♪ (MUSIC) ♪
What's your favorite
"Scorsese is
an unbelievable director" story?
So, when we were
shooting Wolf of Wall Street
the scene I auditioned with,
the first scene
I auditioned with
was Donny's intro scene,
where he goes up to Leo
at the diner and says like,
BILL: Yeah.
"How much money do you make?"
and all that stuff,
and "I wanna work for you,"
you know?
And, uh, so not only
had I been preparing for that
like a year earlier
for the audition for two months,
then we rehearsed for months,
then it was like
halfway through the shoot, which
was like a seven-month shoot,
so I had been preparing
for this scene forever.
For almost a year, basically.
BILL: Doing it in the shower.
I literally had...
I was like:
"I know
how to do this scene."
BILL: Yeah.
So, um, that day
all we were shooting
in the diner
was that scene,
and the scene after,
where I call and quit,
and Leo's doing voice-over
saying like, "This guy
was really weird." You know,
like, whatever. You know.
And so we get there,
we shoot the intro scene,
and it goes,
we do like a few takes
and Scorsese's happy
and he's like, you know:
"Cool. Moving on."
Right?
I'm so relieved.
BILL: Yeah.
Like all I've been
thinking about was this scene.
I'm so relieved.
Then we have to shoot the scene
that's not even really scripted.
It's just literally like:
"I quit, yeah."
And I'm talking
to my brother-in-law,
quitting my job.
It's like one or two lines.
And I start doing it...
And we do it again...
We do it again,
we do it again.
And I'm doing it like,
20 times.
BILL: Ugh.
And he's not saying anything
to me, and Leo's looking like,
looking away, kind of like,
uncomfortable, you know?
Cause, it's like,
he doesn't understand either.
He's just like,
well obviously we know
something's not working,
or else we would have moved on
ages ago, right?
And so finally I'm like...
we take, like I walk around,
get a cup of water,
and his assistant is a friend
of mine, comes up and is like:
"You okay? You alright?"
And then I'm like, sweating...
it's a disaster, because
if she notices,
she's at the monitors,
Oh my God, like,
he must be not happy
with what I'm doing.
Right?
And so we do it
like 10 more times..
nothing.
I'm freaking--
BILL: So you've done it, like,
30 times at this point?
JONAH: And I'm freaking out,
yeah, like freaking out.
And he's like,
"Alright everyone,
let's, like, take a break."
And everyone leaves...
and he's like,
"Kid, come here,
come sit with me."
And we go to the monitors.
And we sit,
and for about 20 minutes,
he just reads the newspaper.
And I just sit and stare
at the wall.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I'm like:
"What the fuck is going on?"
You know?
And, um, after like 20 minutes,
you know, after like 5 or 7
minutes of sitting in silence
with him, I just start
to naturally relax.
You know?
Like I'm just kind of
chilling out a bit,
I'm not in my... I'm just like,
"Okay," you know, like chilling.
And after like 20 minutes,
he's like, "Kid, you want to
try it again?"
I was like, "Yeah."
Everyone comes back in.
We do it two times.
He's like: "That was great.
Let's go."
And he was happy.
BILL: Wow, so he Jedi-mind-trick
relaxed you?
He's just... he is such
a genius on so many levels,
that it is inexplainable,
basically. You know?
But he had to like
get me out of my own head.
He had to...
I was doing something wrong.
BILL: You were probably
too urgent.
I don't know what it was,
but he just was like,
basically, his way of getting me
to get out of my head
and chill out.
I had high hopes
for that question,
but you exceeded those hopes.
JONAH: Thanks, Bill.
That was a really good story.
Yeah I'll remember it
the rest of my life.
