Stephen Tobolowsky is a character actor best known for his roles in Groundhog Day, Sneakers and more recently as the politically conservative Seder attendee in Curb Your Enthusiasm. But Tobolowsky is so much more than the sum of his roles and that is showcased in the independent film Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party. In the movie the video camera is merely an observer at a real life birthday party at Tobolowsky's home in California. In front of an audience made up of friends and some famous people such as Mena Suvari and Amy Adams, Tobolowsky recounts many of his experiences and stories. Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party is a witty and very entertaining film which gives us insight into the man whose face everyone knows.
Buy Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party
Daniel Robert Epstein: Do you mind when people describe you as a character actor?
Stephen Tobolowsky: No. I think its so much better than the term unemployed.
DRE: I talk to so many character actors and when I ask them that question, they always give me the answer I think all actors are character actors.
ST: Well, I guess thats diplomatic. I think the truth of the matter is that character actor means is that youre too bald or ugly to be a leading man. But in truth, everybody is a character actor. We are the mortar and brick that make up a movie. The big difference between character actors and leading men besides the degree of handsomeness and hair is that leading men are on the screen all the time. You see the alarm go off in their bedroom. You see their eyes open. They wake up. They go to the shower. They get dressed. They go to the CIA. They strap on their guns. They go out and kill people. Everything they do is on the screen. For a character actor, we have to bring that with us. We have to use our imagination because its generally not our story. Sometimes in a movie we dont even get a name. Were like Cop 1, Government Guy 2. Sometimes we have a first name. Like in this current movie Im doing, Im Sheriff Charlie. So you have to bring your whole past, your whole history, your whole life to the role. It requires a lot more work.
DRE: Whats the name of the movie that youre playing Sheriff Charlie in?
ST: Oh man. I am so happy. I am doing this movie called The Wild Hog. Great name, huh?
DRE: Yeah.
ST: It stars Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence and Bill Macy as four dads who go on a cross-country motorcycle trip. They end up in my town where I am the sheriff. Then our town is besieged by a gang of real motorcycle thugs headed by Ray Liotta. Some of the ladies in the movie are Jill Hennessy and Marisa Tomei. So even though currently I am in Santa Fe shooting this movie, as we speak Im in LA because I came home to get oxygen. All they have in Santa Fe is turquoise and adobe and no oxygen. So I came home for a long weekend to load up on the O-2.
DRE: When I first heard of Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party, I wasnt surprised that someone wanted to make a movie like this because Ive spoken to a number of character actors like Mike Starr, Joe Pantoliano and David Proval and they all have great stories.
ST: My friend Robert Brinkman who shot the movie wanted to have a lot of movie stories. I like a lot of real-life stories. So Stephen Tobolowskys Birthday Party really is an hour and a half of me telling real stories from my life and from the movies. It has turned out to be fairly amusing.
DRE: Whats interesting is that none of the stories you tell in the movie, not one of them was like Oh I worked with Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.
ST: Yes. It makes you soul search. Buzz Magazine called me up and they said that Id been nominated as one of the 10 Coolest People in Los Angeles, however they had no idea who I was or what Id done that was cool and could I please inform them of what I had done that made me cool. When HBO saw this movie, they asked for it to be released at the HBO Comedy Festival in Aspen, which we did and we toured it. We have toured it around the country and around the world at various film festivals. I was in Austin at South By Southwest Film Festival. I went to a radio show where they wanted me to do an interview at six in the morning live. They had a piano in the hotel. So while they were setting up all the mics and the wires and everything, I sat down at the piano and started playing a sonata from Franz Schubert. Out of the corner of my eye, I see another figure moving in the lobby but I keep playing and this figure sits down at the piano next to me. I look up. Its Lyle Lovett. He goes, Well I guess this is the place to be. Now that is cool. That wouldve been on my list of Ten Cool Things, had that had happened back then. I mention things in the movie that are on the Cool List, such as when I was held hostage at gunpoint. That doesnt happen to a lot of people. So I figured that was cool.
DRE: Were there stories that you had told Robert over the years that he wanted to put in the movie, but you didnt feel were appropriate?
ST: There are some things that happened that are events rather than stories. Sitting next to Orson Welles on an airplane is not really a story thats worthy of screen time or mention. Its cool. Its nice. Its fun. But it doesnt really convey anything. The thing about the stories that I told in the movie is that they had to convey something beyond just the mere bones that they happened. For example, at one time I was taken off the streets of Bangkok by monks, beaten with sticks and then they gave me a medallion. I found out later this beating was a blessing. Part of the reason why that story was included was because it links to another story where my dear friend Bob was going in for surgery to try to save his life and I gave him the medallion. The stories have to interconnect. So I think we wanted things that were not too racy. We wanted to appeal to a large audience. We did not want it to be strictly a filmgoer movie. We wanted it to be something that a lot of different people could enjoy.
DRE: Thats obviously your house in the movie, right?
ST: Yes.
DRE: You have a lovely home. I think a lot of people assume that a guy like yourself whos not a Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks does not have a lot of money.
ST: Now listen here. Listen here. A scientific fact is that I am of the top one half of one percent of my profession. Something like only 30 percent of the people who are in the Screen Actors Guild have ever really worked. Out of the people that work, only five percent work as an actor as their primary job. Out of those five percent who work as a primary job, there are only two percent that make a really good living at it. Then at the top one half of one percent are the ones who have only made income from acting their whole lives. Even though I am far from being wealthy, I am, percentage-wise, doing very well.
DRE: I remember when Quentin Tarantino was casting Robert Forrester in Jackie Brown, he was saying that he likes to cast outside the box. He said that basically there are only five big casting directors in Hollywood and they keep putting the same people in movies over again. Do you think that makes people too familiar with those certain actors?
ST: Probably yes, yes, yes and yes would be my answer. It goes even beyond what Quentin Tarantino said. To begin with, lets say that producer says Show me ten people to play Ned Ryerson [Stephens character in Groundhog Day]. Is that casting director going to want to make ten phone calls or one? Generally people want to do less work. So they call one big agency and they say, Send me ten of your people that fit this part. So youll get those same ten people. Speaking of Quentin Tarantino, he didnt cast so much outside the box in casting Samuel L. Jackson in that film. Its not like hes casting some unknown. So hes still going to the top five talent agencies for his casting. He just may be using people in a slightly different way. Now Robert Forrester in that movie was brilliant. He was fantastic in that movie. But when I first started, Mississippi Burning was my first big movie. I got five offers within the first two/three weeks of getting cast in that just because they knew I was working with Alan Parker. Luckily for me, I ended up in a comedy, a drama, a musical, an action movie so the typecasting was more difficult in my case. So I dodged the bullet of typecasting.
DRE: On a message board last year someone posted some information about Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party and posted your picture. Immediately people left replies saying things like Bing and Passport over and over and over again.
ST: I had two guys from the BBC come out to my house around last Christmas because they were doing a special of our 50 Favorite Characters in and Ned Ryerson had been voted as one of those favorite characters. A lot of it is because Groundhog Day was such a terrific movie. If you have a good part in a great movie it helps.
DRE: When people come up to you and snap their fingers going, I know you. I know you. What movies do they mention?
ST: Well they are usually Groundhog Day, Sneakers and certainly Memento. Lately, I have three other things. Every child in the world has seen Garfield. So consequently their parents have seen Garfield. So everybody recognizes me as Happy Chapman in Garfield. Another big movie for the teen set was Freaky Friday and everybody recognizes me as Elton Bates from that. Then there is this surly, really nasty group of people that recognize me from Deadwood which is very nice.
DRE: Which movies did you feel had the most fully formed characters for you on screen?
ST: Certainly Jud Phillips in Great Balls of Fire. To have a fully formed character, what your character needs is a beginning, middle and an end. When I played Joe Weyburn in Bird on a Wire, I was a corrupt CIA guy. It was a nice film because at the beginning you thought I was Mel Gibsons buddy and at the end I try to kill him. I think all the films I mentioned, certainly Ned and Werner Brandes in Sneakers, Hugo Jarry in Deadwood are all fully developed characters. I can talk about one of the worst. One of my first auditions out here was to play Officer Bailey in the Love Bug. Not the new Love Bug with Lindsay Lohan, but the Love Bug from a long time ago. I read the script and I didnt even see the name Officer Bailey in the script. I went to the casting director and said, Theres no Bailey here. She said, Oh, Im sorry. You have the old script. Heres the new script. So I took another two hours and read the new script, still no Officer Bailey. I said, Theres no Officer Bailey. She said, Oh, its in the new pages. Let me give you the new pages. So she gave me the new pages and she says Cop 2 is Officer Bailey. Cop 2 only had one line in the movie. It was Yeah. I read this and I go, This is it? This is what you brought me in for? So the director said, Stephen, are you ready? I go, Yeah. He says, Why dont you have a seat? I go, Yeah. Want to give it a try? I go, Yup. All right. Lets go. Yeah. Can you do that again Stephen a different way? I go, Yeah. I did not get the part by the way. This is the indignity actors have to go through. They may have had somebody who read better the Yeah. That was one of the worst.
DRE: Do you do a lot of pilots during pilot season?
ST: Well, you can only do one.
DRE: Oh, is that true?
ST: They make you sign an exclusivity deal so if youre lucky enough to get a pilot, you only get one shot and you have to say youre not going to appear in anything else other than that pilot or anything else for the next seven years. So I did a pilot this year for ABC called American Men with Sean Astin. It was very funny but we did not get picked up though a splendid time was had by all.
DRE: Is something like a sitcom, which usually has a very pleasant schedule, an ideal situation for a guy like yourself?
ST: It depends on the sitcom. The thing with a sitcom is that its a five day schedule which is good news. The bad news is that the script keeps changing everyday so youre in constant torture. You rehearse Monday. You have to do a run-through for the producers on Tuesday usually with a whole new script. Then you have to do a run through Wednesday for the network and if they dont like you, they can fire you. Then you do camera blocking on Thursday. Then you perform in front of a live audience on Friday. So it is regular, but very stressful. Whats ideal I guess would be a 30 minute single camera show like Wonder Years, where you had no audience. Rewrites are more like a movie and you shoot it like a short movie.
DRE: Many character actors have starred in low-budget independent features. I dont believe Ive seen you as the lead in a film.
ST: I guess you would have to say I am the lead in Stephen Tobolowskys Birthday Party. But I should mention that there is a whole another venue that has escaped us here so far today and that is theatre. I have starred in plays in theatre. I did Tuzenbach in The Three Sisters. I did Hialmar in The Wild Duck. I did Homer in Mornings at Seven, which was nominated for a Tony Award. I played Jesus in Godspell. So I have had experience being the lead and being the center of attention. You sound like a youthful guy. Youre probably a lot younger than me, right?
DRE: Yeah, Im about 30.
ST: The old Boston Celtics had a player by the name of John Havlicek. I got one of the greatest compliments I ever got from somebody who was a sports fan. He said, You know who you are? You are the John Havlicek of movies. Havlicek would start every game on the bench and after six minutes theyd bring him. He would pass if you need it. He would shoot if you need it. He would do defense and run the offense if you needed it. I feel fortunate in that Ive developed the reputation that when people need someone to score, they can give me the ball. If they need someone to support, theyll give me the ball. Im a good team player, which to me is a great compliment and I appreciate it.
DRE: How did you and David Byrne hook up for True Stories?
ST: I used to play videogames with Jonathan Demme. We used to play Stargate and Defender. Jonathan even put one in his house. Anyway, my girlfriend and I were leaving exercise class and Jonathan Demme drives up and says, Hey. How would you like to see [Stop Making Sense] the new movie I made? We say, Sure. He says, Well hop in. So we hop in his car and he drove to the screening room and there was David Byrne and Jerry and Tina and Chris of the Talking Heads. We sat in the theater and watched Stop Making Sense, just the seven of us. Afterwards we went out to dinner and David sat with me and said, Tell me what you thought of the movie. Tell me what you thought was wrong. I want to fix everything thats wrong. Was it too long? Did you like the songs? David and I ended up talking for about an hour that night at dinner. He said that he was working on a movie that he wanted to call True Stories and asked if Beth, my girlfriend who was a writer, would be available to write the script. I said, Well talk to Beth about it. The next day she went over to Davids house, came back very frustrated and said, I dont understand what David Byrnes talking about. I told him to call you. So I went over to Davids house, which had not a stick of furniture in it. We had two metal folding chairs in this empty house in the Hollywood Hills and David, who was a graphic artist, had about 200 pencil drawings scotch-taped to the walls. He said, I have done these drawings and I wonder do you think we could turn these drawings into a movie? So David and I sat there in silence for a couple of hours just looking at the drawings. I said, You know what David? Let me go home and see what I can do. If I can come up with anything, Ill bring it to you, you can use it. If you want to hire me, hire me. If you dont, dont. So I went home and I wrote 30 pages, which became True Stories. David hired me and Beth to write the screenplay in 19 days. It took Phil Robinson nine years to write Sneakers but David Byrne wanted us to write a screenplay in 19 days. We did it. We turned it in on day 19 and we heard nothing from David for about a year. A year later I see David jogging down the road and he yells, Hey, Stephen. I think were going to make the movie. We used almost none of your stuff. So I went to see the movie and in fact most of the outline we had discussed and written together was in there which was good. I think Stop Making Sense and True Stories are two of the better rock and roll films that have been made.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party
Daniel Robert Epstein: Do you mind when people describe you as a character actor?
Stephen Tobolowsky: No. I think its so much better than the term unemployed.
DRE: I talk to so many character actors and when I ask them that question, they always give me the answer I think all actors are character actors.
ST: Well, I guess thats diplomatic. I think the truth of the matter is that character actor means is that youre too bald or ugly to be a leading man. But in truth, everybody is a character actor. We are the mortar and brick that make up a movie. The big difference between character actors and leading men besides the degree of handsomeness and hair is that leading men are on the screen all the time. You see the alarm go off in their bedroom. You see their eyes open. They wake up. They go to the shower. They get dressed. They go to the CIA. They strap on their guns. They go out and kill people. Everything they do is on the screen. For a character actor, we have to bring that with us. We have to use our imagination because its generally not our story. Sometimes in a movie we dont even get a name. Were like Cop 1, Government Guy 2. Sometimes we have a first name. Like in this current movie Im doing, Im Sheriff Charlie. So you have to bring your whole past, your whole history, your whole life to the role. It requires a lot more work.
DRE: Whats the name of the movie that youre playing Sheriff Charlie in?
ST: Oh man. I am so happy. I am doing this movie called The Wild Hog. Great name, huh?
DRE: Yeah.
ST: It stars Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence and Bill Macy as four dads who go on a cross-country motorcycle trip. They end up in my town where I am the sheriff. Then our town is besieged by a gang of real motorcycle thugs headed by Ray Liotta. Some of the ladies in the movie are Jill Hennessy and Marisa Tomei. So even though currently I am in Santa Fe shooting this movie, as we speak Im in LA because I came home to get oxygen. All they have in Santa Fe is turquoise and adobe and no oxygen. So I came home for a long weekend to load up on the O-2.
DRE: When I first heard of Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party, I wasnt surprised that someone wanted to make a movie like this because Ive spoken to a number of character actors like Mike Starr, Joe Pantoliano and David Proval and they all have great stories.
ST: My friend Robert Brinkman who shot the movie wanted to have a lot of movie stories. I like a lot of real-life stories. So Stephen Tobolowskys Birthday Party really is an hour and a half of me telling real stories from my life and from the movies. It has turned out to be fairly amusing.
DRE: Whats interesting is that none of the stories you tell in the movie, not one of them was like Oh I worked with Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.
ST: Yes. It makes you soul search. Buzz Magazine called me up and they said that Id been nominated as one of the 10 Coolest People in Los Angeles, however they had no idea who I was or what Id done that was cool and could I please inform them of what I had done that made me cool. When HBO saw this movie, they asked for it to be released at the HBO Comedy Festival in Aspen, which we did and we toured it. We have toured it around the country and around the world at various film festivals. I was in Austin at South By Southwest Film Festival. I went to a radio show where they wanted me to do an interview at six in the morning live. They had a piano in the hotel. So while they were setting up all the mics and the wires and everything, I sat down at the piano and started playing a sonata from Franz Schubert. Out of the corner of my eye, I see another figure moving in the lobby but I keep playing and this figure sits down at the piano next to me. I look up. Its Lyle Lovett. He goes, Well I guess this is the place to be. Now that is cool. That wouldve been on my list of Ten Cool Things, had that had happened back then. I mention things in the movie that are on the Cool List, such as when I was held hostage at gunpoint. That doesnt happen to a lot of people. So I figured that was cool.
DRE: Were there stories that you had told Robert over the years that he wanted to put in the movie, but you didnt feel were appropriate?
ST: There are some things that happened that are events rather than stories. Sitting next to Orson Welles on an airplane is not really a story thats worthy of screen time or mention. Its cool. Its nice. Its fun. But it doesnt really convey anything. The thing about the stories that I told in the movie is that they had to convey something beyond just the mere bones that they happened. For example, at one time I was taken off the streets of Bangkok by monks, beaten with sticks and then they gave me a medallion. I found out later this beating was a blessing. Part of the reason why that story was included was because it links to another story where my dear friend Bob was going in for surgery to try to save his life and I gave him the medallion. The stories have to interconnect. So I think we wanted things that were not too racy. We wanted to appeal to a large audience. We did not want it to be strictly a filmgoer movie. We wanted it to be something that a lot of different people could enjoy.
DRE: Thats obviously your house in the movie, right?
ST: Yes.
DRE: You have a lovely home. I think a lot of people assume that a guy like yourself whos not a Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks does not have a lot of money.
ST: Now listen here. Listen here. A scientific fact is that I am of the top one half of one percent of my profession. Something like only 30 percent of the people who are in the Screen Actors Guild have ever really worked. Out of the people that work, only five percent work as an actor as their primary job. Out of those five percent who work as a primary job, there are only two percent that make a really good living at it. Then at the top one half of one percent are the ones who have only made income from acting their whole lives. Even though I am far from being wealthy, I am, percentage-wise, doing very well.
DRE: I remember when Quentin Tarantino was casting Robert Forrester in Jackie Brown, he was saying that he likes to cast outside the box. He said that basically there are only five big casting directors in Hollywood and they keep putting the same people in movies over again. Do you think that makes people too familiar with those certain actors?
ST: Probably yes, yes, yes and yes would be my answer. It goes even beyond what Quentin Tarantino said. To begin with, lets say that producer says Show me ten people to play Ned Ryerson [Stephens character in Groundhog Day]. Is that casting director going to want to make ten phone calls or one? Generally people want to do less work. So they call one big agency and they say, Send me ten of your people that fit this part. So youll get those same ten people. Speaking of Quentin Tarantino, he didnt cast so much outside the box in casting Samuel L. Jackson in that film. Its not like hes casting some unknown. So hes still going to the top five talent agencies for his casting. He just may be using people in a slightly different way. Now Robert Forrester in that movie was brilliant. He was fantastic in that movie. But when I first started, Mississippi Burning was my first big movie. I got five offers within the first two/three weeks of getting cast in that just because they knew I was working with Alan Parker. Luckily for me, I ended up in a comedy, a drama, a musical, an action movie so the typecasting was more difficult in my case. So I dodged the bullet of typecasting.
DRE: On a message board last year someone posted some information about Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party and posted your picture. Immediately people left replies saying things like Bing and Passport over and over and over again.
ST: I had two guys from the BBC come out to my house around last Christmas because they were doing a special of our 50 Favorite Characters in and Ned Ryerson had been voted as one of those favorite characters. A lot of it is because Groundhog Day was such a terrific movie. If you have a good part in a great movie it helps.
DRE: When people come up to you and snap their fingers going, I know you. I know you. What movies do they mention?
ST: Well they are usually Groundhog Day, Sneakers and certainly Memento. Lately, I have three other things. Every child in the world has seen Garfield. So consequently their parents have seen Garfield. So everybody recognizes me as Happy Chapman in Garfield. Another big movie for the teen set was Freaky Friday and everybody recognizes me as Elton Bates from that. Then there is this surly, really nasty group of people that recognize me from Deadwood which is very nice.
DRE: Which movies did you feel had the most fully formed characters for you on screen?
ST: Certainly Jud Phillips in Great Balls of Fire. To have a fully formed character, what your character needs is a beginning, middle and an end. When I played Joe Weyburn in Bird on a Wire, I was a corrupt CIA guy. It was a nice film because at the beginning you thought I was Mel Gibsons buddy and at the end I try to kill him. I think all the films I mentioned, certainly Ned and Werner Brandes in Sneakers, Hugo Jarry in Deadwood are all fully developed characters. I can talk about one of the worst. One of my first auditions out here was to play Officer Bailey in the Love Bug. Not the new Love Bug with Lindsay Lohan, but the Love Bug from a long time ago. I read the script and I didnt even see the name Officer Bailey in the script. I went to the casting director and said, Theres no Bailey here. She said, Oh, Im sorry. You have the old script. Heres the new script. So I took another two hours and read the new script, still no Officer Bailey. I said, Theres no Officer Bailey. She said, Oh, its in the new pages. Let me give you the new pages. So she gave me the new pages and she says Cop 2 is Officer Bailey. Cop 2 only had one line in the movie. It was Yeah. I read this and I go, This is it? This is what you brought me in for? So the director said, Stephen, are you ready? I go, Yeah. He says, Why dont you have a seat? I go, Yeah. Want to give it a try? I go, Yup. All right. Lets go. Yeah. Can you do that again Stephen a different way? I go, Yeah. I did not get the part by the way. This is the indignity actors have to go through. They may have had somebody who read better the Yeah. That was one of the worst.
DRE: Do you do a lot of pilots during pilot season?
ST: Well, you can only do one.
DRE: Oh, is that true?
ST: They make you sign an exclusivity deal so if youre lucky enough to get a pilot, you only get one shot and you have to say youre not going to appear in anything else other than that pilot or anything else for the next seven years. So I did a pilot this year for ABC called American Men with Sean Astin. It was very funny but we did not get picked up though a splendid time was had by all.
DRE: Is something like a sitcom, which usually has a very pleasant schedule, an ideal situation for a guy like yourself?
ST: It depends on the sitcom. The thing with a sitcom is that its a five day schedule which is good news. The bad news is that the script keeps changing everyday so youre in constant torture. You rehearse Monday. You have to do a run-through for the producers on Tuesday usually with a whole new script. Then you have to do a run through Wednesday for the network and if they dont like you, they can fire you. Then you do camera blocking on Thursday. Then you perform in front of a live audience on Friday. So it is regular, but very stressful. Whats ideal I guess would be a 30 minute single camera show like Wonder Years, where you had no audience. Rewrites are more like a movie and you shoot it like a short movie.
DRE: Many character actors have starred in low-budget independent features. I dont believe Ive seen you as the lead in a film.
ST: I guess you would have to say I am the lead in Stephen Tobolowskys Birthday Party. But I should mention that there is a whole another venue that has escaped us here so far today and that is theatre. I have starred in plays in theatre. I did Tuzenbach in The Three Sisters. I did Hialmar in The Wild Duck. I did Homer in Mornings at Seven, which was nominated for a Tony Award. I played Jesus in Godspell. So I have had experience being the lead and being the center of attention. You sound like a youthful guy. Youre probably a lot younger than me, right?
DRE: Yeah, Im about 30.
ST: The old Boston Celtics had a player by the name of John Havlicek. I got one of the greatest compliments I ever got from somebody who was a sports fan. He said, You know who you are? You are the John Havlicek of movies. Havlicek would start every game on the bench and after six minutes theyd bring him. He would pass if you need it. He would shoot if you need it. He would do defense and run the offense if you needed it. I feel fortunate in that Ive developed the reputation that when people need someone to score, they can give me the ball. If they need someone to support, theyll give me the ball. Im a good team player, which to me is a great compliment and I appreciate it.
DRE: How did you and David Byrne hook up for True Stories?
ST: I used to play videogames with Jonathan Demme. We used to play Stargate and Defender. Jonathan even put one in his house. Anyway, my girlfriend and I were leaving exercise class and Jonathan Demme drives up and says, Hey. How would you like to see [Stop Making Sense] the new movie I made? We say, Sure. He says, Well hop in. So we hop in his car and he drove to the screening room and there was David Byrne and Jerry and Tina and Chris of the Talking Heads. We sat in the theater and watched Stop Making Sense, just the seven of us. Afterwards we went out to dinner and David sat with me and said, Tell me what you thought of the movie. Tell me what you thought was wrong. I want to fix everything thats wrong. Was it too long? Did you like the songs? David and I ended up talking for about an hour that night at dinner. He said that he was working on a movie that he wanted to call True Stories and asked if Beth, my girlfriend who was a writer, would be available to write the script. I said, Well talk to Beth about it. The next day she went over to Davids house, came back very frustrated and said, I dont understand what David Byrnes talking about. I told him to call you. So I went over to Davids house, which had not a stick of furniture in it. We had two metal folding chairs in this empty house in the Hollywood Hills and David, who was a graphic artist, had about 200 pencil drawings scotch-taped to the walls. He said, I have done these drawings and I wonder do you think we could turn these drawings into a movie? So David and I sat there in silence for a couple of hours just looking at the drawings. I said, You know what David? Let me go home and see what I can do. If I can come up with anything, Ill bring it to you, you can use it. If you want to hire me, hire me. If you dont, dont. So I went home and I wrote 30 pages, which became True Stories. David hired me and Beth to write the screenplay in 19 days. It took Phil Robinson nine years to write Sneakers but David Byrne wanted us to write a screenplay in 19 days. We did it. We turned it in on day 19 and we heard nothing from David for about a year. A year later I see David jogging down the road and he yells, Hey, Stephen. I think were going to make the movie. We used almost none of your stuff. So I went to see the movie and in fact most of the outline we had discussed and written together was in there which was good. I think Stop Making Sense and True Stories are two of the better rock and roll films that have been made.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 10 of 10 COMMENTS
Phil Connors?!?!
I'd love to see his movie.