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Read Oliver Stone's book: Chasing the Light
👉 https://amzn.to/42v0ylU

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Today on the show, we have three-time Oscar® winner Oliver Stone, easily one of the most influential and iconic writers/directors in the history of cinema. Throughout his legendary career, Stone has served as a writer, director, and producer on a variety of films, documentaries, and television movies. His films have been nominated for forty-two Oscars® and have won twelve.

Stone says his films are

"first and foremost dramas about individuals in personal struggles,"

and considers himself a dramatist rather than a political filmmaker. Politics definitely are a subject matter he enjoys making movies about. 2008's W., a film about American President George W. Bush, was the first film released about a sitting president in history. This film wrapped up his trilogy on the presidency, which he started with JFK and Nixon.

During our epic conversation, we discuss his legendary career, working with the Hollywood system, his time in Vietnam, struggling as a screenwriter, how he deals with rejection, and his amazing new book Chasing the Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, and the Movie Game.

Chasing the Light is an intimate memoir by the controversial and outspoken Oscar-winning director and screenwriter about his complicated New York childhood, volunteering for combat, and his struggles and triumphs in making such films as Platoon, Midnight Express, and Scarface.

Stone, now 73, recounts those formative years with in-the-moment details of the high and low moments: We see meetings with Al Pacino over Stone’s scripts for Scarface, Platoon, and Born on the Fourth of July; the harrowing demon of cocaine addiction following the failure of his first feature, The Hand (starring Michael Caine); his risky on-the-ground research of Miami drug cartels for Scarface; his stormy relationship with The Deer Hunter director Michael Cimino; the breathless hustles to finance the acclaimed and divisive Salvador; and tensions behind the scenes of his first Academy Award-winning film, Midnight Express.

Chasing the Light is a true insider’s look at Hollywood’s years of upheaval in the 1970s and ’80s. I highly recommend every filmmaker and screenwriter read this gem. Click here to read the book.

The main themes I took away from speaking to Oliver were struggling and fight. No matter how successful he got, no matter what heights he reached in Hollywood, Oliver Stone had to fight to get each remarkable film in his filmography on the screen.

I hope this conversation inspires filmmakers and screenwriters to never give up. Oliver struggled for years, taking jobs as a production assistant, cab driver, office assistant, and any other gig he could find to help him survive while he was chasing his dream. He wrote and wrote, meeting his goal of one to two screenplays a year, no matter what. Never give up, never surrender. As Oliver says

"Either you're born crazy, or you're born boring."

Please enjoy my conversation with Oliver Stone.

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Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Next Level Soul, its subsidiaries or any entities they represent.

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