Beyond the Mic with Sean Dillon

James McAvoy was 45 and a rookie.

"I'm a rookie director. It's like being 22 as an actor." He directed his first film, "CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN'". What did it feel like to him? Anxiety. Pressure. And the energy that came with both. It could have crippled him. It didn't.

Who is harder on you, the actor or the director? The director. He is sweating blood for it.

As an actor, "I've made my peace with the fact that people won't like everything I do." He still does good work. In between he does some bad stuff. He's fine with that. Outstanding answer.

The film is about two Scottish rappers. Their heroes are Eminem and D12. Label executives laugh at them and call them the rapping Proclaimers. Nobody weighs the talent or the work ethic. They get reduced to an accent. They get told they aren't allowed to do hip hop.

Tragedy.

That scene is why James wanted in. He also plays the record boss who signs them. He wants you to see a danger and a threat. Then he wants you to understand the logic, even when it comes out wrathful.

Then the Rockin' 8. A pina colada snow leopard cake. James says it won him the celebrity Great British Bake Off. He made sure I knew he won.

The coldest he has ever been was a night in a New Zealand ravine. Soaked. Freezing.

His first London flat had a smell. The deposit never came back. The landlord said they changed too much. All they did was fix the holes in the floor. Fixed the holes.

His first paycheck was 130 pounds from two shifts as a trainee confectioner. He bought Nike Air Max. His rap name would be The Director. He picks sunrise over sunset. His grandparents' best dish was steak pie.

Then the One Big Question. Four months after James thanked a director for a talk at his school, that director called him to audition. What would he be doing today if that call never came? Two plans. A mid-level university. Or the Navy. "I was probably going to join the Navy."

One phone call. That's the distance between James McAvoy and the Navy.

James wants you to see "CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN'". Press play first.

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"We've been together since we were kids. So we like each other's company." Jimmy Brown

Growing up every teacher tried to make Jimmy Brown stop tapping. Even his mom tried. All of them failed. He is still doing it. I asked who tried hardest to get him to stop: "All of them."

Jimmy is a founding member of UB40, the band that took its name off an unemployment form. Why they take a bus on tour instead of flying? Simple, he hates airports. America was designed for being on the road, with truck stops and wide roads. A big comfortable bus beats a terminal hands down every time. These are old friends riding the bus, together since they were kids, and they sincerely like spending these bus rides together.

Who picks the movies on the bus? HE DOES! He is the film buff and the range of what they watch is immense. He did laugh when I asked him who had the worst taste in movies. "I'm the film buff and I made them watch obscure stuff, weird shit." When asked whether any film has ever gotten drumming right. His answer was definitive. What about Whiplash?? "they annoy me. All drumming movies annoy me." "...playing slower is a lot harder than playing really fast."

That idea comes back in the One Big Question. Reggae asks a drummer to hold back. Jimmy lays the drums down first, along with the bass, and he says you have to give space to other people to do their thing. He calls it discipline. "if you want to play reggae, you've got to be disciplined because you're not going to do much" but what you do has to be perfect.

The Rockin' 8 turned up some nuggets of gold including the best place to eat in Birmingham and the first thing he does after a tour is finding, well you'll have to listen to hear what. It's a Beyond the Mic Short Cut. It is short on purpose.

A good drummer knows when to leave space.

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Twenty years ago, Michael Epstein made a film about a Marine Reserve unit out of Columbus, Ohio. That film put him inside the Haditha case, and he never left it. The staff sergeant charged with 18 counts of murder, told his lawyers for years he couldn't remember what happened, which is a bad defense friends. Epstein took him back into House 2, the room where the government said he killed a family. The camera was rolling, to see if his memory would come back. He was behind the camera and asking the questions with no lawyers in the room.

What Epstein found going deeper wasn't just one man's memory. It was a government that charged an innocent Marine as the fall guy, gave immunity to Marines they knew were guilty. What was worse, they put witnesses on the stand they'd been told were lying, and withheld eyewitness testimony from its own investigators.

He took the finished film to Tribeca. Nobody would distribute it. He got angry at what he calls the gatekeepers, the people who told him nobody out there cared about this story. He didn't believe that, and he didn't let it go. He says there are millions of people, thousands of people, who care about stories like this one, they just needed someone to put it in front of them.

Twenty years later, Fault Line: Haditha is a 13-episode podcast with a companion documentary film for every episode, the raw footage he couldn't get anyone to release now going straight to YouTube, no editing, no gatekeeper. Last year, working with the BBC, Epstein brought two decades of forensic evidence and testimony back to Safa, the sole surviving witness of House 2, and gave her the truth the government had withheld from her for decades. Her new testimony is the final piece of the puzzle, and it's in his podcast.

Michael Epstein joins Sean for the Rockin' 8: the last Michigan football game he saw live, his favorite restaurant in Brooklyn, what teaching screenwriting at SVA has taught him about his students, and the album he'll defend to anyone who calls it overlooked. He talks about his mentor Bill Moyers, his daughter's own reporting career, and the promise he made himself the day this whole thing started, one he says he's kept, because he's still here talking about it.

Just another Beyond the Mic Short Cut with Sean Dillon.

Fault Line: Haditha is out now, wherever you find podcasts, with companion films on YouTube.

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Scariest environment you haven't written about yet... "The halls of Congress." - Jack Stewart

Jack Stewart spent 23 years landing fighter jets on aircraft carriers at night. He says landing on a carrier never really gets easy, and it never gets enjoyable either. That's the same discipline he brought into taking over Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Jr. series. Instead of writing another cockpit story, Stewart sent his first outing 600 feet underwater instead.

The choice traces back to years after he left active duty, when he managed a dive operation for an undersea construction company. He watched deep sea divers up close and decided they were crazier than pilots. To write about them honestly, he went and got scuba certified himself, and came away with a fact that still surprises him: a diver 600 feet down is technically farther from breathable air than an astronaut on the space station.

Stewart also opens up about the people who shaped him. A wing commander once pointed him toward an open F-18 slot in the reserves, a conversation Stewart says changed the direction of his entire career. On the Rockin' 8, he tells the story of reenlisting a family friend as the man made master chief, the same person Stewart had sworn into the Navy years earlier as a young lieutenant.

He talks candidly about writing Master Diver Carla Bennett, a character built to make his lead cede control to someone else entirely, something Stewart says a lot of men in the military still struggle with. And he gets honest about writing inside a franchise this size. He still doesn't feel like he belongs in the same category as the writers who came before him in the Ryanverse, and says that discomfort is exactly what keeps his stories sharp.

Stewart also talks about restlessness. After 23 years of always chasing the next mission, he says he's still learning what it means to sit still. His go-to fix when a scene gets heavy is a playlist full of Sublime and Slightly Stupid, which he says keeps him calm enough to actually get the words out.

None of this happens without his family. He's been married 22 years, weathered deployments and airline schedules together, and now juggles book tours around flying full time for Southwest and visiting his sons at the Air Force Academy and Texas A&M.

Tom Clancy Pressure Depth is out now, wherever books are sold and at jackstewartbooks.com.

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"I have no need for a bell-bottom, double-breasted yellow suit at this point." - Ali Siddiq

Welcome Ali Siddiq

We’re joined on the Starline by a comedian who turned down Netflix, bet on himself, and just won the first NAACP Image Award ever given to an independently released special. His special My Father is streaming now. We welcome Ali Siddiq.

Ali, let’s go Beyond the Mic You've put out more than fifteen specials, and My Father only came out this year. Why did that one take this long to be ready to make, when it's a story you've been carrying your whole career?

Custom Fit Tour is your first real run through arenas. How do the different size rooms feel on the road compared to the Houston stages you learned on?

Three Webbys and that NAACP Image Award. Which one actually caught you off guard?

The Rockin' 8:

Ali Siddiq’s Custom Fit Tour is on the road and Ali joins us for the Rockin’ 8, 8 random questions, just trust your first instinct. There is no Pressure.

1. The tour's called Custom Fit. Who or what actually got measured for that name, the show, the audience, or you?

2. You grew up in Third Ward. Is there one block or corner in that stretch that still means something every time you drive past it?

3. Between boxing and Muay Thai at the gym and running Tom Bass Park, sometimes three miles, sometimes the full six and a half, what decides which kind of exercise you need on a given day?

4. You've hosted Jive Turkeys every November since 2009, raising money for the Houston Food Bank, longer than most of your specials have existed. What keeps that one on the calendar every year when everything else about your career has changed around it?

5. What's one skill from live radio you still use on stage or in the writers' room that people wouldn't expect came from your history?

6. Speaking of hustling, with your daughter a chef, what's the one thing you like cooking yourself?

7. What's one house rule that applies to all your kids, no exceptions, no matter their age?

8. Fans yell out for classic bits like "Mexicans Got on Boots," but you actively refuse to lean on crutches. How do you know when a joke has truly reached its "Sell By" date?

Sneaking in a Couple More:

You'll give us fifteen minutes today. Somewhere else this week you probably said no to twenty. What actually decides which room or person gets your time?

A lot of comics chase the network pilot pipeline as the holy grail. What made you decide that the stage and the independent route were the only acceptable compromises for your art?

With the heavy, dramatic, and real-life emotional weight your stories carry, how do you personally measure whether a show was a success for you on stage?

One Big Question:

What would you want your grand kids to think of the growth and resiliency that you have found in your life?

The Wrap:

He loves cooking for himself, demands his kids to wash their face and brush their teeth and wants you to see the Custom Fit Tour today. Ali Siddiq, thanks for taking the time to talk with us today.

And that my friends is Beyond the Mic.

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"The cool thing about this story is they both teach each other something throughout the film... That's one of my favorite elements of the film, book smart versus street smart." - James Paxton

Welcome James Paxton:

We're joined on the Starline by an actor and musician who's built his own lane in Hollywood. He's trading gunslinger banter with Malcolm McDowell in “Last Train to Fortune”. We welcome James Paxton.

It’s been a big week for you...

James, let's go Beyond the Mic. More than 10 years ago, you posted a photo of you and the inimitable Malcolm McDowell on social media. Did you ever think the two of you would actually work together, and why was Last Train to Fortune the perfect film for it?

The whole movie rides on you and Malcolm having a specific kind of chemistry, a guy who can't read stuck with a guy who won't stop reading. What did building that with him actually look like on day one?

This story is basically an argument that not knowing how to read can get you killed out there. What part of Dooley did you recognize in yourself when you first read this script?

The Rockin' 8:

Last Train to Fortune is the film and James Paxton joins us for the Rockin’ 8, 8 random questions, just trust your first instinct. There is no Pressure.

1. Malcolm McDowell's been doing this over 60 years, James. What's one habit or ritual of his on set that you've already started stealing for yourself?

2. You've done crime drama on Eyewitness, horror in BIT, big studio action in Twisters, and now a Western. Which of these was the one you walked onto set the most nervous about getting right?

3. First thing you look for at a farmers market?

4. You went from wanting to cover other people's stories to being the one interviewed constantly. Is there a question reporters keep asking you that you think misses the actual story?

5. You have to get rid of one forever: modeling, playing music, or acting. Which one gives the heave ho?

6. Is there someone outside music entirely, a filmmaker or writer, who's shaped the Love, Pax sound more than any actual musician has?

7. Between acting, music, and everything else, what's the one thing you do purely because you're bad at it and don't care?

8. What was the first guitar you ever got, and who got it for you?

Sneaking In A Couple More:

Before any of this, before Twisters, before your last name meant anything in this business, Dan Gilroy gave you your first real job in Hollywood at nineteen. What's your best memory of him?

What did he see in you that day that you don't think you saw in yourself yet?

One Big Question:

If you walked into every room in this industry under a different last name, one nobody recognized, what do you think would be the first thing people actually noticed about you?

The Wrap:

He wants to be better at basketball, got his 1st guitar from his 4th grade teacher and wants you to see Last Train to Fortune. James Paxton thanks for taking the time to talk with us today.

And that my friends is a Beyond the Mic Short Cut.

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"Solomon, I always envisioned him as the African version of Luca Brasi from The Godfather.", Eriq La Salle

Welcome Eriq La Salle:

We're joined on the Starline by the actor and director who spent nine seasons on ER, directing your favorite shows and just published his most personal thriller yet, “Laws of Solomon”. We welcome Eriq La Salle.

Eriq, let's go Beyond the Mic. As an author, it's your job to get the reader invested in the main character's journey. Why is Solomon's road to peace necessary?

"Solomon kept his eyes closed until he finally mustered the strength to speak the two words that he never imagined having to say, even under such unimaginable circumstances. “I’m…I’m sorry.” Have you written your own compassion into Solomon?

The Rockin' 8:

Laws of Solomon is the book, and Eriq La Salle joins us for the Rockin' 8, 8 random questions, first thought, no pressure. But you only have 10 words.

1. You've directed across pretty much the entire Dick Wolf universe at this point. Which character intrigues you the most?

2. You've said a villain who feels justified makes for the best storytelling. Which movie villain would you actually want to sit down and get to know?

3. What's the one movie you'll watch to the end, no matter where you pick it up?

4. What's your favorite breed of dog?

5. Best UConn basketball game you've ever seen live?

6. You kicked off this book tour in Harlem, at Friendship Baptist Church. What went through you that day?

7. Three words that describe your friend Michael Beach?

8. What's your biggest failure, and how did it change you, and Solomon's journey?

Sneaking in A Couple More:

"Revenge was much more for the living than the dead." Why do you believe in Solomon's redemption, as well as for people in general?

Instant follow up : Do people want redemption? Why?

Have you found redemption?

You've said you might have undiagnosed ADHD, and that you write for people like you. How has the way you write changed from when you started to now?

So what are you working on now?

One Big Question:

Who is the forgotten character in your life?

The Wrap:

He’ll always watch The Godfather till the end, Michael Beach is loyal and he wants you to read his book “Laws of Solomon”. Eriq LaSalle, thanks for taking the time to talk with us today.

And that my friends is Beyond the Mic Short Cut.

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"...(Ortiz) never went back to Centron", Katie Sanders

Welcome Nick Reynolds and Katie Sanders

We’re joined on the Starline by a journalist, who chased a 1949 recording to the Marine who saved her grandfather in Nazi-occupied France, and a historian, who kept that Marine's photo on his CIA desk for years. o-authors of “Ortiz's War: The Allies' Secret Weapon Against the Nazis in France”. We welcome Katie Sanders and Nick Reynolds.

Friends, let’s go Beyond the Mic. Katie, you found a scratchy old recording of your own grandfather's voice completely by accident. What did chasing that down actually cost you, across nine years, to see this through?

Nick, you'd already written a prize-winning history of American WWII intelligence. What made Peter Ortiz specifically the guy whose photo stayed on your desk, not somebody else out of that same story?

The Rockin' 8:

Ortiz's War is the book, and Katie Sanders and Nick Reynolds join us for the Rockin' 8, 8 random questions, just trust your first instinct. There is no Pressure. Since we have two guests we’ll alternate questions but you only have 10 words to answer.

1. Katie, favorite course at UPenn?

2. Nick, what section of the Library of Congress feels like home to you?

3. Katie, one word to describe Peter Ortiz, first thing that comes to mind?

4. Nick, will the Kryptos cipher key for K4 ever be produced?

5. Katie, the one place on the Jewish Book Council tour you're most looking forward to?

6. Nick, best Marine Corps Birthday Ball you've ever attended, where was it?

7. Katie, most unexpected artifact you found during research?

8. Nick, actor, living or dead, who should play Ortiz in a movie?

Sneaking in Couple More:

You both live with dogs. Since we're on the record, what makes your dog the best?

Katie, between Google, Harry's, and Condé Nast, which office had the best snacks?

Nick, between farming, writing a novel, and mountain climbing, which "detour" did you actually take most seriously?

One Big Question:

Ortiz surrendered himself twice, once to spare a village, and years later, in a way, to spare himself the fight of trying to explain a war nobody back home really understood. If he walked into this room today and heard what his one choice at Centron actually built, a family that exists three generations later because of him, what do you think he'd say?

The Wrap:

She loved driving a van to prison, he thinks Jacob Elordi should play Peter Ortiz in a Movie. They want you to read “Ortiz's War: The Allies' Secret Weapon Against the Nazis in France”. Katie Sanders, Nick Reynolds thanks for taking the time to talk with us today.

And that my friends is a Beyond the Mic Short Cut.

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"I made a decision very early on to just let the Flyers tell the story."

Welcome Joe Amodei

We're joined on the Starline by a guy who's spent forty years deciding which movies get made and how they get sold and never once his own. That changes now. "Cold War in Philly: Flyers vs. Russia 1976" is his first film in the director's chair, and it's out now. We welcome Joe Amodei.

Joe, let’s go Beyond the Mic. Every one of these players is going to be gone within a generation or two, and this film is what's left. Is there a question you wish you'd asked one of them, that you didn't realize you'd missed until the interview was already over?

You've watched thousands of documentaries as a distributor. What's the cliché you were most afraid of accidentally making with this one and was there a moment in the final cut where you caught yourself doing it anyway?

What made this game so special for you?

The Rockin' 8:

"Cold War in Philly: Flyers vs. Russia 1976" is the film, director Joe Amodei joins us for the Rockin’ 8, 8 random questions, just trust your first instinct.

1. You've been distributing films since the VHS era. What's the one title you distributed that you still feel never got the love it deserved?

2. What was the first Flyers game you ever saw live?

3. How do you actually eat a Reese's cup: nibble around the edge, or one big bite?

4. You're a Turner Classic Movies fan. What's your actual favorite film that plays on TCM?

5. What's your real favorite Bruce Springsteen song?

6. Sunsets or sunrises?

7. Out of everything you've collected across forty years and dozens of films, is there one object that isn’t an award or family member you'd grab first if the house was on fire?

8. You lost a few of these players while you were still making this film. Was there a specific day when you got the call or text and do you remember exactly who had passed?

One Big Question:

You've spent forty years deciding which movies were worth someone else's time. Is there one thread connecting every film you've ever put your name behind and did making your own tell you what it is?

The Wrap:

He eats Reese’s cup in one big bite to his wife’s dismay and loves Chaplain’s “City Lights”. He wants you to check out "Cold War in Philly: Flyers vs. Russia 1976," in theaters now...

Joe Amodei, thanks for taking the time to talk with us today.

And that my friends is a Beyond the Mic Short Cut.

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"What's ironic, Sean, is it's not video, it's audio."

Welcome Andy Billman

We're joined on the Starline by the director who spent four years turning one baseball injustice into a five-part series, “My Father, Dick Allen”. Two Emmys, a Peabody, and a lifelong Cleveland kid at heart. We welcome Andy Billman.

Andy, let's go Beyond the Mic. This started as a one-hour film and became a five-part series over four years. What was the moment you realized one hour wasn't going to hold this story?

What was the exact piece of footage, that made you say this isn't just a baseball story, this is the one I have to make next?

Working this closely with Dick Allen's own family, specifically his son, changes the shape of a biography. How did that relationship set the boundaries of what you were willing to put on screen?

The Rockin' 8:

“My Father, Dick Allen” is the series and Andy Billman joins us for the Rockin' 8, 8 random questions, first thought, no pressure.

1. At either Big Met or Little Met, what's the best round you ever put together?

2. Of every 30 for 30 you've cut, which one nearly broke you in the edit bay?

3. Is there one person you wanted for this film and just couldn't land?

4. The one thing you always tell your public speaking students at New Haven?

5. Toughest interview you ever sat across from. Who was it?

6. Best Stuart Scott memory. Go.

7. Time machine, any sports story ever. Which one are you directing?

8. First Cleveland memory. The one that made you fall in love with this city, or broke your heart?

The Back Half:

“My Father, Dick Allen” is the series and Andy Billman joins us for the Back Half. You've spent your whole career telling other people's hardest stories. What did four years inside Dick Allen's story cost you personally?

How has storytelling changed you?

What’s the one story you wanted to tell but you can’t.

So what is story that you got from your parents?

Justice:

“My Father, Dick Allen” is the series and Andy Billman joins us Beyond the Mic. You've made films about a city that lost for fifty years and a man who waited fifty years to get in. Why are you drawn to stories about people who have to wait too long for justice?

Andy, what's the thing about making this film you almost didn't survive, creatively, emotionally, or logistically?

You were a deer in headlights writing for Stuart Scott at 22. What would that version of you think of the guy directing his own five-part series now and all the things you’ve done?

Andy, what’s the 1st thing you bought with 1st paycheck from ESPN?

Four years is a long time to live inside one man's story. What do you know about your own father, or your own family, that you didn't know before you made this?

And how did this change the way you are with your boys?

Don Reiber believed in you before you'd done anything to earn it. Who else in your life did that, and did you ever get to tell them it mattered?

What’s your thoughts on the media world right now?

One Big Question:

You spent four years making sure history finally got Dick Allen right. When you look at your own life outside the editing room, who is the person you’re still working to truly understand?

The Wrap:

“Youngstown Boys” nearly died in the edit bay, Jim Brown was scary and director Andy Billman wants you to see “My Father, Dick Allen”. Andy thanks for taking the time to talk with us today.

And that my friends is Beyond the Mic.

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