C6: Almost Famous / Ep 4: On Set & On Location

Summary

Origins with James Andrew Miller: "Almost Famous" Episode Summary

Episode: Season 6, Episode 4: On Set & On Location
Release Date: July 8, 2020
Host: Jim Miller
Guests: Cameron Crowe, Frances McDormand, Kate Hudson, Patrick Fugit, Billy Crudup, Jason Lee, Zooey Deschanel, Philip Seymour Hoffman

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1. Introduction to the Episode

Jim Miller welcomes listeners to a special, extended episode dedicated entirely to the behind-the-scenes production of Almost Famous. This deep dive features insightful conversations with the film’s director Cameron Crowe and a host of its talented cast members, offering unprecedented access to the making of this iconic movie.

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2. Personal Touches in Filmmaking

Cameron Crowe shares his intentional decision to open the film by showing hands, emphasizing the personal nature of the project:

“It's my movie, you know, it's my diary in a lot of ways. So I thought, like, starting it in the most personal way would be great.”
— Cameron Crowe [00:12]

This choice set a tone of authenticity and intimacy, aligning with Crowe's vision of the film as a deeply personal narrative.

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3. The First Day of Filming

Patrick Fugit recounts his first experience on a major production, highlighting the awe and pressure of working with seasoned professionals:

“I think Cameron commented on it. He's like, you know, this is forever. Make sure you get it. What this thing is seeing is forever.”
— Patrick Fugit [01:30]

He also humorously describes his unexpected growth during filming, leading to wardrobe adjustments and playful interactions with Billy Crudup:

“Billy would give me shit. He'd be like, 'Will you stop fucking growing?'”
— Patrick Fugit [02:58]

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4. Memorable On-Set Moments

Billy Crudup recalls a tense yet amusing moment when he almost missed his jump off the roof:

“I did almost miss the pad when I jumped off the roof because we didn't want to keep changing my clothes.”
— Billy Crudup [02:58]

Meanwhile, Kate Hudson emphasizes the luxury of shooting in sequence:

“It's always such a luxury to shoot in sequence on a film. It's so much more like a play...”
— Kate Hudson [03:20]

This approach allowed actors to organically develop their characters over the five-month production period.

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5. Emotional Depth and Improvisation

Frances McDormand shares a touching behind-the-scenes moment where she unexpectedly cried during a scene, adding layers of genuine emotion:

“I just started to cry and Billy's face was like, 'What's happening?'"
— Frances McDormand [04:45]

She elaborates on how Cameron Crowe's environment fostered spontaneous and heartfelt performances:

“We and Cameron gave us the space. And we were all young enough without too much responsibility to be able to really delve in and be there with each other.”
— Frances McDormand [04:19]

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6. Actor Relationships and Professionalism

The interactions between cast members reveal a blend of camaraderie and professional growth:

• Frances McDormand expresses admiration for Billy Crudup, highlighting his dedication and complexity:

  “He was so charming and beautiful. Couldn't ask for a better... it was as method as it could be.”
  — Frances McDormand [08:10]

• Patrick Fugit discusses his nervousness during intimate scenes and the support he received from the cast:

  “I was like, 'How do I do that? How do I kiss? How do I sit?'”
  — Patrick Fugit [16:11]

• Cameron Crowe highlights the protective environment on set, especially towards younger actors like Patrick and Kate:

  “I wanted to look out for Patrick. There was an actor who had targeted Patrick for sexual hijinks and we removed the actor.”
  — Cameron Crowe [18:08]

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7. Technical Challenges and Innovative Filming Techniques

Jason Lee and Zooey Deschanel share anecdotes about complex scenes, such as the plane sequence shot on a gimbal:

“The plane was on a gimbal, and it was really quite jerky and rough and bumpy.”
— Jason Lee [43:13]

This technical setup added authenticity and intensity to the scene, despite the physical discomfort it caused for the actors.

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8. Working with Philip Seymour Hoffman

Patrick Fugit describes his interactions with Philip Seymour Hoffman, noting Hoffman's intensity and professionalism:

“Philip was showing Patrick a little glimpse of the future... he knew he could wield it.”
— Cameron Crowe [32:39]

Hoffman’s approach provided Patrick with valuable lessons in acting and set a high standard for performance on set.

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9. Director’s Insight and Storytelling

Cameron Crowe reflects on the creative decisions made during filming, emphasizing the importance of instincts and maintaining the film’s authenticity:

“It's all about instincts. Someone will be there on that set to tell you it's not important. And you have to remember not to settle.”
— Cameron Crowe [73:00]

He discusses how shooting in chronological order and capturing real emotions contributed to the film’s lasting impact.

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10. Overcoming Exhaustion and Emotional Strain

The long five-month shoot took a toll on the cast, leading to moments of exhaustion and emotional strain:

• Patrick Fugit shares his fatigue and the challenge of balancing school with the demanding shoot schedule:

  “I was just passing out. Billy would have to kick me awake, that sort of thing.”
  — Patrick Fugit [57:16]

• Frances McDormand recounts performing a scene while being sleep-deprived:

  “And I was just walking, I perform that scene on no sleep.”
  — Frances McDormand [62:26]

Cameron Crowe acknowledges the emotional weight of directing a young actor through such an intense process:

“I told him... you're never going to see any of these people again.”
— Cameron Crowe [65:21]

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11. Legacy and Lasting Impact

As the episode concludes, the guests reflect on the enduring legacy of Almost Famous and its profound effect on their careers. Cameron Crowe underscores the film’s uniqueness and its place in cinematic history:

“The fact that you couldn't make Almost Famous in that way now makes it even more special because that movie just doesn't exist now.”
— Cameron Crowe [73:00]

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12. Closing Remarks

Jim Miller teases future episodes, including the final installment celebrating Almost Famous’s 20th anniversary, promising further exploration into the film’s legacy and its impact on the lives of its cast and crew.

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Notable Quotes

• Cameron Crowe [00:12]:
  “It's my movie, you know, it's my diary in a lot of ways. So I thought, like, starting it in the most personal way would be great.”

• Frances McDormand [04:45]:
  “When I feel something, I just go there.”

• Billy Crudup [02:58]:
  “I did almost miss the pad when I jumped off the roof because we didn't want to keep changing my clothes.”

• Patrick Fugit [16:11]:
  “I was like, 'How do I do that? How do I kiss? How do I sit?'”

• Cameron Crowe [73:00]:
  “It's all about instincts. Someone will be there on that set to tell you it's not important. And you have to remember not to settle.”

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Conclusion

This extensive episode of Origins with James Andrew Miller offers a comprehensive and heartfelt exploration of the making of Almost Famous. Through candid conversations and memorable anecdotes, listeners gain a deep appreciation for the film’s creation, the collaborative spirit of its cast and crew, and the enduring legacy it holds in the world of cinema.

Transcript

[Jim Miller]

Can you talk about your decision to show your hands at the very beginning? It's a very conscious decision and it's your hands.

[Cameron Crowe]

It's my movie, you know, it's my diary in a lot of ways. So I thought, like, starting it in the most personal way would be great. And my favorite thing is erasing, you know, the misspelling of Francis McDormand's name because it immediately says personally. And even though you don't know if it's my hand, you know that it's someone's hand, you know that it's personal penmanship. It's not somebody came in with a font. It's like, there it is. It's being written in front of you. And I just think that set a tone that was perfect.

[Jim Miller]

Hi, I'm Jim Miller and welcome back to Origen's Almost famous turns 20. This is episode four. This is a longer than usual episode, but our topic demands depth and and breath. We are devoting all of this episode to the production of Almost Famous scenes and behind the scenes maneuvers never before shared with the outside world. If you ever watched Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire say anything or any of Cameron Crowe's other films and wondered what it was like to work on those pictures, here's your gateway.

[Cameron Crowe]

Spielberg was able to say, shoot every word. Let me help you get John Toll. Let's do the triple A version of this script.

[Patrick Fugit]

The first day of filming was inside William's room. So it was also my first time being on, like a big production that had money to like build something inside of a soundstage. So it was a fully constructed interior teenager's room from 1973. The art decoration, the set design was so deep throughout this whole interior of the house. I was kind of blown away. I was like. It was, I think, my first time meeting John toll and seeing 35 millimeter cameras set up and running and hearing that amazing sound of the shutter running while you're acting was unbelievable. I think Cameron commented on it. He's like, you know, this is forever. Make sure you get it. What this thing is seeing is forever. I was like, okay, all right. I felt the pressure for sure. I grew something like 4 inches or something. They had to keep re hemming my pants and they had to keep adjusting my T shirts and everything. I started shorter than Billy and then to his great dismay, by the time we were filming the Golden God scene, the pool house party, I was taller than him. So they had to put him on an apple box. When Russell gets in William's face, that whole Thing. So Billy would give me shit. He'd be like, will you stop fucking growing?

[Billy Crudup]

I did almost miss the pad when I jumped off the roof because we didn't want to keep changing my clothes. So we had to do a number of takes. First where I was jumping into a pad, and I was so jacked up at the idea of jumping off the roof that I came, like, right towards the end of the air or whatever the guys call. So that was a gnarly moment. Cameron's face was funny.

[Kate Hudson]

It's always such a luxury to shoot in sequence on a film. It's so much more like a play where you get the rehearsal of the whole process and then you get to actually grow with your peers and your colleagues on a film.

[Jim Miller]

Almost Famous was shot in chronological order. Production took about five months, making May 24, 1999, to October 6. It was filmed in a number of locations. San Diego, Arizona, California and New York. For Kate Hudson, who plays the very pivotal Penny Lane, pretending it was the first half of the 70s couldn't have been a snap. Kate wasn't even born till 1979. Cameron often played rock music during scenes to get actors in the groove. When you first meet Russell, William introduces you and you're shaking hands, you're kind of smiling and crying at the same time. In the same exact nanosecond, you guys do not release your hands from each other.

[Frances McDormand]

That wasn't written. And I think there's a lot of stuff that we did and what I did with Penny Lane that actually wasn't really on the page. That just sort of happened from the kind of environment that Cameron sets up for you. You know, we spent a lot of time together. We and Cameron gave us the space. And we were all young enough without too much responsibility to be able to really delve in and be there with each other.

[Jim Miller]

So how did you come up with that moment?

[Frances McDormand]

So what that moment really was was a mixture of things. One, Cameron was a little annoyed with me because he felt that I wasn't focusing. At one point when I was like, how old are you? How old are we, really? And I didn't quite understand what he was trying to say. He's like, you gotta focus. And I was like, I feel like I'm really focused. I feel like I don't know how to focus. I know my lines, you know? So I was always, always wanting to make Cameron happy. But I got a little bit filled up because I felt like I wasn't giving him what he needed. That calmed down. Then we came in for close ups. And it was when Russell comes in to the picture and it was Russell's close up first. And Cameron loves to do this thing where he plays music and he'll just start to play it in a scene and you just have to kind of go there with it and it's really fun. And he played a Bruce Springsteen song. And I just started to cry. I think it was the Promise and it was Billy's moment. It was Billy's like, you know, close up. And I just started to cry and Billy's face was like, what's happening? I don't know. I just. When I feel something, I just go there. And now I felt apologetic to Billy as he was trying to do his work. I was sort of like, so sorry I'm crying. And Cameron was like, were you crying? And I was like, I don't know, it was just so beautiful. And then he turned around. I wasn't supposed to do it again. But then he put on a fucking different song and I lost it. Something about the way the scene was written. Something about knowing my history with Russell. Something about all of everything I knew about her character and what was happening and where this movie was going, the story. I just got really emotional. And then he played river, the Joni Mitchell song, and then fucking forget it. Then I was gone again. And we just let it happen. And Cameron was very excited.

[Jim Miller]

What it does in the movie was it also adds such another level of dimension for Patrick, for William's character, because he understands. Wait a second. This isn't the first time they just met. Hold on. There's something clearly.

[Frances McDormand]

There's a lot of history. There's a lot.

[Jim Miller]

There's a lot going on here because prior to that, you know, he was so excited to just introduce you. Even though you're crying, you kept smiling. That was a moment to remember.

[Frances McDormand]

Thank you. You know, people say, like, what do you bring to this? I think that that is where I can relate to that character. It's like, even though things can be painful, you know, you do sort of. I do like to smile through them.

[Billy Crudup]

I mean, I was kind of a dickhead at times because I was so obsessed with the guitar that I was uncomfortable in my own skin. And so I was like really short tempered and, you know, not like cool Russell at all, but like actor Billy, you know, please, I just need five more minutes. I need to figure out how to manage this. You know, there was a lot of that. I ended up missing the joy.

[Jim Miller]

Well, you had baggage that no one else had.

[Billy Crudup]

And it Was genuinely hard for me. Genuinely beyond the pale for me. And I insisted too, when it came out that nobody tell anybody that I couldn't play guitar. Cause I didn't want that to be a part of the story at all. I was. No, no. I told everybody I played guitar before and like, nobody asked. But that was really like the burden for me. I mean, Cameron, I'm sure will attest in stories that I probably blocked out many of the worst moments.

[Frances McDormand]

Here's my thoughts on Billy Crudup, who I just absolutely love and adore so much. He is a fucking movie star. Everything about him, his looks, his abilities. I've never seen brown eyes sparkle more than Billy Crudup. It's wild. He's also so in his head that at the time, the last thing he wanted to be was the movie star. And it made for a perfect Russell Hammond because that's exactly what he was struggling with. So it was as method. Even if it was a non method experience, it was as method as it could be. And you know, there's certain actors that I've worked with I always like, I hold so dear. And I will say Billy is one of those actors that I always forever and ever root for because he just loves it and cares about the work so much.

[Jim Miller]

Did you ever have to go home one night after shooting and say, I gotta be careful because forget about the script. I could fall in love with this guy.

[Frances McDormand]

Oh, please. What do you mean? I was so in love with Billy. I mean, oh my God, how could you not? I mean, I'm 19 years old, I'm on the set. Billy Crudup, gorgeous as ever in a role where you're like, with his fluffy hair and his like little punchy walk. And I was like, oh my God, how lucky am I? It was so perfect for me because he was just so charming and beautiful. Couldn't ask for a better. At 19 years old, it's like a dream come true. Especially for me. I'm a little boy crazy, you know, and so I feel like I hit the jackpot. That being said, Billy's was a professional experience. But yeah, I mean, I think when you're Penny and Russell, there was so much for me personally to draw on for that relationship in so many ways. But it was more personal for me than just this idea of fleeting romance. For me, it was like when you're chasing something to love you, how painful it is when it will never ever be what you scripted it to be or wanted it to be. And like, I've had those Experiences in my life that to me, was Penny, you know, but her love for Russell was so deep because it was never going to be attainable.

[Jim Miller]

What were some of the things that you and Kate worked out about the real bond between these two people?

[Billy Crudup]

Well, Penny, I think one of the reasons Russell valued her so much was because she had reverence for music. She made a huge distinction about that whole Band AIDS thing. And the central notion of that is we're here to support the music. We're not here to worship the musicians. We're here to support the music. And I think the way that Russell took that was, like, philosophically for him, that was spot on. Like, we need help in this environment. We need. In this environment, we need somebody to give us love and attention and gratitude for the music that we're doing so we can go up and do it every night because there's a huge cost to these people. The end of the script told the story, I think, of the preceding 90 minutes or whatever, which is that when given the opportunity, finally he knows there's some connection to her that he's not able to name, that's important to him. And it's tied to his relationship to music. It's tied to his sense of identity, which he thinks she gets. There's so many people in his life that don't get him. They think they get him. They don't get him, or they just worship him, or they idolize him, or they're a counterpoint or they want to use him. He feels like she somehow gets him.

[Jim Miller]

It's amazing to me. And the fact that she, like William, is so young and. And he literally says to her, we're gonna say all the things that we haven't said before.

[Billy Crudup]

Right.

[Jim Miller]

And yet she still sends them to William's house. That kind of discipline, that kind of obviously wanting to get the two of you together but also the lack of selfishness on her part, you know, I mean, is really extraordinary.

[Billy Crudup]

Yeah, it displays a kind of maturity at that age that's uncommon, which speaks to the way that she was able to navigate so much of that scene. She had a kind of wisdom about her. I mean, what makes somebody who is an outlier an outlier? It's them. It's whatever their essence is. And I think that's part of her. Her ability to navigate scenes and navigate situations that are far beyond her years.

[Jim Miller]

So a lot of what you said about Billy is somewhat reminiscent of what Patrick said about you. How could you not fall in love with Kate Hudson? How could you not so were you.

[Frances McDormand]

The real love triangle?

[Jim Miller]

There's a real kind of, like.

[Frances McDormand]

I mean, you know, for me, it felt siblingy and I felt almost like. Like I did in Almost Famous. Like, it felt like I just wanted to protect him.

[Jim Miller]

Were you aware during filming of Patrick's affection for Kate?

[Cameron Crowe]

I was aware of Patrick's affection for Kate. It's the heart of the movie. I mean, it really lines up so much so that there's stuff in the movie that is Patrick talking to Kate. And it's some of the best stuff. You know, ask me again is one of the lines. That's him.

[Jim Miller]

But the idea that. I mean, it's really hard when you're that age and you're relatively inexperienced. How did you manage that? Did you decide to let it bleed through for cinematic purposes?

[Cameron Crowe]

You don't decide to let it bleed through. They were bloody, you know, it was so real. And I knew that feeling that Patrick was going through because it happened to me when I first met Kate. So he comes from Utah and he meets that kind of wattage and soul. Of course, he's going to kind of find that that's the new standard for what he'd look for. And I wouldn't say that she courted that kind of feeling. I think that's just who she is.

[Frances McDormand]

Let's deflower the kid.

[Patrick Fugit]

Your time has come. Did Russell call to flower?

[Cameron Crowe]

Opie must die.

[Jason Lee]

No.

[Jim Miller]

No.

[Frances McDormand]

Did you ask Cameron if that was true? You should have if you didn't.

[Jim Miller]

Is the scene where William loses virginity to a group?

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah.

[Jim Miller]

Is that true?

[Cameron Crowe]

Yes, it is true.

[Jim Miller]

Good for you.

[Cameron Crowe]

I can't say that it was as poetic and beautiful and scored as well as in the movie. In fact, it was a tv. It was playing Midnight Special and Steely Dan was playing Reeling in the Years and Do it Again athlete title.

[Patrick Fugit]

That was a big day. I was obviously, you know, aware of when that day was on the schedule. I was nervous about that day. You know, I. At that point, I hadn't had a girlfriend or anything like that, a serious girlfriend yet. So I was definitely, like, conscious about being inexperienced. Like, you know, I'm gonna have to kiss, like, Faruza, I think. And then a couple of the other girls kissed me in that scene. So I was very aware of that. You know, I was like, how do I do that? Like, how do I kiss? How do I sit?

[Jim Miller]

Going to be, of course, was perfect for the role.

[Patrick Fugit]

Absolutely. I mean, it's exactly right. I was not really aware of that at the time. I was like, Just fucking nervous as shit.

[Jim Miller]

Circled that date. He knew when it was coming. He had a lot of anxiety I.

[Cameron Crowe]

Would do, you know.

[Patrick Fugit]

Yeah, I had my robe on and I had my underwear and then like some supportive underwear, like a dance belt under that. And I was definitely concerned. I was like a 16 year old boy. There's three attractive women who are going to be kissing me and touching me and everything. So I was concerned about certain physiological responses to that type of stimulation. So I was, you know, I was really nervous. I was trying to stay really focused and stay professional and all that.

[Jim Miller]

Wait, can we go back to the dance belt?

[Patrick Fugit]

So a dance belt is a undergarment that male dancers wear that is basically like it supports the front stuff without having a back. Like a jock strap underwear line? Yeah, like a jock strap. But it doesn't separate and go under your butt cheeks. It's like a thong, so it goes up your butt crack. It's an invasive, terrible feeling if you don't wear one normally. Actually, the morning that I came in, wardrobe just left that in my trailer. They didn't leave anything. They just put that like hanging up. And I was like, what the fuck is this? And my mom thought it was hilarious. But quickly wardrobe came over with the rest of it. Like a couple different pairs of underwear for me to try on, some socks, the robe, that whole thing.

[Jim Miller]

How long did that shoot take for that scene?

[Patrick Fugit]

That scene, we did that over a full day. Cameron took his time with pretty much every scene that we did. There was a lot of coverage. There was a lot of emotion that was going to be going down that Cameron wanted to get. They brought fruit in. I was in there first. And then they brought all the girls in and Cameron sort of laughed to himself. He looked at me, he's like, well, enjoy it. And he walked off to the monitors.

[Cameron Crowe]

I wanted to look out for Patrick. There was an actor who had targeted Patrick for sexual hijinks and we removed the actor. I did. And when I've worked with kids, you know, I started working as a kid. So I know when you're working with the kind of person that wants to know your parents and wants to keep that connection where they're looking out for you. And I wanted Patrick to know that I thought Kate Hudson was looking out for him too. Having known showbiz from a young age, she really was very protective and loving and fun for him. He got to see what it's like when, like a beautiful, charismatic, successful actor who knows he has a crush on her, she'll take care of that, too. And make you feel like a big sister in the best ways and honor you as a young dude in other ways. Just like she was great with him.

[Jim Miller]

I thought it was so great that he doesn't lose his virginity to Penny.

[Frances McDormand]

For me, Penny, her intuition was strong. So for me, in that moment, it's like it was all about knowing that he felt more for me than I could have ever felt for him, and that I would never do that to him. I knew I could get him to do anything I wanted him to do, but I would never take that too far.

[Patrick Fugit]

Russell. So what is it you love about music? Shut that thing off for a second, man.

[Billy Crudup]

I'll tell you the truth.

[Cameron Crowe]

All right.

[Billy Crudup]

Look, Fuck, I trust you, so I'm just gonna lay this right on you.

[Cameron Crowe]

Just make us look cool.

[Jim Miller]

What was a singular moment for you, Jason? Something that still stays with you during the shooting of the movie?

[Jason Lee]

Well, I mean, the obvious answers, again, would be the camaraderie, the honor of working with Cameron and. And being in such a special film like that, that's telling his story, essentially. But in terms of something in the movie. Performing at the Palladium, in the director's cut, you see the full performance. It's three or four songs straight through, with in between the songs, Jeff saying, thank you, this next song, blah, blah, blah. And that was the only venue where there were no CGI extras. Because at the arena in San Diego, I believe they had maybe 500 extras. And they would just move them around so that they had extras in every camera view, and then they filled in the rest, I believe, in post production. But the Palladium was jam packed full of period clad extras, and we performed songs straight through as if we were playing a real show. And that was just an incredible experience.

[Billy Crudup]

Okay. That was one of the great experiences of my adult life, like performing in. Otherwise we have this little, you know, band meeting before we go on. And we actually sang a song called Tongue and Bong.

[Jim Miller]

Subtle Y. Sounds like lots of fun. Why you.

[Jason Lee]

Get on my back for a piggyback.

[Jim Miller]

Ride get on my back for a piggyback ride.

[Cameron Crowe]

All right, boys.

[Patrick Fugit]

All right.

[Billy Crudup]

We sang that. I told Patrick that it was weird talking to his mother because I had just had that conversation with Francis, and he did it all in one shot. Then the camera pulls us out onto the stage. It's all dark. We get into our spots, the lights come up and the music comes on. And it was. It was electric and immediately clear in that moment how people get righteously fucked up from that experience because to have people be so blatantly worshipful of you in this sanctuary of reverence, it's like a spiritual revival. And you're the pastor, you're the one channeling the great. I mean, it makes sense to me why they call them guitar gods. And to get to experience that very briefly, tangentially, I mean, did you feel.

[Jim Miller]

Like a rock and roll.

[Billy Crudup]

Oh, man, for like I can remember buzzing like. And I probably didn't have to do anything on the guitar except like the first couple chords of Fever Dog or something, which by that point I knew well enough that I didn't get stressed out about it. And the camera was probably on my back a little bit, so you didn't have to see the exact fingering. And all I could do is look out at the audience. You know, we had 1500 extras for this one moment. It was outrageous. And I've, you know, I've spent a good amount of time on stage. I've played in pretty big theaters before. Never, never have I experienced something with the force of that moment.

[Cameron Crowe]

It's all real in that moment. And that's when I started to feel like, okay, well, we really on the road now. This is real. This isn't Hollywood punching a ticket and saying, this is what rock is. This is what rock is. And that continues to this day when some people go, oh, you're almost famous. Isn't that like a rose colored look at music through the eyes of a 15 year old? I'm like, yeah, and thank you. That's what we wanted. You know, if you want heroin and, you know, hotel trashing, watch it. On a triple bill with Rock Star and ladies and gentlemen, the Rolling Stones and Almost Famous. You know, it's like you can get it all. It's. It's just that this movie is about falling in love with music.

[Kate Hudson]

William calls me from a payphone and two of the Band Aids, Penny Lane and another Band Aid are there. And then Russell comes and I'm saying to him, I love you and I miss you. And he can't hear me because of how loud it is on the other side. And I say it louder. I love you and I miss you. Well, at the time, I'd been separated from my son for a week. I was really missing him. I kind of got choked up. And at the end of the take when he says, I love you too, I threw the phone down, the receiver down on the floor and Cameron said, cut. And he said, well, that's not quite what I expected. That's a Little more dramatic than I thought. Let's try it just a little less. That take did end up in the film because it was full of what hadn't been said and her need to know that he was okay. And that was full of my truth with my son as well. So for me, that was really instructive, where my experience crossed, I believe, and illuminated something that he might not have known about his mother on the other side of the phone. Alice on the other side of the phone. Because at that time, Cameron wasn't a parent.

[Jim Miller]

Yet you and Frances together provide one of the most emotional scenes in a very emotional movie. When you show up at the porch and she comes out and she sees you, and it's such a hard moment because, you know, you didn't want to come home. You came home because William asked you to. And yet when you see her, there's so many layers of emotions that you have to have on display.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman]

Yeah. Remember that being one of the most sort of rewarding scenes to play. Frances McDormand is just such an incredible actor and so delightful. And, you know, great actors make it so easy for other actors in the scene with them. And, you know, Patrick is awesome, too. And I have to say that's like one of those things where it's like, you can have, like, all these sort of, like, layers that you're playing, but it's really in the. In the way that Cameron was guiding us to do everything. He really, like, came in with those fine brushstrokes to get that exact awkward feeling. I remember him saying something like that it has to be, like, the most awkward hug ever or something to that effect. The weirdest hug. And, you know, of course, it's like a mutually awkward moment with a ton of layers, and it definitely takes a great director to make that scene really, really work.

[Jim Miller]

Patrick also talked to me about the scene at the airport where you see him and you come running over and you tell him, you know, that you'll take him anywhere. And, you know, it's funny because you were so almost maternal with Patrick, and he felt it in that scene because you were so protective of him. You were looking at his face. I guess there's something about Patrick's face.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman]

What a natural. I was thinking about them like, what a natural actor. Because I couldn't believe, like, he'd, like. He was just so at ease. It was such an incredible level of, like, you know, I mean, he was, like, so relaxed. It was truly, like, I was very nervous. I know. And I'd, like, spent my Entire life, like, working up to that moment to be, you know, an actor, you know, big movie. And I'm, like, looking at this guy going, how is he so relaxed?

[Zooey Deschanel]

We're about to do this scene where I'm the new manager that takes over the band, and I'm gonna take them to a private jet. That is how you get around. Get rid of this dumb bus. This is the big time, man. So I'm taken to this plane, and this shot is a John Toll. Oh, my God. It was another genius set up this cool kind of tracking shot of following me, and then the bands behind me, and they're kind of like, walking to what is the future. And they're. They're becoming. They're not a band that goes on a bus anywhere. They fly private jets. And Billy Crudup kept kicking my feet and tripping me, and because he knew that it was my. One of my big scenes, and I had to look cool. And so we go. And action. And I, like, start walking. Then Billy just goes, you know? You feel me fumbling? All right, cut. Start. Jimmy, you okay, man? I go, I know. I'm not gonna rat on anybody. So I'm like, I'm good. Just one more take.

[Patrick Fugit]

Sorry.

[Zooey Deschanel]

I go, billy, it's. Stop doing this, man. Like, I don't want to get fired from this job.

[Frances McDormand]

He goes, all right.

[Zooey Deschanel]

No, it'd be cool. All right. And action. Billy kicks me. I mean, we did it like, three. And then if you watch the scene in the movie, there's a little Easter egg as I'm getting on the plane. The steps.

[Jim Miller]

Yeah.

[Zooey Deschanel]

I think that Billy's going to kick me again. He doesn't. But I'm so nervous that I trip on the steps. So you'll see it.

[Billy Crudup]

You got.

[Zooey Deschanel]

You go, oh, what an idiot.

[Patrick Fugit]

Foreign.

[Frances McDormand]

Hey, I'm Ben Stiller.

[Patrick Fugit]

I'm Adam Scott.

[Billy Crudup]

And we make a TV show called Severance. On January 17th, Severance is back for season two on Apple TV, and we.

[Zooey Deschanel]

Can'T wait for you guys to see it.

[Patrick Fugit]

And before the premiere, Ben and I are going to be binging season one and putting out daily recap podcasts.

[Jim Miller]

Yep.

[Billy Crudup]

Each weekday, beginning January 7th, we'll be dropping an episode feed featuring exclusive behind.

[Patrick Fugit]

The scenes tidbits and brilliant insights from.

[Zooey Deschanel]

Our cast and crew.

[Billy Crudup]

And us.

[Patrick Fugit]

Patricia Arquette, Britt Lauer, Zach Cherry, John Turturro. The list goes on.

[Billy Crudup]

All your favorite Lumen employees, their friends.

[Frances McDormand]

Families, enemies, in your feed every single weekday.

[Patrick Fugit]

And here's the best part. After that, we're gonna Keep going. Tune in weekly as we recap every episode of season two. The podcast drops on the season same day the episode comes out.

[Zooey Deschanel]

It's the Severance podcast with Ben and.

[Patrick Fugit]

Adam on Apple Podcasts, the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts. The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool. Is that my advice to you? And I know you think these guys are your friends. If you want to be a true friend to him, be honest and unmerciful.

[Jim Miller]

Philip Seymour Hoffman was on set for less than a week to shoot his scenes with Patrick Fugate and did so while suffering from the flu. Crowe had kept many souvenirs from his days as a teenage rock journalist, and some pop up in the movie. One souvenir, a T shirt from the group the Guess who appears when William and Lester Bangs meet at Sun Cafe. Bangs. Philip Seymour Hoffman is wearing Crow's T shirt. And Philip Seymour Hoffman was very protective of Patrick during shooting, to say the least. Tell me what it was like working with Philip Seymour Hoffman.

[Patrick Fugit]

He stayed within the tonality of the character. He was very friendly and supportive of me, but also had a sort of old school, trained theater actors, maybe chip on his shoulder because I was this, like, redneck from Utah that had done, like, so little, you know, and like, I was now, like you said, like, this lead in this amazing feature film from this incredible director. So his thing was like, yeah, you're here now and you got to earn it. Like, you better show up. I remember we filmed those scenes in San Diego and Philip showed up with the flu. So he would go off and, you know, be sick between takes, and they would come back and, like, nail the scene and then go off and be sick and then come back. Philip was certainly very patient but very honest with feedback, you know, giving me yeses after good takes or shaking his head no after bad takes and stuff like that. But I remember we were in the diner and John Toll had put this big key light outside the door. It was really bright, and I couldn't keep my eyes open while I was looking at Philip. So I was like, it's making my eyes water and I can't keep my eyes open. So I would look down at the paper because I'm taking notes in the scene. So I'd look at the paper and write. Or I would look off, you know, this direction. And Philip stopped the take. And he's like, the kid can't even look at me. He's like, this light is too bright. The Kid's not looking at me. And I was like, you know, I thought he was mad at me a little bit. So I was like, oh, you know, he's like, no, no, no, don't apologize. He's like, it's like, why the are we doing this? The kid can't see a thing. Like, we got to move the light. And John Toll, who's super professional, super, like, stoic, was like, you don't tell me where to put the lights. You know, like, that kind of thing.

[Jim Miller]

And what was Cameron's reaction to that?

[Patrick Fugit]

Cameron's like, energy guy anyway, so anytime there's a tense energy, it's like Cameron resets the energy. You know, that's kind of his thing. So he was like, okay, okay, we'll take a look at the light. No worries.

[Cameron Crowe]

What that was for me was Philip Seymour Hoffman showing Patrick a little glimpse of the future. Like, this is what you actually have the power to do as an actor. You have the power to look out for yourself. And I'm going to be a little tough, because I can be. But this is available to you with certain directors. With certain directors. It's true. But when you're dealing with that kind of power from Philip Seymour Hoffman, I mean. Yeah, I mean, I think he knew he could wield it.

[Jim Miller]

So that's an instant calculation on your part because obviously it's your set. This actor has yelled cut. You have to decide in that nanosecond how you're going to respond.

[Cameron Crowe]

Well, I had to protect Patrick. Patrick was easy prey for the wrong kind of person. And we generally checked that out with everybody that was working on that movie, by the way.

[Jim Miller]

So is William.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jim Miller]

Which is delicious.

[Cameron Crowe]

That's right. That's right. Philip Seymour Hoffman was more of, like, a sharply cut jewel, you know, that you admire and is just a gift, but also can cut you and hurt you. And that was in there with that performance. He cut himself on me the first day when we were shooting the DJ scene where he's throwing around the records and stuff. I played an Iggy Pop song, and, you know, I just surprised him with it. I just played like, I want to be your dog in the middle of his take, which I had learned from Cruise, you know, that this was a really good working method. And so I'd done it on every movie since, you know. But Tom was the one that, like, kind of gave me permission as a director to just, like, let it fly. Always play music whenever you want. Surprise me. So I did it to Philip Seymour Hoffman, and he Just said, cut, cut, cut. And there was like that lack of air in the room suddenly. And he said, what makes you think that the music you play is better than what I have playing in my head? To play this scene.

[Jim Miller]

Right. Even the way he said it. Because he could also say, oh, do you mind? It's a little distracting for me. Or do you. That kind of.

[Cameron Crowe]

The hand firmly on the wheel. Yeah, this is how I drive. You're the passenger right now. And I'm like, happy, happy to be the passenger. You won't hear music from me. And I didn't. And he did a lot of work with a headset too. You know, he had earbuds and he would listen to Lester in between takes. Lester's own voice. It was fascinating watching him. I mean, he was a scientist in many ways, but a big heart, ultimately. Had a big heart, I think, right.

[Jim Miller]

Just a bundle of contradictions.

[Cameron Crowe]

A bundle. But fascinating. Amazing. It's funny, you know, I do remember this as we talk about it and the other thing that was going on there is I think Hoffman was feeling me out too, you know, because, like, I was not really part of his directing gang, you know, he was Paul Thomas Anderson, that was kind of his dude, you know, and Paul Thomas Anderson, definitely a world class filmmaker. Sees shots and combines shots with dialogue and stuff. And I think I have my own way of working, you know, I stay pretty close to the words and I work with John Toll on the images. And I think Philip Seymour Hoffman was kind of like figuring out what my style was, you know what I mean? So he's kind of pushing against that a little bit, which he told me, you know, a year later when we went to do Looping in New York and he saw all his scenes, he basically said to me, now I get the way you work. Now I understand and thank you.

[Kate Hudson]

I think that there was a real sense of stewardship with camera. He was really shepherding Patrick through not only the role, but this very significant point in his life. You know, it's always. I find that, and I believe that in our business we have a real responsibility to child actors. And it can be such a compromised relationship where young actors are being taken advantage of because of their innocence and their inexperience. And that in this situation he was nothing but cradled. And perhaps more importantly, people like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Billy Crudup, myself, we all come out of the theater. So there was a sense of discipline and rigor that we brought to the process that I think was really impressive and impressed Patrick.

[Jim Miller]

Cameron's Mother. Alice was a direct inspiration for Frances McDormand's Elaine Miller character, and Alice often visited Cameron's film sets. Alice formed a friendship with Frances McDormand, who plays her.

[Kate Hudson]

Can I speak with William, please?

[Frances McDormand]

He's still down in the bar with the band.

[Cameron Crowe]

They just got back from the radio station. Is this Marianne with the pot?

[Frances McDormand]

Hello?

[Kate Hudson]

No, this is not Marianne with the pot. This is Elaine, his mother. Could you give William a message for me, please? Tell him to call home immediately and also tell him I know what's going on.

[Patrick Fugit]

I was very focused on just trying to keep up with Frances, which is.

[Jim Miller]

A hard thing to do, right?

[Patrick Fugit]

Absolutely.

[Jim Miller]

She's just utterly brilliant.

[Patrick Fugit]

She is. But what's really brilliant about actors like her and Philip and Billy and a lot of the people I've been fortunate enough to work with in that film and throughout my career, is that they sort of bring you into the world. Like Frances would bring me into the. The character relationship. She's feeding. She's just feeding this energy into the room and all I have to do is like, it's a river current. I just have to relax and get in there with her.

[Jim Miller]

How would that manifest itself?

[Patrick Fugit]

So I would be tense. I would be very technical. Like, I. I would approach scenes with a very technical, sort of binary approach that required technical skill, could turn out well, but in terms of the flow or the organic nature of it, it would feel a little stale, or it would feel manufactured. And then Francis would reset that state for me and just be like, no, we're just relaxed, we're flowing. And then she would reset the energy of what I thought the scene would be and it would take on a whole life of its own. And then I would just be interacting with Francis as William. So it was just. It was just role play at that point. And though we were very loyal to Cameron's words because they were written so well, it felt like improv with Francis because it was all energy based.

[Kate Hudson]

The most exciting thing was that he was open to everyone's process. But the most important thing, and what I really, really recommend and appreciate, is a really facile actor brings a trunk load of material to a project. And I don't want total freedom and I don't want to be in the great, open outdoors. I want walls, I want rules, because if there's a wall, then I can bounce off it forever. If there's no wall, I'm going to bounce out into infinity and it's just going to be a bunch of gobbledygook. But his was structured in a way that not only could it hold someone of my experience, but it could hold someone of Patrick's experience.

[Jim Miller]

There's a couple shots where you definitely let us in on her vulnerability.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah. And loneliness.

[Jim Miller]

And you went pretty tight.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah.

[Jim Miller]

Could you talk a little bit about how you shot her? Because it was some framing that you did with her that just seemed, like, very distinct from anybody else.

[Cameron Crowe]

Thanks. Well, it's. To get across this thing. She's a teacher. She has those books, she has her aphorisms, she has her students. But when that last kid leaves, she's alone. There's no husband, there's no daughter, there's no son. And what she has is not enough. So she's incredibly lonely. Once the kid goes out the door and takes that assignment, she's alone and not as aware of how lonely she was gonna be and is until it happens. And that's what those shots are.

[Jim Miller]

So at graduation, it's much deeper than. She's not watching her son get his diploma. She's concerned about where the hell he is, obviously. But there's something going on with her as well. There's a whole other dimension to it.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah. That's where she's most. My mom is, I think, in that sequence where the kid is getting. They're handing out the diplomas and he's not there. That's. I'm lonely and none of my lessons took hold, and that would be hell for my mom.

[Jim Miller]

But isn't there a weird, once again, a paradox? Because ultimately, maybe the biggest lesson of all took hold, which was, you know, the enlightenment of our all.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah. You can't control them.

[Jim Miller]

Right. I mean, if you're at the proverbial fork in the road and you put your child on this path, and I'm not the typical mother, and I do want to take you to carnal knowledge.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah, well said that you sound like her.

[Billy Crudup]

And you say you love me.

[Cameron Crowe]

I don't love you, man.

[Jason Lee]

I never did.

[Jim Miller]

None of us love you. You act above us. You always have.

[Billy Crudup]

Leave the truth.

[Jason Lee]

You just held it over us like you might leave.

[Jim Miller]

Like we're lucky to be with you.

[Jason Lee]

And we had to live with it, man.

[Kate Hudson]

I had to live with you.

[Cameron Crowe]

And now I might die with you, and it's not fair.

[Jim Miller]

Please, enough. So two days just for the plane scene.

[Billy Crudup]

Oh, yeah.

[Jim Miller]

That must have. I mean, my gosh, I have to.

[Billy Crudup]

Say, I did enjoy that, being on that gimbal. Yeah, well. And also, too, because my Russell's enjoying it so much himself. That I got to kind of ride it out. I mean, I got back there, you know, everybody got their head smashed in a couple times.

[Jim Miller]

The juxtaposition of Russell's face versus everyone else, though.

[Patrick Fugit]

Exactly.

[Billy Crudup]

I got to have a look at that.

[Jim Miller]

It was a little wicked.

[Zooey Deschanel]

Yeah, it was.

[Billy Crudup]

That was really fun.

[Jim Miller]

Yeah.

[Billy Crudup]

Two days just on the plane scene.

[Jason Lee]

It was really kind of rough. The plane was on a gimbal, and it was really quite jerky and rough and bumpy. And then the camera was on a crane, so it was able to hold stationary as the plane moved around it. Yeah, that was a lot of like, can we stop for a second and just take a break? Because it's getting a little too bumpy. But certainly the actuality of the plane moving as it did really certainly helped the energy of the scene.

[Jim Miller]

It's not just the physicality that you're dealing with. Your character in particular. You let it go then.

[Cameron Crowe]

Yeah.

[Jason Lee]

And I think, honestly, the discomfort from the gimbal added to the annoyance and frustration of the moments and the dialogue being spoken. It was tense all the way around.

[Zooey Deschanel]

That was the closest I almost got fired because I kept laughing. I couldn't stop. I once hit a man in Dearborn, Michigan. Hit and run. I hit him. Just kept on going. I don't know if he's alive or dead, but, sorry. Not a day goes by I don't see his face. It was the funniest thing. Jason Lee. Jason Lee and I were best friends. We were besties. We just bonded, so I don't know why. Never met the guy before and he never met me, and we just bonded, and we made each other laugh till we cried. I mean, we were best friends on that movie. And so I had to sit across from him kind of so I could see him. And when we were on this giant robot fake plane, and when the plane's going down, the whole plane, Shakespeare, you know, and it's scary, and there's like a tracking. Like a robot camera floating through the plane as it's going down. And every time it moved, like, Jason's hair would go in front of his face. And it was the funniest thing. He looked like cousin it. And it just made me laugh so hard, and I couldn't. And the camera was on me. And so I'm just like. I'm, like, biting the inside of my cheek and tasting the blood in my mouth, because I really was like, dude, do not laugh at this. Don't even look at him. Look above his head. Look somewhere. So I think at one point I had to do. They threw me off the plane and they got everyone else's shots. And then I did my scene by myself. I was a problem child, tiny dancer.

[Cameron Crowe]

That sequence was when we got there. I mean, it's just a few sentences in the script, but when we got there, I started to see how we could tie all the characters together with those shots. And it was going to take some time, but I saw it, I knew what that was going to look like. And I told John Toll and he was like, well, that's two days from your schedule and it's going to be a conversation with Dreamworks and you might have to cut some stuff, but I see it too. Let's go. And that was a big moment.

[Jim Miller]

I have to go home.

[Cameron Crowe]

You are home. But what I didn't know is that it could feel that emotional and that so much of the story could start to swirl in that one scene. And I have to go home. Penny. Saying you are home is an improv that's just there. What, in the moment? Yeah. It's just like, try saying this. Try saying this. And it was essential. That definitely was something that I wouldn't have been able to do if I'd made it my first movie. You know, it happened at the perfect time. Almost Famous happened at the perfect time. We wanted a sense of the road. And John Toll, I mean, he started out doing documentaries. You know, he's got an eye like nobody's business. He's got an eye for like documentary style stuff, even though he's like the most gorgeous lighting mind out there. The idea was like, let's just get a sense of what it's like to be on the road with Stillwater. And he strapped on the camera and started doing these running shots of the band, like getting on the bus and coming through this hotel. And I saw in that instance, like what that kind of Truffaut thing that I love so much, which is like character based, flowing cinema is just like the coolest thing. And to just see flashes of that and Almost Famous I thought was really great because it just. And what you know is that you're in the hands of people that aren't talking to you through a middleman. They were there. They want you to feel like what it was like to be there. And Toll was there. I was happy enough to be there, lucky enough to be there.

[Philip Seymour Hoffman]

He was shooting scenes where we're like, I'm just like looking out the window and he's like, do less. And I'm like, whoa, like really do less. I'm like, I'm just looking out the window. But what I realized, it's like when you're so close on someone's face, if they're doing anything that looks like acting, it looks false. So you have to be, like, really doing nothing. Definitely. It was such an educational experience for me, learning how to act for film.

[Cameron Crowe]

All right, all right. Side proposition to the winner.

[Frances McDormand]

For 50 bucks and a case of.

[Cameron Crowe]

Heineken, I'll throw into the pot three lovely ladies, including Miss Penny Lane, famous.

[Frances McDormand]

Band aids, who have to leave the.

[Cameron Crowe]

Tour before New York.

[Frances McDormand]

Russ okay with you?

[Cameron Crowe]

Russ is getting soft on us.

[Frances McDormand]

Okay.

[Billy Crudup]

Okay.

[Patrick Fugit]

It's a deal.

[Frances McDormand]

Show em three lovely ladies in the.

[Cameron Crowe]

Custody of Humble Pie. Be good to him, Reg.

[Patrick Fugit]

All right, so we owe you $50 and a case of Heineken.

[Frances McDormand]

Yep.

[Jim Miller]

In terms of William's obstacles, one of the toughest hurdles was the moment when you guys are playing poker.

[Billy Crudup]

Well, it's awful to meet your heroes, and it's awful to grow up. You know, all of those things happen in that moment for him. And it's. One of the things that I was touching on before is I think Russell feels protective of him and he feels protected of him because he knows that this environment is not one for people who are immature, not one for people who are not ready to bear witness to the vicissitudes of adult life, which include negotiating this carny life.

[Patrick Fugit]

That groupie, she was a Band Aid. All she did was love your band. And you all used her.

[Cameron Crowe]

All of you.

[Patrick Fugit]

You used her and threw her away. She almost died last night while you were with Bob Dylan. You guys are always talking about the fans, the fans, the fans. She was your biggest fan and you threw her away. And if you can't see that, that's your biggest problem.

[Jim Miller]

What was Freud's definition of maturity? The ability to handle ambiguity.

[Billy Crudup]

There you go. That's it. Ambiguity. Ambiguity is the perfect word for Russell. And that's again, why I think it was difficult and elusive to Cameron on Page. I mean, we. We spent a lot of time workshopping scenes and, like, trying to find the right words for things and what scenes needed to be added and what scenes needed growth in their writing. And it took us the entirety of the movie.

[Cameron Crowe]

Billy Crudup has an interesting thing, but as he gets contemplative later in the movie and he's kind of realizing how he's screwed over Penny Lane and people, he's listening to this Bruce Springsteen song, the Promise. Every time we played the Promise, Billy Crudup would go to that place of incredible depth and soul and just music. You can really feel music in him. And that was a little thing that I really enjoyed in the script.

[Jim Miller]

What's the structural signifier? What's the pivot point for his character to understand that, to really look at his own actions and to kind of navigate so the rest of the movie can happen the way it does?

[Cameron Crowe]

For me, it's when Sapphire, who's Firuza Balk in the movie, says that the era is changing and do these new girls know what it's like to be a fan? You know, to love some band or some album cover so much that it hurts. That to me is the key to the movie in many ways. And it's also Billy's turning point.

[Billy Crudup]

Point.

[Cameron Crowe]

I think he sees at that point for me, that's when I feel like he's violated the 15 year old that first picked up a guitar.

[Jim Miller]

In the 20 years that you've been acting, was there a moment that you're on the set where you're almost like and you're with another director and you're missing him or you're missing that kind of quality and that culture that he.

[Frances McDormand]

Creates on the set all the time? All the time. I mean, I think, you know, some directors just are brilliant, but they're not like that, you know, I mean, if you worked with Clint Eastwood, you know, you better know your lines. You show up and you are invested in this movie. But I don't think that Clint. Clint's definitely not gonna stay there till one in the morning. Whereas Cameron and I and the scene of me on the, you know, dancing in the Palladium, that we were all going home. Cameron's like, hey, you wanna come? It's so. It looks amazing. I just danced around, you know, and kind of Cameron would yell things out to me. And there's people who really jive with other people.

[Cameron Crowe]

It's so funny with Kate, you know, sometimes the most depthy stuff is the easiest to just ask her for, like Dance on the Empty Floor. You're still hearing the music. You're feeling like you're a part of it. You're thinking about all the great shows that happen. I'm just like saying that to her off camera and she's doing it and dancing. And that was my relationship with Kate on the movie. Like I was able to just talk to her through takes and just. It was. She's so unintimidated by all the equipment and the movie making stuff because she grew up with it. So it's actually the best version of a showbiz kid. Another thing is Penny Lane dancing on the floor of the empty arena. That's like pure John Toll. Just like you want to summon the feeling of everything that's happened in that room before that moment. And she can feel it. You know, what's the cinema that can bring you into her world as she's listening to that Cat Stevens song. And she has a sense of the soul of this room, which is like burnished by all the great things that have happened, including that show that night.

[Frances McDormand]

When we go to Morocco, I think we should wear completely different clothes and be completely different people.

[Jim Miller]

What will our names be?

[Patrick Fugit]

There were a couple scenes where Cameron wasn't totally happy and I could tell. And even we tried to adjust those scenes in post production with ADR for anybody listening doesn't know the acronym. It's additional dialogue recording. It's where you go in and you voice over the scene. You can improve on your performance, even add lines that weren't there in production. And there was one where I think Ben Fong Torres calls William when he shows up in New York. And William gets on the phone with Ben Fong Torres. And Ben Fong Torres adds like 2000 word, like whatever it was, adds a billion words to his article. And also they like pull the deadline up on him or something like that. And they're like, you know, we need it now. I remember there was a lot going on technically that day in terms of camera and angle and people watching us film. So, you know, there were a lot of things that I wasn't really acclimated to as an actor yet. And I was also really exhausted. And I remember Cameron was like. I think he started acting with me on the other side of the phone because he wasn't stoked at how it was going. And he was trying to get me there on the other side of the phone. Like, he would do this a lot. He would have the other actors say things that weren't in the script to sort of surprise me. Like he would do that to all the actors. You know, almost improv. There were times where we were almost improving or straight up improving, or he would just whisper in one actor's ear and it would throw the scene into a completely different energy space because he would change a line or something like that. And so he got on the phone to try to do that with me and I just didn't get there. And I could tell we had to move on. Like, there is a scene on the bus where Penny Lane is talking about running away with William, and she's like, we'll go to Morocco. I think she says something like that. And then William starts to play along in the fantasy, and he's like, what will our names be? I remember. I think we did, like, over 30 or 40 takes of me saying, what will our names be? And then when I got into ADR for it, I came back, like, three times to do a bunch of different adr. And every time we would go back to what will our names be? And so Cameron would. I could tell that was another day. He wasn't. He was like, I will get it. You know, like, we'll get it later, that kind of thing. And then we'd get into ADR and do it. The second adr, I'd come in and he'd just say to me, what will our names be? What do you think, Patrick? What will our names be? And I'd be like, fuck, we gotta do that line again. And then, even then, like, I think we were at the London Film Festival premiering the film and everything. Everybody was dressed up, and we're watching the movie and the bus scene happens and William goes, what will our names be? And I can tell it's voiceover, and I'm still not happy with it. When I watch the film and Cameron just leaned over, looked at me down the aisle, I was like, fuck.

[Jim Miller]

Fuck. And just in terms of the bandwidth of the actors and the exhaustion level, like, when you're directing a movie like this and it is kind of a long shoot, and particularly given the fact that with Patrick at 17, Kate at 19, you have some. How do you calibrate. How do you make sure that your team is, you know, running a marathon and not just a couple dashes?

[Cameron Crowe]

Well, this is another great question of yours, and what I have found is a method of directing environmentally. Like, I just love the idea that it's all going to end up on screen. But the work that you do after hours, before hours, the records you give Patrick, et cetera, that all shows up on screen. So if you're presenting an environment that you're a part of, which is like, we're here together for the privilege of telling this story. And not all of us have done this forever and ever. We're all learning here that most of the time gives you a feeling a. Of confidence of your younger actors, confidence for you as the director. And also it gives the whole story kind of a familial community vibe, which Almost Famous has.

[Jim Miller]

The shoot was a long shoot, very Long.

[Patrick Fugit]

Yeah.

[Jim Miller]

And some people remarked to me that toward the end of the shoot they were concerned because it seemed like you were getting tired. Not as a criticism, but it was your first movie, it's a long shoot. So could you talk a little bit about that?

[Patrick Fugit]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I had only ever been committed to professional projects for like, two days at a time at that point, or doing, like, play rehearsals and then a run of a play, but all pretty relaxed. So this was the first time where, like, my character was in so many of the scenes because, like, we're talking about it. He's the lens through which you see the world in this setting. So he's in every scene. So I was there all the time. So I would be there at 5:36am doing breakfast, hair and makeup, and then would work and then go home. And, you know, I still had to do school. I was still in high school, so I would still have to do three hours of school every day. And. And we were going on five months of actual production time and we had at that point flown into New York City and we were filming a scene in a limousine with the band. It was William and the band. And they got to my coverage. And I was so exhausted from the flight and from the time change that I was actually falling asleep during my coverage. So I would be like, sitting there and I'd be like, you have to stay awake, Patrick. Like, you have to make it through the scene. Just make it through the scene. You can take a nap or whatever. They had a whole bridge. I forget which bridge it was, but it was one of the bridges into the city closed down because we were going back and forth on the bridge, filming past the characters into the city. So it was a huge deal. Like, we had to get these scenes and we got there at like 5am or something like that to make sure that we were, you know, done early in the day. And I was just passing out. Billy would have to kick me awake, that sort of thing. During the scene, Cameron was like, yelling from the production van. He's like, patrick, wake up. Wake up. Stay awake, buddy. But again, that also paralleled William's experience at that point.

[Jim Miller]

This was a long shoot, very long shoot. And Patrick, and he got a little tired at the end, a little exhausted. And it just so happened to coincide with some of the more emotional, important scenes.

[Frances McDormand]

Oh, the walk through the park. We were both exhausted.

[Jim Miller]

Cameron mentioned that.

[Frances McDormand]

Yeah.

[Jim Miller]

So could you tell me about that day?

[Frances McDormand]

Well, I also pulled an all nighter that night because it was Jason and Billy's last day and they all went out and I had one more day to shoot, but they all pulled me out and were like, you're coming out with us tonight. And I ended up going out with Jimmy Fallon and Jason and we all went out all night and I think Jimmy and I ended up in some subway bar. And then it was like 4 in the morning. I was like, well, shit, I mean, I'm just going to go right to work. And this is great because, you know, it's my hangover scene, so I'll just keep going. And we were all staying at the Plaza and I was walking up and the first day everybody was coming out to the catering truck to get their, you know, breakfast burritos. And I was in a full out regalia, like skirt makeup still on. Producer looked at me and she's like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm fine, I'm totally fine. I'm gonna go upstairs, I'm gonna change. She's like, cameron can't see you like this. They're like, you just need to hide from Cameron cause he's about to come out. And meanwhile Cameron is literally on the door over from me. He's waking up to start the day and I am. They're hiding me in the corner of my door and they're trying to hide me, but I'm so clearly like just getting home and Cameron sees me and he looks at me and I look at him, we get eye contact and he goes, rock and roll. He just walks away. And so I actually performed that scene on no sleep.

[Jim Miller]

Were you aware, let's say in the case of Patrick though, that at the end in New York he was running on fumes and. Yeah, so you have a 17 year old first movie. What did you decide to do about that?

[Cameron Crowe]

Well, his energy started to flag, as it did for everybody, you know, but he is at the center of the movie and he's now in the center of every important scene. Cause we're shooting in order and you know how it ends. She's gonna od, he's gonna save her, he's gonna be a wreck. All that stuff which Patrick was going through. But it was just a matter of stamina to keep him on his feet to play the scenes. And so there was one point where we were in the Plaza doing the scene where Penny lane, you know, ODs and he kind of saves her and holds her and then they pull her away and pump her stomach. And the shot is a push in on Patrick. William watching this Woman that he's whose life he's saved, he's still in love with her. What is his life? What is his place in the world? All that stuff is happening. And he's listening to Sweet Pop My Sharia Moore in his head. So this was kind of a big scene. And Patrick, I thought, had no gas in the tank. Like he's just nothing. And we all knew that. And we were all kind of standing around with the shot set up and I think we even did like a first version of it. And he was just dead eyed and rightly so. He was beat. You know, this had been going on for months. He'd never done anything like this before. So I had to do one of those things that you, you know, I guess they tell you on director school late at night when they show you the bag of tricks. No, the ad. Jerry Ziesmer kind of gave me a look and we had had a little history and so you have to talk the actor through it at that point, which you've done a couple times on a couple of the movies. But this was slightly subversive because we needed him to just fall apart.

[Patrick Fugit]

That was the time. It was like the end of this, I think over 90 days of filming something like that. And Cameron wasn't getting what he needed, you know, so he came up to me, he was like, yeah, you know, we're almost done. I was like, yeah, yeah. He's like, you know, after we finish this, you're never going to see any of these people again. You know, he's doing that to me. And I started getting like worked up about it. And then he started rolling and we did that. Worked up meaning emotional, because I was 16, it was my first film and at that point everybody feels like family. And I had thought, like, you know, these people are going to be my friends forever. And so when he sort of broke the news that that wasn't the case and you know, we're coming to the end of the experience and you know, you're never going to see most of these people again. It definitely hit home and I started.

[Cameron Crowe]

Getting emotional and everybody loved Patrick and I don't know what his memory of this is, but my memory is still pretty strong about this. I am telling him as we're doing the shot, all of these people are not going to be your friends soon. All of these people will soon disappear. This is the way it works in the movies. These are false friends. These aren't real friends. They're going to go on to do other stuff. You're Going to be a kid in Salt Lake City. And I hate to tell you, but don't get addicted to all this love you're feeling right now, because it's going to be gone real, real, real soon. The poor kid is falling the fuck apart. It is in his eye. It's in the movie. It's in his eyes. He's just. It was so painful. I mean, an aftercut. I think I apologized to him a million times, but that was one of those things where you just kind of hate yourself.

[Jim Miller]

I mean, but you're not that kind of guy. That you understood ends justifies the means. Right?

[Cameron Crowe]

You have to at that point, because, you know they're not going to give me more money to keep shooting this movie. We did no reshoots on Almost Famous. Everything that happened happened in the shoot.

[Patrick Fugit]

That's where some of the most fun work in that part of the film happened. It was sort of the most genuine and heartfelt. It was less performing and bringing the material to life and more of the craft of it. It was living the art. So it was not like a performance of it. It was the art itself.

[Jim Miller]

What was the most difficult scene that you had to do in Almost Famous?

[Frances McDormand]

The most challenging scene was outside the what kind of beer scene. It was a challenging day. We had the four page scene of me and Patrick, or William in the field when he tells me that he sold me for, you know, beer. And we had like half a day and Patrick was having a difficult day. And Patrick and I were the team that day. It was like, you got this, you got it, we got it. For us, it was like one of our biggest scenes. And it was crazy. They wanted to get out of the location. We had very limited time. The sun was going down. John Toll was like, we gotta keep moving. And so there's a lot of pressure on this scene to just get it done. And I was trying not to feel the pressure. And we did it twice. It was about two takes and I knew we had it. I was like, I nailed it. I felt good. It felt like I was totally there. Cameron, he wasn't very happy with anything that was happening that day. So it was like, oh, my God, do it again. And then I kept fucking up one word and I couldn't get it. And then I started feeling. I kept saying the same word and he kept repeating what the word was. And you know, when you're working with someone like Cameron, you need to know your lines. It's a very particular way of reading his lines. I don't know if anybody else has said this, but they're not easy. It's like its own kind of cadence, its own. And if you can hit that sort of magic sweet spot, if you're the kind of actor who can do that with Cameron, I think it's like just maybe some of the best work that you'd ever be able to do as an actor. Right. But when you don't hit it, it's like tongue ties time. Back to Cameron saying, focus, keep focus. But in that day, I was focused, and then I had to walk away for a second because it was getting. There was a lot of pressure, and I was feeling a little out of my comfort zone, which is fine, but. But I had to kind of walk away. So I didn't sort of get mad at Cameron because I felt like he was being a little crazy that day. And at that time in my life, I needed Cameron's validation. When Cameron didn't validate what I was doing, I felt like I was completely letting him down. And if I was completely letting him down, it made me so mad. And not mad in the sense of, like, angry mad, but it made me mad at myself or fear of failure, totally. So at that moment, I walked away and I was like, I'm about to land Cameron. He needs to be easy on us right now. Like, we're really trying to give him. And I remember our acting coach, I was in a field with her, and I was like, just give me a second. You know, this is like a typical actor moment that you look at and you laugh. Like, if it was on film, like, everybody would be laughing at it because it's so cliche. But Cameron was stressed out and everybody's breathing. I was back to get out of this location. I'm like, you know what? This is crazy. You're putting too much pressure on us. I need a second. We don't have a second. JT's like, we're losing the fucking light, you know? And I came to Cam and I'm like, I'm trying the best I can, you know, it was a tough day.

[Jim Miller]

How do you, as a director, calculate how far to keep on going?

[Cameron Crowe]

One of the things they tell you to get you to move on as a director is, oh, you can always come back and grab this later if you need it. They'll let you go back and get it. I knew we weren't coming back. I knew we weren't going to be back in Central park with a full cast and a full crew in Central park with New York. And I mean, DreamWorks was already like, finish, finish, finish. It's like, this is when I say, let's do one more take. What you don't want is to be the person that sits in the editing room going, shit. Why did I listen to Kate? Well, because Kate's amazing, and Kate said, and blah, blah, blah. But you didn't listen to your heart.

[Frances McDormand]

I remember leaving, and I was like, you know what? I have to feel good about the work that I just did, because I really do. I know he's going to be happy with it. And Cameron, I hope, will tell you this, too, because he came to me after seeing the dailies, day and a half after that, and he was like, you were right. That take, you were right. It was totally there. I was like, oh, my God, I'm so happy.

[Cameron Crowe]

Often she's right. She is good right out of the box. But sometimes you have to get the words right and make sure that they're there and be safe and do it. And, in fact, we were unable to shoot anything extra on Almost Famous. When that door clanged shut, it was shut. There was no way we were going to get anything more. I think we paid to shoot my hand doing the title credits. I think I paid for that because they were like, you're done, pal. You know, your rock movie is. See what you can do with it, because there's nothing new coming in. And the other thing I was thinking is how much I loved the collaboration with Kate, where, you know, it's similar to what you saw with Francis. It's like, how do you not love that person who's in the foxhole with you, who's performing, who says, I think we got it? Like, okay, well, let me try another couple. You know, it's not like you're Stanley Kubrick and you've got Sidney Pollock for your third year shooting Eyes Wide Shut. It's kind of like, you're my pal. I'm your pal. We're doing this movie about love and music. Let's do a couple more. Okay? Come on. Okay. Cameron, you know, and that was our relationship, and I miss it, frankly.

[Jim Miller]

This is a film rooted in your own life. It wasn't your first movie. But despite that sense of familiarity and despite your accomplishments beforehand, what did you learn as the movie was being shot? What did you learn about yourself, and what did you learn as a filmmaker as the movie was being shot?

[Cameron Crowe]

Wow. All of them have been a lesson in instincts, you know, and how much to follow them, how much to believe in them, how much to tread water until the correct instinct shows up. But it's all about instincts. Someone will be there on that set to tell you it's not important. And you have to remember not to settle. And that was in my mind a lot, doing Almost Famous because I felt I'm not going to get another shot at this. And I really want it to be perfect. And we have a lot of amateur actors here. And I didn't settle, and I took the time. It's not like people were going swimming halfway through the day and just making cocktails. We were doing takes and working really hard. We got the bells and whistles. We got to shoot in chronological order in San Diego, in the places where a lot of this stuff actually happened, right down to the Plaza Hotel, finishing in Central Park. I mean, it was the a ticket ride and as it should have been. I mean, the fact that you couldn't make Almost Famous in that way now makes it even more special because that movie just doesn't exist now.

[Jim Miller]

No, I mean, not even you don't.

[Cameron Crowe]

Get it made right.

[Jim Miller]

Coming up on our next episode of Chapter 6, Almost Famous Turns 20, the final episode. We ask a bunch of pertinent questions. Among them, what is the movie's lasting effect? How did it change the lives of its cast members? And what is the Cameron Crowe legacy After Almost Famous, this has been a production of CADEN 13, executive produced by me, Jim Miller, and my valued colleague, Chris Corcoran, who kicks ass running all content for Cadence. I do the writing and reporting for Origins, but the actual podcast is produced, edited and mastered by my brother in arms, Chris Basil, a legend. Our producer and engineer is Terence Malangone, who always makes the studio feel like home. And I also want to send a shout out to our marketing PR team, Josephina Francis, Hilary Schuff and Kurt Courtney, along with Lizzie Denahan and the rest of the sales team. Corny as it may sound, I'm damn lucky to have all these people on Team Origins.

[Frances McDormand]

The new year is here, and it's the perfect time to kickstart your meditation practice. The Morning Meditation for Women podcast has short daily guided meditations that will help you start your day with intention and focus and make it so easy to get you into the habit. Imagine feeling so much more calm and confident in 2025. Follow and listen to Morning Meditation for Women on the Free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.