The Producer
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COPYRIGHT 2001 THE CONDE NAST PUBLICATIONS, INC THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE October 15, 2001 PROFILE: THE PRODUCER In Hollywood, it is better to be loved or feared. By LARISSA MACFARQUHAR Twenty-five years ago, at the dawn of his career in the naturally to him-he had an extremely short attention movie business, Brian Grazer considered what manner of span-but he had decided to be a listener, so he listened. man he should make of himself. "Should I be liked, or He had a compulsive, frenetic personality, but he not?" he wondered. "Should I comb my hair and wear a channelled this into activities that were harmless: he suit, or should I wear jeans and be quirky? I saw that went through a phase when he adjusted the thermostat in powerful people in Hollywood want to talk about his office about fifty times a day; now he drinks so much themselves and have a ton of opinions, so I thought, water that he has to run to the bathroom every five or six should I be that guy? Or should I be the guy who asks minutes. He decided that he should be fit, so he exercised questions all the time? Which guy should I be?" Long every day. He never ate or drank to excess, because he before his lifetime gross passed four billion dollars and knew he would regret it later. he ranked with Jerry Bruckheimer and Scott Rudin as His strategy worked. Comedy stars liked him one of the three most important producers in Hollywood; because he was a good laugher-a joke always seemed to before he bought Gregory Peck's house in the Palisades; be twenty times funnier to Grazer than to anyone else. before the glorious day when "Apollo 13" was nominated He wasn't slick, he hadn't gone to a fancy school, and he for nine Academy Awards; before "The Grinch," "The hadn't done well in the school he had gone to; when he Nutty Professor," "Liar Liar," and his first hit, "Splash"; talked, he sounded like a surfer boy from the Valley, before the baby with his second wife and the two which is what he was. But he turned these qualities to his children with his first wife, many, many cars and two advantage. People didn't know what to make of him. hair styles ago, Grazer pondered the way Hollywood When he first met Ron Howard, with whom he later worked, and why some people succeeded and some formed a production company, he was so manic that didn't. Another man might have asked, Who am I? and Howard thought he was a coke addict. In meetings, he looked inside himself for the answer, but Grazer did not seemed to be all over the place, saying the first loopy think about his life in such a fatalistic manner. To thing that popped into his head, but in fact much of the Grazer, it seemed that all the human possibilities the time he was following a script that he had worked out world contained were available to him-he had only to beforehand. choose. The more successful he became, the more his He decided on the quirky route. He would not routine threw people off. He would say so many strut about, trying to intimidate; instead, he would charm unexpected things so quickly, and with so many flailing, people with his goofiness and fervor. He wouldn't be the hyperactive body movements thrown in, that it was impressive one; he would be the one who was impressed. difficult to figure out who he was or what he was driving He would be the hayseed kid who asked ten million at. He even looked the part. His eyes were wide open, questions and gaped at the answers. He would not be like Felix the Cat's, and he gelled his hair so that it stuck feared; he would be loved. straight up from the top of his head. He was five feet Grazer had the discipline to fashion himself into eight, with limbs like rubber bands. He walked in the creature he had chosen. Listening didn't come exaggeratedly long, loping strides, as if he were skipping 1 to ring-around-the-rosy, and he carried his stuff around explained, and public bathrooms always freaked him out, in a green Adidas backpack. From a distance, he looked but guess who had been in the next stall? Shaquille ten. "People would leave his office and ask, 'Is he for O'Neal! He threw himself onto the sofa nearest Herz and real?' " someone who worked with him says. "They gave him a big smile. "Congratulations on 'American didn't know if he was an idiot or an idiot savant or it was Pie'!" he said. "It was a huge hit! And it was funny and all a game or what." good! Great job!" His creation achieved its brilliant apotheosis a "It's nice to hit the target," Herz said modestly. few years ago, when he reconceived Brian Grazer as a The aftermath of a successful movie, they form of performance art. He started putting photographs agreed, was very, very sweet. So much so that you of himself, grinning like a pixie, in dime-store frames tended to find yourself in situations where dignity and taking them to parties. Unobserved, he would leave competed in vain against the temptation to squeeze all his little photo among the grandly framed portraits of the the sweetness there was from those precious few days. host's family and famous friends, for the host to discover, Too soon, after all, your achievement would become a to his startled amusement, usually several weeks later. measure not of how great you were but of what you had Earlier this year, he travelled to Cuba with a small group to live up to. of entertainment executives and Graydon Carter, the "Here's how low I'll go," Grazer confided. editor of Vanity Fair, to meet Fidel Castro. "When we "Right when 'Parenthood' opened, I was in this coffee were at the Palace of the Revolution," Carter says, shop getting my cappuccino and about ten kids come "Grazer whispered to me, 'Hey, Graydon, look,' and pouring in. All of a sudden, I hear one of them say, pulled out one of his pictures. I said, 'You're out of your 'Wasn't "Parenthood" good?' And I felt so needy of mind. You're not going to put it in here.' He said, 'I'm attention that I said, 'By the way, kids, I produced that gonna try!' " movie!' Of course, they didn't care. They were five years Grazer's office is the interior-design equivalent old! That was really a moment." of his hair and backpack. He didn't want a power office Grazer wanted Herz to do a screenplay version of the leather-and-chrome variety-he felt that no one of the James Thurber short story "The Secret Life of would pitch him anything funny in a place like that-so he Walter Mitty." In the story, Mitty is a henpecked designed his office to look like a playroom: the sofas and husband who fantasizes about glorious adventures while chairs are soft and red, and there are colorful things taking his wife to the hairdresser, but Grazer was everywhere-a cowboy hat on the wall, a cartoonish thinking of Jim Carrey to play Mitty, so he felt the painting of angels, a still from the episode of "The character needed a little jazzing up. Grazer is not the type Simpsons" that featured Grazer as a character. (A few of person to inflict needless pain on his characters. Some years ago, Grazer's office had a pink-and-green pain may be necessary, given the requirements of plot, Southwestern-folk-art theme: the legs of his desk were but in general he tries to make their lives as comfortable carved to look like cactuses, his coffee table was built and stylish as possible, guiding them protectively from an old train car, and his hatrack was made of through the development process the way an older horns.) Despite the playroom decor, however, there is no brother might steer a younger brother away from a poor mistaking the type of office it is. It is a giant corner room choice of shoes. in a nine-story building on Wilshire Boulevard in "When I did 'Splash,' everyone said, 'Oh, give Beverly Hills which has art in the garage. Tom Hanks a really shitty job,' " he told Herz. "Woody One morning, Adam Herz, a screenwriter, sat on Allen was very popular, so everyone said, 'Make him the one of Grazer's sofas, dressed as if he were going to a nebbishy guy!' All the executives were saying, 'Give him barbecue. He wore a red checked short-sleeved shirt, a shitty car,' like an old Edsel or something, but I wanted khaki shorts, and Birkenstock sandals. Writers in him to have a BMW. Everybody always goes to the Hollywood have to come to business meetings dressed nerdy thing, but you don't get a good actor that way. I for a barbecue, or people will think they're too think Mitty should be a guy that has skills but dreams comfortable with corporate habits to be truly creative. that are out of his reach. I want him to be a personal Herz sipped from a glass of water. He was in his late shopper." twenties, pale and plump, and was wearing little round "Huh," Herz said.