Bill Maher And David Mamet Carve Up Hollywood And Offer A Secret For TV Success
02.12.2023 - 05:25
/ deadline.com
“Writing,” Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter, and director David Mamet told Bill Maher on Friday’s Real Time, “is just making shit up.”
Mamet has made a successful career of that, creating such plays as Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow, and writing/directing such films as Heist, Wag the Dog and Hannibal, among others.
Now, he’s out with his newest book, a memoir and history called Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood.
As one might expect from the title, it is loaded with caustic opinions on “the industry,” a term the abrasive Mamet loathes.
Maher brought up an anecdote where Mamet was once speaking to a class. One of the college students asked him, “What is the best thing I can do to increase my chances of working in television?”
Mamet had a ready solution. “Cut your d**k off and eat it.”
Maher scoffed, but Mamet insisted, “I meant that. What part is unclear? I was working making a living for 50 years before I ever heard the term, ‘the industry.'” The maverick said the phrase reminds people to “sit down and shut up,” and “if you got a good idea, keep it to yourself.”
As soon as “the suits” mess around with a script, things go bad, Mamet insisted. “Some add mayonnaise,” he said, while others rub things unmentionable things over their face.
“I can’t see why you would be fired,” Maher joked.
“Like everyone doing it for a long time, I’ve made some stupid decisions,” Mamet allowed.
The great writer insisted at one point that films don’t need dialogue, as compared to plays.
He gave an example of why.
“The next time you’re sitting in your living room (watching a film), at some point you might want to get up and use the facilities. How did