Audiobooks: The Voice Can’t Act | 084

Oh, Paul, so excited. We get to talk about story and have one of our fantastic conversations. So how did you know that you were a director? Where did that start for you?

Paul Alan Ruben: I think I knew. I know that I knew I was a director when I directed the play Waiting for Godot in college and the things that reminded me or that sort of reinforced that, even though I knew it, but I it hadn't set yet. It's kind of like cement, so the cement hadn't settled.

And in the course of my life, for a few years after I sort of stepped in this cement, but it wasn't, you know, your foot sunk into it. But anyway, I knew because I felt completely connected to to from here to attempting to find actable vocabulary to to direct the actors. And I felt I felt one

with it. I felt connected as opposed to performing, where I had a very different feeling.

So what was the feeling when you were performing? The feeling when I

Paul Alan Ruben: was performing was was had to do with a part of me that knew that I could get a laugh. I knew I could be funny. So what I thought to myself was, I don't want the lead role that's too much for me to memorize. Just get on the stage, get a couple of laughs and get out. And that's how I approach

that for me, was acting, but it wasn't acting. It was performing. Was being silly, and it wasn't really, really connecting here. It wasn't a particular way. It's like eating, you know, getting a laugh and getting a big house laugh. When I was at Second City, for example, coming out on

the stage and getting that big house left. Is the is, I presume, like I never did, shoot up, but you know, it's, it's, it's magical.

I mean, it is a rush, isn't it, to get that validation. Yeah, you're great. You're worth something. So was that, what the sort of drug for one of a better expression was for you, about being funny? What was it about being funny? That was a draw card for you?

Paul Alan Ruben: I think, I think what I can say in hindsight, I didn't think of it then in hindsight, I think what was so drawing about it was, is that it was instant, deep acknowledgement. That was something that I felt, I think, was missing in much of my life and and there it was,

acknowledgement. If you say something and the entire room laughs What, you can't deny it, right?

You get it. So if you knew that you were a director. Why did you then go into acting?

Paul Alan Ruben: I think, you know, life is complicated. I'm a little reluctant to analyze myself. I think what I believed was that there was that that that the that drug of being funny was something that I just wanted to continue to find my way into and so I had enough success to propel that, and

that's what did it so I I was in the second city touring company for almost a year. I could have been in the main company. I had a horrible time there. I didn't like anybody. That's another story. Doesn't matter. But I was funny. I was good, and they all knew it. They actually asked me to go to Canada, and I thought

there was Siberia, and I didn't want to go, but I had a lot of, you know, I was I was funny, so, so it was that sort of thing. And then I and then when I came to New York. I had my own improv company. I was funny there too. We were all funny. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Periodically, I would direct something, and then

when and I've directed plays, I have worked with some celebrities in plays. I directed non celebrity performers, and I enjoyed that too, but it was a it, and again, I don't think that early on that I that it occurred to me, but it was a deeper, more connecting feeling that ultimately, mercifully,

from my perspective, this cement hardened, and then once that occurred, right now, I have no desire to perform, although I have narrated some audio books, and so I've narrated five audio books and won two little awards for the five. So it's very that I don't want to do it anymore. Never I wouldn't do it.

So when did, if you were you went into acting and kind of were ignoring your instincts, because you were getting that acknowledgement, and you were funny, and you were riding that wave. What was the it has to be me or or it does not have to be me to do that anymore, where you started

listening to your instinct? Of. What was really connected for you? Well, I put a turning point.

Paul Alan Ruben: I appreciate the question. And again, you know, I certainly didn't think of it with the vocabulary that you're using, although I intuitively knew that, if it has to be me, if me is the issue, who am I? What am I? How, what, what? Is it that that makes me feel fully connected? It was

directing and and and, and the more I directed, the more I felt that way, to the degree where now that's how I feel totally i i Don't miss acting at all. I don't miss being silly at all, but I

was so what was it in you, where you were, you really listened to that?

Paul Alan Ruben: What it was, was it okay? What it was in me that listened to that was the feedback that I got from the talent.

Meaning, so that was another kind of acknowledgement, then another

Paul Alan Ruben: kind of acknowledgement. I say it again. You know, I I need to say that the stories we have about ourselves, from my perspective, are fairly made up. But if they work for you, then groovy, yeah. Works for me, that the feedback that I get got felt a little deeper, a little more profound

than me going on the same stage and saying something silly and getting a laugh, this felt much deeper, much it gave me the feeling that this was a purpose that had roots that I could explore, and at the end of the day, getting a laugh is getting a laugh, you know, just, it just did not do anything for my

mental health. It didn't do anything for how I felt about myself. Directing does

so was it as much about the connection that you had with the other actor in that dynamic where you were bringing something out in them and creating a dynamic with the story in a more meaningful way,

Paul Alan Ruben: yes, yes, and, and, and the proof in the pudding for me was, is that the more I directed, The more I wanted to be a better director. It to go on a stage and be silly. I never had the feeling that, oh no, I got got to be better. I got to be silly. I got to be funnier. Not really, but

the directing felt much more enriching. It felt like a richer experience, and it and it made this little light in here shine more so that, so that over the past, say, 30 years or so as a director, from my perspective, I think in the world that I occupy, in the space that I occupy now as an audiobook

director, which to me, is just basically an acting teacher or acting director, I feel as Though that I've done a pretty good job of developing very, very actable vocabulary that really assists actors in connecting themselves to the story, meaning actually, to the feelings, to the subtext, you

know? So I can talk about it forever, I don't think I could talk about being funny forever. You talk about it for like

a Yeah. Okay, so this sustains you, yes, it's just like oxygen.

Paul Alan Ruben: Like oxygen, yes, yeah, sustaining and it, you know,

it's very alluring, this vocabulary that you have developed, and this way of working with actors, which is unique in the audiobook environment, where we have a landscape where a lot of directors are just basically technical directors. Hang on a second. You miss that word. You

need to say that again. You mispronounced it. Hang on a second. I can't hear you that kind of stuff, right? They're not actually performance directors. They're not story driven directors like you, like Paula, is there's a handful of you, but it's quite rare. So I remember being at a, you know,

the big audio book conference, and sitting with, literally the stars of the audio book world, Scott bricks, Simon Vance, Dionne, Graham, Katie kellgren. I mean, it was just the who's who of them. And I remember you sitting on this panel talking about story narrative, how to bring the story to life for

actors. And I remember them all sitting there just going, we have to work with him. We have to work with him. We have to bring him out to LA. We have to bring him to, you know, I mean, it was, I remember that moment so vividly, and then so many of those people came to work with you. I watched you take what we

consider to be the great narrators of the world to a whole other level, you know, with their performance. And it was really, truly exhilarating. I. So how did you develop that vocabulary as an audio book director?

Paul Alan Ruben: So if it's, if it's not too in the weeds, we could unpack that.

Okay, let's get in the weeds. Let's

Paul Alan Ruben: Okay. So let's say that I worked with, you know, which I did, you know that a lot of the very well known and they're the best performers. And so here's what I think I do as a director. So I don't think I've ever given a line reading. I'm sure I've given a couple, if they begged me for it and say,

Well, if you want a bad line reading that I can give actors line readings.

So we always say that's the cheats way of directing. That's the lazy way

Paul Alan Ruben: set is that I'm here to drive you crazy, and you're there to do all the heavy lifting. And so how do I do that? So I'm being somewhat facetious, not really drive you crazy, but here's what I really am there to do. I'm there to connect, to be sure that you are connected to the emotional

consequence of the story 100% of the time, and particularly in audiobook world, where you are actually reading. And this sort of the irony, or what sort of counterintuitive in a particular way, is that the listener doesn't want to think you're reading. They want to experience this kind of willing suspension

of disbelief, where they want to feel as though it's all happening right now. So how do you do that? How do you get there? How does an actor not read, which many of them do, in varying degrees. What they do is, is that you are I am saying to them, okay, first of all, what's the feeling? What is the

feeling? How does test feel? Right now? Happy, sad, angry, etc. What are the stakes? One to 10. How high are the stakes? And how connected are you to those stakes? And you know what the actors say? If I say that to them a lot of times, oh, well, I don't know. Three, four, yeah. Okay, fine. But no, everything's

a 10, not a 10 meaning you're scraping somebody off the wall, but a 10 meaning you are completely and totally emotionally committed to that subtext, to that feeling, and to replicating that feeling. And speaking of the word replicating, if I was in charge of the acting world, I would

eliminate the nomenclature actor, and I would substitute it with replicator, because what the actor is doing is replicating real life to the degree that no one can tell. But acting, I don't even really know what that means. It sounds to me like acting means being someone you're not, which is always sort

of which I find a sort of interesting kind of vocabulary too. I get it. A common critique of actors is, well, he's always the same, she's always the same. I get that. I get that that usually, to me, means that something's going on where the actor isn't really inside the feeling, and they just kind of

phoning it in or whatever, and it all sounds the same. But in fact, you're the actor. It's you. Everything that you Intuit in a script emotionally is coming from inside of you, and so your job is, is essentially to create a kind of simulacrum that looks that that makes the listener feel as though this is

reality, that this is happening in the moment right now. And that's what makes compelling storytelling and compelling acting. All audiobook narration is, is acting. There are some nuanced differences, because you're in a booth and you can't scream at the top of your lungs, but at the end of the day,

acting comes from here. Can I stand up? Right? Yeah, and so and so. That is true with whether you're on stage, whether you're on a film, play, TV, it all comes from here.

Yeah, what's coming up for me is I'm listening to you. Is this idea of being, of performing, being performative, going back to what you were saying before, that it didn't feel truly connected for you, that you were being funny, kind of hamming it up, maybe is how I was interpreting it not it

wasn't coming from a place that was truthful or real for you correct. You know, there is a real difference between showing there is, there is and and something that you always say when you direct people is, don't help me. Don't help me. Don't help me. So take me inside of that

Paul Alan Ruben: so we can talk about that. Yes. So for example, what I mean if I could talk about one thing, if I asked, or if I was with a bunch of directors and somebody said, What is a director? What is it? My. Answer would be that a director, my job as a director is to is to assist the the

storyteller or the actor in being organically connected to the subtext 100% of the time, and giving that back to me. And so back to your back to your question about don't help me my second job as an as a director, number two is to find actable vocabulary that assists the actor in doing just that. And so

what I find with actors, more than anything, is that they sort of often cloak themselves with various habits and various kinds of things that they regard as technique and and honestly, I even have a problem with the word technique. I wouldn't go so far as to say but I would say that that that you want to be

very careful, because anything that sounds to me like it goes, like the issue is, is that something comes from here to here means that it's not going to be 1,000% connected. So you got to be, I think, very cautious and careful when you talk about things like technique. The issue always has

to be, is anything that I'm cloaking myself with a technique damaging my emotional capacity to connect to the feeling in the story and give that back organically and truthfully. So for example, actors. So now you'll see why I now you'll see why I didn't want to act too. I give you an example. If an actor

says, if it's if it's dramatic, and the actor says, Oh, I just, I really don't think I can live here anymore. I often will say, okay, feel that. Feel it. Right. What do you feel? You feel anxious, you feel you don't like yourself, you feel terrible, you feel hateful, you feel you are angry, fine. Feel all those

things, but don't help me vocally and often, what I'll get, which is so much more truthful and again, not to fetishize it. And you know, if I give you an example, you're going to get a bad actor doing it, but I'll get, I'll often say to them, don't help me. Don't help me. Less voice. And then

I'll get something like, I hate being here. I hate I just don't want to be there anymore.

So it drops right in, and the listener has to come to you to meet you in this place?

Paul Alan Ruben: Yes. So what happens is, is that if the actor is deprived of using their voice, that often is a good way to get them connected to what's inside of them. It doesn't necessarily have to be that low volume, and especially if it says, she yelled, great, as long as you own it, as long as you're

there emotionally, you could say it's your guts. That's fine. That works, if that's what the script says. But too often, I just got a lot of volume and a lot of voice.

Yeah, let's talk about this. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. The voice can't act. That is something you say all the time. And there is this misconception, not just from audiobook listeners, but from audiobook narrators and voice actors, that being a voice actor or a narrator is all about

having a fantastic voice, or you've got a great voice, you should do voiceover. You've got a great voice, you should be an audiobook narrator.

Paul Alan Ruben: Yeah, you know, I if you put some of the most talented actors in a room with 50 other people, and they all were talking, it might be very difficult to identify who the actor is. And yes, some of them have wonderful especially voice over people, but at the end of the day, the voice makes sound.

It simply cannot act. It doesn't the acting is all inside. It all comes from within and and so what, what I think the actor, whether it's film, television, audiobook, world, wants, is that they want the subtext to direct them, not them direct it, and when they actor directs the subtext, it means they're

helping it. They're overdoing it. They're using their voice to affect character or emotion, and it's not believable. It doesn't feel real. And that's what listeners want. They want to feel as though, I I mean, I approach acting very reductively. It's at its core. I don't think it's complicated. It

may be hard to do, but it's not complicated to talk about. And so and so I find that a lot of times actors do complicated by thinking, Well, I gotta, I gotta underline all the words I'm going to emphasize. And I say, Ah, don't do that. So if you underline the words, you're going to emphasize, you're going

to see it as you're narrating, or even if you do it in a play or a movie or whatever, if you think I got to emphasize this, and I got to emphasize that, you're aware of it. That means you're in your head, if you're connected emotionally, that subtext is going to direct you to emphasize whatever you want

to emphasize however you want to do it, and it's going to sound so much more authentic and real.

So we're talking about a vocabulary that actors Understand. Yes, what about when you're working with somebody who is not an actor and is never going to be an actor? So you've done a lot of books with politicians, Defense Secretaries, senators, you know, non fiction authors who are not

actors. What's your approach then?

Paul Alan Ruben: Okay, so I'll give you my favorite story, and then that will suggest what my approach is. But you're quite right. If I say to a non actor, I often will say this to actors, too. If I say, now, now, don't help me. Okay, do you know what I mean? Yes, yes, I know. I say that to an author, don't help

me. All right. No idea what I'm talking about. So that vocabulary works with an actor. If I say to an actor, here's a very dramatic paragraph, and you, you, you narrated it fairly quickly. I say, let it take you an hour to get through those three sentences. They know exactly what that means. They

know what that means. You know what that means. Yeah, that happens is, is that they begin to to give themselves enough time to inhabit the feeling play that and actually play this. Play the silent spaces. That's where all the charming I want to ask you.

I want to ask you about that because I remember the first time I ever met you, and I heard you speak long before we were dear friends, you said, I want to feel what's happening in the white space. Yes, not just about the words. It's not just about what's being said, it's about what's not

being said. Correct? Listen to that.

Paul Alan Ruben: Yes, and so, so again, if I said to you, if I was say to you, so, Tess, why don't we get out? Why don't we go outside and have a conversation about podcasting? Okay, so you can tell that. Okay, so what if I said, Tess, we go outside and have a conversation about podcasting.

You hear all the space. You hear all that, so the listener will stay with that, because they can feel the emotional intent. You blow through it, no chance to feel that. And that's where all the drama is. That's where,

yes, it's like, wait a second, what does he really want to talk to me about? What's going on? How does this person's angry with me? Or, yeah, yeah.

Paul Alan Ruben: So I can get back to if you want me to to the author.

No, I totally do. But I want to ask you one more thing before we get to that, just so that I don't, I don't lose it, because it's just so important. This theme of listeners, listening to fiction books on double speed or 1.6 or, you know, where, basically, you're taking out that space

that is so important for understanding and bringing the story to life. I don't understand it. I find it really frustrating. How do you feel about that?

Paul Alan Ruben: I would too. So So again, in terms of, you know, looking at at performance in a in a particularly, in a particular kind of reductive fashion, at the end of the day, if somebody could say to me, yeah, listen to this book at slightly higher speed, and you know what? I was every bit as

emotionally connected to it as if I'd listened to it at normal pace, I wouldn't believe them. No, I wouldn't either. So so if you if, if your outcome as a listener is to get it over with, right, if your outcome as a listener is to be connected and to and to be carried on a little magic carpet ride. Then I think

you want to listen to it in real time.

I think it brings up something about modern culture, though, doesn't it? Where? Where we're just onto the next thing onto the next thing. You know, we're we're not truly dropping into the experience. We're almost having a facsimile of an experience. You know, you go to a concert and everybody's

got their phones up recording that they were there, so they can put on their Instagram or their Tiktok, that they were there for their friends, but not actually putting it into their bodies, enjoying the present moment. I find it problematic to say the least. Yeah, it's just, it's an interesting anyway, we

could, we could have a whole other conversation about that. But yeah, I find that a particularly compelling line of inquiry, just on a

Paul Alan Ruben: personal as I said, if you're a consumer and you listen to audio books because you want to get through them, if it's a 10 hour audio book, and you think, oh, man, I got seven hours. I got to get that. I get through this thing, okay. But I You said, I that maybe that, maybe that's just

simply a byproduct that tells us more about who we are, yeah, as a culture, etc, yeah. Don't have time to feel Yes. Time to feel. Gotta get going,

Yeah, gosh. I mean it is, look, you have to bring your vulnerability into the booth as a narrator. Yes, you do. You've got to bring you as an actor. You know, you have to bring you and the full you. And that takes courage, and I think, as a listener, to connect and go to these dark places, vulnerable

places, exposing places. You know, it is that conundrum, right? We want to be seen as humans, but we don't want to be exposed, no? And there's a fine line between being seen and then feeling exposed.

Paul Alan Ruben: You've just answered why authors are a completely different experience than actors.

Oh, tell me. Okay, let's go. Let's find our way into it that way.

Paul Alan Ruben: Okay, and I think you'll see it in the anecdote real quick. Yeah, you know, I can explain it, maybe a little bit more. So I worked with a woman, elf Batterman, who writes literary fiction. Her stuff is very good. I mean, you like it, you don't like it, but it's literary fiction. It's not

silly. It's not, you know, just crank it out. So she insisted on reading her own fiction. And this is a dramatic story, so I

which is actually quite rare, isn't it for an author to read their own fiction? Non fiction, very common, but fiction not common.

Paul Alan Ruben: No, have common sense. Yeah, the non fiction authors, they shouldn't read their own work either, but it's, I understand why publishers want the actual celebrity, or whoever it is, to read it. So so this woman is narrating her stuff and and she says to me, please help me. You know you can direct me.

I have no problem. I want you to help me as much as you can't. Oh, okay, so I listened to her. So after three words, as she begins, I'm thinking, three words, I know. Okay, this one, not an actor. It's pointless. She goes on and on. She said, Now, Paul, you know you haven't said much, but you please help

me. So I didn't say too much for about the first couple of hours. And then I said a couple

of things, a couple of hours for you. I don't believe that there was very I

Paul Alan Ruben: could say things, but I couldn't really help her. So anyway, the next day we were now, we were buddies, and she said, you know, you you really can help me. I said, okay, so she started again, and she had to narrate a very kind of emotionally consequential scene between a

young man and a young woman, and it was evident that they were going to have an affair, or whatever it was, and, and, but it was very high, high stakes and tents. And I said to her, so Elif. I said, How do these people feel about one another? Oh. I said, Well, I said, Okay, so how? On a scale of one to 10.

I said, How? How? Give me a number that tells me how committed you are to replicating how they feel about wanting one another. And she said, Well, I don't know, a couple. I said, Okay. I said, so I want you to do this. I want you to imagine that you're this woman whose point of view it's from, and you

really want this person very badly, very badly like right now, that's what's going on in this scene, right? And so dig down. Maybe you can recall something like that in your own life that gets you there. I said, See what you think, you know what she said to me, Oh, I couldn't do that. Was it? That

was the end. You couldn't do it. I said, Great, no problem. At least that's honest. Off we go, yeah. So that's it. So the point is, that's not what authors do for a living, and that's why an author that often may think, Well, it's my book. I wrote it. How can anybody, anybody know it better than me? That author may

be correct to the degree that intellectually they they can talk about it in a way that is far more informative than than me. That said acting is what I tell actors, is acting is 100% emotional contact with a subtext, 0% intellect, zero.

I mean, the minute you get inside your own head, you're gone, you're dead.

Paul Alan Ruben: Yeah, that's why I like to approach acting reductively. I don't want to talk about it with the actor, not while we're working. I could talk about it, you know, if we're sitting around a table like I am now, but not while we're working. And sometimes they'll want to talk about I

said, it's okay, it's okay. Just try this. Try this, try this, you know.

And. Ask you about giving up as opposed to continuing to ride somebody, because you are tough, you know. And I mean that in the best possible way. You know that Paula always says great actors want to be ridden like stallions, and they really, really do, you know, until they

don't right, until they find it really good, funny, you keep stopping me. I'm so frustrated. I'm losing my momentum. You know, you know, we've talked about this, you know, it can be a very frustrating experience. It's, you know, making art is hard. It can be a really grueling but exhilarating

process, and to really get somewhere is, is it can be really confronting.

Paul Alan Ruben: It can be and in fairness, I would not push an actor to the degree where it upset them so much that it would be counterproductive. So I wouldn't do that. That said, actors are ready to go there. And so the what, what, what usually occurs when I'm pushing them is I'm telling them, Look

at the stakes. Look at the stakes on a scale of one to 10. Look at the stakes. Go there. You can go there, go there, go there. And what's very counterintuitive often is that actors, when they think they have to go there, they want to get bigger, louder, they want to help it. And then I have to say

to them, right, feel it. Don't help me. Don't help me. Don't help me. Vocally. You don't even have to emphasize anything. You have to feel it. And if you feel it, I guarantee you the emphasis will come there. It may come out.

The other piece of it too is we also have to leave space for the listener and the audience to fill in their part of it and do the rest of the work. You know, we do it with our imagination. When we're not shown, we can then feel like we're part of it, and that we're creating this thing together.

And there's something very magical about that

Paul Alan Ruben: 100% I do think that when that I imagine sort of a horse and buggy to the degree that the listener wants to be ahead, the listener doesn't want to be led. If they're led, then you're doing all the work for them. And I think that removes them esthetically. It removes them emotionally. They want to

feel like they're actually on the battlefield ready to get blown up, yes?

So, so I interviewed Jess Taylor in the previous episode about story, and he was saying exactly that, that our instinct is always ahead of our intellectual processing. And speaking to that, that when we're immersed in a great story, we can't help but anticipate and you actually

want to be catching the wave together and being in that flow together.

Paul Alan Ruben: But when we anticipate, that's the right word, because anticipate means we don't know. So if the actor is helping you, you do know, and you don't want the actor said this. I I approached the corner and I knew there was something terrible. Yes, I'm obviously exaggerating. Well, so now that

what is the listener supposed to do? There's nothing for the listener to anticipate. The listeners saying, all right, okay, I get it. I know there's a bad person behind there. You walk me into it, yeah?

It's like showing the close up of the person that's behind the corner. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Alan Ruben: And, and, so that's the bottom line, that that is you you're saying. And I think, from my perspective, precisely, accurately, that the listener wants to be the one that's anticipating what they don't know. They don't want to be helped. They don't want the actor to help them to lead

some some of the great narrators have said to me, obviously, we, you know, we have, we're mutual friends with a lot of these people have said to me, working with Paul Rubin was the hardest, most frustrating, most exhilarating, thrilling thing I've ever done. I don't know if I can go back to

self recording in my booth now, because so many you know narrators now are recording in their booths by themselves, directing themselves. They have absolutely no help with performance, which I do not agree with. I've never recorded or done a job without a director ever in my life before, and I

don't know if I ever want to, because it's such a glorious process. And you I need a director as an actor or as a as a performer. So how do you feel about this trend of of actors directing themselves.

Paul Alan Ruben: Well, here's what I think is a byproduct of that. I think most, most people, whether you're an actor or not, know the expression phoning it in.

And so let's talk about phoning it in.

Paul Alan Ruben: And so phoning it in. And I thought about this, you do have to. An actor to really phone it in? Well, there's almost

let's talk about what your definition of phoning in. Listeners who are not in the acting world and don't have any idea what that expression means,

Paul Alan Ruben: phoning it in is indicating feeling without really feeling it, but you do it at kind of a high level. So the high level that you indicated pretty well, pretty smoothly. You sound almost slick, you know, Tess walked in the room and she really felt nervous today. No, really nervous.

That's all phoned in, right? Tess, she thought, you know, this is my first podcast, and I thought it was going to feel really fine and good and everything. But I don't really feel good. I could. You could do that in your sleep.

Yeah, and a lot of narrators are doing it means

Paul Alan Ruben: that you and the way to know that you're phoning it in is if you stop the narrative narrator and say, Do you feel anything right now? The answer will be yes. I'm hungry and it's time for lunch. Yeah, that's it. So that's essentially phoning it in. And I think in the booth, working by yourself.

And I'm not blaming the actor necessarily. It's very, very difficult, given the given the program is due quickly. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, you know, I gotta hurry up and do this. I don't have anybody to help me, and they more and more rely on their voice. More and more rely on simply, as I said, indicating

the feeling, showing the feeling, without feeling it. And let's

talk about some of the bad habits, because that's one bad habit, is phoning it in, and there's several others. So one of the ones that actually I'm going to let you tell me, and then I'm going to add in one that I think is you might name it to the one that I think is the most frustrating.

Paul Alan Ruben: So for me, a bad habit. Again, if I, if I look at the essence of a bad habit, what's the outcome? The outcome of a bad habit is that it disconnects me emotionally from the story. That's it, period. So here's a bad habit, narrators, if I tell the narrator, as you tell this

story, right? You you are attempting to replicate real life, correct? Yeah, I am okay. So we agree on that. Now I know as soon as they say that they're not going to do it. I can just tell so now they're going to narrate the story and and they decide that not only, not only are they going to to to narrate

it in a or they decide that the particular way they're going to narrate is to modulate their voice. And so they're going to say, Tess walked in the room and she sat down on the chair. Now I'll usually stop to somebody and say, Have you ever said and that way in your life, without owning it, just sung it like

that. And so the answer to that is, if I tell them, Don't sing, don't sing. Okay, that often will correct that. And so for me, that is one of the and it happens more in nonfiction than fiction, but it happens all over the place, right? And and so it's important for the actor to know what the emotional

consequence or lack there of is when they modulate their voice. And so the explanation is the following, from my perspective, when you watch the news on television, the news reporter may modulate their voice. They may say, last week in Melbourne, five people were killed in a very unfortunate accident. That

is because that Narrator does not want that news reporter does not want their outcome is not to have you test connect emotionally to what they're saying to the degree that it, that it impacts you so much. Can't listen to the news anymore. Now you might, but that's not their outcome. If it

was their outcome, they would say, last week in Melbourne, people were killed. You never you? Why don't Yeah, so, so that's the difference between the outcome, and that's what that's why this sort of modulating the voice is, is simply removes this listener or the viewer or whoever it is,

emotionally from the experience.

Yeah, well, I mean, that was, I was not going to use that particular language, but I was going to say exactly the same thing of getting into same patterns and sing songy rhythms, where you're just speaking things in a really beautiful way, but it's not really connected to anything.

The other

Paul Alan Ruben: things that bother me or not I don't say bother me that I think are disconnecting are things like pushing and helping. So if I had a nickel for every time I said to the narrator, don't push. Don't push. A push means what it sounds like. Tess came in the room yesterday. Why do you Why

are you using your voice to affect a feeling? Just feel it and for the actor. Sometimes they think, Well, okay, but don't, don't I have to sound that way. I say, No, you will sound that way. The listener will believe I want you to respect your listener, respect your view, or respect them. If

you're emotionally connected, they'll buy it, right?

Oh, let's talk about that respect. Because it does. It does fall into the showing, showing helping, helping is that we are assuming that the listener is stupid and isn't going to get there on their own. And again, I was speaking to Jess about this in the last episode, about how we

that story is built as much by omission as it is inclusion. Yes, and that the great books and great movies, it's as much about what we're not told and we are going to get there. We're going to get there we're so much smarter than than, you know, as we're creating art, than we think someone is. So I really

appreciate what you're saying about respect is assuming that the listener is really smart and they're right there with you.

Paul Alan Ruben: So I'll give you my feeling about that. I'll give that. A lot of actors don't get up in the morning and say, oh my god, I gotta narrate this for a bunch of morons. Okay, so I know they're not saying that that. Here's the way I think about it. A person can be intellectually, you know, have a

varying degrees of intellect. However, the actors project is not the intellect. That's the author's project, whoever wrote the book or the script, not the actor. You can't act the words. Intellect is not actable. The words are not actable. If I said to you, Tess, act, I'm going to the store right now. Act that.

What would you do? You would have to intuit a feeling, and that's what would propel you to say the line. If I don't tell you the feeling, what are you going to do? So here's where all listeners, whether they have nine PhDs or, you know, they're just woke up in the morning and their teeth are missing, and

they got to go out and, you know, work the fields, and they maybe they haven't gone to college or whatever, they all intuitively relate to happy, sad, angry, frustrated, etc. So they are all we are all essentially in the same pot, emotionally, if you know what, I'm all

having a human experience.

Paul Alan Ruben: That's it. And so the actors project has nothing to do with the intellect of the listener or the viewer for that matter. That's why I tell actors too, yes, if you're narrating literary fiction, a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, versus some silly romance. Of course, there is a huge

difference in terms of literary that said for the actor. So what I say to them is the characters in the literary fiction and the characters in the kind of silly romance don't know that they're in a romance. They don't know that they're in a literary fiction. Yes, experiencing life. So for them, it's all

Shakespeare, it's all the stakes are very high, so you don't have to worry about the literary quality of what you're doing. I get it, of course. That said it has zero to do with acting, zero. And in fact, literary fiction can be more problematic for me as a director, because sometimes the subtext is buried

to the degree where we meaning the actor and I have to figure out now what, what's the feeling here? What is it? As opposed to, I hate you? She said, angrily, yeah, and so and so viewers, viewers need to be respected to the degree that it's all on you, the actor, if you can connect the subtext to the listener or

the viewer in a way that is truthful, organically, emotionally connected. Of course, people like things more than others, but you will, you will connect to them. They will get it most people, when they walk out of a movie or listen to an audio book, if they say, I don't like it, if they're

talking about the content, fine, if they're talking about the performance, they don't mean I don't like it like as a non actable word. What they mean is it didn't connect to me. I'm not. I didn't believe it, yeah, didn't believe it. It didn't emotionally and if they didn't believe it, that's on the actor.

Probably, maybe not, you know? I mean, you can have multiple views. I don't want to sound

Yeah, no, I know what you say the end of the day.

Paul Alan Ruben: Again, it's, it's not that complicated. You either emotionally connect to your listener or viewer 100% of the time, or you don't. If you don't, how, how much don't you and then and then, where does that take you? If you're an actor, why are you an actor? What is it that you're exactly

you know, what is it that that you bring to the party if you're not going to use what's inside of you to connect to the feeling and and as you said earlier, be vulnerable and connect yourself. And yeah, it is very vulnerable. That's why Ella Batterman said, I can't do that. But she's not,

let's, let me, let me ask you about that. So you, you know, you're really in there with an actor, particularly a great actor, you know, great directors want to work with great actors who want to be there, and they're willing actors, you know, and they want to participate in this, this

collaborative process. And then with Ella, you knew, Okay, not going to go there, not going to happen. I'm here to just basically be a technical director and take this where I can. So want to ask you about a story. You've told me many stories in our long friendship, but the one that those really

stuck with me was the story you told me about working with Michael J Fox and how you decided to pull back, and it was one of the greatest teachable moments for you as a director. So can you, can you share that story?

Paul Alan Ruben: I absolutely will. So it's been some years now. Well over 10 years ago, I worked with Michael J Fox on a book called always looking up. It won a Grammy Award. So it was very gratifying that way. So his coterie of people that came with him said, don't push him. Leave him alone. He's obviously he

can't even narrate that long. Be careful. Just treat him with kid gloves. And so I said, All right, so I pretty much let him go and said almost nothing to him. The recording lasted about 10 days because he could only work for a couple of hours at a time. I couldn't work all 10 days, and I said to Paula, and I

mean, I said to the publisher, can Paula do some of these days? Because she can do them, and I just can't. The publisher said, Fine. They knew Paula, right. No problem. So Paula goes in there to work with Michael J Fox, and apparently she didn't get the email, or didn't get there.

I'm not sure if she would have listened to it anyway.

Paul Alan Ruben: So she's like telling him, yeah, try this again, or let's do this. Let's do that, whatever, whatever you know. And she's directing him. So at the end of the program. When he was all done, Paula was there. He she and I were both there to say goodbye to him, and a couple of others people were

there, and he walked up, I thought he was walking up to me, and so he's walking this way, takes a little bit of a left, extends his hand, Paula shakes his hand and says, Thank you for directing me. And I thought, yeah, I didn't say to myself, there's a teachable moment. But I'm getting goose bumps right

now because there was a teachable moment. Yeah, he's an actor.

He wanted to be ridden like a stallion,

Paul Alan Ruben: directed, yeah, and I understand the concern, Paula didn't badger him drive him crazy. If Paula did, he would have reacted. He directed him. And I think that you know, my experience with celebrities like that is, sometimes you can work with them, and sometimes you can't. When you can, it's,

it's, it's a magical experience. Can I tell you about the one celebrity my favorite, who I worked with for all time?

Please, because you've worked with a ton. I mean, you're gonna just

Paul Alan Ruben: pick one. So this got to be 20 years ago now, Random House was doing a book with Lynn Redgrave and out about it. It was in California, and this was the days before the internet, and so you had to travel out there. So I asked them, I said, Look, can I can I do this? And they said, Well,

no, it's in California. We got to hire somebody out there. I said, Look, I'll pay my way. I'll pay everything. I'll pay you. I'll pay her.

Yes, seriously, to work with her. I would have done this

Paul Alan Ruben: all right, you know, you have to pay your plane fare, pay your hotel. I said, Okay, I will. I'll stay an extra night. I'll do anything. So I went out there, and the very first thing. Thing she said to me was the very first thing she said was, Do you know the proper way to make tea? And I said, she

said, what I'm going to show you, because we're going to have some. So she showed me how to boil the water, make it get all bubbly and boiling, you know, and leave the tea bag in there, and all this stuff and all this. If the water is not public, you can't pour us, okay? And and then she started to work. And I

thought to myself, all right, let's see what happens. I mean, she's phenomenal actress, so I asked her to basically do something over instead. Of course, absolutely so there that was very validating for me, very validating to have an actor who was just that talented and so on and so forth to to treat me

simply as a director and not leverage her celebrity, which unfortunately happens with some celebrities whose names I won't mention, but whose initials might be Johnny Depp, for example, it was just impossible for me to sitting in the booth in this booth in England where we had, where I had to go,

smoking cigarettes and being just, you know, on uncommunicative. So it was very difficult for me to work with him and, you know, and then he would come out of the booth and say disparaging things about audio books, whatever. So, so you, I, you know, I mean, I'm not,

wasn't that the only time you've actually said I can't do this?

Paul Alan Ruben: Well, the short answer is yes, although, in fairness, it was evident to me that was going to take him longer than what the publisher wanted. And I think if all things being equal, if he was actually being cooperative, they would have continued the program. But I told them, it's

going to take forever to finish this, and it's, you know, if you want me to do it, I'll do it. But you know, you can only take so many bullet holes and then you think they were great, so they

soul crushing work is just not worth it.

Paul Alan Ruben: No, it's not. But I've had great experiences with other, my

other so you I mean, Meryl Streep, for example, that was glorious, right?

Paul Alan Ruben: He was, yes, I mean, I worked with her. She came in and, you know, it's funny, I first thing, I realized, no, she's not seven feet tall. She's actually,

I know we all imagined her to be enlightened.

Paul Alan Ruben: She couldn't have been nicer. She sat in the booth, she narrated. She was great. I mean, you know, I didn't have to tell her a million things and all this, but, but it was, it very validating. It was, it was quite wonderful. I had that experience. I loved working with

Tony Roberts, you know. Oh, yeah, same thing, wonderful. My favorite.

I mean, the very first audio book that you narrated was with Stacy Keats, right?

Paul Alan Ruben: Well, yes, that that takes me into, how did I get into audiobook world? And if you want me, I will tell you, please. Okay, so, you know, I director. Before that, I knew somebody that worked for Simon and Schuster, and this was long ago, before the changing of the century. And they said to me,

Well, you know, we're using some celebrities. We're working with celebrities by that way. We need a director actually to work with them, because that's Is that something that you feel comfortable doing? And I said, Yes, yeah, sure. I've directed some celebrities and plays and this and that. They said, Okay.

And they said, and tell me what your what's your audio book experience? What audiobooks have you done? And and so I go into the recording studio, and I see the engineer sitting with the equipment with 47,000 light bulbs on it and all this stuff, and thinking, oh my god, please pray. I hope he knows what he's

doing, because I don't even got a clue about any of this, but Stacy Keats was a wonderful actor. We hit it off. He took direction. He was wonderful. I had a great time, and that's how I got into audiobook world.

So why was Lynn Redgrave the favorite experience that you chose besides learning how to make a great cup of tea,

Paul Alan Ruben: I think because she with various celebrities, my experience is sometimes there's a, if you're lucky, a kind of a warm up period where they somehow, I don't want to get in their heads, but it feels a little uncomfortable. You know, they have to think maybe that I know what I'm doing, or there's

a little or they think, don't tell me, and it whatever. I walked in and I barely sat down and. Red grave was talking to me like we, you know, knew each other for 1000 years, and by the way, you know, I'll show you. Oh, so you just had that instant rapport. Well, I felt respected by her instantly. I felt it

okay. It's up to me to do something silly and show her that I don't know what I'm doing, but she's not going to make that assumption. And you know, you, you, I think, I think most people, I'm assuming many people, have some experiences where, if you, if you say something in a way that kind of

leverages who you are, and you don't really have that leverage, and they call you on it, you can kind of imagine yourself with egg coming down. Yeah, that's never happened to me, and I don't want to go there. So I'm, I'm always pretty careful. I had the same experience with Burt Reynolds when I worked with him,

it was, it just couldn't have been more fun. And he I don't go to his home and work with him. And he came and he talked to me like we were best buddies. And at the time, this is a long time ago, my son was in high school, and I knew Burt Reynolds played football, so I showed him a photograph of my son in a

uniform, and I said to him, you only wished you looked like this, right? And, oh, we hit it off. So that was great. Well, those are my

good experiences, yes. So, speaking about making assumptions, I want to ask you about this, because you have directed people where they're very high profile political figures, for example. So when you directed Mitch McConnell, for example, you flew out there, your politics could not be more

opposite, you know, in your belief system, and then you ended up having a really pleasant experience with him as a human being. And the reason I pulled that story out right now or recollect the out of the treasure trove of stories you've told me and the people that you've worked with is that in

this current climate where we're so divided that at the end of the day, we're all having a human experience, and we can find common ground if we don't make assumptions about each other. So you went there to direct his book and tell me about what happened in terms of forging a connection with

somebody that you may have assumed you weren't going to be able to do.

Paul Alan Ruben: Well, I appreciate what you're saying. I think that I walked in there and was able to sort of disaggregate my judgment about his politics from my feelings about what it will be like, simply to help him.

Because, okay, so that was your intention. When you went in there.

Paul Alan Ruben: My intention was to walk in there and do my best to help him narrate his book as best he could, and he, in turn, I think, responded to that. I'm sure he took one look at me and thought, yeah, I know. I know this guy's some lefty from Brooklyn that said, and maybe he didn't that said, he

allowed me to work with him, and then he, in turn, was very giving with me, and he sat down and had lunch with me, two feet from me, and we had a very good time. So I think what occurred and to pick up on what you suggested, was it's always instructive and informative to think about what we do have in

common as opposed to what we don't have in common.

But he it sounds like and correct me if I'm misinterpreting this, but it sounds like he co checked his ego at the door and just met another human being in the collaborative process, and maybe he was nervous and wanted your help. I mean, who knows? We don't know, right? What is it

like? Yeah, is that a correct assumption 100% Yeah. Okay. So what is it like for you to work with somebody who chooses not to do that? Because you have worked with some very powerful, very high profile figures. What? What is that like for you?

Paul Alan Ruben: I'm sure my experience replicates people in business all over the place. So he's no longer with us, but Ash Carter was this is my most recent few years ago, the Obama's Secretary of Defense. This man was, at the time, in charge of a agency pushing a trillion dollars, you know, the

Defense Department. He was in Boston, and I'm in New York, so we're working remotely, and I can't see him. I'm hearing him fine, but I don't see him, so all he does is hear this voice, and I could tell, just in listening to him talk to the engineer, that he was a little nervous and and I. Perhaps if I

had thought through this a little bit more, although it was fine, I might have approached things a little differently, because I do have a strategy for people like that. So he reads the very first sentence, and I already can tell, oh, my God, this poor man can't read very well. He makes a lot of

mistakes. He changes words. I know that publishers will allow him to change multiple words if they don't really impact the meaning. But the first sentence was something like in 1974 he said, In 1497 so I can't let that go. So I said, I let him finish the sentence, and I said, Oh, Secretary Carter, what? And,

oh, wow. Okay. I thought, Okay. So what occurs in here now is, from my perspective, this whole notion of leverage I have to, I of course, have to be the grown up in the room, calm myself down, or I was fine, but I mean, and I did gently tell him that I said, Can we go back And can you narrate the sentence that says,

In 1974 make sure he heard me say, 1974 and he did get get it right. And then after that, when I had to stop him, I then, you always have to find a MacGuffin, a bad guy. So I always make the studio the bad guy. And I said, Oh, Secretary Carter, there was a noise or, Oh, Secretary Carter, maybe that was a car

outside, which, of course, is all baloney that he could vote, that he could relate to. I don't think he saw that as an assault on him. And so he was more predisposed to to not have an outburst. And then as time went by, I had to work with him four more times. And this I've had this experience too. As he got

calmer and a little more, I think in control, he felt less threatened. So I'm making that up, but, but that's my experience. And then he it was okay. He was all right. And it reminds me that all people are human, whether

it's him or he was just nervous. He wasn't in a comfortable domain.

Paul Alan Ruben: And maybe he thought, Who is this pipsqueak telling me all this stuff that I can't even

Well, I'm going to tell you his wife is a friend of mine, and I know he's a lovely person. I know he's a lovely person, so it really would have been that he was just nervous. I so, you know what I mean? Isn't that interesting? Where it's it's funny, you know, I'm gonna butcher this because I, I can't

remember the exact quote, but I remember um somebody saying, once, you know, when you're in a great partnership with somebody on my worst day, you invite me and you remember me on my best day. Yeah, and I think it's just it is. It's a really great example of this, of this story that you're telling you spoke a

minute ago about that you've got some strategies about working with people when they're nervous. So what are some of the others you sort of, you know through the anecdote you were you were sharing some of them. What are some of the others?

Paul Alan Ruben: This is just me, my strategy. I didn't read a book on strategies about working with people when they're nervous. This is just what occurs as I as I've moved through my time at the end of the day, I'm always mindful of the fact that a this is a human being in there with the same

feelings that I have, happy, sad, angry, etc. And if that person happens to be the secretary of defense state, whoever he is, she is, doesn't matter. They all have, we are, we are. All have that commonality. Additionally, I always feel that my first obligation is to be sure, if I

need to, that that person understands that I have the utmost respect for them and that I am I am committed to essentially helping them. And the way that I do that is I just simply say, oh, test, that was great. That was very good, very good, good, great. What if I can do it? So can we just go back?

But it's great. It's wonderful. And then I'll slowly inject what it is I need them to do. I have never in my life ever had somebody tell me, don't tell me I'm great. I'm not great. I know I'm not great, never, never. And I think I can. I think I'm I think maybe it's because I actually mean it, it. I because

I don't think there's a I need to refer to a hierarchy of good or. At are great. I recognize that a person is nervous, and so in that sense, the bar changes, or that there's some so I'm allowed to say to them, that was great, that was great. And if somebody wants to say to me, no, that wasn't great, then I'll

tell them, Go yourself, you know, whatever. Yeah, I can say whatever I want. That my outcome is to make that person comfortable. And I want to, and I need to acknowledge that person, but sincerely, not fakie. So I mean,

so you keep bringing up this word acknowledge and acknowledgement and and you needing that acknowledgement. So you said, winning a Grammy with, you know, with Michael J Fox was gratifying. You also won a Grammy, you know, with Al Franken for his book. Does that

matter to you? What does that you know? What does that feel like? Do you care about that?

Paul Alan Ruben: The short answer is yes, to the degree that I recognize it as simply, I've been around a long time, it feels as though it's nice to be recognized with an award like that. Do I take it a little bit with a grain of salt? Sure, because there's a whole lot of other things, other other wheels

that are spinning that that create these outcomes. I mean Grammy, Best Spoken Word, for example, the Grammy, it always goes to a celebrity. It's always goes to us like

it's never going to go to a non celebrity who might just have done the most incredible job at a book.

Paul Alan Ruben: I get all those things. So yeah, so that's fine. And I my feeling, and when I tell narrators too about awards, if they're asking me if it comes up is, I say, hey, if I get an award for something that's fabulous, if I don't then those people don't know what they're talking about, and then move on

from there. I I'm far, far, far more invested in in, I think, my sense of acknowledging the people I work with, and far more appreciative of the acknowledgement that I received for them. It's possible that an actor would say to me, oh, boy, Paul, that was it was great working with you when they think

they don't when they don't mean it. Yeah, they have nothing to benefit by doing that. So and I, and we all know, because I'll always say to let me see if I can explain this. So what's so? So? And this is where the acknowledgement comes from when something occurs, when I'm working with an actor, and let's

say we are working on something together, and the actor finally gets there, we may stop and or at some point when we stop, I'll say, I say, you, you felt that, didn't you? You felt it. And the actor will say, yeah, yeah, I did. I felt it. I felt it.

I couldn't ask for any more acknowledgement than that. So you're a surfer, so catching the wave is a thrill for you.

Paul Alan Ruben: My outcome is for them to feel and say, meaning, I felt it, and I couldn't have felt it more. I mean, I did it. It was organic. I felt it. I felt it and and the key for me, always, as a as I think about these things, and I say it to the actors too, is when you're connected in the

moment, organically there, when you're giving back what the text is giving you emotionally, all the nuanced choices you make could not if we had to do this over again, I could never direct you to do it the same way. Yes, it's all kinetic. It's all spur of the moment. It's all dictated by the subtext pushing them and

and that's why I think acting in a particular way defies language. You do the best you can. And that's why, for me, I found that actable directions, the actual syntax of the actable direction, doesn't really even mean anything. And yet, if I say let it take you an hour to get through these three sentences,

well, the actual syntax is telling them to take an hour. They intuitively know that's not what I mean. They know what we talked about earlier, that they need to honor the space. Let it I'll use this word. Let it breathe. That's a silly word, but experience the feeling in the white space. It propels you

to say the next sentence, and it always occurs to me when those things happen, and that I do buy into so if a listener who's not an actor is listening to this and they want to really do well at a cocktail party, they can say to the friend or whoever they're talking to, so fill in the blank. Acting is blank. What

will they say? What will the friend say? I don't know. Acting is reacting. If you don't react, you're not acting. You can't if you don't react. Act like things impossible. That's French for impossible, yeah, and can't do it.

What about teaching? What do you love about that? Because you teach a lot now, teach narrators. You coach people as well as directing.

Paul Alan Ruben: I do. I think what I enjoy the most about coaching and teaching is because this is what happens. I would say the vast majority of time, if I'm working with an actor, I don't really teach non actors, just because I prefer to send them to somebody else who can maybe help them a little more

than I can. So if the person's an actor. What invariably happens is what I suggested earlier, the actor comes in cloaked with affect, 123, lots of affect, a little affect. And so what I enjoy is suggesting to the actor, okay, it's great. It's good. Okay, so I don't actually say this to them, but

this is what I'm doing. Let's disrobe you now. Let's take away the affect. Don't help me. Don't push, don't sing. It's a lot of don'ts, and sometimes actors, I did have one actress, say to me, You're too negative. I'd say, okay, okay, I hear you. I say that said you can use the word negative. If you don't have any

clothes on, I won't be negative. I guarantee you, if you don't cloak yourself in affect, you won't hear a negative word out of me. So what I'm trying to do is suggest to the actor in the coaching session, your voice. Can't act. Don't help me. Don't sing, don't modulate, however, and here's where it I am

positive is this where your feeling center is okay? So I'm going to suggest to you that you're you are likely to be challenged in terms of feeling the emotional consequence of the subtext, if you're using your voice, if you're singing, if you deprive yourself of that affect, you have a clear emotional path

to connect to that feeling and give back what that feeling gives you. That's the essence of it. Does that make sense to you?

It makes complete sense to me as an actor, yeah, I want to ask you about legacy, because you you got into audio books. You then created a company that you ran for 20 years, very successful before audio books were the huge things that they are now you've got this, you had this real

entrepreneurial spirit about you to do that and create this huge company and then sell it. What did you learn and what changed in the industry during that time? You know, where you were really instrumental in helping build the industry that we have today. What does that matter to you? What does that feel like

when I say that?

Paul Alan Ruben: No, I hear you. I think honestly so. So perhaps, like many people, pretty presumptuous of me if I thought I was the only one. But obviously, like lots of people, various things that propel you can, can, can work simultaneously. Can can happen at the same time. I've always

sort of had a kind of an entrepreneurial spirit, and I've always enjoyed producing, putting all the little parts together and making something happen in the beginning of audiobook world. I was really a producer. Now I'm more a director, but, but in the beginning, I often, you know,

sometimes I even hired the talent. I got the editor together, I got all the various parts, and I enjoyed doing that. I like that. So that was enjoyable. I enjoyed the idea of having a company. And I do appreciate your asking the question, because these questions, it's funny, do do

make me think like I'm sitting for the moment in front of a therapist, because I it occurred to me that, again, that's all another form of acknowledgement for me. This is something I think I can do, and I don't have anybody telling me I can't do it as a child or or just dismissing it. Um, so that was sort of my

experience as a child, more than it was dismissed. Hey, I just did this as though I was talking to the, you know, outer space. So I think, I think, I think that that was a piece of it also. And then after that, meaning 20 years or so went by, I determined that I wanted to spend a little more time writing

and and which is another passion. And. And I think if I was, I think I'm a good writer. I think if I was as good a writer as I am a director, I'd have, I'd have, you know, whatever, a couple of whatever's, you know. But I do think I'm a good writer. So you

are a good writer. Let me ask you about that and this acknowledgement piece. So you alluded to, you know, well, not alluded you expressed that you didn't get that acknowledgement from your dad, and that has been a driver for you, you know, as it is for all of us. You know, our parents and

the and our relationship with our parents drives our behavior. You know, every human being. So it was that I know you've been a writer for a really long time. You wrote plays, they were produced off Broadway. You wrote episode of Star Trek. You wrote TV. You know, you wrote all kinds of things in your life,

and you've been writing for a very, very, very long time to then get really, really vulnerable and write these short stories about the relationship between father and son, and put yourself in that place where you were drawing from your personal experience with your own father and your relationship with your

son, with Brandon, what was that it has to be me to go from writing fiction about stuff, you know, people are, you know, in outer space, for example, you know, and then someone in a play, to writing something very, very personal, selling your business and going, this is actually what lights me on fire.

Paul Alan Ruben: Well, if you use, again, very instructive to me, if you use the language, it's, it's, how do you say it's got to be me, or it has to, it has to be me. Yeah, so, so I think that's applicable to how I determined to write these short stories. I think that within me there was a particular desire

and need to find my way into my relationship with my dad earlier and then with my son by way of fiction. And I think one of the things fiction can do is it too can can replicate real life and real feelings if you decide that that's what you want to do. And so writing, I don't want to say that writing these short stories

was cathartic. I don't think it changed me to a degree that I was this way before, and now I'm this way after. Not at all that said it helped me explore feelings that I had, my son had, my father had through various characters in various ways, so none of it is autobiographical. And in doing that, it helped me,

I think, or informed me, about me to the degree that that, that that was all predicated on the vocabulary it has, how you say it, it has

to be, it has to be me. I love how you're you. You don't drop the name of the podcast into your body, right? Like you and I like this is what I love about you, is that you, you are in the moment with me talking about this, processing it, which is exactly how you work as a director, you know.

So, yeah, I catalog life in a series of it has to be me moments, you know, which is why I named the podcast. It has to be me, right? You know. And I love us finding it in the moment, in terms of where you drop it into your body.

Paul Alan Ruben: Well, I do too, and I appreciate it that it has to be me. First of all, I thought to myself, Okay, if it has to be me, oh, my goodness, I don't want to say it has to be somebody else. I don't want to say it doesn't have to be me. It has to be me suggests to me that. So I'm going to just, you

know, this is sort of coming to me, as I said, but it has to me be me suggests to me that there may be more to me than even I think there is, and whatever story I come up with that's that that makes me feel more connected to who I am. Is a good one is is makes me feel human, makes me feel connected and and

with you and myself at this moment. It's a very kind of and interestingly, if I sort of now separate myself from that and look at me as a director, I would be if I was the actor, saying to the actor, what. Where the dialog was, if the actor was, if you made a transcript of this and the actor was saying

just what I'm saying, I'd say to the actor also, how does he feel? How does he feel? What's the feeling? Is he happy? Sad, anxious, angry, wistful. Where's the feeling? What is it? And you can go there, you can go there. And then I rely on the actor to do a better job of to do that. So, so it's funny how it I it

even informs me about directing and even talking about this. It's, it's good,

yeah, and it's a soul connected, isn't that? A human experience, your history, all of the different things you've done, writing, comedy, directing, acting, teaching. I mean, it all just dovetails, as it does for each and every one of us, going back to acknowledgement. And you know

that that would it seems to be not to not to analyze anything. But the what I'm hearing is just acknowledgement, acknowledgement. If you tell me I can't do something, I'm going to bloody do it. And you know, that's a big driving factor for you. You are incredibly disciplined as a writer. So

while you have this huge directing career, you know, you had this huge producing career, you've been a business owner, you've been an actor, you've been a writer, you've done all these things, and you keep coming back to the writing. You write every single day in a disciplined fashion. You are the

most disciplined person I have ever met. And you don't define yourself by age. You go to the gym every day. You are so strong you've got more to give, and you know that you do and you don't give up. The tenacity with which you attack life is something that I find so inspiring about you, right? So tell me about

continuing to write. You know you've just, you've just finished your second novel, and you are working in literary fiction, I think.

Paul Alan Ruben: Yeah, one person that's read it so far as my son and I said it's a little different than the story collection. There's other sides of me. There's a little more humor in it. It's not, it's not father and son, whatever, but, but, but, of course, acknowledgement is a huge theme

in in the in the book that I wrote, I would say the two things, things, the two main themes are acknowledgement and judgment, because the book focuses on a 22 year old young lady and a 25 year old guy, and she's has great and the name of The book is like, and I don't want to spend a lot of time on

it, and she, she has great difficulty with, especially in social media, being judged. She regards herself as too skinny, and, you know, she refers to herself as a pogo stick with tits that didn't mature during adolescence. So, so, you know, she's got all kinds of body images. So that said, now I've

got to go back and and remember your actual question to me. So I don't

know, I can, I can. I can ask it in a different way too, because it's, it's just sort of, I'm finding my way into it as well. You chose to let Brandon read it first. And I know that he is extraordinary, and he is a person you greatly admire. And I know you've said to me, you think he's the

smartest, greatest person on earth. We would all love our fathers to say

Paul Alan Ruben: that human being on the planet,

and he is extraordinary is is your tenacity and your discipline of writing every day and continuing to to write, driven by that need to have acknowledgement In that space in the same way that you've had high level acknowledgement in these other parts of your life.

Paul Alan Ruben: You know, I'm, I'm going to speak from my gut and say, not really. I, of course, I would like I got some wonderful acknowledgement on the story collection. I got lots. I think that what dry, what the drive? Because you alluded to it earlier. You know, my tender age, maybe I think the drive is

simply that I, while I appreciate whatever intellect I have and whatever capacity I have to intellectually appreciate a given text or a given conversation from somebody, whatever, wherever I am there, I also very much the Who I am is wanting to be an emotionally connected. It to my

world and to the worlds that I want to inhabit. And so I want to inhabit the world of writing, and I want to inhabit the world of directing. And maybe it's more a need. Probably is more a need than a want. And so it's that need, I think that propels me. And I'm not old, but at my tender age of 78 I think to

myself, well, I can still go to the gym five days a week. I can still do pull ups, I can still do all these things. Nobody's figured out that I'm losing my mind. So I'm going to keep on going until that that opportunity to keep on going. Doesn't exist anymore. And I do recall a book that I read while

I was in college. It may have been, I honestly don't recall who the author was. It may have been Camus, and it may have been the stranger, but I can't exactly recall. But at the end of the day, the issue was, you know, how do you want to live? Do you want to live a long time? And the response was, I want

just want to live well. So that's how I feel. I want to live well.

My definition of living well, I'm I'm thinking about something that I think it was Edith Wharton that said, I write to understand what I know. I don't write what I know. And it sounds to me like you're constellating around that same

Paul Alan Ruben: Yes, much closer to that inquiry, yes, yeah, yes. It's all, I mean, you can have a character that thinks they know everything, but me as a writer? No, I'd be mortified if someone thought that what I wrote was didactic, that I was trying to use the fiction to grind a particularly didactic

AX. And having said that, I don't think there's a fiction writer on the planet that doesn't have a particular ax to grind, meaning you you have a need to get something out. You have a need to to have characters express things that are in your mind. But no, I'm not telling everybody. You got

to be a Democrat, you got to be a Republican, you got to be a Catholic, you know?

But it brings up, you know, this larger thing that we've been constellating around, really, which is that story helps us understand ourselves. Creating story, we are finding our way into it and through it and with it in the moment. And that is what makes great acting exhilarating is when you are

finding it in the moment and you are behaving and with an intention, and you are reacting to someone else's behavior and action.

Paul Alan Ruben: Oh, well, yes, the two things that I do revolve around story writing and audiobook work. And from my perspective, I look at audiobook narration as simply storytelling. That's it. The author has written a book. That's storytelling. All the actor is doing is saying it out

loud. They're telling the story out loud, and yeah, they're reading the author's words. But that's okay. They're there. They are essentially not essentially, they are telling a story to people who listen. And from my perspective, I have the feeling, although I've not looked at a text that told me this

specifically, that that storytelling is endemic to human beings, that it has existed for all time, everywhere. And I think, in my opinion, is a reason that storytelling is is so much a part of human DNA, is because storytelling helps us understand a world that essentially defies

understanding. It doesn't make sense. And so when I was I did, there's a there's a wonderful writer named Marcia Eliade who wrote about as much as he could about primordial people, way, way, way, way back and and he's looking at human beings that were among the first human beings to essentially think to

themselves, wow, there's things that are happening that either I don't like or I'm afraid of or that don't want to happen to me. So a I'm going to create a story that helps me understand these things, I'm going to create all kinds of gods and characters that will assist in in me, making my life a little bit

better. And that's how you come by. Religion. All religion really is, is philosophy. It's all storytelling from my perspective. Effective. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to contradict somebody who believes it's something else. From my perspective, religion is merely storytelling. It's all

made up. And that's okay. Made up stories are good if they help you get through the day, so long as other people are not, not the beneficiaries of your made up story. And that, I think that becomes a problem. We need stories. We need stories to figure out what is absurd, what doesn't make sense. I don't

think there's a human being on the planet Earth today that if one said to that person, a does the world make sense? They might. I don't know what their answer would be, but B, does the world make sense to you 100% of the time? And can you make sense out of the world? 100% 100% of the time. If that person says

yes, I don't believe them, you know as Uncle Joe Biden, when he'd lean in and say, it doesn't make sense, Joey, it doesn't make sense. You got it?

Ah, gosh. So on that note, I always close every episode with the same question, yes, which is when you have a dream in your heart and you don't feel like you have what it takes to make it happen, it doesn't make sense. Yeah, what do you say to yourself?

Paul Alan Ruben: I Yes, what I will say to myself is as best I can. I'm going to deprive myself of a made up construct that I just told myself, and I'm going to listen to who I am, to my feelings, and if my feelings are propelling me to do it. I'm going to do it period, best I can. I'm not at all suggesting

the world isn't a tough place to be. That's how I would deal with it. That's how I do deal with it. You know, doesn't mean on a given day, at a given moment. I don't feel this. I don't feel that. That said, somehow, I did manage to write this big, long book. You know, it's, it's being copy edited right now. I'm, I'm

determined to have it published. If I don't have it published, I am determined to have it published. That's it. If I don't, I can. I think I can create for myself a believable story that tells me so am I someone is the definition of me a book that didn't get published? No, I look at my son

and my daughter in law and my two grand babies, I am reminded that that's not who I am. And when I think about Paula, my wife, who you interviewed, and who I know you know and thinks more of you than probably me.

Oh, stop. Oh, my goodness, but, but, but.

Paul Alan Ruben: So we have a four year old grandbaby, and Paula and the grandbaby are like this. And when I see them, I think to myself, right? There's mom, dad, Grammy, and everybody else, and I'm up there with everybody else, and I think, okay, that's a that I can sit back and tell myself, that's

where the eggs are for me. And again, doesn't mean a whole host of mitigating issues don't occur like all of us. So that's my answer. It has to emanate from here, and it always helps me to I've mentioned it before remind myself that that a construct is okay, but once the construct, construct becomes concretized,

as if it's real, as if there's no way out of it. You can really f yourself up. You've built a box around yourself and deprived yourself of a way out. And you know, My dearly, my poor father has been departed now for 10 years. And you know I he does serve sometimes to help me, remind me of certain things, and

I can remember vividly over where he lived, and someone came to visit him, who was a successful artist. And my father wrote also, but he didn't, I don't know he. He wrote for publications that weren't very. It, and he was undisciplined and all that stuff anyway. So the guy said to him, So Billy said,

What? What are you? What are you writing these days? And my father, I can remember, standing right there, said, garbage writing. And I thought later, I didn't think it. Then it kind of goes through you, like a little bit of a arrow that that's what your dad says, you know. But it then occurred to me that that

was the construct that he built around himself that he needed to do whatever. I don't want to deprive him of that, even though it was horrifying, my point being that all these constructs are are malleable that can change. I think, yeah,

thank you for this

Paul Alan Ruben: sense, and I couldn't appreciate this more. I love you.

I love you. Thank you Thank you for the way that you show up in the world.

You're know we love you, period, then end.