A strong case is made for Paltrow (transcribed 'Gwinterre'): she had already won the Oscar and had six commercial movies in two years. — Bill Simmons
The category is redefined as the peak of your powers, when you had the most career options; one participant suggests her Goop business peak might be right now. — Bill Simmons
Narrowed to acting, this film is called Apex Mountain for her, and it is called a good case. — Bill Simmons
Jude Law absolutely is at Apex: coming out of this movie he looked like a future James Bond and the most handsome man in the world, and never topped it. — Bill Simmons
A prediction says Law will win an Oscar around age 71 for a mediocre movie, likened to Michael Kane (as transcribed) winning for The Cider House Rules the year Law was nominated for this. — Sean Fennessey
1950s Italy is offered as Apex Mountain, challenged by a reference to Roberto Rossellini's films of the era, and kept as a personal pick. — Sean Fennessey
A Hoffman case is mentioned but nobody is ready to make it. — Bill Simmons
The director is discussed: after The English Patient he followed up successfully with this, though one participant had thought The English Patient might be his peak; he died young and his later films such as Cold Mountain and Breaking and Entering feel not fully there. — Sean Fennessey
Leonardo DiCaprio was supposed to play Hans Landa, which would have meant doing the movie in English since he could not have learned German and French in time, though the joke is that a guy who slept in a carved-out bear might have taught himself.
Michael Fassbender tried out for Landa a couple of times and was heartbroken, then got the call that he had Hickox at the expense of Simon Pegg, who chose Tintin instead, a sliding-doors moment the hosts call very tough since they love Pegg.
Adam Sandler was rumored to play the Bear Jew and would have nailed the Teddy Williams thing; Nastasha Kinski (as transcribed) was initially going to play Bridget but turned it down, so Kruger got the role, and Kinski, 10 or 15 years older, would have been more a Marlene Dietrich aging starlet; Kruger is so good in the movie.
This is a generation of actors who grew up on Tarantino: Fassbender and friends put on a stage version of Reservoir Dogs in Dublin, and Simon Pegg sat alone in a hotel room anguished over choosing between Spielberg's obvious blockbuster and Tarantino's World War II movie.
Tarantino struggled over casting Melanie Laurent because he thought she was too famous and wanted to discover someone new; she insisted she was not famous and convinced him.
Tarantino met Pitt at Chateau Miraval, where Pitt lived with Angelina Jolie, and they discussed Aldo over a night and five bottles of the estate's own Pink Floyd rose before he accepted, so the rose was a critical factor.
This was the first time Tarantino worked with an in-his-prime movie star rather than rediscovering an underappreciated asset, and everything since, Django, Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has used stars in their sweet spot, so it may have been more of a risk for Tarantino than for Pitt; complicating things, the Weinstein Company produced and distributed the film, and Pitt, who had refused to work with Weinstein for years over Gwyneth Paltrow, did so because he wanted to work with Tarantino.
Possibly half-assed research rather than a casting what-if: an early iteration when Tarantino first conceived the project was rumored to include Sylvester Stallone as Aldo, Bruce Willis as Donnie Donowitz and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hugo Stiglitz, which would make sense for a late-90s script.
Earlier, during the tavern discussion, Fassbender is said to have tried out for Landa five times, and a host wants to discuss in Casting What-Ifs how both careers would have gone with him as Landa.
Garofalo was fired over her attitude and then rehired after Ryder intervened; Garofalo later described her own poor work ethic and dislike of rehearsal.
The ensemble is judged so well matched that changing any of the four principal performers would create a substantially different movie.
Why not name Vince Vaughn's character Trent and make it a Swingers sequel? Is it acceptable for an actor to play a character with his own name? Should TV characters cross over into other shows?
Why not just name Vince's character Trent and make it a sequel to Swingers, since they never acknowledge they are borrowing the IP.
On actors playing characters with their own name, like Jack Nicholson playing a Jack, one host is all in and another finds it vexing, either the actor not wanting to think of another name or everyone deciding Jack fits, noting Chinatown moved to Jake.
On extending a character into another vehicle, one host is fine with it and recalls Coolidge from The White Shadow becoming the janitor on St. Elsewhere, made by Gwyneth Paltrow's dad, and an episode where the actor who played Salami appears as a different character; the later version is Richard Belzer's Munch moving from Homicide to Law & Order; Boghossian (as transcribed) being the same guy in Billions and Succession would have shattered it.
Fuqua gave the poker-scene actors instructions without telling Hawke, who did not understand the card game; 'fuck' is used 211 times; the opening diner was also the Seven diner where Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow meet; the studio wanted to cut the three wise men scene
During the card game Antoine Fuqua gave the gangster actors instructions without telling Hawke, who did not understand what game they were playing, so he would seem more confused; the over/under on the word fuck draws guesses of 72 and 47 against an answer of 211.
The opening coffee shop was also used in Seven for Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow's first meeting, two scenes with a lot of dark humanity between two people; an oral history of that diner is proposed, and, in the spirit of buying the Boogie Nights house, buying the diner on 7th and putting the Ringer offices there.
The studio wanted to cut the three wise men out and the scene was fought for and kept, allegedly; it is one of the half scenes in the movie but thought necessary.
Asked whether the research covered Hawke knowing Denzel would slam the diner table, it did not, but the guess is he did not know and Denzel did it to throw him off; the King Kong line was definitely ad-libbed, and in the poker scene the rules were mixed up on Hawke and the other actors told to do weird things so he would be confused and uneasy.
The Public Garden bench is now a Robin Williams memorial; a gay sex scene was written into the script to test whether anyone read it; Williams insisted on the L Street bar and ad-libbed the wife story and 'Son of a bitch, he stole my line'; Sean was based on Damon's mother and Affleck's father; Gus Van Sant painted the painting in Sean's office; Skylar was based on Damon's Harvard ex; Damon and Minnie Driver dated through the shoot and the Oscars; Terrence Malick suggested the ending
The Boston Public Garden park bench where 3,000 people watched the scene is now a memorial to Robin Williams, after people put flowers there when he died; one host lived for ten years a six-minute walk from Bunker Hill Community College, where Sean taught.
For a while the screenplay contained a gay sex scene between Will and Sean in his office, written to see if anybody was actually reading the script during the year Castle Rock would not buy it and they feared it had become poison; nobody noticed until Harvey Weinstein, who told them to get rid of it.
Robin Williams insisted on the L Street bar after being mobbed scouting it and loving the energy, though his scene was not filmed there; he ad-libbed the story about his wife farting, which is why Matt Damon laughed so hard, and son of a bitch, he stole my line, which was supposed to be him reading the note and nodding; Williams was a genius with a complicated reputation because of bad movies.
Robin Williams's character was based on a mix of Damon's mom and Affleck's dad; Gus Van Sant painted the painting in Sean's office; Skyler is based on Damon's ex-girlfriend from Harvard; Damon and Minnie Driver dated from halfway through the movie through the Oscars and had a bad breakup two months later, he apparently dumping her; the hosts decline to discuss the two adjudicating each other on Twitter.
One host's wife called Minnie Driver bad, the reason the movie has not aged as well, and did not believe the relationship; the hosts disagree and think she is really good, though she rightfully did not become the huge star people expected; another host's wife came in for the middle and said the two have no chemistry even after hearing they dated a year in real life.
The hosts feel they are in love at that table; on a very small sample size women may see no chemistry where men do; the knick-knack store googly glasses moment, the Magic 8 ball scene with her NBA jokes, the organic chemistry scene and the piano speech all argue they are in love or amazing performers; she has not been in many movies, unlike a Gwyneth Paltrow with a 20-year history that would color it; one host claims she won the Oscar for this (she was in fact nominated), as evidence people felt that way at the time.
One more research bit: in the original script Will and Skylar leave town together; through a friend of the Affleck family Ben and Matt met Terrence Malick, who had read it and said Will should chase her, she is gone and he has to go find her, so Malick is the reason for the ending, one of many lucky notes and ad-libs that pushed the movie up levels.
Why did Rob Reiner, William Goldman and Terrence Malick want to help two unfamous guys when people struggle in Hollywood for 25 years, and this is the only movie Harvey Weinstein did not chop up as he saw fit; they had some success already, unlike Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, though Vaughn was in Rudy as Jamie O'Hara; the only guess is that people sensed they were headed somewhere and wanted to be thanked.
