The Front Runner

um so maybe we just start with you introducing yourself yeah sure uh my name is jason reitman and i'm the co-writer and director of the frontrunner the youngest candidate hard spoke at four campaign training the clear frontrunner where do you want to start this so start with the uh shoulder in a little uh my name is gary hard and i'm ready for president well i guess i'll start with the moment i heard the story for the first time i live in los sandals spend a lot of time in a car i make movies i spend a lot of time on a plane listening to radio lab i spend a lot of time instantly listening to radio lab i started this podcast went in blind hey i'm japan i'm robert crowlich this is radio lab and you know here we are and having no idea who gary hard was and uh the story we're gonna tell on this podcast is about a moment a shockingly recent moment i didn't i was 10 years old when this incident happened now if you're a certain age you probably remember the story probably know what happens next but even if you've never heard of gary hard you still probably know the outline of the story the accusations and i uh immediately understood why they were doing the story that there was all this connective tissue with 2018 all the wall media thing which just goes on and on and on until you want to take i think everyone living in 2018 wonders how he got here like no matter what your politics are you look at 2018 and go wait how did we get here it wasn't always like this no part was the first to walk into this vortex of social forces and we're all looking for the seed uh and after that the rules of political journalism and politics change almost immediately that by the way is mapped by national political columnist for yahoo news he wrote a book about this incident which he called all the truth is out it was the first time i went oh this is the moment this is a possible seed to how we got to 2018 when did you switch from this is just a podcast i'm listening to for fun so you're like wait i'm thinking about this it's a great question because you know um as a filmmaker everything i read everything i listen to every conversation i get into is a it's a bit of oh is this a movie or not you meet someone they start telling you a story oh the craziest thing just happened and you start hearing it and you're like oh that's a movie oh never mind that's not a movie uh or something starts good and then it doesn't have a turn or it doesn't have an ending the ending is huge a movie needs an ending of course i've intended there's a moment in the podcast when you hear hard speech a short carefully worded political statement in which he leaves politics saying that uh i was withdrawing from the race and then quietly disappear from the stage and it's his most amazing speech and it's kind of some kind of interesting stuff i mean you think about other politicians and what their great speeches are you know uh lincoln or kennedy you know they're all mid-career some things may be interesting but that doesn't necessarily mean they're important we're all going to have to seriously question the system for selecting our national leaders that reduces the press of this nation to hunters and presidential candidates to being hunted this is the only political speech i know where the most important speech he made was literally the last thing he ever said as a politician and so now we had an impact all better do something to make this system work we're all going to be soon rephrasing jefferson to say i tremble for my country when i think we may in fact get the kind of leaders we deserve and once i finished listening to the podcast i immediately went out and got a copy of matt buy's book all the truth is out read the book and then i found out that matt buy was writing the screenplay himself with a guy named jay carson and i reached out to the two of them and said you know i really want to make this movie and i think i know what it needs to be and we were off to the races you may have a 40 day shoot but you spent four months in prep going from a prop room to a wardrobe room to a productionized room to a hair meeting to a cinematography conversation when recreating the world of gary hart my costumer and clicker filled this giant wardrobe room with shoes from them some actual pieces that gary hart really wore his belt buckle which is this beautiful brass belt buckle that reads gwh which are various initials we work with the jewelry and cast it and to recreate it exactly we started reaching out to his campaign team we reached out to donna rice we had them fill up questionnaires like what kind of clothes do you wear at the time do you wear jewelry what was your favorite sports team uh how do you wear your hair what was your favorite beverage would you like to eat um what was always in your pocket back and forth and back and forth trying to get all these details right so on the day all you're thinking about are you know is this performance good the first thing we shot was a fake uh presidential ad so start with the uh shoulder in a little we shot with like an old video camera and handled it kind of like an old video set so the first thing we ever did was him just kind of like walk out in a suit and the hair my name's gary hart and i'm ready for president and immediately after we shot this 10 page debate of hart and bob dole and it was just insane that he could rattle off 10 pages of 1987 politics and remember he's australian like it's not only that he's doing gary hart's voice he's doing uh he's playing a whole of nationality and he's rattling off politics from an era from another country and it was just a really cool thing to see the movie get shot and see all these actors and actresses who were playing operatives and reporters on campaigns like the ones i've covered matt by who originated the book and the screenplay getting to be on the set of a campaign which felt real in almost every way jay carson also covered the screenplay except when i look over and think holy crap he jacked in the delivering lines i wrote the last set we built in atlanta was our recreation of the washington post bullpen and ben bradley's office coolest set ever to walk around on my cinematographer eric steelberg we ended up shooting on 35 millimeter using the best technology and equipment available from four years ago you know there's a camera issue beginning to take i'm like what i guess it's home you know i've never seen camera work we tracked everybody's microphones independently that meant up to 19 tracks of audio for some of the bigger scenes i remember when we were on the airplane um we would literally walk down the aisles with a with a spray bottle spritzing everyone you know as a record you only get to make so many movies um and this is a very important movie it's one of the the better movies i will make and it all started with me turning on a podcast i feel like i've learned more from radio lab than i did in the entirety of high school i love the way that they approach a story i love their sense of humor about the world i love their curiosity i love that they go into every story without judgment so i'm very grateful just to have it in my life if i just haven't said this enough yet uh thank you uh thank you for making the show to everybody who makes it happen because i know it's not just you guys just showing up in the studio i know there's a lot of people um you guys are making something truly great that is important radio lab is something important and it speaks to the kind of greater side of our hearts and our brains that want to understand the world every time i turn on a radio lab episode i trust that i'm going to come out more thoughtful more enriched not to mention entertained um and i just uh i just feel so lucky to have your show in my life and to have found this episode that has taken me on this journey hey this is matt by i'm one of the screenwriters of the frontrunner my name is jay carson and i used to be a political operative but now i'm a screenwriter and i want to thank radio lab for helping our movie my first movie get made it was a cool experience and it was all uh because uh you guys at radio lab cared about my book and uh did a terrific piece hi i'm helen esterbrook producer of the frontrunner i'm sarah paxton i play donna rice hey this is steve sackland the production designer on the frontrunner thank you to radio lab for all the incredible stories you brought us over the years thank you so much radio lab most especially thanks for the one entitled i don't have an answer to that and thank you to radio lab for making me aware of the story ultimately led us to uh to meet jason and make a movie we're really proud of we appreciate it thanks and thanks for all the work you do hey radio lab this is stefan group editor of the frontrunner uh and thank you for the introduction to gary hart hi radio lab this is jason producer on the upcoming film the frontrunner hey there this is aaron gilbert of bronze studios producer of the frontrunner thank you so much radio lab thank you for telling all the stories that need to be told hey this is eric steelberg cinematographer uh the frontrunner and i wanted to thank radio lab thank you radio lab thank you all so much i'm jk simmons i portray bill dixon to the best of my ability one of my favorite uh lines or thoughts that i've uh learned during this film and promoting this film was the difference between what is interesting and what is important uh my name is hugh jackman i play gary hart and uh i just want to say thanks to radio lab i'm a massive massive fan but if it wasn't for your episode i directly wouldn't have heard it and i wouldn't have had a job so that's great do you listen to podcasts what is a podcast