PAUL: Hello, everybody.
MEDIA: How are you doing today?
I'm doing well. I'm going to say all new things--things that I haven't shared with the other people. Because I'll be honest--they were deadbeats. You! You are the ones that I saved it for!
We tried to explain the internet to Peter...
I am [an] idiot [when it comes to technology]. And I so love having Peter because I just like to know something more than somebody. But Peter...he goes, "Tell everybody to call the internet." I said, "You don't call the internet, Peter." He goes, "And look on my website, it's www-dot-com." I said, "No, Peter, you missed a very important part of it. Those are really the handles." So what can I tell you that he didn't tell you and Raymond didn't tell you?
How much did the script deviate from your actual parents' lives?
[jokes] I could not get my actual parents to stay with the script. They would deviate all the time. Every day they would say stuff that I didn't want, and stuff that was really unusable. We had to cut most of what they said. [pauses] Ummm...I'm sorry, I was doing radio. It's not funny in print. I'm just so happy to still be awake. Uhhh...well, the story. The story of the movie is not true. I never had that road trip, my mother never left my father. Probably threatened to. But those relationships were my parents--the dad who worked and was a great dad and a good provider, and the mom who loved unconditionally and yet would have liked a couple of more nice cards and a little bit more attention. I think that was true. And the dialogue...a lot of that I heard in the house. And if they didn't say it, I thought I heard them say it. And [the movie's story] was their backstory. My mom was going to the World's Fair in 1940. She had a date to go to the World's Fair, and her parents said, "It's time to get a job, you've been out of college a week." So she went and got a job. She went on an interview, and as luck would have it, she got the first job, started work that day, started seeing the guy there, who was my dad, and they got married and had kids. And years later she told me, "Gee, I guess I never got to the World's Fair." [laughs] She handed me the movie with that sentence.
Did you have to go out of your way to write dialogue that wasn't reminiscent of your past work, like Mad About You and your stand-up routines? I sensed a few moments where you could have thrown in a "not so much" or "this is what I'm saying..."
I don't think I was conscious of that. I was conscious that there were no boundaries that I had to respect. You don't have a commercial coming up in three minutes, you don't have to come back next week. Writing an episode of a series is very different than writing a one-time movie. But I will say the kind of things that we get to do in this movie were the things I loved about doing in Mad About You, which was being able to go back and forth from comedy to serious stuff, and be surprising about it. And in a half-hour comedy, you sort of want to keep that pedal down on comedy more. But some of my favorite episodes were the heartbreaking ones, and the surprising ones that were the stuff of real-life--her difficulty having a kid, us growing apart, and infatuations with others. That stuff was always extra rewarding. And in this movie, it's really fun to see the audience not know what's coming. Because they're laughing, and then they're, "Oh, that's kind of sad. But now we're laughing again!" They don't know exactly what's coming. And I see them, in a good way, sort of surrender. They say, "All right, we trust Peter Falk. We trust these guys. Let's just go for the ride." And I think they seem to be liking where this ride is taking them.
Do you think this is a movie your kids will want to watch?
It's funny, they just said today, "We want to watch the movie this weekend." You know, there's language in that movie that's not appropriate for 10-year-olds and 5-year-olds.
They're probably already familiar with that language...
No, they don't. I'm pretty sure. [jokes] But I don't want them finding out on my time...I know where every word is, and I'll hit the mute button when I need to. And [as a] parent, that's your job. This movie wasn't made for 10-year-olds, or 15-year-olds frankly--it was made for grown-ups.
How long did you have the idea for this script?
Years. I had the idea like 20 years ago, and I always wanted to do exactly what it was: a father/son road trip with Peter Falk. And I kind of knew that it would be talking about mom and women. I didn't know what the details were. But for a long time, I knew there'd be a pool scene, and I knew there'd be, probably, fishing. They gotta do "Joe guy" stuff--all the stuff they didn't do. And it probably won't be rewarding, it'll probably be dopey...I think having kids was what made it happen. I didn't understand what the movie was really about until I became a father. When you're a parent, you look at your own parents a little more forgivingly. And you remember even more fondly what you had from your parents, and what you maybe would have liked to tweak and do better.
We understand that you never told Peter about your script idea the first few times you had met him.
I never told him because I thought either he's going to say, "Get out of here kid, stop bothering me" or "Gee, that's really great, I'd love to read it." In which case, I'd have to go write it first. So why torture myself? Let me go write it, and as soon as I have it, I'll give it to him. But even earlier than that...I don't even know if I told him this...Somewhere [around 1983], I had just come to LA. I had a meeting with my agents, who I was meeting for the first time. And I had a little file in my hand with some projects I wanted to do, and on top of the file is this idea. And it said, "Peter Falk father and son road trip." So I'm waiting in the lobby, and there's only one other person sitting in the lobby, and it's Peter Falk waiting to meet his agent. And I think, "Oh, this is just impossible." I said, "I can bypass all these middlemen and just go and hand it to Peter." But again, he's going to say, "Kid, stop bothering me, I never heard of you." And give him what? A piece of paper that has his name on it? It would frighten him. And something in me said, "Hang in there, relax, don't bother him now, wait till it's appropriate." So I waited.
Do you think that strategy of waiting worked out well for you?
Twenty years later, he knew of me...was inclined to read what I had written. You know, it wouldn't have been a good script twenty years ago. I started writing it in mid-'80s, and it was going to be another one of those romantic comedies about guys who can't commit. And here's a guy, and the father. I said, "Well, that's not funny." It wouldn't have been good. But it was a better movie for having waited. And also, I think Peter being 78 instead of 58...that's a different point of life.
Aside from everyone getting older, were there other factors that pushed you into getting the movie done?
I actually started writing a few months after 9/11. And for everybody, obviously, there was just a huge reminder that life was pretty precarious, and if you have something to say, go say it. If you have something you want to do, do it, because we don't know what's happening tomorrow. And this was the only thing that I ever always wanted to do. I mean, this preceded Mad About You, this preceded everything. And I just thought if I was to be gone tomorrow, what what I regret? I would regret not having made this. I thought, "Well then, go do it. Stop stalling, stop sharpening the pencils." [laughs] Twenty years of sharpening pencils.
Considering the film's reliance on your chemistry with Peter, did you have a backup plan in case he wasn't available to do it?
[jokes] Regis Philbin. No...I figured I'd cross that bridge when I came [to it]. But I was such a fan of Peter's, and I always had this connection to him. Just his voice. It was always music to my ears. And he always made me laugh, and I just always found him so appealing that it didn't dawn on me that I wouldn't know how to write him, you know? And I have friends, we walk around quoting his movies all the time. So we talk like him. So I figured I knew how to make him sound like him. [jokes] And then when he read it, I thought, "My God, you really do sound like Peter Falk. This guy's good!" If he had said "No" or "I'm busy" or "Get away," I don't know what I would have done.
Why did you feel that Raymond De Felitta was a good choice to direct this film?
I had seen his movie Two Family House, and I just thought it was beautiful and very much the sensibility of this movie. It was sweet, it was nostalgic, it was funny without having jokes. And he wrote it, so I knew he was smart, and I just really liked the film. And then we met and hit it off, and had the same movie in mind.
Did you always envision yourself in the main role of the son?
Yes. [pauses] I'm trying to think of why...You know, when I started doing stand-up, you write for yourself. You learn to write for yourself, and that's what Mad About You became. And you start writing your own thoughts and you know how to say them a little better as you do it more. But I think here, the extra two bonuses were...These are conversations I wanted to have with my parents, these are things I wanted to say. And I want to play with Peter Falk.
So do you feel this film was a catharsis for you?
Yeah. It certainly feels like a great closure to something. I don't know what the wild lesson is, but it'll be interesting to see what it's like not having this movie on my mind--because I've had it on my mind for twenty years. And now it's come full circle. It's actually made. And at this point--literally at this juncture--it's about to go out. It's thrilling. We've been showing it all over the country, and people are really digging it in every way that I would have hoped, and in some ways that I didn't have the nerve to hope. They're laughing much more than I thought, and they're weeping more than I would have imagined, and talking about it. So it's really an extra kick in the pants just to find out that something that was so personal to me is actually resonating with people I've never met. Apparently, we all have the same parents.
Thank you for your time.
Okay, thanks, folks! Is there anywhere I can go and still talk about myself?
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