Host / Interviewer (4:07)

She believed in you like my grandmother believed in me. You know, I stuttered. I was bullied as a kid. And my grandmother, my Nana Judy, who was 104, was raised in foster care, was my hero. And I'd come home from school crying every day, and she would tell me, it's okay, you go back. All the bullying kids are not going to be cool when they're adults. Your grandmother served a similar role with you as well.

Brian Grazer (4:33)

Very similar.

Host / Interviewer (4:34)

And so how important is it to somebody who's feeling not great, insecure to say the four most important words in the English language, which is, I believe in you.

Brian Grazer (4:43)

Wow. It's everything. You just need one person. Same what you're saying. One person that has undying belief in you. And we're there saying. I mean, I would look at my. It was very. I was acutely dyslexic, so I couldn't read for a very long time. And I would get straight F's, and she'd say. She'd look over my shoulder at the report card. It was straight Fs. And she'd say, you're gonna be special. You're going all the way. She had all these isms like, think big, be big. She just believed in that and believed in me, you know, And I basically said young. I said, grandma, like, there's like no empirical evidence that I'm going anywhere, you know, like, at all, much less going up. So. But she just, you know, had an illogical amount of belief in me.

Host / Interviewer (5:33)

We had a similarity as well. I sit in class, I'd be petrified. The teacher would call on me, I would stutter and everyone would make fun of you. What were you feeling as a kid? And, you know, I mean, it really affected me hugely in my life. Just. God, my heart would be beating out of my chest.

Brian Grazer (5:48)

Wow.

Host / Interviewer (5:48)

It's hard to imagine, you know, I mean, it really was. I was just. Well, thank you, but what was your experience like? And did you say to yourself, God, I can't do this. I need to be better somehow?

Brian Grazer (5:59)

Yes. I felt like I couldn't do this because I had to go see Mr. Polavoil, the teaching. The reading teacher. And I just, like, would fall asleep because that day it was this kind of manual device that sort of a line that went down and forced your eyes to go from left to right. And, you know, it was all these different mechanics, but it caused a lot of shame, a tremendous amount of shame, because the minute it was open to a question and the teacher was going to point, I would try to deflect because I knew I couldn't answer it. So I don't know if you did this, but I'd look the other way or I'd cough and be disruptive to the class or, you know, in the day I'd have these little straws and shoot little spit wads at people and then get in trouble, but not have to answer a question and be wrong, you know, blank face. And I kind of did everything to avoid those questions, and it was traumatizing.

Sponsor / Advertiser (6:55)

I hope you're enjoying this video so far. But before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach the next level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly a hundred, including Google, Lift and Seagate. And I also co founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage of my life. I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success, success way faster than I did in my own journey. I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others, and I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions, and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video.

Host / Interviewer (7:48)

Your parents, at some point, with your dyslexia and poor grades, thought about holding you back, and they called you the let's put him back kid.

Brian Grazer (7:59)

My God, you do do a lot of research. It was that. Yes. And so we were always talking about. They didn't talk about it really in front of me, but I could hear them always through my closed door. She, you know, we're not putting him back, Tom. We're not putting him. Like it was one person. It would be one or the other that's defending me not being put back. But it was. Was like a ongoing, very heated conversation, a debate between the two of them. But they didn't put me back. I didn't want to be put back. I thought, I'm going to be in the same place being put back. So let's just keep struggling through this.

Host / Interviewer (8:37)

In school, sometimes we do things that to get out of certain things, right, we don't want to go to class or we don't. Like a certain class, you did something to skip your first class in the morning. So tell us about the city swim meet and the outside lane. And then what happened? What were the lessons you learned from that?

Brian Grazer (8:54)

Okay, so I couldn't really read at all in elementary school and in junior high, I was, you know, kind of getting through it with, like, C's and D's. But. And in high school, I was. As a freshman, I was getting C's, and I did. As a sophomore, I went out for football, and I was out in Chatsworth, California, which is very hot, like well over 100 degrees. And in the summer, and you had to do this thing called Hell week, which is two weeks of football in the broiling heat, you know, sometimes 110. I was there once it was 127 degrees.

Host / Interviewer (9:36)

And you're with a helmet and all

Brian Grazer (9:37)

the gear and all this stuff. But I'm not big. There was a time, I mean, I was a very good athlete. But then everybody got big. I mean all my friends got well over six feet. But I still carried the confidence like I could still kick your ass. But when it came to this football, I did get through the hell week. And then we were all supposed to. We all had to go to an assembled auditorium event. There was about 250 kids of, you know, all the leagues and stuff like that. Coach Ogawa was in the front of the class and he said, okay, name and status. I didn't even know what he meant really. I only learned by example because my close friend Chris Parkinson, first he'd say Chris Parkinson, center. Then it was Perry Shillmeyer, wide receiver. Then it was Richard Cox, quarterback. Brian Grazer, tailback. Incorrect. And basically I just, I got cut like in front of 250 guys and it was like horrible. It was just a horrible feeling and. But I was able to really granulate the memory of what that felt like. And I felt when it was when I was going down the line, I was a human being. And then when he cut me, I was no longer a human being. I was just. I thought of it in those terms that I just fell off a cliff of being a human being. It was really traumatizing to me and troubling. And I think of it later that it was probably even somewhat imperceptible to the group because it's not them, they're concerned with themselves. But to me it was a seismic event. I didn't know what to do. I had to pivot and figure out what am I going to do in the first period. So I decided I'll go out for swimming. I start going out for swimming. I don't even know how to swim. I'm swimming a little bit, you know, like that. Usually holding onto the side and clowning around with guys and laughing and stuff like that. And then all of a sudden we have a pre meet. And it was like a pre meet but it was all city schools were involved in it. So I'm in the pre meet and they just ran out of people and they threw me in Lane 8, which is the worst lane, literally the worst because all the water sloshes into your face and everything and you're in lane eight and to the hundred yard butterfly. I'm swimming this butterfly. My body just kind of. It just naturally contorted in the direct, in the way a butterfly stroke went. So it was extremely natural to me. And I went, I moved along and then I looked ahead and I could see I was coming towards Touchdown. I looked behind me. I start. I didn't really see any. And then I see this Coach Wiley, now he's got this stopwatch when I touched down and he said, grazer, you just broke the city record. And I thought, wow, that was like, amazing to me. And I realized that I couldn't see people because they were so far behind me. And I just took a glance and I thought. And it was like, magnificent event for me.

Host / Interviewer (12:30)

What did shaving your head have to do with that story?

Brian Grazer (12:33)

Oh, what happened? Okay, for a while, you know, like in the school, like, they'd say I did have to shave my head or knit the very beginning head and legs and stuff and body because, you know, you go faster with shaved head, shaved hair and everything. People go, hey, what's the great Grazer going to do? It was like this. There were people say, the great Grazer. And I thought, who they talking about? But it was me. And so then it came to the end of the season. I was doing very well. Our coach really wanted to win, of course, this, like, final event that was at, oddly enough, of Beverly Hills High indoor pool. I didn't want to shave my body again because I just didn't want to, you know, just somewhat defiant. They elect Ogawa, of all people to lobby me because they think maybe Ogawa thought he. I liked him or something for cutting me. I don't know. But Ogawa tries to get me to shave my hair, my head. And I said, no, you shave your head. You know, I'm not doing that. And I didn't. I won anyway. And that was the story. Like, I. I wouldn't do it. I thought it was just kind of funny as a postscript that Ogawa was the one that was elected to do it. And I won anyway without shaving my head again. Then I have a later thing. I was at an international press junket and some little. Some girl came over. I was like, you know, I was at that time a pretty big producer. And she goes, by the way, I'm the niece of your koch, Ogawa. I swear. And I was really nice, of course. I said, oh, God, I hope he's okay. And, oh, yeah, he's still healthy, he's alive and all that. But that was the story. Basically.

Host / Interviewer (14:07)

Talk about college separately from brief Stanton and law school. You went to USC on a scholarship. How did you go from aft to a C student to getting a scholarship at usc?

Brian Grazer (14:18)

I did learn how to take tests I would not cheating. I was able to synthesize information I could compress Information to the point that I could. Yellow marking pen, yellow line, essential information right before I went to sleep at night. And I found that really living it by the yellow, you know, my synthesized information. Then falling right to sleep, I was able to wake up with it. And I would have the information and the tools to facilitate, you know, pivots. So I know the not have knowledge. And then if the question, the question didn't have to be right on point, it could be any variation of the question and I was capable of pivoting into the correct answer. And so I got quite good grades.

Host / Interviewer (15:00)

You've talked about something that I feel is very unique in terms of gaming the system.

Brian Grazer (15:04)

Yeah.

Host / Interviewer (15:05)

Arguing with your professor. I've never.

Brian Grazer (15:06)

Oh, yeah, I did do that too.

Host / Interviewer (15:08)

So how does a professor, you know, you walk in, you knock on the door and say, hey, Professor Grazer. Yeah, you know, I've got a B, but it should really be an A. Yeah. How would that work?

Brian Grazer (15:16)

Oh yeah, well, that was helpful. Like Grandma Sonja was good at that. I mean, she didn't show up with me, but. But I was really honed the skills of being of conversation, you know, debate. So I would debate every single one. I challenge every single one of my grades. And the way you challenge is if you get a C or B, you know, and you want to adv. I mean, I got C's turned into A's by going in and talking to the professor. And through a relatively long interaction with that professor, they felt I was worthy of a higher grade. Sometimes I did have to take a test, but mostly it was just, you know, an in depth, thoughtful conversation. And I was always very persuasive. And I got, again, I could get Cs turned into A's or often at least one, one jump, you know, B to an A. Easily. All my. I didn't get, I did got very few Cs in college or even in high school. In high school I got Cs, but in college, very few Cs, but I was able to really get those grades to be higher, you know, strong, strong B's or A's.

Host / Interviewer (16:20)

Always we talk about moments in our lives that are very important and profound that we look back and we say, oh gosh, you know, that's, that's one that I really, you know, changed our life. And one thing that you did that was really cool, which I think everybody should do, is, you know, want to be a better public speaker. So you took a public speaking class in front of 250 people with Mr. French yeah.

Brian Grazer (16:39)

So very good research.

Host / Interviewer (16:41)

Tell us about Mr. French.

Brian Grazer (16:42)

This was troubling. Okay, so I've always had somebody that's challenging me, actually. I've always felt like an underdog story. And still, even to this day, you know, I'm always me against the man. Today still little, because even if you're successful, I mean, Spielberg got ET put into turnaround after Jaws. I mean, there's always somebody judging you. There's always that. And it's not always data driven. It's just to be subjective and, and so anyway, yes, I always just feel it, you know, when, when you're, when you've been it so long, you feel it, that's all. And that's why, largely why I make a lot of movies that are racial alger stories that are underdog stories. The common man that seeks to succeed triumphs on a high level. The French thing was, yeah, I wanted to be better at. I was very uncomfortable public speaking. I take a public speaking class. It's a very big cat class. He takes me aside and he says, I really have to talk to you. And I said, okay. And he said, look, I encourage you to drop out of this school, out of the university, and to go to occupational school because you are not going to make it. And I kind of thought, you know, f you, you know, like I couldn't change him, but I changed myself, you know, that, that was it. But I thought it was, it was kind of a snap judgment on Mr. French's part. It's a little unfair. I think you should quit college and go into occupational school. He was very, very, very discouraging of my further, you know, interaction with college.

Sponsor / Advertiser (18:17)

I hope you're enjoying this video so far, but before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach a nice level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google, Lyft and Seagate. And I also co founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage in my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did in my own journey. I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others and I'm looking for a few high hungry entrepreneurs are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions, and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video.

Host / Interviewer (19:12)

You know, there's times in our life where someone will put you down or do something very negative in your life. And, yeah, Aspen's a place where we've met a few times now. And I dated a girl in law school that was very wealthy, and I wasn't. And so I remember going to this party at Red Mountain and just being insecure, and there were no phones in. I called them up and said, hey, I just don't feel good. I don't have the right clothes. These people are not my kind of people. And at one point, my girlfriend's mom said, let's take a walk. And it was snowing, and we went around the little Nell. She lived on Hyman Street. And so we're taking this walk around. She said, what's it gonna take for you to stop dating my daughter?

Brian Grazer (19:52)

Oh, my God.

Host / Interviewer (19:53)

And I thought, that's brutal.

Brian Grazer (19:56)

That's so brutal.

Host / Interviewer (19:57)

And I was 23 years old, and of course, I could use the money, But I'm like you. I'm not for sale. You know, when my company went public, years later, you know, I. You want to be humble, right? When you're successful, Right. You never, always, and. But, you know, I thought about all the kids that made fun of me when I was younger and called me retarded. And if there was anybody who I wanted to call and just say, hey, you know, look at what I did, it was my girlfriend's mom, because, you know, here I wasn't good enough. She wanted a Rockefeller or wanted someone in Aspen with two homes, at a home in the south of France as well. But 30 years later, you win the Oscar and you called Mr. French again.

Brian Grazer (20:35)

Yeah.

Host / Interviewer (20:36)

So tell us about that conversation. I guess it worked out, Mr. French.

Brian Grazer (20:40)

Yeah, I have some version of that.

Host / Interviewer (20:42)

So. So what?

Brian Grazer (20:42)

So he was like, you know, he couldn't really. He couldn't associate. He couldn't comprehend the impact he had, the negative impact he had. He. You know, and so I didn't get a tremendous amount of gratification out of it. I mean, he was just like, wow, you're doing great. He just focused on how great I was doing yeah. Not the counterpoint of where he left me last, but it was. It was fine. I'm not a person that takes revenge on people. I have no ability to hold negativity.

Host / Interviewer (21:11)

Yeah.

Brian Grazer (21:11)

I mean, I get mad. If I get mad, it kind of goes away. Maybe in an hour, maybe a minute. It doesn't stick with me. I can't wake up every morning. I have a friend that can wake up every morning, like, hating the same person or several people.

Host / Interviewer (21:27)

Not healthy.

Brian Grazer (21:28)

No, not healthy. You're killing yourself.

Host / Interviewer (21:31)

Let's talk about insecurity, which we hit a little bit before the show, and I want to talk about it as well. So you bought yourself a Porsche 914 at some point when you were 911T Targa. 911T Targa, which means a little pop

Brian Grazer (21:44)

top, so the top comes off. You could be convertible, too.

Host / Interviewer (21:47)

When you were at usc and you created this fake Persona because you were insecure. So talk about that. And. And then what's your. What's your advice to people who are feeling the same thing? When I moved to Los Angeles, by the way, I. I had nothing. I had $3,000 in the bank. I lost my job. I was a lawyer. I got fired. And I remember driving around and seeing all these people in these fancy cars, right? They had Ferraris and Rolls Royces and everything was so fancy, of course. And I thought. And then people told me, yeah, you have a Ferrari, but you live in a one bedroom apartment and paying, you know, $900 a month. It was very intimidating to me. Yeah, so you're a USC with all these wealthy kids. You're not a wealthy kid. So what. Why did you create a fake Persona?

Brian Grazer (22:26)

Well, because I realized I was surrounded by really rich people, sons and daughters of the biggest titans of an industry. And I became popular very quickly because I took 26 units one semester. The required amount is like 12. And sometimes people are ambitious at 16, but I had to kind of catch up and everything, so I, all of a sudden took 26 units. A girl I was dating was really good friends with all the football players. And so all the most popular football players, this one named Lynn Swan, who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers, hall of

Host / Interviewer (23:05)

Fame wide receiver, for those people who don't know. Yeah.

Brian Grazer (23:07)

And he just liked me. And so he started this thing of me calling me 26. So between he and Anthony Davis and Pat Hayden and John McKay and Obradovich, all these. The. The in crowd, that's. That lived at Twin Palms, which was on the Row, but not in a fraternity. They Were too cool. They were like the Delt House in Animal House. They were all going, Hey, 26, come on over. Like, we're partying. And so I became, like, a popular person. And so with that group, I was just, like, a popular object. But outside of that, it was all these. It was all rich people. And I had to. My dad was a criminal lawyer, and criminal lawyers kind of live the life of a criminal. But he did, probably on a higher order, actually, because.

Host / Interviewer (23:56)

Call Saul.

Brian Grazer (23:57)

Yeah, kind of like that. Because he. I mean, I later learned, because I. I got to know F. Lee Bailey. I knew the biggest trailers in the world because I thought, are they all like my dad? And they kind of were. I mean, Effley Bailey famous. I did a thing called F. Lee Bailey's Casebook of American Crime when I was 24 years old as a producer. I was, like, shagging Johnnie Walker Black Label for him in Arizona. I remember, can you grab me another Johnnie Walker in the middle of the day? So they all were variations of that. That was much later. Sorry to the moment. So I thought, I'm gonna have to change. I can't say. My dad's like, we're middle class, and I can't do it. I got a job at night at the Howard Johnson's. That Hojo, as we used to. Hojo's right on Roscoe Boulevard, adjacent to Busch Gardens. I'd go there and work at night and got enough money that I could buy this car, this 911T Targa. And I would start telling everybody that my dad was, like, you know, really on the level of Effley Bailey or Jerry Spence or Johnny Cochran or something like that. You know, I just exaggerated everything to do with my family's, you know, level of wealth. And I'd go to this fancy place called La Dome, and I'd sip mimosas at the bar. And I remember telling people, yeah, I was going to Staad, and I didn't even know where it was. I guess it's in Switzerland or something. But no, but I would just be that person. And I pulled it off. I was just sort of faking it till I could make it. Probably that was an extension of what Grandma Sonia would have told me to do.

Host / Interviewer (25:32)

You went on Joe Rogan.

Brian Grazer (25:33)

Yeah.

Host / Interviewer (25:34)

Talking about insecurity, which we just talked about, and there was a bunch of penis talk.

Brian Grazer (25:39)

Yeah.

Host / Interviewer (25:40)

So what do people have? Are people insecure when they have small penises?

Brian Grazer (25:44)

I think they. Well, not people. Dudes are.

Host / Interviewer (25:46)

Yeah, dudes are.

Brian Grazer (25:47)

I think they are. Yeah. I Think it's a. It's hard to wait. It's, you know, it's like the angry inch. Yeah, I think it's. I can't. I just think I've seen some guy, like. It started off my son, my kids, they were in a sauna with a guy that I know that's very wealthy and owns a football team. He owns stuff is very small dick, and they're like, going, oh, my God, I couldn't believe. I go, what do you mean you couldn't believe? They're telling me they're like nine years old, we're in Hawaii, and they tell me about it, and I think, wow. And that's why the guy. It's problem. Why he's hooked on prostitution. He's got all these other issues, you know, like insecurity issues. So I do think, you know, I think. I think there's that song, like the Big Dick song, you know, that. That chick sings. I mean, there's a thing to it. Guys that have big dicks have more swagger. They just do.

Host / Interviewer (26:44)

When. When I was single for you.

Brian Grazer (26:46)

This is gonna get me in so much trouble.

Host / Interviewer (26:48)

When. When I was.

Brian Grazer (26:49)

I don't know. I'm not an expert on this thing.

Host / Interviewer (26:51)

When I was. When I was single for. For years, and I had three young kids, I. I have five kids.

Brian Grazer (26:57)

You have five kids now?

Host / Interviewer (26:58)

Yeah. So we actually met. You don't remember this, but Your youngest is 21. My son just turned 22. We're on the same basketball team.

Brian Grazer (27:07)

Oh, at the YMCA?

Host / Interviewer (27:08)

No, at Pali. The rec center. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And I sat next to you at a game. Gigi was there as well. You were married at the time?

Brian Grazer (27:18)

Oh, yeah, sure was.

Host / Interviewer (27:19)

And we just had a conversation, random conversation about basketball. We're going to talk a little later in the show about how we got reacquainted again, which I think is a really good story. Sean o' Malley was on my show, you know, the UFC fighter and people that have small penises now there's. You can get stem cell injections in your penis.

Brian Grazer (27:36)

Really?

Host / Interviewer (27:37)

Which is a thing, apparently, to get.

Brian Grazer (27:39)

Because.

Host / Interviewer (27:40)

To have more girth. So Sean was explaining, like, thicker. It's thicker. It could be a little longer. It went down to Mexico and. And I said, it's gotta hurt. And he went like this. Yeah, man, this hurts. That jug hurts. And I said to Sean, did. Did it work? He said, no, didn't work.

Brian Grazer (27:56)

Didn't even work.

Host / Interviewer (27:57)

It didn't even work. So.

Brian Grazer (27:58)

Yeah, I've never heard of one working yeah.

Host / Interviewer (27:59)

So I want to take what happened next step by step. Okay, so you graduate usc. Yeah. And then you went to law school for a year and you asked yourself, you were reflective and said, what did I really learn in college? And then law school was. You thought you'd get more respect and ultimately you didn't like it. But I just.

Brian Grazer (28:18)

Because I would have failed out of law school for sure.

Host / Interviewer (28:22)

USC law school, which is a very good job.

Brian Grazer (28:24)

I would have 100% failed.

Host / Interviewer (28:26)

But today there's so much talk about, do you need to go to college, you need to go to grad school. So, you know, we live in a world today where the average student graduates College with over $50,000 in student debt. It takes at least 21 years on average to pay it off. And you can learn so much online today. What's your advice to go to college? Are all four of your kids going to college?

Brian Grazer (28:49)

All four of my kids have gone to college and graduated college. Youngest goes to West Point. He's 21. He's got two more months left. He's out, and he's gonna be a Ranger. The other one's 25, named Thomas. The younger one's named Patrick. For the record. And Thomas is in commercial real estate. Went to smu. My daughter went to Tisch, nyu. She's a shrink. Then I have a son, Riley, who went to college, but he is disabled and he lives in a. I mean, he's a very happy kid and high functioning in many ways, but he needs. He can't be driving cars and stuff like that. And so. But they all went to college. Do you have to go to college? I don't think you do have to go to college. I think college for me was it's how to cope in a larger population of people. So coping in society, connecting with human beings. I mean, the only way you can get money if you're raising money is by communication, through active communication, being able to sell your product. And we're all selling a product all the time. You have to be good at that. And so college is good for. So it's a version of that. By the way, I have an antidote to that. Antidote to that is that I just made a movie about, called how to Rob a Bank that is about all the kids in America that go to college. They graduate hoping for the American dream. Instead they've got the American debt and they're bummed because the American dream doesn't just exist there as you depart college and you, you're in debt and you have to scramble and hustle like you would have had you not gone to college.

Host / Interviewer (30:30)

You've had four huge breaks in your career, the way that I kind of see them. And I really want to talk about the first one. So you are in law school at some point during your first year. You're living on a.

Brian Grazer (30:40)

Well, I didn't even get through law school. I mean, even the year. I didn't even get through a year.

Host / Interviewer (30:44)

Okay, but you're.

Brian Grazer (30:45)

I got enrolled. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got. Yes. All that stuff. Yes.

Host / Interviewer (30:50)

You're living in a small apartment on Ocean Boulevard in Santa Monica. Yeah. And you have these law grads talking below the window, and you hear one of them.

Brian Grazer (30:57)

That's that man window.

Host / Interviewer (30:58)

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, you hear one of them basically saying, I just quit my cushy job at Warner Brothers for $5 per hour. So talk to us about Peter Necht and what happened next.

Brian Grazer (31:08)

Oh, okay. So I hear this guy. Three guys are talking about their easiest job. And this guy uses this term of, oh, I had the cushiest job of all. That caught my attention. And one says, what was it? Well, I was a law clerk at Warner Brothers for Peter Kynect, who ran the department. So I really listened in, and I immediately called 843-6000, said, I understand you're looking for a law clerk. Asked for Connect's office and spoke to the assistant, and they said, come on in today. I came in today and got the job that day. At 4pm what, at 4pm At 4pm exactly in the afternoon. And it was everything that guy said. It was the easiest job you could have because there was literally nothing to do. I was in a tiny little office like this little. You broke this off. And no windows. I just had nothing to do. I was getting quite bored. So one week passes. I get to the end of the second week.

Host / Interviewer (32:03)

Let's hold off on that story because I really want to focus on something that you did, I think is very important for people to know, which is many people would have heard that and done nothing. Right. You took advantage of a moment in time. On my desk upstairs, I have a clock which is black, no numbers on it, but it says now, Now, Now, Now. So how important is it to take advantage of opportunities that are there like this that could be gone tomorrow in a second?

Brian Grazer (32:30)

Essential at that minute. Critical. You have to do it right away. I'm going to write a book. I wrote two books. I'm thinking of writing a book. Well, I've started writing a book called One Step because people make too many steps out of one step. Step. It's only one step I don't have to think through. I don't have to ask friends. I knew to call. 843-6000411, 843-6000peterkin x Office Legal department. I didn't need to ask anyone's opinion.

Host / Interviewer (32:59)

Most people would be terrified to do that.

Brian Grazer (33:02)

Yes.

Host / Interviewer (33:02)

So what kind of advice can you give people out there? Because there's thousands of people watching this show. I see maybe tens of thousand who would never do that in a million years. And I do a lot of professional coaching. One on one coaching. I tell people all the time, just go for it. Because you've got absolutely nothing to lose by making that call.

Brian Grazer (33:19)

Okay, first I would say this. You have to be interesting. How do you be interesting? You have to read, get pieces of information so that you can, in that one action, be interesting. Because you have to be interesting. So, you know, I mean, like have personality, have, you know, you just, you just want to inform yourself a little bit, Be ready, be loose. And then when you have that moment, you act on it right away. So you just have to have the courage, you have to take a breath and just go, I'm doing it right now. Nothing to lose. Zero to lose. Zero and everything to gain. But I've seen people blow that so many times. I've seen people come up to, like my partner Ron Howard and go, oh, my God, Ron Howard. All they want to do is have contact. They want to meet with him again, but then they start talking and talking and then they say, how do I get your contacts? Don't ask people how you get your contacts. You get the contacts. The minute you say to somebody, can I have your contacts? They might just check right out. They don't want to give you your contacts. You'll get them. I know that's a little too much, but it's true.

Host / Interviewer (34:34)

You're at Warner Brothers now.

Brian Grazer (34:35)

Yeah.

Host / Interviewer (34:35)

Small, tiny office, no windows.

Brian Grazer (34:37)

You had a corporate car, Pontiac Bonneville.

Host / Interviewer (34:40)

And you're delivering documents to people. There's something in social psychology called the foot in the door technique.

Brian Grazer (34:45)

Okay.

Host / Interviewer (34:46)

Which means you just get a little opening.

Brian Grazer (34:48)

Yes.

Host / Interviewer (34:49)

And you fucking blow it open.

Brian Grazer (34:50)

Yes.

Host / Interviewer (34:51)

So I want you to tell everybody about Warren Beatty, who was the biggest movie star in the world at some point.

Brian Grazer (34:57)

It was then.

Host / Interviewer (34:58)

Yeah, then. And then you delivering documents to the Beverly Will. Sure. Hotel to him.

Brian Grazer (35:03)

Okay. So the first documents I had to deliver after my two weeks was to Warren Beatty. Big stack of. I don't really know the gravity of Warren Beatty. I just know he's a big deal, but he was, in fact, the biggest star in the world as a. As a producer. He produced Shampoo as a star, as an entity, literally the biggest. Okay, so now I have these papers I'm delivering to Mr. Beatty. And Mr. Beatty lives at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in a penthouse. I get there with this stack of papers. Beatty's assistant comes down, hand me the papers. And I just thought in that moment to say, no, I can't hand the papers to you. I have to hand them directly to Mr. Beatty. Otherwise the papers are unauthorized. It's not true. But I said it because I wanted to go further. So I say that, and the guy, like, says to me, give me the fucking papers. I said, okay, let me tell you this. I'm taking the papers and I'm going back to Burbank and we're gonna have to start this whole cycle all over again unless I can hand it directly to Mr. Beatty. And he said, okay. So we go upstairs, we take the elevator up. As I hand the papers to Mr. Beatty, to Warren Beatty, I shake hands and I start a conversation. I go, oh, my God, what a great living. I forgot what I said, but I said something that caused him to feel like, yeah, I can talk to this kid. So then all of a sudden, I was in an hour long conversation and that assistant was getting me an espresso. So. And that I thought I could just do every day. And then I did. So then I told my boss, Peter Knecht, I'm going to stay for another year. I'm going to go back to law school. You know, I just said that, anyway, I'm gonna go back to law school and I'm gonna stay here and work for you. And he said, sure. And then every single day I made a. I created a discipline where I would call a new person that was principally important in the media business. Could be television, but more likely it was movies. So it was the top 25 movie directors in the world were all in Los Angeles, basically. Same with the writers, same with the stars, same with the directors. I remember Richard Brooks was like. He had like, first time I've ever seen security in a building, like in the day. It was in the mid-70s, you know, and he had these. It was called Pax. His company was. He was a guy, he was involved in the Wild Bunch, and he did these great movies. And in any event, I would call their assistant, I'd target them, I'd do research, and every Day I would call and I'd say, hi, my name is Brian Grazer. I work in Warner Brothers business affairs. This is not associated with studio business, but I have tremendous admiration for your, for your boss. I want only five minutes and I promise you I will not ask for a job. And I adhered to that truth of that. I didn't ask for a job. I came in, I take five minutes. It was their choice. They could extend it, which they always did, till at least an hour. And I met everybody and pretty soon I had kind of learned tremendous amount of. A tremendous amount of information on how creative leverage operates in Hollywood because it's a very obtuse kind of form. It's almost like a. It's almost like a gas. It's like a gas that gets turned into a solid, if you get it.

Host / Interviewer (38:25)

Thank you for watching part one of my incredible interview with Brian Grazer, one of the most successful producers in Hollywood history. It's an incredible interview. Be sure to tune in next week for part two of my awesome interview with Brian. So I did something similar. I came out here and as I mentioned before, I lost my job after five and a half weeks at $3,000 in the bank. The legal market was very bad then, so no one was hiring. And I got a job in Orange County, 52.5 miles down the Costa Mesa. Every day.

Brian Grazer (38:54)

That's far.

Host / Interviewer (38:54)

I leave my house, my apartment on Veteran in Westwood at 5:30 in the morning when the bagel store open. Suge Knight would be there two mornings a week, really? With his, he's massive and bodyguard and, you know, Ford Bronco with no one blasting the music. You know, we had a nodding relationship, you know, after. After a while.

Brian Grazer (39:13)

That's funny.

Host / Interviewer (39:14)

Then they asked me to move down there and I said, no, I'm not doing that. And so I had three jobs in eight months. And then I said, okay. I hated law school like you did, but for me it was a means to an end. You know, I made $70,000 a year when I graduated. I'm rich. And then I said, you know what? I want to go into business. I always want to go into business. I want to go to business school. But they make you wait two years. Right. And I tested very poorly. Northwestern was my backup school. I graduated five. Yeah, it's great. It was also. But I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Michigan. My friends all went to Harvard. So, you know, Northwestern was my backup school, which is a great school.

Brian Grazer (39:48)

Yeah.

Host / Interviewer (39:49)

But I wasn't going to test well for the gmat. So I Said, you know what? I want a professional mba. I'm going to do it on my own. I started. I made A list of 300 CEOs in Los Angeles to meet. Individual letters asking for informational interviews similar to you. Because if you ask for a job, it goes in the shredder.

Brian Grazer (40:08)

Amazing.

Host / Interviewer (40:09)

So there was Nexus, Lexus at the time. There was no Google. Right. Nothing like that. And my law firm had an all you can eat payment, which was a profit center for them. Right. They'd build a client, you know, let's say they paid 40,000amonth and they charge a client, you know, 2,000, 000 a search or whatever. So I started doing all this research. Biz dev research. I charged it to biz dev. You know, you got to put something in the computer.

Brian Grazer (40:31)

Oh, yeah.

Host / Interviewer (40:31)

Where you're charging it to.

Brian Grazer (40:32)

Yeah.

Host / Interviewer (40:33)

Each letter took five hours to write. It was three page, single space letter. About every job they'd ever had. Steve Ballenbach's first job, CEO of Marriott.

Brian Grazer (40:41)

You would write them.

Host / Interviewer (40:42)

I type them.

Brian Grazer (40:43)

Type them.

Host / Interviewer (40:43)

Yeah. No, no, no. Computer. Laser printer.

Brian Grazer (40:49)

Oh, laser printer.

Host / Interviewer (40:50)

But. But it would have a cellophane cover. A quote the CEO had given at some point in their career. Michael Weisner. The key to Disney is how we hire Time magazine. Something, you know, November 22, 1991, something like that. And so then it was tab, single space. Had my transcripts from Michigan, from Northwestern, a letter of recommendation from that someone had written me from law school. And then I did this TV show at Michigan. I hosted a dating segment. It was one and done, by the way. So. But, but it was, you know, the Michigan Daily wrote about it and everyone said, this is a stupid idea. No one's ever going to meet with you. This was dumb. Michael Eisner, Carol Path, Sumner Redstone, Mark Platt, Stacy Snyder, who I know, you know, we'll. We'll talk about her in, in a second from A Beautiful Mind. But Eli Broad hired me from that letter.

Brian Grazer (41:43)

Wow.

Host / Interviewer (41:43)

And the lesson there is, I smoked

Brian Grazer (41:46)

pot with Eli Brood.

Host / Interviewer (41:47)

You did?

Brian Grazer (41:47)

About a year before he died. You did two years before it.

Host / Interviewer (41:50)

Wow.

Brian Grazer (41:51)

Goshen's house. I was shocked.

Host / Interviewer (41:52)

I was the assistant to the chairman. I. I would have never guessed in years.

Brian Grazer (41:56)

Nor, nor would I. You know, I was sitting there and everyone was smoking pot. I don't really like to smoke pot.

Host / Interviewer (42:02)

Yeah.

Brian Grazer (42:03)

But then he took a couple of big whacks, this guy, and I thought, I'll try it because I'm sort of scared of pot for some reason. I don't know. I Mean, I'm not like a prude, I just. But I. He did it like two big whacks. And he was like this stiffy guy, was like a different person.

Host / Interviewer (42:21)

I would have never. Right.

Brian Grazer (42:22)

A million years.

Host / Interviewer (42:24)

I remember going to the office.

Brian Grazer (42:26)

Kind of a complicate compliment to him.

Host / Interviewer (42:28)

Yeah, I mean, I just, I mean, I knew him very well. Obviously I worked there for three years.

Brian Grazer (42:33)

That's why I thought you'd like this little story.

Host / Interviewer (42:34)

I mean, I love the story. I mean, I would go in, I remember my parents coming to town, my dad coming to town, proud. I was 27 years old when I got that job. And we're going to dinner, I'm stopping by the office. It's like, oh my God, look at this office. And he's in there, Brian, with a suit and tie.

Brian Grazer (42:49)

Yes.

Host / Interviewer (42:49)

At eight o' clock at night.

Brian Grazer (42:50)

Wow.

Host / Interviewer (42:51)

And you know what, we, we get in the car and my dad said, and I'm just gonna show him the office. Right. It's a beautiful office in Century City, the Sun America Tower. You know, I've told people the story. And he was, I don't know, at the time, worth $5 billion. There's a Ford 400 guy. And people would ask me, and that

Brian Grazer (43:07)

day was like almost like $7500 million.

Host / Interviewer (43:10)

I mean, he, at that point he had $5 billion.

Brian Grazer (43:13)

Yeah, $5 billion. Oh, that was his start.

Host / Interviewer (43:16)

That was his net worth at that time. And we're a public company, so you could see what he owned. And you know, people would say to me, I don't understand, why does he need to do this? I said, if you don't understand, you don't understand the lesson in terms of the drive that never goes away. Yeah. So opportunistic. Someone at Warner Brothers gets fired and there's a big office there, executive office. And you're near Frank Wells, who's the vice chairman of Warner Brothers. Tell us about the pictures of the marlins and the yacht on the wall and then what kind of influence that had on you.

Brian Grazer (43:50)

You have good details. So basically I had a little sliver of an office and I'm now like six months into my new one year term. Maybe three months into it. Three months into it, and there's somebody that gets fired. Head of business affairs gets fired. I see this office has two union secretaries. It's right outside the president of Warner Brothers, Frank Wells, the vice chairman of the board was John Calley, who was the creative visionary. And then Ted Ashley was the boss, but he lived in New York. So basically my Office was like, right next door, basically. It's just ironic. So I. It wasn't my office, but I said to Peter Kynekt, can I have this office down the hall? He said, sure, I'll help you get it. I said, fantastic. Because he didn't care. He started with Jack Warner. He was like 80 years old. Peter Kinect. And so I now have this great office right next to those guys. And I could see in the circular drive out my window when they were getting in in the morning, the minute any one of them drove up to the circular drive, they would have to walk up the stairs. And I would pretend like I had to go down the stairs. So then I'd bump into Mr. Frank Wells and I'd say, oh, Frank, how are you today? I mean, jeez. And I'd make up some sports story or I'd do something like that, or I heard you climbed Everest. Which he did. And, you know, I would just come up with something to chit chat about. But one of them was named John Callie, who was really the guy. And he said, you belong on my couch, you know, and you should watch me work every day. That's how you're gonna learn. So I'm sitting on this guy's plush couch. He had no desk. In his office was a beautiful living room, a giant marlin on the wall and pictures of his boats, you know, that he had. And pictures of him fishing and being like Ernest Hemingway, you know, and he had pictures of himself with Ally McGraw, who he was dating. And he was just living this movie star life as a creative executive. I said, do you see movies? You must study them. He goes, he was really funny. He was very, very intelligent, very well read. But he said, no, I don't have to see him. I know what I'm talking about. And I said, you don't even see them. No, no. Like, he was above seeing the movies, but he was picking all the movies and he picked the best ones. He made the Exorcist, he, you know, which was made at Warner Brothers. He made so many of the biggest, best movies, Stanley Kubrick's films. No one talked to Stanley Kubrick except John Calligraphy. Like, he was amazing. And so I did sit on his couch often and watch him operate. And that had quite an impact on me as well. And by the way, postscript of that was he then became, decades later, became chairman of Sony, and I was chasing the Da Vinci Code. And Sony owned it. And I had already produced the series 24, and it operates on the same serial principle as 24 operates on the same serialized narrative principle as the Da Vinci Code. And I said, can I produce the Da Vinci Code? Which was the most coveted work that could be turned into a movie because it was a literary aberration. It was sold as much as the Bible almost. So he gave it to me, and I got to produce it, and it made billions and billions of dollars, and I did very well with that. So he would say it all paid off.

Host / Interviewer (47:16)

Relationships matter at the end of the day.

Brian Grazer (47:17)

They do.

Host / Interviewer (47:18)

Huge.

Brian Grazer (47:18)

They're huge. You have to have a. Yeah. And you have to keep the integrity of the relationship solid.