Best Of: Guillermo Del Toro / Cameron Crowe

Summary

Fresh Air Weekend: Best Of – Guillermo Del Toro & Cameron Crowe

Date: November 1, 2025
Podcast: Fresh Air (NPR)
Host: Terry Gross (with Sam Bricker introducing segments)

Episode Overview

This Fresh Air Weekend episode features two in-depth interviews with acclaimed filmmakers: Guillermo del Toro discusses his deeply personal new adaptation of "Frankenstein," while Cameron Crowe reflects on his coming-of-age as a teenage rock journalist, now chronicled in his memoir "The Uncool." Both interviews explore how formative experiences, family, and personal philosophy shape great storytelling.

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I. Guillermo del Toro on "Frankenstein", Faith, and Misunderstood Monsters

Interview Start: [02:42]

Main Themes

• Del Toro’s lifelong obsession with Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"
• Personal parallels between del Toro’s life and Frankenstein’s themes — misunderstood outsiders, father-son dynamics, and existential isolation
• Reflections on Catholicism, empathy, and the "uneasy truce" between science and faith
• Artistic choices in his film and its narrative structure: shifting perspectives between creator and creature
• Thoughts on artificial intelligence, immortality, and acceptance

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Key Discussion Points

1. First Encounter with Frankenstein & Spiritual Impact

• Del Toro first saw the 1931 "Frankenstein" film at age 7, which instilled in him a profound spiritual connection:

  "I realized I understood my faith better through Frankenstein than through Sunday Mass... the creature of Frankenstein was going to be my personal avatar and my personal messiah." — Guillermo del Toro [04:48]

2. Changing Perspective Over Time

• As a child, he identified with the son (the Creature); as an adult, with the father (Victor). This mirrored his own evolving relationship with his own often-distant father.

  "I saw it as a son when I saw it first, and now I see it as a father... I had become my father whilst trying to run away from the same mistakes..." [05:50]

3. The Trauma of Kidnapping & Its Influence

• Del Toro’s father was kidnapped for 72 days, influencing del Toro’s storytelling about pain, trauma, and the longing for connection:

  "A lot of the moments that happened during that kidnapping are actually obliquely reflected in the film. I tried to make it an autobiography of the soul for me." [07:36]

4. Faith, Fairy Tales & Narrative Structure

• In his adaptation, three distinct styles distinguish Frankenstein’s viewpoint (horror/monster film), the Creature’s journey (fairy tale in the woods), and a parable about the "prodigal father":

  "The fairytale breadth of it all and the parable, it feels like a parable of the prodigal father." [10:23]

5. Religious Parallels: Frankenstein, Jesus, and Pinocchio

• Strong thematic links drawn:

  "I triangulate the creature with Jesus and Pinocchio." [11:21]
  Del Toro underscores his own lapsed but inescapable Catholic view and fascination with myth, the problem of suffering (the Book of Job), and spiritual exclusion.

6. Feeling Like an Outsider

• He relates personally to being seen as “unholy” (like the Creature):

  "I'm very used to not fitting. I'm always looking through the window into the world..." [13:06]
  He channels that sense of outsider-ness into all his films, not just Frankenstein.

7. Commentary on Artificial Intelligence

• Compares Frankenstein’s creation to A.I.:

  "My concern is not artificial intelligence, but natural stupidity. I think that's what drives most of the world's worst features." [16:07]
  He rejects generative A.I. in his filmmaking entirely:
  "I am not interested, nor will I ever be interested. ... somebody wrote me an email [about AI]. My answer was very short: I said, I'd rather die." [17:42]

8. Immortality as Torment, Not a Gift

• The Creature’s endless life is not a blessing:

  "Oh, I do. I'm a huge fan of death. I'm a groupie for death. ... Without rhythm, there is no melody." [19:30]

9. Death, Anxiety, and Acceptance

• Early preoccupation with death (his grandmother’s farewells at night); eventual acceptance:

  "I don't fear it anymore. ... But me, I'm not afraid of dying, I hope." [20:45]
  Final acceptance as life’s lesson:
  "When the lights flutter and you are no longer a director or a general or a pope. ... you realize what you did or didn't do in your life. And that's the most momentous thing anyone can experience." [21:13]

10. Philosophical Underpinnings: Job and Tao

• He asked his cast to read the Book of Job and the Tao Te Ching for their parallel to the Creature’s suffering:

  "Because ultimately, that's the plea of the creature too. The plea of the creature is why..." [22:11]
  Acceptance and non-attachment as central messages.

11. On Criticism and Insignificance

• No longer reads reviews; sees feeling insignificant as liberating:

  "I'm 61. I don't. But I did... I remember a few that are really well phrased." [23:29]
  "So you found feeling insignificant... liberating." (Terry) — "Oh, great." (Guillermo) [23:20]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Spiritual Epiphany:

  "I had St. Paul on the road to Damascus kind of experience." [04:48]

• On Artificial Intelligence:

  "I'd rather die." [17:42]

• On Death:

  "I'm a huge fan of death. I'm a groupie for death." [19:30]

• On Acceptance:

  "Acceptance is so profound. ... At the end of the day, they are what they are. ... The Tao says all pain comes from desire, which is absolutely true." [22:14]

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Interview End: [24:22]

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II. Cameron Crowe on Music, Memory, and "The Uncool"

Interview Start: [24:31]

Main Themes

• Crowe’s real-life story as a teenage journalist for Rolling Stone and the basis of "Almost Famous"
• Navigating a controlling but intellectually demanding mother
• The inner workings of rock culture in the 1970s—on the road, backstage, and the power of music as personal identity
• Legendary mentorship by rock critic Lester Bangs
• The complexities of proximity vs. objectivity as a journalist
• Recollections of interviews with music legends like David Bowie

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Key Discussion Points

1. Family Roots & the Almost Famous Dynamic

• Crowe’s mother was cautious, controlling, and wary of rock music, yet gave Crowe intellectual freedom:

  "She always respected intellectualism. If I could somehow pin it to intellectual success, I had a way in. So to go on the road with Led Zeppelin at 15, I had to really sell Led Zeppelin to her as, like, music that's based on Tolkien." [28:30]
  He highlights her "truth-teller" nature and the real dialogues dramatized in "Almost Famous."

2. Sneaking Into Rock via Journalism

• Used the "writer" angle to gain parental permission to tour with bands:

  "Ultimately ... she said ... put on your magic shoes. Call me every night and don't take drugs. And that was my ticket out." [28:30]
  His refusal to indulge in drugs built trust and professional rapport with musicians:
  "The best response is no... They generally say, smart kid, more for me." [29:29]

3. Early Experiences with Live Music

• Crowe’s early concerts attended with his mother—Bob Dylan (1964) and Eric Clapton—resulted in powerful moments of connection:

  "Even she kind of understood what the power of rock sometimes could be. ... When the concert was over, we were walking out and she said, you know what? Your music is better than mine." [33:28]

4. Age Gap and the Life of a Young Reporter

• Awed as a teenager by young musicians (who now seem just "kids" to him):

  "I thought they were ... seasoned adults ... they were 22 ... the distance between 15 and 22 is enormous." [34:57]

• Built trust partly because San Diego was an "end of tour" town and he stood out as a young, eager fan:

  "Here's a kid ... with a notebook full of questions based on the music ... they're like, get that kid in here. ... They really talked to me. They really opened up." [37:14]

5. Lessons from Lester Bangs (as played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in Almost Famous)

• Bangs advised him:

  "You cannot make friends with the rock stars... You have to make your reputation on being honest and unmerciful." [39:36–41:15]
  Crowe describes Bangs as a "politician for the soul of rock" and a personal legend.

6. Navigating Objectivity vs. Friendship

• Crowe skirted the line between insider and objective writer:

  "Generally, I thought, like, be the guy that's there to document it. And when you're done, go home. Don't stay out or try and hang out in the hotel rooms. Go back to your room and transcribe the interview." [43:24]
  Tells a story about almost jamming with the Allman Brothers before being gently “dis-invited” (guitar taken away):
  "Hands appeared kind of behind me and lifted the guitar out of my hands... and I just felt like, oh, that's cool. I'm in heaven. And there goes the guitar." [45:17]

7. The David Bowie Assignment

• Bowie asked Crowe to "hold up a mirror":

  "He said to me, hold up a mirror to me. I want to see what you show me." [45:33]
  Bowie’s realness amid constructed personas:
  "You're meeting David Jones, who's aggressively throwing David Bowie at you." [47:59]
  On Bowie’s "managed" departure:
  "He knew he was dying ... and he did this album, Black Star, which is his statement about the death that was coming." [48:33]

8. Groupies, "Band Aids" and Penny Lane

• The real and fictional Penny Lane: privacy, emotional carnage, and the centrality of loving music above all:

  "Penny Trumbull was one of the ones that really opened up to me and told me what it was like emotionally to follow a band and to crave that experience of being in an empty arena after you'd seen the show that meant so much to you." [50:39]
  Favorite "Almost Famous" scene: Kate Hudson’s Penny Lane, alone dancing in an empty arena.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On mother's attitude:

  "She always respected intellectualism...I had to really sell Led Zeppelin to her as, like, music that's based on Tolkien." [28:30]

• On objectivity:

  "You have to make your reputation on being honest and unmerciful." — (Lester Bangs in Almost Famous) [41:15]

• On Bowie:

  "You're meeting David Jones, who's aggressively throwing David Bowie at you." [47:59]

• On letting go as a reporter/insider:

  "Be the guy that's there to document it. And when you're done, go home." [43:24]

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Interview End: [52:28]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Del Toro on Faith, Frankenstein, and Personal Mythology: [02:42]–[24:22]
• Crowe on Teenage Journalism, Family, and Rock's Golden Era: [24:31]–[52:28]

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Tone & Style

Both interviews are highly personal, introspective, and often humorous, blending sharp wit with emotional candor. Del Toro speaks in metaphor and parable, elegantly mixing the philosophical with the practical. Crowe’s stories are warm, self-deprecating, and affectionate, giving a nostalgic yet clear-eyed look at youth, music, and vulnerability.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode offers moving insights into how formative traumas, family, faith, and a sense of not belonging can fuel artistic vision — whether it's del Toro’s monstrous parables or Crowe’s rock and roll memoirs. Both guests share how their most personal moments became their richest creative material, making for an episode about storytelling, survival, and the messy humanity behind legends and legends-in-the-making.

Transcript

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[Sam Bricker]

In Philadelphia, this is FRESH AIR WEEKEND. I'm Sam Brigger. Today, Frankenstein, the classic story reimagined by the great filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. He saw the 1931 film when he was seven.

[Guillermo del Toro]

I realized I understood my faith better through Frankenstein than through Sunday Mass, and I decided at age 7 that the creature of Frankenstein was gonna be my personal avatar and my personal messiah.

[Sam Bricker]

His other films include Pan's Labyrinth and the Shape of Water. Also, we hear from Cameron Crowe, who wrote and directed Jerry Maguire, say Anything and the and the semi autobiographical film almost Famous, about writing for Rolling Stone starting at the age of 15. His new memoir, the Uncool, is about being a naive teen exposed to the excesses of rock musicians. That's coming up on FRESH AIR weekend.

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[Sam Bricker]

This is FRESH AIR weekend. I'm Sam Brigger. Here's Terry with our first interview.

[Terry Gross]

The great filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has written and directed a new reimagining of Frankenstein, and it takes inspiration from the 1931 film Frankenstein, one of the first, best and most enduring horror monster films, but mostly from Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein, which many consider to be the first science fiction book. She was only 18 when she wrote it. In del Toro's movie, the final part of the story is told from the creature's point of view. Some of the themes of his new film echo themes that he's been obsessed with for years. Misunderstood creatures, men who behave like monsters, father, son, relationships, religion, empathy, cruelty, misguided scientific experiments that take a terrible turn, and what del Toro describes as the uneasy truce between science and religion, machine and man, and the realization that you are inescapably alone. His other movies include Pan's Labyrinth, the Shape of Water, which, which won four Oscars, including best picture and best Director Nightmare Alley, a reimagining of Pinocchio filmed in stop motion animation, and two Hellboy films. In del Toro's Frankenstein, Oscar Isaac plays Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the surgeon who wants to create new life, a new man built out of body parts from the newly dead. The creature he creates is played by Jacob Elordi, who's best known for co starring in Euphoria and also played Elvis Presley in the Sofia Coppola movie. Priscilla del Toro grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico, and lives in La Guillermo del Toro. Welcome to FRESH air. Congratulations on your new film which brings together so much of your other work. And I know it's a dream come true for you to do your own version of Frankenstein. You first saw the movie, the 1931 movie, which is totally different from the book and your new movie, but. But that movie really had a hold on you. Tell us why it had such meaning for you.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Well, it was, curiously enough, on a Sunday after Catholic mass, we came back home and then we would watch horror movies on Channel 6 all day. And it was the first time I saw Frankenstein and the moment Boris Karloff crossed the threshold, I had an epiphany. I had St. Paul on the road to Damascus kind of experience. I realized I understood my faith or my dogmas better through Frankenstein than through Sunday Mass. I saw the resurrection of the flesh, the Immaculate Conception, ecstasy, you know, stigmata. Everything made sense. And I decided at age 7 that the creature of Frankenstein was going to be my personal avatar and my personal messiah. It was a really profound transformation and it made an impression that lasted my whole life.

[Terry Gross]

Can you compare how you saw the story as a 7 year old to how you see it now?

[Guillermo del Toro]

Well, I saw it as a son when I saw it first, and now I see it as a father. And more poignantly, I had become my father whilst trying to run away from the same mistakes of absence or, you know, mysterious emotions that I couldn't figure out as a kid. And I had a really profound moment to be able to reconcile this knowledge with a beautiful talk with my own kids and stop this lineage of pains. And fathers are a big shadow, particularly in Latin American families, I imagine.

[Terry Gross]

What's the pain you're referring to in talking about your relationship with your father?

[Guillermo del Toro]

It is. My father was always a mystery and he was really funny and warm, but by turns he was also aloof and distant and had a lot of problem even, you know, when he came back from the kidnapping, he was taken 72 days. And I said, I'm going to get to know him real well. And our conversations never lasted more than a few minutes, you know, and he just couldn't. And I didn't understand that. And I realized that particularly with my profession, I had a huge alibi to repeat this distance. And I unfortunately cut it, I believe on time to really change it and become a very dedicated father.

[Terry Gross]

You mentioned the kidnapping. He was kidnapped and held for a million dollar ransom, and you managed to get the money to pay the kidnappers and rescue your father. And that's my understanding, is that's why you moved to the us, because of death threat.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Yeah, well, it was the constant threat and the ptsd, et cetera. But a lot of the moments that happened during that kidnapping are actually obliquely reflected in the film. I tried to make it an autobiography of the soul for me.

[Terry Gross]

There's three parts of the movie. There's the introduction, then there's the story told pretty much from Dr. Frankenstein's point of view, and then the final part is told from the creature's point of view. I really wanted to read Mary Shelley's novel, which I've never read before speaking to you again, and I wasn't able to find the time to do it. I did, however, read your introduction to, like, I think it's a 2021 annotated version of your novel. But anyways, in Mary Shelley's original telling of the story, is there a chapter that's from the creature's point of view or is that just something you wanted to do?

[Guillermo del Toro]

No, no, no, it is. There are so many things that are in the novel, you know, that is one of them. When the creature meets Victor in the frozen north, he says, well, this is what happened to me. And he proceeds to tell him his itinerary of degradation and humanization and learning the language with the family of the hermit. You Know, all of that is in the novel, but it's been rarely articulated. And I found that hinging the movie in the middle was structurally the best way to make the audience almost get a jolt and say, oh, I've never seen this before. Even if it's been dramatized briefly in other versions, this is the one that tracks the creature in a distinct chapter. It starts in the frozen north and is very discreet in color. Then you have childhood and young age of Victor, which is idealized and very heightened visually by the fact that Victor is telling the story. And then the fairy tale, like.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, I'm glad you said fairy tale. Cause that seems to me like the part from Dr. Frankenstein's point of view, you know, has elements of, like, horror film and monster film. But the second part, it's set in the woods. It's like a fairy tale in a little cabin. Yeah. And the old blind man, it's kind of a very fairy tale benevolent character. There's spirits in the woods, and he's.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Guided, the creature is guided by all sorts of animals into understanding the world.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. And the blind old hermit thinks that because he can't see, he doesn't see the monster that other people see. And in fact, he thinks the creature is the spirit of the woods.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Yes. That was very important to me, that the three chapters were very distinct in style and very distinct in energy. The camera work is very different, the color palette is very different. And I think that I would say, having seen most every version of Frankenstein on film, this is. This is very unique. The scale of the movie, both being epic and intimate, is very unique. But the fairytale breadth of it all and the parable, it feels like a parable of the prodigal father. I'd say, jokingly.

[Terry Gross]

Are you trying to interpret Frankenstein? People always call the monster Frankenstein.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Yeah, that's a mistake. That comes from a play.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. So are you trying to compare the creature in Frankenstein to Jesus?

[Guillermo del Toro]

I think so. I mean, I think the parallels are very, very curious. I triangulate the creature with Jesus and Pinocchio.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. In your version of Pinocchio. And I don't know if this is in other stories or in the original fairy tale. Geppetto, who creates the puppet Pinocchio, also has built or carved, I should say, a huge depiction of Jesus being crucified for the church.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Yeah. No, that's completely original, too.

[Terry Gross]

That's original, yes.

[Guillermo del Toro]

To me, the myths are very related. The two biggest mysteries in the Bible for me growing up, and I am a lapsed Catholic, but the Two mysteries were the Book of Job, in which man questions God, why do bad things happen to good people? And the answer basically of God is, why not?

[Terry Gross]

It's very comforting the way you put it.

[Guillermo del Toro]

That's the way God put it. He says, who are you to question my wisdom? You were not there when I created the world.

[Terry Gross]

Basically, when we talked a few years ago, you mentioned that your grandmother, who was very Catholic, very exorcised you. Not exorcised, but as in an exorcism. She exorcised you twice.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Yeah. With the holy water. Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

Did you feel like people saw you as unholy and a sacrilege in the same way that people see the creature in Frankenstein and even Pinocchio? When Pinocchio is kind of rowdy in church because he's never been there before, he doesn't understand what church is. The people in the church call him unholy and a sacrilege.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Well, you know, I'm very used to not fitting. I'm always looking through the window into the world, you know, a little bit with a set of thoughts and a set of principles and ideas that don't necessarily conform. So my grandmother was in great pain that I would draw monsters all day. I would talk about the Bible, asking questions that were maybe too poignant, you know, but we loved each other, and that is salient in my movies. No matter how different we were, we can love each other. And that is again in Frankenstein. There's Frankenstein in all my movies, from Chronos all the way to Pinocchio. Every single movie, I hesitate to think of one that doesn't have elements of it.

[Sam Bricker]

We're listening to Terry Gross's interview with Guillermo del Toro. He wrote and directed the new film Frankenstein. We'll hear more of their conversation after a break. I'm Sam Brigger, and this is FRESH AIR weekend.

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[Terry Gross]

You could say in some ways that the creature in Frankenstein is like artificial intelligence because he's created by man, but then lives on its own and can destroy man without even understanding quite what he's doing. So what are your thoughts about AI and did that kind of inform the movie in any way?

[Guillermo del Toro]

It did and it didn't. It didn't in the sense that my concern is not artificial intelligence, but natural stupidity. I think that's what drives most of the world's worst features. But I did want it to have the arrogance of Victor be similar in some ways to the tech bros. You know, he's kind of aligned creating something without considering the consequences, you know, And I think we have to take a pause and consider where we're going. If you have to teach an AI to think in ones and zeros, you know, oh my God, I would love for a generation to get raising kids right one time. One time in the entire history of mankind, there hasn't been a single generation that was raised right all across the globe. And I think that's our biggest failure in a way. You know, ones and zeros don't get the alchemy that you get with emotion and experience. You get the information, but you don't get the alchemy of emotion, spirituality and feeling. I'm not saying it's impossible to replicate, but we have it readily available with the next generation of children. And that's why the painful thing that Jacob Elordi and Victor enact is a father and son relationship that is very relatable in the film. Very relatable and very moving by the end.

[Terry Gross]

Did you take advantage of any AI in making Frankenstein?

[Guillermo del Toro]

AI, particularly generative AI is. I am not interested, nor will I ever be interested. I'm 61 and I hope to be able to remain uninterested in using it at all until I croak. I really don't. The other day, somebody wrote me an email, said, what is your stance on AI? And my answer was very short. I said, I'd rather die.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, those are strong words.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Not for me. I'm Mexican. But I think, Terry, that even when a human sings a song that has already been recorded six, seven times, they're filtering their experience, their life. I often think of, you know, Johnny Cash singing Hurt, the Trent Reznor song, and making it entirely his own, or Joe Cocker singing the Beatles. You know, that's not aversion, that's not remixing. That is filtering through alchemical pain and experience, a work of art, into making it your own.

[Terry Gross]

The creature in Frankenstein is endowed with eternal life. In your film Cursed.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Cursed.

[Terry Gross]

Well, that's what I was going to ask you. What do you think about, you know, his eternal life is hell. The creature is alone, and he wants to end his tormented life, but he can't. There's no one in the world who's like him. And Dr. Frankenstein refuses to make a companion for him. And the creature says there was only one remedy for pain. Death. And you took that away from me, too. After the creature survived something that other people assume would have killed him, he says there was silence. And then merciless life. I felt lonelier than ever. So when you think of eternal life, do you think that that's torment?

[Guillermo del Toro]

Oh, I do. I'm a huge fan of death. I'm a groupie for death. I think it's the metronome of our existence. And without rhythm, there is no melody. You know, it is the metronome of death that makes us value the compass of the beautiful music. You know, I'm going to say this comes when my father was taken. Every day was torment. And I used to see the sun rising and resent it. And I said, the sun doesn't care about my pain. But then. But eventually I realized it was my pain, that I didn't care about the son, and that I needed to change that, that I needed to accept it. I needed to understand that the rhythm of the cosmos is different than that of my little heart.

[Terry Gross]

You know, you mentioned the fear of death every day that your father was held hostage, kidnapped for ransom. Of course you'd be worried about death then. I mean, it was the threat of death hanging over him, and his life was in your hands to save. Putting that aside, as major as that is, did you have A fear of death. Growing up. And as a young man.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Yes, as a young man, my grandmother and I had a very precarious sense of death and life. My grandmother would say goodnight to me every day and say, let us pray that I'm here tomorrow. And that is very. That is pretty intense for a four or five year old to hear. And I would spend. Sometimes I would sleep at the foot of her bed and I would be listening in the dark for her breathing. And if the breathing ceased, even for two seconds, I would be jolted and take a look to see if she was okay. And that stayed with me for many decades. I don't fear it anymore. I don't fear that anymore. I feel losing people. Yes. But me, I'm not afraid of dying, I hope. You know, really, Terry, all these great questions, you know, when they get resolved, Right. When the lights flutter and you are no longer a director or a general or a pope. Right. When you become just you and the lights are flickering out, that's when you realize what you did or didn't do in your life. And that's the most momentous thing anyone can experience. And you can go with great agitation or great peace.

[Terry Gross]

We were talking earlier about the Book of Job.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Yes.

[Terry Gross]

You asked your cast to read the Book of Job.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Yes. And the Tao, what did you want.

[Terry Gross]

Them to take from it?

[Guillermo del Toro]

Because ultimately, that's the plea of the creature too. The plea of the creature is why, you know, why do this thing have happened to me? And the answer comes at the end. The final image of the film is what tells you what we can do. I mean, acceptance is so profound. You know, we are building a culture in which we have the idea of what things should be. And when they don't happen, you can feel frustrated, rebel against them. But at the end of the day, they are what they are. Marty Scorsese tackled the same sort of question in the Irishman. And the answer is very, very beautiful. He says, it is what it is. That's the Book of Job. It is what it is. The Tao says all pain comes from desire, which is absolutely true. You want more awards, you want more money? You find yourself in pain. I do, you know. But if you don't, if you don't want more, there's a zero that gives you peace and the same with life.

[Terry Gross]

So you found feeling insignificant.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Oh, great.

[Terry Gross]

Liberating, liberating.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Which can happen with reviews.

[Terry Gross]

You read them?

[Guillermo del Toro]

Not anymore. Not anymore. I'm 61. I don't. But I did. I did. Oh, my God. When I was younger, I would read every single one until I found the one that would never leave my brain. I remember a few that are really well phrased.

[Terry Gross]

Do you want to quote one?

[Guillermo del Toro]

Well, Jay Hoverman of the Village Boys wrote a great. He put down Blade too beautifully. He said the remotely scary about Blade 2 is that it's done by the same man that did Devil's Backbone, which is beautiful.

[Terry Gross]

Guillermo del Toro, it's been such a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much for coming back to the show.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Always a pleasure. And thank you for the wisdom and the careful guiding of this lengthy interview, which I adored every second of the.

[Terry Gross]

I really appreciate you saying that. I love talking with you.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Same here.

[Sam Bricker]

Guillermo del Toro wrote and directed the new film Frankenstein. Now let's hear Terry's recent interview with another seasoned director, Cameron Crowe.

[Terry Gross]

My guest, Cameron Crowe is known for writing the screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High and writing and directing say Anything, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla sky, and Almost Famous, for which he won an Oscar for Best screenplay. It's the story of a 15 year old who in 1973 manages to become a rock critic and somehow get backstage interviews with important musicians. By the age of 16, he's published in Rolling Stone and even writes a cover story. As improbable as that may sound, it's based on Crow's own life as a teenage music writer. His new memoir, the Uncool, is about that period of his life and more, including his adventures and misadventures, writing about musicians like Greg Allman, Kris Kristofferson, Jimmy Page and David Bowie. He also writes about what life was like in his family when he was growing up and how reluctant his parents were to allow him to go on the road with musicians before he'd even graduated high school. Let's start with a clip from early on in Almost Famous, the Cameron Crowe character, William is about 11, listening to an argument between his mother, played by Frances McDormand, and his older sister, played by Zooey Deschanel. The mother speaks first. You've been kissing. No, I haven't. Yes, you have. No, I haven't. Yes, you have. I can tell.

[Guillermo del Toro]

You can't tell.

[Terry Gross]

Not only can I tell, I know who it is. It's Daryl. What you got under your coat? It's unfair that we can't listen to our music. It's because it is about drugs and promiscuous sex.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Simon and Garfunkel is poetry.

[Terry Gross]

Yes, it's poetry. It is the poetry of drugs and promiscuous sex. Honey, they're on pot.

[Guillermo del Toro]

First it was butter, then it was sugar and white flour, bacon, eggs, bologna, rock and roll, motorcycles. Then it was celebrating Christmas on a day in September when you knew it wouldn't be commercialized. What else are you gonna ban, honey?

[Terry Gross]

You want to rebel against knowledge. I'm trying to give you the Cliff Notes on how to live life in this world.

[Guillermo del Toro]

We're like nobody else I know.

[Terry Gross]

Cameron Crow, welcome back to FRESH air. It's a pleasure to talk with you again.

[Cameron Crowe]

Thanks, Terry.

[Terry Gross]

Was your mother at all like the Frances McDormand character and how unusual she was and how opposed to rock and roll? Even Simon Garfunkel, who she probably hadn't even heard yet?

[Cameron Crowe]

Well, first of all, hearing that clip, it's uncanny how much Frances McDormand is my mother. I mean, the dialogue was straight out of our family and our home.

[Terry Gross]

But somehow I'm just going to interrupt by saying your mother died, I think it was last year.

[Cameron Crowe]

She died in 2019.

[Guillermo del Toro]

20.

[Terry Gross]

19. Yeah, September 11th.

[Cameron Crowe]

Born on the 4th of July and passed away on September 11th, two days before Almost Famous, the musical opened in San Diego. So it was a dramatic exit from the earth, from my mom.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. So I didn't mean to interrupt, except I just wanted to express my condolences.

[Cameron Crowe]

Thank you so much. She's a huge character and completely inspiring. But listening to that clip, it just made me appreciate how sometimes real life is the best writer. And it was just lodged in my head forever as this classic thing that happened where my mom made us believe that she could tell if you'd been kissing. And of course, it was a stunt to get the truth out of us or my sister in that case. But just hilarious how life kind of puts in front of you the best stuff to write about with a mother.

[Terry Gross]

Who was so controlling in terms of like, food and vehicles and not even listening to rock and roll were just kind of banned in your house. You had to sneak it in. How did you manage to get away at the age of 15 and start going on the road with bands so that you can write cover stories about them?

[Cameron Crowe]

She was, you know, all about as a teacher and a counselor who had many great counselees who loved her so much. She always respected intellectualism. If I could somehow pin it to intellectual success, I had a way in. So to go on the road with Led Zeppelin at 15, I had to really sell Led Zeppelin to her as, like, music that's based on Tolkien. This is like lofty material that's, like, good for the soul. Ultimately, I think she she said, because we loved the interviewer, Dick Cavett, in our family. Go and take this journey. Put on your magic shoes. Call me every night and don't take drugs. And that was my ticket out.

[Terry Gross]

Don't take drugs. This is like the refrain of the movie. Like, your mother's always calling, and anytime you call her, it's like, don't take drugs.

[Cameron Crowe]

Cause it was about brain cells. It was about brain cells.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, you had to stay smart. Yeah. Did you end up taking drugs? I'm sure you offered them all the time.

[Cameron Crowe]

I was offered drugs for sure. And I learned early on, Terri, that, like, the best response is no, because the person offering you the drugs generally then says, smart kid more for me. And that made me. I don't know, it made people know that I wasn't there to join the band, party with the band. I was there with a notebook full of questions based on loving music. And that really swung the door open.

[Terry Gross]

Was the writer aspect of being a music writer what your mother approved of? Because that is a more intellectual pursuit.

[Cameron Crowe]

Exactly. And it was true. You know, I really felt like the best of the music that we loved that did sneak into our family had its roots in wonderful writing. For example, Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel. There was something about the song Mrs. Robinson that rubbed my mom the wrong way. And I think it was the way they said cuckoo.

[Terry Gross]

Totally.

[Cameron Crowe]

You got it. She thought it was sneering, and she did. She pulled out the Bookends album cover and showed us the pupils of Paul Simon and promised us that he was high on pot. And the funny thing is, when the movie came out with that scene in it, I think it was on cnn. Somebody was interviewing Paul Simon and they said, you know, what about this movie Almost Famous, holding up the Bookends album cover, you know, Frances McDormand saying, they're on pot. He's like, we were. So she was right.

[Terry Gross]

I think she was also right of being like a sneering song about middle aged women.

[Cameron Crowe]

Absolutely. So she saw clearly and it was inevitable, I think that music was gonna come in, you know, underneath the door or through the window. Somehow the power of rock was gonna find my sister and me. And it did. To this day, that's our favorite language with each other sharing music. And the things that happen when music kind of takes over and transports you and gives you that feeling that you really can't get any other place.

[Terry Gross]

The first concerts you went to, including a Bob Dylan concert very early in his career, you went to with your mother.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

That could be a very wonderful or a very embarrassing experience with both mother and child being uncomfortable.

[Cameron Crowe]

Oh, yeah.

[Terry Gross]

The child doesn't want to be seen as needing to be escorted by a parent. And the parent feels like 100 years old compared to all the kids that are there. What were those experiences like for you? I was just knowing that she hated rock and roll.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah. Well, Bob Dylan, you know, we were pretty young and he was appearing at a gymnasium at the college near where we lived in Riverside, California. And she had read something about this young protest singer that had something to say. And so she came to us and said, let's go see this protest singer and brought a blanket for us to sit on the floor of the gymnasium. And we did see Bob Dylan in 1964, like right after he had written Times They Are a Change. And he was kind of a Charlie Chaplin type figure. I remember. Like he just kind of like was a little jaunty and these loose fitting jeans and he was funny and serious at the same time. And that affected us for sure. But real rock was banned for the longest time because it was, as she said, a vehicle for sex and drugs. And, you know, sometimes it really was. But I was able to go to another concert which was Eric Clapton, Derek and the Dominoes with her, and it was so electrifying that even she kind of understood what the power of rock sometimes could be. And after somebody sitting next to her offered her cocaine, which was, you know, striking to see, but she, you know, politely turned it down and everything. But when the concert was over, we were walking out and she said, you know what? Your music is better than mine.

[Terry Gross]

Wow.

[Cameron Crowe]

And that was my mom. She is a truth teller. So that was her truth. And that was another moment where the door swung open a little wider.

[Sam Bricker]

We're listening to Terry's interview with Cameron Crowe. His new memoir, the Uncool, is based on the same period of his life as his film Almost Famous, which he wrote and directed. We'll hear more of their conversation after a break. This is FRESH AIR Weekend.

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[Terry Gross]

When you were 15, writing about bands, the bands were older than you were. Yeah, but looking back now, they were probably mostly in their 20s, I know, which is really young, really young. So what's your take on some of those musicians now, thinking of them as young people and not as older people?

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah. Well, I thought they were, you know, seasoned adults at the time. And you're right. They were 22, for example. And being 15, you know, the distance between 15 and 22 is enormous. It's like a generation. But really, we were all kind of young together, and rock was young. There wasn't video assists and all the bells and whistles and dancers and stuff. It was really just a naked stage and people playing songs. The power of the songs was the power of the concert. And what I thought as a young guy led into some of these dressing rooms to glimpse how bands prepared for a show or how they struggled to figure out, you know, who was right in an argument about how to play a song. I started to see a dynamic that was so human that it was kind of beyond what I had been able to see as a high school student. For example, when my mom had skipped me two grades and later three, I didn't have a lot of friends. But somehow, because you were much younger.

[Terry Gross]

Than your fellow students, your classmates.

[Cameron Crowe]

But then, you know, somebody like Kris Kristofferson deigns to give me an interview and tries to sneak me into a bar where I'm underage. And then when we get caught, he says, well, I'll sit out here in this big red leatherette chair and I'll do my interview with you. As fans and people stream by, he treated me like an adult and talked to me about the power of movies and music and all this stuff that ended up speaking to me so strongly later. But as a young guy, you're kind of in this position where, you know, this person is allowing me to ask them whatever I want to about music that I love. It was a blissful time, and I still love writing about it.

[Terry Gross]

So how did you manage to convince anybody that at the age of 15, still in high school, that you were worthy of being taken seriously, that your opinions were informed enough and deep enough, went deep enough to be a spokesperson for whether this album was good or not, to be worthy of talking to a band?

[Cameron Crowe]

I'm just laughing because so much of it was just where I lived. We lived in San Diego. And San Diego is not a primary market. San Diego usually happens at the end of a tour after a band or an artist has been in. You know, San Francisco, Louisiana. New York, big reviews. They had to worry about San Diego. It's like. It's surfers, you know? So they would just be partying early for the end of their tour a lot of times. And so here's a kid that comes to the door with a notebook full of questions based on the music that nobody was really asking them about. In the hands of an older journalist. Here's some guy with an orange bag full of cassettes, like, ready to talk to you about your album Aqualung. You know, they're like, get that kid in here. Come on, we're bored. Let him. Let him ask us those questions. And so many of the bands were just nice to me because they were bored in San Diego. And I gotta tell you, going back and listening to a lot of those interviews, because I kept everything. They really talked to me, they really opened up. And that informed the life I was lucky enough to have later as a writer and a director in movies, because I knew how people spoke. I transcribed all my interviews myself. So I knew that people don't talk elegantly, but they can pour their heart out in half sentences. So it was really one big magic carpet ride of learning about people. And it started early. I'm a lucky guy.

[Terry Gross]

So Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Lester Bangs in Almost Famous. And I want to play a scene where he gives you some very interesting advice. But first I want to explain who Lester Bangs is. I mean, he was a really eccentric guy and such strong feelings and unwavering in his confidence, in his opinions about what was great and what was garbage.

[Cameron Crowe]

Oh, yeah.

[Terry Gross]

And he pretty much became a cult figure, you know, and died young.

[Cameron Crowe]

Sadly, yes.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. So when you start writing for Cream, he gives you some advice. So this is a scene between Patrick Fugate, who plays your surrogate in the film, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays Lester Bangs.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman (as Lester Bangs)]

Once you go to la, you're gonna have friends like crazy, but they're gonna be fake friends, you know? They're gonna try to corrupt you, you know, and you got an honest face, and they're gonna tell you everything. But you cannot make friends with the rock stars.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Okay, friend.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman (as Lester Bangs)]

If you're gonna be a true journalist. No, a rock journalist first. You'll never get paid much, but you will get free record from the record company. Nothing about you that is controversial, man. God, it's gonna get ugly, man. They're gonna Buy you drinks, you're gonna meet girls, they're gonna try to fly you places for free, offer you drugs and. I know it sounds great. These people are not your friends, you know? These are people who want you to write sanctimonious stories about the genius of rock stars. And they will ruin rock and roll and strangle everything we love about it.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Right.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman (as Lester Bangs)]

And then it just becomes an industry of cool. I mean, I'm telling you, you're coming along at a very dangerous time for rock and roll. That's why I think you should just turn around, go back, you know, and be a lawyer or something. I can tell from your face that you won't. I can give you 35 bucks. Give me a thousand words on Black Sabbath.

[Sam Bricker]

An assignment.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman (as Lester Bangs)]

Yeah. Yeah. Hey. You have to make your reputation on being honest and unmerciful.

[Terry Gross]

Unmerciful. Honest and unmerciful.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

And I think that was true of Lester Bangs.

[Cameron Crowe]

Absolutely.

[Terry Gross]

Were you capable of being unmerciful?

[Cameron Crowe]

Intermittently. When I listen to that, it takes me right back to when I first met him. He said almost exactly those words. And can you imagine being 15 or 16 and somebody enters your life who speaks that kind of truth with that kind of passion and treats you like an equal?

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. And unmerciful isn't something you usually strive to be in your life.

[Guillermo del Toro]

Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

But as a critic, you have to be honest. And sometimes that means unmerciful. But that's still a harsh word to use for a 15 year old who's starting in a very harsh business.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Cameron Crowe]

Well, let me give you the context. His stance when I met him that day was, it's over. You know, it's gone. That passion, that thing, that flame that is true rock, true music, it's over. They've taken it over. So I was like a straggler to something that was like a flying saucer and had left to him. So he's telling me it's over, but here you are. And just watch out because they'll try and corrupt you, too. And I'm warning you right now because they already ruined Rok. It was like a lot of information. But his thing about unmerciful was you gotta fight back. You have to fight back in the homogenization of something that is important to you. And that's why he used that strong word. And he was sometimes not unmerciful. Sometimes he was very kind. He was kind to me, for example. But he was a politician for the soul of rock. And to me he was legend instantly. For that and many other reasons.

[Terry Gross]

Lester Bangs also warned you about not making friends with musicians or publicists. You probably really wanted to be the musician's friends, but did you try not to be? Like, how did that work out for you?

[Cameron Crowe]

Well, I think generally I was able to witness people that would come through a tour or backstage, and you could tell the people that were there to party and act like they're a rock star, too. And that person would leave the room, and you'd hear how they were talked about by the bands, and you just go, wow, okay, well, I get it. You know, I don't play an instrument, so I'm not going to be in a band or try to be in. In this band. But generally I thought, like, be the guy that's there to document it. And when you're done, go home. Don't stay out or try and, you know, hang out in the hotel rooms. Go back to your room and transcribe the interview. I remember something, Terry, that happened early on. I was on the road with the Allman Brothers Band, and I loved the Allman Brothers Band, and they were staying at the Continental Hyatt House in Los Angeles, and I was covering them for Rolling Stone. And after their show at the Forum, they all came back to this kind of communal room to party and jam. And so there's Greg Allman playing, you know, this blues song, Come In My Kitchen, and I'm just loving. He's like, eight feet away, and there's some people singing, and there's another guy playing guitar over there. And there was a guitar right next to me, and, you know, I only knew two chords, but I picked up the guitar and I started to strum, and I was thinking, this is cool, man. I am, like, jamming with the Allman Brothers Band. And it was like, hands appeared kind of behind me and lifted the guitar out of my hands. Almost like a hand from heaven is just coming to, like, relinquish the guitar from my grasp. And I just felt like, oh, that's cool. I'm in heaven. And there goes the guitar.

[Terry Gross]

Now.

[Cameron Crowe]

It's like, don't jam with the Allman Brothers Band, particularly when you only know two chords. And I thought that was the most gentle way to teach me a lesson.

[Terry Gross]

Early on, you followed David Bowie around off and on for a year and a half.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

And wrote a piece, you know. Was it a cover story?

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah, it was a cover story in Rolling Stone. It was also the Playboy interview, and I did some other stories for, like, Cream and some other publications. It was. It was a David Bowie factory I had going for a while because he wasn't talking to anybody else. Life puts you at a crossroads, and you go one way and it turns into 18 months. With David Bowie, I had no assignment. He said to me, hold up a mirror to me. I want to see what you show me. So, like, spend some time around me. Ask me anything you want. I want to see the mirror that you hold up. And that's what I did. I'm not sure he appreciated totally the mirror that I held up to him, but he did know that it was an accurate portrait of what he was going through in those 18 months, which are kind of referred to as a lost weekend. When he was living untethered in Los Angeles and not sure if he was gonna become a movie actor for a while, he fired his manager. And he was just kind of learning what was gonna be next and trying to reinvent. And he was playing around with this character called the Thin White Duke. And one day he put 12 pages of an autobiography in my hand and signed it and said, I wanted you to have this. And it was called the Return of the Thin White Duke. He never finished it. It's 12 pages. It's striking. And this was the time David Boy was trying to figure out what was coming next. And I was lucky enough to be around, and I asked him all kinds of stuff. And he was both warm and engaging, steely and brilliant and.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Lost.

[Terry Gross]

Well, you know, that kind of fits, in a way, with the fact that he had so many characters that he embodied. And when he said to you, I want to see the mirror, you hold up. Do you think he didn't really know who he was? In some ways?

[Cameron Crowe]

It's so funny that you asked that. I asked him at one point because his real name was David Jones, right? So I asked him at one point, am I meeting David Jones or am I meeting David Bowie, the creation? And he said, you're meeting David Jones, who's aggressively throwing David Bowie at you.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, wow.

[Cameron Crowe]

I know, I know, I know. He even. I asked him at one point, I was like, how do you think you're gonna die? Do you think you'll die on stage? Cause Ziggy Stardust, one of his characters, I think, was based on somebody who had died on stage. And he said, no, no, no, I don't think that's going to happen to me. I think my. I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but he said, I think my death will be an event, something that I manage and produce and make my own statement. And that is exactly what happened.

[Terry Gross]

Remind us how he died.

[Cameron Crowe]

Well, he died of cancer at a young age, and he knew he was dying, didn't tell anybody except a small group of collaborators. And he did this album, Black Star, which is his statement about the death that was coming. And it's profound and it's managed and it is an opportunity that he did not throw away. And he also said in one of the songs, you know, I can't give you everything. So he kept a lot for himself. I think he found a life where he was in love and living in New York, and he loved his family. And the mirror that I held up to him, Terry, was a glimpse of a time when he almost died and wasn't looking after himself and involved in drugs. And too many of his friends, he said, were drug dealers. And he's lucky that he made it out alive.

[Terry Gross]

One of the things that you portray in the movie Almost Famous is the teenage girls and young women who followed the bands and partied with them afterwards and went to their hotel rooms afterwards. And people would call them groupies. But the leader of the group of girls and Almost Famous says, we're not groupies. We love the music. That's why we're here. We're Band Aids A, I D E S And, you know, we're here to help the band because we love their music. The name of the character in the movie, the leader of these girls, is Penny Lane. That's what she was known by. It wasn't her real name. In your memoir, she's also using the name Penny Lane, but her real name is Penny Trimble. In the movie, she's a main character played by Kate Hudson. In your memoir, she gets a paragraph in which you talk about her importance in the band world or the groupie world and her importance to you, but that's it. Are you trying to protect her privacy by not saying more?

[Cameron Crowe]

A little bit. I've talked about Penny quite a bit. Penny Trumbull is a open book. She always said at the time when she got older, she wanted to use whatever money she'd saved to put together an old folks home for old rock stars up in Oregon, which she did with a little bit of the money that she made, which wasn't that much to be able to use her story in the movie. So she loved music and behaved exactly that way. I was pretty young at the time. And so for Penny and the Flying Garter Girls, who was like her clan, you know, who would fail at not getting emotionally involved with the bands, her thing was like watch out. They all would fall for some of the guys and get their hearts broken, whatever. But Penny Trumbull was one of the ones that really opened up to me and told me what it was like emotionally to follow a band and to crave that experience of being in an empty arena after you'd seen the show that meant so much to you and you could still feel the spirits in the air of that empty arena. That's my favorite scene and almost famous, when Kate Hudson is dancing in the in the Garden of Trash Left behind, where Stillwater has played. And that's what I was left with, not trying to protect them. I think, you know, I've written about it and you get the emotional carnage that can happen. That's an almost famous. But I always felt that Penny Trumbull was an open book and was a friend as well as a kind of a, you know, flamboyant figure who was true to her words. She loved music.

[Terry Gross]

Cameron Crowe, it's really been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

[Cameron Crowe]

Thank you. Really enjoyed this.

[Sam Bricker]

Cameron Crow's new memoir is called the Uncool. He spoke with Terry Gross.

[Terry Gross]

I'm an alligator, I'm a mama, papa coming for you.

[Cameron Crowe]

I'm a space invader.

[Sam Bricker]

Fresh AIR Weekend is produced by Teresa Madam. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm Sam Bricker.

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