SmartLess - "Ron Howard"

Episode Date: December 14, 2020

The great Mr. Ron Howard joins us this week on the wonderpod. (Let us not forget his wildly formative films like Willow, Cocoon, Splash, A Beautiful Mind, and most recently: Hillbilly Elegy). The gang talk shoppe, they talk life; it’s an arresting conversation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello, listener. This is Jason Bateman along with Will Arnett and Sean Hayes for the podcast called Smart List. If that's a place you're looking for, you've found it. Congratulations. It's not a real high concept podcast. One person invites a guest, the other two don't know who that guest is, and then we chat. Here we go. Jason, let me just ask you something. I know that you're a fan of energy bars and that kind of thing. Is there a part of you that goes, maybe I should just eat some whole foods and not just eat stuff that they have at the space station? Are you going to this bathroom constantly? It helps me because you know I'm on the go.

I'm just, I'm not. You must be. It sounds like an ad, but you got to stop. Sometimes when I don't have the time to eat the way I want to eat, I grab a think bar. You're on the go and they make you go. I bet a lot. Sure. Well, it's exactly. All doors are swinging open and closed at various times. Will called me today. He was watching soccer and I was like, champions, champions. But he can hang on. He calls it football like a real douche bag. It's football. It's football.

And I was like, I got off the phone with you. I was like, you know why I don't watch that is because it's like, oh, there's two minutes left in the game and it's one to one. I can't wait to see who breaks the time. Back with baseball. Will, if I may, you have to get engrossed in the game of it as opposed to the sport of it. There is strategy. There is enjoyment in the pacing of it. They call it, they call a soccer or what you call a soccer, I call it football. They call it the beautiful game. So you watch, there's a, you watch the way that the team, the shape that they get.

So our guest today, our guest today. Darry, you cut me off. Sean, if you, so for monkeys that are high on sugar like you that need to see a lot of scoring, these things wouldn't be right. You might, you might like the, something with a shot clock in it, like basketball or a play clock like football. Football. Yeah. I really enjoy watching football. You want to see a thousand point scored every game. Score, score, score, score, score, score, score, score.

That's what's fun. We're done. Yeah. I'm sorry. It's not as exciting as golf. All right. So listen, our guest today has excelled in literally every facet of the entertainment business. He's a superstar actor, producer, writer, director. He starred as an actor in some of my favorite TV shows and he's directed all of my favorite movies as a human being this guy. He's so much more than his credits. So let me just say his name so we can freak out and then I want to get into all his brilliance. It's the amazing, you guys know him. You worked

with them. Ron Howard. What? Ron. How did you keep this a secret? Hey guys. Oh, I'm so excited you're here. Right?

I'm going to get you. Hey, man. Hello, buddy. Great to see you guys. Good. And by the way, I like a shot clock and baseball. Yes. Okay.

Okay. Where do you fall on soccer or football? I have come to really appreciate soccer slash football mostly because I worked in Europe so much. I want to actually go into games there. So good, right? And in England, you know, they go nuts and you sort of get caught up. Did you learn how to sing any of those songs in the stands? You're like, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right,

right, right, right. You've got the first course down. Right. That was the most gregarious I've ever seen you. So look at, I want to know, by the way, the movies, right? I know we all kind of know each other. I don't know you as well as Will and Jason do, but they don't really know me. Nobody knows Ron. Nobody.

Nobody knows him. Nobody knows him. That's what this episode is about. But like, I grew up like literally when I say you directed all of my favorite movies, you directed all of my favorite movies, Night Shift, I can quote all those like Cocoon, Backdraft, Apollo 13, Beautiful Mind, Solo, A Star Wars Story. Here we go. One of my favorite like movies of the series. And by the way, let me just get this out of the way. Is there going to be a sequel to Solo or not?

Duo. I love that movie. I love that movie. Yeah, I think, I don't think there's going to be a sequel. I think the gangster universe could wind up being considered for Disney plus. I mean, I think it's a great world, a great character, but nothing in it, nothing in it that I'm aware of. But Ron, you should be 97 years old with all of the movies that you've directed. I mean, it's supposed, it takes about a year to do a movie all in if you're really going, right?

He's 96, by the way. How do you get it all done and still have this incredible family that you have? And how do you do it? Well, I mean, thanks. I started when I was four. But I mean, but the directing part, I mean, you can cram in a bunch of acting stuff. You can work in three, four, five, six movies a year, but to direct one, you got to just do the one. Well, that pretty much takes over. I mean, in recent years, I've started also doing documentaries

kind of at the same time that I'm doing the scripted work. Poverati. I saw Poverati. It was amazing. I love that documentary. Oh, thank you. Thanks. And I'm finding them really fascinating. And that is a totally different rhythm. And in fact, I love kind of shifting from the editing room or going over a set of questions, you know, based on that subject and then jumping back into the scripted. But also, imagine entertainment has just made it so possible for me to move a number of projects along, working with great executives, working, of course, with Brian Grazer to just get stuff

done. Imagine entertainment is the name of your production company. And you make two shows and movies, yeah. Yes. And that, which we, Mitch Hurwitz loved to skewer on the rest of the film. And excuse, Sean will, at various points in this interview, he will stop and he'll start explaining the obvious because he feels that it's incumbent upon him to explain to our audience member. Specifically, his sister or niece or daughter-in-law in Wisconsin or in Wisconsin, I don't want

anybody from the heartland to be confused. I don't want that. Ron, I like you. Consider the audience. Yes. Yeah. But while we're on Imagine, can I- Well, tell everybody too, Jason, what that Imagine and why you know Ron. Well, Will and I know Ron because he was nice enough to put us on a rest of development and basically give us both careers.

True. But I took the opportunity to talk and wine and dine Ron as much as possible to pick his brain about how he has done what he has done with his career because it is a North Star that I try to stay pointed towards as much as possible. I'm just in awe of your ability to not only stay prolific, but relevant. I mean, a lot of people stay busy, but they don't always stay relevant and your ability to diversify from an actor to a director to a producer and I just, there's not really a question in here. It's just for the audience, just know this is, this man is it to me.

Yeah. So pardon me if I get a little goofy during today's interview. No, no. There, the question in there might be, you know, when you, when did you know you wanted to be a director and did you, did any part of that path, did you choose that path because you saw the shelf life of some actors and wanted to get out ahead of it or- And also like, do you think now, sorry to get this like a three-prong question, but did you now having done all that and being such an example and being the gold standard and is it worth it when you have to have all these meals with Jason Bateman and he asks

you how to do it? Does it almost make it like, fuck, I wish I'd just done nothing. So I didn't have to listen to his bullshit questions about like, how he cravenly asks you, how did you do it? That's the secret. You know, it's always a yin and yang thing. You take the bad with the good. No, the, look, first of all, you guys, Howard Morris, you know who Howard Morris was from Sid Caesar shows and your show shows and one of those brilliant guys who along with Carl Reiner and Sid kind of defined sketch comedy.

Sure. Well, he was a brilliant guy, hilariously funny. He played Ernest T. Bass on the Andy Griffith show. He was this hillbilly who would come to town and wreak havoc and of course had nothing to do with who the real Howard Morris was, but he created this character. But he also then started directing and almost all of the directors on the Andy Griffith show had been actors. Some of them directed like a whole season's work. Some of them would just come and go a little like Howard Morris or Richard Crenna, you know, people like that. And Andy always liked that. And when I was about eight or nine, I was a massive movie

star already. I've been in a couple of movies, but he was directing and we did, we did this scene where I was supposed to be in a car jammed in with everybody and he kept saying, move over, Ronnie, move over. And I was like jammed up against the doorknob and it was in my ribs. And I was kind of saying it's in my ribs. And he said, good, when you're in pain, you know, you're on your mark, but when it was all over, he said, you know, you are so curious and interested in all of this stuff. I'll bet you wind up being a director. I'll just bet you do.

And I used to watch my dad who never directed film, but he directed theater. And you know, so I was at a certain point, I was so intrigued by everything that went on around the show. The writers, I was allowed to be in those read throughs and those and those story discussions afterward, you know, not in fact, now I'm going on for just a sec. That's your job on this. Okay. Okay. Good. In the beginning, I mean, the actors would be allowed to hang around for a half hour after a read through and offer up notes. And then Andy would stay with the and Don Knotts would stay with the writers and deepen the discussion. But every once

in a while in that first year, when I was six, I actually did try to like make a suggestion and they never took them. I was a little irked by this, just a little peed, but I didn't let on. And then I remember in the second episode of the second season, I had just turned seven and we were rehearsing. And my job is to kind of run into the courthouse, swing the door open. Otis the drunk was over there with Barney and Andy. Of course, everybody's just in their regular clothes. We're just rehearsing with Scripps. And my job was to come and say, Hey, Paul, something. I don't know what the something was, but I was supposed to say something. And then I sort of hesitated and the director who had been an actor, Bob

Sweeney said, What is it? And I said, Well, I don't think a kid would say the line that way. And he said, Well, how do you think a kid would say it? And I pitched whatever my rewrite was. And he said, Great, say it that way. Let's go. And I was just stunned. I was a part of it, you know, I thought, and across from across the courthouse, Andy said, What are you grinning at, young man? And he actually did talk that way. And, and, and I said, Well, that's the first idea of mine you've taken. And he said, he said, Well, it was the first one that was any damn good. Now let's run the thing. I was able to be a part of this show and be a part of this process, which included the camera operators

and all of it. And at a certain point, I realized that the director was the one who kind of got to hang with everybody, kind of got to play with everybody. And I just became intrigued. So literally by the time that show did end when I was 14 years old, I had a fallen in love with movies and began to understand the difference between an episode of the Andy Griffith show or leave it to beaver and the graduates. And, and I understood this was a lot about the filmmaking. And I began to know that I really wanted to chase that. Did you ever end up directing any happy days? I didn't. I was offered chances to direct happy days at certain points because they knew I wanted to direct. In fact, I was in

film school when the show started. And I had, I left USC film school and I thought it would just be like a one year gig because how many series really run, but it kept going. Jerry Parris was such a genius. And in all honesty, I never wanted to rob the rest of the cast of a week with Jerry for me. And then the other thing was I was wise enough to know that if I did a good job on a three camera episode of happy days, a show that I was in, it wasn't going to be a giant feather in my cap for my real dream, which was to direct signal camera and answer your other question one more time. So the thing is, once I did start directing and I did realize I truly loved it and I could do it. And I once I had

left happy days and I was beginning to have success, you know, what night shift and then splash, I became a little bit anxious about it. Like, what would I choose next? Should I slow down? What should I do? And it just struck me that I love to work. I like all kinds of movies. I didn't want to be typecast as a director in the way that I sort of justifiably was as an actor. But I then said, you know, when we do an episode, it was season, 24 episodes it was then, we know they're not all going to be great. The idea is to make as many of them as great as they can be and to have as few of them that actually misfire and stink. Play for the average.

Play for the average. And I literally convinced myself that I wanted this to be my career and my way of life. So it wasn't so much about bespoke gems without a lifetime of creativity. And then you didn't have to be precious in that way. Probably relieved a lot of pressure. Right. Let me, you know, I wonder if, you know, you grew up, you know, you're talking about being six or seven on the Andy Griffith Show and then you were on happy days and, you know, you grew up on television and in movies. And I wonder if there is that idea, do you think not being precious was kind of a result of being, of understanding, you grew up in a

very adult world from a young age. And so you understood, I mean, that's a very kind of mature thought to have. Sometimes people don't have that thought. The idea of like, I don't need to be so precious doesn't come until you're 50 or 60 where you kind of go, all the stuff that I thought was so important when I was 25 is kind of ridiculous. And I've been holding on to this weird notion. Do you think that that was the benefit of having grown up in an adult world? Adult world and television. And television.

Yeah. People who come through television and don't develop really bad habits, and I'm so grateful. My dad was like a world-class coach and teacher and the spirit around that show was not a sitcom rhythm exactly and tone. Also the Andy Griffith Show in particular. I did learn more about bigger, harder comedy with happy days, especially when it went in front of a live audience. And I really learned about that. But, you know, people who go through that television pace, the rigors of that, you guys know this. And I see it in your work. And Jason, I see it when you're either in front of or behind the camera. It's a confidence

that your taste, your instincts that you can trust your gut and your batting average will be higher than most. And if you need help, you'll look around and get it because you don't have a lot of times of wasting. And let's get to the bottom of this and solve it. And you begin to trust that rhythm. And of course, that's what I grew up with. So, you know, when I'm shooting, I like to shoot at a pretty good pace. I like to, you know, I like to have an energy because I trust that more than I trust slowing everything down and becoming mired in a, you know, a process of trying to find some elusive solution.

Do you think that if your dad was, I don't know, a doctor, you'd be a doctor? Or do you think you would always have had this passion, somehow this passion would have found you? That is amazing. If my dad was a doctor, I would be a doctor. If he'd stayed on the farm, I probably would have been on the farm. You know, he left the farm to chase this dream. My mom left this little town in Duncan, Oklahoma. But because I don't have a performer's personality exactly, I don't think I would have sought that out. I think once I was a part of it, I began to see this whole experience as something that suited me. I think I might have sought leadership. So I think I would have, I often

thought I would have either been a, you know, like a... You would have ran the hospital. Well, yeah, not, my dad wasn't smart enough to be a doctor and probably I'm not either. So I don't think we would have made it through med school, but, but I might have been an English teacher or a history teacher and, you know, the basketball coach or something like that. Wow. Something that could be seen as sort of, or heard as inside baseball or getting into the weeds about directing, I think it would qualify as okay, because you could apply

it to a lot of other things, which is people contributing, as you were saying, with ideas and that sometimes that can create more of a disruption than a benefit if that idea is simply just different as opposed to better. How do you manage that on the set? And then hopefully that, that answer won't bore those who are not in this business and they can apply that answer to things in life. I think, I think it does apply. Really basically boils down to this, when people begin to trust that I'm actually happy to say yes to their idea, they're also then comfortable with no, because they do want

a leader, you know, and whether it's the, you know, CEO of a company or, or a store manager or the director of the show or movie. The other thing is, because there is a kind of chaos that can set in when, you know, you open up your channels to so many voices. There are times when you just have to say, no, okay, no, just, just, we're just going to do this. Now let's just do that. And people have to be willing to accept it, but I find that they do.

The other thing is, I have what I call a six of one rule, which is if a person's note, a significant person, the person who has to execute it, say a cinematographer, say an actor, say a composer, if they have an idea and it's different, but it achieves the objective, my job is to keep track of the objectives, what the story needs. And my instinct over the years or my, my observation has been, if you let the artist who you're guiding apply that choice that they intuitively understand well enough to make the suggestion that there's a next factor in that. And as long as it doesn't derail, go with that.

Now as long as it doesn't derail, and that's the judgment call that the director has to make and sometimes try it. And that's not just patronizing. That's let's, let's see what that does. And it's worth it. It's worth a take to see what it does to the scene. And sometimes it's no, that doesn't work, you know, do you find that exhilarating sometimes when somebody suggests something that you're like, well, that's not necessarily the way

I'd look at it. But yeah, let's try it that way. And it comes up in a way that you wouldn't have imagined you find that every time the magic of that. Yeah. I mean, that's a great thing. Well, I mean, I, I mean, everybody likes to be right. So I enjoy that too.

But what if it adds three hours of coverage though? Well, it depends on your day to have the budget. If you have the budget to say, we're going over team, you know, Ron, Jason's whole thing when he's directing is whatever decision he's, he always says, whatever gets me back on the 10 quicker, you know what I mean? Whatever it is, Jason's actors adore him. And so I hear actors talk, actors talk, you know, it's just, it's always that, it's always that judgment call.

And sometimes it's, we just don't have time or we're going to, you know, we're going to lose it. But again, if, if people know what the objectives are, also the other big thing, the fun thing is when people are pulling in the same direction, they, you know, it starts to be a unified journey. And they feel everyone feels like they've got some ownership over the process and they're not just being told to do stuff as soldiers. I mean, what you were asking for examples, I mean, so many times, I'll tell you one is

kind of interesting. No, no, no. Tell us something super boring. Okay. Oh, maybe it's boring. You guys will judge. When Tom Hanks was doing Splat, and that's what I knew. I mean, he was a well trained and all of that, but, and he came in and he was sort of supposed

to be the straight man of this movie that's kind of the romantic comedy side of the movie. Eugene Levy and John Candy were the comedy. And Tom, I was really cautious about him maintaining his credibility at all times, and he's funny and he was trying to invent, but I felt like he was sort of trying to keep up with Eugene and John when I really needed him to just be rock solid. And you know, as I told him, the main thing is you just got to love the girl, but I would let him try things and little bits and so forth. And when I got to the editing room, I underestimated this guy.

I love these things. So on the day, I might have felt like I was just kind of letting him have a take. But I remember saying, if I ever get to work with Tom again, I'm going to, I'm really, I'm going to invite a lot more of this and how many films have you end up doing with him? A half a dozen? Maybe? Yeah, five, five.

Wow. It's funny. It brings up Mitch Hurwitz, which is we were shooting Arrested Development. I think it was maybe season two, and we shot this scene where Tony Hale's character was coming back from prison, right? Was he coming back from prison or he's coming back from war? I forget what Arrested fans are going to be like, how dare you not remember? But there was this scene and there was this banner that said, welcome home.

And we were shooting the scene and I said to him, I was holding onto Jason, like Jason comes in and I go, look at banner, Michael, like as if Job had lost all sort of sense of like syntax and grammar and everything. I just took all the words out of it and I just said, look at banner. And I was giddy and acting like an idiot, right? And I was doing it to make Jason laugh in the scene, right? So a couple of days later we're shooting across the street over at Rancho in the park there and I get a call.

Chuck Martin's got the phone, he's the onset producer and he goes, it's Mitch calling for you. I said, oh, shit. Okay. And Mitch goes, I'm in editing right now and every take, you're doing this stupid fucking thing, which he never kind of mad at me about it taking, because you're doing this stupid thing and it goes every single take, there's not one where you're not doing this thing where you're going crazy about look at banner.

And I go, and I was like, man, I'm so sorry. And then on the way home, I was driving back out to Venice that we wrapped and I called Mitch and I go, man, I've been thinking about this all day. I'm so fucking sorry. He's like, yeah, it's okay. He really bummed me out. He puts the show together. He edits it and he calls me and he goes, I was so wrong.

I'm so sorry. It's the funniest moment in the whole episode. It was so good. I was so wrong. And I was like, and I spent like, it was about two months of feeling really shitty about like a choice. And it's one of the iconic lines for me it is. But God bless Mitch.

He called me to say like, he was literally, I was wrong. And that was that thing. Like he hadn't seen it. It's just reminding me of that. Like he hadn't seen it in context and, you know. Right. Right. Yeah.

I always joke. I want to wear back to Tom Hanks, wear a bracelet that says WWTHD. What would Tom Hanks do? Because I think we all kind of seek our mentors or the people we want to emulate and we kind of use their path as a guide for our own. And I always thought when Tom, you know, was such a huge start still is and started Play Tone as a production company. I was like, hmm, how did he do that?

And then, you know, it's kind of like, and you were actually truthfully an inspiration for me too. Like how just imagine entertainment became this thing, this massive, you know. It's one of the first ones, if not the first. Yeah. But a talent driven company. World driven, you know, Rob Reiner had a company at roughly the same time, Castle Rock. And you know, and there were others.

I always. Danny DeVito, Penny Marshall. Yes. That's right. I had a small company even while I was still with Happy Days and I was producing and directing TV movies in the off season. So I was always sort of interested, you know, in that aspect of it. And it was a way to, a way to have control and to really learn about it.

Brian and I, so, you know, we clicked on Night Shift and then Splash. And we really are, you know, we're very, we're different in terms of like where our area of focus is, our personalities, of course, are really, really different. And but we just had this, this shared ambition. And we thought that it was pretty simple by pooling our efforts. It was more of an alliance almost than anything else. You'd A, have somebody with as much ambition as you, who's also got your back, you know, and somehow one plus one would be for more than two.

And we could collect projects. So there was a lot less scrambling around, driving around town and a lot more focused problem solving. And it's, it's just, the company has changed so much. I mean, it's in the last couple of years, we are now, it's a different kind of business model because we're not attached to a studio or a single network. And it allows us to sort of nurture ideas and then find the best home for it, whether you're launching a bunch of talent too, right?

Still anthropic. Yeah. Yeah. Through impact. A writer's content acceleration program. And when I say content, it's movies and television that we're, that we're doing, but we have a branded group. We have a documentary group.

We have a kids and family group in addition to, you know, movies and television. And it's just, we're taking on more and more collaborators, really. Brian and I still have our sleeves rolled up and are still doing the stuff that we love, but it's, we're creating a kind of support system for, you know, for others to get things done. My first real memory of Imagine, just to bring it back to like my own experience was coming out to California to do the final test audition for Arrested Development. And I remember I had a really bad cold and I tested at Fox and they said that you want

you to do the pilot. And I remember we went over to Imagine that next day to do a table read to your old office there at the corner. And I remember I was one of the first people to arrive and I went into this conference room at your office and I kind of looked out over and the last like few days had been such a whirlwind and office, I lived in New York when I found myself, I'm like, what am I doing? I'm here in the Imagine office of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer and I'm looking and I'm

in the middle of LA and I'm about to do this thing. And I could feel my life changing in that moment. I swear to God, I knew it was different. I knew there was something different about that script, about that cast, about all of it. And that was a huge moment in my life. It changed everything for me. Yeah, I remember getting the script for Arrested Development and the cover page said, you know,

any actors that need to be basically pampered, I'm paraphrasing here, need not apply because this is going to be done in sort of a mockumentary style. There's not really going to be a lot of marks on the floor or lights or dressing rooms or it's kind of going to be running gun and then I read it and it was so sort of punk rock in its comedy approach and its mockumentary style. And the fact that it was an Imagine project and that you, Ron, were going to be the narrator and basically stamping this thing was so ominous to me. At that moment, I had so much sort of multi-camera sitcom baggage on me and one of my ex-agents

actually was saying you should read for this and I said, it's such a cool project. I mean, with Ron Howard and the brand of the comedy, they're never going to want me to risk staining how sort of post kind of comedy this is and how cool it is. And fortunately, I'd auditioned for Mitch Hurwitz on something years and years earlier that he liked what I had done and so he said yes to having me read for it, but your stamp on that show and your continued stamp on it as being the voice of it all the way through was such a validator for I think audiences certainly in this town, which benefited all of us greatly while it wasn't as huge a hit as some of the bigger sort of comedies.

The people in this town watched it and that really, really helped us when the show was over in our ability to get re-hired. So I just can't thank you enough. It was a great experience. I'm sorry, Ron. I know you had a heart out two hours ago. Sorry about that. I know.

I'm okay. All right. Will and I are talking to dad. This is big for a man. Yeah. Totally good. But I got to say, it was when a rest of development clicked and by the way, I remember looking at your audition in my office and Mitch said, I think maybe Jason Bateman, take a look and

I looked and I just started beaming because inside I was going, kid actors, rock on. Oh, that's great. I never knew that. That's great. So I was excited about that. But also from that very first pilot, the cast just clicked and then you clicked with Mitch's voice. Yeah.

And the whole idea was supposed to be much more improv, which you guys did some of and you always sort of had a green light, but mostly you were sticking to the script. You couldn't better his writing. And it was just going and you might not remember, but initially the pilot didn't have any voice over. Oh, really? And we did it. And Mitch said, you know how you always thought about voiceover and you always pitch that?

Maybe we should try it. And I said, okay. And I was literally shooting. I was shooting a Western in Santa Fe. So Mitch sent me this stuff with a cut. And at lunchtime, I got in the sound guy's truck and just laid down the lines and sent it back. So Mitch called me like about a week later and he says, well, I've got either good news

and good news or good news and bad news. I don't know what it is. And what do you want? I said, well, I want the good, good. And that leaves off in both instances. And he said, okay, the show tested really well. It went just great. And I said, okay, so what's the bad or good?

He said, the narrator was the highest testing thing, highest testing element in the pilot. You have to do it. It must have been a big pain in the ass for you to have to fit it in all the time with all the work you were doing. It was a pain in the ass and a blast. What was the craziest place? Can you remember? You had to do voiceover for the show in a shack where they had to like put sound blankets

up and the wind was howling. What country was that in? Let's see. What country was that in? Well, I guess it was in, it was actually in Canada. It was in Canada. And it's outside. It's in the middle of the night.

And Louise and my assistant say, they need this. They need the track. And I'm reading this and you know, oh, I think we heard the wind on that last one, Ron. Try it again. But here's the thing. From the moment the show aired, even though it wasn't rating smash, it was qualifying. It was quality and it was original and it was breakthrough. And I thought, wow, I've actually been involved in three great shows now.

How many people can say that? Yeah. And because it was a great show in that, like the last cycle of the Netflix versions of Arrested Development, I've suddenly started showing up playing myself. This is embarrassing for Sean, by the way, because he's famously never seen Arrested Development. Two of his best friends are on the show. It's stunning.

And so he, I was waiting for him to hang himself. And now you, so, so sorry, Ron, keep, continue. Tell Sean about your role in Arrested Development. Wait a minute, Jason, tell them when we were reading copy the other week, what I did, what did I call it? Oh God, he said, I think, did you say gob? I said gob, yeah. By the way, it's in the commercial.

Oh good. It's on the air, one of our commercials, he mispronounces my character and goes, he'll just remain like gob and Jason goes, all right, do you mean Job? I think, and he's like, no, what is this gob thing? And they, the boys kept it in the commercial. It's so good. They say, they say it holds up Sean. I think you might want to check it out.

No, I know it does. But anyway, so, so now I've got to do these three days of playing myself, which again, doesn't quite count as acting, but there are written, there's written dialogue, you know, and there's sort of a cadence and a rhythm and some things are supposed to be set ups or jokes. And I realized, and all my scenes, fortunately, are all with Jason. And because I'm starting and they're saying action and I'm doing it and I could see Jason look at me and say, oh my God, he's fucked.

No, not like when I looked at Brian, when I looked at Brian, I was like, oh, baby. But I could kind of remember the lines, but not really. But I had no, there were no gears. I couldn't find the clutch, let alone the gear shift. You faked it well then. Well, but I, I sort of soldier through that first day. And you know, by day three, I felt like, okay, I kind of, it's a little like riding a bike. Where's my chair?

Yeah. Oh, I wouldn't mind acting. I'd like to act. Do you remember sort of your process, pardon the term, as an actor enough to feel like you are as good as you want to or need to be as a director when you direct actors and basically talking their language, remembering enough of your process as an actor? Huge asset for me. Yeah.

Major asset. In fact, I've had to really school myself on all the other sort of tools in the director's kit, you know, because I've learned to be a better visualist. I've learned to understand the rhythm of scenes and how sound and music can really affect it and so forth. Because my go-to was always, always the actors and to this day, I feel like the one thing you can really count on is a well executed, well acted moment. You know, it'll always propel your story forward.

So you know, that means a lot. Rob Reiner told me, I directed him in Ed TV, came back and he said, oh, you should try acting again. I found that I was, you know, I was what I was then I'm much better now having directed so many great people. And when I was acting, I was such a dutiful soldier and I kind of narrow as to the way in which I would try to deliver. And I think if I really was trying to act again and really focused on it, I think I

would draw upon experiences with the, you know, Hanks and Russell Crow, Kate Blanchett and Amy Adams and Glenn Close and people like that who I've had, because I've seen them take things to another level without changing the script, without riffing anything. They just find these nuances and things that I don't think I ever had. Even the awareness that I should be necessarily looking for that when I was a young man. I remember sitting behind you in the screening of a, sorry, the Kate Blanchett movie is called The Missing. Yeah, The Missing.

I was sitting right behind you in that screening. That was such a long, long, long time ago in the Paramount lot. And I was like, oh my God, I'm sitting right behind Ron Howard. This is crazy. And he just directed the movie we're about to watch. And then it was over, you turn around and you said, what did you think? I go, is it locked? And you were like, so not in the mood.

You're like, oh, this is fucking an idiot, like a funny man has to say something funny. You mentioned Amy Adams and Glenn Close. I've seen Hillbilly Elegy. Thank you for letting me see that. It's such a great movie. Do you care a ton about whether your film is in a theater versus streaming? They said, if you do care negatively about it, is that a bigger negative than the positive that having streaming gives us all in that there's more content, more films, more opportunities

for employment and more opportunities to see stuff? Where do you stand on all that? I come down on the side of the latter, ultimately, if it really is a binary decision. I really hope and I don't believe that the large screen shared experience is going to entirely vanish. I think it's going to change. I think it has changed and it will continue to. But I do think that's a unique experience and maybe it becomes kind of like the hard

cover publishing release for a novel. But I'll always value that and cherish that. But in my entire career, more people have seen the movies I've made on TV than ever in the movie, even when they were massive hits. But does it affect your creative process, the way in which you might frame a close-up? If you're thinking about a smaller device, you might have a tighter close-up or in your light levels in contrast because of ambient light in a room versus a theater? Not anymore, no.

I mean, when I was doing TV movies, you had to because it was really a different format. But now, if you're doing TV, you could do it two to one. And it looks very much like 185 in terms of format and screen ratio. I don't and I'll tell you why. Because when I first began doing TV movies and I was hearing a lot about certain kind of coverage and certain kind of composition, in those days, if you wanted to watch a classic movie, you had to find it in the TV guide and then either put on the timer or wake up and watch it.

Right. And so, I hadn't seen Grapes of Wrath in a long, long time, John Ford classic. And I really wanted to see it again. And it happened to be coming on during night shooting. We were doing some nights on happy days. And so, I ran to my trailer. I had a little black and white TV, I mean, literally, like probably two inches. And I put on Grapes of Wrath and I watched a few minutes of it.

And I'd seen it on big screen a few times. And I said, those guys are crazy. Even on two inches, John Ford's composition works. Wow. Yeah. And so, go with that. And that's pretty much what I've been here doing. And today, of course, you know.

Home screens are big. Well, home screens are big and photography's quicker, lighting's faster. You know, Ozark looks like a movie. It's not like a movie. It all translates. So, I remember we were working on our show Flaked on Netflix and with Wally Fister. And Wally was directing, but he was setting up this shot as we were setting up the look for the show.

And he goes, he was taking forever to set up this shot. And I said, finally, the great Wally Fister is a great cinematographer, one of the great cinematographers of this generation. And he was setting up the shot. And I said, Wally, I hate to break it to you, man, but people are going to be watching the show like this on the subway, on their phone, like this. And his shoulders slumped, and he hung his head, and he was like, yeah, you're right. All right, let's go.

Well, I mean, one thing, the one thing that a TV schedule just doesn't necessarily afford you, although, you know, Chris, I'm an Ozark fan, so I don't mean to keep coming back to it, but I've watched every episode, and I love them, and I love the episodes you direct are particularly strong. Including, I remember talking to you about some kind of boat shot or something that pressed in on you guys from across, it was a fantastic shot, very much a movie shot. But those are few and far between. That's what you really do give up when you're directing television is that ability to control

the day so that you can do a lengthy, tricky setup and get it in exactly the right light and the kinds of things that, you know, on film, you're sometimes able to do. But in TV, you have to keep moving because you have this, you've got to feed the beast as it were a little bit. Yeah, it's just a budget difference, which is one of the things that, you know, talking about streamers and movies and the future of movies and so forth. One of the things that streamers is sort of bringing back is the better budget for character-driven movies.

Yeah. They'll allow a character-driven piece to actually also be cinematic. Yeah. Do you have ever that kind of envy when you watch these shows now on the streamers where they're able to tell a story, not in two hours or 90 minutes, that they can tell a story over eight episodes or 10 episodes and really get in there and tell the story of this character and really take their time, is there part of you that goes like, shit, there's a, I'd love to tell a story this way.

I mean, we have, and that's what we're doing at Imagine now. Imagine that. Oh, sorry. I'm so sorry. Sean, Sean, go fuck yourself. I'm sorry. I directed the first episode of Genius, we did an episode on that geo with Jeffrey Rush playing Albert Einstein.

Oh, yeah, I saw it. It's great. And that was me kind of tasting how great it was to just do a pure character, let it unfold over eight or 10 hours. Could you see yourself doing eight or 10 episodes? Yeah. Yeah. I could.

Under the right circumstance, I really, really could. Great. Let me get your home number real quick. Please call. Yeah. So, Ron, I just want to say- Thank you so much for being with us. What a blast.

Thank you for being here. Every time I've met you, you are like the most curious, wonderful, kind, sweet, generous vibe about you that is just amazing to wonder everybody wants to work with you. One of these days, you're going to have to tell me who you've lost your temper on because I'd like to see that, but we can get that next time. They're all dead. But thank you for being here. I have a billion other questions, so hopefully we can do it again.

Thanks. And the podcast is great. Thank you. And now I'm addicted. I listened to them to kind of understand what you guys were doing. I'm in all the way. Yeah. It's just three dorks.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for classing this up and talking with us for a bit, and hopefully I'll talk to you soon, pal. Great to see you guys. Great to see you, Ron. Great to see you, Ron. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. Wow. Sean, you know, I want to say, first of all, great guest, and I feel bad because I feel like, you know, Jason and I just took over. We just wanted to- Are you kidding me? It was his guest. I know.

He didn't ask anything. I loved it. Sorry. I loved that. Jason, I was going to say this, when Ron was on, I remember early on when you started, you started really looking to Ron, and you were talking about what he and Brian had done and imagined. And I think even more today than ever, really see that there are a lot of similarities between

you guys. I could see why he would be the gold standard. He's the gold standard in general for what he's done creatively and what he's- but also that you could look at him in a sort of almost a mentor role for lack of a better term because he's a guy who- you had very similar paths in that you've been both working as actors from a very young age. And he's somebody who took that and kept changing and adapting it and directing, which is what you wanted to.

You're the- in fact, I was going to say, I didn't want to shame Ron, Jason is the youngest ever member of the director's guild. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. I wonder if it still stands. Yeah, I don't know. That's pretty awesome. But I could see it.

And- That's really awesome. I understand that connection that you have with Ron now more than ever and I saw it and it makes sense. I always felt that, but even before he came on, I always felt Jason Bateman was a Ron Howard. Always. Yeah.

Yeah. And I've always said, and Sean, you're a buddy hack it. You know what I mean? Thank you. Thank you. Or a Don Knott's. Or a Don Knott's. Oh my God.

I try it. Sean, you never- I hope you never watch a recipe development. Don't threaten me. I really do. You don't deserve it now. I'm really, really curious though, if you did, if it- I don't think you'll like it. Is anything near what you think- because I hate seeing stuff so late.

Like- I've seen clips and laughed at- I've seen clips. I've seen clips. Don't say I've seen clips. Okay. This is what I don't want to hear from you. I don't want to hear, I've seen clips.

I'm gonna fucking watch this goddamn thing if it's the last thing I do. No, you won't. No. Not if there's not a flying saucer in it. Has Scotty watched it? Has Scotty ever seen it? Oh, bless. Look, the point is-

You know what? The point is, you could spend, like, we are, we're really great friends, we could spend all the time in the world together, but, bye! Bye! Bye! Bye!