Speaker 1: Oh jee is boots.
Speaker 2: It should die.
Speaker 1: People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 3: When they go out to a theater, they want clod sodas,
Speaker 3: hot popcorn, and no monsters in the protection booth.
Speaker 4: Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 5: Ah by day dah, Yeah, I know.
Speaker 6: I've never told a joke in my life.
Speaker 5: What is he doing? Why is he doing it?
Speaker 2: I'd like to do for you right now.
Speaker 5: It's called eating ice cream.
Speaker 4: It's just as much torture if you're putnam with a
Speaker 4: razor blade.
Speaker 1: Wait, can what kind of parental damage was done to
Speaker 1: this voice?
Speaker 5: That's what I want to call passionate man.
Speaker 6: Always been attracted to bad boys.
Speaker 4: Got lost baby, I'd bet you holy, this is not
Speaker 4: even weird.
Speaker 6: Women's lamboys exploding?
Speaker 5: Oh Andy? Please no, don't giving women an equal chattleng.
Speaker 3: Stooped a little way from your performing for an audience
Speaker 3: that doesn't know what's watching a show.
Speaker 4: I just thought he was misguided, he was just having fun.
Speaker 4: What then that's a shot off to care.
Speaker 5: I'm really relished taking us prisoner.
Speaker 2: Why I didn't ask you if I supposed to laugh
Speaker 2: at that?
Speaker 5: Bill?
Speaker 6: And probably?
Speaker 5: I think that was genius. Actually I don't have any money,
Speaker 5: ladies and gentlemen. So far, everything I have done for
Speaker 5: you tonight, really I am only pulling. This is really mean,
Speaker 5: and everything else was just a character.
Speaker 6: Here's the mirror, and people didn't like this, So a
Speaker 6: lot of the time I.
Speaker 2: Would still like to know who the real land is.
Speaker 4: Oh hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of the
Speaker 4: Projection Booth. I'm your host Mike White. On this episode,
Speaker 4: I am talking with Alex Braverman. He is the director
Speaker 4: of the new documentary Thank You very Much. It is
Speaker 4: all about Andy Kaufman, the comedic genius of the nineteen
Speaker 4: seventies and eighties. I used to complain that when it
Speaker 4: came to the Man in the Moon movie, I really
Speaker 4: would have rather been watching a documentary about Kaufman. Well,
Speaker 4: here it is. Here's one of them. At least I know.
Speaker 4: We just spoke with Andrew Buss about his book Super Bad,
Speaker 4: but he is also producing a documentary about Kaufman, so
Speaker 4: we might have competing Kaufman documentaries, which for me, that's great.
Speaker 4: I am going to be a pig and slop when
Speaker 4: it comes to Andy Kaufman stuff. If you want more
Speaker 4: Andy Kaufman why don't you go on over to sub
Speaker 4: sin That is sub cin dot WordPress dot com. There
Speaker 4: is a documentary over there called The Passion of Andy
Speaker 4: Kaufman from two thousand and four that was a lot
Speaker 4: of fun. I know Don Alex who runs that site,
Speaker 4: very big fan of Andy Kaufman, and I really recommend
Speaker 4: that one as well. So I don't think there's such
Speaker 4: a thing as too many Andy Kaufman documentaries, is what
Speaker 4: I'm trying to say. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 4: I hope you enjoyed this interview and definitely check out
Speaker 4: Thank you very much. It is playing at theaters and
Speaker 4: available through streaming on March twenty eighth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: How did you get involved in filmmaking.
Speaker 6: I don't know that I ever really considered doing anything else.
Speaker 6: I initially thought of myself as heading into cinematographer direction
Speaker 6: because that was the part of films as a viewer
Speaker 6: that I was most excited about. And as soon as
Speaker 6: I realized how much precision and just light it completely
Speaker 6: confused me. It almost felt like a magic trick, and
Speaker 6: I just gravitated more towards the storytelling side, and then
Speaker 6: as a filmmaker, wanted to have these real life experiences,
Speaker 6: which kind of pushed me into the documentary side, and
Speaker 6: I started out as a documentary cameraman shooting nonfiction TV series.
Speaker 6: I worked on the First forty eight, which is about
Speaker 6: homicide investigations. For many years found my niche as someone
Speaker 6: willing to be around traumatic or dark or challenging subjects.
Speaker 6: After First forty Eight, worked on some hospital documentary dramas.
Speaker 6: There was one called Hopkins on ABC Mass another one
Speaker 6: called Boston Med which took place in Mass General, and
Speaker 6: basically just over time realized again there are other people
Speaker 6: that are better at holding the camera. I want to
Speaker 6: be behind that person figuring out where the story goes.
Speaker 6: That's how I got into documentary filmmaking. But always have
Speaker 6: the idea that I want to make my own project,
Speaker 6: things that that interests me my whole life, and that
Speaker 6: I wouldn't get bored of in the very I'm consuming
Speaker 6: process of making a film. Andy Kaufman is the subject
Speaker 6: that really stood out to me that I could dive
Speaker 6: into and never be bored.
Speaker 4: What was your history with Andy Kaufman. When did you
Speaker 4: first remember seeing him.
Speaker 6: The first thing I ever saw was the Carnegie Hall
Speaker 6: special Andy Coffin plays Carnegie Hall, and I have a
Speaker 6: bit of a unique history with that, a unique way
Speaker 6: in which is that my parents are both filmmakers, and
Speaker 6: in the seventies before I was born, they were on
Speaker 6: the road together quite a bit, producing and directing number
Speaker 6: of specials. They did Willie Nelson Live Tahoe, and they
Speaker 6: put together a special with Tom Waits I want to
Speaker 6: say it was in Chicago and Jolly parton a lot,
Speaker 6: oh Richard Lewis I'm in Pain was one of their
Speaker 6: projects together. But in the process of going through a
Speaker 6: lot of comedy clubs and filming a lot of comedians
Speaker 6: and being really immersed in that world, they came across
Speaker 6: Candy Kaufman in the late seventies and when they heard
Speaker 6: that he was going to be doing a special at
Speaker 6: Carnegie Hall, they pitched that to Showtime, and Showtime went
Speaker 6: for it, and so the year before I was born, they,
Speaker 6: amongst many other filmmakers and producers and writers, including Bob Simuda,
Speaker 6: they produced Candy Kaufman Plays Carnegie Hall. So, growing up,
Speaker 6: this was one of a number of large beta tapes
Speaker 6: on the shelf, some of which were appropriate for a
Speaker 6: kid to watch, and some of which weren't, and this
Speaker 6: one I asked about it and they were like, Oh,
Speaker 6: you're not going to believe. Not only are you going
Speaker 6: to love the show, but you're not going to believe
Speaker 6: what happened afterwards. And they told me the story of
Speaker 6: Milk and Cookies, which as a kid, really blew my
Speaker 6: mind because this notion that a performance doesn't necessarily end
Speaker 6: when the show is over, it could keep going. That's
Speaker 6: something that really opened me up and just got me
Speaker 6: thinking about taking things at face value or looking a
Speaker 6: little deeper into them. That's how I became exposed to
Speaker 6: him and his work, and ever since then, I've just
Speaker 6: been more or less enchanted by everything he does.
Speaker 4: How do you even begin to approach documentary about such
Speaker 4: a great subject but also one that presents so many
Speaker 4: different facets to so many different people.
Speaker 6: I'm not a worrier, but I think if I were,
Speaker 6: I would be worried. You know, where to begin and
Speaker 6: how do I capture it properly?
Speaker 2: But I do.
Speaker 6: I think I started thinking about what other films have
Speaker 6: been about him or included him, and what did they
Speaker 6: do well? And what do I still feel like I
Speaker 6: want to see that I haven't seen, and so one
Speaker 6: of the first things that I thought about in posing
Speaker 6: that question to myself was like, I don't know that
Speaker 6: I had ever seen a film. First of all, I
Speaker 6: didn't think that there was really a definitive just start
Speaker 6: to finish top the bottom, like Offfman documentary. There's Man
Speaker 6: on the Moon, which is an incredible biopic, great writers,
Speaker 6: great directors, amazing legendary performances, like the legend of how
Speaker 6: that team together is just as interesting as the film itself,
Speaker 6: which of course segues to Jim and Andy, which is
Speaker 6: like an incredible film about acting and Jim Carey's process
Speaker 6: and everything. But again, I'm starting from the place of
Speaker 6: I haven't seen a definitive Affman documentary, and what would
Speaker 6: I want to see if I went down that path?
Speaker 6: And the first thing I thought of was like, I
Speaker 6: just feel that his performances to fully get them, they
Speaker 6: need a little bit of time on screen for you
Speaker 6: to feel the pain or the awkwardness or the question
Speaker 6: that he's asking. And so the starting point for me
Speaker 6: was like, if I were showing someone that didn't know
Speaker 6: him at all, or didn't know his work at all,
Speaker 6: what would the very first clip I would show them be.
Speaker 6: You get to feel that time, and you get to
Speaker 6: feel the space, and you get to feel the sort
Speaker 6: of tension with the audience. But it's exciting and interesting
Speaker 6: and funny and moving. And for me, that clip is
Speaker 6: in the film. It's that nineteen seventy seven HBO Young
Speaker 6: Comic special where basically he starts out bombing and then
Speaker 6: he starts crying, and then the crying becomes rhythmical, and
Speaker 6: then the rhythmical crying leads to the drumming, which leads
Speaker 6: to the singing. So that piece, that was the first
Speaker 6: clip that I thought of where I was like, that
Speaker 6: has to be in the movie to be upfront. And
Speaker 6: then one of the other things that I thought about
Speaker 6: was what's the best way to present all this information
Speaker 6: to an audience, whether they're familiar with or not. I
Speaker 6: think in a lot of traditional documentaries about historical figures,
Speaker 6: you start at the beginning, whether that's their childhood or
Speaker 6: how they grew up, and then it leads to their
Speaker 6: influences and eventually you get to them developing their act
Speaker 6: and whatever. In this one, it was very clear to
Speaker 6: me from the beginning and very important to say, let's
Speaker 6: start with his act because I think that's the way
Speaker 6: into understanding this guy and knowing what we're even talking about.
Speaker 6: It's not all of the interesting things that happened to
Speaker 6: him as a child, or as a teenager or as
Speaker 6: a twenty something. They don't have the same level of
Speaker 6: meaning if you're just starting there. But if you know
Speaker 6: who he is and you know how he wound up,
Speaker 6: and you know where all this is going, and then
Speaker 6: you get to look back and say, like, how did
Speaker 6: this guy come to be? That was another key early
Speaker 6: decision that we made as far as like how to
Speaker 6: approach the film and how to approach talking to these
Speaker 6: people that we wanted to talk to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, your timeline is fascinating. Also, the use, of course
Speaker 4: our archival footage is wonderful, especially to see Danny DeVito
Speaker 4: years ago versus Danny DeVito now and to get a
Speaker 4: little bit of a different perspective that he has now
Speaker 4: versus however many years ago that original interview with he
Speaker 4: was giving up.
Speaker 6: Was like the Charlie Rose I think it is. Yeah,
Speaker 6: with the archive, we made a decision at some point
Speaker 6: this isn't necessarily archive specific, but I'll get to that.
Speaker 6: We did make a decision. Let's only talk to people
Speaker 6: that new Andy as a friend, as a collaborator, as
Speaker 6: a romantic partner, as a nemesis. But really, let's just
Speaker 6: only talk to people that were there between the years
Speaker 6: of nineteen forty nine and nineteen maybe four. But then
Speaker 6: within that framework, following those rules, no piece of footage
Speaker 6: that we find is off the table as far as
Speaker 6: what we can use and how we can use it. So, yeah,
Speaker 6: we have interviews that were shot, some as recently as
Speaker 6: twenty twenty three, some as far back that I shot
Speaker 6: at least twenty seventeen. But then when we started going
Speaker 6: through box after box, we found interviews with people that
Speaker 6: we knew we wanted to interview for the film, Danny
Speaker 6: being a good example. And then other boxes were filled
Speaker 6: with interviews of people who had died, whether it's recently
Speaker 6: or a while back, people who we didn get talked to.
Speaker 6: Those were treasures to find, but it was also really
Speaker 6: fun because we're dealing with the subject. The media was
Speaker 6: part of his canvas, but he's not just to go
Speaker 6: on the Tonight Show or go on Letterman. He's using
Speaker 6: those shows and programs in the news and game shows
Speaker 6: and all these things. They're part of his act. So
Speaker 6: we just figured, like any piece of media that we
Speaker 6: find can help stitch together a sort of texture that
Speaker 6: allows the audience to experience both what he's doing specifically,
Speaker 6: but also the waters he's playing. And yeah, to be
Speaker 6: able to juxtapose a clip of Danny DeVito on Charlie
Speaker 6: Rose probably, if I had to guess, that appearance is
Speaker 6: probably late nineties, as Man in the Moon is coming
Speaker 6: in there and he's promoting it, but then getting to
Speaker 6: see him on taxi in the late seventies and then
Speaker 6: talking to him now present day. It felt fun to
Speaker 6: have the freedom to be able to jump around like that.
Speaker 6: There's that section when he's wrestling and there's a news
Speaker 6: broadcast talking about all the women he's wrestling around the world,
Speaker 6: and then when the broadcast concludes, the anchor continues on
Speaker 6: and tells another crazy story about a rabbi panel in Israel.
Speaker 6: And if you know the clip I'm talking about, it
Speaker 6: has nothing to do with Kaufman. But it's just when
Speaker 6: you're making any sort of documentary, whether it's a TV
Speaker 6: series or a film or whatever, you're constantly coming across
Speaker 6: all these little bits and pieces that you wish you
Speaker 6: could share with the world, but they really have no
Speaker 6: place in the film, and this was just one of
Speaker 6: those where I'm like, you know what, it has nothing
Speaker 6: to do with the film, but it does tell you
Speaker 6: a little bit about the world that we were living
Speaker 6: in at this period of time and what could have
Speaker 6: been on the news and how someone like Kaufman wound
Speaker 6: up on the news anyway, And so my little revenge
Speaker 6: on all the straight jobs I've had over the years.
Speaker 6: They wouldn't have allowed us to include that.
Speaker 4: You're talking about the archives like a certain place, somebody's garage,
Speaker 4: Like where are you finding all these tapes?
Speaker 6: When I first interviewed Bob's Dumouda, which was in twenty
Speaker 6: seventeen May twenty seventeen, that's when that interview in the
Speaker 6: film is from. He went to his house and in
Speaker 6: the sort of ground lash basement level of his house
Speaker 6: there was a locked door, and at the conclusion of
Speaker 6: our interview with him, which lasted hours, he just made
Speaker 6: a comment about the door, the vault whatever it was,
Speaker 6: and I was like, what's in there, and he was like,
Speaker 6: it's like everything that the Kaufman ever did. And I
Speaker 6: was like, let's let's check it out. He's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 6: not yet, Like he kind of he held that over
Speaker 6: me for a while until the film was finally set
Speaker 6: up and financed and ready to go. But he took
Speaker 6: great pleasure in teasing the many spoils that hide behind
Speaker 6: that door. And so when we finally went into our
Speaker 6: post production, my user and I drove a van from
Speaker 6: la back up to Lake Tahoe and just emptied that
Speaker 6: room out. And then it took months and months to
Speaker 6: go through all the boxes, and I think a lot
Speaker 6: of the stuff that's in there was just better quality
Speaker 6: versions of things that we had already seen. But then
Speaker 6: every third or fourth tape was like a mind blowing
Speaker 6: discovery because Bob, in his stewardship of comic relief, he's
Speaker 6: interfacing with all these different legendary comics and talking to
Speaker 6: them backstage about their experiences and memories of Kaufman, and
Speaker 6: we just found things that we didn't know existed before
Speaker 6: starting to edit. So that Gary Shanling clip of I
Speaker 6: would still like to know who the real Land is.
Speaker 6: That's something that we found in Bob's basement, along with
Speaker 6: old eight millimeter reels of the two of them kind
Speaker 6: of horsing around, and there's so much great stuff that
Speaker 6: didn't even get to make it into the film. But
Speaker 6: a large portion of what we included in the film
Speaker 6: came from those discoveries and then some things, you know,
Speaker 6: we found her own along the way as well.
Speaker 4: Was everybody pretty willing to talk to you? Did you
Speaker 4: have anybody who was as the tant or just said no,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to go on the record.
Speaker 6: Everyone that you see in the film was pretty willing
Speaker 6: to talk. And then there are some people that you
Speaker 6: might expect to see in the film that aren't in
Speaker 6: the film, and those are the people that didn't want
Speaker 6: to There are plenty of people that I would have
Speaker 6: liked to have spoken to that aren't in the movie.
Speaker 6: And then there are plenty of people that wanted to
Speaker 6: talk to us that we didn't feel the need too.
Speaker 6: But yeah, I would say, I don't think that there's
Speaker 6: a different story we would have told one way or
Speaker 6: the other. But I do think some people were super
Speaker 6: eager and other people wanted to remain out of it.
Speaker 6: Does anyone stand out to you as missing?
Speaker 4: Not really, No, you don't necessarily have to pay lip
Speaker 4: service to the movie. You didn't have to talk with
Speaker 4: the writers. Obviously Milosh has gone, but even having archival
Speaker 4: stuff of him, I think the movie's the movie, but
Speaker 4: your movie's a totally different thing. You're fulfilling what I
Speaker 4: was hoping for with that man in the Moon movie.
Speaker 4: That's a cast dispersions. But after I got out of it,
Speaker 4: I was like, I'd really like to see really good
Speaker 4: documentary about Andy rather than the biopeck the bio.
Speaker 6: It's a great film on its own, and it introduced
Speaker 6: a whole new generation of people that were my age
Speaker 6: at the time to handy and it's super fun and
Speaker 6: great and holds up. But it's the same thing with
Speaker 6: After I went and watched a complete unknown, what I
Speaker 6: really wanted to do was go and listen to Bob
Speaker 6: Dylan albums. And this is a symbiotic relationship where one
Speaker 6: informs the other and fuels the desire. Like you want both,
Speaker 6: you always want both.
Speaker 4: What was the reaction to the documentary when it first
Speaker 4: came out.
Speaker 6: The festival screenings that we participated in the have been incredible,
Speaker 6: And I think the surprising thing is obviously anyone of
Speaker 6: a certain age who's familiar with Kaufman and already knows
Speaker 6: that they love him, like, I think they're going to
Speaker 6: enjoy the movie, but the people who are really most
Speaker 6: taken with it, are most surprised or blown away or enthusiastic,
Speaker 6: are just like younger people. So the first screening that
Speaker 6: we had publicly was at the Venice International Film Festival,
Speaker 6: and for whatever reason, I don't know how word got out,
Speaker 6: but the crowd was just really young and their minds
Speaker 6: were blown. And I think it's just to a certain extent,
Speaker 6: like Kaufin's spirit is. It's a youthful spirit, and I
Speaker 6: think he helps us understand that not only are certain
Speaker 6: rules meant to be broken, they're just completely made up
Speaker 6: and shouldn't really exist to begin with. And that's the
Speaker 6: very freeing idea to embrace. So that's the most surprising
Speaker 6: and most interesting and most pleasing reaction that we've got,
Speaker 6: is just like young people are really into this, and
Speaker 6: so it's exciting for me to think that maybe they'll
Speaker 6: have another generation to inspire.
Speaker 4: I almost wonder if the Tim and Air lyrics or
Speaker 4: some of these other comedians that are I hate the
Speaker 4: term anti comedy, but just like that discomfort. It feels
Speaker 4: like people who are into them would find Kaufman to
Speaker 4: be very much a similar thing.
Speaker 6: Tim and Eric or Nathan Fielder or Stasha Baron Cohen
Speaker 6: and Kaufman. Of course, they're all interesting in the sense
Speaker 6: that they challenge you to just slightly take a closer
Speaker 6: look at how information is presented to you, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean, That's what they all do to me.
Speaker 6: So for Kaufman, he's asking you to take a closer
Speaker 6: look at like the audience performer relationship. And I think
Speaker 6: those people that I mentioned they're in the same legacy
Speaker 6: and that they're like demanding that we are a little
Speaker 6: bit more critical of yeah, information and how it's presented
Speaker 6: to us. So I whether you want to call it
Speaker 6: a certain name or whatever, it's I think it's people
Speaker 6: use the word cringe because it's an awkward feeling to
Speaker 6: be confronted with how we're being manipulated a lot of
Speaker 6: the time. That's what makes all those people that you
Speaker 6: mentioned so brilliant and so fresh and so interesting for me,
Speaker 6: Like those are people whose work I never get sick
Speaker 6: of as well.
Speaker 4: So what's next for you or what have you already done?
Speaker 4: Because I think that you did festivals in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 4: is that right?
Speaker 6: Did festivals in twenty twenty three and a little bit
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty four, and my tim is just being
Speaker 6: spent making sure that as many people see this as
Speaker 6: possible when it comes out. First of all, being asked
Speaker 6: not to talk about the next thing I'm working on,
Speaker 6: not by anyone involved in this, but just people I'm
Speaker 6: working with. But I'm truly setting aside a good amount
Speaker 6: of time right now to just promote, and a real
Speaker 6: joy to be able to do that, because even after
Speaker 6: having lived in this Kaufman world for so long, it's
Speaker 6: something I could never be sick of, and I'm excited
Speaker 6: to get as many people out there and exposed to
Speaker 6: it as possible.
Speaker 4: Is there a good place for people keep up with
Speaker 4: you in the film online?
Speaker 6: There is a website draft housefilms dot com slash thank
Speaker 6: you very much, and that has We're playing in around
Speaker 6: twenty different cities. I think theatrically run thirty five screens
Speaker 6: right now. That could pick up depending on how the
Speaker 6: first week of showings goes. But yeah, we're super excited.
Speaker 6: We're opening in New York and Los Angeles. I think
Speaker 6: we're going to have some additional theaters in the New
Speaker 6: York area, Bronxville, Pelham, It's going to be playing in Austin, Texas, Nashville, Tennessee,
Speaker 6: and so I think just as things pick up, hopefully
Speaker 6: it'll go wider and wider. But it's also available for
Speaker 6: rents and for purchase VOD same day, So for anyone
Speaker 6: that is not in one of those markets or wants
Speaker 6: to watch it at home, it's going to be available
Speaker 6: on Amazon and Apple in all those places where we
Speaker 6: got to rent films too.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I hope more people check it out because I
Speaker 4: had a great time watching it.
Speaker 2: Thanks at.
Speaker 3: Any any thing thinking thing.
Speaker 1: In in into.
Speaker 3: NTO contact Atta