The whole Housing Market is propped up on these bad loans. They will fail. The Housing Market is rock solid. Its a time bomb. Mike murry who gets his hair cut at supercuts knows more than alan greenspan. He does. You know what . Im pissed off. The American People are getting screwed by big banks. I am getting madder and madder. Its unbelievable. This guy walks into my office and says theres some shady stuff going down. We are having a big old party. A few outsiders saw what no one else could. The whole World Economy might collapse. Im sure the world bank has more incentive than greed. Youre wrong. No one is paying attention. The banks got greedy. You want to bet against the banks . I think we either hide or have a stroke. Kind of brilliant. Fraud has never, ever worked. Eventually things go south. When the hell did we forget all that . How can the banks let this happen . It is fueled by stupidity. That is not stupidity. Thats fraud. Tell me the difference between stupid and illegal and i will have my wifes brother arrested. [laughter] do you have any idea what you just did . You bet against the american economy. If youre wrong, you can lose it all. The banks defrauded the American People. Now we kick them in the teeth. Here we go. You talked to strippers. Bad loans. Not going to be able to refinance. On all my loans . What do you mean all your loans . I have five houses and a condo. Charlie joining me now is the films writer and director adam mckay and steve carell. I am pleased to have them both here. Welcome. It is great to see you. Look at this. Hollywood occupies wall street. There you are. Of course, the other stars are here, too. Howd you do that . Adam i still cannot figure it out. Charlie this is a comedy or a tragedy . Adam it is both. It is a true story. We knew from the beginning it would never adhere to one strict genre. These guys, real people that steve plays and Christian Bale, all of these great actors, when they found out there was a bubble, they were very excited. These were exciting times. They were having there was a lot of energy. That changed and became tragic. It is kind of both. Charlie youve wanted to do this. To read about you in this magazine, you wanted to make this movie about wall street and about the crash. Adam yeah. I read this book and i felt like Michael Lewiss book was one of the books of our times. I really felt like it dealt with a lot of issues. I think it dealt with culture, it dealt with character and it dealt with information. You do not often see those three things intertwined so brilliantly. By the time i was done reading it, i felt i had looked behind the curtain of wall street i know it is more complicated than that. So, we decided with this movie that we were going to go for it all. We were going to try to explain it, have great characters, go for the whole thing. Charlie it is a little different than anchorman. Adam i do not think it is different at all. Can you explain how it is different . Steve Character Development was very similar. [laughter] steve adam would be at the monitor. Adam likes to work, he has a microphone. In his little directors area. Charlie a megaphone. Steve amplified. He has a microphone. And he barks orders. He gives us adam im very german when i direct. I want exactness. I want marks to be hit. Steve it was similar in a way to anchorman, except the things were talking about. Charlie how was it similar . Steve in the sense that you have complete freedom to fail. You knew that adam would protect you. If you stunk, he would not put in the movie. That really is it. Its a great protection because then you try all sorts of thing. Charlie you take risks. Steve it is great as an actor to be able to do that. Charlie tell me who this is that you portray, Stephen Eiseman . Steve the characters name in the movie is mark. We change the name. It is based on stephen. He is a brash, bold. He does not suffer fools. I met with him. Actually, mr. Eiseman showed up the second day i was shooting. And was instructed to sort of lay low. Dont hang out at the monitor. Sort of be a fly on the wall and within minutes, he was giving adam notes. He was walking on the set giving me instructions. Charlie notes . Steve they were great. Adam the guy is a smart guy. Look, steve, it is great to have you. You cant throughout the movie, when you see the movie, you are aware that carell doing mark is constantly getting phone calls in the middle of conversations and walking away from people. I went up to the real guy. Steve, you cannot come and in the middle of me talking to him, he got a phone call and walked away. He is always on the phone. Telling you what you should do. Yet, you love him. He is on the side of the angels. He is definitely a good guy. Charlie so, did you talk to him about portraying the role, but what he thought . His mannerisms . Steve but sort of creepy doing that. Charlie creepy . I thought that is what great actors did . Steve it is weird because you do not want to feel like you are stealing their soul. You do not want to feel like you are examining them. They are some sort of science project. When youre sitting across from them in a diner on the upper east side. Ooh, look what he did with his hand. That is just weird. You are doing it, but you do not want to feel like you are taking advantage. I want to be respectful and pay respect to him as a person in the portrayal. Charlie its hard to say that anything after the last one that was nominated for an oscar that , anything is a turn for you. Because you have made the turn. [laughter] steve that could be interpreted so many different ways. Charlie you know what i meant. Steve adam is going to the same sort of thing because he is known for anchorman. But i think anyone who knows ive known adam since 1990. Anyone who knows him knows this is not a big surprise. Everyone that he wouldact want to make this kind of film. Steve and that he would do it so elegantly. Hes so smart. And so passionate. Its a perfect fit. Charlie someone said in writing and reading this piece and other pieces about him that in a group of comedians he is the funniest guy in the room, even though you have never seen him on screen. Steve definitely. Absolutely. He is the guy with the microphone, at the monitor, he is the one lobbing those lines out that are everyones favorite lines in the movie. Your job is to try and say without laughing and without ruining his delivery. So, yeah. He is the funniest person there. Charlie why no role for will ferrell here . Adam we discussed it. At 1. I said to will, you know, at one point, i said to will, you know, there are some cameos we could do. He said, no, do this on your own. God bless, will. He came down and visited the set and hung out. Thats will. He had no reason to be there other than to support the guy he works with and we had a great time with him. He has been amazing. Very excited for this movie. Charlie people who watch the show have heard me interview michael 10 times, including about the big short. Tell me the story, for those of us, that you tell in the film. Adam what drew me to it Michael Lewis is an amazing writer. It is a book everyone should read. What i loved about it was he burrows down on these four or five outsiders who, despite the numbers being cartoonishly obvious that there was a housing bubble, for some reason this little group of guys were the only ones that saw it. And right away i was hooked because i just love what is that what does that say about our culture . Charlie all of the smart people on wall street did not and the small group of guys did. Adam on top of that he has humor, rhythm, and most of all , he has got information. By the time i was done reading the book, i felt like i did pretty good shape of what led to the 2008 collapse. Yet id been completely engaged with these characters who are so amazingly played by these actors. I just never read a book that did that much where was learning, engaged, it was dramatic, tragic, funny. It is effortless. Charlie assuming you knew all the stuff about derivatives. [laughter] steve that is what adam called. That is why adam called. Charlie he knew you knew. Steve he knew it would be so easy for me to improvise. It is hard because adam likes to improvise. To improvise a leg which you do to improvise a language you do not speak is tricky. You have to throw some things in your back pocket and bone up a bit before you charlie learn to pronounce certain words . Steve learn them phonetically. But there were days, some of the actors were better. Jeremy strong was great at it. He was always loaded and was really articulate. But i know, no, did not know much about it. I read the book and learned as much as i could before we started. Charlie did you learn something about the financial industry because of this . Steve i did. Its terrifying. The entire charlie terrifying how it couldve happened . Nobody smart saw it coming. They do something about the Housing Market. Steve it is terrifying that it could happen again, and that nothing has really changed. Adam we say it at the beginning of the movie, we say all they did was look. Its terrifying that a whole society can be looking to the right when the information is to the left. The total amount of people that caught this were like 20, 22 people. We focus on these four or five, but its amazing that billions of people can be looking in one direction Charlie Michael found them, too. Adam thats lewis. Charlie knew who he was. He was looking for a way to tell the story. Then he found a few guys who bet who got it and that on their own. And then picked adam and then picked the characters that would make the best story. He found the true outsiders. If you look at the other people that bet. The Christian Bale character is amazing. A guy who listens to speed metal. Has a glass eye, is on the spectrum. When i talked to him, he was one of the most brilliant, honest decent people you will meet in , your life. Charlie lets go to the first scene where steves character is talking to his wife. All right . Here it is. Hey, excuse me hi, honey. The therapist called. You did it again. There were no cabs. You are running around like you have to write every wrong in the world so angry. Fine. You know what . Im a mean guy and im pissed off. You have no idea the kind of crap people are pulling and everyone is Walking Around like they are in a damn enya video. You know what they care about . They care about the ballgame and what actress just went into rehab. I think you should try vacation. We agreed that interferes with work. I love my job. You hate your job. I love my job. I love my job. You are miserable. I love my job. I love my job, honey. Mark. Cynthia, im ok. My cab. Thats my cab. That is my cap. It is not. Ill call you later. [laughter] charlie so now that hes gone, tell me about him as an actor. Adam he is so humble that i knew he would be good. It was so much fun. I worked with him in two other comedies. I worked with him in chicago doing theater, second city. And what i saw in this movie was this hunger for the moment, this tenacious i wont quit until i know its true. I felt like we were both chasing down a straight half stray calf with every take. Charlie eiseman is a largerthanlife character. He found a way to get inside. He did not just do impressions. Adam absolutely. If you meet the real steve eiseman, he is very confident, very funny. Reads comic books. He brought this vulnerability. You can see the anger, the betrayal by the world in every scene. It is so perfect. He really did fine, he got a got his feet on the ground with a character that would have been very easy to go super big with. He has amazing instincts. He came in knowing, he has a big speech moment in the end of the movie that could easily have been hollywood strings. This is the moralistic moment. All steve did was say, i do not want it to be that. I said, i dont want it to be that either. We fought against that. To make it as real as we could while having it be a speech. It has great instincts. He knows when it is for real. He knows what he wants to see and then he just works and pushes to get there. That other guy he reminded me up off was Christian Bale. The two of them are kind of similar in their approach. Charlie as actors . Adam yeah. Yeah, yeah. As far as huge amounts of preparation and an amazing nose for the truth. I thought the two of them kind of charlie actors do that on their own . Do they go do that and when they show up they have it . Adam for sure. As a director you encourage them. I told steve, i would love to you to put on some weight. Four so, steve showed up 20 pounds heavier. I was like, oh, i do not think you would put on that some that much weight. Same thing with christian. I would love you to spend time with the real guy. Sure enough, he goes and spends a day and a half with the guy, gets real clothes, learns how to play drums like the real guy. Charlie learns how to play drums . Adam yes, in three weeks. Charlie you dont do that overnight, do you . Adam no, no. Especially the kind of drums he had to play with speed metal, one of the hardest forms of drums. In three weeks Christian Bale learned this song by pantera. Incredibly difficult song with double kick drums. Played it nonstop. A lot of people think of these guys as big movie stars. They are famous. Oh, Christian Bale, brad pitt. They are really good. Charlie is brad pitt producing this as well . Adam he and his company plan b. Charlie the got the rights to the book early. Adam exactly, exactly. Charlie was it a hard book to make into a film . Adam for me, i have always been looking for this chance to mess with the form. Ive always known that film has been around for a long time, and ive seen some movies i really liked like 24 hour party , american splendor, where they played with breaking the fourth wall. I felt like audiences can handle that. I think we are ready for it now. 30 years ago, no. When i read this book, yes, its difficult but i knew if i played with the fourth wall i could pull it off. And there could be a different kind of Kinetic Energy to it. So that is exactly what drew me to it. Charlie what does brad play . Adam he is the mentor to the two greenhorns. They play the rookies. Hes the old gunslinger who hung up his guns who hated wall , street so much. Endnow he has become an times prepper. He really thinks the whole world is going down. It is based on a true guy. These young guys convince him to come out of retirement so they can start trading these bigtime options. Charlie this is what new York Magazine said. It said, lately before mckay and his wife go to bed, he and his wife talk about Climate Change. And particularly the paper he stanford. He is that he might do a movie about it next. It will be serious but with some cool stuff. Then again, he is also interested in immigration. Do think there is a way to do movie about immigration that is a comedy and yet people who are antiimmigration would go see it . And be able to watch it and to have some degree of enjoying it . [laughter] adam we kind of did it with talladega nights. Charlie yeah, yeah, you did. Adam there is a way you can do this that is not condescending, not judgment. We are all in this. We are all trying to figure it out. Its a question. Can you do a movie where guys protect our border, these hapless characters, and end up crossing over to mexico and have to get back in . I dont know. Charlie do you as a writer and a director have a keen sense of interest in Public Affairs . Adam i just think we live in incredibly unusual times right now. I just think there are a lot of things happening right now that have never happened in the history of mankind. The giant media machine we have in the United States with thousands of tv channels. Charlie that is why you made anchorman. The basic cable industry. Adam exactly. I think we have this interconnectedness going on with our financial system, the internet. There are some things happening. And we have Climate Change, which possibly could be the biggest threat to mankind ever. I just think to ignore the subjects would be foolish. Charlie you can find absurdity in all of them. They are all comedy. Adam they are all crazily absurd. Charlie what is the connection between you and will . Adam we just have this crazy partnership. It started back in saturday night live. Charlie you were the head writer. Adam he comes from a divorced family. His dad is a musician. Im from a divorced family. My dad is he musician. We are both basically the same age. We laugh at the same things. What i love about will is he just, he does not believe any of the hype. He is in no way full of himself. Both of us believe in no drama. And both of us sort of constantly laugh about the fact that people are stressing out about movies, where in 40 years we are not going to be watching movies anymore. Its going to be charlie what are we going to be watching . Adam you know, 4d virtualreality discs. So, yeah, it has been an amazing relationship. He has also got a great sort of view of the world. He is political, social yet not strident. He has got a sense of humor. We have an amazing partnership. Charlie are you interested in the president ial primaries . Adam i guess so. Sort of like finding the power in your fridge went out and everything is rotten inside. Charlie you did not know it was this bad. Is that what youre saying . Adam that is what i am saying. It is really shocking. I am 47 and i feel like a 90yearold man when i talk about it. I have to tell my daughters it did not used to be this way. Charlie when you think of trump, do you want to create a character like trump knowing it would be an instant success on television . Adam we actually on funny or die we did a character called denaldo trumpez, a mexican trump. Complaining about the all the americans coming down to drink tequila. And how he wants to build a wall. That ended up getting 25 mlion hits. Yeah. I have never seen anything like trump, ive got to be honest and ben carson. It is beyond the bounds of satire. The Movie Network looks so quaint and rustic. Yeah, yeah. Charlie its so far out there. Adam if network happened now, it would just be you would not even blink. The guy got people to yell out their windows. You would move right on. Charlie you told in the same piece, you said, i dont think this movie is just about just banking. That is really what is about, isnt it . How does the system go wrong . What happened so that all of