Interview with The Dude, Jeff Dowd
Interview Date: 10/18/2005
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To cult movie fans, Jeff Dowd’s greatest accomplishment will likely forever be the fact that he’s credited as being the inspiration for the character of The Dude in “The Big Lebowski.” (For the record, it only requires a few moments worth of conversation with him to determine that Jeff Bridges really nailed the impression of Dowd’s voice.) There’s a lot more to Dowd than The Dude, however. His movie career spans decades, and he’s had his hand in many classic films, from “Gandhi” to “War Games.” Dowd spoke with Bullz-Eye about some of those flicks, his upcoming book, and the special edition of “Lebowski” that’s just hit stores. He also makes twice as many references to Huey Lewis than your average interview subject, and, as you’ll read, performs an act of coolness that confirms that he truly is...The Dude.
Jeff Dowd: Hey, Will, how are ya...?
Bullz-Eye: Pretty good, Jeff; how are you?
JD: Where are you?
BE: I am in Chesapeake, Virginia.
JD: Fantastic!
BE: And where are you today?
JD: I’m out in California.
BE: Good enough.
JD: Chesapeake, Virginia. Where’s that, exactly...?
BE: That is right next door to Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
JD: Fantastic.
BE: Pretty close to the water, anyway.
JD: So you’re an East Coast beach guy.
BE: The palest one you’ve ever seen.
JD: (Laughs) So what can I do for you?
BE: Well, I understand that, unlike “Fargo,” which was purportedly based
on a true story, I guess you were more or less the inspiration for “The Big
Lebowski.”
JD: Well, the character, anyway. I mean, I knew Joel and Ethan (Coen)
quite well; I got to know them during “Blood Simple,” and I think they wanted to
do some kind of buddy movie, and they thought the character of what they thought
I might’ve been like back in the ‘70s would be a good departure point...to put
‘em in there with Walter (played by John Goodman), a guy who would get him in a
lot of trouble all the time, as often happens, whether it’s “Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid” or “Lethal Weapon” or “Some Like It Hot” or, y’know, any buddy
movie where, like, one guy’s getting another guy in trouble.
BE: How did you come across the Coens? I know you met them in ’81, but
how did that actually come to pass...?
JD: I actually met ‘em indirectly because of Robert Redford. An investor
in “Blood Simple” happened to be in Sundance, when we were starting the Sundance
Institute, and he said, “Hey, I put some money into this, what should I do?” And
Redford took him over to introduce him to me on the lawn of this mountain up
there in Utah. A couple of months later, I met Joel and Ethan Coen back in New
York City, when I went back there for the New York Film Festival. I happened to
be at 20th Century Fox that day with a film called “Heart Like A Wheel,” and,
because I was in New York, I happened to have a jacket and a tie on, which you
do in New York sometimes. So I was at the Fox offices, and they came in, and
they’re kind looking real grubby, as Joel and Ethan Coen tend to look –
especially back then – and chain-smoking cigarettes and unshaven and all that,
and I’m looking like the suit from Fox! And they’re kinda telling me about this
movie that’s in post-production, and you can imagine trying to pitch “Blood
Simple.” “Oh, yeah, this dead guy gets dragged across a field, and, then...”
Well, anyhow, we left, and I kinda sensed, “Well, that’s the end of that,” and I
think they did, too, even though I was trying to humor them, because the setting
was so weird. Fortunately, by chance, I ran into them down in the Village that
night on the street. I had a leather jacket on, and we chatted for a couple of
minutes. And, even more karmically, two hours later, I’m in a party in the East
Village in some loft, and there they are there! So now we’re having a couple of
drinks, and so we said, “Okay, there’s something going on here.” And they showed
me the movie a couple of months later, and the minute you saw that movie...y’know,
there’s certain movies where you’re five or ten minutes into them and you go,
“Wow, I’m dealing with some real filmmakers here!” And you could tell that just
by the choices they made in the acting and the cutting and everything. So I
ended up helping them sell “Blood Simple,” which, I’ll just say parenthetically,
was turned down 3 times by every distributor until we finally got it in front of
an audience. Well, we had actually shown it to a couple of audiences, but we
finally got a distributor to see it in front of an audience at the Toronto Film
Festival, and, all of a sudden, the black humor started to work. I mean, if you
sit alone in a screening room or watch it on a tape, then it really doesn’t work as well, because you think it’s a little weird to laugh at certain things,
but, in the comfort of 800 people in a dark room, people tend to start to laugh
at the places they’re supposed to laugh and get it a little more. So, then, we
had a minor little bidding war, and the rest is history!
BE: And you’ve maintained the friendship with them over the years...?
JD: Yeah! I mean, they’re not the most social of guys in a lot of
ways...not to say that they’re not very friendly guys, but they don’t hang a lot, so to speak. But, yeah, we see each other from time to time...I’ll be in
New York or they’ll be in L.A. or we’ll be at a film festival or an event and
have drinks or dinner or whatever.
BE: You mentioned Redford and Sundance; my understanding is that you had
a hand in the creation of the Sundance Institute. Is that right?
JD: Well, I was one of the early people there when it was first started, yeah,
very much so, both in terms of, uh... (Drifts off into thought for a moment)
I helped put together a conference about the future of what the indie world
might be like, and we got about fifty people who came. I shouldn’t say a
conference; it was more of a gathering. And we talked about, as Roger Ebert
would say, how we would make independent films fashionable, like foreign films
were when we were going to college. And I think, twenty years later, it’s fair
to say we succeeded, and that world, that movement, whatever you want to call
it, has grown, y’know, a lot. And I’m very much involved – always and still,
even as recently as an hour ago – in the dramaturging of scripts, which is
really the basis of cinema...and the thought was that we were all seeing
independent movies that had great vision but weren’t quite working, from people
throughout the United States. Not just in Hollywood, but they might be in New
York City, Seattle, or wherever. Montana, maybe. And we were saying, “Geez, if
we could only help those people...!” And I didn’t put it in a patronizing way,
but it was more like, “How many times have you been in a movie and seen a movie
and gone, ‘God, if they’d only done this!’” And we were having that feeling with
these independent movies, and so Redford’s thought was, “Well, gee, if we could
bring together the best of Hollywood, some of the best writers – the Waldo Salts
(“Midnight Cowboy”) and guys like that – and some of the best directors, and put
‘em with these people before they make their movie...and in the sense that the
Eugene O’Neil Center does theater stuff, we could do that with movies and people
could have a chance to reflect on things before they shoot, and, therefore, they
could be better movies. That was the thought of the Sundance Institute, and I
was fortunate enough to be there to participate in those early meetings and the
structure and to be there the first year. In this book I’ve written...well,
which I’m almost finished with...”The Dude Abides”...there’s a really great
chapter about Sundance. Really funny. And interesting.
BE: And that’s actually a perfect segueway, because I wanted to ask you
about your book. I’ve heard that, at many of your public appearances, you’re
doing readings from the still-unreleased book.
JD: Well, I’m starting to do that. I’m going to be in Boston in a few
weeks, and I’ll be doing that at (Boston University), but I’m not really doing
it that much until I...well, like, there are some chapters that are unto
themselves, but I need about a month and a half or two months to finish all the
editing of the book, and, then, after that, I’m gonna be doing big tours and
reads and all that. And more than that, there’ll be Reading Parties with The
Dude, the whole nine yards. It’ll be a whole lot of fun.
BE: Do you have a scheduled release date yet?
JD: Most ambitiously, it’ll be in the spring, but, most likely, next
fall. I mean, if I was doing nothing else, it could be next spring, but I’ll be
working on other people’s movies, you know, and movies I’ve worked on
previously. I wish I was in Italy or on some island somewhere, so I could finish
it. I’m sure, as a writer, you know. You’ve had that feeling yourself.
BE: Oh, yes. I’ve got a whole lot less time these days. I’ve got a
newborn daughter.
JD: There you go. And congratulations. I have two of them, and the day
will come when your life is reduced to being a taxicab driver for a
teenager...one who doesn’t have wheels yet, and you’re kind of glad that she
doesn’t!
BE: So you talked about working with movies right now. What pies do you
have your finger in at the moment?
JD: Well, I’m in involved in a grown-up version of Huck
Finn...Huckleberry Finn...kind of a re-imagining of it which we’re developing
that’s more along the lines of Twain and very, very relevant to today. There’s a
great script that we’re taking out there right now to put together called “Ghost
Country,” which is about a Vietnam vet, kind of haunted by the past, goes back
to Vietnam, where, amongst other things, his brother was a long-range
reconnaissance guy, and the brother and his lost patrol have reappeared. It’s
very much a thriller, an incredible page-turner, but it’s very deep and a great,
great script; it’s just gonna be a great movie. And I’m involved in...well,
basically, all the different ones I’m involved in are kind of
deep-end-of-the-pool stuff and really good...movies that should be fairly
commercial, but they have a lot of...well, they’re actors movies, lemme just put
it that way. So it’s really good stuff. And I’m writing one called “Nifty,”
about what’s possible in the world today. Rather than wait around for
politicians and hope they’re gonna do something, why not put it out in a movie?
And rather than just having apocalyptical movies...which I think are cautionary
tales; like, “Dr. Strangelove” or “The Terminator” are important and
wonderful...it’d be nice to have a movie that shows what’s possible tomorrow
afternoon. It’s very ambitious, and I’m working with Preston Sturges, Jr., on
that. It’s called “Nifty.” That’s a phenomenally ambitious script, but it’s
good. It’s really good.
BE: Talking of politics, I hear you’re very big on the film, “Going
Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry.”
JD: Yeah, I thought it was a very remarkable movie, both for the times
and who Kerry was before he unfortunately became a politician... not that he’s
not much more capable in my mind than our current president. But he certainly
isn’t quite the man he was at the time he was in Vietnam. It’s a very, very
interesting story, and, despite what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth trying to
say that he didn’t deserve all of that stuff, the movie speaks to the reality of
what really happens. There’s no doubt that he was a captain and his men were in
very perilous situations numerous times, and one of the most dangerous things
you could do in Vietnam at the time was be in a swift boat...and, then, to watch
these guys have an anti-war conscience was very powerful. And I related to it
personally because, when I was 17, many of my best friends became Marines and
went to Vietnam...and I was ready to do the same thing, and, had I been a year
older, I would’ve done it, too. But I didn’t, nor did any of their young
brothers, because we got the word back from these guys, saying, “Don’t go! This
war isn’t what we thought it was!” So I can personally relate to Kerry’s own
change of views about what it meant to be a patriot. Initially, it meant signing
up to go to Vietnam, and, later, it meant vigorously opposing it, which I ended
up doing, too...and going to jail for! And that’s one of the reasons I related a
lot to that movie, because I knew there was a truth of a whole generation in
there, regardless of what Karl Rowe and the Swift Boat organization are trying
to do with their character assassination.
Representative monitoring interview: Hey, Will, I’m gonna have to jump in! We’ve only got one more moment left, and,
uh, did you want to talk about “The Big Lebowski”? Did you have any questions
about the DVD at all?
BE: (Stunned) Uh,
yeah, of course...
JD: (Laughing) Yeah, we were kinda drifting off into the Sundance
there...
BE: With “The Big Lebowski,” I guess the New York LebowskiFest is right
around the corner... (Writer’s note: in fact, it was actually October 21st
and 22nd)
JD: Yeah, that’s a gas; anyone who likes the movie will like that...but
lemme just tell you something about the DVD.
BE: Absolutely.
JD: It’s very likely that, from all the people I’ve met around the
world...I don’t just mean at LebowskiFests, but just in a general social
context...that most people, like records in the old days, have probably
scratched to hell their DVD of “Lebowski” and probably need another one, anyway.
There’s this collector’s edition that I happened to get a few days early, before
it hits the streets, and I thought it was a gas. Watching the interviews with
Joel and Ethan Coen, and this edition comes with coasters to put drinks on and
everything, one with Donnie saying, “I am the walrus,” and one saying, “Hey,
careful, man, there’s a beverage there,” and stuff like that. And there’s a
bowling towel. It’s a fun little thing. But what I think is interesting about it
is that this movie brings so much pleasure to people in a world where so many of
us have to put on a mask everyday to go to work and be somebody that we’re not.
And it helps us relax. It’s a hell of a present to give to a friend who, during
the day, has to be a little more uptight than they actually are. My friend Huey
Lewis would say, “I want a new drug.” Well, in a certain sense, “The Big
Lebowski” is one. If you go on my website, JeffDowd.com, there’s a letter from a
New York fireman who was a 9/11 fireman and suffered from post-traumatic stress
syndrome for months; it was just a terrible situation, and he tried therapy and
drugs...and then, one day, he picked up a copy of “The Big Lebowski” that he had
sitting on a shelf. And he put it in, and, for the first time in months, he
started to smile again...and, then, laugh again. And his wife sat there and
talked to me and said, “This is what brought him back as a husband and father,
and thank you for being in some way a part of this ‘Big Lebowski’ thing.” And,
so, I think that’s...for a movie that, on many levels, is just a lot of fun,
let’s not underestimate how important fun is in this world, y’know, and having
fun with your friends is. And I think that’s kind of why this movie endures in
so many ways. It’s almost like an album that has not just one or two good songs
on it but 15 good songs on it. It’s just like you put on an album to hear
those songs again; it’s great to watch the movie again.
BE: And I guess this has now become my last question: since the word got
out that you were kind of the inspiration for “The Dude,” do you ever get tired
of the endless stream of questions that I’m sure you now get, where it’s, “Is
this part you? Is this part you? Is this part you?”
JD: No, because it comes with the gift that Joel and Ethan laying a gift
on me, which is that most people are very favorably inclined to be friendly
toward me, which is, in this world, a wonderful thing. In a world where we all
put up our guards, to have strangers walk up to you and automatically be
friendly...and not in a Hollywood star kind of way, but in a
you’ve-known-them-for-years kind of way, or like we have mutual friends or
something. Like, “Hey, aren’t you a buddy of Joe’s?” It’s, like, “Hey, you’re
the Dude!” It’s a different thing. So having to answer a few questions, to
answer your question, yeah, physically, it’s got me at 110%. In terms of the
story, yeah, some of the stuff is true, Like Seattle 7 and the SDS (Students for
a Democratic Society). But, no, I was never a roadie for Metallica...although,
ironically, I ended up working on their movie this year: “Metallica:
Some Kind of Monster.” But the story is Joel and Ethan’s imagination, as
always: a Raymond Chandler story on acid, in L.A., about two buddies and their
friends. And they stuck in what they thought I was like in that thing, partially
because they liked to riff on my name...the whole “dude, dude, dudearino.”
They’d always get on the phone and go, “Dude, dude, dudearino,” and stuff like
that. I think that was part of the whole thing...
BE: Okay, well, I guess...
JD: And, hey, look, sorry about the short time on this...
BE: Yeah, it was a little faster than I thought it would be...but I guess
the final thing is, does the Dude abide?
JD: The Dude abides.
BE: Excellent.
As we’re saying our goodbyes, Dowd asks if I’d mind sending him a copy of the
piece once it’s done; he gives me his E-mail address, sheepishly admitting that
“TheDude@aol.com was long gone by the time I got online.” As it turned out, I had a
few questions left that I hadn’t been able to ask Dowd...so I took advantage of
having his E-mail address and dropped him a line. I asked him if, provided he
had the opportunity, he’d mind dropping me back a quick reply...and, if he
didn’t have the time, then no problem and thanks for the chance to talk to him
earlier.
About an hour later, the phone rings.
It’s The Dude.
“Man, I’ll be glad to answer your questions,” he says, “but I’d just rather do
it over the phone than write ‘em in an E-mail.”
Unfortunately, at the moment he calls, my 11-week-old daughter begins to cry.
Dowd asks, “Hey, is this a bad time? Do you want me to call you back?”
Over her cries for food, I thank him and ask if he can just give me 10 or 15
minutes to give her a bottle. He says, “No problem, I’ll call you back,” and is
gracious enough to give me 20.
JD: Hey, man.
BE: Hey. Seriously, thanks for calling in the first place, let alone
calling me back. You totally didn’t have to do that, but I really appreciate it.
She’s calmed down now. Sorry about that.
JD: Was it you who asked me the question about the bird flu?
BE: (Confused) About the what?
JD: The bird flu.
BE: Nooooo, that wasn’t me.
JD: Oh, it was somebody else, then. But the (rep monitoring the
interviews) popped on
the line real quick and asked, “What’s that all about?!?” But he was just asking
about Bush and the bird flu and what I thought. So, anyway, you got a couple of
other questions...?
BE: Yeah! One of ‘em that I meant to ask you when we were talking about
films in general was, of all the films that you’ve worked on – and you’ve worked
on stuff anywhere from “The Stunt Man” to “Desperately Seeking Susan” to
“Chariots of Fire” – what’s your favorite that you’ve had a hand in?
JD: Well, that’s one of those “which child do you love more” questions,
particularly when they’re so different. How do you compare “The Stunt Man” with
Neil Young’s “Greendale”? “The Stunt Man” was a great experience, but hanging
out with Neil Young and being on stage with my daughter, dressed up as a
fireman, singing...what’s the chorus of “Greendale”? Oh, God, the chorus of the
last song...that anthem at the end...I can’t remember the words right now. But,
anyway, it was a great experience. God, there have been so many that I’ve liked.
“Hoosiers”...I actually just finished a chapter about it in my book; it’s not
really all that much about movies, but that was a great one, because it was a
great experience and a great story. And then you’ve got movies that I was
involved in producing, like “Ferngully: The Last Rain Forest,” which, as a
father, you’ll understand...
BE: Actually, you know, I saw that in the theater on the weekend it
opened! I was in college, it was a small town, and it was the only new movie
that had opened that weekend, so I figured, “What the hell.” But I really liked
it.
JD: Well, I started on that when we knew we were going to have a kid,
and, by the time it was ready and we showed it, our child was 3 months old. (Pauses)
Actually, I guess I started on it before we knew, but we’d been planning on
having kids. The gestation on “Ferngully,” like any animated movies, is a couple
of years. But that was a great feeling, knowing that you’re making a movie
that’s gonna be for kids. So, you know, it’s really different...ah, y’know, I
can’t say that I have a favorite, per se. I’ve been very fortunate to work with
so many diverse artists doing so many different things. Hold on just a second,
I’ve got call waiting here...
Just as Dowd goes off the line, my daughter starts crying...and is still crying
when he comes back.
JD: Try Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.”
BE: (Laughs) Is that soothing for kids?
JD: I’d put it on continuous play on my CD player and rock my kids back
to sleep.
BE: She’s actually been a Johnny Cash girl. I was very pleasantly
surprised.
JD: Johnny Cash works really well, but “Let’s Stay Together” is a good
one, because you can listen to it again and again. Though, of course, there’s
quite a few Johnny songs you can listen to again and again, too. She must like
“Folsom Prison Blues.”
BE: Um...”Ring of Fire,” she likes.
JD: Oh, I love the bridge on “Ring of Fire.” (Getting back on topic)
You know, the documentaries, you get to come into a whole new world. One of the
reasons I like working on a doc, it’s not like you do it for the money; in fact,
for most of these indies, it’s more like a hobby. But you get exposed to a new
world that you usually didn’t know that much about; you knew a little bit about
it, but not that much about it, and it’s great. So whether it’s “Grass,” and
suddenly you know about that world, or if it’s “Tom Dowd and the Language of
Music,” which is a phenomenal movie, by the way, if you haven’t seen it. Have
you seen that?
BE: No, I haven’t.
JD: Well, if you like music at all, it’s a really good...”phenomenal” is
the wrong word, but...
BE: I’m a music critic as well, so...
JD: Check out “Tom Dowd.” He engineered and produced...engineered every
Atlantic record from the time Ahmet (Ertegun) met him, which is everything from
Coltrane to doing “Layla,” Aretha, and everything in-between. I mean, his
discography is 55 pages long. It’s ridiculous! But it’s a great story, and the
behind the scenes of music is amazing. Oh, and there’s no relation, by the way.
But it’s amazing, because he was originally a physicist, and...well, I won’t
spoil it for you, but if it wasn’t for the mob and some things that happened
after that, he probably would’ve remained a physicist. (Hesitates) Well,
the short of it is that, by the time he got back to Columbia, because he was
part of the Manhattan Project...
BE: Oh, wow!
JD: ...they had rewritten the rules of physics, but, because of the
Secrets Act and the Russians and all that stuff, they couldn’t tell people that
they’d added four new elements to the periodic chart. And, so, he can’t even
talk real physics with these guys because, the stuff they know, they’re living
in the past in 1941, and he got frustrated, so that’s why he quit and became an
engineer. Classic story. But it’s great stuff watching him working with these
people – he was also a musician – and how he produced a lot of these records,
too. And he’s sitting there with Clapton and Cream, and they’re stuck on
“Sunshine of Your Love,” and he turns to Ginger Baker and says, “You know that
backbeat you always hear on the cowboys and Indians movies, that whole
BUM-bum-bum-bum-BUM-bum-bum-bum...? Why don’t you try that?” And, you know,
there’s “Sunshine of Your Love”! It’s great! But, anyhow, you work on these
different movies and get exposed to all these different characters and stories,
and it’s a great thing to be part of. So I can’t say I have a favorite. The same
thing’s kind of true even with other movies (I haven’t worked on). I don’t know
whether I like “The Godfather” or “It’s A Wonderful Life” or “Once Upon A Time
In The West” or “The Wild Bunch” most. Or “Some Like It Hot.” It’s hard to pick
something like that. So that’s my non-answer answer. I’m not trying to do it for
political reasons. It’s just, y’know, where I’m located. It’s like the
ballplayer answer. “Oh, y’know, all the guys are great! It’s a team effort!” (Laughs)
BE: Okay, then, finally, my other question is this. You said in a quote
that your book was kind of inspired by the quote from Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
“People want to hear about events as they wish they had happened, not as they
did happen.” So...does that make your book fiction or non-fiction, or does it
totally blur the line between the two?
JD: Well, they say if you’re an Irishman – and I’m part Irish – if you
can’t add something to a story, you’re not much of an Irishman. Something along
those lines. As my friend Huey Lewis would say, some of my lies are true. What
was I reading the other day...? Oh, no, it was something I was watching.
“Capote.” Have you seen that yet?
BE: Not yet.
JD: The whole point that Capote was making in...what was the name of the
book?
BE: “In Cold Blood”?
JD: Yeah, “In Cold Blood.” The point he was making was how he was
reinventing a new narrative form, which was literary non-fiction, I guess. I
don’t remember how much he stretched it, but he made it a lot different.
It’s...most of the book is all true, the people, events, and things that
happen...but if I can make it a better story, I do. And if I can make it
funnier, I do. And if I can combine things, I do. And if I can put a different
character in a different place at a different time, but still has the essence of
the character, but I need him now and want to put him over in that moment...it’s
doing what you do in a story. Interestingly enough, if you ever tell a story to
someone as opposed to write it...it’s a great exercise, by the way, that I use
with people who are doing scripts...but just try telling the story to somebody.
And you watch, you automatically start editing in your mind really quickly. And
I mean really quickly. Almost instantaneously. And it’s kind of along those
lines. Some of the stories are 100% true, but if some are only about 90% true,
they’re much better stories because of that.
In a moment of almost perfect timing, the tape runs out just as Dowd finishes
answering the question. Our conversation continues on for a few more minutes,
however, as we talk about our kids. Dowd regales me with a story about how his
daughter came up to him one day to see if he could pull some strings and get her
onto the set for a movie that the members of N*Sync were filming (“On The
Line”). “I guess she figured that, since I work in Hollywood, I know everybody,”
says Dowd, “but, in this case, not only did I know a guy doing the film, he’d
actually been over the house, so she knew him, too!” Cut to the set, where his
daughter has her dream come true...but, in a moment of pure karmic bliss, Dowd
does, too, when it turns out that they’re filming a performance by none other
than...Al Green. And performing “Let’s Stay Together,” no less.
The experience, says Dowd, was “just really fucking excellent.”
After this conversation, I can totally relate.
There’s no question about it; Jeff Dowd truly is The Dude.
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