Alexander Payne Dialogue with Kenneth Turan, 2005

Kenneth Turan: We're at the Walker Art Center for a Regis Dialogue with filmmaker Alexander Payne. We're going to be discussing his artistic vision, his sense of humor, and his love of film. Alexander Payne's films are characterized by his ability to bring emotional reality to drop dead funny character comedies managed to be achingly true to life while dealing with seriously out of control situations. Even the setting of most of them paints quintessentially all-American hometown of Omaha, Nebraska emphasizes the notion that these people could well be anyone's friends and neighbors. Maybe even yours. Kenneth Turan: I'm Kenneth Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio. I'll be your host as we discuss Payne's work. Now, the Regis Dialogue with Alexander Payne is about to begin. Kenneth Turan: Well, I wanted to start at the beginning. I wanted to start with Omaha. You are famously born in Omaha. I had kind of a two-part question about that. I wonder, first of all, do you think people make too much of that? There's always every article that is written, it says, Omaha, films in Omaha. Do people make too much of it? On the flip side, what do you get from it? What do you think being born there, coming from there, has kind of done to the way you look at the world? Alexander Payne: It's so funny because you're commenting on the question and making too much of it at the same time. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. That's not easy to do. I've been practicing. Alexander Payne: You can't have it both ways. I think, I mean for my taste, I think people do. I mean, I get so sick of the question. There was the B side of why do you want to shoot there? Because I always say, you never ask Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, and Woody Allen that question about New York. It's just they happen to be from there. Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson happened to be from LA and you don't ask them those questions, why LA? Why would it occur to you to shoot in LA? Alexander Payne: But because I'm from Omaha and I like to point out that Fellini shot early on in Rimini and even returned later for Amarcord. I just think in many arts earlier in your career, you feel a necessity somehow to connect to that. I don't really know how to answer that question other than it occurred to me to do so. I was and remain tired of seeing American films really only set in LA, which I feel is an anomalous place within this country and yet it's shown to the world is being like typical over US. Kenneth Turan: Quintessential America. Alexander Payne: It's only because the film business is located there and they're lazy and they don't go shoot in other places. The thing is too is like, I think we're all ... It's kind of my tirade, but we're also anxious to see a version of ourselves mirrored in art and in cinema that I didn't grow up seeing myself a Midwesterner in film. I mean you grew up in Omaha and you just see all those people out in LA and I don't know ...

Jun 3, 2005 1 Kenneth Turan: I mean, I don't think even though it is trying to have it both ways. I mean, where we come from has an impact on who we are. I do what did coming from Omaha have to do with who you are today as a director? Alexander Payne: Well, the real answer that would I think be more how did where I come from have to do with me as a person. We could get into that, but we've got other stuff to cover. I'm glad I'm from there for a variety of reasons. I think it's a great place to grow up and good values and a good rhythm of life and a certain honesty and frankness and humor, with which I grew up. I think Omaha is of the Midwest in that way, but also specific in its own way. Alexander Payne: But the other thing too just in terms of me personally as a filmmaker is because I like to get reality in film, like somehow have a, you could even say a documentary approach to fiction filmmaking that I felt I needed to get it right first in Omaha, the place I knew the best before I could move on. I think if Sideways is successful at all in terms of getting a sense of Santa Barbara County, it's because I went armed with what I had learned and finally starting to get it right in About Schmidt with respect to Omaha. Kenneth Turan: Now, I read and again sometimes you read things, I know as someone who writes things or things that you write and you read are not always true, but that you had a camera when you were quite young, but your family had gotten a kind of an eight-millimeter cameras. Is this a true story? Alexander Payne: Sort of. My dad owned a restaurant in downtown Omaha, which his grandfather had started. From Kraft Cheese he had received a, not even Super 8 but Regular 8 movie projector. Kenneth Turan: Wow. Alexander Payne: Which in those days you get, I'm sure many of you remember, you used to buy like 3 and 12-minute versions of films in Regular 8 and Super 8 at the camera store, Castle Films and Blackhawk Films later. I took to that. And so, when I was about five or six started developing an interest in movies. My first thing was threading that projector and showing movies. Then later when I was about 14, I got a Super 8 camera. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. But despite that's something I was- Alexander Payne: Used. Kenneth Turan: Do you still have it? Alexander Payne: I do. Kenneth Turan: All right. I was interested that we so hear about filmmakers who's interested young and then they immediately go off to film school. I mean, I was interested in the fact that you did not. I've just wondered, did you think about being a filmmaker at that age? Did you dismiss it? You almost went to graduate school in journalism, undergraduate. You

Jun 3, 2005 2 went to Stanford and had a classic liberal arts education. I just wondered what was your thinking about being a filmmaker at that stage? Alexander Payne: It was a far off dream. It was dream like, oh, wouldn't that be great? But it was so distant. You grew up in the Midwest with ... I'm second generation immigrant. It's not the mentality to think that that's possible. I mean, I'm so jealous in meeting people in the coast. It's like, oh, my parents were in the arts who grew up in the business. Like it's a no brainer. Alexander Payne: For me it was so far away. And so, in a way I was headed toward it my whole life because I was such a film buff my whole life. On the other hand, it took me to go through college than actually get to fall quarter senior year to think, well, where the hell am I going to apply to grad school and resisting my parents' pressure to apply to law school. I ended up taking the LSAT but, you know. Alexander Payne: I was a double major in history and literature with an eye toward either journalism or film. I still had it in the back of my mind. I thought, I got to apply and unsure whether I had the talent or the interest, an interest that would extend to making films as opposed to just being a film buff. Then I got in and then the life to try this, maybe I'll suck at it, but I've got to try it. Kenneth Turan: And UCLA is a very particular kind of place. I know other UCLA graduates, film school graduates. Can you talk a little bit about the sensibility of the place? Alexander Payne: I think in today's film schools, well, this was the mid-'80s. For me when USC was like the hot shot white guy film school to go to. I got into USC as well and went down and spent two days at each place, went down from Stanford to LA. Really what tipped the scales was that USC is much more ... USC and AFI are much more industry feeder schools, very Hollywood oriented. Then you're paying through the nose for tuition and they retain rights to your negatives of the student films and you have to compete to make advanced films. Alexander Payne: Whereas at UCLA, it's a public school and it's one person, one film. You're expected to make a film and you can be anything you want. I think the best film schools in the US continue to be UCLA and NYU, because NYU is similar. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Also, I mean, the filmmakers who come out of there tend to be more adventurous. They tend to be less the kind of cookie-cutter filmmakers. Alexander Payne: Yeah. Kenneth Turan: I wonder what films you like then when you were in film school? Who were the directors you admire and who you admired also when you were younger? You started as an interest in film pretty young. Alexander Payne: In film school, in my 20s, it was Kurosawa. Kenneth Turan: Really?

Jun 3, 2005 3 Alexander Payne: Yeah. I have to say that the film that really tipped the scales toward my saying I have to go to film school is when I saw the Seven Samurai when it was rereleased in '82 and I saw it at the Castro Theater. I'd never seen it. I thought, I'll never make a film that good, but what nice footsteps to try to follow them. I mean, because it was so cool and made such ... It's still basically my favorite film. Alexander Payne: Then I spent most of my 20s reading everything I could about Kurosawa. I got deeply into Japanese cinema. As a kid growing up, it was a lot of basically silent comedy and Warner Brothers Pictures. You know, the gangster pictures and Universal horror and I was never too much into MGM movies, but it was mostly Warner Brothers and Universal and silent comedy, especially going back to the projector story, the only films you could get were basically silent film. Kenneth Turan: They were in the public domain. Yeah. Alexander Payne: Yes. In fact, David Shepard, whom I met later, was running Blackhawk Films. I used to use my allowance and send off to Blackhawk Film. Kenneth Turan: I like that. That's connection to the past. I know you've expressed ... I wonder if you'd talk a little about the films of the '70s. That's a kind of a crucial period in American filmmaking that a lot of directors today look back on with real kind of admiration. Alexander Payne: Well, it's had a real impact on me I think only because even though I was watching even in growing up and in my teens, fairly obsessed with older movies, still the new movies were '70s movies. Then I'm born in 1961 and graduated from high school in '79. And so, all the movies and my buddies and I were all great movie watchers. And so, somehow '70s, that golden, you never know it's a golden period when you're living in it. Kenneth Turan: When you're living in it, yeah. Alexander Payne: But that period formed my idea, I think, of what an adult, a commercial adult American film is and it's just never changed, really in a way your tastes lock in, in your late teens. You're tasting music and you're tasting film. Kenneth Turan: I mean, just something I was going to ask you later, but I want to follow up on it. Now, why don't we have more films like that now? What is going on? Alexander Payne: You're a critic, you tell me. You think about those things more. Kenneth Turan: I do think about those things, about the whole way business has changed. The whole industry has changed in terms of what they're doing. Alexander Payne: I mean, the common answers, what you could explain better than I or the homerun mentality with Jaws and Star Wars and all that. I don't know. On the other hand, a deeper answer is that any time in the arts or even in politics or in culture, things happen in bursts often in 10-year spurts that stem somehow from a historical necessity to have it.

Jun 3, 2005 4 Certainly, '70s filmmaking, you can in a way trace back to Italian neorealism and which came from a very specific historical necessity both for culture to express itself and redefine itself and a necessity for cinema, a hunger for cinema and then how that bled into a French new wave and auteur theory and how that then affected American filmmakers who are dealing with such heavy, can I say shit here? With such heavy shit in the '70s with the war and all and somehow that we needed a cinema which was very close to society, a mirror. Kenneth Turan: That's an interesting thought. Maybe when we need it again, it's like Zapata. Alexander Payne: Well, I'm hoping that now with all the heavy stuff going on, although somehow we haven't really realized how heavy everything is, like as a society we're not getting it. We're carrying it. It bounces off us somehow. But my hope is that now we need it again in a new way. I'm hoping my optimism, I mean, it's a horrible time in general for the world and certainly for this country, but I'm hoping that that will translate into a good time for the cinema. Kenneth Turan: I hope so. I hope so. Alexander Payne: The '70s that we have, oh, the wonderful time for cinema. Let's stop forgetting. Nixon was reelected by the biggest landslide ever, you know? Kenneth Turan: Yeah. 1990 was your student film passion of Martin. It was for a student film. I've read a huge success. What did that mean for you? I mean, you had been a student at UCLA. You've been working kind of on your own. This film was shown and what happens? Alexander Payne: Did you see that movie, The Big Picture, Christopher Guest's first film? Kenneth Turan: I believe so. Alexander Payne: It was like that. I mean, it's also a good thing of going to a film school. You don't need to go to film school anymore, but if one does to show your work within a context that can help you get more work is a benefit. And I lucked into it. I've made a 50 minute, which is showing tomorrow, a 50-minute thesis film loosely based on an Argentine novel, a very famous Argentine novel. It hit somehow, again in a way I never could have predicted. It was one of those dream scenarios for a film student in terms of within a month I had an agent and a studio deal. Kenneth Turan: But I interviewed Todd Solondz once and he said, people were literally agents ... He also had a hit student film. He said agents literally went down on their knees in front of him, begging that he signed with them. It was very disorienting and ultimately, it drove him out of the business. I mean, did you find it disorienting? Were there troubling aspects of it? Did it all seem like it great? Alexander Payne: The most disorienting experience I've had has been the success of Sideways. Kenneth Turan: Really?

Jun 3, 2005 5 Alexander Payne: Actually far more disorienting because at that level, so much has come at me in the last few months. It's a whole new level of having to deal with stuff coming at me. Kenneth Turan: You mean as a result of Sideways? Alexander Payne: Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Kenneth Turan: Wow. Alexander Payne: Much whole, whole level. The more challenging thing with ... The thing about that filmmakers have to know and that I've learned the hard way and continue to have to learn it is filmmaker is always concerned about the next film and not just the idea for it, the script and then can I come up with anything, but the opportunity to make it obviously and getting the financing. There's genuinely a skill about when you finish a film and it has some notoriety, there's a window. There's a window of opportunity where stuff comes at you and people are interested in you and then they move on to the next thing. Knowing how to capitalize on that window is something that I continue to witness in which I haven't known how to do until kind of more recently. Kenneth Turan: But I realize- Alexander Payne: Just to follow up on the film school thing, everything seemed assured that within a year, I would be directing my first feature. Yet it was five years. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Why did it take that long? Alexander Payne: Because I didn't know what to do. The other thing too, not to get in too much into the film school thing, but when you're in film school, they always say, "When you show your thesis film, make sure you have your feature script," right? Kenneth Turan: Yeah, yeah. Alexander Payne: But no one ever does. No one ever does because you're working so hard editing and mixing and then you're exhausted and then it's time to screen your film. Often you're basically running a wet print up to the screening room. Kenneth Turan: No. Alexander Payne: Actually, when I got out of film school that I told you I got a studio deal, I wrote a script, the first draft of what only 12 years later became About Schmidt. Kenneth Turan: Right.

Jun 3, 2005 6 Alexander Payne: About Schmidt was supposed to be my first feature, not my third. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Alexander Payne: Oh. Kenneth Turan: Some fans. Alexander Payne: Glad it wasn't made first, yeah. Kenneth Turan: But I mean you went to the Universal. What was your experience? This is your studio experience. Was it ... What? Alexander Payne: It's the velvet coffin. Kenneth Turan: Really? Alexander Payne: Studio deals are the velvet coffin. It feels good. I made enough money in one year to last me for five years because I never changed my ... No. I made $125,000 in one year, with which you keep about half, which was 60,000 which lasted me five years. Kenneth Turan: Wow. Alexander Payne: Because I never changed my living situation from that of a graduate student until basically after Election. Kenneth Turan: Wow. Alexander Payne: I never paid more than $800 a month rent until the year 2000. Kenneth Turan: Wow. Alexander Payne: Basically. Kenneth Turan: Save your money. Alexander Payne: Well, you didn't have it.

Jun 3, 2005 7 Kenneth Turan: You didn't have it. That's right. You didn't have it. Alexander Payne: After Citizen Ruth, I had to borrow money from my dad to pay my taxes. Kenneth Turan: Really? Alexander Payne: Oh yeah. Kenneth Turan: Wow. Alexander Payne: But how was the studio deal? It's great. But my advice always to younger filmmakers and film students is never take studio deals, if you want to direct. If you just want to write and it's fine, but if you're going to pitch an idea and be paid for it because then they own it. They can sit on it. They can make you go through really hideous casting hurdles. The moment someone else owns your creative work, it's not good. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. It's a devil's bargain. You get the money, but they- Alexander Payne: Sideways was something, and again, we can jump to this later, but Sideways was something which no studio had any part of until the very, very possible last moment. That's basically the reason why it was made in the way it was. We did with no movie stars like that. Kenneth Turan: It's better. It's better. One of the things I thought about and you can see in the passion of Martin is that you kind of see and you see it in all your films and I wanted you to talk about it a little bit, that you kind of felt, at least for me, you kind of see comedy where not everybody would be seeing comedy. I think there's a quote ... Again, I hope these quotes are accurate to where you said, “I like satire and comedy based in painful experience.” Alexander Payne: Yeah. Kenneth Turan: I mean, are you bored with talking about that or? Alexander Payne: No. I mean these quotes, it's fine. Kenneth Turan: You sort of said them and you didn't really say it? Alexander Payne: Yeah. It was years ago or you say because it's convenient or something. Kenneth Turan: See, now journalists in the audience notice that. But I mean I just like the fact because I've seen all your films at once

Jun 3, 2005 8 made me really see that these are kind of ... People are going through difficult times in these films, but we're laughing, you know? That seems to be kind of a dynamic- Alexander Payne: Wasn't that life? Isn't that life, if you have a sense of humor? Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Alexander Payne: I mean, Jim, at this point I have to include Jim Taylor because he's a central figure ... He's my writer. Kenneth Turan: I'm about to get. Alexander Payne: Okay. But the films, what you're talking about is very much an expression of how Jim and I are as friends together and then how we write together and it really dates back to just how we hang out and say that you see read this article or look at that guy over there and oh, I had this really painful experience yesterday and talking about the pathetic side of our own lives, but at least what we enjoy is senses of humor. The films are an extension in a way of how we occur together. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. I wanted to show, I think we have a clip right now. I wanted to show just a scene that I picked from About Schmidt that I really think it's a pretty sizable clip. It's about seven minutes, but it's a scene that I really ... It almost to me works like a short film. It's almost, you could pull this out and show this anywhere. It's just a short film in and of itself. Alexander Payne: Okay. Warren Schmidt: “Ahoy there.” Vicki Rusk: “Ahoy. Get yourself up here. I am Vicky Rusk.” Warren Schmidt: “Warren Schmidt.” Vicki Rusk: “John was so excited to meet you. Oh gosh, you shouldn't have.” Warren Schmidt: “Smells delish.” Vicki Rusk: “I hope you like the stew.” Warren Schmidt: “Oh yeah.”

Jun 3, 2005 9 John Rusk: “Hey. There he is.” Warren Schmidt: “How are you?” John Rusk: “Good, good. Can I take your jacket?” Warren Schmidt: “Sure, yeah.” John Rusk: “There we go.” Warren Schmidt: “Something burning?” John Rusk: “Oh. No, no, no. I've just burnt a couple of matches out there. Shall we adjourn to the living room while Vicky ... You're almost, aren't you?” Vicki Rusk: “Oh, just about. John, Warren brought us beer.” John Rusk: “Aw. Thank you, Warren. Here, have a seat. Right here, you take that.” Warren Schmidt: “Okay. So, what do you do back in Eau Claire?” John Rusk: “Well, my brother and I, we have a shoe store. Yeah. It's a famous footwear. And, well, people will always need shoes. Vicky here, she's an occupational therapist. So, that's her day job, you might say. How about yourself?” Warren Schmidt: “Oh, I was in the insurance game but I'm retired now.” Vicki Rusk: “Okay boys, dinner is served.” Warren Schmidt: “I've only know you for an hour or so, and yet, I feel like you understand me, better than my wife Helen ever did. Even after 42 years of marriage, 42 years. Maybe if I had met someone like you earlier ...” Vicki Rusk: “Oh you sad man. You sad, sad man. You sad man.” Warren Schmidt: “Yeah.” Vicki Rusk: “Yeah. Get off me. Are you insane? God, what is wrong with you? I don't know what kind of ideas you've got, mister, but you better go right now.”

Jun 3, 2005 10 Warren Schmidt: “I'm sorry.” Vicki Rusk: “No, no. Go.” Warren Schmidt: “I didn't know. I'm sorry.” Vicki Rusk: “I don't care about sorry, go.” Warren Schmidt: “I didn't mean to-“ Vicki Rusk: “Go.” Warren Schmidt: “Can I have my jacket?” Vicki Rusk: “Christ. Go.” Kenneth Turan: Yeah. I think that's a great scene from any number of viewpoints, but I wanted to talk about the writing partly because I remember when I saw it the first time and I knew this was going to Cannes, I mean, the writing is so specific it's like this little kind of thing makes it funny. You could read it a totally different way and it wouldn't be funny. It's not always completely funny, but clearly you and Jim Taylor spent an enormous amount of time, I think, making sure that the writing, the dialogue is exactly the way you want it. Is that true? I mean, what's that- Alexander Payne: Yeah, not just in this scene. Kenneth Turan: I know in all scenes, I just had to pick one. It's not like this is the only one. They're all that way. Alexander Payne: Yeah. We spent a lot of time writing and then when I direct that, pretty much like our dialogue recite it exactly as written. Kenneth Turan: No one's kind of riffing on what you wrote? Alexander Payne: No, no. Kenneth Turan: Well, they shouldn't. Alexander Payne: I'm troubled by that. I don't entirely buy it when he put his head on her shoulder this time. I used to sort of, but I didn't think it was quite motivated this time. I didn't quite buy it. I haven't seen it in a long time. But anyway, we can ...

Jun 3, 2005 11 Kenneth Turan: I think one of the things that makes these films so interesting is that you can talk about them that way. They are people. They are real. You can decide what if he acted that way, what if he did not act it that way. You can't do that with a lot of character. Alexander Payne: Yeah, something could have been better in that scene. Something's not exactly right in it. Kenneth Turan: Is it the characteristic of you? Do you often look at your stuff and feel this way? Alexander Payne: Oh yeah. Well, but then you make me watch that and ... Kenneth Turan: It's part of the deal. It's part of the deal. Alexander Payne: Okay. Kenneth Turan: Now, tell me how you and Jim ... You and Jim Taylor did not meet in an ordinary way or maybe you did meet in an ordinary way, but not to meet a writing partner in an ordinary way. Alexander Payne: For us, the old days is the mid-'80s. I was at UCLA Film School and he was working at what was then Cannon Films. Kenneth Turan: Wow. I remember Cannon. Alexander Payne: Yeah. He had gone to Pomona and went to LA to work in the film business. Later, he went to film school in the '90s, but we met through ... It turns out we had mutual friends and we met socially a couple of times. Then around '89, I needed a roommate and I put out words through my friends that I needed a roommate and he showed up. He needed a place to live. And so, our collaboration came from the friendship, which came from, excuse me, our living together. Kenneth Turan: How do you specifically ... Every writing team has a different system. I wonder how you two guys very specifically because I think it fascinates people how writing themes. You'd see this, you don't think two people wrote that scene. You think, well, one does one intelligence there and clearly both of you collaborate on him. I wonder how just on a technical sense, how that worked together. Alexander Payne: Yeah. It's hard because he lives in New York and I live in Los Angeles, so we have to schedule our time together. But we always are together in a room at the same time. Sometimes writing teams divide and conquer. Maybe they outline the whole script. Will you take from page 1 to 60 and you take 60 to the end and then we'll bring them together or rewrite each other. We don't do that. We're always together in the same room at the same time. Alexander Payne: Usually sit around and talk about what might happen next and how it might happen because we don't outline or

Jun 3, 2005 12 anything. Then one or the other of us typically we'll say, "All right, let me have a crack at it," and go up and pound out two to five pages and say, "Okay, we're ready." Then together we rewrite. Kenneth Turan: You rewrite it. Alexander Payne: Then we have a system which is one monitor with two keyboards. Kenneth Turan: Really? Alexander Payne: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Kenneth Turan: Wow. Alexander Payne: So you don't have to pass the key because we rewrite together both there. Sometimes we do it like battleship. That's what we used to have two monitors opposing so it'd be opposite ends of the table and both have you working on. But now, it's one monitor and we were a little more comfortable with each other. So we sit next to each other. Kenneth Turan: What are the virtues? I mean, it's just a system that works for you. I mean, writing is not easy under any circumstances. Is it easier with another person? Alexander Payne: I think especially and I'd be interested in what you have to say about this, but I've merely observed that there's something about screenwriting which lends itself to collaboration. Kenneth Turan: It seems to, I mean ... Alexander Payne: The only other narrative form I can think of is musicals, Broadway musicals, but really only you never see plays that are co-written or certainly novels that are co-written good ones, or poems or anything. But somehow screenwriting and with no detriment to the voice, to a singular voice, like all the great Italian directors and Kurosawa [crosstalk 00:29:03] be between ... Kenneth Turan: ... a lot of screenwriters. Alexander Payne: ... two and six writers or something. One that makes what's the solitude of the process, it makes it less hideous because it's always hideous. Alexnader Payne: Then it's more fun because we like to hang out together. Then about, since we make comedies, it's well what makes both of us laugh. Also, when you're writing and you think of 20 terrible ideas before you come up with that good one and sometimes you don't even know what that good one is, so the other helps you identify and then you get into like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah and I'll see you and race you. Oh, that's a good idea. Then what if this. Or sometimes I can't

Jun 3, 2005 13 think of it the exact content of what the joke should be, but I know the form of it and I'll say, "Okay, here's the bad version of it." Then he'll supply the good version back and forth. Somehow it works out. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. No. It seems so. You say you sense a single sensibility. You don't feel that it doesn't ... It feels like kind of a melded mind and really the best way. I wanted to talk a little bit about Citizen Ruth. I mean, was there something about the project that took it a long time to get made? Or is it that the [crosstalk 00:30:14]- Alexander Payne: Who's going to finance an abortion comedy? Kenneth Turan: Yeah. I guess not very many people. Alexander Payne: No. It barely got made it. My career started with such hideous, hideous lead, fine fibers, sinuous. I mean, my whole destiny hung on. Finally, Harvey Weinstein financed it after he'd said no like four times. Kenneth Turan: Wow. Alexander Payne: Only because of the producer Cary Woods who had other films going on with his ... Say please Harvey, please, please. It's only two and a half million dollars and then, oh, all right. My whole destiny hang on in, oh, all right screamed over your shoulder in the back of a Lincoln town car in Midtown Manhattan. I mean, really. Kenneth Turan: That's the movie business. Alexander Payne: They had to win who knows how many more years to write something else. And I mean, anyway. Kenneth Turan: Why did you decide that this was a subject that you guys, that was right for that, a funny movie or write for any kind of movie. Alexander Payne: I've always had the feeling that I don't really choose ideas, but that somehow they choose me. Jim and I had found the inspiration for Citizen Ruth in an article in the New York times in early '92. It's a case of a ... Many cases like that which we later found, but the initial when we found was an American Indian woman over in Fargo, who was recidivist inhalant abuser and had eight kids and, an Indian gal. Then the lambs of Christ got into a tug of war over her and her fetus with, with the gals at the local clinic. And so, and money was offered and we just thought, oh, that's a comedy. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. And it was. It was a comedy. Alexander Payne: Yeah. Kenneth Turan: It is a comedy.

Jun 3, 2005 14 Alexander Payne: No. It's being made into a musical right now. It is. Kenneth Turan: Is that right? Really? Alexander Payne: We saw a read through about two months ago in New York and we were expecting a train wreck. They did a lot of good things. It was a little uneven. Their work, it might be good. But they did one thing which brought it up to date nicely with which is at the end of act one, they have the pro-lifers saying about the pro-choicers. They're crazy singing. They're crazy. They're insane. What's going on with our country. This is terrible. They're crazy. Alexander Payne: And then, it cuts to the pro-choice people singing the same song about the pro-life people. They're crazy. They're insane. What's wrong with them? What's wrong with our country? And then, both decides together come out and the whole company comes out on stage with Ruth in the middle singing, "They're crazy. They're insane." I thought that's good because that's what's going on. Kenneth Turan: That's what's going on now? Alexander Payne: Yeah. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. There's a small clip. The last clip is the biggest clip we'll see all night. Alexander Payne: You mean the longest? Kenneth Turan: The longest. Alexander Payne: Wow. Kenneth Turan: The rest of them are shorter. There's a brief clip from Citizen Ruth I wanted to show. If enough time has passed, if we can show it. Great. Ruth Stoops: “So when can I get that abortion anyway?” Rachel: “Thursday would be the soonest. We'll make all the arrangements.” Ruth Stoops: “Well, does it cost a lot of money, because I don't got any money.” Diane Siegler: “Don't worry, Ruth. I'm sure we can find a way to take care of it. How would that be?”

Jun 3, 2005 15 Ruth Stoops: “Whatever.” Diane Siegler: “Oh, my God. Come here. You got to see this. Ruth, you don't want to miss this.” Rachel: “Oh. Look at that moon.” Diane Siegler: “She's right down here with us as if to say everything will be all right. (singing) Everything's going to be fine. Just fine. You're safe here with us.” Ruth Stoops: “Yeah. And those lights over there sure are pretty.” Diane Siegler: “Oh, shit. A vigil. Come on. Let's go.” Norm Stoney: “Ah, they're going inside.” Gail Stoney: “Now what?” Norm Stoney: “Well, give me a second. I can't see through walls. Got 'em. They're in a room on the second floor.” Female: “Must be some sort of indoctrination room.” Norm Stoney: “Damn it!” Alexander Payne: That's funny. Kenneth Turan: I remember quite clearly again, the first time I saw Citizen Ruth, I didn't know anything about it. It was a film and I'm enjoying it and I'm thinking that it's basically one of the pushes of it is to make fun of anti-abortion people and then you get to that scene and you realize that no, you're making fun of everybody that's worth making fun of. That's why I really love that scene because it really, in the context of the film, it's very surprising. And I like it. I mean, this idea that everyone is a target, I think I'd like to hear you talk about that a little bit. Alexander Payne: Everyone's a target. Kenneth Turan: Better than that. Alexander Payne: Even those who represented points of view with which I might agree. I like the moment where they're so proud that

Jun 3, 2005 16 they're going to pay for her abortion and they want the gratitude, it's whatever. How good deeds just sort of really secretly want gratitude. Kenneth Turan: I know. I know. Alexander Payne: The line, I like the line, "Those lights over there sure are pretty good." Kenneth Turan: Yeah. But no, it's funny. I just like the fact that everything that's worth ... That you don't allow your personal, whatever personal beliefs you have to stand in the way of something that- Alexander Payne: But that is a personal belief that everyone's a target. And then also in this ... A lot of critics wanted a specific political point of view expressed in the film and accused Jim and me, as writers and me as a director of being cowardly or copping out. Kenneth Turan: Is that right? Really? Alexander Payne: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. A lot. A lot. I don't know still what's wrong with the point of view of this is Terri Schiavo and Elián González where it's two dogs fighting over a bone. Yes, you can have and the point of view about it as I have in all of those cases, but people get more motivated by their own personal agendas often then by what the thing is actually about. Not always, but often. Kenneth Turan: It happens. Yeah. Seeing it the second time, I loved even more Laura Dern's performance. I mean, the way she throws herself into that and I mean, how do you- Alexander Payne: Well, and I like and also with respect to that, I liked the question of we talk about freedom of choice, but what does choice mean to an animal? Essentially she plays an animal in that, like literally unequipped to choose. And so, what does that mean? Not that we answered or anything, but for me that question is interesting. Kenneth Turan: That's an interesting question. I mean, was she hard to cast? Did she get it immediately? Alexander Payne: She lobbied hard for that part. Kenneth Turan: Really? Alexander Payne: Oh yeah. Also, there are a lot of great, well, interesting juicy parts written for women. One of the reasons that made this somewhat easy to cast with a lot of name people was that basically the whole cast is basically women and not a lot of parts come along. It's the whole thing of Hollywood, not good parts for women. Not since the '40s or something. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. But I like the way ... I mean, your characters, they embrace extremity. They just really are what they are to what they go all the way. I mean your smile. I mean, it's something you like to see happen onscreen.

Jun 3, 2005 17 Alexander Payne: I like extreme things. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. You want to say a little more about that? You don't have to. Alexander Payne: I just like seeing somewhat ... I mean, yes, we're portraying middle America and normal people, but for me, I like emotions fairly vividly. Like my favorite thing is really to see my films dubbed into Italian because the dubbers get really emotional and I kind of like that. I like that the film is vivid in some way. I think like that Election and Sideways were both adaptations, fairly faithful adaptations of books. Alexander Payne: There's a lovely thing for me in adapting a book I like is in a book, there's the moderating voice of the narrator, which keeps things within a certain band frequency. Then when you can bring them out and have closeups and have an actor go there and you have montage and music, it's like taffy. You just pull it out. Kenneth Turan: Pull it out as far as you can. Alexander Payne: You have things stand in relief, which I like. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. I mean, it seems like you like a character's extreme ... not extreme that so much. But one of the things I've written down that a lot of your characters are not easy to like, your protagonists. You don't start off when this film starts. Citizen Ruth is not the person you say, "Well, I'm going to love this person." But by the end of the film, we've kind of get on their side to a certain extent. I'm kind of fascinated by that dynamic. Alexander Payne: Well, you don't have to like them as people, but you have to like them as movie characters. I hope have compassion for them as people or as movie characters. I mean, when I hear that, I mean, I'm repeating myself, but I think, well, what do you feel about ... I mean, no one in my films kills anybody. How do you feel about Alex in A Clockwork Orange or Michael Corleone? I mean, I don't really approve of what they do, but well, the why do you like the movie and you love them as characters. Kenneth Turan: Exactly. Alexander Payne: You know? Kenneth Turan: Yeah. You do. You do. I mean, but I think you're always surprised. I think maybe it's more here than in the Godfather films because these are so realistic. We're not in the Godfather world, but this could be our world in some sense. Alexander Payne: Okay. Kenneth Turan: Who knows? Who knows? Yeah. I wanted to ask you what it was like ... I mean, you had Tippi Hedren and Burt

Jun 3, 2005 18 Reynolds in this film, and I wondered was that fun for you? Was that a good idea? I mean, I think they're great in the film. Was it- Alexander Payne: They're okay. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Was that a painful experience? Alexander Payne: No. I was honored to have them. I'm sorry, what are you asking? I'm being recorded. Kenneth Turan: Well just what was the impetus to use people like that? People who have a real history? Alexander Payne: Well, it's kind of fun. It's also is kind of stunt casting, which can ... I mean, I don't do that so much anymore. It was my first film was finding my way and trying to get finance and added a little bit of star power helped the money keep flowing and all that. It's cool to where you're first time feature director and working with people with such histories. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Okay. Say no more. Alexander Payne: That stunt casting isn't always the best thing for the film as a film. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Yeah. Alexander Payne: I mean if you see where I started with the Citizen Ruth and where I've wound up in, in Sideways so far in my short career, I'm now really only about who's exactly right for the part, not about the context. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. That's good. I want us to talk a little about Election and you've kind of preempted one of my questions about I wonder if there are any other reasons you like using novels. Three, I think, is it correct three of your films have come from novels? Alexander Payne: Yes, but About Schmidt is a little bit sui generis in terms of ... Yeah, it's basically an original. Kenneth Turan: I mean, besides what you said about pulling everything out, what else is appealing about working from novel? Alexander Payne: To get a movie idea. I mean, you're just always desperate for a movie idea. Like, I don't really know what my next feature is right now. I have an idea, but it's going to take some work. I would love for something to drop into my lap and I go, "Oh, this is perfect." Alexander Payne: Then the nice thing about a novel is there's basically a melior. There's an idea, a premise. Then even if Jim and I change a whole bunch of it, at least as a reaction to something and don't forget, 11 of 13 I think of Kubrick's features

Jun 3, 2005 19 were adaptations of novels. It's nice to have something to have a discourse with as I say, even if you change a lot of it. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Are there any pitfalls with novels, things that you want to make sure you don't do when you're working with a novel? Alexander Payne: For example. Kenneth Turan: Being too faithful to it? Alexander Payne: Well, if it deserves to be faithful. The thing is, the better the novel is, the more unfaithful you have to be in a way because a good novel succeeds on terms exclusive to literature. You're turning it into a film, which has to succeed in terms exclusive to films. Kenneth Turan: Very different terms. Alexander Payne: So really, often the way Jim and I work is we read a novel two, three, four times, however much we read it, and then never look at it again and write an original based on our memory of the novel. In Sideways because it was very much lived by that writer, Rex Pickett, and his sense of dialogue was so unique, we'd refer to, "What did Rex do? What did he say that was so good here?" And we'd look and use that. But basically it's about, it's just what I said, it's writing an original based on our memory of the novel and we would never get involved with the novel that's so popular that the readers are expecting and then you'd come up with some, I think piece of crap I never saw it, but like the first Harry Potter film, which although wildly popular as a film, I'm sorry, although wildly popular comma as a film, is like a filmed book on tape because of the exigencies of the writer who's hesitant his or her contract to be involved and the expectations of the fans and the nervousness of the studio, I couldn't work like that. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. You're right. Good filmmaking does not come out of a situation like that. I mean, sometimes money-making filmmaking comes out of it, but not good filmmaking. With Election, I mean, one of the things that I think you like to do is you use nonprofessional professional actors. You kind of mix them. Alexander Payne: And sometimes non-actors. Kenneth Turan: Yeah, non-actors completely. Alexander Payne: Like the Dairy Queen girl in About Schmidt. She works at that Dairy Queen. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. How come you enjoy doing that? What's- Alexander Payne: Because it's fun.

Jun 3, 2005 20 Kenneth Turan: Are you worried it might backfire or? Alexander Payne: It doesn't. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Why does it work? Alexander Payne: Every once in a while, but it's worth the risk and by the time we get them ... Well, I just think if you have a day player, someone who's just there for one line or two, it's a doctor, a Dairy Queen gal or somebody, why bring in an actor to learn what it's like to make a blizzard? How do you do this? Hire someone who works there. She'll be fine. You can do it when you hire people who are playing some version of themselves, have real cops, play cops, real doctors, play doctors. You don't need any technical advisors. They're right there. Also, I think in my films, it's nice to have huge movie stars with non-actors because I think it makes the non-actors look as though they're acting better than they really are. It makes the stars seem realer than they're capable of being. Kenneth Turan: Do the stars enjoy it? Do the stars feel it's okay or you ever ask them, or you just? Alexander Payne: I don't ask them. Kenneth Turan: Do they ever complain? Alexander Payne: No. Kenneth Turan: Good. Alexander Payne: The only one where all of us complained was the guy who's screwing Laura Dern at the beginning of Citizen Ruth and later yells at her. He really is that guy. Kenneth Turan: Wow. Alexander Payne: I mean, not that he really was screwing Laura Dern, but I don't know if anyone's seen the movie, but he didn't have his teeth at the time, and we found him in a bar and he has this intimate scene. Fearing some trouble and Laura Dern was like, "Who's this guy that you got?" I came up to each of them. I shouldn't say this. All right. I came up to each of them before we shot and enlisted. I came into the guy and said, "Look, Laura is really nervous. You're really going to have to help me out and make it really easy." I went up to Laura Dern and said, "Look, Lance is really nervous. You're really going to have to help me out." It worked. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. No, no. It's a great scene. You've discovered Chris Klein. Alexander Payne: I did.

Jun 3, 2005 21 Kenneth Turan: For Election, who has had a career, who's a wonderful actor. Can you talk a little about how that ... Did you know immediately that he was going to be good? Alexander Payne: You know, on some level, not that he would be good, but I knew I was interested in him. I toured all high schools in Omaha looking for the right high school in which to shoot. I was touring, what is it, Millard West High School and the proud principal was showing me around and Chris Klein walked out of a weight room as we were walking through that wing and he said, "Oh look, there's Chris Klein. Chris just play ... Marvelous in West Side." They just did West Side Story. He played Tony in West Side Story. I just met this guy and thought, wow, this is good looking kid and something about him. Alexander Payne: I was living with those characters. Then I went back to LA and read about 30 or 40 guys, didn't like any of them. I didn't believe that they were in high school. Then I went back to Omaha and called ... I couldn't remember the guy's name and called up the school office and said, "I'm the guy who's making that film and I met a guy that Dr. Kalowsky introduced me to him." Then she called. I couldn't give up his number for us. Called the Klein household and then Chris Klein called me and I said, "I really am a movie guy. Would you come into the Omaha Film Commission office and audition?" And he did. Anyway. Kenneth Turan: Now, he's wonderful. I mean, he's this. Alexander Payne: The lesbian gal, his sister, I cast off a tape. Kenneth Turan: Really? Alexander Payne: From St. Louis. Kenneth Turan: Wow. Alexander Payne: Hadn't met her before the first day of shooting. Kenneth Turan: Wow. No, but they all- Alexander Payne: Jessica Campbell. Kenneth Turan: They fit it perfectly, funny. I had read and this is something I didn't know that the originally, Election had a different ending and that had been changed. Alexander Payne: Right. Kenneth Turan: Can you talk about that process?

Jun 3, 2005 22 Alexander Payne: Yeah. We wrote the ending of the film that was in the book. Then as we were testing the film, previewing it and testing it, it just wasn't playing well. Then even I was unhappy with it. Basically I couldn't go into details, but basically the problem is the book is very melancholy and somewhat funny and then allows for this melancholy ending. The movie came out very funny, we think, very funny with a little melancholy and then delivering us to a melancholy ending and it felt totally inconsistent. A lot of what the humor had actually come from the editing because Election is a highly montage heavy film and what Kevin Tent and I did. And so, Jim and I set to work on with the blessing of the studio. Jim and I went to work on writing something which we might have written had it been an original and came up with that ending in the studio, spent an extra, I don't know, 6 or 700 grand to let us do it. And that's it. Kenneth Turan: So the whole scene in Washington, that was all your guys? Alexander Payne: Yeah. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. That's not from the book. No. It works great. I mean, it's interesting because you'd never know that it wasn't that planned that way from the beginning. That was funny. One of the things speaking of the studio, I mean I think every critic in America was frustrated about Election because the studio didn't seem to know what to do with it. They didn't seem to know how to sell it. This was a very, was and remains an extremely funny film and you could just feel that the studio was kind of looking at it and saying what do I do? I mean, how frustrating is this? I'm assuming it's very frustrating for you, but what do you know? Can you talk about that a little bit? Alexander Payne: They never got high school movie and MTV Films out of their brain as far as what it was when, in fact, I never saw that as a high school movie. I couldn't have been less interested in making a high school movie. I didn't even read the book for about five months because I thought, "Oh, it's set in a high school. I don't care about that." MTV Films, which I had nothing ... I don't ... MTV? Just happened to be the producing entity. Alexander Payne: Then at the time, it's different now, but at the time also that was Paramount Studio, who was in those years a very, it's like GM, did their commercial. It's like put the star's face on the poster. Just like how GM, the new sedan, just show it in the desert going like that and call it a day. It needed marketing more like what Fox Searchlight just did with Sideways, which is a little bit more, you're marketing the mini. You're not marketing a Chrysler, and so, a little bit more care and find the niche audiences that you want to find and maybe allow the director to have some input on the marketing, maybe. Kenneth Turan: Well, it's interesting that they think they know so much and they don't. Alexander Payne: The two times where they pushed me out of the marketing meetings are the two films which have performed the worst. I'm not saying post hoc ergo propter hoc, but I tell marketing departments, "You know, I'm paid a lot of money for my ideas. I'm an idea guy. That's all I do. I'm giving you my ideas for free. Take them or leave them." It's really to their benefit to at least ... Fox Searchlight was so good. They actually started driving me crazy in terms of consulting with me. They always were consulting with me too much. It's like, leave me alone. You guys figure it out. Fox Searchlight did Sideways.

Jun 3, 2005 23 Kenneth Turan: They know what they're doing there. I guess you just have to shrug. I mean, finally you can't be driven crazy or can you be driven crazy about what happened to Election? I mean, does it take you a while to get it out of your system? Alexander Payne: Because I'm not going to fall into that thing of like, my film is so good and just the marketing screwed it up. I mean, I'll think, oh, the film must've been bad. No, I think it's too arrogant to say it's their fault. No. But it was. Kenneth Turan: It was, yeah. I mean, it was their fault. Alexander Payne: But it's also where I was in my career at the time. There are a lot of things, you know? It's fine. I'm just happy I get it made. I'm just happy I get to be a filmmaker and get them made. Kenneth Turan: Which is an accomplishment. Alexander Payne: I'm happy we live in a century when the cinema even exists. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. It's true. I've read that in various of your films that studios try and foist people on you. They try and make you talk to people like Tom Hanks or people like this for some- Alexander Payne: Not anymore. Kenneth Turan: Did it happen on this one or did it not? Alexander Payne: No. Election, it happened a lot because again, going back earlier, if there are any film students or potential directors in the audience, don't make studio deals because then they make you go meet or offer it first to all the big actors whom you don't want and who are never in a million years going to do it. Oh, but you never know. You've got to find out. Alexander Payne: It's like all they care about is the most famous possible people at any given time, regardless of the correctness for the ... It's a big time suck. Months go by. I mean, cumulatively that stuff, it takes two, three, four films off your life. Kenneth Turan: Yeah, because they take forever to decide. Alexander Payne: Yeah. Totally. Kenneth Turan: Are there any people you remember specifically that you had to meet for Election? Alexander Payne: No, because they weren't interested.

Jun 3, 2005 24 Kenneth Turan: They weren't interested. Alexander Payne: Yeah. I could probably think. No. Kenneth Turan: No. That's all right. Alexander Payne: No, but it's like Tom Cruise, Matthew McConaughey. Tom Hanks would have been okay. He's good. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. I've got the- Alexander Payne: Good for that part. Kenneth Turan: I've now got two clips I want to show back to back though. There'll be like a 30 or 40 second. They have to change reels. They have to do stuff that, thank God I don't have to do, but it has to do with the use of music in your films. Alexander Payne: Oh good. Kenneth Turan: There's one clip from ... I forget which one is first. Well, one is from About Schmidt and one is from Election. I don't know which one is up first. Alexander Payne: Okay. Kenneth Turan: I think we can start them now. Warren Schmidt: “Say, Randall? How that investment situation work out for you? You never called me.” Jim McAllister: “Pop quiz, everybody. Come on. No whining. If you've done your reading, this is an easy one. I'd have exactly 48 minutes to make all the arrangements. If you finish early, just sit quietly and check your work. I'll be right back. Okay, everybody, pass them forward.” Kenneth Turan: You can see the films back to back to prepare for this. I really got more of ... I always loved Rolfe Kent's work, but I got more of an awareness of how much you use him. Alexander Payne: That wasn't Rolfe. Kenneth Turan: Was that another guy? Because I know there are two people there.

Jun 3, 2005 25 Alexander Payne: That's a knock off because we couldn't ... That's a knock off of Stan Kenton's Peanut Vendor, which we didn't have the budget for it. Basically, there's a guy Joey Altruda in LA who put together a band. He basically take the score and hold it up to the mirror and transpose that and then record that. That's basically Stan Kenton's Peanut Vendor. Kenneth Turan: But talk about music, the importance of music in what you do. Alexander Payne: It's huge. There's no film ... We were just at the Cannes Film Festival and I can't tell you how many movies and because I was on certain regard, one of the selections. I was on the jury. I can't tell you how many of those movies didn't have music in them basically. I thought it doesn't make you feel good to watch a movie without music. Even in the silent period, I mean, they go together. Kenneth Turan: You have to have it. Alexander Payne: They have a magical relationship. Cinema, image and music do. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. But it seems like again, the critics always focus on the dialogue, on the writing, but I started to think that we should pay more attention to the music in your films. Alexander Payne: Well, I mean as written and dialogue heavy as my films are, there's a degree to which a part of me is making silent films. I'm really just interested in images and telling a story without the use of words. I hope that you could judge my films even with the dialogue in the way they used to judge Warner Brothers cartoons, which is can you turn the sound down and still utterly follow the story. Kenneth Turan: Follow the story, yeah. Alexander Payne: I still try to do that with my films that you can basically ... Not in a way that like if you don't buy the headphones on the airplane, you can tell only because you've seen that movie 100 million times before in your life, but in a good way that you can still tell what's going on. Kenneth Turan: On Rolfe Kent, Rolfe Kent is almost every one of your films, I think. Alexander Payne: Yes, all my features. Kenneth Turan: Yeah, all your features. What- Alexander Payne: I like melody, and I don't find too many current composers have a gift for melody. I'm a big fan of Italian composers from the '50s and '60s, Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone and Piero Umiliani and the French ones, Georges Delerue and Francis Lai. My favorite opera is Carmen. I like things where I can hum melodies later. I don't like just atmospheric tones and sounds and rhythms. I like melody.

Jun 3, 2005 26 Alexander Payne: Rolfe, I found early on has a gift for melody and I always encourage him in that way. He also has a wit about his music, which I also appreciated in the Italians. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Yeah. I assume that was him in the About Schmidt clip. Alexander Payne: Oh yeah. Sideways is a fairly showy jazz score and it's upfront, but I think in its own way, I recommend the About Schmidt score as a CD. It's surprisingly good, I think. Kenneth Turan: You have to give him a lot of them. Like that scene, you'd say anything to him or you just show him the scene and say, "Just do something" or? Alexander Payne: Show him the movie. I have some ideas. We had early on notice when we cut to Kathy Bates and she's eating the pork chop and sucking her fingers, suddenly we hear the erhu, which is the Chinese upright violin like that. We had conceived of Denver as China, somehow. It's just what you get into however arcane it is, and that she is the dowager queen. So in the film basically whenever you see her, you hear erhu. Kenneth Turan: Is that right? Alexander Payne: Yeah. Kenneth Turan: This is an obvious thing, but I mean, directors when they can like to use as much of the same team as possible on their films. Alexander Payne: Some do. I don't think ... Some like to ... You know. Kenneth Turan: Some people, but I know Clint Eastwood. I know Clint Eastwood does the same people. What are the virtues of working? I mean, I think it's kind of obvious, but I'm curious if you can just- Alexander Payne: Shorthand. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Alexander Payne: And being able to refer. Like I can talk to Jane Stewart, my production designer, whom I go back with not just as Citizen Ruth, but even to films we made for the Playboy. I go back the farthest with Jim Taylor, Jane Stewart and Rolfe, because we did a series for the Playboy Channel in 1991 together, and Rolfe and Jane were the staff, composer and production designer respectively. I met them there. I just was knocked out by them and have worked with them for going on 15 years. Kenneth Turan: Wow.

Jun 3, 2005 27 Alexander Payne: But it's so nice to be able to say to Jane, "Oh yeah, remember that thing with ... We don't have to break each other in to anything with sensibility. The whole great thing about ... Actually you're asking about collaboration, which has become for me the most enjoyable and best part of filmmaking is collaborating with my department heads. It's all due to the quality of questions that you ask each other. I'm not like Zeus and the film is Athena that springs fully formed from my brain. It isn't like that at all. It's you elicit the film from one another, you and your creative department heads and it's again about the quality of questions you ask each other. Kenneth Turan: I wanted to talk a little bit about About Schmidt just because, I mean you mentioned I think it was called The Coward, the original script. Can you talk about how the book and The Coward come together to become the film? Alexander Payne: When I was in film school, I was imagining that my first feature film would take place in Omaha and would be about this, who's actually a Greek, about this Greek guy from Omaha who retires from a reinsurance company and realizes how much he's ... I was somewhat influenced by Ikiru, Kurosawa's Ikiru and Wild Strawberries and even The Graduate in terms of someone who reaches out a mile ... What do you say? Mile post? Kenneth Turan: Milestone. Alexander Payne: Milestone event like graduation or retirement. And rather than feeling accomplishment, feels nothing but alienation and loneliness. I always liked that about The Graduate. And so, and then putting that in Omaha. Basically, the first half of About Schmidt is what I wrote alone about 10 years ago. Then the second half of it I hadn't really figured out. Then when we were commissioned to adapt About Schmidt, we started to do it and we found ourselves ... It's a very good book, but what was connecting me to the theme of retirement was really what I had already written and Jim agreed. We solved narrative problems together, which I had not alone solved 10 years previously using some narrative threads from the book. To wit, that he has a daughter who's about to be married, who has an overbearing future stepmother, that she's going to marry a boob, that the wife dies, that he's widow during the course of the film. Even though, just those elements are enough to make a movie out of. Kenneth Turan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's great that they come together that way. I want to ask you we've seen him a lot on this, not only here tonight, but on the screen. Working with an actor like Jack Nicholson, I mean you have both an extremely gifted actor and an actor with a large reputation. You know what I mean? Is it at all daunting to work with someone like that or can you not even allow yourself to think that way? You just have to think of him as just another person? Alexander Payne: I mean, by the time we were shooting, I'd already known him for 10 months. Kenneth Turan: Wow. Alexander Payne: I think, and it was daunting the very first time I went to go meet him. Kenneth Turan: Just another, he's finally an actor.

Jun 3, 2005 28 Alexander Payne: Yeah. As Jane, my production designer would say, she'd go, "Just remember, he might be filet, but he's still a piece of meat." He made it easy for me, man. I mean he is aware, as aware, more aware than you are that he's Jack Nicholson and he makes efforts to disarm you and be cool and professional. He was great. I mean, my experience is the better they are, the easier they are because they can do it. The hardest things is when you have someone who freezes or can't remember his dialogue and tear your hair out. Kenneth Turan: Did anything surprise you about working with him that you hadn't expected? Alexander Payne: Well, extending from what I just said, how easy it was. I remember the first week, I was a little daunted. I mean, we were always very respectful of him. I was always obviously very respectful and just even adding up and I mean, but he's an older gentleman working with me on my film and he's great at it. But we didn't have a huge budget with which to make the film. I mean, his salary was about half of the budget. The rest was basically the same realm as Sideways, about the same budget affair. Alexander Payne: And so, which means I can't really allow too much experimenting on the set. I have to make all my days and I have to kind of pre-imagine and impose the blocking, to a certain degree. I mean, I'm pretty loose with that. But I remember the first couple of days telling Jack Nicholson, "Okay, Mr. Nicholson, you're going to come in and walk to here and then I'm going to cut. Then we'll make it close up and then we'll reset the camera over here and you walk over here," and laying out the scene. I said, "Is that okay?" And he said, "Look, anything you come up with, I can find a way to justify it to myself. So what do you need?" The exact opposite of what you hear about in the movies like, "My character would never do that, and what's my motivation?" None of that at all ever. It was almost like, anything you come up with, I can- Kenneth Turan: I can handle it. Alexander Payne: Yeah. I'll find a way to make it work. He's a total pro. Don't forget, he comes from- Kenneth Turan: Roger Corman, he did. Alexander Payne: He refers to those days ... You've interviewed him a couple times, right? Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Alexander Payne: Years and years ago and then more recently as I recall, right? Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Alexander Payne: He worked for a million years with Roger Corman making those ... So he understands all that and refers to those years more consistently than he does to his more famous films since in my experience.

Jun 3, 2005 29 Kenneth Turan: Really? Wow That's interesting. Alexander Payne: Maybe he's just making me feel good, but- Kenneth Turan: No, no, no. I think you they were exciting times for him probably. One of the things that I really love about, About Schmidt and I again, I've seen all the films, I noticed you use a lot and use really brilliantly is something that sometimes people frowned on, which is a lot of voiceover. Alexander Payne: Oh, I love voiceover. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Talk about why you like voiceover. Alexander Payne: Well, I think along with music, it's one of the greatest contributions of talking cinema. Because the novel still has it all over the movies in so many ways. I mean, I love a great movie, but in a way, there's nothing better than a great novel in terms of really capturing complex fabric of life and thoughts and just the richness of character. And so, a novel can go this way and that. In a movie, a narrative movie is fairly analog. It has to proceed in a certain way. Anything that goes too far this way or that tends to fall off the edges and tend to simplify character that's frustrating to me because I want to get real people. Alexander Payne: So, it's nice to be able to have voiceovers and added element. It's been much aligned because of how it's badly used yet when well used, it's extraordinary like in Kubrick films and Wilder films and Malik films. Kenneth Turan: I know. I think this Dear Ndugu, I mean, I think that stuff is wonderful. Alexander Payne: Well, and also since you make comedies, since we make comedies, the use of voiceover is largely often ironic, unreliable narrators, the old unreliable narrator. Kenneth Turan: Yeah, yeah. No, I enjoy those. Also, you mentioned a little bit, but I've got a couple of clips now I want to show about physical comedy. Again, worldly scenes, scenes of physical comedy. Alexander Payne: Oh good. Kenneth Turan: So ... Jim McAllister: “I was at the end of my count when it happened. I'd come up with exactly the same numbers as Larry, 256 to 257. Tracy had won the election by a single vote. I was about to announce my tally when ... The sight of Tracy at that moment affected me in a way I can't fully explain. Part of it was that she was spying, but mostly it was her face.”

Jun 3, 2005 30 Kenneth Turan: It was great for me to recognize again that even though everyone thinks of your films as very verbal, that there's this physical comedy element that's very- Alexander Payne: It's really all I'm interested in. Kenneth Turan: Really? Alexander Payne: The first one is basically that's like 1:00 a.m. Chaplin's 1:00 a.m. when he comes home trying to wrestle with the bed. We purposely under ... You put less water in it so it flops around like that. Kenneth Turan: Was that easy to shoot? I mean, was it a one-take thing or- Alexander Payne: Three takes. Kenneth Turan: Three takes? Alexander Payne: Yeah. He's good at that stuff. He's got a comedy. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. I mean it's just wonderful to see that. Again, I loved the way Reese Witherspoon the way she- Alexander Payne: Also I have to say, also like Chaplin because you learn from Chaplin and from Fred Astaire movies to show comedy full frame. Kenneth Turan: Yes, yes. Alexander Payne: Not cut up. Lloyd is much more montage based. Chaplin and Fred Astaire have much more about ... Kenneth Turan: Yeah. You see the feet. Alexander Payne: Yes. And so, there's no cutting in the waterbed thing. I wanted it all just only performance. I'm sorry, what were you going to say? Kenneth Turan: Oh no, Reese Witherspoon, even her walk is really funny. I mean, the physical aspects of her character. Alexander Payne: I like when she turns the corner a little flourish. Kenneth Turan: I mean, do actors get this? I mean, this kind of way that you liked, is it-

Jun 3, 2005 31 Alexander Payne: Well, a lot of it is in the script. I mean, the verb in the script is she pogo sticks up and down. Really, it was pre- imagined that she would do that. You talk about voiceover, when she's jumping up and down, there is a piece of voiceover written and recorded for that spot, but I so liked to just watching her that I got rid of it. Kenneth Turan: I wanted to talk a little bit about Sideways to finally come to Sideways. I have the only one of the books of yours that are based on the novel but I read the novel, and you saw a lot more potential in that novel than I would've seen. This is a novel that as we know had trouble getting published. What did you guys see in it? How did you see ... Was that very hard to put your fingers on? Alexander Payne: I guess we just saw a movie in it that you might not have seen. I'm happy about that by the way because there's competition for the good novels sometimes. I'm happy that I got something that no one saw and I have to say the same thing about Election. Election when it reached Jim and me was similarly unpublished, and had made the rounds with filmmakers and no one bit. Kenneth Turan: Can you put your finger on what you see in these things aside from the opportunity to make it into film? Alexander Payne: Did it corresponds to real life and is relatively free of contrivance other than the contrivance of the idea of the piece, four characters telling their points of view around a weird high school election or two old friends go on a road trip through wine country the week before one of them is to be ... It's a premise. I want to distinguish premise from contrivance. That they're really real and contain sadness and humor. That they're somewhat lifelike. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. You had fairly leisurely for an independent film, a fairly leisurely shoot, was like 50 days or something? Alexander Payne: Yeah. But all my films are about ... The last three. Well, even Citizen Ruth was I think 42 days and then the last three have all been about 50 days. Kenneth Turan: I mean, what are the benefits of not having to go crazy? I mean, not having through- Alexander Payne: You still have to go crazy. Kenneth Turan: Go crazy anyway. Yeah. Alexander Payne: Yeah. It's still short, but it's about right. It's about right. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. You know what though, you need to have time to play with the actors and the actors shouldn't have to feel rushed. It's so nice to have time. You need time. You need time to write. You need time to edit. You need time to work so that everything isn't just lighting and then hurriedly cram the performances and just have them say the words in the right order.

Jun 3, 2005 32 Alexander Payne: Especially since my films are so performance based, it really is the writing and the performance. The camera can be a little bit this way or that way. It wouldn't make that much difference. But it's writing and performance because it's all about the tone. The actors have to be the appropriate vessels for the tone that Jim and I have conceived. Kenneth Turan: With Sideways, was it hard to cast? Alexander Payne: No. Sideways, the whole thing was pretty easy. Kenneth Turan: Really? Alexander Payne: Yeah, surprisingly so. It became so easy and calamity free that I even stopped fearing saying so out of fear of jinxing it, the whole thing, casting, getting it financed surprisingly was easy. It was the first time in my career where I could get financing without having to have a star. Kenneth Turan: Does that offer the success of the- Alexander Payne: Of the previous three, and God bless Fox Searchlight, the studio, that they gambled on me and won. Kenneth Turan: Nobody tried to make you change the cast or anything? Alexander Payne: Other studios did. Kenneth Turan: Really? Alexander Payne: We didn't go with them. Kenneth Turan: Who do they want? Alexander Payne: Good actors. I don't want to say these are stupid choices like one studio wanted Will Ferrell to play Miles and I love Will Ferrell. He's great, but he's not Paul Giamatti for that part. Kenneth Turan: But Fox let you go with them. Alexander Payne: Didn't say boo. Didn't say anything. Kenneth Turan: I mean, these kinds of character movies are so wonderful. I mean, I think that's why for critics to see something like

Jun 3, 2005 33 this, are there people do you feel alone out there sometimes making these kinds of movies? Are these the ones that are so involved with character they try and be real, they try and really have that kind of tang of- Alexander Payne: I'm sorry. Kenneth Turan: Do you feel alone among directors? I mean, it's not like there's a lot of films. Alexander Payne: Well, you have to say American films. Kenneth Turan: American films. Alexander Payne: Because European films are still- Kenneth Turan: Are still doing it. Alexander Payne: Yeah, very, very much so. Well, no, there's some younger directors that are trying to do it. David Russell, the gang that I get lumped in with. I mean, whether I like this feel more or less than the other film still we're all directors I think. I mean, I'm 44 so there's a bunch of us between say 35 and 45 basically who like me were weaned on '70s films and the idea of personal cinema as opposed to corporate cinema. Kenneth Turan: I couldn't decide. I mean, I ended up with for a variety of reasons, one scene from Sideways, but one that I thought of including that I didn't is actually one of my favorite scenes in the movie, which is when he steals. It's a scene that most people hate. It's when he steals money from his mother. I really love that scene because for me it says this is not a great guy. Don't make any mistakes. Don't think this is like a movie where he's really a great guy. He's not a great guy. Alexander Payne: He could still be a great guy and still steal money from his mother. I don't know. He's not killing anybody. Kenneth Turan: That's true. Alexander Payne: You see most other movies are killing people. Oh, I like Schwarzenegger in that film. Kenneth Turan: Are you taking grief about that money stealing scene? You sound like you've taken grief. Alexander Payne: Yeah. All he's doing is stealing a few bills from his mother. What's the big deal? Each of us does things that are reprehensible in some way at some point or another in our lives. I mean, it's sort of like the ... What is it? The moat in your neighbor's eye when you have a beam in your own. I mean, come on. Kenneth Turan: No. We all do it. We all do it. Now, the one I ended up with, which I think I want to show now is the scene where the

Jun 3, 2005 34 two of them where they talk about wine, which I just love that scene. One of the things I thought about before I play this ... Well, let me play. Let's play the scene first and then I'll tell you one reason why I thought of including it. Maya: “You know, can I ask you a personal question, Miles?” Miles: “Sure.” Maya: “Why are you into Pinot? It's like a thing with you.” Miles: “I don't know. I don't know. It's a hard grape to grow. As you know, right? It's thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It's, you know, not a survivor like Cabernet which you can just grow anywhere and thrive even when neglected. No, Pinot needs constant care and attention and in fact, they can only grow in these really specific little tucked-away corners of the world. And only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot's potential can then coax it into its fullest expression. And then, I mean, its flavors are the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and ancient on the planet. I mean, you know, Cabernets can be powerful and exalting, too, but they seem prosaic to me for some reason, you know. By comparison. I don't know. What about you?” Maya: “What about me?” Miles: “I don't know. Why are you into wine?” Maya: “Oh, I think I originally got into wine through my ex-husband. You know, he had this big, sort of show-off cellar, you know? But then I discovered that I had a really sharp palate, and the more I drank, the more I liked what it made me think about.” Miles: “Like what?” Maya: “Like what a fraud he was. No, I like to think about the life of wine, how it's a living thing. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing, how the sun was shining, if it rained. I like to think about all the people who tended and picked the grapes, and if it's an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today, it would taste different than if I'd opened it on any other day. Because a bottle of wine is actually alive, and it's constantly evolving and gaining complexity. That is, until it peaks, like your '61, and then it begins its steady, inevitable decline. And it tastes so fucking good.” Kenneth Turan: One of the reasons, I mean, aside from the fact that I really love that scene. I mean, one of my favorite film books is Elia Kazan's autobiography. He talks in it about, I mean, one of the most played scenes over and over again is the, I could have been a contender seed from on the waterfront and Kazan says in his book, whenever I'm watching TV and the scene comes on, I say, "Oh, I hate that scene. I've seen that scene so often. I can't believe they're showing it again." He watches the scene and when it ends, he says, "You know, actually it's a really good scene." Do you have

Jun 3, 2005 35 those kinds of feelings? I mean, this is probably the most kind of quick scene from that movie maybe. But I still think it's a wonderful- Alexander Payne: It's a little talky for my taste. Kenneth Turan: Is that right? Really? No. Alexander Payne: I like the scene before it. Kenneth Turan: Which one before it? Alexander Payne: When they're talking about his novel and they're on the sofa. That's a more fun scene for ... This is okay. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. Alexander Payne: Again, you never know exactly what people are going to like. Kenneth Turan: This never seemed to you when you were making it like it was going to be a key scene. Alexander Payne: Well, we spent a lot of time writing those speeches. You never know what's going to be a key scene. Kenneth Turan: You never know. Alexander Payne: No, and I'm glad I didn't direct it thinking it's going to be a key scene because sometimes when you're too precious directing something like, "All right, everyone quiet. We're filming the end of the movie now." Kenneth Turan: It doesn't work. Alexander Payne: It doesn't work. You have to keep everything fairly work a day. Kenneth Turan: No, but they are so good in that. I mean, again, I think the casting was really ... Were really confident that you have that? I mean it's a spectacular cast. Did you feel that going in? Alexander Payne: Thank you. I was confident with that cast because I won't claim to having many talents within filmmaking, but I think I'm good at casting. Kenneth Turan: Yeah. That's really important. Yeah.

Jun 3, 2005 36 Alexander Payne: That's most the old cliché, 90% of directing is casting. You just cast right and then you don't have to work as hard. They do it. Kenneth Turan: No, it helps. It helps. I mean, one of the things I read that I want to know if it's ever going to happen that you were interested in doing a western. Alexander Payne: Oh yeah. I love western. We were talking about Anthony Mann backstage, my favorite western director. Kenneth Turan: Is that something that's still in the back of your mind? Alexander Payne: It is. It is, but the story has got to be right because basically in, see, the '80s, in the last 20 years, 25 years, we really have only had one good western, which is Unforgiven. It's a bit moribund if not ... I think you have to return out our primary sources and consider it. Alexander Payne: Two things, one is you have to return to primary sources and not make a Xerox of all the other western because no one wants to see that. The other thing is in what way can it be pertinent to our times? I think you have to approach a western nowadays like Little Big Man or McCabe and Mrs. Miller, like what would they be now, which are completely about our times and with a real sense like McCabe and Mrs. Miller with the genuine ring of authenticity. Kenneth Turan: Again some of the clips I thought of showing that there was a limit to how much time I was allotted for clips. I mean, again, this is a quote possibly spurious from you. I think films have to have a little danger. Alexander Payne: Oh yeah. Kenneth Turan: I think there are things in your films where you really kind of ... You use raunchy language. There's a great full frontal male nudity scene in Sideways. You seem to like to make audiences like sit up a little bit. Alexander Payne: And you achieve that I think only through your restraint. Like my problem with Farrelly Brothers Films is that's all it is. And so, it loses meaning. But if you have a long time of the film, which doesn't have ... So Election starts off half, 20 minutes in with the line about having sex with Tracy and Citizen Ruth climaxes if you will with that line about, well, if the mother says, "What if I had aborted you," and she responds with a very sorted line which is ... Then the guys, Johnson in Sideways. Kenneth Turan: In Sideways, yeah, which I think comes out of nowhere. Alexander Payne: But then it has impact. Impact comes through restraint. Things have to be in relief. Kenneth Turan: I mean, you kind of indicated, I mean the success of Sideways, is it going to make you making your kinds of films easier do you think? Or maybe not? There's other kinds of stuff that's thrown at you that doesn't interest you?

Jun 3, 2005 37 Alexander Payne: Yeah. I mean, I still remain very inter-directed and I mean I can't force myself to like something I don't like. Where I want to go now is actually wanted to catch my breath a little bit. The whole Sideways tsunami in a way, the success of it was, as I said earlier, has been something I've had to deal with and adjust the way I live a little bit. I don't want it to interfere with my filmmaking and what I want to make next. Alexnader Payne: But the great thing about the success of Sideways is it'll give me the opportunity to make things or a thing, which otherwise would be very difficult to get made and I'm thinking both in terms of content and form. Because I think increasingly about film form and film language, and as much as you can talk about what the content of American films needs, you also have to ... Content is form. I mean, to form is content so you have to talk about film language. I mean, the thing about '70s film is there was a constant influx of new film language and that we really need that now and how screenwriting books and corporate filmmaking, which seeks to have movies is, I'm quoting myself but as readily consumed as McDonald's hamburgers seeks only uniformity. Kenneth Turan: They want cookie-cutter movies. Alexander Payne: And death. It's death in terms of form. I really want to who knows what I'll come up with, but this is at least where I'm aspiring to tonight. Kenneth Turan: Okay. Well, to end my part of the presentation. I think that's a good spot and we will take questions from the audience now. Alexander Payne: Can you bring the lights down? Kenneth Turan: Hopefully, we can dim the light. Audience: One of the things I very much enjoy about your movies is a very vivid sense of place and I'm wondering what you think are the primary elements that add up to that sense of place? Alexander Payne: Observation of place, feeling it, spending time there and shooting it unchanged or the way you change the place is to make it appear in film even more as it really is than if you just shot it, like having to put lights in or something so you see it. Audience: I was just wondering if you think of future movies will be diminished at all because the new generation directors have grown up with Super 8 cameras like you did, but with video cameras. Alexander Payne: I have no idea. You could say that it's a big advantage now to having video cameras because you can make ... I mean, I always wanted to have sound and also you don't have to develop it and the expenses, it is great. I think filmmaking knowledge is much more accessible and democratic than it ever was, which also leads to other problems which is too much bad stuff floating around.

Jun 3, 2005 38 Alexander Payne: They talk about that with editing that because you have the avid and you can try everything really fast, your word indulge, which has a certain negative connotation, but you experiment, you try, you can go through a lot of different options. Whereas when you were cutting and pasting film, you'd think a little bit more about what the cut is going to be before doing it. Alexander Payne: You think of the miraculous films edited before the avid you think is, I mean, how do they do the Wild Bunch? How can you keep the Wild Bunch in under like five years without the avid? It's unbelievable. Kenneth Turan: It's true. While people feeling it's the only way to do it. It was very painstaking. Audience: Hi. I really loved Sideways but I found that a lot of women that I've talked to had a lot of problems with the male characters, the two main characters. I mean, even personally talking with them, but also overhearing conversations about Sideways. "Oh yeah, but I don't know, those guys-" Alexander Payne: What was their problem? Audience: They just thought that they didn't like their attitude about women, I guess. Anyway, I just want to know what your response is to that? Alexander Payne: My responses are they, do you disbelieve them? If they're not believable, then okay, then I have to look at it. But if you believe them then ... But you're judging them harshly or just judging them or offended by them, then I can't help ... That's who they are. They're not necessarily my mouthpiece. It's not autobio. Alexander Payne: Sam Peckinpah has movies of rape scenes and the woman likes it. It's degrees. Audience: When I see your films, I have a resonance with some Hal Ashby's films. Alexander Payne: No. Audience: What's your feelings about Ashby? Alexander Payne: I adore Hal Ashby films. I think his string of films in this ... I haven't actually and I've never seen his '80s films. Did you ever meet him? Kenneth Turan: Never met him. No. I understand- Alexander Payne: And you look a little bit like him.

Jun 3, 2005 39 Kenneth Turan: A little bit like him, yeah. I understand he was quite a character from what I understand. Alexander Payne: Yeah. But his string of films in the '80s briefly, The Landlord, Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Coming Home, Being There. I'm missing one. Bound For Glory. Kenneth Turan: Bound For Glory, yeah. Alexander Payne: Seven films in nine years is unbelievable. Kenneth Turan: That's pretty amazing, yeah. Alexander Payne: And by the way, The Landlord, have you seen The Landlord? Kenneth Turan: Yeah. The Landlord is a wild film. Alexander Payne: I love that film. And beautiful ... Gordon Willis photography? It's very beautiful. Yeah. I love Hal Ashby. Sideways for me is influenced in a way both by Italian comedy of the late '50s and early '60s and kind of by Hal Ashby in a way and even the that Sideways has split screens in it. Kenneth Turan: Yeah, yeah. Alexander Payne: Comes from The Thomas Crown Affair, which he edited. Kenneth Turan: Oh really? Alexander Payne: Which he edited. Thank you for that. Kenneth Turan: You were [inaudible 01:37:15], okay. Audience: You had mentioned that you received your undergraduate degree in literature. Alexander Payne: In history, yeah. Audience: Formative pieces of literature that still have an influence on when you're writing your scripts for your new movies. Alexander Payne: I don't know. I don't know. Getting about reality, I often think of something that Garcia Marquez says which is that creation is memory and how much of his creation comes from just stuff he remembers from his life and that's been

Jun 3, 2005 40 something I think about from time to time. But no, that's a good question. I'd have to think about that for a while. That's a good question. Thanks. Audience: I really appreciate your being here today. This is a great honor for us. Alexander Payne: Thanks a lot. Audience: I'm interested in your psychology. What's going to happen to you and your spirit, your soul, and as you get more and more successful and how will that reflect in your films? Any thoughts in that? I think it's fascinating. Alexander Payne: One more question. No. I don't know. I try to look at success as a commodity to try to get more films made, as much as possible. Again, as I said Sideways started ... Here's the screwy part about it. My experience has been 90% of success is more people trying to use you to make their dreams come true and that could be from below, like people out of the blue coming out of nowhere saying, "Can you read my script?" Like I can't even read. I can barely get to the gym. What do you mean I'm going to read your script? I don't know you. Alexander Payne: Jim and I, we never hit up anybody ever for anything. That's certainly not cool or from above, like will you sit on this charity board? Like, I don't know. Am I an asshole if I say no? I mean, I don't know. Alexander Payne: Then the other part of it, the 10% is fun and I have interesting access to people these days. But most importantly, the only thing I think a filmmaker really thinks about is getting the next film made and how can I use this to get a film made? That part has been cool. Alexander Payne: I remember when Jim and I got our first Oscar nomination for Election. My dad called up that morning from Omaha and he said, "Don't let this go to your head." And I said, "No dad, but I wanted to go to other people's heads." It's kind of like that. Sometimes I've experienced that the perception of others changes more than I feel I have changed, both in terms of like job givers and friends who don't know me very well. It's not real. You've changed. Well, really is it me? I didn't return your calls even before. I didn't like you even then. It's a good question and it's a good thing to be thinking about. Alexander Payne: I admire Almodovar, who has huge ... I mean, he can't walk anywhere in Madrid, that guy. He's the Fellini of our generation. He can't go anywhere without people clawing at him and he still gets his work done. I think really the answer is just keep your eye on the ball and keep getting your work done. Kenneth Turan: I think so. I think so. Alexander Payne: Hey, thanks for being a good audience. Kenneth Turan: Yes. Thank you.

Jun 3, 2005 41 Alexander Payne: Thanks so much for being a good host. Kenneth Turan: Thank you. Thank you. Alexander Payne: Yeah.

Jun 3, 2005 42