Rob Reiner reflected on career in WBEZ event celebrating new book on making of ‘This Is Spinal Tap’

Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found fatally stabbed Sunday at their home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Police Department on Monday arrested the Reiners’ 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, and booked him on suspicion of killing his parents.

It was a tragic, shocking end to a life and career that began with a complicated father-son relationship. Reiner grew up thinking his father, the legendary funnyman Carl Reiner, didn’t understand him or find him funny. But the younger Reiner would in many ways follow in his father’s footsteps, working both in front of and behind the camera, in comedies that stretched from broad sketch work to nuanced dramedies.

Among the films he directed was the 1989 romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally,” which was partially filmed in Chicago.

The two-time Emmy Award-winning actor and director visited Chicago in mid-September to celebrate the release of “A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever,” a book about the making of the cult classic “This Is Spinal Tap.”

Here are excerpts from Reiner’s conversation with local journalist Mark Bazer at the Music Box Theatre. Reiner talked about the fine line between satire and emotion, his thoughts on the current political climate and some of the actors he enjoyed working with. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

WBEZ: There was a discussion as the movie was being made about the, let’s call it the Yoko Ono plot line, and whether that was true to satire. … Talk about that fine line between satire and [emotion].

Rob Reiner: It’s important to me. Satire and emotion, they don't like each other, they don't want to live together, because satire is about making fun and putting things down. Emotional can be soft and sweet and they don’t like to be with each other, but my feeling has always been, and if you can pull it off, it’s hard, but I don’t think the audience gets a full meal. They’ll laugh, and that’s good. We want them to laugh. But the thing that makes it feel satisfying is that there’s also an emotional underpinning to things.

I went down the Rob Reiner filmography over the past few weeks, and I watched two movies, “A Few Good Men” and also “The American President” in the last couple days. Both are wonderful, and both appeal to just a wide swath of people. Could those two movies be made today?

You can make a movie like that, but nobody’s gonna release it. We had an image of what we thought a president was about, which was honoring the rule of law and the Constitution and all that. … I don’t know how many of you heard that they took Jimmy Kimmel off the air. Did you? Did you? Yeah, it’s really bad. It’s really gotten to a very, very scary place in this country, and we’re going to have to figure out how to dig ourselves out of this before it’s too long. But we got to keep speaking out. Everybody has to keep speaking out. … Benjamin Franklin said, [after the Constitutional Convention in response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”] “A republic, if you can keep it.” And it’s only as good as we all agree that the rule of law means something and that the Constitution means something, and so we’ll have to see. It’s an experiment, and we’ve been the longest living democracy ever, and we certainly haven’t done everything right. We’ve done a lot of things wrong, but we go in fits and starts to move in the right direction.

You have worked with so many amazing artists, directors, actors, writers, producers, in your career. Is there anyone that you haven’t had a chance to work with that would be like your dream project, or someone that you just wish, whether they’re living or have passed, that you just wish you had a chance to work with, or could?

I’ve worked with a lot of people. I didn’t get to direct Meryl Streep, I acted in a movie with her. But I always liked Cate Blanchett. I always thought she was an interesting actress. But I’ve seen a lot of people, young people [acting today]. Jeremy Allen White, who is in “The Bear,” he’s great, and Timothée Chalamet is great. There are a lot of great young actors coming out, but I was lucky to work with Jack Nicholson a couple times, and Morgan Freeman a couple times. And I’ve been lucky to work with some of the best actors in the world.

Contributing: AP