Jerry Maguire

We live in a cynical world. A cynical world. We work in a business of tough competitors. I love you. You complete me. Hello everyone and welcome to Unspooled. Yes, welcome to Unspooled. This is a podcast about good movies, critical hits, fan favorites, must-sees and, in case you missed them. We have covered the AFI Top 100 and now we are checking off movies from three major lists. The Letterbox Top 250 films with the most fans, the IMDB Top 250 and the New York Times 1000 Essential Films. Is today's film on one of those lists? We will find out very shortly, but the reason... Yes, I'll tell you later, but yes. We'll tell you which one in just a second. But the reason why we're doing this movie this week is because Jeremiah is celebrating its 30th anniversary. It was recently re-released into theaters and it fits so nicely into our conversation that we had in our last episode about the Devil Wears Prada and that kind of work-life balance. I am Paul Scheer. I'm an actor, writer and director and I avowed never to meet Cameron Crowe because he holds such a spot in my brain as a genius who made these movies that I absolutely love that I feel like any interaction with him would sully that. Now, did I audition for Cameron Crowe? Yes. But I don't consider that technically a meeting. Hi, I'm A.B. Nicholson. I'm the Film Critic for The Los Angeles Times. I have spent a lot of time thinking about Jerry Maguire because of course I wrote a book on Tom Cruise and have watched Jerry Maguire to the point they went from, this is fine to, oh wait, this is a masterpiece. It becomes a masterpiece to me more and more every single time I watch it. I was watching Jerry Maguire that much and I wasn't writing a book about Tom Cruise. I have so many questions for you because I know that you really know this movie well. But now I'm also having my flashback to auditioning for Cameron Crowe, which is something I have not thought about until that very moment where I just said that. What movie was it? Vanilla Sky. Oh, really? Oh, that's a baby Paul. Yeah, that's a baby Paul. And the part that I was auditioning for was one of Tom Cruise's office mates. And I went in and I got a call back and I canceled my trip to LA to go visit my girlfriend who was out here shooting at the time because I got a call back for Cameron Crowe. I did not get the part. But what I was auditioning with, and it was such an odd audition, because again, I got a call back and it was me holding up a piece of paper and pointing to Tom Cruise and going, this one, this one. And then like trying to read his reaction. And when you watch the movie, it's like the opening sequence of the film. Tom Cruise is walking by like a glass encased office and a guy just gets up and is like, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, and then I got more angry. Like, how did I not get that part? And then he called me back and I didn't get that. I was so angry at it. I was like, what could I have done wrong? You called me in because you liked me like, and this is just a guy holding a sheet of paper. Anyway, fuck that guy. Maybe you held it crooked, man. Maybe you crumpled it. Maybe they wanted it like vertical and you held it horizontal. I mean, it messed with me in that sense where you're like, what did I do wrong? How did I mess that up? And then at the beginning of realizing that a lot of decisions in casting come down to things that you can't ever fully articulate or know the reason why it. Like, I don't even know if there is a reason why, like, who knows? Well, here, maybe this will make you feel better. This is Jamie Foxx explaining why he did not get the Cooper Gooding to a new part in Jeremy Guire. I kept looking at him because like, imagine, imagine you from Texas and you've done a little bit of shit, you ain't seen no real fucking stars, right? So I'm just sitting there watching it and we get the reading, right? And we're reading, we're reading, and as I'm reading, you know, he does a dramatic pause, you know, but that's his thing. I fucking think he lost his place. So I take the script and say, no, we right here. Show me the money and then you say you, he says, I know I was taking a pause. I say, okay, yeah, I'm fucking this up. I'm fucking this on up. So I blew it. Oh, man. One of my favorite bits, I'm buddies with Jerry O'Connell and we had done a movie together. And one of my favorite bits with him is whenever people ask him, like, what is he doing in town? He will say, oh, we're shooting Jeremy Guire too. And people take it, people take it with like, oh, great. And it is the funniest answer and it makes so much sense that just they don't know what you're shooting when you ask them, like, oh, what are you shooting? Just like, they won't know it's not out. It's not a thing. So just say Jerry McGuire too. Oh, wait, he knows what happens to his character according to lore if there was a Jerry McGuire too. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. ESPN did a thing for Jerry McGuire's, I think, 20th anniversary where they made fake documentaries catching people up on what happened to like. Oh, wow. Yeah, just to Kush and to Rod Didwell. And, you know, they get some revenge on Kush. Here's what they say. Today, 20 years after he took those fateful steps across the stage at Radio City Music Hall, Kush still has big ambitions. I dream of a future where nobody has even heard of Athlete's Foot. Not because it's obscure, but because it's been eradicated. A future where my grandkids can walk the earth without ever feeling the burden that I carried. McGuire must have influenced my son more than I realized. He's become an actual humanitarian. And he really does love those little bastards. Yes, the documentary says that Kush had to drop out of the NFL fast because he had a toxic case of Athlete's Foot, but he did dedicate his life to curing Athlete's Foot for children. Wow, amazing. All right, let's get into this movie. There's so much I want to say. There's so many questions I have for you. So the year is 1996 and Cameron Crowe has a picture in his head given to him by one of his filmmaking idols, James L. Brooks, the director of broadcast news. It's a photograph of a football player and his agent. And Brooks says, I think there's a story here. Yeah, and Cameron Crowe agrees because things are changing in professional sports in the early 90s. I mean, for one, free agency has just become a thing in the NFL. That's really fascinating. How's that going to change? So he starts writing the script about an asshole agent who has this epiphany that his job is corrupt. He gives up everything, loses everything. And then he panics and he tries to climb back to the pinnacle of success alongside his assistant, a single mother named Dorothy, who has this gigantic crush on him. In short, it is about a guy who loses and gains and loses and gains his soul. And Cameron knows exactly who he wants to star. Tom Hanks. What a mistake that would have been, Amy, because Tom Hanks is that likable, funny guy. He is an underdog. He's a modern day, or at least at that point, a modern day Jack Lemon, you know? Which is what he's kind of wanting in the first draft. I don't know if that story is as interesting. If he was going for something, I don't know, like the apartment, which is a movie that we did here on the show, about a guy who works in a giant insurance company and isn't really sure that his work has any meaning. I mean, that's definitely a way to go, but I think this movie is not that. And I'm glad it isn't. Yeah, I mean, it was. I think it was that. I think there's very much of a stigial element of the apartment in this movie. Like you can hear it in the script, you know, I mean, from the very first line of the film, they're taking the apartment's idea about an openness. Let's just play that, play the apartment opening. So you're not wrong. That's kind of the root of it. Another film that we did when you were gone last summer. We did The Sweet Smell of Success with Beloved John Fennessey from The Ringer. Fantastic movie, Tony Curtis, mean agent. That's also a little bit in here. And what's going to be in here is Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks is like, yeah, I'll be your Jack Lemon. I'll make this film. But Cameron, who we have also talked about ages ago on the show when we did our episode on Fast Times at Ridgemont High, where he was a journalist who wrote this article that then became a movie. Cameron is still a journalist at heart in this period. He's directed the movies, say anything in singles by now. But that journalist part of him gets him so much into the research of this film, into contracts and shoe deals that he spends three and a half years writing the script, during which Tom Hanks wins two Oscars for Philadelphia in Forest Gump and decides, I'm not going to do this agent movie. I want to direct. So now Cameron is a little bit stuck. You know, he needs a new star to play his agent and he thinks of an actor with a very different vibe. Tom Cruise. Could Tom Cruise be Jerry Maguire? Now, it's kind of a better fit because, you know, I feel like Tom Cruise has an energy of what we imagine agents to be. And fittingly, all sorts of Hollywood agents want their clients to be Jerry Maguire. So they start calling up Cameron and going like, don't you know what, Tom Cruise will not do this. Tom Cruise will never play a loser. But Tom Cruise, he's going to zig when you think he's going to zag. He's like, I want to work with Cameron Crow. And he even volunteers to test for the part so they can make sure it's actually a good fit. And because Tom Cruise's salary takes up $20 million of the film's $50 million budget, the rest of the movie has to be cast for pretty cheap. And also, I think there's a psychology. If we cast like unknown faces, maybe Tom Cruise won't look so much like Tom Cruise in this movie. It'll make the world seem more believable. So, Jerry Maguire, his love interest, his assistant Dorothy, they cast this unknown blonde from Texas named Renele Zellweger. She has been in a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie in like a bit part in a Dazing Afused. For her young son, Ray, they play, they cast a kid from McDonald's commercial, Jonathan Lipnicki. And then Jerry Maguire's main client, Rod Tidwell, that is Cuba Gooding Jr., who has done Boys in the Hood Judgment Night, but he has not become a gigantic star late 90s Cuba Gooding Jr. And I also have to say one of my favorite performances in this entire film is Regina King, who plays Rod's wife, Marcy. And also Bonnie Hunt, who is Dorothy's sister Laurel. And of course, to round out this picture, we have Jay Moore as the rival agent Bob Sugar. Now, I have a question for you. Yes. How much do you think Jay Moore, playing an evil sports agent, ultimately marrying Jeannie Busse, a boss family of the Lakers? How much do you think they quote this movie to each other all the time? Oh, no, Amy, I don't. I mean, you think that he's brought this character forward because I was going to say, you know, anything. I think that Bob Sugar really gets kind of developed. Do you remember that Fox show action? No. Oh, it was like this, like, inside baseball Hollywood show on Fox with Jay Moore as like his name was Peter Dragon, and he was a Hollywood producer. And it was very much like if Fox tried to do Larry Sanders. And I always think about that. I loved it. It was like a ruthless, dick movie producer. Really, I don't know if it's good, but I loved it when it was on. There is no way on earth that when Jay Moore goes out for brunch with Jeannie Busse that they don't go like, oh, God, show me the coffee. Like, there's just no way. I guarantee you, they definitely don't do that. Even as an anti Laker fan, or I should say not a Laker fan, and as much as I'd love to see them do that because I think it's so lame. I don't even think they would do it. But here's the thing. Jeremy McGuire puts together the stellar cast, this great script, this giant movie star, and guess what? Yeah, it's a major hit. It's released December 12, 1996, makes 273 million. It's nominated for five Oscars, including PictureScript, Editing, Best Actor for Tom Cruise, and it loses all four of those. But it does win supporting actor for Cuba Gooding Jr., who gives a speech so excited and epic that it basically is exactly like his character. It's, I mean, it's, you know what? I think one of the best ways to watch it is through the eyes of the Oscar broadcast control booth, which is like, this is going too long. No, no, it's incredible. We have to let him keep going. Hallelujah. Thank you for what you put me through, but I'm here and I'm ready. Music, music. I just want to, here we go. Okay, the studio, I love you, and Cameron, and Bruno, and Tom Cruise. I love you, brother. I love you, man. Ready, ready, 11-11. Short settles, keep, keep it playing. I'll tell you how to do it. Ready, three, three. Keep it playing, keep it playing. You get a point, Tom, and we make the movie. Everybody involved with the movie. Ready, 12-12. Ready, 13-13. Ready, 10-10. Ready, two-two. Ready, three, three. I love you. I love you. Ready, 12-12. Ready, 8-8. Cameron, Cameron, all the way, 9. Everybody, Cameron, all the way. I love you. I love you. Ready, 9-9. Ready, 2-2. Ready, 3-3. Ready, 1-1. Ready, 3-3. Ready, 6-6. And stand by and out. And announce... Rulee. Keep on, you sign for Rulee, and a performance by Madonna. Two long career from one. What a fucking opening! Woo! I love you! Oh, phenomenal! What a fucking opening, man. I love that for the record, as, you know, a study of Tom Cruise. This is the, I believe, the third time that Tom Cruise is in a movie where his co-star gets the Oscar win, and he does not, alas, continues to have it in him. And for the record as well, he did win the Golden Globe for Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise did. He has been nominated for three Oscars. He's lost all three times, but each one of those three times, he ended up winning the Golden Globe. But then he also gave back his Golden Globe when everybody was mad at them a couple of years ago. Look at that, Tom Cruise. You know, I gotta say, if anyone should have won an award for this film, it should have been Regina King. I mean, she is... She's amazing. Amazing in this, and she is, I think, such an emotional backbone that this movie needs in a major way, that I know that there's so much talk about, you know, show me the money. I think Tom Cruise is fantastic in it, but she gives, I think, you know, just pound for pound the best performance in this film. I don't think I disagree with you. I think every performance in here is amazing. True. But she just comes out and is like, boom, she's fantastic. She has less screen time than everybody else, and she dominates everything she's in. You watch the movie really through her eyes, because she can do so much that these other characters can't, because they are a little bit emotionally crippled, and she has such a good sense of herself as a human. Like, she is that missing element, you know, that I think kind of connects all these characters. Like, every character wants a piece of her in, you know, in the way that they want to be viewed in the world. I just love that. Well, yeah, she's the person who has the love and knows the money, you know, marketing major in college. And I think she just gets it. Yeah, let's just play a little bit of her right here. This is what you're gonna do. This is what you're gonna do. You're gonna reject that shitty contract. You're gonna play out your existing shitty contract, and you're gonna go be a free agent next year. Come on, hey, hey, baby, this is us. You and me, we determine our worth. Baby, you are a strong, proud, surviving, splendid black man. Marcy, you are the shit. Oh, so, yes, we are a thousand percent agreement about a Regina Oscar that did not come to exist, and also this film is on the New York Times' 1000 Essential Films. Boom. The war is over, and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, and armies scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world. Praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight, but in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old-school adventuring, and it's most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal, rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8pm Eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about, and join us in the dark. Now, here's what I'm gonna say. Re-watching this film, a movie I've watched many times, I realized something. First of all, I want more of this Tom Cruise. This is a Tom Cruise I haven't seen in such a long time. A comedic Tom Cruise. A romantic Tom Cruise. A human. He's really almost never funny or human or comedic, and he gets romantic, and he gets to do all of that here. All right, so this is my question for you, Amy. Is this Tom Cruise character the most accurate version of who Tom Cruise actually is? Because watching it, there are all these things that he does, and there are these little moments, I think right in the beginning of the film, like somebody drops some papers on the ground, and he goes, hey, I know you, you're Jeannie, you work in this department, you have that little thing on your desk. Great, helping out, right? He is that guy, everybody I've ever talked to, says, oh, Tom Cruise will never forget a name, knows exactly what you did, and is very present with you. And I feel like that energy that you're watching, that energy of him as an agent, that guy who flies to, you know, the Cush's house, like this is Tom Cruise in desperation mode, and we're seeing his charms not working. I feel like what he was able to do is take himself as a model, and then go what if none of it connected? And my favorite scene in the entire film is him so psyched that he signed Cush, that he's trying to sing in the car, and he doesn't know any lyrics of the songs, and he keeps on changing it to kind of get in that vibe, and I'm like, this is Tom Cruise, like this is this guy trying to have this control, be this smooth guy, and there are these little fractures in him, and I think it makes his performance here so vulnerable, good, funny, but just watching it, and everything I know about Tom Cruise now from the limited, you know, real-world information, I'm like, this is Tom Cruise. Oh, God! Can't understand it! Just let it out now! Just call me Rachel, on the morning. She had faith, and she had belief. Breaking her heart. And I'm free! Free falling! Yeah, I'm free! I think for half of this performance, you are exactly right. I really do, because part of what I find fascinating about Jeremiah is he's a jerk, right? Like, he's a complete jerk, he's very self-invested, self-centered. Is he though? We don't see that. Well, we do a little bit. We do a little bit. Like, the part that always pops out to me is when he's sitting on the couch with Jonathan Lipnicki, and he's like talking about his own self and his own feelings, and Jonathan Lipnicki is like, my dad died, and he's like, aha, whatever, we're talking about me, kid. Like, here. My dad, he worked for United Way for 38 years. You know what he said when he retired? He said, I wish they'd given me a more comfortable chair. Wait, wait, wait. For eight years, he sat on it. And then my dad died. My mom took me to the zoo, and I loved to do it. And then they would do it. No, wait, wait, because I want to tell you more about my dad. No, let's go to the zoo. Okay, okay, I'm not going to be right. But I don't know, it's just my whole life I've been trying to talk. I mean, really talk. But no one's listening to me. You know that feeling? They just look at you. Let's go right now. Let's go to the zoo. Ready to the zoo? You know, fucking zoo's closed, right? So there, you see a little bit of the narcissism, but he is not, I will say, a true narcissist, and he's not a sociopath, because if he was a real narcissist, if Jerry Maguire was like completely on that end of the psychological spectrum, he would not care what people think of him. He would not, he would immediately think that he's right about everything, and he wouldn't feel so vulnerable. Like this character cares a lot about what other people think of him. In fact, you could kind of say like, the only way he knows his worth is how other people think of him, right? Like he uses other people as a reflection. And that I think actually, I think there is a little bit of Tom Cruise in there, because when Tom Cruise has his meltdown 10 years from this, he still has been trying to get that love back. Like I think you see the post Tom Cruise flailing post 2005. That seems very, like Jerry Maguire to me too. I have to get on top. I have to be make the number one movie of the year just to prove that I didn't lose it. And I think that there's something really interesting that the movie does, which look, I really love this movie. And I think it's structurally a little bit weird. And one of the weirdest moments in the film is convincing you that he is a flawed character. And where they really lean on that is in this bachelor party montage, right? Where all these women that he has, I mean, fucked, right? I mean, that's kind of what it is. It's an enormous amount of women that they've all tracked down who all willingly are participating in this, which is also another odd thing. But all that aside, they all say this idea, they all say this defining trait of Jerry Maguire is he can't be alone. He is someone who can't be alone. I don't know if that is the thing that I take away from Jerry Maguire. Like I feel like the movie kind of puts that on a pedestal and it gives him a moment of like, huh. But I don't get that that's what the movie is. Yes, that I think facilitates his gravitation to Renee Zellweger. But I also feel like he's alone. He is on an island. He's desperate to get any sense of self back. I don't know why he can't be alone. Didn't sit perfectly right for me. I don't know if it was a simplification or something. I don't know. Yeah. No, what I like about that video is really just that the women are also saying that he says, I love you all the time and doesn't mean it too. Like that he's insincere. But the alone part, I'm with you. Like, I mean, I feel like he's always, he always wants to be in motion. He always wants to be doing something. But also, maybe part of why it doesn't hit is because this is a movie that's not going to cure that. Like there's no moment at the end where he's like, and now I can be alone because that's not what this movie does. This movie structurally, this movie structurally is insane. Everything in this movie is inside out. Everything is like reshuffled. It starts with the ending of any other scene in any other like Tom Cruise movie. He's like, I'm the slick guy and I'm going to have this epiphany that my life has no meaning. And I'm going to come to Jesus and give that big speech and I'm going to get the slow clap. It's the entire eighties movie ending. Right. Except he's like. They start the movie in the end of the second act and then it's like, well, what's next? And that's kind of the genius part of the structure of this. Like, but also at the same time, it is following a first act structure in the sense that we are seeing this person who is living a life. Then it hits an obstacle. I guess it's, it can kind of be both in a way. I guess the first act and the third act are mirrors of each other. But it's a third act failure, which also is our first act obstacle. Right. I mean, I don't know. I think it's cyclical. Like to me, what I had to realize about Jeremy Guire in order to go from thinking this movie was like fun, but ridiculous to long. To loving this movie is to realize that this might be one of the most cynical movies ever made. Wow. All right. Talk about that. Yeah. Because this movie. Wait, let me just ask you this open ended. What do you think happens to him and Renee at the end of this film? It's an interesting question. I don't think I've given it much thought, right? Because there's, there's this moment where at the end, I feel like what he realizes is he cares about people, people over profit. Right. There's a full connection. And that's, and if you're going to look at the movie in like, like just at its base level, that's where the movie starts in the hospital with the hockey player. And that's where the movie ends. I think to your point, he will stay with Renee Zelliger. And I almost feel like she will change more than he will change because I don't think he is fully changed. He might do business differently. I don't know. I, well, you know what? I'm not going to, I'm not going to feed into it. I would think that they live happily ever after because his want is to go home to her. His want is I can't be happy unless I share this moment with you. So no, I'm not going to even allow myself to go down that path. I'm going to say that he does realize that he can get paid or recognition for actually giving a shit. And now he can then put his business in that same pod, right? Whereas before he didn't have to give a shit and he could have a business and now he was rewarded for having it. And he's rewarded for sticking with Renee. And I think that now he stays in that path. Obviously one of his strengths that he knows is a strength is that once he commits to something, he sticks, right? That's part of why she leaves him in the middle. Right. Because he's like, he's going to commit to this. He's going to stick to this and they're going to waste a decade of their life being a mismatch couple. I think this is a romantic comedy about two people who should not be together at all. And they make it work several times and they make it work again at the end. And it's, to me, terrible. They're not holding hands at the end. They're both holding hands with Jonathan Lipnicki. He's in the middle. Like it's always, I think, for Tom Cruise about his affection for Jonathan Lipnicki and wanting to be around this boy way more than her. Like when they break up, he's crying over Jonathan Lipnicki's bed. Like he's not thinking about her. And so it's a tragedy to be this movie because it's like about how two people can keep trying to make something work that isn't supposed to work. I don't think he's ever going to fully love Renee Zellweger, but I think they're going to be okay. You know, this is a movie where he says, I love you all the time. It never means it where everybody says I love you all the time. James Moore tells him he loves him all the time. So it's a movie that starts with a gigantic speech that he immediately takes back and ends as a gigantic speech that he just hasn't taken back yet. You see, the difference that I see in that is that Renee Zellweger isn't holding him accountable for being that person. She's not like, you told me you love me. You told me this. She is really smartly been like, you know what? I made a mistake. We made a mistake. Let's back out of this. Let's go. And he keeps on coming back in. And I feel like he does have the out there. He does have the ability to walk away, but he wants to come back. I mean, I think of more cynical choices. They never, you know, they never get there. They know like he doesn't go back to her, but she's happy for him that he has achieved this success. I mean, look, it's complicated too, because it's like he, you're right. Like I think that she's wrapped up in so much like they are partners. They are lovers. Like he has no one else. She's seen him through the bad side of himself and still likes him. But I do think that this movie doesn't, but I do think this movie doesn't really interrogate like what his changes, right? Like his changes at the beginning. And I guess we're slowly getting more and more to it. I don't know. Because he really doesn't. I don't know. Does he change? I guess if you would, you would say that the moment where he's waiting for, you know, Tidwell to get up and when he calls Regina, you know, and tells her like he's in charge and he's taking care of it. I mean, that just seems human to me. And I don't think that we've seen him be not human enough to register that as a giant change. I mean, I think he becomes more human. Like, I mean, that first scene where that little kid, I think girls have to be like Drake Bell, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That little kid is like, fuck you and gives him the finger, which tongue is just like, that's the first thing we shot. And that kid was so excited to say, fuck you and give me the finger. Um, he at least goes from being on the phone saying bland things about how the guy's hockey dad is going to be okay to like, you know, genuinely caring about Rod. I think he, I don't think that Jerry McGuire is a horrible person, but I do think that this movie doesn't believe that anybody can totally change for real. And that like having this life changing epiphany and becoming a different human being does not happen. Well, and I think to kind of really hammer it home in that big scene right at the end, the big speech that you complete me, which I find really sweet and I tear up because I think he genuinely means it. I do think he genuinely thinks he means it. There's a conversation happening in that room right before he barges in. And this is what one of the women on the couch is saying. Yeah. The problem is, you know, Alice, you were saying earlier something about the bio rhythm. I was saying that the neural pathways are set and that's why it's hard for people to change. That's why behavior doesn't change very often. Yeah. Right before that big scene, Cameron Crowe is like listen man, neurons are neurons. Jeremy McGuire is going to stay Jeremy McGuire. Yeah, but that's a really shitty way. But I respect that though. Right. I mean, I guess it makes this movie so screwed up. Like I love how screwed up this movie is in that way. It's like, yeah, this is just it. It is. He can become a better version of this. So then we are all Renee Zellweger, right? We're like those women in the room, they fall for it and Renee Zellweger falls for it. And I think what you're saying is Jeremy McGuire falls for his fall falls for it. Right. Yeah. Like, so it's like this idea that we all can see past. He's not even intentionally lying and maybe that's the, yeah. I mean, it's tricky, right? It's a, it's a hard thing because it's like, well, he's not perfectly paired with Kelly Preston. Also fantastic in this movie. Funny. I think that where this movie is cynical for me is it's a movie about a mission statement about caring for people. But yet what is the slogan, the most, you know, quotable line, show me the money. Right. The movie is about. How does this take off as much as show me the money? No, it's like, get me paid. And that's what the movie really ends with is like, he gets the guy paid. So the movie is like, that's where it's a little bit interesting. It's like, it is all about the money. Right. But I guess the fine line the movie is showing is like, you can get the money and be a good human at the same time. Yeah. Or if you don't show people who you really are, you also can't get the money necessarily. The way that the rod has to do, he has to show people his vulnerability and his human side and the charisma to get the fans to love him, to get the money. And I love that. Tied together. And I love that. Rod and Jerry can have this conversation where Rod essentially is like, Hey. You, you got to get out of this relationship. Like, and, and they really go head to head. Like they, they touch each other's nerves. And that's the moment where Jerry says like, you want to get paid, you got to be like this. And Rod's like, you want to get love. You have to be like this. And, and Jerry doesn't listen to Rod. Rod does listen to Jerry. And then I do think it flips a little bit, but I agree with you. I see what you're saying. I don't know how intentional the movie is trying to do that though. I think that the movie is in love with love. Oh, I think the movie knows very well what it's doing. I mean, the whole movie is almost like this Cassandra thing where every step that Dorothy and Jerry take together, you're just looking at the other people in the room who are like, Ah, this is a bad idea. You know, her sister is so freaked out from the beginning. She's, when he proposes to her, is this the sisters outside being like, don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Wait. Wait a second. No, no. Oh God. I know a way we can save, save on medical and rent. No. Don't listen to him, Dorothy. What if we stay together? What if we got married? If I said that, would you stay? No, no. Don't do that. Don't say that unless, well, say it if you want to. Kuba Gooding Jr. He knows, oh, one of the scenes that breaks my heart is when they get married anyways, and then they're watching the video together and everybody can see in the video that Jerry is miserable. And like Kuba is just that, oh, the hurt in his face. And he tries to like bring Jerry and Dorothy together and make them like hug. They, oh, it's so sad because really what this movie I think kind of gets into is that a lot of the times the way that we depict romance in films is either like the greatest romance or a horrible person. And I like that actually what this movie has in common with Devil Wears Prada is it's not like Adrian Grenier sucks. It's just that they shouldn't be together, that they're not in the right vibe. And like it's not the either of Jerry Maguire necessarily sucks as he is and Dorothy's the best, but they just shouldn't be together. Well, this is what I will say that Cameron Crowe might disagree with you because, you know, on the 20th anniversary, he talked about his vision for this end scene was about Jerry learning to love well rather than just win, right? And so he finally shows up emotionally for Dorothy in that last scene. It's not just a temporary high where throughout the film, I think in these moments of I've lost everything, let me hook up with you will give me something. And I think in that moment where they do have sex, like you'd get that other version of Jerry that's a version of Jerry. And I feel like Cameron Crowe based on his comments is like, this is a movie where he's starting to get it right. He is like it's and maybe that's the first as a movie that starts in the third act. Maybe this is the first act of that movie, right? They have a shot now because it's not going to her because he needs her. It's because he wants to he's learning like what love is. And that goes back to that original video montage where it's like, he says, I love you. I love you. I love you, but he never means it. Maybe this is and that I buy that bookend. But I can you complete me really is that he can't be alone thing. You complete me as I need somebody to fill me up. I mean, I want to believe it. I believe he believes it and I want to believe that maybe they could make it work. But I think it's really interesting that one of the first start somewhere. Well, yeah, it was some of the first reactions to Jeremy Guire at the very early test screenings. One couple proposed at the very first test screening. Another couple left and immediately broke up because they're like, you know what, we might get along, but we're not this. Because you there's just no way you can look at Renee Zellweger and Tom Cruise together in this movie and then go look at Kubo Gooding Jr. and Regina and not be like, well, they're never going to have that man. And that scene is so beautiful. Like when they're having dinner together, right? When Regina gets goes into labor, like and they're trying to mimic them. Like there's so many great things about being this awkward couple because they are thrust into this. They are strangers who are then pushed together and you know, she says it. The movie says it like he, you know, goes to her because there's no one else around. And no one else will come with him except the fish. I mean, I do want to just step back and talk a little bit more general about the film too because we could debate the ending for a very long time. The thing that I was fascinated by and I didn't know about was this idea of Jerry Maguire writing a manifesto was based on a very famous manifesto written by Jeffrey Katzenberg. Now it was written in 1991 and it was titled The World is Changing, Colin, Some Thoughts on Our Business. And he sent this out to the entire company at Disney to Michael Eisner, Frank Wells, Rich Frank, Dick Cook, like all the big people at Disney. I just want to read you a little bit of the opening of it. The first little, because it is 29 pages. And as context, he's sending this to everybody right after Dick Tracy collapses. As we begin the new year, I strongly believe we are entering a period of great danger and even greater uncertainty. Events are unfolding within and without the movie industry that are extremely threatening our studio. Some of you might be surprised to read these words. After all, Disney was number one in 1990. Yes, but our number one status was far from a sign of robust health. Instead, it merely underscored the fact that our studio did the least badly in a year of steady decline for all of Hollywood, a year that was capped off by disastrous Christmas for nearly everyone. Although we led at the box office in 1990, our bottom line profits in the movie business were the lowest in three years. And he goes on and on and on. And the idea is, as he's talking about this, is that we need to invest in good ideas. We need to get behind big ideas. And it's a really interesting, I'll be very honest, I skim the 30 pages, but it's a bold statement by, I would argue, one of the most powerful people in the business at this time. Yeah, there's a lot I actually like in it. Like he has this line where he goes, like Lemmings, we are all racing faster and faster into the sea. Each of us trying to outrun and outspend and out-earn the other in a mad sprint toward the mirage of making the next blockbuster. He's really like, we need to get out of the blockbuster business and just worry about making smart, creative, new ideas instead of drilling gigantic franchises. But then what happens is he uses that energy to make the racketeer and then the racketeer flops. People are like, nah. Well, this is what I love about this because I was like, oh, I would love people to read this today. Like, there's a section called the idea is king. In a dizzying world of moviemaking, we must not be distracted from one fundamental concept. Idea is king. Stars, directors, writers, hardware, special effects, new sound systems, all of these can have a role to play in the success of the film, but they must serve the humble subject. But they must serve as humble subjects to the supremacy of the idea. Original ideas. Like, I love that idea. Like that. I could not agree with that more. I want that to be true. And he says the one of the most misunderstood and misused phrases in Hollywood is high concept, a phrase introduced by Michael for internal use by creative executives at Paramount as a guide for evaluating ideas, but it quickly spread throughout Hollywood and has since been widely misinterpreted and abused and abused. High concept was intended to describe a unique idea whose originality could be conveyed briefly. The emphasis was to supposed to be on originality, but has come to be placed on it briefly. So today, high concept is thought to mean an idea that can be summarized in a log line and TV guide. I mean, you know, he's not wrong, but he's not absolutely mocked for this. Right. So he was like, basically, it was like you failed and you wrote this thing to be like, well, I'm not failing. We're all failing. Like, right? Like that's that's basically the idea behind it. Like he didn't want to take, you know, he's like, I'm just, yes, I'm the one to fail, but you'll be the one to fail next time. And it's, I mean, and that is really the five years before this comes out. Like that's a big swing. And I think that this idea of one of the again, a great sequence in this film is you see Tom Cruise get the idea, wakes up in the middle of the night, he writes it, he goes to FedEx, Kink goes and wakes up the next morning. And that look and that first frantic phone call, can we pull it back? Can we pull it back? No, you can't. Oh my God, can we hear the way he makes that phone call? It makes me laugh so much. Hi, this is Jeremy Gaward. Listen to those manuscripts. Oh, they did. Oh, no, no, no. His fake charm is like, oh, they did like his fake smiles in this movie. Excellent. Excellent. But you get to go with him on that breakdown. Like his, I love that line even break down, break through, break down, break through, because you're kind of rooting for him, right? And then as that sequence goes on, you're like, wait, no, he looks crazy. He's wet. He's crazy. He's doing handstands. He's suddenly liking this to the catcher in the ride. He's like, I wrote so much and I'm not even a writer. And the way that Jerry McGuire, the movie lets that sinking thought go, oh no, this isn't good. This is getting worse and worse. Excellent filmmaking because it's not making fun of him. It's just right there in his enthusiasm. Well, that's the Oprah part of it, right? When I go, oh, this is Tom Cruise. Like that's the moment. Like he jumps up on the couch and I know that we've talked about that moment is incredibly misremembered. But that's the, but he stands up on the couch to impress Oprah in the audience. A thousand percent. He's doing it for them as a reflection of their enthusiasm for him. And I do think that like at the core of this movie, what makes it so interesting and debatable and and on that list of a thousand essential films is it's not high concept at its core. It is about a character who begins to develop a conscience in a world that really does not reward it. Right? Like it's not. It's an interesting story because I think also agents are so, you know, looked at as, you know, oh, fuck your agent. Like the agents are the worst. Like where are these relationships and they only like you when you're making money and when you're not making money, they don't call you. And we see that, right? It's a tough character to even play. And I can imagine to a certain extent Cameron Crowe has his own opinions about agents by putting into the sports world. I think that we make it a little bit cleaner, but it's this is a movie about the industry. This is about Hollywood, even though it's not about Hollywood, right? It's about agents and those relationships. I think that's why the movie is nominated for so many awards. But I also think it's the reason why Tom Cruise isn't fully nominated as a best actor because you said early on or we were talking about early on. Like, well, Tom Cruise won't want to play this part because he's a loser. And I never see this character as a loser. I see this character as someone who isn't as confident. And in that time period, Tom Cruise is playing like things, you know, not just Top Gun, but he was in the firm where that's a character that is wrestling with more stuff and getting over his head, right? Not a loser. I don't think this character is a loser. I think this character is like a baby duckling. It's awkward. Yeah, that's why I think he keeps falling and tripping on things. Yeah. He's like, where am I in this world? Like he's really unsteady on his feet. I mean, he's very confident at the beginning, you know, going through when you see him at Prime, Jeremy Goyer, Agent being like, this is who I am before he has this whole meltdown. Yeah, I believe that character. I handle the lives and dreams of 72 clients and get an average of 264 phone calls a day. It's what I do. I will not rest until I have you holding a Coke, wearing your own shoe, playing a Sega game, featuring you while singing your own song in a new commercial, starring you, broadcast during the Super Bowl in a game that you are winning. And I will not sleep until that happens. What I do best 15 minutes. But he becomes so wobbly on his feet in a way that I find fascinating. And like, to me, this is Tom Cruise saying, Hey, I'm going to start this movie off as the image of what you think a Tom Cruise role is, you know, because the this is the image that he plays this kind of guy. And when you go through and look at each individual film, it's actually not true. Each one is a lot more weird and complicated than this cocktail is always the example I like to use because that character so screwed up. Top Gun, which we talked about. We think of him as this cocky guy, but it's a movie about like tragedy and guilt and running away from things. Like he tries to add these layers to it, but people just think he's this superficial asshole guy in most of his movies. And here he's like, fine, I will take that character to the extreme and I will have him break down in front of you and try to destroy this reputation that I have for only playing this one type of role over and over again. Because I'm not doing it. Nobody ever really sees that. Well, and I also think this movie is a little bit ahead of its time in the sense of tackling a world. And I think, you know what? Yes, this is about agents and clients. But let's go further out. It's a world that I think you never have to be honest in. And there's a lot of relationships that we probably have that we don't have to be honest in. We can just be like, we can get through them. And this is, you know, this, I think this movie is saying like, for the first time, Jerry Maguire is getting real talk, right? It's like, and but he has this fake real talk with like Kelly Preston, like where Kelly Preston is like, I told you when we first started dating that we, I couldn't bullshit you and we are always honest with each other. And he's like, yes, but you know that they aren't, they're just performing honesty. And what their honesty is, is just like uncomfortability, right? It's like, right? It's, you know, she's going to be cruel to him. But where they're like brutal truth thing, or I even like the fact that she's like, if you want me to be with a girl, be with a girl, because there's almost no there there for her to write. You know, like she's such a contrast to Renee, who is like all soft and pillowy and weird and honest and keeps saying what she means, even when it's really awkward. And it's like, I love this guy, which is insane to say that about this man so fast. And he's, yes. And they're surrounded by, and by the way, she's also an island. She is a single mom. You know, she's looking in that speech that she gives to Bonnie Hunt about like, I, I've been out there. I know, like she, she's attaching herself to him quickly too. She's like, I mean, it's like a, it's like finding, you know, like a diamond in the rough. She's like, oh my God, I got a diamond here. All I got to do is like sink in. I think that part of her is, I don't know if she's in love with him. I like, I think that line where I'm in love with the man he wants to be. But I also think that she thinks like I can get in, in this place where potentially my life changes, not that she, I think everyone's working on these different levels, right? Because she idolizes him. She knows he's the first class guy with the chef cane, right? And that's not her life at all. And she's listening to him tell the story and that story speaks of such a horrible, oh, so, this is me. They're like, how did you do it? Cause like they got pressured into it surrounded by people. And I love that he all, like, you know, he, everything is a performance, but I think that honesty and that just emotional, like, she's honest about, fuck, I don't know if I love him, but I love the man he wants to be. I don't know if this is right. Maybe we should redo it. Like she's honest to a fault. That's real honesty, which is not being assured, right? She doesn't know what she's feeling from moment to moment. And I think Rod is just blunt. Like you got to get out and these are, It takes the responsibility for it too. Yes, right. When she breaks up with him, she doesn't say you did this. She wasn't like, you are so phony. You don't really love me. She might be thinking that, but she's like, she takes full ownership of it. I took advantage of you. And the worst of it is that I'm not alone. I did this with a kid. I was just on some wild ride where I thought that, that I was in love enough for both of us. Which by the way, yeah, I mean that conversation, she's immediately assuring him and it's okay. You and the kid could be friends. You and Ray can stay friends. Not you and me. You and the kid. By the way, this really also shows you just how much my brain has changed since they saw this when I was young and in the 90s. The sexual harassment element of it did not pick up on it really. Oh yeah. It's your boss and oh my goodness. And the only on this watch was I really like, oh yeah, Clarence Thomas joke. They even made a Clarence Thomas joke. That was hilarious. I love that. Don't worry about it. Boss. Oh shit. You said boss. Yeah, I did. I feel like Clarence Thomas. Oh no. Don't feel like Clarence Thomas. No, no, no. I do. I feel like Clarence Thomas. I'm like harassing you right now. I may not too. I love that she makes it awkward. I love that she makes it awkward with that joke. She's so good. So good. Oh. Kitty. A great story like monsters in the game. I'm not sure if you can tell. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. A great story like monsters ink stays with you forever. And Disney Plus is where you'll find your next great story. From the return of the award winning hit series, Rivals. Welcome to the naughtiest show on television. To the unmissable crime drama, High Potential. Gotta dead body. Gotta go. A lifetime of great stories awaits. This spring on Disney Plus, 18 Plus, subscription required. T's and C's apply. Welcome to the realms of peril and glory. Explore the mechanically magical vistas of veil. The paranormal mysteries of liminal London. And the cyberpunk chaos of cyborg. Be awed by our incredible guests from familiar shows like Ox Venture and No Rolls Bard. The realms of peril and glory to find out more. You win. And you know, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm also remembering that in the film, they say, oh yeah, Jerry can't be alone. But the other line that I think is really important about this film is great at friendships, bad at relationships. Yeah, and intimacy. That is, I think, an issue that a lot of people have, right? Like, because I don't know if there's that much there there with him, right? And he's trying to figure that out. I don't know if it's the career that has made him take away any imperfection that he can't show anything. But that to me is really fascinating. Like he's in a world of people being fake, right? It's too messy to say, how are you? Like, and not and say, oh, I'm bad, right? He can't ever show that he's bad. He can't show weakness. His friend will fire him at lunch. And I love how quickly he gets it. Like when you see him like Spidey senses, like, oh, you took me out here to do this. And then you see like him talking to his clients. Like I love that girl. That girl is so amazing. And then he's like, oh, Jerry, no, no. And then I'm sorry. Hello. And he's like, and still on me. Oh, Jerry. Like, but that's. That happened to Cameron Co. He said, really? Yeah. That there was an actress before this who was supposed to do one of his movies. I don't know which one. And she got on the phone crying with him like, I'm so sorry. I can't do it. I wish I could. I thought I could blah, blah, blah, blah. And then she gets a call and she thought she clicked over. She was just like, hello. I mean, there. So I think, I think that there's two things also play in. We have this conversation now, like, you know, you ever see those means or it's like, men will do blank blank instead of going to therapy, right? Like it's always like some ridiculous thing that men will do instead of going to therapy. I think that this movie also shows it's rewarded, right? It's, it's rewarded to not show your true self, right? To be this version of you. And yeah, like somebody did the breakdown because even though it looks like he is successful at the end with Rod, like somebody, a sports agent did the breakdown. They're like, okay, we'll listen. So Rod gets this deal, you know, four years, 11.7 million. Jerry McGuire gets 4%. That means he makes about $84,000 and think about what he's already spending on flights and he's got to take care of Renee's love of girls health insurance. But Troy Aikman is like, buddy, let's do this. Right? I mean, I think that that's the idea. Like everybody wants that. I mean, everybody wants that from, this is the thing that I don't know. Maybe I have a different relationship with this too as somebody who has agents and lawyers and all these people, right? Because it's like you, I had a manager for 12 years and then I fired that manager. And, you know, that was somebody who was a very important part in my life and my reasons for firing him were, you know, different needs. And you are, you're making these relationships. But I also, I think what I noticed was when I would have these conversations, I think I was wanting to have a real conversation. Like you're firing somebody. And the ones that I had were like, I remember this one with my manager's boss who I wanted to also make sure that they knew I was leaving. And, you know, and it was like, okay, thank you. Goodbye. Just hang up the phone, right? And you're like, oh, that's 12 years. It's a 12 year relationship. This is goodbye. And I think the thick skin that all these agents and managers have to have because at any given point, people are going to walk away. If you're not working hard enough for them. And you, and it's a weird relationship because you want this person who's going to fight for you. But they also like, well, why am I fighting for you that hard? Because at any given moment, if I don't show up for you, I'm ditching you. And then you're like, well, then you get in relationships like you said, where you are there just for loyalty. Like, okay, I'll just stay, I'll stay. And then people leave. And, you know, and there's a there's a lot of, I think this is a very tricky relationship because you want somebody in your corner 100%. But the minute they are perceived as not being there 100%, you lose them out of your life. It's a very like, no other relationship kind of works like that. And I don't know. Like you're here. My like, even when he's meeting with the guy who runs the car. And he's like, I introduced you to your wife. We spent Christmas this together. You stood me up like what? Right. There's just that lack of loyalty. Even in the office, like there's that bit where Tom Cruise is leaving the office when he gets fired and he's giving his big goodbye speech and who's coming with me and he's being a complete mess. And he's to me going 2% too much into Nick Cage. So you think I'm going to freak out. Yeah, I do love it though. It works. It's funny. But that's Tom. That's what I think is Tom Cruise. Like I feel like if he was in that moment, he would do something like that. He would. But what I love about that scene is like, it ends and he's like, as he's leaving, he's like, well, let's just see how they do without us. Right. And it doesn't just cut away and stay with them as they go to the elevator. Like Cameron Crowe stays in that gigantic pool of people with the cubicles. They leave the room and then you just see everybody go, okay. And they snap right back to work. Like it didn't matter. Right. It's not like he did anything that registers. This is like, okay, next. And yeah. And I think that that is this weird transactional part of the relationship. That moment where Jerry Maguire sits with Kush's dad. He's like, my word is oak. I'm going to be like, and that I think is a really beautiful way of showing the fickle nature of the business. Yes, clients are going to stay and go and wherever they might be. I've had agents who've left to become managers and I did not go with them. And it's awkward, right? It's an awkward thing. It's, and it's, I just think it's a very transactional relationship. Everybody wants that one person to fight for them, but I don't know. I think that there is a slight distance. I think again, to reference the film outcome, really have a lot of thoughts on. There's a great scene with Martin Scorsese playing Canary's first agent. By the way, Martin Scorsese is amazing in that scene is amazing. But I think it really does capture this, like this person that is sometimes a transitional person in your life. Like there's been a lot of talk lately about how Greta Gerwig was like stolen away from her agency after all of her tremendous success. Barbie, Narnia, all this stuff. And then she's like, oh, I'm going to go over here now. And you, and you're left as I think a team or an agent or somebody like going like, about I did that. I was a part of that. And, you know, everyone's looking for that quicker thing or that bigger promise. So, you know, I could see how Cameron Crowe is writing this as an apology and also as a reckoning with this business that we all are in the studio executive who wants to make your next movie, who doesn't make your next movie. I imagine that Cameron Crowe has felt Jerry Maguire more post Jerry Maguire than anything else because Cameron Crowe's career has taken an odd shape. Like he has some really solid misses. And that's from me who is a giant fan of him and actively like, oh, I'm rooting for him. I want to see it work. And just some real, you know, some real odd ones. I wonder in a way if how he would look at this movie now. I wonder what his point of view would be from, from then to now. I want to imagine. Gosh, I mean, when I watch this film and I see just all of the incredibly brilliant tiny human details in it. I mean, you've touched on this. Like it doesn't sound like it's the kind of movie that would be high concept. Like one of the stories I heard is that when James Wilbrook's first got Cameron Crowe's script for it, he was like, I've never read a movie with this little action. Like there's just like, where's the plot here? You know, but it's so lived in. It has all of these little beats that are so much about what real life feels like that I don't feel like even existing movies. Actually, this is something that Tom Cruise even said when he got his Golden Globe. I want to thank Cameron. You know, you gave me Jerry Maguire, man. You take a, made a movie out of little moments, moments that people would, you know, not feel worthy to put on film or interesting enough. And you turn it into this, these gems, these things I've never seen before. So thank you. You are a total original. And thank you for Jerry Maguire. Thank you for that role. I wonder what it would be like to watch this film and be like, I did that. Like I made that film. I really said something incredibly true about human behavior. And yet because just, I don't even know how creativity works this way. You can't keep doing it for the rest of your life. You don't make more than a gazillion of these, you know, am I fascinated by that when somebody makes a film that's so good and then they have a really hard time making something that good again. Well, I think that, you know, Quentin Tarantino has boxed himself in a certain way, but also has done something really interesting, which is like, I am not going to make more than, you know, this number of movies. And I think that if you look online, what people might say as well, now he's kind of fucked himself because if he gets excited about something and it's not the movie that he needs to make, that would be like the, the ender. He won't make it and he should be able to make it. But I think he also looks at it and goes, I know what I want to do. And look, I could tell you from writing my book was one of the most fulfilling things I got to do in a very long time because I got to write something. I got to be out there. I got very nice reviews and got a New York Times best-seller list and everyone goes, when's your next book coming out? And I say, never because I've only seen the second one of people that I think have written great first books and even very good second books. It just doesn't work. Just, you know, so it's like, and that's kind of... It'll take you seven years. Sorry to curse you. That's how it works. No, no, but I'm not. I'm happy to be like, I don't want to. It's that thing of, you know, people want the next thing, they want the next thing and you have to be smart about, I'm not going to go do that. I got to go find something else to do. And so I think that Quentin Tarantino is very smart about, I'm going to cap myself. It allows me to kind of work in a way like, is it worth it? And he can go make plays, he could go write books, he could do whatever. He's not saying I'm not going to, I'm going to stop creating, but I'm going to stop making movies because I've realized that people have that make movies until a certain age, they get worse. But then you look at somebody like Martin Scorsese who, yeah, I think he's got ups and downs, but he still can make a fantastic film. Yeah, but this is why, you know, this is why, you know, the Quentin Tarantino that I want Quentin Tarantino movie to make. That what I want him to make is just the world's greatest kids film, like the world's greatest, gigantic four quadrant kids film that gets kids in love with movies for the rest of time. That's how I want him to go out, something radically different than what he's done. But like, I think he could do it. I want him to invest in the next generation of kids, which by the way, it reminds me of like a story from even the shooting of a boy, Jerry Maguire, which is, Johnson and Nikki, fantastic. Love, Livnicki. Livnicki's so good at this. Gotta play a little Livnicki just to set the mood for this. OK, Avery will meet you at the Begate at 4.15. Don't be late. Jerry, do you know the human head weighs eight pounds? Did you know that Troy Akeman in only six years has passed for 16,303 yards? Do you know bees and dogs can smell fear? Oh, I put Tidwell on the same floor at the Marriott Marquis. He doesn't smoke, does he? I don't know. Did you know the career record for most hits is 4,256 by Pete Rose, who was not in the Hall of Fame? Do you know that my next door neighbor has three rabbits? I can't compete with that. By the way, that was something that Livnicki came to set with and Cameron Crone never wrote lines of dialogue for the two of them. He just let them kind of improvise with each other because he wanted to create that bond and it really works wonderfully. It works so well. But what's crazy is there was a different kid cast before Livnicki and they shot a fair amount of the film with a different kid. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. They shot like the living room scene and stuff with a different kid. Because I think they were trying to do a kid who didn't look so cute in McDonald's-y. Like that was actually Cameron Crone's first thing is like, I don't want a McDonald's kid. You know, I want a kid who's going to play this more like a darker, sadder film because that's how we saw it. And so they get more of a dramatic little kid and the kid, after they're shooting the living room scene, just kind of looks around and goes, I don't want to do this. Like he's looking at all of the people and he's like, no, I'm done. And so they had to replace the kid because they're like, we're not going to make this kid do a movie. Does it want to do? And then months after that, Cameron Crone heard from that kid's parents that they were like, please thank you. Please send a thank you to Tom Cruise. And it turned out that Tom Cruise had been sending that kid who quit the film, letters and gifts the whole time. Just to be like, hey, how's it going? How's it going? And like checking in with him. Wow. And that he said the reason he did it when Cameron Crone asked him about it is, this is his quote. I just didn't want that kid to go to the movies, look at the screen and think that he failed. I wanted him to love movies his entire life. I love that. I mean, I love that. I love that. He, I mean, and I know there's a lot of talk about like Tom Cruise's personality now is I like movies and I like popcorn. Right. That's about all that we're going to get in Tom Cruise, like outside of him promoting a film. I'm fine with that, man. I don't need to know anything about anybody anymore. I guess what I also think to a point that you made a little while ago, but I just wanted to like hit it, which is. I think that a movie this small can work with a movie star that big because he is he is the show. He is the action. He is the set pieces and the character is flailing around sometimes literally, but emotionally. And it's really fun to watch. It is a very showy performance and that's the show. And then you compare that show with, you know, Rod, who is also like everyone is is kind of strutting their stuff. Right. And that's why you're leaning in. It's just great dialogue, great performances. You're you're enthralled by him and the poster is just like a slightly out of focus, you know, side view of Tom's face smiling. And it's like that's what we're getting. That's the movie. It's Jerry. You know, it is we're going to watch a character study and when done well. Yeah, we don't need an explosion. We don't need him to jump off a, you know, a moving train or anything like that. Although he did dance for 15,000 extras when they were shooting the final sequence of the film. And he did do his classic run. But, you know, what I think is so wonderful about this script is when you think about it, it's kind of an everything movie. As weird and strange and cynical as it is. It's got sports. It's got romance. It's got comedy. I really wish that Tom Cruise had made more comedies. In my opinion, I think he's made maybe three. We're going to get one coming up. Digger is a comedy. I hope that's good. At least it is intentionally a comedy. Yeah. Okay, good. But what I love about the dialogue here too that he's delivering is it's not even so much always about the words on the page, which are fantastic. And this movie is one of the most quotable films ever made. It's the way that he delivers it by like just saying the same lines in different ways. You know, like we, I'll play a little bit of that locker room confrontation that he has with Kubo Goody engineer that starts with him going like, it wasn't all about the money. Was it? Was it? Was it? You know, changing the intonation. And then here it kind of builds to this, which I love. Help me. Help me, Rod. Help me. Help you. Help me. Help you. Help me. Help you. I'm sorry. You are hanging on by a very thin thread. And I dig that about you. I don't know. The way that he just takes a sentence and shapes it and turns it into different levels of performance is masterful. And I think that is a Tom Cruise thing. I mean, I remember talking to people. Jay Moore has great stories about working with Tom. I know that Jerry does too. But the one thing, and I'm not talking out of school. Yeah, I'm not. Is that you would go in to do these tests with Tom. And he knew everything about this character. You say, oh, we're going to start at page 50. He never carried a script. He had in his head. And he could jump in at any part. And he knew your line. He knew his line. And this is not people on a press tour telling me this is people that I've talked to like it's uncanny. He's so in his character. I know specifically about this film, but he's so like right there. I've never worked with an actor where you go page 50 and they go, got it. I know where I'm at. Yeah, I think he whatever his brain is and however it works, it seems completely freakish. I mean, he just feels like he was biologically made to be a movie star. But that's also why I think that like Jerry Maguire is like when you meet him in the beginning, like it feels like that's the guy. He's the guy charming the woman on the plane, helping the woman pick up the thing on the ground. You know, he is the guy that you're not going to ever see sweat. And then this movie makes him sweat a lot. It does. But you know what? He doesn't ever get to laugh at it, right? Like when you watch this movie from his point of view, he's living his nightmare. It's incredibly funny, but he never realizes he's in a comedy at all. I mean, except for that one scene, which is my favorite one, Todd Louiso, who's the manny, the child care technician, gives them the jazz tape and and he and then they're like having sex in the jazz tape is so disconcerting. He's like, what are we doing here? Like, you know, like, I love that moment. And I think this movie has a lot of those. It's going in one direction and it's constantly puncturing the movie star thing. I think that that's James Elbrough movie thing, too. You know, here's my big moment where I karaoke in the car because I'm happy. I don't know the words like it's puncturing all the big beats. And I will say that as much as I love Cameron Crowe and say anything to me is another one of those defining movies for me. I love singles as well. Haven't rewatched in a long time, but I've never seen singles. I gotta say. Oh, wow. I loved it when I watched it and I owned it on multiple formats. I think James Elbrough's is a master of this, right? Like I love that they worked together on this movie because I think that James Elbrough's can do. Things like, you know, as good as it gets, you know, is what I'm thinking about right now. But I'm like, he can kind of tackle adult themes well. Now, sometimes it's a misfire, but this is like James Elbrough's in his prime being able to be like, let's just go and, you know, broadcast news, which I love and you hate, right? Well, I should watch it again. We should do broadcast news. I've only seen it the one time when I really didn't like it because I don't know. I get really up in my case about stuff, but I should try to, I know that I'm wrong on that one. I will say that I'm wrong, but I'm probably wrong to not do broadcast news. So I'll give it a shot. And I think they like Spanglish, you know, these are interesting movies that like he just plays with more complicated themes. And I think he's a very, I don't know, I think he's a very interesting filmmaker. I think the combination of both of these guys, I mean, going back to terms of Endearment, you know, obviously it's like, he, they can tackle emotional things in a very exciting way that doesn't feel like melodrama. And that to me is really important. They don't feel embarrassed to be making a movie with emotions. They're like, yeah, I'm making a movie with emotions. The emotions are cool. Well, look at it like this. Here we are 30 years later. And this is a movie about burnout ethics and how bad men are at emotional growth. Doesn't that seem like exactly like we could put that out right now. But yeah, yeah, these are all the things that we're going through. And when I look back on that, that memo from 1991 that Hollywood's in a moment, we are in a moment, right? This is, we are in this wrong. Nobody wants to hear it. No one wants to be right because it's lame. It's lame to show that you care. And this is an issue that I have with a lot of comedy too. It's like, sometimes you will see people doing things that are so meta instead of just doing the thing. Just do the thing. Commit to the thing. And if people don't like it, fine. I think it's like, I think it's this, this like way to hold on. It's like, well, I didn't really mean it. I actually, I think it's shit. So that's, that was the point. And it sucks. You know, like, I think that the difference is like when I look at like somebody even like Chris Fleming in the comedy world, I'm like, Chris Fleming fucking goes for it. It's the most unique all over the place thing. And it's this earnest and he's not trying to be cool, but yet he is cool because he is just being himself. And it's something that I think is hard to do in a world where we are all trained to be performative. You know, like what, how many hate saying how many likes do we have? How many things do we like? Or, you know, all these things have been built into our society since 1996 to literally judge us on what we are showing. You show an opinion. Fuck you. Stay in your own lane. You know, it's like, there's no, there's no respect for discourse. You have to just kind of be above it all in a way. And so I do think that this movie is and should stand that list of a thousand central films because it is timeless in that way. It really is. I'm so glad we did this. And I love talking about this movie and hearing your love for it in your voice as well. Yeah. This movie even goes through waves of like, is it lame to even like Jerry Maguire, you know, or always celebrating it with a legit mix of love and and mockery. I adore, you know, I adore like the Everything is Terrible crew and how they started collecting the Jerry VHSs, how Demetrii and Nick started collecting the Jerry VHSs and like made the video store of Jerry Maguire, which of course I went to go visit. And now they're like working on the pyramid, you know, and when you talk about this film, but you can, I feel like even hear it in their voices, it's a movie that you love and you're making fun of and you love and you're making fun of kind of an equal measure. Right. Honestly, we would have collected a few hundred and then that would have been the end of it. But like the fact that people just kept giving us thousands of them, like all the amount of work that people have put together to make this happen. Yeah. It's like, what are we going to do? So yeah, so we decided, OK, we can't keep shipping these home with us. We can't just this has to. I'm not getting any younger. We're not getting any younger. This has to lead to something beyond the store. I think the store is great, but that's not permanent. What is the most permanent thing of all? Oh, a pyramid. We wanted to be like a pilgrimage for people because that's the other thing. Once we're not here to take everyone's jerry's, they're going to have to take it somewhere to the pyramid. Yeah. And I'm fine with that. That being it's like sweet spot honoring a movie that makes you feel these emotions. And this is what I'm saying like this idea that you are lame for exploring these ideas. And to your point, this is not a clean movie. Right. This is not like everything is great. If you just speak your mind, everyone will be on board with you. Yeah. Right. It's a movie that's like that you can have success in your career and also be happy and not sell out your own stuff. Like that's not like that's not a Hollywood message. That's not a everything will be OK. It's the anti Hollywood message, but it's like, fuck you for making me cry. It's the same thing we felt about like the notebook. It's like, well, no, no, don't fuck you for making me cry. Like that's like, it's OK. It's OK to wrestle with it to see yourself and to see where you want to improve a movie like it. This is not a perfect story. This is not a it's not a Hollywood movie. It's a movie about someone trying and failing and success is built out of failure. And we don't know if this company goes on and has great success. We allude to it, but we don't know and we don't know if their relationship goes on. It's like, this is not a happily ever after movie. It's like, wow, successful first step has been taken on this person's journey and where will go? Who the fuck knows? Exactly. That's why it ends on on his mentor and his mentor kind of giving this final word. Hey, I don't have all the answers in life. To be honest, I failed as much as I've succeeded, but I love my wife. I love my life and I wish you my kind of success. And by the way, that Dickie Fox character, um, person they really wanted to play Dickie Fox was Billy Wilder, who made the apartment. Oh, right. Yes. It really worked on that. Like really worked on that. Cameron was reaching out to him all the time. Cameron brought Tom Cruise over to try to talk him into it. He was like, Tom Cruise can definitely talk him into it. They've really tried. And it was like, from everything I've heard, it was incredibly awkward because Billy Wilder was like, I don't act. I don't act, but they really thought maybe they could get him to say yes. Then Billy Wilder was making fun of Tom Cruise because he's like, why are you wearing jeans? You're a movie star. People want to see you dress up. What are you doing in my day? You should dress up, which like Tom Cruise is like, oh my God. This is Billy Wilder, the great Billy Wilder kind of putting Tom Cruise on the back of his heels a little bit. And then Cameron Crowe got the feeling that Billy Wilder didn't realize that he himself was retired. That he was like, no, I'm still in it. I'm still in the game. Oh, wow. And that he felt like Billy Wilder was trying to draw a wedge between him and Tom Cruise so that he could work with Tom Cruise instead. And the whole thing just sounded kind of haywire. But yes, he's not in the film. They did manage to stray friends though. Tom Cruise apparently like wrote him a bunch of notes and so did Cameron Crowe. So they stayed in the loop together. Cameron Crowe did a book of interviews with him. I was going to say that's the one I love. Yeah, but that climbed out of him trying to get him to do this movie. Oh, but I will say to bring the apartment back around, they did invite Shirley McClain to an early screening. And as she left the movie, she was like, Renee Zelliger, been inspired by me in the apartment. And they were like, yeah. And she's like, okay, I thought so. Wow. I love that. I want to say also what I think is really interesting and continues to make the movie a little bit more complicated, a little bit more cynical is Dickie Fox is Jerry McGuire's mentor. And everything that Dickie Fox says is something that Jerry McGuire is trying to achieve in the second half of the movie. But I think it's really fascinating to be like, oh, a man who you look up to and idolizes the person who taught you this business, you've, you've perverted it. Right. Like it's like my mentor told me this. Well, guess what? You don't live it. And I, and that idea is really interesting to me too. It's like, oh, how far you've come. Maybe you think that you're still there, but how quickly you can lose yourself and that idealism and that want to do things in a way that is. True to who you are. I think that that's a wonderful little like nugget that's not directly called out. No, you're right. Like, it's not like, you know, it's not. Yeah. And would you say that? I mean, Jay Moore calls Jerry McGuire his mentor. Right. Yeah. Right. So it's, there, there are these things in this movie that can show you how quickly you can fall. It's like, yeah, you started with all the right instincts and it's so quick to become this other person. You know, and you, and you watch even like Bob Sugar do that fake hug. You know, he's like, well, how do I be more like Jerry now? Right. Cause he's also like, how do I stay afloat? Everyone's like, and, and that's, and that's the joke of it is like the minute Jerry gets success, he might lead a revolution. If Jeffrey Katzenberg, you know, at the minute he has success, all of a sudden that, that thing isn't dumb, but because it comes out after Dick Tracy, he's over. He's done. Let's move on. And that's, you know, I always say that this is a dangerous business because if you're an asshole and successful, people will accept it. And the minute you fall and you're an asshole, people are like, well, I fuck you. Like he's so quick, right? And like we're watching it even happen in a little bit of, you know, the amount of people that are coming out after, you know, Alex Cooper and Unwell. Like it's like, yeah. The minute a crack is people will try to break through that thing. And I'm not saying anything about, I don't know anything about Alex Cooper. I don't know anything about it either. But I think you are right. Like one of the number one things you see when there's an internet pile on is, oh, they just didn't like this person already and couldn't say so. But you can't say it when they're successful. You can only say it when they're not. Which makes us all hypocrites. Like it's all crazy. It really is. I shut up. Just shut up. You had me at hello. You had me at hello. Okay. Well, you know what I really want to do after this movie? What? I think it's finally time. There is a movie that is on the Letterbox Top 250 films that I always thought I was the only person who liked and then it turned out that you liked it. And of course now I see the Letterbox likes it. And now I'm feeling especially coming out of Jerry and Prada. It is absolutely time for us to finally do. Then still our secret life of Fultrimity. Wow. What another great continuation. We really are. We're really following a pattern here. I like this. I like this. I'm excited about this. Let's go. Let's go and attack this one because I'm excited to rewatch it. What a blast. I'm excited. I'm excited. I finally got my man to say he'll watch Midi with me because it turns out he loves the screen reader because he did a DTF. Oh, okay. Yeah. He's like, oh, okay. I'll watch everything he does. Yes. It is Midi time. Okay. All right. So Amy, the secret life of Fultrimity where you can find it is, you know, wherever things are streaming. I mean, at this point, like, you know, you know, you know, you know. And we'll be continuing this conversation about Jerry Maguire on our substack. It's called Before You Watch. It is on substack for free. We'll play that clip that Amy played earlier with the acceptance speech and the control booth. A bunch of great stuff in there. Get over to the substack. Subscribe. It's really easy. All right. And make sure that you subscribe to our YouTube channel at GetUnspooled, YouTube.com, at GetUnspooled. We're going to be launching something there very shortly. Very exciting. Very exciting. All right. Amy, we will talk soon. GetUnspooled is produced by Amy Nicholson, Paul Shear, Molly Reynolds, and Harry Nelson. Sound engineered by Corey Barton, music by Devin Bryant. Episode art by Kim Troxell. Show art by Lee Jameson. And social media production by Zoe Applebaum. This is a Rome production. See you next week. Bye for now. Legendary stories, awe-inspiring sound, and endless adventure. Welcome to the realms of peril and glory. Explore the mechanically magical vistas of Vale, the paranormal mysteries of liminal London, and the cyberpunk chaos of cyborg. Fall in love with our core cast, or be awed by our incredible guests from familiar shows like Ox Venture, Three Black Halflings, and No Rolls Bard. Ignite your imagination and discover the realms of peril and glory today. Visit realmspod.com or search realms of peril and glory wherever you listen to podcasts. From the parents behind law and order comes a mystery the whole family can enjoy. 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