Making Movies That Last with Producer Sam Pressman
Cam B
[00:00:00]
Arthur: Welcome, everybody, to Pitching Passion. It's such a pleasure to have you Sammy Pressman.
Everyone lives such different lives, and it's of course such a privilege to be able to get an insight into different people's worlds, different industries.
Today
it's a humbling moment and dear listeners-
Getting people's time
Everyone's busy, today Sammy very kindly gonna be telling us about
The world of film. Sam runs Pressman Film.
Pressman was founded in 1969. It's made over 100 films with over two billion in global box office revenue, adjusted for inflation. They have been behind films that will bring memories back to you and make you
Think about quite a few things. So American Psycho, Badlands, Wall Street, The Crow and was founded by Sammy's father, Edward Pressman, who is quoted as being the producer of the decade.
So a lot to think about. Sammy, how do films serve people?
Sammy: Roger Ebert called cinema a dream machine. And [00:01:00] when you think about going back to
The earliest films, the idea of being able to replicate reality and project it on a screen such that you're seeing from a perspective or a place that maybe you've never been and will never go to the ability to put yourself in the shoes
Of a character.
And in the words of Neil Young, "I fell in love with an actress. She was playing a role that I could understand."
There's something about movies that allows us to have empathy for stories and characters that we might not normally have any access to. So I think film lives in this sort of collective unconscious for the last 100 plus years of its existence, serves a very beautiful and vital role in society that I we'd be remiss to forget.
Arthur: your father said films always matter.
It's hard to fully get a
Total clear idea of
What it's [00:02:00] like to grow up with a father in film and how that impacts you
What do you feel he meant by that?
Sammy: My father, came of age in the 1960s when the discourse was very political.
He was very inspired by the Beat generation
And he was a philosophy major after actually studying at London School of Economics he made his first short film here in London
it was a almost proto music video to The Beatles song Girl. And it told the story of two strangers walking towards each other in a park and living out their whole life as if they were to,
Fall in love and get married and have a child, and then fall out of love and move away from one another.
And then they walk past each other, and then look back, and that's the end of the [00:03:00] film. And,
I think off of a short film, he got a three-picture deal with a studio, with the director he'd partnered with, Paul Williams. And
It was a time where independent film had not really been defined.
Independent film was in its formation, and he was looking to the,
Italian neorealists and French New Wave, Nouvelle Vague, and looking to cinema as a place to exchange ideas.
Films matter because they inform the conversations we have,
Across culture and across class and across societies.
So to him, making movies
was something he loved
And,
both the process of and,
the impact and the conversations cogitate.
Arthur: As a producer, you have skin in the game.
- There's things at stake if films [00:04:00] don't get seen, as it were.
But, There's something extraordinary with the concept of,
Someone making a film and not knowing maybe you'll disagree with this, but not necessarily knowing,
How it's gonna be received
Do you find it funny, that relationship?
There must be people who are top of their game,
Like yourself
who,
Who even though they've been behind amazing projects still-
... Have these unexpected hits or things that- Yeah ... there's
So much that,
Is uncontrollable, right?
Sammy: Yeah,
There's many metrics or definitions of success.
I don't think all producers today go into a movie,
with the goal of it having the greatest reach of audience. I think there's unfortunately a lot of films that are made to take advantage of tax schemes to reduce a very wealthy person's tax liabilities there's a component to the industry right now where I'm not sure that [00:05:00] people are making the films with the goal of-
impacting culture having a massive success. I think there's no way of knowing what, what will connect. I met you through your cousin Monica, who was my assistant at one time.
incredible work right now. I don't know if we can talk about it. But
I brought her and the whole company, we went to work on a film that Gus Van Sant directed down in Louisville, Kentucky called Dead Man's and the film was just a joy to make, right? Gus was born in Louisville, and the whole crew was so inspired to be working with Gus, who made,
Good Will Hunting, and Elephant, and Milk, just throughout his career has made such indelible images and stories
And launched the careers of actors [00:06:00] like Ben Affleck, and River Phoenix, and Matt Damon, At a certain point,
The experience of making the film
Is one and you know that you're employing,
hundreds or thousands of people as a producer.
On one hand, you're having this very tenuous experience of watching money. You know- ... you're putting money i- into light-
Arthur: Yeah
Sammy: yeah
burning
burning it. Yeah. Yeah.
Arthur: It
Sammy: Yeah. You just wa-
Time, everyone is there,
And on one hand, how amazing
That we get to create this imaginary community. But
Then there's the experience
Of crafting all of what you captured into a film, and there's a joy to that process.
And the editor, Saar Klein, who is an amazing man
Used every bit of the carcass.
He took the stills of the photographer on set and put them in the film. He found original documentary footage 'cause [00:07:00] it's based on the true life
It's a crazy story really about a man who took the son of his mortgage company hostage with wire around his neck connected to a shotgun with, made demands
Arthur: of $5 million and
Sammy: I'm digressing to say you, you make the movie before you put it together. You raise the money, you build a team. Then you make it in person, and you build,
This brief fleeting alliance to try to make something meaningful. You go to post-production, you take all that, you make a film again. That's its own creative process. And then in its release and its marketing and its distribution
it's a whole nother mountain that you- Yeah ... climb as a producer. And then where it really lives is in audiences' minds, right?
Movies last in our,- Yeah ... brains
For far longer than,
the experience of producing the movie.
Success on that film to me was defined by the [00:08:00] experience of making it
the,
Release of the film at the Venice Film Festival and Toronto Film Festival, and then its theatrical release got our investors most of their money back, almost all of it. And so
The box office not being what you wanted it to be-
Not finding the audience in theaters can feel like a failure, but then it's coming on Netflix at the end of May, and how many countless million people will watch it without paying for a movie ticket?
We made a really great film.
We had an amazing time doing it.
And
everyone
fell in love with Monica. Yeah. In that sense,
Arthur: Being involved in a film,
A- as you say, there are so many... It's...
I was thinking here you pr-
Y-
Your ti- title on a film might be producer, but yeah, y- ... mountain climber could be equally appropriate.
So many things to wrestle with, relationships, projects, funds, problems, [00:09:00] opportunities. Is it weird the concept that you
Make a film and
everyone is gonna relate to it slightly differently, right? And it's gonna live in people's memory in a slightly different way.
Is it weird
do you have that sense of wanting to understand more about that and just
gain more insight into, how these films get perceived, received what it gives people?
Sammy: It's a good question. I think the role of the producer is to protect and nurture the dream of the director and the writer, right?
If there was an ember that was the idea that it starts with and it grows into a flame, how do you keep all of the winds that will,
push against that vision and keep the flame lit so that when the audience receives it, there's some
spirit still in the image?
I don't know that the job is to think about how it will be [00:10:00] received so much as making sure
That initial idea, that initial spark of passion- Yeah
lasts
And in some sort of alchemical, magical way, that's then received by an audience and made true
Or experienced in its own way by an audience, right?
I don't know, what's a
what's a favorite film of yours that you have
A relationship with or that
you can think about and it sparks a moment in your
life story?
Arthur: True Romance is a-
... Is a particular favorite.
Sammy: Such a great film. I j- I saw it- Yeah ... in,
Hollywood Forever. It's a movie series they do in a cemetery
In Hollywood. Wow.
Everyone puts out blankets brings wine and,
Arthur: Speaking of blanket, where's our blanket?
Yeah. But do you get a sense of frustration in that,
People... Your films will
Move so many people, and it'll bring them so many different feelings.
Do you feel like you wanna meet people? Is it frustrating to you that you [00:11:00] can't hear every story
On
The emotions that it triggers for people, the ideas that it gives?
Sammy: Can I read you an exchange of messages with a friend of mine from high school- Yeah
from yesterday? Yeah,
Arthur: 100%.
Sammy: I
Was attacked by him last night.
Arthur: Attacked by him?
Sammy: The film was attacked by him- Oh ... more that, So he goes,
"Jesus Christ,
the point of view of Dead Man's Wire, ha, I just watched. Crazy."
I write
back, "You enjoyed?" Question mark. He goes,
It's a fun watch, but the idea behind it as I read it makes me nervous in
time
like today." I say, "I'm in London right now. Very fucked up times."
And he
says, "Yeah, just like it does
kinda say
that the finance family is evil
deserves
what they
got,
and the vigilante is morally right and took a stand for all of us. It invalidates the Pacino line which hit me so hard, that you're no man unless you're working to provide for your family.
I thought that was [00:12:00] so good, but then it invalidates his position." And it goes on. But we had a interesting debate about
Where we are at culturally right now.
And in a certain way, film hopefully can be a place where you have safe a safe space to debate and disagree, right?
We have to be able to speak about what feel and think about.
And sometimes
A film, right? That's a film that takes place in the 1970s,
almost 50 years ago. It's not what we are living, but we can speak to
The moral parable within it and disagree. I think he's coming from a place of concern for,
Hate of the other sparking violence.
And I think there's a lot of [00:13:00] rage a lot of it righteous and maybe justified today. But what Gus was making was a film
to inspire debate, right? In
mind,
no one is a villain and no one is a
hero. They're
all flawed characters within the story, But all characters capable and worthy of love, and these two people very much at odds with one another. Bill Skarsgård has taken Dacre Montgomery hostage, so they're stuck in this space together.
Yeah, I'm, I might not agree with what my friend and what his reading of the film was. But I loved hearing it, so I don't,
I don't have a problem with-
Someone interpreting something different maybe the author intended. Yeah.
Arthur: I've written some things down that,
Films seem to do.
They help you question things, understand parts of your life, see hope, see vision, see dreams, have dreams [00:14:00] created, understand the other people, reflect on history, reflect on society, question narratives, spur ideas, escape, connect, reconnect, connect to others
Challenge and form opinions.
What are we missing
From us? All of the above.
Yeah.
Sammy: No
that's, I love all the things That's like a poem.
Arthur: It's almost impossible to
Truly understand,
How...
w- you know
when we watch a film like yours,
You see the full product. It's but you don't see the hundreds of challenges in making that. You also don't see,
The raw bones, the script,
We haven't been through that situation
Constantly
Seeing and,
Being sent so many scripts. "Oh, hey,"
"Please can you read this?" "Oh, thank goodness." "Hey. Yeah, sure, why not? Oh, this one's great. Yeah, why not?"
And being able to see the opportunity in these scripts.
Do you find it frustrating that and pressurizing, the concept of reading a script and seeing opportunities, but it being difficult to,
Dig out
The best of that? Yeah,
Sammy: My father would say, [00:15:00] "Every movie is a miracle," which I love because each part of the process is so fraught with challenges.
What you start with mutates and mutates.
I was trying to explain
The way that you make the film,
You formulate the blueprint and raise the money to... The script is like the architecture,
you know-
It's the blueprint-
and
the plan, and you pay a little bit to, to visualize
And ideate, and then you have to raise a significantly higher amount of capital to then start building the building.
And then you have to
Give it the flourish
And the kind of fine,
the details and the molding.
That's like the editing-
In a way.
And
then you have to market it,
Whether it's a residential house, you have to get people to buy or rent [00:16:00] it, or if it's
commercial space, you have to get people to move in and use it.
So it's-
It's like you're building across all the films, like a city
Of dreams. Because it's very immaterial. It's all ideas. It's all captured in light, and then screened through light, and then absorbed through our eyes into our brain, and it lives
In a immaterial space. But it's such a physical,
tangible product, is so fascinating I think, like, how many jobs are there where you craft a cultural commodity that's built by a team of scores of people? it's quite miraculous.
Arthur: It seems like a big
Focus for you
And care is how one can foster a community behind film. And
what's so fascinating is,
As your father said,
F- films are miracles.
And I love the [00:17:00] analogy and, in the fact that you talk about how,
Films consider in our subconscious, but yet they're physical things.
There's so much blood, sweat, and tears that have been,
Lost Yeah
And shed to make these amazing films. But there is still huge detachment from viewers.
When you watch a film, fine, you get so much
and everyone's got different experiences. It'll bring back memories that are unique to us all, and we- everyone's got different childhoods but it seems like in a world with the internet there's so much opportunity For people
To really dig deep into these characters.
And you do see it sometimes in,
Lord of the Rings, for example.
People come
Learn the language and there are, amazing resources.
What do you feel like the future of film will do
And TV in terms of being able to reconnect
In a way that potentially is,
o-
offers
A huge opportunity to make more money
For these fantastic-
Productions, but also just gets people more hyped? Yeah, no, I think
Sammy: We have to, as film producers, figure out a way to [00:18:00] entice audiences to, to engage you think of... I was having a great conversation yesterday. Yeah, I love being in London. People really like to,
Have tea and sit down and talk for a while.
I think that we live in a time where,
like
our attention spans are definitely contracted. Contracted both in the sense that
They're shorter, but also,
like
we've made this deal with
The iPhone in our hands to constantly-
Pay attention to something,
That's not here between us, but is down in our,
a mirror that-
Takes us somewhere else.
And so
How we choose to engage in a focused manner and to create time is...
it-
It's quite funny that,
Someone'll binge 12 episodes of a TV series over a weekend, but then thinking,
Two hours [00:19:00] is a hard time to unplug from your phone, and you're, like, incapable of just-
Putting the phone away. But that's one of the most amazing things about theater or operas or musicals or films.
You're in space with a group of people, often strangers, and you're watching the same phenomena
And it's almost happening to you.
It's... The media is,
being beamed into you as an individual, and it's the same thing that everyone is watching, but everyone is experiencing it differently f- from the context and from wherever they arrive to sit in that chair.
And I think it's...
i'm not afraid that we will not have film as a cinematic experience in the future. I think there's a validity to it as an art form that in some ways [00:20:00] spiritual- Or just entertaining. But yeah, how we as producers, filmmakers create work that sparks conversation seems to be something the industry is
slightly struggling with.
There's a pervasive
negative narrative, especially in Hollywood,
because there's just less films being made in the studio systems. And,
you look at the rise of YouTube and-
all the social media platforms, whether it be TikTok these new formats like everyone's talking about verticals, which are just long form vertical programming short episodes.
And all of this,
Challenges
This belief that film is,
the, pantheon as an art form. But I don't think that one or the other. I think that they both are going to [00:21:00] continue to coexist and this new media that is not movies, but is motion pictures pervasive.
It's everywhere.
so I, I think how filmmakers galvanize community and create value for the people giving their time, right? Creating
creating
their own merch- ... buying merch, and choosing to wear,
A character or a film that they identify with
that is the most valuable thing for us as filmmakers
film
producers, right?
The time that fandom gives and the meaning that fandom gives to the work of the artist.
So
I think there are lots of ways that we should look to do that
in
the near future and beyond
To make it more profitable and to make it more valuable for everyone
In the value chain, from the investors-
[00:22:00] Down to the fans. And we're working on a few different systems that we think could augment the way we value film by
Giving a tangible quality to the engagement of fandom, right?
It's more than just a movie ticket when you love a movie.
You,
engage with it in so many different ways- And right now we have this like
Amnesia that,
A24, which is the coolest company out there right now, they're just like making movies that spark conversation.
But,
The movie's there,
Two months it's all anybody talks about.
And then it's like we, we move on from it. Yeah. And I don't know what we can do exactly to extend that life and extend that conversation.
Arthur: So interesting.
A-
the and
We need to dig into,
The characters you love.
Maybe,
Characters you've read about in a script that haven't end up,
Being on the screen or indeed maybe some of
The big characters we know. But [00:23:00] a character I'm a huge fan of, and everyone's probably got their sort of niche things that
They're
Obsessed by but Dwight Schrute in The US Office.
Yeah.
I don't know, he's just, he just hits me in a way that,
Can't seem to be hit.
It seems like there's so much
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Arthur: opportunity for the film world to embrace that relationship, and it does feel like this detachment, right? You buy a cinema ticket.
The producers don't know who you are.
Is there no information share? Why is there no like incentive for you to share your email? And
Oh, like by the way, we're gonna do some drops for,
You can have the chance of,
Winning the
Be able to buy one of 10 [00:24:00] items that are replica of the suit,
From this character, et cetera, et cetera.
Or even
There must be forms, things that are exciting about where the future can go in terms of building that relationship with people. So
Chatbots, we could have chatbots about that really delve into linking you to a character-
Do you feel any of that's relevant or true?
Sammy: Yeah, definitely. I think yeah, the idea of
Fan credit's a space where,
You being an early believer in a project, you know. I'm a big believer that blockchain has incredible potential to
Cohere
And coalesce community, and film as an engine that creates community.
A lot of crypto has been
Maligned as the land of schemers and con artists and rug pullers.
Which is unfortunate because what it's trying to do is create
[00:25:00] another
economic system where we can value,
An,
a-
a cultural
Or technological object. And so if- If being a part of
A membership or a reward system entitles you to exactly what you're throwing out, like one of 10 Dwight's
pencils-
Yeah.
Or,
Patrick Bateman's Oliver Peoples,
Now.
Thank you, Ta-da. But,
And there's a value to that.
If having that thing entitles you to experiences, whether that's
walking the red carpet
or-
or even visiting a set having
A unique engagement with the actors that you love. Perhaps you were an early believer and someone else jumps on the train later and wants to have access that you have.
And that might be worth money. And then you selling your early,
Fan credit could earn you money, right? Your [00:26:00] taste could earn you money if there was an actual demand to be a part of IP, but it's very challenging.
Arthur: But but also,
Challenging as well from that budget perspective.
But this is where AI could be quite useful in that...
dead Man's Whine,
It's, such an incredible film
in
that you really feel like you are in that time of-
When it's being made. And there'll be people who watch that film that want to know the gossip or the backstory, the character-
They had to switch the tie for this reason. All these like hundreds of stories that are like quite difficult to manage probably and package and give to people. But
Do you think that there is a world where,
People can pay to have a bit of insight into the deep goss and in a way that's manageable for the producers to
Create these ecosystems that build that relationship further the people that jump on and get the excitement once they've watched the film rather than the
Early people who knew about the film, et cetera?
Sammy: Yeah. There, there's
Yeah, there are people trying to figure that out for sure,
How to allow access and engagement,
right?
That's what [00:27:00] YouTubers and TikTokers,
are doing such a great job
of-
is they're directly in conversation with their community.
There's a speed to their cycle of production that is very different from film.
We might spend a year and a half, two years-
From when it starts to when it actually is made public. So is there a way of bringing the audience into that like you're talking
about?
I shot the behind the scenes movies on two films Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant, and then Matt Brown's The Man Who Knew Infinity, which we shot.
Here in London and Oxford and Cambridge. experience being on that set. And so I've always,
From being a little kid on the set of movies to my 20s shooting behind the scenes on those films,
Felt like there's First, film sets can be incredibly [00:28:00] boring, right? You're spending a lot of time to create a facsimile of reality, right?
A lot of effort goes into making something feel natural.
Monica, your darling cousin, brought a Super 8 camera to set in Louisville and was just like,
Shooting random things,
Popping off behind the scenes moments. But there was one part of what she shot that actually ended up in the movie,
Where there was an interview on screen going on of a journalist within the movie and she shot it.
And in a way, the quality of the Super 8 film felt like it was timeless and from the 1970s. And so
That little shot has a whole story and a whole kind of from that one clip that lasts,
A second and a half in the [00:29:00] movie,
There's three hours of Monica's footage, which is the insights of,
A young person on set making friends and gaining,
A family over a two-month period of time in a city she'd never been to.
And so
That's a story. And John Robinson, who was the star of Gus's movie Elephant, is a really terrifying and beautiful film, he brought his own camera and he shot,
behind the scenes moments and interviews with Gus. And he played a small role in the film, but he played a massive role as
Gus's friend and all of our sort of amazing guy and shot
10 hours of footage and has added that into three-hour
super cut.
And so there's all of these things that a film creates [00:30:00] that somehow are not in the movie itself. And it feels like there would be a great opportunity to share that with audiences and give them
More access and a larger world to engage with than just the two hours or
Arthur: speaking of
People wanting more and f- forgive the ignorance as s- someone who hasn't produced films and been too much part of that world.
But there must be, as a producer,
A sense of you wanting to get answers to your own questions in life and also
Get messages pushed out more that you believe that are really important. We're in a moment right now. Looking ahead, are there messages or
things you
want to really shed light into the world- from this moment?
Sammy: That's
a good question. Love. What
Arthur: that?
Sammy: Yeah, I'd love to... I'd love for the films to
help us,
help me Now
it's interesting. A friend of mine just sent me a [00:31:00] script set in New York City, and it's
A Jewish and a Muslim,
A, two friends who grew up together, and
see
their story at three different times in their life.
And,
What it wants to
do is give a space for people to talk about
a topic
that people are really struggling to find common ground and a language to, not offend or hurt the other side
It seems like there's very little room for that.
I wish...
I loved the script.
I
read the script
it doesn't fully,
work, but from the pitch and from
The idea of it, I was like, "Oh, I wanna make that film."
We're making a film based
on a
by Edward Abbey called The Monkey Wrench Gang, which is from the 1970s and is about sort of radical environmentalists.
But it's not polemical. [00:32:00] fun. It's entertaining, and it makes you think about and love
the wilderness
And
the great outdoors, which is something that shouldn't be political.
We
should all
just appreciate-
Yes,
the Earth we live in, we share, and is something to be protected. So again, with that film, I hope we can spark conversation
And
the ability for people to find common ground together, opposed to feeling so oppositional and so Divorced
Arthur: Yeah, it's, I guess in many ways, films can fill so many information gaps about the world,
things that we don't have that are possible to get, or things-
That
M- maybe reminds us of things that we do have, or complexities around navigating unique situations where you've,
Got
arguments with people.
Speaking of people, one can't help but think about
How much of your [00:33:00] world is around managing people, meeting people, working out,
What people are like.
So many stakeholders. And of course, so many beautiful moments of
share,
Love for people who you meet.
You, you see these
great traits. And then so many challenging pos- you know, situations as well for various reasons with all these moving parts. What do you feel is the biggest privilege being, doing what
You're doing
i-
in terms of people? But we can equally
Move on to the other point, which is it must be quite difficult to manage your energy and your time.
Because when you're in LA,
A lot of people want your time, attention. They want things from you. How do you protect yourself from that and make sure, "Hey, this guy's important too. You've gotta protect him"?
Sammy: I think there's two... Yeah, so yeah, both are really interesting questions. I'm I have
A beautiful partner, Bianca, who we,
work [00:34:00] together.
we're married in November. And,
Not always focusing on work
Is,
Finding time to just be us-
And away from my phone
Is something that,
I strive to do. But having people that are true-
Sorry. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I hope we didn't lose you.
No we're
Arthur: good.
Sammy: Yeah, I think having people that you genuinely enjoy as friends, as your collaborators
Is a real privilege. We're a small kind of family company
and that philosophy
And emotional connectivity is something that we have with our collaborators as well.
By doing that, it makes
The
onus of interpersonal relationships feel like, a pleasure.
But by nature, there are always problems.
So finding ways to be
Balanced
And deal with the problems and [00:35:00] realize that most of the time when there is dissonance it's not for lack of trying, right? We just all have our own flaws, all have things go in
ways
that we didn't to go.
And so how do we respond to that? How do we
find a way to respect that the given is the problem, and the problem can actually open up a new solution, right? That, that it's not just about things going the way that one wants them to go.
It's understanding that it's like a river flowing around a rock. just keep moving. Yeah. '
Cause you can't go...
Colman Domingo in Dead Man's Wire has a line where " The river is always moving. You can never go back to the same point in the [00:36:00] river," right?
Lamenting that you had to go around the rock doesn't change the fact that you passed the rock, right? So-
...You may have wanted to go over it, and you went-
To the side of it, but that's what happened, so you may as well
Embrace that now you're downriver past the rock. I don't know. just have to work together.
Arthur: Yeah. Oh, wow, that... So many n- lovely messages
Around that. How
clearly,
Working with people you like is, really helps you.
And,
Sammy: What was the first question?
Arthur: first question was I guess the,
The privilege of being able to with, all
Sammy: Yeah.
That- ... I think that's, they're, I guess they're connected.
Arthur: Yeah.
Sammy: That
The beauty is trying to merge those two things of-
That every film, you're learning from. Every interaction, you're from.
Akin to what you get to do with everyone you interview. Everyone has their own reality-
And you get to dive into that however long you [00:37:00] sit with in a movie, it's
The
same. You're,
choosing something that you're gonna invest yourself in and learn about, right?
That Man Who Knew Infinity was a film about a mathematician in,
the early 1900s. had no idea about any Hardy was learning Ramanujan, and that's so that with every movie and then there are all the people in that, and you get to learn from them and learn who they are.
the great being-
A producer. And if we look at,
Arthur: LA,
I- LA's an extraordinary place,
For different reasons the dreams that get made the creativity, and
the enthusiasm. People are very
Yeah,
Friendly.
It's a very seductive environment. It's
unbelievable weather. You got the palm trees.
It's just truly extraordinary.
You come across all sorts of
People who are fighting ruthlessly hard to make their dreams come true,
And it's [00:38:00] just taken time, and things have not...
the plants have be- been yet to emerge-
To grow. And then you've also...
you'll know
people
who are incredibly well-known. And it must be interesting to reflect on how everyone's got their challenges, right? We all have different things, and it's not-
Always immediately obvious
what we all need to be happy, right?
What are your reflections on, meeting so many different people? 'Cause it's,
What you, one starts to hear is,
The, once you make
It's not like the answers are all there. Sure. So
Do you have
Something there that
you feel is...
Sammy: I think you keep...
You have to have that continued inquisitive engagement with it, right?
If you're
purely results oriented,
That whole idea that there's the putting together of the blueprint, and then there's the building, and then details, and then there's the filling the building.
If each of those parts of the process can be fulfilling in themselves-
Even if you don't... It's
incredibly [00:39:00] frustrating trying to move from phase one, where you're getting a script written and building an imaginary world, to phase two, where you have the money- To make that thing become real.
The vast majority of ideas never progress to be made.
So many films are unfinished. They're just-
Still imaginary scripts that never-
Were lensed. And I think people become jilted by and discouraged by those sort of unrealized dreams. And what I take from my father's lessons are just to continue to be persistent. The only times he would get mad at was when I was
Doubting myself myself down as if it was an individual failure when something didn't go-
As I wanted. And I think,
All of us are [00:40:00] going through our own dramas
And have our own tragedies that we have to overcome, remembering that we're all going through life and we're all facing and most people
Hold that in and might not share it. I think Los Angeles is a city where both present the narrative that they want people to perceive them as, and also a city that
really quickly shares its problems.
But yeah, it's
A city of people who want to aspire to something and something often creative, whether that's music scene or the arts or film. So I don't know.
It's hard to know how to stay positive other than to recognize the negative is [00:41:00] always going to be there, so the more that we can will, ourselves towards not feeling defeated, the more that
Arthur: and this marvelous thing your father said was around how, that there's enough challenges. Don't make yourself challenge. Yeah. Don't be your own worst enemy. Yeah. That doesn't make sense. It's not gonna help you.
Sammy: Yeah.
Arthur: Yeah. You sit here as a man so informed about the film there are so many amazing things that
You've experienced-
And seen. If you were to push people to force them to watch- Five films
What would they
Sammy: be? question.
I really love Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire. film about angels living amongst us who can hear our internal one of them falls in love with a
woman who's
in the realm of the real and is a fallen angel. [00:42:00] Angels live,
for as long
they're...
It's just a beautiful, poetic film. Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, exceptional movie. I had the chance to work on the film as a PA. If you haven't seen Terrence Malick's films, just transcendental meditations life-affirming, spirit-affirming. My father made his first film, Badlands.
amazing film as well. But Tree of Life is great. I think a film like The Sweet Smell of Success is a great New York story. Al- also an inspiration, I'll go
To Wall Street. There's a couple scenes that Oliver Stone pulled
Directly from The Sweet Smell of Success. Wall Street is an incredible I'm in the movie, in my mother's pregnant belly.
But you don't see [00:43:00] me on screen. Yeah, I think there was a film that really impacted me. It's a late silent era film called The Man with a Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov.
Arthur: Which you watched at university, is
Sammy: that right? Yeah. I watched it in the first... my fall semester right upon entering in a silent film class.
I'd
Eschewed the idea that I would go into film. My parents met on a a brilliant actress
Forgoed her
career to be an amazing mother. And she,
Both
encouraged me to dream big, but
To,
go after whatever it was that I desired. And for the most part, the thought was that wouldn't be film, not go backwards, but to find something of my own.
But then I saw this film, The Man with a Movie Camera, and it was... it's just an opus of, of- [00:44:00]What film can do in trying to make, apparent,
civilized existence
Or the way that we are all connected and using the motion picture
As an art form of connectivity. And we could make movies like that to help us appreciate the miracle of
Arthur: A lot to reflect on there. wow. Quite the storyteller. Yeah. Quite the storyteller.
Sammy: You inspire me, Arthur.
Arthur: we're gonna move to the quick-fire questions. Yeah. favorite scene in any film?
Sammy: Singing in the
It's Like,
singing in the rain.
A character from a- Gene, Gene Kelly's dance in that is just so-
Arthur: Yeah ...
Sammy: joyful. Yeah. A c-
Arthur: A character from a film you could meet, who would it be?
Sammy: I'd like to meet Alex DeLarge Clockwork Orange.
Box [00:45:00] him
Arthur: one thing you could add to your bucket list today, what would that be?
Sammy: I'm split between someday having a child someday winning some marvelous different one. Selfless purely
Arthur: egoic. One thing that's in for you right now and one thing that's out for
Sammy: one thing that's in for me- is that I'm a married man
idea of what that holds And one thing that's out for me unkind. very little patience can't themselves to understand someone else going
Arthur: One thing [00:46:00] would like to bring more gratitude to yourself for that you give or do
Sammy: I'd like to be kind to myself on how hard I do work, 'cause I think there's always work that isn't complete. so I find if there's one negative loop,
what isn't being again, it's
about recognizing
You
don't force
your will
is upon reality, in my mind.
There there's just such so many uncontrollable things, and we only have so much
Allowing ourselves find our way through it, knowing that the work will still be there on the other side. allowing time
not
always be productive.
Arthur: Yeah, it's funny because in a world, there's such opportunity and,
[00:47:00] Productivity's, for sure,
Produces so many great things for people, for us, for ourselves.
But
Do,
you
get a bit confused by how
Life just does have these different components and
not
just about being, maybe the be-
The best film producer. It's also, like-
... You've
got myriad of things.
Sammy: Yeah. Totally.
Let me ask the second to last question what would be grateful
Arthur: thinking, thinking about people who I know at random moments-
Who I haven't seen for a while just serves me in ways I... A- and I'll... serves other people as well in, in ways I probably maybe don't appreciate enough.
Sammy, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much.
[00:48:00]
