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It's hard to create
rules or maxims or principles around
creative collaboration. The chemistry of
it is so specific to each scenario, you
know? I mean, I've made
I've made like 50 films, and I'm not
sure that there's a single methodology
for creating a
an ef- an effective or positive
collaboration. Different people work in
very different ways. You know, you need
you need leadership in the sense that
you need someone who almost
creates the
the frame in which you're inside which
you're all working and
articulates
the goals and articulates in some sense
if there are principles or values
that you want to work within.
I think people are actually very
adaptable, very malleable, and can get
excited about lots of ways of working,
but I do think leadership is sometimes
about
getting people tuned into the same
frequency
at the front end so that you can get
the you know, um I don't want to say
happiest, but you can get a effective
collaboration.
I've had certain creative experiences
that
were really inspiring. I I mean, working
with someone like
Alejandro Iñárritu on Birdman, where he
analogized to the process before we even
started to uh
Philippe Petit walking on the the the
wire between the World Trade Centers
without a net. He He established that it
was going to be risky, that the idea of
a film in one take might not succeed,
but that it was worth going for, that
that putting ourselves out
into a position where there wasn't a
workaround was going to produce
something interesting. And he And I
think he got he got everybody pulled
together around the idea of creative
risk taking.
Olivia Wilde did that really recently on
this film The Invitation that we did.
She
She used a phrase I love. She said,
"We're going to stitch the parachute on
the way down
with the faith that it's going to open."
And I think what she meant in that case
is that she was willing to set out on
the journey
without knowing what the the end of the
story was going to be that we were going
to find
that we were going to actually find the
end of the story and route to making it
that she kind of gave us a scenario. She
asked us to bring our own ideas about
our characters into the mix and
permitted us to not know precisely where
we were going.
Instead of uncertainty, it turned it
into discovery. You know, and discovery
is fun and vital and feels alive and you
could take the same set of circumstances
and if everybody feels like you know,
insecure or I don't know what we're
doing or aren't we supposed to know what
we're doing,
it has a very different feedback loop
that gets created. So, you can have the
same scenario and the way that you frame
it
to people can make it a positive an
emotional positive versus an emotional
negative.
A good leader I think communi-
communicates the rules of engagement,
communicates the modality that you're
going to work in because then people can
say themselves, "Oh, that's what we're
supposed to feel uncertain. Feeling
uncertain is good."
>> I mean, why don't you try it? I'll put
it in I'll come in in the night.
We'll put them in. We'll put them in for
free.
And if you don't like it, you know,
we'll take it away.
Um we'll we'll we'll take it away and
you know, what have you what have you
got to lose? And people would sort of
say, "Okay." And as soon as he
And I I mean, I love the image of Mike
Bloomberg in with carpet, you know,
pulling up carpets and getting cables
run and putting his early terminals in.
But he said once they got on it, then
they
then they would then they never gave it
up, you know, and that and today people
still people are addicted to their
Bloomberg terminal data feeds. But I I
think that
if you can frame up like an idea you
have as something that can be tried, you
know, at like like almost like the what
have you got to lose, you know, or what
have we got to lose?
It's it's not always going to work, but
it's not a bad pitch. Like the idea of
saying, "Hey, will you let me run with
this for a minute and and in a sense
prove it to you."
When I've worked with directors who are
tight,
um
who have in some sense
a video tape in their head of the way
something's going to go,
you know, the great thing about film is
just like we're doing here, you can do
takes, right? And it's like, "Why don't
you just let me
I I used to use the line like if someone
was really giving me friction around an
idea
I had about a way to play something, I'd
just say, "Look, you know,
let me have a few. Just just give me a
few to just run an idea.
And when I'm done with the idea, then,
you know, if I did black and you want
white, then come in and say,
"Great, we've got black. Can I have
white?" And you know, and I've already
get I've I've tried my idea. Great,
let's try another one, you know, let's
try something else. Um
I like to I mean, I like to put the full
force
of whatever my capabilities are behind
any idea because it's it's a fun
exercise. But sometimes, um
sometimes I've even as an actor I've
asked for sort of just enough rope
just enough rope to tease an idea out
before you you you you shut it down. And
usually And again, usually if you put it
to someone that way
and they realize that all you're giving
them is options, then maybe you can get
someone's
someone who's negatively micro-managing
can be encouraged to
to see it as positive optionality for
themselves.
I've almost never started any enterprise
by myself. I mean, you can't in film.
I've written things
but every business I've ever started
I've done it with partners. Not people I
hired who were good, but with with
partners. Like
to me like 1 + 1 + 1 = 10 is like
has always been a winning formula. I
val- you know, I value partners
intrinsically and I think I've been
pretty good at picking them. I think you
know, you have to pick your partners
really carefully and I've been really
really lucky. I've worked with and I've
worked with a number of people on
multiple enterprises because my
experience was so good and we wanted to
do it again.
And that's true. Certainly in
filmmaking, you build you build
people who you're like, "Oh man, I I
don't ever want to go to battle again
without her on props or without him on
production design or without you know, I
mean, you you build your team. You build
a team that you can
uh but but then other times you look at
the bespoke needs of a project and you
know
you're looking for someone with a real
specific
set of skills. It's funny, I mean, it's
2026 but I still think conversation
we're still people and the fastest way
to determine whether
you vibe with someone is it's to ask
questions.
Um
you know, I mean, it's funny. One thing
I've kind of learned over time is
obviously I can be
I'm I I I can say what I think about a
thing, but if you're really trying to
recruit people and you're trying to
figure out is this the right person for
me? Sometimes you got really got to
learn to when to shut up. You know what
I mean? And and and in a way make sure
that you know, you leave the space open
and see how other people fill the space
cuz it's really the only way you're
going to learn
what they've got, you know? I mean
anybody can sort of yes you if you over
explain what you're looking for. I think
if you
if you if you [music]
leave a lot of empty space, you'll see
what someone else fills it with and
you'll learn a lot more.
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