Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat…

Wayne Byrne: Don’t take rejection as putting you off. Just keep doing it. And I’ve met so many people down the years who, you know, they asked me for advice or they ask me or they say, I want to be a writer. And I say, well, what have you done? How many pages have you done? Have, have you book written, what is it? Or a short story? No, I’ve never written anything because I don’t know how I say, but if there’s one thing we are armed with in this life, it’s words. They’re free of charge. You may need a pen or a word processor. Okay, but we have words. And if you have an idea, put it down on paper. You can refine it later. You can get help with editing, but just begin.

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 Story Beat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Wayne Byrne, is an acclaimed author and film historian from Ireland. He started his career working for local County Kildare newspapers before being invited to write for the iconic Irish pop culture bible Hot Press magazine as a music and restaurant critic. His debut book, the Cinema of Tom DiCillo Include Me Out, was released in 2018. Wayne followed it with well-received works on subjects like Burt Reynolds, cinematographer Nick McLean, the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, and legendary Hollywood filmmaker Walter Hill. I’ve read both welcome to Elm street and Walter Hill, the Cinema of a Hollywood Maverick and can tell you that they’re both deeply researched, entertainingly detailed looks at how influential filmmakers the dreams the world loves to watch. I highly recommend Wayne’s work to you. Look for the release of Wayne’s latest book, Hired Guns Portraits of Women in Alternative Music, co-written with his best friend, acclaimed musician Amanda Kramer, who’s been the keyboardist vocalist of the Psychedelic Furs, 10,000 Maniacs, Suzie sue, the Golden Palominos, and Information Society. He’s also busy writing three upcoming books, including another collaboration with Amanda Kramer, which is a study of the evolution of film soundtracks in the revolutionary new Hollywood era. Wayne’s also working with cinematographer Roy Wagner on a biography documenting Wagner’s acclaimed career called beyond the Shadows, as well as a critical cultural overview of the Halloween movies entitled the ongoing Halloween franchise 13 films and counting. So for all those reasons and many more. It’s my distinct privilege to welcome the outstanding author and film historian Wayne Byrne to StoryBeat today. Wayne, welcome to the show.

Wayne Byrne: Thank you so much, Steve. It’s an honor to be here.

Steve Cuden: The honor is mine. So, all right, let’s go back in time a little bit. At what age were you.. How old were you when you realized the impact that movies, motion pictures had on you?

Wayne Byrne: I was four years old. And I remember that specifically. I remember I went to see Masters of the Universe, the He man movie with Dolph  Lundgren. And back in 1987, it was the first movie I’d ever seen on a big screen. And I remember to this stay sitting in that grand screening room, and as the Canon logo came up across the screen, I remember looking up in the darkness. And for some reason, I feel back then, the projection from the screening boot was stronger because I remember just that laser dart, you know, of the projection. And I thought, what is this? You know, the Canon logo came up. Then it gave way to the, you know, the opening credits and that wonderful Bill Conti score and this ominous voiceover. And I just thought, what is this? It was just a complete oral visual overload. And I remember looking up at that stream of light thinking, wow, I’m in. You know, this is incredible. And I stared that movie and it blew my mind. And I went back a week later and my dad brought me back again and again. I was blown away and I was hooked. From that moment on, cinema grabbed me. And, uh, my dad was into movies. He was into, like the John Ford movies, John Wayne westerns. So we had a couple of videos at home, and he would show me these movies, and I was, like, kind of beguiled by this black and white imagery. Uh, the covered wagons, Fort Apache and all that kind of thing. And, uh, I just watched these films not knowing exactly what they were. I just knew there were westerns, they were black and white, and some form of cinema on the smaller screen. And my dad would take movies off the TV for me. Like he would pick me up from school. This is like when I’m four or five, six years old. And he would say, oh, I taped a movie off TV last night for you. You might like it. It’s called Lethal Weapon. You know, so I’d go home and he’d stick on Lethal Weapon for me. And then next week, oh, I take a film called Halloween. I think you might like it. So this tender age, and he’s showing me these, uh, videos, these movies, which were quite Mature, I guess you could call it. But um, that’s..cemented my relationship with cinema was seeing Masters of the Universe on the big screen.

Steve Cuden: Who would imagine that He man and Masters of the Universe would change a person’s life exactly?

Wayne Byrne: I love it. And really to this day, I mean it’s one of those films where I love it I have to watch at least twice a year. And if I was to review it objectively, I’d have to go, you know, I couldn’t, I couldn’t say that’s a five star movie. It’s not.

Steve Cuden: Was that directed by Gary Goddard?

Wayne Byrne: It was, yeah.

Steve Cuden: I have actually worked with Gary Goddard just for the record.

Wayne Byrne: But he made a great movie in that movie. Know, it’s just so. There’s something fun and energetic about it. For a four year old, it’s a big, colorful, spectacular movie. So it was easy to see why I wasn’t a huge fan of he man. Like the cartoon Rising. It was just this big spectacle that came out that summer in our town. And that cinema which had won one screen was a small cinema. So that was the big thing that week.

Steve Cuden: That then started you down the road to loving genre work, didn’t it?

Wayne Byrne: Oh absolutely, yeah. Because as I say, my dad would introduce me take apart these things like Halloween or Halloween tree off the TV and we’d rent movies from the local video store. So obviously he’d have to go in and rent it for me. I’d be like, get me that one, get me that one. And it’d be to cover the VHS cover with Michael Myers on it or whatever. And he kind of fostered that love of cinema for me, you know what I mean? And um, nobody really said why are you watching these movies? These movies aren’t for you, you’re too young. So I think that allowed me to explore horror genre, uh, westerns, action movies that really set me in motion. And it was later on when I, I’d say 12 or 13 when I discovered Tom DiCillo’s work and that changed my life again. So once again cinema, uh, put me on a pat.

Steve Cuden: In what way did it change your thinking, your world?

Wayne Byrne: It was Johnny Swed and I was visiting my sister in another town and we went to the local video shop and I was browsing. There was this artous foreign films section. And even though Johnny Swede isn’t foreign film, it’s not French or Italian, it’s an American movie. I’ve seen it. Something about the COVID stood out because all the other Videotapes were from the Tartan Video label or the, uh, artificial eye. And they had a, a grey uniform looked at them. Every film looked the same on the COVID but Johnny Swed had this really bright yellow pink font and whatever it was. And I kind of thought, that’s Brad Pitt. That’s that movie star. What’s he doing in this section? And I picked up the COVID and I thought, you know, I’m gonna rent this. And I brought it home and watched it. Uh, and I swear to God, Steve, I didn’t want to bring the tape back. It was an education. It was like nothing I had ever seen. It was arty, it was surreal. It was different. It was not what I was used to seeing. It was not a Steven Seagal movie or a John Wayne movie or a Freddy movie. It was something totally original. And it opened my eyes up to this whole idea of world cinema, art house cinema, uh, independent cinema. So I had my eyes opened at the age of four with Master Universe, and then at 12 with Johnny Swade, and ultimately it’s that it’s Johnny Swed. I have the credit with putting me on the path to becoming a writer.

Steve Cuden: Well, how interesting. Were you always a reader of film history and the film world?

Wayne Byrne: I was a film history buff, but not a reader. So I would, you know, voracious appetite for documentaries and any information I could get on film criticism. But I wasn’t a big reader of books in general, like, uh, fiction or anything non film related. I was consumed by film. I was terrible academically. I had no interest in sports, school, or anything else other than cinema. So that’s why maybe my entry into literature came late because I didn’t have that traditional pat college job, that kind of thing. I was turned away from every college I ever applied for because they could see my scores from school. They’like this guy is not what we want here.

Steve Cuden: So how did you then start down the road toward writing about all this stuff?

Wayne Byrne: Because I tried to go to college to study film and literature because I thought I want to do something with film. But there’s not really much of a film industry in Ireland in terms of making movies. Um, there’s a couple of film courses and I thought, well, maybe I could write about movies. So I thought, okay, well, I’ll go study film and literature. Well, like I say, I finished school, I went straight into work because I did terribly in school, but enough time had passed. Where over here in Ireland, you can apply to a college if you’re a mature student. Quote Unquote, you have to be a certain age, I think 27 or 28. And supposedly at that age, your scores from school don’t count. So even if you did terribly, you can still be considered for the course. But every college I applied to turned me down and you know, the notes came back, said, he’s not, you know, he’s not good for this scoot or whatever. And you. I got one rejection letter too many and it was from a big university here. And I said, you know what, I’m going to inquire. Why did they turn me down? Because I thought it gave a really good application. And, um, you can request their notes to see where they marked you down or whatever it was. Sure. And the thing that really, really got me and really inspired me to just go ahead and do it was I got a note or, uh, this application came with a note that said, this guy is obviously not well read enough. And I thought to myself, well, how did I know what I’ve read? That’s not part of the application. They never asked what you’ve read or how many books you’ve read. Like I said, I taught my application was quite well put together. And I thought, well, that was so flippant that they would reject me with this kind of idea that they had of me. You know, maybe t the application wasn’t well written or something about that that they said, no, uh, he’s not good enough. And I said, you know what? I’m justn to go ahead and write the book. There was one book I wanted. Again, it comes back to Tom Deillo and Johnny Swade. There was one book I really wanted to write and if I went to college and became a writer, I taugh the one book I wanted to work on was a book on Tom Dehio. Because for years I would go into bookstores and ask, is there any sign of a book on Tom Deo coming out? And of course the answer would be no, don’t see anything there. Um, and Tom is referenced in movie encyclopedias and things like that, so he’s considered an important director know. So he’s mentioned here and there throughout these different, uh, books. But there was no full book studying his career or studying his films. And I thought, well, if I go to college, study films, study literature, I can write that book, you know. Um, so with all those rejections, I said, I’m just going to do it. And I had an in with Tom already because I’d written him a letter before, an email, just as a fan, you know, so he had a little communication going. And I said to him, I explained the situation with the college and I said, Tom, you know, I just wanted to go to college so one day I could write a book in your career.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Wayne Byrne: Can I just do it, you know, um, and all credits to Tom. He said, wayne, if you can come over here to New York, spend a week, I’ll be there for you. We can talk about each of my movies and uh, that can be your research. So.

Steve Cuden: Well, he probably had no one coming out of the woodwork at him at that moment.

Wayne Byrne: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: Mean, you were made a big impression on him.

Wayne Byrne: Yeah, I think so. You know, we got on really well, you know, in our initial communications. And you know, I really, really, really admired him as a filmmaker. I really enjoyed his company or back and forth. And he was just a really warm, warm person. And when he said I come over and spend some time with him, I so I have to do this. I. This is.

Steve Cuden: So were you spending a lot of time at that point reading stuff so that you understood how to write stuff?

Wayne Byrne: No, absolutely not.

Steve Cuden: So how did you learn how to write?

Wayne Byrne: It was just the uh, whatever I saw on the screen, whatever my thoughts were, I put it on the page. I had no idea how to write. You know, it wasn’t the. I was in school in uh, literature, put it like that. But one of the great things was. And you know, it was very flattering when I did, you know, after five years of working on that book. And there was one publisher I really, really wanted, and that was Columbia University Press because they had a series of books under their wallflower imprint called Director’s cuts And I always thought I was a big fan of those books. And I thought that would be great to have a Tom DiCillo, you know, entry in that series because they really dive deep into director’s works, you know, film by film. And I took a chance and I just said, you know what? Screw it. I didn’t know how to approach a publisher or an editor or anybody. So what I did was I went on the Columbia website, Columbia University website, and I found kind of a. Just a random admin office at C Cup or whatever. And I stupidly, when I look back at it now, kind of dumb. I attached the whole manuscript. This is after five years of working with Tom, m working with all the actors and everybody else. It is the email I just said, hey, can you get this to uh, somebody who works in the directors cuts department, the film department or whatever, thinking I’m Never going to hear back from this. This is going to be deleted or junk file, whatever. And, um, I’d say about three weeks later, I got an email back from an editor in that department. And he said, Wayne, we love this book. Tom DiCillo was the director we consider to be very important and worthy of study. We want to offer you a contract. So my mind was absolutely blown once again. And I said straight away, the paranoid paranoia kicked in. I was like, oh, dear God, they’re going to want to change this, this, this and this. And I don’t know how to work with editors. I don’t have no experience. Along the way, I did get some newspaper work, but that was the five years that I was working on the book. But when it comes to books, I was like, how am I going to do this? So the guy got back to me and he says, the book is perfect as it is. Do not change a word. Wow. The only thing we want you to do is add an extra little opening to put it in an academic context, to say why Tom is so important, why his films are worth studying. And it was only an extra three or four pages at the. To the front. So I said, course. But I was still blown away by the fact that they didn’t want me to change anything.

Steve Cuden: Well, you should be blown away because most books go through rigorous rewrites and edits and all kinds of things.

Wayne Byrne: Yeah, but. And, um, when I think back, I guess it was five years of really working on it and working with Tom as well. Because having Tom there to read your pieces and to offer you a little bit of advice here or there was so valuable when I look back in it, you know what I mean? He himself is a wonderful writer. So I m. I was lucky that I had the perfect subject and I found the publisher. The publisher who I really, really wanted, was interested. So I really. I guess my ambition in literature peaked with the first book. Everything else since then has just been sugar on top.

Steve Cuden: So you have obviously then had success publishing other books. Was there some juncture where you thought to yourself, was it then when they said, we’ll take your book, that you thought, hey, you know what? Maybe I am pretty good at this? Did you have an epiphany like that?

Wayne Byrne: I don’t think I’ve ever questioned it. Um, I don’t think I’ve ever set back enough. Because I never really had time. Because as soon as that book was published, I thought, I have to keep going here. I have to do another book. Because I thought I’m in Now I have a. Like I say, Tom DiCillo was the one I really wanted, but I thought, okay, I want to keep going with this. It was intoxicating to see a book coming out and just to do the work. But I never thought, um, I’m good. The reviews were very good. But I’ve never kind of looked back. I’ve never of questioned my style of writing or my approach to it. It was just to me, it was instinctual, as I say it was. I put my thoughts down and I formulate them whatever way. But I don’t kind of, I don’t know enough about literature to look at a sentence or a paragraph and think, well, that’s formulated correctly. You know, I just, if it reads well to me, well then I’m happy with it.

Steve Cuden: Do others give you that kind of feedback? Hey, you could do better in this paragraph. You could do better on that sentence. You could do better in this chapter. Has anybody ever done that with you?

Wayne Byrne: Not really. The only editorial kind of back and forth I’ve had is strangely from some of my pub American publishers. Um, and I often tend to use Irish turns of phrase.

Steve Cuden: Sure.

Wayne Byrne: Which my editor might say to me, what does that sentence mean? You know, and uh, it’s just, it comes out natural to me, you know, a certain phrase just, you know, or whatever it is. And I kind of go, oh, this is what it means. So I’ll just, you know, rephrase it slightly for a general audience. People who aren’t from Calildare.

Steve Cuden: Well, I’m going to guess that you’ve seen so many American movies, you sort of understand what Americanisms are like.

Wayne Byrne: Exactly. Yeah. And again, reading, reading writers who, if I do read writers, they’re generally American critics as well, or historians. So I guess, you know, if I’ve done well with this, it’s because of the films I’ve watched and of the people I admire. You know, their work influences my writing. So, you know, if I’m any good at anything, it’s because of him.

Steve Cuden: So I think one of the things that shines through and you’re expressing it right here is that you write with passion. You’re really into what you’re writing about. It’s not a task to you or a chore. It’s something that you really love. And I think that that comes through in the way that you write the books. I assume that’s correct.

Wayne Byrne: Yes, absolutely. And if you look at the subjects in my books, they are only passion projects. They could only be, you know, I’ve attempted one book which was more of an idea from an editor who suggested some things and I tried it. I. It was about a film I like and some filmmakers I liked, but it just didn’t. Because it didn’t come from the heart. I think it didn’t have the same feel. It felt more like work. And to the frustration, I’m sure, of other editors and agents, I’ve never taken a book purely for commercial gain or anything like that. It has to be something I’m deeply interested in. And every subject I’ve written about so far is something or somebody m whose work has meant something deeply to me and I will only ever continue down that road.

Steve Cuden: You have to connect to it.

Wayne Byrne: Oh, without a doubt. For me, it’s the only way to do it. Because if you’re going to be sitting up till 3 o’clock in the morning hammering away on the laptop, you have to love what you’re writing about. Otherwise I could not do it. Because it is a lot of work. You have to invest yourself completely. And sometimes, you know, unfortunately, your personal life might suffer. You’re short on time to devote to other aspects of your life. Your family, your wife, your friends. So you. What you’re doing really has to be worth it.

Steve Cuden: Do you think of yourself as a storyteller?

Wayne Byrne: I do, I do. And that’s um. Because I’m telling the story, I’m telling the arc of somebody’s life, right? You know, in documenting their, uh, their stories and all that. So I think it does. I do think myself as a storyteller more than. I definitely don’t think of it as journalism. Some people have referred it to it as journalism, but I’ve worked in journalism and that’s completely. It’s a completely different beast because you’re hammering out facts. It’s very cold. You know, it’s a different kind of thing, what I do with the books. I’m trying to do something which is close to art. And that sounds pretentious, I’m sure, but to me it’s art because you’re formulating things which are, you know, out of your brain from somewhere deep within. And that to me is art.

Steve Cuden: You’re more of a historian and someone who is doing biography. Then you are really, um, some kind of a journalist, though there’s journalistic, you know, sense of it because you are stating facts and so on, that’s all in there. And you’re doing something, you’re writing something that is absolutely based on reality, but nevertheless it’s more of a historian’s look than it is of a journalist or critics look.

Wayne Byrne: Absolutely. And for me, what’s important about these books as well is that they do not fall into the realm of academic or academic jar.

Steve Cuden: Exactly.

Wayne Byrne: You know, I want these books to be readable to somebody who isn’t necessarily a Tom DiCillo fan or an Elm Street fan or Walter Hillfan. If somebody can pick up the book and just enjoy, uh, the prose, enjoy the story, to me that’s so much more important than taking on some kind of highfalutin academic approach, which to me is the worst kind of book. I’ve closed many books in recent times. You know, when I’m doing research for something and you start a booking, you’re like, uh, w. This is tough to wade through. So you kind of go flicking around for the goods. But definitely not.

Steve Cuden: It’s always better when a book, the kind of book that you write, it’s always better when that kind of a book is entertaining rather than feeling like you have to study it.

Wayne Byrne: Absolutely, totally. Um, and to me the entertainment aspect of it is high up the front for me because it’s. At the end of the day, these subjects entertained me. And if I can’t get that sense of entertainment and passion across to the reader, well, then I’ve failed somehow.

Steve Cuden: So what then caused you to focus on genre films? Was it because you and genre filmmakers, was it because of your upbringing and what really struck you early on and what you then followed through, or was there some other purpose to it?

Wayne Byrne: I think it goes back to the childhood because, uh, like the Elm street ones, the Walter Hill ones, you know, Bert Reynolds, this all goes back to my childhood. These were the films which were on TV in my house. They were the films I rented or they were the films that my dad showed me or he was watching. So they come from back then. And I never really kind of looked at them as, ah, genre films as such because to me everything was kind of entertainment in terms of even up to Johnny Swed, which is very more esoteric. In Art house, I never kind of separate, separate them in terms of, okay, that’s a B movie or anything like that. But if to put them in genre terms, I think it is just an immediate. There’s something immediate about genre films where, you know, kind of how you say everything is on the surface in terms of what they need to hit. You know, a horror film needs to be scary. It needs to have certain. It needs to hit certain generic registers. Likewise a western or uh, likewise an action film, you know what I mean? And that’s why I think there’s a sense of immediacy to them, which is very attractive, especially to someone who’s young and only getting into cinema and discovering cinema for the first time. That’s why I think genre films really hit people early on. And if you look at the horror genre, there are so many fans out there who are so devoted to the horror genre and they probably have a similar story to me where they discover them very early and they become part of their life, almost inseparable. They live those movies. Oh sure, I’ve written a book on Elm street, but there are millions of fans out there who probably know way more about Elm street than I do. And I meet those fans, you know what I mean? They’ll tell me, why didn’t you write about this? Why didn’t you talk about that? And I said, well that just, I had my story arc and that was it. You know, you could write a thousand page book on Elm street if you were re to include every mythology that has been built up by the fans or anything like that. But you have to draw a line, of course. But I think that’s one of the great things about genre film. They attract people early on with those registers. And um, at the end of the day I think it’s fun. Everybody likes being scared because there’s something safe in uh, it, you know, it kind of reminds us that, you know, life isn’t actually so bad. I don’t have a guy with knives for fingers chase me in my dream, you know, or, you know, you’re not taking a canoe down into some wilderness like, you know, in Deliverance.

Steve Cuden: At least not yet.

Wayne Byrne: Exactly. That’s not rule anything uh, out.

Steve Cuden: So within a series of movies, like a, uh, Nightmare on Elm Street or a Halloween. Within a series of movies, what makes one of that series stand out from another? What makes a movie good within a series?

Wayne Byrne: Well, I would point to the Nightmare in Elm street tree for the Elm street one. And I guess over the years that has become a fan favorite. And I would put it down to the fact that I think Chuck Russell really perfected some of the things that Wes Craven wasn’t able to with his um, budget, for example, on the first one. Wes Craven’s film is an absolute masterpiece, but there’s certain limitations. And I think Chuck Russell, by the time he got Part three, he had some amazing collaborators like Roy Wagner, the cinematographer and other people, you know, on board with that. And he really made a film which had all the elements which made the first one great, but just had the budget and the personnel to take it to a slightly higher plane. You know, I think we both of them as masterpieces. But there I. Tree has the edge on one, I think, for certain things. And, um, I think it comes down to. It has a certain style which is. I put, again, I put down to the cinematography. Roy Wagner’s work is simply amazing on that. Um, but it builds upon the mythology and to me, that’s always really interesting. And one of the things I love about Tree in particular is what I love about mythology is I love when films or stories go into social backgrounds of characters or dem. Milieu. Um, you know, so you’re talking in part three, you’re talking about troubled kids who come from you. The whole thing of El street is the kids who are affected by Freddie are kids who come from troubled homes. Um, whether there’s divorces involved or alcoholism or some other aberrant force which is tearing the family apart. And Herree really kind of goes into that. You know, it talks to these kids and you get a sense of why they’re in the institution, why they’re being hounded by Freddie. And Freddie plays upon that. He plays upon whatever it was that tore their lives apart. Freddie plays upon it. And it makes for a more terrifying team because if somebody knows your deepest, darkest, you know, fears and uses it against you, you know, that’s a horrible thing. So I’m all into social context and social background. For me, that’s a key team in what I love about cinema.

Steve Cuden: Let’s talk about your process for a little bit. Do you write every day or you do practice that craft? Every day.

Wayne Byrne: Not anymore. Not since last year because I almost burned out last year. I was working on three or, uh, four books last year and it got to the point where I was working on them all together. Now I’m working on three books together at the moment, but I don’t work on them together. I wouldn’t work on three them in one day. But last year I released two books, but I was working across four all at the one time in some cases. And it was literally every hour of the day that I was free, that I was at home. You know, I say I’d be up till 3 o’clock in the morning. And I think my last deadline last year was due in before Christmas. So I thought, great, I’m not going to have anything to do, ah, a Christmas. I can enjoy Christmas, family and go out and whatever. But whatever happened, there was Some delays. So I had to go over Christmas into the first week of New Year and that was my whole holiday’s gone I said, I can’t do that again. I was on the verge of complete burnout and said to myself, you know, I don’t know even know if I want to continue writing because I didn’t want to sacrifice. I’d already sacrificed a lot, but I couldn’t bring myself to sacrifice anymore.

Steve Cuden: Do you think that you’re learning now how to pace yourself a little better?

Wayne Byrne: Oh, absolutely. Like with these three books that I’m working on at the mom, and soon a fourth and probably a fifth, I’ve spaced out the deadlines. So there could be four months or six months between them. So they’re not all crashing together, you know. So I don’t have three or four editors looking for work, know, to review at any one time. You know, I’m goingna finish one book, then I’ll finish the other. Now some days I can be doing the interviews for one book. Another day I’ll be doing the interviews for a different book. But I will never anymore work on more than one book, um, in one day.

Steve Cuden: Did you have trouble keeping it all in your head at the same time?

Wayne Byrne: It can be difficult, yeah. Because if you’re writing about Elm street, um, and you know the horror genre, that’s a very specific thing. But then to flip over to work on Walter Hill Western or to go interview some musicians for Hired Guns, they are such different worlds that you need to adjust yourself interviewing, uh, I don’t know if you feel the same about this. Interviewing can be such a strange personal experience because it’s almost like you have to acclimatize and adjust to the personality of the person you’re interviewing 100%. That can take a lot out of you. Because if you’re speaking to many people in one day across different disciplines and different interests, you know, you become a little bit schizophrenic. There’s something going on there, you know what I mean? Um, and that, I think took its toll on me as well. Just trying to be a different person to different people.

Steve Cuden: I can tell you, you know, this show Sor Beat, um, I have had all sorts of different disciplines, people that practice different disciplines. Writers, producers, directors, actors, cinematographers, um, sound people, painters, photographers. I’ve had all kinds of different disciplines on the show. And in some way, because I’m not doing it every single day, uh, in some ways it’s refreshing to me to not have the same thing over and over and over again. Well, you don’t have the same thing over and over and over again either. But you’re trying to do everything at one time and that’s really hard to do.

Wayne Byrne: It was, um. And I said. I said to my wife, you know what? After went over into January last year, after those three books were turned into, the publisher said, I think I’m going to take maybe three or six months off before I take on another project. So I began that. Three weeks went by and I said, I need to start a book. Couldn’t. I had gotten so used to not stopping since the Tom DiCillo book came out, literally everyday writing, that I missed it, even though I was on the verge of complete burnout at that point. I said, I need to be working, I need to be writing, I need to be engaged. I find myself now that I can’t watch movies passively anymore. I’m reading into them, and if I’m going to be reading into them, I might as well be writing about them. So I have to find, search within, find a subject that I love, that I’m going to be happy to write about for a year. You, if you’re going to be watching, um, Nightmare on Street movies, for example, that’s 10 movies including, or whatever, 11 movies including to remake. So you have to be really happy to be watching those 11 movies for a year, you know. And I, uh, was for the most part one or two of them not great.

Steve Cuden: But are you saying that you are no longer able to enjoy a movie like as if you’re just a kid and you’re watching it for the first time?

Wayne Byrne: I find it very hard. I find it very hard to switch off the writer in me. So recently I tried because I love Westerns. Westerns are probably my favorite genre. I was going back to watch those John Ford, John Wayne Westerns or the Anthony Man, James Stewart ones. And I found myself going, I’m enjoying this, so why don’t I write about it? So that’s a hint for one of the next books. Not necessarily those particular people I mentioned, but I said, this is what I want to do. It makes sense. Westerns were there since the beginning. I’ve loved them all my life, so why not work with them, you know? Um, but if it comes to a Friday night in with my wife and she says, go pick a movie. So I go up into the movie room upstairs. There’s about four or five thousand movies up there. I won’t be down for two hours because I’ll be picking things off the shelf looking at them going, uh, I just very, um, um, indecisive when it comes to things like that because I’m so used to going, I have to watch this because I’m going toa be writing about it tomorrow or I’m going to be interviewing somebody from it. So I got so used to that method of I have to watch this movie that when it comes to a movie I don’t have to watch, I’m terribly indecisive.

Steve Cuden: Are there current franchises or ah, series of movies that you like that are different from what you’ve been writing about?

Wayne Byrne: Not currently. I mean, terrible for me to say this as a movie buff, but I have no interest in contemporary cinema. Um, the only films I’ve seen in a theater in the last five years were the three recent Halloween movies. And that’s probably partly due to. In my town there’s only like a multiplex now. The old one Screen cinema is gone and all these multiplexes, all they show really is kids movies. And when I say that, I mean like Marvel movies, Pixar movies, superhero movies. And they have absolutely no interest for me. So I tend just to stay away. I’ve gotten to the stage now where I kind of think that I just want to spend my time doing something I like. Sure. You know, I went through a period of writing for magazines and newspapers. And often when you’re doing that, you’re watching movies or reviewing albums or you’re reviewing books or whatever, you’re going through things that you wouldn’t necessarily enjoy anyway. And that was one of the things I gave up was the journalism because I think, you know, life’s too short to be watching, reading, whatever, uh, about things that you have no interest in. So the great thing about writing books is I get to write and talk about things that really, really inspire me and that I’m passionate about. So when you don’t have to do these things, you not to.

Steve Cuden: So you’re clearly, and we’ve already talked about this a little bit, but you’re clearly a very deep researcher. You spend time really digging in and your books show that it’s filled with information that you couldn’t have just gotten by one phone call or one letter. It had to have been deep research. How long do you take to figure out what it is you want to focus on in order to research? And how long does it take to then gather that up before you’re kind of ready, ready to put things together? Whether it’s to start interviewing or whether it’s to Start writing. How long does that take you?

Wayne Byrne: Okay, well, I usually Every, um, contract since Tom DiCillo book, I’ve given my editors one year because I think it sounds like a very short span of time. But I think it really gets you going, it gets you moving, it gets you researching, watching what you need to watch, making contacts with people that you want to speak to. So I tend to. Well, this is what I’ve learned because like I say, last year was so hectic. I ended up doing some interviews of people when the book was almost finished. And that’s terrible because then you have to go back to a chapter, tear it all up, put them in, recontextualize it, you know. So now what I’m doing is with these three books, I’m only doing interviews before I start writing the actual. The pros or whatever. So I’ve learned again to go straight for the people you want to talk to before you do anything. So in that case, usually it’s, well, what am I going to be writing about? Um, and usually, as I say, it’s teams. So screenwriters, obviously, the directors, if I can get them. Um, cinematographers I love, and that’s probably reflected in my output. Two books on cinematographers. Because cinematographers, they have the technical side of things, but they’re also visual storytellers 100%. When you get the right people, they can talk about the cinema. Jack Haiken from this, uh, Nightmare on Street one and two, he said in the book he’s a story guy first and foremost and he loved those deep social context teams that Wes Craven put into A Nightmare on Elm street. And uh, he was able to kind of parlay that stuff into his visuals. So when you speak to someone like Jacques, who can not only tell you how he pulled off some intricate shots, but talk about the teams and meet you on that level, as Robert England did, for example. Robert England’s a very, very deep, intellectual guy. And again, he spoke about when I would bring up teams, I’m almost kind of conscious of. Am, um, I overreaching here because some people, you bring up teams, and especially if it’s something kind of sociopolitical or if you’re talking about class or things like that, some people just, they don’t want to talk about it or they don’t necessarily see it. So you go into interviews and you’re kind of going, okay, I need a backup. Because if that doesn’t work well, then I’m going to maybe just talk about the technical side of a scene or a shot or whatever. But the likes of Jac Haken and Robert were so willing to talk about these teams. Um, really dark, disturbing teams in some cases, because they relate to real life. And that’s one of the great things about Nightmare Announce Street, I find, is that the teams in there, behind the glove, behind the mask and the hat, uh, this is really about troubled teenagers and troubled society because it’s issues that go on behind every picket fence, behind every front door of every home. Alcoholism can creep into anybody’s house, and that’s represented in Freddie, in certain homes, in the Elm street series, or domestic abuse, things like that. So these are really serious teams to be talking about to some people. And you might be talking to an actor who just might say, oh, well, I just turned up on set and I gave my performance and didn’t really think about it. So you kind of go, all right, I need something else.

Steve Cuden: So my training as a screenwriter, part of the training that I received was, and this disagrees with a lot of people, by the way, but part of my training was when you first sit down to construct whatever the story is, you shouldn’t think about a theme. You should think about what’s the story, what’s the plot, how does it unfold? And after you’ve written at least one draft, then you go back and you think, well, what themes am I expressing here? Because the tendency is, if you’re thinking about theme to start, you sometimes force yourself down dead end alleys. And so it’s, it’s freer. This is again, my training to just write story and then worry about theme after the fact. Now what you’re saying is some actors probably have something similar going on in their head. They just want to act the part. They just want to delve into the lines and say what’s there and not have to worry about what’s behind it in the totality of the story. Does that make sense?

Wayne Byrne: Oh, totally, yeah. And, uh, I mean, that’s the risk you run sometimes is overanalyzing certain things. Sure. And that’s why it’s great. Then when you do meet somebody who kind of sees those teams that you’re talking about or can give you even further information on that. So I always kind of go into these things expecting either we can talk about teams, we can talk about ideas, or we can talk about the technical aspects of things. And I’m interested in both, so. But there are certain people, like I say, certain crew members, or certain people within the movie who I always try to go for first, because usually what Attracts me to these movies are the teams. You know, Elm street is brilliant on the surface. You can just enjoy it as a great horror movie, as a popcorn movie. As Robert England said, 12 year old, 10 year old kid watching Nightmare on Street on a Saturday night with his pizza with his buddies are not thinking about social class or social problems. They’re just enjoying a damn good Freddie movie. But those teams will work on them over time as they did with me.

Steve Cuden: That makes complete and utter sense. What are some of the things that you do once you’ve got an idea? Do you sit down and figure I’m going to construct the book this way or do you just work purely chronologically or um, do you think about an outline of us of how you’re going to present the story?

Wayne Byrne: Not really. I tend to kind of go if there’s certain movies in a director’s canon or in let’s say a franchise is canon. I really really love. I tend to work on those first, you know and I kind of get the really passionate stuff down on the page because you know that’s bursting to come out. And um, I try and get those interviews as well done. So I don’t really have a kind of a true line, you know, in terms of chronology or anything like that. Even Walter Hill, like I didn’t start you with hard times and end up with debt for dollar or anything like that. It was kind of let’s write about the movies that are really, really what inspired me to write about the book in the first place or that subject in the first place and then kind of craft everything around that and then the book for me kind of finds itself as I’m editing. You know, Again, I can’t really put it into academic terms from a literature perspective because I don’t really come from that world. But to me it’s just, it makes sense whatever way I do it. You know, I kind of find the book as I’m going and if it reads well to me, I kind of go okay, I’m happy with that.

Steve Cuden: Do you ever find yourself looking at your book and going, well, there’s something not quite right here and you have to work a while to figure out how to put that structure back together.

Wayne Byrne: There have been times where I feel I wasn’t fair to a movie or the people I’ve interviewed. And I really, really struggled. David was great in this. Uh, David McGifford. The hardest chapter I ever had to write was the Nightmare on Elm Street the chapter for the Elm Street book. And that’s because a I love the movie so much I wanted to do it total justice. But also because that was a difficult shoot. There was a bit of a clash going on between the director and the crew and the director and some of the actors and some of the crew, some of the crew are older, kind of coming from old Hollywood union days. Some of the other crew were coming from just independent, you know, note not much training or they weren’t unionized, you know, they were just, the kids basically. So there was a bit attention on set and I didn’t want any one person to be singled out for oh so and so was an asshole to work with or anything like that. And some of the interviews were coming back a little bit harsh and I didn’t want that book to be a kind of a l all or a kind of a. Some revealing thing kind of a bitch going on. I didn’t want know any of that. So I struggled for a while to kind of be fair to everybody and I rewrote parts of it and rewrote parts of it and I recontextualized, you know, um, some of the lines. So it didn’t make, you know, you got to a certain part of a behind the scenes situation and somebody looks bad and all of a sudden you have five people kind of contributing and saying yeah, that guy was an asshole that day or something like that. I had to take out some of that because I didn’t want it to be that kind of book. I never do. It’s a celebration at the end of the day of the work of the art. So uh, I asked David would he read his chapter and did he think I was fair Because David being a first AD he’s a crew guy, you know what I mean? He’s seen every aspect of the crew. So he knew, he knew I was being fair. Once I got to a certain point and I had taken out some things which were said which didn’t sit right with me. They were a little bit too nasty. So I said, you know what, I’m not going to include that.

Steve Cuden: I was going to say, just so the listeners know, we’re talking about the great 1st AD David McGifford who has also been a guest on this show and that is a good friend of Waynes’s. So that’s how uh, we’re talking about David McGifford actually helping Wayne to uh, contextualize I guess the structure of the book, how it works.

Wayne Byrne: Yeah, I mean I was second guessing myself on that chapter so much And I was stressing out over it, you know, and, um. Because I’d become friends with all these people as well through the course of the book on both sides. You, the guys who are kind of ragging across at each other, you know, And I didn’t want anybody to be painted in a bad light. Listen, there’s plenty of documentaries out there on Elm Street. If anybody wanted to read deeper into the discord, you know, they can find it. But my book was not about that.

Steve Cuden: How many times have you read, um, I’m sorry, not read, but how many times have you watched each of the Nightmare on Elm street movies in order to do what you’ve done? How many times?

Wayne Byrne: Wow. Countless. Absolutely countless. And that’s talking one to six. So I would say the kind of the classic franchise, not taking into account reboots or anything like that, or the mashup with Jason. But, um, I’ve been watching them avidly since I was a kid. But as Robert Englland said, these things, they kind of work on you. So once I was old enough to kind of recognize certain teams that were there within Wes Craven’s script and his ideas, I thought there’s something really interesting here beyond the horror movie aspect of it. And I always said that’s something I really want to write about because I say sociology is an element of cinema that I’m really interested in. And I thought there’s a lot of sociological commentary going on in these films, um, whether it’s obvious or not or whether I’m just reading into it. But that’s the beauty of being your writer as well. You’re kind of your own boss to kind of say, well, I see this, you know, and if you can back it up with some good evidence, well.

Steve Cuden: Then I think the closest thing you get to it, as far as my perspective, is that, uh, you see it in George Romero’s work, especially the Dead movies. Uh, there’s a very sociological aspect to them. If you look behind the curtain a little bit. That’s what you’re talking about?

Wayne Byrne: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And they, like Allen street, work perfectly fine as functioning horror movies. Pure entertainment. Right. If you didn’t want to be doing that kind of research, you can just enjoy them as horror movies. But if you want, that sociological stuff is totally there.

Steve Cuden: Well, I think that’s what makes them special, is that they have a more than one dimension to them. They’re not just on a surface.

Wayne Byrne: Absolutely. And that’s why I think. Yeah. And that’s know I was offered in the aftermath of Nightmare Elm street book. I was offered some other franchises to write about and I had to really think about that because some of those franchises don’t have enough for me stuff behind the surface to write about. There were things I like, films m I’ve watched down the years and really enjoyed. But there has to be some substance there on a toatic level when it comes to the ideas or even if it’s just filmmakers who I find really interesting to write about that will grab me as well. But some of these franchises weren’t of interest to me, so I didn’t pounce on them. But there was kind of a good feedback from the one book. You know, uh, it got some really good reviews and it did well on Amazon. So I think that maybe made people think maybe you should write more horror books. But that wasn’t me. That’s not really one of my m.

Steve Cuden: Well, you’ve already said that you have to connect to the subject. It can’t just be about whatever someone’s assigning to you, you or really have to feel your way through it.

Wayne Byrne: Oh, absolutely. It’s the only way I could do it. Um, and when I came, when I agreed to do Halloween, you know, Halloween was something that was there with me since childhood. And there are certain films in that series which I absolutely love. And there’s some great filmmakers in there, there’s great, uh, cinematographers, editors, some great actors. And uh, I thought that’d be a fun one to keep entertained.

Steve Cuden: Halloween has plenty to talk about, there’s no question about that. I would be remiss if I didn’t talk for a moment about my dear friend Jim Doyle, who was the special effects guy on the original Nightmare on Elm Street. And Jim is the one. He’s been on this show, by the way. So anybody that wants to hear what Jim has to say, please check it out on Storybeat.net but Jim created Freddy’s glove with the clause whatever you want to call it. Talk about that glove for a moment. How important is the glove itself to the franchise and to what has happened since?

Wayne Byrne: That glove is an absolute symbol for the whole franchise. I mean, it’s how to say this? It’s the weapon of choice. It’s the tool of death. So it’s the ultimate scary instrument, you know, it’s this horrific looking thing, you know, and when you see it in the movie, tearing people open. But there’s something. Don’t know what it is. There’s something about the way Robert England wears it as well. He has this kind of pose. I Think sometimes in the movies where he’s holding it but his shoulders a little bit up and he’s doing a little bit of a John Wayne walk. And it’s like as if he’s almost carrying his gun. And it’s such a powerful symbol, you know, he might be walking slowly towards you and the glove is just kind of hanging down and it’s just this horribly. It’s a horrific instrument of death. And I think it’s just a symbol for the whole franchise at this point. I mean I’ve seen some DVD releases where all that’s on it is the glove. That’s all it needs to say, you know, and there’s a great poster, actually, I think it was maybe the UK VHS release and um, cinema release poster where it’s this kind of. It’s the suburban street. So it’s those lovely kind of suburban, perfectly manicured lawns and white picket fence houses. And there’s an image superimposed over it of Nancy kind of asleep but coming in over her head. And over that street is the glove. And that’s a perfect symbol of what the whole film and whole series is about, which is, we’re talking middle class suburbia being invaded by this utter monster, you know, which is not just Freddie the monster himself, literally, but the monster of what he represents. So it’s this kind of the American dream of middle class, quiet, nice homes being invaded by or corrupted by what goes on behind the closed doors and what goes on between the parents or between the parents and the kids. But that glove is a symbol of all of that.

Steve Cuden: I will guarantee you when that was being created, when the glove was being figured out, that it was more a moment of well, how do we make something horrific and, you know, horrible looking than it was to be symbolic of an entire series. No one knew there was going to  be a series. They just knew they were trying to make one rather low-budget horror movie. And so you’re doing the best you can with what you got. And I’ll guarantee you there was no thought toward this being a symbol for a whole movie. And yet that’s what it became. I think that’s fascinating. I’m just curious about Walter Hill. I want to talk about him just briefly because uh, I think that book is outstanding too. I think Walter Hill’movies are better known than he is. I don’t think in Hollywood he’s led legendary people know who he is in Hollywood, but I don’t think he’s got a famous name like a, uh, Steven Spielberg or George Lucas, it’s not that kind of name. What is it about Walter Hill that makes him special for you?

Wayne Byrne: For me, Walter, there’s no fat in his films. They’re so economical, they’re so lean. And it comes back to the idea of genre films hitting those registers head on, you know. And Walter reminds me of someone like Walter Howard Hawkes, where he can kind of jump within certain genres but still maintain kind of an auteur voice, but without being overtly, say, stylistic. Like Walter Hill doesn’t have a set style as such, but there’s a certain, like, say, leanness to them and there’s a certain toughness to them. And I will even say, I know it’s not popular these days, but a certain masculinity to them. And I don’t mean that in the toxic sense in that his characters are kind of. They’re hard men from hard situations.

Steve Cuden: They’re tough guys.

Wayne Byrne: Absolutely. And, um, Walter can go from 48 hours to Brewster’s Millions to Crossroads to Dronomo, you know, four completely different movies.

Steve Cuden: To the Warriors.

Wayne Byrne: Exactly. You know, every Walter Hill film is so different, but yet so to Alien. Ye. Um. And know the Getaway. Sam Pecn Pa the Getaway, which was one of his early scripts. He’s just an incredible filmmaker. For me, it’s quality. There’s a certain consistency of quality in his work. And I think he’s underrated as well as a stylist, as a visual stylist. Because if you look at something like Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis, which is not one of his better reviewed films. And in fact, I started out not liking it when I first came out, but now I think it’s my favorite Walter Hill movie for various reasons, I think because I came to it as a Bruce Willis fan, not as a Walter Hill fan. So I was looking at it going, where’s David Addison for Moonlighting? Where’s Bruce Will of Die Hard? You know, this is a completely different Bruce. He’s not talking very much. He’s doing a bit of a Robert Mitchum, Clint Eastwood kind of thing where he’s just stoic and laconic, whatever. But when I went back to it a couple of years later, um, and by the time I got to writing about it, I was gushing endlessly, as you know from reading a book.

Steve Cuden: Sure.

Wayne Byrne: About the style of the film, the production, the action scenes, the way it’s edited, the music, which I think it is Ray Coiter’s best music ever. Full stop. And when I was talking to Walter about it. He was very happy that I liked it as much as I did, because if there’s one thing that’s kind of consistent about my love of Walter, my favorite Walter movies are the ones, for some reason, which tend to have not done very well. So, you know, I prefer another 48 hours to 48 hours, and that’s probably quite controversial.

Steve Cuden: 48 hours is a pretty good movie, and it did turn Eddie Murphy into a massive star, basically.

Wayne Byrne: Massive. Yeah. And that was interesting, you know, so it was great to talk to Walter about. See, Walter was an interesting interview because he doesn. He’s one of those people who doesn’t really like to talk about his own work or talk about himself. So you have to approach the interview kind of differently. And I learned earlier on, I went in expecting this, that, uh, he wouldn’t be giving me the whole rundown of the production of every movie. I was happy with that because I got that from everybody else anyway. So I just wanted to get Walter’s take on some things. But what I found was where I met Robert England on that thematic social context thing on Elm street with Walter. It was our shared love of film history and our shared love of old Hollywood. And that really opened Walter up. Maybe it warmed him to me, I don’t know. But we had this really lovely exchange. We were talking and gushing about Raul Walch, and, you know, he said, wayne, hold on one moment there. I have to go get something and show you. And he went off and he got. This letter was perfect. The envelope was perfect. He said, this letter is 50 years old. I just found it recently. I lost it and I’m never going to lose it again. And he opened it and he showed me, and it was this handwritten letter from Ral Walshow encouraging Walter to pursue his directorial career and giving some advice. And for that moment, I forgot that I was interviewing Walter Hill. We were just two movie fans gushing over Raul Walsh. And that, to me, was just like one of the most memorable experiences of waiting Careers. So I was blown away by that moment. And I kind of made the rest of the conversations easier, I think, because we had shared that little moment. Little things like that in an interview can really open up people who might not otherwise be easy to interview.

Steve Cuden: Of course, and that’s true even on a show like this, where, um, there’s a little bit of tension in the beginning of almost any interview, because this subject, and you correct me if I’m wrong, you’ve interviewed plenty of people, the subject tends to be A little wary of what am I going to be asked here? So there’s a period of time in almost any interview where you’re looking to find a way to find commonality so that you’re not. It could be an adversarial relationship in an interview, but that’s not what’s good for what you do or what I do. Um, you’re trying to find commonality.

Wayne Byrne: Absolutely. I mean, that was a big thing with the Burke Reynolds book, because when I approached people for that book, it was nearly a wall of silence. Or it was. It was a wall of protection around Bert because he was so used to getting. Or, um. Those people as well, were so used to having journalists approach them, writers approached them looking to talk to them. But know Bert had been burned so much by the media and by writers that people, uh, were naturally wary, you know. So it’s interesting because one of my best friends, Jimmy Lewis, God blessed me. Passed away recently. I met on that book. But our first exchange was him saying me, no. I had approached him for an interview. Thanks. Nick McLean recommended him because Nick worked with him a lot. He was a good friend of Burrt’s, very close, lived in the same town. He was also Bert’s stunt double. Came to his acting school and acted in several Burt movies. And he had his own career outside of Burt’s movies. But my initial, um, contact with Jimmy was. I explained what I’m doing. I’d love to talk to you about Bert and about the movies. And just said, no. I just, uh, thought, okay, well, that’s Jimmy not coming on board. So Nick went back to. And he said, Jimmy, you should talk to Wayne. Wayne is all about the movies. He’s all about the art. He’s celebrating Bird. He’s not writing a personal. He’s not digging into the divorces or the scandals or whatever it is. He really wants to celebrate Bert as a director, an actor, a writer. So Jimmy came back, and he was initially, uh. He’s still a little bit He’s like, okay, Wayne, so what is it you want to know? And as Jimmy, as well, was a great movie fan like Walter, a film buff going back to the old days. So we just connected, and he realized that that is what it was about, which was the work, not the personal things. So we really met on that level, and we became really, really good friends. And, um, again, I said earlier on that one of the best things for me, it is the best thing about being a writer. It’s the people you meet along the way. Made so many friends because of this endeavor of mine. Um, and if I never made a penny from these books, I’d still be the happiest man in the world because of the people have met, the friends made.

Steve Cuden: That’s a question of how you value the richness of life that has nothing to do with money at all.

Wayne Byrne: Absolutely. I mean, when you know people like Nick McLean or Jimmy Lewis, to me that’s the best you can ask for.

Steve Cuden: Have there been any people along the way that you wish you could have interviewed that you were unable to either because they just wouldn’t, or whether they passed on or whatever?

Wayne Byrne: Wes Craven obviously would have been a huge one for me for the first street book. I think he was gone maybe a year or two when I started that book. Um, and a friend of mine, Tom, actually, Tom DiCillo, was going to put me in contact with his wife, but. But that never happened. Um, Generator aren’t. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve gotten the people I’ve really wanted to speak with. And I tend not to go necessarily for the bigger name, like the stars. I always, like I say I go for actors, cinematographers, screenwriters first, because those to me are the people, the creators, the originators of that story, or they’re the ones bringing it to life. So to me that’s very important to speak to those people. If I can get actors, great. If not, well, that’s fine. Sometimes I speak to somebody who wasn’t in the lead role, but they had a smaller, crucial role. I did just give me some insight into the process behind the scenes or the director or something like that. So. But to me it’s very crucial. They’re the first people I go for generally. You, the directors and screenwriters and cinematographers.

Steve Cuden: Well, you’re focused on the creation of the movie, not so much the celebrity of the movie. And that’s where I come from in this show too. I’m more interested in the create, how people create, rather than what to talk about the outcome of it or the finished product. And so I think that’s what’s fascinating to me, and I think it’s the same for you. I’ve been having the most m marvelous conversation with Wayne Byrne for an hour now, and we’re going to slowly wind the show down. And I’m just wondering, you have worked with lots of people at this point, you’ve met lots of people in the business. Uh, and I’m. I’m just wondering if you have an oddball, weird, quirky, offbeat, or Just plain funny story you can share with the listeners.

Wayne Byrne: I could probably scare up a couple.

Steve Cuden: Okay, I bet you can.

Wayne Byrne: Okay. Um, I’m not going to name the book, but when I approached several actors, they came back for an interview. They came back to me with a price list for interviews. And I thought, is this a thing? Because being a journalist before, I never encountered that. And I was like, I can’t do, uh, that. You know, I don’t pay people for interviews. This’s not how I do things. The price list would be kind of absurd. It’d be like, for half hour it’s this price. But if you want to do an hour and a half, I’ll take some money off. So it’s like this real business transaction. I’m like, no, no, this is not how I do things. So we’ll just leave it at that. So, um, I guess when I talk about it, I was kind of thinking, you know what, that’s probably because of maybe the convention world where every interaction, every human interaction now at a convention is monetized. You know, if you want to talk to somebody for one minute, that’s $20, please. You know, that kind of thing. I don’t know, it just sits uneasy with me. So I would never ever.

Steve Cuden: It should sit uneasy with you. You shouldn’t be paying people to interview them, that’s for sure.

Wayne Byrne: No, not. And, um, by the way, did I send you my price list?

Steve Cuden: You did, and I enjoyed the zero price on every, every comment.

Wayne Byrne: But that was, um. Yeah, that was a learning thing, you know, And I just. You. I leave it at that if somebody mentions money. So another absurd and funny thing happens to me sometimes because I’m a librarian by profession and I’ve had a couple of instances where people have come into my library and ask, do you have that book, the Cinema of Tom de Chillo? I’m studying it in college. And I’d be like, we do. And by the way. So I’ve had a couple of those.

Steve Cuden: Encounters where I literally do their eyes open wide.

Wayne Byrne: Oh, all of a sudden they’re telling you everything about the course and about what they’re studying. And. And I love it, of course. And I love those interactions. That’s, you know, that’s the best thing when you can meet on a common ground about an artist or something like that. And when you’ve written a book about something, people of course want to know, did you talk to so and so? What were they like you? They want the little insights on the movies. And of course, if I have the time I’ll give them. But um, yeah, I’ve had to check out my own books to customers.

Steve Cuden: It’s got to be very fulfilling when that happens.

Wayne Byrne: It really is. And even today I was in work and somebody had brought back the Tom de Chiller book, um, and the Walter Hill book together. They had to two them out and I had to put them back on the shelf. You know, it’s a strange experience, you know, but um, it’s great. I mean if people are taking them out and whether I’m the one handing them to them doesn’t bother me, you know, I’m happy that they’re going to be read or enjoyed or maybe not enjoyed.

Steve Cuden: I think that’s a lot of fun because you get to. You get an actual up close and personal interaction with someone who has actually read your book.

Wayne Byrne: That’s really cool. Yeah, great. And then I guess another strange, surreal thing but uh, a totally wonderful thing is when people I meet through this work are ah, usually a lot of time re re my heroes. They’re the people who’ve given me this life and they’ve given me life since I’ve been four years old through cinema. Some of those people have often asked me to sign a book for them, you know, and that’s a very surreal.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Wayne Byrne: I was over in LA recently and Nick McLean invited me over to his place and he said he was going to bring over some friends and these people arrived. Know some people I’d met before, some people I hadn’t but they were all people who made the movies that have given me this life. And some of them arrived with their books, not just the Walter Hill book or whatever but with several books and they would ask me to sign them uh, and my mind go what? How did this happen? I should be asking them to sign my DVDs, you know. But that to me is one again. It’s the people, it’s just the most wonderful thing. And for  Nick to have done that for me to bring me over to his house and have a party in my honor and have all these people that I’ve spoken to sou the years and some people I haven’t. Some people you just thought yeah, it’d be nice for Wayne to meet. It was incredible. It was one of the best weeks of my life.

Steve Cuden: Uh, I’m glad to hear that and I think that that’s great of him to do and it’s really fulfilling for you. It’s a really great thing when people recognize your work and laud it in that way. I think that’s a lot of fun. All right, so last question for you today, Wayne. Um, you’ve already given us tons of interesting things to think about and advice throughout the show. But I’m wondering, do you have a solid piece of advice or a tip that you can give to those who are maybe starting out trying to be writers of film history or biography or whatever, or maybe they’ve done a little bit and they’re trying to get to the next level?

Wayne Byrne: Yeah, you know, um, I’ll try and break it into two. One from the kind of the film historian perspective and the other from just from the writing perspective, from the film historian point of view. I would say to everybody, go and discover the whole 120 odd years of cinema. Go back to the beginning. Go back to the pioneers. Go back to D.W. Griffith, to Rol Walsh, to Orson Wells, to John Ford. No matter how controversial they may be or how out of step they may seem with the current’s political climate, movies made in the 1920s or the 1910s, you know, they had different outlooks on life and different politics. But I say look at D.W. Griffith and see how he changed the course of cinema and see how he developed silent cinema to become, you know, this great art form that we now celebrate today. Go and then follow through to Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Wells and God the new Hollywood period. Dennis Hopper, you know, I could name a million filmmakers. And then you have the foreign directors, the foreign pioneers, Sergey Eisenstein, Louis Bunwell, Federico Fellini. Go back, go and explore. Because I’ve done some teaching in various schools and colleges and I’ve seen people who turn in their papers, but they didn’t watch the movies. They may have just read about it in a book and were able to answer theoretically about the movie. But I find, where’s the joy in that? Go back and watch Citizen Kane and appreciate it for the supreme piece of art that it is. And, uh, not just talk about how great the cinematography is on the paper. Experience. What you’re writing about to me, is ultimately what I’m saying, because it can’t be teary or else just. It’s going toa be dry. I think your writing is going to be dry if you’re only talking theory. So experience the films. You won’t always love them. Some of them are contentious and out of date. But you might find something. You are a filmmaker you’ll absolutely love. And that’s been one of the great pleasures of doing what I do is I get to go back always. I’m always searching for films I didn’t get to see. I’m searching for those Griffith movies or Ford movies that I haven’t seen. Because I maybe want to reference them or I want to write about them or whatever it is, or I want to teach them. If I’m going to be talking about Griffith or Ford or whoever, I need to go back and watch as many of those movies as I can to get a better understanding. So I would say expose yourself to as much of cinema as you can. We all have preferences. We all might just love horror movies. Or we might love action movies or whatever it is. Would be open enough to experience cinema in all of its varieties, is what I would say in that regard. And I would say as a writer, this is, uh, coming at it from the writer’s point of view. The advice I would give to people is don’t let anybody say. Or don’t let anybody’s cynicism or pessimism put you off. Don’t let them say, you’re wasting your time. You’re never going to be published. You don’t even know how to write. Because some people will take that on board and never put pen to paper. If there’s a book you want to write, write it. That’s the way I got into it, because I wanted a book on Tom de Chillo. Nobody else wrote it. I wanted one on my shelf, so I had to do that. I had to write that book myself. Um, and just don’t let a college put you off either. If you don’t get into a college or a course, don’t let that make you think that you’re not good enough. Because again, I’ve experienced that, and it’s completely false. You know, you’re an editor or a publisher will see if you’re good enough. Again, don’t take rejection as putting you, uh, off. Just keep doing it. And I’ve met so many people down the years who they asked me for advice or they asked me, or they say, I want to be a writer. And I say, well, what have you done? How many pages have you done? Have you book written? What is it? Or a short story? No, I’ve never written anything because I don’t know how. I also say, but if there’s one thing we are armed with in this life, it’s words. They’re free of charge. You may need a pen or a word processor. Okay, Y. But we have words. And if you have an idea, put it down on paper. You can Refine it later. You can get help with editing, but just begin. Get those words on the page. Somehow or other work for me. Might not work for you, but it worked for me. And if it works for me, I’m, uh, sure I can work for anybody else.

Steve Cuden: I think those are very inspiring thoughts, all of them. Everything that you just said was very inspiring, and especially because you yourself experienced these things and you know from firsthand experience that you can go from, hey, you didn’t get accepted at college, you weren’t a lifelong reader, and yet you’ve written all these books and continue to write more. I think that that’s extraordinarily, uh, wonderful advice for people to just do it, as they say. Or the old Nike phrase, just do it, you know, um, exactly.

Wayne Byrne: And it sounds. It might sound flippant, you know, it’s such an easy thing to say to somebody, but it’s so true. Because if you don’t write that first word, that book won’t get written.

Steve Cuden: Well, that is an absolute truth. There’s no question. If you don’t write it, it doesn’t get written. So you can’t go down to the store and buy your book for yourself. You have to create the book. So that’s, uh, absolutely true. Wayne Byrne, this has been an absolutely fabulous hour plus on Story Beat today, and I cannot thank you enough for spending, uh, so much time with me and sharing your wisdom and your experiences, uh, with the listeners today. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Wayne Byrne: Anytime, Steven. It’s such a pleasure to be here talking to you today.

Steve Cuden: And so, we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you liked 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 Story Beat episodes to you. StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden, and may all your stories be unforgettable.