Brian Koppelman on Making Art, Francis Ford Coppola, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show

Brian Koppelman returns to talk with Tim Ferriss about the discipline of the creative professional, centered on how to ask for and absorb feedback without reacting emotionally. He shares deeply personal stories of being stuck, including a year-and-a-half weight struggle that he broke by working with a food-addiction therapist after the death of a close friend to opioid addiction. The conversation explores closing the gap between one's public and private self, using Twitter to reverse-engineer creative processes, and 'facilitating serendipity' through proactive outreach. Koppelman walks through the rapid, real-time process of writing a charity monologue for actor Vincent D'Onofrio, and closes with book and film recommendations about the messy reality of making art.

• Koppelman admits he does NOT take feedback well in the instant it's given, sometimes spending up to 12 bad hours cycling through rage, sadness, and self-pity before he can reach intellectual clarity and act on the notes.
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• His key feedback rule: before giving notes he asks the person 'what kind of feedback are you looking for' and 'is this finished?' - peer-level feedback contains almost no praise, only where the work falls short.
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• Two months before recording he was 249.4 pounds; sitting on the edge of his bed after finally stepping on the scale, he feared crossing 250 and hitting 300, which catalyzed an immediate change.
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• About a year and a half earlier he lost a lifelong friend, Dennis Shields, who never drank but became addicted to opioids after back surgery in his 40s and was dead by 50; Brian dedicated a Billions episode to him.
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• He made a deliberate decision to minimize the difference between his public and private selves, choosing to fail or succeed in public so he can connect more deeply and serve others going through the same struggles.
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• He cites Francis Ford Coppola making The Godfather as proof that masterpieces hide enormous doubt; Koppelman wants his own Twitter feed to show how hard it was to reach the point of making Billions.
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• The full origin story of writing a Shakespeare-style charity monologue for Vincent D'Onofrio in about a day for the New York food bank, written in Final Draft under the name 'a man' so Vincent could choose how personal to make it.
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• He reveals he first met Tim by writing a thoughtful letter (not a 'can I take you to coffee' note) after reading The 4-Hour Workweek, before either of them had a podcast, which seeded a years-long friendship.
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• Koppelman and his wife Amy, also a writer and filmmaker, were two days away from their 29th wedding anniversary at the time of recording.
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• His food-addiction therapist's core insight is that sugar and flour are specific triggers for food addicts, so he eliminated both completely.
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• As an accountability practice he photographs and records every single thing he eats - even one bite of a slice of orange - and shares it with his therapist.
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• After his root canal he was prescribed Tylenol 3 (Tylenol with codeine); he took one pill and threw out the remaining 12 because of his fear of opioids.
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• He named the first coffee of his day 'the Royale,' and his Twitter community spontaneously turned it into a shared ritual and then designed a mug (theRoyaleBK.com), with proceeds going to the NYC food bank.
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• After meeting Jocko Willink on the Billions set, Koppelman says he has exercised four to five days a week and never stopped since that day.
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• Steven Soderbergh's book on the making of Sex, Lies, and Videotape walks through every day of production, post, Sundance, and selling the film, and includes the full script.
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• Koppelman re-reads Sidney Lumet's 'Making Movies' about once a year and calls Haruki Murakami his favorite living fiction writer, repeatedly recommending Murakami's 'What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.'
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• Tim shares that his own childhood best friend died after a friend gave him fentanyl for a headache, and that an aunt died of percocet and alcohol about a year and a half earlier.
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• Vincent D'Onofrio, the monologue's performer, is widely recognized as Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket and appears in Godfather of Harlem.
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