Chris Lesner:
afterwards so all right here we go Steven, thank you so much for being here. This is really exciting to have you on the podcast.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Thank you, thanks for having me.

Chris Lesner:
Your background is unbelievable. Share with our audience a little bit about your background.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Well, you know, this is a whole other side of this, but I have my own charity or my own not-for-profit, which is a mental health, I don't like that word mental health actually, but a mental health institute called the Identity Development Institute. And it's all about really at its core, the earliest traumas and also the earliest positive things that happened to us. from conception through pre-verbal development, which is a period of time in psychology where most people can't go, talk therapy doesn't go there. You know, it can't get back there because it's non-verbal. So we're back at that period of time. So I actually know a lot about where I come from because I've done a lot of work around it. So I was born in Pittsburgh. My father fought in World War II and had PTSD. He was the commander of five tanks in Germany. He... actually freed a number of the concentration camps and never really recovered from it, to be honest, like so many veterans, the people who really fought in the war, struggled in all wars. I have a lot of problem with wars. My own personal experience with my father, thank God, I did not go to Vietnam, which would have been the war I would have been involved with. So I grew up with that. I grew up in a very religious town based on a mystic named Emanuel Swedenborg. I bet you didn't think you were gonna get all this.

Chris Lesner:
No, it's interesting.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
And my mother was very much a part of the church and a believer in the church. My grandfather on her side was a deacon basically in the church and it was this weird strange town in Pennsylvania where literally there were castles on tops of the hills where the rich family lived, the Pitcairns, and we lived down the hill from that. And my family was sort of the intellectual aspects, if you could call it that. of the town and it was, it was a very interesting religion. I know a lot about it. I have gently and lovingly left it behind, but I came from that and then barely got into college. I didn't understand at that time how you did anything but go to the religious college that was there. Very few of us left. I did leave, I got into Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, which happened to have. probably one of the very best theaters in the country showing movies on campus, but it was also connected with the Hartford community. And my senior year, I fell in love with an actress. I knew really nothing about films. I'd seen three films in my life, that had been it. A lot of TV, but not films because of my sort of religious background. And she knew all about movies, all about movies. And I knew nothing, but I went. That's what I want to do. I want to do that thing on the big screen. And, um, and I did it, you know, and the journey was like with everyone who becomes a filmmaker, um, you know, bizarre and circuitous and whatever it takes to get a movie made. And, um, and so that's how I got into moviemaking. And then just to kind of jump forward into where I am now, you know, um, it reached a point in my career, you know, I raised a couple of kids. They turned out okay. Um, and, um,

Chris Lesner:
Hehehe

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Actually, right now I was just talking with my daughter. She's making this movie, big movie, her second movie that she wrote and directed, and it was just so much fun talking with her about directing. It's just awesome. Jake right now is in Spain making a movie, and I have a young son also who's awesome. He's nine years old. In the middle of all that, got into documentaries more and more. And actually in one documentary called Inutero, which is about concept from conception to birth, the science, that's how I discovered this methodology out of Germany. And then made uncharitable because Dan Pilata is a friend of mine from a long, long time ago. And I watched him get destroyed by this sackcloth and ashes ethos that controls the not for profit, mission driven, really most important sector, more important than the private sector than the. for-profit sector or government. There's nothing been really more important. There is nothing more important as far as I'm concerned in terms of sectors. This is the sector of more than 10 million people. I'm going on and on and on here. Stop me for God's sake. But...

Chris Lesner:
No, this is fascinating.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
So yeah, so it all kind of links together for me, you know, our sanity, which is teeters on the edge because of the amount of historical trauma, all the wars, all the wars, and so many misunderstood ideas about the universe, I think, which is pretty big, the universe, kind of figuring it out more and more. I love the James Webb telescope. I'll go on and on, I mean, I think, but it's all linked in a way to the idea of we really can transform this world. I think it's really possible. I think, you know, I think I'm very excited and I'm almost 74 and I've been kicked around plenty and I've had plenty of good luck too and had awesome times. And I have a sense of hope, even as things look pretty dark. So that's me, that's me.

Chris Lesner:
I mean, when you were first getting into this industry, did you think there was hope? I mean, clearly you did enough that you kept pursuing it, but what were the odds? Were they better back then, or were

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Well,

Chris Lesner:
the odds stacked against you?

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
I wasn't thinking about hope for the world, for instance. I was just, you know, what I really wanted, I think, I mean, first of all, I fell in love with cinema. I mean, I just, I really was, on a mental health level, pretty screwed up. And it only was when I started seeing movies, Fellini, Bergman, Bertolucci, you know, all the greats of the 70s really, 70s and 80s, that were at this theater, amazing theater, I'll do a shout out to Cine Studio, still going in Hartford, Connecticut, showed all these movies and when I went, I wanna do that, I was broke, I was living in my bus, cause I had, I bothered going bankrupt, I had no money, so I was living in my bus, which was kinda cool, sleeping in a sleeping bag on campus, I was kind of a Looney Tunes guy, but I was struggling in many ways, and when I saw those movies, I went, I'm not crazy. I think I'm not crazy. That's what I want to do. I discovered I loved imagery. I wasn't really interested in it. I didn't really have a sense of hope. I guess I felt relatively hopeless. I mean, you go back and forth. I feel hopeless, I feel great, I got laid, I'm in college, everything's cool. Then I would get dumped and I would be in despair, and all those things would go on. I think I got into movies really because I was so partially- along with just falling in love with the medium, was I kind of, to become a director really, was I got so anxious at parties, I just thought of, I were like a director. So I was really like lost in college through a lot of it. And my senior year was when I really discovered movies and you know, I made a little movie. I at one point actually hitchhiked down to, I didn't hitchhike, I had my VW bus that I was living in, I hitchhiked a lot. I drove down to Yale and pretend I was a Yale student and used all their editing equipment to cut on there. Just

Chris Lesner:
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
went in, you know, and I just used it. No one stopped me. And when I showed my first film at Cine Studio in Trinity and the auditorium was packed, kind of like when, okay, I won't be anxious at parties and I can maybe be somebody. Turned out not to be true. I still was anxious at parties. That never worked. I didn't understand you could make money doing it or that you could get famous. I just kind of just didn't want to be so anxious. And also I think the process of making movies, the distraction, the need, the amount of work it took to make movies kept me relatively sane, relatively sane.

Chris Lesner:
I mean, what's it like to know how successful you've been looking back now that you're in your 70s? You've won multiple or you've been nominated at least and won so many awards, you've multiple Director Guild of America Awards, multiple Golden Globe Awards, multiple Emmys. Like not many people in the world can say that. Well, how do you feel?

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
It doesn't really mean that much. I mean, I think one of the advantages, it does mean something. It does, I mean, it is interesting how in the middle of Uncharitable, for instance, I was having a lot of problems with people who thought I didn't know what I was doing and why is it taking so long and why is it costing so much money and what's going on? And documentaries are strange animals. And we're just, it was interesting and it's certainly not alone in this that people who have a decent amount of money or have connections to money, and I needed money to make the thing, do believe that they kinda know more than other people. And I know in the charitable sector, for instance, there's a huge problem with donors demanding that charities run in a certain way. And the movie is very much about, and I think the movie really moves towards you know, give money and let the organizations do with that money as they need to do. These are the people who are experts. And they have, of course, been, you know, the people in the charitable sector are so looked down on in so many ways. And it's outrageous. And the movie is a lot about heroes, about these heroes that really are trying to change the world. And my experience, very similar to theirs, I've got I've made a ton of movies. I've been very successful. I mean, and you think I don't know what I'm doing? Let me tell you, to them, no one knows what they're doing when they're making it. You don't know how to, releasing a movie is really complicated. You know, do I have a lot of, do I have a lot of experience and a lot of expertise? Do I know how to talk to crews? Do I know how to talk to post-production people? Can I, you know, talk circles around most people, around the technical aspects of filmmaking? Sure. So why not let me just make the movie the way I want to? But they were scared, you know, people were scared. Now that's changing as the movies come out and it's... It's having a really kind of triumphant beginning, although huge issues around getting it in theaters, documentaries in theaters. How do we get it really seen by a lot of people? Again, someone said to me, if you've made a movie and you've released it six months ago, very successfully, you don't know how to release a movie now.

Chris Lesner:
Wow.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Because the landscape keeps changing, but you have to be awake and functioning with it, and that's what we're sort of in the middle of. So does it make me feel a whole lot to have won a bunch of awards? and made movies that have moved people. You know, and this movie particularly has, the response to the movie, we've had three premieres, one in New York, one in Chicago, one in LA, has been as good an experience, if not better than any other movie I've made. I mean, it's a very emotional experience for people. It kind of puts you at neutral. I mean, you kind of are like, I don't know what I'm doing, 74 years old, how long am I gonna live? You know. Am I going to see my grandkids go to college? Those are issues that become much more important. You know, an award, you know, you stick them on a shelf. And I remember doing, I did a movie with Jessica Lange years ago. She's one both best actress and best supporting actress. And they're stuck up on a shelf on the side, upside down, almost like, you know, it's almost by, it's an art form to do it. You know, they don't, they don't, you know, the Oscars, you know, they don't, none of it, it's really living life. That's the key. That's hard.

Chris Lesner:
Yeah.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
It's not fun.

Chris Lesner:
That's a great perspective. I mean, yeah, some of that stuff won't last. I mean, once people see Uncharitable, what's one of the lasting things you want them to take away from after they watch it?

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
I think what I had wanted to do and I think have succeeded at doing is to walk into an issue that nobody cares about. I mean, this is the problem. Who wants to see a movie about charity? I mean, shoot me please, you know, anything but see a movie, a documentary. I keep calling it a movie because calling it, who wants to see? Anyone out there watching this? I said, do you want to see a documentary on charity? No. It's like, yikes. There couldn't be a word, you know, the charitable people, they're kind of losers, you know, they're corrupt, whatever, it's all hypocrisy, which is not true at all, by the way. And the movie gets into that. The movie goes very, very deep. And I think what's coming out of this is people have a profound sense of hope, a profound sense of hope, because this sector really is quite spectacular and so attacked almost because it is spectacular. You know, what is it? Every good deed, no deed goes unpunished. You know, these are people doing, these are people and organizations that are doing really good stuff and they get punished. And I think what we can do, you know, is really, I think, create a paradigm shift. Meredith Blake is an executive producer on the film. So the main executive producer. And she was a impact producer on an individual truth and has said, this is... equally as important and mind-changing as an inconvenient truth. So I think the sense is it's an emotional movie. Actually, people cry at the end and they cry with a sense of hope. I mean, we really are going to be able to make it. We're going to make it. I mean, now I'm feeling more and more and the movie has a huge uphill battle on so many fronts because who wants to see a documentary about charity? You know, it's going to take a while and it's going to sink in. I think slowly, but it's very exciting and I'm very proud of the movie. And I think that's what comes out of it is people walk out of it being hopeful. And the thing is, then you gotta build on that. Because I've been around enough, I mean, of people feeling something wonderful and then three days later it's evaporated. So the key is we're gonna be doing much more than just this movie. We're gonna be doing more movies, we're gonna do a television show and we're gonna go back to some big events. Like, if people haven't seen the movie. They may not know about the AIDS rights, but for instance, they know about Burning Man and maybe Woodstock. And all it's going to we're going to start to have live events again, where tens of thousands of people can get together, not just to raise millions of dollars for charities that they believe in, but for transforming their lives, for getting hopeful. I mean, for really being hopeful. That's what the movie is about more than anything else, is going into dark areas and looking at those dark areas. But when you do that, you come out of it. You have a I think a deep sense of hope. I mean, I'm very hopeful.

Chris Lesner:
I love it. I mean, you and Dan have known each other for a long time, but I'm sure over your career, hundreds, if not thousands of people have asked you to make movies with them. I mean, I would just imagine that that's a normal conversation,

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Yeah.

Chris Lesner:
emails or texts or calls, whatever. How did you get connected with Dan and why this? I mean...

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Well, I'd known Dan for years and years. I knew him and he was at the top of his game, um, doing the AIDS rides. And he raised half a billion dollars for AIDS and breast cancer and suicide prevention. And, um, and I knew him through all of that, but I was raising two kids at the time, so I never did any of the rides. And, and he and I were, were good friends and met and talked a lot in various meetings and things like that. And, and he always dressed really well. You know, I was kind of like, where, where do you, where do you get your clothes? You know, he had these cool belts. and these shoes. So I would, you know, he told me and I would, you know, I was always making fun, not fun of him, but he was like, and I kind of wear like, you know, this kind of stuff. You know, I'm a director. Directors wear clothes. If a director wears a suit, except for David Lynch, David Lynch wears a suit. It's like the weirdest thing. Cause you know, you're on a set, you're wearing jeans and a t-shirt, you know? But David Lynch, I did the last episode of, God, why am I suddenly blanking on it? Twin Peaks. did the last episode of Between Peaks with David and it was awesome. But he wore his coat and tie and I like it a t-shirt, you know? And he was very, he said to me at one point, I gave him an idea that I thought would help the last episode. And he said, Steven, I'm really glad you have your thinking cap strapped on properly. I'm going, what? Who talks like that in a suit and tie? I mean, he's a genius. David is a genius. I think some of the best cinema, in fact. is Twin Peaks to this day. I mean, just a sense of hell and heaven, spirituality, materialism, sex, soap opera, violence and perversion all, you know, still remains. People still, I do, at least once a couple times a year, people interview me on Twin Peaks, you know. So yeah, I've had an amazing time. I mean, it's the people in it that's great. That's the other thing. Yeah.

Chris Lesner:
I mean, as you're leading this, one of the things we talk about on this podcast is servant leadership, right? And in Hollywood, there's all kinds of different personalities, all kinds of different leadership styles. How do you see servant leadership playing out in Hollywood? Is that even a thing?

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
You mean leadership that serves a purpose.

Chris Lesner:
Yeah, or people who lead with a servant mentality, thinking

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
serving.

Chris Lesner:
of others first.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
You know, it's funny. I grew up in this religious town, like I told you. I left it behind completely. I became a Marxist and a materialist and an atheist and a whatever. And I went to Hollywood, which is like the city of so-called sin, which is sort of like, it's silly. I mean, I was raising two kids. But nonetheless, I left all of that. completely behind and just focused on the day to day. So you're never really looking up at the stars and the moon and going, and also you're young and you feel like, you get older, you start feeling like, I'm not gonna live forever. And I've had a bunch of friends that died. You think as you get older and where are we? And what the hell is going on? You know, what's happening here? And you start to get more and more, well, I think I would say, realizing that the universe is vast and realizing that you know nothing really. When you step back, I tell you awards mean nothing because you live a life. The world is struggling. It's climate change, whatever you want to describe it. You know, it's I believe strongly in climate change. But, you know, there are a number of people who donated to the movie Uncharitable, which was all it was all about donations. I couldn't get anyone to invest in that. And quite a few of them are quite conservative. So I. try to be respectful of their positions around all this stuff. Although I believe in climate change, I'm way to the left. I'm pretty much a progressive. And AOL, AOL is my, AOC, what's her, the hell

Chris Lesner:
AOC,

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
is that?

Chris Lesner:
yeah.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I've been working and working and working. I'm kind of a fan of hers. She's, I just think she's awesome. So that's sort of where I sit. But I have a lot of friends who are conservative. And charity is nonpartisan. That's the thing about it. Unlike an inconvenient truth, which with Al Gore, charity is nonpartisan. I think it's critical at this point that we break, we begin to slowly dismantle this partisan toxicity that charity does almost just by definition. You just are charitable, you're kind. So I think servant leadership. Yeah, I think about how do I... Well, I think the people who actually do the work are the directors, you know, not all of them, but an awful lot of directors that I know and producers are the top producers. The ones who really get stuff done, I'd say 80% of them have been not just humbled by doing the work, but humiliated by doing the work. I mean, I would say always, I would say this, I would say that the best filmmakers in the world, the very, very best, most brilliant filmmakers in the world, absolutely, are the ones who've never done it. They're the ones who'll tell you what's wrong with your movie. They're the ones who'll tell you if they just had the opportunity, you know, it would be very different. I mean, there's a disparity in this world. There's no question about it, you know. There's very under, you know. the minorities and still even women are unrepresented in this business. That's something a little bit different and I want to stay tuned to that. I am a white guy and I've had a lot of privilege. I think nonetheless, if you do the work, if you've done the work, you're either insecure because you know you don't know what the hell you're doing half the time, and then you can be a bully. and try and seem important, or you're not really insecure, you're just being realistic, and you go, I don't know what I'm doing half the time, I'm trying to figure this out. And so I think when you get to that place, you can't help but be serving the people around you. So for instance, if I'm coming to the definition correctly, I would say, what is a director, which is my primary job, and this movie has also a producer, which was humiliating actually. certainly humbling and I had to do it myself, you know, which is hopefully we'll never have to do it again. Although I did have final control over everything, which was kind of nice. But actually a director doesn't do anything, except, I mean, doesn't shoot the camera. I mean, some people do, but not a lot of them. Doesn't take sound, doesn't act generally, you know. just is the, it kind of represents the audience. You sit there and you go, hmm, just watch.

Chris Lesner:
Hmm.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
The watcher, and then you go, and the one thing you do is you go, it's not working. I can feel it's not working. Anyone in the audience watches a movie goes, that scene's not working. Get me out of this movie. I'm gonna walk out of this movie. Terrible reviews. Critics generally know when something's not working. Problem is if something's not working, what do you say to make it work? What do you say to make it work? And so every single role, you become servant to every department. You're there to serve them, help them be their very best selves. You know, I think it's so critical to, I mean, and then take the credit at the end. Then say, oh, I'm

Chris Lesner:
Thanks.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
the director. I don't take a film by credit. You know, that's a credit that's been around for a long time. I will never take a film by credit because the film is made by a lot of people. You know, I don't believe in that. I don't believe that at all. So I think, and I think it is the best way, the best kind of leadership is to, I'm here, what do you need? And you know, I think what you need is to be paid decently and I haven't always been able to do that in my nonprofit ventures, but able to do it in making movies generally. And even in this movie, I paid people well. And also because I didn't pay them as well as they could have gotten paid, in many cases, I would say, work for me as long as you can. And when a big job comes along where you make more money, I totally understand if you go take it. But be with me when you can, you know. And that's the way I've made a couple of my movies the last period of time. You can get lots of money to make a movie about killing people, but you don't get a lot of money about movies that help people. It's harder.

Chris Lesner:
Gosh, there's so many good nuggets in that. I mean, just thinking through one thing you said, there's so much disparity in this industry as well. What advice would you give to people who are trying to break into the industry? You know, either actors, producers, directors, what advice would you give to people looking back?

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Well, I think the advice I often give is, do you have an iPhone? Yeah, or another kind of phone. Shoot, just shoot. Just, if you're an actor, probably, and I think generally, I think there are exceptions to this, but not a lot. Don't write and act, don't write and direct. Find a writer, read material. First movie I made was called Exit 10, and it was based on a Catherine Mansfield short story. And the premise for me was something Alfred Hitchcock had said, which was, you know, the best movies from literature are short stories and the structure is correct. You know, I think, and I actually ended up with the Catherine Mansfield short story, I forget what it was called now. I got a non-exclusive rights, so they could make another movie out of it, which of course no one ever did, but. you know, not exclusive rights, so I just, I got it and anyone else can do whatever they want with it. I then changed it around, completely rewrote, the script was very different, but the premise remained the same, which was a kind of a surprise, heartbreaking ending. So, and that's what a short film is particularly good for. That film was shortlisted for the Oscars, and that's kind of what got me from New York to Hollywood, and sort of the rest was sorta history, whatever, but history on IMDB maybe, but I think. I think A, or two things. Maybe you're, I mean, usually when people are young, their writing is only so good and it can be very derivative. Find a short story. Find something that's captured you. You know, most, you know, there's some great writers out there, you know. Look in magazines, look in stuff, look for short stories, their publications. Read, read a bunch of short stories. Find one. It could be like a little thing that somebody wrote. And I'd say maybe if you're in college, you look at student stuff, but you don't need to. You can go to like great writers short stories. No one's gonna make a movie out of it other than you. And then get a writer, maybe you have to write it yourself. I wrote it myself. I'm a passable writer. I wish I'd worked with a writer, a real writer. But I think maybe the key is... Don't underestimate yourself. Even if you fail, do not underestimate yourself. You want to make movies? That's what you want to do? Don't underestimate yourself. I remember there was a class one point, and there was an Asian woman, an Asian young woman, and there were a bunch of guys there, white guys, rich guys from money. And. And I was looking at all their films, her film was light years beyond theirs. Theirs was derivative and they had all the cameras and everything and she had nothing. She was light years beyond. And she didn't have the confidence. I mean, there's sort of that culture, you know, the woman, Asian woman, blah, blah. I was just like going, have the confidence. Just do it. You know, get on your iPhone, take your iPhone and shoot and shoot and shoot and cut and cut and cut. You know, it's like. Shoot as much as you can for as long as you possibly can, then cut everything out that you can. Don't trust yourself. Maybe get an editor to do it. It's interesting because, and then you create a community of people. And I think that's a big piece of this, is to have a community. I mean, the movie I just finished, they're like, you look at the credit sequence, as a director, I've been deeply engaged with 50 people around. That's awesome.

Chris Lesner:
Yeah.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
You know, so I think connect with other people, find a great piece of literature, either write the script yourself from that, stay true to that what that story is, get a camera operator, get professional actors. You know, I don't care where you are. I don't care if you're in the middle of country. There's an industrial movie business going for corporations and they have actors. There's theater department, there's theaters and schools. They're theater, you know, local theaters. Don't underestimate yourself. Go and cast actors. Every single actor, pretty much, except for my kids, except for a couple of people, wanna be in, wanna, well, shoot a movie. Don't underestimate it, and don't underestimate what you're doing. And if the first movie sucks and you're terrible, don't beat yourself up. That's what it takes. I've made a lot of bad stuff. And also, I think equally important, be respectful of everybody you work with. I mean, one of the lucky things I had in my life, really lucky, was I had to earn my way through college. I had to paint houses. And I think with my kids who didn't have to do that, they did learn how to work. They really learned how to work. It's like, but being, sort of taking a moment and looking at the bus boy in a restaurant. busboy, first of all, man or a woman, not a boy. And kind of be servant to that person. Tip them well, look what they're doing. Maybe if you have to, do some jobs like that. I mean, I was a handyman later on, when actually when Maggie was, actually both Maggie and Jake were, Jake had just been born, I had no money, but I had been a handyman. And I was in Hollywood, I had a fancy house, I had no money, I couldn't get work. And I went, I gotta pay for the gas in my car. My wife at the time was doing pretty well. And I went, but I can't live off her. So I went and was a handyman again. Climb under houses, all this stuff went on. Then I got a movie and that was done. But be a servant, I think is, I think I really like that idea of being, you know, and it's like, there's a phrase, you know, be of service. You know, I realize I don't like that so much. I like do good stuff. Lessen the importance, you know, who am I being of service to? I mean, no, just do good stuff. And one of those things is just be aware that every single person is a human being. And being a bus man or a bus woman in a restaurant is a hard job. Being a plumber who goes under your house where there's spiders, that's a hard job. And be kind and respectful. And it'll be a lot more fun. You know,

Chris Lesner:
for

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
it's

Chris Lesner:
sure.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
like, yeah.

Chris Lesner:
What's your favorite thing now being able to watch your kids in movies?

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Well, right now, my favorite thing is Maggie's now writing and directing. You know, she got nominated for an Oscar for her last script. She's just written one of the best scripts I've read ever, ever. And she's now making that movie, big, big movie, Warner Brothers. I can't talk about what it's about because it's still hush, hush. Talking with her about directing is fabulous. And, you know, talking with Jake about almost anything. Well, you know, Jake just did this movie, The Covenant. Have you seen it? Everyone should see it. I just saw it. You know, it's a great movie. I mean, he really plays a soldier really, really well. Really, really, really physical performance, a really physical, and just a brilliant movie. I cried through half of it, and it's action and all this stuff. It's Guy Ritchie, who's a great director. I mean, a great director. And he's doing another movie with Guy now in Spain. Oh, it's just unbelievable. I mean, I... cry through half my kids' movies no matter what. So

Chris Lesner:
Hmm.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
it's almost incomprehensible, the life I've gotten to live.

Chris Lesner:
That's so awesome. OK, before I let you go, I've got 10 extremely quick, rapid-fire questions. And you

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Okay.

Chris Lesner:
just say the first thing that comes to your mind, OK?

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Great.

Chris Lesner:
There's no right or wrong answer with any of these. First question, five words that most describe yourself.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Kind of stupid. That's two words. Kind of stupid. Really brilliant. Articulate. How many is that? sometimes bewildering. I think that's more.

Chris Lesner:
The first person you think of when I said servant leadership.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
I can't remember who the person, now who comes to mind for me actually is Buckminster Fuller, who said, let's have a world that works for everybody with no one left behind. And he was brilliant guy out of the 60s and anyone who doesn't know him, look up Bucky Fuller. Brilliant, brilliant. And he was a servant, actually a servant. Yeah, you serve, you serve the world. Yeah.

Chris Lesner:
Love it. Favorite author or book?

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Oh, I'd say right now it's J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye again, because it speaks to the dilemma of the youth and speaks to, you know why the title Catcher in the Rye, where it comes from? It's the end of the book and he's a struggling character and he's cynical and he's lost and he's in very, very bad shape in the book. It's a great, great book to this day, a great book for young people to read. And the end is he said, I just want to be the person in the field of rye as the children come through and they're headed for a cliff and they're going to run over the cliff that I catch them and hold them.

Chris Lesner:
Oh wow.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
And that's what it comes.

Chris Lesner:
That's good. Okay, this is a good one for you. Favorite movie.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Well, I'd say the favorite movie is the movie that got me into the movie business, which was Fellini's Lestrata, a movie really. Do you know the movie Lestrata? Fellini's Lestrata.

Chris Lesner:
Yeah.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Because at the end of that movie, I was with my girlfriend who introduced me to movies. This wonderful actress, beautiful. Oh my God, she was so beautiful. So what am I doing with this beautiful woman? And I saw at the end of La Strada, I started to cry and I started to weep. And the movie was over and everyone left. And later on in that theater, actually even by then, I was getting to see the movies for free by sweeping the floors and cleaning it up. That's what I did. And I was just living in my bus, my VW bus, because I run out of money, all these weird things. I think I was with her and I literally could not get out of my seat. I wept for 15 minutes. And she left me three days later, but it was like, that's the movie that said I wanna be in the movie business.

Chris Lesner:
favorite food.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Mm. God. I, during the pandemic, baked bread. Jake

Chris Lesner:
Love

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
actually

Chris Lesner:
it.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
got me into baking bread, and I still have the starter, the starter. I think it's sourdough bread to this day, baked by me or... or Jake or anybody actually. That's my, and also, oh no, no. And coffee, really good coffee, and garlic, and olive oil, but you can't use olive oil to cook, by the way, because it turns rancid. You've got to use avocado oil, and I'm going to just keep going until you stop me. Pasta, really good pasta, pizza when it's really thin crust.

Chris Lesner:
Favorite thing to do in your free time.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
You know, I have a nine year old and the thing he hates the most is that I now talk with anybody and everybody. Walking down the street, I talk with everybody. It's like the whole world is my oyster. You know, someone will cut me off in the car. I'm in LA. and I'll be driving my car, I'll wind down the window and I say, and no one's gonna yell at me, I go, you remind me of how I drive, you drive just like me, and then we're buddies. It's like, you know, people say they're gonna shoot you one day, but it's just, you know, you just find 15% of the people think you're nuts. 85% of the people are all in the minute you start. That's what I do with my free time.

Chris Lesner:
All right, surprising fact about you.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Jesus. surprising fact about me. Um... Well, you know, I am a published poet, you know, and sort of chaotic, in a book called Clap Trap. I mean, I'll probably do another book soon. I'm finishing a memoir about my whole life. But the surprising thing is I am. how would I put it, a really amateur, kind of uninformed scientist.

Chris Lesner:
Love it. All right, favorite place you've been?

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Barcelona.

Chris Lesner:
All right, place you wanna go that you haven't been.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Asia.

Chris Lesner:
Okay.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
I haven't been to Asia. All of Asia. All of it.

Chris Lesner:
Love it. Last question, best advice you've ever gotten.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Ah, recently, a guy named Jim Hearhurst, I think in Canada, talking about something that was told to his father. When you listen, you win.

Chris Lesner:
That's awesome. Well, thanks

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
I

Chris Lesner:
so

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
have

Chris Lesner:
much.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
a tendency not to do that. You're very welcome.

Chris Lesner:
Appreciate you, Steven. Look forward to talking soon.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Awesome, awesome. You take care. A pleasure.

Chris Lesner:
See you.

Stephen Gyllenhaal:
Okay, bye.

Chris Lesner:
Bye.