[lounge music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Narrator] "On Story" is brought to you in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, a Texas family providing innovative funding since 1979.

[waves] [kids screaming] [wind] [witch cackling] [sirens wail] [gunshots] [dripping] [suspenseful music] [telegraph beeping, typing] [piano gliss] From Austin Film Festival, this is "On Story," a look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators and filmmakers.

This week on "On Story," action, comedy writer, director Shane Black, joins us to discuss his process co-writing "The Nice Guys."

- We had that notion that these two guys are knights in slightly tarnished armor and they're trying to stumble around current day and do their best to find a maiden worth protecting.

They think they have and then they fail.

In some fashion, they're carrying on the knightly tradition, the tradition of being noble, when in fact they're complete scumbag losers and not very nice.

[paper crumples] [typing] [carriage returns, ding] - Anyway, so we're here to talk about "The Nice Guys," which we have a long history with because we read the screenplay publicly with a cast not in the film.

- We had, as the two leads-- - Peter Weller.

- Peter Weller and Thomas Jane, yeah.

And they read the thing and acted it out here in a room just like this one.

Yeah, they were fabulous.

- It was fun.

It was a lot of fun, yeah.

And so it was really interesting to come full circle here because reading that script, the funny thing about doing that reading, I really can't imagine it now without these two guys.

Can anybody else?

And that's what I felt about "Lethal Weapon."

And you told that funny story a long time ago about you didn't want that Australian guy in there.

- You know, he had really long hair and he had just come off "Thunderdome," which is a bomb having come off of "Mrs.

Sofo," which was a bomb having come off of "The Bounty," which was a bomb having come off here and do "Living Dangerously," which was a bomb.

Mel Gibson actually was very smart.

He said, "Hey, I'm gonna take a year off 'cause I think people are sick of looking at me."

And he did, and the film he came back with was our film, but-- - Let's talk just a little bit about the beginning of that.

So like what, in the sense of, before we go to the first clips, plural, what was going on when you wrote that script?

- "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," which I was writing had been rejected.

[audience cheering and applauding] Yeah, and it was just sitting there.

It was just sitting there.

No one wanted to do it until Joel Silver came along.

So in the meantime, Anthony Bagarozzi, my writing partner, we just said, "You know what, we're both really depressed.

This really sucks."

You know, it's like being in a lifeboat.

The reason you like being in a lifeboat is because if it sinks, there's someone with you and you go, "Hey, I feel terrible."

"Yeah, me too."

Which is why I recommend if you're a writer, you get some friends because it's gonna feel like a leaky boat and it's gonna feel like the only one at the end of the day reads this stuff is your mom, and to the extent that you can surround yourself with commiserating people are on the same beam and not jealous or angry, but simply on the creative sort of pathway that seems in some ways to have crossed yours in a good way.

So, I said to Anthony, "You wanna do something?"

And he said, "Yeah, well, you know, we got some time and why don't we each take a character."

We like private eye stories, we all big fans of "The Rockford Files."

So he said, "I'll take a character and you take a character," which is, you know, one of those experiments that never works.

It's like how many of you have ever said to yourselves, "Hey, let's write a screenplay.

I'll do like two pages and then you do the next two."

And you think it sounds like a great idea and it's just is, yeah, it's not.

So we did that anyway and I chose the Ryan Gosling character and he chose the Russell Crowe character and we ended up, you know, we, it worked for a minute.

It's not gonna sustain itself that way because you have to continually sort of consult and collate and get together on something.

You can't just be writing parallel.

You have to have it converge.

And so after a couple weeks, I was writing the Healy character and he was writing the March character, but the point of it was we were really stabbing in the dark with this when we just had characters, we just had scenes, and we have a lot of scenes that didn't make it to the movie of just these guys doing detective stuff, having things go wrong, and eventually it became a script that got rejected and it had a lot of problems too.

And then it sat for years.

And then we said, "You know, we should try it one more time."

I had been reading an author named Davis Dresser, he writes under the name Brett Halliday and they're written in the '30s and '40s, but the plots were great, so I would, you know, I would buy the plot, or a plot element, as it turns out, so I'd pay like 35 grand and get a clue, but I needed that.

And the clue that we paid for was someone is desperate to get a porno film and people keep dying because of it and it's because of the story of the film.

So you think it's because of who's in it.

No, it's because of the story.

It reveals a secret that a bribe took place and someone's going to jail.

So I thought that was a fun enough idea that we would make that the sort of centerpiece.

That was our MacGuffin was this, you know, sought-after porn film.

[quiet music] [glass clunks] [car crashing] [glass shattering] [car crashing] [quiet music] [fire cracking and whooshing] [mysterious music] [Shane] So on we went, and Ryan Gosling, I flew to see Russell Crowe 'cause he demands that, you know, "I need to talk to him if I'm gonna do it, you know."

So I flew all the way to Woolloomooloo, Australia, and I'm in his apartment and he's saying no over dinner, goes, "I just, I don't see it.

I just don't think it's for me."

And I said, "Yeah, okay, well, you know, the reason I mentioned it, Ryan Gosling says he would do it.

I think he would do it if you did it because... "Wait, Ryan Gosling is doing it?"

"Yeah," he goes, everything changed, and so it was great.

He was one of those performers, you get what you pay for and when you get a pro, I mean that's what you get a pro, you watch the specificity of his acting and we'll get to that in a moment, but yeah, you just, it's all character work.

It's all about framing these guys and framing and choking them with paper beforehand, giving the memos about what the mission statement is, what you think, what your notions are about the particular character, and then you could talk about it, we talked about it, and the result was, I thought, something that was genuinely very nice and audiences who had just come from all the Marvel movies that summer thought, "Is there something nice?

I don't see anything."

And said they didn't go because we got lost in the shuffle of "Angry Birds," "X-Men: Apocalypse," and "Captain America's Civil War."

- So he brought up character and I think that's what is the key to this movie, right, 'cause we love both those guys.

I don't know why, but we do.

The first clip is the intro of March.

[March] I wish I wished for things, man.

[head clunks] [bell dings] My folks had told me to reach for the stars and then my pals on the force said reach for the brass ring.

Then my wife died and I reached for whatever came in a gallon and cost a buck 50.

She used to say I got no follow-through.

I'd hit nails in halfway and stop.

[lively music] She's not wrong.

[razor buzzing] [people chattering] [horn honking] - What are you, huh?

[person grunting] [March] They implemented a no-fault divorce here a couple years back that really screwed things up.

A lot of private cops folded.

Not me.

I got this guy in a local retirement park.

He kicks a few cases my way.

- So once again, let's not underestimate 'cause you cannot possibly overestimate how much magic people help.

You have magic people doing this and you know, they just sort of bring to it an innate quality.

But yeah, that's where we started, character.

Those were the first two scenes that my writing partner Anthony and I just sat down and wrote.

- Your introductions are always so great.

It's like what?

We have everything we need to know, but they're also funny and we're also so engaged.

And you talked about character earlier, like in this beginning, what were you doing, or what were you and Anthony doing, to, you know, to fulfill the overall mission of the film?

- Right.

Well, we had a place we wanted to go to.

We were fond of sort of an existential idea of the detective movie.

It's a sort of meta feeling of two guys driving around at the end of the world.

And we had that notion that these two guys are knights in slightly tarnished armor and they're trying to stumble around current day and do their best to find a maiden worth protecting, and they think they have and then they fail.

And so there was that notion, the spine of the thing being, you know, rumpled, grizzly bears stuffed into suits acting as though in some fashion they're carrying on the knightly tradition, the tradition of being noble, when in fact they're complete scumbag losers and not very nice and so that's the whole point.

It's called "The Nice Guys" 'cause they're losers and they're not nice, but they want in some way to be nice.

That's what knights in modern days do.

They don't go out to a lot of pomp and ceremony.

They stumble into knighthood.

They're called to it by something they can't resist, some mythic little spark inside them which says, "Hey, you know, you're [bleep] but you know, in this one instance there's a myth calling to you and you better step into it because you can't resist."

The primordial draw of stepping into these shoes and filling this myth is stronger than your desire for self-destruction.

- They are really, both of them are bumbling in their own way and so I think it's interesting to, because they're so likable and I think that's what is a difficult struggle in writing with characters is like when you're gonna make their flaws, their flaws are pretty evident.

I mean, they're kind of embarrassing, but in fact you end up really appreciating them because they do make you laugh.

- Yes, stuff that's embarrassing, stuff that's awkward, that's sort of the fun and the fun is not making it too goofy and funny that you can't then change the tone and suddenly bring it down to something real and affecting, something even very dark.

- But I think the daughter really helps both of them, so and was interested that you threw her character in there, and what was the thinking from the two of you?

- The thinking was that these two needed a conscience and that's who she is.

She's their conscience and she also sort of controls, she manipulates these two, not maliciously, but she kind of points them in a direction and it's ultimately for her that they end up doing all this stuff.

At the end, Healy is doing what he always does, which is he's eliminating loose ends by killing Matt Bomer's character, just strangling him to death, and the little girl shows up and says... - Mr.

Healy, if you kill this man, I will never speak to you again.

- The voice of a true maiden, if you carry on the knight metaphor, saying that, "If you're not honorable here, then I refuse to speak to you."

And so she is the conscience that lets them continue to improve, and self-improvement is a big part of the Healy character.

If you notice he's got, he learns a word every day.

He goes to his fish tank and he reads to himself and memorizes a new word that he didn't know.

He's always trying to make himself a little better.

He's taking courses, he's teaching a course at the learning annex in the movie, so he's the self-improvement guy who just wants to be useful somehow.

And March is the guy who's given up.

March is the guy who's given into cynicism, which his daughter is not.

She's not cynical, she's cynical about him, but he's the one who says, "You know what, her husband's dead, she doesn't even know it.

I'll take her money."

[water splashing] - You want some [bleep].

- Why are you doing this?

- I got some fish.

- This is not gonna help you.

- Here you go.

- Hey, come on.

- You're gonna eat something, you [bleep].

- Look, you gotta, you gotta stop and think about this, all right?

When you came here tonight, was this what you wanted to happen?

[Barbara] So the fish leads us to Blue Face.

That's one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

There's so much in there that you learn about him, but also great bad guy.

- You learn a lot about Healy because we talk a lot and it's easy to say, you know, we want a character with a code.

Well, this is a kind of down-and-out guy and he's a kind of unscrupulous and he breaks people's arms and doesn't think about it, but he does it 'cause it's the job, and so here's a guy who's being unprofessional.

And I think the line that really stands out in the scene is, "Look, you could have come in here, broke my fingers, beat me up, whatever, I get it, I accept that, but you didn't do that.

You started throwing my fish.

So how is that helping your case?"

It doesn't make sense to him.

He knows he's dealing with amateurs and amateurs are the thing that triggers him, people who don't do the [bleep] job and they don't adhere to a set of rules, which he's perfectly willing to abide by, including getting beat up, but that's what makes you I think like the characters.

You find out that, so, this is not to him cruelty that he's inflicting, he just believes in a work ethic, right?

In the same way that he's trying to improve himself all the time.

- Well, this comes also around full circle into the scene you were just talking about where we, you know, where his conscience, you know, you didn't kill that man, right?

This this set up the fact that this guy kind of deserves, he's cruel.

He's gonna kill a fish in somebody's tank.

I think that that was also a really beautiful piece in the film that you're taking us all the way around with that, this guy comes back, you know?

- Yeah, of course he's gonna come back and you really, yeah, you don't like him.

There's a kind of a subtle, maybe not so subtle art in making films with bad guys that you want to go away that will elicit a cheer if they're suddenly, you know, taken care of, beheaded, dismembered.

And it started with "Dirty Harry," which is another of my favorite films we talked about last year.

It's like, how many people by the end just wanted to just shoot the [bleep] guy, you know?

That performance, the bad guy in "Dirty Harry," was so effective that it ultimately destroyed that actor's career.

- Really?

- He couldn't, yeah, no one wanted to hire the psycho from "Dirty Harry" because they couldn't buy him as a normal protagonist.

He's that psycho.

[shoes scuffing] [knuckles rapping] - March.

Jack Healy.

Don't get upset.

I'm not here to hurt you.

I just wanna ask you a question.

[door clunking] Hey, no, - How stupid do you think I am?

I got a license to carry, mother [bleep].

Ever since your little visit the other day, this little baby's gonna stay right here.

[door thuds] [door clunking] [door banging] [March sighs] [paper crinkling] [door banging] Look away.

[paper crinkling] - You know there's a mirror here, right?

- Close your eyes.

[bleep] Forget it.

You know what?

Turn around.

- Can I open my eyes?

- Yeah, open your eyes.

- And so this is sort of slapstick noir and this is the great, I mean, that scene, that's so amazing.

So I want to hear you talk about how you, you know, what you were thinking about.

Like that's such a ridiculous scenario, but then shooting that, you know, just getting it just right, you know?

- Well, we talked about it because it's in the script that he tries to open the door, but he's got a cigarette.

He can't hold the cigarette.

He tries to hold the door, he drops the cigarette, but bringing that to life was something that Ryan came in early that day and we just took like 30 minutes was all it took and he says, "I just [vocalizing]," and he worked it out and then rehearsed it and then went away and did his makeup.

And so it's really just an actor who is facile enough to not just get the idea, understand the mission statement, but then to come in, and I'm sure he'd thought about it the night before.

I'm sure that he may have gone to a public restroom and tried to imagine what that would be, but you're never gonna know.

All you know is when magic people are in your movie, they show up and they bring it and sometimes they elevate what you did.

They take something and make it better, and then all you can say is, "Thank you, I'm happy to take the credit for that."

And in this case it was in the script, but he brings it to the level of, you know, operatic in his execution.

And I think Russell's just as good in the scene too because he just wants to ask a question and this poor guy is terrified, tried to act tough, you know.

- Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.

I gotta know.

- I don't want to get into it.

- You gotta get into it.

I gotta know.

You're the diner guy.

[Healy sighs] - All right.

- Yes.

- All right, about a year ago-- - Yes.

- I was at a diner in Hollywood.

This [bleeps] with a shotgun started threatening people.

- I love it.

It's the best story I've ever heard.

- So I did something about it.

I acted, I didn't plan to, I didn't, you know?

I just did it.

[dramatic music] I took that guy out.

[shotgun fire blasting] [rifle thudding] I didn't even get paid for it.

So I ended up with a bullet in the bicep and 500 bucks of hospital bills, it was stupid, really.

When I think about it, it was the best day of my life.

[March snoring] - So you're pretty late in the movie at this point, but we're still getting a lot of learning of these characters.

- Yeah, once you've established the fun and the goofiness and that, have them sort of really get to know each other, you can slow it down enough, and that's, I think what's so important about grounding it in the character is instead of just focusing on making things funny, you allow for things like this where you can slow down and change the tone.

- But I think that also was, and was this intended that this is before he meets Blue Face again and you now learn else about him so you're talking some-- - You learn that, that he basically has a way of doing things, of being useful, but it's also kind of brutal.

I mean, there's one cut where he's just beating the guy to death and it comes in the middle of his introspection and I think that says a lot.

It's like to him it was just, you know, "I did what I had to do."

He doesn't view it as cruelty.

He views it as being useful.

And so later, you also notice that he calls people buddy when he's about to kill them.

That was part of his character that he came up with.

So when he sees him in the road and he says like, "Sorry, buddy," and takes out his handkerchief, you, okay, he's gonna kill him.

And we played with that concept of later when he kills Blue Face because we wanted to leave it so you wondered did he or didn't he, and it didn't really work.

You needed to see that, yes, he did kill him, and then when the little girl says, "Did you kill that man tonight?"

He says, "No, of course not."

He's just lying, he's flat out lying, and it's the one thing you see him feel ashamed about in the movie is lying to the little girl.

He cares about that more than beating someone after to death.

- And yet we still like him, right?

I mean, did anybody lose any respect for him at that moment when he kills Blue Face?

No.

- No, that's because Blue Face had tried to kill the little girl.

- [laughing] So from both sides, the writing and the direction, can you talk about that is, I mean, that's an insane action sequence that had to be so coordinated, right?

- Well, yeah, we scouted a location and then tailored it toward the location and I had to beg for some money because the studio didn't want him to crash through the glass and go outside.

They wanted to keep everything inside the car showing.

I said, "No, no, you gotta add some scale to this."

And I just knew that it would play.

And you know, it's about keeping it awkward.

Everything is awkward.

You know, when the guy shoots at him and hits the film can and drives him outside so it's not just a missed shot, it's a punch that wasn't meant, you know, when he slips and falls, when he upends a table, when the other guy catches him going by, but it was too late 'cause he was killing this guy and everything was intended to just be this sort of interlocking sort of awkward ballet, the intention being to say, yeah, this is an action sequence and these guys, the one thing we won't compromise on is their doggedness, their sort of single-handed unswerving determination to get that film can, but we're also gonna make it as slippery as we can along the way so that there's just a series of hopefully things that sort of ground it for you, so they're constantly getting still beat up, beat up, beat up, and by the time he holds up the can and he's got that symbol, he now owns the MacGuffin.

Hopefully he's earned it not by being a sort of John Wick doing ballet kicks, but by a guy who falls on it and breaks his head and you know, it's that sort of feeling and I think that's the knights in slightly tarnished armor that we were talking about.

You know, they're not like real knights.

They're like knights who are trying to fill epic, epic shoes that they cannot and never will be able to fully fill, but they will do it their way and at the end, they get the same result.

[typewriter ding] [Narrator] You've been watching "Script to Screen: The Nice Guys" on "On Story."

"On Story" is part of a growing number of programs in Austin Film Festival's On Story Project, that also includes the On Story radio program, podcast, book series, and the On Story archive, accessible through the Wittcliff Collections at Texas State University.

To find out more about On Story and Austin Film Festival, visit onstory.tv or austinfilmfestival.com.

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