David Paul Kirkpatrick is the former Walt Disney Studios production chief and also the former president of Paramount Pictures. He’s worked on more than 200 motion pictures and their screenplays, including such global franchises as Indiana Jones and Star Trek.“Michael Eisner, who is my mentor said, “If you want to have a happy life, be a mentor and have a mentor.” And I would always find kids younger than me or older than me and try to help them along. It’s a virtuous circle, which is an old Greek term, which is basically, if you’re working with a group of people and good things are happening, the good things will continue to happen until the virtuous circle breaks.”
~David Paul Kirkpatrick
David has guided countless adaptations of books and plays to movies including Forrest Gump, The Elephant Man, Ordinary People, and Terms of Endearment. He also won an Emmy and Golden Globe for his HBO production of Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny.
David’s authored several books, including: The Address of Happiness, Breakfast in the Temple, and The Dog. I’ve read The Address of Happiness and can tell you it’s a deeply moving story of two souls who repeatedly find themselves through both time and space. I highly recommend The Address of Happiness to you.
A believer in giving back, David wants to inspire and equip the writers of tomorrow. He believes fiction is an underutilized tool that can help build a better world. As such, he founded Story Summit, which has a mission to build community and connection among students and faculty while delivering world-class instruction in the art and craft of writing.
HEADSHOT PHOTO CREDIT BY MILLER MOBLEY
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Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat:
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Michael Eisner, who is my mentor, said, if you want to have a happy life, be a mentor and have a mentor. And I would always find kids younger than me or older than me and try to help them along. It’s a virtuous circle, which is an old Greek term, which is basically, if you’re working with a group of people and good things are happening, the good things will continue to happen until the virtuous circle breaks.
Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden. A podcast for the creative mind. StoryBeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.
Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, David Paul Kirkpatrick is the former production chief at Walt Disney Studios and also the former president of Paramount Pictures. He’s worked on more than 200 feature films and their screenplays, including such global franchises as Indiana Jones and Star Trek. David has guided countless adaptations of books and plays to movies including Forrest Gump, the Elephant Man, Ordinary People, and Terms of Endearment. He also won an Emmy and Golden Globe for his HBO production of Rasputin, Dark Servant of Destiny. David’s authored several books including the Address of Happiness, Breakfast in the Temple, and the Dog. I’ve read the Address of Happiness and can tell you it’s a deeply moving story of two souls who repeatedly find one another through both time and space. I highly rec ###end the address of Happiness to you. A, uh, believer in giving back, David wants to inspire and equip the writers of tomorrow. He believes fiction is an underutilized tool that can help build a better world. As such, he founded Story Summit, which has a mission to build community and connection among students and faculty while delivering world class instruction in the art and craft of writing. So for all those reasons and many more, I’m deeply honored to have the extraordinarily multi talented, highly influential writer and producer, David Paul Kirkpatrick joined me today. David, welcome to Story Beat.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Oh, well, thank you, Steve. I’m really excited to be here and I really appreciate all you’re doing for the creative process.
Steve Cuden: Well, it’s my great pleasure, believe me. So let’s go back in time just a little bit in your history. Where did your interest in storytelling and writing first begin? How old were you when the show biz sort of first bit you That’s a good question.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: I would say when I was about seven years old. I didn’t know at the time, but I was asked to go to Pennsylvania. I was living in Massachusetts at the time to help my grandmother recover from a hip replacement. She had her eye on me as being a, uh, creative. So it was her idea of more than others because she was a creative person and taught people like Shirley, uh, Jones and Perry Como a vocal coach. Anyway, she was very much into the theater. Had done some work in Broadway when she was very young. She was bedridden for several weeks after hip replacement. And she bought me a big theater.
Steve Cuden: She bought you a theater?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: She bought me a theater which you put at the end of her bed. It was this big old puppet theater. And, uh, she got a lot of marionettes. And she insisted that every night at cocktail hour I was to, uh, perform a show with the puppets. And then afterwards, probably after about two martinis, uh, she would then give me notes. So every night I would have to create a new play and she would then review it. So I kind of got the bookg from her because she laughed a lot and responded to my stupid jokes. And that’s how I got started.
Steve Cuden: Well, I think that’s probably the way a lot of people get started, with stupid jokes told to their relatives. What drew you then to the movie industry, to motion pictures?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Well, I have to say, and this is all part of process, Steve. I was, uh, very much a Disney kid because I followed the propaganda of the Wonderful World of Disney on my black and white and then into the color with the, uh, Wonderful World of Color with Disney.
Steve Cuden: I remember it well.
David Paul Kirkpatrick And I got a little camera. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg once said to me the had they not been born into the middle class at that time, they would never have been involved in the movie business.
Steve Cuden: Why is that?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Because they were able to afford cameras. And so at very early ages, monkeyed around with cameras and shot them on their bicycles and, you know, in backyard, etcetera, Et cetera. And I did the same, uh, because I was able to put together enough money to buy a camera. And in the end that led me to Walt Disney. The long and the short of it is, and I always find that these creative process stories are all about a, uh, very deep appreciation and compassion for the arts. I don’t think that you can ever underestimate the power of connection between artist to artist, and particularly I working on story. But, uh, one day I was watching the Wonderful World of Disney, and Mr. Disney was not one and then next week he wasn’t on the screen because he introduced stories every week. So I asked my dad where he was and he said, oh, Mr. Disney is sick. He said well, what could I do? I didn’t know at the time that he was actually dying in a hospital in Burbank of cancer. He was a smoker all his life. And it finally got to him. And I said, well, what could I do? He said well, you could make the little film and cheer him up. And so I got together with my brother and Barbara Nelson from next door and we made a little video about a dragon and a prince, a princess. And in the end the princess got the dragon as opposed to the prince. And uh, it was about two minutes. I spliced it together with the 8 millimeter tape, etcetera, etcetera. My father said well, how are you go going toa get it into Mr. Disney? I didn’t know you. I was like 10 years old. And he said well, this is a very important thing, David. You need to connect with Mr. Disney. Secretary. My dad was a steel salesman actually for Pittsburgh Steel. So I said, uh, okay, how do I do that, dad? And you know, at the time there were long distance numbers and all that kind of stuff. And here I was in Ohio and my dad dialed the number and I got on with Barbara at Mr. Disney’s office. It was that easy.
Steve Cuden: Wow.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: And of course there’s this tiny little voice saying, I have a little video that I made for M. Mr. Video. A uh, movie at that time for Mr. Disney. Barbara said oh, uh, well, how is it made? I said well, it’s on 8 millimeter. She said well, there’s a projector in the animation department and I could get that projector and I could show that film to Mr. Disney.
Steve Cuden: Wow.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: I mean, it was like, I don’t know, it was like it was the early 1960s, like 1962 or so.
Steve Cuden: Right.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: And so she had me send it to her. Uh, my father taught me a very important lesson. He said always, always remember everybody’s name.
Steve Cuden: That’s important.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Never forget it. Because it’s all about relationships.
Steve Cuden: Mhm.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: It’s not about give me or get this or get that, etcetera, etc. It’s about building a relationship and a friendship. So I built up a little friendship with Barbara and I sent her a thank you card and the note to Mr. Disney. And two weeks later I was riding my bike and stopped at the mailbox and there was a letter from uh, Mr. Walt Disney himself.
Steve Cuden: Oh My goodness.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Handwritten, saying that he laughed that the little present lifted his spirits and that the world needed, you know, he said the right thing. He said, the world needs filmmakers like you. What did I know about filmmaking? And he said, and I’m starting a school soon, and if you ever want to apply, let them know that Mr. Disney sent you.
Steve Cuden: Wow.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Which was, you know, in Walt’s mind, he had this notion of building an art institute that was, um, sort of equivalent to the Science Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Steve Cuden: Right.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: So he called his California Institute of the Arts. So it’s MIT versus California Institute of the Arts. Very, very different. In the end, he was very practical guy. All he really was looking to do is to create animators who could fill his studio because they were having a very hard time developing animators. In the end of the day, uh, when I couldn’t afford to go to California Institute of the Arts when it opened, I talked to the director of admissions, Donald Briggs, and he said, well, we have a letter in the file from Bara, blah, blah, blah.
Steve Cuden: Wow.
David Paul Kirkpatrick And we’ve been instructed that you will come under the Walt Disney Foundation.
Steve Cuden: Oh, my goodness.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: So the interesting thing that all of that is really, I don’t think any of it is, you know, I don’t believe in luck. I believe in synchronicity. I believe that things happen for a reason. And in the end of the day, I packed up my bags and left Ohio and went to Los Angeles. And the interesting thing after that letter, Walt Disney died two weeks later.
Steve Cuden: Oh, wow.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: And the thing is, is the chess, Steve. The presence of understanding that life went on and he, you know, and that people would move on and the arts would continue to be built was always been profound to me. And I’ve always tried in my life to promote emerging people. You know, when I worked in the studio system, etcetera, because of the lesson I learned from Walt Disney. And he was a smart guy.
Steve Cuden: Well, clearly, I mean, uh, m genius obviously made a giant impression on you. I mean, how many people can say that they sent the little movie off to Walt Disney, he watched it and responded. That’s probably pretty rare.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Yeah. But, you know, I don’t know. What I do find is that people wanna help people. And what I’m all about is trying to always demystify the process. It’s not a scary process. They’re not scary people in the industry or in publishing. Uh, they just wan toa create good product and continue working in their jobs and continue building their company or their library, et cetera.
Steve Cuden: My experience out there was is that the people behind the desks want you to succeed because it will help them succeed.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Exactly.
Steve Cuden: And so it’s always important that you look at the people on the other side of the desk, as I call it, because that’s what it, uh, always was to me. I was never on your side of the desk as a studio operative. I was always a creative person on the other side. And it was always, I need to convince someone that what I’m selling them is worthy of their time, attention and money. And so it’s important that you realize that they do want you to succeed on the other side, that they’re hoping that you’ll come in and give them the greatest thing ever. That’s how they make their living.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Right. They’re not mean gatekeepers. Right. They’re gatekeepers who want good product.
Steve Cuden: Of course. So you are clearly a master of many different disciplines, including being in business administration and so on. But do you think of yourself primarily as a storyteller?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: You know, let me see. People call me a rainmaker.
Steve Cuden: Okay.
David Paul Kirkpatrick And I guess if you can create rain, then, uh, you create green stuff that creates nutrition. I would say that in the end of the day, I value story across the board because story is the way humans communicate. So I would say that I’m a storyteller, but I’m also other things as well.
Steve Cuden: Well, that’s for sure. I mean, obviously you spent many years working within the studio system. At the upper levels of the studio system. I don’t think there are a whole lot of people that grow up dreaming of running a studio. I think they grow up dreaming of making a movie or being an actor or something like that. How did you find an interest in it and how did you even get into it through Cal Arts?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: It was through Walt Disney.
Steve Cuden: Through Walt Disney.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Because I was a little kid and I would dream about working side by side with Walt Disney. And that was a real, uh, you know, he seemed like a really nice guy and funny and, you know, an older guy, but would be wonderful to work with. And so it was my idea to work in that kind of space and help other people with their projects.
Steve Cuden: What would you say is the biggest difference between what a studio chief does or president of Paramount? What is the difference between what they do and what a producer of the actual product does? How big a difference is there?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: You know, I think it depends upon the person. You know, uh, everybody runs their shop differently. I was trained by really good people at, ah, Paramount Pictures, and they were really centric towards the idea, toward the screenplay. And so people like Michael Eisner, who went on to run Disney for 21 years, uh, was president of Paramount. And so for some reason or other, he cotton to me because I was a pretty good writer of text. Then I would write his speeches for him. I was a young story editor, but said, hey, can you come in and let me spitball some ideas because I need to create something for the board. Can you write that for me? And it was always such a experience of joy for me. Of course there were a lot of pressures and intentions et cetera, attendant with the studio operations. But it was also a very joyful experience because you saw things come from nothing and sort of manifest, uh, before your eyes.
Steve Cuden: What were the biggest things that you did every day? Was it dealing with storytellers or was it dealing with, uh, production?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Well, in the early days, since I was story editor at Paramount, I dealt largely with story and writers and the development of their projects. When I sort of advanced up the ladder in terms of that, I handled not only development, but production. So in a regular day you might have two projects in production and 30 projects in development. So like a good gardener, you were always checking in on everything and trying to help.
Steve Cuden: So you’re saying you were actually dealing with 30 different properties all at the same time every day?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Yeah, but that’s a small amount, really. It’s interesting. In comparison, when I was president of Paramount, I had a budget of about $500 million.
Steve Cuden: Oh my.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Okay, so that would cover everything from an Indiana Jones to, uh, Star Trek to a little budget thing like Friday the 13th, which were made for like $2 million.
Steve Cuden: Right.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: But meanwhile, Netflix last year had a production budget of guess what it was, Steve?
Steve Cuden: I think it was over a billion, wasn’t it?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: It was $6.8 billion.
Steve Cuden: Oh my. Wow. I didn’t realize it was that high.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Yeah, it’s huge.
Steve Cuden: It’s huge. Yeah.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: And streaming sort of revolutionized everything, but story is story and you know, it still comes down to engaging people into it.
Steve Cuden: What do you think that streaming has done to the studio system? Has it hurt it in any way or has it helped it in some way?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: I think it’s a very disruptive piece that has revolutionized the business and it is what it is. I can’t say whether it’s good or bad, but it. But it’s definitely happened.
Steve Cuden: It’s definitely changed the entire culture. And it’s also changed the way money comes in and goes back out.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Mhm.
Steve Cuden: And do you think that ultimately that’s going to make it difficult for artists to come up in the ranks. Or do you think in some ways, because they’re producing so much more product, do you think that it’s making it easier in some ways?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: You know, Steve, you know, that’s a constant for the last hundred years in terms of movies. Everyone complains how horrible it is, and yet every era produces some remarkable projects and people sustain their lives from it and buy homes and raise families, et cetera, as a result of it. It’s always in change, you know, and you can remember back when, uh, VHS first came onto the landscape, it was gonna destroy the business and instead it actually enhanced the business.
Steve Cuden: And then DVDs did it again.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Absolutely.
Steve Cuden DVDs was a prime, was a PR thing, but now they’ve gotten rid of both of those other sources. Now they’re just streaming. So it’s changed all that where they don’t have those secondary purchases of a sort, right?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Oh, yeah. The financials on it have changed remarkably. And I think talent has gotten hurt by the fact that you only have one or two revenue streams by which to participate in the product.
Steve Cuden: I think audiences have never had more access to all kinds of movies. I mean, back when you and I were kids, because we’re roughly the same age, when we were kids, if you didn’t see it in a theater, you had to wait six or seven years to see it all cut up. Maybe on NBC at night, on a Sunday night, a movie, and you, you couldn’t own it, you couldn’t have it in your home, it wouldn’t be there now. You can see it on your phone, you can see it everywhere else. And yet, for whatever reason, people, especially young people, seem to know even less about the history of movies. Do you have a sense of why it’s this massive explosion of the availability of movies has made people less aware of movies?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Uh, as a whole, I don’t think there’s ever been, whether it be the 50s, the 60s, 70s, 80s, uh, 2000s, et cetera, I don’t think there’s ever been appropriate education for screen appreciation. Uh, I just don’t think that most people are very knowledgeable about film language, about the nature of a particular director. There’s never been, I mean, I was raised, when I went to Cal Arts, I was raised under film appreciation. So we looked at the classics, from Truffau to Bergman to Fellini, et cetera, and we started to understand. But yeah, I think it’s sad, but, uh, you know, somebody Said the most remarkable thing is that we always have to remember, certainly in terms of Hollywood, that it is an industry, it creates product. You know, it delivers product and it does it very well in a lot of different systems. And Louis B. Mayer would be very proud of, you know, his studio. And uh, it is, it’s a product based business that has a lot of artists.
Steve Cuden: I tell people all the time that it is called show business, not show art. You know, they have to make a profit somehow and if they can’t, then the art part of it goes away. So it has to be a business in that sense. What would you say are the bigger lessons that you learned as someone in the system early on that have stuck with you to today?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: I think one of the most important things is you can still make artful commerce. You know, my mentor Michael Eisner said, we don’t make art for art’s sake, but if art can make money, we will make it nice. And uh, I’ve really carried that through all my life. Um, because I think, uh, I look to try to as best I can on stories to try to appeal to the better angels and people and not just deliver the a, uh, simple primal gratification.
Steve Cuden: You want to have something that actually touches people in their heart.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Mhm. And in their mind and that lives on and that might change them and grow them. And you know, we humans are unique because we communicate through story. We’re the only species that communicates through story. Until of course a I came on.
Steve Cuden: Absolutely right. It is how we talk to each other every day. Somebody says to you, what happened to you today? You know, and you tell a story and you have to understand how to tell that story. And then the great storytellers know how to take that and then make it mean something.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Absolutely.
Steve Cuden: So that leads me perfectly into the next thing I want to chat about, which is Story Summit. Story Summit mission statement says it’s to build community and connection among students and faculty while delivering world class instruction in the art and craft of writing. So how do you achieve that at Story Summit?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: I really do believe in the emerging writer. And I think it’s becoming harder and harder sometimes for the emerging artist to step forward because of all the noise out there in the landscape. So what we try to do and what is different, I think I’m um, certainly not promoting Story Summit here. But what I do know is that we work with working professionals who are our faculty, our guest speakers, et cetera. And those are our only instructors. We don’t have anybody academic. We’re not an academy, we’re not a university. And what we try to do is guide not only in craft and particularly in small groups where we can help people with their individual projects. We’re very project based. And it’s a delightful thing for students to be able to sit around and talk to somebody like John Patrick Shanley, who won the Pulitzer Prize for DOUW and the Academy Award for Moonstruc, to be able to sit down with him and talk through their material. And first of all, it’s not a, uh, we did demystify the process.
Steve Cuden: How so? How did you demystify it?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: I will say that I’ve noticed in my time how nervous and gobsmacked and how incommunicative people are when they come across celebrity, that’s for sure. And I mean literally, uh, freezing, not being able to talk, you know, fainting, because they build up this kind of dreamscape of Hollywood and people and the dream factory, et cetera, which is completely delusional.
Steve Cuden: It is delusional.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: And so to have a guy who stood up and accepted the Academy Award for Moonstruck in a small group talking about how he struggled through the latest play that he’s working on while he’s also working with you on your project, there’s just a wonderful thing that emerges. Michael Eisner, who is my, uh, mentor, said this. And this is again another takeaway if you want to have a happy life. And he told that to me when I was 24 or so, when I was hired a story editor, Paramount. If you want to have a happy life, do this. Be a mentor and have a mentor. I said, well, I can’t be a mentor. I don’t know anything. I said, what do you mean? Your story editor Paramount pictures? You know something? You got the job, didn’t you? And he was a great mentor. He always took an extra time to teach, uh, through the process. And I would always find that kids younger than me or older than me or just maybe not as experience as me and try to help them along, give them their first breaks. A guy that I, Tab Murphy, who was nominated for Gorillas and Myths, was saying the other day, do you know that you hired me and I was working at the 7 11? And I said, yeah, who cares? But you wrote, uh, really good material. And he said, yeah, and you kept me alive for like five years. Well, okay. But you were. I didn’t keep you alive. You kept yourself alive. And so he was kind of a mentee early on. I had a lot of mentees over time. What’s so great about that, Steve, is that it’s a virtuous circle. I believe in the virtuous circle, which is an old Greek term, which is basically, if you’re working with a group of people and good things are happening, the good things will continue to happen until the virtuous circle breaks. And, uh, I found over the years that. That I really try to work inside the virtuous circle with wherever I am, whether it be in a studio or working as a teacher in Story Summit.
Steve Cuden: Is that related to the concept of karma, where karma. You put good karma into the world, good karma comes back. Is that a similar thing or different?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Uh, well, it is different because you’re actually aware of your. It’s an intentional thing. We kick a lot of people out of our school because they’re just mean. You know, we don’t need mean people.
Steve Cuden: We don’t mean the students.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Yeah. We just really want to work with people who want to advance the conversation and who want to advance each other. You know, you learn a lot by, uh, critiquing somebody else’s script.
Steve Cuden: Absolutely right.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: But there is also a way to be constructive in critique, and that’s an art in and of itself, for sure. And to be destructive like, God, this is a piece of crap. And, you know, you know, uh, forget about it. I mean, I’ve seen people. I’ve seen wonderful pieces of crap get Academy Awards, you know, because they turned around. Because they turned around, you know, they became something else.
Steve Cuden: Well, that’s the development process.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Yeah, for sure. Or even just perception. I mean, I worked on this picture called Witness, which star started Harrison Ford in his prime. He was big star. He attached himself. Before we even had a director on do, you know, there was a guy who was involved with the script who had used to be working at Gunsmoke, an old TV show. And 35 major directors passed on Witness, um, because they thought it was a piece of junk.
Steve Cuden: Wow.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: And uninspired. That same script ended up winning the Academy Award because there was just this thing. Oh, he’s. You know, these people are not movie writers. But Peter Weir came in and did a wonderful job in putting it together. But can you imagine a name like Harrison Ford? It was at the height of his power and a go picture being rejected by 35 directors.
Steve Cuden: Is that just arrogance or fear or what does that usually amount to?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: I think it’s arrogance, and I think it. There is a sort of pecking order. And I think, you know, the bias towards old television, know, was not really, uh, Loud or appreciated. I mean, I don’t care whether or not you’re 20 or 120. You know, if you can write good copy and can move somebody, it’s all about moving somebody. Steve, here’s the key. What happens in good entertainment is that the viewer travels. You know, I learned this again from Michael Eisner and sound like a broken record, but he said wonderful entertainment allows you to travel. And the ticket to traveling is by capturing the viewer’s emotion. So that’s how you travel. You’re caught up in a character in the world and suddenly you know, it’s two hours later and you know you’ve had an experience. And if you look at a script and are able to be engrossed in it, immersed in it into another world, and you know, the pages fly by. Well, that might be something to consider, you know, when you’re looking at making.
Steve Cuden: A movie, what would you say then? And uh, maybe that’s it, maybe what you just said. But is that what makes a good story good is that it moves the reader or the viewer to feel something about another world that they don’t know about or maybe they learn more about.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Absolutely. That’s the key. It’s the important key. Because if you’re moving that fewer, you’re probably more than likelynna be able to move a lot of other viewers as well.
Steve Cuden: Right?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Because that writer is speaking a universal language.
Steve Cuden: Where does the concept of conflict fit into a good story? Is it critical matter?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Mhm. Yeah. Because in the end, the person that we’re rooting for has to survive and conquer the conflict. Otherwise you just have a really nice tone poem. People washing windows and making breakfast and you know, kicking down toors. But if there’s no conflict, we can’t be engaged because we’re not going to be emotionally involved with it because we get involved because of the struggle. You know, in the end, people want to be satisfied and they also want a return to order. They want to see out of the chaos of whatever they’ve been through that there is order back in the world.
Steve Cuden: Some form of resolution.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Mhm. Yeah. A resolution that is satisfying. Not just and deserve.
Steve Cuden: That’s the key word to me is satisfying, isn’t it?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: It’s not necessarily happy ending.
Steve Cuden: Well, there’s lots of really great movies that have not happy endings. Chinatown, the Godfather has lots of movies don’t have happy endings. But it is, uh, satisfying in some way. I think that’s the key word. That was my training, that and that we’re in the visceral business, that we’re in the guts business, that we try to affect people in their solar plexus, not in their heads. And without that it’s very hard to keep them engaged. Do you think that’s true?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Oh, absolutely. And uh, we also learn and are inspired by stories of conflict that might shed light on our lives in some way. I don’t think anybody has an ordinary life. You know, they might have a normal life in some cases, but I don’t think anybody has an ordinary life.
Steve Cuden: Uh, and everybody is seeing the world through their own special perspective. They’re not seeing it through your eyes or my eyes or anyone else’s eyes, just their eyes. And so that’s the perspective you’re trying to get in their world? Somewhat.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: For sure. For sure.
Steve Cuden: Where do you think most great storytelling inspirations come from? Do they come from virtually everywhere or are there places that are better suited for great stories as far as inspiration goes?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: I think all great stories come from some kind of personal connection, you know, whether it be from childhood or personal experience, et cetera. You’ll always find vestigial aspects, as you know of your own life in anything that you write or create, et cetera. You can’t help it. You’re a human being.
Steve Cuden: That’s right. And writers who. Successful I think always are coming from somewhere in their own personal experience, even if they’re writing about things that have nothing to do with their personal experience.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Mhm.
Steve Cuden: Somebody had to write the movie Terminator and I’m sure that they were never really. And they never met a. Well, we’re talking about James Cameron and Galen Heard, but they didn’t meet an actual Terminator in order to write that movie.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Not that we know of.
Steve Cuden: Not that we know of. Well, I suppose it’s possible it is with Jim Cameron. That leads me then to your books, especially the one that I’ve read, which is the Address of Happiness. So you’re a, uh, very gifted writer. That was a very easy, clean, great emotional read. I was surprised by how the emotion at the end of the book really caught me off guard. I wasn’t really expecting to go there. Tell the listeners what the Address of Happiness is about.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Well, let’s see. Uh, uh, the. I guess in the end it’s a simple story about love and that love is really better served when souls who should find each other can find each other. It’s got a kind of a mystical aspect to it.
Steve Cuden: Mhm.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: At one time it had been. It was being picked up by Thomas Nelson, a publisher, and it was a guy and a girl.
Steve Cuden: Oh, really?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Love story. And then for whatever reason, we didn’t see eye to eye and I gave back the advance, et cetera, and I just worked on it myself. And uh, a little company ultimately published it who were friends of mine, but they felt that we should make it a same sex love story. And I said, okay, fine. And it really opened up my eyes to better understand that love is love. I’m a lefty and I do believe that everybody has a right to love the way they should. That’s not the message of the story. The message of the story is that love is out there for you and it is a divine matter.
Steve Cuden: Well, it has. The book has. Without at all talking about it. It has a little bit of a religious overtone to it. But you don’t ever talk about religion. It’s not couched that way at all. But the fact that it’s souls and the fact that they find one another again, that has a little bit of a religious overttone to it. Was that your intent?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Uh, well, you know, when you’re getting with the divine, you can call it what you want. I’m not a big believer in organized religion. I believe more in the sort of solo spiritual journey. But, uh, a guy named Steven can’t even think of his last name now. It’ll kill me. Uh, cause he changed his name. The guy who produced Somewhere in Time optioned the, uh, Address for Happiness. And he was later in life and he wasn’t able to set it up and he had some personal tragedies in life that sort of kept him from it. But it’s sort of in that mode and there’s a little supernatural and Somewhere in Time, as there is in the Address of Happiness.
Steve Cuden: Definitely.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Thank you for reading it and appreciate that.
Steve Cuden: Well, I thoroughly enjoyed it. What led you to sit down and write that story? I mean, where did it come from?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: I don’t know.
Steve Cuden: It just came out of nowhere.
David Paul Kirkpatrick You know, I think that people. There’s a lot of conversation about where it comes from, that there are ideas out there and that if you don’t reach up and grab them, some other creative is going to do it. Because, you know, you’re always surprised about similar projects that might be in the works.
Steve Cuden: Happens all the time.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Yeah. And I think that that part of it, you know, there’s this old concept from the Greek, which is the concept of a God named genius. And genius will flit around you, according to Aristotle, will flit around and, uh, sit on your shoulder and whisper to You. And then he flips off, and you’ve got toa capture that genius. Today, everybody’s a genius. He Jobop’s a genius. Elon Musk is a genius, uh, et cetera, et cetera. But there’s still lot to be said about, uh, I think friendly forces out there. You could call them, you know, guides, angels, fairies, God, you know, whatever that may be. But I do think there are. I don’t think the universe is against us. I think the universe is rooting for us.
Steve Cuden: Some people think of it as the ideas are in the ether and that you go fishing, and sometimes you can catch a fish because they’re just there. And sometimes two or three or four people catch fish in the same pond. And that’s where you get these similar things that happen. You can see that in science. You can see it in. In, uh, literature and art and so on, where things happen in a similar period and different people are developing things that are of a similar kind. How long did it take you to develop the story? How long did it take you to write it?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Oh, I don’t know. I. I kind of did as a hobby, Steve, and probably, uh, took me off and on a couple of months.
Steve Cuden: Oh, a couple of months. That’s all?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Yeah.
Steve Cuden: So it wasn’t something that you labored over for years and years?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: No.
Steve Cuden: And did you draft it in how many drafts? 1, 2, 3?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Gosh, I don’t know. I just kept sort of going back to it and fussling with it. So I, uh, look at a section and fuss over it and fuss over it, etc. But I was always very impressed with Eric Siegel’s Love Story.
Steve Cuden: Okay.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Because you could read that in two hours and you cry. So what I wanted to do, I guess my inspiration was really Love Story because I wanted to create, uh, an emotional experience that somebody could read in less than two hours and cry. I’m a big crier. I cry. It. I love to cry. And when I cry, in the old days, when I would cry reading a script, I would buy that script because I knew if I cried, others will cry.
Steve Cuden: Well, if it got you where it got you, then it really meant something to you, right? Total sidebar. But of course, the famous line from Love Story is, uh, love means never having to say you’re sorry. And then my favorite comedy of all time, all time, is what’s Up Doc? And because it’s Ryan O’Neill, we get that, uh, reflection back at the end of that movie. That’s absolutely hilarious. You know what I’m Talking about. I don’t want to spoil it for the listeners. You should check out both of those movies, Love Story and what’s Up Doc. But you’ll see that if you watch Love Story first, it. I’ll have some meaning at the very end of what’s Up Doc. So what would you say was the biggest challenge then in writing Address of Happiness? It doesn’t sound like you spent a lot of agony over it.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: No, I don’t know that I had any real challenge with it. It’s sort of, kind of wrote itself in a way. And I think when you were able to write in the zone, and I always. I always say get in the zone. And there are ways to get into the zone for writers and creatives, etc.
Steve Cuden: Give us a clue. That’s a good one. Give us a clue how to get into the zone, how you do it.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Well, you have to prep a bit. The way you prep is that you have to catch yourself off guard. M. You’ve gotta have a couple of very simple things because we writers don’tnna sit down. I mean, Elizabeth Gilbert has talked about it really well in a brilliant TED talk about just getting in the seat. And Steve Pressfield, who wrote, uh, Art of War, you know, wrote a whole book about it. It’s really hard to get into your seat. So. And generally once you do, you’re pleasured by the fact that you get into a zone. But generally you have to have a little bit of ritual. So it might be five or six things. You wash your hands, you sharpen your pencil, you close the door into your office, you, uh, clean off your, uh, screening for your computer, you say a prayer, you look for inspiration, and then suddenly you’re at your seat and you’re working. The other thing, which I think is very important for writers, certainly in terms of getting into the zone. And Dan Brown said this, as does so many writers, which is set the table the day before. And what does set the table mean? It basically means have a little bit of a plan, maybe three little things that you want to accomplish that next day that are before you so you know where you’re gonna go. And, uh, that allows you the night before to allow your subconscious to work on those three or four little items so that when you come to the zone, because the zone is all about letting yourself go to subconscious. Sometimes in zone, you don’t even know you’re working on it, Right.
Steve Cuden: Oh, of course. Hours go by.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Yeah. And that’s because you trust the process enough. Trusting the process is pro it’s not amateur, you know, when you trust the process, you know you can get results.
Steve Cuden: Absolutely right.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: And, you know, and you just got to figure out a way to make it easy for yourself to sit down in that darn chair.
Steve Cuden: Well, there are some writers that say that they like to end the day in the middle of a sentence, not finish it. So that when they start the next day, they’re in the middle already.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Yep, yep. That’s the same kind of concept of setting the table. In a way.
Steve Cuden: The other thing that I was trained was that the way that a writer becomes successful, the formula for it is as liberally applied to chair. That was what I was always taught. I know, but your way of getting there is really wonderful because it gets you to it.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: But, you know, when we would be on production deadline and we would have to be shooting, like the next day.
Steve Cuden: Right.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: We would put our writers under surveillance. I mean, literally, we would put them in hotel rooms and watch over them that they didn’t go out, they didn’t go drinking, they didn’t go do this or they’d do that. And those pages in the next morning were there.
Steve Cuden: So was there a guard outside the door?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: When I was over at Paramount, I said, you know, we really rely on writers. Um, I was thinking I was walking up in the dressing room building, which is where the stars used to go. And on the third floor, it’s really pretty empty. And I’d like to be able to manage that third floor by turning it into a writer’s hall. We go, why not some other place? And why do we need riters on the lot and overhead, blah, blahahah. I said, well, because we can’t manage that. And, uh, because they had showers and convertible sofas in their offices. So I could move them and keep them there for two or three weeks while they did the rag. I swear. And I didn’t do it with any level of, uh, attempt to control. I did it to attempt to manage to get people to a place where they weren’t driven by fear. They were instead driven by order and the need to finish. And, uh, we were very successful. We had about 10 different writers working up in the third floor. And what now is known as the writers hall still at Paramount, and they still have the showers and the beds.
Steve Cuden: Wasn’t it William Faulkner who was working at one of the studios, and he said to the person above him, you know, I’d really like to go and work at home. And they said, fine. He went back to Mississippi or Alabama or wherever he at uh, Mississippi I think it was. He went back home. That was. And so you are saying that it becomes a little bit more of don’t. I don’t want to use the word, but the word that comes to mind is factory. The sense that there are people in a place actually working regular or irregular hours but not off wandering around, which a writer will easily do.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: You can’t be a fascist about it because everybody is different. But there are certain peoples who need a uh, bit of control. I remember when we were about to face a writer’s skill strike and Ned Tannen, who was then the president of the studio and myself and Lindsay Durant sat in a room with John Hughes, who we had an overall deal with. And uh, we were about to come into a regilled strike and um, Monday. But John was very prolific and worked very quickly.
Steve Cuden: Yes.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Ned said, uh, you’re go going toa have to accomplish the unaccomplishedable. You need to write a script uh, in three days and you need to deliver it by midnight on Sunday night because the writer strike starts on Monday. And as long as it’s turned in by then, we can officially greenlight it so that any changes that are done after that script ah, are uh, able to be done under the writer’s guild because you’re prepping a movie now in that particular time, uh, you could write on a movie as a writers skill member.
Steve Cuden: Right.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: So it’s a Woodwood, you can write. Presuming that he had an idea. He always has ideas. He said, I have this idea about ah, a kid who plays hookey. And so Ned is like, uh, David, you need to get over the fax machine at Paramount and it’s like 11 o’clock at night and make sure that that fax comes in, every page of it before midnight. Uh, and then you’ve gotta read it as it comes off the fax machine and tell me that we can greenlight this movie.
Steve Cuden: I know what movie this is gonna be.
David Paul Kirkpatrick You know what it is. And guess what it is.
Steve Cuden: You can say Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Exactly. It was 190 pages.
Steve Cuden: 190 pages.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Well, it was a draft, so just like exploded over it, you know, it just continued to uh, know he wrote it long.
Steve Cuden: Wow, that’s really long.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Yeah, that’s really long.
Steve Cuden: Especially for a comedy.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Yeah, but it was a draft in 48 hours. But here’s the point. I said John, I said john, we have a bungalow for you reserved at the uh, Beverly Hills Hotel. He said, oh no, no, no, no, I’m not able to do that. He said, I have to write with my wife in the house. He said, I don’t know why, but unless I can feel the comfort and the warmth of being with my family, I can’t do it. Now, I’ve worked with John on a couple of. And maybe he was jobbing us or not, I don’t know. And unfortunately he passed away several years ago at quite an early age. But Ned said, well, who we’d argue with how you need to work, John. So going home and just, you know, deliver that by Sunday because you’ll have another gold movie. And I don’t know, I think 10 or 15 weeks later we were shooting it.
Steve Cuden: That’s, uh, uh, that’s quite amazing. Well, he was, he, as you pointed out, he was extraordinarily prolific. Not everybody can do that. Not everybody has all that stuff in their head that they can just pour out. He clearly did. I have been having just the most marvelous conversation for just shy of an hour with David Paul Kirkpatrick. And we’re going toa wind the show down a little bit now. And I’m just wondering. And all of your many, many experiences, you’ve already told us some spectacular stories. But I’m wondering if you can share with us a story that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat, or just plain funny. More than you’ve already told us?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Well, uh, sure. Well, we were making a movie called 48 Hours.
Steve Cuden: Oh, yes.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: And we were doing it with Richard Pryor and Burt Reynolds, two top stars.
Steve Cuden: Right.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: And the racial issue was important for any number of reasons. Both Bert and Richard had to bow out, so we had to go with the B team. There was a kid on a show called Saturday Night Live that had exploded named Eddie Murphy. He was from New Jersey. He had never been on a plane. And I tell this story because it allows us all to understand the power of, power of talent and also, uh, our own innocence and our own naivete. We were making the movie, uh, very low budget, like $7 million. We made a deal with Eddie, the co star in the movie opposite Nick Nolte. And I don’t remember exactly why, but I picked him up in my Toyota at the airport, okay? Because I believe that he had never been on an airplane. He had never been to la. And uh, he came out like one of these kind of country bumpkins with his T shirt on and his sweats on and looking around. And there I was and I was at the curb and we had him move quickly and I picked up his suitcase and it was like a cardboard suitcase, you know, one, you know, just cheap things. And it was like so light. And then I shook it and I put it in the trunk of the Toyota and we drove away. I said, what’s in that suitcase? I said, there’s nothing in there. He said, oh, no. He said, I’ve got three things. He said, I’ve gotta change of underwear, I’ve got a jump rope and I’ve got a playing cards. And I said, okay. I said, you didn’t bring any clothes? He said, well, I was told by a lot of people who had been on film set then I could basically take the clothes home from the show, which was fine with us. Who cares? You know, the price of jeans, you know, the price T shirt. And I said, what about the jump rope? He said, well, I understand that you don’t get a lot of exercise on a movie set. So I brought a jump rope so I could jump rope in between what they call takes, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Uh, and he said, and I brought playing cards because I could have fun playing some cards because I’m pretty good at poker. And then we previewed 48 hours. We got good reaction. Uh, the picture went on to become successful. In those days we had a three picture deal with people if we had discovered them. And so therefore we would have the benefit if we wanted to use them in other movies. So we then put him in Trading Places and then his third picture became Beverly Hills Cop. I’m actually turning into a second story, which is Eddie was poking around. We made an overall deal with him. We extended it to another couple pictures and he became a big draw.
Steve Cuden: Big.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: But, uh, he had only done two pictures. And I’ll wrap, um, up the story quickly. We had a picture that was supposed to star slice alone called Beverly Hills Cop. It was a comedy. It was all wrong that we had d even cast Stallone in it. And Stallone had done a rewrite on this comedy and turn it into an action thriller, which he even renamed the character Cobra. And we couldn’t end up making it. We had no star and we were a couple weeks away from shooting. And Thenie was in my office like, what am we gonna do? Said, here’s a script. Why don’t you read this and don’t tell anybody and let me know if you like it. And I told him the premise. So two hours later, I get this call. David, get into my office. This is Jeff Katzenberke with as president of production at Bearmount at the time, he said, I just got off the phone with young Eddie Murphy, who tells me that he would love to star in Beverly hills cop. I said, what? And first of all, I’m thinking, why didn’t you tell me first? And why did t he even go to Jeff? I said, did you give it to him? I said, you bet I gave it to him. And I’ll tell you, that’s one fine idea. And he said, well, you may think it’s a fine idea, but I am president of production and you are fucking fired. And he said, so get off the lot now. I had trained under Michael, I trained under Jeffrey. I was really indispensable. But I picked up my plants and my filing cabinets and stuff, and I went down to the beach ready to go in for unemployment. And two days later, Michael Eisner called me. He said, I don’t care what Jeffrey says. That’s a great idea. Eddie Murphy is now starring inverd else cupp, so would you please come back? I said, well, I’ll come back if I get a raise. So we went through that process, uh, but there’s two points of the story. One is you’ve gotta always be fresh with the experience that you’re coming into. Like, Eddie comes in with a jump rope and some playing cards, but’s ready to take it on. And the second thing is you really have to consider the creative aspects of other pieces of the film, which is casting and the zeitgeist and making something. I’ll tell you, I didn’t think the movie was that good. In the end, it made a fortune. It was the number one picture of the year. He became a huge star.
Steve Cuden: Huge.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: But I’ll tell you, Ed, he never forgot. He has roots and never forgot me. And we made nine pictures together at Paramount.
Steve Cuden: My goodness. I’m not sure if that will serve as the last question I have for you, which is about a great piece of advice, but, uh, maybe you do. Do you have a single solid piece of advice that you like to give to people that are starting out or maybe they’re in a little bit and trying to get to the next level?
David Paul Kirkpatrick: I do, and it’s a very essential piece. And we forget the power of our own words, and we forget the power of a physical letter. I have been telling people all my life that if you want to get involved in the business, who are your heroes? Write to your heroes that you want to apprentice under or learn from or have a meeting with. And I have seen everyone from Quentin Tarantino to Marty Scorsese to Steven Spielberg, hiring these people, getting to know them, et cetera. Based on that letter, I myself wouldn’t have had my career had it not been a letter in a film to Walt Disney. And by the way, it’s not about a want. Well, it is about a want, but it’s not about a get. I just uh, just so want to work in the business, et cetera. The key in all of this, Steve, is you’ve got to convince the reader in the first two lines that you were uh, authentic and legitimate and you were speaking specifically to their own talent. You’ve got to say something that moved you in a film, that touch of hand, a little brief moment, a close up or whatever that might be that would say to the reader of that they get me, they understand me. And it would be worth my While to take 20 minutes to meet them. I mean a kid who reached out to Quentin Tarantino because he loved their sound went and had a meeting with and the kid three years ago won the Academy Award for sound on the uh, Hollywood movie that Clinton did.
Steve Cuden: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
David Paul Kirkpatrick:Yep. Right. So people want to help other people, but they need to know that what they’re going to do, that there’s going to be a relationship and it’s going to be meaningful and it’s going to be fun, that they could help that person.
Steve Cuden: Well, this is just incredible advice because one of the things I think we’ve lost today is the art of writing letters. And so what you’re saying is sit down and think about how to write a really potent, smart, terse, you, uh, know, clear and not an ass kissing letter, but a letter that says something sincere from the heart. This is something that has been lost as an art, is to be able to communicate that way in writing. And I hope people listen to this and get from it that they need to sit down and think about how to do that.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Right, right. Because it can make all the difference.
Steve Cuden: Uh, I can see that it absolutely would. David Paul Kirkpatrick, this has been an absolutely spectacular hour plus on story beat and I cannot thank you enough for this wonderful hour of time, energy and wisdom from you.
David Paul Kirkpatrick: Oh, thank you. You’ve been a delightful host and uh, I loved it. And keep on, keep on doing what you’re doing because I know it’s helping a lot of people.
Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to. Your support helps us bring more great StoryBeat episodes to you. StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, IEART radio, Tune In, and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden, and may all your stories be unforgettable.
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