QUESTION: David, how did you come up with this?
DAVID MILCH: This is a project which, I suppose,
started to gestate six or seven years ago, and I
guess two years ago Kem and I began to collaborate
on "Deadwood" and HBO, specifically Carolyn,
suggested that we might adapt some of the
materials that I had been working on in another
context in collaboration with Kem and engage the
venue of surfing. Is that a sufficiently opaque
and tedious presentation?
(Laughter.)
That's high water.
QUESTION: To elaborate on that for a minute,
David. This is as far from the other stuff as
we've seen because you've done, you know, gritty
places and so on and so forth and very different
from California and beaches and so forth. What
was it about this setting? It doesn't seem to be
anything from your past or anything like that.
What is it about it that attracted you?
DAVID MILCH: Did you find that scene where
Butchie was tying off sufficiently --
(Laughter.)
-- pastoral and --
(Laughter.)
In fact Imperial Beach is right on the border.
You might have -- those of you who have been
incarcerated in Tijuana might recognize the
Tijuana --
(Laughter.)
-- bull ring in the background of the shot where
Mitch elevates. What Kem and I were interested in
engaging were themes having to do with the borders
and margins of things -- political, geographical
and spiritual as well. And I suppose you could
say that -- I would hope that "NYPD Blue" isn't
perceived -- it may be perceived initially as a
police drama, but I think it sort of reached
beyond those borders and certainly "Deadwood"
aspired to do that. And I think you'll find that
surfing is kind of the door that you walk through,
but there's a whole world on the other side.
QUESTION: David, if I could get back to what you
said before about Mitch elevating. There's a
couple of scenes there where he's floating in air.
The bird seems to come back to life. Is there a
mystical component to show? What's going on
there?
DAVID MILCH: They are mystical components. In
terms of the what's going on of things, that's
sort of an unfolding question. And that, I
suppose, elliptically was what I had referenced in
my previous response that we wanted to examine how
things go back-and-forth. I think that one man's
mystical is another man's day-to-day. As Luis
Guzman, the wonderful character actor, remarked,
"If you do that where I'm from, we build you a
shrine." In other words, no one thinks that -- so
how people deal with the abrupt entrance into
their lives of what might be explained or
discounted is sort of the subject matter of the
material.
QUESTION: There was a quote that I think I saw
from you about a couple of weeks ago anyway, you
said that one of the themes is also that the
coordinates of reality, I think is what you said.
Could you -- am I accurate? And if so, can you
explain that a little bit.
DAVID MILCH: Coordinates -- are you accurate
about the coordinates of reality?
QUESTION: That quote.
DAVID MILCH: I don't know what you do at night.
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: I'm saying you were talking about that
one of the themes running through the show.
DAVID MILCH: I guess that's what I was trying to
say in this answer that to my mind reality is a
shifting and elusive condition. It redefines
itself constantly. The actors find one of my most
endearing qualities, my insistence after they have
located and beautifully conveyed the state of mind
or spirit of a character: I'll say, "Can you try
and suggest simultaneously the exact opposite" and
then I duck.
(Laughter.)
Look at the scowl on this --
(Laughter.)
And which is to say that, when I was saying that
this is a story that takes place on the margins of
things, the attempt to identify the coordinates of
reality is itself a kind of problematic and
conditional effort. It's changing all the time.
What constitutes -- where are we when we sleep?
What is our sense of reality at that moment?
It's, you know, science now suggests to us that
what has been perceived as matter for a long time
is, in fact, energy. That what looks solid, in
fact, is constituted in waves, that Einstein's
beautiful mathematical equations which depict the
nature of reality don't apply at certain levels.
And I think that's true as well about what
constitutes the natural and the supernatural. You
know, it depends on what foxhole you're in.
QUESTION: Can I just follow that with an
extraordinarily mundane question. How many are
you making? What's the set? Is it just one
season so far? And how many episodes?
DAVID MILCH: How many are we making, kid?
BRUCE GREENWOOD: 12.
KEM NUNN: 11.
DAVID MILCH: If we stick around, we may get down
to 6.
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: This is for Austin and any other actor
who wants to answer this question. Given what
Mr. Milch just said, how the hell do you play this
part?
AUSTIN NICHOLS: Given what Mr. Milch just said,
that's the first problem.
(Laughter.)
You know, some people come up to me at work and
tell me that I've got it easy because I'm not as
verbal so far as everyone else, but this has kind
of been one of the hardest jobs I've ever had. I
love it to death, but yeah, he turns me around in
circles and then sends me off. It's mystifying.
QUESTION: Are you given specifics? Are you told
specifically what to say or how to do it? Or what
do you do?
BRUCE GREENWOOD: You have to have faith, faith in
Dave.
DAVID MILCH: F.I.D.
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: David, you know who John is. You're
very certain about who John is, this mysterious
stranger.
DAVID MILCH: Am I?
QUESTION: Yes.
DAVID MILCH: Absolutely no.
QUESTION: Have you shared that with the actor?
(Laughter.)
DAVID MILCH: I think you see the artifacts of my
having shared that with the actors.
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: For the cast, I'm wondering how
familiar were some of you or any of you with
surfing before this? And how much do you either
love it or hate it now?
BRIAN VAN HOLT: I have a history of surfing, and
I love it. I still do it. I try to do it as much
as I can. And it's a passion of mine and kind of
a form of therapy. I had recent -- I stopped
surfing for a while I pursued others things, but I
just recently got back into it. It's a beautiful
thing to be able to work in this context, in this
world and in a world that I respect and love so
much, yeah.
QUESTION: Was part of the audition process asking
you if you surf.
DAVID MILCH: I took them out there one by one.
BRUCE GREENWOOD: We had to pass Dave's test, you
know, "Big Wave Dave" we like to call him.
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: Two questions on the left on the aisle
for David.
DAVID MILCH: Yes, sir?
QUESTION: First one, when he levitates, is he
levitating to the height of a surfboard?
DAVID MILCH: Kem, what is the height of a
surfboard?
KEM NUNN: It depends on if it's standing.
DAVID MILCH: You mean the width?
QUESTION: Yeah, like this.
DAVID MILCH: In my country, we call that the
width.
(Laughter.)
But I mean, I would say it's approximately that.
I would say approximately that (indicating).
QUESTION: Second question, all your
philosophizing about uncertainty, are there
writers or philosophers or scientists who you take
your guidance from on that, where you get the
ideas from?
DAVID MILCH: Yeah. And those who are in the
public domain I feel free to quote. Williams
James -- and several of the actors have attempted
to take their lives in the aftermath of my
protracted speaking about William James.
(Laughter.)
William James said something to the -- among other
things -- "If this life be not a real fight, then
it's merely a private theatrical from which one
may withdraw at will, but it feels like a real
fight -- as if there were something wild in the
universe which we with all of our idealities and
faithfulnesses are called upon to redeem."
And it has seemed both to -- I don't know how many
of you are familiar with Mr. Nunn's novels, but as
opposed to a rank imposter, he's an extraordinary
surfer and an extraordinary novelist. And there
is a continuity between the themes which his
novels raise and what this series tries to
examine, and to the extent that we were saying
before that reality can sometimes be a little
problematic and so on and there are now -- I know
I heard several of you discussing string theory in
the corridors earlier.
(Laughter.)
And that was you (pointing to a reporter), if I'm
not mistaken.
MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE: That one involved actual
string.
DAVID MILCH: And the idea being, string theory
postulating that the idea of four dimensions,
which are agreed upon, is very conditional and
that more than likely the only thing that accounts
for the variances in the universe between
Einstein's ideas and what we actually see is that
there are unseen dimensions. And that's sort of
the predicate of string theory, of Stephen Hawking
and so on.
And what William James speculated was that there
are what he called the lawless intrusions. He was
fascinated by psychic phenomenon, and what James
suggested was that whatever originated the
universe, the Big Bang was a chaotic energy, which
is now tending toward order. And that for the
most part, we can account through certain theorems
with all of the phenomena of our experience, but
that there are certain abrupt and lawless
inexplicable intrusions through essentially what
would be described as tears in the fabric of the
dimensions we perceive -- John From Cincinnati.
(Ed.note: He's talking about the character.)
(Mr. Milch points to Austin Nichols.)
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: David, I have no idea how to follow
that. But it may be sort of a perverse
compliment, but there are fans of "Deadwood" who
pretty much declared there's no way they're going
to watch "John From Cincinnati" whatever it is.
DAVID MILCH: Yeah.
QUESTION: Because, you know, it means that you're
not doing "Deadwood." What do you say to them?
Or is there anything you can say to them?
DAVID MILCH: Well, the first thing I'd say to
them is thanks for appreciating the work that
we've done. And you know, I spent a significant
portion of yesterday in collaboration with Evan
Wright, who's a wonderful writer, with whom I'm
doing the first of the two "Deadwood" two-hour
films. And we're very optimistic about the
outcome of that work, and it's our intention that
just the moment that we complete production on
"John From Cincinnati" to begin work on that.
Having said which, you know that the closed -- the
kind of emotional contract that a viewer makes
with a series when it works, when that contract is
sort of signed by both parties -- that's the
thing, as an artist and as actors, we dream about.
And certainly there was a kind of abrupt rupture
that occurred that is difficult for me to adjust
to. It was enormously difficult for the actors to
adjust to. But you know, there are certain rooms
where one frequently hears the expression "life on
life's terms." And if anyone can really make it
work on some other terms, I mean, I embarked on a
30-year research project trying to make that
happen, trying to set my own terms for how I was
going to experience reality. And all I got was,
you know, peripheral neuritis and a lot of
phlebitis in my veins.
So I hope that -- you know, the sun rises every
morning whether or not we agree to acknowledge
that fact. We're going to put "John From
Cincinnati" on, and it's my deepest hope that, in
the scheme of things, enough forgiveness is
available from those viewers to just give it,
like, a chance. And if I'm given strength and
time, we're definitely going to do more
"Deadwood"'s.
QUESTION: Over here, to your left.
DAVID MILCH: I nod as if I know my left from my
right.
QUESTION: Hey --
DAVID MILCH: Hey, hey.
QUESTION: I love this microphone. What for you
is the analogy between surfing and faith in that
vein?
DAVID MILCH: I think surfing -- the first thing
to say is I don't have the vaguest idea about
surfing in terms of lived experience. But by the
same token, I didn't live in "Deadwood" in 1876
either. And what one tries to proceed by analogy
in that regard. You know, I'm from Buffalo, New
York. There's a wonderful parochialism freedom
that kind of a -- from a rust belt, not huge
cities, you know. And Freud wrote an essay called
the "Narcissism of Perceived Difference." And
there's a certain narcissism of perceived
difference that pertains in the surfing world too,
which is if you don't surf, impossible to
understand. And we used to say that from
Buffalo -- if you're not from Buffalo -- I mean, I
guess you're American.
(Laughter.)
But you don't really get it. You don't get it.
And you say, like, "Well, he's from Rochester."
(Laughter.)
"What can he know?" As time goes on, you come to
realize what seemed to be chasms of difference
which cannot be bridged turn out not even to
exist. So in terms of surfing, you know, I was
talking about this research project in
pharmacology into which I was dragooned at the age
of --
(Laughter.)
The freon aspect began when I was eight, and then
I was transferred over to the alcohol project --
(Laughter.)
-- and then subsequently to narcotics. And in all
of that research --
(Laughter.)
-- to the extent that there was a coherent
intention, it was to ride a wave, which one could
generate on one's own terms, that the self was
suppressed and the sense of -- I used to --
nitrous oxide. I was involved in the subsidiary
project involving nitrous oxide.
(Laughter.)
And the great thing with nitrous oxide, I was
getting teeth filled before I even had teeth.
(Laughter.)
And the great thing about nitrous oxide is when it
hits, you say, everyone is right where they're
supposed to be and we're all moving together.
Surfers experience a oneness, a felt sense of
oneness, when they're doing it right, I am told.
All kidding aside, a decent humility demands, even
if you're writing about Rochester and you're from
Buffalo, that you pay attention to people from
Rochester. And I hope that I've been respectful
in -- I feel that it's important to experience
even vicariously through the acts of imagination
of others and communication and so on what goes
on. But the fundamental point is that what you're
looking to experience on the wave, the question
then becomes, can you live there? Is that a human
condition which is tenable? And so having walked
through the door, whether it's junk or surf, the
subsequent question becomes how much humanity is
it possible to fulfill in that condition? And
that's the tension Bruce's character is living
into, who plays the great surfer of his
generation, who circumstance has now forced to
encounter what it's like to be a great surfer who
can't surf the way he used to. Each of the
characters -- Grayson Fletcher, who is in terms of
the lineage the inheritor of the great bloodlines
of surfing in America and portrays such a
character as well on the show is, you know, when
you're -- forgive me for going on like this -- but
when you're a kid, when you go through puberty, if
I remember correctly, there is a sudden sense that
you possess the energy of the universe. I think
when you surf, you have that sense no matter how
old you are.
But the thing is that as you get older you begin
to realize that what you felt when you were
13 years old, which we used to express, is I'm
going all night. But you can't do it anymore; you
can't live there as a permanent condition. And
what does that mean?
One of things to the extent that theme then
engages with another theme which has to do how we
are encouraged by our technology to believe that
the disciplines of our biology no longer control
us. And that's the character sort of portrayed by
Luke Perry who vitalizes those themes. Those are
the odd mixtures of the kind of tensions that this
story portrays.
QUESTION: As you look back, Bruce and Rebecca, as
you look back on your long careers, what's
different about --
(Laughter.)
-- long successful careers.
(Laughter.)
What's different about auditioning for David Milch
as opposed --
(Laughter.)
DAVID MILCH: Nobody auditioned.
QUESTION: Then other than the requirement of
surfing, what were some of the requirements that
you were looking for, David? But I thought Bruce
and Rebecca might --
DAVID MILCH: I just wanted to ask that you change
the word "audition."
BRUCE GREENWOOD: What are you asking?
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: How is it different from going in to
meet David Milch as opposed to Aaron Spelling or
John Cassavettes or someone like that?
BRUCE GREENWOOD: Well, I think you probably
witnessed the difference in the last 20 minutes.
(Laughter.)
REBECCA DE MORNAY: He's a great, great speaker.
(Laughter.)
He's extremely persuasive, and he's very authentic
to the visions and the intellect and the
metaphysics that he experiences. And he brings
all of that in a very persuasive tone into the
room. And I certainly never met anything like it
in a meeting before, ever. And I'm very
interested to work with someone who truly is an
original thinker, not only in television, but you
know, outside of television, period. There's very
few original thinkers. And an original thinker
has made a very original writer. So I'm happy to
have been chosen. I'm still not exactly sure why,
but I think I'll figure it out as time goes by.
QUESTION: I have a question about "Deadwood." If
you could have -- in a perfect world, if you could
have finished it out with a 12-episode fourth
season, would have been your ideal option? Would
that have been your first choice?
DAVID MILCH: You know, the big thing to keep in
mind when you hear those sorts of statements that
I had planned on a fourth season on this -- I'm a
sociopath.
(Laughter.)
REBECCA DE MORNAY: He is that.
DAVID MILCH: You know, someone asked me, how long
do you intend to do "Deadwood"? And part of my
sociopathology, I say, "Well, when does my
contract run out?" And I realize my contract ran
out at the end of four seasons. So I'm thinking,
"How does the kid exert the most leverage in the
negotiating package for four seasons?" I don't
know if I want to do any more after that.
But the truth is I try to show up each day
available to do the work that God or whatever it
is that's making, you know, the solar system work
wants me to do. And I expect when he wants me to
stop, I'll be the first to find out. So the
answer is, I never had a specific -- listen, when
I pitched "Deadwood," I pitched it as a series set
in Rome at the time of the Nero. Does that sound
like I know what I'm talking about?
(Laughter.)
To the next, you know, with Caroline and Chris
Albrecht said, "Jeez, it's so interesting, but
we're doing a show about Rome. Can you set it
somewhere else?" I said, "Deadwood, 1876."
(Laughter.)
