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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC Studios in SoHo. Thank you for sharing your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming, or on demand, I'm really grateful you're here letting you know that WNYC Newsroom is monitoring the security presser with the mayor, of course, with regard to Tuesday's arraignment of former President Trump in downtown Manhattan. Liz Kim of the newsroom is there, and we'll bring you an update during the show as we get more information.

On today's show, we'll kick off Jazz Appreciation Month with a pair of musicians from London's Jazz Vanguard who pay homage to Miles Davis in their new album. We'll talk to musician and now novelist, Susanna Hoffs. She'll be in studio and we'll discuss a new exhibit that celebrates the work of artist phase two. That's our plan. Let's get this started with some D&D.

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Alison Stewart: A '70s fantasy role-playing board game created by an unemployed guy named Gary was turned into the just-released movie, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and it made $38 million in its first weekend in the States and $71 million globally. Dungeons & Dragons is in the pantheon of geek culture. Yet, this latest D&D film is a bit more inclusive, welcoming old hands and newcomers alike. It intentionally steps away from the grid mark vibes of a lot of other fantasy, presenting instead a compelling adventure tale and a story about found family and jokes.

The movie's got jokes. It's also a thoroughly modern movie with all the high production sheen of some of today's eminently popular franchise flicks but without the baggage of living up to an established cannon. Although much of the film's world comes from a particular 1967 story called Forgotten Realms, which was later adapted to the game, those board game features were designed for anyone to make up their own fresh stories around.

Joining me now are the writers and directors of the film, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the writing team behind Horrible Bosses and Spider-Man: Homecoming. It is Jonathan Goldstein. Hi, Jonathan.

Jonathan Goldstein: Hello. Hi, Alison.

Alison Stewart: And John Francis Daley. Hi, John.

John Francis Daley: Nice to meet you.

Alison Stewart: Hey, listeners, we want to get you in on this conversation. Did you see Dungeons & Dragons? If so, give us a call, or maybe you're a current or former D&D player, you can call us too. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can reach out on Instagram @allofitwnyc as well. John, I wonder what are some of the things that you've been seeing across culture and entertainment that made you feel like audiences would be excited about a Dungeons & Dragons film right now?

John Francis Daley: Go ahead, Jon.

Jonathan Goldstein: There's been a real resurgence in the fantasy genre in recent years between Game of Thrones, obviously, Lord of the Rings. What we haven't seen and what drew us to this idea of making a feature out of this was one that embodies the fun, that has the joy of playing the game of Dungeons & Dragons baked into the movie itself. That was our goal, was to not spoof the genre because we love it and we embrace it and we want to live in that world and make it feel real, but we also want to be able to have some light-hearted moments.

Alison Stewart: All right. I have a question. Do you both go by John or does one of you go by Jonathan? How are we going to do this? [laughs]

John Francis Daley: I think you can call him Jonathan. I call him Jon just because I don't call myself John. I don't call myself anything.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Okay, guy who doesn't call himself anything. [laughs] John, what parts of the Dungeons & Dragons universe were you really excited to explore?

John Francis Daley: Well, I think the thing that we approached with this was the idea of really embracing the tactile and tangible nature of filmmaking that was so appealing to us when we were doing Game Night and felt like we could level up in this regard. Fortunately, as a testament to the studio, they allowed us to really lean into the practical element, which you don't often see very much these days in big-budget [unintelligible 00:04:24]. To be able to really embrace animatronics and real locations and sets really took us back to the films that we loved as kids from the '80s and '90s, including Neverending Story, Willow-

Jonathan Goldstein: Princess Bride.

John Francis Daley: -Princess Bride.

Alison Stewart: God, I love Princess Bride. When you were thinking about this, Jonathan, what was something for you in making this film that was a hard yes, and what was something that was a hard no? Like, "Yes, we have to have this for this to be creatively successful". Then, what was something you were like, "No, we can't do that"?

Jonathan Goldstein: I'd say that the tone that we were shooting for was an absolute-- It had to be there, meaning it couldn't be deathly serious. It couldn't just be for fans and devotees of Dungeons & Dragons. It had to work for those who don't know the first thing about the game. That's what we pitched to the studio. We were very clear that if that wasn't the direction they wanted to take, then they should look elsewhere and they embraced it, and that's the path we went.

The definite no would be playing this as if it's dark and all about grimness and grayness. You've seen a lot of that gray medieval world. We wanted this to have visual pop, to be fun to look at, to be something that kids could get into and not be put off by. It's also got a lot of heart. It's a movie that wears its heart on its sleeve. It's not cynical.

Alison Stewart: John, how about for you? What were a couple of things or something else that was just like, "Yes, we need to have this for this to be successful"?

John Francis Daley: I think what we really wanted were a host of rounded-out emotional feelings. That was something that was really important to us to embrace, especially the heart. That's something that can fall by the wayside when you're approaching this comedically and it can become sarcastic or cynical. We knew that if we really wanted to surprise people with a film called Dungeons & Dragons, our intention was to make them cry, and so we really leaned into our most earnest childlike senses of wonder and fascination as we approached this film.

I think it succeeded in that. We talked to people who would leave the audience saying they did not expect to cry. I think that's the overwhelming consensus is that they did not expect to feel the feelings that they felt going into it, which is a win in our sense because it's a Trojan horse, this Dungeons & Dragons film. You come at it with preconceptions. That was something that was really important to us.

I guess a hard no would be the exact inverse of that where there is often this cynicism and sarcasm that you see disguised as humor in these big films where it's not comfortable enough in its own skin to embrace itself, and so it has to take the piss. That was something that we knew we didn't want to do.

Alison Stewart: It's so interesting that you talk about the crying. I don't know if you've seen the meme for The Last of Us where the guy is sitting on the couch going, "I'm ready for the zombies. I'm ready for the zombies," and in the next clip, they're crying. I interviewed Craig Mazin about it, and he was also talking about how important that undergirding, that scaffolding of human emotion, and then you get to play on top of it.

Jonathan Goldstein: No, I think part of the fun of a movie like this is subverting the audience's expectations because they come to something called Dungeons & Dragons with a set of ideas of what this movie's going to be. We start the movie with that kind of a movie so that they think that they know what this is and then we turn it on its head. The emotion is one of those pieces that should surprise people.

Alison Stewart: We're talking about Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves with its writers and directors, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. Let's talk to Michaeline on line two calling in from Long Island. Hi, Michaeline. [silence] Hang on one second. We're going to get Michaeline up. She's got a good story. Hey, are you there?

Michaeline: Hello?

Alison Stewart: Yes, you're on the air.

Michaeline: Oh, great. Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call and having the show today, and thank you so much for making this movie.

John Francis Daley: Thank you.

Jonathan Goldstein: Thank you.

Michaeline: My husband and I, we are so [unintelligible 00:08:56]. My husband and I hosted a [inaudible 00:08:59] party for 40 of our closest friends at Regal Theater out here on Long Island Friday night and it was just honestly the funniest, most, I don't know, positively, emotional thing that we have done in a long time. [laughs]

John Francis Daley: That's true.

Jonathan Goldstein: Wow. We love to hear it. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Michaeline, thank you for calling in. Let's talk to Daniel calling in on Line 1 from Middle Village. Hey Daniel, thanks for calling All Of It. You're on the air.

Daniel: Thank you so much for taking my call. I also wanted to say thank you to your guests, a sublime film. There's not ever been a decent D&D movie and you really-- I almost went so that I would have the opportunity to pan, and instead, I thought it was one of my favorite films. I took my kids. I've been playing since I was a small child, and now I'm taking my small children and we're playing. We saw your film, and I have to say, you balanced the homage to the famous monsters and characters and things without having that get in the way of the story. I just wanted to say it was a great film, and thank you so much.

Jonathan Goldstein: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: Thanks for calling in.

Jonathan Goldstein: Thank you. That was very kind of you.

John Francis Daley: I could take 10,000 more of these calls.

Jonathan Goldstein: Yes. How long do we have?

John Francis Daley: This is really affirming for me.

Jonathan Goldstein: This is good stuff. I would just say to that last caller, John and I were players too, and we knew how important it was that this film convey, not the specific dice rolling, not the rules exactly, but the feeling you get from playing the game. The swag and the [crosstalk].

John Francis Daley: Exactly. The thing I would add to that is I think there is this sense that Dungeons & Dragons is inherently alienating because you only see fringe groups playing it. What's so refreshing to us about these types of reactions from players and non-players alike is the fact that it is as accessible as any other game if not more so because it just embraces communication and socialization and being in a community and finding your family regardless of if you're related to them or not. I'm so happy to see that it's connecting with people in that regard.

Alison Stewart: I love that. It was such a New York call too. "I went to the movie so I could say bad stuff about it, but then I liked it." It's such a perfect--

Jonathan Goldstein: I think that could be said probably for every critic who reviewed this movie.

John Francis Daley: [laughs] That's right.

Alison Stewart: Let's get granular for a minute though. Jonathan, what was a decision that you made as a director that you knew, "Okay, I have to make this decision so that I can appeal to people who go deep with D&D and then to people who really don't know that much about it but were interested in the film"?

Jonathan Goldstein: We began the journey with a visit to the Wizards of the Coast in Seattle. That's the brand holders who controlled D&D. We spent a lot of quality time with them talking about the specifics of our proposed story. They raised flags of where it didn't quite jive with the lore so we figured out ways to make those things work. They even created some things which are now in the game as a result of the film. Then we had advisors on set who actually would tell us, "For this spell, they need to do this gesture. There's a component. They have to take this piece of material out of the thing and hold--"

We tried as much as we possibly could to be true to everything that the fans would recognize, but we never let that be a prerequisite to understanding those moments. We would do what we call the proper noun check every so often in the writing of it. Have we put in too many specific references that will put off the casual viewer? And we would strip those away.

Alison Stewart: There's this moment where one of the characters really digs deep into one of the emotional themes in the film, which is what self-doubt can do to us. There's the idea of trust is explored in the film, resentment is explored in the film. John, what is key in these big fantasy and action movies to weaving in those emotional notes when there is so much action going on?

John Francis Daley: I think the action all has to be informed by our characters and their choices. The thing that was crucial to us was finding ways into each of our characters for the audience so that nobody is unrelated in some way. You can see a bit of yourself in each of these characters regardless of how different each of them are and embracing all of their flaws. I think that was super important going into this where you didn't want them all to be superheroes, you didn't want them all to be flawless. There's no story there. There's no arc for each of them.

We love characters that have a lot of baggage that they have to work through because it also serves as inspiration for people watching it. That no matter how difficult your life is, whatever it is that you're facing, there is a way out. There is a way to challenge what's bothering you. Sometimes those ways are not what you would expect.

Jonathan Goldstein: That's actually something I think that has drawn people to the game of D&D for 50 years is that you may not be super successful or popular, whatever it is in your personal life, but when you get into that world and you get to play as your avatar, it's the purest escapist form of entertainment.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, you can get in this conversation. One, did you see the movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves? If so, give us a call. You can give us a review. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC, or maybe you're someone who has played Dungeons & Dragons. Love to hear why you love the game so much. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. My guests are the writers and directors of the film, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. The adventures in the movie are led by Edgin Darvis. Am I saying it right?

Jonathan Goldstein: Edgin.

John Francis Daley: Edgin.

Alison Stewart: Went back and forth about it. Edgin Darvis. A loot playing bard. He's a recklessly optimistic scoundrel played by one of the better Chrises, in my opinion. I love Chris Pine. I think Chris Pine is perfect in this role. Why did you want the story driven by a bard instead of a knight or a wizard?

John Francis Daley: There's something inherently relatable in a bard in that he's not known necessarily for his magical powers. While in the game they do possess these magical abilities, I think what it did was ground him for our audience. The fact that he's a storyteller, the fact that his real power is being able to persuade people to get on board a plan no matter how farfetched it may be, that to us was a really juicy way in that didn't seem like what you would normally expect out of a fantasy film.

Alison Stewart: Somebody asked him, "What do you do?" He's like, "I plan. I'm the guy who plans."

Jonathan Goldstein: That's right. Exactly.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk about his bestie, Holga. She's cunning. She has a big heart. She can pulverize anybody who gets in her way using whatever's at her disposal. Michelle Rodriguez plays this role. What did she bring to this fighter character who has her moments of violence as well as her tenderness? I said this because she's from New Jersey. That's in all Jersey girls.

Jonathan Goldstein: If you watch a movie carefully, there's moments where that Jersey accent breaks through for a split second. She actually played as a kid in Jersey, which is kind of amazing.

Alison Stewart: Oh, wow.

Jonathan Goldstein: Michelle was the perfect bit of casting in that she so embodies this tough but very likeable persona. We were really drawn to the idea of a fully platonic relationship between a male and a female lead. The idea that she's the one who does most of the physical fighting just because it felt fresh and different to us, it's something you don't see. The fantasy world, by and large, has been a male-dominated one where men wear the armor, and that's just how it goes. We love the idea of turning that on its head a little bit.

Alison Stewart: As long as we're talking about actors, I'm not going to give away a cameo, but there is a cameo in the film, a very thoughtful, very A-list actor, director, someone who's a very serious person. It almost starts as a gag and then it becomes this very tender moment. We'll let people if they want to Google it. I don't want to spoil or alert it, but Jonathan, just so people get a sense, this actor, I know wasn't the first person, but say he couldn't have made it, say the actor who's in the film couldn't have made it. What's an example of someone who was on the list? People that you thought, "Huh, maybe they could be in this funny role but then just turns really charming"?

Jonathan Goldstein: We had always wanted a very recognizable, A-lister face in that role so that when the door opens, it's a shock to the audience to see this person because they're three feet tall. The intention of that scene was always to really be sincere and earnest and sad, melancholy. It wasn't played for laughs. For a while on paper, I think the studio struggled with that because you're in the middle of the movie and technically by the book of screenwriting, you're not supposed to slow down for an emotional scene as you're building your rising action.

It took a good bit of work, but ultimately, I think it really helps. It helps make us care a lot about Holga and the laugh, as you said. The laugh that turns into sadness is exactly what we're after with that.

Alison Stewart: Let's take another call. Brittany is calling on Line 1 from New Jersey. Hi, Brittany.

Brittany: Hello. How are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing great. You're on the air.

Brittany: Awesome. My husband wanted to start playing about five years ago for New Year's Eve. He wanted to do a game night, and the family who we played with had a great time. We had a great time and it became a once-a-week thing that's expanded to include like 10, 11 people. I've watched my friend's kid grow up playing D&D. He's now 11. We started when he was like 5 or 6. The oldest player at the table is about 40 and everybody gets to interact, use their imagination, and process emotions.

We watch these characters develop and grow and then we say goodbye to them after a few weeks or a few months or in some cases a few years. It's amazing and it's fun and it's creative. There's no screens and it's just pure, honest, fun game night that can be as age appropriate as you want or don't want it to be. It's fantastic. It's a great addition to our family.

Alison Stewart: Brittany, thank you for calling in. Let's talk to Avidad calling in from Fair Lawn, New Jersey.

Alison Stewart: Hi, Avidad. Thanks for calling in.

Avidad: Hi. Thanks for having me. I've been a Dungeons & Dragons player for 12-something years now. When I started out it was still kind of look the scans, like what's that random thing you're doing in a room? Just rolling dice [unintelligible 00:20:19] with nothing. There's no winning. I'm really happy that as it's been going on, it's becoming more popular. Now people I know that even aren't into D&D are looking forward to seeing this movie, and so I'm really happy that it's hit the mainstream now.

Alison Stewart: Thanks.

Jonathan Goldstein: Have you seen it yet?

Avida: I actually haven't. I'm planning to on Sunday. It's the thing I've been looking forward to the most coming up, but I finally found some time to go see it.

Jonathan Goldstein: Nice. I'm so glad.

Alison Stewart: Thanks for calling in.

Jonathan Goldstein: Hope you enjoy it.

Alison Stewart: Jonathan, you shot the film in Iceland and then in Ireland?

Jonathan Goldstein: Northern Ireland.

John Francis Daley: Yes, most of it in Northern Ireland. We did some plate work which is second unit stuff in Iceland as well as in England and Wales, but for the most part, it was in Northern Ireland.

Alison Stewart: Being in that area, what did it give you? What opportunities did it present for you creatively?

John Francis Daley: It had this incredible diversity in locations. It's beautiful. It looked straight out of a fantasy world. We also had the infrastructure of stages that belonged to Game of Thrones and also Titanic.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

John Francis Daley: It was actually where the Titanic was built. It's called Titanic Stages. It's massive. We used almost every inch of the lot as well as the back lot, which did belong to King's Landing in Game of Thrones, which we repurposed into our Neverwinter town square.

Alison Stewart: Something I think is interesting about both of you is you have interesting backstories in your career. Jonathan, because the internet, correct me if I'm wrong, that you went to Harvard Law School?

Jonathan Goldstein: Yes, I did.

Alison Stewart: Why did you bail on legal life?

Jonathan Goldstein: [laughs] I was also a German literature major in college.

Alison Stewart: [unintelligible 00:22:15].

Jonathan Goldstein: Yes. It was an odd path. I didn't know anyone who made a living in any entertainment field. It's like being in the NBA. Who gets to do that? It wasn't until I went to law school and became friends with a guy who was writing a TV spec script that I learned how you get into the industry, and then I worked for two years at a big firm in New York and quit and moved to LA and started writing. John and I actually met on a TV show I was a writer on, he was an actor on.

Alison Stewart: I was going to say, John, you're an actor. People if they saw your face, they might recognize you from Bones or when you were a kid from Freaks and Geeks. How do you think being an actor has helped you behind the camera?

John Francis Daley: Oh, it helped immensely in that as an actor you understand the vulnerabilities that come with the job and the fact that a director can say something that can absolutely cripple you without them even knowing it. We keep that very much in mind when we're guiding our actors and giving notes to really put ourselves in their headspace and be as empathetic as we can.

I think there's also a magic trick in directing in that you can really kind of manipulate the situation without bogging someone down or making them even feel like they are being guided. That's something else that just having had experience on the other side of it definitely helped.

Alison Stewart: Let's take Ben, calling in from Brooklyn. Hey, Ben, thanks for calling All Of It.

Ben: Hey, thank you for having me.

Alison Stewart: Go for it. You're on the air.

Ben: I'm really excited to see the Dungeons & Dragons movie. I have not yet had a chance to see it, but I work in the film industry and have been playing D&D with my friends for the last six or so years. I've just found a really cool, just as a storytelling medium to learn how to collaborate with other people and improv and really just have the characters be rails with the story. It's been really fun to just engage in that with all my friends in a new way, and I'm excited to see how it translates into the screen.

Alison Stewart: Ben, [crosstalk].

John Francis Daley: Well, thanks. I hope you enjoy it.

Alison Stewart: I want to follow up what Ben was talking about in terms of storytelling. Jonathan, you can start. What's something you learned about storytelling from D&D?

Jonathan Goldstein: Well, I think that one of the joys of playing the game is that you're always at the mercy of a dungeon master who can throw a curveball at you at any moment. That's really what you're doing as the writer and director of a film. You're the dungeon master of the movie, and what we've always tried to do is a similar thing, throwing curve balls. Some of our favorite movies are the ones where you think you're going down a certain path and then the rug gets pulled and you have to figure out how to get through it. In this case, it's literally how to survive or how to finish your quest. It's true of any story you tell. The best ones don't go quite the way you expect them to.

Alison Stewart: With that idea, John, what was something that didn't quite go the way you expected it to on this film and how did you [crosstalk]?

John Francis Daley: Pretty much everything.

[laughter]

John Francis Daley: That is the inherent nature of filmmaking, especially big-budget filmmaking, and even more so filmmaking during COVID. That lend itself a whole new host of challenges and conflicts that we had to contend with all the quarantines. The fact that certain actors, we wouldn't even be able to fly out because they'd have to participate in the 10-day quarantine before even starting. The thing that made it doubly difficult was our approach to practical filmmaking, which we knew we wanted to do, but also had so many challenges on the day versus things that you're facing in the post-production process.

One day our animatronic dragonborn would not be cooperative and doing insane things with its face that we have to figure out how to adjust. Then just the technical component of techno cranes, folk sailing, and locations getting rained out. All of that said, that unpredictability adds to the magic. Very often the things that we weren't expecting to go the way we wanted them to ended up enhancing the story or making it actually better because there is that sense of whimsy and chaos that I think that is inherent in D&D and inherent in filmmaking in itself.

Alison Stewart: There's an original game element that hangs over the movie, the idea of moral alignments, the good, the neutral, the chaotic, lawful [crosstalk] Superman, chaotic evil as the Joker. Jonathan, how are you thinking about the relationship between the moral alignments of your characters and their personalities? Because we haven't said it, but there are bad guys. There are obviously bad guys in the film.

Jonathan Goldstein: There are bad guys, but they are capable of redemption. That's really what it's a redemption tale where each of them, especially Chris Pine's character, goes from selfishness to selflessness, baking the ultimate sacrifice at the end of the film. I think one of the messages of the movie, as much as those alignments are an important part of Dungeons & Dragons, we want to get across the idea that those are not impermeable. Those can change. People can change and level up and become nobler.

Alison Stewart: Before we let you go, if you were both equipped with rings of invisibility and helms of listening, John, you can start, what would really make you feel, not just happy but satisfied to hear in the lobby of a theater when you leave?

John Francis Daley: It's funny because I actually did spend some time in the lobby with a mask on so no one really knew who I was or that I was associated with the film. Just to be able to hear that it touched people and surprised them, not just because it was funny but because it made them feel better than they felt going into it. That's what we ultimately wanted out of this film is to help people out.

Jonathan Goldstein: I would say, luckily, for better or worse with the internet, you don't need a helm of invisibility because everyone's going to tell you what they think.[chuckles] In this case, it's been really a nice pleasant thing because so much of the online chatter has been positive and embracing it. Somebody reached out to me directly to say that the movie meant so much because they found a connection to their own kid through playing D&D and they went and saw the film together and it just furthered that connection, and they were so grateful for the movie and the game being able to do that.

John Francis Daley: It makes the four years we spent on it worth it.

Alison Stewart: Ooh, Four years. Let's talk to Jen from Brooklyn to end the segment. Jen, you're on the air.

Jen: Hi, this is so exciting. I'm calling for two reasons. One is because my son will be so happy that I talked to you. He will literally be through the moon. We went through the movie on Saturday night and we took 10 kids, all of whom my son played D&D with, and I was shocked at how much I absolutely loved the movie. I just wanted to congratulate you for making a film that works for, I'll be honest, a middle-aged woman and teenage boys. At the very end, my younger son looked at me and he was like, "Mom, are you crying?" [laughter]

Jen: I was like, "Yes, I am actually crying," which really embarrassed them. Just congratulations on-- truly a triumph.

Jonathan Goldstein: I love that.

John Francis Daley: Thank you.

Jonathan Goldstein: What's your son's name?

Jen: My son's name is Micah.

Jonathan Goldstein: Micah. [unintelligible 00:30:22].

Jen: Honestly, D&D is really meaningful to him and got him through the pandemic.

Jonathan Goldstein: Nice.

Jen: Your film came at a really great time.

John Francis Daley: This is for you, Micah.

Jonathan Goldstein: Yes. Give our best to Micah.

Alison Stewart: My guests have been Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. The name of the film is Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Thanks for spending some time with us.

Jonathan Goldstein: Thank you, Alison. This was great.

 

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