Ron Howard on Richard Avedon’s Creative Courage & Preserving Artistry | the Daily Show

Ron. Thank you. Such a joy. You hit a wild amount of success at what, six? Six years old? Well, the Andy Griffith Show started when I was six, yeah. You were six years old, and you were one of the few child actors who grew up to really figure out how to nail it as an adult. Oh, well. Not only as a legendary filmmaker, but also you have upheld this reputation of being one of the kindest and most gracious people in this industry. Wow. I don't know. I don't know who you're talking to, but I'll take it. I think it's true. I think it's true. So I need to know, as a woman who screams into her pillow every night, how do you let it out? Are you and Tom Hanks in like a secret fight club or something? It's a good idea, but there's a little pillow screaming in my life. Okay. But no, the reality is I love it. I really do love it. Sure, there's tension. There's all kinds of challenges. But at a certain point, you kind of learn that that's part of the adventure, too. And, you know, I've been lucky. Well, you have earned every bit of success. You just received the Critics' Choice Impact Award for your lifetime of excellent work. I know we're not supposed to care about what the critics say, but it's got to feel pretty good. It does. It does. Absolutely. It was a good night. It was a good night. Thank you. Thank you. Receiving that award as you're continuing to make more incredible work. That's a pretty cool thing. I still really, really love it, and I continue with my scripted work as a director. Brian Grazer and I at Imagine Entertainment, we're really loving it. We've got a great team. We're as active or more active than ever, and now as I've started to shift over into the documentary work, that's been incredibly gratifying, too. I want to talk about this documentary. It's so beautifully done. It's about Richard Avedon, famous photographer. What What interested you in his life? Was it because Elizabeth Holmes was booked already? Are you ready? Well, that is true. you, But Avedon, well, first I thought it was really just going to be about the fashion stuff Jennifer. because I don't know much about it. He was a central figure, one of the great fashion photographers. But when I got into it, not only did he just represent so many aspects of American life over so many decades and in such cool, interesting ways, But I just began to admire him because he took a lot of risks. So he had a lot of creative courage, too. He's also just, as you start to look at his interviews and read about him, very charismatic, very funny. And, you know, it's pretty good to build a film around somebody like that. Yeah, I mean, I was watching it, and I couldn't help but to see, like, some of the parallels and how he continued to reinvent himself and put out interesting work, like yourself. Thank you. Work that's relevant and important. Thank you. And I was just so, the way that the documentary talked about the exchange of energy, what he wanted to feel when he sat down to photograph something. You know, these were not snapshots, you know, and I didn't realize how much of a director he really was. And so even if they were the portraits, the more serious subjects, when he got into the civil rights and anti-Vietnam era, you know, exposing hypocrisy with politicos or doing In the fashion stuff, you know, he was he was he was always telling a story. And that's where he sort of says, you know, there is no such thing as objectivity in in in photography. It's always, you know, a point of view. And but he had an interesting one. And and man, I really wish I could have known him. You never got the chance to meet him, huh? I don't think I was cool enough. That's enough. I beg to differ. I beg to differ. Oh, it was remarkable how he changed fashion photography. It was at one point in the 40s very still and kind of... Performative and simple and then he made it grand and theatrical because he loved theater and he loved movies and you know And he brought that kind of energy to his work. And yeah, he you know, he revolutionized fashion photography But once he'd established himself as a kind of superstar in that world You know, he he began to look to the rest of the world and apply himself to things like civil rights To you know corners of society that he felt, you know, we we needed to look at a little more closely He went to high school with James Baldwin, and they... Yeah, and then they did this amazing book together called Nothing Personal, which was, you know, about civil rights. It was also about, you know, mental institutions and all kinds of challenges in society. Critics killed it. It didn't sell very well. But you know what? I think it awakened him to the possibility that he could use his work. in all kinds of ways and he never he didn't leave the commercial side of his life behind he loved it he loved that stuff it was imaginative it was lucrative you know but but he managed to straddle both worlds and he really did just keep growing and if i took any inspiration from it it was that you know a creative life kind of it it it it never has to get stale it can always stay fresh and exciting if you're if you just keep looking and pushing yourself and that's what he did I, you know, the way that he was able to kind of change the world's perspective on so many things through his work. Now, you have the opportunity to change the world's perspective on him. Were you inspired by some of his aesthetic choices in the way that you told the story? Well, I didn't want to change a perspective on him, although to broaden it. Sure. And and I think, you know, there are a lot of people that understood. You know, just how much he brought to the photography as an art form. But I hope, you know, I hope the film does, you know, share that idea more broadly. I really didn't know that much about him, honestly. I mean, he was a name I recognized. But I knew he probably, you know, I guess maybe I knew that he did the Brooke Shields, Calvin Klein ads and things like that. But I had, you know, I had no idea. There were so many photographs that I had seen. And knew that I really, you know, admired. And I didn't even know they were Avedon. Great photographs of Hollywood directors and legends. Charlie Chaplin with the devil horns. That's an amazing, amazing shot. And, of course, a lot of the documentary does deal with sort of the stories behind some of those most iconic images. But it's also... You know, and thanks to the family's cooperation, it really does become a character study about a complicated guy. As I said, charismatic, funny, but, you know, with his flaws and foibles. Sure. And so it wound up being a little bit less about the individual photos and a little bit more about what I think is a really entertaining, interesting journey. Yeah, it really is. He passed away in 2004. Right. Right before smartphones came out and everyone was carrying around a camera in their pocket, what do you think that he would think of that right now? Well, you know, we had this in the documentary. He actually anticipated that. At one point, he just sort of said, I'm not sure there will be photographers in the future. I think they'll just be photographs that you can summon up, you know. And send to the information place, is what he said. It gave me chills. That stuck with me afterwards. But he also was, you know, look. Look, he was an artist, so it's interesting to imagine what he might have gotten involved in today creatively. I have a feeling in this climate, so many outlets, so many ways to be cinematic, I kind of think he would have been a director. Oh, yeah. I can see that. Yeah. I wanted to talk about that final, that quote at the end of the movie where he says he doesn't think there's going to be photographers in the future, that there will just be machines that will snap photographs and it will go to the information place. How do we now, from your perspective, as a filmmaker, as an artist, we're on the precipice of all of this AI that is currently, you know, progressing faster than we can possibly keep up. Right. How do we preserve the artistry or the mind behind the lens? How do we preserve our humanity in this moment in time? You know, look, at this point, All right. In my world, AI is really a tool. It's kind of an extension of computer-generated stuff right now. And there's not much of a threat that it's going to take over. Now, I do think, sure, we're seeing it in some of the micro-dramas and stuff that you can see on Instagram, that you can actually create a film just with prompts. And I think that will become its own kind of style. But I don't think... I don't think one thing takes over. I think that the story behind the story, I think the creativity is, I think we as human beings are still gonna connect with that better. Now that's not to say somebody might not make some great stuff, and artists, by the way, may start using it, and probably are in really powerful ways that'll benefit us all. But I still believe that just like we like to go out and see a performer perform, I think read a novel that you know was written by a person and you understand the story behind the book, I think the same thing is going to exist with movies and television as well. So you're saying we're going to be okay? I think so. I do. I do. I really feel like we're going to be fine. Thank you so much for being here. It's such a pleasure. Our pleasure. Thank you. Avagon is streaming on Netflix. Ron Howard.