Peter Landesman, 59: Just Getting Started

Truth-seeking to the burning edge, and almost being torched himself, Peter Landesman’s life so far has been vivid with a capital V. Filmmaker, painter, conflict journalist, addiction survivor, an energetic explorer of all things human, he brings us a story so raw that, if we did not know otherwise, would be not one film, but a series of cinematic over-stimulation experiences.

He has done big Hollywood movies: Kill the Messenger; Mark Felt, staring Liam Neeson; Concussion, starring Will Smith; and Filthy Rich about Jeffrey Epstein. Before that, he was an investigative journalist and war correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker and others. As a journalist, Peter Landesman covered the conflicts in Rwanda, Kosovo and Afghanistan/Pakistan after 9/11; and broke groundbreaking investigations into weapons trafficking; sex trafficking and slavery; and art and antiquities forgery and smuggling. These sort of stories come with a cost, and he paid it. 

Living that life distracted him from his biggest challenge: being with himself; which is where he is now. At 59, he is no less passionate about finding and expressing that technicolor truth, it is just closer to home now. 

“I’m just getting started in my 50s. I would not have done my time on Earth so far any other way”

How old are you?
59.

How old do you feel?
I don’t have a number that I relate to, or answer to. I relate to my history, my experience, my hard-won self-knowledge, and the way I now love. I’m in the best physical and spiritual shape of my life. Whatever that is is how old I feel.

What is it about your age that you most enjoy?
I love that I’ve won and lost, expanded and contracted, been to war, loved and been loved, and faced the consequences of love in a courtroom, fighting for custody of my dear children. I’ve lived through cycles of abundance and scarcity numbers of times. I made art I’m proud of and I’ve also watched the phones go silent. Today, I know what really matters, and what authenticity is. I’m just getting started in my 50s. I would not have done my time on Earth so far any other way. I’ve left nothing on the field and there’s still all this time left on the clock. That’s what I enjoy about this moment.  

“I was so busy inside my head I was never alone. The more I wrote, the more I published, the more I created, the even less I had to be still; I never had to figure out who I really was.”

You have had a very successful career but, like everyone else, you’ve also had ups and downs. How did that work out?
First, let me say I’m so happy to be sitting here talking to you, as I know my story could have gone a different way. I often feel I’ve already lived five or six lifetimes. First, I was a novelist and painter, then journalist and war correspondent, before I started writing then directing films and television. I could never work hard enough.

My mind was never still. I was never quiet or in conversation with myself. I was always terrible with deadlines because I was doing too much all the time — too curious, too hungry — and everything I ever reported or investigated, then wrote about, required months of travel and conversation, and often dangerous and patient submergence. It felt like I was strapped to a bomb, but I was the bomb. So I was in a continuous process of de-arming, re-arming, de-arming. You don’t hurry that, or you miss the depth, or something can happen to you. 

But it’s an exhausting way to live.

“Trading booze for honesty and unparalleled wisdom — and the invaluable gift of clarity — was a no-brainer; it still is”

A screenwriter friend introduced me to a particular substance to write faster and longer, and maybe numb me to how close to the edge I was living. I found it solved another problem: my loneliness. I was so busy inside my head I was never alone. The more I wrote, the more I published, the more I created, the even less I had to be still; I never had to figure out who I really was. The things you do to simply keep going keep you from being who you really are. You’re in there, but you’re drifting farther and farther from your own soul. And yet, I was wildly productive. But six years ago, for a multitude of reasons, it was time to finally re-introduce myself to myself. It was now or never. I chose now. It’s been a profound journey.

You also have recently quit drinking alcohol. Why is that?
I had four years of sobriety but no architecture around what it all meant, and I was alone with it, and with the story I had created around myself. I stopped drinking not because alcohol was ever a problem, but because I wanted to connect with the vulnerability and discipline of other men’s sobriety, and their stories. Trading booze for honesty and unparalleled wisdom — and the invaluable gift of clarity — was a no-brainer; it still is. My partner drinks socially, and I love going to bars with her and ordering her drink but saying no thank you for myself. The power of that no is the power of no to other things I don’t want in my life anymore. 

“My friendships are fewer but deeper”

How did these substances affect your relations with the people in your life?
My children are sacred; my commitment to parenting was the most organic and seamless thing I’ve ever done. I pour all my wisdom and knowledge into my children — now a 20-year-old young man, and a 16-year-old young woman. Including my experiences and all I know about hiding behind behavior and substance. That’s first and foremost. Now I live in transparency, with them and everyone else. My friendships are fewer but deeper.

My relationship to my partner is a daily act of devotion, not just to her but to myself, and to that third thing, which is our relationship, which needs tending to and weeding and watering like a separate human. Sometimes it’s exhausting living like this, but I simply now don’t know any other way. One thing I know for certain: If I am right with myself, if I’m living authentically, if the words I write or the images I create, the movies I make, are at the standard I hold for myself as a human now, then my path with other humans is well lit.

What are your spiritual practices, and how did you begin them?
I am Jewish, and knocked at the door of a devotional Jewish life for most of my adulthood. I took my kids to shul and Hebrew school every Saturday. But I never felt right with the concept of deity, and never forced it on them or myself. I was spiritual but not a worshipper. For example, I felt the presence of Other but could never assign an identity to what that really is. I simply lived in faith that one day I’d know. It has paid off.

“When I wonder why I’m here, I know the answer; and that calms me down”

At 21, I’d heard a voice, literally a message made of language, but not audible. That voice told me specifically that my life was going to be hard, my road was going to be brutal at times, but that as long as I stayed authentic to myself, and true to myself, I would be okay, protected in a way, and that there were things I was here to do, and I would be missionized to do them.

I know how this might sound, but it has turned out to be true, though not in any kind of Messianic sense (obviously). But when I wonder why I’m here, I know the answer; and that calms me down. (Recently, 38 years later, I had the most profound revelation of the source of that message, how it came to me and when, and it was nothing I could have remotely begun to understand at 21.)

When I got sober, I began a TM practice that I hold to like no other discipline in my life. It’s church, and I step in twice a day, simply by closing my eyes and letting myself settle into the lower depths, into the quiet in me beneath the noise that fills my consciousness, and finding there an energy that connects all living things, that connects me with time itself, the past with the present with the future.

“TM opened me to accept the collapse of time, and the interplay of other — maybe simultaneous — versions of ourselves”

TM opened me to accept the collapse of time, and the interplay of other — maybe simultaneous — versions of ourselves. Calling it reincarnation or past lives just isn’t good enough; it’s a generic cliché of what’s really there. I’m not sure we, in our current human condition, have the metaphors or vocabulary to actually describe any of this. Where that failure to describe falls off, is where my faith begins. It has changed everything about the way I think about myself in relation to myself and to everyone around me. 

How do these practices contribute to your life?
It’s not that I no longer experience fear, but now I live in an intimate relationship with my fear. I try to get curious about it, where it really comes from, the information it offers, where it’s just a story I’m telling myself. I mean, I work hard and make a living and pay taxes and tuition and support to the mother of my kids.

But I guess I’m no longer afraid of the consequences of unmet goals. There is something much larger and more profound at work that I am in service to. All I’ve done so far was to get me to here, this moment, when I’m beginning the work I’ve always meant to be doing. As one of my favorite stories goes, “Every defeat is just an angel, pulling at my sleeve in another direction.” I trust obstacles more than quote-unquote success now. Expectation is off the table.

“I’ve seen mass death. I’ve looked my own self-destruction in the face”

How do the varied experiences you have had, from wars to Hollywood, divorce, custody battles, and addiction contribute to the Peter Landesman you are today?
I don’t think anything can surprise me anymore. I feel disappointment, because human beings disappoint each other, and hurt each other. But nothing surprises me. I’ve seen mass death. I’ve looked my own self-destruction in the face. I spent seven years in and out of litigation with a woman I married and had children with just to protect the privilege of loving and raising my own children.

I was traumatized by that experience, traumatized with a capital “T”, and still feel the consequences, like a veteran returning from war will dive for the floor at the knock of a door. She recruited my own mother to join forces with her, to support her in her land grab for my children. Things got so dark I often felt I was taking part in a biblical or mythological parable. Despite what felt like an endless assault of legal motion and strategy, I won every motion, and, ultimately, shared custody of my children. But for my mother to betray her own child like that is a biblical crime. I knew I’d never be the same again. But also, it’s a spiritual experience to be able to look your shadow in the face, to stand up to something in human form that is so singularly devoted to your demise.

“I’ll drop to my knees but I don’t stay there”

I no longer engage my parents in any meaningful way — my mother joined the battle but my father stood witness to the crime as it all went down without lifting a finger, or whispering a word of encouragement in my direction — and that is an insurmountable loss, to not have a father’s protection. But it’s also a lesson in who our parents really are to us; sometimes they’re not who we think. So I’d say all I’ve experienced has made me elastic, capable of profound love and devotion, and also fear and self-doubt, but resilient as a motherfucker. I’ll drop to my knees but I don’t stay there. Just when I think life can’t get less simple, there’s more to unwrap and discover. Most of the time I feel the magic in that. And somehow I have capacity for all of it.

“At 59, I am in the best shape of my life, and that includes when I ran triathlons and trained for a marathon in my 20s”

Do you have a physical fitness program?
At 59, I am in the best shape of my life, and that includes when I ran triathlons and trained for a marathon in my 20s. I practice yoga — usually hot — five times a week. I am vegetarian, “mostly” vegan (not for ideological reasons, it just makes me feel good). Meditation is the most important “exercise” I do. I sleep hard and wake early. Moreover, I take a lot of naps. I prioritize not letting fatigue win, ever. 

You moved to Venice, CA way back 20 some years ago, and now you are living there again. How is the Peter Landesman of today different from who you were then?
My two kids were born in Venice, and I lived here with their mom, with whom, as I’ve said, I subsequently battled for years after our split. I thought moving back here I might see ghosts on every corner, or be overcome by false nostalgia. But I lived here before as an aspirational filmmaker — unproduced, scraping by, still getting on planes to do journalism gigs. (I once flew from Afghanistan to Pakistan, to Dubai, to London, to LA, to have lunch in Brentwood with the director Michael Mann, for whom I was writing a movie, stopped in on Venice where I was based then, only to turn around after lunch and go right back to covering post-9/11 barbarity.)

“… it’s fucking good to be back”

Now, I have returned to Venice as a fulfilled filmmaker, an artist who at least knows the right questions to ask, and a man with faith, who more or less knows who and what he is. A grown-up. I am making a beautiful home with my partner, the former CNN anchor and author Brooke Baldwin, a volcano of integrity and energy and general badassery, who matches me stride for stride on her own parallel creative and spiritual journey. She is a daily inspiration; she makes me reach to be better. So, I’m in charge of this move, of this moment, and myself. So … it’s fucking good to be back.  

Why did you decide to be a conflict journalist?
I was a novelist and painter at the time, had published two novels and was on my way to that Brooklyn-based literati/bohemian life of writing fiction by day and painting by night. But I felt caged. I was bored by my future. Poetic prose wasn’t enough. I was in a residency at a writers’ colony writing my third novel when I realized I simply didn’t know enough to do what I was meant to do. I told my editor I was “going to see what we do to each other and why.” My flight landed in Kosovo days later and began a ten-year run of writing about war and the depths of human depravity, from sex trafficking and slavery to arms trafficking, to antiquities smuggling and forgery, which is its own kind of obliteration of human experience. 

“Kosovo was a land covered in blood and body parts. It was one giant massacre site”

Did these war-time experiences cause you trauma, and how do you deal with it?
I remember coming out of Kosovo, I took a refugee flight, a 747 that was empty except for four or five journalists. We all sat clumped together, and the crew played, quite exquisitely, the movie Galaxy Quest, which is legit funny but also ridiculous, especially given the context. I started laughing, until I realized the others were staring at me, and it was clear to me that I wasn’t, in fact, laughing but making other sorts of noises.

I might have been crying, I don’t know. Kosovo was a land covered in blood and body parts. It was one giant massacre site. I had been writing about mass graves. A few days earlier I had been shot at by Serbs when I was brought to a river bank from which the legs and arms of Albanian men in track suits were protruding. I found a well surrounded by the clothes and shoes of small children. The children had been tossed into the well. It was a shit show. And I realized that the noises I was making were not, in fact, laughter. 

That said, I’ll take a conflict zone over family court any day.

“The notion of objectivity is ridiculous. My journalism was all about immersion, not gathering quotes and reporting out reactions”

With journalism, one is observing and reporting; with movie directing, one is causing and creating. Very different ways of being. How do you compare the two?
I actually find journalism highly participatory. The notion of objectivity is ridiculous. My journalism was all about immersion, not gathering quotes and reporting out reactions. So, quite often, I was a rock thrown into the middle of the pond, and the ripples and waves became the story. I looked for patterns and narrative where no one knew there was a story to be had. You’re first through the wall. You take fire. People don’t want to believe you. People don’t want to believe you, especially about something hard to metabolize.

I got hit particularly gruesomely, and fraudulently, after I wrote a long immersive exposé for the New York Times Magazine — I was a regular for them — about sex trafficking and slavery in the US. No one had written about it before anywhere in mainstream media. Sex trafficking in Thailand? Yes. Ukraine? Check. America? No fucking way. Except … it was — and is — everywhere, and I mean, everywhere (I was bumping into Jeffrey Epstein without knowing about it).

I’d infiltrated a number of sex-trafficking networks bringing young women from Eastern Europe up through the southern Americas into the US, and one organization in particular based outside Mexico City, that was then raided; dozens of girls were rescued. The story triggered legislation in DC and many states. Police Departments in LA and NYC woke up to what they were really seeing on the streets. That story was a bomb, and it needed exploding, and it was a bull’s eye. So much so that media critics and bloggers trolled the fuck out of me — not because the story was wrong but because it was right.

“There are truths that are simply too true to tell, is what I learned”

There are truths that are simply too true to tell, is what I learned. I wasn’t a classic newspaper beat reporter, so other newspapers — including the New York Times — and I wrote this story for the Times Magazine— didn’t like it at all. Reporters can get bitchy and vindictive when they get beaten to an important story; no one gets paid well and everyone is overworked.

That wasn’t your question, but it’s not irrelevant to Hollywood. It was time to “kill the messenger.” I later wrote a movie called Kill the Messenger, starring Jeremy Renner, about a reporter who’d uncovered something massive and scary, and was attacked in eerily similar ways — except he ended up putting a bullet in his head. First through the wall can be tough to take, tough to be, and tough to put down. Filmmaking and Hollywood saved me.

Directing a film is performance and frame, and you’re the conductor of an orchestra. I am also a painter and photographer, and light and beautiful imagery is paramount in my mind. It’s the story of emotion, along with music and editing patterns. In that way, filmmaking is my natural state. Journalism fed my insatiable curiosity about the outer limits of human behavior. But a movie is the whole story and, when I started directing, I felt like I’d come out of the closet.

“I found that working with an actor was not all that different than working with a journalistic source”

I also love artists, and I love working with actors, and have boundless admiration for how fucking hard that job is. But over time, in terms of connection between humans, I found that working with an actor was not all that different than working with a journalistic source. In both cases, they might have or know something they don’t want to give you (a performance past their comfort zone, for instance; or to give me a piece of privileged or dangerous information); or they may have something I want (a different performance, a contact, a connective piece of information) they don’t even know they possess; sometimes it’s all an act of seduction, of building trust and credibility, or both.

Either way, an actor wants to know she’s in safe hands, in commanding hands, to know I won’t hurt her by pushing a performance too far, or by using the wrong take in the edit; a source wants to know his identity is protected, or I won’t quote him out of context. No one wants to look like a fool. In both art forms, it’s my job to tell a story that is bigger than any one actor, or any one source, but also honor their trust in me and not let them down. Somewhere in that bond is the point of doing all of it in the first place.

You have so many skills and interests. What are you working on now?
I hope to direct a film I fell in love with this fall; it would be the first film I’ve directed that I haven’t written. It’s a beautiful film about revenge, grief, sobriety and love — very much in line with my own personal themes. 

“It is very much an act of total faith, it is absolutely terrifying, and I can’t fucking wait”

I am writing a television series I hope survives the near impossibilities of getting anything greenlit and on the air in these post-strike days of contraction in show business. 

I am working on a new book, a work of non-fiction, about a new and impossible subject: myself. The standard is brutal honesty. I’m merciless about going into all of what we’ve discussed in this interview, and then some. I feel like I have something to offer to men, in particular, about humility, about loss, about the power of fatherhood and something about what it means to be a man.

And I am circling back to painting, though photography, and through the act of trying to forget all I learned as a visual artist to get to that authentic place in me that has something worth saying. It may be the most important work I’ve done yet. It is very much an act of total faith, it is absolutely terrifying, and I can’t fucking wait.

What is your ambition for Peter Landesman for the next 10 years?
To be able to look back on this inflection point I’m in and understand it as the very beginning of making good on the reason I showed up in this body during this lifetime. 

“It may be the most important work I’ve done yet”

What do you most like about people?
Their powers of resilience, their vulnerability, their desire to love and be loved.

What books have you read recently that you liked?
Nick Cave’s Faith, Hope and Carnage — the most searching and eloquent treatise on art and music making and its relationship to the human experience I have ever come across. I drive around Los Angeles listening to it — this is my third time.

The Night of the Gun — David Carr’s memoir about addiction, sobriety and fatherhood. His raw honesty and fearless self-searching singe my hair. His sentences are exquisite. There’s not an ounce of narcissism in it. It is everything a memoir wants to be but rarely is brave enough to become.

What are the 3 non-negotiables for Peter Landesman today?
My transparency with my partner in all things.

My devotion to that “voice” I heard at 21, and to its message, and all it requires of me.

The truth, even at the price of letting someone — anyone — go, even, sadly, my own parents.

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