>> Having a family means being responsible with money. You agree with that, don't you? >> Oh, yes, sir. I totally agree with that, sir. I've always believed that a penny saved is a penny earned. Did I say something? >> Daddy's mother's name was Penny, and he keeps her ashes in an urn. >> Welcome to Director's Cut. I'm your guest host, Doug Gordon. That was a clip from the 1992 American independent comedy film, "Meet the Parents." This film inspired the 2000 remake of the same name starring Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro. We're joined today by the writer, director and star of the original "Meet the Parents," Greg Glienna. Thank you so much for joining us today, Greg. >> Thanks for having me. >> Congratulations on "Meet the Parents." It's been what, 21 years now since it came out. I missed it on the first go round. I just watched it recently and really enjoyed it. I think it held up very well. >> I can't believe you cut out that penny saved, penny earned joke. You kept the urn, but dropped that joke, and didn't understand it. >> Yeah, before you made "Meet the Parents," Greg, you made a short film called "The Vase." Can you tell me about that? >> Well, that was right out of film school. I made a silent movie. It was black and white, silent movie with no sound about a guy who goes to meet his girlfriend's parents, and he breaks their prize vase. It was just a little five-minute thing, and it played a TV show in Chicago called "Image Union," which was on PBS. I had the idea for turning that into a feature. I just thought, why couldn't it be the entire weekend. The guy goes, and everything goes wrong. And that's how it all started. >> Which you did, and we'll get to that shortly. But first, we have a clip from "The Vase." Let's roll that clip right now.
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>> That's a great clip. You mentioned, Greg, that you hadn't seen it for...? >> Subtle, it's not. >> No. >> I didn't have a copy of it. I haven't seen that in many years. >> Wow. You used sound very creatively in "The Vase." There's that silent movie piano music, which you composed and played, which was very nice. Then later on, after the vase breaks, you, as we heard in that clip, the sound track changes. You lose the piano music, although it comes back later. We have screams, a clock ticking and things like that. So it makes me wonder, how important is sound in a comedy film? >> You know, it's funny. When I did "Meet the Parents," I was essentially trying to make a silent movie with dialogue. I wanted to map it out like a silent comedy, where the story could be told visually, and then just add dialogue to it. I tried to put no jokes in it. You know, the people aren't trying to be funny. They're just speaking. You know, there may be funny lines, like the penny saved, penny earned, but nobody's trying to be funny. >> Yeah. >> So I was really trying to make a silent movie that had dialogue. >> And you touched on that a bit earlier, before we saw that clip, but what inspired you to take the vase and, you know, this five-minute short and then turn it, expand it into a feature length film, "Meet the Parents"? >> I don't know. I just got this idea about why couldn't I just do an entire movie that had no plot. It just was basically sight gags and things going wrong. I don't remember the moment I got that idea, but I bounced it off my friend, Emo Philips, who you know, at the time was a very successful comedian. I was opening for him, doing standup comedy. He had seen "The Vase" on Chicago Public Television. I told him I had this idea for turning this film into a feature. He's like, well, write the script. If I like it, I'll put some money into it. So that's what inspired me to write it. >> He obviously liked it, because he appears in a cameo as a video store clerk, and he put some money into it. >> He funded it, yeah. >> Wow. The operating principle for "Meet the Parents" reminds me of Jerry Lewis' famous quote, "The premise of all comedy is a man in trouble." I'm curious about how you and your co-writer, Mary Ruth Clark, who also appears in the film, how you went about developing it. You touched on it earlier, but there had to be some strategy in terms of escalating the conflicts. >> I remember, we had brainstormed and thought of all these disasters. We put them all on cards, and we were arranging them in order of like from bad to worse, you know, just kind of keep it building. >> And that's what happens. That's what happens. >> I do believe that quote is true, that comedy is just anything that's not funny that happens to somebody else. >> Right, if it happens, what is the quote, if I slip on a banana peel, it's a tragedy, but if you, somebody else, or anybody but me slips on a banana peel, it's comedy. I wanted to ask you, also, about the sound, the dialogue. You mentioned that you wanted it to play visually, primarily physical comedy. But dialogue does play a part. As you said, there are some funny lines. Were you trying to find a balance between physical and dialogue? >> I've always thought you could take most silent comedies, or a Buster Keaton film, and you could just add realistic dialogue, because what makes them funny is the situation. I just tried to have a film that you could make as a silent film, but not have subtitles, just put in naturalistic dialogue, the way people talk in those circumstances. >> Mm-hmm, yeah. >> I've always thought that you could take any silent comedy and just add dialogue. It's the situations that are funny. >> Definitely, and your co-writer who also appears in the film, Mary Ruth Clarke, how did you meet her? She wasn't involved in "The Vase," was she? >> No, I had done another short film that she was in. I knew she had written some plays, so when I had this task of writing the film when Emo had said write it, so I didn't know anything about writing. I had never written any feature films before. I went to her because I knew she had written some plays. I'd never heard phrases like "exposition" before. >> You were very young when you made it, weren't you? Not that you're not young now. I mean it was right out of college. Let's take a look at a clip from "Meet the Parents." This is a scene from early on in the film, shortly after your character, Greg, has just met his girlfriend's parents. Let's roll that clip. >> Pam tells me that you used to own a gas station. >> Used to. I'm retired now. >> That's what Pam said. >> I do a lot of fishing now. Did some the other day. I caught some trout. I sold it. >> Really? Where'd you sell it? >> To some Japanese investors. >> Fish? >> No, not the fish, the gas station. I sold it to some Japanese investors. >> Right. I thought you were talking about the fish. >> Did you ever do any fishing? >> No, I never have. >> Well, we'll do some fishing tomorrow at the lake. How does that sound? >> That's great. >>
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Bingo is so happy to see me. Here you go. >> How old it he? >> Let's see, we got him when he was six months-- Eight years old. >> He's very friendly. >> He loves people. >> Bingo, stop that. Bingo. >> Dogs are such loyal creatures. I know a guy who once took his dog and his family on a vacation to the Grand Canyon. When they got there, they lost their dog. Naturally, they were heartbroken. When they got home after a couple of days, who do you think they saw waiting for 'em on the front porch? >> The dog? >> No, not the dog. The police. The police were there to tell them that they'd found their dog in the Grand Canyon. The dog.
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What'd you think he'd do? Run down the highway?
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>> What I really like about that scene is it shows just how much trouble your character Greg had connecting with Pam's father. It's kind of theater of the absurd meets theater of the awkward, isn't it? >> Yeah. I laughed at one of those. One of those reaction shots of the dad we took from when he was waiting for us to say "action." It always makes me laugh. >> Yeah, yeah, it's kind of the opposite of I was thinking. I was going to ask you, but I'm not going to bother. I was thinking usually, you know, often they talk-- a common question is, how did you develop chemistry, or how did the characters develop chemistry? In this case, you didn't want chemistry. >> Yeah. >> You took on a lot with this film, Greg. You co-wrote it, starred it, and directed it. And it was your first feature film, right? Was it tough to handle all that? >> Yeah, but I didn't know it. You know, I just kind of did it. I just remember, we shot it in two weeks, and it was just two weeks of nightmare and long, long hours. We had all these problems. But, you know, if it comes out on film, it's all worth it. >> Yeah, definitely. For sure, it is worth it. How did it do at the box office? >> Our version played a theater in Chicago called the Music Box. It did very, very well. It played a couple of other theaters. It didn't get very much theatrical, it got-- The guy who owned the Music Box tried to sell it to other independent theaters, arthouse theaters, and the problem he was having with it was it was too comedic to be an arthouse film, but it's too low-budget to be mainstream. It kind of fell between those two extremes. >> Nowadays though I don't think it would be considered too low-budget to be mainstream, do you? What with the Indy film method? >> Yeah. That didn't exist, I think, as much at the time. But it was supposed to be released by National Lampoon and they put ads out for it, and then that ended up not happening. >> They even had they name in it, right? As "National Lampoon's Meet the Parents." That's too bad that that didn't happen. Then though something did happen, obviously. Let's fast-forward how many years? One year, two years or something? >> It was like two or three years. It played in London at the National Film Theatre. It would play here and there. It played in Atlanta somewhere. It got to Steven Soderbergh somehow and he called me up and said, this should be a big studio release. Of course, he was right. He said he was going to direct it. They brought Mary Ruth and I to New York. We met with him and worked with him for three days on the re-write. Then, in timely Hollywood fashion, five years went by and it's a different director. >> Yeah, I want to ask you a bit about this. So Steven Soderbergh calls, director of "Sex, Lies and Videotape," more recently the "Ocean's Eleven" trilogy. >> This was before all that. >> Right, yeah. >> Well, it was after "Sex, Lies and Videotape." >> Yeah, yeah. >> But anyway, you're not expecting this call, and he brings you and your co-writer, Mary Ruth Clark, to New York to write the screenplay. What kind of notes did he give you? >> We got rid of the story within a story wraparound. >> Which I actually liked. I thought that was cool. >> We put that in so we could have it end badly. We thought that if it was just a story then it's not as bad. So we dropped that. We put some of the elements that were in the re-make that were not in my film in there. We made boyfriend Mr.Wonderful instead of this scary dude like he is in ours. I think those were the main things, just toning down some of the dark humor at the end and-- >> Were you okay with that? >> Oh, yeah! Yeah, I was fine with it I think had he directed it I think it would have wound up closer to what the original one is. >> Yeah, yeah. >> That's what he liked about it. >> It's fun to imagine that, Steve Soderbergh's take on "Meet the Parents." Let's look at another clip from "Meet the Parents." Things have gone from bad to worse, and your character just wants to head back home. Let's roll that clip.
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>> If the car won't start we'll have to stay another night. >> The car is starting. >> Daddy, Greg, dinner's on. You'd better come in now. >> Just one more thing, all right? >> We're just gonna try one more thing. >> Oh, my God! Greg, you feet! Get off my rug! Take you shoes off.
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What is the matter with you!?! >> Pam, can I speak to you for just a second? >> Greg, it's dinner. >> Please, just for a second. We have to leave tonight, Pam. >> How are we supposed to go? Walk? >> If we have to. Pam, I really can't stay here another night, all right? We can take a bus or a train or something. I'll come back and I'll get the car. I just, I really can't stay here. >> How's that supposed to look? Look, it's just one more night. We'll have to car looked at in the morning. Let's just go eat. >> Pam, I really can't stay here another night, all right? I feel like I'm under a curse or something. It's like if I open my mouth I offend somebody. If I touch something it breaks. I throw a stick out in the water, the dog drowns. You know, what next? >> I don't know what next,I'm going to dinner. I think you'd better go with me. They're expecting us. >> Greg just informed me those are actual ashes. >> Yeah, we shot that scene at a funeral parlor in their urn room, so they had unclaimed people. >> That's what I was going to ask, they were unclaimed. Okay, if they were someone, that's a whole 'nother film. >> They would have got a percentage. >> Exactly. After Soderbergh doesn't happen then you ended up selling the right to the characters to the studio. Can you tell me about that? >> We sold the film. What unfortunately did not happen was that there was not a separation in the legal writing between the film and the script. So when they bought the script they essentially bought the film as well, which I wish they had done differently, but I didn't know at the time. >> That means, meant, that you and you and Mary Ruth ended up with just a "based on characters by" credit, right? >> That was because there was five other writers who worked on it, and in order to share credit with the original writers you have to write 50% or more. There were so many other writers that no one of those people could have said they wrote 50%. We would have wound up with sole writing credit. One of the other writers got very upset about this and was calling my agent. He was good friends with the director. The Writers' Guild, a couple of days later, called us and said, we've put you in this other category "based upon a previous source." It's usually only used for books. I think they were just being political. That's the reason we got "storied by" in a film that has no story essentially. >> That must have been disappointing. >> It was, yeah. But, oh well. >> What did you think of the re-make the first time you saw it? >> I liked it. I thought it was-- I was interesting to see how they, kind of, blew everything up, and sort of, just-- Overflowing the toilet, the entire yard, the septic tank. Everything was-- It was interesting to see the changes. But I thought it was very funny and deservedly successful. >> Yeah, yeah. >> I thought Ben Stiller played it perfectly, and Robert De Niro. >> Yeah, yeah. I wanted to ask you also about the sequels. What did you think of the sequels to the re-make? >> The first one I think had a reason for existing, but the second one I thought was just, you know, a paycheck for all the people. Including myself. >> A cash grabber. >> Artistically, I didn't think there was any need for it. >> If you don't mind my asking, Greg, a paycheck for yourself, do you get points? >> I have net points. >> Okay. >> Which means nothing. I've gotten nothing from that. But I do get residuals on the original one, and I got a payment for each of the sequels. I can't complain. >> That's all right, yeah. One of the things I wondered about when watching your original version of "Meet the Parents" was, was any of this based in reality? Did you have similar nightmarish experiences with girlfriends' parents or anything? >> No, it was pretty much all thinking of the worst possible things that could have happened. >> Okay, so it was not a case of art imitating life. Well, that's a relief. >> For me it is, yeah. >> What kind of advice do you have for people who want to do what you did, write, direct and star in their own film? >> I would say, do it! You know, technology has made it easier than ever. If you have something good people might see it and things will happen. I say, do it, and in the worst case, you're gonna learn from it. You really learn from making bad movies I think. >> Yeah, that's the only way to learn is from experience. >> Yeah. >> And if things go well, as they did for you, 21 years later we here talking about it. >> But I would say, make sure you have a good script, because a lot of people make the films and they don't put the time in. It all depends on your script. If you have a good script, it usually will translate to a good film. If you don't have the story to begin with-- >> There's probably a tendency among a lot of young people, young filmmakers, oh, we'll just do it. We'll improvise. >> Yeah. It's just a story-telling medium, and you have to have a story worth telling. >> Was there much improvisation? You had a solid screenplay, but did you come up with bits during the actually filming? >> Yeah, we shot it so quickly, one take of everything. Here and there there's little ad-libs with the lines, but more or less, it was pretty much following the script. It was shot all out of order. We would shoot, you know, light one angle, and shoot everything from that corner of the room. Just change cloths and do line. So it was shot very much out of order. We pretty much couldn't ad-lib to much. >> In a very compressed schedule, two weeks is nothing. That's nothing for a feature length film, is it? >> We shot this at a friend of my mother's. She thought, oh, a movie! How nice. She had no idea what she was getting into. I just remember one night at three in the morning we're filming and she comes down, "Could you guys keep it down? We're trying to sleep." We tried to do some re-shooting like two weeks later. She had painted the room. I think she just wanted to keep us out. >> Could well be. >> She was not happy about it, this army invading her house. >> Okay, let's take a look at one more clip from the original version of "Meet the Parents." This is a scene featuring Greg's co-writer, Mary Ruth Clark. She plays Greg's girlfriend's sister, Fay. Fay is obsessed with becoming a big singing star. She's been bugging Greg's character throughout the film to listen to her sing because she thinks that Greg can convince Ed McMann to get her on Star Search. This is just after Greg has relented and finally allowed Fay to sing for him. Let's roll that clip. What did you think? >> I really don't know anything about music. I don't know Ed McMann. >> Well, did you like it? >> It was good. >> Well, what did you really think? I mean, did it move you? Okay. All right. Well, what didn't you like about it? I mean, the only way to improve is through constructive criticism. I need to know what you didn't like so that I can fix it. >> Look, I really don't know anything about music. >> You have an opinion, don't you? I mean, you know what you like and you don't like, don't you? What do you think I need to work on? >> I don't know. I was good. >> Just one little suggestion. One little criticism. Compliments are fine, but you cannot learn from them. Am I right? I mean, as fellow artist, what do you think I need to work on? >> I don't know. >> Just one little suggestion. >> Maybe you need to take some more lessons, I don't know. But it was good though. I liked it. I really did.
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>> "Maybe you need to take some more lessons." Wrong answer! You've had a lot of success since "Meet the Parents," Greg. You wrote the 2003 film "A Guy Thing" starring Jason Lee and you wrote and directed "Relative Strangers" which came out in 2006 and stars Danny DeVito and Kathy Bates. Anything that you learned while making the original "Meet the Parents" that you were able to use on the set when you were making "Relative Strangers?" >> That's a good question. I suppose, yeah, there's just things-- It's so much easier to shoot a film with a budget. I was amazed at how easy it was. You have so much help to do everything. One thing I missed was I had a lot of rehearsals on this film. I also directed another independent film called "Desperation Boulevard," and for both that film and "Meet the Parents" I did a lot of rehearsal. I treated it like a play and opening night was filming. Whereas with stars you don't rehearse. A lot of times I would meet-- You know, we had a lot of names in the film, and you meet them the day you're filming. You have a tight schedule. I felt like, in a way, I didn't have as much control over directing on that film as I did on the smaller budgets. >> What are you working on these days, Greg? >> Just writing some stuff. I have another film that I just sold to the Hallmark Channel. I'm just writing stuff. >> Congratulations. Can you tell us anything about that? >> It's romantic comedy. >> Yeah, yeah. Is that a genre that you're attracted to? >> Comedy is comedy. As long as it's funny. All film are, or all comedies, are romantic comedies in a way. >> That's true. That's a very good point. Certainly "Meet the Parents" is. It must be kind of surreal though, 21 years after you made "Meet the Parents" to still be talking about it. >> Yeah, I hadn't seen a lot of these clips in a long time. It's fun too. >> It's fun for you. What else do you feel? What was going through your mind when you were watching the clips? >> I remember every horrible thing when we were filming, every problem on the set and things but, you know, it's interesting to watch. >> So it brings back a combination of good memories and bad memories. >> Mainly bad. >> Okay, well, thank you so much, Greg. And congratulations, 21 years after you made it. Congratulations on the original "Meet the Parents." >> Thank you. >> It was really a pleasure talking to you. Thanks so much for joining us. And thank you for watching Director's Cut. For more information on "Meet the Parents" please go to www.wpt.org and clip on Director's Cut. I'm your guest host, Doug Gordon. Until next time remember, we can always fix it in post. >> Every time I see it I'm going to be reminded about this. The kids are going to go, "What happened to Grandma's eye?" I put it out with a fishing pole, that's all.
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>> We're home! It's all right. It's all right. It was just a scratch. >> The doctors said she probably won't even loose the eye.
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