Talkin' Tony: "The Cutting Edge" with Ali Golub (Andorks: Detours)

0:00 This podcast is brought to you by our partisans, Shelby Von Trapp and Bobby Chudhury. If you want to find out how to join up with Saw's Rebels, or if you want access to our bonus episodes, head over to patreon .com slash andorkspod. Allie Golub. Hey, Allie. Hello. Welcome to the show. Thank you. It's overdue. Happy era of Yom Kippur.

0:49 Yeah, yeah, that's true. This is what we're doing instead of eating. Watching this movie is how we pay penance. Yeah. Well, usually we cover Andor. Yes. However, this week. We're taking a detour where for a lot of our show, we've talked about the career of Tony Gilroy. and what led him to make Andor. But now, thanks to our beloved backers at patreon .com slash andorkspod, you are enabling us to start a new little mini -series.

1:20 Enabling is the right word. Exactly. You're enabling us to do a little mini -series that is going to have us charting the filmography of Tony Gilroy. Every film that Tony wrote before he got around to making Andor. And today... Well, there's another reason we started doing this. What's the other reason? Allie refuses to watch Andor and she kept demanding to be on the podcast. Oh, you started it for me. Thank you. Yes, exactly. And I think it works, though, because Tony famously does not give a fuck about Star Wars. And so I think having... This miniseries is going to allow us to have guests on who have not watched Andor, who just like Tony Gilroy, maybe don't give a shit about a show like Andor. And you

2:08 can better encapsulate his mindset when he was making this movie. Perfect. Yeah. Well, why don't we start, though, despite, you know, having not watched Andor, what is your history with Star Wars? Because we are still a Star Wars podcast. Yeah. For better and for worse. So I've seen... the first six of the original trilogy and the prequels when I was a kid. And I remember being really bored by them. All six of them? Yeah.

2:41 It was just too... I don't know. It was not my thing. It just never has been my thing. And then, like... I think Tony would agree with you. Yeah. To be fair. Yeah. And then I, like, grew up and, like, I tried to watch... I tried to watch episode... I guess, episode four, technically, A New Hope Again, because I'd seen this interview with George Lucas talking about how, like, the rebels are the Viet Cong, and I was like, oh, that's cool.

3:05 I should try this. And then I only got halfway through the movie. And then, yeah, had to watch Andor once, and I fell asleep. I just, I'm not good with lore. Like, I can't, like, memorize all the different species and the glupshiddos, and, like, it's too much. It just makes me, like, Like, it's not just Star Wars. Like, Dune 2, like, I'll... I know they're, like, technical marvels or whatever, but I'd read, like, half a plot point, and I'm just like, oh, my God, I want to go to sleep. As soon as proper nouns start getting involved. Yeah, it's just too much.

3:39 Like, I can't... I don't want to... Like, if it's not our planet, like, I can't learn a whole new planet's world. Like, I can't do it. You just don't want to learn the names. That's what it comes down to. I don't want to learn the names, but also there's a lot of, like... I don't know, like... I don't really need to know what years the Clone Wars happened. That's not my business.

3:59 I would argue that Andor works because it does not require you to know anything. All you need to do is just care about Cassian's story, which I think is thanks to the work that Tony did throughout his career of creating very dynamic characters who are in these impossible situations. even in a very silly movie like the one we're about to talk about today. Yes. Yes. And that movie is? It's 1992's The Cutting Edge, a romantic comedy about a figure skater and a hockey player doing the impossible and going for gold at the Winter Olympics. I gotta say, I had never heard of this movie. Really? Okay. Like... It's before our generation. It is definitely not our generation.

4:54 I didn't know this was a specific movie. Yeah, it's not our generation. And also like, it's funny because I was on the Wikipedia page and it was like, this is the character Trevor Lefowitz from Ghost's favorite movie. He mentions it all the time. And I was like, what? And then I thought about it. I was like, oh, I guess I just always assumed it was some like cheesy 80s action movie.

5:14 Like I just never like put together that like. But I didn't even know. I had no idea this movie existed. I only heard about it because every Gen Xer interviewer who interviewed Tony around the time of Andor brought it up. And they would always cite it. The Kevin Smith interview? Yeah, the Kevin Smith interview. I've seen that one.

5:36 It came up on, I think, The Watch. I'm pretty sure it came up on. They love to cite it as their first Gilroy picture. that's great it clearly has a following like i watched i watched it this morning on youtube with free with ads and all the youtube comments were talking about how much they love it and how many times they've seen it someone was like i watched it last night and i went to bed and i woke up and immediately put it on again and i was like what apparently topic is a thing and people are obsessed apparently topic is like a big catchphrase okay yeah uh Again, I just think maybe I was supposed to watch this movie at a sleepover in the fifth grade.

6:17 Exactly. And I missed the moment. I think it's the wrong generation. I think if you were 20 years younger. That's totally true, though, because I remember watching like a lot of 80s, like The Breakfast Club and like. That's a much more totemic film. You know, like I watched all of those at sleepovers, but I don't know this one. No one ever watched it. I bet if you knew someone who was a figure skater. Maybe this would have come up. Well, yeah, we also don't grow up in, like, we don't live in a hockey city. I mean, that's actually wrong. Scratch that. We do. But, like, we don't live in a winter sports city. Yeah, yeah. So, like, no, I didn't know any, like, ice skater friends. You went ice skating, like,

6:58 once a year. I mean, I did, and I did not know this movie, so. There you go. I don't know if you're the target demo, though, for this romantic comedy about... It's about hockey, and that's why I'm wearing my Rangers jersey. Yes. Alex was very proud of his costume for this episode. It's my costume. I have multiple Rangers jerseys.

7:18 And another jersey, which I want to discuss later. Apparently hockey is Alex's number one sport. It is. Which I would never have guessed. I totally thought you were a basketball guy. So we've been doing this podcast for over a year now and you've literally never once brought up hockey. Because the Rangers are garbage and I don't want to talk about it. In the same way, I don't talk about the Knicks for years when they're bad. Until they win. Until they win. And then I'm not embarrassed.

7:39 No. I went to Boston University, which is where Tony Gilroy also went. Yeah. And BU's big sport is hockey. Interesting. And they were very good in the time that he was there in the 70s. Okay. So that makes me wonder if he's went to a bunch of potentially any BU hockey games. Well... Especially because they won the Beanpot his freshman year.

8:02 The what? What? The Beanpot? The Beanpot. The Beanpot is an annual tournament between BU, Boston College, Harvard, and Northeastern where all four teams played. It's just like a little, like, double a limb? Yes. Okay. And it's the big thing each year, especially when things aren't good, that everyone gets really violent about and angry about. Is Boston a real city? Because it sounds like... It's the onion article. It's the residents of Boston have fun pretending they live in a real city. Right, right. It's not. No. It's fine.

8:34 It feels like a city out of a movie when it's, like, not quite filled in all the way. It's just enough, like, one -liners to give you a little sense of world building. I mean, NYU, BU, and George Washington are all the same college in slightly different locations. Sure. Yeah. Which one's the most racist, though? It's gotta be BU. Alex is really considering this. I would say that all schools are racist in different ways. Sure, sure. I'd say NYU is probably racist in a class sense. George Washington is probably the most racist in a political sense. And so BU is probably the most racist in like a... getting drunk sense sure yeah i feel like you would only hear slurs on the bu campus though i don't hear

9:28 that many slurs it's a good school to get into it's not like it's a yeah yeah the smart kids are saying it's in boston yeah but most kids are not from boston now most of them are from china that's it's true as well most of them are from china so there's different slurs they're just not in english no i heard though i also heard so i mean when i wore my yankees jersey next to fenway i heard slurs but those were not from students those were from that that's what made you an affirmative action admission yes new york being a yankees fan and being from new york like tony gilroy we're protected class um no he's only there for two years before he dropped out but they did win the bean pod his freshman

10:04 year so it makes me wonder if that was one of his ways in it could be this movie It could be. He didn't mention it in any of the interviews I saw, so I don't think so. This episode's a reach. I have to go through as much as I can to try and find something to talk about. Yeah, I think that the experiment of this series for us is going to be trying to just pull through what is, you know, Tony Gilroy's authorial vision, his auteur voice. Does it come through all of these projects? And how does it reflect what he ended up doing in Andor? And I would love to start this series. Since we're talking about his first movie, we should talk about his backstory and his childhood and how did he get to make

10:51 this movie. And he mentions in his story, you know, he was the son of playwright Frank D. Gilroy and sculptor and... Ruth Dorothy, and they moved to upstate New York specifically so that the Gilroy brothers would not get involved in the film industry that their dad was doing. And he says that they were raised about an hour out of New York. It was within 60 miles zone from Columbus Circle. And in the 1950s, when Robert Moses was destroying New York City, they passed a law that said... Biting my tongue. Well, I knew a Robert Moses mention would perk your ears, Alex. You don't need to bite your tongue. This is your podcast. No, we can't. We can't. You don't want to spend two hours breaking down the

11:44 power broker? I do. Nobody else does. That's the problem. Tony is saying here is that they passed a law that said cops and firemen that formerly had to live within the five boroughs were now allowed to live within 60 miles of the city. And so this town that they were living in, all of a sudden these new developments popped up that were populated by the cops and the firemen who were escaping New York City while continuing to work. within the boroughs. And so he talks about how all the older brothers of these cops were getting ready to go to Vietnam, and the younger brothers and sisters were set free from the Bronx and Brooklyn. And then there was another community that lived here that was about 30 %

12:28 Black, rural, from the Underground Railroad days, he says, with an old conservative Black Baptist community. But that community was also being torn apart by drugs. that were coming in from a neighboring area of Newburgh. I guess we discussed this when we were on Talk Party for me. But this is like 20 minutes from where I grew up. Yeah, exactly. I mean, Rockland County is very similar demographic -wise. It's a lot of old Irish cops.

12:57 And now it's all Orthodox Jews, which is also true for Washingtonville. But that's not pertinent to this episode. And then he cites a third group, which was an Air Force base. that was nearby. And those were these glamorous and world traveled kids. And so all three of these worlds converged in the school system. And, you know, as the child of a famous writer, the Gilroy kids had to live a double life. They had to be rowdy to fit in.

13:28 And he says that fights were a regular occurrence and all they wanted to do was. ride dirt bikes out in the woods, and nobody really paid attention to us. He cites it kind of like Lord of the Flies. Tony. It's a fairly affluent suburb outside of New York City. It's not Westchester, but let's not kid ourselves. It's not Appalachia. Yes.

13:53 Maybe relative for, you know, a son of a playwright. Yes. It's maybe a little closer. It's uncultured to his. Eyes and ears, I guess, but it is the suburbs. And, you know, these boomers love to act like they had a tough upbringing. That's true. Yeah. He does say... The population of Orange County is only 400 ,000 people, Tony.

14:18 I mean, this isn't 2026, but still, it's not a population of 10. Mm -hmm. He says that he originally wanted to be a musician. He didn't want to be a writer. His brother Dan also didn't want to be a writer. He was going to be a stand up comic at some point. And John was going to be a boxer or a landscape architect. And the two brothers went to Dartmouth and... tony went to boston university make it to dartmouth yeah he didn't make it into dartmouth he did he says i don't remember yeah exactly i don't remember ever doing homework but we had an amazing library this was back in high school and he was a huge reader but i was a disaster in school i didn't like being in school so i got out of there when

15:05 i was 16. um And so he went off to try to be a musician until his mid -20s, saying that screenwriting wasn't even on his radar. But then he just stopped music completely and decided to get into screenwriting while also working on a novel. Because I thought screenwriting would be simple to do. He wanted to make some money. He thought it was easy money.

15:33 I mean, especially if your dad is a playwright. They probably derogatorily look down on movie writing. Exactly. Yeah, I can imagine Frank did not speak highly of the movie business. You know, I wish it was still true that it was easy money. That's all I'll say. Yeah, he talks about how the first thing he sold was at Canon, the first gig that, you know, he was he was tending bar at night and writing during the day, which, you know, imagine an era where bartending, you know, a couple nights a week could pay your rent. It's truly like a different world. Like we don't like the world you grew up in doesn't exist anymore, whatever that quote is like. Anyway, so I'm very jealous of his up. How he came up, actually,

16:25 because I think it would have been nice to have that option. But you have to write Star Wars at the end. You do have to write Star Wars at the end. I think that's the price you pay. I mean, I know that's a price I'm willing to pay. Well, sure. But like, I feel like, you know, everyone becomes a hack at some point. It's really hard not to. Yeah. shelter and health insurance.

16:57 What's funny, there's a funny comparison of this is not the only hockey -related piece of media that a famous writer slummed it working on. Have I ever talked to you about Amazons? No. Amazons is a secret, a book secretly written by Don DeLillo that's like an erotic journey through the first female player in the National Hockey League that he did not admit exists that he wrote for like 40 years. I found a copy on eBay years ago. It's like a really poorly written. Yeah. The name Cleo Birdwell. Amazon's an intimate memoir of the first woman ever to play in the National Hockey League. And that's Don DeLillo's slum in a book. So they both have something in common.

17:37 Yeah. He won't grant permission for it to be reprinted. Stated that Don DeLillo quote does not doesn't want his name attached, has never officially acknowledged writing it and won't grant permission for it to be reprinted. Well. Luckily for Tony, I think this is a better movie than the first thing that he sold, which was a Chuck Norris movie that never ended up getting made. And that was when he was 30 or 31 that he sold that script. Wait, what was the plot of that? He doesn't say. Just that it was a Chuck Norris movie that paid him enough that he didn't need to bartend anymore. OK, because I did see he also sold another movie before this. Yeah, he had a script called RSVP that he says was a very, very hot sample. That was how I got an

18:19 agent and everything else. It was a Preston Sturgis thing about a couple that has to get married and they invite the president to their wedding. And this. ends up being his second produced film uh called for better and for worse but because it's a french production they change the president to the pope so that'll be uh the second installment of our tony gilroy series look forward to that um another romantic comedy i think it's interesting that you know now tony is most famous for these really politically engaged you know, action stories.

19:02 But, you know, his first scripts that he sold were these romantic comedies. I mean, I think it also was, you know, it was the early 90s. Like, it was still... Like, they were still making those movies. Like, if Cutting Edge was made today, it would be Netflix AI slop. Like, it wouldn't even be, like, Calum Turner and Monica Barbaro. It would be, like, two influencers with the worst, like... acting you've ever seen like they just don't make these movies anymore i mean this movie doesn't look particularly good but compared to any other movie coming out today it looks amazing yeah i mean it's not like a showy movie but like there's some nice shots i don't know that's like the lighting is very nice yeah yeah it moved really great it was it

19:46 was a very easy watch not enough montages though or speed ups and slow downs yeah uh i think that it's from what i can tell Tony was very pragmatic entering into this. Like, he says that I was a pretty good musician, which is a long way from being good enough. And so he basically had this wake -up call where he figured out where he fit in the food chain and just decided to stop writing altogether. And, you know, he'd written some very serious scripts, but he was so desperate to get a movie made that he sat down with producer Rob Cort and said... who asked him about this RSVP movie and said, I like the relationship between the two people. They're always bickering and I want to do a skating movie because every

20:35 seven years there has to be a skating movie and we're due. And Tony says, a skating movie? Well, I'll write this. Will you get it made? Because I'm tired of writing movies that don't get made. And Court would go on to say, if you write this, I'm going to make this movie. And so Tony decided to pour everything into this and do everything he could to not get fired and stay on. And luckily, he enjoyed it enough. And where did Robert Court get his start? At the CIA. Yeah, that was crazy.

21:08 The giant eye emoji has appeared on Andorra, yeah. I think it's very funny that, like, he came up with Baruch on this set of The Cutting Edge because... rob court was reading tom friedman in quotes former cia kind of like in quotes gloria steinem not a cia agent whatever um but then coordinated with them for his movie in the company of spies sure so i just imagine somebody on the worst part of the internet being like andrew is all psyop it started in the 70s with robert court and Tony came under his influence and just paid off with the anti -revolutionary content of Andor. Yeah, they talked politics on the set of this movie, which eventually leads to his film Beirut, which we'll talk about in like two

22:00 years. But yeah, that is the genesis of this. This romantic comedy about a stuck -up figure skater and a down -on -his -luck cantankerous hockey player working together to defeat the Soviet Union for Olympic gold. Even though the Soviet Union was done by 1992. Yeah, it's a fictional universe. Alternate universe where the Soviet Union still exists. Which is weird because it starts in 1988 in Calgary when that was the...

22:38 olympics and that ussr did exist like this is just a world where the usr did not collapse well i think he made it they obviously made that movie before the soviet union collapsed and it was too late so we caught start in 1989 well okay but like it really wasn't until the end of 1991 where like it really was like oh there's not going to be soviet union anymore how did they play in the 92 was there a 92 world uh When did they split? No, there was a 92 Winter Olympics.

23:14 This movie came out like six weeks after. When did they start having them on alternate like every two years? Because for a while they were... winter and summer in 92 it was the the unified team representing the non -baltic former soviet republics and and germany was newly consolidated again following the reunification of east and west and so i think they were trying to capitalize on the the active olympics those that year with this film yeah also wait alex i think you're right i think it was summer and winter olympics still in the same year yeah at that point but we'll get to the the bella carilli coach yeah uh this film for anyone who hasn't seen it i'll i'll give an extremely brief uh plot summary

24:08 of of what the hell this movie why are we doing this because tony wrote it yeah and it very much is i think a tony gilroy project um he This film clearly means something to him. When someone gets residuals at the WGA, it goes directly to Tony Gilroy. It sure does. Every time you watched it... Actually, apparently, he did not get a good deal. Yeah, I saw that, too. There's, like, some sequels he totally was cut out of. Yeah.

24:35 But I guess, whatever... Compared to today, whatever he makes on residuals from this is probably more than most Hollywood workers make in a year. Now? Yeah. Today? Yes. But still, he's probably still getting that check. Yeah. Every time you watch it on Tubi... He gets a penny. He got a penny. Yeah. He got three pennies from us today when we watched this movie. That's true. I watched on TV. I watched it on YouTube. I also watched it on YouTube. But it's like it wasn't like uploaded by like some random person. It was like YouTube's free with ads thing. Like it's officially like on YouTube, whatever that means. Apple TV wanted me to watch on Pluto and it wasn't working. So I switched to TV. It's on Hooply. Want to hear

25:17 more? Head on over to patreon .com slash andorkspod to get the rest of this detour, along with all our other bonus episodes for just five credits a month. Later, dorks.