INT: Alright. Let’s talk about, first of all a couple things: the best and worst. I asked you this once on stage a long time ago, but the best and worst for you as a Director? What’s the worst part of being a Director?
AD: Well, feeling that the weight of the world is on your shoulders and you’ve got to be the captain of the ship and you’ve gotta, you know, have every answer for every problem and deal with money, and pressure, and time and not sleeping. That’s the worst, you know, you don’t get a lot of sleep when you’re making a movie. And I think there’s a lot of, you know, there’s a lot of duplicity and a lot of insincerity in Hollywood. And so you don’t really know who’s protecting your butt and who’s really looking out for your interests when you’re out there alone. That being said, it’s wonderful to collaborate with people. It’s wonderful to have a vision or dream about how to make a movie or what you want this thing to turn out to be. Work with really talented, creative people and like go to camp with them, be in the army with them and then watch the movie with an audience who loves your movies and they’re just enjoying all the stuff you’ve done and then you get good reviews and make money and it’s, that’s pretty good. [INT: That’s definitely really good.]

INT: You’ve been, you’ve had some weird marketing issues with a couple of your pictures. How have you felt about when the pictures, for example, is out of your hands and gets in the hands of the marketing and the publicity people and the studios, what’s that been for you?
AD: Well, you know, you wish every movie you make could have been turned into the biggest hit in the world, you know, with the greatest reviews and sometimes you don’t have control of that. I mean, I’ve had movies open up the opening weekend of the Olympics [The Olympic Games], you know, where there was just no way it was gonna succeed. I’ve had films that were, that did very well, but you think that maybe if they were handled a little differently they could have even done better. It’s tough, it’s tough because you always want your film to be sold in a sophisticated way, a classy way and yet that’s maybe not the way the audiences are reached, you know, and so you say, who is the audience for my film? And today, just walk through the mall in any part of the country and look around at the people in that mall, that’s who you’ve gotta make a movie for, you know? The films that we grew up on that were considered European films, art films, those guys, those films today wouldn’t pay for half a day of advertising, you know? You’ve gotta reach, when, you know, they say a film, “Well, it only did forty or fifty million dollars.” Well, hold it. Excuse me? There was 7 million people went to see that movie. That’s a lot of people. So the numbers you have to hit today are so huge and the marketing has to be so pervasive. In the last few weeks, I’ve gone to see some films and the trailers are so long, the trailers has, have every shot and every character in the movie and it’s like, why do you need to go see the movie? So the marketing in some ways has gotten less sophisticated. And, you know, when you go to these meetings and they said, “Well, we’re gonna have so many points and we will guarantee that everybody in the country will have seen your trailer six times or nine times by the time it opens,” you know, you go, [Davis makes a face] and you’re forced to be involved in a big machine. You need to be with a studio that owns a network, so that they can get you on the talk shows and they can promote it on their sub-channels and, you know, it’s this conglomeration of media is very, very tough. You have to be part of the system and part of the problem to succeed.

INT: Do they consult you? [AD: Yeah.] I mean, for example, trailers. Do you get consulted in the making of a trailer or are the trailers out of your hand? [Cough.]
AD: Well, I’ve been able to have a hand in it sometimes. I’ve disagreed with people and been able to compromise and, you know, certain images that you want to have in there and certain tones and certain senses of humor or drama and sometimes they can get very simplistic. Other times, you know, you work very closely with them.

INT: You know, we didn’t talk about JUST LEGAL, but you’ve had some television experience obviously with commercials, and television experience doing that pilot. How different is that experience from other situations ‘cause we’re again now talking about obviously the corporations that run the game? Did you found that there was more interference in terms of that because there’s more riding and more anxiety than making a feature?
AD: Well, I was just, you know, I liked the idea of that pilot. I thought it was a really interesting conception. It was based on reality. The writer was writing about his brother, who was the character it was based upon. It was called JUST LEGAL with, was it Jerry Bruckheimer, Jonathan Shapiro project. And Don Johnson played the lead and the kid, what’s the kid’s name? Oh, God. You’ve gotta stop for a second. Where’s the, Jay Baruchel. It was Jay Baruchel and Don Johnson with Jerry Bruckheimer and Jonathan Shapiro. And I think we shot it, I don’t know, how many days did we get? Forty-four minutes, eight days, ten days, twelve days? I don’t remember what it was. So, in that situation, I moved into a Bruckheimer [Jerry Bruckheimer] machine that made these things left and right. And it was fine, you know? I wasn’t, I was just trying to do a good job with a forty-four minute piece of film and the script was in good shape. The Actors were really good, and we, you know, I had a, I had a professional feature crew work on the pilot. I had my crew walk in, do it. And they were very happy with everything. It got picked up. Warners [Warner Bros.] liked it a lot, so it was successful. It didn’t last more than nine or ten shows, but the pilot was considered very positive. You know, it was tailored so you couldn’t fail. We weren’t gonna go over schedule, we weren’t gonna go over budget, and we knew what we could achieve within the amount of time we had. [INT: Did you feel limited or was it defined so that you knew what you could do?] It was, I accepted, you know, I accepted, you know, if you, what it gonna be. They paid me a high level of what you get for doing pilots and I had all the tools I needed to do it right.

INT: And working with the Actors [in JUST LEGAL], the kid, wasn’t that his first big break?
AD: No. He had been in MILLION DOLLAR BABY just before that. [INT: Oh, right. Got it.] He’s very fine young Actor. I think, I’ve noticed he’s got some big features coming u now. And Don Johnson, of course, was wonderful, you know? He was a pro and we get along great.

INT: Did you have rehearsal time to get in there?
AD: Yeah, we did, we did some reading. They were very prepared. It was no, there was no big issue about what was going on. So, I found it a very decent experience. I don’t know if I could do that week after week after week, to be directing show after show or even producing that kind of stuff. The pressures and those people don’t get any sleep who are doing those shows. [INT: Got it.]

INT: When is a campaign for your pictures, I’m going back to marketing, been a good one and when is it, when do you feel it’s not worked? Did you like the campaign for HOLES, for example?
AD: Well, HOLES was difficult because it was a Disney picture that was much darker and much more realistic than most of the pictures that they release. And I did, you know, Oren Aviv is now running the studio who is the head of marketing at the time. When I first saw the first trailer, I said, “This is, this is not a Disney movie. You can’t sell this as a kind of,” [mumbles] we really came like this with it [Davis suggests that they butted heads.] And I had cut a trailer, which was much more sophisticated and more just visuals and interesting stuff where people say, “What is that about?” But it didn’t fit the Disney kind of, so we found a compromise. You know, it was one of those, “You can use your trailers, but if it doesn’t open, don’t blame me,” and I said, “Fine. Okay.” And at the last minute he called back and said, “No. No. No. We’re gonna, we’re gonna figure out another way to do it.” So we were able to tone down the childish, child-like qualities of what they originally presented and made a compromise. But I felt that the movie could have done more had it been sold to an older audience. The picture did quite well. It opened, it did about eighty million dollars domestically and, which was, you know, for a story like that. But I felt we could have hit a hundred had the campaign, you know, broadened. And what’s happening now is picture opens. The theatres keep more and more of the money each week it’s in the theatres. So if you know you’ve got a big DVD possibility, the studio will pull back on their advertising because they’re gonna make their money off the DVDs more than they are on the theatres after it’s run for a few weeks. They’re pouring money down, they’d rather spend the money on DVD advertising, so THE FUGITIVE, for example, opened in August. It played through December. Never happens anymore. Pictures gone in four or five weeks, even big hit pictures are gone in four or five weeks today. And which is a process of the amount of advertising it takes to keep it in the theatre, the number of pictures that are being made each week that have to open and find their place, and the idea of holding back on marketing to get a better bang for your buck with your DVD opening. [INT: Wow. So, it really has changed.] It’s changed a lot. It’s really changed a lot. And I think marketing is what it’s all about. And then I think what’s happening now, which is sad, is uniquely American stories are harder to get made. As French movies were hard to make because the domination of American film business in Europe and Asia, if it can’t sell around the world, they don’t want to make it. So, special stories that relate to American audiences have trouble generating enough world wide sales for the studios to say, “Why should we do it just for America when American has become a smaller and smaller portion of the world market?”

INT: And how did they sell THE GUARDIAN?
AD: They sold THE GUARDIAN as sort of, it was sold sort of like, the criticism was it was like too much like TOP GUN and too much like AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN. And my response to that was, “Well, if you do a Western, you’re gonna have a girl and a gun and horse and a western street.” I mean, this is just what goes with the territory. The film is still in the top thirty with Netflix, two and a half, three years later in terms of rentals, so it did very well in rentals. And I think it was an older audience, they don’t rent out to the theatres as fast. It did about fifty five million domestically, which today is pretty good, but the video and the television stuff, it’s on cable on the time, so, you know, when you say, “How many people saw your movie?” When you start thinking about, you know, well, another twenty million saw it in, at home and then the DVD and so the numbers get bigger and bigger.

INT: Let’s talk about Guild [DGA] stuff. Why did you join the Guild [DGA]?
AD: Well, I wanted to be a legitimate Director. [INT: Did you know anything about it?] Well, I had battled the IA [International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, or I.A.T.S.E] all these years and I knew it was easier, it was easier to get a membership in the Directors Guild as a Director than it was to be any, in any level in the cameraman’s union, number one. Now that was as a Director. If you wanted to be an AD [Assistant Director], a UPM [Unit Production Manager], a production-- that took years of work, but as someone who had had been hired as a Director would walk in and become a Director, so I was hired as a Director by Joe Roth and it was made under Directors Guild [DGA] auspices, and I became a Director.

INT: Did the Guild [DGA], did you meet other Directors because you became a member of the Guild [DGA]? I mean, I’m just curious how, what the Guild [DGA] has, how’s it functioned in your own life.
AD: Yes. And one of the more enjoyable parts of Guild [DGA] participation is, I’ve been on the Creative Rights Committee and I’ve been part of the PAC [Political Action Committee] and I like to go to the yearly Feature Directors Night Dinners, where you get a chance to talk to other filmmakers, which is rare, you know? And that’s enjoyable for me.

INT: Has the Guild [DGA] functioned, helpful to you on anything specific? Have you called the Guild [DGA] to do something for you?
AD: Well, I, you know, there’re a couple films that I was let go on and one was, you know, where the Guild [DGA], when a Director’s let go for whatever reason, the Guild basically demands that they get paid off, so I was able to be compensated completely. I bought a house, my first house with the money I got from my collections on a Guild thing. Luckily, it was a blessing in disguise, ‘cause it turned into another film right away because the head of the studio realized what was going on, it was a political kind of thing happening. And so, it was very good. And then, I think I told you earlier that somebody shot something while I was in Europe at a festival without my permission, and I was able to collect on that and it paid for my wedding when I was very young. [INT: So the Guild's [DGA] taken care of your house and your wedding. Not bad. This is a good Guild.] I'm concerned about the pension and the health plan, but, I hope they can stay intact.

INT: In terms of the creative rights stuff, what have you seen operate by being on that committee? What's happened and how has it functioned, I mean... AD: Well, I've, you know, I've witnessed the issues of Directors being able to choose the team that they wanna work with. I think it's fantastic that the ADs [Assistant Directors] are the choice of the Director, and not the Producer. I think that this visual effects pre-visualization, Visual Effects Supervisor issue is a big issue. Because, you know, is the guy working for the filmmaker or is he working for the studio? Is he only interested in money or is he interested in collaborating with the filmmaker, you know? And I think it's different, of course, on every situation. Some Directors are more than capable and others need all the help they can get and they do need to be supervised. So. It's tough because a Director goes back and forth between sort of being management and being an employee. And he's responsible. He has responsibilities and liabilities, you know. And there've been, there've been famous cases of Directors causing people to maybe lose their lives because of bad judgment, and making, demanding certain things. And other times when Directors have refused to do certain things because of endangering people and the Guild, I suppose, has had to defend them, or stand up for them, you know? So, I think it's a, it's been very, it's invaluable, of course, because we wouldn't have near the rights or compensation we have, have not be for the Guild. And in today's world, it's gonna be more and more difficult, I think, to keep this organization cohesive. Anybody can pick up a camera now and show something to the world tomorrow. It's very different.

INT: In fact, if you were giving advice to a young filmmaker, what advice would you give them? AD: Plastics. [INT: You mean, get out of the business?] I, you know, I really wonder, you know. There are so many kids in film school today. And they're not all gonna become filmmakers. There's just not room. At the same time, everybody needs to tell a story with visuals and digital imagery and, so maybe these talents won't be focused on making "Hollywood movies," but they'll be used for social causes or health causes or environmental causes. So, I think the idea of being able to be a filmmaker or a Director who can work with both fiction and non-fiction, reality and documentaries, is very important. I just don't think they're all gonna come to Hollywood and get a job. [INT: I don't think so either. I think we've actually covered everything we need to cover for this moment.] Thank you. You must have been a director. You've a lot of energy. [INT: Yeah, I've done it a couple times, but not doing it like that scene. This has been great, Andy] Thank you. [INT: You've been fabulous.]