Rob Reiner: ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ Shows the Dangers of Deregulation

REINER: "I mean, it basically is a wonderful morality tale that points the finger at what happens when you deregulate capitalism, when you leave financial markets unchecked. And Jordan Belfort is the epitome of that. He is taking excess to excess.”
WAGNER: “Did you spend time on Wall Street to prepare for this, to get sort of acclimated?”
REINER: “I didn’t spend time on Wall Street, but I did get to meet Jordan Belfort. And he's a fascinating character. I mean, he's very charismatic, and you can see why he's able -- he can -- you'll see at the end of the movie -- because it starts at the beginning, he says, ‘Sell me this pen.’ He believes you can sell anybody anything if you're persuasive enough. And he basically took every single opportunity and every loophole that he could find to make an enormous amount of money. It’s a great statement on what happened in the '80s and how the economy collapsed when you deregulate things.”
WAGNER: "Well, and I mean part of it is his incredible story. After dropping out of dental school he sold frozen lobsters and steaks door to door. He purchased his own helicopter only later to crash it. I wouldn't say it's a rags to riches story. This guy came up. But then once he got there, or the way he got there was on the backs of others and was through sheer, the enormity of the greed was breathtaking.”
REINER: “Yes. And he paid a price. You know, the character I play, I play Jordan’s father, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jordan Belfort; I play Max Belfort, who they call 'Mad Max,' who gets crazy and all this stuff. And at first my character was kind of proud of him because he was making money. He was being successful. Then he realizes what this guy is doing, and he realizes as I say in the movie, it's obscene. It's obscene and I say to him, 'Jordy, you made all the money in the world, now you need to make everybody else's money? It’s like a father watching his son run into the street with the oncoming traffic, and you know he's going to get hit, and he's going to get hit hard, and you feel helpless. You can't do anything. And he does get hit and he goes to jail.”
WAGNER: “It is a timely film for this season in particular.”
REINER: “Yes. But it's funny. It’s funny.”
WAGNER: “Yes, which you can see from that clip. Rob, it is always a pleasure to see you. We're so excited to go see this movie as a team with popcorn.”
REINER: "Yeah, you're going to have fun."
WAGNER: "I know, I always will. I love your movies."