Sean Stone

You used to lose your temper a lot more, though. I think you've calmed over the years. Who? You used to lose your temper a lot. Oh, not talking about myself. I'm talking about the actor.

know he's very opinionated that's all you know so you know save the opinions because you don't have to tell me about the screenplay and about what you think about the movie and all that you know no but you had a very funny uh conflict with val right kilmer you guys got along much better later but on the doors remember you were in my mind val was at that point at that point yeah

A lot of that just gets moved out in the deal structure in the beginning. They'll put in these crazy requests. You hear about this stuff. Will Smith has his own private gym. He's got a trailer for his gym. I've heard people have to bring their private hairdresser, their driver. Those are the worst. They bring on their producing. They add all kinds of...

Well, I mean, that's...

different ways of feeling in the world you know i would just put it like this is the director is almost like uh the chess player right they're looking they have to feel but they have to be strategically looking at everything the actors immersing themselves into feelings and moods that uh sometimes are maddening um you know i did the behind the scenes on alexander uh that was my first foray into filmmaking was doing documentaries back when the dvds had the behind the scene extras you know and they would have the featurettes about the making of or

On W, we did the same thing. On Nixon, we did this real story. On Alexander, I shot Fight Against Time, a feature-length documentary. I got some really good access to be able to see, not fully the conversations, but to see a little bit of the dynamic. It's like Colin Farrell was going through deep moods and experiences and madness at some points, actually.

Yeah, it's it's in this it's in the documentary. And you'll see like, you know, how it's like there's there are points where you start to wonder, is this guy gonna, you know, end up like James Dean? Is he gonna kill himself? Because it's he's so passionate and erratic. And, you know, he was he was a drinker at the time. And, you know, he's Irish.

And it was like, it was a little bit of it was testing his, you know, his nerves to say, OK, can you pull this off without going over the edge? Right. And I think that's that's the issue is always, you know, you pulling out a performance from an actor. It's like pushing them to a place that's uncomfortable. And that goes to the question of the conflict that sometimes occurs is that he's pushing.

He knows how to push buttons. There's a very famous story of telling Michael Douglas on the first day of Wall Street or second day of Wall Street. You know, I saw the was dailies from yesterday. What are you, like, you know, a TV actor? You know, like he'll say stuff like that to provoke, right? With a straight look or with a smile? No, it's totally straight. I think Douglas was shocked. No?

No, no Daryl Hannah, no Sean Young. Charlie just does a cameo.

I was just upset they killed my character. Gordon Gekko's son was killed off. And he had a daughter. They replaced the son with a daughter. You were in it? No, so I was Gordon Gekko's son in the original. That's right, that's right, yeah. And the son is supposed to have killed himself in the original Wall Street.

Not a cameo like... They had flashbacks to the original. They had moments where you see him in the original.

It was really an escape for you at that point.

Well, in the 80s, I mean, the 80s, to me, I still go back to. If I just feel like, you know what? I just want something fun. I love the 80s as a decade, right? Because they started to mix genres in a way where it's comedy, it's adventure, right? It's sci-fi. They get back to the future, right? What genre is that? It's almost a perfect film. But like you said, it's not going to win Best Picture.

And yet it's one of the most classic. And a lot of the most classic films that we think and we want to watch every year, whether it's Wonderful Life. I don't think Wonderful Life won Best Picture. It didn't do well when it opened.

What was the horror film you loved? The Lost Boys, The Monsters Club. The Lost Boys. Right? The horror films that you loved. I mean, too many. I saw them all when I was young. Candyman. Candyman was fun. That's why I think when you ask about films, I always say to people, what's your favorite experience in your life? What's your favorite moment in your life? Go back in your life.

Because I think that's it. It's like a film is a moment and it's experience that you have. Maybe it's with the people you watch it with, right?

Sometimes it's the date you're on or just the experience of, oh, wow, that brought me to, I was in the dumps and I watched that movie or I remember being in high school and waiting for Friday night to go see American Pie because it was like going to take me out of this experience and take me somewhere else. So you can't really say this is better than that. They're just moments in our lives.

I told you he was watching football on the day I was born. 49ers.

Just to your question of different sport, I would say acting and directing would be like playing two sports, right? Because they're very different ways of being.