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Spirited Show from page 61
film. I was sitting meditating and feel-
ing smug that I had turned down the
job. Then I heard the voice of my dead
teacher, Rudi, calling out through the
ether. He said, "Schmuck (he talked
that way)! There is more integrity in
feeding your family than in turning
down jobs."
He told me to get up, go to the
phone, call the producer (it was 7
a.m.) and say I wanted to write the
movie. I got the job. It turned out to be
one of the happiest film experiences I
had in Hollywood. Although the movie
did not do well at the box office, it
saved my life.
By the time it came out, the writ-
ers were on strike, and I was on my
last $400 and didn't know what I
was going to do. When I didn't have
enough money for my son's bar mitz-
vah and was afraid it was going to be
the first peanut butter and jelly bar
mitzvah in Los Angeles, I got a big
residual payment for Deadly Friend
—$37,000 — and it saved my life.
This horror film that I was going to
turn down gave me a real bar mitzvah
for my son with chicken and fish and
allowed me to live.
JN: Much of your work explores life
and death events and an afterlife.
Jacob's Ladder centers on a young,
haunted Vietnam vet, and Ghost is
about a deceased man who is stuck
between this world and the next
and tries to protect the woman he
loves. When did you become inter-
ested in an afterlife?
BJR: I was a product of the '60s. I
traveled around the world looking for
some kind of spiritual guidance. I was
Jewish but was looking for something
more in the metaphysical realm, and
I hitchhiked around the globe to find
it. Ironically I met my teacher (yogi)
Rudi when I returned to New York.
He taught me to meditate. I have been
meditating ever since. Meditation is a
portal into oneself. It remains a cen-
terpiece of my life. I meditate every
day and teach meditation in both LA
and in New York.
JN: You have said that you had an
LSD experience that was terrifying
yet influenced you.
BJR: Of course I would never recom-
mend that anyone take LSD, but it was
the 1960s and I had one basic trip that
changed my life. It was an awakening;
it made me more spiritual and made
me realize that nothing is what it
appears to be. For me, it was a rebirth.
IN: Growing up in Detroit, was writ-
ing movies a childhood dream?
BJR: It was something I always
wanted to do, but there was no path
from Vernor Elementary School to
the Oscars. My original dream was
theater. The first musical I saw was
The King and I at the Shubert Theater
in Detroit. I loved it, and when I was
14, I began ushering there. I also
ushered at the Northland Playhouse
and Cass Theatre. Its funny because
Ghost is playing at a Nederlander
theater in New York, and I told [the
Nederlanders] how magical this is for
me. If it weren't for them doing shows
in Detroit, I would never be able to
be in New York now They made my
dream possible.
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IN: What's next for you? Your sons,
Ari and Josh, are screenwriters, and
you have a granddaughter. Are you
going to retire anytime soon?
BJR: Doing Ghost on Broadway is
my swan song. I am not pursuing
more work. However, if I come up
with something in the middle of the
night, I will write it. Having a show on
Broadway is one of the most remark-
able experiences of my life. I stand
in front of the theater, look up at the
marquee and just can't believe that
this is really happening.
❑
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IN: You rarely get back to Detroit,
but have you gone to any of your
Mumford reunions?
BJR: I went to the 30th-year reunion,
and Ghost had just come out. It was
pre-Oscar, but it was already a suc-
cessful film. I had the fantasy of com-
ing back to high school as a kind of
celebrity, but I discovered that celeb-
rity insulated me from everybody else,
and people were approaching me as
someone who I wasn't. They weren't
relating to me as the guy they went to
school with but rather someone who
they imagined me to be. And girls
who wouldn't date me in high school,
or even talk to me, were all over me. It
was a very strange experience.
IN: What role did, and does,
Judaism play in your life?
BJR: When I was growing up, we were
Reform Jews. I had a bar mitzvah at
Temple Israel with Rabbi Fram, and
we celebrated all the holidays. Right
now I consider myself a cultural Jew.
There is something about bagels
and lox and being Jewish that is very
important to me. A lot of religions
speak to me, and I appreciate the spir-
itual underpinnings of all of them.
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March 29 • 2012
63