Speaker 1: How you doing out there? It's me Tigger. I am
Speaker 1: Duc Wing Duck. It's me Bunkers keep bobcat. All right, y'all?
Speaker 2: Did it great?
Speaker 1: Your favorite firefly you desire? Hold old knock guy. My
Speaker 1: name is Jim Cummings and welcome to tuned In. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome back. Are you kidding me? This is a world
Speaker 1: famous episode of Tuned In with Jim Cummings because we
Speaker 1: have none other than David Hayter. Ladies and gentlemen, let's
Speaker 1: hear it. Well, I'm on down.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Jim.
Speaker 3: It's nice to see you again.
Speaker 1: It's very nice to see you again.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just keep clicking. I'm gonna play catch with
Speaker 1: this microphone here obviously. But we know each other from conventions,
Speaker 1: from comic cons and the occasional panel there. But the
Speaker 1: world knows you and in a very entirely different, completely
Speaker 1: different realm. No funny voices involved, necessarily, but a lot
Speaker 1: of on a writing involved. Yes, And would you say
Speaker 1: that is what is your first passion?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: What's my first passion? My first passion was acting. That's
Speaker 3: that's what got me into this whole thing. I started
Speaker 3: writing when I was about twelve years old. Started acting
Speaker 3: when I was nine. Wow, I started writing when I
Speaker 3: was twelve. But I never I never had any concept
Speaker 3: of how you get writing work. Acting made sense to me,
Speaker 3: just you go and do you read your things whatever.
Speaker 3: But to me, you know, the scripts can come down
Speaker 3: from the gods, and I was like, I don't know
Speaker 3: how who's creating this, how they get this work or whatever.
Speaker 3: So I never really pursued it, and then I just
Speaker 3: sort of fell into it. But I kept writing, and yes,
Speaker 3: you did fell into the business professionally in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so it was ninety nine and the first
Speaker 1: thing out of the gate was it? It was X Men.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was my first paid writing job.
Speaker 4: Okay, how does that come about? How do you go
Speaker 4: from nothing to unrotting? The X Men film the super Bowl?
Speaker 1: It's it's you went from the sandlot to the super Bowl,
Speaker 1: that's right, with no practice.
Speaker 3: It's a very strange, wild Hollywood story. I had produced
Speaker 3: and starred in a little quarter million dollar film in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety seven, and that was executive produced by Brian Singer,
Speaker 3: who eventually went on to direct X Men. He wro
Speaker 3: directed Usual Suspect.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and which.
Speaker 3: Won a couple of Academy Awards, and I had known
Speaker 3: him before all of that occurred. And then and then
Speaker 3: the deal for my little film fell apart, and I
Speaker 3: was broke, and so I called Brian and asked if
Speaker 3: I could have a job on his next movie, you know,
Speaker 3: answering the Phones or something. So I got hired to
Speaker 3: dance of the Phones on X Men and Brian complaining
Speaker 3: to me because we you know, we had made a
Speaker 3: film together, so he knew I was a filmmaker. And
Speaker 3: he kept saying, bye, you know the script is, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not good, and people don't nobody knows the x Men,
Speaker 3: and I don't know how to achieve what I want
Speaker 3: to achieve. And I said, well, I know the x Men.
Speaker 3: I grew up with the comic books and all that,
Speaker 3: and you know these you know, I knew those characters
Speaker 3: like they were family. And so I said, well, why
Speaker 3: do you have a scene where Cyclops runs into Wolverine
Speaker 3: on the Mansion grounds and he says this, and he
Speaker 3: says this, and he says this, and that'll solve your
Speaker 3: problem for you. And Brian said, good, go write that
Speaker 3: for me, and I thought he was kidding because it
Speaker 3: wasn't legal. I wasn't in the writers Guild, you know,
Speaker 3: I certainly wasn't getting paid. So I wrote the scene.
Speaker 3: He put it in the movie, and then he started
Speaker 3: having and then he would he'd be at the end
Speaker 3: of the day. I'd answer the phones all day. At
Speaker 3: the end of the day, he'd say, all right, take
Speaker 3: a look at this scene and make this better.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: So, by the time the studio found out I had
Speaker 3: written rewritten about fifty some odd percent of the script,
Speaker 3: they were in a legal bind and they had to
Speaker 3: make a deal with me. So they paid me thirty
Speaker 3: five thousand dollars, which is the guild minimum rewrite fee.
Speaker 3: And basically I worked on the film for thirteen months,
Speaker 3: went up to Canada, I was on set. I was
Speaker 3: there for all the casting, I was there for all
Speaker 3: the shooting.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Wrote about one hundred and fifty drafts of the script,
Speaker 3: and Yeah, got sole credit. And then my friend Chris mccuori,
Speaker 3: who had been the writer on the film before me,
Speaker 3: the Academy Award winner for Usual Suspects, called me up
Speaker 3: and he said, do you realize you are the most
Speaker 3: successful first time screenwriter in film history, and that I
Speaker 3: don't know if that's still okay. All by chance, I
Speaker 3: literally fell ass backwards into it and here we are.
Speaker 1: It worked, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah in the movie, you know, and people didn't didn't
Speaker 3: think it was going.
Speaker 4: To be good. This is pre MCU so oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Nobody thought that any thing that wasn't Batman or Superman
Speaker 3: or spider Man could work.
Speaker 4: That's the thing.
Speaker 3: And we had eleven superpowered main characters.
Speaker 1: And and yeah, uh so I didn't even think of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, it's and so while they had different
Speaker 3: powers and different names and this and that and and
Speaker 3: just setting up this weird world and so nobody really
Speaker 3: had a lot of confidence in it. But I, being
Speaker 3: a fan of the comics, yeah, I was like, no,
Speaker 3: this is this is a great world. It's it's an
Speaker 3: amazing place to be and and uh stan Lee, yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: So that love of the comic books came through in
Speaker 3: the movies and they did pretty well.
Speaker 4: And then I, well, it's a credit to you because
Speaker 4: with Avengers, we had all these films setting up building
Speaker 4: to that one. With them all in the same one,
Speaker 4: you had nothing. You were just you were making Avenges
Speaker 4: from the beginning.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, and if you look at the first movie,
Speaker 3: I mean, it really is all set up. It's just
Speaker 3: all describing what this world is. They are, It's a
Speaker 3: very simple story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know how they got to be what they are? Yeah,
Speaker 1: all that stuff for a while.
Speaker 3: But that's how it happened. It was it was crazy.
Speaker 4: You have said that the eleven main characters all had
Speaker 4: to have their own journey, as you were talking about
Speaker 4: before their own story. Which journey did you struggle the
Speaker 4: most to incorporate into that world?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know that they all had their own journey.
Speaker 3: I mean, Toad is just a Toad guy. And Sabretooth
Speaker 3: I didn't even know that Sabretooth had eventually been revealed
Speaker 3: to be Logan's brother, Wolverine's brother. I didn't know that
Speaker 3: at all, So we didn't incorporate any of that. You didn't, no,
Speaker 3: I know, I know. I'm sure the younger, younger X
Speaker 3: Men friends are probably outraged. But for the X Men, well,
Speaker 3: basically what I did was I just want to make
Speaker 3: sure each character had, you know, and Magneto, that each
Speaker 3: character had a beginning, in the middle and an end
Speaker 3: no matter what. You know, how big or small, those
Speaker 3: things were. So what I did was I did a
Speaker 3: global search through the script for just the character's name
Speaker 3: saying dialogue, and I went through all of Cyclopsis dialogue,
Speaker 3: all of Storm's dialogue, all the Jeenes dialogue, to make
Speaker 3: sure that they at least had you know, some sort
Speaker 3: of growth, some sort of movement through the story. And
Speaker 3: you know, apart from it all being difficult, I don't
Speaker 3: remember anything being specifically harder than others. The hardest thing
Speaker 3: was we want a Beast in the movie, but we
Speaker 3: couldn't afford to have him do any action because he's
Speaker 3: a big blue creature. So we kept writing that he
Speaker 3: would break his leg before the third act action and
Speaker 3: then eventually we're like, this is stupid. If we can't
Speaker 3: use him, then yeah, then you know what's the point.
Speaker 3: And so poor Beast got cut from the movie.
Speaker 1: And that was based on just his inability to you
Speaker 1: couldn't write for the or didn't want to or no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no.
Speaker 3: I wrote a big sequence where they you know, they
Speaker 3: go to the Statue of Liberty, and so I had
Speaker 3: a whole sequence where he had a big battle inside
Speaker 3: the statue where the where the staircases are and all
Speaker 3: that stuff that he'd be swinging around and fighting with
Speaker 3: evil mutants and whatnot. But that was so expensive to
Speaker 3: to Oh you know, we didn't even create that set,
Speaker 3: so it would have been just for him.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: CG was not in a place at that time where
Speaker 3: you could do like a big monkey type guy swinging around,
Speaker 3: So so it just went away. At one point we
Speaker 3: had Jim Hansen, Jim Henson's company bidding to build a
Speaker 3: beast for us, which would have been really cool. Wow,
Speaker 3: but again, you know, putting him up on wires and
Speaker 3: making him do acrobatics was just not within our budget range.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and CG. I wasn't really quiet there yet, was it.
Speaker 1: No? I mean no, it was.
Speaker 3: It was okay for doing like hard surfaces, airplanes and
Speaker 3: rocks and stuff like that, but you couldn't do, you know,
Speaker 3: any living creature look like crap at that point.
Speaker 4: I have seen an interview where you said that a
Speaker 4: lot of the actors and it didn't know who you were.
Speaker 4: Some people from the studio didn't necessarily once you around that.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, what what was that like?
Speaker 4: And do you ever call the moment where you sort
Speaker 4: of felt like you'd earned the trust of the people
Speaker 4: working there.
Speaker 3: I felt I did. I don't think they ever felt
Speaker 3: I did. You know, yeah, they were I was just
Speaker 3: the phone answer guy to to them. You know, I
Speaker 3: had I had been in a few movies and that
Speaker 3: they'd never heard of, and I had produced and starred
Speaker 3: in a movie that they'd never heard of. So, you know,
Speaker 3: there's they call it breaking into Hollywood because you know,
Speaker 3: there comes a point where your name goes on the
Speaker 3: A list. There's literal lists that get given out for writers,
Speaker 3: for actors, whatever, and breaking in means you end up
Speaker 3: on these lists, and it's very you know, there's a
Speaker 3: there's a sense of ownership over Hollywood by studio executives
Speaker 3: and whatnot, and if they don't feel you deserve to
Speaker 3: be there, they're very resentful about that. I thought once
Speaker 3: the movie opened and made you know, four hundred million
Speaker 3: dollars or whatever, that I'd be like, Oh, now they'll
Speaker 3: really respect me, you would think, But that that wasn't
Speaker 3: the case. I Mean, they still the hired me to
Speaker 3: write X Men too, but they were still just as
Speaker 3: vicious and just as mistrustful as they had been.
Speaker 4: Before in what way, So you would pitch something and
Speaker 4: they wouldn't agree with you. What was in what way
Speaker 4: would they know?
Speaker 3: No, it wasn't that if I pitched something and it
Speaker 3: was good, they would recognize it and they would they
Speaker 3: would back it. It was really more a matter of
Speaker 3: just how insulting the deals were and their business affairs people,
Speaker 3: the people that make your deal were just so dismissive
Speaker 3: and rude.
Speaker 1: And I think I know those guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was just they were just hostile
Speaker 3: for no reason. And I, you know, I just sort
Speaker 3: of took that as well. This is what it's like
Speaker 3: working on the big movies. Now, I've since worked on
Speaker 3: a bunch of big movies and it's not always like that,
Speaker 3: but it is always stressful, and it is always, you know,
Speaker 3: you have to prove yourself again and again and again.
Speaker 3: And the fact that I came out of nowhere it
Speaker 3: made them all very nervous. I mean, look, you know,
Speaker 3: from their respective they have to justify to their shareholders. Yeah,
Speaker 3: why the phone answer guy is writing their eighty million
Speaker 3: dollar film, right, you know, as opposed to Josh Whedon
Speaker 3: or Chris McCrory or these writers. So I understood it
Speaker 3: to a certain extent, but it was it was pretty unpleasant.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, was a case of maybe just toll
Speaker 4: poppy scene drum as well as how dad this guy does.
Speaker 4: He hasn't sort of had to go through the hot
Speaker 4: yahs and prove himself from a roting perspective. He's just
Speaker 4: been given this massive opportunity.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, that's exactly right, that's exactly right. They want
Speaker 3: you to they want you to have paid your dues,
Speaker 3: and they want other studios to have hired you first.
Speaker 3: So nobody wants to be the first person to hire
Speaker 3: an unknown writer and I and I totally get that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I thought, you know, they'd be like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: we love this this scene, you know, and they'd say, well,
Speaker 3: you know who wrote this?
Speaker 1: Once it worked? It worked I did, and you would think, yeah.
Speaker 3: They'd be like, oh okay, well fue. Yeah, they grudgingly
Speaker 3: put it in the movie and grudgingly spend all the
Speaker 3: money that they made off of my scenes, right right right, Well,
Speaker 3: not that I'm complaining, I mean I am a little bit,
Speaker 3: but but it all worked out.
Speaker 1: Well, it worked out and came out in the wash.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I and I just said, look, don't get
Speaker 3: your ego involved. Just you know, this is the opportunity
Speaker 3: of a lifetime. Put your head down, work as hard
Speaker 3: as you can, take all the abuse, and don't you know,
Speaker 3: just let it roll off.
Speaker 1: And let it roll off your back and then roll
Speaker 1: into the next one. Yeah, yeah, that's perfect.
Speaker 3: That was it, you know, because getting your ego involved,
Speaker 3: especially when you're starting out, will kill you. You know,
Speaker 3: people will be like, who do you think you are?
Speaker 3: And they won't hire you and there you know, there
Speaker 3: are certain gatekeepers to the business in acting and right,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, that you have to appease, whether your ego
Speaker 3: likes it or not. So you know, best to just
Speaker 3: sort of look at it all as a as a game,
Speaker 3: and you know, try to be smart, try not to
Speaker 3: take it personally, try not to let it, you know,
Speaker 3: break you down inside.
Speaker 1: Mm hm right, wow, well good for you.
Speaker 4: Do you think the MCU exists if you didn't rock
Speaker 4: this film the way you didn't has such a success?
Speaker 3: Do I think that?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously the X Men films led the way
Speaker 3: towards the MCU as it is, but I also feel
Speaker 3: like there were so many amazing untapped stories in there.
Speaker 3: I think all of it, you know, me, Kevin Faigi,
Speaker 3: Tom DeSanto. You know, the people that were real comic
Speaker 3: book fans knew that there were you know, sixty seventy
Speaker 3: years worth of storieselievable that were amazing that weren't being
Speaker 3: exploited for movies. And with CG coming into its own,
Speaker 3: we were getting to a point where we could make
Speaker 3: Iron Man or the Hulk or whatever, which I worked
Speaker 3: with both of those, and so I think there would
Speaker 3: have been an MCU eventually, you know, if the stars
Speaker 3: had come together differently, But certainly we opened the doors
Speaker 3: for that and made the studios very confident that other
Speaker 3: comic book characters could could be successful in the movies.
Speaker 4: All in the one film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well yeah, I mean, and you know, I
Speaker 3: said to Tom Rothman, who was the president of Fox.
Speaker 3: I was like, look, there's there's fifty x men imprint
Speaker 3: comic books out there every month, like all over the world.
Speaker 3: Like we should have a built in you know, enormous
Speaker 3: built in audience.
Speaker 1: Built in audience.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, And he said, he said, David, the comic
Speaker 3: book fans will be done by ten pm Friday night,
Speaker 3: and we have to get everybody else. So that kind
Speaker 3: of put it in perspective for me.
Speaker 1: Well that's interesting.
Speaker 4: Do you agree with that perspective?
Speaker 3: Well, he's the president's studio. I figured you had to
Speaker 3: have done some restart. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: when you really think about it, the number of people
Speaker 3: who see movies versus the number of people who read
Speaker 3: anything is far greater numbers. So yeah, it made sense
Speaker 3: to me. But I did feel like there was a big,
Speaker 3: you know, an underground base of fans that that would
Speaker 3: turn out for the movie and would bring, you know,
Speaker 3: friends and girlfriends. Well they wouldn't have girlfriends, but you know,
Speaker 3: friends and relatives and whatnot to their comic book movies
Speaker 3: to see the characters they've always loved.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and girls aren't going anyway with themselves.
Speaker 3: Well well you know, but the thing is we had
Speaker 3: we had really kick ass women characters which came from
Speaker 3: the comic book.
Speaker 1: Well, that's true.
Speaker 3: And so it was really, you know, I mean a
Speaker 3: personal goal of mine to make sure that the girls
Speaker 3: would go and go, oh my god, I could be
Speaker 3: an X man.
Speaker 1: I could you know, that could be pretty pretty bodacious.
Speaker 3: She was pretty awesome and Jeane and Mystique is amazing,
Speaker 3: Like Mystique.
Speaker 4: Mistake was the big one for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and she had people forget she had one line
Speaker 3: in the first film and then became like a lynchpin
Speaker 3: of the whole series.
Speaker 1: So wow, yeah, I didn't.
Speaker 4: As you said earlier, you know, we had Batman and
Speaker 4: Spider Man and Superman. It was always Men Men Wonder Woman,
Speaker 4: but Wonder Woman had had her own film at that point.
Speaker 3: You know, no, just the TV show in the seventies.
Speaker 3: And in fact, you know, after X Men, I was
Speaker 3: hatched to direct, write, and direct the Black Widow movie
Speaker 3: and that's right, yeah, after her. Yeah, I named my
Speaker 3: daughter after forced them to make the movie, but they didn't,
Speaker 3: and that one we were ready to shoot. And then
Speaker 3: in one weekend, Eon Flux and Blood Rain and Ultra
Speaker 3: Violet came out in the same weekend and they all failed.
Speaker 3: And so the Lionsgate was like, oh, you know, female
Speaker 3: action movies don't work, Female superhero movies don't work, and
Speaker 3: so you know, that knocked us back another decade or so,
Speaker 3: which was a shame.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a shame.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, Jim, you're a big comic book guy, aren't you.
Speaker 4: Love You love collecting comics, don't you, Jim?
Speaker 1: Oh, god. Yeah, yep. Still I still go over to
Speaker 1: Burbank and hit up the comics, you know, every couple
Speaker 1: of weeks.
Speaker 3: What are your favorites?
Speaker 1: Well, spider Man, yeah, Punisher, yeah, x Men yeap. X
Speaker 1: Men are way up there. Always love Wolverine, Deadpool, he's working,
Speaker 1: you know, gosh, and some Batman.
Speaker 3: Oh I was Yeah, it was a huge Batman.
Speaker 1: Huge Batman. Yeah. There's like eight Batman titles out there now, yeah,
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: Did you guys get a chance to see Deadpool and Wolverine?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, have you seen it?
Speaker 1: Ye?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they do. They do this really amazing tribute
Speaker 3: to the Fox X Men era, and so all of
Speaker 3: those behind the scenes clips from X Men one. I
Speaker 3: am standing, like literally right off camera watching all that happens.
Speaker 3: So it was really emotional watching.
Speaker 1: That's nice.
Speaker 3: It was really cool.
Speaker 1: Well that's good to know.
Speaker 3: Yeaheah, I loved it.
Speaker 1: Good. Now I'm gonna look for it, look for your shadow. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I might be in the footage.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't spot myself, but yeah, I am there for.
Speaker 2: The entire It was emotional, wasn't. I wasn't even involved
Speaker 2: with the project, but I felt the same way because
Speaker 2: to me, like the X Men. To me, it was
Speaker 2: like x Men x two, Iron Man. That was kind
Speaker 2: of like the impetus of like the new aneration of Superheroes.
Speaker 2: You know, it changed like the Batman forevers and like
Speaker 2: you know, that was kind of like a different it
Speaker 2: was just a different feel to those movies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well we decided and I think that this really
Speaker 3: did help kick off the MCU that.
Speaker 4: We didn't.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: I wanted to make a com book movie because I
Speaker 3: knew how cool comic books were, but Brian Singer didn't
Speaker 3: read comic books, and he was like, no, we're just
Speaker 3: making a real movie and an actual action movie with
Speaker 3: real characters, and if it doesn't feel real, we're not
Speaker 3: doing it. And so that really, you know, taking it
Speaker 3: seriously like that said, you know, spoke to the fans
Speaker 3: and also spoke to people who had not yet been fans.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so it worked out, and to your point
Speaker 2: of like how far CGI has come as well, I
Speaker 2: remember there was one scene and it's when Deadpool and
Speaker 2: Wolverine are fighting like all the multiverse of Deadpools, and
Speaker 2: I swear there was like an entire animated fight scene.
Speaker 2: Like I swear there was no stunt people or anything.
Speaker 2: It was just like it looked like a video game.
Speaker 2: It was just like I looked at my girlfriend, I
Speaker 2: was like, that was all animated, Like that was one
Speaker 2: hundred percent animated.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty amazing with what they can do now,
Speaker 3: but they could not do that back in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just about magic. Indeed, you know, it's it is
Speaker 1: to me. I'm still I'm still impressed with that. Just
Speaker 1: sketches and oh yeah, you know, no, it's bath easily please. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so true.
Speaker 4: How different do you think your X Men scripts would
Speaker 4: have been had you had that technology at your fingertips
Speaker 4: to work with at the time.
Speaker 3: Well, the first one wouldn't have been too different because
Speaker 3: they were you know, they said, it's the budget is
Speaker 3: seventy five million, which which was pretty tight even then
Speaker 3: for the size of movie we were trying to make.
Speaker 3: And our first budget came in at eighty two and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, they're going to be thrilled, but
Speaker 3: they were not thrilled.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, we're so close. But they were
Speaker 3: not thrilled. They said, you know, seventy five million, not
Speaker 3: a penny more. Can you make it for that amount?
Speaker 3: And we were like, if that's what you're giving us,
Speaker 3: that's what we can do. So it was really I mean,
Speaker 3: there were limitations to the technology, but it wasn't about that.
Speaker 3: It was about they didn't want to spend a dime
Speaker 3: more than they had to to try to make a
Speaker 3: dent with this movie. So it was really it was
Speaker 3: it was almost like making you know, it's weird to
Speaker 3: say it was seventy five million dollars, but it was
Speaker 3: like making an indie superhero film.
Speaker 4: Twenty twenty four perspective, of course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, now now that's that
Speaker 3: budget is so minuscule. But but yeah, so we were
Speaker 3: we were definitely limited by and the first cut of
Speaker 3: the movie, uh, it was over two hours long, and
Speaker 3: we called it Woody Allen's X Men because it was
Speaker 3: there wasn't enough action to fill the movie. People talking
Speaker 3: the time.
Speaker 4: That may need movies now they go for two hours
Speaker 4: as an average. Now, I feel because they want to
Speaker 4: get people their money's worth, were actually forking out and
Speaker 4: going to the to the films.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when maybe they should not do that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what's what's your ideal length for a film like that?
Speaker 4: Between I need one hundred minutes.
Speaker 3: It depends on how much story you have. So I
Speaker 3: also worked on Watchmen, but that's adapted from an extremely
Speaker 3: complex book. It's like a seven act movie. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: the characters, Yeah, all the characters have massive, intertwined backstories
Speaker 3: and all that stuff. So that movie's over three hours long,
Speaker 3: and I think it if it's not, it's not Watchmen.
Speaker 3: But X Men should have been an hour and a half.
Speaker 3: I love a good ninety minute movie. I think x
Speaker 3: Men was ninety eight actually, but in x Men two
Speaker 3: we had more story and so that one was two
Speaker 3: hours long. It just depends on how much story you have.
Speaker 3: But if you make a two hour movie and you
Speaker 3: only have eighty minutes worth of story, then it gets tiresome,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Stretching.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just like just saying, well, throw everything in just
Speaker 3: to because we have it is not a reason to yeah,
Speaker 3: to make a movie long that long?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I think it has to be. Isn't it
Speaker 1: sixty minutes?
Speaker 3: It has to be for a quote quote for a
Speaker 3: future film. I think it's just like seventy two is
Speaker 3: sev under that it's not doesn't qualify as a movie.
Speaker 1: I remember the when when died Poo was made into
Speaker 1: a movie in the sixties. We're talking about this earlier.
Speaker 1: I think they they put together I think three twenty
Speaker 1: two minute shorts and called it a movie and it
Speaker 1: was great, you know, and then they released it. It
Speaker 1: want an Academy Award, and thank god they didn't do
Speaker 1: anything for the next twenty years because it gave me
Speaker 1: a chance to grow up and become Winny the Poop. So,
Speaker 1: you know, back then, weird the way things work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll take it right. Indeed, Well that's amazing. So I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm being redundant here. But do you is
Speaker 1: it do you like the writing more or is it
Speaker 1: on camera or off camera?
Speaker 2: For you?
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean, what's more rewarding or.
Speaker 3: Well, that's a good way to put it. The writing
Speaker 3: is more rewarding.
Speaker 1: Financially, gotta be Oh, okay, you know.
Speaker 3: That that pays for my cushy lifestyle.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 4: And I do like that, you likeushy?
Speaker 1: Cush is good?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, very comfortable and can't beat a good cush Indeed,
Speaker 3: I I think voiceover is the most pure fun job.
Speaker 3: Like I just absolutely love that. I love doing on camera.
Speaker 3: But you know, it's it's boring. You're in your trailer
Speaker 3: the whole time. It's either super hot or super cold,
Speaker 3: or you're covered in bugs or toxic goog or whatnot.
Speaker 1: So it's good to me.
Speaker 3: I mean, that was that was all I wanted to
Speaker 3: do when I was a kid. Now, you know, now
Speaker 3: I'm used to a more comfortable lifestyle. I was doing
Speaker 3: a Canadian horror movie about ten years back, and I
Speaker 3: was just covered in prosthetics and like toxic blood stuff,
Speaker 3: and I was like, what am I doing this for?
Speaker 1: It?
Speaker 3: Like I don't need to be doing this and and
Speaker 3: but it was still fun so and and the writing
Speaker 3: can be very rewarding and and fun, but it's it's harder,
Speaker 3: it's more frustrating. It's it's less about fun because you're
Speaker 3: working with major studios who're very concerned about budgets and
Speaker 3: you know, their business y things, you know, whereas you know,
Speaker 3: you get into a booth with you know, Chris Zimmerman
Speaker 3: directing or something, and it's just you're just having a blast.
Speaker 3: And yeah, the idea is to come in and have fun.
Speaker 1: And to play and yeah, create absolutely.
Speaker 3: So they all have different with you. Yeah, they all
Speaker 3: have different charms for me.
Speaker 4: You know, can you tell us about the first day
Speaker 4: you went in to do Solid Snake, because I think
Speaker 4: you said it's about ten day recording sessions, right for
Speaker 4: that first game. What was the vibe like did you
Speaker 4: did you know at that time could you get a
Speaker 4: sense there's something special here or was it just sort
Speaker 4: of well, I think it's good, but let's just see
Speaker 4: how it goes. Could you just could you just sense
Speaker 4: at the time this is going to be a hit.
Speaker 3: I when I went into audition, the Yoji shin Kawa
Speaker 3: artwork was up on the walls and I saw that,
Speaker 3: and so if anybody, if you haven't seen it, you
Speaker 3: can google Yoji shin Kawa, And.
Speaker 1: I think that's always helpful. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, it's just the artwork so badass and so ahead
Speaker 3: of its time. I mean, it was just it was
Speaker 3: just so visionary. So and then I went in to
Speaker 3: record and we were recording in this weird house that
Speaker 3: wasn't a recording studio, was a living room with like
Speaker 3: five five microphones set up, and then the engineer was
Speaker 3: just in the room with us with so they had
Speaker 3: to be super quiet.
Speaker 1: A couple of yeah, yeah, they take you by surprise.
Speaker 1: You're going, wait, this is it? Yeah, well fine, yeah.
Speaker 3: So so we were in there and then I was
Speaker 3: already thinking that this was going to be a pretty
Speaker 3: epic game, because I was gamer and I knew the
Speaker 3: state of the art. And then in the middle of
Speaker 3: the day, I think it was Jeremy Blaustein, the producer
Speaker 3: and translator, the guy wrote the English language lines, translated them,
Speaker 3: played us the cut scene where Snake shoots down the
Speaker 3: hind D helicopter, and when we saw that, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is an entirely new thing. It's clearly very expensive,
Speaker 3: and they're making a big swing at it. So so
Speaker 3: I expected from that moment on that it would be big.
Speaker 3: I didn't expect to be talking about it twenty five
Speaker 3: years later, but I figured it would be a big
Speaker 3: game and maybe have some sequels and stuff. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it was very exciting.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now they're doing what is it, a remaster
Speaker 2: Metal Gear Solid Delta.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Meddle Gears Solid Meddle Gear three is you know,
Speaker 3: pretty much recognized as the most beloved of the titles,
Speaker 3: and so Snake Eater Snake Eater, Yeah, and it's just
Speaker 3: a favor. It goes back to the sixties and it's
Speaker 3: sort of like a James Bond spot thing. I mean
Speaker 3: it's really amazing and so yeah, so they're doing a remaster.
Speaker 3: I get to play it the other day. I mean
Speaker 3: it's spectacularly beautiful.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so people are going to be blown away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're reprising the role obviously sort of.
Speaker 3: They're just they're using the original tracks.
Speaker 1: Oh they are.
Speaker 3: I'll do some I'll do some some clean up tracks
Speaker 3: and things like that and clarify any controls that have
Speaker 3: been changed and stuff like that. But it's really it's
Speaker 3: the original performance, right.
Speaker 1: Well that's great, yes, yeah, no kidding, We'll take it. Good. Ching.
Speaker 4: How did you approach the voice, because going in obviously
Speaker 4: you didn't really have much to work with. By the
Speaker 4: time you made the second or third you knew who
Speaker 4: Solid Snake was. How did you create the Solid Snake?
Speaker 3: Unlike all the other games or any other thing. They
Speaker 3: sent me the script before, like a month or two
Speaker 3: before we recorded, and it was you know, it was
Speaker 3: a stack of pages like this. So I had auditioned
Speaker 3: with my voice, which at the time, you know, kind
Speaker 3: of sounded like this. I sounded like, you know, a
Speaker 3: cocky fighter pilot type of guy. And I auditioned, and
Speaker 3: I think I'm not sure about this. I think I
Speaker 3: got the role because I had starred in a movie
Speaker 3: called Guyver, Dark, Hero and Hideokojima was a fan of
Speaker 3: that movie, so I think he just said, oh, David Hayter,
Speaker 3: we'll hire that guy. But I read the script and
Speaker 3: he in the opening, his snake is already retired and
Speaker 3: he's a legend and he doesn't want to come back,
Speaker 3: and they basically go and they hijack him from his
Speaker 3: ranch in Alaska and you can pull him back in.
Speaker 3: And I was just like, I feel like this guy
Speaker 3: needs to sound older than I do, and I feel
Speaker 3: like he needs, you know, needs to sound like he's
Speaker 3: been dragged across a bunch of bad road and you know,
Speaker 3: there's got to be waight to it. There's got to
Speaker 3: be this heavy kind of I don't want to come
Speaker 3: back kind of feel to it. And so that's uh
Speaker 3: so it just came out of the script and so
Speaker 3: I didn't perform the voice I auditioned with, which typically
Speaker 3: isn't a good idea.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but Chris, but where's the other guy? Yeah?
Speaker 3: In the middle. In the middle of recording, Chris goes, hey,
Speaker 3: can I play the voice you auditioned with?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: I know, it's like you should we go back, and
Speaker 3: she goes, no, this is working. And I felt good
Speaker 3: about it, too cool. I felt like, you know, it's
Speaker 3: not really a real voice, it's it's sort of a
Speaker 3: larger than life version of a badass. And I kind
Speaker 3: of felt like people would get into it, well and yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what's up. And they did, and it was you know,
Speaker 3: and again it because of my love of what I
Speaker 3: was doing that comes through and hopefully that does you know,
Speaker 3: you know what it is you love and fire into it.
Speaker 1: People respond yeah, absolutely, yeah, well it shows yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it shows people get it, no doubt about it.
Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Do you do any.
Speaker 3: Are you strictly an actor or do you right? And
Speaker 3: I should know this because it's just.
Speaker 1: You know, just veo. You know, used to be in
Speaker 1: places as a kid, obviously, but I think everybody was
Speaker 1: but that and.
Speaker 3: Singing, you know, and have you had any success with those?
Speaker 1: So far? So good? Yeah, so far.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I've been all over the world with Jim and just
Speaker 3: children's eyes Explode with excitement when they hear them, and
Speaker 3: it's it's a cool thing.
Speaker 1: Well, it's fun because people think I'm not even sure
Speaker 1: how why they think this, but for some reason, Winnie
Speaker 1: the Pooh, you know, they'll say, well, can you sign
Speaker 1: this for me? And you be signing something and it
Speaker 1: will be Pooh and Tigger, and then I'll give them
Speaker 1: a little Winnie the Pooh and have a smack wrel
Speaker 1: of honey on me and they go, I thought you
Speaker 1: had to go somewhere and do something and do it
Speaker 1: like there's a spit.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I's good. I didn't have that diode in
Speaker 1: my head today. That's so I won't be able to
Speaker 1: do it. But yeah, they think that there's something going
Speaker 1: on there.
Speaker 3: I get that a lot too. Yeah, people like, could
Speaker 3: you possibly do this in the snake voice? And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's why I'm here. Yeah, I can do it anytime.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, see.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that's very funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But I mean it's you know, it's it's alchemy, it's magic,
Speaker 3: you know. I mean, like, you know, I've I've done
Speaker 3: pretty well. But I look at Jim and I look
Speaker 3: at Maurice LaMarsh And and Billy West and there's just
Speaker 3: the stuff you guys do is just it's just still
Speaker 3: magically annoying.
Speaker 1: Oh oh that too, Yeah that's personality.
Speaker 3: That's different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's different. Yeah you're annoying, but we don't mind
Speaker 1: dark wing duck.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's right.
Speaker 1: Oh man, So heroes are villains? What do you think?
Speaker 1: What do you like?
Speaker 3: I always my whole, my whole acting career. I mean,
Speaker 3: with with very few exceptions, I always got cast as
Speaker 3: heroes my whole life until I turned forty, and then
Speaker 3: they started turning me into a villain. It's like it's
Speaker 3: like it's like that scene in Once upon a Time
Speaker 3: in Hollywood where where Leo meets with Paccino and he's
Speaker 3: telling them, oh, it's an old Hollywood trick.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: They take an old action star and they put him
Speaker 3: up against a young guy, and young guy kicks the
Speaker 3: shit out of you and excuse me, uh and uh
Speaker 3: he you know, but he's really, you know, kicking the
Speaker 3: crap out of J. K. Hill or whatever, and you know,
Speaker 3: and so now that's me. So now now I play
Speaker 3: like insane soldiers that other people.
Speaker 1: Have to come after.
Speaker 3: But villains are there more fun to play? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: I always love being the hero and I always love,
Speaker 3: you know, doing the right thing, getting the girl and whatnot.
Speaker 3: Playing playing a psychopath is is more fun than anything.
Speaker 1: It's gotta be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've had a few of those, but not many,
Speaker 1: not many psychopaths. But but one of them would be
Speaker 1: Splatterhouse I think, you know, right, But I'm not going
Speaker 1: to bring that up because he he's got a potty mouth.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, so do I apparently I apologize, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: of course.
Speaker 1: You like him.
Speaker 4: Well, no, it's just it's the one that Jim just
Speaker 4: won't talk about anymore. Suck the Holy Grail. The people
Speaker 4: want to him do terror masking you guys, I'm not
Speaker 4: doing it anymore.
Speaker 1: It's been done.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. I don't know that one though.
Speaker 1: Not that's okay. No, it's a video game. Okay, if
Speaker 1: you play it, you know, if you didn't, you don't, right,
Speaker 1: So you're fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I want to touch on you mentioned numerous times you
Speaker 4: fan fiction when you're twelve, the Style Wars, Indiana Giant stuff,
Speaker 4: that's right. I want to know the stories did you
Speaker 4: have Indiana mate Han Sol what were the stories there?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: I had I had Indiana Jones. I remember one sequel. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so I started. For anybody who doesn't know, that's how
Speaker 3: I started writing. I saw I was obsessed with Star Wars.
Speaker 3: Then I saw Raiders Lost Arc, and then I started
Speaker 3: writing fan fiction. I'd like to think I invented it,
Speaker 3: but probably not. But I was twelve years old and
Speaker 3: I remember there was like one scene on like a
Speaker 3: super sci fi train. It was on the roof of it,
Speaker 3: and he had a laser whip. So I came up
Speaker 3: with this idea for Indiana Jones. But he's got like
Speaker 3: a Han Solo type laser whip and sort of thing,
Speaker 3: which they actually just used in Acolyte. I don't think
Speaker 3: they stole it from my work.
Speaker 4: But Climate Climate, Yeah, yeah, but I did come up
Speaker 4: with it.
Speaker 3: You know, forty years earlier.
Speaker 1: Ye. Yes, Well, I'm pretty sure that I invented the
Speaker 1: Power Rangers, me and my best friend Kenny, is that right.
Speaker 1: We pitched it. We pitched something like that to Fox,
Speaker 1: and then five years later the Power Rangers were there,
Speaker 1: and I often wondered worth it is it? You know?
Speaker 1: And I don't. I don't know how I could have
Speaker 1: proved it, but it was teenage kids who banded together
Speaker 1: and blah blah, and then the next thing you know,
Speaker 1: that poof they appear and there one is Super this,
Speaker 1: and one Super that and one and it was kind
Speaker 1: of like, hmmm, you know, it may just scratch your head,
Speaker 1: but what are you gonna do?
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, those are very difficult situations. I've been
Speaker 3: in those situations and I've been in uh legal discussions
Speaker 3: with studios or whatnot. I mean, it's to cost you
Speaker 3: one hundred thousand dollars to go up against them. They
Speaker 3: have the best lawyers in the world. It's you know,
Speaker 3: you and you never want to do that unless you
Speaker 3: have a lot of money to put into it, and
Speaker 3: unless you've got them if you've delivered a if you
Speaker 3: delivered a copyright a piece of material that's called the
Speaker 3: Power Rangers and they've got the white, yellow, red, black Man,
Speaker 3: if you've done all that, Actually, the Writers Guild at
Speaker 3: that point will put up their own lawyers to help
Speaker 3: you go after them. But yeah, specific you better be
Speaker 3: air tight. Yeah, it which all destroy it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we figured they just got the inkling and a
Speaker 1: you know what we could do, we could do, you know,
Speaker 1: And it was like.
Speaker 3: I had a friend who wrote, wrote a movie, sent
Speaker 3: it to the woman who eventually starred in the movie,
Speaker 3: sent it to the producer who ultimately made the movie,
Speaker 3: and it was exactly the same. And he sued, and
Speaker 3: he had all the documentation and everything. He sued, got
Speaker 3: a judge who didn't really understand how the business works,
Speaker 3: got the judgment put against him, and then was was
Speaker 3: charged two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to pay for
Speaker 3: the studios legal fees. What that stole his film? And
Speaker 3: eventually that got thrown out, But he could have been
Speaker 3: stuck for a quarter million dollars defending his own film,
Speaker 3: which was clearly stolen. So anyway, this is all inside baseball.
Speaker 3: But it's like, you really, you really have to be
Speaker 3: careful going up against these these entities.
Speaker 1: Well you know, that's why they're the big guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they got all the money in the world and
Speaker 3: you gotta you're got to take that into account and
Speaker 3: nothing but time, nothing but time and lawyers, and they
Speaker 3: don't care. That's what their lawyers are there for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, ouch lesson learned.
Speaker 3: Anyway, there's probably more fun stuff we could talk about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, what did you watch growing up? You said,
Speaker 4: he's a big fan of Style Wars. Indiana Jones, what
Speaker 4: did you watch TV show?
Speaker 1: Was?
Speaker 3: Well, they're only there only three stations, so I mean
Speaker 3: I also grew up in Canada, so you know I
Speaker 3: watched the same show as everybody else did. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, through the eighties I loved you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know Cheers.
Speaker 4: And you a ha Man fan or anything.
Speaker 3: I was not a he Man fan.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: I mean, he Man came out when I was twelve,
Speaker 3: so I guess I was in the denverrak, but I
Speaker 3: never really bought it. I was thought he Man was
Speaker 3: super lazy. I'm like, oh, yeah, we need a strong guy.
Speaker 3: We'll call him he Man. And then we got a
Speaker 3: skeleton faced guy. What what can we call him? What's
Speaker 3: the most I know? How about skeleton? No, that st
Speaker 3: how about skeletor all right, fine whatever?
Speaker 1: Want to go. What are we going to call the
Speaker 1: he Man? Yeah? He Man?
Speaker 3: Well let's call him he Man and his friend, his
Speaker 3: friend who's got the big fist. How about fisto, Yes
Speaker 3: that's a real guy, but fist oh yeah he so.
Speaker 3: So even at twelve, I was like, this is lazy writing.
Speaker 1: That's not Yeah, she Rah come on, she row exactly.
Speaker 4: Even at twelve, You're like, it's beneath me. Get back
Speaker 4: to my fan fiction, totally, totally.
Speaker 3: Well, by then, I was already into the X Men
Speaker 3: comics and you know if I mean Chris Claremont and
Speaker 3: John Byrne and yeah, yeah, I mean the stories were
Speaker 3: so deep and so adult and so psychologic. I was
Speaker 3: I was past all that, but I loved uh, you know,
Speaker 3: I loved the original Star Trek. I love Star Trek
Speaker 3: the next generation. Uh, I don't know, uh, yeah, just
Speaker 3: I was watching everything everybody else was. But also growing
Speaker 3: up in Canada, we had a lot of British shows,
Speaker 3: so I love Monty Python and Dave Allen and you
Speaker 3: know all these BBC shows that that really spoke to
Speaker 3: me as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got Mighty Pathon they were the Holy Grail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the best, most inspired. I mean the
Speaker 3: writing of it, the brilliance of it, the comedy that
Speaker 3: was so sharp.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just saw John Place's Faulty Towers.
Speaker 3: Oh first time, Uh huh, first time.
Speaker 1: Amazing, you know, No, I mean they still doing I
Speaker 1: meant the play, I meant the broad what was it
Speaker 1: Broadway or no, it.
Speaker 2: Was off Broadway in London.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, I didn't know they had done Broadway.
Speaker 1: Really. Yeah, it's really cool.
Speaker 2: Oh cool, just premiered just a couple of months ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just met John Cleese at one of the comic
Speaker 3: cons recently, and I was like, what can I say
Speaker 3: that won't make me sound like an idiot? And then
Speaker 3: so I introduced. I didn't succeed, but I I introduced
Speaker 3: myself as a screenwriter, and I said, look, I just
Speaker 3: want to say the screenplay for A Fish called Wanda
Speaker 3: is so sharp, and it's so smart and perfectly constructed.
Speaker 1: And he just lit up and so we started, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: oh that's good.
Speaker 3: It was great. I was, you know, just over the moon.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, that was that was That's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite films.
Speaker 3: Actually, it's so perfect, it's so unique.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is.
Speaker 3: Kevin Klein is just astounding in that movie.
Speaker 4: He is.
Speaker 3: If you haven't seen it, check out A Fish Called Wanda.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well I think he's underrated anyway, Kevin Klein. Yeah, well, he.
Speaker 3: Certainly doesn't work as much as he should. I mean,
Speaker 3: for you know, for for a while in the eighties
Speaker 3: and nineties, he was over Yeah, I mean he I
Speaker 3: think that was the first Oscar One for comedic role.
Speaker 3: I might be wrong, but I mean maybe you know,
Speaker 3: some like it hot or something, but but I remember,
Speaker 3: like it was unheard of that a comedian, like a
Speaker 3: comic role would win the Academy Award. But yeah, he
Speaker 3: earned it, man.
Speaker 1: Yeah he sure did. He sure did. Wow. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that guy. Yeah, but we'll have to get him
Speaker 1: on should do.
Speaker 4: When it comes to writing, David, would you say video
Speaker 4: games storytelling it's more like a television show in a sense.
Speaker 4: It's more episodic mission put by mission as opposed to
Speaker 4: a movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well that's a good question. You know, it's sort of
Speaker 3: like it's sort of like Japanese storytelling in a way
Speaker 3: in that in that like Japanese movies, not all of them,
Speaker 3: but but but you know, a good portion of them
Speaker 3: are not necessarily fully linear, like they're like we're experiencing
Speaker 3: this portion of the movie now, and now we're we're
Speaker 3: experiencing this portion of the movie. Like I mean, I
Speaker 3: like there's an extreme example, but like a cure of course,
Speaker 3: I was dreams. It just goes from this to that
Speaker 3: to this to that, And I feel like a lot
Speaker 3: of Japanese storytelling is like that. So when you're writing
Speaker 3: a game that's going to take sixty to one hundred
Speaker 3: hours to play, it can't be in movie structure because
Speaker 3: you'll have, you know, huge stretches where it's super depressing
Speaker 3: and not things happening. Like you can't just stretch out
Speaker 3: a two hour movie structure into sixty one hundred hours
Speaker 3: like Grand Theft Auto five, I feel like is the
Speaker 3: best written video game to date.
Speaker 4: It's tuck you in a movie.
Speaker 3: You're living a movie, but each adventure is its own movie,
Speaker 3: and you're you know, and all three of those guys,
Speaker 3: those characters are developing, but really the same dynamics are
Speaker 3: happening to them again and again and again in this story,
Speaker 3: then this story, then this story. So it's a it's
Speaker 3: a when it's done right. It's a pretty unique form
Speaker 3: of storytelling. I mean, it's more like more like a
Speaker 3: novel really, uh where where you can sort of meander around,
Speaker 3: take side trips and side missions and and things like that,
Speaker 3: but you still have to develop character. You still have
Speaker 3: to bring them ideally to a to a resolution. I
Speaker 3: think Grand Theft Auto five did that in a in
Speaker 3: a spectacular way. You know by the end, if you
Speaker 3: you know, have the one ending where they all survive.
Speaker 3: There are various endings. It's really satisfying. It's like they've
Speaker 3: they're they're standing on the edge of the cliff and
Speaker 3: they're like, you know, we feel like we've been through
Speaker 3: something and the sun is setting. I mean, it's just
Speaker 3: it's a it's a it's it's a really unique application
Speaker 3: of writing, I think, and people are getting better at it.
Speaker 3: Like it took a long time for video games to
Speaker 3: to develop really effective storytelling, and I think Metal Gear
Speaker 3: helped usher that in.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I feel like in the last fifteen to twenty years
Speaker 4: video games have taken seriously.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, people are willing to invest in it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. Well yeah, I mean well, I mean the
Speaker 3: money they make is equal to, if not greater than,
Speaker 3: the movies now, so yeah, I think it's better. It's
Speaker 3: worth it. And if you're going to spend sixty to
Speaker 3: one hundred hours with these characters, you want good story.
Speaker 3: Good story sells more games and thanks for a better experience.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Do you still play games?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's your What are you playing right now?
Speaker 3: What am I playing? I just went back and I
Speaker 3: replayed the Mad Max game on the PS four. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because there was there was some sort of controversy about it,
Speaker 3: like George Miller said, you know, oh h he wanted
Speaker 3: Hideo Kojima to come in andto a Mad Max game,
Speaker 3: and because he said he was disappointed in the in
Speaker 3: the one that came out, and it's so good like
Speaker 3: that game is, so you know, I was so obsessive
Speaker 3: about that game. You're building up the car, like you
Speaker 3: really feel like Mad Max, and you're, you know, you
Speaker 3: your car gets better and better, and you're going into
Speaker 3: these these amazing underground post apocalyptic things and you're just
Speaker 3: punching the hell out of people and you got your
Speaker 3: dog with you to sniff out mine loves.
Speaker 1: You have your dog.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the leather jack You can get the leather
Speaker 3: jacket at a certain point. So yeah, I just replayed that.
Speaker 3: And I just want to shout out to the Mad
Speaker 3: Max team creative team, because I know they were hurt
Speaker 3: by those comments and that game kicked ass. So I
Speaker 3: highly recommend picking that one up again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 4: Do you have a dude live streams let's plays?
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: I did with Vanessa Marshall because she's my friend, and
Speaker 3: she asked me to do it. No, I don't like
Speaker 3: I don't like playing games with other people.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't get it.
Speaker 3: I play games to be away from other people, and
Speaker 3: so I don't do you know, massive multiplayer online or anything.
Speaker 3: I just you know, it's like being attacked by ants,
Speaker 3: you know. Okay, So no, so I don't do that.
Speaker 3: And I also don't want to be, you know, to
Speaker 3: have the pressure of people going he saw its snakes,
Speaker 3: so he must be the greatest gamer in the world.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, no, I'm just enjoying myself. Leave me
Speaker 3: the hell alone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, do you consider yourself a good gamer?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean there's some things I can play. I
Speaker 3: mean there's some games I was obsessed with about that
Speaker 3: I'm I'm amazing at trying to think.
Speaker 1: Of what they are.
Speaker 3: Well, like, you know, like Assassin's Creed or whatever. I
Speaker 3: play that so much that that I would be really good.
Speaker 3: But some games I'm not great at, but I don't care.
Speaker 3: I just enjoy the story, you know, I just enjoy
Speaker 3: sort of bumbling through, and I don't have any any
Speaker 3: need to master every game that I get into, you know.
Speaker 1: Well, you'd be busy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's too much, too little.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not enough howers in the day for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I also like playing just to know what
Speaker 3: the state of the art is, to say, oh, there's
Speaker 3: a big game. I want to see what it's like.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'll play, you know, through the first third of it,
Speaker 3: and then put it away and not worry about it.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I get obsessed and I'll play it again and again.
Speaker 4: You know reason I brought the passion of tav before
Speaker 4: is because very when you watch a TV show, you
Speaker 4: have your favorite episodes. Do you have favorite missions in
Speaker 4: any various games that you've played.
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Sure, Yeah, Well, like there's an underground bank heist in
Speaker 3: or jewelry heist in Grand Theft Auto five that I loved.
Speaker 3: There's all the airplanes smuggling games in GTA five. In
Speaker 3: Meddle Gear three, there's the sniper fight against the End,
Speaker 3: which is just across this massive space of lay. This
Speaker 3: guy somewhere in the mountains coming for you, and you've
Speaker 3: you've got a directional mic so you can hear him
Speaker 3: because he's old, he's like one hundred years old, and
Speaker 3: he'll fall asleep and you can hear him snoring, and
Speaker 3: then you have to like find your way up the
Speaker 3: mountain without waking him up to take him out, and
Speaker 3: it can take you know, days to figure it out.
Speaker 3: And oh so that I just it feels so real
Speaker 3: and so I love that, and.
Speaker 2: I love how many clever aspects to the Metal Gear
Speaker 2: franchise there are like that, Like that was a great mission,
Speaker 2: and like another one that comes to mind is like,
Speaker 2: I forget which one you're fighting. I want to say
Speaker 2: it's Vamp and he no psychomantish. Yeah, and you have
Speaker 2: to literally had to take out the controller out of
Speaker 2: your socket and put it into another socket. Yeah, that
Speaker 2: he couldn't control your character, and like, yeah, I thought
Speaker 2: that was so creative.
Speaker 3: Well, he is this guy, he's psychic, so every time
Speaker 3: you fire your boss, he knows it's coming, so he
Speaker 3: just SIPs out of the way and you cannot hit him.
Speaker 3: And then in the original game, you had to unplug
Speaker 3: your controller from port one put it into port too,
Speaker 3: and suddenly he's like, I can't read your mind like this,
Speaker 3: and he oh, no, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: It was really cool, and he would like read your
Speaker 2: memory card. I remember playing that as a kid, and
Speaker 2: you would be like, I see you're playing Super Smash Brothers.
Speaker 4: And how did he know that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, any Konami games that were on your memory card.
Speaker 3: He'd be like, I see you're a fan of Castlevania.
Speaker 3: Oh man, who is this guy?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: The other thing.
Speaker 3: The other thing they did was he goes, I will
Speaker 3: show you my psychic power. Put your controller down on
Speaker 3: a hard surface. So you put it down on your table,
Speaker 3: and then you'd activate the vibration and it would start
Speaker 3: to move across the table by itself, Like I mean
Speaker 3: it was so brilliant.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, so that yeah, Wow, that's one of the
Speaker 3: great ones.
Speaker 2: Really clever. Would you ever write a video game?
Speaker 3: I've talked to people about it. Their feeling is they
Speaker 3: would love to have me write it, but they're not
Speaker 3: used to paying people as much as I get paid
Speaker 3: to write movies and stuff, because in the movies you
Speaker 3: build up quotes and then it's like, well, I'm not
Speaker 3: going to work for less than this, and typically if
Speaker 3: it's a big event, you make a little bit more
Speaker 3: than your quote. You build up your quote. So I've
Speaker 3: been doing it twenty five years, so they don't want
Speaker 3: to pay me. What what you what a big writer?
Speaker 3: Deserves on a big game usually, but I don't know,
Speaker 3: you know, hopefully in the future, maybe some don't come along.
Speaker 2: That is that something like you aspire to do, would
Speaker 2: you want to do it?
Speaker 3: Or is it kind of just saying I feel like, well,
Speaker 3: TV movies, video games, I don't care. As long as
Speaker 3: the story is good and as long as it gets made.
Speaker 3: You know, those are my those are my two favorite things.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I would think, but you know, because because
Speaker 3: you write, yeah, well, because you write, I get I
Speaker 3: get hired to write a lot of movies that don't
Speaker 3: get made because I you know, I come in to
Speaker 3: sort of break big, expensive movies that they're afraid to
Speaker 3: green light, and so most of them they just they're
Speaker 3: too nervous about it, and they the movies just disappear,
Speaker 3: or they hire sixteen more writers or whatnot. So so
Speaker 3: a lot of things you write, you know, and put
Speaker 3: your heart and soul into just get thrown out. And
Speaker 3: that's really heartbreaking. But no, I'd love to write a
Speaker 3: great video game and just create a whole world. And yeah,
Speaker 3: because I you know, like comic books, I love that world.
Speaker 3: Same thing with comic But you know, people have been like,
Speaker 3: you know, would you ever write a comic book? I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: but it would take me forever to do it, and
Speaker 3: and it would you know, they pay them nothing not
Speaker 3: it's not right. Yeah, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: Ouch that that's depressing to me because I love comics
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 3: It's super depressing.
Speaker 1: It's it's shouldn't be that way.
Speaker 3: No, it's it's you know, there's there should be profit
Speaker 3: sharing and and if a comic book becomes huge it
Speaker 3: makes a lot of money, the artists and the writers
Speaker 3: should be compensated. But you know, it's a it's a
Speaker 3: very harsh business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 4: You once is a treaty. Once gave up half of
Speaker 4: your salary so that you could bring back the visional
Speaker 4: voice cast for a game.
Speaker 3: It's almost true. I they when we did the remake
Speaker 3: of Metal Gear Solid for the Nintendo System, Uh, they
Speaker 3: didn't want to bring back the original cast because everybody
Speaker 3: wanted more money. And I was asking for a lot
Speaker 3: more money because I was already now a screenwriter. I
Speaker 3: had lawyers, and you know, I was negotiating other deals
Speaker 3: and yeah, so I said, but I wanted the original
Speaker 3: cast back, So I said, so I wanted like this
Speaker 3: much money. So I said, well, you pay me this
Speaker 3: much money, and they said yeah. So I said, okay, great,
Speaker 3: take take this much off and split that up and
Speaker 3: give it to the rest of the cast so we
Speaker 3: can bring back the main people. So it wasn't half,
Speaker 3: but it was. But it was a good chunk.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I think, just Any's credit, that's incredible that you would
Speaker 4: do that.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, well, you know, it's just well, I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, it was people like Jennifer Hale and Christopher Randolph,
Speaker 3: Paul Hiding. Not only were these my friends, but Jennifer Hale.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have a voiceover career if it weren't for
Speaker 3: Jennifer Ale. She she got me into it, and she
Speaker 3: even claims that she convinced Chris to bring me in
Speaker 3: for Metal Gears. So so I owe everything to Jennifer Ale,
Speaker 3: So you know, I'll do I'll do anything for her
Speaker 3: and and for the others. We're all we're all very close.
Speaker 3: And I was like, you can't replace autocon, you can't
Speaker 3: replace the colonel, Like that's insane, you know. And it
Speaker 3: wasn't that much money.
Speaker 1: It wasn't you know.
Speaker 3: I didn't go broke off off with my large ass
Speaker 3: I just, you know, a little nod towards the success
Speaker 3: of the first game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Chris, would we played this voice Chris.
Speaker 2: On yeah voice swap. Each of you will do a
Speaker 2: character a voice character line. So say you'll do a
Speaker 2: voice a line of snake, and then Jim will repeat
Speaker 2: that line in say Winnie the Pooh, and then vice
Speaker 2: versa will switch back and forth. It's just sure a
Speaker 2: little game we play with each of the guests that
Speaker 2: are on the game.
Speaker 3: A little game, or let's play it. Then let's do
Speaker 3: not go.
Speaker 1: Ahead, you want to give me one of your snaky
Speaker 1: yeah lines and I'll have Pooh say it.
Speaker 3: A strong man doesn't need to read the future. He
Speaker 3: makes his own.
Speaker 1: A strong bear doesn't need to read the future. He
Speaker 1: steals his own.
Speaker 2: Wait, could you do that line as Hondo as well?
Speaker 2: I feel like Honda would say that the.
Speaker 1: Wrong men does not need to read read the future.
Speaker 1: He makes his own. Nice Hondo. You gotta love Honda.
Speaker 3: I loved Hondo. I think I even prefer.
Speaker 1: You don't actually have to love Hondo, but I do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all right. Well let's see then let's.
Speaker 4: Do tika only snakes syed Tika.
Speaker 1: Oh there we go. The wonderful thing about Tiggers, it's
Speaker 1: tiggers are wonderful things.
Speaker 3: The wonderful thing about tiggers is the tiggers are wonderful things.
Speaker 1: You've got a point there. They are pretty wonderful.
Speaker 3: Their bodies are made out of rubber, and their tails
Speaker 3: are made out of springs. Their bouncy, flouncy, jouncy, bouncy
Speaker 3: fun fun, fun, fun fun. But the most wonderful thing
Speaker 3: about tiggers is that I'm the only one. I'm the
Speaker 3: only one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, David Ladies, and I love I love hearing that.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, we've met each other at a couple
Speaker 2: conventions now, and I still can't get over that. Like
Speaker 2: when I hear snake, Like, I've played those games for
Speaker 2: so many hours and it's just like it sends me.
Speaker 1: It sends me every time. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3: It's a weird thing because you know, many grown men
Speaker 3: will burst into tears at my table.
Speaker 1: And isn't that something?
Speaker 3: But you you spend I mean some people spend years
Speaker 3: playing these games, and it's not it's not like watching
Speaker 3: a movie where you're watching Harrison Ford or or you know,
Speaker 3: whomever up on the screen. Doing their thing. It's you you,
Speaker 3: you are the character, you're the player character, but it's
Speaker 3: my voice in your head the whole time. So it's
Speaker 3: a really intimate experience. And like we go through so
Speaker 3: much over the course of the nine games. I did
Speaker 3: you know, there's just so many moments andtional thing and
Speaker 3: it really you know, and people bond with their dads
Speaker 3: or their uncles or brothers whomever over it, and and
Speaker 3: so it really gets woven into their heads. So it's, uh,
Speaker 3: it's a cool kind of fame to have because you know,
Speaker 3: if you don't know metal Gear, you won't know who
Speaker 3: I am. You'll be like, what do you have laryngitis?
Speaker 3: What's your problem?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: But if you do know metal Gear and you and
Speaker 3: you find out, like people just flip out, it's really
Speaker 3: it's very cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. Yeah, Yeah, it's really something. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: remember when the video games were first coming up and
Speaker 1: they were saying, Wow, they're not gonna last, They're not
Speaker 1: gonna last. And I was like, nothing comes yeah, like
Speaker 1: like video itself didn't have videotape, no, no.
Speaker 3: No, monkey yeah yeah, and I gonna catch on.
Speaker 1: It was that it was like nothing comes out changes
Speaker 1: the world then just goes away.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Now, first time I saw Pong, I was like, it
Speaker 3: just exploded in my brain. I was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: that's I can control my TV like that's yeah. Oh god,
Speaker 3: the whole new thing, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean yep, Well, what's what's what's up next
Speaker 2: for you? Do you have anything to plug or anything
Speaker 2: to talk about?
Speaker 1: Were you?
Speaker 3: I mean, everything I do is secret until it comes out.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I hope people are still enjoyed.
Speaker 3: I was the executive producer and executive producer on Warrior
Speaker 3: None on Netflix.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So if you haven't seen that show, there's two pretty
Speaker 3: awesome seasons. In fact, best reviewed seasons of television Netflix history.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: Wow, we had one hundred percent audience score ninety nine
Speaker 3: one hundred percent Rotten Tomatoes ninety nine percent audience score,
Speaker 3: which is yet to be taught.
Speaker 1: Wow. I have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I've got I've got a couple of
Speaker 3: television shows that I'm developing right now with different studios.
Speaker 3: But I but I can't talk about them yet. Okay,
Speaker 3: but things are coming down the road. Just keep an
Speaker 3: eye out for my name and hopefully I'll I'll have
Speaker 3: something for you sooner rather than later.
Speaker 1: Sounds good right on, very very cool. Well, thank you again, brother,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. Gentlemen, this is
Speaker 3: a great conversation. Always great to see you all and
Speaker 3: nice to meet you and and yeah, this is just
Speaker 3: super fun. I'd love to be back sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for being here. Thank you, my pleasure. Sneak out,
Speaker 1: sneak out.
Speaker 4: All right, guys, thanks to check out the last episode
Speaker 4: of Tuned In with Jim Cummings with David Hayter. If
Speaker 4: you're watching this on YouTube, do not forget to hit
Speaker 4: that subscribe button. Give us the thumbs up and comment
Speaker 4: below tell us what you thought of the episode. Jim
Speaker 4: reads all the comments and they are all much appreciated
Speaker 4: Forget to follow us on social media at Jim Cummings
Speaker 4: part on Twitter and Instagram, and if you want to
Speaker 4: get in touch, it is just that Jimcommings Podcast at
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Speaker 4: free access to the show as well as access to
Speaker 4: exclusive bonus content, you can support us on Patreon, Patreon
Speaker 4: dot com, slash Jim Comings Podcast Things Again. David's been
Speaker 4: absolute pleasure.
Speaker 3: Pleasure was on mine thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: What was that, Jim Chris just kidding than you and
Speaker 4: joined the next episode of Tuned In with Jim Cummings.
Speaker 3: That was that was a first called wonder joke.
Speaker 1: Uh that was the middle thing again. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was it. I'm sure I stole it. I think
Speaker 1: we subliminally said I