The Magic Of Creativity And Courage In Storytelling

Jeffrey Madoff: This is Jeffrey Madoff, and welcome to our podcast called Anything and Everything with my partner, Dan Sullivan.
 
Dan Sullivan: Hi, everybody. It's Dan Sullivan, and I'm in Chicago today, and Jeff Madoff is safely in New York. And this is the next episode of Anything and Everything. And just before we came on, Jeff and I were talking about what makes a great movie story, probably a story anywhere, but movies in particular. Well, first of all, it has to have some sort of magic to it. And the other thing is that there's a timeless quality to what the characters are doing, such that you can relate to it even if the movie was made generations ago.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, I think that's what defines a classic. You know, a classic is something, whether it's a style, whether it's a piece of furniture, or whether it's a movie or a play, a classic is something by definition, stands the test of time.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I was just watching, there was a great documentary on the making of Casablanca. You know, it was really interesting because everybody said they didn't know they had a winner. They knew this was number 50 that they were working on at that time. This was MGM and they would have 50 to 60 movie productions going at the same time. We can't really comprehend how massive these studio capabilities were back in the old days because the studios, there are no studios today, except in a building. Yeah, their offices. Yeah, their offices. And, you know, they might have some area where they're shooting and everything else. But these were like GM, you know, I mean, MGM and Paramount and Warner Brothers. These were like General Motors. These were like the big automakers in the day. Right. And they process people, they process talent, they process stories a lot in the same shape. And Sam Goldwyn, who's the G in MGM, good for a lot of great one-liners. And someone came to him and said, you know, your movies are very entertaining, but they don't have a message. And he said, you know, I'm in show business. If I want to send a message, I'll go to Western Union. And I'd just like to pick up on that statement by Sam Goldwyn that was that if it's a great story, people get their own messages. You don't have to send them a message. And I've always been disappointed in Steven Spielberg because he doesn't trust the audience to get the point of the movie. So if you think of Saving Private Ryan, at the end, he's got a little add-on to the movie where he kind of explains what it was all about. And then at the end of Schindler's List, you know, I think it's in Jerusalem. The cemetery there, right? The cemetery. Well, Schindler, no, it's the… I don't know if it's a cemetery or not, but the final thing. And then he has to make sure he dots the I's and crosses the T's that you knew what the story was about. And I think that we would remember his movies a lot more if he just left off the last five minutes. Because he's trying to send a message. But the movie was incredibly entertaining. Right. Is that because he doesn't trust the audience? I can't understand why he does that because he's extraordinarily gifted.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: You know, it's interesting because what changed my mind about him, because I wasn't particularly interested in the kind of movies he was making. I could see the imagination, the storytelling, the direction, and all of that, but they just didn't touch me. And then I think the first one that did was Munich, the movie Munich. And then Schindler's List, and I thought, wow, he's now making, instead of movies for kids that are very well crafted, he's tackling adult topics. And they were incredibly well done. And I don't know whether it's that he didn't trust his audience. I don't think that's the case. But I do think that he shifted the way he addresses his audiences. And I think that the underlinings that you're talking about, maybe he would look at it as, no, this is a coda for the story. And this is, you know, what happened at the end. They didn't want to just leave it hanging there. I don't know. I could see that as a part of it, too, that it didn't just end there. We need to remember it. That's probably the message of Schindler's List, right? We need to remember what happened.
 
Dan Sullivan: But I was thinking if he made Casablanca when the Ingrid Bergman character takes off with her husband in the plane and Humphrey Bogart's left, who was the great actor who played the French Louis Claude Rains. Yeah, the Invisible Man. Yes. Yeah, very young Claude Rains. He says, well, Louis, I think this is going to be the beginning of a great friendship, because both of them would have to flee after this, you know, they would have to leave. His bar would be gone, Rick's bar would be gone, and the policeman would have to, you know, he killed the Nazi commander, and he would have to run. And then they just left it, and they just left it. It was just very abrupt. You know, the love story didn't work out. You know, the larger events of the world were taking over again. And everything, it just struck me how great that was. And then you really had to think it through. And when somebody else tries to think it through for me, I don't like it.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah. You know, it makes me think of an episode in the Sopranos, Tony Soprano's therapist gets mugged in the parking garage where her car is. And it's, you know, some pizza delivery guy and Tony finds out who it is. And at the end of the episode, it was, you know, that he finds out who it is. Yeah. Well, then it was never addressed again. And I actually liked that. Yeah. Because not everything gets wrapped up in life.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, not only that, but you know what happened next.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, certainly he wasn't making deliveries after it.
 
Dan Sullivan: He gives you the materials to write the rest of the story. True. Yeah, especially a pizza delivery guy. I mean, you know, his career is about to come to a very abrupt end.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Abrupt end, yes. But we don't see it and it's not even talked about. And I like things that aren't wrapped up so neatly because life doesn't wrap things up so neatly. Yeah. And so I, you know, enjoy that. I think it's fun or provocative in a good way and makes you think about it. What do you think happened? Why didn't they, you know, that sort of thing, which I think is good. But, you know, Casablanca, I wanted to mention the person who was going to do the lead in it, because I think casting is a huge, huge part of the success of a movie. And I love the stories about who they originally tried to get, but didn't get for whatever reason, was Ronald Reagan. And I forget who the female was. Susan Hayworth. Well, she is great. Yeah, he wasn't.
 
Dan Sullivan: He went on to greater things, you know.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yes, yes. Yeah. You know, it's funny because how much of it? Well, a story and script is huge, but you cast it wrong and it kills you. You know, and I think there are certain films that's really interesting that it takes a concentrated effort on the part of the actor to break out of being typecast. You know, when Sean Connery didn't want to do any more James Bond, even while he was under contract, before he didn't renew, he was doing some really interesting movies in England, like The Offense, where he plays a detective. He arrests a child molester, but he sees himself in that child molester, and he did really pithy, interesting parts. So when he finally did leave James Bond and that franchise he was able to do other movies and he was accepted as a terrific actor. You know, Johnny Weissmuller was only going to be Tarzan, right? Although when we were kids, he had the TV series Jungle Jim, if you remember that. I never watched that one. I had to watch it once to realize that I didn't need to watch it again either.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, the other thing was that he firmly put his stamp on that role. So no other Tarzan really worked after Johnny Weissmuller.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: And he made so many of them, too. There are a lot of them, but yeah, he certainly wasn't my favorite Tarzan, but he kind of elevated that role, I guess, if you could call it such. But it's interesting, just like, you know, there are certain iconic actors because of the parts they played, like when Margaret, my wife, watches Basil Rathbone play Sherlock Holmes, to her, it's like she's watching a documentary. You know what I mean? He's Sherlock Holmes. And there have been some wonderful reinterpretations of that character, but he's kind of the one. And actually, it really upset him because he wanted to do other roles. And Conan Doyle, who wrote Sherlock Holmes, actually killed off Sherlock Holmes because he was so sick of writing him. And he had to bring him back to life. He went over some waterfall and had to bring him back to life because of the public demand was so high.
 
Dan Sullivan: Writes him back, writes him back false.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Oh, really? So you knew that? Good.
 
Dan Sullivan: I've read all the stories three times at like decades apart. They're great stories. I mean, the Sherlock Holmes stories are really great. And they're formulaic. And they started off as a newspaper series. He wouldn't give you the entire book. He would give you chapter by chapter, became incredibly popular and then he would put them into books you know and his success was there but you know you really wanted to write serious books in this character, and it took over it, was a bit like Gilbert and Sullivan, which is actually contemporaries of Conan Doyle. Sullivan wanted to be a classical composer, and he did write symphonic pieces. And Gilbert was the equivalent of a vaudeville kind of guy, and he just wanted to put butts in the seat and make a good deal of money. They didn't really like each other. I don't say they disliked each other, but they didn't like each other. And they did all their creativity by courier. And generally, Gilbert would start it off, and he would come up with a tale. And he would write it, and he would send it to Sullivan, and then Sullivan would put music to the lyrics, and they went back and forth. But the relationship between them is really spelled out wonderful with Mike Lay's play Topsy-Turvy, which I think is one of the finest theater movies ever made, you know, about how a theater production is actually put together, and it would be very meaningful to you. But Mike Lay actually put the movie together the way you would put a play together. The actors had to sign up a year before the movie was actually shot, and they had to get more and more in their roles over the year. And he would bring in experts, like he brought in the butlers from Buckingham Palace. He got permission for Buckingham Palace, you know, and what tradespeople in those days were really like. And then he took them to all the places where the movie happens, you know, and had historians come in and tell all the actors. And when you watch the movie, and Mike Leigh's movie about Turner, too, you know, the Turner movie that was called Turner, you don't feel you're dealing with, at that time, 20th century people trying to be like 19th century people. You had a feeling that these were 19th century people. You know, and they didn't talk to each other like people talk to each other today. You could tell that what was going on in the world was very, very different than Britain ruled the world back then, you know, and the audiences were totally different. Sullivan wanted to stop it, but it was just too popular. He said, I can't stand this. I can't write this kind of music. And none of his symphonic music is known. I don't think you've knowingly ever heard something by Sir Arthur Sullivan. And he got knighted. Gilbert didn't get knighted. And that was an aspiration, too, because that's the status level he wanted in society. But Gilbert just wanted to make a pile. Have you ever been to the Savoy Hotel in London?
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yes, I have.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, Gilbert and Sullivan owned that, and Doyle E. Carte, who was the producer of their movies, he was their manager. He was sort of their manager and producer and investor for them. So all the money he piled it into the hotel and then they built a theater which is right next to the hotel and the hotel was the first hotel in the world that had ensuite bathrooms and air conditioning. Yeah you know it was a very valuable piece of property and he made sure that they didn't fritter away their earnings. Apparently a very good manager, a very honest and ethical manager. But it's very, very interesting. I just love the whole evolution of a play. And I've taken people to see that and they just don't get it. It's a movie about a play, you know, what's interesting about that? And I said, uh, you don't have it in your blood.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah. If you have to ask that question–
 
Dan Sullivan: This is an act of pure creativity. That's what the story is. He was at an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and it was a Japanese. And that's where he got the idea of the Mikado. I mean, the play in the story is the Mikado, which was very unlike anything that they had ever done before.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: I saw the New York City Ballet do that. You know, what's interesting is, and we were talking about this before we started, is when you talk about the stories, what is it that causes a story to resonate? And you had an interesting answer to that.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, well, I think that the viewer puts themselves into the story. They can imagine themselves being in the story. We have our favorite movies, but my non-favorite movies is I can't picture myself in the story. Or I wouldn't want to be in that story. It might be plausible, but it's not what I'd like to be. I was looking at a movie review and it's, what's her name? Chastain. What's her first name? Jessica. Yeah, she's very, very good actress. She's very good. Yes, she is. But as an actor and actress, and the plot line is a woman is going through torment because the man she's connected with is going through dementia. And I said, that's a movie we're not going to see.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Is that the one with Anthony Hopkins?
 
Dan Sullivan: I don't know. Anthony Hopkins wasn't mentioned in the reviews, so I don't think so. Yeah. He's in a new one where he's someone who saves a lot of Jewish children.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, I saw previews for that. And he was in one where he had really interesting film where he had dementia. And, you know, ultimately, although there are certain topics I might not be interested in, I must say that whether I've heard something about the story that I find compelling, or it's an actor that I'm willing to watch he or she do just about anything because I just like what they do so much, that I won't rule things out. That's one of the good things about if you happen to subscribe to one of the streaming services, you turn it off after 15, 20 minutes if it doesn't work for you.
 
Dan Sullivan: It was so interesting because Canada makes movies. I mean, a lot of movies are made in America, but they're not about Canada, but any movie about Canada. And the only exception to it is movies out of Quebec, you know, and there's some really very, very gifted people in Quebec and some very enjoyable movies. But I've made a mistake a couple of times. Babs, we've gone to the movie and it opens. And first of all, it's very slow. It's very, very slow. And it's someplace where it's overcast and it's filled with unhappy people. They're very myopic. It's very, very myopic. I remember one we went and I said, oh my gosh, it's an English Canadian film. I said, oh my God, I'm out of here. And the guy says, you know, there's no refund. And I said, the reward is walking out. And the reason is that all the movies are approved by a board in Canada. Okay, because they all get government funding. And Quebec has its own thing and they fund it in Quebec. But it's funded by a group of people and it's a tight group of people who know each other. And they're very anti-American. They're very anti-business. But I've never seen one yet. I've been here 52 years. I've never seen any movie that was English-Canadian. The only one was kind of a comedy. It was in the early ‘70s. I knew the producer. He was a Scot. But when something has to be approved by a funding board, you know it's not going to be a good movie.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, I know that a lot of American film production went to Vancouver.
 
Dan Sullivan: No, it's the post-production work and the interior work. I mean, Toronto has about, I would say, 15 movie studios over a 60-mile radius, but it has to depend on the dollar exchange, okay? So right now, the dollar is sitting at about $1.32 differential between Canada and the United States. And that means an American dollar buys $1.32 in Canada of technicians and post-production work. And there's a lot of studio work that's done here where, you know, there's historic site. Our offices are in a site that had a lot of factories. They've been preserved to the factories. And so, you know, camera angles and that you can do some really interesting setting the period. You'll see a lot of 1930s, 1940s cars in the area and there's police barricades up. And it's a big business for Toronto, but it's very dollar driven. But they're not Canadian films. They're not films with Canadian themes that are being created. These are American films. But if it dips down to about $1.10, then all the work goes someplace else. So it's very dependent upon the dollar.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: I remember, I don't know that it would be considered a Canadian, it was shot in Montreal, actually, starring Richard Dreyfuss. It was called The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, well, that's a great Canadian director. But that was an English-speaking film. It was a very good film. It was a very good film. Yeah, about success perception. But it was about Montreal. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing is that at that time, there was a very, very powerful Jewish community in Montreal. Yeah. And then in 1976, if I remember the Richard Dreyfuss movie, the time period that it was in was before the political issues of the 1970s. What happened was they put in language laws that you couldn't use signage in public that featured English words. They really started protecting their culture and protecting their language. And promptly, all the big corporations and businesses in Montreal picked up camp within about six months, and they all moved to Toronto. That's when Toronto became a major city. Montreal was the number one city in Canada when I came to Canada. And now it's kind of a quaint, interesting cultural change city. You know, you go there and it's not France, but it's got a different culture to it. But you don't think of Montreal as a major important city anymore. And it was because of the language laws. And very anti-Semitic, too, this party. And the French are known for that. I mean, the French in Europe, the actual France, have never admitted anything about their part in the Holocaust.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah. And although those who pay attention are reminded by Le Pen, first the father, then the daughter and their campaigns. Yeah. But yeah, it's interesting. And having been to Montreal was just felt more like Europe than Canada. Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: And the only thing that protects their culture is that they're inside Canada. If they had to deal directly with the United States, Americans don't do bilingualism. No.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: No, they don't. And it's sometimes even questionable if they do monolingualism.
 
Dan Sullivan: America gets along okay with its language. It does. Yeah. Back to the story that we started with, when I started talking about the movie Casablanca, which caught everybody by surprise because it was just one of dozens of movies that were being made. You know, you mentioned Ronald Reagan, and he did have a sense of humor. And once he was saying, somebody, you know, when he was running for president, somebody said, but you were in really, really crummy movies. They didn't exactly use that word, but that was the intention. And he says, well, you know, when we were making movies, nobody told us it was supposed to be good. They told us it was supposed to be Tuesday. They didn't want it good, they wanted it on Tuesday. He said, you know, you had a role, you were a craftsman, you went to work, you turned out a movie. And then, of course, in those days, he was a Democrat because he was the president of the Actors Union in Hollywood. And then, you know, he switched, and that was unforgivable for a lot of people that he would switch. But what he shows is, it could be a theme for a podcast, I don't think we'll get it to it here, but the office of president is one of the most interesting offices in the world, the president of the United States, because it favors outsiders. You know, if you're going to be in Congress or you're going to be in the Senate, probably you had to work your way up, you know, from state government to, you know, you were an assembly person or state, the equivalent of the House of Congress in the States, or you were a senator, you might be a governor and everything else. But in the United States, if you look at the record, and I did this once and I went back right to the beginning of the 20th century, that almost all the presidents, two years before the election, you would have not said it was predictable that that person would be president. If you just go back, I wouldn't think that Biden would ever be president. You know, two years before, I would not think he would be president. Trump, certainly you wouldn't think two years before. Obama, you wouldn't think two years before. George Bush, younger, you wouldn't think two years before. Bill Clinton, two years before you went. George Bush, senior, you might think of it.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: If they're coming off a vice presidency, that heightens the odds considerably.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, Reagan, you'd never do it. Carter, you had never done it. Ford was appointed, so he succeeded. He was the vice president. But Nixon, actually winning the presidency two years before, you wouldn't have.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: How many attempts did he make to be president? Just two. Because having been Eisenhower's vice president, and I think Eisenhower, by the way, is somebody that maybe could have been predicted.
 
Dan Sullivan: But you didn't know which party.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: That's probably true.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Truman was the vice president who got elected, but you wouldn't have predicted two years before the one where he was elected.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, you mean once he had already become president?
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I mean, he became president because of Roosevelt's death. Right. And then he had a first election. So that was ‘45. So what I'm saying is that that particular office is a wildcard office in the U.S. governmental setup. And I think it's deliberate. I think it's deliberate, you know, on their part that someone can come in and they were supposed to be limited to two terms because Washington only did two terms. And that sort of set the standard. And then Roosevelt did a third and a fourth. You know, he was elected a third and fourth time. But immediately they changed the Constitution so that the president could only have two terms. And how I'm relating this to the start of our story with a story is that usually the person who wins has a better story than the person who loses.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Interesting.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: I mean, some that really comes to the surface, like Eisenhower coming off of World War II and, you know, what people thought the office of the president should be led by. Yeah. And his, you know, heroism and leadership and all that kind of thing.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: But then there was a massive switch in 1960 with Kennedy.
 
Dan Sullivan: But it was a hero or a war hero, naval war hero, you know, he PT 109. Yeah, I mean, he had some help with a lot of good writers and he had to help with his father's money. But it was a great story, you know, and very attractive wife. I think it was the first election where the wife really made a difference. She was young. She was glamorous. You know, we were used to the Eisenhower and Eleanor Roosevelt. Yeah. Eleanor Roosevelt was more important, but I think a lot of it had to do with the longevity of his presidency, you know, and she took a role.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: I mean, she was probably the first really amazing first lady who took a strong role and did something with it rather than the Easter egg hunt.
 
Dan Sullivan: Actually, the competitor to her is Dolly Madison, who was James Madison's wife, but it was a time when there wasn't national media. But apparently she was an amazing person in Washington, and she was a great social force in Washington, D.C., and she was the first one. And after that, there really weren't any that were great forces, you know, like that. She was very social, wasn't she? Yeah, yeah, very. She put the White House on the map. You know, the White House was new. It was actually burnt during his presidency, James Madison's presidency. And then it was put back together again, and she really made the most of the new White House. But it hadn't been a real social thing before then. But the thing about it is, I'd like to go into the word magic. And people have trouble with magic, you know. And yet, all the great stories have a magic to them. There's something that can't be analyzed. It can't be imitated and it can't be analyzed. I'll use those two terms. That a really great story has something about it that once that story's been told, you can't match that story, you can't imitate that story.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, I mean, I think they can be analyzed to no avail because they can't be replicated. Although, you know, it's interesting, James Bond, opened up the door, you know, from Bourne Identity to the way the Mission Impossible movies have become with Tom Cruise. There's all these variants on what was James Bond that kind of created a genre. And now there's, you know, a bunch of those and, you know, those franchises, they do have kind of a mathematical formula for sequels and what they think that those can do. But I think the story themselves, I guess it depends on the movie. Because I think great stories can't be replicated. You know, when you look at what looks like, mercifully, it's finally coming to an end, you know, the Marvel movies, the last few have not done well. And they're all the same story, you know, there's a superhero and then there's some evil genius is going to take over.
 
Dan Sullivan: They've gone intensely political. They're casting characters to satisfy social norms, you know, like female heroes doing male hero roles. It's not plausible. It's not plausible.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: I guess there's a difference between the movies that are parts of what are essentially franchises. Yeah. And other comic books. Exactly right. Yeah. And, you know, the James Bonds were novels. I read them all. They were fun. Yeah. But the great films or what I would consider a great film, like On the Waterfront or To Kill a Mockingbird, those are one of the kinds and you can't replicate those. And I guess, you know, coming back to your question about the magic, I think that in film and in theater, it's a confluence of really smart, insightful casting, and the great story, and the director who just knows how to merge those things in the right way. And oftentimes, those movies don't test well, but they end up doing extremely well and becoming classics. You know, it's kind of interesting. I mean, how would you define the magic part?
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, I think the big thing about it is that I don't think that when the movie is being made, they don't know it's magical. I don't think they know whether it's a movie or it's a book or it's any other creative production. I don't think that they know ahead of time that they're doing something that's really going to take off because 50% depends upon the audience. And I don't think audiences are predictable. I don't think the relationship between a creative production and the audience is testable beforehand. I don't think a focus group is a test of what an actual audience is going to do.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: I agree with you, because focus groups have a whole agenda of their own.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, first of all, they're being paid. They're being paid? They're not paying, they're being paid. That's right.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: I have had that very conversation when it was suggested in terms of personality in my play. Have you considered having focus groups? You know, and I said, I'm not interested in line by line.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yes.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: I'm not interested in the focus group. No. Well, that might give you some insight. And I said, it gives you insight into what those people think, you know, to take part in a discussion that's a total artificial construct. And you're right. I care about strangers who are buying tickets. What did they think of the show? Yeah. Because they can't tell me what others are going to think of the show. They can only tell me what they think of the show. Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. It's an interesting thing because I don't pre-test anything that I've created. I'll just use the company history, which is 35 years this year. And I don't pre-test with my staff. And the reason is I'm paying them. Okay. Right. Yeah. And I say, I don't test on anything except check writers, but you can get a small group of check writers and you can test it. And you know, they're not representing anything except what you're creating and their future. They're only relating to their future. Does this do me any good? You know, and it's yes or no. That's not ambiguous. It's not an ambiguous answer. So I think with an audience that's pain, they're not representing anyone else except themselves. First of all, it's just them. And it's very, very confined to, let's call it the theater. It's just confined to the relationship that's going on between them and what's happening on stage. It's not like a critic. They're not a critic who represent their readers, they represent their publication, and they're not paying. Oh, I guess they are paying. Yeah, I'm sure critics pay their own theater ticket, right?
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, I imagine they're reimbursed by who's hired them, but they don't get a free ticket from the producer or something, right?
 
Dan Sullivan: No. There'd be something icky about that winter. It's kind of payola, you know, or an attempt at that. But my sense is that it has to do with the relationship between the creator and the audience for the creation. And I don't think it's really analyzable, and I don't think it's really predictable. It's guessing and betting.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Having firsthand experience, like when, you know, I was told very early on, there needs to be a love story and personality. And I said, well, there is. And he said, well, what do you mean there is? His marriage fails. And I said, yeah, but the love story is he and Logan, you know, Logan's the father that Lloyd never had. And Lloyd is the son that Logan never had and the growth and support in that relationship. No, no, no, no. I mean a traditional relationship.
 
Dan Sullivan: And then I'm thinking, you know, what's going through my mind is, oh, what is that? A traditional relationship, you know, in today's world, you know?
 
Jeffrey Madoff: But to me, it's also, it's interesting when you talk to people like that, for instance, is they're telling you the play they would have written. Yeah. So my response is go write your play, you know, because this isn't the one for you. Yeah. And it's interesting. I've also had friends that are involved in the business, unless it's really early stages in there, you know, want to solicit my opinion for some reason, and there's something that could actually be acted on. And I have done that for a number of friends. That's one thing. But once something's done, I don't think there's any point. And unless it's a long time afterward, and there's a new project coming up, and you might reference something, because what is the point of saying to somebody, well, I don't think that worked, and if you could do X, well, they can't, it's done, it's over. So is there anything to be gained? I might learn something by mistakes that I think they made, but I don't know that they would not only not learn anything, you know, you can't be receptive to something that's already finished because you're not going to be able to change it. You know what I mean?
 
Dan Sullivan: So, yeah. The other thing is that creativity is scary, you know, and if there isn't commitment before you don't have any proof, you know, you have to have commitment before there's any proof and you have to have courage before the capability actually exists. Absolutely. And I think that really great artists are always going back and starting fresh again, and they're committed and they're courageous and then what they produce is actually the new capability, and then the response of the audience gives you confidence, okay? And you're finished, and then it's Groundhog Day. You start all over again with the next one. And I think that what happens to a lot of people when they experience first success, they start to try to repeat the formula that gave them their first success.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: I think you're right. But how do you move people past that?
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, you don't move people past that. You decide whether you're past that. Right. I don't think you can have any influence on other people in regard to this dynamic, because it's you, again, being willing to be committed and scared again before you're guaranteed capability and confidence. Right. And that's where the magic is. I think the magic comes from a commitment where one person in particular and then a team of people are being courageous before they actually have the capability and before they have confidence that, hey, they liked it, you know, or it's a winner, you know. And I think that people take a certain kind of nervous system to do that over and over again.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: That's a great distinction that you're making, and I love the way you put that. It was funny. Opening night, I was walking around the theater saying hello to people, and somebody said to me, are you nervous? I said, not really, no. And they said, you're not. I'd be going crazy. And I can't believe that you're not nervous. And I said, well, so we've had two weeks of previews. I've seen audience responses and now it's 20 minutes before curtain. It's too late. And there's nothing I can do about it. That's right. So I feel like it's going to go well.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, the other thing, you had a high level of trust in your company.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, that's just what I was going to say. I said, I trust my director. I trust the actors. I trust the people involved. And again, there's nothing I can do. So I truly wasn't nervous, simply because I knew I had to let go of all of that, because all that then produces anxiety. It's not results, unless you look at anxiety as a result, which I don't. I look at that as maybe the rapids you have to create a bridge over, right? Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: But more and more, I think that there's a magic tension that happens at the commitment courageous stage.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, I love the way you put that because I think that's right.
 
Dan Sullivan: I mean, you're betting everything you've done on this future project. How people think about you is largely determined by how you pull off this next one.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah. And unlike what most people do, I think when you're doing a movie, a play or a book and it's put out there, your success or failure or mediocrity or whatever is on public display. You know, so you got, that's something else you got to be prepared for that, you know, what the critics say, what people post, all of that kind of a thing. So, you know, getting ready for that. I think if there's any advantage to waiting until you're older to do it, it's that you learn how to disregard certain things.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, the other thing, you've done it before. You've gone through the process before. You mean the earlier iterations of it? No, you've gone through the, I call it the Four C's. You've gone through previous, where it was just a commitment that you were courageous enough to bet on, and it worked. Or you learned something from it. I think the difference between creative and non-creative people is actually a function of commitment and courage.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: And go a little deeper into that.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, I think non-creative people have unique capabilities. I mean, I can talk to someone for a half hour and I kind of know where the energy is, that if they had devoted their life to that center of energy, they would be great. But it took too much commitment and courage to do that. They'd rather do things that made them acceptable and popular to other people. It's like I have a little diagram, and I think I've mentioned this on a previous podcast, but it's two arrows, and the little arrow is in the lower left-hand corner, and the big arrow is in the upper right-hand corner, and I just draw a straight line with an arrow on the straight line. And I said, I'm going to draw you a picture of your entire life. And I said, probably since you were eight or nine years old. And the little arrow is here and the big arrow is there. On the arrow is striving. So you're here and you're striving to get there. That's the way you were at eight. And that's the way you were at 25. And that's the way you are at 45. So the question is, when will you ever be there? When will you ever be there? Because the problem is between eight and 45, 37 years, you've developed a very powerful habit of being here, but never there. So I said, I can't see the day when you'll violate your most powerful habit of being here and not there. I mean, is there anything that would get you there? And it has a real impact on the entrepreneurs. And they said, well, how do you do it? And I says, well, I'm there, and I'm just expanding it. And about 25 years ago, I said, screw this. I think this is a bad way to pursue your life. And I just said, I'm actually there, but I'm creating new things, so the there just keeps expanding. But I'm not trying to get anywhere. I'm there, but I'm just trying to make the there bigger and include more people in it, you know, include more check writers in it, more very talented people. And I said, I'm not trying to get anywhere. And they said, well, what kind of legacy do you want? And I said, legacy, legacies never happen until you're dead. Why would I want to be working out a legacy? When I die, I want to be in the middle of 10 big projects. And my team is grieving for about a week and then they're pissed off at the big mess I’ve left them with, I said. I said, what do I care, you know, what do I care, and they says well, what do you want the company to be after you die? And I said, the next day, what do I care? Right. It doesn't even take a day. You're alive and you're dead.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. So but the big thing I'm getting at and going back to the theme of what makes a great story, I think, because from beginning to actual presentation, it was built on commitment and courage. And they had a lot of previous capability and confidence sustained them to go through the new experience of risk.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yes. Well, I love the way you put that. And I think that's right. And what's interesting, because we're still in, I mean, the story, we have the story and all that. Yeah. But two things that are kind of interesting.
 
Dan Sullivan: You have a play that's a capability. Yes. And you have the confidence that at the levels it's grown through, it's been extraordinarily well received.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yes. I was with a friend of mine the other day, and we were talking about character development. And he posed a really interesting question, and he's extremely insightful in terms of breaking down scripts, character motivation, all that kind of thing. And he said to me, he said, I don't know quite how to put this, but there was something very special at the end when adult Lloyd viewed his younger self, and then they sang together. And he said, but I'd love to see something where we are aware that he is aware of loss. So the question for you is, what did he lose on this journey? And I said, he lost innocence, and he also lost, along with that innocence, a sense of joy, because things weren't surprising anymore. And we talked about that a bit and he said, now that is something, that is something. But then how do you show me that? It was really interesting because now as a writer with this play, I know these characters so well that I can get into their head and hear them. And so I said, I got to write this down because I really like what this is doing to me. And I tend to physicalize when I hear a note that I think really works. And plus, I also want to write it down because I'll forget about it if I don't. And I thought it was really, really interesting because it will take things to another depth And I think the more detailed you get about why the person is behaving like they are, what the stakes are for that person, do they approach that greater risk or greater disappointment or whatever it is. And so it got me really excited about doing this scene. It's really, it will be within an existing scene that I think is going to deepen the emotional hit of this play, because we're still at a point where we can do something about, you know, the place not frozen totally yet. And so I find it really interesting because on one hand that put up a new challenge to use the capability I have, hopefully coupled with the courage I've been developing to take another leap into making this even better. Yeah. So it was kind of fascinating to me, that discussion. And, you know, this is what that person does in terms of strip breakdowns and working with actors. So I like the questions and it is hand in glove with what you're talking about.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, I think he did have a loss and the whole play suddenly changes when he lost Logan. Yes.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Absolutely, yes.
 
Dan Sullivan: You know, when they were talking about the turntable in New York, they were talking about the club. He was still innocent. He was still joyful. And that sudden loss sent him to Nigeria. And the driver of the car kind of reminded him what tribe he belonged to. Right. That's right. And who he is. That's right. Yeah. And probably for the first time in his life, he knew who he was.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yes. So going back to the point you made earlier about a successful story is one where people see something of themselves in there. And I think the notion of identity, the notion of meaning and purpose in terms of grand themes, I think that is what resonates with people.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. That was, you know, he died in ‘20, ‘21, May of ‘21. Yeah. So that was another 53 years after that incident happened. And he lived an incredibly productive and creative life after 1968. I mean, when he came back. Right. That's right. And in a much more productive and creative way than he I mean, he had the great creativity of his song writing and his performance. OK, but he wasn't a self-reflective person at all until after Logan's loss. That's right. That's right.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: I mean, he did. In the scene before they go to take a look at the club that they end up turning into the turntable, he said, you know, I'm just like my father. I'm putting up with the insults for the money. And then Logan says to him, you can't make the kind of money you were making digging trenches. Lloyd says, I might as well be digging trenches. He says, well, you can't make the kind of money you're making digging trenches. And then Lloyd says, but is that all there is? Is it just about the money? For you, you have a financially successful business. Would money alone keep you in doing what you're doing?
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, the money is a by-product, but I love doing as the main activity. Right. Yeah, and I've just learned to negotiate with the world. Right. You know, I mean, all of us have a dream, I said, but there's a line that no plan survives contact with the enemy. You know, it's a military. I don't know which of 25 different people it's credited to, but people have dreams, you know, about what their life's going to be, but it doesn't survive contact with the world.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, one of the movie quotes that I use, and the movie is not very good, although the fight scenes are fun, it's Bruce Lee and Enter the Dragon.
 
Dan Sullivan: I love Bruce Lee.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Me too. So the villain holds a board right next to Bruce's face and then he breaks the board and Bruce doesn't even blink. And then he turns his eyes to the guy and says, boards don't hit back. And that just really stayed with me because life hits back all the time.
 
Dan Sullivan: It's one of the conversations I have with the technology people, you know, the techno-religious people, you know, that technology is going to solve everything. And they said, just look at Moore's law over the last almost 60 years now. Since he asked a question, it's not a law. He just simply asked a question. He says, I'm noticing a progression here. Every couple years the amount of computing power we can stick in one of these things and the cost of the computing seems to halve. It's twice as much computing for half as much price. I wonder how long this will go on. And he was quoted near the end of his life. He said, well, it's not a law. He says, it's not like the law of gravity. He says, it's not a law of physics. But he says, I think what it does is it channels people's aspirations and it gives them a measurement for progress. And he says, I think that's why it works. My sense is that the secret to all human progress really starts with somebody taking a risk on something that there's no evidence for yet. Right. That doesn't mean doing that gives you success. It just means there's no success that comes out of any other method.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Right. I agree with you. First day of class, I'd say to the students, how many of you have a real fear of talking in front of the class and, you know, voicing your opinion? And probably close to half raised their hands. And then at least two thirds of the other half isn't being honest. So I said to this young woman.
 
Dan Sullivan: Half who are scared and half who are liars. Yes.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah. It reminds me of what was Yogi Berra's quote, 75% of baseball is physical and then the majority is mental. Something like that. But anyhow, so I said to this young woman in the class, I said, so stand up, please. And she stands up. I said, what's your name? And she tells me and I said, so tell me why you're afraid to speak in front of class. Well, I don't want to sound stupid. I don't, you know, on and on. And I asked her a few more questions and she answers. And I said, okay, before you sit down, before I move on to the next person, what happened to you in the last five minutes? She said, what do you mean? I said, well, you were standing in front of the class talking. I mean, did you have like a heart attack? Were you overwhelmed by anxiety? What? And she kind of smiled and said, no. And I said, well, that's what happens when you speak in front of people. So you don't have to be afraid of it. You know, you just did it. It was a cool moment because I saw the light bulbs go off. And in fact, in the semester, she spoke up. Now, it's usually not that quick, but hopefully if you can show somebody, it's not just the notion of taking the risk and the courage. I mean, you're correct, because psychologically that is the case. But also, I think it's important to think of what's the worst thing that's going to happen. And most of the time, the consequences aren't that great, especially when you're just talking about putting your ideas out there. It's not like it's automatically you're in debt for millions of dollars or anything like that. And I think that the missed opportunity because of fear, the missed opportunity of doing something is far more frightening to me than playing it safe. And I'm no daredevil. I'm not going to put on a flight suit and jump off of Half Dome in Yellowstone. I'm not doing crazy stuff. But in terms of bringing ideas to the marketplace and hoping this play that I'm doing becomes as successful as I think it can be, you are correct. It's all guesses and bets. But the alternative isn't very interesting.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, you know, I have to go on it partially how many people, you know, your age would have done what you did over the last five, six years.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: I mean, if they weren't already doing it as a new venture, I don't really know, but not many.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: I mean, to me in a way, it's kind of the best time because it can be invigorating. You know, it can be exciting taking people along on that ride, it’s fun.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. But I would say you've more or less retained the 10-year-old Jeff better than other people have retained their 10-year-old.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: I don't know why that is. Maybe it's no, it's unique. It's unique. And what I noticed about really hot shot people in their twenties don't impress me. Okay. After 40, it starts to impress me. And the reason is society gives young people a lot of support. You know, your parents invest in you. The system invests in you. But when you're 30, you get kicked out of the nest. How do eagles teach their eaglets how to fly? They throw them out of the nest. The ones that don't hit the ground fly. And I think that there's a throwing you out of the nest at 30 that happens just because there's a new group of young people that society invests in. And, you know, by 30, I mean, you hope you have your own traction as an individual. But I've seen really, really amazing people in their late 20s who are just carbon copies of where they came from by the time they're 40. Okay. But they never learned the thing about commitment and courage.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, I think you're right. I remember in college, there are a group of us sitting around and we're talking about writing and then we all wanted to write. And as one person says, you know, well, I would never write a bestseller. And, I said, well, I think you're correct. Probably, you know, for different reasons.
 
Dan Sullivan: One is you never will, and you shouldn't even try.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: And I said, why do you say? He said, because I wouldn't sell out that way.
 
Dan Sullivan: Oh, yeah. Well, that's good. That leaves a lot of room for other people to sell out.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yes. I said, well, I think there's another reason. And he said, what's that? And I said, because you probably couldn't. You know, whether or not you like the work, it's not easy to write a bestseller. And you may think it's a crappy book, but what it takes to write and then put it out there and promote it, that's really hard. And that's probably why you couldn't do it. Instead of this excuse that you wouldn't sell out, to me that says that you're afraid to get opinions thrown back at you about your work and taking the risk of putting it out there. So there's that kind of youthful idealism and I would never do that. And you don't know until you're in this situation what you will or won't do. I mean, that's just life.
 
Dan Sullivan: So we were fairly consistent today, Jeff.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: So we took no risks. Is that what you're saying?
 
Dan Sullivan: What I mean is we pretty well stuck with our opening topic about what makes a great story. We definitely talked about anything. I'm not sure we talked about everything.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: We never can actually, by definition, I don't think.
 
Dan Sullivan: You got a point. You got a point. You're going to have to ponder that.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: But what would you say is, you know, the takeaway from this?
 
Dan Sullivan: I would say that great stories have a magic quality of them, and I think the magic quality of them is that a lot of people took a lot of risks to put out something. And the Casablanca story certainly, it's a great documentary. It's about 30 or 40 minutes. But the aspect about it is you're not trying to please people. You're trying to bring something into existence that hasn't existed before. And quite frankly, you don't have time really to think about whether it's going to please people or not, because it's so much work to get something that doesn't exist into existence. And so your focus is on that, and you're committed to doing it, whether it pays off or not.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, and I think your comment about, again, this is a thing that we've returned to over and over, but I love the concept. I've talked about it in my class before, the difference between confidence and courage, being willing to take that risk and put it out there. And it's funny, when you talked about legacy, and I gave the same answer you did when I was asked about legacy, you know, what do you want your legacy to be? And I said, well, I'm going to be gone. But to me, your legacy is kind of like, I hate the term personal brand. What's your personal brand? So your personal brand is your reputation. And what do people say about you once you leave the room? That's your legacy. What an asshole. That's your legacy. Hopefully it's something better. Hopefully we both have something better than that. And I'm quite confident we do, but I don't think you can worry about that sort of stuff because a legacy is also, unless it's totally fabricated, is the result of the actual lives that you've touched and how they respond, you don't know, you know? So that's the story of all of our lives.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, what other people think about you is none of your business. No, I mean, how can you know? You can't really know what that is. So to spend a lot of energy and attention on that seems to me to be a real wasted effort. You know, just do the thing that you want to bring into existence, you know, and do your best and get other people involved so they can do their best. That seems pretty much the way that I see it. Anyway, it was a surprise, anything and everything today, but I really liked a lot of what we talked about here. I think it's really good right now, this is happening right before your next jump, that we remind ourselves that the next jump is going to be risky too.
 
Jeffrey Madoff: Yes, it is. It is. So this has been Anything and Everything with Dan Sullivan, I'm Jeff Madoff. Happy you guys listened. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for joining us today on our show Anything and everything, if you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. For more about me and my work, visit acreativecareer.com and madoffproductions.com. To learn more about Dan and Strategic Coach, visit strategiccoach.com.