HOOSIERS : AN INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR DAVID ANSPAUGH

In 1986 a movie was released that slowly made its way from one end of the country to the other. It showed life in the heartland and what it meant to not just win but to try, to give it your best. It told a tale of impossible odds and how pulling together a team could achieve victory. That movie was HOOSIERS. And now nearly almost 20 years after its initial release, the movie comes to DVD in a special edition.

In that special edition are a number of extras, including a making of featurette that has interviews with stars like Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper. But most importantly are the comments and look behind the scenes provided by its writer Angelo Pizzo and director David Anspaugh, not only the short but their commentary as well. I was able to contact David Anspaugh recently and find out not only what he thought of the DVD release but what was in store for his fans as well. While the movie was obviously a labor of love, the DVD version offers a new experience.

MARK: What did you think of making this new DVD version?

DAVID: One thing about Angelo and I, we haven’t done one of these DVDs before…we spent the entire day in the studio…we did on camera stuff and then we went to sit down and watch the movie and do the commentary and that was a long day, we were tired, we were kind of punchy, you know? Over the years we had talked about this for so many years. We told these stories over and over and sometimes after a while you kind of forget what you said and you’re not editorializing so much. Some of its probably entertaining and other parts I couldn’t believe they left in.

M: How was it you were able to choose HOOSIERS as your first film?

DAVID: First of all I didn’t have the luxury to decide that that’s what I wanted to do. I was working in television at the time. Steve Bochco gave me my first real break in the business with HILL STREET BLUES and actually there was a series called PARIS with James Earl Jones that we did before HILL STREET and it wasn’t until the second season of HILL STREET that I started directing. He gave me two shows to do in the second season. I think he promised me those because he never thought they were going to be renewed for a second season.  The first show I directed was nominated for a DG award but I lost to the pilot and the second season I did one which was towards the end of the second season was nominated again in the next year and I won the DG award. So I was directing every third show in the third year…all this time we were trying to get HOOSIERS made…and we finally looked like we had interest, that’s when Jack Nicholson was interested. I left HILL STREET after the third season because I thought we were going to get HOOSIERS made but it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen for almost two years later. So it wasn’t as though I chose that as my first movie, it just happened that way and I was incredibly lucky. It’s very rare that a film maker has a chance to do a movie that’s that personal to them first time out. You usually have to make your bones either commercially of critically or hopefully both and you do 2 or 3 of those and then you can sort of call your own shots and then people say “What do you want to do next?” and you say well I have this script I’ve been saving for years you know that’s always been my pet project but no one really thought much of it…and that’s how you get those things done. WE were lucky. First time out we got to do a movie that I would guess, you never say never, will probably be for me the most personal movie I will ever make in terms of where I came from and the people I knew and the place that I love so much.

M: The film so captures not only the look but the feel of Indiana, the Midwest.

DAVID: Well I thought that it was important, at least in the commentary, we mention the fact that they tried to get us to shoot this movie in Canada and we just said find somebody else because we won’t do it because there is something specific about not only the landscape…I mean you could make the argument that you could find places in Canada that almost look like Indiana but its more about the faces and the people and particularly you put those people in the gymnasium and you don’t direct those extras…it’s all such a part of who those people are and all of us are that grew up in the Midwest in small towns. Those people from New Richmond for example I mean they followed us all over the place where ever we shot whether it was in Brownsville or Knightstown or Indianapolis or whatever. And they weren’t getting paid; we were only able to afford to pay so many extras per day. And then there were a certain who came for the experience and we fed them and a lot of people came consistently and weren’t getting paid. It was pretty amazing. You can’t pay for that stuff.

M: What does Hollywood get in Canada that they don’t get here in the Midwest?

DAVID: What they do get is big tax breaks in Canada. The truth is I am very anti shooting in Canada or anywhere out of the country if you have a story that is really specific to a certain place or geographically particular. If you have a New York story or an Indiana story or a New Orleans story, whatever. I mean these places, they don’t exist in Canada. I remember at one point in time Showtime was proposing a script called TARK THE SHARK which was about his time at UNLV and the whole thing took place in Las Vegas and they wanted to shoot it in Canada. I said “Where in Canada?” Where in Canada does Las Vegas exist? Show me and I’ll go shoot it. If you can convince me that that exist there I’ll shoot it there. Because you’re writing the check and yeah you save a lot of money by going up there. If you’re doing a big special effects movie like MIMIC, they shoot that in Canada because they can shoot it on a sound stage and it doesn’t matter where you are…or you can go to Prague…or many places that are cheaper than the United States. What I’m happy to see happening, its beginning to happen in places around the United States, in particular New Orleans, everyone is shooting in New Orleans now. Because they are offering the same tax incentives pretty much that Canada is, so that’s exciting.

M: Except while on location most actors live in Los Angeles. What was it like for these actors to see the area you recalled so well?

DAVID: (Gene) Hackman grew up in Danville (Illinois) which was kid of similar to the places we were shooting. I think he mentions that in the DVD that he understands the sensibility that lies in that part of the country. You remember Dennis Hopper said “I forgot that I grew up in Kansas and I had a hoop on the side of the barn…” and all that stuff. I think the only one who didn’t was Barbara. The rest of the people, with the exception of Fred Murphy who was our camera man from New York City and he didn’t know Indiana from nothing, he’d never been there before and he didn’t even know basketball. So it was interesting because a lot of people…we hired a lot of local people in our departments like transportation and art department…and the cast was all from Indiana or the Chicago area with the exception of Gene and Dennis and Barbara. So it wasn’t new to most people. The few people it was new to fell in love with Indiana. There were a couple of people ended up buying land and actually staying in Indiana. But then again there was kind of a trade off because a couple of people from New Richmond area and others that decided to ruin away to join the circus (laughs). They left Indiana and came to Hollywood.

M: Speaking of Dennis Hopper, when he made HOOSIERS his career was in a semi slump. And yet that year he made not only this film but BLUE VELVET, RIVER’S EDGE and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2. What made you decide to choose him for his part?

DAVID: You know in the…we actually discussed this but they edited it out…Dennis says on camera that when “…I first read the script I don’t know why they wanted me. I told them they wanted Harry Dean Stanton.” The truth is he WAS the first actor, Harry Dean Stanton that we went to for this part and he turned us down. We interviewed, read character actors all over the country, New York, Chicago, LA, and we couldn’t find anybody we thought could pull it off. And then one night I was home watching an old TV movie, I think it was called KING OF THE MOUNTAIN and it was Dennis playing this old hippie guy who lived in LA and races cars on Mulholland Drive and there was something about seeing him again and something about the quality of the character he was playing and I called Angelo and I said “Don’t laugh but what would you think of Dennis Hopper in this part? I just saw this movie”. And Angelo said it’s an interesting idea but I don’t know that we want to act on it right away.  While I was thinking about it a couple nights later I happened to be in a restaurant waiting on a couple of friends for dinner and I saw Dennis there. And I had never seen him before. And as he was leaving I just sort of impulsively stepped out in front of him and introduced myself and told him I had this script that I thought he would be right for and would he please read it or could we send it to him and blah blah blah. I think he probably wondered who the hell this guy was, who I was. But he said sure and gave me his agent’s name and about 48 hours later he showed up in our office and we sat and talked for three hours and he had such an understanding of the character. I think he mentioned in the DVD that he was newly sober at that time. He had been sober I think about a couple of years and he talked about his sobriety and his troubled days as an alcoholic and drug addict and it was clear he knew this character inside and out. I couldn’t have asked for a better situation. He was brilliant; in fact, he should have won the Oscar.

M: How much do you stay in touch with the actors from HOOSIERS?

DAVID: You know, it’s funny. It took me a while in this business to catch on to the fact…when you’re making a movie you all become very close and sometimes not so close. I’m happy to say that most of my experiences with actors has been really positive. I’ve had lasting friendships. You sort of expect those things. The movie’s over…you try to keep up those contacts…but over the years as you work more and more in more films and with more people, you realize that you can’t keep those things. I mean I don’t hang out with Dennis or Gene or Barbara or anybody that I’ve ever worked with really. I used to sort of with Andrew McCarthy a lot because we played golf together a lot. But I mean….whenever I see Dennis? It’s always a warm hug. There’s a lot of affection and we have a wonderful history there. That’s the sort of thing that took me a while to learn. I used to take it personally. I’d think don’t these people like me? But you know….you start working a lot and after a few years you just can’t maintain those ties.

M: The actors you’ve worked with. There are a number that you started their careers. How does that feel?

DAVID: It’s really fun. Ben Stiller, I put him in his first movie, FRESH HORSES. I think it was also if not his first, one of his first, Vigo Mortensen’s in that movie. He had one scene with Andrew McCarthy where he catches him in his old back woods house. It’s a frightening scene. He is so scary this dude! I mean yeah, there’s so many people like that. It’s really exciting but also makes me feel really old! When I look at all of the work these guys have done I think I was there at day one and now look at them.

M: Another great contribution to the film, and to RUDY, was the soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith who recently passed away. Do you think he added something to HOOSIERS?

DAVID: Are you kidding? He elevated both of those films to a whole other level as any great composer will do. You never know. Even with really great composers they don’t always hit home runs. He sure knocked both of them out of the park with these two movies. I was so lucky to have him as a composer of two of my movies. And more fortunate to have him as a friend. That was one of those relationships that DID stick. And we did see each other and we were very good friends. He was actually starting work on the score of GAME OF THEIR LIVES. In fact I still have one demo cue that he did. He had…he was getting pretty sick at the time and Angelo and I showed him sort of a first assembly of the film a couple of months after we finished shooting it. And based on that, he started noodling with that, you know, playing with some themes and he put some stuff down on the synthesizer and I still have that one cue that he wrote for the movie that never got to be used. But we were also very lucky because we sort of got a guy named Bill Ross who composed the score for GAME OF THEIR LIVES and it’s like he channeled Jerry. When you hear his music you almost can’t believe it ISN’T Jerry. Jerry was one of his heroes. Frankly I had not heard of him. I’d heard his scores but didn’t realize it was him. Like MY DOG SKIP and LADDER 49 and a few other movies and somebody said oh yeah this guy’s like a young Jerry Goldsmith and I went oh no, nobody is Jerry Goldsmith. And then I heard his music and it was pretty amazing. In fact, when we were scoring this movie at Fox for the first two days we had like an 80 piece orchestra and Bill told me that most of the people here in this room worked with Jerry and almost all of these people were your musicians for RUDY. I miss him a lot. I can’t get used to the fact he ain’t with us anymore.

M:  Speaking of the new film, what’s up?

DAVID: Our new movie that’s coming out THE GAME OF THEIR LIVES…our marketing did research and it’s coming out sort of the way HOOSIERS did, which was one of the strangest releases of any movie I’ve ever seen because one week it opened in one place and a couple weeks in another city and it never had a real national kind of release, just little pockets from time to time that would open up. They were not going to open it (GAME) in Indiana. They are now. One of the cities I think is Indianapolis I think on April 22^nd. One of the reasons they were not going to do it until Angelo and I convinced them of the wisdom of doing so was because Indiana per capita is one of the lowest film going audiences in the country.

M: You’ve mentioned Angelo several times now and I know the two of you have worked together on several films now. Are the two of you more Oscar and Hammerstein or Abbott and Costello?

DAVID: More like Abbott and Costello. (laughs) And believe me you’ll really see that when you run the DVD and you listen to the commentary. I mean we’re like Heckle and Jeckle, Abbott and Costello…we have a good time. Hopefully we compliment each other. I think we mention in a number of interviews that people predicted when we went away to do HOOSIERS that it would destroy our friendship and instead of destroying it it forged it and you know, we’ve done three movies now. That’s pretty rare for a writer/director team. But I don’t think we’re even going to have that opportunity again because he is bent on and determined to direct and I totally support that. I wish I were a writer, I’m not, so I can’t say okay now let him direct. He wants to direct and I think every writer given the opportunity should. I think he’ll do pretty good.

M: What’s coming up for David Anspaugh?

DAVID: I don’t know. I’m looking. There are a couple of things I’d like to do but I’m in competition here. Like I said I don’t write so I’m up against other directors who want to do these things too. But I’m looking forward to moving back to Indiana. Looking forward to opening an acting and film workshop. I think it sounds like a good idea. I did some investigating this fall in the Indianapolis area and there’s virtually no competition at least with people with my experience and the resume that I have. It's something that I really love. I started out as a teacher. The paychecks aren’t as big but you know what? The headaches aren’t as big either. I’m looking forward to doing that in the next few years.

M: I know that your mother and father were perhaps your biggest fans. Were they an influence on your decision to go into film?

DAVID: They certainly were very influential in me doing what I’ve done because of their support in what I wanted to do. I just have to always…you know….been grateful for their love and support when I’m sure to friends and relatives my ambitions were sort of pie in the sky and sort of ridiculous. And I think they had to put up with a lot of that. But they never wavered. That’s hopefully the legacy that I will leave to my daughters. I know with my eldest that seem to be working. It’s pretty easy to do if you love them a lot.

M: Lastly, what did you think of the Special Edition that MGM came up with? The extras and all.

DAVID: I tell you I was thrilled. Aside from…I was a little shocked about some of the things they left in that they didn’t edit out in terms of Angelo’s comments and mine. Other than that I was so impressed with what they did. I am really, really proud of this. I sound like some sort of salesman. But for filmophiles or for people who love basketball or especially people in Indiana…this is something I would own. I would go out and buy it. I have a feeling it will do well in a number of places.