Actor-director-producer Griffin Dunne, THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON CLUB: A Family Memoir
[0:02]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens and I am the host of this podcast, Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of the novel, Blake.
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[0:31]Griffin Dunn is the author of the Friday afternoon club, A Family Memoir. Griffin has been an
[0:37]actor, producer, and director since the late 1970s. Among his work, he produced an
[0:41]actor after hours. He directed Practical Magic and the documentary The Center Will Not Hold
[0:47]about his aunt Joan Dydian. Griffin and his dog Mary live in the East Village of Manhattan.
[0:53]Welcome, Griffin. Thank you so much for coming on Momstone Have Time to read books,
[0:57]discuss the Friday afternoon club, A Family Memoir. It was so good. Oh my gosh, I like
[1:03]ate it all up. Everywhere, so good. I'm so glad. I like your dog in the background there.
[1:07]I know, I was just looking. I was like, oh my gosh, I should probably wake her up.
[1:10]Yeah, mine right there. Oh, so cute. Also asleep. Yeah, usually she's on the couch, but you never know.
[1:19]Okay, tell listeners about the book. When did you decide to write this? I know you started off
[1:25]always knowing it would be a Family Memoir, but when did you decide now is the time to write
[1:29]this book? And how did you get going? Well, I have a very intrepid agent. He wasn't really,
[1:35]I wasn't really a client of his, but were friends. And he'd been after me to write a book for
[1:41]at least 10 years, because he'd heard my stories that I regaled about about my own mishaps in New
[1:48]York and growing up in LA and, and also about my family who had a pretty scandalous and fascinating
[1:56]past going back generations. So along the way without telling David, Cune, the agent, I've been
[2:02]sort of logging stories and letting them sort of build until I felt sort of fecund and
[2:11]about, well, almost really less than two years. I wrote David and sent him about 40, 50 pages. And he
[2:21]went, oh, you sneaky. So this is great. I know how to sell this. And he drew up a beautiful proposal
[2:29]and, and many publishers were interested. And as soon as we worked everything out with Penguin,
[2:36]you know, I've been reading Penguin books. They have so much meaning in history to me. That was
[2:43]a place they definitely wanted to be at. I went right to work. And I have to say it was, it just
[2:48]flowed. I was just sort of obsessed. I came in well under my deadline. I found, you know, when I
[2:54]was acting in a movie, when the camera would turn around and there'd be a setup, I'd brush back to
[2:59]my dressing room and just pick up for more I left off. And it just sort of went like that for
[3:06]you know, a year and a half. Now you're making all other authors feel terrible.
[3:10]I know it's always, it's not always going to be like this. No, it's a filmmaker, you know,
[3:15]people's, and it's true. I think sometimes the books, it just, it, my first movie would just
[3:20]came so easily. And the sophomore effort, because you just know there's so much expectation
[3:28]and, and you're comparing yourself and you know what to be afraid of, the, the second work is
[3:33]usually more challenging. Well, that's okay. I feel mildly better myself. I don't know.
[3:41]One of the things that you do in the book is you, you make yourself into a character, right?
[3:46]You're, you show us how funny you can be. And all these times where you're, you're the dark humor
[3:53]and wit and all of that. And all the situations into it, you, into it, you follow that make
[4:00]you feel like you're in a movie to begin with. Can I just read this, this passage towards the end?
[4:04]Yeah. Is that okay? Yeah. This is when you, you've gone to con and you, you're, the dry cleaner
[4:12]still has your tuxedo. And so you have to get the tuxedo from your security guard, which is so funny.
[4:16]You said I paced my room in just a bow tie and a shirt, taking no delight in the irony that
[4:21]Paul Hackett's misadventures continued to follow me even after I'd made the movie. These,
[4:26]you're never going to believe what just happened moments have taunted me all my life.
[4:29]It's by Amy thought of me for the role and Marty couldn't imagine anyone else after picking up
[4:34]on my chaotic vibes. Marty being Martin Scorsese just for those who aren't familiar on a
[4:39]first name basis. That's okay. But it can be tiresome to constantly be in stressful situations
[4:44]that an unseen audience finds hilarious. If when putting my room service tray in the hallway,
[4:48]and only my underwear, the door locks behind me, I swear I can hear a laugh track. The $20
[4:53]that blew out the window of the taxi at the beginning of the movie is something that actually
[4:57]happened to me in the back of a Chicago cab. I had hoped making after hours might exercise these
[5:01]laugh track moments of my life. But to date, no such luck. Yes. So they continue. Is that really
[5:08]the thing? I'm afraid they do. And I'm afraid they do. Just, you know, remarkable. I have a very
[5:15]hostile relationship with keys, constantly losing them and being locked. And I do find,
[5:23]particularly when you're in a hurry, some very creative obstacles come my way that I do think,
[5:29]oh, this doesn't happen to anyone else. This is only happening to me. There are other people
[5:34]feel that, but it's certainly a way I continue to feel. I literally just ordered these
[5:39]tiles, I guess, where you can put them on your phone and your glasses and like things that you
[5:44]just stop. I just stop losing things all the time. Because you waste so much time.
[5:47]Oh, yeah. I lost the tiles.
[5:54]That's funny. Oh my gosh. So your book is really divided into two sections. And the first is
[6:00]almost a career memoir. It's a career and family story of how you're, well, more family than
[6:06]career, but how like you're coming of age, so to speak, and how that goes with your whole family
[6:11]and the issues within the members of the family and your own relationships. And then the second
[6:18]part is much more of the trial. And I'm so sorry for the loss of Dominique. I'm so sorry. That's
[6:24]so perfect. And you wrote about it with beauty and grace and all of that. But anyway, so when
[6:30]you were structuring the memoir and trying to figure out the two things to tell, did you feel this
[6:36]pull of how to divide it and how to tell that story and how to make sure that the trial story didn't
[6:42]sort of take over the rest of the book? That was always a concern of mine because it was,
[6:48]I decided to write it chronologically, which sounds like a logical thing to do. But I had originally
[6:54]envisioned to move the book even when I was on my proposal that it would be a family memoir
[7:01]with chapters with incidents that would take place that I was inspired by David Cidera's
[7:08]books about his family. And my editor, John Burnham Schwartz, who's also a wonderful novel
[7:14]as well, he suggested the boring tactic. Why don't you just write it in sequence? And I realized
[7:22]the story doesn't begin with, you know, I was born in a manger. The story began in the Mexican
[7:27]Revolution with Pancho B, a driving my mother's side of the family across the border to
[7:32]Nogalis and the great famine, Irish famine, on my father's side and it brought me through their
[7:40]child with my parents' childhood. And the difficulties that they had in my father was at a very
[7:47]abusive father. And I just carried their lives along until I was born. And as I'm going along
[7:54]in sequence, I knew that the trial, that the murder and the trial was on my path. And I was kind
[8:05]of like dreading that part. But it just, you know, it arrived, that sequence of events.
[8:12]And I worked my way through that. It was very, I just, I wanted to, the trial in particular,
[8:19]I wanted to get across one travesty judicial travesty after another that happened to us in the
[8:26]courtroom without commentary, without me having to express my feelings because the,
[8:33]by then the people would know the narrator, the readers would know the narrator well enough
[8:37]to know how I feel and that they would be as outraged as we were and as confounded. And so
[8:45]when I got through that part, and then I continued with my career, I realized this is a,
[8:51]this is book two. And it totally, and so I went back and I just put book two, which was the beginning
[8:58]of the trial. And then I took a chapter that I'd written chronologically of the homicide detective,
[9:08]Johnston, Harold Johnston, waking my mother up to tell her that Dominie, my sister, her daughter,
[9:16]was, had been strangled, it was on life support. And I made that the prologue. And,
[9:24]and then I knew, I knew what my ending was going to be, that I was going to open with death
[9:31]and end with life with my daughter being born. So the structure came to me by writing chronologically.
[9:40]Wow, that's really interesting. You wrote one of the most powerful scenes, I think,
[9:45]was when your brother Alex was institutionalized or these two other people had brought him and you
[9:53]were the one who had to sign him into stay. And you were like, I can't do this, I can't do this,
[9:58]and you took him out.
[10:00]And you could tell you were just like racked with guilt.
[10:03]You didn't want to leave him,
[10:04]but he was having another manic episode.
[10:06]In fact, the whole way you wrote about Alex and mental illness
[10:08]was really nuanced and beautiful
[10:11]and shows really clearly what it's like
[10:14]to live with somebody or to love somebody who struggles.
[10:18]Tell me about that moment and just the takeaways
[10:23]from this whole thing and I'm so happy
[10:25]that at the end he said he's doing very well
[10:27]because I was really, really proud of him all along.
[10:30]Yeah, no, he's doing great.
[10:32]And just backing up for a moment,
[10:35]I wanted to write the book.
[10:39]I could not write it without my brother's blessing.
[10:42]And in order to write about my family
[10:44]and I would have to talk about his mental struggles
[10:50]at that period in his life.
[10:51]And he said, you can write whatever you want about me,
[10:56]just have it come from a place of love.
[10:58]And it was a note that I took to heart
[11:01]with everyone who was in my immediate family and beyond.
[11:05]And so Alex and I were very, very close, are very close.
[11:09]And having to see him locked up in this UCLA psychiatric
[11:15]board was just torture for me to see him like that
[11:20]in that condition and him begging me to get him out of there.
[11:24]And I just, I loved him too much.
[11:27]I didn't have the heart, I couldn't do it.
[11:29]I just couldn't do it.
[11:30]It was, and I said to the judge in this little courtroom,
[11:34]you know where you have someone mandatory committed.
[11:36]I just broke down.
[11:37]I said, I can't do it.
[11:38]I can't do it.
[11:39]And I started to cry.
[11:40]And Alex was free.
[11:42]He was not free of his illness
[11:44]that would continue on for some years.
[11:47]But that was a very tough time for both of us.
[11:52]Did you ever read or see the recent series
[11:55]if I know this much is true by Wally Lamb?
[11:57]I sure did.
[11:58]I sure did.
[11:59]And you know, Mark Ruffalo is a good friend of mine.
[12:03]And I get so emotional.
[12:06]I've opened up some vein ever since writing this book.
[12:09]But I called him and he knew about my brother.
[12:12]And Mark has had a tragedy in his family with his brother.
[12:17]And we just talked and talked about that.
[12:20]It just really hit me deep.
[12:21]His performance is, as himself, as playing his brother
[12:25]and as well as the central figure.
[12:28]They got it just right.
[12:29]They got it just right.
[12:30]That was, I felt so I related to that.
[12:33]I hadn't read the book, but the series really moved me.
[12:37]Yeah, it was so powerful.
[12:39]I always think about that.
[12:41]It was just amazing, especially in the context of years.
[12:44]But so you have these very heartfelt, dark moments
[12:49]and your mother's MS.
[12:52]And there's so much stuff in here.
[12:54]And yet then we're hanging out with all these celebrities.
[12:59]There's just so much here in this full ride,
[13:02]which is of course your life.
[13:03]Carrie Fisher, by the way,
[13:04]so my husband Kyle started morning moon productions
[13:06]with Billy and her husband Austin.
[13:09]So they were like, gosh, that was nice.
[13:11]It's amazing.
[13:12]Yeah, so I was like, they're looking at the house
[13:15]that they're rebuilding and all this stuff.
[13:17]Oh, yeah, well, I know that house.
[13:20]You know, I've written, Billy.
[13:21]I've just encouraged her to read the book.
[13:23]And I don't know that she has yet.
[13:25]I think her dad might have.
[13:28]Sometimes when the book was about to come out or something,
[13:32]there'd be little tiny gossipy things
[13:35]that would just focus on something
[13:37]that Carrie and I even talked about on camera
[13:39]in their documentary about her,
[13:41]about me taking her virginity.
[13:43]And they make it sound so salacious.
[13:45]Like that's what the book was about.
[13:47]So I remember I contacted Billy and the father going,
[13:51]read the book, read and walk the book.
[13:54]It's going to bring back your mom.
[13:56]And that section was so much fun to write.
[13:59]And you know, Charlie Wesler who's in the book
[14:01]and Carrie had a close knit of friends of myself,
[14:05]like I named Gavin DeBecker and Bruce Wagner,
[14:07]the wonderful writer and Beverly Angelo.
[14:10]And they've read the book and they just work.
[14:13]That was the ultimate compliment, like you got her.
[14:15]It was like being in the room with her,
[14:17]which thrilled me.
[14:19]Oh, it felt like I was in the room with her
[14:21]when I was writing it.
[14:22]It felt like we were too.
[14:25]It sounded like a very fun room to be in.
[14:27]Although we aren't perhaps not near that shower,
[14:30]but the hand or whatever.
[14:32]You wrote something so nice about her too, you said.
[14:35]In the years ahead, I was there for her family weddings
[14:38]and she for many of mine.
[14:39]She loved to pretend she couldn't remember
[14:41]which of my exes was which.
[14:42]But of course she knew and dug for every little nugget
[14:45]about when and where it all went wrong.
[14:46]With the same curiosity she'd had about my preclivities
[14:49]when she was a virgin.
[14:50]I wish I could remember our last conversation
[14:52]before she left for London on the trip
[14:54]from which she never came home in 2016.
[14:56]It was probably about Christmas plans
[14:58]or our daughter shenanigans.
[15:00]But I know despite not remembering what exactly was said
[15:03]that we laughed very, very hard.
[15:06]So good.
[15:07]It's so good, just to hear it.
[15:09]It's so good.
[15:10]Yeah.
[15:11]Oh my gosh, well, this is,
[15:13]I'm sure we'll be a gift to Billy and the whole family.
[15:16]So it's really fun.
[15:18]You also, which has gotten,
[15:21]I know a lot of media attention.
[15:23]This sort of expose, if you will, of your dad
[15:25]and things that we might not have known about him
[15:27]as a public figure in his own right,
[15:29]in addition to your aunt and uncle and all of that.
[15:33]How do you think your dad having,
[15:35]let's pretend he just read this book.
[15:36]What do you think he would say to him?
[15:38]I think about that a lot.
[15:41]And I'm pretty certain I'm right about this answer
[15:44]that he would be really, very, very proud.
[15:48]And both he and John and John did not hold back
[15:52]when writing about themselves
[15:54]and their own personal journeys.
[15:56]And dad had said, once to me,
[16:00]we were having a conflict about something
[16:02]and he would say, write it, write it down.
[16:06]Just let me have it.
[16:08]You're gonna feel great.
[16:09]Just say whatever the hell you want about me.
[16:12]I don't care.
[16:13]Just get it down.
[16:14]And that rang in my ear,
[16:17]and so I think he,
[16:19]he was very honest about himself.
[16:22]You know, he did a documentary,
[16:23]who's a documentary about him.
[16:25]And he talked about a lot of the same things I did about,
[16:28]you know, his sort of weaknesses as a social climber
[16:32]and how important it was to give parties
[16:35]and to be in parties and be invited to parties
[16:38]by celebrities and famous people.
[16:40]You know, he really worshiped at the altar of fame.
[16:44]And, you know, as a, as a, as children.
[16:47]And it kind of made my, and my brother
[16:50]and I kind of uncomfortable, you know,
[16:52]as Dominique was much younger.
[16:54]And, you know, it was like kind of,
[16:57]you know, I talk about him.
[16:58]You know, when I was young of my best friends
[17:02]were their fathers were movie stars
[17:04]and played tough guys.
[17:06]One guy was Jack Palant, who,
[17:08]who was the gunslinger in shame.
[17:10]And the other was Howard Keale, who was a lumberjack.
[17:14]And, you know, my father was not particularly
[17:16]known for his masculinity and tough guy stuff.
[17:19]That came later, the real tough guy.
[17:22]Yes.
[17:22]But at that time, you know, these,
[17:25]my friends, Gunner and Cody would talk me and go,
[17:28]my, our dad could lick your dad with one hand
[17:30]tied behind their back.
[17:31]And I said, well, you wouldn't eat,
[17:34]both your asses and he wills just as soon as he gets
[17:37]out of prison.
[17:41]And I made up this line.
[17:42]What's he in for?
[17:43]I said he robbed a bank.
[17:45]And the rumor went around like smallpox.
[17:48]It was like the principal called my dad.
[17:52]And then my dad, when he came home from work,
[17:55]just went, is that something you want me to do?
[17:57]Griffin, rob a bank.
[17:59]I was so embarrassed.
[18:01]And he was embarrassed.
[18:02]And you know, it was like, you know,
[18:04]he kind of knew, he knew I wasn't, you know,
[18:08]proud of him as I came to be.
[18:10]But at that time, I was, you know,
[18:12]just a kid who had an idea of what a man was supposed to be.
[18:16]And at that time, I thought my father
[18:18]didn't fit the bill.
[18:19]Well, he certainly, and that was before I knew,
[18:22]I never knew he was a war hero.
[18:23]You know, in later in life, you know, when he was very
[18:27]well known and received all these awards
[18:30]and was recognized on the street, he'd always tell you.
[18:33]And, you know, quite proudly, he really enjoyed
[18:36]his late life success.
[18:39]But he never told me about that.
[18:41]He never bragged.
[18:42]He never told me saved two soldiers lives
[18:48]in the battle of men's in the towards the end of the war.
[18:51]And so, you know, there was, as I say in the book, you know,
[18:55]I wanted to be, you know, I always had this idea
[19:00]of what it was to be a man and didn't realize
[19:03]till my later, I've been raised by one all along.
[19:07]What the?
[19:08]So what is success?
[19:11]What is the success of this book meant to you?
[19:13]Like, what would you deem successful?
[19:15]What would have, what would happen?
[19:17]Well, what do you want to happen, I guess?
[19:20]Well, the course success was finishing it,
[19:21]actually doing it.
[19:22]It was, it was on my bucket,
[19:24]was to someday write a book.
[19:25]I, I'm a big reader.
[19:28]And I've been, you know, taking in the styles
[19:31]of different writers and, you know, seeing how, you know,
[19:34]Philip Ross and writers that I admired, how they do it.
[19:38]I've been doing that even subconsciously for a long time.
[19:41]But I think that the success and the praise
[19:46]and I'm just love hearing how much I meant
[19:49]and enjoyed breaking at an age where I can just take in
[19:53]all the love and not be conflicted about it as, you know,
[19:57]people are, when they're younger and they're, yeah.
[20:00]success very early. But it's different than, you know, coming out in a movie that I directed
[20:05]or was in or produced. Because this I did, this is the only thing I've ever done all by myself.
[20:13]It's been a solo flight all the way along and the landing has been triumphant. I feel like
[20:20]Lindberk or something, you know. And so I have that, I have a real sense of accomplishment of
[20:27]having done something by myself and starting and finishing it and then having it
[20:34]being proud of the end result. Well, you should be, it's really good. And the way you tell stories
[20:42]is captivating and the pacing is so good. And tonight, clean writing style where you're totally
[20:49]in it. And, you know, as a book itself, I think it is, it is great. And obviously, you had all the
[20:55]stories to fill it. You know, it's like a, it's good center. It's like envisioning it like a build
[21:00]affair. I'm obviously spending too much time with my children. But, you know, like, like the outside is
[21:05]great. Like it's the, you know, the stuff. Anyway, whatever, never much. Anyway, do you have advice
[21:12]for aspiring authors? Well, I'm a novice writer myself, but I will give advice anyway that not to
[21:18]censor yourself. Just, just keep writing. Just, just get it down. Just plow forward. The fun part
[21:23]is editing. But just get it, get it all out. You know, I'd be, I would turn in pages to, to my editor,
[21:30]John, 50, you know, in the lumps of 50 or 60 pages. And, you know, someone's just, you go,
[21:38]come on, you don't want to say that or, or, you know, just go, I don't know what the hell you're
[21:42]talking about here. And I go, okay, that's a good note. And then I would just go back and fine tune it
[21:49]and fine tune it. I just, I just didn't censor myself. I, I, one piece of great advice,
[21:54]I learned from Joan, not that she told me I read it, but I took it to heart, was always leaving
[22:00]something the end of the day, leaving something incomplete that you look forward to picking up the next
[22:06]morning. That was great advice. And I would go to bed, having to resist the urge to get out of bed,
[22:12]you know, in the middle of the night and keep, keep on going with something they failed at that.
[22:18]But that was good advice that I got from her that I'll pass along. Amazing. Well, thank you so much
[22:23]for the book for the time. I really appreciate it. I feel like you need to go start like a
[22:29]sub stack or something because now I need to read. I want to keep following, you know, like now I'm
[22:33]feel very invested. I'm like, okay, now what? Like, how's it going? What? Where's stories? I got more. I got
[22:39]more. Okay, good. Okay, good. Thank you. And thank you for including me in here with your summer read.
[22:45]Oh, you're welcome. You're welcome. Yeah. This was fun. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.
[22:51]Hurry. Take care. Congrats. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[22:58]If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social at City Owens and at City Readers.