be in the film business, and we made a short film and yeah, we just did a lot of music videos together and it was great. And I felt like I could I I had a style that I wanted to do with him, and I and I liked that he backed me so that when I worked with all those guys that were all just like complete like the yes, you could call it NWA, but you could also call them their, you know, it was their it was their that group of the guys, it was a gang. But um yeah, I felt they I felt protected, I felt fine, but and I think like I don't know, maybe there was something about instead of being like a white dude with a baseball hat coming up to these guys and telling them what to do, the fact that I was just this big blonde girl, you know, that was smilingly coming up and telling them what to do. I think maybe I was able to get performances out of all these guys that normally would be very intimidating. I just weren't fun. I I like saw it as fun and I laughed and I got along well with those guys.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

How cool. So with the with shooting and directing the music videos, like might be a bit of an odd question or a you know question that's might not be easy to answer, but how long does that usually take to film a video? Because like they go for what an average song is a couple of minutes, like three to four minutes. Like, how long would you be working on site with uh with music videos back in the day?

SPEAKER_01 14:56

I mean, I feel like we would do one-day videos or two-day videos, and they're you they used to have like really bad reputations that people would go all hours or would like go forever. And I wasn't ever that director. I was like really very efficient, I had shot lists, I was like really planned, and I I wanted everybody to have fun and I wanted to get good performances out of the band, and I just didn't, I didn't feel like people were doing their best work at hour 13, 14, 15. So me either. So I just feel like I yeah, usually take like one or two days. A lot of that would depend on how much money you had. Um, yeah. In a weird way, I feel like because I like right now, people make music videos, but now they make videos for nothing. Like that's the thing that I'm in shock about now is like we had money to make music videos and they were on the air and they were like they were part of like uh the media empire, but now it's kind of like bands still need music videos. There's no like major place to play them, so there's no MTV, but bands still need them, but now they only pay like five, six, seven thousand dollars for video on most bands, yeah. And then it's all it's up to like all these kind of creative young people who I guess now that you put a camera in everybody's hand and you give them all an editing system, everybody thinks they can make a film. And some people can, but I just am more like, damn, they're asking these young directors, which I can't believe how much what I learned. I learned so much from directing music videos and what an incredible opportunity to work with a crew and work with, you know, like lighting equipment and dollies and cameras and moving a crew from one location to another, all that stuff were all things that, you know, taught me how to make features and taught me how to move on to that. Whereas I feel like now, but maybe that's the way features are going. It's all it's the very few videos are these big, huge videos, like, you know, or even videos that were low budget, they just it's just a different scenario. But I really felt we were so lucky, you know, we got to do all these videos and we had budgets, but it also created this amazing time for filmmakers. I mean, that's where Spike Jones came out of, that's where David Fincher came out of, Michelle Gondry, like all these cool directors came out of that training ground. And um, it was because there was a there was a need for it, you know, there was MTV, it supported this huge industry and created all this talent.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yeah, yeah. And as I mentioned, like I I grew up in the early 90s, so this is where you come into play with your films, some of the big films that you worked on, cult classics as well. So I over the last week and a half I've been doing a bit of a movie marathon with your films, ones that I had seen that it was a long time ago. Billy Madison, I don't need to re-watch because that's a staple comedy. But stuff like CB4, Half Baked, and also Gun Crazy. Now, Gun Crazy I hadn't seen, and I only just watched it yesterday, and I absolutely loved it. Such an awesome film. Very, very cool film, and it kind of gave me vibes of like Bonnie and Clyde a little bit, and like Romeo and Juliet, which I was the the modern version came out a few years later, I think in the mid-90s. But I hadn't seen that side of Drew Barrymore before in such a gritty film. So talk to me about that. Like, how did how did you get onto that film and you should just run me through the whole thing? Because she got uh a nomination, I think it was a Golden Globe nomination off the film. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

I know I'm so happy. Yeah, talk about that. I love that movie. That was my first movie, and to what it takes to try to get your first movie made is always like a Herculean feat because yeah, it's hard, it's so hard to get a first film up.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Um, on that one, that that actually was the script that I presented when I was 23, 24, yeah, and got laughed at. Like, and but they took that script and they optioned it out from underneath me. And so I lost that script. And then it took me seven or eight years of doing music videos. And then somehow the writer called me and he's like, Hey, that script's available again. I was like, what? And so I got the script back, and then I just found people that um were able to like put up money for, you know, and like sell foreign rights and pre-sales. And I made it for $800,000. Yeah, so under a million dollars. Yeah, and it was my first film I got to work with my DP Lisa Rinsler, who I'd done all these music videos with. So she and I had like this great working relationship, and I think that's really important. Like having, if you're trying to be a you know, a director to have like a tight crew that you work with, like people that you kind of grow up with and you have a secondhand language. And then it was super cool working with Drew, you know, like I don't know, like she was uh I knew her as like a club kid in LA.

SPEAKER_03 20:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

And she read the script and she wanted to come in. And I was like, nah, she she's just I don't know, I did I didn't really take her seriously, but then she demanded to come and see me. And I met with her and she told me her whole story, and I just fell in love with her and I believed in her, and she's like, nobody believes in me anymore. And I was like, I do, I will, I will. Yeah, so I because I just thought she was so I just believed in her. I liked her and I knew I knew how hard it is, you know, and I knew I'd read her book, Little Girl Lost. I knew what a tough life she had. And I wanted to be somebody that believed in her. So yeah, so I cast her and she moved in with Mike and I. And yeah, we made gun crazy and shot in 23 days. And it just was a great experience. It was really, I felt like all even though I didn't get my first my film made right out of film school, I feel like by the time I got to make it seven years later, and I don't know how many whatever 50, 60 music videos later, I was a director. Like I knew what I was doing. I knew I had a vision, I knew what I wanted, I knew how to move the camera, I knew how to create. Yeah, so I felt like thank God in a way that I didn't get that first film. I, you know, because I feel like I made such a better film uh by having a lot more experience.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah, she she now how old was she in there? She was only what 16, 17 by the look of it. She's a kid.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Yeah, she's 15.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yeah, she's a baby.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yeah, yeah, very much so. Very such a gripping tale as well. Yeah, I think she's 15.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Maybe she turned 16 while we were shooting it, because remember she's driving. Yeah, she's a baby. She was a little baby girl.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

This film gun crazy, it kind of for me looking back, like what I came up with obviously in the early nines, as I mentioned, so video stores before they became extinct, and obviously going to movies was my kind of home, right? I've been a movie buff since I was five. But the Something about nineties thrillers that kind of hit different Th they kinda hit different st films like this one that pretty gritty film it did have that impact on me but films like Cape Fear and you've also got what's the other one as well the movie called Fear itself with Mark Warburg in it. Have you seen that one? Fear with uh who else is in it? Reese Witherspoon. It came out in the mid-90s. Great film, brilliant film. But there's kind of yeah, so the that kind of that that mid-90s or early to mid-90s feel of the thrillers, they just kind of hit a bit differently. What's the other one? Basic Instinct as well. That that kind of feel, do you know what I mean? Obviously, there's thrillers up from then up until now, but there's there was something about that era where the filmmaking was just different, and like films that are on like streaming, like basic instinct and all that, whenever they come on, I always flick them on because they always kind of they hit home. There's something about it. Can you tell me what what was what was it about the 90s with thrillers and stuff like that that kind of make them like stand out? Is it the grittiness? I don't know, I can't put my finger on it.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

I don't know. I mean, I feel like one, we were still shooting on film, so you know, crazy shot on 35mm film. So that first of all, the colors, the way that looks is gonna, you know, have that rich quality. Um, I feel like you know, you're influenced by the things that you know what came before you and you know, whatever. So you're always watching, you know, to me, I was watching, I was watching Bonnie and Clyde, I was watching Badlands. I was, you know, so you're watching those films that have that kind of the the noir couple on the run, you know, evoking the feel of a road movie. Um yeah, so I just feel like there's you're you know, I'm you're being influenced at that at your time by the things that just that that happened the decade or whatever, the few years before you.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

So yeah, so I feel like I don't know, the 90s had a good reference point. Like that was made in early 90s. So I was, you know, just came out of the 80s and I knew that like there was a cheesy part of the 80s that I didn't like, but there was a great part of like the 70s cinema, you know, that you really kind of thought was super cool. So I think like there's maybe a I don't know, yeah. So I I I've and I feel like it was also the 90s, there was this whole indie filmmaking thing that was like blooming that I got, thank God, like came into, and it was, you know, the rain, you know, it was like started where indie filmmaking was, you know, prominent and back. And so I just feel like that part was super cool to be part of that wave. And yeah, that's the thing with filmmaking is if you want to be a filmmaker, you gotta like figure out what the wave is and try to catch that wave. So like I was lucky, but I was a hustler, but you have to be like, oh, the MTV wave, and then it was like, oh, the movie wave, you know, indies and comedies, you know. So you just have to see like where the work is coming from and try to put yourself in the right position, especially when you're somebody that's in a you know more diverse or you know, like myself at the time. And even now, I can't even say at the time because it's the numbers are even worse now for women directors. So it's not like oh, yeah, I know that's terrible.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

You're right. Most most of the directors these days are male. Yeah, that's a bit of a sad thing.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Yep. Yeah, it's imagine if um only 7% of all the books we read were written by women. It'd be terrible.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Yeah, hopefully that will change. So that was 92, great film. So 92, that next year I think it was 93, so CB4 is what you did next, is that correct? Yeah, with Chris Rock, and all these all these stars. You look at them in your films and they're all babies. So I watched CB4 the other day. I had seen it a long, long time ago, but it was a good refresh, a very funny film, very funny film. So, and you can tell, like, you with the way you shot that directed it, like you've got that music video influence because it's about you know gangster rappers or wannabe gangster rappers who steal a guy's name was Augusto, I think it was Charlie Murphy. And um yeah, so talk talk to me about CB4. How did you get on that like off the back of Gun Crazy?

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Um, I I knew Chris, I'd done a video with him and a PSA with him, and um, and I also I was like really well known as a rap video director. I'd done all these videos, so I knew that world, and I just had to position myself to be the perfect person for that job because otherwise you might be like, how does this girl get that job? But yeah, I just the work that I had done and I had a really good pitch, and I went in and sold the guys at Universal. And Chris and I just had the best time together. I loved making him laugh. I'd loved, I was very professional with him, knowing like when when you work with comedians, you you know, they you don't want to keep them waiting around all day. You want to be fast, you want to be ready for them, you want to make them feel like they're having a great time. Everybody's light on the set, everyone wants to laugh on your set. So I think like we had worked together. So he saw how I worked like that. And we just had the best, and I knew Nelson George, his uh producing partner and writing partner. And uh yeah, we just had the best time in the world. We we had so much fun, we got to work with so many talented people. And he really like taught me the thing of like looking for a joke and not leaving a scene until you've figured out like if you've gotten every joke out of that scene that you could possibly get out of it. If there was a joke under the table, we'd be like, okay, let's find, let's go under the table. You know, so just really having fun and being creative, working together. And and uh yeah, we just had we had so much fun making that film. It was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Very funny film. And this there's a set at the end where they have their concert and it's a jail cell. That was very, very cool. I love the look of that. So what was it like filming that scene with them at the concert?

SPEAKER_01 28:23

You know, it's funny because you're trying to make a big concert, but you know, you're filming, so you're not really booking out a whole stadium. And I feel like, and I thank God I had done so many music videos, so I knew how to create like a lighting design and make things feel big and how to shoot videos. So I shot a lot of you know big live things. And I feel like all that part, like that part was really fun. So I used my skills and I got to do that. And then I just also laugh about how a lot of the times we thought what we were filming was so funny and like so this is crazy. You know, now I just feel like, oh my god, the some of the song like we thought sweat of my balls was like so crazy, but you know, you got Megan the stallion singing W A P and you're just like, oh my God, we were just and they're that's serious, you know. So I just feel like it's so funny how things have really changed. Where at that time the comedy was in the extreme. Uh yeah, we had fun. Like, I think like that was I yeah. I think just having like enjoying yourself while you do it, even though it's a challenge and you know, so hard to pull stuff like that off because you have so many elements happening, but yeah, you just plan it. I don't know. I'm a really good planner, I'm a really good person of like coming up with a plan.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Yeah. Great film, good stuff. And moving on to the mid-90s, so we've got 95 with Adam Sandler and and Billy Madison. So obviously, it's as I said before, it's such a brilliant staple comedy that you can always just throw on and laugh at. So, what was it like working with Sandler on that one? And where was that, where was that taking place? That where was that shot at? Where was that filmed at?

SPEAKER_01 30:11

We filmed in Toronto, so yeah, it was yeah, loved Toronto. Yeah, it was really fun. We all stayed in the same building, the same hotel, Satin Place Hotel. It was like Adam, me, Farley, David Spade, because they were making Tommy Boy at the same time. Yeah, Gwyneth Paltrow was there making some movie. Like it was just like this hotel filled with like the troupe. We were like vaudeville actors or something, like just this troop of crazy people in a hotel. And um, I don't know, like it was again, like we I had to, I came on that film. I was originally Universal after doing CB4. They brought me out to meet Adam, and Adam and I met, but then he decided to work with the one of his friends to direct it. And then unfortunately that didn't work out. And then I got brought back. So it was kind of another situation where I thought I had a movie and then I got and I didn't get the movie, and then the movie came back. So it was kind of like they yeah, they brought me back in, and um yeah, so that but it was also really crucial that Adam and I nail it, you know. He like he this was his first film, you know, he had done like a couple little, you know, side things, but he hadn't led a film before. And so it was really important that we get it right. And and I had to listen to he had this writing partner, he I think they still work together, Tim Hurlihy, and just listening to how they would work. Like Tim would write a joke, but it wouldn't really be that funny, it wouldn't look that funny on a piece of paper. But then Adam would say it, it would be hilarious. So it would just be like trying to figure out like how to work the best with Adam, how to get the best performance out of Adam, and um make him, yeah, just like have fun while you're making this movie so that he gets a career out of it. Because I always felt like whether it was a music video or an acting job or whatever, like if you can give that actor or that performer, that artist that's putting themselves in front of the camera and being vulnerable, if you can put them in a situation where they actually enjoy what they're doing and they're having a good time and they're enjoying it, you can get a career out of that person. But if they come up and do it and they might have been great, but they hated it and they never want to do it again, it's like it was torture and they they they hated it, then it's what a fail. And so it was always I felt like I because a lot of times I did people's first things. That's what I would get, you know, is whatever I didn't get like all the big, big jobs. I got the little, I got the unknown thing, and then I had to make the best thing out of, you know, it was a miracle that I got to at least choose those things. So I got to choose the things that I liked. And I was like, So, but I a lot of times I did people's first things, but I felt like if I did their first thing and I gave them a really great experience or made them feel confident or made them feel like they had could have a career in this, and um and yeah, that you could you could help somebody really move, you know, continue in that path. And I I really like that. So yeah, Adam and I had the best time ever making Billy Madison every day was hilarious, hilarious.

unknown 33:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

And when it came out, when it came out in '95, did it blow up? How did it go back then? Like, was it like just how did it be?

SPEAKER_01 33:35

It's happened to me a few times where I do it, where like, you know, you do movies like this and they test it to freaking hell at the studios, like five, six, seven times in theaters, you know, 400 kids watching it, grading you. They like give every kid a sheet of paper, they have to fill it out, then they film everybody, then they ask everybody what they thought about it. Then they it's torture what they put you through on these test screenings. They're nowadays, it's even worse. I've been to test screenings where they wire people so they're reading their brain waves, telling you how it is. The last one I did, they filming you while you're watching it, watching your eyeballs where it's going when your attention. It's freaking crazy what you they put you through. It's insane. It's insane. So I like the old days where even though it was hard as hell to sit in a theater with people and then interview that they have like focus groups afterwards. It's painful. Um, but Billy Madison, they the audience loved it when we screened it. Adams fans, they loved it. Like, you know, just a theater filled with like 400 kids and thousand oaks, totally amazing. But when the movie came out, it came out well. I think it either both CB4 and uh Billy Madison, they either opened one or two, like the number one movie or the number two movies. So box office-wise, they did amazing, and they were made for like nothing. They were like made as like little side projects for Universal and for like $10 million because they were they were little teeny movies, and then they had like a backhand distribution deal. Um, but then the critics were really awful. The critics were so mean on Billy Madison, they didn't like Adam Sandler, and it was just like broke my heart because I loved Adam and I just was like, and I knew all his fans loved him, and his audience loved him, and just like it's so it made me so mad that critics like didn't understand this new voice in comedy, somebody that was like relating to the kids, it was kids' age. It was like, yeah, they just didn't get it. And so and then I got like kind of more rebellious in a way, and I was just like, you know, mad. I was like, you know, that's like when you play punk rock music and your parents don't like it. And it's like, and you just realize like if you if you played your music to your parents and they don't like it, like you're happy, you're like, yeah, it's not for you. Yeah, you know. So I kind of like came out with this other rebellious attitude towards Adam and just like he stopped talking to critics after that. Like, I don't think he did an interview until like maybe the three years ago. I think he did his first interview. But he like, they were so mean, yeah. And it just was like, and if you talk, yeah, Adam, we knew what we had, like we liked it, Adam liked it. And um, yeah, and I think like now, of course, everybody's okay with it, but that's how that happens, you know. Sometimes you release something and the audience isn't there yet, or the critics think it's something and they try to control the media, but then you know, the audience finds it, or the audience, you know, is like, no, that's that was for us, you know, wasn't for them, wasn't for Roger Ebert.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

It's amazing how some films can come out and then as you just said, the critics like slam it, but they only really take off like years later, then become cult classics, because you'll you've got multiple cult classics, you've got multiple actors that have come to you right at the start of their careers and you've shot them to start them. So you should be extremely proud with the work that you've done. Like, for instance, I I heard the other day, was it Ed Norton? Like my favourite film is Fight Club, right? So I believe when that came out it didn't do well at all, but it's only like years later where it's got a massive cult following, and I don't think they should ever remake that film. I think there's it was a book, I've read the f the actual first book, there's a second novel, haven't read that one, but uh hopefully they don't remake it. The only thing with that film is that what would have been cool to see in Fight Club is the social media side of things. That would have been quite funny to add into it.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

Rather than that, we shouldn't touch it. But yeah, it's just another example of like a film that didn't do great.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Yes, and then it comes out and people yeah, and it's like now Fight Club is like it's legendary, yeah. It's such a great film.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Did you see the other day? I think when uh Brad Pitt and Ed Norton were at the soccer together and it's it had the meme saying you've got Brad Pitt talking to him, or Ed Norton talking to himself, and like Gen Z would not get that. So it was very, very funny. Yeah, so moving forward, then you 98 Dave Chappelle in Half Bake. Again, very, very funny film. I laughed my ass off the other day when I watched it again. So he was he was just starting his career in that one as well. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Yeah, like I had done Bill, I had done Billy Madison and my producer was Robert Simons, Bob Simons, and uh he called me and he's like, Oh, I got a script I want to send you. We want to shoot in five weeks. We're already, we're already like Perry, our product, you know, production designer, he's already up there building the sets. Like, you're shooting in five weeks? He's like, Yeah, yeah, I'm sending you the script right now. And so he sent me the script, and I I've read the first scene of that 7-Eleven thing, and I called Bob and I was like, Bob, this is hilarious. I was like, Who are these guys? Neil, Brennan, Dave Chappelle, and he's like, Yeah, Dave's a comedian. He's gonna, you know, he had just he'd only done one thing I could find. He'd played like a like a little teeny part in Nutty Professor, where he roasts uh Eddie Murphy at a comedy club. Yes, he can do something.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

He throws him into the piano. That's right. He's got the dreadlocks, the crappy dreadlocks.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

I just remember he like is on the stage and he's looking crazy, and uh that was the only thing I could find on him. Yeah, and I I um I immediately said, I you know, I'd love to I want to meet on it. I think he's pretty funny. And so I met him in person, him and Neil, and we all fell madly in love with each other. I just thought I thought those two were the funniest guys that they were an incredible pair together, great writing partnership. Dave, I just thought was he was 23. Uh yeah, they were both 23 years old. So it was like, and yeah, and then we were shooting in five weeks. It was like, okay, go. And it was just trying to like capture lightning in a bottle, you know. I just felt like my job was just to, you know, enable Dave and enable Neil and support them and you know, you know, whatever, get them, give them the structure that they need to get the shots and get the scenes and get it done. And in the meantime, um just like let them explore, let them have fun. Because you always like you have a scene on a page and it's written, and then there's dialogue, and maybe you've read it once or twice, rarely, and then you have your sets, and then you just see what a comedian does when they, you know, play it, and then you're working with really talented people. Everybody brings their A game and everybody adds something, and you it's hard to really know what's gonna happen until everybody is there at that moment. So you kind of have to be ready for it. It's it's really like creating something live, and you want to keep that energy and keep the fun and encourage it, and encourage the the um the genius, you know. Dave, Dave's a genius, and so that was just for me. We were just having fun, you know, he's making a movie, and yeah, it's like it's yeah, we we just had a great time making it and having fun and just doing something that seemed silly and just going with it.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

What I like about Dave when he obviously he did the Chappelle show, I think it might have been a couple of seasons, and then he turned his back on Hollywood and he yeah, he went dark for a very long time and went rogue for a very long time, and then he's only just kind of popped back up recently. And I've heard heard some stories about him, like he'd go randomly, he'd show up at like comedy clubs, or he'd he'd go into a park and just jump up on a bench and start doing stand-up comedies to people in a crowd. It's just it's just wild stuff. The guy's amazing. The the comedy that he produces is.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Yeah, his stand-up is brilliant, he's great, he's an incredible speaker, and I know I love him dearly. Yeah, and I feel like that's the thing is you, you know, you work with a lot of these people, and once you have an experience like that, it's like going to summer camp with somebody. It's like you've gone through, or you know, yeah, you've gone through something with somebody and these, you know, it's as fun as it is, it is hard to make a movie because you're working together 12, 14 hour days, and you're, you know, there's a lot of pressures, but and every day is like another big problem. It's like you can't believe the problems that you have. It's always as something's always breaking, something's always it's always like drama. It's crazy. Yeah, and so when you go through the crazy situation with a group of people, yeah, it's like going to summer camp and you come out of it and you'll have a bond that'll always be there. Yeah, I just saw Chris Rock recently. We had the best time. Yeah, he came, Mike. Yeah, he came to one of he actually came to one of my screenings at Tribeca Film Festival. He showed up, so that was amazing. And then he also he went to one of Mike's shows, and he and I were standing on the side of the stage singing sure shot together, and we just had the best time. But yeah, so I don't know, like those guys are just the most. I love them all so dearly. And I can't even believe that I at a time when they were all three unknown, I did back-to-back films with Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, and Dave Chappelle. And just like that was crazy. Like those those three comedians are that's our culture. That's our those are our gods of American comedy culture. They're so important to us.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

To me. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for giving the world those films. I mean, it's not me.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

I'm just I can't thank my I thank them for giving me the opportunity to be there. I just was so happy that, yeah, I don't know how I how that happened.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

I was that's awesome. Ah, good stuff. So you you'll need to kind of guide me through here because the early 2000s with Crossroads with Britney Spears, like I haven't seen that film. So talk to me. What was that like working on that one?

SPEAKER_01 44:12

That's amazing. Um, you should see it. It's a good film. That also, yeah, that's a really crazy movie. Um, I originally said no. I was like, no, it's Britney Spears. It was the height of her fame when they asked me to do it. And they and Anne Carly, who I knew very well, and she kind of was took care of Britney at the record company. She was like, We really want a girl to do this. We want her to have, and they knew that I would protect her and be there for her. And um, yeah, so yeah, so I I was like, no, and then they're like, We meet her. So I got they're like, we go to Vegas and meet her. And I was like, Yes, of course. That sounds fun. So I went and I met her, and we spent the day together, and I just loved her. And it was like it was the Britney that we all want right now. Like it, like who she was then was amazing. That's not who she is right now. Who she was then was a bad ass. She ran the whole thing, she did it with the southern politeness, but the whole thing, nothing was done without her approval. She, when I first saw her, she was just like a she looked like a kind of a southern local girl. And by the end of it, she like the day to the night I hung out with her, she became Brittany Spears with makeup and hair and outfit and all that. And and just she had like a really strong commitment. She really wanted to act, she really wanted to make a movie, she really wanted to change her image. She'd hired a new direct a new writer that was like an unknown person named Shonda Rhimes to write the script.

SPEAKER_02 45:47

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

And so it was like a really cool um girl movie. She wanted to do a movie where she wasn't the lead. She's it's a it's um an ensemble piece. It's her Zoe Saldana and Taryn Manning. And so it's really like about these three girls on on a road trip again. And Anson Mount is in it as well, it was amazing. Yeah, and so it was just a really fun time. We had to really isolate her and get to a place where we just like became like this troupe and we rehearsed and we just stayed in this bubble, and yeah, we made a movie together, and it's has super girl film, you know, like themes. It's you know, a lot of girl girl talk and girl things that girls deal with, and I and it was an incredible experience making it. I loved talking back and forth with Shonda and like you know, all girls were behind the camera, my producer was a girl. It was just that was really cool. And then when we yeah, it was it was a really good experience making it. The finishing part was tough. Like I had to get through Paramount, Sherry Lansing, like the whole the release thing. But what as always the thing that I always found was my strength was the audience. And they test it, they always test these movies. And if you get good scores from your audience, that you can like use that to counter some executives' notes because you're always fighting against like somebody. That's why it's always good to work with people you love and you not love necessarily, but that you respect. Because if somebody gives you a note, you want to respect it. You want to know, like, oh, that person did that before. So that I really respect their opinion. And a lot of times you're working and you're working with executives, you have no idea, you have no idea what they did before, and they're giving you notes and they're to change your material. And you just don't know, you know. So I'd always be like, Well, the this, you know, I made it for my audience. What does the audience think? Like, did the does that line up or at least be the same? Like, are you giving me a note that lines up with the audience wants? Like, are you just saying your personal opinion on something? So I just feel like that part's the a tricky part where you're and you have to always be professional as you get through that part because it's the part you always have to get through that if unless you're making it with your own money. If you're spending somebody else's money, that money comes with somebody's opinion. So you have to do what they say usually. Yeah, you have to figure that out and figure out how do you make something and still be creative about it. So I feel like what I loved about that specific um with Crossroads, we tested Sherry made us test it like crazy, and we got like the highest scores. You got like a 98 among girls and our audience. Girls love it. And then again, when it came out, we got completely crushed by the critics. The critics and boys like were kind of balls in the theater, but yeah, critics were like mean to Britney, and you're just why? What the f I I'm so I just don't get it. I mean, I also come at it from a different way because I've seen like young people that I've worked with, because I work with so many young talented people, they get crushed by the critics, and like some of them either don't ever work again or they kill like their whatever. It's like it really messes with their head and just criticism in general. It's like if you don't want to like don't review it then, or don't whatever, don't make your stand by tearing down, thinking it's great to tear down somebody else's artistic endeavor. Just like move on, yeah, review fast and furious, it's not for you, you know. So you just so you just whatever. So I just feel like that's the part where I don't I get really defensive and I just don't understand that aspect of it. And or also just like, you know, if you and nobody has to like everything. I don't want everybody to like what I do. I don't I I enjoy that. I hope people don't like what I do. I hope people sometimes get mad at what I do or just like complain, whatever. Like, I don't I don't want to make something that pleases everybody because then I just whatever, I just make Coca-Cola or like a I don't know, some boring, you know, whatever. I want, I want, I don't want to only do so. I think that that's just the thing that you have to figure out as a filmmaker, how you get through all those ups and downs, and also as yourself being criticized. How do you continue? And how do you be like, I made what I wanted to make, and I know I made the writers happy. I know I had a great time while I made it, I know I made the thing I said I was gonna make, and that's all you have. And then you just let history kind of come to come to its place, and you just enjoy the moment more than the result, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

Well, the movies I've seen that you've directed, they're all great. So, and I'll review films, so yeah, very good job. I love them. So they're very good stuff. So I'm just a bit conscious of time there and I was getting a bit late over there. So I'll fast forward to documentaries the is it the Radiant Child? Is that what you've done? So talk to me about that. I I haven't seen the retrailer for that, I haven't looked at it. So, what's that one about?

SPEAKER_01 50:59

Oh, that's one of my favorite movies. That one was about when um I made I was best friends with this guy, or really close with this guy named Jean-Michel Basquiat, who's a painter. And when he when I was going to film school, I was in my early 20s, he was maybe one or two years older than me. He had just come to LA for his first show, and we became really close friends. And I was at film school and he was like, Oh, you should make a movie about me because one day I'm gonna be famous, and one day you're gonna be, you know, I'm gonna be a big artist. And so we just started filming. And over the years that he came in and out of town, I would film him in the studio and that. And then he died young because of the critics and whatever, whatever. So he died thinking his career was over at 27. And um, and then I took the film and I didn't do anything with it. And then 20 years later, um, this is now 20 years even from then, um, he was doing a huge, they were doing a huge retrospective at the museum. And I told the lady, I knew the lady I was putting it together, I was like, Oh yeah, he was my friend. I have all this footage of him. And she's like, What? Nobody has footage of this guy. She's like, You and I was like, Yeah, no, he was my close friend. I filmed him. He told me to make a movie about him, so I had all this film. And um, yeah, so I put a film together and I made a film about him, and I interviewed everybody, and um, it was really good because everybody was still around still, even 20 years later, everybody still had fresh stories. And yeah, and so I made a documentary about him, and it was really hard to make because it was very emotional. I had I wanted to really represent who he was. And at the time he was known, but not very he was well known, but nowhere near where he's at now. Now I think his he holds the record of the most expensive art ever sold in America.

SPEAKER_02 52:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

He's the most uh, you know, I think his yeah, I mean you can look up what his last painting sold for.

SPEAKER_00 52:56

I'll have to get back and watch that one. Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

Yeah, he's like the most famous American artist right now. Yeah.

unknown 53:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Yeah. So do you know what his work looked like?

SPEAKER_00 53:07

No.

SPEAKER_01 53:07

You'll see if you take one look, yeah. You'll be like, oh, that guy. Yeah, so I made that movie, and that was I'm so proud of it. It's a beautiful film, and it really makes me happy that that film is done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

Oh, that's very good. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

Very personal. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 53:24

I'll go back and put that on my list to watch. Yes. So you've got here as well some of my show notes. The best summer.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

That's what's just now coming out.

SPEAKER_00 53:33

Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 53:34

Yeah, it's that's the film.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

What's that one about?

SPEAKER_01 53:38

That was just at the Seattle Film Festival. It played at the Sydney Opera House, and then I was just at the um, I'm going to Melbourne next, like in a week or two. That one is also another one of my treasured gems when I was moving from the Malibu evacuating the Malibu fires. I had a box of video tapes, and I'm like, what is in all these tapes? And I opened it up and I realized that in 1995, I went with Mike, who he and I had just gotten married, and he was about to go to Australia to do a tour called Somersault, which you may have heard of. It was a big Australian tour, kind of an offshoot of, you know, it was like kind of modeled after Big Day Out, but it was this guy, Steve Pav who did it. And it was Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Pavement, Beck, Bikini Kill, Amps, Rancid. Um, yeah, it was like the most amazing lineup. And yeah, I went on the road with Mike, and I had no idea when I opened up this box, I filmed a whole documentary. I filmed all the concert, I filmed all the full songs, and Kathleen Hannah and I were running around. We do all these interviews, so I interviewed everybody. So it's a whole film from 1995, as if it was it's a found found footage documentary, and it's beautiful. I never come back to now, it only stays at that time, and it's just this incredible 90s, like beautiful film of what it was like to be in the 90s. And everybody's you're everybody's young and beautiful, and everybody acts like they're your best friend in the movie. So you're like, oh, you're just hanging out with Kim Gordon or Dave Grohl or Beck, and because we're all on tour together, and everyone's still so young, and um before everyone got so gigantic. Yeah, I mean they were starting to get big, but it was like, yeah, it was very nice. So you say it's coming out now, it hasn't been released, or it's at film festivals this year, and then I got a distribution deal in Australia through Mad Men. So it'll be coming probably January, February is when it comes out in Australia.

SPEAKER_00 55:49

Oh, that'd be great. Because I'm very familiar with what you said about big day out. That was my rite of passage when I was.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

It's a different kind of film. I got into Sundance, like it's so hard for a film to get it, like a whatever to get into Sundance. And so it's interesting, it's a different kind of a film. I filmed it all myself, it's all point of view, so it feels like you're the person, and yeah, it's all archival footage found. Yeah, so it's and it takes you on this tour. Yeah, it's true, it's really crazy.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

That's awesome. I'm gonna have to look out for that one because yeah, I I know very well about big day out. I went to stacks of them when I was still around.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

Yeah, they're the best, and the Australian audience, and it was I call it the best summer, even though we went there, it was the winter for us. It was like New Year's Eve and right around that time. But in Australia, it was the best summer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:41

Oh, that's cool. I'll I'd love to say that. That'd be very cool. So last couple of points. So you've worked with TV series as well. What you got here, Grade's Anatomy, Dead to Me, the Politician in Pea Valley, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 56:53

Yeah, some of them. Yeah, I probably did like, I don't know, 50. I don't know how many shows. Yeah, I did a lot of TV as well. I love TV. So had Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

What would you prefer, TV or films or music videos?

SPEAKER_01 57:06

Anything, just sitting in the director chair, it doesn't matter what it is. I think they're all fun. But TV is really great. TV I had kids, and the schedule of doing a feature is very difficult. If you have kids, you can do it, but it's hard, you know. It's um, and so I but TV was perfect, you know. You could shoot a TV show in five days or eight days, 10 days. Um, and then it's really quick to edit. So as a mom, it was really it worked out really well. And I and I love TV. It was like the height of TV. So it was another perfect way. And yeah, TV was just the super, it was like doing they were doing so many cool shows, working with amazingly talented people. And I had the best, yeah, it was amazing. So yeah, that was good. Yeah, so I did yeah, all those shows are just so fun. Some of them I did a lot of first, you know, first episode, you know, whatever, like early shows. And once in a while I got on shows that were a few seasons in, but mostly I did like first season shows, which was great. Yeah, again, you're just kind of establishing a new style, a new, a new person, a new act. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:14

Yeah. Yeah. Some of the shows that are around nowadays you're really heavily invested in the drawing in, for instance, like Euphoria. My wife and I have just started watching season one of that. It's a couple of years out of the world. It's so dark. It is dark, it's very, very dark. But you gotta consider my wife as well. Like, we're in our early 40s, and it's like, how many kids are out there these days that would be living very similar lives like this? It'd be pretty, I think it'd be it's pretty spot on in terms of like how they can get caught up in that.

SPEAKER_01 58:44

Because I have kids that are that age, and I just feel like it's the darkest side of that age, and that's of course the exploitive side of television, you know, you're not gonna make it about just regular kids. So, yes, there's a small percentage of people that are those kids, but I just don't think it's indicative of every kid. In fact, I think that after watching that, I think that most kids are like, I'm not gonna be like that. Like, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 59:10

You don't you don't make it out of there, like that's dark, and then there's exactly and then there's um over on Apple TV, you got uh the series Cape Fear. I love the novel.

SPEAKER_01 59:20

Yeah, I've been starting to watch the new one. Yeah, I really like it.

SPEAKER_00 59:23

Very good. Very, very good. Bottoms, he's such he's like he's such the perfect villain.

SPEAKER_01 59:29

Oh, Javier Benjamin, yeah, so good.

SPEAKER_00 59:33

He's awesome. There's something about him where he he just it's like looking at a stray dog in everything that's been character Exactly, every character's different as well, different styles of villain. But yeah, so getting back to like TV, it's the way that they're shot now, you can be heavily invested in shows for sure. So and just wrapping up, Tamara, so we're almost at an hour, but going back into like the late 80s and 90s and into the 2000s, what advice would you give, especially female directors, what advice would you give to them in today's world about how to get into the industry and and make it and make some of the similar films like that you've made in the past? How what would you would you say to these people?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

Um, I would say that the only reason I became is because I was incredibly ambitious and I really followed through on I'd made films. I picked up a camera, I made films, I edited them, I showed them, I pushed it. I I made myself who I was. I didn't sit back, nobody's gonna call you, wait for you. You have to make everything happen. You have to find out what's the new it's all up to you. It sounds like so. If you want to do this, you you make a movie, you figure out how you're gonna make a movie. Like you you go to film school or you just make it yourself, whatever it is, like it you have you, it's all up to you. So the I like in the beginning, like so, you know, all that energy, and so you really have to love it because it takes so much time to do all those things, and it's what you have to do. Like, that's why the latest film that I made, The Best Summer, is because I don't like to not work. And Hollywood's been in this weird slump lately, and I was like, I don't like to not work. I'm just gonna I'm gonna pull out footage that I have since you know, whatever, and just like I've got to make a movie, and that's how you are. Like, if you're an artist, if you're a painter, if you write, like that's you just those are the that's part of what you do. So I think like of course people are gonna say no to you because it's the hardest thing in the world to get into. You're gonna get like a billion no's. So get used to say hit listening to people say no. And instead of like, whatever you don't doesn't mean no. That's just for them, it's no. The only it doesn't mean no to you. Like you have to, if you want to do it, you're still a yes, you know. And so I just felt like I just kept pushing always. And I was already, and I also felt like I was already at a no. So what is it, what what does it matter if I try, you know, like I'm already, yeah, a zero. Like, so let me put effort in and let me at least try to make something or do it. It's there's no nothing to be lost, you know. I'm already at zero. So I just feel like that's the thing of like you have to just keep pushing and also look for new if you're trying to get into something new, look for the new way in. Like, what are what are they making? It's like microdramas. Like, if I was a young filmmaker, I'd be like, How do I make a micro drama? You know, if I was like, I'd try to figure out what what are people doing? What how are people consuming that media and that entertainment and break into the new stuff first? Because that's the way, that's the first way in. Like, that's how I got in was with MTV. You know, when I did features, it was these little low budget indie, you know, whatever, because that was like new. They were making these like little teeny movies, finally, little in the indies. Um, and then the same thing, like TV was new. They were all of a sudden cable was coming, so cable needed TV shows. So I got to get in there and make like these cool little cable shows, and that kept getting bigger and bigger. Um, and so I just feel like that's what yeah, look for the new thing and uh yeah, and just I don't know, be brave. You have to imagine yourself first, like imagine what you want to do, and every step you take, it should lead to that goal. And if it doesn't, you're on the wrong path. So, you know, even though I took little sidesteps and made other things, they were all towards the goal. Yeah, so make a goal and then keep heading towards it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:57

Otherwise, that's that's it's it's very good advice, especially for the youth of today. Like my background is in commercial real estate and also an auctioneer as well. But when I wanted to become an auctioneer, it's the first thing I saw when I was in the in the industry. The the first time. Can you talk fast like that? Can you do that? Eventually, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:15

Or you don't have to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:16

I'm not trading as an auctioneer at the moment, but yeah, it's kind of like, well, ladies and gentlemen, I think you need to come in today's auction first, second, third, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:25

Yeah. So you do get that thing going. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

100%. And I used to go to different auctioneers, and I'd say, Oh, I want to be an auctioneer. It's like, that's great, mate. Well, why don't you go and get some experience? It's like, okay, how am I going to get experience? So, how I actually cracked into the industry and I was doing it part-time for four years, is that I went to three different auctioneers, recorded all of them with a dictaphone back in the day, right? Went back and got dialogue from each of those auctioneers that I liked and practiced in the mirror, MM style, over and over and over and over and over. And I created this version myself, did some state final, got into some um novice auctioneer competitions, then made it the state final. Then one of the judges then had a meeting with me and hired me, and I worked with him for four years. But my point is, you put that effort in, listen what you did.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:18

Yeah.

unknown 1:05:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:20

That's impressive.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:21

Because you counted goal and you thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:24

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:26

Yeah. And and now that I use my public whilst I'm not trading as an auctioneer at the moment, my movie reviews is you know, public speaking and that we're talking here and there. So I can get those skills for life. So I'm still utiling Yeah, I'm still utilizing skills, and then I do all my producing with the editing in the background on a Debut Premiere. It's all new skill sets. So again, as I just said, it's not not taking no for an answer, finding those different avenues, and just yeah, just until you get to that goal, you gotta keep going.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:56

Yeah, and also this industry is constantly changing. It's like the you so you don't you're not gonna get in the industry and become a director and become a director like the people from the past. You're gonna you have to be a director from the stuff that's gonna happen in the future. So like you can't like that's also important to remember that like you know, here you're doing a podcast, you might not have you might have been like, oh, one day I want to be a in radio, but you're like, oh, radio is just another way of saying a podcast now, you know. But you had a goal of like wanting to do something like this. So I think like that's the thing is you just have to also be aware that that this industry changes, and you have to just be up on and reflect that, see what that change could be and be that change, you know. That's where that's where you come in.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:45

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, Tamara, thank you very much for fun. Nice talking to you.

unknown 1:06:52

Nice talking to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:53

It's been very good. So look, we'll edit this and we'll be coming at it in a couple of weeks' time. I'll flick it over to you and we'll go from there. But a big thank you for making all those cult classics. Keep doing what you're doing. I'm looking forward to your thank you. Was it the summer, the best summer? The best summer, yeah. That's for sure. No, very good.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:09

And I give you the word to watch the Radiant Child.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:12

Okay, okay, I'll I'll get on to that. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:15

Thank you, babe.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:16

See you soon. Bye bye. So there you have it, Tamara Davis. Thank you very much, Tamara, for coming on DMR. You've got some amazing stories. Keep doing what you're doing, and we're very much looking forward to that documentary that's coming out early next year. So if you like this episode, please subscribe, like, share it with your friends and family. It does help as well, supporting DMR by doing all that jazz. And we're very busy canvassing Hollywood talent via PR firms and guests directly. We're getting some very positive responses. We've got another interview coming up next month. We're very psyched about how the momentum is going. And the great news is that DMR is being approached by PR firms and guests themselves to come on the show. So, very good stuff there. Again, thank you for everyone for the support in 2026. It's been a wild ride thus far, and as per usual, leaders on the Menji. You've just experienced DMR, the red carpet treatment.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:28

Now, get your ass to the movies.