Pete Berg | The Film That Lit My Fuse - video Dailymotion

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00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 - What film or series lit your fuse

00:13 and made you have to tell stories on screen?

00:16 - Right, so back in the seventies,

00:20 my dad was looking for something to do with me on a weekend,

00:25 a rainy weekend in Westchester, New York.

00:30 And he heard about a movie

00:32 that he assumed was appropriate for kids.

00:34 It was called "Dog Day Afternoon."

00:37 And he was like, "Well, you know,

00:39 we'll go see this movie about dogs having an afternoon,

00:43 I guess, of some sort."

00:44 And it sounded, he didn't really do his homework.

00:48 And he took me to see "Dog Day Afternoon."

00:52 And I think about 30 seconds into it,

00:55 he realized it was a mistake,

00:57 but he was into it and he was sort of looking at me

01:01 and I was clearly into it.

01:03 I don't know why, but we stayed for the entire film.

01:09 That film lit my fuse.

01:12 You know, it was the first experience that I had

01:15 as a kind of almost young adult.

01:19 I don't even think I was a young adult.

01:22 That blew my mind.

01:26 Pacino, I'd never really seen anything like it before.

01:31 And it just felt wild and exciting

01:37 and heartbreaking and multi-layered.

01:41 And really from that moment,

01:45 from when Sal said he wanted a plane to go to Wyoming,

01:50 to get out of trouble, I was hooked on acting.

01:55 I was hooked on writing.

02:01 And I was really hooked on Al Pacino.

02:05 And from that moment on,

02:06 I've probably seen the film 50 times.

02:08 I'll always watch it.

02:10 And, you know, what Sidney did in that film

02:15 was groundbreaking and rule-breaking.

02:20 And it just felt so alive to me.

02:24 And I don't know whether it's true,

02:26 but the story that I've come to hear

02:29 is that they were shooting the film in continuity

02:32 and that Pacino was wearing glasses

02:36 for the first eight days of shooting.

02:39 And at a certain point, he said, "Wait a minute, stop.

02:44 My character would have been so nervous

02:46 that he would have forgotten his glasses."

02:49 And the story that I've heard is that he put contacts in

02:53 when he was acting so that everything was out of focus.

02:56 And if you watch the film,

02:57 he's constantly trying to focus

03:00 and rubbing his head and rubbing his eyes.

03:02 And he looks like, you know,

03:04 in addition to all of the other problems

03:06 Sonny is having that day with law enforcement,

03:09 he's having an additional problem

03:12 because he can't see very well

03:14 because he forgot his glasses.

03:16 And I always thought that was genius.

03:17 And that kind of idea is something

03:20 that I'll always try and come up with some way

03:24 of disrupting an actor's intended performance.

03:28 Sometimes it doesn't work well,

03:29 sometimes it does with that Pacino story in mind.

03:34 - So when you were on your way up,

03:36 making your way as a director

03:40 and a writer,

03:42 what movie or series did you watch

03:44 that was so good it made you question

03:47 if you could ever really play in this sandbox,

03:50 if you could ever really rise to that level?

03:53 - Right.

03:54 There are many.

03:55 I think, you know, when I,

03:58 the first film that comes to mind is "Goodfellas"

04:02 and what Marty did with that film.

04:06 I think, you know, somewhere in the middle

04:09 of the Rolling Stones, cocaine, helicopter,

04:13 Ray Liotta, paranoid freakout,

04:16 I realized I was in the presence of a master filmmaker

04:20 and that, you know, Marty Scorsese

04:25 was someone who wrote his own rule book.

04:28 And really, maybe there were no identifiable rules

04:33 in that book other than, you know,

04:36 a very talented human being following his instincts.

04:39 With the right support team.

04:42 But I think "Goodfellas" humbled me

04:45 as much, if not more, than any other film

04:48 that comes to mind.

04:50 - That's a good answer.

04:52 So now, whether it was the success of your own work

04:56 or approval from someone whose opinion really mattered

04:59 to you, what first gave you the confidence

05:01 that in fact, you did belong doing this?

05:05 - So I moved out to LA a long, long time ago

05:08 with a guy named Ari Emanuel.

05:10 We went to college together and we were both out here

05:14 just dirt broke and struggling.

05:18 And he was at the bottom of the bottom of the mail room.

05:21 And I was working on a fishing boat down in San Pedro.

05:25 And I had been living with an Italian family,

05:28 the Galletti brothers, who kind of controlled the seaports.

05:32 A kind of, it was actually somewhat

05:33 of a "Goodfellas" type experience.

05:36 But I had met one of them and they had invited me

05:37 to stay with them.

05:39 And they had a housekeeper named Gedelia who hated me

05:44 and resented it.

05:45 I was not necessarily the neatest house guest

05:49 they'd ever had.

05:51 And I started writing these fictitious little scenes

05:55 between me and Gedelia and Gedelia plotting my demise.

06:00 And I was just writing them for myself.

06:03 But I would share them with Ari who was, like I say,

06:07 just cleaning up the dirtiest of the dirty coffee cups

06:12 and just big messes at the mail room at CAA.

06:16 And he would laugh and he and I would read them

06:19 back and forth and he would play Gedelia

06:21 and I would play me.

06:22 And he's the first one back in the late 80s

06:27 who said, "You should do this.

06:30 It's funny, it's good.

06:32 Keep writing."

06:33 And to this day, Ari is my oldest and best friend

06:37 and he's still my biggest inspiration.

06:41 And he's always the one who I send my work to first.

06:46 And he's always the one that inspires me to keep going.

06:50 - And he's not cleaning coffee cups anymore.

06:52 - No, he's not.

06:54 No, he's not.

06:54 But he's still supporting me.

06:56 And I'm lucky to have such a great friend

07:00 and to have gone through this mad journey

07:04 that is our business.

07:06 - What was the biggest obstacle that you had to overcome

07:10 to allow you to turn projects that influenced you

07:13 into your own cinematic language?

07:16 - I mean, I always say that we are our own biggest obstacle.

07:22 That our stuff, our issues are what block us

07:30 from being creative, A, and functioning as a creative,

07:35 and then B, being able to negotiate the business side

07:40 of our business, which means lawyers and agents

07:44 and studio executives.

07:45 And you've gotta be able to do both.

07:47 And I think when I first started

07:50 and I was making my first film, "Very Bad Things,"

07:54 I had written a script, was fortunate to get Cameron Diaz

07:58 to say she wanted to be in it.

07:59 And that triggered a little bit of money.

08:01 So we were able to make it.

08:02 The next thing I knew, I was on a film set directing a movie

08:06 and I had never directed a movie before.

08:09 And I had no idea how to do it.

08:12 And I was scared.

08:13 Deep down inside, I was actually terrified

08:16 and I was very insecure,

08:18 but I didn't want anyone to know that.

08:20 So the insecurity generally came out

08:22 as sort of just irrational anger.

08:25 So somebody would walk up to me on the set

08:29 of "Very Bad Things" and say, "Good morning."

08:32 And I would be like, "What the (beep) does that mean?"

08:35 I had to quickly realize that if I let my fear

08:39 and insecurity and self-doubt win,

08:43 that was gonna be a really big obstacle.

08:44 And I was probably gonna shut down a career

08:46 before it ever got started.

08:48 And I very quickly learned that, you know,

08:51 when people say good morning,

08:53 they actually mean good morning.

08:54 And like, if they say have a nice day,

08:56 that's probably all there is to it.

08:59 And to be able to put my own fears

09:04 and issues in check was critical for me

09:09 to be able to navigate this business

09:12 because, you know, you can't attack everybody

09:16 that gets under your skin in this business.

09:18 You're just not gonna have a career.

09:20 And I very quickly learned that.

09:21 My last question, you know, "Painkiller,"

09:25 there's a lot going on here.

09:28 You know, I think like everyone

09:31 who watched "Friday Night Lights,"

09:34 we thought Taylor Keech, boy, he was so good as Riggins,

09:38 33, fullback Riggins.

09:41 And this is a wonderful turn for him.

09:44 Matthew Broderick, he's so still,

09:47 and he's so, you can feel the smugness

09:50 and the entitlement of Richard Sackler.

09:53 What burned in you to tell this story this way?

09:57 This for me started years ago when Eric Newman,

10:01 who's our executive producer and a good friend,

10:04 came to me and said, you know,

10:05 "Would you be interested in exploring the world

10:09 of OxyContin and Purdue Pharma?"

10:11 And I knew of Purdue Pharma,

10:13 and I started thinking about my relationship

10:17 to people who have experienced addiction.

10:19 And I realized very quickly that I could count

10:22 more than 10 people I knew personally

10:25 who had died of not just OxyContin and opioids,

10:29 but some from other drugs.

10:31 But I certainly felt a personal connection

10:34 to people who've died from opioids.

10:37 And I started thinking about some of my creative influences,

10:40 artists that really inspired me,

10:42 from Chris Cornell to Tom Petty to, you know,

10:46 one of my true heroes was Prince,

10:48 all of whom died of opioids.

10:50 And I realized that, you know,

10:53 I was very, very clearly and deeply connected

10:57 to this epidemic.

10:59 And I knew that that would give me the fuel

11:02 and the fire and the passion to wanna roll up my sleeves

11:06 and tackle six episodes,

11:08 which is a reasonable amount of work

11:10 and requires that connection.

11:12 But that was, for me, a personal connection that I had.

11:17 And if you talk to Matthew Broderick or Taylor Kitsch,

11:20 they also, like probably you do,

11:22 like almost everyone that's reading

11:25 or listening to this right now,

11:27 we don't generally have to reach far

11:29 to find someone whose life was either taken

11:32 or, you know, utterly eviscerated

11:35 because of drugs like OxyContin.

11:37 So the passion was there from the start.

11:40 - The fascinating thing to me

11:42 is the way you laid it out as a business

11:45 and the motivations of Sackler and his family members.

11:50 It is completely understandable,

11:53 but the idea of, you know,

11:57 of knowing you can make a lot of money

12:00 and knowing that you're creating addiction,

12:03 how surprised were you

12:06 when you discovered this along the way?

12:09 - Yeah, we had an incredible piece of source material,

12:13 a book called "Painkiller" written by Barry Meyer.

12:16 And, you know, after reading his book

12:18 and spending a lot of time with him,

12:20 it's impossible to get FaceTime,

12:22 obviously with the Sacklers, they don't talk.

12:24 The more I unpacked the evil, twisted genius

12:30 that was a capitalistic home run,

12:34 Purdue Pharma and OxyContin,

12:36 but the more I realized how they basically came

12:40 to have the idea that they were gonna mass release

12:43 into our culture heroin in a little M&M pill form

12:48 and be able to coerce and manipulate,

12:51 and I think bribe members of our government,

12:54 particularly in the FDA, to sign off on this,

12:58 then use their marketing skill,

13:00 the first real group of doctors

13:03 that bought an advertising agency

13:05 and understood the power of marketing

13:08 and were able to sort of treat this pill,

13:10 this heroin in a pill, as a McDonald's hamburger

13:15 or a Coca-Cola, treat it with the same sort of,

13:18 you know, marketing strategies that you would

13:21 the hamburger or the soda.

13:24 It was diabolical.

13:25 And, you know, if you're a capitalist, great.

13:29 And I support capitalism and I support people making money.

13:32 And if you apply common capitalistic ideology

13:36 to the Sacklers, just money-making, they get an A+.

13:40 If you start to put even the slightest amount

13:44 of moral judgment upon the way they were making their money,

13:49 these are some evil people.

13:52 - And that Matthew Broderick,

13:54 he's one evil Ferris Bueller, huh?

13:57 - Yeah, yeah, that was the thinking that, you know,

14:00 to take, the bad guy never thinks

14:03 that he's the bad guy, right?

14:04 So to take, you know, all of the goodwill

14:08 from Ferris Bueller and twist that into Richard Sackler

14:11 would be potentially quite interesting.

14:13 And he did a great job.

14:15 (mouse clicking)

Pete Berg | The Film That Lit My Fuse

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