Podcast: Don't Kill the Messenger with Movie Research Expert Kevin Goetz
Guest: Writer and Director, Shane Black

Interview Transcript:

Announcer (00:03):

From script to screen, every film is brought to life by visionary creatives and executives all sharing one mission – to captivate the audience. Hosted by award-winning movie strategist, Kevin Goetz, our podcast, Don't Kill The Messenger, offers a filmmaking masterclass through intimate conversations with Hollywood's most influential voices. And now, your host, Kevin Goetz.

Kevin Goetz (00:29):

You know, I'm too old for this shit. I'm just kidding. That is a classic line from Danny Glover's character in Lethal Weapon, the 1987 film written by none other than today's guest, one of the top 10 highest paid screenwriters in Hollywood as of 2024. Shane Black redefined action films with witty dialogue, dark humor, and unforgettable characters. From Lethal Weapon to The Nice Guys, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Iron Man 3. His work has helped shape modern filmmaking and has influenced a generation of writers. Beyond screenwriting, he's also made his mark as a director and I am thrilled to have him here today. Shane, my friend, welcome to the show.

Shane Black (01:18):

Thank you. And having seen just the pantheon of guests that you've had, I'm honored to be here. I mean, this is a big deal, this show.

Kevin Goetz (01:27):

Well, that's incredibly kind of you. I wanna start with the fact that we saw each other about 12 hours ago. <laugh>. Yes. Right? Yeah. We were at a test screening again. We'll, we'll talk about that later in the program. But I do wanna say that I think that was, I'm gonna say a turning point for you in terms of your relationship with test screenings and the screening process. Would that be fair to say?

Shane Black (01:53):

Yes. Although, I will also say that I'm blessed just to be in a test screening, 'cause I've been around a long time. And the fact that I have been afforded the opportunity to sit there, you know, it's hard to break in. So getting a movie mademinor miracle, sitting with you, looking at the movie and it going pretty well is a blessing. 

Kevin Goetz (02:13):

He's being modest.

*Shane Black (02:14):

No, I, I have to be, I have to stress that this business isn't about being, it's about being weird and screwed up and going through ups and downs. And then finally just admitting that you're still here is enough to carry the day.

Kevin Goetz (02:31):

Well, what I have learned about you in this latest process, 'cause we have actually met a couple of times before on other movies. And actually I was at the original Lethal Weapon screenings. Oh, by the way. But Joe Farrell at the time was working on them in Catherine Paura. I was working at the company, so I didn't actually physically do the focus group, but I was there. You started in Pittsburgh?

Shane Black (02:55):

Yes.

Kevin Goetz (02:55):

Outside of Pittsburgh?

Shane Black (02:57):

In the suburbs. I was in Lower Burl. And then Mount Lebanon.

Kevin Goetz (03:01):

My roommate from college who's like my brother, Joe Brunetti, he was at the Dormont section of Pittsburgh.

Shane Black (03:07):

Right. Right next to Mount Lebanon.

Kevin Goetz (03:08):

There's a bunch of other folks like Jimmy Miller, this other, in our business. Who?

Shane Black (03:12):

Michael Keaton? Mm-hmm.

Kevin Goetz (03:13):

Yeah. Yeah. We used to hang out at the Dormont pool. There was a public pool. He was on Texas Avenue. Do you know Texas Avenue? 

Shane Black (03:21):

I can't remember.

Kevin Goetz (03:22):

<laugh>. When did you move to Fullerton?

Shane Black (03:24):

We moved to Fullerton like 1975.

Kevin Goetz (03:26):

Oh. So we're about the same age. He's one year older than us, by the way. I'll just throw that in as a, so you had kind of a love of books and things because your father, he had a printing business. 

Shane Black (03:37):

He did. And he designed the forms for like, if you're applying for a job or if this is your inventory, if you're doing a menu for your new restaurant, he would design and print those. Now here's the good news. He designed the stuff, but he didn't own the presses. So when desktop publishing came in, all of a sudden all those people that invested in those giant machines, it's just dead pig weight sitting in their warehouses. So my father, I think, got out just in time 'cause the internet and desktop publishing changed everything. So as far as me, what he left me as a legacy was not the printing aspect of it. It was a bookshelf down in our living room. And he used to read a lot of detective tough guy stories. My dad was a football player as a prototypical tough guy.

Kevin Goetz (04:23):

Married to your mom?

Shane Black (04:24):

Yes. But my God, throughout my life, I loved the man. I, we had a great relationship, especially towards the end of his life. I was always scared of him because he was tough and I felt I wasn't so, but I would read these books of his, like the Mickey Spillane and the Shell Scott, the detective who ended up, I moved to California, ended up living right near where Shell Scott, the fictional detective lived. I'm like, oh my God, this is like come full circle. And I became fascinated with tough guy literature as a way of putting myself up against these sorts of fearless people and facing what to me would be, uh, I was a coward.

Kevin Goetz (05:03):

<laugh>. Do you have one sibling? A brother?

Shane Black (05:05):

I have two brothers.

Kevin Goetz (05:06):

Oh.

Shane Black (05:07):

Two sisters now.

Kevin Goetz (05:07):

There's four of you?

Shane Black (05:08):

Yep.

Kevin Goetz (05:09):

Your parents still around?

Shane Black (05:10):

My mom is still around. My dad passed over in 2002. Oh, that's a while ago. It is a while, but it never goes away.

Kevin Goetz (05:17):

My dad died this past July. He was a Marine. And so I, I sort of can understand. I wasn't scared of him though.

Shane Black (05:25):

<laugh>? Well, I was scared of his opinion of me. I know. Not that he would do anything to me, but just that I didn't date in high school. And I'm sure he was like, what's wrong with a kid? Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (05:36):

He must be gay.

Shane Black (05:38):

Yeah, possibly. I mean, during lunch I was so socially inept that I would just sit under a tree reading a paperback while everyone else is fraternizing.

Kevin Goetz (05:47):

You were that odd kid.

Shane Black (05:48):

I was odd. Yeah. I was good at journalism and I won a couple awards in high school. I just knew how to distill things down to the words that were necessary to get a point across quickly. Now, journalism is screwed because I was taught that you tell the news, first paragraph, the most important thing, and then it's the inverted pyramid. You get to the details, but now they bury the most important part halfway through. So you read.

Kevin Goetz (06:14):

Did you have friends in high school and stuff? Like, did you have like a group? It sounds like you were kind of a loner.

Shane Black (06:17):

I was in some ways, but oddly, I was of necessity a chameleon. So I had friends at chess club and journalism club. I was on the football team. I did play football, and I did it to please my father. Robert Anderson, the playwright said a death of a parent, it ends your ability to interact with them, but it does not end the relationship.

Kevin Goetz (06:39):

Oh boy. That's true. He saw at least some of your success.

Shane Black (06:43):

Some of it. Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (06:44):

Well, I mean, Lethal Weapon. What did he think about you as a fancy Hollywood writer who had made headlines for having the largest script sale in the history of, at that time of Hollywood?

Shane Black (06:57):

I think he was very pleased. But I will say this in his honor, is that he loved all his kids equally. And he just, he said to me a week before he died, he said, what did I do to get such great kids?

Kevin Goetz (07:09):

Oh wow.

Shane Black (07:09):

So that's beautiful.

Kevin Goetz (07:11):

Irishman.

Shane Black (07:12):

Yes. My grandfather's name was Shanahan. Ah. And I'm Shane. I have a brother Sean and Sister Shannon. And oddly Terrance <laugh>

Kevin Goetz (07:23):

Looking at engineer, Gary. You think Irish <laugh>? Yeah. Good Jewish boys. <laugh>, James Shannon. Yeah. In mine and Shlomo. And yeah. You know, unfortunately <laugh>,

Shane Black (07:37):

You know, I would've rather, in some ways had that because with the Irish background came an alcoholic gene, which later expressed itself in my life.

Kevin Goetz (07:45):

So how about your siblings?

Shane Black (07:46):

They're good.

Kevin Goetz (07:47):

It's random that gene, it's not every family. If they have a parent who's an alcoholic,

Shane Black (07:51):

It skips. 

Kevin Goetz (07:52):

Oh, could skip. Right?

Shane Black (07:53):

Yeah. The truth is though, that looking back, man, I was alcoholic from the day I was born. The type of thinking I had.

Kevin Goetz (08:00):

Absolutely

Shane Black (08:01):

Was alcoholic.

Kevin Goetz (08:02):

Absolutely. I understand that completely. Yeah. Not that I'm an alcoholic, but that I have other ailments, if you will, or other challenges that I have to overcome. OCD being one of them.

Shane Black (08:12):

I was hospitalized. I was in a mental institution for three months in high school because of OCD. It was overpowering. I was paralyzed.

Kevin Goetz (08:20):

Why do we connect so much <laugh>? I'm sort of understanding it now. I'm not kidding you.

Shane Black (08:24):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (08:24):

Because we do, there's something about us isn't there, that has a vibe that.

*Shane Black (08:27):

You're very confident, you're very accomplished, but you're also very honest about being an oddball. And I'm the same way. I, I tell audiences if I speak at a school or to students, I say, just lean into being weird. Just screw it. You have the option of being ashamed or of leaning in and embracing something that even though it's embarrassing for you now, will pay off later.

Kevin Goetz (08:46):

I kind of say it a little differently. I never saw myself as an oddball.

Shane Black (08:50):

Okay.

Kevin Goetz (08:50):

I saw myself as an original <laugh>.

Shane Black (08:53):

Well see, you were already evolved into that place.

Kevin Goetz (08:56):

Yeah, no, seriously that because I was an entertainer. I was a performer when I was a kid, and I started really young and became a professional pretty young. So I had a confidence of course. But I was teased endlessly and dare I say bullied endlessly.

Speaker 4 (09:11):

Yes.

Kevin Goetz (09:12):

Because I was different. My very dear friend who has been a guest on the show, Sharon Stone said it on an Oprah Winfrey special.

Shane Black (09:19):

Sure.

Kevin Goetz (09:19):

She said that when she was like 10 years old, she was on the playground reading her book against a tree. And this group of popular girls came over to her and the head of the pack came over and walked up to her and she thought, oh my gosh, they're gonna befriend me. And what she did is slapped her across the frigging face and it left a hand print. And years later when she was thinking about that and the effect that had, I think I said to her, oh, I know what she was doing. She tried to slap the different out of you. Right. And that's what people did to me too. They tried to slap the different outta me. And it wasn't gonna happen. Others succumb. There may be a more dramatic result.

Shane Black (09:59):

Well, there's a baseline of insecurity where you feel like they're confirming what you already knew. Like there's something wrong. Something guilt is, you did something wrong. Shame is you are something wrong. And it sounds like you had managed to cope with this in a way that led you to say, you know what? I'm not gonna back down. Whereas so many other people, you got it destroyed by bullying. 

Kevin Goetz (10:22):

That's exactly right. I let it feed the drive.

Speaker 4 (10:24):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (10:24):

I'll show you. You small minded motherfuckers. You know, I will show you. I will succeed. And then you get to a point when you become a fully formed adult where it doesn't effing matter anymore.

Shane Black (10:36):

Oh my God. Yeah. Right.

*(10:37):

I, I'm shocked to this day when I see adults like dodging or lying. Even as I'm in a program of recovery, I'm a recovering alcoholic. And I knew from an early age, you know, someone offers me a drink. No, thanks. I'm an alcoholic. You know, you, you can say that. My dad used to do that, even though he wasn't an alcoholic, he would just say it so he didn't have to deal with his friends who were obsessed with drinking. You mean he didn't want to drink? Just didn't want to. Yeah, he didn't want to. And you know, I want to, I've always wanted to. Yeah. But I've learned that there's so little shame. You know, what's wrong with saying, I don't drink, I'm an alcoholic.

Kevin Goetz (11:11):

It's very healthy what we just did.

Shane Black (11:13):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (11:14):

We as 60 plus year old men can have a real authentic conversation in front of many thousands of folks who are listening.

Speaker 4 (11:24):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (11:24):

And to say to them, Hey, it's cool to be authentic and to be who you are. And we're all flawed humans.

Shane Black (11:30):

Oh, it's powerful.

Kevin Goetz (11:32):

Powerful to own it. Yeah. And by the way, your characters are like that. I wanna start getting into some of the <laugh>. No. Because we could talk for hours just about our own psyche.

Shane Black (11:39):

Sure.

Kevin Goetz (11:40):

You write such interesting characters that your characters are flawed. You are working on a character right now played by Mark Wahlberg, the character of Parker. He's a crook, he's a serial, lifelong gangster, if you will. Right. He murders people, but he's kind of got a heart of gold. And he's got an honor and an honor code. And I find that just truly interesting.

*Shane Black (12:04):

Well, yeah, his code is very pragmatic. It's walking the line. If you're gonna show someone be a sociopath, it's interesting to a point. But like for instance, without giving anything away about the film, there were scenes we wrote initially where he would be leaving and he would go back to try to save this woman. But that wouldn't have worked in the movie unless the woman said something like, oh, I have this thing with your fingerprints on it 'cause then you get to wonder, did he go back to save her 'cause he has a heart of gold, or did he go back to get his fingerprints from her?

Kevin Goetz (12:36):

Oh.

Shane Black (12:36):

So that's the idea, is to keep that ambiguity alive so you're not just leaning into either one.

Kevin Goetz (12:41):

What do you do when you approach a script? I guess it would be different if it's a original idea coming from your head, or if it's a work for hire that you're brought on to do. And I know you do both and you've been, as I said in the beginning, one of the most successful writers and also rewriter in Hollywood history. Truly.

Shane Black (13:02):

Truly. Uh, okay. Yes. 

Kevin Goetz (13:04):

Well, you have been

*Shane Black (13:04):

No, there's been money involved in that regard. Yes. I've been very lucky, very blessed. And it's because I am lucky enough to be skewed and even perhaps mentally challenged in the perfect kind of way, which is once I get ahold of something, I can't let go of it. I hesitate to commit to a writing job because it plagues me once I get into it. I hate

Kevin Goetz (13:26):

You're obsessed with it.

*Shane Black (13:27):

Yeah. I can't sleep. 'cause I'm just turning a negative into a positive, turning an obsession and an inability to stop thinking about something into a healthy way of doing the same thing.

Kevin Goetz (13:36):

It's great. So you are creating a character, you're writing a script. Are you thinking about the story first? Are you thinking about the plot? Are you thinking about the characters? How do you begin? Where does the germ come from?

*Shane Black (13:49):

Well, my nightmare is to have a really amazing plot that you've acquired either from a book or in your own, but not have a character inhabit it yet. Because you know you've got this great plot, but you, you haven't done the real work yet. The real work is finding a character who you can actually sort of feel comes from something that it's a DNA that you feel in your bones, that you sort of translate to an attitude of life that you, in some ways share with this character. In other ways, it could be completely different. Because if you write a script, let's say about an old guy who's curmudgeonly and a young guy who's optimistic, and they always fight. It is psychology. It's a part of you fighting, another part of you. You have both viewpoints. You're just allowing the battle.

Kevin Goetz (14:37):

Lethal Weapon, for example. Did that start as an idea of two buddies? You almost started a whole new genre.

Shane Black (14:44):

Well, that was a spec script, but it was inspired and equally informed by previous successes, which I think are equally deserving. Such as Dirty Hairy and 48 Hours, which redefined everything. 48 Hours especially. That's the one that changed everything. Then I came along and sort of did my own 48 Hours with a different spin on it. But my God.

Kevin Goetz (15:03):

Well, that was a comedy.

*Shane Black (15:05):

Yeah. And Lethal Weapon had a little bit more in the first one anyway. A little more sort of attempt to portray a melancholy character. But that's the fun. There was a grit and an integrity to early seventies cop movies. It was rough. And it wasn't rough because it was engineered. It's just unconsciously the way you did it back then.

Kevin Goetz (15:25):

But did you see the thing as like, I'm gonna write now my own version of a dirty, like what inspired you to write it?

*Shane Black (15:32):

Lethal Weapon to me is an urban western. And instead of the old gun slinger who's become sort of useless and outmoded, you had the Vietnam veteran who comes back from having these horrible experiences as branded a baby killer and yelled at and excluded. And they view him as a monster. Mel Gibson's character is essentially a Frankenstein kept in a cage who lives by himself. And meanwhile, society has this illusion in America that we sort of live in a gentrified bubble that can never be, once again, the, you know, war is somewhere else. Violence is somewhere else. We're able to relax. And he knows the war is, he knows evil never sleeps.

Speaker 4 (16:04):

Mm.

Shane Black (16:05):

So, he just sits by himself and is reviled for the knowledge that everyone else wishes weren't true. He knows the thing. And so then when something happens and violence intrudes on this, otherwise sort of beautific, they take a kid, they kidnap someone, they come to him and say, oh shit, we gotta go to the Frankenstein now. So they come to the old gun slinger and they say, look, we reviled you, we called you a baby killer, but we kind of need you <laugh>. Because he knew all along the war's not over. They still hate him, but they need his skills. And so that's just a Western telling.

Kevin Goetz (16:35):

How'd you come up with the name Leo Getz? Oh, that's my name. Yeah, it is. Did I inspire that <laugh>, by the way? My name is G-O-E-T-Z and I think it's GETZ. How'd you come up with Getz? It's great man.

Shane Black (16:47):

It wasn't wasn't mine.

Kevin Goetz (16:50):

Oh, <laugh>

Shane Black (16:50):

Getz was Jeff Boam. I had a character similar named something else. I can't remember what I named him, who was just a sort of babbling guy in Lethal Weapon 2. And when Jeff Boam came in and sort of took over that movie…

Kevin Goetz (17:07):

In part two.

Shane Black (17:08):

Yeah, I had written a draft of it. It was a lot darker. And in the end, in fact, yeah, you killed the character at the end. Right? Yeah. They didn't like that Warner Brothers thought that was sort of sending away the bread truck.

Kevin Goetz (17:17):

 It's like, of course.

Shane Black (17:18):

And to some extent, of course they're right. Yeah. But I thought that if you're gonna extend it to a sequel, you have to sort of make it feel like it was intended.

Speaker 4 (17:27):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Shane Black (17:28):

And the way to do that is to say, well, this relationship he established Danny Glover bought him some borrowed time that he never knew he deserved or was entitled to, that he was able to be a part of the human race again. And not just this sort of reviled killer, but in the end, in order to save that family, he had to say, well, I had a good run. But that was borrowed time.

Kevin Goetz (17:48):

Yeah.

Shane Black (17:48):

And now I, and at the end, he dies. And it feels almost like you planned the whole thing from the beginning.

Kevin Goetz (17:54):

Wow. You talk about being a chameleon, when I see that kid reading that book against the tree in the playground, or wherever it was, high school quad. Yeah. In the quad. Yeah. I know you acted, and then you went into film and theater. You were on the chess team. And what's your leitmotif? Is it curiosity?

*Shane Black (18:14):

Well, first off, it was escape. It was full flight from reality. What I would prefer it is, is that it's the ability to act counterintuitively. In other words, to not just be ruled by the knee jerk response. For instance, there was a self-defense expert that I love who was on TikTok, and he said, say to me, what the fuck are you looking at? What the fuck are you looking at? That, that shirt. Oh, I, I mean, I, I, you know, I, I, my girlfriend was gonna buy, I, I, where did you get that? 'cause she wants a birth. I, I love your shirt. Just diffuse it. And he goes, oh, really? Yeah. No, you complimented his shirt.

(18:54):

In other words, don't go with who wants to walk around. Like, what the fuck are you looking at? 'cause it's a false confidence. It's a false belligerence. Yeah, you do. Or just for instance, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. A few people have seen this film without giving too much away. There's a scene where I remember in my head how the traditional cliche is that they're interrogating a suspect. And the cop puts one bullet in a gun and spins. He goes, I'm not telling you. He spins it, slaps it, and pulls the trigger click. And he goes, okay, okay. Don't do that again. Yeah, it's in the warehouse. I'll take you there. But I thought, what if that first trigger pull was a, and he's dead. He's like, fuck. That's the cliche overturned. Another thing I like to do is, you know, this is a Hitchcock principle, which he says, don't have a bomb just explode and shock everyone.

Speaker 4 (19:37):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Shane Black (19:37):

Show the bomb under the table. And then they talk about baseball, and you tick tick and you see the bomb and you see them talking. It's like, get outta there. I love that. But I love it too, when the bomb just goes off. I love it when someone's just talking and they turn a key.

Kevin Goetz (19:51):

And Right. Rather than, oh, you know, they're gonna get out even though it's tense. But they have to cut that blue wire, known the red, know the blue, and then it just goes off.

Shane Black (19:58):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (19:59):

Before it even has time to debate whether you do the blue or the red. I love that. So every actor has a sort of super objective for the whole piece and an objective in a scene. So I'm playing Shane Black. What's my super objective?

*Shane Black (20:14):

I'd say the super objective in the characters that I tend to like is that there's sort of an obliviousness to what's expected. A disdain for fitting in, and the desire to figure out what it is in people that gets them off the ground after they've been knocked down. So much of the characters that I'm drawn to are just downtrodden people who've taken a few hits and who just can't get back up.

(20:43):

And what is it that gets them off the couch? What is it that awakens in them that spark, which is dwindled, but it's never quite extinguished? How do you take a dwindling spark and find the thing in the character that suddenly brings them back to themselves, even if it's an ability they can't control. Like a, a detective ability. And the Nice Guys, here's a guy who tried to drown his talent with alcohol, try to ignore it, tried to subjugate himself and be humiliated. But he can't help being a good detective. It's still in there. And so when it starts to come out, all you have to do is feed it. 

Kevin Goetz (21:18):

You're describing yourself <laugh>. Well, maybe, maybe not. But that's the kind of character I like. It may be the same question, but it may not be. Okay. What is your superpower?

*Shane Black (21:25):

My superpower. Which is, it's very obvious in terms of people say, wow, what an original idea or what a, no, it's not. It's been done a hundred times, but it's been done in books that you didn't read. Because Hollywood only reads magazines and Hollywood only watches movies. But my superpower of having read a book a week since I was eight years old, I have access in my head, is this library of things that seem new to people. But I'm like, no, it's not new. I've read a hundred books like that.

Kevin Goetz (21:53):

But you haven't seen theater, you said, in a long time. Yeah. Are you a, and I'm not being funny when I ask this. Are you a movie fan?

Shane Black (22:01):

I'm a huge movie fan, but I also was raised, I think you benefit from the theatrical tradition. There is something very powerful about this notion of the British stage actor and the tradition, the feel of honor, integrity, and just commitment where the stage and the theater becomes a church. You leave your problems at the door.

Kevin Goetz (22:23):

That's why I revere the theater and theater trained actors. And it's truly understanding the craft of it, isn't it?

Speaker 4 (22:30):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (22:30):

It's kind of like why, I guess I, as a dancer, I chose ballet as opposed to tap because I felt the sort of technique and the purest nature of that discipline. Of that discipline exactly. Turned me on. And it was something that created structure in my life. When I think about the number of classes I went to and getting out when I didn't wanna go, and I had to do that. And you suddenly begin to understand, oh, that feeds into my business acumen today.

Speaker 4 (22:58):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (22:58):

And how I run my business and how I demand this, and I want this. And it's a very interesting kind of correlation.

*Shane Black (23:05):

That's why I'm forever grateful to my father who pushed me. You know? I thought, well, he wants me to be tougher than I am. And it's kind of, at the time I was afraid I was just working myself to the bones to try to be tough enough to get him to accept me in a way. Although he always did. I just never knew it. But the point is, as a result, I showed up when I didn't want to. I went and lifted weights when I felt tired. I ran when I didn't want to. And today, even in the program of recovery, I go to meetings when I don't want to. I just make my feet move.

Kevin Goetz (23:38):

That's that Mel Robbins book who just wrote Let Them, yeah. I'm reading it right now. Has also started doing the Ted Talk of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 is an activation technique to get you to do some kind of action.

Shane Black (23:54):

Right.

Kevin Goetz (23:54):

And you don't think about it, you just do it. And it really can change your life. It does.

Shane Black (23:59):

David Milch said the same thing. He said, look, if you think about going to the gym, you're never gonna go. So what you do is the minute it occurs, you get in your car, you open the door, you just get in right from the house, you walk to your car, get in, push the pedal, you're driving, go to the gym, you run inside to pick up a weight and now you're the man.

Kevin Goetz (24:15):

One of my best friends, Jordan Baker Kilner said she was told, go out to the mailbox to get the mail and keep walking <laugh>. And just, then you'll start your walk around the block for two miles.

Shane Black (24:27):

We live like kings. Someone said this recently on an interview, I forget who said, look at the technology. Look at what we have in our, a hot shower. A working toilet was to, we live like kings nowadays, and yet we're lazy. So we have to find ways to trick ourselves.

Kevin Goetz (24:42):

Absolutely. Absolutely. When we come back, we're gonna talk to you, Shane, about the people you've worked with, the movies you've done, and get more into the logistics, the mechanics of what it takes to be a successful writer director. We'll be back in a moment. Listeners, The Motion Picture and Television Fund is a nonprofit charitable organization that supports working and retired members of the entertainment community. This wonderfully run organization offers assistance for living and aging with dignity and purpose in the areas of health and social services, including temporary financial assistance, case management, and residential living, and has been a crucial lifeline to thousands during and beyond the strikes. To learn more, visit mptf.com. Please join me in helping others in our industry during times of need. There are so many ways to offer support and get involved. Thank you. We are back with the incredibly talented and prolific writer, director and actor, Shane Black. And I'd like to do something that I've done with some of my guests, and I think it's kind of fun and I hope you like it. <laugh>. Well, it's kind of a speed round because you've worked with some very interesting folks, people, many of whom I've worked with.

Shane Black (26:13):

Okay.

Kevin Goetz (26:14):

And so I'd like to get your first word or phrase that comes to mind about when I mention their names. Okay. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Richard Donner.

Shane Black (26:23):

Big Heart.

Kevin Goetz (26:24):

Yeah. Dick Donner. Boy, I love that guy. 

Shane Black (26:25):

Yeah. Just felt the need to include everyone. He would have a birthday party for one of the key grips or something. He was just always aware of the people around him.

Tony Scott?

Meticulous and easygoing. The most amazing combination. The the easiest guy to work with I've ever worked with. Just fun. 

Kevin Goetz (26:48):

When I had an article, the LA Times did a story on me years ago, and this delivery came. And it was Tony who drew a picture of him with a cigar and a baseball cap. And he writes like a bubble. And it says, pretty cool, dude. Yeah. It was just so sweet and so wonderfully spirited.

Shane Black (27:09):

Yeah. In Hollywood there are people you don't wanna work with. But Tony was, he even came up to me at one point after the movie and said, Hey, that scene, I'm sorry we didn't quite get it 'cause I thought your script was better than the scene we got there. What, shit, you don't have to say that. 

Kevin Goetz (27:22):

When he died, it was one of those, where were you moments? Yeah. You know, like I remember hearing it and not believing it because it was so random and I still miss him. I've told Ridley the same sort of thing.

Shane Black (27:37):

The producer on our latest film, Jules Daley, who worked with Tony for years, and you can see her still tear up. I mean, it's just one of those things. He was in my thinking at least a force for good, calm, peace and tolerance in an industry that was very much about bullies. <laugh>

Kevin Goetz (27:55):

Joel Silver?  

Shane Black (28:13):

Out of his mind, but delightful. He always scared me. And to me, he always was when I pictured Hollywood producer, he was the Hollywood producer. Do you know what I mean? The look, the feel, the energy, the whole thing. And I really never knew Joel very well. He is a historian of Hollywood. And so he grew up as a 10-year-old trying to meet Zanuck. It was in his blood. He also, in high school, was the first one to say, you know this William Shatner guy? I bet Star Trek, is it sort of becoming a phenomenon? So he booked William Shatner to his high school thinking, oh, this is gonna be a failure. Showed up. There's a line like a mile long. And it was one of the first people to start the Trek phenomenon. That's incredible. Because he just had, he had the foresight. The foresight. And he was a producer in high school. He was producing a show that got all this attention for having been this remarkable discovery of the popular.

Kevin Goetz (28:49):

He really was a formidable producer. And I hope still is making movies.

Shane Black (28:54):

He still is. And here's the thing, Joel may be flamboyant, he may be controversial at times, but the reason I keep coming back to him is that he had actual skill. He had actual, in the edit room, made everything better because he understood the movie I was trying to make. We had similar sensibility. We're on the same wavelength as far as this kind of thriller is concerned.

Kevin Goetz (29:16):

You went to him on Lethal Weapon?

Shane Black (29:18):

Lethal Weapon. We were put together by agents.

Kevin Goetz (29:20):

Was that how you got together?

*Shane Black (29:22):

Yes. He had just done a film called Commando, which did very well. So, and we just clicked instantly back then. He'd say, we need to rewrite this. I said, yeah, gimme a minute. I'll go and rewrite it. Read it to him. He’d go, okay. Yeah. And we just walked back and forth to each other's offices, much like the group I came up with of friends who lived in the same house and just always swap scripts back and forth. Joel was another one of those. There was a point where you didn't think of it as a business. You thought of it as having fun with people that are on your same wavelength. And then pretty soon you start to meet people. Oh, I get it. This is a business. This is tough. But I didn't know that for a while 'cause Joel smoothed that transition. He made it more like a friend.

Kevin Goetz (30:03):

Isn't there a story where you were actually acting in a movie and he asked you to polish a scene or something?

Shane Black (30:10):

I know I was a jerk. He said, Hey, we have this Predator thing. We're gonna go down to Mexico and film this. If you're an actor in it, maybe you can help out with the writing a little bit if we get in trouble or if we need some character work. So I went down to Mexico and didn't write a thing. Oh, you didn't? No. He said, but you got to be in it. Yeah. I said, it's fine.

Kevin Goetz (30:27):

Still get those 10 cent residual checks.

Shane Black (30:30):

I do. As a matter of fact, I think one recently was actually for more like 30 bucks. The reassurances that someone out there remarkably is still paying attention that it's on someone's records book somewhere in their computer. I love it. 

Kevin Goetz (30:46):

Honorable people. <laugh>. Well, <laugh> because there's plenty of things. No, there's that. I wonder, wait a minute. I remember I did that. I haven't heard.

Shane Black (30:52):

People have to be bludgeoned into it. But yes, there are groups like the WGA and the DGA that say, no, no, no. Guys, look, we know you want to do some creative accounting here, but we're gonna hold your feet to the fire. And to some extent, the big one was, of course, Coming to America where they claimed it made no money and stuff like that. 

Kevin Goetz (31:12):

That was a great lawsuit, wasn't it?

Shane Black (31:13):

Yeah. Art Buchwald.

Kevin Goetz (31:13):

Art Buchwald. Let me take you back to your roots before we continue our game.

Shane Black (31:20):

Sure.

Kevin Goetz (31:21):

To being a student, graduating.

Shane Black (31:24):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (31:24):

Kind of being a broke guy, doing survival jobs like I did now. Oh hell yeah. Again, we share this, I sold typewriter ribbons for three days. <laugh> worked in video store. I sold sofas. I catered, used to serve Michael Milken, his lunch at DBL. Those were my survival jobs. Yeah. Until I got as an actor, because I came out to do theater. And so my residuals ran out and I had to get that first job again.

Speaker 4 (31:53):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (31:54):

And until that first job, I did what I had to do. Which you did too.

Speaker 4 (31:58):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (31:58):

And then you sell your first spec script, which was Lethal Weapon, was it not?

Shane Black (32:03):

Yes, that was the first one to sell. Okay. Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (32:05):

Like what did you get for that? How much did they pay you for that

Shane Black (32:08):

$250,000?

Kevin Goetz (32:09):

What does a kid

Shane Black (32:11):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (32:11):

Do with $250,000?

Shane Black (32:15):

Well, at the time I remember thinking just, oh shit. I, because I was a Kelly girl, I worked for Kelly Employment, so I would go type things and file file things. 

Kevin Goetz (32:24):

So adorable. I, I want to pinch cheeks for a minute because he looks like a dude right now. He's got his sneakers, his baseball cap on his sweatshirt. And he's saying, I was a Kelly girl. Well, and I know what, you remember what a Kelly girl was?

Shane Black (32:36):

Yeah. You have to tell your viewers, there was a Kelly girl was someone who you hired on a rotating basis. You just called the organization and they'd say, oh, we'll send you someone for a few days.

Kevin Goetz (32:44):

Yeah. Yeah.

Shane Black (32:45):

Kelly Services was the name of the company. But I would come to do a temp job and they'd like my work and I'd stay for three or four weeks working, typing, and just doing odd jobs. I did not like doing that. I would rather be doing what I'm doing now. But you have to have smart feet and you need money.

Kevin Goetz (33:06):

So you banked it? Yeah. Yeah, I did. What was the most reckless thing you did with your early money with that newfound cash? I would get things for my parents. Oh my God. I think we're twins. <laugh>, do you know when I was seven years old? I've never told anyone this. I lived in Brooklyn and I lived two blocks away from the main, what they called 86th Street in Bensonhurst. And 86th street was where you had the deli and the bank and the Ebinger's bakery. And you had Tolan. And Tolan was the, what is now a target. It was a five and dime.

Shane Black (33:41):

Okay. If you remember, I love Five and Dimes.

Kevin Goetz (33:44):

I love them. And this almost makes me emotional when I say the story because I'd go in there, if I got a little bit of money, maybe a dollar or two, I'd go in there and I'd buy like a plate for my mom.

Shane Black (34:00):

Right.

Kevin Goetz (34:01):

And then I'd get a little more and I'd buy another plate. And I think about it now and I, why did I do that? I guess I did it because I wanted her to have things.

Shane Black (34:11):

Yeah. You want your parents, maybe there's a selfishness in it for me of wanting to be proud of me. But also it's continuity. It's, you've grown up with these people, why not help? I mean, it just, it seems like the natural next step. Why would you sever ties and say…

Kevin Goetz (34:27):

But I'm seven or eight years old and I'm thinking like, why?

Shane Black (34:29):

To make her happy. Happy because, exactly. And there's also…

Kevin Goetz (34:33):

I must have sensed that she wasn't getting enough.

Shane Black (34:35):

Or that she was unhappy for some reason. Exactly. Flirting with depression and something you thought as a kid. Yeah. You could do the dance and cheer her up.

Kevin Goetz (34:42):

See folks that we’re writing a screenplay right now. Right. We were writing a character. We were developing a character. Absolutely true. And by the way, I was really happy later in life when I began to get more success to give them the down payment for their home. And then of course, ultimately my mom passed and to take care of my father, because basically he lived long and he ran outta money. So I had to take care of him. It was an honor.

*Shane Black (35:06):

It is an honor, and it's a necessity and it's self rewarding. It's the best money you'll ever spend. And I have to add, as a caveat, when I was doing my Kelly work, I had to take six months off even from that, to write a script. And I didn't have enough money. And my parents said, look, you want to try this? We'll pay your rent for six months while you go do that. And I'm sure they thought, let him get it out of his system. Let him try these little stories of his and, you know, but just let him take a stab at it and then he can get back to a real job. And I was able do, in six months the thing that would then set me up.

Kevin Goetz (35:41):

You had a degree.

Shane Black (35:42):

Yeah. From UCLA in theater. Yeah. You might as well be a poet. That's the sort of financial side of that. But the screenwriting thing paid off. And my God, their beneficence in their, you know, even if they didn't think necessarily that it was a lock that I'd succeed, they gave me the shot. They took six months outta their money. And so how can you not then say, well this is a bond. But the thing is they never asked either.

Kevin Goetz (36:11):

Yeah, absolutely.

Shane Black (36:12):

They would never come to me and say, Hey, since you've got this money, we need this. My father was, and my mother too, so proud. Too proud.

Kevin Goetz (36:18):

I love that. But you also know that there, I'm sure were people in your life who do come to you often. And it's a tough situation. I remember reading one of Oprah's books. Yeah. And she said that there was a time when she just had to say enough because she was writing check after check after check and things, and taking care of people. And it gets to the point where enough is never enough.

Shane Black (36:44):

And there's also a point along the way, it was in my twenties, where you realize that you're not lending money. These are donations. You're never getting it back.

Kevin Goetz (36:51):

Oh. The only time I've ever lost relationships in my life was when I lent money. So I learned that I think in my thirties, that I give money. I don't lend it. And never, if you expect it back, you'll probably never get it back. And they'll be bad feelings.

Shane Black (37:08):

Yeah. Well, two people surprised me. One was a woman who established a business and found me five years later and handed me the money back. And I was like, oh, I forgot about it. And the other was someone who I worked with in recovery who I thought, well, he's off. He's, I'm never gonna. And five years later he said, I've been saving a little bit every week. And here it is. Oh. So, wow. Yeah. Life is short. You wanna be able to look in the mirror. A hundred percent. Yeah.

Kevin Goetz:
Anyway, let's go back to our fun game, Kevin Feige?

Shane Black:
Kevin is a pro, the reason he's a pro is like, I watched these, some of these Warner Brothers cartoon characters of comic book movies fail because the execs didn't understand them. They were like, we think that this is a great move for our company.

(37:53):

*But they didn't read comic books. And Kevin, this is the early, like number 50 through 75, fantastic. Four back in 1972, they had this happen. Now we might do that. But then the time travel arc that they did 10 years later, good. Holy shit. I mean, this guy knows everything about his craft. I mean, he's so, there's no one more capable and there's a certain arrogance in sort of shepherding an entire universe. But at the same time, no one was more suited for it. So I was, you know, someone who basically takes over and runs things. My alcoholic side says, Hey wait, I want to, but then I go, look, trust the machine. This guy runs it and this guy does the machine better than anybody.

Kevin Goetz:
Which leads me to Robert Downey Jr. Yeah.

*Shane Black (38:40):

Downey Jr. Lightning in a bottle. Lightning in a bottle is a guy who, once you get a movie going, sometimes you have a good script, but you lack the magic man. So you have an actress says, I'll say the lines, Donny was like, I'll say the lines and then I'll give you more. And sometimes it would be something off track that you didn't expect. But I'll tell you what, when you've got a magic man like that, you find that like 30% of your movie is now elevated with stuff that wasn't there when you wrote it. And you just go, you just, okay, I'll take credit for that.

Kevin Goetz (39:14):

For those of you who don't or have never seen Chaplin.

Shane Black (39:18):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (39:18):

It's a masterclass in acting.

Shane Black (39:20):

Yes.

Kevin Goetz (39:21):

Dickie Attenborough directed it. I worked on it a number years ago. He's exquisite in that movie. And he's such a gifted, gifted, talented actor. Now I wanna ask you, how terrified <laugh> were you the night before the first day of shooting Ironman 3? You're inheriting probably now the biggest franchise.

Shane Black (39:43):

Not terrified because you do a lot of work beforehand and you work with the actor and you have a magic man. I'd seen Ironman1 and 2.

Kevin Goetz (39:50):

You felt confident?

Shane Black (39:51):

Oh yeah. I mean, too stupid. I live a day at a time. I don't project into, I try to stay in the now and in the now you're insanely ignorant of what can go wrong.

Kevin Goetz (40:00):

What compelled you to direct from the start? Like, why did you wanna do kiss kiss bang bang?

*Shane Black (40:06):

Well, I'll tell you, it's because number one, I'd see little things in the movies that I'd written or go that wasn't supposed to play that way. And my own arrogance like, ah, Jesus, that wasn't supposed to play that way. That plays in a wonderer or that's a long, ah, don't break that down into three shots. They just ruin the rhythm of it. And so, even though I generally liked the movies, I thought, I'm running scenes in my head in a slightly different way. I said, I wanna try that. Number two, and most important I think is that when you write something, you turn it over and it goes, Hey, we'll take it from here. And they make a movie and you're back at square one on page one with the same terrifying blank space. And you have to start all over again. And so you, you do all this work only to give it away and be exactly where you started. And that's all uphill again. Wow. There's no second step. When you direct, you get to move to the next level. You get to be social, you get to get up at three in the morning and…

Kevin Goetz (40:59):

You like that.

Shane Black (40:59):

Oh, I, yeah. But most of what I love about directing isn't on set. Someone once said that filming a movie is shopping. It's like when you go to the store and you get your tomatoes, it's, it's getting the ingredients and then the editing room was everything. That's where you cook.

Kevin Goetz (41:16):

Always my favorite part of the process.

Shane Black (41:18):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (41:18):

Love the editing room and love great editors and have respect. I've had guests here who are pretty well-known editors, love editors. I think that it's extraordinary to have that skill and they can make or break your movie.

Speaker 4 (41:32):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (41:32):

But why haven't you directed more? Because you are so good at it. I mean, I watch you in a post-mortem meetingsafter the screening, and just the way you hear notes, the way you embrace an idea, you don't get defensive. Maybe you did, but you don't now.

*Shane Black (41:51):

Well, you stay teachable and you try to live not in the problem with the solution. So if someone presents a problem, their solution may not be right. They may jump to stuff, what if you did more of this? But you ignore that and you listen to they had a problem. I don't think they've correctly identified why it doesn't work there. But the fact that they had a problem means, okay, so I'll flag that and now I have to come up with a solution. May not be theirs, but I'll come back to them and say, isn't this what you really want?

Kevin Goetz (42:19):

When I give notes about what the audience is saying, I try not to ever do that. Yeah. But sometimes by example I'll say, I think what they're saying is they wanna see something like this. But just to spark the discussion.

Shane Black (42:31):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (42:32):

Walter Hill?

Shane Black (42:34):

Old school. Walter is the sort of rough, tough. You expect him to walk out the door of the sound stage and go off with his biker gang. You know, even now he's a little older. But he just is, he's very supportive.

Kevin Goetz (42:49):

You have a very close relationship with him.

Shane Black (42:51):

I adore the man. Yeah. I mean, and he's the one who I say, when I say 48 Hours was the real culprit behind reshaping the buddy movie. I mean Yeah. Don't blame it on Lethal Weapon. Walter Hill was in there doing it before me. He's the real, yeah. 

Kevin Goetz (43:06):

He's really insane. William Goldman?

Shane Black (43:07):

Goldman, empathetic genius, just rabbi, everyone thinks of him as a rabbi because he just gives back. And he has this endless wealth of a crude, cynical knowledge, tempered with this unbelievable optimism despite all the cynical things he points out.

Kevin Goetz (43:26):

Exactly.

Shane Black (43:27):

He says it can be better.

Kevin Goetz (43:28):

You and I both talked about this before we went on air, but we mentioned that at the Carlisle Hotel, he lived in the entire floor at the top and the elevator would open and he would greet you.

Shane Black (43:40):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (43:41):

You also told me something very interesting about the phone book.

Shane Black (43:45):

Yeah. He was in the New York phone book and he insisted on it. So he'd go, William Goldman, my favorite writer, he can't be in the, and you would open the book in the nineties and you call him and go, hello, and it's him.

Kevin Goetz (43:56):

It's incredible. Yeah. Did you ever hold his Oscars? No, I did. I saw it. I I've seen it. Two of them for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Of course. One's for All the President's Men, All the President's Men. Yeah. Very good. And they actually weigh a little differently, non-sequitur. I was in New York last week and I went to visit my dear friend Maria Cooper, who's Gary Cooper's daughter. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Maria Cooper Janis. I saw three Oscars sitting there on her shelf.

Speaker 4 (44:22):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Kevin Goetz (44:23):

And she said, pick 'em up. And I said, well, somebody told me if you hold Oscars, you'll never get one <laugh>. She said, oh, bullshit. So I picked up the Oscars and won because it was during the war, probably Sergeant York. Yeah. He won for High Noon also. And then he won a lifetime achievement award. Was so heavy. I could only picture a smaller woman actress being handed this 'cause some of those women were tiny. And this thing weighed must have been 12 pounds. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I kid you not, it was so heavy because they made it with a heavier metal.

Shane Black (44:57):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (44:57):

'Cause of the war. Anyway, just thought it was interesting. You're like, Joel, you're a historian. You know what it is. I'm a bit starstruck still, but of people that have done the work.

Shane Black (45:09):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (45:09):

That have paid their dues. I'm very big on that. And I revere age and experience. And in fact, I will pay dearly for it because I will tend to go out of my way to hire people who are smarter than I am, often older than I am. And have great experience that can't be taught, like it has to be learned.

Shane Black (45:30):

I agree. And there are people who say they can codify genius. I mean, there are authors like Sid Field who wrote a book on screenwriting and it's very good in its depiction of what constitutes a structured screenplay. But you could also make a screenplay that touches every single one of those points and holds together exactly like that structure, and it's awful.

Kevin Goetz (45:50):

What's the quintessential book for you for the young filmmaker?

Shane Black (45:54):

AudienceOlogy. Oh, Audienceology. Yes. It's, it's good about talking, you know how moviegoers perceive films and you're very good at finding out not just what their impressions are, but what underlies the impression. You know, you sort of, you get at what the problem is, not what they say it is.

Kevin Goetz (46:12):

Exactly. And I'll tell you, that has to do with my acting craft.

Shane Black (46:16):

Yes.

Kevin Goetz (46:17):

And that was getting to the truth of a character relentlessly.

Shane Black (46:22):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (46:22):

Pursuing the truth. So what da, da da happens, so what blah, blah, that happens. So what?

Speaker 4 (46:28):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (46:29):

And you have to dig and dig and dig and dig.

Speaker 4 (46:30):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (46:31):

And that is how I think I have been approaching the work that I've done for years with filmmakers, is to understand what's really going on underneath what the audience is saying. It's not just the written words, but what's the implicit response? What's sort of the…

*Shane Black (46:47):

What's the underlying note beneath the note? And studio executives are guilty of it as well. They will say, we want this fixed. And you go, do you really? Because I think what you're really saying is there's a problem here. But I bet you if you change this, especially, what are some of the greatest classic movies of all time that have sad endings? Like Old Yeller, Gunga Din, the sadness is what makes them great. Right. But the instant response on the studio, well that's downer at the end.

*Kevin Goetz (47:14):

I don't think that I ever really experience it's a downer at the end. I experience it's not satisfying. Ah. Because that really is a difference. And there's many filmmakers who will do a downer ending, but it doesn't benefit the overall piece. And I think probably they were telling you that in Lethal Weapon 2. Yeah, of course. It was a cash play. They wanted to continue the franchise, but at the same time, was it really necessary? They didn't think so. Yeah, I suppose.

Shane Black (47:43):

And yeah, there, there are some movies.

Kevin Goetz (47:46):

That might be a shitty example, but.

Shane Black (47:47):

Well, no, no, no. It's, it's, well he tried my best to justify it, but they were probably right in the end. I remember a Burt Reynolds movie that was affected for me hustle. And you go through this whole movie where he solves this crime and takes down the bad guys at the end, he's on the phone with his girlfriend and the guy walks into the convenience store to rob it and shoots him dead. He just, and I thought, okay, this is the seventies, man. The protagonist dies randomly at the on the brink of happiness.

Kevin Goetz (48:19):

I would venture to say that was probably your favorite decade of movies, I'm right about that?

Shane Black (48:19):

Yes. From Bullitt through 48 hours, there's that inclusive period of grit. 

Kevin Goetz (48:23):

Is there a movie this year that you remember or recently that you remember that you really respected? Or a filmmaker?

Shane Black (48:32):

A film that I was shocked by, but respected was Midsommer.

Kevin Goetz (48:37):

Oh, a horror movie.

Shane Black (48:37):

Yeah. There are a lot of very innovative horror movies happening now. And I think part of it is people see we can spend not a lot and make a ton. It's the one low budget sort of area that is sort of open to all comers. And you just have to be clever. You have to do a dance. When I was a kid, when college, the newest thing you could think of was the scene where the girl goes in the bathroom and there's a shower curtain. She goes, oh, the killer's in there. And she walks up suspense and she goes, pulls her aside, nobody there. And she turns and he's right in their face. That was new back then.

Kevin Goetz (49:15):

I can't teach that. I talk to people like, you gotta do that thing where the refrigerator door opens, closes it, there's no one there. Opens it again. Close it again. The killer's there.

*Shane Black (49:25):

It's a dance though. That's right 'cause once you become aware of it, now you go, oh, we saw that. So you have to now you have to have her pull the shirt, shower, curtain. The guy's not there when she turns around and then she walks out and now he's there. So anything to tweak this, to make a dance with the audience who are in some cases very sort of slow and lazy, but in other cases infinitely perceptive when it comes to tricks or being tricked. Totally. So you're dancing with them in a horror movie.

Kevin Goetz (49:50):

Let me ask you about women, because I've mentioned every one of my names and I purposely didn't mention Geena Davis and Susan Downey.

Speaker 4 (49:59):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (49:59):

For example, who's producing your latest movie who I know you've had very strong connections with, but I didn't mention women. And you're somehow influences and so forth in your life have largely been male.

Shane Black (50:11):

They have, but I'm also was accused of being a mama's boy. Who accused you of that? Well, my psychiatrist, number one who said, you've tried to protect your mother your whole life, didn't you? That kind of thing. I didn't want to go to school 'cause I had to stay with mom, make sure was okay. So I'd weep and cry when they tried to drag me out to go to school. I just felt like mom needed protecting. 

Kevin Goetz (50:34):

Wow.

Shane Black (50:34):

Yeah, it was some quirk in my own head or some phobia I developed. But I am so drawn to the notion of doing a female-centric movie where I actually try to think through different eyes. The problem is today you really can't because if you do a female driven movie that's in any way controversial and you direct it as a male, you'll get shafted. I couldn't have done Promising Young Woman where she gets…

Kevin Goetz (51:02):

Fabulous, wasn't that?

Shane Black (51:03):

It was a fabulous movie, but there's some scenes that are hard to take. And if a male had directed it, would be branded.

Kevin Goetz (51:09):

Likely. Very true.

Shane Black (51:10):

Yeah.

Kevin Goetz (51:10):

And particularly somebody who has the musculature, I guess, of you as a filmmaker, as a writer and a director, a very testosterone driven stuff.

Shane Black (51:20):

Right. And they'll think I was just doing a stunt.

Kevin Goetz (51:23):

But yet, I feel based on our conversation, that you have a tremendous love for women.

Shane Black (51:27):

I have a tremendous feminine side, like I said, who wants to go through life saying, what the fuck are you looking at? You know, it's like, that's just happy life. So the idea of women sort of being a sobering and ultimately more tolerant and intelligent force in life is probably closer to the truth. 

Kevin Goetz (51:45):

I’m glad we said that 'cause I can't believe that people weren't listening to the names of the people and going, where are the women? Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. Before we break, 'cause we could talk for hours, literally, because we have such a common language, Play Dirty is your latest movie for Amazon.

Speaker 4 (52:01):

Yes.

Kevin Goetz (52:01):

Can you just give us a couple of lines on why you did that movie and what it means to you?

Shane Black (52:09):

Well, one of my favorite writers has always been Donald Westlake, and he did this remarkable thing where he would do a series of comic crime novels about a guy named Dortmunder. And they movie The Hot Rock was based on those, for instance, but then he would also do this darker thing. He'd put on a different hat and write about this professional thief named Parker. And they were the gold standard that other mystery writers would point to and go, yeah, well, we're good, but really the king is gonna be this guy Westlake. And he never achieved James Patterson popularity, but he was very prolific and movies were made from his stuff. And among mystery writers, he's the king. And so the Parker Books finally came out as a potential rights availability. And so we had to, there's just no question we had to do.

Kevin Goetz (52:57):

When did you first read that series?

Shane Black (52:58):

Oh, 12 years old. Yeah. No, I've known Westlake's stuff my entire life and my addiction to mystery novels. I mean, that's what I mean when they say the superpower is having read a thousand books that other people are potentially unaware of. And you say this and they go, oh, that's so new. And you go, I, yeah, no, it's not. But Donald Westlake did the Parker series, and if anything, we may be guilty of putting a little dortmund in the Parker world, but I've always loved Westlake.

Kevin Goetz (53:24):

Well, Shane Black, what I've learned in this interview is how deep you are, how curious you are, how chameleonlike you are, and somebody that I just want to hang with because…

*Shane Black (53:35):

Oh, well, that's sweet. No, and you're, you're just a fascinating guy. And you also correctly interpret that curiosity trumps fear, and that's when life is best. You can be afraid of something or you can replace it with curiosity. I'll tell you one story before we go, please. I think it's a true story. It's been described to me as true as that John Cassavetes was walking in the park from Central Park with his friends like Ben Gazara, Peter, whoever. And as they're walking, a guy comes out from the trees with a gun and says, Hey, gimme your money. He goes, what? He goes, gimme your money. He said, well, look what I don't, I don't know. I, we got a few bucks. We're just going to get some ice cream. We're, he goes, no, no. You're an actor. I've seen you on tv.

(54:12):

Give me your money. John Cassavetes said, what? Oh my God, you didn't wake up this morning and say, I'm gonna have a gun in my hand this afternoon. He said, well, you must have what kind of day you must have had? He says, you know what I, I don't know what you're doing or where it comes from, but I'm fascinated. Would you like to go get some ice cream with us? And the guy's like, what? Okay. And they went and all had ice cream together, and that's when curiosity trumps fear. Now, it doesn't always work if some guy comes at you with a knife. If, hey, you wanna go to the movies, it's probably not gonna work. But the fact that…

Kevin Goetz (54:40):

There's something probably not so threatening about the guy, and yet pathetic in a way.

*Shane Black (54:45):

But Cassavetes was saying, I wanna know more. This'll be useful to me. So that's, I think the basis for all writing is just replacing that fear of being found out as an imposter or the fear of failing with a curiosity. Then when it kicks in, you go, oh, I'm not worried about the fear anymore.

Kevin Goetz (55:05):

Fascinating. Well, you are just a treasure. Thank you so much.

Shane Black (55:09):

Thank you, Kevin. I'm honored to be here.

Kevin Goetz (55:12):

To our listeners, I hope you enjoyed our interview today. I encourage you to watch many of the films discussed. For more filmmaking and audience testing stories, I invite you to check out my book Audienceology at Amazon or through my website at KevinGoetz360.com. You can also follow me on my social media. Next time on Don't Kill the Messenger, I'll welcome former studio executive and marketing guru, Tony Sella. Until then, I'm Kevin Goetz, and to you, our listeners, I appreciate you being part of the movie-making process. Your opinions matter.

Host: Kevin Goetz
Guest: Shane Black
Producer: Kari Campano
Writers: Kevin Goetz, Darlene Hayman, Nick Nunez, and Kari Campano
Audio Engineer: Gary Forbes (DG Entertainment)