'Paul Newman, Blue-Eyed Cool', Author, James Clarke

0:09Jawad MirGood afternoon, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Kingdom of Dreams podcast: The Making of Stories. I'm your host Jawad Mir. Today my guest is author James Clark, who has written several books, especially one in the last few years called Paul Newman: The Blue-Eyed Cool. James and I have known each other for a long time, but we reconnected after a good 25 years, and you'll find out in the podcast how we came to know each other in the late '90s while I was running a fan site on Dreamworks Studio, which became a huge success. And he was, writing books, and you'll learn more about that in there, but we also talk about Paul Newman, we talk about books, we talk about movies. Just a very casual conversation. It was really cool to talk to him after this long. Yeah, so without further ado, here is my conversation with author James Clark.

1:00James ClarkeHello. Nice to meet you.

1:02Jawad MirJames. Likewise. Well, we've met before, but nice to see you.

1:06James ClarkeWe have, but it, you know, it's taken about 25 years to see each other. There we are. Here we are. How are you?

1:12Jawad MirHow are you?

1:13James ClarkeI'm fine. I'm all right, thank you. Yeah. I'm

1:17Jawad MirGood

1:18James Clarke... I,.. Well, there's, there's lots going on, as always, and I'm just waiting to hear back on three, I think three projects that I've got out there to different people in different shapes and sizes. So I'm just waiting to, you know, as we all have to at different times, just wait on other people to decide various things, one thing or another. Not everything, but some things. So that's good. And I'm... I mean today, I've mostly been writing, which is great. You know, that's the…

1:49Jawad MirThat's awesome

1:50James Clarke... That's really the name of the game, for me anyway. So, I've just started a, series of, basically new articles for an online publication actually, it's as simple as that. So, I've just started work on that, which is nice, about, animation, about animated movies. So that's really nice to be doing that. And then I've, I haven't done it, but I keep, I keep tinkering with a book proposal I've had f… in mind for years about movies, no surprise.

2:26Jawad MirSweet

2:26James Clarke... And, actually, just over, just about two months ago, I kind of was, during the Christmas break, I was just thinking about, you know, that idea, and I s… I did, I did have that moment, which I'm sure you've had many times over, where you've been thinking about it this way, and then something happens, and you go, "Oh, no, hang on. That's, that's the way to do it. If I go that way with it, that's more, makes more sense."

2:52Jawad MirRight.

2:53James ClarkeWhen that happened couple of months ago, I mean, and it really did happen, I was, you know, not intentionally thinking about the project. I was just kind of doing other things, of course, which is often when the good ideas occur. And but it was very good, because it gave it much more clarity. You know, gave it much more clarity. So I'm probably am going to just dedicate a little bit more time. It doesn't need a huge amount of time, but a little bit more time just to shape it up and finesse it a bit more. And then send it out, you know? And I already have two or three other book ideas out there, so you know, you just, you just have to keep…

3:30Jawad MirOh, yeah

3:30James Clarke... I know you know this very well.

3:33Jawad MirYeah.

3:33James ClarkeBut you just have to keep putting it out there and see what you get back. You know?

3:36Jawad Mir100%. 100%. No, that's great to hear that you're still doing what you were doing way back when we first met. And just for the audience…

3:47James ClarkeYeah

3:47Jawad Mir... I just wanna give some context. Yeah, so we met, I'm guessing, around '97, '98, maybe '99…

3:55James ClarkeYeah

3:55Jawad Mir... When, I was running a website on Dreamworks Studio. It was a fan site. And, you had obviously found the website, and then you did some write-ups, some editorials and stuff, and you even wrote a book on Steven Spielberg, which I still have a copy of.

4:11James ClarkeWow.

4:11Jawad MirI bought. It should be here somewhere.

4:14James ClarkeDon't worry if it's not.

4:16Jawad MirUnless it's packed somewhere. No, I don't have it here. But yeah, I have, still have, like, at least two copies lying around still. And, yeah, I remember at that time, the only book that had come out on Steven Spielberg, who coincidentally his author I spoke to few times recently, Joseph McBride…

4:39James ClarkeOh, yeah

4:39Jawad Mir... He wrote the bio way back then, and it's been sort of updated since then. And so your book was probably, at that time and stage, was more easier to read, because it was a lot thinner.

4:52James ClarkeThinner book, yeah. Very much so.

4:54Jawad MirYeah. And Joseph McBride's was very thorough. And yours was more about the film, his was more about…

4:57James ClarkeYeah

4:57Jawad Mir... The man, right?

4:58James ClarkeI mean, that's a good, it's a good distinction to make, Jawad, actually.

5:00Jawad MirYeah.

5:01James ClarkeThat the book I wrote, as you've just said, was only about the films. It was not ever intended or designed to be a biography. No, you know…

5:10Jawad MirYeah

5:10James Clarke... It was absolutely about the movies. And I mean, it's funny, because, you know, inevitably this all feels like ancient history now as we sit here chatting, which is, and it is so lovely to speak to you for real, if I can put it that way today. But yeah, as you say, just to recap, so yes, you and I, we were first ever in touch back in about '98. I would say, I'm gonna put 1998 as the…

5:30Jawad MirOkay

5:30James Clarke... As the time code on it, if you like.

5:32Jawad MirSure.

5:32James ClarkeAnd then as you said, I wrote a couple of pieces for your website. And actually, I have to say, and I really mean this sincerely, those pieces I wrote for your website, and I think this is still true for people out there who perhaps want to pursue getting a book published, those pieces that I wrote for you and for your site, I used those as examples of my writing when I was pitching the book about Steven Spielberg's movies, because the publisher Rightly so said to me, "Well, c… can you show us some of what you've written, please? You know, you've got this idea for a book, that's one thing, but we need to be able to see that you know how to, you know, in some shape or form write." and I remember, along with a couple of other items, I remember s… distinctly sending them at least one of the pieces I'd written for you. So, which I think actually, if I... I'm gonna be very nerdy here. I think that the piece I sent them was not about Spielberg's movies.

6:34James ClarkeI think the piece that I sent them, that I had written for you, was actually about Lawrence Kasdan's films. That's the memory I have.

6:43Jawad MirInteresting.

6:44James ClarkeA very vague memory, but that's the memory I have is that he obviously as at least some people out there will know had worked with Steven Spielberg on Raiders of the Lost Ark.

6:53Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

6:55James ClarkeI mean, I'm... It's a long... It's 20... We're talking about, my gosh, 26, 27 years ago. I can't believe it. But anyway, but that material that I, that you invited me to write for your site, which I was very glad to do, you know, it was all... It's all little steps taken to take bigger steps hopefully. But yeah, that book, I mean, just to sort of make one final comment about it, was first published in the summer of 2001, and actually I was in Canada the week it was published.

7:23Jawad MirReally, eh?

7:24James ClarkeI was in, this is absolutely true, I was on h… on holiday on a two-week hol…

7:29Jawad MirWhich part?

7:30James ClarkeIn... I was, I was... Well, I can even tell you where I was sitting. I think, I think I was sitting in Banff in a cafe.

7:34Jawad MirOkay. So you were in the western county.

7:36James ClarkeOn the other... On way out west.

7:36Jawad MirYeah.

7:37James ClarkeYeah. And I can remember getting, an email. In fact, actually, Jared, I'm, I'll c… I'm gonna correct myself here. It was about a month before it was published, but they sent me a digital copy of the book essentially, and I got to see, I got to see what it was gonna look like really for real, albeit on a screen. But I was in a coffee shop in…

8:01Jawad MirBanff

8:02James Clarke... Banff, yeah. And that's why... And so which is kind of, you know, appropriate given, you know…

8:06Jawad MirIt is

8:06James Clarke... Where it's from. And as you say, you know, I wrote the book, because I wanted to write about the films. I wasn't... And I don't mean this in the, in the wrong... But you know, that's what I was interested in rather than…

8:16Jawad MirYeah, of course. I get that

8:18James Clarke... You know? And I did that, and then we, and then we did an update on it in I think 2004. And of course it's wildly out of date now. But what's fascinating to me, and this has nothing to do with my little book, not at all, is that when I wrote that book, my memory tells me the following thing. There was the biogra… there was the biography/book about his movies that Tony Crawley had done back in the early '80s…

8:41James Clarke... Which I used to take out from my local library many times over. There was a book by Neal Signard, which was a kind of nice coffee table kind of book, lots of pictures and text. There was a book called The Movie Brats by Michael Pye. Again, I appreciate some of these titles at least will be familiar to some people out there.

8:59Jawad MirYeah.

8:59James ClarkeAnd then I, you know, and then there was my one. But certainly in the last 20, well, 23, 24 years, I can't believe it, and this is good, there's been so much published about his work and it fascinates me because, you know, I... You know, I'd loved his movies since I was, you know, 10 or 11 years old, and I remember thinking, "There's, there's gotta be something about these films that mean they're staying so much with me." You know, they... And I'm not... I appreciate I'm speaking on behalf of, you know, millions of people who feel the same.

9:28Jawad MirYes, 100%.

9:29James ClarkeAnd I just kept thinking there's... What i… you know, what is it? What is it about these films that has just made such an impression on people? And I mean, there was no way that I was gonna kind of solve the code of that or break the, crack the code of that in my little 40,000-word book. But it was a really nice way to, do something incredibly modest. I mean, the book as you know, is a…

9:55Jawad MirYeah

9:55James Clarke... Is a, is a little, a tiny little book really. But for me, you know, it really then opened the door to lots of other things which at the time I didn't know. I just had this opportunity to write that particular book. But what's wonderful is that the guy who commissioned it, a guy called Paul Duncan, is very much out there in the, in the movie book world still, and has written and edited any number of beautiful books that have been published by Taschen. You know, if you're a James Bond fan…

10:28James Clarke... Paul Duncan's books are a good place to go. And he, a couple of years ago actually, in fact, 2020, I sort of had a nice full circle moment, which this, our conversation today also makes me feel like.

10:42Jawad MirRight.

10:43James ClarkeWhich is that he got in touch with me and he said, "Oh, I'm, I'm doing a, we're editing a kind of an a… a sort of slightly abridged edition of the very big Star Wars Taschen coffee table book that was published," I'm gonna say seven or eight years ago now, about the original three movies.

11:01Jawad MirOkay.

11:01James ClarkeAnd they wanted, they wanted to do essentially, Jared, they wanted to do a smaller format of physical size dimensions.

11:10Jawad MirRight.

11:10James ClarkeBut in doing that, of course, certain things would have to be removed in order to accommodate the new size. Anyway, I, he invited me to participate in that project as a piece of sort of sub-editing work, which I was really delighted to do. But it was lovely because this was a guy who'd given me my first book publication opportunity, to which you are a prelude in the online world. So, I don't know. It's just, I don't know. It's y… one doesn't think about this stuff every day necessarily, but I think it crosses my mind, you know, often enough just the sort of the trail. You know, and you sort of go, "Well, where…

11:46James Clarke... Where did it begin? What was the first little thing I did?"

11:49Jawad MirA 100%, 100%. It's the same thing with me. And just to add to what you said, and I sincerely mean this too, is that in... I launched the website in 1997, October 2nd, 1997.

12:05James ClarkeAmazing.

12:06Jawad MirAfter a week or two days after The Peacemaker came out, the first DreamWorks film…

12:12James ClarkeYeah

12:12Jawad Mir... With George Clooney and Nicole Kidman.

12:14James ClarkeYeah.

12:15Jawad MirAnd my site hadn't become anything big, I would like to say probably until Gladiator came out. It was slowly ascending, and to have you come on board and write s… for a site that wasn't, you know, anything, traffic oriented, and there were other Spielberg websites out there, was what w… really helped me a lot too because not just from a standpoint of exposure and traffic, but it inspired me to write reviews, as crappy as they were because I'm not a writer, at least back then. And it just, you know, I found like all these reviews, on my hard disk that I wrote way back in 2001 on AI, artificial intelligence, and War of the Worlds in 2006. But yeah, so you know, it's good to have you, man. It's like it's such an interesting thing that I'm doing this podcast now, and the reason this podcast started, I don't know when did you discover it, but the way it started was during COVID I was sort of thinking about I enjoyed that time very much, right?

13:25Jawad MirLike, running the website, I was working full time, I was going to school full time, and somehow I was managing all these things, and I enjoyed it. I loved it. I used to get up at like 4:00 o'clock in the morning to do updates before I went to work. But I'm like, "Well, how can I re… I'm like, I can't start a website again." Like, it's just, you know, it's too much work and there's so much stuff out there. And this podcast originally started as a DreamWorks podcast.

13:53Jawad MirSo I reached out to my first guest were one of my favorite films, which also came out in 1998, Prince of Egypt. So I was able to get the three directors, Simon West, who I still talk to this day, like we have, I have had him on like seven, eight times. Brenda Chapman, and what was that third guy's name? Ah, I know him very well and it's just losing my mind here. So I had them on and that gave me like, okay, this is interesting. I enjoy doing this. And then from there, when I ran out of DreamWorks film, I'm like, okay, now I gotta expand this into something bigger. Bigger and, but now it's just movies worldwide and books and…

14:36James ClarkeWell, it's interesting, it's really interesting, Joe, two things really. One which is that the f… which is that I discovered the podcast really recently, I have to, have to confess. Really recently.

14:48Jawad MirThat's, that's fine.

14:49James ClarkeAnd the one, and the very first one I listened to was conversation with Simon Wells about… ... Not about Prince of Egypt, I think it was about

15:02Jawad MirTime Machine?

15:05James ClarkeAmblima…

15:05Jawad MirOh

15:05James Clarke... I think it was a bit more skewed towards Balto.

15:08Jawad MirOh, it was, American, An American Tail…

15:10James ClarkeAmerican Tail

15:10Jawad Mir... Balto, and We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story.

15:12James ClarkeYeah, the Amblimation work they did.

15:13Jawad MirYeah.

15:13James ClarkeOh, this is, it's funny actually. This, I mean, this is a very trivial c… completely sort of real dead-end, footnote to that. But when I was 20, let me do some maths here, and maths is not my strong point which is why I'm a writer. I, 1994, there we are. And I, 1994, yeah, 1994 sounds about right actually. I had finished, my university studies…

15:41James Clarke... And I was trying to find my way, which is not always easy. And I can remember, there being an advert in the print media here back, you know, I make that distinction to online 'cause online… ... Wasn't really a thing in 1994 for most people. And there was an advert in, I think, The Guardian newspaper, n… you know, national newspaper here in the UK.

16:03Jawad MirYep.

16:03James ClarkeAnd, they want, there was a, like a production runner role at Amblimation in West London. And I, and they would've been in the, in the kind of the tail end of putting Balto together because this was like summer '94, late '94, and obviously the movie came out in autumn…

16:21Jawad MirRight

16:21James Clarke... '95. So they were, you know, it was very much the... And I remember, applying and then I never heard anything. Nothing came of it, but I remember distinctly thinking, "Oh my gosh, this is, I gotta go for this," you know, for all sorts of, things I was interested in, particularly with animation more than anything. Anyway, it's just a sort of something I haven't really thought about for a long time, but we're, we're talking about that moment in time. But the other thing I was going to s… to observe, and you sort of touched on it just a moment ago, is, you know, the internet can get knocked for all sorts of things, which, you know, that's, that's fair enough. But I mean, the thing that f… completely fascinates me, and I think it did... In fact, it didn't fascinate me 25 years ago, it just absolutely stunned me that suddenly you were able to reach out and correspond with people, so that's you and others…

17:09James Clarke... Had an enthusiasm and fascination for the same kinds of stuff. And for us it was movies and, maybe certain genres as well within that. And so, you know, there was yourself and then, you know, reaching out to some other really terrific people who had a real interest in Steven Spielberg's movies and the movies of the, that generation of filmmakers that we, I suppose, grew up on, if I could put it as broadly as that. And I think that was, that for me was absolutely stunning. I mean, I remember being a kid growing up in South London in the 1980s, and I was in the Star Wars fan club, which probably won't surprise anyone. And they offered, which I was very excited by, they used to do a pen pal service where you could hook up with, you know, some other like-minded Star Wars k… kid somewhere else in the world. And you know, I remember corresponding with a boy who would've been the same age as me at the time, 11 or 12, and I can remember writing, you know, handwriting, not typing or not emailing 'cause of th… that did not exist.

18:09James ClarkeAnd I can remember writing, you know, sending a letter to him a couple of times a year, and we did that just, we probably did it for two years. It felt like an awfully long time to a 12-year-old. But…

18:17Jawad MirYeah

18:19James ClarkeThat's what I remember just thinking when we all got online and began to work out how to…

18:24Jawad MirYeah

18:25James Clarke... Use it, you know? And it was like, well, this is like... And I think social media at its best, I think, still has that quality to it a little bit of a kind of very s… a very speeded up version of having a pen pal. I mean, pen pal is probably…

18:38Jawad MirYeah

18:39James Clarke... Pen pal is probably a phrase that not that many people know now, but…

18:42Jawad MirYeah

18:43James Clarke... I think that aspect of it is still there deep down in the mix. And, you know, I've made so many, as lots of people will have done, but you know, so many, I don't know, good connections with people. That's the best way to put it really, you know? And some people come and go in and out of your life, and then they come back in and, you know, around and around we go, and it's really wonderful actually. But that was when I discovered your podcast was, I have to say, was very recently. And I have to say, and I discovered it, and I can't quite remember now the stages that got me to that, but when I discovered it and I just went, "Oh, wow." It's you.

19:24Jawad MirIt's me.

19:27James ClarkeIt's you.

19:28Jawad MirYou know, the inter… interesting thing is that back then, and I'm sorry we haven't come to your book yet but…

19:34James ClarkeOkay

19:34Jawad Mir... This is great. Back then, you know, there was... I remember when, I had opened a, up an eBay account in 1998 or '99, whenever eBay was, like, literally brand new. People used to, including friends and family, they used to literally say, "Have you lost your mind? Why do you have your credit card information online?"

19:55Jawad MirAnd you look at now. Right? Like, back then there was no Picsta. We, I don't think any one of us... Like, I used to, I had Paul Shipper, you know Paul Shipper?

20:04James ClarkeOh, yeah. He was awesome, yeah.

20:05Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, he designed a poster for my very first student film, and I had a pleasure of having him in the early stages of this podcast about, you know, we just talked about stuff just like the way you are and I are talking about. And there was so many people that, so many of the people that I've reconnected with, I would say five or six, no idea what they looked like, no had any interest like what did you look like. You remember, I remember ICQ, MSN Messenger, you know, Yahoo Messenger being the main tools of communication, but none of us knew what each of us looked like.

20:41James ClarkeOkay.

20:41Jawad MirZero.

20:42James ClarkeNice.

20:42Jawad MirAnd there was never an interest. It was not even like…

20:45James ClarkeNo

20:45Jawad Mir... Okay, like, you know, send me your p… you know, it was just like we're just getting work done because we love doing it.

20:50James ClarkeYeah. Yeah. No.

20:51Jawad MirBut now it's like this, right? And, it's a, it's very interesting, and life, I truly, like, you know, I said, I'm truly glad to have you because… ... I had reached out to you somehow maybe a few years ago, and I…

21:06James ClarkeI think you're right. Yeah.

21:07Jawad MirYeah. And then when I saw that email I was really surprised and, or message on MSN, on Instagram, I was really surprised and happy at the same time that, oh, you know, 'cause I remember…

21:19James ClarkeYeah

21:19Jawad Mir... Your book and everything, so good to have you, man. That was a 20 minutes of catch-up.

21:23James ClarkeWell, it's lovely. No, it's great. I mean, it just... I don't know. It just, it's just great. This is just great. That's the, all I can take, say to you.

21:30Jawad MirYeah, and I love your Goonies poster in the back.

21:33James ClarkeOh, yeah. Well, you know…

21:35Jawad MirYes

21:35James Clarke... That is just there on the... Yeah, there are other posters for other things around and about as well, but, yeah, that's just there.

21:44Jawad MirGreat. So let's talk about, before we talk about your book, and give me the exact title. I know it's about Paul Newman, but what's the title… ... Of the book?

21:51James ClarkeSo, it's called, Blue-eyed Cool. So blue eyes as in his very famous blue eyes, and he was, he had a kinda cool screen persona. And then the subtitle, and then it's just Paul Newman. It's a very, it's the simplest book title you could imagine really. And actually the book, and the book is published by ACC Art Books.

22:11James ClarkeWork with, Iconic Images, which is a photo archive in London. ... And, we'll talk about that in a little bit more detail in a, in a moment actually. That might be appropriate.

22:21Jawad MirSure.

22:22James ClarkeSo the book is a, is one of many collaborations between the publisher and the photo archive. Just for example, this is a long way r… removed from Paul Newman I guess, but they've just published a really wonderful book about Prince, of photographs of Prince, you know, just in his prime.

22:41James Clarke... So they have this really wonderful, well, they have this line of books about movies and music, pop music, so pop culture really. They published many other things, but those two companies come together for a really nice, pop culture, I suppose celebration really. I mean, that is a fair way to put it actually. And this book that, you know, I've, I've got it to hand here. I can hold it up in a moment and show you if you'd like.

23:08Jawad MirPlease do

23:09James Clarke... It, a… again, you know, it is, it is not, just to set the scene, it, you know, it's not a biography. There are several biographies of Paul Newman out there. There was a, an Ethan Hawke, made a documentary movie about him and about Newman and Joanne Woodward a year or two ago. But my book is, has a, has a very narrow, has a ve… is a very narrow slice of the pizza, which is that it's, it's about Newman's collaborations with a handful of stills photographers…

23:42James Clarke... In the 19… late '60s into the '70s particularly, who worked with him repeatedly taking pictures of him as a, you know, in terms of portraits, lots of candid material on set. And the thing that fascinates me is just how much those still images of movie stars are part of their movie stardom. You know, we think about the movies themselves first and foremost, rightly so, but actually if you think about, you may have a favorite movie star or a movie star you're aware of and how it, you know…... So forth. When you stop and think about it, and I think this is just as true now as it was, you know, 25 years ago, 45 years ago…

24:26Jawad MirOh

24:26James Clarke... 65 years ago, you know, whether we're talking about Gene Kelly or, you know… ... Talking about Clint Eastwood or we're talking about whoever, you know, there's still images that turn up in any number of magazines, whether they're movie magazines or any other magazines. You know, they all become this kind of backdrop around a given actor.

24:46Jawad MirRight.

24:47James ClarkeSo this book, this book is a large format coffee table book, and which I, which weighs about as much as a coffee table, is this here. So here's the book.

24:59Jawad MirNice.

25:00James ClarkeHere it is. And so I guess you get a sense of the dimensions of it.

25:04Jawad MirYeah.

25:05James ClarkeAnd it's a coffee table. I mean, that, it is really correct and fair to describe it in those terms, for sure. And, I'll, I'll talk about more specifics in a moment, but just to give you a feel for the, I guess, the layout. So you've got these really wonderful…

25:23Jawad MirYeah

25:23James Clarke... Kind of very candid images. For example, this is actually Paul Newman and Princess Margaret.

25:31Jawad MirOh, wow.

25:32James ClarkeBut so just for example, that gives you one indication of the kind of material. But then I must show you this, 'cause this is terrific. Forgive me while I scroll through here. Scroll through. There we are. That tells you what…

25:44Jawad MirYeah

25:45James Clarke... What time we live in. But then we've also got this. This is a actually rather famous photograph actually. This is Newman and Eastwood.

25:54Jawad MirOh, wow.

25:55James ClarkeOkay? And the rather nice thing about this book, and actually these pages demonstrate it, is that you've got a particular image show… showcased on this page, but if you come to this page, you've actually got the contact sheet. So you can have a look at the variations, if you will.

26:12Jawad MirYeah.

26:13James ClarkeVariations. This is a g… there's a great story with this one, which is that, again, I appreciate people out there may be familiar with some of these things, but this is good old-fashioned sort of movie making lore and legend. But the fact of the matter was w… was that they were both making a movie, relatively speaking, down the road from each other at the time, and they had the chance to meet up socially and, you know, this photo was taken.

26:38Jawad MirWow.

26:38James ClarkeAnd Newman was sh… at the time, Paul Newman was, shooting, I think, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, which John Milius had written the screenplay for. And here is a, again, give you a nice feel for things. Here's a really lovely picture of Newman in the makeup chair for Judge Roy Bean. Okay? So the book is this kind of amazing, archive. The other thing I wanted to show, if I may, and this…

27:08Jawad MirPlease

27:09James Clarke... Is we have a really lovely section. I'm not really a sports person, y… which may not surprise anybody, but, as people will know, Paul Newman was a devoted race car driver. So we have a really wonderful section in the book of photographs taken by a photographer, called Al Satterwhite, and he documented, any number of Paul Newman race car, competitions.

27:34Jawad MirWow.

27:34James ClarkeOne kind or another. So you've got this really lovely, sort of, discrete section at the back, which is dedicated to the, to the racing stuff. But also, just to make the point actually, which is kind of useful and important, there's t… obviously there's text.

27:49Jawad MirOkay.

27:50James ClarkeActually, this copy I'm holding up right now, this copy was published just back in December of last year, and this is the French language edition.

27:58Jawad MirOkay.

27:59James ClarkeSo you can... You know, it's available in English, but you can also now buy it in French.

28:04Jawad MirOh, great.

28:05James ClarkeAnd really worth making the point that the particular photographers who are showcased in this book are Douglas Kirkland and Terry O'Neill and Al Satterwhite. And I, you know, just made the point that Al Satterwhite was with Newman on any number of, race days.

28:24Jawad MirRight.

28:25James ClarkeBut Douglas Kirkland was with Newman and Redford for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. So, you know, we've got that in the book.

28:37Jawad MirThat's amazing, man. I'm, I'm glad…

28:39James ClarkeWe've also got... Sorry, go on. Carry on, Gerald.

28:41Jawad MirNo, please. No, you go ahead. Go ahead.

28:43James ClarkeBut you know, we also dial the clock right back to the 1960s. We've got images of Newman on stage, you know. And as I said, we've got this really lovely back and forth between the candid shots, the movie shots on set, then these lovely portraits.

29:03Jawad MirThat's amazing, man.

29:04James ClarkeFor example…

29:05Jawad MirYeah, I really enjoy those photographs. I mean, you know, it's just, there's just something else about them as opposed to now…

29:11James ClarkeYeah

29:11Jawad Mir... Obviously being in the book, right?

29:16James ClarkeWell, the thing about, the thing, I mean this is kind of a, certainly very relevant is that in writing this book, which was published in... So, this French language edition was published in 2024, and I think the original edition was 2022. There we are. I think that's when it was.

29:33Jawad MirRight.

29:33James ClarkeA couple years before. Anyway, my job was to tell the stories essentially of those collaborations between Newman and the photographers. And again, it's purely a matter of sort of generations passing. Of course, Paul Newman passed away, several years ago now.

29:52Jawad MirRight

29:52James Clarke... Terry O'Neill, who is, whose work is featured extensively in the book, he passed away, I think about five years ago now.

30:01Jawad MirOkay.

30:01James ClarkeBut what's really nice, I have to say this is again, a very much a footnote, is that I got to meet him, in London at, not long before he passed away actually. We'd, we'd... He was, he was battling health, quite severe health issues at the time. I don't think that's, you know, inappropriate to say. But, He, I got the chance to meet him and explain that I was working on a couple of books that were going to be showcasing his photographs. And that was really wonderful because it's a sort of six degrees of separations thing, which is that you're introduced to him, and I shake his hand, and we have a very brief chat, 'cause that was all that was really required. And then it was sort of after that I suddenly thought to myself, "Hang on a minute, this is Terry O'Neill. This guy has photographed so many so many major figures," not just movie stars and pop stars, but politicians and heads of state.

30:58Jawad MirRight. Right.

30:59James ClarkeYou know, he photographed The Beatles at Abbey Road before they became really a big deal, if I can put it as, simplistically as that. He photographed Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher in character as Luke and Leia during production…

31:16James Clarke... Of the original Star Wars. You know? He obviously, he, I say obviously, but it may not be obvious, he's particularly well known for a series of photographs he took on a number of the James Bond movies. You know? So he worked particularly with Sean Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Pierce Brosnan…

31:36Jawad MirYeah

31:37James Clarke... Daniel Craig. And that's one of the other books I've done. I mean, I don't have that to hand, I have to confess, but…

31:44Jawad MirWe can talk about them another time. That's not a problem

31:46James Clarke... You know, we can talk about that another day. But this Paul Newman book was really wonderful because, I had, I had essentially full access to the Terry O'Neill photo archive, which is, part of the Iconic Images archive. So in London, that's where they're based, and they've just got the most astonishing film archive. And, it's a real... I don't know how to put it without... I don't know how to put it really, 'cause it... I'm, mindful of my very good luck really, but what an amazing thing to be able to go to the archive and just kind of sift through…

32:20Jawad MirYeah

32:21James Clarke... Boxes and boxes and boxes of contact sheets and, you know, just go through all of this incredible material. And of course, often what happens, and I know this won't be lost on people, is that for whatever reason, you know, the image that makes the grade or the image that is the one that gets selected for publication or promotional use and so forth, i… is pretty good. But actually, you know, it always seems to be the image that doesn't get distributed…

32:49Jawad MirSelected, yeah

32:50James Clarke... That always seems... You know, it's the same as sort of B sides on records. You go, "Why wasn't this the... Why wasn't this the main track? Why wasn't this the single? Why wasn't this the A side?" Again, that's an irrelevant description.

33:01Jawad MirYeah.

33:01James ClarkeBut it's…

33:01Jawad MirAnd it's, it's... And I feel it's because, like, in contact sheets, right?

33:05James ClarkeVery.

33:05Jawad MirLike, it's kinda similar to now on you, if you go on your photo ph… phone live photo library, where you if you take a photograph, there's, like, 10 photographs of one moment, right? Or, people or a landscape. Specifically when it's about people, like, if I have taken a photograph and there... It happens to you, it happens to me. Let's say there's 15 versions of it. I'll just kinda skim through and see which one looks the best, right?

33:32Jawad MirAnd the rest I would get rid of. But there's a story in each of them. If you watched, if you go through them one by one, they're saying something else to you as opposed to the one that you liked.

33:48James ClarkeAbsolutely.

33:48Jawad MirAnd that to me is more fascinating than the actual picture, which is why, I mean, I, my kids when they were growing up, you know how everybody's like,... We all do this, but you have to be ready for a photograph, right? Like, be in the right clothes, be in the right…

34:02James ClarkeYeah. Yeah

34:03Jawad Mir... Hair and... I am completely of the opposite mind. I'm like, the real moments are when you are, when you look absolutely terrible, when you're doing, you know, just things that you normally do. Because at the moment they might not look good, but when down the road when you look back, it's a completely different memory.

34:22James ClarkeThere's a very... Talking about that's a good, a good segue, Gerald. Which is one of the other photographers whose work is in the book who I haven't mentioned, and may deserve another conversation another day if that's something that you would like to do or other people would like to sort of hear me talk about, if I can put it that way.

34:38Jawad MirSure.

34:39James ClarkeOne of the other photographers that Paul Newman worked with was Eva Cerini. And Eva passed away, I'm gonna say three years ago. Four years ago. And as I said, this is generational. You know, Paul Newman, Douglas Kirkland…

34:56Jawad MirYeah

34:56James Clarke... Terry O'Neill…

34:57Jawad MirYeah

34:57James Clarke... You know, they are of that generation, you know? But Eva took a series of photographs of Paul Newman. You were talking about a kind of more candid moment.

35:05Jawad MirYeah.

35:06James ClarkeIf I can put it that way. And she took a series of photographs of Paul Newman back in the early 1980s for, a magazine cover story here in the UK. I think it was to tie in with the release of possibly The Verdict, which, you know, Paul Newman movie. Or Absence of Malice. I'm thinking aloud now. I think it was Absence of Malice. In fact, I'm gonna correct…

35:30Jawad MirOkay

35:30James Clarke... Okay, which, was directed by Sydney Pollack. And there is a very famous photograph that was part of that shoot. So she went up to his house, basically in Connecticut, and just spent the weekend with him and his family. And you were talking, you made a very fair and valid point about the candid photograph.

35:49Jawad MirYeah.

35:49James ClarkeAnd that's what I think is really nice about this book, is that you've got the very formalized set up portrait, movie star portrait.

35:59Jawad MirYeah.

35:59James ClarkeBut then you've also got images like this, and this is a relatively well-known…

36:03Jawad MirYeah, that's it.

36:05James ClarkeOkay.

36:05Jawad MirRight.

36:05James ClarkeThere it is.

36:06Jawad MirYeah.

36:06James ClarkeSo that was taken by Eva, and as I say, she photographed him on a number of occasions a… as part of the, promotional activity for Absence of Malice back in the early '80s. So I hope, my hope, I think it's a fair thing to say… Is that this particular book, which I say I can't stress this enough, it's a, you know, it's a coffee table book, images and text. And my job really was really to provide context for those beautiful photographs. But whilst, you know, Terry O'Neill had passed away, and in fact Douglas Kirkland had passed away, not long before I started work on this. But I was able to talk to Douglas' wife Francois, and she was able to recall and recollect any number of, stories and, so on that were really worth the telling actually. And then I had a conversation with Al Satterwhite about his work. And I'd had... I… I'd got to know Eva Cerini a little bit a couple of years before.

37:08James ClarkeWhat I will say, actually Jawed you... And y… your ears will perk up at this, is that Eva was the special unit photographer, so she was really responsible for portraits of actors on set and some candid material, but she really was there to... She was the special unit photographer on Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. And I got to know her just in the last three or four years of her life, which, here in London, which was really wonderful. And I spent a day with her having a conversation about the entire span of her career in both European cinema and American cinema.

37:50Jawad MirRight.

37:51James ClarkeAnd, you know, at a certain point just to, I mean, as I say, this is very familiar territory for you and I to connect on, but you know, at one point I said, "Well, I must ask you about the Indiana Jones movies," and so we talked about that. But what was quite funny is that I'd never met her before that day of going to interview her at her home in London, and it had all been arranged and set up. You know, it was all prepared and scheduled, so she k… she knew I was gonna turn up. And this is absolutely true. I… I… I rang the bell to her home. She answered the door. Very petite older lady. Sort of reminded me of Audrey Hepburn in a way.

38:35James ClarkeKind of, that kind of thing. And I went into the kitchen and she'd, she began to, she made me a cup of coffee, and I was so excited. I mean, I think I kept a lid on it, but I was so excited and I said to her, I said, "You might not believe this." I mean, I'd never met her before. I said, "You're probably not gonna believe this," I said, "but when I was 12 years old, I can remember seeing your name in the, in the cr… in the image credits…

39:00James Clarke... In magazines because of really Indiana Jones."

39:04Jawad MirOf course.

39:05James ClarkeAnd she g… genuinely, and I, because I was right there to see her reaction, she genuinely couldn't believe it. She was absolutely astonished that I knew her name that well. And when I had the chance to work with her on a… on another book, not the Paul Newman book, another one, when I was invited to work on that and they said, "Oh, it's, it's a book about Eva Cerini's photographs," I sort of went, "Hold the front page. Eva Cerini? Eva Cerini. You mean Eva Cerini, Indiana Jones?" And my agent looked at me like I'd kinda gone mad. She's like, "Well, yeah. Eva Cerini." I was like, "I'll do it. That'd be, that's great." And I say that's a whole other book, which, you know, may or may not be interesting to talk about another day, but Eva's work is in this book, and Eva's work with Paul Newman is really, I don't know how to describe it, is of particular note because of the candid quality of those images.

40:09James ClarkeYeah? So…

40:09Jawad MirYeah

40:10James Clarke... You know, that's... So I've tried to capture in the text for the book, I've tried to capture some feeling about those collaborations between Newman and a number of photographers that he worked with recurrently through the '60s and '70s and '80s. So, that was the, that was the aim of the book, and I think, I don't want to overstate it, but I think, you know, people have enjoyed it and, you know, found it interesting. And of course, there are loads of photographs that aren't in the book.

40:43Jawad MirOf course. Yeah, you gotta

40:44James ClarkeYou know, so, and it's…

40:45Jawad Mir... Cut them out. Right

40:45James Clarke... And it's your, and it's, and your point of a couple of minutes ago is absolutely true, Jawed, which is that, you know, I'm sitting there, I've been, you know, I've got access to the entire archive, and I'm looking at all of these photographs from the Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, for example, directed by John Huston with a script by John Milius, and I'm, and I'm looking at these photographs with one of the members of staff at the ico… iconic images, and I'm looking at them and I'm, and I'm looking at pictures, and there are pictures of Paul Newman and, John Huston and so on. And then there are photographs in the selection w… where you can see John Milius on set, but I'm the only person in the room who knows who John Milius is. And I'm the only, I'm the only one in the room who recognizes him, and I'm going, "Oh, look, that, there's John Milius in that picture. Can we put that in the book?" And they, well, they go, "Well, who's John Milius?" You know. So I had to go, "Well, he wrote the screenplay and he was part of this group of filmmakers," and you know. And they go, "Well, this book's about Paul Newman, really."

41:46James ClarkeSo you know, it's sort of, you know, I'm making light of it.

41:48Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

41:49James ClarkeBut, so you do have to strike a balance, but it is fascinating because what you're doing in a way, and this is, I'm, I'm overcooking it, but it's sort of archeological, you know? 'Cause you're, you're sort of excavating, you're bringing everything out from…

42:05Jawad MirYeah

42:05James Clarke... Material. And it's, I don't know. I mean, I suppose all I'm trying to do for what it's wo… if it's worth knowing this or for what it's worth, is I'm just trying to communicate… Why movies bring so much joy to people, you know?

42:26Jawad MirYeah.

42:27James ClarkeBecause they do.

42:27Jawad MirI, they do, and I think storytelling is such a powerful tool that it has the ability, and it does, to change the world. It is such a powerful tool. You know, whether it's what you're doing, whether it's, you know, any kind of narr… fiction, nonfiction, whatever that is, it just connects with people. Because we're telling stories every day. Every day when from the moment we wake up, we look in the mirror, we tell ourselves a story first, and then we go on with the rest of the day, right? And telling stories. And that's what, that's what makes us, I think that's what separates us from, us from animals, unless they have their own communication, right? Where they tell stories to each other. But it's such a powerful tool, and what you're doing is incredible because, you know, even... What happens is, obviously you know this, is that, you know, we live in a day and age where, eventually everybody has to go, right?

43:29Jawad MirThat's just the way it is. And to leave something behind, whether it's a super hit or it's a super flop or it doesn't matter, because you've left something behind historically, and that will serve the future society and the coming people in the future.

43:48James ClarkeWell…

43:48Jawad MirAnd that to me is the most powerful thing, right?

43:52James ClarkeI think it's interesting. It's, you know, like I say with this book, but this is one of several that I've been very fortunate to do. So you might be interview… so I suppose trying to come back, stick with your point or observation, which is that when I'm doing interviews with photographers or relatives of photographers who have, who have now passed away, or I'm doing…

44:14Jawad MirYep

44:15James Clarke... A conversation with, Jane Seymour about her work on Live and Let Die, or I'm talking to, I did an interview recently with John Carpenter.

44:23Jawad MirOh, wow.

44:24James ClarkeYeah, that's what I thought, was like, "Oh, wow."

44:26Jawad MirOh, wow.

44:28James ClarkeI mean, just to go from John Car… just to go from Paul Newman to John Carpenter, if I may, but it's only to try and underscore your point, Jawed, which is that we have a magazine here in the UK, called SFX, as in science fiction.

44:40Jawad MirYeah.

44:41James ClarkeSorry, not science fiction, as in kind of sort of special effects. It's that sort of abbreviation. But SFX, it's been, it's been a print publication now for 30 years. The very first issue, which I remember buying, had Tank Girl on the cover.

44:54James ClarkeIt was the summer that Tank Girl came out, and Waterworld and Casper and Apollo 13. Anyway, SFX magazine is a monthly print publication. I think you can buy it as a digital edition as well now, rightly so. And last year, 1980… 19, sorry, 2024, I'm sorry, was the 40th anniversary of John Carpenter's movie Starman.

45:17James ClarkeSo I'm not really, I have to confess, I'm not really a, I don't gravitate to the horror genre particularly.

45:22Jawad MirNeither do I. It's, but I know Dark, John Carpenter, yeah.

45:24James ClarkeYou know, I've seen The Thing, and I know, I mean, John Carpenter's movies, I'm familiar with those. But one of my favorite John Carpenter films has always been Starman. And so I just, you know, last spring of last year, I just pitched an article to the editor at the magazine. I said, "If, i… if," that's the relevant word here, "If I can get an interview with John Carpenter, would you be interested in a kind of retrospective article?" Basically his memories of making the movie. And the editor wrote back and said, "Give it a shot." Because that's, that's all you can really say initially.

46:02Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

46:03James ClarkeSo I got in touch with John Carpenter through his, through his website actually. My, in fact I did it, and my editor and I did it in concert. That was the way I had to work, which was…

46:12Jawad MirRight

46:13James Clarke... Perfectly understandable. And about two weeks later, I hopped on Zoom, as we have done today, and there was John Carpenter with his dog. And it was really great. And, just to come back round to your, to your comment, is that I had a really lovely conversation with him just for 30 minutes. That was what was available, which was perfectly sufficient.

46:36Jawad MirYeah.

46:37James ClarkeAnd it was very exciting. And again, I think I kept my, I hope I kept my enthusiasm at bay a little bit and just was a little bit cool-headed about it. But it was just that point, I was just sitting there listening to him talking about making that film, and I, and the reason I really wrote the article was because I just thought, "Well, this is a lesser-known John Carpenter film," I think. I don't think I'm wrong in saying that. Wouldn't it be nice to introduce that film to anyone anywhere, but particularly young film fans particularly?

47:12Jawad MirSure.

47:12James ClarkeI think that's, you know. But again, it's really just that issue, I suppose, without sounding too kind of, you know, inflated about it, of the legacy of those filmmakers. You know, I mean, that's…

47:24Jawad MirYeah

47:24James Clarke... And I've been able to do, and I appreciate you're doing this too, and others, and others also, but, you know, it, to just to try and, acknowledge that really, and as I say, celebrate it, you know? I mean, and just kind of really acknowledge the work that they, that they did. And it was interesting talking to John Carpenter because at one point he said, "I wish I'd been able to make more movies like Starman, but everyone wanted a horror film from me."

47:49Jawad MirYeah.

47:49James ClarkeI mean, that was, he didn't quite put it, he didn't say it word for word that, but that was essentially the sentiment, was, you know, "There were other films like this that I would love to have made." But it, I don't know. I mean, there's so much more to talk about and I know time is finite here, but, you know, it, to play some teeny, tiny role in putting on the record the efforts of people to tell a story, whether it's a movie or a novel or even actually, Jawed, and this is a big part of my working life at the moment, is, I do quite a lot of writing now about the animation and visual effects industry.

48:23James ClarkeAnd particularly do, you know, do interviews with, you know, visual effects supervisors, animators, environment artists, stop mo… you know, whoever it might be… usually about a movie they've got that's coming out, so it ties in with that process. But by the same token, you know, you're still trying to shine a light on their great efforts. And, you know, I've never really worked as a film reviewer, and I don't know that I ever really wanted to, I have to confess, actually. I really mean that sincerely. I was always much more interested in talking to the filmmakers. That was really my interest, and I've, either by intent or just the way the wind has blown slightly, I've landed in a sort of visual effects and animation focus to my film writing. But I love it, and this will sound very sentimental, but when, you know, when I was 12 years old, I used to read religiously, if I can put it in those terms, Starlog magazine.

49:23Jawad MirI have those.

49:24James ClarkeRight? So…

49:25Jawad MirYeah

49:25James Clarke... Again, that's a magazine whose time in print has been and gone now, but that was a magazine that you could not get in every shop in the UK. You kind of could buy it if you got lucky in terms of the news agents that you went to. Here we are. Let's just use that.

49:43Jawad MirI got four copies of these.

49:45James ClarkeYes. Yes. There it is.

49:47Jawad MirStarlog. This is from, what year is this? I'm guessing April. Some year in April. Then there is this one, Minority Report.

49:58James ClarkeYeah.

50:00Jawad MirThen there is AI.

50:02James ClarkeOh, yeah. I've got that one. Yep.

50:03Jawad MirAnd then this is the Simon Wells film, The Time Machine, who was the great-grandson of H.G. Wells.

50:10James ClarkeYeah.

50:11Jawad MirOh, look at this. Look, I just discovered this. 'Cause with Gladiator out…

50:16James ClarkeThere you go. Gladiator, yeah

50:17Jawad Mir... You gotta, you gotta fill out this form and mail it to order it.

50:23James ClarkeThose were the days.

50:24Jawad MirThose were the days. Yeah.

50:25James ClarkeBut you know what, though, that the, thinking about, talking about Starlog magazine, and I'm being very specific. We have a magazine here in the UK called Starburst, which was very…

50:33Jawad MirYes, I…

50:34James Clarke... Very good, Starlog.

50:35Jawad MirYeah.

50:35James ClarkeBut when I was a kid, I used to read Starlog, and I used to read Starburst, but the thing with Starlog was it seemed so exotic because it had…

50:41Jawad MirYeah

50:41James Clarke... Come over from America. That was basically the long and the short of it.

50:45Jawad MirYeah.

50:45James ClarkeI read... I used to read it. I must have had my, bought my first issue in about 1984, and I read it right through until about 1999 probably. Rea… like every month, it was, like, part of my regular monthly read.

50:57Jawad MirYeah.

50:58James ClarkeBut…

50:58Jawad MirIt was, it was... Sorry, go on.

51:01James ClarkeWell, all I was gonna say is that when I'm doing my visual effects and animation articles, and I guess when I'm doing this as well, you know, this kind of thing, there's a big part of me that just thinks I'm really writing for the sort of 13-year-old me, and hopefully some 13-year-old out there who is really interested in movies and enjoys reading about them. And a lot of people do still enjoy reading about movies, whether it's a magazine article or an online piece. But when I'm, when I'm doing the writing about movies, deep down, even if I don't quite think about it in the moment, that's, that's sort of what I'm trying to do, is kind of recall how excited and interested I always was when I opened up a movie magazine or…

51:48Jawad MirYeah

51:49James Clarke... Read an ar… or read a movie book. 'cause it just, my gosh. I mean, some people have sport, some people have, I don't know. I don't know what else. Board games. I don't know, whatever it is. But it was just like that was, they just filled my life up.

52:03Jawad MirI couldn't agree with you more, man. Like, even, you know, doing this, right, this podcast, I never, just like the website, I never started with the intention of making a mon… making money. You know, because at the time when I started the website, I was 20, and, it generated into something really big because it did make a lot of money. I didn't manage it properly, but that's another story. But it did make a lot of money. But I f… I loved it. I loved every second of it. And even with this, yeah, the intention is not to make money, but for me what I've learned is it's so therapeutic…

52:45Jawad Mir... That I'm able to, sometimes, you know, when you're having these conversations, because I've nev… I don't have, ever have a script. I don't have questions. You know, sometimes people or, agents will ask me, like, "What's the format?" I'm like, "I don't have one." It's just like, you know, you're just talking about the book or the movie and the career, and that's it and wherever it goes. You end up talking about certain things that you have probably never said them out loud. Nothing extremely personal, but just random stuff, and I think that, and then now also talking to people who then appreciate their, I'm talking to them and I appreciate their talking to me, and you just become like a movie nerd. Like, I ta… I was talking to John Seale, who's…

53:26James ClarkeOh, yeah

53:27Jawad Mir... I've done, I've, I've had him, like, five, six times on for Dead Poets Society, English Patient, who was the cinematographer. He's in his late 70s… ... And talks like a kid… ... When he talks about movies. And I think that goes to what you were saying, that I think there is two elements to it, if you wanna go into deep psychology here, is that, one, because we love movies, right? And you grew… that's been your life growing up. But I think it just takes us to a place where we have been happy throughout our lives, and I think that's the key to all of it.

54:00James ClarkeYeah, it's like, it's like, I mean, I love music and I'm, I'm assuming you do, too, but you know, the passion that you might well have for mus… I mean, m… mu… music and movies go together in all sorts of really great ways, of course. But you know, and so much of this is rooted in you, your younger life when you are a kid and you're trying to work…

54:17Jawad MirYeah

54:17James Clarke... You're trying to work out who you are and what you're interested in and what you care about and how you see the world or how you wish you could see the world. And you know, those things don't, they don't go away. Other things come into your life, of course.

54:28Jawad MirYeah.

54:28James ClarkeI'm only saying the most obvious things here, but you know, other things come into your life and add onto your life. But you still have in the mix deep down the sort of origin point, you know? And…

54:42Jawad Mir100%.

54:43James ClarkeAnd I think that... I mean, I was... One of the other things I'm doing at the moment is developing an animated feature film.

54:52Jawad MirMarvelous.

54:52James ClarkeWhich is a long shot. That's a lo… that's a long road to travel. I mean, we s… state the obvious by saying that. But I was approached by a producer a little while back who I've known for about a decade, and, you know, we've had lots of conversations about could we do this, could we do that, you know, and around and around we go. And he got back in touch with me, you know, a little while ago, not very long ago, and said, "Oh, you know, we're thinking about this and we're thinking about that. Would, you know, would you," me, "like to be part of that?" And I said, "My gosh, yes. I would. I'd love to." You know, that was my simple reply. So he's in the process of, you know, pursuing the funding and finding all of the nitty-gritty of it. And, you know, we've just had some very preliminary conversations about what the story is, what it could be, how it could develop, and it's a very... I mean, it's... You know, you've had other people on the, on the show talking about things in much more detail than that, but, you know, it's such an amorphous thing…

55:48Jawad MirIt is

55:49James Clarke... At early stage, but you have to have some feel for what it could be like if it were to actually exist. But, I suppose the only point I wanted to make, again, to come back around to what you were observing a moment ago, which is that you're having a conversation or a meeting about the story or about the sort of the broader mechanics of things and how it might all unfold and develop. But it's just very interesting because every now and again, not necessarily all the time, but every now and again, you just get these glimmers kinda come shining through from whether it's from myself or from the producer or the director, where you're just... You get that glimmer of their own enthusiasm. You know, we're, we're there as professionals, and we're there to perform a task and do a very particular thing with a, one assumes with a set of resources that are finite. But the thing that isn't finite, which is really good news, is one's enthusiasm. You know?

56:44Jawad MirYeah.

56:44James ClarkeYou sometimes have to kind of, you know, find the right fit for it. But it's just very interesting to see that. I mean, this producer, I was... Had a meeting with him last week about it, and that was just, that, it just came... I always think I talk fairly sort of openly, if you like, about what I'm interested in and what I get fired up about, but he beat me to it every time, you know? And it was just, it was great because you just think, "Wow." Th… this is like the 12, 13-year-old him is also emerging, and it ge… it's... As I said, you can't sort of be like that all the time, but it's very interesting how certainly creative work does that.

57:21Jawad MirYeah.

57:22James ClarkeEven if…

57:22Jawad MirI…

57:22James ClarkeI think even if you're, even if you're doing something that is very, might be quite a somber tale that you want to tell, you know, whatever that might be. Could be a documentary, and I appreciate you've, you have a documentary strand in your, in your work, Jawed, with your projects and so on, I think. But, you know, documentary filmmaking is storytelling. You know, and you're still, as a documentarian, you're still drawing on, to some degree, in some way or other, you're still drawing on so many of those, I'm gonna call them rules, but I don't mean it quite as strictly as that.

57:56Jawad MirYeah. No, I get that.

57:57James ClarkeBut as... You know, you're drawing on those storytelling traditions. That's a better way to put it, isn't it?

58:01Jawad MirYeah. It is. And I think it's, it's... You know, whether you tell a documentary, whether you tell a narrative, which is something that I'm, my next project is, and you talked about,... You have to, you have to have a visual picture of every beat and every scene and more or less every performance and the camera angle in your head even without the storyboard until you get to that point. Only then, I think, I... This is my experience, and I could be wrong. Like, there have... You know, the project that I have right now, I've been developing it for about a year and a half. And up until maybe seven months ago, it was just kinda like these random thoughts, right? And once it started getting on paper, you start seeing it. And now that it's in its like, you know, 10th or 11th draft stage, it's like I know exactly m… mind you, it m… it will probably not come out like that because that's just the way it is, but just for my own reference, I know what the scene would look like, I know what it would smell like, I know what it would feel like.

59:11Jawad MirAnd once I think you've figured that out, that's when you know you have something good to tell. Whether it becomes successful or whether it fails and whether nobody watches it or 10,000 or a million people watch it, that's a different story.

59:26James ClarkeI think…

59:26Jawad MirBut to tell the story, it's very important.

59:28James ClarkeYeah, it is, and I think you're right. As you say, you... You know, along with everything else I'm doing, I also teach, you know, university students in terms of kind of screenwriting and so on. And, you know, the thing you keep saying to them all the time is, you know, always write about something you care about. It doesn't have to be autobiographical. It doesn't have to be about something…

59:49Jawad MirYeah

59:49James Clarke... You've experienced. But you need to always write about something you care about. You... I mean, that obviously can be absolutely anything. But, it... And that's, again, to come back to what you were just observing, that's what sees you through, I think, to some degree in terms of, well, no one may watch this. Obviously, one hopes someone does watch it.

1:00:10Jawad MirYeah. Of course. That's why you make it, right?

1:00:12James ClarkeBut it…

1:00:12Jawad MirYou want people to watch it

1:00:12James Clarke... You know, you do want people to respond to it and be prompted or provoked by it in some way. But I ha… you know, I had this experience. I've had this experience. You know, none of the books I've written have been bestsellers, and I may never write a bestseller. But it doesn't actually matter. I remember writing back in 2003. God, I just feel... With every sentence, I just think I'm really old. I remember back in 2003, I wrote a guidebook, again, not a biography. I wrote a guidebook about Francis Coppola's movies. As they stood at that point in 2003

1:00:45Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

1:00:47James ClarkeAgain, maybe there's a more of a conversation another day, Jared, about that. But I remember I wrote the book, I really enjoyed writing it. I'd been commissioned to write it. It was not s… a speculatively written thing, it was commissioned, so I was paid in advance against royalties for the writing of the book. And I wrote the book, and I loved writing it, and it was a, essentially it was a full-time writing project for three months. That was really what was required. Not very long, really, but anyway. I worked on it sort of, you know, five days a week, day and night in the last couple of weeks, which, you know, always seems to happen with a deadline.

1:01:22Jawad MirRight

1:01:22James Clarke... And the book was published in the December of 2003. You have this rather lovely moment when the box... I've never done an unpacking video. I probably won't, but, you know, the box turns up with 10 author copies in it, and it all, and you open it, and it, and it is lovely and, you know, it's, it's all good stuff. And the book came out, and I remember reading a review of it in one of the movie magazines, I don't remember which one, and it just sort of said, "Well, it's okay." I mean, it was a teeny, tiny review. It was, like, probably, it might not even have been 100 words long. It was like a little capsule review in a sidebar. There was a section about, you know, mo… movie books published this month.

1:02:02Jawad MirYeah.

1:02:03James ClarkeAnd my feeling is, "Well, it's nice to be included, actually." Anyway, the review basically said, "Well, it's all right. It's no great shakes, but, you know." And I read that, and I was, I was standing in the sh… in the newsagent, you know, I was standing in the shop reading it, and it sort of stung for a moment. And then I thought, and then immediately, and this is the, again, the point you made, Jared, I actually thought to myself, "It doesn't matter because I really enjoyed writing it." I, and in writing it, I was able to focus on the things I was most interested in within the format of the book.

1:02:35Jawad MirSure.

1:02:36James ClarkeBecause there was a kind of a, when I was watching all of those movies that he'd made up to that point, seemed to me at least that there was a sort of a shared common thread running underneath all of them, whether they were, you know, gangster movies…

1:02:47Jawad MirYeah

1:02:47James Clarke... Or musicals or whatever. And I just remember, and it was a good moment. It was another one of those little h… helping hand moments where I read this review, which wasn't, like, I mean, it was perfectly politely written and so on, and it said, "Well, it was interesting enough, but, you know, it's not gonna set the world on fire." And that was it, and I was like, "Okay." But I remember thinking, "It doesn't matter," and I didn't mean that in a, in a mean-spirited way. It was like, it doesn't matter because actually I'm really happy with it.

1:03:14Jawad MirYeah, and it…

1:03:15James ClarkeI'm really happy with it

1:03:16Jawad Mir... 100%. It's a stepping stone to the next project, and that is a stepping stone to the next project, and you just keep on going…

1:03:21James ClarkeYeah

1:03:21Jawad Mir... Because you enjoy it. But this is, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's been such an amazing way to catch up because we just didn't talk about Paul Newman book that you work… you wrote, but also maj… you know, all the stuff around us…

1:03:36Jawad Mir... Writing, filming, and all that stuff. Let's, let's do it again in the near future.

1:03:41James ClarkeI'd love to.

1:03:42Jawad MirWe'll, we'll do another book. But yeah. Thank you so much, man. Pleasure catching up. Pleasure…

1:03:48James ClarkeYeah

1:03:48Jawad Mir... Talking to you again, and

1:03:49James ClarkeLove it

1:03:49Jawad Mir... Good to see you.

1:03:50James ClarkeLove it. It's, thank, well, what can I say but thank you? It's been really... I have enjoyed it. I hope other people will find it…

1:03:55Jawad MirI have

1:03:56James Clarke... Interesting.

1:03:57Jawad MirYeah. They will. They will.

1:03:57James ClarkeAnd we'll just stay in touch, Jared, and we'll, we'll do it again when the time is right.

1:04:01Jawad MirAbsolutely. Thank you so much, James.

1:04:02James ClarkeTake care.

1:04:03Jawad MirTake care.

1:04:03James ClarkeBye for now.