Ep19 Carter Swan

Welcome back to another episode of Car Stories with some and Amelia Hartford.

Hey Amelia, Hey, soorry? What's up?

Hi?

Do you play the lottery?

No? Ever, when I.

Was younger, I like to play because I thought it was fun, specifically the scratchers. I don't like the idea

of gambling personally, and I don't like losing money, oh, because I think I struggled to have it for so long in my life. So a long answer to your

question is.

Not so much probably a good idea.

Do you play the lottery?

I only play when it's close to a billion dollars, okay.

Right then I started doing the math. I go, at

the end of the day, after billion Texas, blah blah blah, maybe you'll bring home like three hundred million plus, right.

And then I started like fantasizing, and usually I'll played like one, you know, like I'll just one pick a ball, it's like two dollars, right, and then I'll go in and literally pick the numbers because I realized I love the fantasy of the idea of winning. Okay, I go,

so if I want a billion dollars, what would I do?

I would keep it like super quiet, not tell anybody.

I think in the state of California, you have to identify yourself.

Oh you do, I think so, well, that would suck.

It.

Yeah, yeah, I guess I would leave. I'd just leave town.

I'd like leave town, right, yeah, because I don't want to deal with all the nonsense, yeah.

Or the family you haven't heard from and that you didn't know you had reaching out.

Yeah. But then I think about, like what would I

do with that. I would open a school, I would

donate this, I would buy this, I would do that.

And then it's interesting because most of the time I don't even get one number. But then I thought about it,

and I'm like, you know, I think I'll keep playing when it gets to a billion, because the fantasy is a lot of fun. Sure, right the can I drive

around like I'll pick up the number and I'll be driving home and I'm going just thinking about, yeah, I can buy this gas station and the giveaway gas to all the guys with cool cars every Sunday.

Right. Yeah.

I'll drive once in a while, you know, and you pass a gas station or whatever store and they'll say, you know, like nine hundred and eighty three million, and You're like, Okay, it's time to walk in, and then I'll drive to some obscure convenience store gas station, because you always hear that the winning number came from some podunk town, some obscure liquor store or something, and I'll walk in and I'll give the guy two bucks, play the power ball, and then walk out.

Have you heard of the lottery curse? Though?

Yes?

Because most people end up going bankrupt and losing all the money and more than what they had before, and friends and families start using them and they end up being miserable and not happy.

I think I would do something good with What would you do? Okay, so if you want the billion dollar lottery,

what would you do with them? What was the first

thing you would spend that money on?

I thought, like, in my head, immediately comes free mental health care. But I don't I don't know what that

would cost.

I mean for yourself, for.

Myself, like selfishly, if I buy something to help people with.

It, no, just for yourself, just to put into your garage and f forty forty ferrari? Yeah, which are.

Those two six three million?

That's a good one.

Yeah, what about you?

I have no idea. I don't want anything nothing.

Nothing.

I don't know.

Car, no jet, no, no, no, no way.

Have you ever ridden in a private jet? No, it's

it's the bathrooms are very inconvenient. It's not what you think.

That's the last thing I'd be worried about.

I mean, going to the number two and a private jet with people in there is very.

Very It's not like a dick thing to do. What

go poop in someone's plane?

Well, they have to, like at least the one I rode right the fluid.

Do you know what kind of jet it was.

I think it was like a G four or G five or something like that. Anyway, the interior, the flight

attendant had to come in and basically create the doors. Oh,

so is you have to announce like, hey, I need to go pooh. And I was like, but this is

so inconvenient. Man, Like the private jetman, you have privacy.

But it's like at least the one that I wrote, So I was like, I don't know about that. And

also I think it's a complete waste of money.

It's a lot of money.

I mean, I'm not balder enough where I need a private jet to hop around the world, right, I don't know what I would buy I used to think I would buy like a big building to put like a whole bunch of cars and have a man cave and have like an apartment so friends could come from out of town and visit. I don't want to do that now.

That's like, that's I consider that like a waste of money paying utilities on the place I'm not really using all the time. You know, it's like I don't want

to to something nothing.

You'll have any answer next week.

Next week.

Yeah, I believe it.

I've been thinking about it though. Really, Yeah, there's zero oh, okay, okay, okay.

I would love to wear an original pair of Jordan ones.

That would be cool. I would feel so bad wearing them.

Though, because I that's something as a kid that I always wanted was a pair of Jordan ones. And of

course my family can never afford to buy that for me.

And I think about today, like, I'd love to get a pair of like Jordan one at least maybe not from the original here, but something that I look like that mm hmm. But I think I would never wear them. Yeah,

but I would go and buy a pair of knockoffs and.

Wear those, yeah, and just keep the real ones.

Yeah, but then what's the point of having them? Yeah,

Jordan Ones. Okay, anyway, let's let's do this intro, tell

you nonsense, all right, we want to start this. Who

do we have today?

Yeah, today's guest. We have Carter Swan coming on. Carter

is a huge inspiration to mine and I'm sure many others as well. He's the producer of Grind Tarismo, The

Last of Us, Twisted Metal, and so many other incredible projects.

He's a producer at PlayStation's production and a big part of why you guys are seeing his incredible adaptions come to play And we had such a cool conversation that I hope inspires many and I learned a lot from And it's.

So refreshing to have a conversation with somebody in the business that's just sincere and honest about like who they are and their perspective. And it's always something to learn

every time you stay with Carter. So yeah, good, good conversation. Yeah,

all right, here we go. Where'd you come from, Carter?

Seattle?

Seattle, came to LA for the Hollywood Dream. Yes, yes,

And you give us a little context, like, yes, the history of the Carter history.

I'm trying to make it quick. Yeah, So I went

to the Seattle Film Institute, which was the only film school we had in Seattle at the time, and it was in basically like the basement of a Kiwanis, two nights a week. It's like an it's kind of like

an American Legion. It's like an old club, like one

of those hall kind of places where they would have memberships.

So finished that, went to USC summer Production Workshop with Universal, which was awesome. I had a really great time at that,

was right at the top of my class and that so I was thinking about going to film school, either at USC or perhaps really old Merrimount, where our professor at the time was sort of like starting his own film course. And then my cousin I sat down with him.

So my cousin is directors get named John Dahl who did Rounders and joy Ride and he's big TV director to this day, and he's like, don't go to film school.

You're gonna spend twenty years making no money and you're gonna have the six figure dead over your head and it's gonna crush you. And just I've talked to you

enough to know that, like the film school, the stuff you're gonna get education wise, you know it. You're good,

You've got it. You read the books, you do the reading.

You're like obsessed with this stuff. What you need now

is jobs on your resume. And he's like, and once

you get inside, no one cares about your education. They

just care about your resume once you start. And so

he said, I'll get you a job. I'll get you

a job on my next movie, which turned out being joy Ride, which was this jj Abram's kind of horror movie for Fox a long time ago. That's probably most

notable because it stars Paul Walker, and that was in ninety nine. I started that the shoot started in Nevada,

So I packed up my Cherokee everything I own, went to Nevada, drove around working on the movie, got back to La got an apartment, and been here like ever since.

And in that time, I did every kind of development job you could do. I wrote. I just tried to

keep doing different jobs and having different experiences and just trying to wear a lot of hats. So I just

felt like I just kind of like a like a basketball player, just trying to like make sure my game was complete. So whether it was writing or production or development,

just any of those phases, post production, just having a grasp of what it was and like seeing it firsthand as much as I could and trying it myself. So

I did that for the next sixteen seventeen years, just bounced around. I mean, the best job in that time

that I could probably talk to you about was obviously an interesting experience was working for Paul Walker, because I, after Joyride, became good friends with him. I've worked with

a lot of actors now over the years, and I tell people, you know, I think the thing that was special about him held it in the obvious things. He

was more he's in real life. He was exactly who

you would expect him to be in the best way as possible, judging from just you know, because I always find that weird. It's like, you guys are playing these characters,

so people kind of think they get to know you, and you're a lot different usually than the people that you're playing on screen, and it can be kind of weird for them and for you obviously, But for him, he was exactly who you thought he'd be. The person

he portrayed himself as, or he came off as. He

was exactly that guy in like again, the best way as possible. So miss him all the time, think about

him all the time.

I agree with you, you know, I mean he was a teacher for me too, because when you know, being able to watch and hang out with somebody that is famous in the public at that level was a great education for me. And the way he carried himself, the

things that we did together, there was no movie star nonsense.

It was we drove to the mall to go buy underwear, yeah you know, and go buy flannel shirts that like the old navy yeah right, and stopped anyone who would ask, you know, for a picture or an autograph, stop, engage, say hello, smile And I could see like there were times where you know, it was inconvenience. There was just

not appropriate. It was such a struggle for him to

not be able to provide that he taught me. It's like,

you know, without the fans, like we do not have, you know, food on the table. They are the reason

why we're here. We exist for them, right, And and

he meant it. I mean, he believed in his heart

was just so kind, you know.

It's like no, yeah, that's exactly him. He always had

time for everyone. Yeah, like even though he didn't, you

know what I mean, he would make time.

You know.

The thing that he provided me the most. What we

all need when you're starting out in Hollywood is somebody who's successful to point at you and go, you can do this, like trust me, I'm look at me, I'm at the top. I know you can do this. I

believe in you, and I'll help you if I can't.

And he was really one of the first people to do that for me. Getting that kind of assurance early

on was really helpful because I think a lot of people can go years without it and then it becomes difficult because it's just you in your own head going I know I'm going to make it. I know I'm

going to make this happen. Sure how yet, but you

just need along the way enough good role models and people that come across you, be it luck or whatever, that can just point at you and say what you're doing is right, you made the right decisions here in your life, and keep pursuing it, agreed. And then now,

of course working for PlayStation, which is like the double dream come true because I get to work you know, with the video game properties which I grew up loving myself and of course, uh, you know, working on movies and making adaptations, which is something I'm very passionate about, my favorite thing to do in the world. And I

finally got Graham Turisma made.

That's how you know each other.

Yeah, we know each other over a decade. Yeah, I

worked a decade.

It took ten years. I think everything happens overnight, I know, right.

No, No, it certainly does.

Ten years.

That's another one. You know, you go like, there were

so many times where I was like, am I just crazy?

Like I just because I was sort of one of the people who just never gave up on it because it died a few years And.

Why though, just what I mean, Yeah, explain to the layman out there, like why people say that to make a movie, it's it's actually harder than winning the lottery.

Yeah, you line up a lot of and a lot of the things that line up to help get it made.

They're out of your control. There are things you don't

even see coming. And I think this is this story

is a good example of that. Because the idea that

somebody could play video games and become a professional race car driver, to your average human being walking around doesn't understand the sim world doesn't understand what's going on there and what's been happening in the last decade or so.

That is a ridiculous premise. And so when you wrote

a story that was fictionalized based on something so outlandish, it doesn't feel like something that actually happened. It feels

like a movie. The first writer I hired when I

got to PlayStation was my friend Jason Hall, who wrote American Sniper and Thank You for Your Service. He wrote

and directed Thank You for Your Service. And my logic was, Okay,

let's get somebody who writes real life dramas to try this, because I I don't think we need an action writer here.

I don't think the racing and all that's going to take care of itself. You've got to really care about

these characters in this guy's life and these kind of dramatic elements. That's what's going to make this fly. It's

kind of like Rocky, Right. When you talk about Rocky,

you don't go, oh, it's the fight scenes. The fight

scenes are what make that movie so good. No, it's

the character stuff exactly. So one of the producers that

worked on it with me all these years was Dana Burnetti and he recommended to me. He said, have you

ever seen this kid's story Jon Martinborough And I hadn't.

Lean is the real life character.

Yeah. Jan Marninborough, who the movie is based on, met

Yan through his manager, flew out to London, sat with them, both explained what it is. Jason came with me what

it is we were trying to do and asked John as many questions as we could and the time we had with him, and so I think you take those two things and then you sort of look at what we were trying to do with the movie, right, which was to do a video game racing movie that was real at the time, was totally groundbreaking. Tetris I think

beat us a little bit to the to the pot, which I was so upset about. But and then you

think about what Grand Turismo is the real racing simulator, and you think about Kasnori's sort of obsession with reality and why that game has become what it is, and those two themes really marry well together, right of like doing a real life story, doing this kid's true story, marrying it to this adaptation, and then it just kind of clicked for everybody, like, oh, this is a great idea.

This is a great movie. And then I think getting

Neil blanc Caamp obviously was a big deal for.

US South African director direct The District nine.

Yes, Chappie, Cheppie, Chappie, and Elysium, which was that was interesting too because you know, first of all, how many skylines has he owned? He's owned like three or four.

As a car guy, yeah, he's a huge car guy.

And then you know, he said, I've wanted to for years do something hopeful, and every time I try to generate my own material, it's hopeful, but it's still really really really dark getting there. And then I read this,

this is exactly the kind of thing I've wanted to do.

A lot of his films have like this raw element to it too, which I feel like was perfect to tell this true story in this cool space.

Yeah, he's very I think he's very grounded in his approach to storytelling. Like I don't think he likes big,

like theatrical performances, and I think he likes his characters to feel real. I think he likes to kind of

create elevations and then have real people in habit of them.

If you look at sort of his resume and the things that he's done. I think that that sort of

fits well in looking back with what it was that we were trying to do, because this isn't sort of elevated world in some ways, but it's skin how the real people react to it that makes it really interesting. Right.

I know I'm biased, but I genuinely like I get so many messages and I hear so much about how it inspired a lot of people too, And I feel like, if you can tell those stories that makes people feel something, I feel like that's hugely important.

No, me too. I'm so proud of it. And I

mean I worked on it longer than anybody, so you know there's always that oh my god, what if I spent ten years on something I don't even really like, right, But that's not the case. I really love it, and

I think it fits well in our library of things that we've done because I sort of obsess on always making sure that every one of them is different in its own thing, and I think that's if you look at what we've done so far, like that's one of the things I'm the most proud of. If you take

Uncharted and Twisted Metal and Last of Us in Grand Turismo and you hold them all up. They're all so different.

The tones are different, the looks are different, the vibe is different. And so we really try to make sure

that every single one of our projects it's just its own thing, and we're not like falling into this kind of formula that's going to be boring and not fun, not really an interesting experience for anybody. So being able

to do something really different and still make the fans feel good, it's always this like really careful balancing.

Act for us. I think in anything spoiled, especially in

our business of Hollywood. You know, I've always been told

it's not a sprint man, it's this long yeah marathon, it's like an ultra marathon.

Yeah.

When I think the listeners here, like Grant's MO took ten years to make, Like what right? Like I mean,

how do you keep like the flame burning like opposed to just like giving up?

You know, you just think something's a good idea, you know, you just have to believe in it. I mean, every

one of these movies or shows that gets made has somebody, sometimes multiple people who thought let's not give up on this.

They're not always super easy and fast.

Were there times where you wanted to give up or you're about.

To oh yeah, oh yeah. I mean people ask me

like for Hollywood, like it took you so long to make it, Like what's what's the key to success in Hollywood?

And honestly, my big thing I tell like the film students and stuff is I'll go back to Rocky. I'm like,

you just got to be able to keep getting up when you get knocked down. And if you can just

keep getting up and learn every time you get knocked down why you got knocked down, and like how you're not going to make the same mistakes the next time.

Eventually some opportunity will arise for you. But you just

have to be willing to keep getting up, even though a lot of times it won't even make any sense.

Agree.

That's why I would always produce short films. I'd write

scripts too. I would just just get those failures out

of you, learn those hard lessons anytime you can, and just keep getting better and stronger. And there are ways

to improve yourself even when you're just sitting there in your apartment thinking they're not well. Just start writing a script.

You know, that's an easy way to get better. Go

just do a free pa job on Craigslist and just learn something crazy, because I swear to God you'll learn one thing on every shoot, no matter how small or weird or obscure it seems to you at the time, you know, and just take it seriously, like if you really care that much about it, try to do the best work that you can. It doesn't matter how small

something you're doing is. It doesn't matter, like you should

treat it the same way you would treat working on a two hundred million dollars James Cameron movie. You know,

take it all seriously, have fun doing it. But like

understand there's no such thing as like a small opportunity or just always what you make of it.

You just got to get up and go. Yeah, Like

I use like running as a great analogy and a discipline to like this business as an actor and as a filmmaker, because I would say, you know, most of my career has been knows and still every day it's like a no.

Me too.

Yeah they said no, you're in those movies. Yeah, but

they still say no to me every day, right, And it's like like it's like running up you know, mountains right first till is so hard and that's like first stage.

It's like, yeah, you've got an audition or you got a meeting, and it's like to get that is so hard.

You got to run up that hill, right, and then you get there and you're like did it. It's like, hey,

there's another one over there, because you've got to go do the job. And even then that is a whole

journey and a hill climb. You get the job, and

then there's this like waiting for like post production. Is

the movie ever going to be finished?

Yeah?

I did like four movies last year. I think maybe

two of them will never even no.

One will ever ever see.

You're like, how has that happened?

Right?

And then you got to go promote the movie right exactly, and do people even care?

No, It's it's that thing, right if people always say this, and I mean I'm a cliche saying this myself, but there's never that day where it all turns around. Yeah,

and you can point back at it and go, that was the day it all starts.

Yeah.

After that it was smooth sailor because I was on a whole other level and it's like, no, that day's never coming. And anytime you do have those days, it

just means a lot more work. Yeah, that's coming your way.

I think people hope for an overnight success story because I think sometimes it makes them feel like it's an easy finger to point out of, like, oh, well, that's why you know versus like the hard work, the trials, the tribulations and everything that goes into it. And I

think too, as I get older, I now understand why I would always have And I hear often people saying that's why you have to find happiness in your day to day because you can't always control everything. It's trying

to find peace and happiness and what you can't control and knowing that you know, hopefully you can do one day what you love for what you've always wanted to do, and even then you know it's going to have its own herds.

You have moments like I remember being in Hungry on Grand Turismo, like one in the in the first week, and like sitting there and realizing, like we own this f one track and looking at all these trailers. Right

if there's like thirty trailers, there's the movie trailers, and then there's the trailers for the car for the movie.

It was pretty cool and all these people and cars flying everywhere and realizing like wow, I did it. And

there was like a moment where I kind of sat over on a pit wall and was like watching all this and like I made this happen. Like if I wouldn't,

if I would have given up this, none of this would be here. And that was fun watching Amelia get to,

you know, sort of like spread her wings and act in a big movie.

But which is your biggest movie up to up to that point? Right?

Yeah, I I'm so grateful to you for that opportunity to try to dismiss.

It because I'll let you. Yeah, I don't want to

like talk over your here. No no, no, no no. She

we didn't have a lot of car people, believe it or not, in the mix of Neil's definitely knows cars, but it's like from a technical standpoint, he's very much like an engineer. I know a little bit more about

like influencers and YouTube channels and things like that. So

I'd become a fan of Amelia's when I watched Fastest Car And so we were just talking with the casting people one day on all these zooms. When it comes

to the car stuff, they kind of all just like look at me throughout a few names. Yours was definitely

one of them, and they said great. And then next

thing I knew, like a couple of weeks later, the audition tapes came in and they were all like, she's really really great, she's really great. We got to put

her in this. I was like, of course, yeah, that'd

be awesome. And so, you know, Amelia likes to say

that I got this for but I didn't do anything.

She got it for herself. But I was really thrilled

because I mean even from day one, I don't even know if you know this, Like I got emails from the other producers and stuff saying like, wow, so great.

She brought so much to this kind of thankless character within the academy. We're going to try to bolster her

character a little bit more. Great, great job, yeah for

day one. Yeah.

The lesson is is that you can't find these people if they're not laced up and running up that hill. Yeah,

if you're looking for runners. That's why she was out

there like being proactive and doing her thing. Is it

wasn't luck or you make your own luck, right, So for young folks out there, or actually anybody, because even you know I'm learning from this too, is that it's been said that there is no small role, right, Like it's what you make of it, right, Is that what Carter's talking about It is like you approached it that way.

So the role was it was an under five and I see under five lines, and I remember being so excited for this opportunity, and I felt like I'd been preparing for this role my entire life, being you know, in the car world. I felt like I had this

fresh perspective on especially being a female in the space.

So I was really excited to tell that story. Regardless

of what the word said on the paper. I feel

like I got to bring this energy to this part.

And I guess the feedback was good enough where you guys put me into more of the movie and had me fly back and come back for another month to be part of the ending, which was really cool, really special and really humbling it And I guess I did something right.

No, you earned all that you earned, all that that was all you. You know, when I talk to young actors,

I look at like Johnny Depp, right, and I think one of the things that's made him special over the years is that it seems to me like he kind of reads a script and goes, all right, there's the obvious qualities that this character has that seems like they should be like no brainers when you read them. I'm

going to cross all those out and I'm going to do this in a totally different way where I throw out all those obvious traits and characteristics. More often than

not in the past, I've looked at auditions and we've cast people. It's just the person who just found something

different than everybody else where. It's like, oh, you know,

we didn't really think of this. This person found something

we didn't even realize about this character.

It's funny you say that, because for Gran Turismo, I was like, why does every woman who plays a card shiok have to be this like bitchy, badass, tough, And it's funny. When I read for the audition, I consciously

made a note of that. I was like, no, I

don't think that's you know, you have to like stereotype that, yeah, that person and try to bring some new life to it of like, you know, this isn't once in a lifetime, I mean for a real Emeli and then also for the character of like going out and making a dream of something, right.

So that was that's great because that's you too, right, And.

I'm not trying to think about myself. I'm second, oh.

No, but please do. But like that's true, like you're

you were that person in real life, so you knew that, right, So you were able to bring that to the character and say, like, we're not all like this and so obvious way that most girls would come in and play this part, I'm gonna play it like exactly the opposite.

I remember seeing this, like Ryan Gosling interview that he did for some documentary about how bad auditioning sucks. But

he said, like, you walk in and you know you're wearing the cowboy hat. Every guy's I thought, I thought

the cowboy hat, so you have to. It's a it's

a next level layer of thinking like that. But I

do think try things and be different when I'd say, is like what makes people stand out and get roles.

I remember talking to you about fast and furious. It's

the eating thing, right, and how much that changes the dynamics of that character, right, instead of being a bitter, smoking, older guy, like being so many that people would like and like look for that and think that that's cool, and again relate to that.

I remember when I was doing that, I'm fast and Tokyo drift. People are looking at me like I was crazy. Yeah,

I remember, you know, one producer grabbed the snacks out of my hand. Really, you know, I like, do that snacks?

Right?

Like what are you doing? But I felt like I

was a five and under character. I probably was really

if you think about it, because I probably spoke like three lines in the film, you.

Know, and with that character choice.

I need an activity. So you can use the snacks

to act, you know, like you could. You can emote

you know, some type of like you know, inner dialogue with the snack. If you're like curious to slow it

down and disgusted, you can throw the snack down, right I was, you know, And it's like and I didn't make that up. Like I watched Steve McQueen behind the

scenes with Magnificent Seven, and he was like the youngest and like least famous actor in this movie. And he

was always next to You'll Brenner. Yeah, and he's like, hey,

they had no lines, so he always had something. He

was always doing something, and You'll Brenda would get all pissed off He's like, what are you doing, man, You're just supposed to stand there and do nothing. It's like, well,

I'm in his mind. He's like, I'm gonna steal this

fucking scene, right, and and so people start focusing on what's this guy doing in the back?

No exactly, So I heard that story too. And then

you told him like, just remember that you're you're behind me in the frame, and all I have to do is lean my head this way.

You know, you gotta do it with respect, you know, you know, there's you can't ever come off like thirsty, right, like you have to go to class. And yeah, because

I another old timer gaming great advice is like, hey, man, you know, did you know that there's a tree in the Mona Lisa painting? And I was like what, And

he goes, yeah, there's a tree. Yeah right, you didn't

know that, right, he goes because everyone's focused on the Mona Lisa and he's like, that's the star of the movie.

So make sure you're the best fucking tree. We should

put an apple on that tree. But you know, make

sure that people don't go, oh, it's a it's a painting about a tree and a lady be careful because that right, you know, I had a prospective change to auditions when I auditioned for Christopher Nolan years ago. He

was one of his Batman movies. I don't know how

men he did, but I think it was his first one.

And the casting director was like very supportive of me, right, and he's like, hey, you know, I think you know, he's very interested in you. So this is a role

for you to lose basically, you know, and I'm like okay, And it was still at a time where like I wasn't like one hundred percent sure of like my choices and even like what I had to offer, right, like you know, why me? And so I walked into the

audition and I was prepared. But then my first question

and he was he was so chip where he was like so welcoming, and it was like it was really cool, you know, like you know, I'm actually getting to meet him in person, and he was like very charming and very warm, very gracious, and then you know, we had our brief conversation and I was like, oh, so, you know when I ask you first, is you know, do you think this character has a you know, Hong Kong dialect?

You know, like, what do you think he sounds like, and he just switched and he's like, I don't know, that's your job. And then I didn't get the role

right and and I walked out of there and I was like, dude, like that was a great, great lesson to go in with strong choices. I don't need to

be asking him what do you think? He's not that

He's like, I'm not the actor, like, that's your job, man, right, and made me realize like I can't be doing that, like I can take direction if you don't like this choice or if you're like, hey, let's adjust this, right, but it may It totally changed the way I approach my work is like I'm not asking your opinion. I'm

going to go do my work because that's my job.

Yeah.

Right, So that as it's like you know, the tire you're going to the tire guy when you're the transmission dude going hey, what do you think? Like, I know

that's your job. You put it into that like analogy.

I was like, what am I doing? Why did I

do that?

Well? How much in your career have you worked with

a director to help craft a character together or does it usually fall where you take the initiative on that and if there's guidance and it's less of a collaboration with the director.

I would say, like beginner directors, they want to be doing that. They want like their fingerprints on everything.

Hm.

But on the professional side, right, like I've barely ever even done table reads like you're a pro athlete. You

show up and you're like you're supposed to go hit a home run, right, and and that is up. That

is your job to do, right. I realize that. So

like the directors, we don't talk about like, hey, this is you know I would I when I was younger, I wanted that. I was like, hey, here's here's here's

my book of like the backstory, the biography of this character that has three lines in this film. But I

wrote a whole you know, biography of who they're like, good for you. I'm busy, dude, right, So I still

do that work, but I keep it to myself and if they have a question, they know that I'm ready because I can fire off, like where you know the character was born, what his blood type is, what his favorite like pizza is, what is video favorite video game with colors underwear? And that's I think the difference between

like a student film and then when you get into the studio systems, like no one has time for that.

You know, they can tell you like, oh, this is you know, based off of like their personal experience if they wrote it. They're like, hey, this is where this

character was inspired from and share some antidotes, and a good director will go, now it's yours. You're the ingredients.

Now it's yours. Yeah, right, No, I.

Mean right, And that's it's funny because that's really the skill of a professional movie star actor. But what it

boils down to is you're supposed to be like somebody who can come out and do it right away. Because

we're spending a lot of money closing down the street and all these people and having like lights up and all these things. We need people who can come in

and deliver quickly, like and not somebody who's supposed to come in and it's going to take two hours to get you that take that you want.

And they can make adjustments quickly, right, and they're not there to argue with you, but they've done the work.

Like when I was younger, like I had so much sympathy, right, or empathy for like younger, there's not being prepared, and now it's like, well, go do the student film first, a whole bunch of them, and then when you get here, you better hit home runs because if you're not, it's cold man, if people just stop talking to you, and you better come and deliver and.

Care like I've worked with multiple Academy Award winners Now they care about every take. Yeah.

And it's also I've learned from hiran directors right that are screaming at people. Great advice I got. I got

from this legendary director and he was like, you know why I never yell at you? And I'm like why,

He's like, you never leave set. You're not looking for

your chair. I know you smoke, but you don't leave

to go have a bunch of cigarettes. You're there, you're watching.

It's like, you know that dude over there. You know

why I'm screaming at that dude is that he can't wait to go and have a cigarette. And then you

know why I'm screaming at the ades, like because she doesn't know what the two next setups are are. They're like,

but how does she got to know? That's like, that's

our job. She needs to care.

Yeah, right, there's the word. There's a word, you care.

The best directors they care the most, and they want They were forceful personalities that do anything they can to achieve that vision that's in their head already. Right. I

also say, you know, like whenever you see an actor freak out like on set, I like, well, first of all, you know, their tool is their emotions. They're buying large

emotional people, some of them more internally emotional, some of them are more external. But when you see emotion like that, one,

it's just who they are a lot of times. But two,

let's take a look at that project that they're on, and I'm pretty sure that nine out of ten times it's a pretty terrible wor And what has happened is they're in the middle of something they didn't sign up for, right, and they realize it, and they realize that this bad movie there's is going to be on the screen and on the posters, and you know they've they've tried it in their own ways, push it in directions that the people, you know, the director and the producers didn't listen to.

And so now you know they're in a place where they're frustrated and they can't just show up and go, well, this thing sucks, but they want you to know that they're not happy, and so they will look for other things to vent about. But when you hear one of

these tapes of one of them yelling on set or something, I'm like, it's probably not because of exactly what they're screaming about. It's probably more of an indictment of the

process that they're in.

That's such great perspective.

Carter. It's I mean, it's just the way it is.

And it's just such a whyse you know. It's like

because it's coming back to like they care so much, because if they ain't cared, they but I don't care.

I'm going to go to a craft service, go eat the doughnut. Right. Yeah. I've been doing a lot of

soul searching on what we just spoke about, because if I do like four or five projects, like maybe one of them is something that I go, oh, this is I'm very proud of this. And the people I've worked

with like they all are, you know, potential masters of their craft and they care. And then there are projects

that I've been on I'm like, Yo, they don't give a flying f at all. They're like as soon as

it's like, you know, called like the martini, they're already at the bar. Yeah, you know, and I'm like, why

are you here? Like what are you guys doing? Right?

And it makes me sad to see that because I just think of how many people would kill for the opportunity.

No, I know. And it's it's hard, and that's something

you learn in the filmmaking process. It's like, it's really hard,

and I have to struggle every time you give up something you realize like, oh, it just went from being like one hundred percent of what I wanted to ninety nine and I'm never getting it back. Like if you

give up on quality or something you believe in or like allow like, oh you know what, I'm not going to fight on this. I'm just gonna just do it

this way, the cheaper way, the easier way. You have

this percentage of how good the movie is and you're just watching it drop and you're never getting it back. Yeah,

And in order to keep it really, really high, you got to fight for every little single battle that you can all along the way because any of these compromises, once you start compromising, once it's just it tends to like waterfall after that. So it's it's really tough. And

that's why I understand and like I always do say, a lot of the best directors in history are not cuddly, understanding people. Yeah, they don't have that reputation of being

like just the friendliest, nicest, listens to everything. They're forceful

visionmongers who are not going to like be your best friend a lot of time.

But most people that are like great at something, they're not.

Like, yeah, all the greatest basketball players pretty much jerks.

Yeah, it makes me question, you know. I think that's

why I've been questioning lately, like, you know, do I want to stay an actor because I don't know if I have the tolerance to do it anymore. That's that's

why I love directing. Yeah, right, It's like I can

be the first one there and the last one to leave, and I can like really like set a tone and like really make a difference. Right, And as an actor,

you can do your part on one movie you're the tire guy, like you do the tire You just your job.

Is just replace the tires man, that's all.

Don't be messing with the turbos.

Right now, you know, I get it. That's my favorite.

My favorite part of this job is helping directors tell their vision. Yeah, Like I love directors and filmmakers, and

so the thing that always helps me, even when it gets hard, is when I have that director that I'm working with and I'm like, I don't care. I'm trying

to help them do this vision, create this vision of theirs.

I see it, I get it. I want to be

a part of it. I want to help them, And

so fighting any of those battles to help them is always fine with me.

What do you think makes a great director in your expense that you've worked with, Because it doesn't mean that they're always going to make hit movies, right, Yeah, because the movies like it's subjective, so it could be an amazing film, but it doesn't mean that it's going to go make a billion dollars. But in terms of directors

that you go, this is a person that should be directing.

I just think, you know, whatever process they have, there's somebody who just has a strong vision in their head and knows how to get a group of people together to execute it. And whether that's they start using the

same people and fine tune the process, whether they're forceful personalities.

Whatever that is, it's just that idea that they know that story well, they see it in their head and they know how to get it out in like a way that everyone else will see it and understand it the same way that they did. Right. And again, there's

different ways that people go about that. You know, the

best ones are either geniuses themselves, so they see like a vision like James Cameron of like how to do things technically different nobody else has even thought of yet, and he's able to go out and execute that, or you know, in some cases, just being really smart about who they hire and who they listen to and piecing together like, you know, the best ideas from a bunch of people that they were able to put together. And

I think, again, just having a clear vision and good taste of what's different. You know, I was point the

original Halloween movie. I love that movie so much. I

love Johnny Carpenter, and I think, you know what's cool about that movie and people have tried to do like slasher movies and copy that movie millions of times since it first came out in nineteen seventy seven, I think is that you know, you had these kids out of usc that basically were like, we're gonna take this story about a guy in a mask on Halloween night just stabbing babysitters to death. Right, there's a million ways to

make that movie like terrible or like you've seen it a million times even at that point, we're gonna make it like an Alfred Hitchcock with me. We're gonna make

it super suspenseful. We're gonna drag it out. We're gonna

like make you like want him to strike because he's hovering around them so much, and it's not gonna have all these bodies and gore shots and things like that.

And just that approach and that idea and actually pulled it off is what makes that movie timeless and special and still to this day. Why when you watch it

with any other guy with a mask killing teenagers somewhere like that movie, there's something more quality about it and a little higher brown why it's still like looked at as like the ultimate movie in its space. Right, And

it's been very easily for them to just take the money make a stabby movie. Some sex scenes like give

the audience to know exactly what they expect out of something like that took a lot of guts to be like, we're not going to have a lot of stabbing and murder, and but again them being able to pull it off, like that's we're going to make this specially good. So

I think you always got to have a good take on the material too, that makes it different and makes it cool. As you get more up in Hollywood, it's

easier to like just make things that seem like other things that are successful, and you don't want to.

Do that, Carter, this has been just a fantastic conversation.

We could talk with you forever, I know, no like me too.

I hope I can come back and we'll actually tell more car stories. Yeah, the next time. But I really

enjoy talking about the business with you and just such big fans of both of you, and I like this podcast so much. It's such an honor to be here.

Really really cool. Thank you for having me.

It was a great conversation because not only it's so sincere and it's a window into I think a lot of what the listeners are not aware of, the lessons of you know, this is a this is a long marathon, and you got to love what you're doing and try to be different right with class with class right.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely everything is never stop learning, like every single day, like I learned something new all the time still, and I'm always grateful when I do.

Amen to that. Yeah, well, you're a huge inspiration and

look forward to seeing you continue to kick ass and take over this world and the stories that you tell.

Right back at you, right back at you. No, thanks again,

and I love being on this and any other time you guys need a time filler, I'm here. Appreciate you,

Thank you so much.

Jeep Cherokee

Subaru Uncharted

About this episode

Original notes