Intro: "Look, we want to make a movie." "This could become a cultural phenomenon. The likes we've never seen before." "Then we better get started." "I know how to make this film. It's a metaphor for the American dream." "This is not just some gangster film." "It makes us look like a joke and that's bad for business." "This is a story about family, it's Shakespeare." "Agencies won't touch us." "It's epic." "Why don't they produce it?" "Beg, borrow, steal. Do whatever it takes." "Gangster movies are dead." "We will snuff out the hatred." "If I say I'm going to handle something, I'm going to handle it." "You're still going to try to make this thing?" "Sinatra wants us to shut the picture down." "You got brains, and you got balls. Try using both." "We can't lose this." "What is our opening line? I believe in America."

LaToya Ferguson: Hello, and welcome to a special episode of _Little Gold Men_ brought to you by the Paramount Plus Series, _The Offer_. I'm LaToya Ferguson. 

Joe Reid: And I'm Joe Reid and today we're going to be discussing the 10 part series, _The Offer,_ about the making of the classic movie,_ The Godfather,_ which turned 50 this year. LaToya, are you ready to feel old? Uh, _The Godfather_ was only eight years before I was born. 

LaToya Ferguson: Uh, always ready to feel old, Joe. 

Joe Reid: Yeah. 

LaToya Ferguson: And, uh, Joe, later we'll hear your conversation with Matthew Goode who plays Robert Evans on the series. Uh, there are a lot of major Hollywood figures with roles on _The Offer_, but Robert Evans is really crucial to the series and to understanding how _The Godfather_ was even made. Joe, can you start by telling us who Robert Evans is and why he still looms so large? 

Joe Reid: Yeah. So, uh, Robert Evans was a film producer. He was the head of Paramount Pictures from 1967 to 1974, during which time they made _The Odd Couple_, _Harold and Maude,_ _Chinatown,_ _Rosemary's Baby_, _Serpico_, all these really like definitional movies of particularly that very crucial era in Hollywood that is romanticized I think quite a bit. That sort of new Hollywood era and of course, chief among that era is the first two _Godfather_ movies in 1972 and 74. Evans has this sort of self-created legacy. This sort of self mythology about him. And, and this has lived on through his memoir. _The Kid Stays in the Picture,_ which was made into a 2002 documentary of the same name. So, LaToya, given that Evans is such this like larger than life figure, before going into_ The Offer,_ how much of that myth of Robert Evans were you aware of? 

LaToya Ferguson: Uh, I was aware of, uh, the myth of Robert Evans as it were. Uh, _The Kid Stays in the Picture,_ that documentary came out around the time I started really getting into film in my young age. So I was aware. And again, you named these amazing movies that he, like, his name was attached to. It's just... you have this larger than life like image of him, even without knowing the man, then you read the book, and then you see the documentary, you're like, 'wow.' And then you watch _The Offer _and Matthew Goodereally captures the whirlwind you would have to be, to be a person like Robert Evans. 

Joe Reid: Yeah. I feel like this is one of those 'understood the assignment' performances that Matthew Goodegives in the show where it's like the task in front of you is to somehow live up to this persona that if you've seen in any way whether it's _The Kid Stays in the Picture_ or like go onto YouTube and find any interview that he's given throughout his entire life. Like, this is a big persona and Matthew Goode really had to step up to the plate and deliver. And I really do think he does. It's not just the voice, although he does approximate the voice really well, that's sort of the first thing you notice about Evan's after you'll watch something like _The Kid Stays in the_ _Picture_, it's just like, it's this almost a parody of a Hollywood, like a slick Hollywood producer who's got the lingo down, who knows everybody. He'll put you in touch with Ryan O'Neal and Robert Redford, and he's married to Allie McGraw. And Matthew Goode gets all of that. All of that sort of, uh, artifice about him that like this man created about himself. While also, and I think this is also a thing that the show does well, is it sells this almost fantasy, which isn't to say that it wasn't the truth, but this fantasy of the Hollywood producer who is super slick, but the buck stops at art sort of all the time with this guy. That he ultimately really does just want to make these great movies and _The Godfather_ ends up being that. 

LaToya Ferguson: Yeah, a discussion of a lot of having a seat at the table and the American dream and _The Offer_ of course, talking about _The Godfather_ and that story it's telling, but that's also a big part of the Hollywood part of the story. And that's a big thing with someone like Robert Evans. Albert Ruddy, played by Miles Teller, he gets a seat at the table. He gets to see firsthand what it's like to live this dream, and Robert Evans makes it seem like the most amazing thing in the world, but he also makes it seem like the worst at times, as we see as things go on. 

Joe Reid: It's an interesting sort of twist on the, not exactly like a rags to riches, but like this sort of like, where did this guy come from? He came from unlikely beginnings. Except in this case, it's like Al Ruddy came from like a job at the Rand Corporation, which is such an odd, like, it's not like he was this like kid on the farm or something like that. The Rand Corporation's such an odd, you know, came out of nowhere story. He produced _Hogan's Heroes_ and kind of made a little bit of a reputation for himself there and then decided he wanted to get into the movies. And the show is filtered through his perspective. This idea of this seemingly unlikely producer, being the guy, in this group of a lot of unlikely characters, right? Puzo- Mario Puzo, the author of _The Godfather_ is painted as this guy who owed a lot of money and really needed to like make a deal. And Francis Ford Coppola was coming off of a flop and he needed to do something. And this movie sort of brought all these guys together in this very sort of Hollywoody way.

LaToya Ferguson: Yeah. It was a redemption story if you will, where they all kind of just, they put everything into it. They needed to make it work and clearly it did. 

Joe Reid: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Uh, I think Teller is good in this too. It's in many ways the less flashy of the big performances. He's- Ruddy is the sort of the name you maybe don't know in this story that involves Bob Evans and Francis Ford Coppola. Al Pacino's a character in this. There are, you know, endless mobsters in this. And so you look at Ruddy and you're like, 'oh, who's that guy?' I guess he's the guy who like walked up to the stage and accepted the Academy Award when _The Godfather_ won, but he's sort of the name you don't know. And I think a lot of _The Offer_ seems to be about, you know, get to know this guy. Get to know the role that he played in... he was sort of the guy at the center of the maelstrom, right? He was the one who had to deal with Gulf and Western and Coppola and Evans and keep the plates spinning. 

LaToya Ferguson: I think a Teller was great. He was a great grounding force too when you have a character like Evans. Honestly, everyone else is kind of a, they're all extremes. Whether they're in the mafia or they're the head of the network. You have Colin Hanks' character who is a fictional character and he is just an absolute trip. He is the, at the very end of the spectrum on being an absolute drip. You need kind of a, a grounded center. Even though he is technically a dreamer as well. 

Joe Reid: Yeah. He's the suit of suits in all of this. In this, again, in this show where even the guy from Gulf and Western, the, um, Bluhdorn who, uh, played by Burn Gorman, who is also, I think, very good in this. But he's also somebody who, if you can make the right pitch to him about the idea that we can make a great film, you'll sell him. And Collin Hanks is the guy who is probably the hardest sell on that. There's that scene towards the end, in one of the later episodes where he sits in on the, the marketing meeting for the art materials and is just like infuriating. You really just almost want to like throttle him. And he's steamrolling Peter Bart and all this stuff and he doesn't, he wants to sell this like horrifying looking poster of, of, uh, the film and... uh, but yeah, this is it's gets to that kind of art versus commerce thing. And again, it does feel like a little bit of a fantasy where it's just like, oh, in this current era of art versus commerce where it's seeming maybe a little bit more of an uphill battle that you look back at that and you're just like, they all really wanted to make this great movie that we all remember very well. 

LaToya Ferguson: It makes sense why he'd be playing a character that is basically an amalgamation of every like art-less, just money driven exec, because they is certainly not just one person who was probably against this movie getting made and other great movies getting made just because they didn't understand it. There's no point where you're like, oh, so what did Lapidus ever, you know, actually getting made that was good. They never say that because that's not the point. The point is just that he is the enemy of art. 

Joe Reid: Right. Well, and the other force that didn't want this movie made, at least for a good while was the mob, and that's the other strain in this is you get a lot of these little anecdotes about how the mafia's participation let's say in the, in this movie getting made is, you know, comes at it in some interesting ways. I liked the scene where we get Frank Sinatra as a character in this who is like super, super opposed to this movie being made because the Johnny Fontane character, even when the book came out, everybody knew that this was a very thin gloss on Frank Sinatra and it doesn't make him look good. So he, and like Mario Puzo nearly get in a fight in the restaurant in the one scene. Puzo sort of like makes a grab for the fork on the table, which, um, I thought it was interesting. You get the guy who played Luca Brasi in the film was this mob enforcer, who also, in real life, was a former pro wrestler, which I thought was pretty funny as I was sort of digging into this. And ultimately Ruddy has to, again, balance all of that out and make sure that they take out all references to like the word mafia in, in that. So in a way that's sort of part of the legend of that movie too, right? It's art and life converging. 

LaToya Ferguson: Which it's interesting. Obviously you want to appease, uh, the mob by not including mafia, but it actually makes for a better story for trying to tell, you know, this is just a story about a family and this specific family does this. It makes sense not to just be like mafia mafia, even though they did say it was like one, one line says mafia, but still. They're not going to refer to themselves as you know, criminals and mobsters. 

Joe Reid: Right. Well, and that was always Coppola's vision too. Was this idea that like, we're not making a mob movie, we're making a movie about a family and we're also making sort of a, a commentary on capitalism in America and all this stuff. And ultimately, God, it's been a little bit since I've seen _The Godfather_. What, what is, where does _The Godfather_ sort of sit with you in terms of, did you watch it growing up? Did you sort of come to it later on after you started working in movies? 

LaToya Ferguson: Yeah. I watched it in college cause I, I studied film in college and I understood it and respected it as like one of the great, you know, American films, uh, part of the great canon. And I think it's also one of those films that holds up in terms of that. It's not just an example of like a lionized older movies that possibly, you know, it doesn't hold up. I think it's still a great film, uh, that and part two as well. I, I, I didn't get the chance to rewatch, uh, preparing for this, but I, I would love to rewatch it.

Joe Reid: Absolutely. This was a movie I watched in high school for the first time. It was one of those sort of first older movies that I really got into and growing up, uh, I went to this like all boys Catholic school or whatever, and the movies that I really was interested in, not any of my classmates or friends were. And that was a movie that we could connect on was everybody would sort of- and they would show it on TV all the time too, and you know, I could talk about it with my dad, you know, that kind of thing. 

LaToya Ferguson: Yeah. It's a universal thing, which is exactly what they're saying as they're trying to sell the movie in _The Offer. _

Joe Reid: So, uh, the stories from behind the scenes of making _The Godfather _make up a big chunk of this series and you get stuff like Justin Chambers, the, you know, _Grey's Anatomy_ star Justin Chambers is playing Marlon Brando. You get Al Pacino and all this stuff about, uh, um, Anthony Ippolito plays Al Pacino, uh, all this stuff about the resistance, all of this resistance to Pacino. All of the resistance, which boiled really much down to he's short. There were so many mentions of just like he's too short. You can't let him on screen, you can't do it. What of those sort of behind the scenes anecdotes from the making of the movie stood out to you from watching _The Offer? _

LaToya Ferguson: I think it was the one about Al Pacino. Just Evans, just, he just didn't want him. He just didn't want him. I think I also read that he just like, he also didn't like his face too.

Joe Reid: Yeah. Oh, all the most like petty seemingly inconsequential stuff like you never think about that with Pacino now coming at it from our perspective where we've, you know, known as him as like this major star for decades. And it's just like, oh, he was just this like short theater actor who they didn't want playing a war hero because they didn't think that's what a war hero looked like in a movie.

LaToya Ferguson: Well as you know war heroes all look like Rambo. We know this. 

Joe Reid: Oh yeah. Exactly, exactly. Did you- I loved the dinner table scene. I don't know if you, what you thought of that one. The one where Coppola gathers them all, all the cast together before they start filming. In the midst of this dinner, they sort of like drift into their characters and start behaving as the Corleone family. I thought that was, you know, an interesting anecdote to sort of pass on. 

LaToya Ferguson: Well, I think a lot, especially when you're telling a story from this era of Hollywood, a lot of it is the magic of the pictures, you know? And I think a scene like that is like the epitome of the magic of the pictures even when it's technically, it's just, you know, real life dinner, but they're all getting into character. It's like the one example of method acting where people are just huge assholes. 

Joe Reid: Right, exactly. Yes. The scene where Pacino shoots the other mobster and the cop in the restaurant, the sort of the big turn point scene of that movie. And, uh, Charles Bluhdorn from Gulf and Western is there sitting there watching them film it and he goes to congratulate Pacino on a job well done after and Pacino's still in character and he just scares the shit out of this guy. This fairly like, you know, blustery executive from Gulf and Western. 

LaToya Ferguson: And I, I did like Charlie, just because it's... he wasn't against the movie when he knew it was good. He obviously, when he saw something that was bad, he's like, well, this is bad. Like he's seeing dailies, dailies aren't good. But when he sees it with the color timing, he was like, 'oh, this is what it's supposed to look like. This makes sense now.' He doesn't have like the terminology and the understanding, but when he actually sees the finished product, he's like, oh, or when he sees Pacino upfront, he's like, ' oh, I get it now.' Which it's it's it was not that he was, uh, an unshakable, unflappable exec, which was necessary. 

Joe Reid: Right. You could sell him. Evans could give a great speech about the movies and you could sell him. Again, it's this fantasy of art somehow being able to triumph because it's good enough. And you know, maybe we've lost a little bit of faith in that nowadays, but, uh, yeah, no, I love that. I love that scene. 

LaToya Ferguson: Well, Albert is the central like point of view character. I think really it's Bettye, who is his receptionist, assistant, honestly producing partner it seems, she takes that journey right along with him. And I think she's also like you're seeing a story of her coming up in this business as well. Like her growth as well.

Joe Reid: Yeah. I think Juno Temple's really good in that role. I mean, like it's no surprise these days, she's seemingly, you know, showing up everywhere on TV these days and she's really killing it, but that's a character who, I don't know, I'm interested to see what your perspective on the character is because it's one of those things where the character has to be grounded in that time, which was still, you know, institutional sexism and, you know, she's subject to other characters' attentions. Bluhdorn is sort of constantly trying to get her to go to drinks with him, and while he's not being overtly harassy to her, you can still tell that there's this veneer of the kind of attention that could tip into something unsavory at any time. And watching that character negotiate these male spaces I thought was effective without tipping the scale into kind of girl boss territory without, you know, using a buzzword. But, yeah.

LaToya Ferguson: I was gonna make it like a, his girl Friday comparison, basically. Like a snappy and quippiness. I don't think it teeters over the edge too much where it's just like I'm not buying this and it's not even just like, you know, her relationship with Charlie, which could obviously, it seems like it could go south and it just seems like they enjoy each other's companionship and she somehow has the higher ground. It's also her relationship with Caesar, who's a mobster. Who's just, who really just respects her and likes her. And, but she knows this, like, this is a dangerous world that she does not want to get involved in. She doesn't want to be a mob wife. 

Joe Reid: Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. She does has no, uh, aspirations towards that. That character played by Bobby Cannavale's son, Jake, who once you know that fact and you see him, you're just like, 'oh, well, yes, of course.' Um, yeah. And he's really adorable and there's a little, you know, he's definitely a mobster. He's definitely somebody who, you know, will beat the crap out of somebody for trying to steal her purse or something like that. And there's a reason why she sort of has, you know, a wall up with him a little bit, but they have some really good scenes together I thought. And ultimately, she's sort of a little bit of a secret ingredient in this story. Again, she's a character, she's a name who you don't know from the legend of this movie. And yet you come out of this show and you're just like, 'oh, like, you know, Bettye had that meeting with Joe Colombo. She got, she got it done.' And she was, uh, again, girl Friday is a good, a good a term for that. Uh, let's bring it back to Robert Evans though, because he's, again, I think I really feel like he is the superstar of this show and we see at the end of the series where, and where, you know, past the Oscars, and they're already talking about making the sequel and Ruddy goes off to make _The Longest Yard_ with Burt Reynolds and all of this. And it sort of leaves us with this question, I think, this sort of open-ended question of these larger than life figures. I think Evans in particular, like, is that a type that we just are never going to see again. This sort of larger than life figure who ultimately his legacy that he's left us with is like, it's just the movies. Right? It's all of these really good movies. And I don't know, do you grapple at all with that kind of a legacy of a character like Evans? 

LaToya Ferguson: It seems like, especially nowadays, it's impossible to be that kind of magnanimous type of character without it being put on. Like, without you trying to be like someone like Robert Evans or someone from back in the day, you know? It seems like people would be either like, 'oh, you're putting on a show' or it's, uh, 'you're coked out of your mind.' those are the two things people would think, correct? 

Joe Reid: Right. Yes. Yeah basically those are your assumptions. 

LaToya Ferguson: That's that's part of the reason why people romanticize this era of Hollywood. It's just because these characters did exist. These were real people, and it'd be amazing to have that, you know nowadays, but, uh, I don't know if those can exist also without all of the seediness that comes along with those kinds of people too, you know. 

Joe Reid: Yeah. That's the thing is just sort of, it's that idea of you give somebody enough power and, you know, unchecked power and what comes of it. And I think one of the things that makes _The Offer_ really interesting and sort of allows us to romanticize it without lingering on the problematic aspects of it is all of these people who had power, whether it's Evans or Bluhdorn or Ruddy, or Coppola even, or whatever, to degree, whatever degree they had power with, they were all grappling with each other to get this movie done. And they were all at different points, sort of that cross purposes with each other. So they were, you know, they each sort of like checked each other at some point in trying to get this movie made. And so you don't really linger on this idea of like Evans, the all powerful, right? And for as much as that's his legacy, is this being this powerful Hollywood executive, half of that's him mythologizing himself, right? The show allows you to see behind that curtain a little bit, see his vulnerability, see how much the end of his marriage to Allie MacGraw was really devastating for him. And again, it goes back to Matthew Goode, and just giving that really, really fantastic performance.

LaToya Ferguson: Absolutely. So, Joe, uh, let's hear your conversation with Matthew Goode. 

Joe Reid: Yeah, let's do it.

I wanted to start off it, perhaps the most obvious question, but I wanted to talk about the voice. The Robert Evans voice because it really is such a big part of him as a sort of persona, and obviously it really comes across in the show. How much of a priority was it for you in terms of finding the voice and then did finding the voice help you find the character? Was it the other way around maybe? 

Matthew Goode: It's the big question really isn't it? I mean, so when, when I got told by my agents that I was doing this job, because it was quite late on in the casting and for whatever reason. And, and so it was quite terrifying. I was like, 'what, what are you talking about? I haven't spoken them or auditioned for this.' And it was like, and he's quite... I don't think I'm anything like him. The immediate panic settles, you know, settles in and, and, and I, and I've watched _The Kids Stays in the Picture_ like years and years before, and I absolutely loved it. Um, but I knew that that, that wasn't going to be such a great tool for me because I mean he's still bald, but it's, it's him in his seventies, so he has slightly different rhythms. And also he's almost sort of become a caricature of himself by that point. And I don't mean that I don't mean that in any bad way, but, um, so, but there's a, there's a, there's a wealth of incredible interviews from the 1970s, that's on YouTube, and I could just go down wormhole after wormhole. And, and, and so that was great. And bearing in mind, obviously that when you see those interviews, anyone who's being interviewed is putting a certain version of themselves across. It's not them per se. And if I'd done done it like he has in the interviews, I think it would have been quite a boring performance. But the great thing about _The Offer_ and certainly as far as the arc of my character is, you know, he's all over the place. And he was a very eccentric man in many ways and very gregarious and, and I just, I love him. I think he's, he's a wonderful part to play. But so in episode six, I have this like three page monologue and monologues are very, very useful because no one else is interjecting. And so you get a good whack at how you would go about rhythmically shaping that sort of landscape of how he speaks. And so I just went, oh, I listened to these recordings, hundreds and hundreds of times and I started to send versions of that monologue to Dexter Fletcher who was directing episodes one and two. And he would go, 'I like it. Uh, yeah, mate that's great. Yeah, you can push it a bit more. Try this, try this.' And, um, after a while, you know, it took me a couple, it took me weeks and weeks of, of being quite scared. And then suddenly you've got to start shooting and Dexter gave me a lot of the confidence. And obviously when, once you put, once you've done all that work and you, you, you start to feel it happening slowly but surely. And I felt like I was turning into Bob. And I, and also I spent it cause, cause of COVID I was trapped in a hotel room most of the time, so I'd often just be messing around and improvising stuff that's just, uh, 'I heard you casted him.' 'What are you talking about?' 'Don't get smart with me pal.' You know, we'd have these conversations together. Um, which is great cause it's stuff is not in, in the script and I mean, I'm a big advocate of, you should be able to do any line, any word. 

Joe Reid: Right.

Matthew Goode: It doesn't matter if it's not in the script, otherwise you don't have them. Um, but once yeah. So once, once we had the clothes as well and the, and the famous, the bins. 

Joe Reid: Sure, of course. 

Matthew Goode: The huge glasses that was like another layer of armor, which, you know, I could look in the mirror and go, why I, so I just sort of like, there's the essence of him there. And then, and then Dexter gave me this great confidence cause sometimes we'd shoot stuff and he'd just be like, let's just get rid of the lines. And let's just, let's see what happens. Even if it's just as an exercise and sometimes it made it in, sometimes it didn't. And he gave me that, that sort of ready Brit glow of confidence. And, and, and I guess also, you know, you start working with we've got an, I think an, a super talented ensemble and so you're nothing without the people that are around you that are bestowing you with you are the head of Paramount. And also we have this character of filming actually at Paramount, which, which really places my character front and center. So all of those things start together, but you still are terrified. 

Joe Reid: Well sure. 

Matthew Goode: You thinks it's going to be a horrible mess. Yeah. 

Joe Reid: Well, you mentioned this sort of wealth of information that we have about Evans. Obviously the documentary, _The Kids Stays in the Picture_, the memoir, all these books, all these sorts of like YouTube interviews and stuff like that, that are available out there. Was there any particular sort of story or anecdote either by Evans or about Evans that stood out to you when you were preparing and sort of helped inform how to, how to play the character? 

Matthew Goode: It wasn't any particular anecdote, it was meeting... once I, because I, I, I suppose I had it about a month and a half I think when I found out I got the job and then we started working and then I, so at the beginning, I would be at the studio and I'd meet people up at Paramount who had known Bob. And so you would just, it would be their anecdotes about how kind he was, you know, he could talk to anyone and he used to all my friends used to buy jewelry off him or sorry, the other way around. He used to buy jewelry off my friends, or he'd got his flowers from here and there was always a sense of outside of work he was so charming and brilliant with everyone. But there were also the you'd hear the stories about how he was literally hairdryer-ing someone down the phone as well. Like he was prone to moments of extreme passion, because there was a lot of pressure that... running a studio. It's not just, you know, this is about the making of one film, but he was running nine films at a time and that's not great, it's not great for holding down a marriage. Um, so, so it was those little bits and obviously there's a huge amount of detail in the scripts and so every day it was all a one giant sort of learning curve. And, and eventually it's like anything. It's so funny to me that people have sort of leveled the, this is an inaccurate portrayal of, of what actually happened. And I'm like, nobody knows what happened. Do you think that Al Ruddy told everyone about what his dealings were with the mob? I'm pretty sure he kept a lot of that stuff to himself. Cause otherwise, otherwise panic stations would have started to sort of happen. So I think, I mean, that's typically Bob as well, isn't it? It's like there's, there's always three versions. There's there's your version. There's my version. And there's the truth. And maybe this was, maybe someone will go, right, we actually need to have a definitive documentary down on _The Godfather_ now. Maybe that's what will spring up from all this, but- 

Joe Reid: Man, I'd definitely love it.

Matthew Goode: You do have to sort of navigate the landscape a little bit for yourself because it's not a dot to dot. I mean, can you imagine how the royal family feel about _The Crown_? It's all based on real events, but anytime, anywhere, any scribe puts pencil to paper, it's all fiction really. As much as you, as you wanted to get this in, we have no idea how the royals spoke to each other. We've no idea, really and so it's all a bit of a guess. And I think, um, and I think Nikki Toscano and Russell and Michael, they did such an amazing job with piecing this all together. And, um, and I felt like it as good of version as you're gonna see. 

Joe Reid: Yeah, yeah. Uh, obviously _The Godfather_ looms so large in the culture also like within, within the industry and also outside of the industry, it's sort of this great movie that kind of ties everybody together. Everybody sort of has some sort of knowledge of it. As you're making _The Offer,_ was there anything about the story about making _The Godfather_ that surprised you or, or about how Hollywood sort of operated in general around that period? 

Matthew Goode: Um, well I say, I mean, you sort of hear the myths of what, you know, the castings and so there was some of the stories about, you know, how Brando got cast in that and also that they didn't want Pacino, um, et cetera. So those are sort of things that you just hear folklore that everyone knows about really, but it was just, I guess, the involvement of the mob, which is a contentious point and as I was saying to you earlier on, and actually the great friendship that's struck up, but it was struck up between Al Ruddy and Colombo. But ultimately what I love about it is obviously it's a love story about Al and, and, and _The Godfather,_ but one of the things that I like most is that it, it turns the tables on, and puts the producer in the, in the starring role for once. And it just shows you, I mean, obviously this is hilarious, but it's... cause it's one of the most difficult, it should never have been made this film really. You can't imagine all the trials and tribulations that were that Al have to get over and bearing in mind he was the sole producer on this.

Joe Reid: Right, right. 

Matthew Goode: I mean, that's remarkable considering these days, there's 10 producers, 19 execs on these sorts of things. So he'll go down in history as surely as one of the great physical producers of all time, but it just shows you how difficult it is to get anything made, really. 

Joe Reid: Definitely. Yeah. You mentioned the scene in episode six, the big sort of the pitch to Gulf and Western that Evans gives and it convinces them not to sell the studio. You see him giving this performance almost as if he is in that scene an actor, and it ultimately turns around this major conglomerate, and can you talk about how you approached that scene and this, maybe this pressure to live up to this moment that feels almost larger than life in the telling of it? 

Matthew Goode: I think that's the great thing about Bob is the fact that from a sort of modern standpoint, you can sit there and you, he does seem like a caricature of himself, you know, there's this older thing, but, but considering how he became the youngest studio head of all time, he was a very smart man. And if you look at the, the level of the actual films that he produced in his sweet spot in history, things like _Harold and Maude,_ which would never get made now, you know? And so he was a real taste-maker and originally that speech has lifted because originally he, he made a movie of that and he had it directed by Mike Nichols.

Joe Reid: Oh, no kidding. 

Matthew Goode: Yeah. Yeah. Which is on the internet, it's on YouTube. So what you're picking up on those is it was a performance that he gave for the Gulf and Western board originally, but now I'm just in the room and there's, and he's taken a whole, a whole load of cocaine on the way up to New York and things are quite different to how he did it originally, but, uh, but there is that level of like he's like a trapeze artists or a tightrope walk or whatever, like it's all on the line and I have to deliver, and, and this is the way he goes about it. And he's, you know, he rolls and he's very convincing and he's a good, he's a great salesman. And he's what a pitch. 

Joe Reid: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. 

Matthew Goode: Yeah. And actually in fairness, he had just, you're about to get rid of him and, and Paramount. I've just made you a hundred million dollars with love story. And the fact, and that's not going to buy me any extra time? I mean, it's like, I think there was a little bit of a, there's a lot of pain and hurting. He was kind of incredulous about that and yet pragmatic. 

Joe Reid: Yeah. Uh, the one thing that sort of struck me about _The Offer_ was for as much wrangling as there is with the executives and, and Bluhdorn and even Lapidus who is so much of a obstacle, the Collin Hanks' character is such an obstacle for so many things. But what impressed me was that at the end of the day, the art really did stand paramount, no pun intended for, um, for everybody that they ultimately all wanted to make something really great. And did you find something romantic about that? About that notion that even these sort of, you know, very business-minded people and, you know, producers and of everybody else just had this idea that making a great piece of art was worth it? 

Matthew Goode: Absolutely. You know, there's, there's so much romance and it's and bearing in mind that they'd been it's a bit like Charlie Bluhdorn was, you know, he came as an immigrant. You know, and he built up this company. And so, and like, he never expected to be in the movies and like any, and he had a vision and, and he was charmed by it by Evans as much as anybody. And, and it's the sheer, the weight of the struggle. And from this really like incredulous situation, you get the Phoenix of the flames finally. And it's about, it's about Francis sticking to his guns and, and, and not, you know, not compromising on so many things when, when surely he should have compromised earlier. And that put Al in such a difficult place with Bob and, and it's everybody struggling inch by inch trying to get to a place. And, yeah, and that's the great thing about movies. There is a great romance. It's a real blue collar job as well. I know what people's versions of, of a movie set is, and the mood like, but like there's 400 people on set, living, living check to check, and we're there at four in the morning and we go home at nine at night and then if you're the actors who don't work the hardest probably on the sets, you know, then we have to do our homework and this goes on and it's a family. And I mean, it's a bit like, uh, you know, I mean, _The Godfather_ was all about family, but my God filmmaking is one of the great, one of the great honors even during COVID is that, and the older you are, the older you in it, you recognize bits of family that you've been with before as well. So you get to come back together again and, and to work on something that is so revered as, as the, you know, to be even connected to _The_ _Godfather_ is, is pinch me sort of stuff, really. And, um, I think if you, if you don't find this business romantic and painful at the best of times, then, um, Then you'll probably a producer. Then you're in the wrong business.

Joe Reid: I wanted one last question. And, uh, without you can get into whatever kind of specifics you want to, have you ever been part of a production that approached even approach to the levels of chaos that were there on _The Godfather?_ Were there parts of _The Offer_ that you were like, 'that kind of reminds me of a thing that I went through on another film?' 

Matthew Goode: _The Offer_ was a very, very well-oiled machine, my friend. Um, I have been on some very chaotic stuff before. Yeah, course. And that is part of the joy of, of still being in the industry, I guess, cause this cause even it doesn't mean because you're more technologically advanced and you have a bigger budget that the chaos can't ensue. You can always have lost in the mantra happening at any given moment, you know? Because, cause, and I'm sure that will be underneath the insurance wise, it would be under the acts of God. But again, that's one of the reasons that keeps coming back is our job is to execute on time, on the day, on that very moment, as much as possible, blah, blah, blah. And you always under the pump, but sometimes the greatest art comes from when, from the greatest struggle. I don't know why it is, but if you had, if you had $50 million, $50 million and they don't make those films anymore. Those are the best films, the $50 million films. 

Joe Reid: Sure, of course.

Matthew Goode: Um, you wouldn't- _Shawshank Redemption _wouldn't get made now. 

Joe Reid: Yeah. 

Matthew Goode: But yeah, I don't know why it is, but yeah, if you have all the money in the world and you've got some, some reasons that, that just whatever that bit of magic is, comes from, comes from the bit where everyone is thinking they're going to die. 

Joe Reid: Well, that's a great way to, to end the interview, Matthew. Thank you so much for- 

Matthew Goode: And we never heard from Matthew again. 

Joe Reid: But then we get the 10 part series investigating what happened to Matthew, so it goes on and on. 

Matthew Goode: Starring Miles Teller. 

Joe Reid: Exactly. 

Matthew Goode: There you go.

LaToya Ferguson: Thanks for listening to this special episode of _Little Gold Men_. You can find me on Twitter @lafergs, as well as my podcasts about vampire television shows, _The AMPire Diaries _and_ Angel On Top._ 

Joe Reid: And you can find me on Twitter @joereif. The Reid is spelled R E I D, and you can listen to my podcast, _This Had Oscar Buzz _where we talk about the Oscar films gone awry, uh, wherever else you find podcasts. Our editor and producer is Brett Fuchs, and you can stream _The Offer_ on Paramount Plus .