The Oscar-nominated director and actor shares his Hollywood stories and explains his decision to take a stand in the battle over Prop. 8 and other issues. Excerpt from “When Harry Met Sal: Rob Reiner on Marriage Equality, Political Activism, and a Life in Hollywood,” February 1, 2013.

ROB REINER, Film Director, This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally..., A Few Good Men, Ghosts of Mississippi, The Bucket List; Actor; Screenwriter; Producer; Executive, Castle Rock Entertainment; Political Activist

In conversation with DAN ASHLEY, News Anchor, ABC 7 TV; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors

DAN ASHLEY: Was your father [Carl Reiner] supportive as you first got into show business?

ROB REINER: He always was. He was very proud of me when I did “All in the Family.” I remember when I was 19 years old, in summer theater I directed a production of Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit.” Richard Dreyfuss was in it and a few other people that I knew. My father came to the show and he looked me in the eye and he said, “That was good. No B.S.” And I knew at that point he was saying I was going to be OK.

ASHLEY: That must have been a very proud moment for you.

REINER: Oh my god! It was incredible, because I did look up to him; he was like a god to me. He had done “The Dick van Dyke Show” and was on “The Show of Shows.” He was my idol. So when he said that to me, it meant a lot. When I was a little boy, my father was on television before we owned a television [laughter]. We got a television when I was about four or five years old so we could watch him. I remember one time going down to “The Show of Shows” and there was the writer’s room – we’re talking about Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart, Sid Caesar and my dad. I remember when I was about five or six years old waiting for him to come out of the writer’s room and all I can remember was them screaming – crazy screaming at each other because they were fighting for their jokes. I said, “That’s comedy? They’re making comedy in there? It sounds like they’re killing each other in there.”

But some of the funniest stuff in the world came out of there. If you think about the second half of the 20th century, everything you laughed at came out of that room: all of Woody Allen’s work; all of Neil Simon’s work; Joe Stein, who wrote “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Enter Laughing”; Larry Gelbart, who wrote “M*A*S*H” and Tootsie; Aaron Ruben, who created “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Gomer Pyle”; my dad; Mel Brooks; Mike Stewart, who wrote Hello, Dolly!

They called it the golden age of television because it was. Television was a brand-new medium and you had to have some money to own a television set, quite frankly, so the fare was more highbrow. It was an extension of theater; it was an extension of revues and satire and a very upscale type of theater that was put on television. And then television became a mass medium, and you saw all kinds of dumbing down of things. I attest that right now we’re in our second golden age of television because of cable TV – “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” and “Homeland,” brilliant shows that are done with great writing and great acting.

ASHLEY: I often tell people who ask me about television that yes, there is a lot of junk on television now, but there’s also more quality on television than there’s probably ever been.

REINER: Yes, I think there is. If you look at AMC and HBO and Netflix, Apple TV – all these different ways of accessing these niche shows – they [offer] really smart shows, nothing that would have been put on the networks. We were lucky to get “All in the Family” on, which was a fairly elevated type of show at the time that it was on, this urban comedy that dealt with issues; a rare thing at that time.

ASHLEY: Let’s talk about “All in the Family” for a minute. Did you find that people then or even now understand that it wasn’t celebrating bigotry, it was ridiculing it?

REINER: We shone a light on the ignorance of a bigot. We didn’t just go outside the box or go to the edge of the envelope; we destroyed the envelope. We broke the box. CBS had a disclaimer on before we came on that essentially said, We don’t have anything to do with this show. You want to watch it, it’s up to you, because we don’t know what the heck this is.

We were able to succeed in large part because, aside from the fact that it was funny and we dealt with issues, these were real people that people could identify with. People saw themselves either in Archie or Mike. We presented two points of view. Norman Lear talked about how his favorite play growing up was “Major Barbara” by George Bernard Shaw. George Bernard Shaw was a liberal, but if you didn’t know he was a liberal and you went to see that play, both the hawk point of view and the dove point of view were presented with equal eloquence, with equal intelligence. It was left to the audience to make their minds up. That was Norman’s feeling: Let’s just throw this out there and get a dialogue started.

At the time there were no VCRs, no DVR, no TiVo, nothing. So if you wanted to watch the show, you had to watch it when it was on. That meant that you were having a shared experience with everybody else who was watching it at that time. We, at the time, were a country of about 200 million people, and anywhere between 30 and 45 million people at one time were watching that show. Now we’re in a country of more than 300 million, and if you have a show that does 10 or 15 million viewers, that’s a major hit right now. And [most people] are not watching it at the same time as everyone else. But Saturday night, if you watched [“All in the Family” in the 1970s] that meant Monday people were talking about whatever it was we talked about. And that shared experience, I think, was a very good thing for our country.

I’ve often said that I feel that with the Internet, with 24-hours-a-day cable news service, we have the potential for being less instead of more informed. When TV news became a profit center, it changed everything. It was a big deal when Walter Cronkite was on CBS and the broadcast went from 15 minutes to a half-hour – that was a big deal. It meant that CBS was throwing away a half-hour of revenue; you didn’t make money on news. All they did was report the news. There was no commentary. Then “60 Minutes” came along – a brilliant show – and they started making money. All of a sudden in the late ’60s or early ’70s they realized, “Uh-oh, we can make money off the news.” Then you had big corporations taking over the TV news outlets and it all became about profit centers and the bottom line. I think it’s made us less informed. It’s hard to find really accurate reporting.

ASHLEY: Do you still like acting now that you’re really a director full time?

REINER: I love to act. It’s fun and it’s not as hard. Directing is a lot of responsibility. I actually enjoy directing more, but acting is fun. It’s like a lark. I remember years ago, Ron Howard was making a movie called Ed TV and he called me up and said, “There’s a part in here if you want to act in it.” And I said, “OK, I’ll do it.” And he said, “Let me send you the script and see if you want to do it.” And I said, “You don’t have to send me a script; if it stinks, it’s not my fault.”

So I look at it that way. I’m fine. I’ll do whatever they want me to do. And I don’t say anything to the director, because I know that as a director I don’t want actors giving me grief. I’ve got too many problems – just do your job. I did a Woody Allen film years ago called Bullets over Broadway. I show up there and I look around. It’s an outdoor scene – John Cusack and Alan Arkin – and it’s at night. I looked at it and said [to myself], “There must be some kind of film stock that I’m not aware of, because it’s too dark. It’ll never show up.” But I’m not going to say anything because it’s Woody Allen, it’s [cinematographer] Carlo Di Palma! We do the scene. They call me the next day [to tell me,] “We watched the dailies. It’s a radio show. It’s totally black.” So I probably should have spoken up then, but I didn’t.

ASHLEY: How do you pick a project when you choose a film to direct?

REINER: This Is Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride were satires and I kind of like satire and that was a different kind of thing – and The Princess Bride was my favorite book as a kid. But normally what I’ll do is I’ll look for: Where is my way into this story? Is there a character that I can identify with, that I can tell the story through? Like in Stand by Me, or A Few Good Men, and of course When Harry Met Sally… was born out of my inability to make a go of it with women during the time when I had been single for 10 years. That was totally autobiographical. I was making a mess of it and I couldn’t figure anything out and I said, “This would be a good movie; let’s make a movie.” So I usually try to find my way into it in terms of one of the characters.  

ASHLEY: Is it a great joy to direct, or is it stressful? Or both?

REINER: It’s both. What I’ve always said is a director is not great at anything, but you’ve got to be good at a lot of little things. The writers are better writers, the actors can act better, the cameramen can shoot better, the musicians can make better music, and the designer can design better. But if you have a little knowledge in a lot of areas – I have one of those brains – it all kind of comes together. I get to use all of the parts of me and I don’t have to be good at anything.

ASHLEY: If you could have played the leading role in any of your movies that you directed, which one would it have been and why?

REINER: It probably would have been When Harry Met Sally… because it was the closest to me. You know, my mother is in the deli, there [in the well-known scene]. The woman who says “I’ll have what she’s having,” that’s my mother. We had this scene and Meg Ryan was a little nervous about doing it because she had to fake an orgasm in front of the crew there and all the extras and everybody. So she did it the first couple of times and it wasn’t so good, and she was kind of weak and kind of half-hearted. I said, “Meg, let me just show you what I want.” I sat down at the table opposite Billy and I’m going “Yes! Yes!” I’m acting out the whole thing, and Billy [Crystal] said it was like being on a date with Sebastian Cabot.  But I realize that I’m having an orgasm in front of my mother, and I thought, Oh my god! But it worked out fine.

ASHLEY: Let’s talk about some of the causes that you care about. Probably at the top of the list: Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriage. How did you get involved in that? And what are your thoughts about where that issue is going?

REINER: Civil rights were discussed at my table as a kid growing up. People of my generation ask, Do you remember where you were when Kennedy was assassinated? We all do remember. I remember where I was when Medgar Evers was assassinated; I made a movie about the re-prosecution of Medgar Evers. He was the first major civil rights leader that got assassinated, in 1963. The idea of civil rights and the idea of all of us being equal was something that was always talked about in my household.

So then, flash forward, I’m making a movie, The American President, and a young man named Chad Griffin, who was 19 years old at the time, was working for Dee Dee Meyers, who was the head of communication for President Clinton at the time, and he was assigned to me to help me research the film. I went to the White House, and Chad Griffin showed me around, and I became friends with him. He ended up running my foundation for early childhood education. I make this joke: I knew Chad was gay before he knew it. He came from Arkansas, a very conservative state, and had suppressed all those feelings for a very long time. I feel like a father to him and I’m very close to this guy. Now he’s the head of the Human Rights Campaign; he’s a big deal now. I’m so proud every time I see him on television. But [back in the day] I asked him to run my organization and after a while he came to me and said, “Rob, I have to tell you something: I’m gay.” And I said, “What else is new?” We knew.

One of the reasons we took on Proposition 8 – aside from the obvious reasons of marriage equality, [a belief that] we should all be treated equal under the law, and [the fact that] it was a bad initiative and the courts have already overturned it and we hope the Supreme Court will uphold those rulings – it was partly an education process. We discover as we go along that, first of all, there’s not one person in this audience or anywhere who doesn’t have a gay person in their family, or a gay friend, or a gay person that they work with in their workplace. Nobody. So the normalizing of things, the being able to teach, being able to show people that everybody is equal, that nobody should be thought of as different: That is one of the reasons we took on Prop. 8.

And we did the play “8,” a dramatization of what went on inside the courtroom here in San Francisco, at the district trial. We put that on because we wanted to show people what actually went on in that courtroom and to normalize it, and so we find that as we move along the wind is at our back, it is like we are hitting critical mass: You’re seeing more and more states adopting [marriage equality]; now Great Britain [is in the process of legalizing gay marriage] and you’re seeing more countries [follow suit]. It will happen. It is supposed to happen.

We can’t imagine that there was a time when women couldn’t vote; we can’t imagine that there was a time when black people couldn’t vote; we can’t imagine that there was a time when black people couldn’t marry white people; and there will be a time years from now when we’ll say, Gay marriage? What was that fuss all about? It’s going to take time, and we’re moving in the right direction, but it is about a fundamental right. We cannot look at our fellow citizens – I could not look at Chad Griffin, who is someone that I love – and say, You are lesser than me; you deserve less than me; you are a second-class citizen. You can’t do that. You can’t feel comfortable about yourself knowing that there are millions of people in this country who are not considered equal under the law.

ASHLEY: Are you optimistic about what the Supreme Court will do?

REINER: I am optimistic.  Obviously you never know when a case is in front of the Supreme Court. But if they are going to rule – and this is what they do – based on the law – we had a trial here in San Francisco with many weeks of evidence.  We brought on 17 witnesses, they brought on two and one of their witnesses, who was an expert against the idea of gay marriage, has done a 180. His name is David Blankenhorn and he’s now said it’s absolutely something that should be done.

If you look at it from a legal standpoint there is really nothing to argue. You can argue from a moral standpoint; you can say, morally, “I don’t like the idea of gay marriage” because your church teaches you a certain thing. That’s fine. We’re not forcing any church to perform ceremonies; we’re not asking anyone to go outside their religious beliefs. But marriage is not a religious right. It is a civil right that is provided by the government. A church does not have the right to marry someone except that it is given the right by the government. The government issues marriage licenses. The government decides who gets married and who doesn’t.

In 1967 [interracial marriage was illegal in some states]. There was a Supreme Court case, Loving vs. Virginia, that challenged that, and the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 [that interracial couples had a right to marry]. They have ruled now 14 times about the fundamental right to marriage. From a legal standpoint there is no argument. So we feel confident. Now, how broadly will the Supreme Court rule? We don’t know. We’ll have to see.

ASHLEY: The fight that you’ve been leading against Prop. 8, has it come at any personal cost in term of friendships?

REINER: Not to me. And you know something, I don’t care. If somebody wants to not like me because I want everybody to have equality then they should go someplace else. That is not what America’s about.

ASHLEY: One of the other issues that you care about is climate change. Are you working on a project involving climate change?

REINER: Climate change is the big-ticket item. We’ve got basically two things to think about in a global way. I think very big: There’s the planet and then there’s the people living on the planet. Basically that’s it.

So what can we do to make life better for the people living on the planet? My take was, if we gave every young child a good start in life, made sure that they had good, nurturing parental experiences early on in life, if they had health care, if they had education, they would have the opportunity to have happy, productive, fruitful lives. The idea with early childhood is if we give people what they need we will produce non-toxic adults. They will not harm society; they will not act out against their neighbor; they won’t rape; they won’t steal; they won’t kill.

Then there’s the planet that we live on. Do we have a non-toxic planet? That is the other issue, and I’ve always said that if you don’t have a healthy planet, nothing else means anything. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters – Social Security, gun control, – whatever it is, none of it matters if you don’t have a sustainable planet.

So [let’s talk about] climate change: I think there are seven people in this country who don’t believe in the science – they talk a lot, too! The jury of scientists is in on this. But how to do something about this is complicated. It’s a very tough problem, because you have entrenched interests that are screaming and yelling and with a lot of money. If you have a lot of money, you can get the seven people to say what they want to say and the media will give them as much time as the 97 percent [who believe climate change is happening.] But I believe that there is an enormous green economy that’s the next big boom.

ASHLEY: You are very well informed on these issues, and you use your celebrity for great purpose. Sometimes you talk about the electorate not necessarily always being as informed as we might be. How do you feel about celebrities who lend their names to causes [about which they] may not be so well informed?

REINER:  I don’t think that’s a good idea. [Laughter] It does happen because you have this confluence between Washington and Hollywood. They’ve often said that Washington is Hollywood for ugly people. But the truth of the matter is Washington uses Hollywood a lot of times because a celebrity can bring attention to a particular issue, and if it’s an issue that they’re trying to push they can use a celebrity. Celebrities like to use Washington because it gives them some more gravitas, or more seriousness, or substantive thoughts about things. But what I’ve discovered is that if you steep yourself in an issue, if you really do understand the ins and outs and can get down in the weeds on a particular issue, you can actually really move the ball forward. You can not only draw attention to something, but you can also move the ball forward.

I look at someone like Michael J. Fox, who really understands the science of Parkinson’s and stem cell research. Then celebrity can be used for good. But if a celebrity just wants to be seen and wants to dance around, then he makes a fool of himself and ultimately hurts whatever particular issue he’s trying to push. It’s a double-edged sword, and I always counsel celebrities, if you’re going to get into something, really do your homework and really understand what it is you’re trying to do. Become an expert.

ASHLEY: You campaigned for President Obama. What do you hope he accomplishes in the next four years that he did not accomplish in the past four years?

REINER: He did a lot. A lot of liberals were unhappy because he maybe didn’t exhibit the kind of fire and passion that he did on the stump, but he’s a cool customer and if you look at what he did, he did save an auto industry, he did kill bin Laden, he did pass universal health care; there were some major accomplishments done in a kind of quiet way. There are obviously huge, big-ticket items still out there. We still have to get our fiscal house in order – that’s going to take some doing. He’s certainly not going to be able to do it during his term, but he can put it on a path toward some kind of sustainability down the road. Secondly, they’re fighting on immigration reform right now. I believe they may even get done, because you’ve got political interests on the Right to get that done. What can we do on gun safety? I’m not sure. It seems like [legislation requiring] universal background checks should pass. Even NRA members are [about] 80 percent in favor of that. But the big-ticket items are going to come down to climate change. I hope something starts emerging on that.

ASHLEY: Are movies that call attention to issues – even though they’re dramatizations – do they serve to educate, or are they just entertainment and they come and go?

REINER: Mostly they should be just entertainment, but they do help. They’re certainly not going to change something overnight, but they become part of the dialogue. People go to movies; people watch television; it becomes part of the discussion. There were major prison reforms made after the movie I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang came out – actual prison reforms occurred because of that movie. So the movie in and of itself is not going to miraculously change anything, but it certainly adds to the dialogue.

ASHLEY: I want to ask you about your concerns about the state of education in California and the country.

REINER: You talk about California because California educates one out of every eight children in America and California before Proposition 13 had the best education system in the country. We now have, if not the worst, close to the worst in the country. So if we are able to fix the education system in California that will go a long way toward making a healthy education system in America. It’s a very complicated thing because Prop. 13 is the third rail of California politics, and money alone is not going to solve the problem. We have to see reform and money come together; you can’t have just reform. You need reform and resources. There are ways to do it. There are certain models for what constitutes a good education system. I would submit that you have quality early-childhood preschool education for every child. That’s my big fight, because by third grade, when you’re eight years old, you should be reading. You learn to read so that you can read to learn, and if you’re not reading by the third grade you’re off the rails. The reason you see the 50 percent dropout rate at college is because the kids are not keeping up. But kids who have had access to high-quality preschool are kids who are not dropping out of school. You have to start at the beginning.

ASHLEY: Is humor inherently liberal?

REINER: No. I don’t think it’s inherently liberal, but you find more liberal people who are funnier. Look at “South Park.” Those guys, Parker and Stone, they’re equal-opportunity satirists. They skew the Right and the Left. So it doesn’t have to be liberal, but I find, generally speaking, liberals are funnier, because liberal means open-minded. Conservative means conserving, keeping things as they are. Liberal means opening yourself up to all the different possibilities. When you do that there’s more of an opportunity to find what’s dopey about the world.

ASHLEY: The Princess Bride was such a charming movie, and you are very proud of that movie because it endures.

REINER: Last year we had the 25th anniversary. We had a celebration at Lincoln Center and what a thrill to know that a movie you made [remains so popular]. People quote “As you wish” and “My name is Inigo Montoya…” A guy was on a plane the other day. He had an Inigo Montoya T-shirt on and people didn’t want that guy on the plane. They made him cover it up because it said “…You killed my father. Prepare to die.” They got nervous.

I love that people come up to me and say,

“My wedding ring says ‘As you wish’ inside it” or kids who saw the movie when they were 7, 8, 9, 10 years old and they’re grown up now and they have little kids, they’re introducing the kids to the movie. It makes me feel great.

I have one great story about it: Years ago we went to a restaurant, a very good Italian place. [We’d heard] John Gotti goes there every Thursday night. Sure enough, John Gotti walks into the restaurant with about six wise guys. They sit down at a table and I look over there and I see him and he sees me and we kind of recognize each other. I don’t want to seem like I recognize him too much. We finish our meal and go outside and there’s a big limo parked out there and a guy in front of the limo who looks like Luca Brasi from The Godfather, and he looks at me and goes, “You killed my father. Prepare to die.” [Laughter and applause] I got so scared. He says, “I love that movie: The Princess Bride.”