Movie Wars Shorts: Prolific Actor/Director Duos

Throughout film history, directors have identified their go-to collaborators and gone back to the well several times. Scorsese and De Niro have collaborated 11 times. John Wayne and John Ford worked together 21 times. Kyle and Drew go off-topic and analyze the all-time best Actor/Director duos, why they work, and what directors see in their frequent collaborators. They also go through some of their favorites duos.

[00:00:00] Movie Wars.

[00:00:13] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special Movie Wars

podcast. This is your host, Kyle. And I am Drew. What is up, guys? What

is crazy? It's weird, right? New territory. New territory. No Phil. This is

episode zero, zero, whatever, point five, zero, zero pie. [00:00:30] Uh,

it's funny because we, you know, we, we love doing our wars, but for

people, and we have had fans reach out, be like, when's the new

episode coming out?

[00:00:37] I think it's good for people to know that when you're preparing

for two movies, and comparing two movies, it's, it's a lot of work,

especially the amount of work that we put in research wise. And so, we,

we, what was funny, Drew pointed this out, I was like, We should just

leave the microphone on because when we're done doing the wars, like

we just keep talking about movies, we light up a stogie and we just keep

the conversation going.

[00:00:55] And we're always like, we should have just kept recording. So

this is our version of that. So we're going to [00:01:00] be releasing

some special episodes where we just go down all kinds of rabbit holes.

Never boring. Listen, there's plenty of great movie review podcasts out

there. We'll have tensions of review throughout it.

[00:01:09] We'll give our opinions, but really this is just a tackle.

Interesting subject matter. People ask for our lists all the time. So here

we go. Let's do it. So is this like a battle or, or, uh, A skirmish? A

skirmish. Yeah, it's a skirmish. An argument? Yes, it's a pre argument.

What's funny about, uh, about movies for Drew and I is, and I know not

every diehard movie fan is a sports fan, but the way [00:01:30] we

always end up talking about movies kind of is through the lens of sports,

which is why we love the list.

[00:01:35] And love all these different aspects and the way we dissect it.

And that's what generated today's content, which is, uh, or today's

episode was this idea of director, actor, duos, uh, Druid watched killers

of the, of the flower moon. And obviously Scorsese is my favorite

director of all time, but because I'm a dad and you're a dad, like we get

to new movies much later than people do.

[00:01:52] Now we get to it in dad time. And so, but I, you watched it and

I watched it a week later and I was thinking in the middle of it, I was

[00:02:00] like, Leo is becoming the guy for Scorsese. I mean, obviously

De Niro is in that movie, but He's still very much just De Niro in it. And I

was texting you. I was like, have you noticed this?

[00:02:08] Like, like, like it's like all of a sudden Leo is kind of becoming

the new Scorsese guy, but it was Bob, you know, for so long it was

Robert De Niro. I call him Bob. It was Robert De Niro. You guys go way

back. Yeah. And it got me going down this path. Like there has got to

just be a plethora of these. And I started looking through lists and

thinking through my favorites.

[00:02:25] I was like, holy smokes. There are a lot of great. Like

consistent collaborations out there. Well, and this [00:02:30] has been

kind of a theme this year because not only Killers of the Flower Moon,

but also Oppenheimer, I'm reminded of this concept because

Christopher Nolan likes course as he has his guys, he has this pool, his

bullpen of dudes that he draws from, you know, one of those being

Michael Caine, one of those being in this specifically in Oppenheimer

was Killian Murphy.

[00:02:47] Yeah. So it's, it's always interesting to, to see like how they go

back to their favorites. I think, yeah, that, that's so true. And one of the

things that interests me is the pattern of how they use the actors,

because you said [00:03:00] Killian Murphy. That was actually one of my

next points. That was amazing to me.

[00:03:03] Like Killian Murphy originally auditioned to be Bruce Wayne

and be Batman in that trilogy. But apparently he did real off the wall, real

quirky and unique. And so no one's like, I like this guy, just not as Bruce

Wayne. So he starts off as Scarecrow, kind of in the background of

villain, but not even the main villain.

[00:03:18] And here we are six films later, he's Oppenheimer. I mean, he

just I love how he has that arc where Scorsese with De Niro for so long,

kind of in the same vein, kind of always. You could argue that Travis,

you know, [00:03:30] that, that, uh, taxi driver is kind of shows a lot of

range, but he kind of has that one note.

[00:03:34] Um, but then you look at Samuel L. Jackson, six films with

Quentin Tarantino, kind of this crazy, yeah. Wearing different outfits, but

very much always Samuel L. Jackson, very similar character. So it's

really fun to see how they use them. But a question I have for you is just

like in your mind, what is the, what's good criteria?

[00:03:51] And this doesn't have to be like. Educational or scholastic or

anything, but for when you're looking at movies, what is a good criteria

or a good evaluation of what makes a good [00:04:00] duo? Oh,

interesting. Uh. I, for me, it's just as simple as like recognizability, like, do

I have, I seen this tandem in the past and you know, when I first see

directed by, that's like usually the first name I look at, like who, well, the

first name is the actor, like who's starring in the movie.

[00:04:16] And when I see that it's being directed by someone that's

directed them in the past and a specific, specifically a movie that I've

enjoyed in the past, then I'm obviously more. Prone and inclined to go

see that movie. No, I love that. Yeah, and, and, and if you follow

directors, [00:04:30] there is this idea of like you see, I know when I see

another collaboration, I can't wait to see that next iteration of what they

do.

[00:04:35] It's like, oh, they're doing it again. Like, let's go. Let's go. You

know, it's really cool. And then you have guys like Leo that they, they

have like their A Rolodex of directors that they like to go back to, you

know, like he, yes, he's done a lot of Scorsese movies, but he's also

Nolan who likes to have his guys, he's kind of become one of Nolan's

guys as well.

[00:04:53] So it's, it's sort of interesting that like the club in Hollywood

seems to be kind of small and that like [00:05:00] press at that prestige

filmmaking level. It really does. And then you have another example,

kind of the inverse of that, which is you have actors with. Crazy enough

careers where they have where you could look at two different

collaboration, which is the case with your beloved Tom Hanks.

[00:05:12] He has five films with Zemeckis. Pretty good movies, I would

say. Forrest Gump, Cast Away, The Polar Express, Pinocchio, and Here.

And then he also has five with Steven Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan,

Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, Bridge of Spies, and The Post.

Right. All right. I mean, he has, he has a big enough and a great enough

repertoire to have two different directors that he's, you know, A constant

[00:05:30] collaborator with honestly, Kyle, I'm a little, I'm surprised that

you don't see more of this because I'm thinking about any other industry.

[00:05:36] Like if you're creating with someone, well, it just makes sense

to go back and make another thing with those people. You know, if you

love who you're working with at your job, like you want to, and you have

the option to. Go back with them. Like why, why wouldn't you? Yeah. So

I'm honestly, I'm surprised that there aren't more kind of partnerships in

Hollywood that take off maybe like directors and actors getting together

and creating their own production companies.

[00:05:58] Like I'm surprised there's not kind of [00:06:00] more of this

partnership. That's an interesting thing and it's, uh, you gotta wonder

where it is because you have, you have, obviously you have casting

directors, people that their job is to cast films, but then you have very

obvious examples of where directors have a bent towards a certain actor

or actress.

[00:06:12] You know, I think one of the craziest relationships is, and this

is one of my top five, is Wes Anderson and Bill Murray. Nine movies

together. You know, and it's sometimes you gotta wonder at that point, if

you're talking nine movies with one director and one actor, there has to

be something there where there's more than just the work.

[00:06:28] There's a connection. Bill [00:06:30] Murray must, the way he

embodies Wes Anderson's work, it must really speak to what the

message Wes Anderson's trying to convey. Well, and forgive me if I'm

stepping on a point that you're about to make, but I think of Tim Burton

and Johnny Depp in that conversation. Like, they are a match made in

heaven.

[00:06:44] Whatever is dreamed up in Tim Burton's brain, for whatever

reason, is perfectly, perfectly true. Presented on screen through Johnny

Depp. Like he seems to be like just weird enough to kind of like

articulate whatever character that Tim Burton has created. You're

[00:07:00] so spot on. I'm looking at this Tim Burton, Johnny Depp list.

[00:07:02] It's wild. And think about it. This does, this list does not

include Pirates of the Caribbean. Right. Edward Scissorhands, Charlie

and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland, Sweeney Todd, Sleepy

Hollow, Dark Shadows, Corpse Bride, Ed Wood. You know, like, a lot of

these are very whimsical, Halloween y, kind of creepy, like they're all just

kind of in that world, and they seem to be a match made in heaven for

that [00:07:30] particular genre.

[00:07:31] When Burton and Deb get together, it's Halloween 365 days a

year. So amazing. So what I want to do now, we're going to go through

some of our top, some of our favorites, but I kind of just for the listeners,

I kind of want to go through just in case they haven't thought about this,

just kind of some of the, the, we, Drew and I curated a bunch of lists

together, some that really like popped out to me, obviously the

Hollywood scene was much smaller.

[00:07:52] It was a much simpler time, but between 1928 and 63, John

Ford and John Wayne. 21 movies together. That's insane. That's gotta

be like a record, [00:08:00] right? According to this list, yeah. I mean, the

next one is Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. Sorry, Toshiro Mifune.

16 films, which I honestly haven't spent a lot of time with.

[00:08:11] But then we obviously have Scorsese and Robert De Niro. 11

movies between 73 and 2023. Started with Mean Streets, which I think is

highly, criminally underrated. And then Killers of the Flower Moon.

Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, nine movies. Uh, and that's including,

uh, I'm trying to look at some of the ones I love on that list.

[00:08:29] Annie [00:08:30] Hall, great. Play It Again, Sam, great. And

then I did mention this already, Wes Anderson, Bill Murray, nine movies.

Oh, I love this one. I'm a big Coen Brothers fan, but Joel, uh, the Coen

Brothers and Francis McDormand. Hmm. Uh, Fargo, uh, Hail Caesar,

Burn After Reading. You already mentioned this one, Burton and Depp,

eight movies between 90 and 2012.

[00:08:48] Yeah, one of my personal favorite, uh, partnerships is, I love

Alfred Hitchcock movies. His best movies, in my opinion, are with Jimmy

Stewart. Vertigo is one of [00:09:00] my all time favorites. He did The

Man Who Knew Too Much. He did Rear Window. Rear Window's

probably my second favorite. Uh, Rope is also a great one.

[00:09:07] And they did all those together. Like, such a great

partnership. Did you, you went through a Hitchcock thing in college,

right? I did. I had like the DVD box set and I just like ran it down. I

remember in college, like randomly when football season was over. It

was always when football season was over when you got on your kick.

[00:09:22] And I walked in like, why are, you're only watching black and

movie, black and white movies right now. What's happening? I was

doing the thing that I do, Kyle. Yeah, you were doing the thing.

[00:09:30] When Drew gets on a thing, he gets on that thing. So, uh,

yeah, and we have Tom Hanks with Zemeckis and Spielberg, five

movies each.

[00:09:36] Yeah. And then Spielberg with Harrison Ford is interesting.

Well, I guess they just, it was all the Indiana Jones movies. Well, that's

interesting too, because that brings up another thought I had written

down, which is like, Coppola is not this way. Coppola, I think, you know,

he did two movies with Brando, three with Pacino, but those three

Pacino movies were Godfather.

[00:09:53] Like, in the 90s, my favorite film with him was the, was his

Dracula movie, Bram Stoker, and that's Gary Oldman and Keanu

Reeves, you know, [00:10:00] and Winona Ryder. So, you know, you

have some actors that are, or sorry, some directors that are very prolific,

but don't necessarily have this need. But you know, I bet after filming

apocalypse now and going through three lead actors in one filming

probably made him care a little bit less about real.

[00:10:13] We remember, uh, Martin Sheen had the heart attack and he

fired Harvey Cattell and then Brando shows up 30 pounds or 60 pounds

overweight and can only do like a quarter of his lines that were written

for him. He probably was like, you know what? We'll put Keanu Reeves

in an English, uh, English role here.

[00:10:29] Do you want to go through some of your [00:10:30] favorites?

Yeah, well, I'm a huge Hank's head. Hank's head. I'm a Hank's guy.

Yankin for some Hankin Uh, so I love the Hank's relationships both with.

Uh, Robert Zemeckis, Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis, uh, as well as

his work with Spielberg. To me, Spielberg and Tom Hanks in the 90s is

just cinema bliss.

[00:10:49] Mm hmm. Uh, the stuff that they were able to rattle off. I

mean, catch me if you can. Um, another interesting relationship, which

it's kind of a different dynamic because it's the same character over and

over again, but [00:11:00] Peter Jackson and Ian McKellen, because he

played the wizard Gandalf and all three of the Lord of the Rings movies.

[00:11:05] And then he did a Hobbit trilogy, which lost most of those

characters because it's, it takes place much, much later. Earlier, but

Gandalf was kind of a, you know, the remaining remnant from, from the

Lord of the Rings trilogy. So that's interesting that they did six films

together. That's quite a library as well.

[00:11:22] Yeah. Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe kind of surprised me, I

think because now, forgive me if these are good movies, [00:11:30] I've

never seen a good year, uh, Robin Hood or American gangster. I think I

saw a lot of these guys. American gangster is really good. Okay. Bye.

But Gladiator is like, there's a clear, like, great movie in those five and

then the rest are not quite as good.

[00:11:41] Ridley Scott's had such a long career, you know, Alien came

out in 1979, so he's, he's done it so long that he's, he's, and you know,

he's worked with so many of those, uh, English and British actors that

don't necessarily do a ton of stuff in, you know, American work. So a lot

of those alien, besides Sigourney Weaver, a lot of those actors were all

like [00:12:00] Shakespearean London based dudes.

[00:12:01] Yeah. I'm one of the point I was going to make is back to your

Scorsese. Idea. And you, you kind of started this conversation. Like, is

Leo the new Bob? I guess my pushback on that would be Bob. He's,

he's worked with Robert pretty recently. Like even before flowers of the

killer moon, he did Irishman, which was kind of like a greatest hits record

for that was like all of his mom movies wrapped into one.

[00:12:25] I don't think he's really moved on from De Niro. I think he's

just added [00:12:30] DiCaprio specifically in killer. The flower moon is

like, I'm going to put my guys in together. Yeah. It's a really great point,

and I think the conversation you and I got into, I think the realization that,

that we both had, Leo allowed him to do something new.

[00:12:41] Obviously, they did a crime film, like, kind of a Scorsese

movie with the Departed, but then it was, you know, Gangs of New York,

and then it was, it was Gangs of New York, then Aviator. Like, out of

nowhere, Scorsese's doing this, this movie. Now, he did try this earlier.

Remember, he did, uh, The Last Temptation of Christ with Will of the

Foe.

[00:12:56] But absolutely got throttled for it because of his take on on

[00:13:00] the whole situation. And so they, you know, Willem Dafoe

become untouchable for a little bit. Martin Scorsese was kind of scorned

for that. So that was kind of his like big, like when he tried to deviate, you

know, from his crime thing and then got his wrist slapped and then kind

of went back to the drawing board for a while.

[00:13:13] And then. But then he does Aviator, which is such an

interesting I didn't necessarily watch that and feel the Scorsese in that.

Like, it was a really good biopic. Did you like, uh, Aviator? Uh, you know

what? I don't know if I watched it. It's really good. I'm not a big bi.

Really? I feel like they're a little bit [00:13:30] formulaic.

[00:13:30] It's kind of just, they're all He was kind of a crazy enough guy.

Like, at one point he was peeing in jars. Like You know, Aviator and

Oppenheimer. Ooh. Writing that down. Wow. That would be, that's

amazing. Like really prestigy inventor, biopics, biopics. I never know how

to say that. Inventions and stuff that changed the world type of thing.

[00:13:51] I love that. But yeah. And then shutter Island, the wolf of wall

street, the audition, which was a short film and then killers of the flower

moon. I mean, Leo, after the departed really, or actually the [00:14:00]

departed came out after gangs in New York. I forget that sometimes, but

you know, he really let Marty maybe do a different type of film, you

know?

[00:14:07] So you're right. Like maybe he's not becoming the new Bob.

But it's just that he kind of opened a new door and more, you know,

Scorsese's been doing it long enough now. Yeah. Well, and I think

there's the reality of just the aging process, you know, De Niro's elderly.

And so when Scorsese wanted to tell a story about a younger man, he

could no longer De Niro because he's just too old.

[00:14:27] So I'll go through a couple of my favorites. So I actually have,

[00:14:30] you know, I jotted down five that I love here, both Scorsese,

De Niro and Scorsese, Leo, both of my top 50, but I just think they make

great stuff together. I think Mean Streets from 1973, such a young De

Niro there. And I think that's truly an underrated movie.

[00:14:43] I love that work, but obviously Raging Bull, Goodfellas, we all

know how much I love those movies, but then all the stuff he does with

Leo. Like when I saw Gangs of New York, I just couldn't believe that was

a Scorsese movie. Liam Neeson's in that, Cameron Diaz. Daniel Day

Lewis obviously. And I love that too, like, Scorsese like [00:15:00] got

Daniel Day Lewis to maybe come out of one of his five retirements to do

Gangs of New York, you know?

[00:15:04] Fine, I'll come out and win another Oscar. Ugh, fine, I'll put the

shoes down. Then I have down here Wes Anderson and Bill Murray.

This one was really fun for me to do more research on because I

obviously knew. of this because I'm a huge Wes Anderson fan and a

huge Bill Murray fan. But one thing we hit on earlier was this idea of like,

why?

[00:15:21] And like, I think five times is like, you know, great actor, great

director. We like to work together. But nine times, that's like a

connection. That's like there's something about the way we work

[00:15:30] together. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that

Bill Murray was a comedic actor for so long, with SNL, Caddyshack,

Ghostbusters, but a lot of people like saw Groundhog Day and thought,

yeah, he's probably pretty good.

[00:15:40] It's still kind of funny. Well, you know, but then he does Wes

Anderson straight up dry, can be dry, can be dynamic, can be very

dramatic. And so I think it's interesting. I don't know if Wes Anderson

saw that in Bill Murray and brought it out, or if it's kind of just known that

Bill Murray is a great actor, but I love that Wes just kind of pulled that out

of Bill Murray.

[00:15:58] And, uh, you [00:16:00] know, The Grand Budapest, The

Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, Dar my favorite Wes Anderson

movie, Darjeeling Limited, and then Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, all

fantastic films, I mean, I don't love Life Aquatic, I know a lot of people

worship that movie, but just a lot of, like, Rushmore, like, brought me to

tears, just amazing, Rushmore was the first one, 98, and it was just like,

whoa, who is this, who is this Bill Murray that we're seeing here, like,

who is this?

[00:16:23] This one is crazy because, uh, this is all Odyssey films, but

Philip Seymour Hoffman, God rest his soul, and Paul Thomas [00:16:30]

Anderson. Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drug Love,

which is how we learned about Adam Sandler being a great dramatic

actor in The Master. All, like, three hour epic movies.

[00:16:38] Hoffman was a guy that, you know, obviously he passed

away, you know, too soon from heroin. You know, they had a thing,

man, like, they just made epics together. I I I guess I just, it hit me, I was

like, oh, they did five? Five together, you know, that's like 20 hours of

film right there, just with those five movies.

[00:16:54] You know, what's interesting about this list is it's a lot of high

art [00:17:00] filmmaking. There's not a lot of like cash grabby

blockbuster type relationships that sustain. It seems that like when a

couple of collaborators really have chemistry and they're trying to make

something that's, you know, has a great deal of integrity from an artistic

standpoint, that's when you see them, like, Going back and working

together over and over again.

[00:17:18] It's an interesting thought. Yeah. It's crazy. I mean, actors that

aren't on here that we cover and like it, you know, Nick Cage done a ton

of movies, Arnold slide. Keanu doesn't have his guy. Yeah. All the

crews, people we love, [00:17:30] but well, this has been a really fun

exercise looking at this. We would love to hear from you guys.

[00:17:34] What do I was, you love the most send us messages, drop in

the comments, but thank you for tuning