A Touch of the Madness with Larry Kasanoff

0:04 This is Crappita Happy and I am your host, Cass Doune. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher and of course, author of the. Crappita Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. Larry Kasanov is chairman and CEO of Threshold Entertainment. As a Hollywood producer or studio head, he has made over two hundred feature films, including Dirty Dancing and the Academy Award winning Best Picture Platoon.

0:52 Other films he's produced include Blue Steel, True Lies, Terminated to Judgment Day, and the Mortal Kombat franchise. In this conversation, Larry shares with me his experiences and insights on creativity and innovation. He discusses the inspiration behind his book, A Touch of the Madness, and the importance of embracing your madness to unleash your creative potential. Larry, Welcome to the Crappy the Happy Podcast. Such a pleasure to meet you. Thanks guys, great to be here. I really really enjoyed your book, A Touch of the Madness. I need to say. One thing I really enjoyed about it was all of the amazing stories throughout the book about your experiences working in Hollywood as a producer over the past decades. And I wanted to ask, was it really fun to write that?

1:42 Was it like a trip down memory lane for you to bring up all of those stories and remember those experiences. Yeah, it was really fundurrated. Actually, I sort of know. During the pandemic we were very everyone was outsourced and I just had one assistant working with me. This b huge studio in it, and I realized I was telling her some of these stories as a way of kind of teacher or torture or however you want to put it, and it was sort of fun. That's kind of how I got the idea. Yeah, they're very fun. I love them, and I love that kind of stuff, and I think it's told last and so it was really fun. You know, I tend to not look back a lot, so it was a very unusual experience for me to do that. Oh well, you know, some of those stories felt like they were out of movies.

2:24 Honestly, that the drama behind the making of the movie is often more intense and interesting than the actual dramatic story in the movie. Right right, That is interesting. The book is called A Touch of the Madness, and it is a book really about the pursuit of creativity and innovation, which is so important. I was curious to know, of all of the books you could write, Larry, what inspired you to write to this particular book at this time. I simply found the last few years than more than I've ever seen. I was running into people, not only in my business, but lots of them who were scared to be creative and who were scared to be their most creative selves. And I think maybe it was the pandemic gay people the opportunity to reflect. And I met so many people who said, you know what I really want to do is but no, it's too crazy, or my whatever husband, wife, mother, father, or sister, brother, boss won't like it. I better not, you know. We sort of matched the pandemic with a very politically correct movement with a unch of social media. Maybe people were worried about getting criticized. I don't know why, and I got so sick of I was talking to my friends about it and Finally my brothers said, we'll stop talking about to write a book, and I thought, hey, that's a good idea. And so that is I have one purpose in this and I give speeches as well, and my only purpose is to try and inspire people to be their most unfettered creative self. I mean, how many times in the last four years, if you were some friends sat around and said, well, what did you do last night?

3:55 I tried to find something to watch on streaming and I couldn't find anything watch. It's part of the same thing, and so I want people to be I mean, you know some of the guests you have in your podcast, you know, the Queen of Clean, I mean you know, she just said, well, I just love it. I decided to go for it. That's great. The more many people. Don't do that, it is so true. Yeah, so that's it. I just want to inspire people to be their most uninhibited, unfettered creatives. Album. It's it's happy, it's fun, it helps, it work, it helps in personal life, and it tends to result in better things. Because the audience or your customers or whatever, they want new one different. They don't want to try it. The truth and there's a kind of a shift towards I better be very careful.

4:38 If I do the dry and the tour, I won't get fired. But also you won't be great. And so if you want to be great, and you want to really go for it, you've got to have a touch of the madness. The current of the river of life will always pull you towards the middle of everybody, all the time, imperceptibly, when you're sleeping, when you're taking a walk in the woods. And the only way to fight against it, I think is by embracing the madness, by just saying and hell with it, I'm going to do it. And it's that idea in the back of your mind that you think it's too crazy, that's the one do it. And actually that brings me to can you define You've got a great story about how you came up with that term, a touch of the madness? Can you tell that story? Yeah? Sure. So I wanted to be a movie producers since I was a very since I was a little kid, and I got very lucky, and right out of grad school, I got a job as head of production and acquisitions co productions of a new independent film studio called restaurant.

5:29 And this was the in the mid eighties when there was a home video boom, and home video boom then was much like the streaming broom. Now it's what I call a content gold rush. All of a sudden, some new industry pops up and it needs content. And today it was streaming in all those swim lanes. Then it was video stores with empty shows movies. So my first job out of school was to be the head of a of a studio that had me eighty movies a year, eight zero. Most big studios today make twelve movies a year. And so we made and in my instructions were buy them, may co produced them, do whatever now you want, just don't lose money. And so we made rom coms, and we made a low budget horror films and kind of action movies, be stars in it. And then we got a script called Platoon, and this was not that kind of a movie. Platoon was a wonderful scripber and by Oliver Stone, a movie to be directed by him about the Vietnam War and the effect it had on kids.

6:22 The tagline of the movie was the first casualty of Wars innocence, So it was more about the psychological effect it had, and that was a new take on the Vietnam War. The psychological effect had the people. It wasn't fun, It wasn't the rom com. It wasn't a happy, little goofy horror movie. The people in it became stars, but they weren't stars. Oliver was not you know. We had done a previous movie with him, which was great, but it wasn't hit. He wasn't you know, he wasn't the famous director he became. And I wanted to make it and my boss said, no way, you're crazy, which was team but and he said, but you're head of production. I kept fighting. He said, you're head of production, and if you want to do it, it's your choice. If it fails, you're fired. What do you want to do?

7:02 And I was, you know, a few months into the best job of my life, and I did some soul searching and said, well, I didn't get into the movie business to play it safe. So I greamed the Platoon first time I saw the first cut. I'm the only person I think on earth to giggle his way through Platoon now because it wasn't great, but because it was so great, I was like, oh, my god, I'm not going to get fired. And it was so good it won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. A few months later, I ran into the director at a bar in New York and he bought me a drink and he said, you know, kid, I always liked you. You have a touch of the madness. And I thought, a touch of the madness? Is? Is he calling me crazy? Am I a little crazy? And then I thought, well, my boss was crazy to let a kid out of school run an eating picture of films. Late Oliver had a touch to the madness by insisting in doing a Vietnam movie the way no one had ever done it. And I think I had a touch of the madness by betting the best job you could possibly imagine on one movie.

7:56 And that's when it occurred to me that this is it. This is which an innovation demands, the touch of the madness that has become the touchstone now of my career or my life. It's how I make movies, it's how I buy art, it's how I cast films. It's I always look for that. Even when I cast movies, I look in actors eyes and I decide to myself, do they have a touch of the madness, because if they do, they're going to do unpredictable, wonderful things on screen. If they don't, the audience might gell little barrythm. And that's how I even cast. So that's what I do, and that's the book. It was an easy way to come up with the title because I think you just have to embrace the madness. We are often told, oh, you know, they're too crazy. No no, no, no no. I want you to embrace that crazy side. That's a very cool story.

8:37 And I want to know, do you think that it's something because from a very young age, I mean, you risked, like you said, the greatest job of the world on that movie. Is it something that you think more people are just born with or is it something that you can cultivate? Oh? I totally think you can cultivate it. I mean I think I think it's like any skill, some people are more prone to it than others, and then something do it, you know, the thousands of hours of hard work. But I think you can cultivate it. And I think you can cultivate it by just starting and trying. You know. I think there are three steps to this. I call him cap create, ask play and in the ass category, which is the second one. I just I encourage people to ask anybody anything. Once you've got your great idea, you know what you want to do, you got to ask anybody anything, anywhere, all the time to do it.

9:25 And so here's an example of that. We made during the pandemic and animated movie called Bubbleheads, and we wanted to get share in the movie, the iconic share and it went way. She won't do it, so we called up and box story short. She did it, and she was great, and we used her likeness as babble That share was fantastic. When the movie came out, people magazine Eat your Viewer and said, you've never done an animated movie. Why did you do this one? And she said, I've never done an animated movie before because no one ever asked me before I did. I didn't know she hadn't done one before. I didn't thought of it. But the point is, if if one of the most iconic women on the planet share had never done something before, and most people probably were too scared to call her, can you imagine who in your life, all your listeners' lives might be someone they want to call and ask something.

10:10 But they're thinking, oh, no, they'll ever do it. Maybe no one ask them. So the best way I suggest to start to take your first tone in the water of embracing your madness is ask. So maybe you don't call share your first time out. You call your brother in law and ask him why he never, you know, brings wine to dinner. Who knows? But just you can call anybody. And if I were say to all your listeners right now, okay, if you could call anyone in the world right now who's alive, and ask them one question. Who would you call and what would you ask? And most people go, huh, that's a good one. I never thought of that. I never thought of it because we're not raised to think you can't. I happened to have had a wonderful professor at Cornell who's taught me as a freshman. No, they which call people. I've been doing it ever since, so it's not just as a movie.

11:01 And I think that's agree way to start. Just start calling people. And now it's so easy. When I started the head with telephone, now you have your phone faxing, I mean, your phone's text DMS, blah blah blah, it's just so many ways you get in touch with you. It's so true. And I read that part of your book and I thought, oh, it really stopped me. I thought when it said stop right now, stop reading who if you could call anybody. Who would you call them? What would you ask him? I thought, God, who would I call? See everyone says. It's a great question. It really made me stop and think. And it wasn't necessarily that it made me stop and think who would I call? It was what would I ask for? That was the really tricky bit, like what do I really want? I think that's a great question, Yeah, people to ask?

11:43 And then who might be able to help me? Did you come up with one? Sort of vaguely not if not really, I'm sort of in a bit out of it of a crossroads about that whole what do I want thing at the moment. So but it did really help me to narrow it, to narrow it down. But on that as well, it all so made me think, like since I started this podcast, and I've been doing this for six years now, when I first started inviting guests on, I've got some really great guests, so, you know, really well known New York Times bestselling people. And I've had so many people contact me and say, Cass, I'm starting a podcast, can you tell me what do you need to do? Like, how do I get the really good guest? I would say, you know how I got the good guest? I asked them. I literally just send them an email or I sent them a DM on Instagram. You'd be surprised how many people say sure, love to you just gotta ask.

12:33 You just got to ask exactly. So that's a great to get into it. Yeah, so that's a great way to start. You mentioned earlier the river of life always wants to pull you back to the middle. I think that's a great quote as well. And I thought, with my psychologists brain, I thought, yeah, but so does our brain, you know, so does our brain. Who is it's so focused on keeping us safe, you know, like its whole job is to you know, keep your head down, don't risk threat, which humiliates. Rejection, et cetera, et cetera. So our brains are kind of wired to keep us playing things safe. And I was curious to know, Larry, because you have a touch of the madness. Do you have you ever experienced that kind of like, oh, I don't know if I should do this, and how what do you do to overcome any of that sort of risk avoidance or hesitation that might all cross sure?

13:21 You know, I You know, they always say, you know it's great quote the difference between a hero and a coward. They both feel fear, but the hero does it anyway. There are things I've done where I thought, holy crap, can I can I? Can I do this now? Is this right? Is this? I mean, this is kind of very timely. I don't mean it to be so sound so serious, but a long time ago I was making one of the Mortal Kombat movies I produced, and we're going all over the world, and we were in England and we were about to go to Israel, pick up a crew and go into Jeordan to shoot. And we were going to have a crew that was British, American, Israeli in Jordan. It was the first time a mixed crew like that was ever going to shoot in Jordan. You know, I was worried, what if something happens? Am I doing the right thing? And then I thought, well, I mean, first of all, the locations in Jordan and Petra are just out of this world. And you had to go for the movie. We wanted the movie to be great. And then I thought, well, how will we ever get to know people if we always avoided, And so I went. We went. On the first day, we were in a little shop and our kind of guy who was this really woman and the shopkeeper and everyone was willing about started talking, and then at one point they switched to English and the woman said, so where are you from? And he said Bagdad And she said where are you from? And he said Tel Aviv And everyone kind of pulled back, and he saw some tension room and one said to the other, I forget, which you know, I know something about I had to leave with you or my city is destroy guy, I forget who said you know some kind of a slightly accusatory thing about the other, And everyone now really goes back.

14:48 You started seeing people squaring off, and then the two people talking went at politicians and they hugged and everyone applauded, and they brought out tea and it was just great. So, you know, yeah, and so if you want, nothing great happens without taking a chance. So if you want to do something great or be great, or find greatness in your life, even if it's for you, then you have to take a chance and you have to Sometimes it's harder and sometimes it's not. And I think if people don't really want to do it, I mean I really wanted to shoot them movie in Pedra and go. If you don't want to do it, don't do it. Like I'm scared of ice climbing, but I have no interest whatsoever in ice climbing, so I'm not going to do it.

15:28 So I think it out depends on what is the most fulfilling and then when you have done it, it's great. You know. There is a section of the book where I say, you know, a touch of the madness, and you don't want too much of the madness. There are times in my life where I think I've probably gone a little bit overboard with that, you know. But yeah, I mean if nothing again, if you want to do something great, you've got to take that shot, even if it's scared. Yeah, yep. Yeah. The The thing today that is people are very scared of rejection. I mean, you're this likelogists, you would know why better than I would. I mean, maybe it's because now you get rejected at the last on social media forever, but people tell me I'm crazy all the time. I like it now. People also say no to me all the time. They disagree with me all the time, they say that stupid all the time. I mean, I don't know.

16:16 So what I mean, what happens? The sky doesn't fall in so, you know, irving things I'm wrong, don't do it? Yeah, I think it is. I don't know. Like you said, social media, cancel culture. Everybody's so fearful of public humiliation. But you're right, at the end of the day, what's the worst thing that can happen. Nobody's going to die. You know. It's perspective, isn't it. Yeah? Nothing, you know. I was in I was visiting my brother and sister in law in New York over Thanksgiving. We were walking through a Central Park and at Central Park, this is actually a little amphitheater, and it was all there. My sister in law, I said, I'll give you ten bucks if you go up there and sing. Didn't they?

16:56 And I did it, you know, in the middle of cent your park. I started singing at the end of it. I mean, because like, so, what if people I don't know in Sentil Park think them in that? I mean, it's fine. Back when I was doing my psychology degree, that used to be an exercise we would get people to do. You know, we would. Actually make people, make people people who had social anxiety and things like that. You'd say, you know, basically, it's like an exposure treatment, you know, like go out and do something really embarrassing and just see what happens, and you know, and they come away going well, I felt like a bit of a dick for a few minutes, and everything's fine. It's it's actually can be really. Effective, right, Nothing are of exactly getting back to. Your cap create was is the first step because you jump straight straight to the ask, but the first thing is to create. And I really like that you make the distinction when you talk about having a creative idea, really drilling into what the essence is of the idea.

17:50 I think that's a really important point. Could you explain. That, sure? So here's an example. When I made the first Mortal Kombat movie, no one had ever made a hit mood video game. They were all big failures like Mario Brothers in the old days, and it was thought you couldn't do it. So everyone and again told me I was crazy, You can't do it, you're gonna ruin your career. But I never thought I was making a movie in a video game. I thought I was making a movie from the essence. But what made that video game so successful? And to me, the essence of the video game was not how the buttons were on the control of the video game. The essence was in power. Martial arts teaches that you don't have to be the biggest kid on the block, and you can overcome all kinds of obstacles. And when I was wandering around an arcade in Westwll, California, deciding I should bet my career in this arcade is place where they used to go and put coins and machines play video games. A little guy, remember that, A little kid slapped a quarter down on the machine and looked up and said, I challenged you to Mortal Kombat, and then he beat the crap on it.

18:50 He was great and warl Kombat makes you feel great when you win. Voices say we did zero loser is excellent. The kid left feeling sky high. He had control. He was how would you beat this that up? And I decided to do it. So once you realize the essence, in my mind, the essence of Moral Kombat is empowerment. The top of that pyramid of that idea is not the video game. The video game is one run down. The top is essence, and then you can go back to the top and go down another side and make a movie, go back to the essence, to go down the other side and make a stage show, and go back down another side and make a TV show, because then you are locked into the essence of your idea and you really understand it in a way that maybe other people don't quite see it. And it's not the audience's job to figure that out. It's just that they're talking to enjoy it. So in that case, the essence of Mortal Kombat in my mind was empowerment. We just it up with all kinds of you know, great locations and cast and stuff, but that was the essence of it.

19:41 And I think you have to understand your idea because if you do, and you really know why you're doing it, it becomes much easier to call and ask people questions. Like I honestly, I don't like calling people and asking them for favors, but I have no problem calling anyone and asking them for AE hundred million dollars if I think my movie's great and I believe it, you know, because I think I'm offering them a great deal. So the essence helps you not only understand what you're doing, it helps you believe in it. Yeah, I really love that. I love that. I think also for people who are very creative, they can be kind of have too many ideas, overwhelmed with too many different ways that they could go and take this, Whereas if you drill into the essence, it kind of it's a bit of a guiding light almost something to.

20:25 Bring it back down. Listen, I've been working in World combat for twenty five years or something, where our twentieth production, and so you know, yeah, if you get something right like that, it can last for a long long time. You know. One of the first movies we were involved in was Dirty Dancing, which still to this child to write me where the pandemic. Not only does the music and then movie play everywhere, there were stage shows that played all around the world. You know, what's the essence of Dirty Dancing? You know, it's she can you know, you any any woman watching can get a you know, a bad boy prince to become a hero for her I mean, that's it. That's it's all. There is time, that's all. It's very deal.

21:05 That's the essence of very dance. It's just it's a it's a fairy tale in another setting. The other thing that you say, Larry, is when you grab a hold of an idea, when you've got an idea, never let it go right. And I was really curious, I like that idea or like that kind of that idea of the determination, the persistence if you really believe in something, Is there a time when you should quit? Though? Is there a circumstance when you should go, oh, look this is. You know, there's an audit expression poker. You know, it's it's good to know when to fool them. I'm probably not that great in that. I I I When I get onto something, I I'm like a dog with a bone, and I often don't let go. But if you don't mind, here's a dirty dancing story. Dancing well, you know, when we started Jerry Dancing, it was a movie that another studio had thought about making it then stopped and we bought it from that studio. Wasn't going well, and the company managed to lure these two sort of musical and production kind of geniuses. They Michael Lloyd and Jimmy Jiner to come and oversee the movie, and that was and once that happened, yes, I relieve that was great because they were the geniuses behind Jerry Dancing. And the song Time of My Life had already been recorded, but as a high falsetto disco song, Jimmy and Michael wanted to change it. They re recorded it with a deeper voice.

22:33 They got Bill Medie from the Righteous Brothers, and they sent it to everybody, you know, the director, movie, the record company, and no one liked it. Everyone said you have to change it, Please make these these adjustments. Studies, no, we don't like you know, on and on and on, and they were gracious as could be. They said, schuurch are sure will do you want no problem? To give us a little time. Three days later they sent out version two and they said, okay, we sent version two to radio stations who helped really promote albums in those days. The radio stations like it. Hope you like version two. Everyone loved version two. Version two. It was great. Thank you so much for being so so accommodating. So what great changes do they make between version one and version two. And the answer, of course, is nothing. They didn't change a thing. They just they just wrote version two on the label. They doubled down. They knew what they had, and they did send it to radio stations. So if radio stations hadn't liked it, that's a that's a public fail.

23:24 That would have been the end of that. And they knew what they had, and in the face of everyone telling them not to, they just did nothing. And either there are people unless they're listening to this podcast today or reading the book in all that we don't we don't even know to this day. That song one the Grammy for Best Song of the Year, and it won the Academy Award for Best Song of the Year because they didn't let go. So is there a time you should let go? Probably? But you know, imagine if they had it. Yeah, yeah, no, that is such a great story as well. There's a lot here about kind of that creative instinct, isn't it. It's like trusting yourself, backing yourself when you know you're onto something that is good.

24:08 I mean yeah, but there are so many people who are onto something good. I mean, you can tell you know, we we we come up with people who say they want to act or say they want to say they want to do things, and sometimes you can tell they really do, and and then you just want to encourage them and help them because it is their instinct and what they want to do that it needs to come out for them. They're just not listening to it, and sometimes you've pushed it down so much it's just an echo. But if you have a creative spirit or you want to be more creative, you can cultivate it and it's there. So yeah, it is about trusting that instinct. It is about that. I mean, there are there are stop gap measures you can do. You know, you can look, does it makes sense and and so forth. You know, if you say I want to fly to the moon tomorrow without a without a rocketship, that's probably a little tough, but in general, no, Yeah, it's it's your instinct. Think that I believe has that great creative ideas. Think of the people over time, think about everyone who mean, you know, from from from Steve Jobs to Da Vinci. You know, some of that instincts. People don't trust their instincts enough.

25:15 I don't again, I don't know, that's right. That's what it is, isn't it. People don't trust their instincts enough. I think people that, So it comes back to what we were talking about, fear of rejection and other people's opinions and so distracted by all the noise and get up in their heads instead of really coming back to what they know and they got, which is why the other quote I love from your book, I think it was be still and no. Right, that's not for me. That's from my old now late friend tick not hot. I think that how it was great, you know, but a great zen of Vietnamese Buddhist monk who really kind of pioneered bringing mindfulness to the West. And in part of my call anybody, I read a book of his years ago and I said, hey, this is great. I said, what can I do with this peaceful this month? I know I can use them as inspiration for Mortal Kombat, which is not piece Puddhas at all. And so I went he called him up and he was great, and I went to see him and after two hours, I said, I feel like I've been on vacation for a week. What's your secret? He said, no secret, practice and I said, practice, I can learn how to feel this way, and we became great friends, and I wanted him making a documentary about his teaching is called Mindfulness Be Happy Now, which is on Amazon.

26:28 And so it just a good indication too that you should be open to when you do call somebody looking for one thing. You might not find it, but if you find somebody else, it's great, take it. And and his favorite quote of mine, I mean, my favorite quote of his is exactly that be still in No. The answer is if you steal yourself deep down, not only are you aware of other things, you can be in touch with yourself and that's then going to tell you what to do. So I've been practicing mindfless of meditation for a long time. I've trained as a mindfulness meditation teacher. I sometimes go. On these week Actually just was thinking the other day it's been since before the pandemic since I have been on a week long retreat. I used to go on these silent meditation retreats for a week or so, and I tell people all the time, I was really fascinated to learn that you had that history with tick Na Hahn as well and had, you know, learn and practice meditation Because I tell people all the time too like, if you want to get in touch with what's true for you, you just have to slow down. You've got to find that stillness. You found that it has been helpful for you with your you know, the creative work that you do as well.

27:41 Larry, Yeah, it really really changed. It changed my life. I mean I still do it and I still practice that I have someone here and yeah, it completely has because you know, I tend to be kind of a high energy, frenetic person. The movie business is crazy, and we talked about in a good and an or an organized kind of nuts a way if you let it be. And yeah, the stillness does do it, and it does comment. And what it allows me to do other than just feel better, is it allows me to really sort of see into the essence of a problem and you know, what are we negotiating, Let's say, negotia, what should be the line in the script? It allows you to stop and say, well, I think I'm right here, but it's this is this the really important point? And I think it allows you to see what's more important. And in terms of creativity, it allows you to really focus on the goal I was saying, you know, be right in the room. I mean I'm sorry, be right on the screen, not in the room. Who cares about if you know, wins the argument? It's all about with the audiences. What's a movie or your product or your podcast is out in the world. It's not yours anymore. It's the audience.

28:46 Is that you can't say, well, you know, I really meant to say this to that guy, but I did, you did, You're done, You're done. And I think my mind on this helps you make better decisions that way. The other thing it does, too, is you know, there's a lot of ego that gets in the way of things. Oh daar that guy not call me back? Or what if so and so? You know, I was a few years ago. I was well annoyed that someone start of knew not well it didn't call me back. And then I found out the poor guy committed suicide. And then you realize you never grant, you never know why someone doesn't. And and I find mindfulness, Oh, I was gonna just focus on my goal. And if you're not focusing on your coal, you're probably and I think anxiety is kind of a lesson that you're not focusing on your goal. So yeah, I think mindfulness has been a tremendous help.

29:28 And I would encourage anyone who wants to pursue a touch of the madness to have some calming practice every day. I didn't really get into that in the book because that's not what the book's about. But I think what you do with mindfulness is great and I think it helped. I think it just he taken on as another great expression, go piece of yourself, piece in the world. So he says, you listen to the war in Ukraine, the war in the Middle East. You can't you feel helpless. He said, You're not helpless because if you find peace in yourself, then you'll be a little bit nicer to the coffee barista, who will be a little bit nicer to do his room. It will be a little bit nicer to the bicycle messenger. And if everyone did it, there would be peace on earth. So you can react when you hear that, just by when you hear world of that's being crazy, just by being peaceful in yourself into those rounds. So peace in yourself, piece in the world. It's a great mess.

30:17 It's another it's another great quote. I'm really sorry that I never got to see him or meet him before he passed away. I think he used to come at their retreats in France, and when I moved to London, I thought, oh, that's not so far anymore. But anyway, may he rest in peace, give to the world. You know, I'm standing in front of the ocean. I used to say, you know, a wave is something before it's a wave, and it's a waved something after the way there is no death, there is no fear, there is no birth. And he said surely before he died, if you think I'm not going to be around anymore than you don't know much about it. Yeah, the Buddhists have got the best approach to just to lie and everything I find.

31:01 They just got it all worked out. They've got it all worked out. Yea. But that whole the whole concept about just managing yourself to you knows you said you got somebody hadn't called you back. And I do the same thing, like I fun. It's a fun. I'm getting irritated about something and I can just take that moment to pause and calm myself before I react. And I just think, if more people in the world larry, if more people in the world could just take a beat just take a pause before they just react. You know, maybe we wouldn't have all of this, all of the drama and chaos and everything. I agree, I think we would. It works, And that to get back to your touch of madness, Larry, the third step the listeners are wondering.

31:45 So the third step is play. So let's talk about that. So this idea of I mean, I talk about play as well, and the importance of just kind of doing things that are for fun and silly and not losing that sense of playfulness. But how does that relate to creativity? These treating things like a game? So I think you, I think, I mean, you have a great podcast. I listened to on that about just being fun, and I agree with what you said. The fun is wildly underrated in today's world. We were ying, heared of it, we have it. Fun is great And you know, again you know more about this than iway, But studies show in a state of playing, a state of fund, you're more creative, you're open, you're relaxed, you're more creative, and it does allow you to do the things that not in a state of play, you wouldn't do.

32:32 And so when I first got to that first job. The company had greenlit its first movie that I was not involved in green lighting, and it was sort of a what we would call today an ultribal budget Game of Thrones kind of. And the guy who ran in the company was a great destructive entrepreneur sit to be that. We new staff. Okay, I want violence, I want SWORDI finding, I want sorcery, I want sex, I want injurgue, I want backstabbing. And we went down a list and someone in the room said, and what about snakes And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, and us that was just a fun battle cry. There were no snakes and wizards in the movie. We already had a producer on set in row and we would end there recall by singing, I remember snakes and wizards, just a joke. So I get to the movie and it's going really well, and well, I mean I thought it.

33:17 You know, it was my first movie with how did I know? And they kept they told me at one point they have a surprise for me. They were very excited as the daycame closer. When the Daycne Cloak was there. After lunch, we went out back and they're all standing around me and we're looking at the hills of Rome behind us, and there's nothing. And then I see a little dot and the dot looks like it's dart, and I see it's a truck. And now they're in a semicircle behind me, and they the band was playing. A band was playing, and the truck is getting closer, and I see it's very brightly colored painted, and I don't know what the hell was going on. The truck backs up. The doors burst open, and out rushes a bunch of women's snake charmers, I mean burmese, pythons and all kinds of things, and a bunch of people dressed beautifully it's wizards and they were running around. Everyone applauded, but there were no snakes and wizards of the movie. It was a joke. We just forgot to tell the producer it was a joke. So not in a state of play, I might have freaked out, what the hell are you doing?

34:14 How did you spend this money? This is a budget, we're wasting time, This is crazy. In a state of play, which I was, because I was so happy to be in roallmaking movie. You know where they had winded lunch thinking well, look what they did. It was such a great effort. I still thought, what do I do I mean? And so I said, you know what, put them on in the movie, and we somehow stuck him in the movie. And the movie honestly it is terrible, but the snakes and wizards looked great, and the movie didn't make a ton of money. So only in the state of play would I have done that. And so therefore it's a hard thing to do because you know, I always bring my dogs to work, and you know you're in the middle of something in the dog walks in with it, you know, the plush football, and he wants to play football, and you start to say, no, no, I don't have He said, well, I do have time. I have five minutes football with this dog. Well, what do you think is gonna happen?

35:11 Holly was going to go away because I play football in my dograph five minutes. But your mind tells you know, so you can get to practice there or or sometimes leave work and go get a frozen yogurt or something. It does make you better. It's caudra intuitive to what we're taught, but it makes you better. And you've got to play the whole thing like a game. You just have to play. I think you have to play it all like a game. You know, if you think about you know, boxing, for example, and you're the best boxer in the world and you win every fight, you still get hit about fifty times in every round if you win. So you know, if in American baseball, if you if you bat three hundred meetings, three out of ten times you get a hit, you're a superstar. So you got to take that like a game where goes well, then I're all going to connect. And that's okay because it's a game. You got to play it that way. And it's again, it's it's practice. But it you think you can't.

36:08 We so underrate fun. I look, I've I during the pandemic, I doubled down. I developed a lot of movies, and a lot of my upcoming movies are really kind of in a center we would call today politically incorrect playful films, and we'll see. I think it's the right thing to do because I think the audience is starved for play. Yeah. I think you're right. I think you're right. I don't think you've gone too far wrong so far, Larry, So I trust you. Thank you, Larry. I so appreciate your time today this. It has been such a fun conversation. Is there any last message that you would leave for listeners listening to this? Figure out what you really creatively want to do. Take the most crazy idea you have, the one that everyone's going to tell your nuts. Do it? You know. I have come to the point now where if I pitch something like a movie and people tell me, oh, it's a great idea, I get a little nervous. But if they say, oh, you're crazy, that will never work. I feel this kind of calm enveloping me, like like I'm missed in the morning walk on the beach, where a touch of the madness circles around me like a shroud, and I go, Okay, everyone thinks I'm crazy, I must be right, and I go, do them get to that point in your language.

37:19 I love it. I love it. Thank you so much, Larry. It's been a pleasure. I really appreciate it. Take care. Larry's book, A Touch with the Madness is available now in all bookstores. He's also available for keynote speeches on the same topic. If you enjoy this episode, please share with a friend. Make sure you press the plus button. So that you never miss an episode. I can't wait to catch you on the next episode of Crappy to Happy