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- [00:00]
Mike Pesca
Hi, it's Mike with a major announcement. It is not about the gist. It is about something called the gist list. So let me tell you, every day I construct the show by reading and listening and imbibing a tremendous amount of information. A lot of it doesn't make it onto the show, of course.
- [00:16]
Unknown Co-host
So what do we do with that? What do we do with the effluvia.
- [00:19]
Mike Pesca
The jetsam, the sods, but also the odds. Enter the gist List. Every day on Substack, I will be compiling the most interesting, important, maybe unfairly ignored stories that I look at and say, there's something there.
- [00:33]
Unknown Co-host
You know, we must nurture that which.
- [00:35]
Mike Pesca
Is interesting in this world. Some of these stories do end up as segments. They all start off as ideas. We need ideas. The gist list is designed to interest you, definitely. Not to waste your time to make you smarter. To see where I'm heading every day on the gist. So head over to Mike pesca.substack.com today and every day to sign up for the gist list.
- [01:02]
Unknown Co-host
It's Thursday, May 1, 2020. Live from Peach Fish Productions, it's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca.
- [01:07]
Joel Souza
Waltz.
- [01:08]
Unknown Co-host
Falls Wong gone. Mike Waltz, national security advisor, and his deputy Alex Wong are both out, according to press reports. Maybe official by the time you hear this. Did Waltz serve as a human shield for Pete Hegseth? Both were on the same signal group chat that disclosed war plans. Sorry, not war plans, military attack plans. Hegseth has two bronze stars. Waltz has four, including two for valor. Now, I'm impressed with any amount of bronze stars, but the experts tell me that the regular ones, when they're not for valor, you kind of get it for serving. Not for serving particularly. Well, other than more decorations than Hegseth, Waltz also has more of a base of support in non maga Republican world, which actually might be a detriment in terms of job security in this administration. Hegseth is kind of Trump's guy, Trump's protege, maybe Trump's project. Listen to how Trump talked about Hag Seth in an interview with the Atlantic on April 24. Here, this is his comments as read by the Atlantic voice, which sort of elevates everyone's syntax to an unfair degree.
- [02:15]
Donald Trump
Pete's gone through a hard time. I think he's going to get it together.
- [02:19]
Unknown Co-host
Like a young pitcher just called up from the minors, making his debut, having some control issues. Trump was then asked by the Atlantic's Ashley Parker about the job security of each man.
- [02:30]
Donald Trump
But for now, you Think Hegseth stays? Yeah, he's safe. Parker, does he stay longer than Mike Waltz? Trump? Waltz is fine. I mean, he's here. He just left this office. He's fine.
- [02:43]
Unknown Co-host
Safe. Better than fine. Okay, I get it now. Hegseth had to face the predictions that he would be fired, and Trump is invested in not having those media predictions come true. Trump also has more of a stake in Hegseth's appointment than in Waltz's. He had to fight for Hegseth. Waltz had widespread appeal among his former congressional colleagues, including among Democrats. That also might not have been great for him if he wanted to keep his job. So let's go on to lessons learned, an after action report, a debriefing. As they say in the military. Trump came away with some lessons learned. And this one comes courtesy again of that Atlantic automated voice reader, which renders the gruff, gallant and makes the sleazy sound sublime.
- [03:26]
Donald Trump
Goldberg. But is there any policy lesson from that that you've derived and have talked to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth about and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz? Trump, I think we learned maybe don't use signal. Okay, okay.
- [03:42]
Unknown Co-host
Indeed. Okay, I won't. On the show today, Joel Souza is the director of the new film Rust. You have heard of Rust, even if you don't realize it. That is the film on which Alec Baldwin was handed a loaded gun and fired it, killing cinematographer Helena Hutchins and badly wounding Souza. That bullet came within inches of both his lung and his spine. Souza later told Vanity Fair, quote, I remember specifically going to sleep that night and hoping I didn't wake up in the next morning. I remember just thinking, maybe I'll sort of bleed to death. That would suit me just fine. Susan's wounds included the physical, but also the guilt, the resentment of Baldwin, who had shot him and killed his friend. The burden of an uncompleted film that did represent the showcasing of Hutchins tremendous skill. The possibility, the sad possibility to Suzanne. Many worked on the film and many in Hutchins family, that this film would never be shown, that her legacy would be incomplete. But then you also have the pitfalls of bringing it to cinemas. But it was decided, mostly by Hutchins widower, that the film should be completed. So the cast reconvened, a new cinematographer was brought on, and the film is out tomorrow. Already. Some members of the public are appalled about this, but Souza makes the point that the people closest to Helena Hutchins wanted this to be seen. And so I did see it. And I talked to Joel Souza and that conversation is up next.
- [05:20]
Mike Pesca
If Ed is getting you down, don't blame Ed.
- [05:22]
Unknown Co-host
That guy's not special.
- [05:23]
Mike Pesca
Lots of guys have it.
- [05:25]
Unknown Co-host
You need to get up.
- [05:26]
Mike Pesca
Get up with Hims. Boost your confidence. Boost other things. Hims helps you last longer.
- [05:33]
Unknown Co-host
Be more confident.
- [05:34]
Mike Pesca
If you're feeling stalled in the bedroom.
- [05:36]
Unknown Co-host
You gotta get some gas back in the tank.
- [05:38]
Mike Pesca
I'm not going to speak elliptically, but.
- [05:41]
Unknown Co-host
I'm not going to speak specifically about.
- [05:43]
Mike Pesca
What Hims does or what Ed is. We all know it can be uncomfortable or I've heard that it can be uncomfortable. Hims is changing men's health care by providing affordable sexual health treatments from the comfort of your couch. They have doctor trusted Ed treatments like Viagra and Cialis. They have generics and you can save 95% on them. Fill out an intake form with a medical provider will determine the right treatment option. If prescribed, your medication ships directly to you for free. You don't need insurance. One low price covers everything and they have hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers. Start your free online Visit today@hisss.com thegist that's H I M S.com thegist for your personalized ED treatment options. Hisss.com thegist the featured products include compounded products which are not approved nor verified for safety, effectiveness or quality by the fda.
- [06:38]
Unknown Co-host
Prescription requires.
- [06:39]
Mike Pesca
See website for details, restrictions and important safety and information. Price varies based on product and subscription plan. I want to talk about financial literacy. Do you have it? How'd you get it? For me, my dad would listen to a lot of those AM radio shows where they talked about finances.
- [06:55]
Unknown Co-host
I think they were very respectable.
- [06:56]
Mike Pesca
They weren't ripoffs.
- [06:58]
Unknown Co-host
And we got smart.
- [06:59]
Mike Pesca
We definitely didn't get rich. But you know, April is Financial literacy month. That's right. They made a whole month reminding you to finally take control of your money. The good news is you don't need 30 days. And that's really good news because there aren't 30 days left in April. Acorns makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future in just five minutes. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. You don't need to be rich. Acorns lets you get started with the spare money you've got right now, even if all you've got is spare change. And the great thing is they just help you take that spare change that you didn't even think about and they put it into a proper investment vehicle for you. It's really very clever one time setup and they're automatically for you a nickel two dimes. I'm not going to give all the iteration of change, but they'll put it in a retirement account. They'll put it in an investment vehicle. It's so clever. It's so passive. It is a way to invest. Sign up now and join the over 14 million all time customers who have already saved and invested over $25 billion with Acorns. Head to acorns.com the gist or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns Tier one compensation provided investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC Registered Investments Advisor. View important disclosures@acorns.com the Gist.
- [08:33]
Unknown Co-host
Rust is a new movie out starring Alec Baldwin. And if the name sounds familiar, you know of the backstory. Alec Baldwin aimed a gun that he thought was not loaded and it wound up killing the cinematographer, Helena Hutchins, the director of Rust. Joel Sousa was on set, caught a bullet in his shoulder. They went back, they finished the movie. Proceeds are going to help Helena Hutchins family. And I have to say I watched the movie and it's excellent. It's exactly my type of film. It's exactly in my wheelhouse. And Joel Souza joins me now. Joel, welcome to the gist.
- [09:11]
Joel Souza
Thanks very much Mike. I'm very happy to be here.
- [09:13]
Unknown Co-host
So I just want to tell you how I hope this interview will go. I'd like to talk about the movie as a movie and then I'd like to talk about the making of the movie and how the movie affected your life and the considerations and you can't not. And I also want to say that I think that I'm sure that you're going to say because I've read interviews with you and I've read interviews about you. You always talk about Helena and you brought her into this movie and what she meant to you. And at no point do I want to give my audience or anyone else the feeling that that's not the overriding consideration. Yet at the same time, this was a labor of love. This honors Helena's memory and I think it does deserve to be considered as the art that it is for at least a portion of this interview, if that's okay.
- [10:04]
Joel Souza
Thank you. I appreciate that.
- [10:05]
Unknown Co-host
So were your inspirations. I saw a lot of John Ford, my favorite director in here. I saw early on a shot from inside the cabin to the outdoors with someone standing in the do way like classic Ford classic. The Searchers, at this point, our cinematic lives and your cinematic life, are you consciously evoking Ford, or is Ford so interwoven into the DNA of Westerns and filmmaking that you can't help but raise John Ford?
- [10:32]
Joel Souza
I think both. You know, it's an interesting day on set when you're going to do those kind of shots and we do a few through the doorway because the crew is sort of champing at the bit. Like, we doing the John Ford shot. Are we doing the John Ford shot? Is this one up today? So it's on everybody's mind and it is, you know, a form of tribute. But, I mean, yeah, they. I think it's so inexorably tied into the DNA of westerns in this country. I mean, I, you know, I came to Westerns through my grandfather and my uncles. You know, they were always. My grandpa, my Uncle Jack. They're always reading every Louis Lamour book and trading them back and forth. These Jake Logan books they loved. And then they would, you know, I'd go over and my grandpa would be watching McClintock or the Sons of Katie Elder or this and that, you know, and. And so, you know, that's how I got introduced to movies like Shane and the Searchers and all these obvious classic. I mean, Shane is a really, really big one for me. And, you know, so there is this sort of this language of. This visual language of the classic American Western. And it's almost like, you know, there's a shot where there's a character silhouetted that comes through the doorway. It's the Alec Baldwin character. And it's. I don't even recall, like, even thinking about, well, how am I going to do this? It was just like, well, this is how. This one. This is how you do this shot.
- [11:49]
Unknown Co-host
Right, right. It's like the. It's like the Spielberg dolly close up in Jaws that now everyone knows how to do and you have to do. Yeah, it's like that. It's iconic. Two other John Wayne movies that it reminded me of. Well, you mentioned the Searchers. And so Alec Baldwin's character, Rust is a lot like Ethan in that he comes back to rescue a young kid. And also big, big Jake, which is, I think, a grandfather trying to rescue a grandson or, yes, grandson. Were those in your mind when you were writing this and making this?
- [12:21]
Joel Souza
I, you know, to some extent, yeah. I mean, you know, originally it was going to be. I had conceived it sort of more as a father son movie, like an estranged father son movie. And things about it started to feel Very shoehorned. Like, when you're writing, if you feel. Ever feel like you're kind of shoehorning something in that doesn't work. You got to stop and abandon Sho and eject everything out of the airlock and just walk away. And so I did that with that. And then I sort of thought, well, maybe if it's a grandfather, it's much more interesting. And my grandfather is easily one of the most important relationships I've ever had with anybody in my life. Anything I know, aside from my mom, but what I know about how to treat people, and there are times when I feel like anything I know that's worth knowing, I learned from Joe Souza, and he was, you know, So I wanted to do something that explored a grandfather, grandson relationship. And this obviously isn't that kind of relationship in the movie. It's like Rust is very sort of callous toward him and very. Doesn't really know what to do with him and doesn't have, like, an emotional connection at the beginning with his grandson. But I think I probably came to it a little more through that, like, my own experiences with my grandfather and wanting to tell a story sort of through the eyes of a grandson.
- [13:33]
Unknown Co-host
It's also ambitious in that there are three storylines and we're kind of invested, I don't know if you want to say, rooting for in all of the characters. The bounty hunter, the sheriff. Rust. Rust, That's Alec Baldwin's character. He is saving his grandson, who we feel sorry for because he's falsely accused of a murder, but in order to save him, he commits murder.
- [13:55]
Joel Souza
Yeah, no, it's. It's an interesting thing. You know, the. When I originally sort of conceived of it, and I like to generally write a lot of characters in a movie, and. And with this one, I wanted to sort of come up with the idea of there's this. This young boy who's kind of just unattached to any in the living out in the prairie on his own with his little brother, and just they're struggling to survive. But he doesn't have these adult influences in his life. And so in a way, I said, well, I'm going to sort of create these three characters that kind of hover around him for the whole movie. There's the marshal, there's his grandfather, Harlan Rust, and there's this even worse villain, this Fenton preacher, Lang, played by Travis Fimmel, wonderfully by Travis Fimmel. And I thought, well, it's really interesting to think that Lucas could. Theoretically, there are paths he could take in life. Where he becomes any one of those men.
- [14:45]
Unknown Co-host
Right.
- [14:46]
Joel Souza
He could become like his grandfather, this sort of person who's embittered by the things that happened to him in life and he turned to crime. He could go to be someone who just is sort of sociopathic and lacks the ability to empathize with anybody the way Preacher is. Or he could sort of become like this marshal who on the surface feels like he should be a hero. He's the sort of upstanding lawman, but in his personal life he's rather cowardly, to be honest. And he sort of fails people. And I like the idea that you sort of. He could become any one of them. And in reality, he's sort of a more whole human being than any of them. Already at 13, you know, is it hard?
- [15:25]
Unknown Co-host
I've read some about the financing of the movie. I know that Alec Baldwin's involvement was not just essential. Without him, it doesn't get made. But is it hard to make a Western? It's hard to make any independent film. This had three and a half million dollar budget. Budget. Does making it a western, a big sprawling western, negatively affect the possibility of a movie like this to get made?
- [15:44]
Joel Souza
Yeah, I think, you know, people always sort of say there's always a moment there. I was going, oh, Westerns are in a big renaissance. And it's like, are they. I don't, you know, because there'll be some Taylor Sheridan shows. But he's almost like his own brand, right? He's like. He's his own genre and they're these fantastic shows. But Westerns are always a tricky thing because some salespeople will tell you they don't travel worldwide. And I think that's nonsense because they do. You know, people are interested in what are.
- [16:08]
Unknown Co-host
Well, look at three and a half million dollars, if they just travel to like Montana and Wyoming, you'd be okay.
- [16:13]
Joel Souza
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, but I mean, you know, they believe that these truly sort of American stories maybe don't translate to worldwide audiences as much. And I disagree with that. So I think, you know, you're doing a period piece, which is expensive, you're doing things that salespeople sort of maybe don't believe in quite as much. So it's. It is tough, no matter how popular Westerns might be at any given moment, to put the money together and to get all those sales together and all the elements together, the equity, the debt, all of it just that has to pile together to get this thing off the ground. I mean, we had a decent budget for An Indy, you know, nobody, you know, people. I think our budget was seven and a half million dollars to make this movie. And while, yeah, I mean, you know, Avengers 25 will cost $500 million or whatever, that's, you know, a different level of. Of money. But seven and a half million dollars, anyone who knows anything about this business will tell you that's not small for an indie. That's, in fact, probably on the higher side of what people get.
- [17:13]
Unknown Co-host
And so now are the proceeds, if there are proceeds, and I could ask about the distribution. Are they going to Helen, his family?
- [17:19]
Joel Souza
Yeah, and that's been the case. That's been in the works for a long time. I think since the movie was even discussed about being completed, was. I know there was a whole, like, settlement. And I'm not really, I don't know, privy or party to any of those. To the terms of that, I think. But what I do know is that, yeah, the money is. Is going to be directed toward. Toward Helena's husband and son.
- [17:41]
Unknown Co-host
Is this getting distribution?
- [17:42]
Joel Souza
Yeah, yeah, it's. So it's out on the 2nd. It'll be out in select theaters, as they say, which means 150 screens around the country by this company named. Called Falling Forward. And then it's the same day. You can watch it any way. You watch movies on your couch through Amazon.
- [18:02]
Unknown Co-host
Right, right. All the ways that just distress directors or people who work with, like, setting up a shot, getting the perfect sunset.
- [18:11]
Joel Souza
Vhs, Betamax, were going to be everywhere. But. But, yeah, no, it's. It's, you know, I would hope people go see it on a movie screen, but I hope that for every single movie ever made, because, you know, I don't care what, you know, Netflix or whoever says, you know, it's like the theatrical thing is important and, and we, we should embrace that. That's how movies are meant to be seen. So.
- [18:34]
Unknown Co-host
So there is hesitancy on behalf of audiences. And I'm just basing this on the fact that it was screened at a Polish film festival which celebrates cinematography, which Helena was. And there was, I guess, some predictable or unfair. But also reading accounts of this movie which should have been celebrated for cinematography, there seemed to be a hesitance on the part of the audience to really embrace it. What does it mean if we embrace it? Are we siding with someone who did something wrong? And I can understand a lot of ambivalence around that, not to knowing what to think. And I also can understand it's art, but it's entertainment. And so when you layer on what really happened to this supposed entertainment? It maybe becomes entertaining, but what would you say to address that beyond look, audiences and the moviegoer is going to interpret it as they do, but if there is some. Well, should I really see this movie or like this movie, apart from the fact that Helena's family is getting some proceeds, what would you say?
- [19:41]
Joel Souza
What. You know, I would say the. I'll take it back to the experience in Poland, because I think it's. It's. It's salient to. What I. What I want to talk about is that, you know, I know before there was an announcement, and then, like, when a lot of things happen, when anything sort of happens with Rust in the media, there will be some people that sort of take to social media and. And there's an outcry and. And I don't begrudge people that. I mean, I don't, you know, if I was not involved in the situation, I would have specific feelings about it as well. But I think what I came to understand very clearly after I went to Poland is. And I don't want to minimize people's feelings on something, but it's, you know, I don't want to have some giant reaction to 100 people on Instagram. And it's like, I went to the festival really kind of nervous about what to expect. And what I found there was none of that, not an ounce of it, not one cross word about anything. People were very supportive and glad we were showing it because that festival was incredibly important to Alina and she wanted this movie to play there, and they thought it was a fitting tribute. And I came to realize that it's as much the current landscape of just how we receive and digest and regurgitate media as anything that, you know, they'll say, Rust is going to come out and the Internet is outraged, and they'll quote three tweets from some dude in Ohio and somebody in Lansing, Michigan, and some guy in. You know, it's like, what. Like, I don't understand. And then they'll. But. And so then that starts to form public opinion, and public opinion starts to sort of cement around that. And I think that's a little unfortunate. That's the kind of thing that happens. But, you know, at the end of the day, I feel like we've made something that honors her work. I mean, Helena was an incredibly talented artist and incredibly. Just talented human being. Like, she's just one of those people, man. She's like a touchstone. Everybody. Everybody. You know, people don't always get along on movie sets. Everybody loved her. Everybody. She treated everybody fairly kindly with her. She shared her art and her excitement for her art with everybody. And so at the end of the day, just the notion that that might just disappear, her last work would just disappear, that was very difficult for me to accept. I mean, you know, as difficult as it was, the idea of coming back to finish this, and I was very resistant to it until it started to become clear to me that, you know, yes, the movie was going to financially benefit the family and that this is what Matt really wanted. He wanted her art to be shared with people. He wanted to find.
- [22:22]
Unknown Co-host
This was. This is her husband.
- [22:23]
Joel Souza
Yeah. And her mother wanted her art to be seen and shared with people and her daughter to be celebrated. And I thought, you know, it just. It sucks that people know who she is because of what happened to her. There was just so much more to her. And you say that for any victim of. Of something like this, and I think, you know, if people are. Are looking and they're like, oh, while you're looking at this now you're going to learn something new about her. You're going to at least know this about her. You're going to see how she saw the world. You're going to. You're going to be exposed to her art. And I think. I think that's valuable. I think that's worthwhile.
- [22:58]
Unknown Co-host
Maybe someday this movie will be able to be interpreted for what it's intended to be, a piece of art, statement, entertainment. But now it is all but important, possible to layer on, well, some of the good stuff about Helena that you were saying, some of the. Some whatever emotions come back to the word ambivalent that we would have. So you can't fight that. But I will just tell you my experience. I thought that was okay, because watching it, there are a lot of themes that you don't have to work really hard to see in the story behind Rust and the story that Rust is telling. I mean, there is. There are many guns and there are contemplations of guns and what guns do, and there is someone unfairly accused and in jail for a long time of a shooting. So what do you. How do you think about that, knowing that people are going to come with the meta story of the story informing their experience watching Rust?
- [24:01]
Joel Souza
Yeah, you know, I think it's like you said, I can't really fight against it, so all I can do is sort of fight through it. You know, it's. On one hand, it sounds almost like trite to say, well, I want People to accept this as a movie. And, you know, because everything that happened is just so much more important than that. And no movie can ever be worth injuries much less worse. And you know, and I think that's all obvious, you know, obviously a given. I think, you know, I hope that people are just sort of willing to give it a chance. And I don't mean it, you know, just even if it's something that they saw the story about what happened to Helena and felt touched by it and felt like they wanted to do something, it's like, okay, well, you watch it and this benefits her family. There is something you can do. And so, you know, how it's taken is something. How it exists as a movie in people's mind and just everything else separated from it just as a film on its own is something I've really had to kind of let go of, to be perfectly honest. It's like, you know, Tom Hanks and on the rafting Castaway, when he just knows he's going to die, just sort of lets the or go and just drifts out to sea. I've had to really let that go. I can't. That's a result I can't control for people. And so I hope that if they do choose to see it, they find something valuable in it. They find something touching in the story. I know there are strange parallels that exist about the accidental shooting is sort of the premise of the movie. But there are things for people to take away, I think. Like you're talking about the ant. There's. I think it's a very anti gun movie. I. In my real life, I'm very uncomfortable with guns. I don't like them. I don't. You know, I wish they were gone. I wish they didn't exist. And I think, you know, this movie, at the center of it, there is this rifle that's been passed down through generations that anybody who ever picked it up, you know, it sort of destroyed their lives. And then those consequences kind of continue to ripple throughout generations. Like the character of Lucas is paying the bill for a meal he didn't eat, you know.
- [26:06]
Unknown Co-host
Right. Was that in the original film? If the film had wrapped without the horrific incident that injured you and killed Helena, would that have been as present as it is in the film we now see?
- [26:19]
Joel Souza
Yeah, it was always there. It was always the main, you know, nothing really. The thing that changed about the movie from the first time we were in New Mexico to where we were finishing it.
- [26:30]
Unknown Co-host
And what was the gap in between, by the way?
- [26:32]
Joel Souza
A Year and a half.
- [26:34]
Unknown Co-host
Yeah.
- [26:35]
Joel Souza
And so the thing that most changed about it was obviously we just removed the scene where the incident happened and we. And then I rewrote some things that led up to that, reconfigured that in its entirety. So it bears really no similarity. What would have happened before, and then rewrote a few scenes after. So. But the crux of the movie, the relationship between the grandfather and the grandson, these sort of larger themes about consequences of violent acts and things like that. That was always front and center.
- [27:02]
Unknown Co-host
And we'll be back with more of Joel Souza after the break. We'll talk about how the film was completed and we'll talk about what the reaction has been, what his life has been like. You know what I'm bad at maybe or two is meal planning. In fact, I'm so bad at meal planning, I didn't even realize there was this category of activity called meal planning. It would just come time to have a meal or to cook for my family, and I would say, oh, what am I gonna have? And try to figure it out. Didn't really make sense to me that you could go back and plan the meal beforehand, but you can. And just about the best way to do this that I've come across is Marley Spoon. I'm excited that they're sponsoring this episode because with the code, the gist, you can get up to 26 free meals from this excellent service. Marley Spoon. They have over 100 recipes to choose from comfort food like big batch beef Stroganoff, a salmon and creamy mustard dill sauce bake, which is a lighter option, something for every mood. I will tell you about a meal or two. The mini chicken, meatballs and escarole, or as my people call them, shkarol. And this meal was money. If you understand the Sopranos or Italian, you'll know that Scuttle is slaying for money. But it's in this brodo broth, which I'm going to get to in a second, and it's with garlic crostini. I could never have made it on my own. But with Marley Spoon, I am planning a meal and wowing my loved ones with the quality of the meal and the great thing. One of the great things about Marley Spoon is sometimes you want to make a meal that has a certain ingredient, but you know. Or you probably fool yourself and say, sure, I'll use that ingredient over and over again, but it sits in the back of the fridge and you don't. With Marley Spoon, if, for instance, with their Martha Stewart Stewart's best one pot paprika, lamb stew. You need a little bit of broth. You need a couple of packets of beef broth concentrate. So if you opened it in real life, I would never use it again. But with Marley Spoon, it's the exact right portions. This spring, fast track your way to eating well with Marley spoon. Head to marleyspoon.comoffer/the gist and use the code the gist for up to 26 free meals. That's right. Up to 26 free meals with Marley Spoon. One last time. That's Marley spoon.com backslash offer backslash the gist for up to 26 free meals. And make sure to use my promo code. Oh, you know it. The gist. So they know I sent you. We're back with Joel Souza, director of Rust. And in the wake of the tragedy, there was talk and there was a movement and some in Hollywood make public declarations, the Rock being prominent among them, saying that his film company was from this time forward only ever going to use special effects, not real guns on set. A bunch of cinematographers signed a petition calling for a ban of functional firearms and filmmaking. So I have a two part question. Do you support that ban and had you considered any of that before this incident?
- [30:16]
Joel Souza
It was probably not something that was enormously on my mind before the incident. I mean, you talk about it in a logistical sense when you're planning the movie about are you using blanks, are you going to be using cgi, all that kind of stuff. But it was not something I had spent a great deal of thought on. I mean, after, obviously I 1000% support the banning of any functional firearm on any movie set ever, ever, ever again. It should be, you know, they should be holding paperweights at this point and using CGI and all that. But even within that, you still must, must, must have trained armorers to ensure that those are in fact what you, you're using, what you think you're using. I mean, our second go round, we had a great armor. Andy Wirt, who in some cases the things we use, everything was profoundly inert. Nothing could fire anything or even was capable of firing anything. He, there were replica pieces, there were things he just built from scratch, yet treated every single one of them like they had the potential to be a deadly weapon. And that was very important. I think, you know, one of the things in the aftermath of all of this, there's, there has been and there continues to be a lot of discussion around set safety. I think that's fantastic. But I think Saying the right thing and doing the right thing ain't the same thing. And I think I remember. So I don't know how long ago this was. At this point, a year and a half ago, maybe. I wrote a letter to my union, the dga, because I know that the Safety committee is comprised of committees from each different union, and they all get together to form the Safety Bulletin. And I've always, in reading the Safety Bullet, and I found the language can be very ambiguous in it. I think any safety bulletin where two veteran crew members can read it and come away with two different impressions ain't a safety memo. And so I think, you know, I. And there were some things that I said, look, will you advocate on my behalf that these are things I recommend? And some of the things and some of the wording. They did make a few little minor changes about clarifying some of the wording in some things. But. But I think there's still ambiguity there, and I think it didn't go nearly far enough. Nearly.
- [32:38]
Unknown Co-host
Why? I mean, maybe they won't talk to you specifically, but why do directors want to be able to continue using functional firearms? Why do they think the potential for danger is worth what you get out of it? What. I mean, what do you get out of it?
- [32:55]
Joel Souza
I think it's. It's a creative decision as much as anything. And there may be times where they feel like their cast wants the reality of that smoke and recoil and things like that, but I think it comes down to creative choice, I suppose. I know it's something certainly I'll never be around again. I just can't. You know, as skittish as I was about weapons before, you know, it's much more now, but I just feel like, you know, it's strange. The thing that happened on Rust, the odds of it happening are just so microscopically small. The. The general broader dangers on set are much more prevalent than other things. Like, sets are dangerous places. You know, they. There's enormous pieces of equipment. There's people moving in 10 different directions all at once. There's. You can trip over, things get whacked in the head by things. There's. There's a. So vehicle. There's so many things that are more likely to injure people on a set than what happened there, or even the.
- [33:56]
Unknown Co-host
Chain of events as I understand them. First of all, what are the odds that someone has a live round anywhere near the guns? Then what are the odds that this gets into an actor's hand? And then what are the odds that when it's Discharged. It's not into the ground or, you know, into some harmless place.
- [34:12]
Joel Souza
I mean, what I hear.
- [34:13]
Unknown Co-host
Contingencies. Yeah.
- [34:14]
Joel Souza
You know, like, what I hear around is from, like, we were talking to a producer and he says, you know, people are just kind of. They all think it'll never happen to us. That was just somebody else's thing, never us. Which is not great. A great way to think about it. And. Yeah, when I was in Poland, Bianca and I were walking through the market there where the festival is, and there's all these booths that have all their. The things they're selling. There was a man there who's a retired dp, had a booth, and he and Bianca knew each other little, and he was. He sort of tells us in confidence, says, you know, just last week, and this was in November, he tells me, he says, there was a major studio show in LA. They found a live 45 round on set. And he goes, that means it made it from the truck to set. And they only caught it in the final check. Real bullet. I said, what is that? He said he wouldn't. He wouldn't tell me what the movie, or if it was a movie or.
- [35:10]
Unknown Co-host
A TV series, but a major. A major one, not an indie one.
- [35:14]
Joel Souza
They were that close. And he says, you know, his takeaway from it was that it's all words. And in reality, not a lot has changed functionally. And I think if that's the case, I think that's very unfortunate. I just, again, people shouldn't conflate doing the right thing with saying the right thing. And I think is admirable as it was for them to update the safety bulletin. It falls so dramatically short of what it should be.
- [35:43]
Unknown Co-host
What I was thinking of when you were talking about the directors might want the recoil and the smoke and the authenticity. I mean, I'm sure he can make the case that when Buster. Buster Keaton plans it out and stands in the exact place that the house frame is going to fall around him was very exciting. And you can't get that same effect from cgi. And yet we know not to do it now. Right. And if we had been doing it thousands of times, not every one of us would be as skilled as Buster Keaton, who, by the way, took many licks in his day. So, you know, there's progress.
- [36:11]
Joel Souza
Yeah.
- [36:11]
Unknown Co-host
It's a shame that it comes at the price of tragedy.
- [36:14]
Joel Souza
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
- [36:17]
Unknown Co-host
Have you had. Well, I'll ask it this way. Is Alec Baldwin invited to or going to promote this film at all? Do you think that Would help.
- [36:28]
Joel Souza
No.
- [36:29]
Unknown Co-host
Because of that hundred people on the Internet effect.
- [36:31]
Joel Souza
I just. I don't think it would do any good. I think it would be. I'll just say no.
- [36:38]
Unknown Co-host
Okay. And have you had conversations with Alec Baldwin where he's expressed hope, interest, anything to you and the ongoing success, or at least existence of the film?
- [36:50]
Joel Souza
No conversations. We don't talk.
- [36:53]
Unknown Co-host
Really?
- [36:54]
Joel Souza
Yeah.
- [36:55]
Unknown Co-host
Oh, were you upset with him for shooting you and what happened afterwards?
- [37:00]
Joel Souza
It's just. We just. We don't talk. There's no. We don't. I'll just. I'll leave that there.
- [37:07]
Unknown Co-host
And what about your. I talked a lot about this on the show and how I personally felt that from what I know that it was straining what the charge was and what a reasonable DA would have brought with the charge. And I had lawyers writing to me, both agreeing, and then some people saying that still it was improper way to handle a gun. Put that aside for a second. But. But what did you come out of your long involvement with the criminal justice system? How do you reflect on that? What did you make of that?
- [37:40]
Joel Souza
You know, it's. I never really had an experience with that before, talking to prosecutors and being a witness and things like that. I never had sort of seen that process. It was a very. I mean, in one way, you know, I think I expected to be like.
- [37:59]
Unknown Co-host
A Few Good Men or something, like a movie.
- [38:02]
Joel Souza
You go in there and you kind of walk in and it's a little chaotic, and there's a lot of people talking, and the way they question is like, and you did this? Okay. It wasn't what I expected. And what you realize is, you know, the justice system is just. It's very committed people desperately trying to do the right thing under very difficult circumstances. And this one was really as difficult as you can imagine. Just given the attention and the craze and the sort of. This is kind of a one of one. Like this hadn't happened before. Everyone was really embarking just sort of in really uncharted territory. And so I always try to give everyone a great deal of grace and latitude and just knowing that everyone really was trying to do the right thing. And even for the folks involved, like the prosecutor side and everything, that really kept Helena as their North Star. I think, like I said, it was just a really tough situation all around, but I came out of it. There is a sense you're sort of spilled out at the end of it. It's like, whoa, what was that? You know? But I came out of it. Just sort of. It's not That I was disillusioned or anything. It's just that maybe I was disabused of my Hollywood version of it, you know?
- [39:29]
Unknown Co-host
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe not even that. I don't know. I'm guessing you tell me if this is right. Maybe not even that. In Hollywood, everyone's better looking and the sets are cleaner and things seem more orderly. But you're a screenwriter, and for a screenwriter, it's all about structure, structure, structure. And things happen for a reason. And you seem to be saying real life, though not a revelation when you see it really descending upon you. The lack of structure and the lack of three acts and rising climaxes is just stark.
- [39:57]
Joel Souza
Yeah. There aren't those sort of, you know, did you order the Code Red? Kind of moments. You know, it just doesn't happen. So it's very. It's very sort of analytical and very detail oriented. Super. Just so detail oriented in a way that I just hadn't anticipated, really.
- [40:16]
Unknown Co-host
So your last movie before this was really critically acclaimed. Thomas Jane starred in Crown Vic. It was an LAPD movie. Do you think that everything you went through will one day show up in your art in some way or another?
- [40:29]
Joel Souza
Maybe. Maybe. You know, it's interesting because, like, Crown Vic was an interesting movie because I wrote it. I had spent some time in a hospital and it got really dicey. And then I wrote it, like, in 10 days afterward. And it was sort of this real examination of fathers and sons to me, even though the characters were not father and son. But I'm sort of, you know, I'm fascinated, sort of on the subject of sort of absentee fathers or fathers that didn't live up to what they should have been. And that's very present in Crown Vic. I mean, there's some dialogue in there that just came right out of my mouth in that movie. And so that experience very much colored that movie. And it also, to an extent, colored, you know, my original draft of Rust. That's sort of inescapable in there, but it also. Rust is also filled sort of with my. Like, I think the closest character to me in Rust is. Is the Marshall, this Woodhelm, a character.
- [41:33]
Unknown Co-host
Who sort of lacks faith, who is cowardly.
- [41:36]
Joel Souza
Yeah. But I mean, he also, like, you know, I've struggled over the years with the question of faith and God and what exists and what doesn't and what we use as excuses and sort of wishing for a truth when, you know, the awful truth and things like that. So, yeah, that's. That's definitely was in there. And I mean, the script I wrote after Russ, there's another it's sort of, you know, I joked, I'm like, I think I've got all my daddy issues done with the last one because it's, it's prominent. So, yeah, they can't help but they can't help but sort of permeate that.
- [42:15]
Unknown Co-host
Joel Souza is the director of Rust. It is in at least 150 screens on May 2 and soon on a device near you. And this critic's assessment is it is worth a watch. Joel, thank you for everything.
- [42:29]
Joel Souza
Thanks very much, Mike. I appreciate it. Thanks for the talk.
- [42:36]
Unknown Co-host
And that's it for today's show. The Gist is produced by Corey Wara, CBSO of Peach Fish Productions. Michelle Pesca, the doyen of the Just list is Kathleen Sykes. And Leo Baum has been hitting the archives hard and helping us out. So thank you to our intern, Leo Baum. Astrid Green's our social media director, Oompuru G Peru Duparu and thanks for listening.