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- [00:00]
NPR Announcer
Support for npr. And the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege, but a right. Learn more@rwjf.org this is FRESH AIR.
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Terry Gross
I'm Terry Gross. Finally, there's a sequel to the groundbreaking 1984 mockumentary this is Spinal Tap, and the director and co star Rob Reiner is here to tell us about that film and his life and career. This Is Spinal Tap was the most influential mockumentary that helped pave the way to movie and TV mockumentaries, including the Office and Parks and Recreation. Spinal Tap satirized heavy metal bands and rock documentaries. The band is known for its excesses, its loud volume, a bass player who stuffs his pants, incredibly sexist lyrics, as well as on and off stage mishaps. In the new sequel, Spinal Tap 2, the End Continues, the band members return for a reunion concert. As in the original film, the band is portrayed by Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer. Reiner reprises his role as the director of the documentary about the band. This time around, Paul McCartney and Elton John make appearances as themselves. There's also a companion book. Rob Reiner has had a remarkable life. The films he directed include Stand By Me, the Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men and Misery. His father, Carl Reiner, created the 60s sitcom the Dick Van Dyke Show. Rob Reiner was a star of the groundbreaking show in the 70s. All in the Family. Let's start with a scene from Spinal Tap 2, the end continues. The premise of the film is that the band's former manager has died and his daughter inherited the band's contract. She discovers the contract calls for a final concert, which is why the band reunites. She's also found a new road manager. He's played by Chris Addison. In this scene, he's giving advice to the band.
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Chris Addison
If this is the final gig that Spinal Tap do, then what we need to do is secure your legacy. The simplest, most effective way that we could do that is that if during the gig at least one, but ideally no more than two of you were to die. That's what I call the Elvis effect. It really allows for a sort of loose flowering of pretend die. I think that would complicate matters. It's easier if you just, if, you.
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Jack Nicholson
Know, if we just expire.
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Chris Addison
Expire. Do you mean actually die? Yes. Yeah. Well, yeah, but I don't want to arrange.
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Rob Reiner
No, no, no.
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Chris Addison
I appreciate that, but I think in terms of your legacy going forward, how you'll be remembered, how you'll be talked about, what effect that will have on record sales. I'm documentaries. I'm thinking a huge memorial concert. You can do that without actually killing.
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Rob Reiner
One of us, though, can't you?
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Chris Addison
It's very difficult to do a memorial concert when the person is still alive. That's just a sort of rule of thumb. Would you settle for a coma?
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Rob Reiner
Oh, no.
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Chris Addison
That's interesting, you know. Oh, no. Now, David, that's really expensive. That's a great bit of thinking outside. Well, a literal box, I suppose, actually.
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Terry Gross
Rob Reiner, welcome to FRESH air. Congratulations on the sequel. I'm very glad that you made it, and I know everyone else will be, too.
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Rob Reiner
Thank you.
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Terry Gross
One of the things that's very interesting about the film, the first and maybe particularly the sequel, is that you have a band that started off as, you know, kind of like young and rebellious and all that. And now, like Spinal Tap, they're in their 70s, and it just makes no sense for them to be singing some of the lyrics that they're singing. And that happens to a lot of bands who end up performing their old material about teenage love, you know, when they're in their 70s. But these songs about, like, their sexual prowess and they're incredibly some of them are just like, incredibly, like, sexist. So it sounds so inappropriate in so many ways.
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Rob Reiner
Yeah. The beauty of these guys, the members of Spinal Tap, is that in all those years, from their 20s, 30s, up now until their 70s, they have grown neither emotionally or musically. There's no growth. They basically are in a state of arrested development for, like 50 years. And the only growth that there is is maybe skin tabs from getting older.
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Terry Gross
They have to be biopsied.
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Rob Reiner
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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Terry Gross
Did you want the second movie to reflect how music documentaries have changed? Because if I did my math right, like Spinal Tap, like, this is Spinal Tap precedes The MTV and VH1 music documentaries that became so famous.
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Rob Reiner
And so there were a lot of music documentaries before we made the first film. I mean, you know, the. The Led Zeppelin had the Song Remains the Same, the who had the Kids Are all right. And of course, you know, the Last Wall Bob. Yeah, the Last Walls was Scorsese. And the first one was the Bob Dylan documentary by Penne Baker. You know, Don't Look Back, you know. Yeah. So there were these docum. But so what we were doing was not only satirizing heavy metal, but we were satirizing the documentary form and the way in which documentaries were presented and I, you know, basically the reason my character, Marty DeBurge, who's the supposedly the documentarian of the film is in the film is because in the Last Walls I saw. And there's Marty Scorsese, he's in the film. He's. He's documenting this last concert by the band, but he's also in the film. The first film I shot with a 16 millimeter camera. You know, it's a film camera now we have digital cameras. And I shot with two cameras. And I try to, you know, Marty. Let's say the character Marty, who's making the film, I have to always filter it through how he would make it, not necessarily how I would make it. And I try to say, will he be affected by the new modern type of techniques that they use in. In reality shows and, you know, what, what you see up on and all that. And I think he's, he's, you know, he may try a little bit, but basically he's stuck in his own inabilities to make it any hipper or cooler than. Than he was. So he hasn't grown all that much either.
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Terry Gross
I want to play one of the most famous moments from the first Spinal Tap film. And it's. It's the scene where Christopher Guest, as Nigel Tufnell, is showing you, the director of this documentary, his guitar equipment, and he's showing you his amp, which goes up so loud because this band prides itself on how loud it is. It goes up so high, it goes past 10 to 11. So here's an excerpt of that scene.
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Chris Addison
What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you.
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Terry Gross
Know what we do?
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Rob Reiner
Put it up to 11.
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Terry Gross
11, exactly.
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Rob Reiner
One louder. Why don't you just make 10 louder and make 10 be the top number and make that a little louder.
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Terry Gross
These guys are 11, and he looks like, totally baffled by what you said.
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Rob Reiner
What makes that funny is the long pause he gives. And the reason he gives that pause is because he doesn't know I'm going to say, why don't you make ten a little louder? I just came up with that then. And so it's, it stops him for a second. And then he says, well, these go to 11. And what's interesting is that that phrase goes to 11 is now in the Oxford English Dictionary as something that is commonly used for not just loud music, but anything that's done in excess, something that goes beyond what it normally does. So it's weird that something that we just threw off like that all of a sudden becomes part of the the lexicon of our lives. It's. It's very strange how these things have taken root.
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Terry Gross
You started making Spinal Tap 2. The end continues in 2024, on your 77th birthday. And everyone in the movie is the same or approximately the same age as the characters they play.
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Rob Reiner
Right, right.
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Terry Gross
Did making the film make you think more about how you've aged since the first one and all that's happened to you in between?
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Rob Reiner
Oh, sure. You can't ignore it. I mean, you, you know, hopefully our minds are still sharp and we're still able to, you know, as Chris Guest calls it, we can schnadle with each other back and forth. But yeah, word for improv. Yeah, yeah. He says, you know, we schnatal with each other, which is true. I mean, and what's interesting is that after 15 years of not, you know, working together, we came back and started looking at this and seeing if we could come up with an idea, and we started schnadling right away. It was like falling right back in with friends that you hadn't talked to in a long time. It's like jazz musicians, you know, you just fall in and do what you do.
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Terry Gross
You are part of so many comedy related things and so are your friends. So I'm gonna start with like. Your father was Carl Reiner.
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Rob Reiner
Yes.
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Terry Gross
And he created the Dick Van Dyke show and before that wrote for and acted in Sid Caesar shows back in the 1950s. Albert Brooks, your good friend from high school, you made a movie about him. You did an act with Joey Bishop's son before he made movies. You co founded an improv group and did a lot of improv. In the 70s, you were on one of the most popular and groundbreaking sitcoms, all in the Family. You wrote with Steve Martin for the Smothers Brothers summer replacement Show. Early in your career, you were the third host of Saturday Night Live. I mean, I could go on. You have three movies in the National Film Registry. When Harry Met Sally, the Princess Bride, and this is Spinal Tap. Yikes. That's like so much comedy history.
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Rob Reiner
I'm tired, Terry. I'm tired.
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Terry Gross
When you read that, when you make a friend or meet somebody, is being funny one of the first traits you look for in someone?
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Rob Reiner
Well, you know, it's interesting. Yes, of course. You want to, you know, connect with somebody that, you know, you can connect with on the same level. When I was young, you know, you mentioned, you know, my dad and, and Sid Caesar, you know, he also did to me the greatest comedy albums ever done with Mel Brooks called you know the 2000 year old man and to me they're the hippest, funniest comedy albums ever. And when I was a kid and teenager and I come home from school, I would put on one of the album. I did it almost every day for a long time. And I listened to it because I thought, God, this is so brilliant. And that was improvised too. I, I thought, you know, when I met somebody, if they dug the 2000 year old man and they could quote lines from it, I knew it was somebody I could connect with because they were on the same wavelength as I. It was like a good test to see if this is somebody I could connect with.
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Terry Gross
Was the 2000 year old man album and subsequent versions of it. One of the reasons why you wanted to do improv?
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Rob Reiner
Well, no, not really. I mean, I, that's something I always, you know, I, I was drawn to. I mean, I, I loved Second City, I loved the committee. I used to go visit the committee when up, when they were up in San Francisco. And we got the idea when I was at UCLA, I guess I was about 18 or 19 at the time, to start our own improvisation group. And I wanted to do what my dad did. I, you know, when I was a little boy, my parents said, I came up to them and I said, you know, I, I want to change my name. I was about eight years old, I guess I said, I want to change my name. And they said, they were, oh my God, this poor kid, he's worried about being in the shadow of a famous guy and living up to and all this. And they said, well, what do you want to change your name to? And I said, Carl and, and they said, I said, I loved him so much. I just wanted to be like him, you know, and I wanted to, to do what he did. And I just looked up to him so much. So, yeah, I was surrounded by all of this. And I look at, there's a picture in my office of all the writers who wrote for Sid Caesar and the show of shows over the nine years, I guess, that they were on. And when you look at that picture, you're basically looking at everything you ever laughed at in the first half of the 20th century. I mean, there's Mel Brooks, there's my dad, there's Neil Simon, there's Woody Allen, there's Larry Gelbart, I mean, Joe Stein who wrote Fiddler on the Roof, Aaron Rubin who created the Andy Griffith Show. Everybody, anything you ever laughed at is represented by those people. So these are the people I, I look up to and these are the people that were around me, you know, as a kid growing up.
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Terry Gross
Did you ever want to be in a band? Because so many people in the entertainment world at some point wanted to be in a band.
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Rob Reiner
Of course I did. You know, I mean, did you ever play? I can sing. I can sing and I can sing on pitch, but that's about it. And I. You know, I would have killed to be able to. I love blues. I'm a big fan of blues. I mean, I can. I listen to any blues guitarist. I. You know, you got me hooked. And when I saw Michael Bloomfield, who played with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and then played with a band called Electric Flag, I said, wow, God. And he's Jewish. You know, he's a white Jewish guy, and he's playing the blues and he's bet, and he's unbelievable. And I thought, boy, I would just kill to be like Michael Bloomfield. Just the playing of the music, not the other parts, which weren't so good for him.
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Terry Gross
So I want to play a scene from A Few Good Men. And this scene has that very famous line, you can't handle the truth. But it's so like he and Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is prosecuting the colonel, played by Nicholson, who's being court martialed. So this is like the dramatic climax to that whole part of the story. And so I want to play that scene. And I have a very specific question for you, which is, in directing Jack Nicholson, how do you draw the line between giving a lot and giving too much? You know, like, where is the line between, like, chewing the scenery and a great dramatic performance? So let's listen to the scene.
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Jack Nicholson
You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers? I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it?
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Rob Reiner
You?
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Jack Nicholson
You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, you don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.
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Terry Gross
So Rob Reiner, you directed A Few Good Men, which that scene is from. So with Nicholson, he's a great actor, but you know, some great actors can just give a little too much sometimes. And that's such a heightened scene. Did you have to figure out like, is that enough? Is that too much?
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Rob Reiner
I tell you, with Jack Nicholson, he's one of the greatest actors of all time. He's in the pantheon of all time great movie stars and actors. And his instincts are impeccable. You don't have to tell Jack Nicholson to hold back or, you know, give more, whatever he knows what he needs to do. Interestingly enough, like any really, to my opinion, really great actor. He doesn't mind if there's a humorous thing or something that needs a line reading. He doesn't mind if you give. He'll say, how do you want me to say that? Because he likes, it's like a great musician, he wants to hear the notes. How did, how do you say it? And since I, you know, that's one of the things I do, he, you know, he'll say, how do you want me to say that? And he's, he's happy to take a line reading, but can you give us an example? The first day of rehearsal, you do a table read. You know, you sit around, you read the script. The performance that you see on film is the same performance he gave in the read around the table. And normally actors will just kind of market just to hear, but he gave a full out performance and it sent a message to all the other actors. Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Kiefer Sutherland, you know, Kevin Bacon and Kevin, all the actors that were there that we came to play here, this is, you know, this is what we do. And it put everybody in a place. It's like being on a baseball team and watching Babe Ruth step into the batting cage before the game. And he's hitting one ball after the other out of the park. And so they said, oh, we got to step up our games too. And Jack is smart because he knows that the more he gives, the more he's going to get back and it's going to make other people's performances better. And that ultimately is going to make his performance better so more to react to. Yeah. And when we when we did that scene, the famous, you know, you can't handle the truth scene, I asked him, I said, Jack, you know, you got this great speech and, you know, I can either shoot the coverage, meaning the reaction shots and have you off camera, or I can, if you're ready, I'll shoot you now and then, you know, I get the reaction shots later. He said, well, why don't you shoot the reaction shots, you know, and that way it'll give me a chance to work into it. I said, fine. So he's off camera and I'm shooting, you know, a shot for, you know, Tom Cruise and one of the me and one of the of Kevin Bacon. And, you know, I got different angles. And every time we go through the scene, he gives the exact same performance, the one you see on camera. And at one point I go back to Jack. I said, Jack, you, you know, maybe you want to wait and hold some of this back, you know, you know, when I turn around the camera and you be on you, you'll have everything, you know, you don't want to waste it here. He says, no, Rob, you don't understand. I love to act. He said, this is a great part, and I don't get a chance to play great parts that often. So that was him, what he did off camera, what he did at the reading, what you see on camera is what you get from Jack Nicholson.
- [20:04]
Terry Gross
My guest is Rob Reiner. He directed, co wrote and co stars in the new sequel to this Is Spinal Tap, which is called Spinal Tap 2. The end continues. We'll be right back. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH.
- [20:17]
NPR Announcer
AIR support for npr. And the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege, but a right. Learn more@rwjf.org hi, this is Molly Sivi.
- [20:35]
Terry Gross
Nesburg, digital producer at FRESH air. And this is Terry Gross, host of the show.
- [20:40]
Rob Reiner
One of the things I do is.
- [20:41]
Terry Gross
Write the weekly newsletter, and I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week shows, staff recommendations and Molly picks, timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read.
- [20:53]
Rob Reiner
It's also the only place where we.
- [20:55]
Terry Gross
Tell you what's coming up next week, an exclusive. So subscribe@whyy.org fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning. You decided to give your mother what turned out to be the Most famous, most quoted line from When Harry Met Sally. This takes place in the deli, a very famous deli in Manhattan, Katz's Deli. When Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, their characters are having lunch together. They're friends. And Billy Crystal's kind of, like, going on about his dating life, how good it is and how satisfied, sexually satisfied the women he's dating are. And Meg Ryan is a little skeptical, and she says, how do you know that it's real? I mean, how can you judge if what they're expressing is real or not? And he goes, oh, I know. And she goes, oh, really? And then she starts faking the noises as if she's having an orgasm. And everyone in the deli stops eating. Everyone's staring at her. Billy Crystal's watching people stare at him and Meg Ryan, and she's going on and on. And then your mother has this famous line that when Meg Ryan is done, that your mother says to the waiter, so let's play a short excerpt of that.
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Rob Reiner
Oh. Oh.
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Terry Gross
Oh, God. Oh, I'll have what she's having. I'll have what she's having. How did you decide? Oh, that's the line I'm giving my mother.
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Rob Reiner
Well, first of all, Billy Crystal came up with that line. We had the scene. We knew we were going to do a scene where Meg was going to fake an orgasm in an incongruous place like a deli. And Billy came up with the line, I'll have what she's having. And when he did, and he came up with it, you know, before we went to New York, he came up with, in rehearsal, I said, we need to find somebody, an older Jewish woman who could deliver that line, which would seem incongruous. And I thought of my mother, because my mother had done a couple of little things. She did a thing in a movie that Ann Bancroft directed called Fatso, and she did a couple of other little things. And so I thought, oh, she'd be perfect for it. And so I asked her if she wanted to do it, and she said, sure. And I said, now, listen, mom. You know, we don't know. Hopefully that'll be the topper of the scene. It'll get the big laugh. And if it doesn't, you know, I may have to cut it out, because I know the scene is funny with Meg doing that. And she said, that's fine. You know, I just want to spend the day with you. I'll go to Katz's. I'll get a hot dog. You know, whatever it is. She was Fine with it. You know, she was okay. And then when we did the scene the first couple of times through, Meg was kind of tepid about it. She didn't, you know, give it her all. She didn't go full out. And so I said, let's try it again. And she was nervous. She's in front of, you know, the crew, and there's extras and people. She did it a few times, and then it was never exactly what eventually wound up in the film. And at one point, I get in there and I said, meg, let me show you what I'm on. And I sat opposite Billy, and I'm acting it out, and I'm going, pounding the table. And I'm going, yes, yes, yes. I'm pounding the table. And then I turned to Billy, I said, billy, this is embarrassing here. Oh, he what? He said, I just had an orgasm in front of my mother. But then Meg came in, and she did it, obviously way better than I could do it.
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Terry Gross
So I interviewed your father back in 1988, and I don't know if you ever heard that.
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Rob Reiner
I haven't, but I'm sure it was great. He's great to talk with.
- [24:42]
Terry Gross
So there was an excerpt where I asked him about you, and I want to play that excerpt. Is that okay? Yeah. You want to hear it?
- [24:47]
Rob Reiner
Yeah, sure.
- [24:48]
Terry Gross
Sure. Okay.
- [24:48]
Rob Reiner
Yeah, yeah.
- [24:49]
Terry Gross
So this is Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner's father, in 1988. Let me ask you about your son, Rob Reiner. He first became an acting star in all in the Family as Meathead, and then he became a director directing movies like Princess Bride, Spinal Tap, Stand By Me. Did you ever expect him to go into show business?
- [25:10]
Carl Reiner
Not. Not when he was very young, although he had a tremendous ability to remember everything he'd ever seen. I mean, he's one of these kids who absorbs. He was one of those kids who absorbed everything he saw on television and movies. But he never stated it loudly that he was going to do, but in his heart, he wanted to be a director, always. Isn't that amazing? And he only told us about it later. When he was about 19 years old, I saw him direct a Ricky Dreyfuss. And he were friends when they were in high school, and he directed a. A version of no Exit by Sartre, and it was brilliant. He was only about 18 or 19 at the time. At that point, his road was starting to be paved. He wanted to be a director, and there's no question that he knew that, and he wasn't telling it to everybody because, you know, when you're young, you say, I want to be a director. They say, I get out of here. And he had it in his mind, I'm sure, all the time he was on all in the Family, he was planning it.
- [26:00]
Terry Gross
Do you show each other your work?
- [26:02]
Carl Reiner
Oh, yes. Last, you're asking something very, very current. You're the first one. Fresh Air has got the first piece of information about this. Last night, I saw a preview. Not a preview, a rough cut of Rob's new movie, which he's not sure of the title yet. So far, it's Harry, this is Sally, or Sally, this is Harry. I'm not sure the title. With Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby. Well, I'm going to go on record as saying it is the most beautiful, successful, glorious romantic comedy that I have ever seen. I called Rob today and I said, gee, whether I'm your father or not has nothing to do with this. I mean, that is a masterwork of movie making.
- [26:47]
Terry Gross
Do you remember him telling you that? And was that an important affirmation for you?
- [26:51]
Rob Reiner
You know, first of all, just hearing his voice, it's got to me a little bit there. You know, I miss him, you know, and I still hear him, you know, all the time in my head. So to listen to that was pretty, pretty amazing.
- [27:14]
Terry Gross
Do you want a moment?
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Rob Reiner
No, it's all right. It's all right. I mean, you know, he talked about the, you know, the time I directed no Exit, and that was the first time that he ever acknowledged that. That he. He. He thought I was, you know, I was good at what I was doing. He came backstage after the performance and he looked me in the eye and he said, that was good. No bull. And that's the first time you ever said anything like that to me. Because I had acted in, you know, in summer theater, and I. One of the things I did was I played the lead in Enter Laughing, which was a play based on the book that he wrote, which was semi autobiographical, and he came to see it, and I don't think he thought at that time that I was very good or anything. I mean, I'd gotten good reviews. People seemed to like it. But he kind of. He said, oh, good job, good job. You know, But I kind of sensed that he didn't think it was all that good. And I did audition when he made the film of Enter Laughing, I auditioned for a smaller part, you know, and he rejected me. And so it doesn't get any bigger than getting rejected by your father for something that, you know, he's doing. And so I guess it wasn't until I was 19 that he validated that to me. And then I came to visit him at the house after. After he said that, I. I visited him. You know, I was living away at the time, and I was sitting with him in the backyard, and he said to me, I'm not worried about you. You're going to be great at whatever you do. You know, he lives in my head all the time, and, you know, he's. He had two great guides in my life. I had my dad and then Norman Lear, like a second father. So I. You know, they're both gone and. But they're both with me always.
- [29:18]
Terry Gross
Your father said that he didn't find out until later that you wanted to direct. Did you not tell him that you wanted to direct?
- [29:25]
Rob Reiner
No, no. But I never said specifically, I want to be a film director. I never said that. And I never really thought that way. I just knew I wanted to act direct and do things, you know, being in the world that he was in. And it wasn't until I did Stand By Me that I really started to feel very separate and apart from my father. Because the first film I did was, you know, this is Spinal Tap, which was a satire, and my father had trafficked in satire with Sid Caesar for many years, so. And then the second film I did was a film called the sure Thing, which was a romantic comedy for young people, and my father had done romantic comedy. You know, the Van Dyke show is a romantic comedy, a series. But when I did Stand By Me, it was the one that was closest to me because I was. I was one of four friends. And I felt that my father didn't, you know, love me or understand me. And it was the character of Gordy that expressed those things. And the film was a combination of nostalgia, emotion, and a lot of humor. And it was a real reflection of my personality. It was an extension, really, of my sensibility. And when it became successful, I said, oh, okay, I can go in the direction that I want to go in and not feel like I have to, you know, mirror everything my father has done up till then.
- [30:51]
Terry Gross
You know, you just said you felt like your father didn't love or understand you when you were growing up. But you've also talked about how much you loved your father and wanted to be like him. You even wanted to take on his name at some point, call yourself Carl Reiner. Those two things seem contradictory.
- [31:07]
Rob Reiner
Well, they're not. Because loving your father and looking up to your father doesn't necessarily mean, you're feeling that back that you're feeling that from him. And the scene in Stand By Me where the boys finally find the dead body and they're sitting there and Gordy starts to cry and, you know, he's sitting there with the River Phoenix who plays Chris Chambers. And he says, my father didn't love me. And Chris says, no, he did love you. He just didn't know you. And that scene, I wrote that scene in a hotel room in Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, when we were shooting up there. And as I was writing that scene, I start crying because that's the way I felt.
- [31:59]
Terry Gross
Well, we have to take another break here, so let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Rob Reiner. He directed, co wrote and co stars in the new sequel to Spinal Tap, which is called Spinal Tap 2. The end continues. We'll be right back. This is FRESH air. So I have to ask you, I feel obligated to ask you about all in the Family, which was such a popular show in the 1970s and kind of controversial for its depiction of the generation gap between the parents and the daughter who is married to you. You're the son in law in it, and you're very liberal and the father's really conservative. And that's a constant battle between the two of you. That's one of the main themes throughout the series. But, you know, Norman Lear was very liberal. He founded, you know, People for the American Way. What was that experience like for you? Like, how old were you when you first started performing in that? The series started in 71.
- [33:02]
Rob Reiner
Right? I was 23. And this is, to me, what's interesting about all this. And it was groundbreaking at the time. Nobody had done a show like this. Cbs, when they put it on, they had a big disclaimer at the beginning saying, you know, the views that are represented in the show don't represent the views of cv. Basically, it was a disclaimer saying, I don't know how this show got on here, but you want to watch it, you watch it at your own risk. You know, we don't.
- [33:29]
Terry Gross
Don't sue us.
- [33:30]
Rob Reiner
Yeah, don't, don't. Don't. Yeah. I don't know. Somebody put it on anyway. But here's what was interesting about this. We were a country at that time of about 200 million people, and we were number one in America for five years straight every single week. And every week, 40 to 45 million people watch that show. And they had to watch it when it was on because There was no TiVo, there was no DVR, no video cassettes, nothing. Now, we're a country of, you know, upwards of 340 million people. And if you can get 5 to 10 million people watching a show on a given night that's a huge hit, and they're not all watching it at the same time.
- [34:18]
Terry Gross
Well, there's politics itself that has become like. Everybody talks about that, but pop culture is no longer the glue that it once was, because there are so many options that everybody is doing their own thing and not watching or listening at the same time. So I know exactly what you're saying. What was it like for you to be famous at that age? You were already from a famous father and had.
- [34:43]
Rob Reiner
That helped. That helped.
- [34:45]
Terry Gross
You went to school with the children of very famous people, and other people you went to school with were becoming famous, too. But what was it like personally to have people recognize you? Did that make you feel good? Was it feeling intrusive?
- [34:59]
Rob Reiner
I gotta tell you, it was bizarre, you know, to be on a show of that power and that reach. It was like being in the Beatles. I mean, you'd go into a restaurant or you'd go into. I remember one time that Gene Stapleton and myself, Sally Star, that walked into a. An airport restaurant, and the entire restaurant stood up and cheered and started applauding. It was that kind of response that you don't see so much now, you know, with people in television. So it was. That was strange. But you have to take it with a grain of salt because you want to entertain them and you hope that you do, but it doesn't matter what they think. You have to do something you like to do, and hopefully other people will like it, too.
- [35:50]
Terry Gross
So let's end with music from the new film Spinal Tap. The End continues. There's a reprise of a song from the first Spinal Tap film, probably the most famous song, or at least one of them, Stonehenge. This is about, like, the beginning of the world and a very pretentious song. But in this one, Elton John, who makes an appearance in this sequel, he's at the piano and sitting in with Spinal Tap. So the introduction is done by Christopher Guest, you know, the spoken introduction, and then the song is actually sung by Elton John, who again is at the piano. So, Rob Reiner, thank you so much. It was really been a pleasure to talk with you, and thank you for the Spinal Tap movies.
- [36:39]
Rob Reiner
Well, thank you so much for having me.
- [36:45]
Chris Addison
In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, lived a strange race of people.
- [37:00]
Rob Reiner
Druids.
- [37:10]
Chris Addison
No one knows who they were or what they were doing, but their legacy remains human into the living rock of.
- [37:25]
Rob Reiner
Stone Age Stonehenge, where the demons dwell, where the fancy live and if you live well. Stonehenge, where a man to man and the children dance to the pipe.
- [37:56]
Terry Gross
Rob Reiner directed the new film Spinal Tap 2 the End continues the sequel to this is final Tap.
- [38:05]
Rob Reiner
Stonehenge is a mad place where the rides will the dragon fade. Stonehenge where the virgins lie and the prayers of death.
- [38:17]
Terry Gross
This is FRESH Air. The Peacock streaming service recently unveiled all 10 episodes of its new comedy series called the Paper. It's a sequel of sorts to NBC's long running sitcom the Office, with an almost completely new cast of characters, but with the same mockumentary workplace format. Our TV critic David Biancooli has this review.
- [38:41]
David Biancolli
The Paper arrives with an unusually long and impressive TV lineage. It starts with the original British version of the Office, which premiered in 2001 on the BBC starring Ricky Gervais as paper company executive David Brent. That entire series consisted of a dozen episodes and a movie length finale. But after the Office closed up shop, its series concept was sold to NBC where it was developed for American television by Greg Daniel Daniels had written for the Simpsons, King of the Hill and Parks and Recreation and adapted the Office with respect for its main structure and characters. Like the British version, it was presented without a laugh track and framed as though a documentary crew was capturing the workplace dynamics and private comments of employees at a paper company. The instantly identifiable character types were retained as well. For America, the clueless self important boss Michael Scott was played by Steve Carell. The Will they or Won't they? Lovestruck co workers Jim and Pam were played by John Krasinski and Jenna Fisher, and playing the Office nemesis Dwight was Rainn Wilson. The NBC version of the Office premiered in 2005 to initially lukewarm reviews, including mine. I loved the original British sitcom so much. I thought the Americanized adaptation arrived as a pale imitation. But very quickly the writers and actors found their own comic rhythms and the stories became original by necessity. NBC's The Office thrived and finally ended in 2011 after nine seasons, followed by an encore finale special two years later. And now the Office is back. Sort of Peacock's the Paper is co created by Greg Daniels, who has returned to steer this new ship, and Michael Komen, a writer on Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Conan o' Brien and Nathan for you. Their framework for the Paper is so similar to what Daniels did for The Office that it borders on reverential. Even its opening theme has echoes of the original. The paper is about a once thriving, now dying local newspaper and some new efforts to save it, even though some of its company managers have a very low opinion of journalism in general and the Toledo Truth Teller in particular. Like so many businesses these days, the Dunder Mifflin paper company seen in the Office, has been absorbed by a larger corporation. The new business is called Enervate. It's based in Toledo, Ohio, and the documentary crew from the Office is back to check them out. The crew is given a basic tour by company executive Ken Davies, who's played by Tim Key and whose character is one of two antagonists in this show. He has the same abrasive personality as David Brent from the original Office and a similar British accent as well. The buzzing at the start is from an electric razor used by an office staffer shaving at his desk nearby. And as you hear that, you also hear Ken's disdain for the company's local newspaper.
- [42:08]
Chris Addison
Enovate sells products made out of paper. So that might be office supplies, that might be janitorial paper, which is toilet tissue, toilet seat protectors, and local newspapers. And that is in order of quality.
- [42:25]
David Biancolli
The other Office nemesis is Esmeralda grand, whose accent is Italian. She's a flamboyant attention hog, played wildly and delightfully by Sabrina Impacciatore, who was Valentina in season two of the White Lotus. When the paper begins, she's basically in charge. And when she takes over the company tour, the filmmakers stumble on a very familiar face. It's Oscar Martinez, played by Oscar Nunez. He's the accountant from NBC's the Office who finds himself once again stalked by a camera crew and not at all happy about it.
- [42:59]
Terry Gross
Anyway, here are two accountants and the head accountant. Boring, boring. And head boring.
- [43:07]
Carl Reiner
God, not again.
- [43:10]
Jack Nicholson
I'm not agreeing to any of this.
- [43:12]
Terry Gross
Don't you guys have enough?
- [43:13]
Jack Nicholson
After nine years, nobody wants this. You know what? You can't use my voice, my likeness, my face, nothing.
- [43:20]
David Biancolli
The Paper also features Donal Gleason, who stars as incoming editor in chief Ned Sampson and Chelsea Fry as eventual cub reporter Mayor Priddy. They're destined to become the Jim and Pam of this series. And when Ned arrives in Toledo with optimistic dreams of restoring this nearly dead news operation, he's also a bit like Ted Lasso Gleason from the Star wars and Harry Potter franchises. And from the movie Ex Machina is a perfect sitcom star, instantly likable.
- [43:51]
Ned Sampson
My name is Ned Sampson. I am signing the visitors log. Even though I am not a visitor, this is my first day working at the Truth Teller. I'm so excited to be saying that when I was a kid, I didn't want to be Superman. I wanted to be Clark Kent. Because to me, Clark is the real superhero. He's saving the world, too, by working at a newspaper. And that, to me, is much more noble and much more achievable.
- [44:20]
David Biancolli
And I love that these characters and actors will win you over quickly and completely, partly because the performances are so smart and partly because the writing is too. The issues facing journalism these days, from online clickbait to corporate interference and a real concern for the survival of the printed newspaper run all through the paper. But it's primarily a comedy, a very, very funny one. And by the end of the tenth episode, you're likely to love both the characters and its emotional cliffhanger.
- [44:53]
Terry Gross
David Biancooli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed the Paper, which is now streaming on Peacock. Tomorrow on FRESH air, with the 2026 midterms looming, President Trump is floating proposals to ban mail in ballots and even voting machines. We'll talk with election law expert Richard Hassan, who will report reflect on what this says about the state of our democracy, the broader push to reshape it, and what's at stake for free and fair elections. I hope you'll join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shora, Anne Marie Boldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Samad, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Sivi Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Theresa Madden directed today's show. Our co host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
- [46:02]
NPR Announcer
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- [46:16]
Terry Gross
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