Ep. 9: From Slopes to Screens: Creating a Career in Hollywood with Eric

In this episode of The Words We’ve Heard, host Marbree Sullivan sits down with Eric Jewett, whose story proves that persistence, curiosity, and a bit of luck can take you places you never imagined.

Raised in a small New England town where he dreamt of glory on the ski slopes, Eric was a teenager when he first stepped into a cinema. By the time he finished college, his snowy dreams were replaced by the magic of film. Through a lifetime of diligence, learning, and, playing to his strengths, he built a Hollywood career that put him on set with actors and directors at the top of their game.

Now a university professor, Eric reflects on the importance of collaboration, embracing humility, and passing hard-earned wisdom on to the next generation of storytellers.

🎧 Key Moments in the Episode

• [00:01:29] – Growing Up in Ipswich: A Small Town with Deep Roots
  
  
  
• [00:06:05] – Learning Life Skills from a Grandfather’s Workshop
  
  
  
• [00:12:00] – Dreams of the Olympics and the Pull of Ski Racing
  
  
  
• [00:18:00] – A Film Class That Changed Everything
  
  
  
• [00:23:00] – A Hundred Letters, One Call, and an Unexpected Break in Hollywood
  
  
  
• [00:30:00] – Learning Production on Return of the Jedi
  
  
  
• [00:40:00] – Directing Episodes of Party of Five and Weeds
  
  
  
• [00:46:13] – Balancing Family Life with the Demands of Film Work
  
  
  
• [00:50:56] – Teaching the Next Generation and the Power of Saying “Yes, And”
  
  
  
• [00:54:04] – Final Reflections: Stop Hating Each Other, Start Collaborating
  
  
  

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• Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
  
  
  
• Share this story with a friend who dreams of building a creative life
  
  
  
• Hit “Follow” to catch future episodes full of stories, advice, and connection
  
  
  

Transcript

[00:00:00] Marbree: Welcome to the Words We've Heard. This is Marbree Sullivan, and each week I sit down with a baby boomer to capture their stories, ask for a bit of advice, and hold on to the memories of the post World War II generation. Join me as we journey through everyday lives and extraordinary stories.

[00:00:25] Have you ever dreamed of a career in Hollywood? Of working on films and TV shows that millions of people have seen. How about sending a hundred letters to get one chance to fetch coffee or working 14 hours a day constantly on your feet on the move for months at a time when Eric Jewett was growing up, skiing filled his dreams, there was no movie theater and very limited television.

[00:00:52] When a college girlfriend suggested he take a film class. A new dream was born starting out with no [00:01:00] connections in the industry and an education not exactly on point. Eric's story is proof that a strong work ethic, the curiosity and courage to ask questions, a desire to learn, a willingness to try and a bit of luck can take you very far.

[00:01:24] Eric, thank you for joining me. I appreciate it. 

[00:01:27] Eric: Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

[00:01:29] Marbree: Eric, where did you grow up? 

[00:01:30] Eric: I grew up in New England. I like to say I've lived in Ipswich, Massachusetts, where my relatives have been for a. Centuries. But I spent a lot of time skiing all over New England and uh, we had a second home in Burke Mountain, Vermont.

[00:01:46] Burke Mountain is in Vermont. It's a ski area. So we used to spend a lot of time there and I also did a lot of ski racing all over New England. So I feel like all of New England is my home. 

[00:01:57] Marbree: Ipswich is north of Boston, is that right? 

[00:01:59] Eric: [00:02:00] Yes, it's on the North Shore, Massachusetts. Uh, it's a very small town. I grew up and now still has only about 10,000 people, and I think it says everything about the town, that there's a Route 1A goes all the way from up the coast of Massachusetts up New Hampshire, Maine.

[00:02:18] It's not a hugely trafficked road, but it's pretty busy. But the citizens of Ipswich refuse to put a streetlight on the cross, the one street that crosses Route 1A in Ipswich. So you could sit there and wait for traffic in the summertime for way too long. But they don't want to change things. They like things just as they are.

[00:02:37] Marbree: Was your family there for centuries or had they been elsewhere before they landed in Ipswich. 

[00:02:42] Eric: No, my family has been there for centuries. On my mother's side, the Hodgkins family, I don't know if they were exactly on the Mayflower or not, but there have been Hodgkins's in Ipswich for 300 years and a few Jewetts too.

[00:02:56] And I don't know how or if I'm related [00:03:00] to the Jewetts, but they're there. 

[00:03:02] Marbree: Did you have cousins in the same town in Ipswich? 

[00:03:05] Eric: No, I didn't have any, other than my grandparents and a great aunt and her husband. There were no like direct relatives as far as I know, and my cousins lived either in upstate New York or in Pennsylvania, and I saw them very rarely, maybe a week here and there.

[00:03:22] There was a summer house in a lake in upstate New York. So we would kind of convene there for a little bit in the summer, but, uh, you know, I didn't see my cousins much. 

[00:03:30] Marbree: Do you have siblings? 

[00:03:31] Eric: I have a younger sister and an even younger brother. Both of them still live very close to Ipswich. 

[00:03:37] Marbree: You don't, when did you leave?

[00:03:38] Eric: As soon as I could. As soon as I could. I mean, it's a beautiful town, but it was too small for me. I was very excited. Uh, when I went to college, I got very excited about filmmaking and I, as soon as I was outta college, I went to Los Angeles. To get into the film business. 

[00:03:54] Marbree: We will get to that. Yes. Let's stick around in Ipswich for a little while though.

[00:03:58] Eric: Okay. 

[00:03:58] Marbree: So your mother's [00:04:00] family then was from Ipswich? Yes. Where was your father's family from? 

[00:04:03] Eric: Pennsylvania. 

[00:04:04] Marbree: Okay. Did they meet in Ipswich in Pennsylvania somewhere else? 

[00:04:08] Eric: They both went to Syracuse. And they met at school. I don't know exactly when they met. Sometime in college. 

[00:04:15] Marbree: Yeah. 

[00:04:15] Eric: Yeah. 

[00:04:16] Marbree: Okay. 

[00:04:16] Eric: And then, my dad went to Temple Medical School in Philadelphia and my mother went with him and pretty much she worked and put him through medical school.

[00:04:25] And I was born at the end of medical, his medical school there. And three weeks later we left Philadelphia and I've never been back since. 

[00:04:33] Marbree: And. Just for a sense of age and generation. So your father, when was he in medical school? 

[00:04:38] Eric: Well, I was born in 1955. He joined the Navy and that we left Philadelphia for him to go to a Navy base in Panama City, Florida.

[00:04:47] And we lived there three years when he was in the Navy. And then as soon as he got out, we moved to Ipswich, which is my mother's family's home. 

[00:04:55] Marbree: Do you have any memories from the early years in Florida? 

[00:04:58] Eric: Only through a [00:05:00] few photographs that my mother took. Yeah. Which are photographs of my parents as very young, beautiful people who looked like they were in love, which is a way that I never saw them myself, that I remember.

[00:05:10] Marbree: Did your mother work? 

[00:05:11] Eric: No. No. Not when I knew her. When we moved to Ipswich, she didn't work. I don't think she worked in Florida either. 'cause she had me when I was like, basically zero to three and that's not easy. And then my sister was born. Uh, when I was three, she was very new when we moved to Ipswich, so she had her hands full.

[00:05:29] My mother. 

[00:05:30] Marbree: Yeah. And were her parents still alive and in Ipswich throughout your childhood? 

[00:05:33] Eric: Very much so. They lived pretty long, well into their eighties. So yeah, I knew them and I was pretty close with them. Their house was not far from ours. And, uh, all the time I would go spend a day at their house.

[00:05:46] Uh, I really liked my grandfather. He was an interesting guy. He had been a, a logger for the US Paper Company in Maine. He had been –there was like a ship building place not far from Ipswich. He worked there during the [00:06:00] war. But he was really very handy with tools and he used to like to refinish furniture.

[00:06:05] So he taught me a lot about woodworking and a lot about, uh, woodsy, gardeny kind of stuff too. And I really enjoyed that. And in high school, every summer he would hire me to paint one side of his house. And that was a really, I, I liked it 'cause it. I didn't have to work too hard and they gave me lunch.

[00:06:24] I just like hanging out with him and it was an excuse for him to spend time with me and for him not to climb a ladder and I'd paint one side one summer and the next summer I'd paint the next side. And so every four years his house got a new coat of paint. 

[00:06:37] Marbree: That's a pretty good strategy. 

[00:06:38] Eric: Yeah. I thought it was too.

[00:06:40] Marbree: Did you remain close with him once you moved into adulthood? 

[00:06:42] Eric: No, not really. Because, you know, I wasn't a great letter writer. You know, I would come back and when I, whenever I came to Ipswich on holidays, I would definitely go visit my grandparents. Definitely spend time with my grandfather, but that was not very regular.

[00:06:57] When I went to Los Angeles for probably the [00:07:00] first 10 years, I didn't have much money, so I could not come home very often. 

[00:07:03] Marbree: Do you still use any of the woodworking skills that you picked up with him? 

[00:07:07] Eric: Definitely, definitely. I, I was never as patient about, like he could do really nice furniture work. He loved going to auctions, uh, antique auctions and he’d buy like a chest of drawers or bedside table, and.

[00:07:21] Sometimes he bought them like he loved cherry wood, and sometimes he would buy, uh, uh, any piece of furniture if it was made of cherry, and then he would take it apart very carefully and then use the cherry to make some other piece of furniture because it was such good high quality wood. And for example, do you know what a high boy is?

[00:07:40] Marbree: Mm-hmm. Remind me. 

[00:07:42] Eric: It's, it's something that we don't, you don't see much anymore. It is, it goes in the dining room. It has two halves. One half is, it's on tall legs, like a table, and it has a few drawers and it, it's sort of meant to be for like silverware and, and place mats and things. And then there's [00:08:00] another piece that's on top of that, and it goes almost to the ceiling.

[00:08:03] And that has maybe, uh, sometimes it has drawers, sometimes it has doors that open, and that's for like plates and dishes and things. And he made. A beautiful one for my mother entirely with reclaimed wood and reclaimed um, brass hardware. 

[00:08:18] Marbree: Where is that now? 

[00:08:19] Eric: I think it's in my brother's house, so I don't have the skills or the desire to go that deep in woodworking, but I have built several houses.

[00:08:28] I worked my way through high school and college doing carpentry, but it was more rough carpentry. 

[00:08:34] Marbree: What do you mean by rough carpentry? 

[00:08:35] Eric: Well, like building a house, like framing a house. Putting in the doors and windows and doing the exterior and putting up drywall, that kind of stuff, as opposed to, uh, fine woodworking, which is like really careful furniture making.

[00:08:51] Marbree: Was that the only work you did during high school other than painting one side of your grandparents' house? Of course.

[00:08:55] Eric: No, actually I had a job working for the minister of our [00:09:00] church. He had me do like handyman kind of stuff around the house in his yard. He would go off on vacations with his family or trips.

[00:09:08] I don't know where they went actually. So I, you know, would take care of the dog, you know, sort of odd jobs sort of things. I used to mow lawns a little bit, but I could make a lot more money doing carpentry. 

[00:09:18] Marbree: Were there lots of kids around when you grew up? 

[00:09:20] Eric: There were. There were a lot of kids around. We lived in two houses in Ipswich and there three houses in a row.

[00:09:26] Between those three houses there were 11 kids. Yikes. And so there, so there was always somebody to play with. And we all had big backyards. And across the street was a cemetery, which was the oldest. Had the oldest gravestones in the country. It was famous for like, grave rubbings, you know, a lot people would come there for that.

[00:09:45] We would play hide and seek and guns, we called it where, you know, sort of like cowboys and Indians or Germans and Americans, whatever. But there was always enough kids to do that. Yeah. So there were a lot of kids growing up. 

[00:09:58] Marbree: How big was your high school? [00:10:00] 

[00:10:00] Eric: There were 150 people in my graduating class, and most of them.

[00:10:05] Went from grade one to grade 12 with me, which was another reason I was anxious to get out of Ipswich. 

[00:10:11] Marbree: Yeah, I can imagine. How do you date –as somebody who grew up moving from one place to another, I find it fascinating this notion of growing up with the same, same set of people. What is that like? 

[00:10:21] Eric: Well, you know, it changes like when, when I got to be.

[00:10:26] 15 or 16 and, you know, interested in girls. The girls all saw me as their brother 'cause we'd been together for so long, so it was frustrating, I think might be a good word. Yeah. 

[00:10:39] Marbree: Another reason to be glad to get out. 

[00:10:40] Eric: Yes, definitely. 

[00:10:42] Marbree: Did you enjoy high school? 

[00:10:43] Eric: I did enjoy high school. I enjoyed school in general.

[00:10:46] I love learning. I think of myself as a lifelong learner now. I still try to learn more stuff, so I like that. I love to read and I loved hanging out with all the kids in school. I felt like all [00:11:00] 150 kids were my friends in that school. We all got along. 

[00:11:03] Marbree: That's really nice. 

[00:11:04] Eric: At least that's how I remember it.

[00:11:06] You know, it was a homogeneous group. We were all white, except for, we had like three Black young men who came from the inner city in Boston, and I doubt that it was a coincidence that all three were skilled at basketball. That's why they went there. They were my friends also, but they were sort of outliers.

[00:11:28] Everybody else was, I mean, if there were any divisions, it was, the Polish kids didn't like the, uh, the Greek kids, but we were all white. 

[00:11:36] Marbree: Yeah. 

[00:11:36] Eric: And all about the same socioeconomic level, which was comfortable, but not interesting. 

[00:11:43] Marbree: Did you play sports? 

[00:11:44] Eric: I did. I played every sport imaginable. I loved sports. You know, I did all your standard school sports.

[00:11:50] But really, I was a skier. Started skiing when I was two. We skied every weekend when there was snow from basically Thanksgiving to Easter [00:12:00] and. That was great. I started ski racing when I was seven and got pretty good at it. Uh, and then Burke Mountain, the place where we went in Vermont, somehow we got this coach that showed up who was really good and he started a school, a ski racing academy, Burke Mountain Academy, which is still there.

[00:12:18] I was the second student, and it's now –has been for a long time a ski racing powerhouse. Some of the best ski racers in the United States come from that school, so it was fun. I, I was really angry. With my parents that they wouldn't let me go there full time. The way I worked it was I would talk to my, all my teachers in January and say, all right, here's the textbook.

[00:12:38] Where are we gonna be in March? And they would tell me, and then I went to Burke and studied and did my homework. We would ski in the morning and do homework in the afternoon. And when I got back to Ipswich, I was ahead three or four chapters of the rest of the class. 

[00:12:52] Marbree: Did you have any teachers assisting you while you were in Burke or it was purely self-directed and the instruction from Ipswich?[00:13:00] 

[00:13:00] Eric: There were two coaches and both of them encouraged us to study. There were definitely a couple of guys that didn't even open the book the whole time, but I, you know, I was interested in learning as I said, so, and I liked all my classes, so I didn't mind. I thought it was fun. 

[00:13:15] Marbree: How many years did you do that?

[00:13:17] Eric: Two years they opened. They started it when I was a junior in high school, so I did it my junior year, my senior year. 

[00:13:23] Marbree: Okay. 

[00:13:23] Eric: And I got in a big fight with my parents 'cause they wouldn't let me stay there full-time and graduate from that school. 

[00:13:30] Marbree: Why wouldn't they? 

[00:13:30] Eric: Not sure entirely. I think that it's possible that money was an issue.

[00:13:35] Not sure. It's possible that they didn't trust the coaches as teachers. It's possible. They thought that I was gonna waste my time and not study. They just said no, they weren't allowing it. 

[00:13:48] Marbree: What had you hoped for skiing in your life beyond that? 

[00:13:51] Eric: I wanted to go to the Olympics. That was my goal when I was in high school.

[00:13:54] I, I really wanted to make the Olympics. Um, and the [00:14:00] Olympics were in 19 68, 72. I was still in high school and not quite good enough. I sort of had hoped for 70. Six. 'cause I was the slalom champion in Vermont and I was really, I, I was placing very well in all the events in New England. But then I got accepted to Harvard along with four other big ski colleges in New England.

[00:14:23] And I thought, you know, I was like, okay, well I could go to Dartmouth or Middlebury, UVM, they're all, you know, that's where the skiers went. But Harvard offered a lot of opportunities besides skiing and I thought, okay, I'll take advantage of that. So I. Harvard and I was on the ski team and I was the best skier by far on the Harvard team.

[00:14:43] 'cause skiers didn't go there. 

[00:14:44] Marbree: Right. 

[00:14:46] Eric: Um, and it was just, I realized that I was done with ski racing. I got interested in other things, filmmaking being one of them. So. I did not make it to the Olympics. And you know, that was a big of a, [00:15:00] a bit of a disappointment, but I don't think I really had the chops, you know, if I'm being honest with myself, I wasn't gonna make it anyway.

[00:15:07] Marbree: Because you moved to Los Angeles, I'm guessing you gave up skiing for at least a time in those early twenties? 

[00:15:13] Eric: Not really, 

[00:15:14] Marbree: no. 

[00:15:15] Eric: There is a ski area, uh, called Mount Baldy that I could get to in an hour and 10 minutes from my apartment in Hollywood and the eighties, which is, I got there in 19 79, 78, but during the eighties it was one of those, uh, dumping down like rain, snow, big storms for five, six years, amazing snow.

[00:15:38] So I, I skied a lot. 

[00:15:40] Marbree: Does that mean that you've actually kept skiing through all the years? 

[00:15:43] Eric: I've skied every winter since 1958. 

[00:15:45] Marbree: Amazing. 

[00:15:47] Eric: Yes. So just to circle back about sports, in high school, I'd skied in the winter, but I also played soccer. I went out for football in junior high and realized I didn't like being hit by big boys or boys that were bigger than [00:16:00] me.

[00:16:00] Uh, and a friend and I started playing soccer and no one in Ipswich, like had ever played soccer, knew what soccer was. And we thought we were very cool 'cause we played soccer. And he and I. Sort of had, he was my neighbor, and we would go to this junior high field and play soccer every Tuesday night. And it was kind of a pickup game.

[00:16:19] But that Tuesday night soccer game is still going on at that same field. 

[00:16:23] Marbree: That's incredible. 

[00:16:24] Eric: Yeah. And we did that in junior high. And so that when we got to high school, the football coach wanted both of us to play football. We said we wanted to play soccer, and the social studies teacher volunteered to be the soccer coach.

[00:16:37] So we actually started the soccer team. 

[00:16:39] Marbree: Nice. 

[00:16:40] Eric: That was fun. I played soccer for four years there. Uh, and then I skied in the winter and then in the spring I played lacrosse for two years. Again, that was a sport where boys bigger than me would knock me down. I decided I didn't like that. So yes, sports have been a big part of my life.

[00:16:54] I have come to realize that I am, uh, incapable of sitting down for [00:17:00] too long. Mm-hmm. I need to get up and move, get up and do some, so sports is a good outlet for me. 

[00:17:05] Marbree: Did you carry on with any team sports? 

[00:17:07] Eric: Yeah, that was it for team. You know what, when I moved to LA I thought about playing soccer, but I didn't know anybody and it was too hard to organize, you know, to get 22 people to play and it was easier just to find one person to ski with.

[00:17:19] Marbree: Any other hobbies and childhood, I mean, sports will keep you pretty busy. Plus painting your grandparents' house would work. 

[00:17:25] Eric: Uh, I liked art. 

[00:17:27] Marbree: Visual art, performance art? Yes. 

[00:17:29] Eric: Well, mostly visual. You know, I, my mother sent me to a lot of painting classes and sculpture classes and things like that, um, drawing.

[00:17:38] And I liked doing that. I was always fairly artsy. Um. And that when I got to Harvard, I found that there were a couple classes, art classes that were really interesting. I, I really wanted to do that. I didn't want to learn about science or math, even though I did okay with that in high school. But I was like, okay, I'm done with that.

[00:17:59] Can [00:18:00] I just paint something or sculpt something? And while I was there middle of my freshman year, I met this girl, uh, fell madly in love with her. And so the fall of sophomore year, she said, do you want to take a film class and. In Ipswich, there's no movie theater. There was a movie theater for a little bit, but it closed down.

[00:18:18] No one ever went. So I didn't see a movie on screen until I was 14 and we had a tv, but I wasn't allowed to watch it on weeknights and I. The three kids would each get to choose one show a week to watch. So we watched three shows a week. So I knew nothing about Filmed Entertainment anyway. Kay. This girl says, let's take a film class.

[00:18:40] You know, I knew nothing about the films, but I thought Semester In the Dark with her sounds like fun. So, yes, I'm in and blew my mind. This professor showed films, international films, independent films, big blockbuster films, classic films, and that just. It was [00:19:00] a whole new world that I did not know existed, and I started going to movies separate, just all the time.

[00:19:06] There was a theater, a 10 minute walk from my dorm, and I saw a lot of movies that really changed my life. Seeing all those films and learning about films and learning how to look at films. And learning about story. And I, like I said, I did, I did a lot of reading. I read like three books a week as a kid, so I was exposed to a lot of stories.

[00:19:26] But seeing how stories were told on film was a revelation. Like my junior year, senior year, uh, we had a professor come from outside and he was more of a maker than a scholar. So he took like 10 of us and we would go out all over the streets of Cambridge and Boston with a Bolex camera and a Nauga recorder and shot these films.

[00:19:48] And you know, I'd spent all this time making art in the studio by myself, which I liked. My mother always said to me, you're not a team player. You're, you're more of an [00:20:00] individual artist kind of a person. Which I think she was really talking about herself because once I was with this team of filmmakers, I thought, this is really great.

[00:20:08] It's so much fun. Like now I have a team around me to all make this, this piece of art together, and that was it for me. I wanted to do that, and that's what I've done basically for my whole life since then. 

[00:20:19] Marbree: What was your degree in? 

[00:20:21] Eric: Uh, my Harvard degree. Uh, I majored in visual and environmental studies, which covered architecture, um, forestry, uh, painting, sculpture, animation, film, all that.

[00:20:34] Completely useless degree. 

[00:20:36] Marbree: I. Well, maybe the subject mattered little, but the education itself clearly not useless. 

[00:20:40] Eric: What was good about it was it inspired me. 

[00:20:42] Marbree: Yeah. And 

[00:20:43] Eric: it got me going. Now I'm teaching after a whole career of actual filmmaking, but I'm teaching students now at the University of Colorado in Denver, and every year I graduate this group of 2030 students, young men and women.

[00:20:59] [00:21:00] Who know more about filmmaking, like so much more about filmmaking than I did when I got outta Harvard. They're so much more prepared than I was. 

[00:21:07] Marbree: They have your expertise and years of of knowledge to draw from. Yes. And it sounds like it's a more focused program. 

[00:21:14] Eric: Definitely. But it got me excited about it and I think that that's the real value in it.

[00:21:18] Was it I learned at Harvard what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. 

[00:21:22] Marbree: Yeah. Did you make friendships there that you've maintained? 

[00:21:24] Eric: Yes. I did, I had three roommates and the four of us are still in touch. You know, we live like as far apart as four people who live in the United States could live, but we stay in touch.

[00:21:35] Not as much as I'd like to, but we stay in touch. We're still friends. 

[00:21:38] Marbree: What happened with Kay? 

[00:21:39] Eric: Kay got tired of me leaving every weekend to go off with the ski team. 

[00:21:44] Marbree: Can you blame her? 

[00:21:45] Eric: Not at all. Not at all. No. No. In fact, now looking back at it, I can't believe she stayed with me for as long as she did. 

[00:21:52] Marbree: So then it was off to off to LA.

[00:21:54] Eric: Yes, off to LA uh, I got in my car. I arrived in Los Angeles. I had a beat up [00:22:00] Volkswagen, had a half a tank of gas, and $50 when I got to LA. The good thing was that Tom, my roommate Tom, was gonna go to business school at Harvard, and he needed a place to stay. So he stayed in Ipswich in my bedroom. And I stayed at his parents' house, in his bedroom, uh, in a suburb outside of LA and I was there, I don't know, a month or two, and they were very generous with me and they convinced me to cut my hair, which was way too long.

[00:22:31] They convinced me to buy some clean clothes and they fed me. And meanwhile, I was writing letters every day. I was writing letters to directors and producers looking for work. And that was my one activity. And my other activity was I went to all the film schools and I didn't have money to go to graduate school, but I, I saw that they were making films, so I volunteered to work on the films and I was at the American Film [00:23:00] Institute and I signed up on a sheet.

[00:23:01] And somebody called me that day, by the way, at the landline of the family, which I'm staying with, 

[00:23:08] Marbree: right? 

[00:23:08] Eric: Uh, and said, yo, can you record sound? We need a guy to record sound. I said, sure. I'm in. And I spent a week on that set. And by the end of the week, again, like at Harvard, suddenly I've got like 20 new friends who are my age.

[00:23:22] We're excited about film, who are the coolest people I ever met, and at the end of that week, somebody else needed somebody. And I worked on six short films in a pretty quick order of time, and by the end I had like 50 new friends and they would let me sleep on the couch. So I didn't have to bother the client going back to their house all the time.

[00:23:42] Uh, and it worked really well. I also met my next girlfriend, fell madly in love with her, and then I got a phone call. I've been sending out these letters. I sent a hundred letters out and I got four letters back. Said, thank you for applying. We'll keep you in mind. And I never heard from any of them. I got one phone call.

[00:23:59] Paul [00:24:00] Schrader was making a movie with John Travolta called American Gigolo, and he, his assistant had just quit that week. Could I come in and talk to him? I go in, I sit down, we're having an interview, and he went to AFI and he saw that I worked on six films at AFI. And saw that I went to Harvard and said, you're hired.

[00:24:16] And we moved into an office at Paramount Pictures and I prepped that whole film with him and I was with him through filming. And I was with him all through post until a picture was released. And I saw how every decision was made. I was in the room while decisions were being made by the director and the producer, and I was with him when he was directing the actors.

[00:24:35] And it was, uh, I could, like, no graduate education could be better than what I got. And I was working with people who were at the top of their game in Hollywood at the time, uh, academy Award winners. Um, the costumer was Giorgio Armani. Uh, it, it was. It was really a great time. And on that job I met other people and that was the start of my career and that really launched me.

[00:24:59] Marbree: What were you [00:25:00] actually doing on a day-to-day basis? What was your work? 

[00:25:02] Eric: Um, in prep, I was basically just sticking with Paul and going to meetings and taking notes. Um, and, you know, yes, there was definitely Eric, go get us lunch or Eric. Take this dry cleaning and put some gas in my car. It was definitely a lot of that bring us coffee.

[00:25:20] But I'd bring the coffee and then I'd sit down and I'd listen to them and they talked about, you know, the locations we're gonna go find and I went with them when we went to scout locations, you know who they were gonna hire for the costumes, who were they gonna hire for the cinematographer who was gonna be the editor I was in on all the meetings and I saw how the, those decisions.

[00:25:40] Made then during filming, that actually lightened me up a lot because Paul was very busy. That's a, that's a like very focused job being a film director. So as long as I, he had coffee in his hand and as long as I knew where his script was, 'cause he would lose it all the time, as long as he had those two things.

[00:25:58] I was covered. [00:26:00] So then I talked to literally every person on the crew who, my name is Eric. What's your name? What do you do? What's your function? What does a prop man do? What does a costumer do? What does a hairdresser do? What does a cameraman do? What does an assistant director do? I talked to everybody and I noticed that a film set is not unlike a football game football team.

[00:26:20] There's the offense and the defense. So the defense is in there for a while and they're putting up lights and they're putting the camera and they're getting things ready. Then the offense comes in and they roll cameras and they perform, and then they switch. And I realized that most of the jobs, people were just sitting around half the time.

[00:26:37] And as I mentioned before, I'm not that good at sitting around. And I noticed the assistant directors were busy the whole time and they needed help. And they started out saying, Eric, you don't have doing anything. Go over there. Stand by that door. Make sure nobody comes through that door. 'cause we're pointing the camera in that direction.

[00:26:52] Here's a walkie talkie, we'll tell you when they can come in. And it started out like that. And then I'd started talking to them and Peter Bogart was the [00:27:00] first ad assistant director. He had done French connection. I thought that was cool. Bill Beasley was the second ad. He'd done a bunch of great things.

[00:27:08] That was cool. Duncan Henderson was the trainee. I could tell he had been a stock trader and thought was too boring. So he got into filmmaking. He was really interesting. So I just started hanging out with those three guys and by the end of the show I was like part of their team in the shooting. And after shooting, they all went on to different pictures.

[00:27:28] And then I went into post-production with Paul and I sat with him and the editor and the assistant editor. 24 7 watching the dailies, watching the various cuts, watching how the music came together. Uh, I went to the studio. Giorgio Moroder was the composer of the music, and I sat in the music studio and I saw how music was played and recorded.

[00:27:49] He offered me a job, but I didn't wanna do music. I wanted to stick with film. I saw that, how that worked. Saw how the sound was mixed, the whole thing. And again, it was like going to graduate school. And I, so I [00:28:00] saw how every detail and every decision was made by the director. Uh, and then sadly, the movie came out.

[00:28:06] Paul got a job teaching at Columbia and New York, so my job was done. The good news is that, uh, the ADs started calling me to come be their production assistant. And so I started working with them and learning. How to do production in film. And then I spent the next few years, probably five or six years, I would either work on small crappy student or like low budget hack 'em up films, uh, that were really bare bones.

[00:28:36] I would do it. I would be the first assistant director. I had no clue what I was doing, but I was there. I, I knew more than anybody else. And then I would go work with Duncan or Peter or Bill on really big budget pictures, get paid more money and have better lunches, and learn how it's really done and learn how to, how it's done on a grand scale.

[00:28:53] And. For example, Duncan brought me onto this picture called True Confession to Star Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall. And [00:29:00] there was a wedding scene and there were 800 extras in the church and it was a period piece. So my job was to check in all 800 extras every morning, make sure they all got through makeup, hair, and wardrobe, and when they did to bring them in and put them in the pews in the church.

[00:29:17] Keep track of them, make sure they got fed, make sure they had breaks, and then make sure they turned in their costumes and make sure they got paid. And there were 800 people for me to keep track of for a week, and I got really good at that 'cause I could remember people's names. I'd never forget a face. I had good people skills, it turned out so I could tell them what to do and everybody had a good time.

[00:29:37] Uh, and that was really formative in terms of becoming a, an assistant director because that people started hiring me when there's a big crowd scene. Oh, call Eric. He's good with crowds. And that led me, I was doing that as a production assistant. I was almost in the Director's Guild by then, and I was on a small picture, but it was also a period picture with a lot of extras.

[00:29:57] And I'm hustling, going around doing stuff. And [00:30:00] I had just a moment and the DP says, Eric, come over here. My spies tell me you're pretty good at this. I said, okay, good. He said, what are you doing after this show? I said, I got nothing. You got another show coming up? He said, I might expect a call from a guy named Bob.

[00:30:13] A couple days later, Bob calls me, he's doing a picture. It's a big science fiction picture. It's in Northern California. Uh, it wasn't a Director's Guild picture, but he heard that I knew what I was doing as an assistant director. Was I available? I said, yes. A week later, I'm flying up to Northern California to be, uh, one of the second assistant directors on Return of the Jedi.

[00:30:33] And you know, it was luck for me to do that. It was, uh, George Lucas had gotten mad because he wanted the director's credit to go at the end of the movie, and the Director's Guild said it had to be at the beginning. So they got a big fight and George quit the Director's Guild. So that's how I lucked into that job because I wasn't competing against all the experienced assistant directors 'cause they couldn't do it 'cause it wasn't a Director's Guild job.

[00:30:57] But I still had the skills. [00:31:00] So that worked out really well for me and that was an excellent credit to have on my resume forever. 

[00:31:05] Marbree: I would think so, 

[00:31:06] Eric: yeah. So that was what really launched me. And then once I got into, I got into the Director's Guild shortly thereafter and was able to make a living as an assistant director pretty regularly.

[00:31:18] Marbree: All right. I wanna back up a little bit. 

[00:31:19] Eric: Okay. 

[00:31:20] Marbree: First of all, simple one. What's a DP? 

[00:31:22] Eric: DP is a director for photography. 

[00:31:23] Marbree: Thank you. And backing up even more, at what point did you stop living with your roommate's parents? 

[00:31:31] Eric: Huh? Soon as Paul. While I'm talking to Paul, I said to him, so what would my job be, and he was describing it, you know, be with me basically what I just told you, all those things.

[00:31:45] But he also mentioned he had just bought a new house in a very tony section of Los Angeles in Westwood. And uh, it needed some work and he needed somebody to live in the guest house, to keep track of the [00:32:00] workers. Would I mind doing that? My head exploded. Are you kidding me? I'm getting paid to work in film and I got a place to live.

[00:32:07] So that was that. Thank you very much Mr. and Mrs. Klein, but I'm moving to Hollywood. 

[00:32:12] Marbree: Partially, that's luck. But that's also, you sent out a hundred letters and you got one that turned out to be the absolute winner. 

[00:32:19] Eric: Yes, yes. And I tell my students now, you know, it's really hard to muster up the emotional strength to compose and send out these, these letters, but basically you're doing sales.

[00:32:31] You're doing cold calls in sales, you're selling yourself to people who've never heard of you, and people who do sales say that your hit rate is one or 2%. So that's, you've gotta send a hundred letters to get one job. 

[00:32:43] Marbree: Yep. 

[00:32:44] Eric: Which is what I did, and that's all I needed was that one job. Yeah. And I, I got it.

[00:32:48] So I moved out of their house. I was there like maybe six weeks, maybe seven. So I think I should interject. That I actually had done mostly animation at Harvard. So I put together [00:33:00] a portfolio of animation work that I'd done and I first started calling animation studios and most of them were not interested.

[00:33:08] I called Hannah Barbera, which is was at the time one of the biggest animation companies, and they said, sure, come on in. And I started talking to, uh, Mr. Barbera and. Talking about animation, and he says, okay. He sat me down at his desk and at the time, uh, they would hire professional artists, like really skilled artists to draw, say the 101 dalmatians, and there would be like a dalmatian with a left foot forward.

[00:33:34] And then the dalmatian takes another step with the right foot. But for animation, you needed. Six pictures in between that, what they call and that they literally, the job is called an in-betweener, so you had to copy the picture but also change it slightly. So it's like one little bit increment closer to having left and right.

[00:33:51] So he sits me down with a couple drawings and I sit there 15, 20 minutes I'm doing, doing it. I'm thinking, oh yeah, my art background really paid off here. Now this is great. He [00:34:00] comes back in, says, looks at it. Hmm. Come into my office. I sit down. He says, you know Eric, you're really not that good at this.

[00:34:05] What do you wanna do in the film business? I start blathering on and about how I wanna direct films and he says, you should just go be a director. Forget about animation. So that was a wonderful piece of advice. I'm glad I got it as soon as I did. Yeah. 'cause I, you know, it's possible I could have toiled in obscurity for a long time doing a job I wasn't good at.

[00:34:24] Marbree: Were there other pieces of advice that you received around that time in your life that you remember? 

[00:34:28] Eric: Uh huh Uh, Mrs. Klein talked me into cutting my hair, and I think that was a good piece of advice. Uh, it took me a while to realize that as, as, um, artsy, as the film business appears, they're actually, it, it's a business and they're fairly conservative in, in terms of their outlook.

[00:34:47] So me not having hair down to the middle of my back probably was a good idea. 

[00:34:52] Marbree: Are there other pieces of advice that you received throughout your career that stuck with you? 

[00:34:55] Eric: Um, there were definitely people that I learned a lot from, uh, [00:35:00] as I went along. And I, you know, I just had a lot of, a lot of wonderful mentors that sort of took me under their wing and guided me, and I was lucky that they were talented and they were kind and helpful to me.

[00:35:11] I learned a, a little something every day about how to be a. A better teammate, a better filmmaker, a better man. You know, it was a long time for me to learn all those things. 

[00:35:21] Marbree: How was it spending your twenties in the film industry and skiing as often as you could? How was that for your social life? 

[00:35:27] Eric: Fucking awesome.

[00:35:30] Marbree: Yeah, I bet. 

[00:35:31] Eric: I had so much Hollywood, so much Hollywood fun in my twenties. Let your imagination run wild. It's all true. I had a great time, you know, I was doing something. I loved, uh, I was getting paid a fair amount of money. I. I was living really cheaply Every year, every winter I would take a ski vacation, someplace different.

[00:35:52] Uh, I would go all over the country. I went to Europe a couple times, skiing in all the places I dreamed of skiing. I was going on [00:36:00] location with films that took me places, going to places I never would've thought of going, but really enjoyed being there. I was working with people who are really interesting and cool.

[00:36:09] Um, in the film business, you, it's project based. It's freelance. So I would work, you know, maybe three, four months, maybe five months really hard and be just completely immersed in that. But then I would have a month or two months off with money to burn. I mean, I'm not talking like super rich, but for, you know, a guy who's 25, 26, 27, I was making a lot of money.

[00:36:32] Marbree: Yeah. 

[00:36:32] Eric: And so it was great. I could take trips, I could hang out. Do. Go to the movies all day long. 

[00:36:38] Marbree: Yeah. 

[00:36:39] Eric: Uh, I could go to the clubs, go hear music. Uh, it was good. And Hollywood was really fun in the eighties, 

[00:36:44] Marbree: I can imagine. And dating, 

[00:36:46] Eric: uh, through most of that. I was still dating Kimberly, who was the girl that I met at the AFI.

[00:36:50] Okay. And she was a lot of fun and very outgoing and she'd been in LA a few years longer than me, so she knew a bunch of people. And [00:37:00] that, plus the people I met at the AFI quickly had a really fun friend group. So we just, we had a good time. Yeah. Nice. 

[00:37:06] Marbree: In your career, you ultimately did some directing. Am I correct about that?

[00:37:11] Eric: Yes, yes. Yeah. Uh, it was always my dream to direct. It's an extremely hard job to get unless you make it up yourself. I did make a short film, but really I had, it was incumbent upon me to convince someone to let me direct, and I had to somehow show them that I was. Had the skills. Uh, and I didn't quite know how to do that, but I was also really busy as an assistant director and, uh, I was, I think well regarded.

[00:37:35] I, I never really lacked for work. I could always convince somebody to hire me to be an assistant director. I had those skills. Two skills, which I think are most important is, uh, I'm loud and I'm bossy and well organized. Uh, so I had been doing mostly movies. And I did a movie in Florida and my second assistant director, Vicki Lame, she was terrific.

[00:37:56] Uh, she had done some television and when we got back to LA she got [00:38:00] a job on a TV show. I did another feature and then I got a call from Vicki and she says, you know, our first ad on this TV show quit. And they're looking for a first AD. Are you interested? I said, sure. I talked to the producer and he said, okay, we have six episodes left in the season and he left, so can you take over?

[00:38:15] And I said, yes. And you know, TV at the time was pretty much just like features, except it moved a lot faster and those six episodes went well at the end of that. That was the end of the season. Or no, sorry, sorry. We got picked up for another 10 episodes and the producer says to me, okay, after the Christmas break, we're coming back.

[00:38:33] I said, uh, you know, I'm not, you know, I don't really wanna do tv. I think I got in this other feature on the hook. And he said, what can I do to convince you to stay? And I said, well, you could pay me more money. He said, no, I can't do that. I can only give you Director's Guild scale. I'm not allowed to do that.

[00:38:47] What else? I said, all right, I wanna direct an episode. And he said, alright, I can't give it to you in the next order, but if we go another season, then you can direct an episode in the following season. So I said, okay, great. I signed up and he was [00:39:00] good to his word. Uh, this was a, a TV show called Party of Five.

[00:39:03] Marbree: I remember that show. 

[00:39:04] Eric: Yeah, it was a fun show. And I loved the crew and the cast. They were wonderful. And, uh, they let me direct an episode, and the cast was great. They treated me well. And you know, I was also, I have to say that part of my success as being an assistant director was I didn't just care about time and money.

[00:39:22] I mean, yes, that was my main function, but I also cared about the quality of the work. And I got to know actors and I, I talked to actors and I learned how to speak actor so that. The actors on Party of Five knew that I could direct them and they'd be happy with it, and it turned out really well. So Party of Five, let me direct, uh, four more episodes before the show was over, which was great.

[00:39:44] It was really, I learned a lot and it was fun to do and it was exciting for me to do that. So when that was done, then I hoped to full, direct, full time. But it was tough, you know, people kept saying, oh, that's a soft show. Or you know, they like shows where [00:40:00] people got shot and bled to death without, those are the hard shows and there there's a lot more of that.

[00:40:04] And you know, that's. I needed more credits of that kind. So it took me a while to get my next directing gig, but that was okay. I had, I worked on some really good movies and some really good TV shows. Um, in the interim. 

[00:40:17] Marbree: What were some of your favorites? 

[00:40:18] Eric: Um, uh, I liked Big Love, uh, on HBO. I liked Dexter.

[00:40:24] Dexter was a lot of fun. Interesting. Michael C. Hall's wonderful. Uh, but then I got a show on a show called Weeds and I was a fan of that show. And Mary Louise Parker was sort of notoriously difficult. That was her, sorry, I should say that was her reputation, but. I got on the show, I was like, what's the big deal?

[00:40:43] Uh, she's great. I mean, I had a wonderful time working with her and I learned so much more about actors and directing actors from her and watching her work and watching her process. And I got an opportunity to direct four episodes on that show. And [00:41:00] that was really exciting for me and, and a lot of fun.

[00:41:04] And I think I did some really good work on that show too. 

[00:41:06] Marbree: And film. What have been some of your favorites there? 

[00:41:08] Eric: Um, favorites there. Uh, I had a great time doing Cobra, which was a, a Sylvester Stallone movie. Um, and they actually put me in charge of a couple of second units and we just went off and wrecked things like crash cars and, you know, gunfights, all that stuff.

[00:41:25] And they just said, Eric, just go do that. And that was exciting for me. That was a lot of, a lot of big stuff. We wrecked. Um, I did a movie called Lost Boys with Joel Schumacher. Keefer Sutherland was the star. Uh, that was a very cool show. Um, what else? CSI, I did a season of CSI and that was, that was a lot of blood and gore.

[00:41:44] Um, but pretty much I finished my career on Weeds and then I was searching for my next big show. And it's tough to get a TV show made. You know, I worked on a lot of shows where I'd do the pilot and that wouldn't get picked up, or I'd do the pilot and they pick up 13 episodes. [00:42:00] And then that was it. They wouldn't pick up any more of those, you know, it's almost like cold calls and sales.

[00:42:06] You don't have to do a hundred necessarily for them, one to go, but it's tough to get 'em to go further than that. Yeah. So I worked on a fair amount of shows that I liked a lot. 

[00:42:14] Marbree: At what point did you decide to start teaching? 

[00:42:16] Eric: I was on a, a. TV series called Code Black, which was a hospital show in an emergency room, and it was an emergency every minute of every day.

[00:42:25] I was the assistant director and Marcia Gay Harden was the star. There were 18 other actors and it was like hundreds of extras and every day they had to like special makeup to look like they'd been a car wreck or something. And there was like. Surgery being done. And it was busy, busy, busy. And it was exciting and I liked it.

[00:42:43] And the first season was okay. Second season they brought on, uh, another actor who shall go unnamed. And the whole tenor of the show changed. And I was just exhausted. It was one of those, like, I would come home on Friday night and by Friday night, I mean like 2:00 AM on Saturday, I'd fall into [00:43:00] bed, I'd sleep all weekend.

[00:43:01] I'm married by that time and I'm not like. Spending any time with my wife and get up with a crack of dawn on Monday and go back to it. I was exhausted and the show ended and I was, I just, I just had lost my enthusiasm. I was too tired 'cause I was 62 years old. Being an assistant director, you're on your feet 14 hours a day and you're shouting and organizing and moving all these people around.

[00:43:27] It takes a lot of energy. So my son had graduated from University of Colorado in Boulder. He loves Boulder. He's not leaving Boulder. And so Sandra, my wife and I came to visit him right after Code Black ended and we're taking a hike in the beautiful mountains of Boulder, Colorado. And it was just one of those days and I said, oh man, it'd be great to live here.

[00:43:49] And Sandra says, yeah, right. What are you gonna do? It's like, I dunno, they don't make films in Colorado. We go home, the Director's Guild Magazine is in the Mailbox. Sandra opens it up, says, did you see this? The [00:44:00] University of Colorado in Denver is looking for a professor. They'd like me to have a degree, but equal time in that as a professional counts.

[00:44:08] I call 'em up. They say, sure, come meet us. Three weeks later, they hired me. Not exactly ready to move to Colorado, but, uh, that we did. So that's, that's how that came about. Kind of accidental. But, uh, I've sort of learned to teach. I taught myself the subjects that are, or how to teach the subjects. I. Yeah, and now it's going really well.

[00:44:29] I enjoy it. I enjoy the students. The students are keeping me young and I have some very talented students. It's exciting to see that happen. I'm most excited about this year 'cause I teach the senior thesis class, and of the seven films being made, five are being made by women and all five of them are definitely.

[00:44:46] From a woman's point of view, and they're interesting and they're creative and they're really well made, and that's very exciting to be a part of that. Nice. 

[00:44:56] Marbree: All right. I wanna back up and switch gears. When and where did you meet your wife? [00:45:00] 

[00:45:00] Eric: I met her at a birthday party for one of a mutual friend. That's where we met.

[00:45:05] And you know, we had a nice chat. It's like, okay, whatever. There were like a hundred people there that I talked to. Two, three weeks later I was at a kickoff party for another film and she showed up 'cause she was working on the film too, and like, okay, well I. This means something. So we left that party. We went to the movies and had a drink, and that was it.

[00:45:26] We were dating, we'd been together 35 years. 

[00:45:29] Marbree: You were how old when you met her? 

[00:45:30] Eric: 27. 28, okay. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:45:32] Marbree: So in your twenties? In the late twenties, yeah. 

[00:45:33] Eric: Yes, yes. 

[00:45:34] Marbree: Yeah. And then when, when did you have, is it only the one son? 

[00:45:37] Eric: Yes. Yes. He was born in, in, uh, 1990. Okay. And, uh. He's, uh, very much like me. He's very excited about athletic activities, but different ones.

[00:45:50] He's currently on a, uh, what he calls a Fourteeners project, which means he's climbing and snowboarding, all 56 [00:46:00] 58 fourteeners in Colorado. 

[00:46:01] Marbree: Wow. 

[00:46:02] Eric: He has, that's ambitious. He has, I think, five more nice to do. 

[00:46:08] Marbree: So working in film with insanely long hours, how was that for you as a father? 

[00:46:13] Eric: Um, it was hard. It was definitely hard.

[00:46:16] Uh, but I actually started Party of Five, more or less when he was born or not born, but, but the, when he was three, I spent eight months out of town on three different pictures, and I came back and he didn't recognize me. That was bad. So I, I said I need to do something, or I stay in Los Angeles to work more, and then I got Party of Five, and that worked out pretty well because.

[00:46:39] Depending on my schedule, I could often drive him to school in the morning if we had a late call and we were shooting nights or something. So I was able to get involved more in his life. And then like I was still having one or two month periods in between jobs. I. So then I was full-time there. Um, so, you know, I think he got, he, [00:47:00] it, it was like a normal part of life for him, for me to be sometimes available and sometimes not.

[00:47:05] And I think it was difficult for him at times. It was definitely difficult for me. Uh, but we've, we worked it out, I think pretty well. He's fairly well adjusted. Although he doesn't like the film business, 

[00:47:16] Marbree: some would say that that means he is very well adjusted. 

[00:47:19] Eric: There. Is that Yes. Yes. 

[00:47:21] Marbree: When you look back, what are some of the biggest challenges you've faced?

[00:47:24] Eric: Biggest challenges I faced, uh, one of which, uh, was my own ego. I was, you know, I may have mentioned I was aggressive and, uh, good at pushing people around, and I was also extremely arrogant, I think in my twenties and thirties and. Uh, I think that didn't really serve me well. I was very self-confident.

[00:47:46] Others might have thought of me as arrogant. Uh, so that helped me, but I think it also held me back. I was not always as political as I should have been. I think I may have, uh, ruined some opportunities by being [00:48:00] too outspoken. Um, trying to be calm in the not having a job. There was a definitely ti you know, I was good being unemployed for a month.

[00:48:09] I was good for being unemployed for maybe six weeks, and it wasn't really about the money. I always was really good at saving money. I've always been very cheap. I don't like to spend money, so I had money. I was not good at hanging around the house. I was not good at not having something to do. So that was always a challenge, was trying to whole just sit with that.

[00:48:29] Um, I think that transcendental meditation has helped me a lot with centering my life, but even with that, I was still get very antsy at a certain point. So that's a challenge. Uh, envy has been a big challenge. You know, I, I would sometimes work with directors who I was envious of their success and angry that they had the success that I was not having, at least as, as the way I perceived it.

[00:48:55] And I think that envy, envy did not serve me well at all. Was difficult to let [00:49:00] that go. And uh, lastly, challenges were people. There were a lot of big egos in Hollywood. And my ego was probably as big as theirs or bigger, but that did not serve me well. So I would sometimes get into things with people where I should have just let it go.

[00:49:16] And that often, it's interesting to me now 'cause it was usually actors, like there would be an actor on the show, and actors have a lot of power on the show. Uh, the stars and, hey, 98% of them are wonderful, but the 2%. Really would get on my nerves and they could do things that made my life much more difficult.

[00:49:36] Um, sorry, my job more difficult since it was my job to keep things moving forward and to get things done in a timely fashion. And some of them rankled with my trying to push them along faster. And I personally think that I was not, I was not pushing them that hard. Not as hard as I've seen other assistant directors push, but nonetheless, we would get into things and I was like.

[00:49:57] That was not good. That was a challenge for me to [00:50:00] let that go to just find out what it was they needed and provide it for them and to receive from them no recognition that I was making an effort. So that was very difficult. It's interesting now, uh, I'm teaching and I'm teaching acting, and acting is one of my favorite subjects to teach.

[00:50:19] And I'm learning a lot more about actors and I see where I made mistakes in the past, and I'm learning more about how to make them feel better about themselves and be supportive and celebrate their talents. So I feel like I'm getting much better at that. I wish that I'd known that 40 years ago I might've gotten further faster, and I think that's been a challenge now.

[00:50:42] I see it as an exciting challenge working with actors. I used to think of it as an aggravating challenge. 

[00:50:47] Marbree: What advice would you give someone in a career where they're dealing with challenging people when they're not looking back with the wisdom that you have when they're still really in the thick of it.

[00:50:56] Eric: Um, one of the tenets of acting [00:51:00] improv in particular is the phrase yes, and. So I try to say yes, and to everybody now in my classes, I. And I think that if I can convince my students to think in terms of yes, and. Yes, that's a good idea, and I can add on and help with that same idea by adding this or this or that, and that would be my advice to sort of work from that point of view to think of it as a collaboration and not a competition.

[00:51:28] Marbree: That's good advice. Looking back, who would you say, to date, count as maybe the handful of the most influential people in your life? 

[00:51:36] Eric: Uh. I would say my ski coach in high school. I would say Kimberly, my first girlfriend in Hollywood. Um, I would say I learned a lot from Robert Duvall, the actor. I learned a lot from my wife, Sandra, and I've learned a lot from all the teachers at CU Denver helping me to learn how to teach.

[00:51:56] And I think I should include my students too. 

[00:51:59] Marbree: What was that first [00:52:00] movie that you saw when you were 14? 

[00:52:01] Eric: Uh, Romeo and Juliet. 

[00:52:03] Marbree: Where did you see it? 

[00:52:04] Eric: I saw it, uh, in a theater in a, the town like two towns over from Ipswich. 

[00:52:09] Marbree: Okay. 

[00:52:09] Eric: Uh, and it was one of the classic Romeo and Juliets. Uh, and you know, it was also, you know, I was a, a young boy thinking about romance and you know what it takes to woo a girl, and this was one version of it.

[00:52:23] I think that's maybe why it impacted me so much. 

[00:52:25] Marbree: Yeah. 

[00:52:26] Eric: But just images on screen and the costumes and the set design and all of it was pretty great. Yeah. 

[00:52:32] Marbree: If you could change anything in your life to date, would you? 

[00:52:36] Eric: I would change about a million things. 

[00:52:38] Marbree: Yeah. 

[00:52:39] Eric: Yeah. Uh. Yeah, but I think really I only regret that I couldn't stay 50 years old.

[00:52:48] That was a good time in my life. I was, I feel, at the peak of my Hollywood career, um, I was young, I was healthy. I still felt I had a lot to look forward to. I still, I still [00:53:00] had hope, uh, and I was physically good, but I could come up with like two or 3000 more regrets if I really thought about it. 

[00:53:07] Marbree: Eh, it's not a particularly fun place to dwell, so no, there's no need.

[00:53:10] No. 

[00:53:11] Eric: Yeah. 

[00:53:12] Marbree: Yeah. Other than transcendental meditation, maybe skiing, have there been things that helped you shift away from the challenges that you mentioned? 

[00:53:19] Eric: Those are the main ones I. Um, uh, traveling. I like traveling Sandra and I try and travel a lot, so that's always good to, I like to go places and see how different people live, and mostly Europe and I've been trying to learn a language every time we go.

[00:53:36] And obviously I don't learn the whole language, but I, I'm getting pretty good at learning, like enough to carry on small talk in restaurants and hotels and on the streets with the local people. And I like doing that. Uh, and I also read a lot. I really enjoy reading and of course watching TV and film. I do that.

[00:53:54] Marbree: Yeah. I have one more question which I ask everyone, which is, if you had [00:54:00] all the world's attention for up to one minute. What would you want people to take to heart? 

[00:54:04] Eric: I'm just gonna give you what comes to my mind first off right now, right here in 2025, and that's to stop hating each other.

[00:54:17] Marbree: Excellent advice, Eric. Thank you for sharing your story. There is so much more that I'd have loved to ask you about, and as someone who has shifted careers more than once, I have great respect for those who find their professional passion at a young age and build a life around it. Your students are lucky to have your wealth of knowledge to draw from offering.

[00:54:42] To those of you listening, thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed this, please leave a review in Spotify or Apple Podcasts and hit that follow button. These things help others find the podcast and they mean the world to me. Share this with anyone you think would love it or learn something from it and keep coming back [00:55:00] from more of the words we've heard.

[00:55:02] This podcast would not be possible without the editing and production brilliance of Cori Orak, the inspiration of my parents, and a 2001 conversation with my grandmother. My thanks to you all.

[00:55:18] So what are the words we've heard? Collaboration, not competition. Think. “Yes. And: the value of college can be to learn what you want to do with your life. And although these are not Eric's actual words, they are words that I will take away. Accepting that you aren't as good at something as you might desire.

[00:55:43] Can set you on the path you're meant to find.