Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie | Deadline Contenders Film Documentary
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00:00 - Well, I now have an incredibly emotional, powerful film
00:05 from Apple Original Films.
00:10 It is still a Michael J. Fox movie,
00:13 and we are joined by the film's producer/director,
00:15 Davis Guggenheim.
00:16 Thank you so much for being with us.
00:18 - Hey, Matt.
00:20 - Hi, Davis.
00:21 It's an incredible film about Michael J. Fox, of course,
00:24 his rise to fame,
00:26 how he became really one of the most beloved
00:28 and popular stars in Hollywood,
00:31 and how he has managed, despite all the difficulties,
00:36 to cope with Parkinson's disease,
00:39 a condition that he was diagnosed with
00:41 at the age of only 29.
00:44 So, Davis, before we get into the conversation,
00:46 let's take a look at a clip from the film.
00:48 This is Michael J. Fox reflecting on what it was like
00:52 in his early days in the 1980s on the set of "Family Ties,"
00:56 which is what really launched him to fame.
00:59 - Uh, uh, wait a minute.
01:03 I'm sorry, my script just went to pieces.
01:05 Where is it?
01:08 This is his first day as a kindergarten mom.
01:11 He doesn't want to be late,
01:12 but this could affect his entire life.
01:14 (audience laughing)
01:15 Now, that's right.
01:16 After all, this is my alma mater.
01:18 I am a legend there.
01:19 (audience laughing)
01:22 And they laughed, and I just went,
01:24 it was just like a wash of,
01:29 of like, wow.
01:30 - I mean, I got one, too.
01:31 (audience laughing)
01:34 - There's no drink, there's no drug, there's no woman,
01:39 there's no nothing that could touch that moment.
01:41 For me, as a 22-year-old guy
01:43 who'd been fighting for three years to make it.
01:46 Ah, good, good, good, good, good.
01:48 (audience laughing)
01:51 Laughter is, you can't help it.
01:53 Like, I just found something, a way to communicate with you
01:57 that you didn't expect.
01:58 You have no answer for it, except to make a noise.
02:02 Can you make a--
02:02 (audience laughing)
02:05 You just have to let air out.
02:10 It's really honest.
02:11 (audience laughing)
02:14 - I recall Gary David Goldberg, who we see there,
02:17 the creator of "Family Ties," saying at one point
02:20 about Michael J. Fox that, "You write him one joke,
02:23 "he gets you three laughs."
02:25 I mean, the exquisite comedic timing, it's just remarkable.
02:31 But, Davis, in terms of your starting on this project,
02:35 in some ways it begins, as I understand it,
02:37 with you reading Michael J. Fox's memoir, "Lucky Man."
02:41 - Yeah, it was in the middle of COVID,
02:44 and it's funny, you think you're gonna find your next film,
02:49 but what always happens to me is the next film finds me.
02:52 And I was with my family, we're all hunkered down,
02:58 we were lucky we were all together.
03:00 But I was depressed, I really was.
03:02 And I've always been a very upbeat person,
03:04 but I was very depressed.
03:05 And I remember dinner after dinner of my family
03:10 at the dining room table all laughing
03:13 and having a good time, and me lying in the dark
03:17 on the couch feeling sorry for myself.
03:19 And one day I just picked up this interview with Michael
03:25 in the New York Times, and he was so clever.
03:29 And I knew it was funny, but there was a wisdom in that
03:33 that struck me, a wisdom that I think comes through
03:37 in the movie, and I just said, "I have to read his book."
03:40 And he has four books, but the two that were really helpful.
03:45 And I go, "Wait a minute, there's a movie here."
03:48 And three years later, here we are.
03:50 - You incorporate a number of your questions
03:55 that you ask him, which I'm really glad that you did.
03:58 You do that more than I think a director typically would.
04:02 Occasionally we'll hear maybe one straight question
04:05 from the director, but I was wondering
04:08 what the hardest things were to ask him about,
04:10 because you go to some painful places in his life.
04:15 - You know, I've never had a subject in a movie
04:20 be more open and willing to talk about anything.
04:23 But the last, the hardest question was one
04:27 that I was reluctant to ask just because
04:30 maybe I'm too polite or something.
04:32 But we were close to finishing the movie,
04:34 and I thought we were done shooting,
04:38 and I go, "You know, there's something missing here.
04:40 I live in LA.
04:41 I'm gonna fly back to New York
04:42 and go back to ask one question."
04:44 And I said, you know, and it's in the movie,
04:48 it's like, "I've interviewed you for days and days and days
04:51 and hours and hours, and you never talk about your pain."
04:55 And he looks at the camera, and he's quiet,
04:57 and he goes, "I'm in a tremendous amount of pain."
05:00 And you think Parkinson's, well,
05:02 it just affects how you move,
05:03 but I didn't realize how much pain he was in.
05:06 And he's this guy who projects optimism
05:10 as part of his DNA, but he didn't wanna bring that up.
05:15 The next thing he says is, "It never came up."
05:18 And if it was me, I'd be talking about my pain all day long.
05:23 - It is so moving and so powerful,
05:27 just gives me chills thinking about it.
05:30 And the reality is, as we see through the film,
05:34 that he's had a lot of suffering in his life.
05:37 And we think of the life of a Hollywood star,
05:40 it's all glamor, it's parties, it's wonderful.
05:42 Well, there is a lot of that.
05:44 And yet, there was a lot of pain there
05:47 that he was masking through drinking.
05:48 And as you say, he's very, very honest about that.
05:51 But it's not just Parkinson's.
05:54 I mean, he's, you know,
05:56 there's a lot that he struggled through and with.
06:01 - Yeah, and I think people, when they make a documentary,
06:05 they're really, sometimes, I struggle with this,
06:09 where I find subjects are editing themselves
06:12 because I feel like, oh, this is their legacy.
06:14 This is how the world's gonna see them forever.
06:16 And Michael wasn't that way.
06:18 And I think maybe because of his Parkinson's,
06:19 that he's so, you know, he's so exposed anyway.
06:24 I mean, what is a wrinkle, you know,
06:30 what is a negative thing about him now gonna say?
06:34 And there was a moment, I always show my subjects
06:37 the finished film, and I had final cut,
06:42 but I wanted him to see it
06:43 so that he could talk about it at Sundance.
06:45 And there's a scene where he's,
06:49 it's later than the one clip you just showed,
06:52 but he had, it was after "Back to the Future" opened.
06:56 It was after "Teen Wolf" opened.
06:57 So he had the top two films in the country,
07:01 which is unheard of.
07:02 And he was returning to "Family Ties"
07:04 the number one comedy, like TV comedy.
07:07 And there's this footage of him shot behind the scenes,
07:12 and he's being kind of a jerk.
07:13 And when I showed him the movie,
07:16 his first question was like,
07:17 that scene where I'm an asshole,
07:19 am I allowed to say that on your show?
07:22 And I go, oh no, oh no, he's gonna,
07:27 he's gonna wanna ask me to take it out.
07:31 He's gonna fight me on this.
07:33 And I go, yeah, that was, I found this here.
07:34 Then he goes, where do you find that?
07:36 It's fantastic.
07:37 And I think, I suspect that if I had made a film
07:44 about him 10 years earlier,
07:46 he might be more protective of that.
07:49 That's my suspicion.
07:50 But I think really he doesn't,
07:52 with all he's been through,
07:54 I don't think he's protecting himself anymore.
07:57 I think he's,
07:58 the jerk, all the,
08:01 all the left turns, all the wrong choices
08:07 have brought him to where he is today, I think.
08:10 And that's what's made him such a wonderful guy.
08:14 And he sees that.
08:15 - Yeah, and it's very clear through the film,
08:20 and then also talking with him at Sundance,
08:23 that the last thing he wants is to be either pitied
08:27 or ennobled, have a halo put over his head.
08:31 And you as a director have to reflect that.
08:34 I mean, you could lay in some pretty sappy music
08:38 or whatever, but you've got to kind of match his spirit
08:42 and his own perspective on his life.
08:45 - When we first talked about it,
08:47 the only thing he said to me is, "No violins."
08:53 And it was, it's his way, he's very,
08:55 he can be, it can be a little pithy when he talks,
08:58 but you realize there's a depth beneath that pithiness.
09:02 And it was a clue to the tone of the movie.
09:05 The first time that Michael Hart, the editor,
09:07 who really was a co-writer in many ways,
09:11 a co-creator of this movie, he's a genius editor.
09:14 We were cutting the early scene where Michael wakes up now,
09:19 and he's in his 60s.
09:21 And when his foot comes out off the bed,
09:24 you could tell his foot is a little constricted.
09:28 And he has a hard time putting his feet in his slippers.
09:32 And then you see his hand shake when he's brushing his teeth
09:36 and you go, oh, the expectation from the audience,
09:41 oh, it's going to be one of those movies.
09:43 You know, the story about someone with a disability.
09:46 And the next thing is my question, which is,
09:49 I said, you know, everyone is really focused
09:52 on their narrative right now.
09:53 And is yours the sad sack story of a movie star
09:57 that gets Parkinson's and it crushes him?
10:00 And he turns around and he looks in the camera
10:02 with that perfect Michael J. Fox timing,
10:05 and he says, "That's boring."
10:08 And you can see that as sort of a joke,
10:12 but actually it's a clue to how he wants to be seen,
10:17 which is not pitied, which is not pitied, you know.
10:20 And he's smart about that.
10:23 He's smart about tone.
10:24 He's smart about storytelling.
10:26 - Yeah, he's always had this incredibly keen sense
10:32 of how he's being perceived and playing off of that.
10:36 I mean, he's such a brilliant guy and a wonderful writer.
10:41 - Yeah.
10:42 - You as a director, you're working with a broader palette
10:45 in some respects than I think you have before.
10:48 In terms of dramatizations that are very cinematic,
10:53 what was that like for you?
10:54 I mean, you got an actor who's playing Michael J. Fox.
10:59 You even have somebody in one scene
11:01 playing Robert Redford, but that's an interesting way
11:05 of flexing your muscles there as a director.
11:07 - When I was sitting on that couch feeling sorry for myself,
11:10 you know, part of that feeling sorry for myself was like,
11:14 I feel, I was feeling a little bit like
11:18 I was making the same movie over and over again.
11:21 And you show up to work and you say,
11:24 "Well, I know how to do this."
11:26 And that's really dangerous, I think, for a director.
11:31 And I think as I got older, maybe it's true
11:36 for other people, it was harder to take risks.
11:39 And perhaps my movies, for some reason,
11:44 took on sort of more serious subjects
11:46 and maybe my films lost their joy
11:51 or their ability to just entertain.
11:56 And I was like, "Come on, come on, Davis, snap out of it.
12:02 You know, tell a story."
12:05 And that was what I, when I pitched Apple, it was like,
12:08 you know, I wanna take the audience on a wild ride.
12:12 And what if you can make a documentary
12:14 that felt like a Michael J. Fox movie?
12:16 - So that's the subtitle of the movie.
12:21 The first word, of course, is still.
12:23 Can you talk about settling on that as the title?
12:27 - So we were, Michael Hart and I were just locking picture
12:32 and my middle child, Stella, came in the editing room
12:35 and we watched it through.
12:37 And you know, there's this really tense feeling
12:39 when you lock a movie 'cause it's like, this is it.
12:42 It's like you poured the cement
12:44 and it's gonna dry forever, you know?
12:46 And my daughter, Stella, was like, "What happened to that shot
12:50 where Michael's just looking straight into the camera
12:52 and doing nothing?"
12:53 And we'll go, "Yeah,
12:57 so we just couldn't find a place for that."
12:58 She goes, "What if you put that at the end?"
13:01 And if you remember the movie, you know,
13:04 his family's walking away and the movie's over
13:07 but he's just looking straight in the eye.
13:09 And he has this really quiet,
13:11 it's the only time he's moving throughout the movie,
13:13 movie, movie, movie, movie.
13:14 Even when he's being interviewed, he's moving a lot.
13:18 But it's the only time he's just really stopped
13:21 and stopped and very still.
13:24 And we put it in and was like, "That's it."
13:26 Locked picture.
13:28 And then the next thing was, what if we call the movie still?
13:32 It had never occurred to me that,
13:35 we knew that the theme of the movie was him running
13:37 and moving and moving,
13:39 but we didn't think of the opposite thing,
13:42 which is that he was moving towards a place
13:44 where he could finally in his life be still.
13:47 - Yeah, he talks movingly about feeling always in motion,
13:52 even as a toddler.
13:54 I mean, well, I guess most toddlers are,
13:56 but it was just a theme throughout his life.
13:59 And you see him running in scenes from movies
14:04 and, you know, he's terrific physical comedian as well.
14:08 And so still, to reach a stillness in his life,
14:10 again, is that feeling of something profound in his life
14:15 that he's discovered and that you,
14:17 and as the director, really sharing with us as an audience.
14:21 - Yeah, if you look at the footage of him,
14:24 he's always moving and he's always kind of at a tilt.
14:27 It's almost like, even before he had Parkinson's,
14:30 it's almost like he was always like half running
14:33 and half falling forward.
14:34 And now with Parkinson's, it's even more so.
14:38 But he, I saw him in New York last week and he's,
14:41 I think there was something, I think I asked for,
14:47 I asked for a Diet Coke and he goes,
14:48 "Let me get it for you."
14:49 And he just like, tearing across his office,
14:53 like, and I was like, "Oh my God,
14:55 I hope he makes it to the other side of the room."
14:57 He doesn't wanna stop moving.
14:58 He doesn't wanna stop, you know?
15:01 - Well, it is a really remarkable film,
15:04 winner just very recently
15:06 of five Critics' Choice Documentary Awards,
15:09 including Best Documentary Feature
15:12 and Best Direction for your work.
15:14 And for the editor, Michael Hart, you mentioned.
15:17 Congratulations on that.
15:19 David Schuggenheim, the director and producer
15:22 of "Still," a Michael J. Fox movie
15:25 from Apple Original Films.
15:27 Thanks so much for being with us.
15:29 - Thank you, Matt.
15:30 [BLANK_AUDIO]