A Curious Mind

by Brian Grazer

  His studio, where he was producing all this dramatic art, felt almost like an expensive, elaborate science laboratory. It was almost antiseptic. He was like the calculating genius, the scientist, thinking and creating.

  I went to his studio a second time much more recently—it was in a different place, and it was like the first studio, the science lab, had been taken to a whole new level.

  Later, when we started talking about art for the cover of A Curious Mind, I suddenly thought of Jeff Koons. What would his approach to curiosity be? What would his approach to a book cover be?

  I didn’t ask him directly—I passed word through a mutual friend that I would love for him to do a drawing for the book. Word came back that he would definitely do it.

  A month later, in the summer of 2014, we met at the Aspen Ideas Festival and I said to him, “I’m so excited you’re doing a piece of art for the book!”

  He said, “Tell me about the book.”

  I described the years of curiosity conversations, the people, the sense I have that I wouldn’t have had anything like the kind of life I’ve had without curiosity. I told him that the point of the book is to inspire other people to see the simple power of curiosity to make their own lives better.

  Koons’s face lit up. “I understand,” he said. “I love that.”

  And the drawing he did for the cover captures what we were talking about—a seemingly simple line drawing of a face that conveys exactly the joy, openheartedness, and excitement that being curious brings.

  Writer Puts Producer in a Headlock

  Perhaps the greatest boxing writer in modern America was Norman Mailer. He was a great writer about many things—Mailer won the National Book Award and two Pulitzers—and also a huge force in America’s cultural landscape starting in the 1950s, when he cofounded The Village Voice.

  When we started working on Cinderella Man, the boxing movie that we ultimately got to show to President Bush at the White House, I decided it would be fun and valuable to talk to Mailer about the boxer Jim Braddock and the role of boxing in Depression-era America.

  I met Mailer in New York City in 2004. I let him pick the place—he chose the Royalton Hotel, one of those famous old Midtown hotels that had once been elegant but was a little past its prime. (The Royalton has since been renovated.)

  It was the kind of lobby that had those old lumpy couches covered with velvet. Slightly uncomfortable. We sat catty-corner to each other. Mailer sat very close to me.

  When we met, he was eighty-one years old, but there was nothing old about him. We sat on the couches and talked about boxing, about our relationships. We complained to each other about our relationships.

  Even at eighty-one, Mailer was a tough guy. He was short, and thick, and very strong. He had a big, tough face. And he had a very interesting voice. He enunciated every word. Every word had drama to it. You leaned into his voice.

  It was about three in the afternoon, but Mailer ordered a drink. I remember thinking it was a little early to start drinking—but probably not in the world Norman Mailer lived and wrote in. He was a bridge to the era of Hemingway. He had something you’d expect from a guy like Mailer—something old-fashioned, like a sidecar. A whiskey drink.

  Mailer liked the idea of a movie about Jim Braddock. He was crabby—he was crabby about most things that afternoon. But he liked the idea of the movie.

  He was kind of funny. We took some pictures—he was willing to take pictures with me, but he wasn’t warm and fuzzy about it. “Okay, take it. You’ve got a second to do it,” he said.

  When he was talking about boxing, he used his fists to show the punches. He talked about individual fights—he could remember the sequence of punches in specific rounds in specific fights—and he showed me the punches, he literally did the punches. He talked about the physiognomy of the boxers, how they study each other’s bodies and faces, looking for the places where the punches will really hurt.

  He was demonstrating an exchange of punches in a particular fight, and he said, “And then he threw him out of the ring.”

  I was surprised. I asked, “How’d that go? How did he throw him out of the ring?”

  He just reached over, said “It went like this,” and then all of a sudden Norman Mailer had me in a headlock. Right in the lobby of the Royalton Hotel. The famous writer put the Hollywood producer in a headlock.

  I wasn’t quite sure what to do.

  With his arms wrapped around my head, it was clear how strong he was. It was slightly embarrassing. I didn’t want to struggle. But I also wasn’t quite sure what would happen next. How long would Mailer keep me in the headlock?

  It lasted long enough to leave a strong impression.

  Breakfast with Oprah

  I got to meet Oprah Winfrey at just the moment when I needed to meet her. I was feeling a little low, and Oprah was exactly the kind of warm, reflective, and honest person I needed to talk to.

  It was early 2007. I had never crossed paths with Oprah, despite all her impact on TV and the movies.

  I was talking to Spike Lee, and I knew they were friends. “I want more than anything to meet Oprah,” I said to Spike. “Will you help me?”

  Spike laughed. “Just call her, man!” he said.

  “I don’t know her,” I said. “I don’t think she’ll call me back.”

  Spike laughed again. “She knows who you are,” he said. “Just call her.”

  Spike gave me the push I needed. I called Oprah.

  The next day, I was sitting in my office, meeting with Jennifer Lopez. In fact, JLo was in the office singing a beautiful Spanish ballad for me.

  My assistant knocked on the door, cracked it open, and said in a stage whisper: “Oprah’s on the phone. It’s Oprah herself.”

  I winced. I looked at Jennifer. I said, “JLo, it’s Oprah herself. I have to talk to her. Let me take that call.”

  Jennifer graciously stopped singing. But she wasn’t smiling.

  I picked up the phone. “Oprah!” I said. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I’d like to meet you. I’ll go wherever you are.” I explained my curiosity meetings in just a sentence.

  And in that wonderfully reassuring Oprah voice, she said, “I’m happy to meet you, Brian. Of course I know who you are.” And then she said something nice about one of my movies. “I’m going to be at the Bel-Air Hotel in LA in just a couple of days,” she added.

  And that’s how I came to be sitting outside ten days later, on the morning of January 29, 2007, in the courtyard of the Bel-Air Hotel in Los Angeles, waiting to have breakfast with Oprah Winfrey.

  I was feeling low because I was going through a relationship crisis. I had to make a major life choice.

  Oprah came down to breakfast with her friend and colleague Gayle King. We had huevos rancheros. We talked about life, about relationships, about what is really important and how to hold on to it—not just in the moment, but in the long term.

  Who better to have that kind of conversation with when you’re feeling emotionally bruised and uncertain?

  Oprah has that deep well of common-sense wisdom. Oprah also knows how to listen. She reminded me that life is the process itself, not the individual moments—that there’s fallibility, that of course there is both happiness and unhappiness.

  “I’m always trying to solve life myself,” she said.

  We talked for almost two hours. It became evident that Oprah had a lot of things she had to attend to. Gayle was ready—she was dressed in a business suit. Oprah, on the other hand, had to go back to her room to get ready to tackle her day. She’d come to the poolside breakfast wearing her pajamas. And that was exactly the comfort level of our conversation—as if we’d both been wearing pajamas.

  Sharing a Bowl of Ice Cream with a Princess

  For pure excitement, nothing quite tops a real prince and princess. In September 1995, we were invited to do a Royal Premiere of the movie Apollo 13 in London for Prince Charles and Princess Diana and the Royal Family.

&n
bsp; The way a Royal Premiere works is a little different than, for instance, the White House showings we do. You meet the Royals at a movie theater in London, and then, in the case of Apollo 13, everyone is invited to dinner afterward at a different location.

  Prince Charles and Princess Di had already formally separated, so we weren’t quite sure who would come to the event. But as soon as we knew it was going to happen, I violated protocol by reaching out to the office of Princess Diana. I explained that I looked forward to the premiere, and to meeting Her Royal Highness, and that I did these curiosity meetings, and that I would welcome the chance to sit down one-on-one with the Princess either before or after the evening’s events.

  Perhaps not surprisingly, I didn’t hear anything back.

  The premiere went off September 7 at a theater in London’s West End, and we all lined up to formally greet Princess Diana (Prince Charles did not attend). After the movie, several dozen of us adjourned to dinner at a big restaurant with long rectangular tables. We all took our seats, as instructed.

  Now, when you do a Royal Premiere, before you even get on the plane to cross the Atlantic Ocean, the folks from Universal Studios come and brief you on the protocol for being in the presence of members of the Royal Family: how to greet them (“Your Royal Highness”), that you don’t touch them, the moments when you should stand and when you should sit and when you should bow. You get a second briefing after you arrive in London.

  So we took our seats for dinner, and the last person to walk in was Princess Diana. As she entered, everyone stood up. She sat, and we took our seats—and sitting directly across from me was Princess Diana.

  Without being told, it seemed like I was going to get my curiosity conversation after all.

  Diana was extremely beautiful—in fact, that night, Princess Diana was wearing a short black Versace dress that got a lot of notice in the London press as being perhaps the shortest dress she’d ever worn in public.

  As soon as she sat down, I made a decision in my mind: I was not going to let our conversation conform to the stilted style that protocol would dictate.

  I decided to be funny, to be jokey. She connected immediately—she joked right back. You could tell people around her were a little surprised at my behavior, and at her playful participation.

  She did love Apollo 13. She didn’t get animated like I would. With that wonderful British lilt, she said, “It was a tremendous film. Really, triumphant. An important movie.”

  Over dinner, we talked about movies. We talked about pop culture in America. Tom Hanks was sitting on one side of the Princess, and he was in very funny form himself that evening. Ron Howard was on the other side of the Princess. I’d say between Tom and me trying to make the Princess laugh, I’m not sure Ron got the chance to talk very much.

  Diana reminded me of Audrey Hepburn in the movie Roman Holiday—although in Diana’s case, she was the ordinary person who became a princess, instead of the other way around. Diana’s charisma came from her beauty, her poise, her attentiveness.

  I was most surprised by her sense of humor. I didn’t expect her to laugh at our jokes. I thought she would smile—but she laughed. It seemed liberating. She was the most famous person in the world, but also a little trapped. The laughter was a touch of freedom.

  At dinner, there was no ordering—the menu had been set in advance. As we were finishing the main course, I said to the Princess, “You know, I really like ice cream. Do you think I could get some ice cream?”

  Princess Diana smiled. “If you want some ice cream,” she said, “why don’t you order some from one of the waiters?”

  I called a waiter over and said, “I was wondering if the Princess and I could share a bowl of ice cream.”

  Princess Diana looked at me with an expression that seemed to say, “That was cute. That was ballsy. And I’m a little aghast.”

  The waiters scrambled to get ice cream. I’d say I’ve never seen waiters scramble around quite like they did trying to find that ice cream, in fact.

  Shortly, a bowl of ice cream was presented to me—a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of vanilla. Naturally, I offered the bowl to Princess Diana first, and she took a spoonful or two. Then I had some.

  Then before it was all gone, I offered the bowl back to Princess Diana. And although I’d been eating from it, she took several more bites. She ate after me. That sort of stunned me. She was smiling.

  Then, all of a sudden, the Princess had to leave.

  I said, “Why do you have to leave? We’re having such a good time!”

  She said, “It’s protocol. I have to leave before midnight.” Just like in a fairy tale.

  Then the Princess stood, and we all stood, and she was gone.

  Brian Grazer’s Curiosity Conversations: A List

  * * *

  Since the late 1970s, Brian Grazer has been meeting with people from diverse backgrounds to have open-ended conversations about their lives and work. Below, in alphabetical order, is a list of many of the people Brian has had curiosity conversations with. It is as comprehensive as memory and records permit; please forgive any omissions. Brian has spoken to so many people over thirty-five years and explored so many topics that it would be impossible to have included accounts of all of them. But each of the conversations provided the inspiration for the discussions of creativity and storytelling in this book, and in Brian’s work.

  50 Cent: musician, actor, entrepreneur

  Joan Abrahamson: president of the research and education nonprofit Jefferson Institute, MacArthur Fellowship recipient

  Paul Neal “Red” Adair: oil-well firefighter, innovator in extinguishing oil-well blowouts in Kuwait

  Roger Ailes: president of Fox News Channel

  Doug Aitken: multimedia artist

  Muhammad Ali: professional heavyweight boxer, three-time World Heavyweight Champion

  John Allman: neuroscientist, expert on human cognition

  Gloria Allred: civil rights attorney

  Brad Anderson: former CEO of Best Buy

  Chris Anderson: curator of TED conferences

  Philip Anschutz: entrepreneur, cofounder of Major League Soccer, investor in multiple professional sports teams

  David Ansen: former senior entertainment editor at Newsweek

  Rose Apodaca: pop culture, fashion, and style journalist

  Bernard Arnault: chairman and CEO of LVMH

  Rebecca Ascher-Walsh: journalist, author

  Isaac Asimov: science fiction author

  Reza Aslan: scholar of religious studies, author

  Tony Attwood: psychologist, author of books on Asperger’s syndrome

  Lesley Bahner: responsible for advertising and motivational research for the Reagan-Bush 1984 presidential campaign

  F. Lee Bailey: legendary defense attorney who represented Patricia Hearst and Sam Sheppard

  Evan Bailyn: expert on search-engine optimization, author of Outsmarting Google

  Letitia Baldrige: etiquette expert, Jacqueline Kennedy’s social secretary

  Bob Ballard: oceanographer, explorer, underwater archeologist who discovered the Titanic

  David Baltimore: biologist, Nobel laureate

  Richard Bangs: explorer, author, TV personality

  Tyra Banks: model, TV host

  Barry Barish: experimental physicist, expert on gravitational waves

  Colette Baron-Reid: expert on intuition

  John C. Beck: business expert in mobile communications, author

  Yves Béhar: industrial designer, entrepreneur, sustainability advocate

  Harold Benjamin: director of the Wellness Community centers for cancer patients

  Steve Berra: professional skateboarder, cofounder of popular skateboarding website The Berrics

  Jeff Bewkes: CEO and chairman of Time Warner

  Jeff Bezos: founder and CEO of Amazon.com, owner of the Washington Post

  Jason Binn: founder of DuJour magazine, chief advisor to Gilt Groupe, editor of Getty WireImage

&
nbsp; Ian Birch: director of editorial development and special projects at Hearst Magazines, former editor of US magazine

  Peter Biskind: cultural critic, film historian, author, former executive editor of Premiere magazine

  Edwin Black: historian and journalist focusing on human rights and corporate abuse

  Keith Black: chairman of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, specializing in the treatment of brain tumors

  David Blaine: magician, illusionist, endurance artist

  Keith Blanchard: founding editor of Maxim

  Alex Ben Block: journalist, former senior editor of the Hollywood Reporter

  Sherman Block: sheriff of Los Angeles County, 1982–1998

  Michael Bloomberg: mayor of New York City, 2002–2013, founder of Bloomberg financial information service

  Tim Blum: cofounder of contemporary commercial art gallery Blum & Poe

  Adam Bly: creator of Seed magazine, which focused on the intersection of science and society

  Alex Bogusky: designer, advertising executive, marketer, author

  David Boies: attorney who represented U.S. Justice Department in U.S. v. Microsoft and Al Gore in Bush v. Gore

  Mark Borovitz: rabbi, ex-convict who runs a residential treatment center for ex-convicts and drug addicts

  Anthony Bozza: music journalist and author, writer for Rolling Stone

  William Bratton: police commissioner of New York City

  Eli Broad: philanthropist, entrepreneur, art collector

  John Brockman: literary agent, author, founder of the Edge Foundation

  Bradford Brown: translator of The Book of Five Rings, a book written by a Japanese samurai on the art of confrontation and victory

  Roy Brown: musician, composer

  Tim Brown: CEO and president of design firm IDEO

  Willie Brown: former mayor of San Francisco who served fifteen years as Speaker of the California State Assembly