Delaney Buffett is a special guest on The Paul Leslie Hour.
If there was one good thing about 2020, it is the “Song You Don’t Know By Heart” video series. It’s been one of the audio visual media events of the year.
For singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, the concept was simple and unprecedented. He would tell the story behind one of his lesser-known songs and then perform it “unplugged.” The director and mysterious woman behind the project is filmmaker Delaney Buffett.
Talk about an interesting and thought-provoking interview. At times profound and other times more entertaining, it was great to get to know Delaney Buffett. Watch the video interview right here on The Paul Leslie Hour.
You can also read the written version of this interview down below.
Delaney Buffett, on Songs You Don’t Know By Heart
Paul Leslie: Hello to you. How’s it going?
Delaney Buffett: It’s going well. Thank you very much for doing this.
Paul Leslie: Of course. Happy to be back. All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce this woman to you. She is the director of a series called Songs You Don’t Know by Heart, and this is a video series.
I think it’s been one of the audio visual events of the year. It’s been a very exciting, unprecedented kind of thing, and the concept is very simple. It features the acoustic performances of singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, along with a little bit of backstory, the story behind the tale.
And so I’m pleased to welcome the mysterious woman behind the camera, Delaney Buffett. She has been called a brilliant storyteller who brings a human element to what she does. If you like this interview, go back and listen also to episode number three. We are now at episode 489.
So Delaney Buffett, thank you so much for coming back!
Delaney Buffett: Thank you for having me. Super excited to be here and chat about the project. And those were very kind words. I don’t think I’ve gotten that kind of introduction before, so I really appreciate it.
Paul Leslie: My pleasure. So tell me, why did you want to do this? What about this particular project was compelling to you?
Delaney Buffett: The genesis of the idea and the origin were actually a combination of two guys that work for my dad, Rob and Dylan. They had this idea to tweet out during the beginning of the pandemic, asking what are some songs you don’t know by heart that you love. They did it just for fun and they got such an overwhelming response from fans that they wanted to do something with it.
So we came together and had this idea to do a video series where they would present him with a bunch of these songs that they pulled all the numbers together to see which were the favorites. My dad chose from there what he wanted to sing and do, and he definitely hit most of the higher requests. But he also included some of his old favorites that he wanted to revisit as well. So that’s the origin story of it. And I think we wanted to keep it simple.
“We wanted to keep it intimate with just him and his guitar.”
I don’t like being on camera, so that was natural for me to just be behind the camera and have him lead the show as he does because he is the professional of the two of us. We wanted to keep it intimate with just him and his guitar and me and an iPhone and a tripod sometimes, sometimes not.
Simplicity was the key to it because we wanted the audience to feel like they were in the room with him. We didn’t want any bells and whistles to interrupt that intimacy.
Paul Leslie: Well, I appreciate you going on camera even though you don’t like being on camera and I’ll make a confession. I’m pretty uncomfortable being on camera myself. I always feel like an audio guy.
Delaney Buffett: Yeah, it’s uncomfortable for me. I think most people are uncomfortable on camera, but Zoom has probably made people more comfortable seeing themselves since the majority of meetings are taking place there. So I’ve gotten a little bit more comfortable on Zoom, probably not in front of a huge camera on a set.
Paul Leslie: I think Larry King said that if you’re interviewing somebody and you get nervous, try telling them that you’re nervous. And suddenly it’s like, I’m not nervous anymore.
Delaney Buffett: Yeah, I think that’s true. Anytime you’re nervous or uncomfortable, it disarms you and the person. So it’s a good tactic for sure.
Paul Leslie: There were a lot of people that said about Songs You Don’t Know by Heart that it’s “the best thing he ever did.” Was it?
Delaney on Jimmy Buffett: “It was a convenient way to learn a bit more about him.”
Delaney Buffett: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s one of my favorite things he did.
I wasn’t familiar with his older catalog and I think a lot of people don’t know the extent of his songwriting beyond the more popular songs. He talked about that and we’ve talked about that too.
So I think it’s great that he explored the catalog a bit more and put it on social media so it’s more available for people who don’t want to go digging through Spotify and try to find songs on their own if they’re not as familiar with his work.
So for me, it was a convenient way to learn a bit more about him and his process now versus then. And with my favorite musicians, I think my favorite thing is the Tiny Desk Concert on NPR. I think that’s one of the greater shows on YouTube and it is the intimacy and the stripped-down music that makes that show so popular. Many times you pair storytelling or backstory with that stripped-down musical setting. It even makes it more intimate. I love hearing and knowing what inspires a song. That’s one of the coolest things. Sometimes it can be a really cool specific moment or story or sometimes, admittedly so, it’s just a catchy phrase that turned into something from there. Regardless, it’s always interesting to find out how something was made.
Paul Leslie: I like to do my research and I’m going to give different shout-outs to things that I either read or listen to. I want to give credit where credit is due. I listened to something called the Margaritaville Podcast.
Delaney Buffett: Oh yeah, Heikki does that.
Paul Leslie: Heikki Larsen, correct. And you talk a little bit about the music that you like to listen to. What you play on Spotify or Apple music. I’m curious about this because when I think about when I was just a little kid, I have really vivid memories of my mom playing certain things – like I remember Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson, “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.” So around the Buffett House, maybe just playing on the speakers, early on, what can you remember the family listening to or maybe a memory that you have of something that your mom or dad would play?
Delaney Buffett: Sure, that’s a great question. There was always – I think this is not surprising – a lot of Bob Marley. My dad really loves any sort of music from the Caribbean or Africa. He loves it and I can’t think of specific bands, unfortunately, but there was always music from all over the world. He has a very eclectic taste.
I know he would always put songs on and there’s this one song that he would always play that I loved and I’m gonna look it up right now because I remember listening to it in the car once. I’m gonna tell you, apologies – it’s by Manu Chao. I think that’s what it was. Which was great because I’m not a music snob at all.
I like all kinds of music, any kind. I like mainstream radio. I love old music. So my sister and dad always had really, really good taste in music and always had great finds. He educated me more on world music. My sister was really in tune with reggae, but also classic rock. She would make me CDs, like burnt CDs, with everything like Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, but then more current tracks as well, like the Eagles or some of her more obscure indie rock at the time, which up in the 90s.
So I was fortunate enough to be exposed to a lot of different music and I think it’s definitely influenced my taste now because I do skew to older things. That being said, I listen to techno music. I listen to top 40. I don’t discriminate. I played piano. I wasn’t very musical, but I always loved music, making playlists. I think that I definitely have my parents and my sister to thank for the exposure to all different kinds of music. Or I probably would just listen to top 40 all the time.
Paul Leslie: Some of the comments that people said, they were really touching. I didn’t make this thing and I was touched by some of the things people were saying. There was a guy named Mikey and he said that he was playing the Peanut Butter Conspiracy episode at the assisted living home that his dad lived in. And he said his dad was tapping his feet and kind of singing along. Did you read a lot of the comments that people made about this series?
Delaney Buffett: I did. I have recently taken a break from social media. Prior to that, I read all of them and they were super heartwarming to read. I did love that. I remember reading that and a few others that spoke about familial bonds or when they first bought the album or when they first became a fan.
I think social media is a double-edged sword where unfortunately nowadays there’s a lot of negative comments out there. So when you dive into something, you’re like, oh man, what am I gonna see? But I was pleasantly surprised with all the positivity. It was something that made the experience that much better, to hear everyone else’s stories and how it resonated with them. It went beyond the web series format.
The best thing about making things or sharing things with people is relatability in my opinion. When someone can see something and it stirs up a memory or a moment or it’s something like, oh, who would love this? My dad. Who would love this? My friend from college.
It’s great that people are able to connect with it in that way. I was happy that I got to see everyone’s comments because they were super moving and very nice and couldn’t have been sweeter to read. And what was a very tough time for everyone.
Paul Leslie: Yeah, it was a total love fest.
Delaney Buffett: Yeah, no bickering or anything. Everybody pretty much unanimously loved it. Maybe there were a couple of times where people would be like, oh man, my song didn’t make the list.
We shot the majority of it in March. So I knew the majority of the songs we knew, but there were a couple that we snuck in there at the end and recorded once we knew how many we wanted.
Paul Leslie: In the “Wino And I Know” episode, you mentioned in particular, you said, “I really like this song.” And it’s a very clever song, some really interesting turn of lyrics in there. But so much of it centers around New Orleans. And I’m hoping you can tell the viewers out there your memory of the first time you went to New Orleans.
On New Orleans: “My dad loves it more than I do.”
Delaney Buffett: I spent a lot of time in New Orleans in my adult life, too. As a child, I think it would probably be, and I have a terrible memory, but I think it would probably be Jazz Fest, and there’s a photo that we put in there, and it’s with my godfather, and my dad’s other friend, actually my brother’s godfather, and it’s those two friends of my dad, and me, and overalls.
And while I can’t remember that memory, my mom was like, “That was a Jazz Fest.” but I do remember Jazz Fest later in life and that was my only memory of New Orleans was going and seeing him perform there.
I had friends in New Orleans when I was in college, so I kept going to Jazz Fest and Mardi Gras and I eventually worked down there, so I spent probably a few months a few weeks at a time working down there, and I love it. It’s definitely one of my favorite cities in the country and I’ve only had wonderful experiences there.
Jazz Fest is the greatest music festival in terms of the range of artists and music that you wouldn’t see anywhere else and then you have the aftershows and you have the food and I’ve had friends come down for Jazz Fest too. Plus the architecture of New Orleans. It doesn’t feel like you’re in the US at all. It feels like you’ve just gone to this alternate world and I think that’s what I love about it.
But my dad loves it definitely more than I do. I think he has more of a soft spot for it because of the amount of time he’s spent there. He goes back there a lot.
I loved that song because I love New Orleans, but I also think I like any song with a story. That song, “Death of an Unpopular Poet,” I just like that they have a through line and maybe that’s because I’m aspiring to be a writer as well. And I think it’s really hard to tell a good story, especially in three minutes with musical accompaniment. So I appreciate when people are able to do that.
My favorite songs are ones I can decipher almost immediately, like, oh, I know what this is about. I think obscurity in music is great as well. But I think for some reason, I’m like, oh, I love that this has a story. And I can tell almost immediately, it’s about X, Y, or Z.
Paul Leslie: Well, you’re tapping into something interesting here. On the Chanson Pour Le Petit Enfant. The song itself is a story, but then you taped and you asked the questions and he gave you the backstory behind it. And I thought, wow, the song hasn’t even begun and I’m enchanted by it. And with you and your own writing, what would you say that your father, one of the premier storytellers in the world, has taught you about storytelling?
Delaney Buffett: I think that he tells a great story and he creates very interesting great characters. One of his favorite authors is Carl Hiassen and that was obviously biased because of the Florida connection too.
But once you have a great character, super interesting with a funny name and a good backstory, this story sort of can ride on their back. Obviously you need a good plot. The people aren’t gonna follow along with the character that they don’t like. And you can have an anti-hero like Breaking Bad, but there’s a reason why you like that character so much.
On Jimmy Buffett: “He is very good with clever titles and names.”
Even then the stories that he tells at the dinner table there’s always a character at the center of it and there’s a lot of detail surrounding that person. He might have not had, I don’t know if he’s explicitly said that, but when we talk about writing and stuff he always very much focuses first on the story.
He also is very good with clever titles and names. I don’t think I’ve fully inherited that so I often go to him if I’m trying to think of a snappy title for something but character work is at the center of his work and I hope that it will be at the center of mine.
Paul Leslie: Well, you it’s almost like you’re reading down some of my notes here because it seems like whatever you say it leads into the next point that I love a good transition. You’re just setting them up and hopefully we’re not going to mount but you mentioned sitting around telling stories. I took a walk today and I listened to this podcast. It was very interesting and I believe the name of the podcast is Stories We Could Tell that you did.
Delaney Buffett: Yes, I did do that one.
Paul Leslie: And in it, he goes and he talks about Key West, the host of the show. You were mentioning it. You didn’t have that much experience with Key West, but you have quite an experience having lived in Florida. And when you say that somebody is from Florida, that could truly mean anything.
Delaney Buffett: Yeah, yes.
Paul Leslie: It could be that you wear cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. It could mean that you’re an investment banker. It could mean that you’re a busker on the street. I mean, it could mean anything.
Delaney Buffett: Very true. Yeah.
Paul Leslie: How do you define Florida? What does Florida mean to you?
Delaney Buffett: Yeah, that’s tough. There was a quote my dad gave in one of the interviews about Key West specifically, if you shook out America or whatever everyone’s up down there eventually.
People love to make the Florida man jokes, where you put in your birthday and like a date. It says some crazy thing that happened in Florida. But I think it’s difficult to define it, right? Because like you said, it’s a lot of snowbirds or people who have lived there their entire lives, but it’s so undefinable to me.
And I know that’s a cop out situation, but just having lived there, I lived in a very specific part of Florida. And South Florida is more an extension of the northeast in a way in terms of just a lot of the people I knew there. I think anytime I mention where I’m from people are like oh my grandparent lives there or oh my grandparent lives there. So I think it’s a lot of retirees but I also think I’ve spent some time near Tampa and I think it’s the diversity in landscape.
There are these beautiful beaches, but it also has all this wildlife and sort of craziness to it that I think it is and I’m rambling here undefinable in terms of I think I associate it with my childhood in the beach and warm weather. But as I go back there, and as I read articles, and I read these Florida man things, I think Texas is a weird place too, if you could think about it sometimes in terms of I think people sometimes group Texas and Florida in a similar way and that they’re just strange and strange things happen.
But Texas is the lone star state. And it has a rich history of cowboys. But I think Florida is a hodgepodge of cultures and communities that I got to explore a little later in life. My world was very small. And then once I got to see what else Florida had to offer, I was like, wow.
Even though I grew up on the east coast, the west coast of Florida is just totally different. Even the way it looks, the beaches. I forget where I was but it was closer to the Gulf Coast. But it just had these beautiful sprawling white beaches and I was like wow this looks nothing like South Florida. And I rambled and I’m sorry if that was not a good answer, but it was a tough question.
Paul Leslie: I was thinking about the question as I was walking today, and you said undefinable. That’s what you said. And I was thinking, how would I say what Florida is? I lived in Florida once. I mean, everybody lives in Florida at least once, but I would say the word is “unknowable.”
Delaney Buffett: Yeah, that’s true, yeah.
Paul Leslie: Florida. It’s like you could go to a party and meet somebody who just got out of prison and also, just anything.
Delaney Buffett: It’s true.
Delaney Buffett on her favorite books and meals
Paul Leslie: In the “Love in the Library” episode. I really liked that because it’s a rare song and I always thought that was a really overlooked song which a lot of these songs are, but it made me wonder, Delaney, what is your favorite book?
Delaney Buffett: Oh, my favorite book. Or a favorite book. I love “Count of Monte Cristo.” That’s one of my favorite books. That’s something I revisited during quarantine.
And then one that I read in quarantine as well, that’s a newer version, is Where the Crawdad Sing, which is really good. But I love a mystery. And both of those have that element to it. The first one’s a bit more vengeful, but I love Count of Monte Cristo and I think I read that when I was probably 14 and it always stuck with me because I just thought it played out so brilliantly. I love, what’s the word, it’s skipping redemption. I love a good redemptive moment and that sort of story. I know it’s more realistic when the bad guy wins, but I do like when there is some redemption in a story. So that would probably be one of my favorite books.
Paul Leslie: I agree with you. Redemption is probably the greatest thing in human existence.
Delaney Buffett: Yeah.
Paul Leslie: You made me think, maybe it’s because we’re getting towards dinner time, of a Monte Cristo sandwich, not the book.
Delaney Buffett: Very good. They’re very good.
Paul Leslie: They can be wonderful. Well, again, you’re just setting these up for me. Great. The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, I think you could make a case. I would be willing to maybe go on a game show and say this. I believe that there is no singer-songwriter in American music who has mentioned more specific types of food in his songs, meals. I’m probably not the first one who says this, but Jimmy Buffett has written more songs that mention different meals or restaurants or whatever. So again, I would ask Delaney, what is your all-time favorite meal?
Delaney Buffett: Oh man, that would be a really good Jeopardy question. Not that one, but who referenced food most. I think, again, this is a difficult one. I want to default to pizza, but I’m not going to be that boring.
I really like comfort food. If health wasn’t an issue constantly and I could have a calorie-free meal it would definitely be like fried chicken with mac and cheese, a Caesar salad and mashed potatoes. Just all the comfort food on one plate. If I’m feeling hungover or out of touch, out of place, I always default to that kind of food. Maybe that’s the child in me that just wants the buttered noodles.
Paul Leslie: I contend that you can learn a lot about somebody by what their favorite meal is.
Delaney Buffett: Well, I don’t know what that means, but I hope it’s not, but I agree.
Paul Leslie: You can’t tell. That’s why I want to go.
Delaney Buffett: That’s why I didn’t want to default to pizza. I don’t think there’s a bad slice of pizza.
On Jane Buffett: “My mom is very funny and very, very smart.”
Paul Leslie: A lot of people would concur. In the “Something So Feminine About a Mandolin,” that was interesting because there’s a cameo from your mom, she calls in and I know she’s a private person, but is she a creative person? How would you define your mom?
Delaney Buffett: My mom is very funny and very, very smart. I would say she’s a creative person. I think she would say no, I’m not. But I would say she’s probably an equally compelling storyteller as my dad in terms of sitting at a table and telling a story. She’s very good.
She is definitely a creative person. She has a hat for storytelling too. I don’t think she expresses it in songwriting even though I thought she did a great job with “Something So Feminine.” But no, I would say she’s creative and very smart and a very knowledgeable and wise person.
Paul Leslie: Earlier in our interview you were mentioning the song “Death of an Unpopular Poet.” You were mentioning how it’s got such a great storytelling element to it. You’re not alone there. It’s one of my favorites. And I know that Bob Dylan, one of the greatest songwriters ever, has said that that’s one of his favorite songs. Do you think that the party songs of Jimmy Buffett kind of overshadowed in some ways the more serious songs? Because the songs that people really wanted to hear, they’re more serious and sometimes kind of, you know, emotional, wistful sometimes.
Delaney Buffett: Yeah, I definitely think they do. I had a teacher in high school my dad came and spoke to. We were taking some sort of history class and he came and spoke in my English class. And he was talking about escapism generally, especially post-Vietnam and post-war escapism. That always stuck with me because those songs are so fun to listen to and they are such a method of escapism. They have a built-in connotation with sitting on a beach, and whether that’s because they’ve done an excellent job of branding, I don’t know, but I think people default to those.
But I do think that the same way with a lot of musicians, the more upbeat popular ones that are more in your face and more popular and like, great, I’m listening to this and having a wonderful drive would overshadow the more soulful ones that take a little bit more patience to listen to and to understand.
So I definitely think they overshadow it, not to say that I don’t enjoy them as well, but there’s some real gems in there that people who wouldn’t be familiar with his songwriting would be very impressed with his storytelling ability and his younger self writing these songs alone, which was the case for a lot of songwriters back then.
But I do think it overshadows. And I think it is sometimes because those types of songs do require a bit of patience. And artists have to gain a sense of trust in a way too, where I’m listening to all their popular songs. I’m like, oh, I really like these. And then I’ll go back and dive deeper. And I’m like, these are amazing too.
So what’s interesting is they’re sort of the front page for him in terms of what might draw people in. But once you dig a bit deeper, it’s almost like you go from a tropical rock to just a more what he admits to foot was his folk phase that people I don’t really associate him with unless you’re a deep cut long-time fan.
Delaney on her dad: “He is shy, and I inherited some of that shyness.”
Paul Leslie: Very well put. The last time we talked you were saying many times, someone’s persona is very different from the person. In what way do you think that your father is perhaps different from the beach party man that people commonly would think of?
Delaney Buffett: He’s shy, which probably is hard to think because he has a stage presence, but he’s very shy. I can say that because I think I inherited some of that shyness.
There was an article in the New York Times that came out that was like, Jimmy Buffett doesn’t live the Jimmy Buffett lifestyle or something like that. I will say he’s incredibly authentic in that, he serves, he loves to fly, he loves to sail, he loves the beach, he loves the ocean, he loves food.
Jimmy Buffett, “a diligent hard worker”
Food is a big thing in our house, but I think people might associate him with drinking a margarita on the beach, hanging out his feet up, his feet are rarely up. He’s a very diligent hard worker.
From what I have heard, it’s always been that way. So he’s never not wanting to be busy and do things. He’s an incredibly hard worker and still to this day. He’s turning 74 this year; he’s working very hard and he doesn’t like to sit around, he doesn’t like to kick his feet up.
Paul Leslie: Someone asked me if there’s going to be a DVD of Songs You Don’t Know By heart. I hope so.
Paul Leslie: Well, thanks for mentioning the CD and for everybody out there that’s going to be out on November 20th, I believe. So that’s pretty cool. It inspired a CD and a t-shirt.
Delaney Buffett: Yeah.
Paul Leslie: I saw David Portnoy of Barstool Sports, walking around wearing that.
Delaney Buffett: Yeah, I saw that on Twitter. I think to give credit where credit’s due, the origin of this project and from the Twitter situation, Dylan and Rob, who both work for my dad and they deal with the t-shirts as well and have been working tirelessly with that. As well as Chase, who was the editor of the projects, it was a four-man operation but they have been working tirelessly on this and on the album and on the t-shirts.
I have luckily been able to add a little bit of creativity on the film part of it. They all had wonderful notes and were incredibly collaborative and had an eye for things that I was like, any embarrassed child would be harshly editing their own parents if you had to watch it over and over and they would be like you’re being too hard on your dad which is the case I think for a lot of kids and parents.
So they were really heavily involved in the origin of this and it’s been a really fun project getting to work with the three of them because they have carried it into the album and the t-shirts. So that was all of them. I can’t take any credit, but I’m happy that it’s going well and I really like the shirt.
Paul Leslie: Will there be a Songs You Don’t Know by Heart, possibly volume two?
Delaney Buffett: I don’t know. That’s a great question. I’d love to do it. I was living with my parents for a while so I was with him every day and I was with my mom every day and now that I’m back on my own, it’s harder for us to get together and record a few more, but I’d love to.
There isn’t anything planned, but especially now that everyone’s still inside and stuck, the more content, the better. I think he really wants to keep until concerts can get back going, providing fans with whether it’s this or something else, content that keeps people entertained so that they have something to watch while waiting for live shows to come back. But until it’s safe to do so.
Delaney Buffett: “I learned a lot about my dad that I didn’t know.”
Paul Leslie: What have you learned from this experience of directing Songs You Don’t Know by Heart? What’s been your biggest takeaway?
Delaney Buffett: From a filmmaking perspective, don’t underestimate the simplicity of an iPhone and a person. I’ve been on sets with huge or smaller sets and I think, you become accustomed, if you’ve worked on a big set, to thinking you need all this stuff to make something good. It certainly helps and I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity for that.
But in this day and age, there’s a lot you can make and do with your iPhone. People say sometimes it’s not watchable. I think it’s totally watchable unless you’re someone who’s obsessive about frames or stuff like that.
It’s amazing that we have this technology that allows you to have your cell phone and you can film something like that. So for a process it was that and in terms of a personal lesson, I learned a lot about my dad that I didn’t know.
The silver lining of this pandemic was spending time with my family. Specifically, sitting down in a room and asking him specific questions. I think I said this when I was talking to Dan and Hakey as well, that the biggest reward for me during this was learning things about my parents and I continue to do so. Being with them constantly has accelerated that and it’s something I don’t think I’ll ever get to have again so I’ve appreciated the time I’ve spent with both of them.
Paul Leslie: I want to point to a picture here. I can’t fully see it.
Delaney Buffett: Let me see. I still can’t see it, hold on.
Paul Leslie: I’m sorry. Don’t worry about it. There’s a limit with this. You can kinda see it.
Delaney Buffett: I can kinda see it now.
“I’ve always wanted to separate myself from my dad in terms of my work.”
Paul Leslie: I’ll email you a picture of it, but there’s a reason that I decided to bring up that picture. That is a painting that someone gave me of the late Frank Sinatra, Jr. He really affected my life. He was somebody I got to interview and got to know a little bit. He had this very, very famous last name, Sinatra. I always felt in a lot of people who knew him, they always felt like in some ways that name was a blessing and a curse for him. Do you think that fame is more of a blessing or more of a curse?
Delaney Buffett: Yeah, well, it’s a blessing in that it opens up so many doors for people. But once you get in those doors, you kind of have to watch your step because it can have negative effects on people’s lives.
The most important thing that I’ve seen having grown up around it – and myself not being famous is just a proxy situation – is having a strong sense of self and family and friends is huge.
Because even when people make it, there’s always this feeling it might go away and like what if it does go away and you’ve put all your eggs in that basket and forgot to put the eggs in the family, friends, everything-else basket.
So it is the classic double-edged sword but again, it’s hard to often complain because it affords so much privilege and opportunity to people.
I’ve always wanted to separate myself from my dad in terms of my work. But I’m completely aware that a lot of the doors I’ve gotten into are because of him. So I think it’s recognizing and having a self-awareness of how you got to a certain place, but also realizing now that I’m here, I need to prove that I deserve to be here because there are many other people that should be in this position that I have gotten being fortunate enough to be here because of who my father is.
It’s just recognition and constantly being grateful and knowing that you can be afforded opportunities that people would never get in a lifetime, but it’s appreciating them and knowing how to use them for good as well.
When people use fame for good, you can’t argue that because we live in a celebrity-obsessed culture. A lot of it is super unhealthy. But an awareness for issues that we would have people would have never gotten to raise awareness across the spectrum of social issues.
So it’s a tough question because it is a double-edged sword. I relate to the Sinatra Jr. thing probably but I can’t complain because I’m grateful for the life that I’ve been able to lead. Sure, I get feelings like anyone does of anxiety or like, maybe people will think I don’t deserve this. But they probably should think that in certain ways, and I can’t complain because I have been afforded opportunities in life that people don’t get.
So I like to be aware of that. Keeping a good head on your shoulders and having self-awareness and a sense of self can often help with the issue of fame and being in the public eye.
Paul Leslie: One time I remember Frank, God rest his soul, he was on some TV show and they asked him, what was it like being a singer named Frank Sinatra? And he said well, you know I could take a piece of paper and I could write on one side all the reasons that that was a blessing and on the other side all the reasons that that was a curse. And guess what? My name would still be Frank Sinatra. And I thought, homerun, Frank. What is the most memorable email you ever got?
Delaney Buffett: I was thinking about this actually. I struggled because I also talked to my friend before this because we were working together.
It was from a friend I had just seen. And he said, I was complaining about something, probably about a script or something or something getting rejected. And how I was just hoping to get to that next step in terms of if I just got here the classic then everything would be okay.
He sent me this really long email back after I’d seen him and it was about like yeah I remember you telling me at dinner that you thought you hadn’t really made anything or you hadn’t gone to that step yet. But I just want you to stop and take a second and look at everything that you’ve done and most importantly, appreciate the people that you’ve done it with and then reassess that answer, whether you think that you’ve made something of yourself or not.
It was much more eloquently put than that, but I remember being like, wow, that is so true. I sometimes think back on that when I start to be ungrateful or complain or be a brat. I think back on that email and I think the most important thing to me is cliches.
In my life what it boils down to is my family and my friends and so that email stuck with me because I’ll think about it and it reminds me to appreciate them daily because fortunately, I have amazing friends and longtime friends and I have a very supportive family. It’s become more obvious how much it means to me during this pandemic too because having their company has been very comforting. So that’s been a long answer. I wanted to say like, oh, it was this email I got from Axe and It was really funny, but that would be the one that definitely sticks out to me.
“I would love to do a long form documentary.”
Paul Leslie: I want to tell all the viewers and listeners out there that you’ve made a number of different documentaries, including “Wiki Wachi,” about the mermaids. There’s “The City of Angles,” which is a series of comedies, skits, which I’ve watched a lot of those many, many times. Thank you. You have a very, very diverse number of things that you have made in terms of documentaries from people who pretend to be mermaids to the town that has the brothel to all these different things. What is the documentary you’d like to make, maybe a dream documentary?
Delaney Buffett: Oh gosh. What’s interesting is I haven’t thought about them ’cause I’ve taken a step back from the doc a little bit ’cause I’ve been focusing on writing, but there isn’t a specific topic.
Delaney Buffett: To be really honest, I can’t think of a specific topic, but I will say that the only documentaries I’ve done are short documentaries. And I would love to do a long form documentary. My friend said to me the best documentaries focus on something small and use that to reflect a larger issue.
The things that I love in short documentaries, I like characters, I like people, I like people who are able to tell the story for itself because I don’t think it’s fair to insert my voice in a lot of the stories that I tell. I would love to find something, a place or a person or a story that enables me to shed light on a larger issue. And that’s so broad.
But the best thing about documentaries nowadays is that they can uncover problems in areas or things you wouldn’t know about or just stories of people who are so great and doing wonderful things that are untold.
I would love to find an untold story of a person who’s making a huge impact that reflects on a larger issue. Because I think that’s important right now and the best way to get people to listen is to have a compelling character. So I’m sorry I didn’t have a specific answer for you.
Paul Leslie: For not just this series, the Songs You Don’t Know by Heart, but all of the films that you make, what is it that you hope that the viewer gets from that?
Delaney Buffett: There’s someone who said a better, more eloquent quote about this than I do. I’m mainly trying to write comedy, and I think, this sounds so cheesy, but I do think laughter’s the best medicine. I love watching things.
This is the funny, weird, again, twisted part of the internet is sometimes it does make you feel a lot less alone. When you watch something, and I hope that I can, I want to make something that can provide some sort of comic relief, and also make someone feel less alone in the world. One of my movies is Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the reason I like it is because one I think it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen but two it makes you feel like oh my god like everyone goes through breakups and everyone goes through those steps and feels those things and what it did so brilliantly was hit it so hard with the comedy but also bring some sort of human and heartfelt moments.
I hope to make something that’s funny, but makes people feel like, okay, I’m not alone. Like, also not only am I not alone, but it’s pretty funny sometimes, which is something that I need a lot of the time. I hope to be able to make something the way that other people have made things that I admire that evoke that feeling.
Paul Leslie: Nice, I like that. Well, my last question, you’ve been very generous with me as last time. You’ve given me a lot of time, I really appreciate it.
Delaney Buffett: Of course.
Paul Leslie: We have people tuned in from all over the world. I have no doubt. This is very open-ended. You have the stage. What would you say to anybody who’s joining us in closing?
Delaney Buffett: I’m bad with the broad questions, but I’m gonna try to think of something concise. Just need a second. In closing, I guess, if they tuned into Songs You Don’t Know by Heart, thank you to everyone who watched that. I appreciate it. I appreciated all the kind words.
On the topic of that, what I took away from that project and what I think people liked about the project was the familial aspect to it. A lot of people are stuck right now. The silver lining for everyone is maybe you got a little bit more time to dedicate to the people you care most about in your life. I hope that people are able to do that, whether it’s a phone call or a FaceTime or dinner. It’s a nice time to catch up with people and learn new things about family and friends that you might not have had the time to before.
Paul Leslie: Very well put, thank you Delaney.
Delaney Buffett: I really thank you so much for having me. Those were amazing questions and I had such a nice time.
