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Fresh Air
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Interview: Andrew Stanton, writer and director of "WALL-E," on making the film and his influences Interview: Writer/director Adam McKay and stars John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell on their new movie "Step Brothers" Profile: Ed Ward on the story of The Staple Singers
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DATE September 1, 2008 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM NETWORK NPR PROGRAM Fresh Air Interview: Andrew Stanton, writer and director of "WALL-E," on making the film and his influences TERRY GROSS, host: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. (Soundbite of "WALL-E") Mr. BEN BURTT: (As WALL-E) Eva! Ms. ELISSA KNIGHT: (As Eve) WALL-E! (Soundbite of music, explosion, whooshing noise, ringing) (End of soundbite) GROSS: That's WALL-E and Eve, the two leading robots in the animated film "WALL-E." "WALL-E" opened at the start of the summer season and it's still in theaters. We're going to listen back to my interview with Andrew Stanton, the film's screenwriter and director. "WALL-E" is set 700 years in the future when the Earth is one big junk pile and can no longer sustain life. Thousands of people have been on an endless space cruise, waiting for signs that Earth can sustain life again, which would allow them to return home. When the people left, they forgot to turn off one robot, WALL-E. That's an acronym for Waste Allocation Load-Lifter, Earth Class. WALL-E is a kind of cute but rusty trash compactor who is very lonely. His only friend is a cockroach until a robot probe named Eve is sent to Earth to look for signs of life. Andrew Stanton started at Pixar Studios in 1990. Before making "WALL-E" he directed and co-wrote "Finding Nemo" and co-wrote "Toy Story," "A Bug's Life" and "Monsters, Inc." Andrew Stanton, welcome to FRESH AIR. Mr. ANDREW STANTON: Thanks, I'm happy to be here. GROSS: Most end-of-the-world or end-of-life-as-we-know-it kind of films have to do with like war and atomic bombs. In "WALL-E" the Earth has to be abandoned by humans because it can't sustain life anymore, presumably because humans have polluted it and just treated it poorly. What made you think about that kind of environmental end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario? Mr. STANTON: I went there very reluctantly. I sort of reverse-engineered my decision. It was all based on character and emotion. The conceit that got me interested in this movie was the last robot on Earth, doing its job forever, not knowing that it was a waste of time. And I thought that was the ultimate definition in futility. I completely was seduced by it so... GROSS: It's like the Andrew Stanton version of Sisyphus. Mr. STANTON: Right. And so in my mind, that's what was so charming, was the last robot on Earth, and so I had to just come up with some conceit that would make that situation. So, to just get that kind of a character, I was forced to come up with a scenario, and I just went with logic. I just went with, well, I wanted him to do trash, and I wanted him to be a trash compactor for basically three reasons. One, it gives him a very low status. It makes him like a little janitor and he's a little more endearing for that. Two, because I knew we'd be using what I call unconventional dialogue through the whole thing, trash is very visible. It's clear to any age that it's dirty, it's in the way, it needs to be moved out of the way, almost like a snowstorm in a city. And three, which was the biggest reason, was that it allowed him to go through the detritus and the sort of evidence of what mankind was all about, and that was huge. So then I just went backwards from that and said, well, one thing I know is I'm always buying stuff online all the time. There's a million boxes coming to my house every day between my wife and I and I just sort of extrapolated that, what if people just did too much of consuming. It didn't really take too much brain power to sort of go with that possibility. Like I certainly didn't want to go with anything darker than that. So I sort of came to this environmental state without really considering the environment. GROSS: It's funny. Let me just read you a couple of quotes about how political they see your film as being. Mr. STANTON: Oh, gosh. GROSS: So the first is from Frank Rich, who's a columnist in the Sunday Times, the Sunday New York Times, and he writes, "The movie seemed more realistically in touch with what troubles America this year than either the substance or the players of the political food fight beyond the multiplex's walls." And then in an online column on National Review Online called Planet Gore, Greg Pollowitz writes, "I saw `WALL-E' with my five-year-old on Saturday night. It was like a 90-minute lecture on the dangers of overconsumption, big corporations and the destruction of the environment." Are you surprised to hear both sides of the reaction to your film? Mr. STANTON: Sadly, I'm not surprised, but I tried very hard not to have any kind of a lecture. I just went with logic of how you could be in this scenario so that I could tell this story of this lonely little robot. There's no way--I mean, this idea came literally in 1994 and slowly built up over time. There's just no way I could have been in tune with exactly the zeitgeist and the headlines of today. I mean, I'm not so much in a box that I wasn't aware that suddenly the world had changed in the last couple years. But I didn't want to change the movie for any reason in one direction or another out of fear. That's not how I'm going to make a story. I'm going to go with what I think is the honest, truthful way to tell this emotional story that I've been trying to tell. So, sadly, it doesn't surprise me, but I can't back up either direction. I really can't. GROSS: Can you describe the landscape of Earth as you've envisioned it in "WALL-E"? Mr. STANTON: Well, basically I just went with a dump. It's a big dump, and I just felt like what if--I took out all the slimy, wet, oozy aspects of it. One, it's very off-putting, and two, it's a little more difficult to execute. And there was something sadder and more forlorn about this sort of arid dump aspect and just having stuff everywhere. GROSS: You're more rusty than oozy? Mr. STANTON: Yeah, exactly, which I take as a compliment. Well. GROSS: So did you go visit like junkyards or dumps or things like that... Mr. STANTON: Yeah. GROSS: ...just to get like a sense of what your version might look like based on what reality looks like. Mr. STANTON: Very much. I mean, that's how sexy our research were. We went to dumps. GROSS: Oh, boy. Mr. STANTON: But a lot of it's also very geeky. It's like how exactly--we're breaking it down to just the tiniest sort of visceral things of what makes a dump feel like a dump, and there's a lot of things that may not be obvious to people, but there's always little bits of flapping paper or plastic, and almost like there's always movement of leaves in a tree. And it's things like that that you go for research to pick up. It's those little imperfect or odd details that really take it over the top and make it feel like we've really tapped into something, for any research, let alone a dump. GROSS: My guest is Andrew Stanton, and he's a writer and director of the new animated film "WALL-E." You know, early in--the robot who's really a trash compactor and is the last robot on Earth--early in the film he's just, you know, going through junk, compacting it in basically his robot stomach... Mr. STANTON: Yeah. GROSS: ...and making bricks out of it and just like piling up the bricks. It's just an incredibly meaningless existence, but in his home he saves a lot of the junk... Mr. STANTON: Yeah. GROSS: ...and he kind of files it away. Mr. STANTON: Yeah. GROSS: And, you know, some of the things you have in there is a light bulb, a Rubik's cube, old like videotapes with... Mr. STANTON: Yeah. GROSS: ...you know, like cassettes. How did you decide what would be the things that WALL-E decides to save and file and keep? And I'm wondering if any of those items are from your home. Mr. STANTON: Well, none of them directly came from my home, but animators are collectors, big-time, particularly of toys and childlike objects and stuff, so we don't have to go too far to have a lot of options or ideas. But we actually had to go through tons of objects, either verbally in meetings or drawing lots of stuff to find things that were immediately "getable" because, again, I don't have the luxury of dialogue to support where his head's at. You have to just get right away that oh, if he has a spork, of course you'd be confused whether it's a fork or a spoon. And to find things that sort of fit all those requirements, it was actually pretty hard and time-consuming to get to. Where we ended up always finding stuff was just kind of going back in our memories--which isn't hard, again, for an animator to do--of what it's like to be a kid and go, `OK, I remember being either at my father's tool bench or in the kitchen and looking through the items and finding things that I had no idea what they did,' and I got it completely wrong. You know, I thought like an egg slicer was a tiny little harp. I remember thinking that my mom's eyelash curler was some kind of awful torture device that must have hurt, and I couldn't watch her use it, you know. So it's just trying to go back to remembering seeing the world that innocent and what kind of objects aren't intuitive, but they evoke a definition. You can't help but go, `I think it must do X.' You know? So it was a tough assignment. GROSS: I know you love Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. What have you learned as an animator by watching their movies? Mr. STANTON: The biggest thing we learn is there's almost nothing you can't convey without dialogue. Those guys were the masters of their craft. They had done almost every kind of situation plotwise, emotionalwise, relationshipwise, gagwise, combined, and if you add in Harold Lloyd you've pretty much covered it all. And that we got lazy as filmmakers when sound came in initially and stopped doing a lot of stuff. And frankly there's--I think if you were to watch any of the Pixar films and turn the sound down, you'd be surprised at how much you still understand what's going on, because even though "WALL-E" showcases that, we put the same amount of effort in any of our films that the posing and the action and the timing of everything we do visually is supporting as much as we possibly can the intention of what's going on in the scene. GROSS: My guest is Andrew Stanton. He wrote and directed the film "WALL-E." More after a break. This is FRESH AIR. (Announcements) GROSS: Let's get back to our interview with Andrew Stanton. He wrote and directed "Wall-E" and "Finding Nemo." Now, here's one of the challenges you faced in animating "WALL-E." You know, WALL-E is a trash compactor, a robotic trash compactor, who has, you know, like eyes and a nose and a mouth and kind of arms and stuff so, you know, there are anthropomorphic qualities about him. But garbage trucks, like anything pertaining to trash, we really try to keep our distance. We expect it to smell. Mr. STANTON: Mm-hmm. GROSS: We expect it to be very unpleasant but we have to really love WALL-E. We have to--I mean, he's our surrogate. Mr. STANTON: Yeah. It's... GROSS: I mean, he's our lonely surrogate. So can you talk about making this robot that's all about trash and all about like rust and dirt and stuff like that... Mr. STANTON: Mm-hmm. GROSS: ...and yet you have to make him both human and warm and lovable enough for us to see him as our surrogate, as the main character, as the hero of the movie. Mr. STANTON: Yeah. I get asked this a lot, or at least versions of this question, of how do you make a robot appealing, or how do you make this trash robot appealing. In a weird way, it's a tough question to answer. I find it interesting that you said he had a nose and a mouth and he doesn't... GROSS: He doesn't? Mr. STANTON: ...and it's funny how... GROSS: OK. Mr. STANTON: It's how much you've thrown... GROSS: I just assumed he does. Mr. STANTON: It's how much you've thrown... GROSS: God, I'm--you know... Mr. STANTON: I... GROSS: I'm looking at his picture now and you're so right, there's no mouth there. But I kind of re-drew him in my mind. Mr. STANTON: But that's more of a statement that you see him as a whole, you see him as a real person, I think. I learned once I got to college--because I came from a very small town where I was one of few kids that could draw in class, and there weren't a lot of kids that liked the same things I did, and we were drawn to each other. And then when I finally went to college, which was a school called Cal Arts in Los Angeles, which actually teaches animation, one of the founders was Walt Disney, I met all these other kids of my type; and that's when I found out I was a type, that we all thought our bike was cold in the rain, that our fish was lonely in the fishbowl, that a leaf would be afraid of heights when it fell. It's just the way we looked at things. And I can't remember never not looking at the world like that. And I think, in a weird way, I don't think about things like, `Oh, how do I make this appealing so that people will like it?' I think it's more just through scribbling and just observing the world, finding things that already do that to you, that already elicit that from you, and just taking and capitalizing on it. WALL-E's a perfect example, at least his face. I was at a baseball game and I missed an entire inning because somebody handed me their binoculars because we had crappy seats, which I blame on my editor, and I missed the whole inning because I turned his binoculars around and I was in the middle of trying to design WALL-E and I just started making the eyes, you know, fold at the center hinge and go sad and then mad and then happy and I saw an entire character with a soul in it, and it just sort of answered itself. It just sort of dropped on my lap and... GROSS: So that's how you ended up giving WALL-E binocular eyes? Mr. STANTON: Yeah. He's basically a binocular on a stem, yeah, yeah. And I didn't have any other agenda than I'm just trying to find something that feels--my big agenda was, you should see it as an appliance first and when it moves you can't help but convey a character in it. Because I felt that's what John Lasseter had tapped into with "Luxo Jr." He had done that short just before I had come to work at Pixar, so I was just a fan and an audience member... GROSS: This is a short about a lamp? Mr. STANTON: Yeah, a little--one of those little desk lamps that's got springs and bends, and there's nothing about it other than maybe scale where it's designed to look like a character. It just happens to be an object in life that feels like it could be a character, and he was just capitalizing on it. And I wanted that kind of purity out of any of the robots that we did, even though we had to make them up from scratch. GROSS: Talk about the rest of WALL-E's body. Mr. STANTON: Well, he was built out of sort of steps of logic. I knew I wanted him to compact trash, so we just made him a box. And this is probably a real geeky association, but we didn't have an art department at the time that we really started fundamentally designing him, so I had to use my few story guys, and us, to sort of have these days where we would just sketch ideas. And I had been to a Peter Gabriel concert in '93, I think it was, where he had two stages that were connected by a rampway and one stage was square and one stage was round and he had separated the songs he performed on them based on what he felt was a more female song and what was a more male song. Some of those were obvious, some of those were indirect. And I always was fascinated with just that primary shape of the square and the circle being associated that way, so I went that way. And I said, `Let's go with a square with WALL-E and let's go with something roundish for Eve.' And so we said, `Well, that's perfect. We'll go with a cube where he can spit out trash.' And then he's got to get everywhere. He's sort of the first wave of this cleanup task force. He's sort of--they're sort of like army ants. So we put treads on him so that he could get over all terrains. And I think it was honestly a couple of months before the head came, the binoculars at the baseball game. GROSS: OK. And now for the music question. Mr. STANTON: OK. Why "Hello, Dolly," right? GROSS: Why "Hello, Dolly," but let's start with the song. The song--you know, I went into this movie thinking, if there's a song that's going to open the film, it'll be, you know... Mr. STANTON: Mm-hmm. GROSS: ...like an original song because there's so many Disney kind of films that have... Mr. STANTON: Mm-hmm. GROSS: ...original songs for them. And I heard the song that opened it and didn't realize it was from "Hello, Dolly." I don't know--I just know like "Hello, Dolly" and one or two... Mr. STANTON: Mm-hmm. GROSS: ...other songs. Didn't know this one. It's actually a really catchy tune, so let's hear it and then we'll ask why in the world did you choose it. So here it is, and the song is "Put on Your Sunday Clothes." (Soundbite of "Put on Your Sunday Clothes") Mr. MICHAEL CRAWFORD: (Singing) Out there Is a world outside of Yonkers Way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby There's a slick town, Barnaby Out there Full of shine and full of sparkle Close your eyes and see it glisten, Barnaby Listen, Barnaby Put on your Sunday clothes There's lots of world out there Get out the brilliantine and dime cigars We're going to find adventure in the evening air Girls in white in a perfumed night Where the lights are bright as the stars Put on your Sunday clothes, We're going to ride through town In one of those new horse-drawn open cars Mr. CRAWFORD and Mr. DANNY LOCKIN: (Singing) We'll see the shows at Delmonicos And we'll close the town in a whirl And we won't come home Until we've kissed a girl! (End of soundbite) GROSS: That's "Put on Your Sunday Clothes," from "Hello, Dolly," sung by Michael Crawford, who is famous for his role originating in the original "Phantom of the Opera," the original Broadway version of "Phantom of the Opera." Mr. STANTON: That's correct. GROSS: So this is from the movie version of "Hello, Dolly." So why did you decide that, instead of commissioning an original song, you were going to open with a song from "Hello, Dolly"? Mr. STANTON: I was never interested in commissioning a original song. There's a lot of unnecessary baggage and conventions that seem to be put on animation. I've never seen it happen to any other medium, where people just feel like, oh, it's animated, therefore it must have all these lists of things, and if there's one thing that I'm very proud of about Pixar is that, from "Toy Story" on, we've been trying to buck any of those trends and break any of those convention. So I had no interest in doing a musical, I guess, literally. But I loved the idea that WALL-E was enamored with the past and had a romantic heart or a romantic slant to things, and I loved the idea of opening out on space and having something old-fashioned, something romantic and old-fashioned playing against the real image of space. You know, it didn't need to be embellished. It's how amazingly beauty in all its natural glory that space is. Because I knew that his world was covered in cloud cover and he could never see the stars as cleanly as we can. So in a weird way you're opening the movie getting to see his hopes and dreams and hear them before you meet him. And I was just smitten by that notion from the get-go. But an old-fashioned song can be, you know, it's endless what you can choose from. I started listening to a lot of standards, and a lot of standards come from musicals. And I had done just enough musical theater to know some of those standards, you know, "Fiddler on the Roof," "Guys and Dolls," and "Hello, Dolly" was one of them that I had done and so I was--it's like taking swatches and putting them against your wall and wondering what color you're going to paint the wall of your house. You're just putting--I was putting music against the beginning of the film again and again and again and just trying anything, and suddenly this song, "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" from "Hello, Dolly," comes on and it starts with this phrase "out there," and it's like--to me it was like "ta-da!" And just hitting with the image of the stars, and I just, I immediately loved it. And I think why it works so well is because the song, in the context of the play "Hello, Dolly," is about two naive guys that have never left their small town and they want to go out for one night to the big city and just kiss a girl, and I said, `That's my main character. That's WALL-E.' So my co-writer, Jim Reardon, had the idea of, well, WALL-E could find an old videotape of it then, and that's how he knows it. GROSS: Well, Andrew Stanton, thank you so much for talking with us. Mr. STANTON: Well, thank you so much, Terry. This was a real blast to talk this long about it. GROSS: Andrew Stanton wrote and directed the animated film "WALL-E." Our interview was recorded in July. I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR. (Announcements) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Interview: Writer/director Adam McKay and stars John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell on their new movie "Step Brothers" TERRY GROSS, host: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. This summer's movie "Step Brothers," which is still in theaters, was something of reunion for my guests Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly and director/screenwriter Adam McKay. They collaborated on the 2006 film "Talladega Nights." Ferrell and McKay first met in the 1990s when they both worked on "Saturday Night Live." They also worked together on the movie "Anchorman." John C. Reilly's other films include "Boogie Nights," "Chicago," and "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story." I spoke with all three of them earlier this summer when "Step Brothers was released. The film is about two 40-ish men who still behave like adolescents. Neither of them has a job and they still live with their parents. Ferrell's character, Brennan, lives with his mom, played by Mary Steenburgen, while Reilly's character, Dale, lives with his dad, who's portrayed by Richard Jenkins. After their parents meet and decide to get married, Brennan and Dale are forced to live under the same roof and share a room. They start out hating each other. Dale makes fun of Brennan at the dinner table. Brennan plays Dale's drums, even though it's forbidden. Eventually their relationship comes to blows on the front yard in front of all the neighbors. In this scene, they've recovering from the fight, watching TV on the couch, when their father/step-father walks in, fed up and ready to turn the TV off. (Soundbite of "Step Brothers") (Soundbite of motor noises) Mr. WILL FERRELL: (As Brennan) It's such power, it's raw power. Mr. JOHN C. REILLY: (As Dale) Dad, what are you doing? It's shark week. Mr. RICHARD JENKINS: (As Dr. Robert Doback) OK, here's the deal. You have one month to find jobs or you're out on your asses. I will arrange interviews for Monday, and you will go! Mr. REILLY: (As Dale) Dad, why are you talking to me like this? I'm your son. Mr. JENKINS: (As Dr. Robert Doback) I'm not buying that crap anymore. Ms. MARY STEENBURGEN: (As Nancy Huff) You yelled "rape" at the top of your lungs. Mr. FERRELL: (As Brennan) Mom, I honestly thought I was going to be raped for a second. He had the craziest look in his eyes, and at one point he said, `Let's get it on.' Mr. REILLY: (As Dale) That was about the fighting. Mr. FERRELL: (As Brennan) See? Mr. REILLY: (As Dale) I'm so not a raper! Mr. JENKINS: (As Dr. Robert Doback) All right, that's it! You two guys leave me no choice. No television for a week! Mr. REILLY and Mr. FERRELL: (As Dale and Brennan, in unison) What? Ms. STEENBURGEN: (As Nancy Huff) We are so serious. Mr. FERRELL: (As Brennan) You're high! Mr. REILLY: (As Dale) Are you out of your minds? Ms. STEENBURGEN: (As Nancy Huff) Goes in Robert's wall safe. Mr. FERRELL: (As Brennan) Come on! Ms. STEENBURGEN: (As Nancy Huff) And it's going to stay there. Mr. FERRELL: (As Brennan) No! Mr. JENKINS: (As Dr. Robert Doback) OK. Mr. FERRELL: (As Brennan) This house is a prison! (End of soundbite) GROSS: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Adam McKay, welcome to FRESH AIR. Do you know a lot of parents with adult children who are still living at home? Mr. FERRELL: I don't know if I do--this is Will speaking--but I do know a lot of--I have a lot of friends who left the nest late in life, so that kind of was more of our experience in terms of writing the script. In fact, I myself moved back home after completing my university studies--I like to say university studies--and lived at home for three years before I pursued acting and comedy and that sort of thing. And I had another friend of mine who I went to college with who actually got kicked out of his house--or was not allowed to come back, and so he lived with me at my house as well. So I kind of... GROSS: Gee. Mr. FERRELL: Yeah, it was a good deal for both of us. GROSS: So how much of a script is there in a movie like "Step Brothers" when you go into it, and how much of it is like more skeletal and you actually improvise it as you're doing it? Mr. ADAM McKAY: Believe it or not, we actually worked the script pretty hard. We rewrite it eight, nine times, we do read throughs. And it's funny because the goal is to make it feel like it's not a script by the time you're done, but no, there is a script for our movies. Mr. FERRELL: In fact, this one, it was such a kind of a--so freeing to write scenes with, you know, just in kind of a contemporary setting that the script first rough draft came out at 180 pages, which, you know, would be how long? What movie would that be? Mr. McKAY: Be about a four-hour movie. Mr. FERRELL: Yeah. Yeah. Mr. McKAY: Yeah. Three and a half hour movie, yeah. Mr. FERRELL: So Adam and I kept writing these scenes, we're having so much fun, and, you know, what would normally be a one and a half page, two page scene would often be 10 pages. And we knew it was ridiculous, but we couldn't help ourselves, so we had to kind of, you know, cut all that back. GROSS: In the clip that we just heard, it ends with one of you saying, "This house is a prison." And I'm pretty sure I remember my brother saying that a lot, my older brother when I was going up. Mr. McKAY: Right. GROSS: Do you remember saying that to your parents in anger? Mr. FERRELL: Huh. Mr. McKAY: I think I said "hell hole." GROSS: Yeah. Mr. McKAY: I don't think I said prison. GROSS: What made you want to like bust out when you were a kid? Yeah. Mr. REILLY: I have to say, if I'd said half the stuff that Dale and Brennan say to their parents in this movie, I would have been beaten to a pulp. My parents did not truck the kind of sass mouth that Dale and Brennan get away with, I think just because they had to maintain control. With six kids, you couldn't let any of them get too out of control or else it would be mayhem. GROSS: Where were you in the pecking order? Mr. REILLY: I'm fifth of six. Mr. FERRELL: Hm. GROSS: Fifth youngest. Mr. REILLY: Yeah. GROSS: So... Mr. REILLY: I have one younger brother. GROSS: One of the fun things about the film is how the adult kids' bedroom looks, like the themed wallpaper. Mr. FERRELL: Right. GROSS: And cowboys on the lampshade, and there's like Wookie masks that they have. Mr. FERRELL: Yes. GROSS: Can you each like describe what your bedroom was like when you were a kid? Mr. FERRELL: Well, I actually had bunk beds that were constructed by my father, which was very impressive that my dad, who was this musician, could also build these bunk beds. That being said, they were very rickety. And it was, you know, that first kind of, you know, ideal of wanting to have bunk beds and how cool it'd be is quickly lost when you're in the top bunk and you have to crawl up every night. And I remember thinking, bunk beds aren't what they're cracked up to be. This is a lot of work for not that much fun being on the top bunk. But I think I had a Dodger poster above my bed. Mr. McKAY: I had football cards. I had Los Angeles Rams football cards stapled to the drywall of my room, just covering my room. Mr. REILLY: Wow. Mr. McKAY: Yeah, it was... Mr. FERRELL: I had a Rams pillowcase. Mr. McKAY: Did you? Mr. FERRELL: Yeah. Yeah. Mr. REILLY: We had--it was me and my three brothers all in the same room, so we basically each got like a corner of the room, and it was like kind of a barracks-type situation in there. Eventually when my two older brothers took over the play room and had their own room, me and my younger brother got a trundle bed. Mr. McKAY: Oh. A trundle. Mr. REILLY: I desperately wanted a bunk bed, but my mom did not think they were safe. Mr. FERRELL: That was the compromise, the trundle. Mr. REILLY: So we got the trundle. Mr. FERRELL: Huh. Mr. REILLY: Which I got the regular bed, my brother got the trundle. And then there was a point where my mom wanted to sort of make the room special for me and my little brother, and so we collaborated on what the room would be decorated like, and we came up with like an African animal theme. Mr. FERRELL: Wow. Mr. REILLY: And the idea was this pretty cool... Mr. FERRELL: Wow. Mr. REILLY: ...like sepia and brown tone animal print wallpaper all over the top, and then dark brown corkboard, which was in vogue in the '70s. Mr. FERRELL: Whoa. Mr. REILLY: Remember that really dark cork? Mr. FERRELL: Sure. Mr. REILLY: You could buy it in panels? Mr. FERRELL: Yeah. Mr. McKAY: Sounds beautiful. Mr. REILLY: And that was going to be the bottom part, but then somehow we just lost steam. Mr. FERRELL: So that's it? Mr. REILLY: So we got a couple panels of wallpaper, a few cork things and the rest of it kind of this pale blue color. Mr. McKAY: Still, though, that sounds great. Mr. REILLY: Yeah, I mean, what I really wanted was a chimpanzee habitat for my room. Mr. FERRELL: Hm. Mr. REILLY: And I used to tell my friends that my parents were going to get that for me like, `Oh yeah, and we're going to get a chimp sometime in the next six months. It's going to live with me.' My friends were like, `Really?' Mr. FERRELL: It's a done deal. Yeah. Mr. REILLY: `Aren't they like dangerous when they get older?' `Yeah, no, but if you train then from baby.' I was so confident that I was getting a chimpanzee, it was like... Mr. FERRELL: How hold were you? Mr. REILLY: I just taught myself that it was true. I convinced myself. I was probably 12 or 13 at that point. Mr. FERRELL: Wow. GROSS: When you were making "Step Brothers," did you go back and watch any of the films about like, you know, kids and divorce and re-marriage and step parents and stuff like from "The Parent Trap" and, you know, "The Brady Bunch"? What are the other ones like that, like recombined families? Mr. McKAY: "Kramer vs. Kramer." Mr. REILLY: "Apocalypse Now." Mr. McKAY: "Apocalypse Now." GROSS: Yes. Mr. McKAY: We watched "Apocalypse Now" about 10 times. Mr. FERRELL: It really didn't help us. Mr. McKAY: No. Mr. FERRELL: But we love that movie. Mr. McKAY: Oh, boy. Get you. That was one of the ideas of the film was that it was going to have a feeling of like a demented 1960s Disney movie. GROSS: Like "The Parent Trap." Mr. McKAY: Exactly. Mr. FERRELL: Yeah. Mr. McKAY: "Parent Trap" was a huge source for this. And then when our composer Jon Brion came in, that was his intent as well, was to give it that kind of warped old Disney kind of feel to it. So, yeah, those were definitely an inspiration. GROSS: Did you know going into the film that there had to be one really kind of funny, incredibly inappropriate kind of gross moment? Mr. McKAY: You know, we did not set out to do that. Sadly, it happened organically, which does not speak well for us. But, yeah, it was mainly the drum set, which was a big kind of centerpiece of the movie. It came from John's stories about his brothers' drum set, and we just knew that fight had to escalate to absolutely absurd proportions and had to go way further than anything we've done with that. And that's sort of how it came out. GROSS: So, John, tell us a real drum story from your childhood. Because, well, just to set it up, in "Step Brothers," Will Ferrell's character moves with his mother into the home that John C. Reilly and his father have been living in after their parents marry. And John C. Reilly's character has a drum set and warns Will Ferrell's character, `Don't touch it. Don't touch the sticks, don't touch the drums.' And, of course, Will Ferrell can't resist. Mr. REILLY: The funny thing about the whole setup with the drum set was that a lot of the conflict in the movie that happens between my character and Will's character could have been avoided if my character had just said he can have that extra room where I keep my drums, and I'll move my drum set into my bedroom. Mr. FERRELL: So we could have, yeah, separate rooms. Yeah. Mr. REILLY: But, no, he takes a strong position at the beginning, `That is my beat laboratory, and I'm not sharing that room. I'm drawing a line in the sand,' so we're forced to be in the same bedroom then as a result. But, yeah, growing up, my brother played the drums and was very particular about the drum set. You know, I've discovered a lot of drummers are actually very particular about their drum set because there's a lot of things that can move out of position, and once you find like your perfect sweet spot where you like the drums set up and everything, you really don't want people messing with it. But, of course, I, like Will's character in the movie, as soon as my brother left the house, I was drawn to it like a siren song. I would go down there and put on the headphones and do like Will does and pretend I was in The Who. Mr. FERRELL: Yeah. Mr. REILLY: And, you know, slam away on the drums. And luckily, I was never caught by my brother. But he still has a drum set in his basement to this day. Mr. FERRELL: OK. Mr. REILLY: He's a grown man with a family now. He's very good, too. We had a band when I was a kid called Shark Fighter. Mr. McKAY: Oh. Mr. REILLY: And I was the lead singer and... Mr. FERRELL: Oh my God. Mr. REILLY: ...a neighbor played electric guitar, and my brother played the drums. Mr. McKAY: Was it like jazz fusion? What kind of... Mr. REILLY: No. Mr. McKAY: No? Mr. REILLY: A lot of AC/DC, Rolling Stones. Mr. FERRELL: Oh. Huh. Mr. REILLY: Yeah. And one original song called "South Side Boy." GROSS: Did you write it? Mr. REILLY: I co-wrote it. GROSS: OK. OK. Mr. REILLY: With Brian Rafferty. GROSS: Let's hear it. Let's hear it. Mr. REILLY: Wow. Mr. McKAY: Can you recall "South Side Boy"? Mr. REILLY: Yeah. (Singing) He was a south side boy. He was a south side boy. South side boy, soon to become a man. (Spoken) It was all about--had these allusions to being a gambler at the table. And he knew he had the cards in his hand, and when he laid them down, he's soon to become a man. GROSS: Story of your life. Mr. REILLY: It was kind of a rollicking, barrel-house blues number. Mr. FERRELL: That's pretty good. Mr. REILLY: It really isn't. Mr. FERRELL: Shark Fighter. Shark Fighter. I would pay money to see Shark Fighter. Mr. McKAY: I definitely would. Mr. REILLY: I think I'm going to have to resuscitate Shark Fighter. GROSS: My guests are Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, the stars of "Step Brothers," and Adam McKay, who wrote and directed the film. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR. (Announcements) GROSS: My guests are Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. They star in the film "Step Brothers," which was written and directed by Adama McKay, who is also my guest. There's a lot of like times when the kids get punished in the film, when the two stepbrothers get punished by their parents who have just married each other. And so I guess I was wondering, what were the worst punishments from parents that you faced as children or the worst or more controversial you've administered as parents? Mr. FERRELL: Well, I know the worst, most dramatic punishment I ever received was--I was a huge "Partridge Family" fan. I loved the "Partridge Family" show, and I stayed out a little too late in the summertime playing, you know, baseball in the front yard or whatever, and I was supposed to be in by a certain time. And my mom showed up and I knew I was busted. So we walked back to our apartment, and she said, `Here's your choice: spanking or you miss "The Partridge Family" show.' So I took the spanking, because I knew I would not miss "The Partridge Family." So I watched "The Partridge Family" with tears streaming down my face. And she's like, `Really, you want to take the spanking over?' I'm like, `I'll take it. I'll take the spanking.' And that was a monumental moment. Mr. McKAY: I had a similar thing. I had, `Give up one or your G.I. Joes or take a spanking.' And I remember my dad said, `I'll give you time to decide.' And there was like a good two, three hours with this kind of "Sophie's Choice"-type situation happening. And I did the exact same thing. I said I'll take the spanking. And I took it, and the same thing, too, went and played with the G.I. Joes with tears in my eyes. GROSS: Your parents hit hard, huh? Mr. REILLY: Decisive moment. Mr. FERRELL: Yeah. Mr. McKAY: Yeah. Mr. REILLY: We used to have the specter of my dad coming home from work, `Wait until your father gets home.' Mr. FERRELL: Yeah. Mr. REILLY: Those were the dreaded words my mom would say. Then eventually we realized if you just stay away from the house at the hour that my dad gets home... Mr. FERRELL: You're good. Mr. REILLY: ...and you wait until he falls asleep in front of the TV while he's eating his dinner, then you're kind of good. Mr. FERRELL: Yeah. Mr. REILLY: You miss the punishment hour, and then my mom caught wise to that, and she--you remember those toys, giant tinker toys? Mr. FERRELL: Oh, yeah. Mr. McKAY: Sure. Mr. REILLY: These enormous plastic tinker toys for building things? Mr. FERRELL: Yeah. Mr. REILLY: My mom would wield the big green one, and you knew you were in trouble when she came at you with the big green tinker toy. And, yeah, but I was always faster than my mom, so I escaped most corporal punishment. My kids, I just have to say, like having kids now, I can't imagine hitting them. It just seems like completely insane to teach kids not to be violent by being violent. So. Mr. FERRELL: Yeah. Yeah. Mr. McKAY: It's crazy that it was so accepted when we were little. Like, my mom had the hairbrush. Like spanking, I remember like a good friend of mine's dad... Mr. FERRELL: Spanking was pretty common, yeah. Mr. McKAY: Spanking. I went to visit a friend, and his dad spanked me. And then later my parents were like, `Thank you for doing that, Jim.' Mr. FERRELL: Thank you. `Yeah. No problem.' And now you would never think of that ever. Mr. McKAY: Oh my God, you would literally go to jail... Mr. FERRELL: Yeah. Mr. McKAY: ...if like a friend of yours' kid was over. Mr. FERRELL: Yeah. Mr. McKAY: And you spanked them. GROSS: So how do you punish your kids now? Mr. FERRELL: I'm not good. I just give them candy. I pay them less money when they do something wrong. No, I mean, the power of the, `You got to go to your room and hang out alone and calm down.' Mr. McKAY: No cartoons is a big one. Mr. FERRELL: Yeah. Mr. McKAY: No cartoons works a lot. Dessert is another big one. No cartoons, no dessert works a lot. And then time-out's very effective. GROSS: It's been great to talk with you all. Thank you so much for doing this interview. Mr. REILLY: Thank you, Terry. GROSS: I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Mr. McKAY: It's a pleasure, Terry. Thank you. Mr. FERRELL: Thanks so much, Terry. GROSS: Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly star in the film "Step Brothers." Adam McKay wrote and directed it. Our interview was recorded in July when the movie was released. Coming up, rock historian Ed Ward profiles the gospel group The Staple Singers." This is FRESH AIR. (Announcements) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Profile: Ed Ward on the story of The Staple Singers TERRY GROSS, host: Soul music is filled with stories of performers who switched from gospel to pop, like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin. But there's only one act which stayed gospel and was popular with soul and pop fans. Ed Ward tells the story of The Staple Singers, who began in the Mississippi Delta and went all the way to Talking Heads. (Soundbite of "Swing Down Sweet Chariot") STAPLES SINGERS: (Singing) Why don't you swing down, sweet chariot, Stop and let me ride Swing down, chariot, Stop and let me ride Oh, rock me, Lord, Rock me, Lord, calm and easy Well, I've got a home on the other side Why don't you swing down, sweet chariot... (End of soundbite) Mr. ED WARD: Roebuck Staples was born in 1915 in Winona, Mississippi, and eight or nine years later, he left school to hang around with the local blues men, most notably Charlie Patton, who sometimes lived on a neighboring plantation. From Patton he picked up some guitar, and occasionally worked as a sort of roadie for Patton and the blues men who traveled with him all over the delta playing on weekends, blues men who included a young Howlin' Wolf and maybe Robert Johnson. Patton may also have inspired young Roebuck in another way. When the money was good and the opportunity presented itself, he worked as a preacher using the name "Elder Hadley." By the mid-'30s, Staples was singing and playing guitar in a local gospel group, The Golden Trumpets; and like many black residents of the Mississippi Delta, in 1941 he moved with his young family to Chicago. He had four young children to support--Cleotha, Pervis, Yvonne and Mavis--and he worked in a gospel group called The Windy City Gospel Jubilees. The kids started singing while he was practicing guitar, and before long Roebuck started home workshops, gathering them in the living room and working out harmonies with them. In 1948, he decided they were ready, and they started barnstorming Chicago churches as The Staple Singers. Cleotha, the eldest, was 14. Mavis, the youngest, was 11. (Soundbite of "Uncloudy Day") THE STAPLE SINGERS: (Singing) Whoa, they tell me, Whoa Where no storm clouds rise Whoa, they tell me Whoa Far away, so far away Whoa, they tell me (End of soundbite) Mr. WARD: The Staple Singers weren't at all in the mold of most quartets and quintets on the circuit. Roebuck's guitar, pushed to an eerie reverb, wove through the family harmonies with all the darkness of delta blues instead of just chunking out chords. For another thing, their repertoire, like "Uncloudy Day," which we just heard, came as much from the white Southern church as the black church. One of their standout numbers was "May the Circle Be Unbroken" from the white Carter family. Their recordings, starting with the ones they made for Vee-Jay in 1952, sold well in the gospel field, mostly because they didn't sound like anyone else. (Soundbite of "This May Be the Last Time") THE STAPLE SINGERS: (Singing) This may This may be my last time This may This may be my last time, children This may This may be my last time May be my last time, I don't know Whoa! Now, in the morning Well, oh, I Lord, I'm sick sour Ooh, Lord (Unintelligible)... Can Jesus But I'm bound by warts and woes Whoa (End of soundbite) Mr. WARD: By the time they recorded "This May Be the Last Time" in 1960, Roebuck knew it was time to move on. They'd begun to get some recognition from college audiences as the folk revival swept campuses, so they signed with a folk and jazz label, Riverside, and then were snatched up by Epic, where they began to get daring. (Soundbite of "Why? (Am I Treated So Bad)") THE STAPLE SINGERS: (Singing) My friend, You know this old world's in a bad condition Just the other day I saw a group of little children Trying to ride a school bus By them being of a different nationality They weren't allowed to ride the bus And I imagine now If you had asked them about this matter They would have words like this to say Why am I treated so bad? Why... (End of soundbite) Mr. WARD: Nobody was fooled by Roebuck saying the kids were of a "different nationality." The message was clear and shocking to a gospel world still trying to figure out if Martin Luther King was safe to back or not. The Staple Singers took their opinions straight into the churches, and Epic recorded it on one of the greatest live gospel albums ever. (Soundbite of "Freedom Highway") THE STAPLE SINGERS: (Singing) I take the freedom highway (Unintelligible)... (End of soundbite) Mr. WARD: There were the expected grumblings from other gospel acts, but the family forged on. In 1968, they signed to Stax Records in Memphis, where their first single was "Long Walk to DC," fronted by an exuberant Mavis. Then came "When Will We Be Paid for the Work We've Done," a catalogue of black grievances very much in tune with the times. 1970 saw the beginning of a change. Pervis left the group to take over their management, and middle sister Yvonne joined. Roebuck's nickname, "Pops," became official. And Stax executive Al Bell decided they should record in Muscle Shoals, where they recorded their first number one hit, "I'll Take You There," and this historic moment. (Soundbite of "I'll Take You There") THE STAPLE SINGERS: (Singing) If you're ready, If you're ready, yeah If you're ready Come on, go with me No hatred... (End of soundbite) Mr. WARD: Everyone concerned swore they'd never heard reggae when this was recorded, but with its dove-like bass solo and chunky beat, it sounded like nothing America had ever heard before. The Staple Singers continued through Stax's bankruptcy and collapse, rescued by Curtis Mayfield, who'd obviously learned something from Pops' guitar playing, and gave them another number one hit, "Let's Do It Again," in 1975. There were stints at Warners and something called Private I, where they hit with an unlikely version of Talking Heads' "Slippery People," which, against all odds, was great. It would take one thing and one thing only to bring an end to The Staple Singers' story, and it came on December 19th, 2000, when Roebuck "Pops" Staples passed on after a fall in his home, aged 82. GROSS: Rock historian Ed Ward lives in Berlin. You can download podcasts of our show on our Web site, freshair.npr.org. (Credits) GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Description
HALF: Andrew Stanton TEN: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Adam McKay Ed (Staple Singers)
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Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio's most popular programs. Each week, nearly 4.5 million people listen to the show's intimate conversations broadcast on more than 450 National Public Radio (NPR) stations across the country, as well as in Europe on the World Radio Network. Though Fresh Air has been categorized as a "talk show," it hardly fits the mold. Its 1994 Peabody Award citation credits Fresh Air with "probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insights." And a variety of top publications count Gross among the country's leading interviewers. The show gives interviews as much time as needed, and complements them with comments from well-known critics and commentators. Fresh Air is produced at WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and broadcast nationally by NPR.
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Chicago: “Fresh Air,” American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed May 21, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-215-68x96602.
MLA: “Fresh Air.” American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. May 21, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-215-68x96602>.
APA: Fresh Air. Boston, MA: American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-215-68x96602