Lawrence Kasdan On His Emmy Nods For Martin Short Doc, Cutting Kevin Costner From ‘The Big Chill,’ And Casting Geena Davis In ‘Accidental Tourist’

Award-winning filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan has added a new column to his remarkable resume: double Emmy nominee.

He earned the recognition Wednesday morning for Marty, Life Is Short, the documentary he produced and directed about his friend of 40 years, actor Martin Short. The film earned nominations for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and for Kasdan’s direction, as well as a nod for editors Sierra Neal and Bennett Piscitelli.

“It’s great,” Kasdan said of the Emmy recognition. “It’s nothing I was thinking about [while] trying to make this movie as good as we could. I was trying to honor my commitments to my friend and be fair about everything. But it’s lovely [with] any movie when you finish and people come up to you and they say, ‘I really liked that’ or ‘I was so taken by this or that.’ And we’ve gotten a lot of that.”

The Netflix documentary explores Short’s very long career, which started in the early 1970s and flourishes today with Only Murders in the Building. And it pays heed to a personal life with more than its share of tragedy and loss, from Short losing his older brother in car crash when Marty was just a kid, to losing both his parents by the time he was 20 and, and the death in 2010 from cancer of his beloved wife, actress Nancy Dolman.

“I’m glad that people react emotionally to it because it is emotional material and he’s a good guy, so you’re really invested in him,” Kasdan observed when we spoke in late May, before Emmy nomination voting began. “The thing that amazed me about him, that made me do this [film], was that spirit that goes through anything. So, it just got more and more poignant as the making of the film went on.”

On Wednesday, Short earned two Emmy nominations of his own, for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his role as Oliver Putnam in Only Murders in the Building and in the category of Outstanding Host for a Game Show, recognizing his emcee skills as the man with the mic on Match Game.

“There’s no question there’s been an explosion in the last five years,” Kasdan said of Short’s career, adding that many who have seen the documentary tell him, “The movie is kind of a revelation to them of what kind of person he is… I think in this world where things aren’t looking that good, it’s nice to see someone who is caring and loving and hears you when you talk.”

Kasdan’s four Academy Award nominations have come for Grand Canyon (Original Screenplay), The Accidental Tourist (Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay), and The Big Chill (Original Screenplay). The latter film, a cultural landmark released in 1983, starred Glenn Close, Kevin Kline, William Hurt, Tom Berenger, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, JoBeth Williams, and Jeff Goldblum. Kevin Costner shot many scenes for the film, as part of flashback sequences that Kasdan later decided to drop to keep the story in the present tense.

“Kevin, when I cut him — and it crushed me to cut him — he was just beginning his career. It was one of his second, third parts,” Kasdan told us in May. “And I called him up and he came in and I said, ‘Look, I got some bad news.’ And he said, ‘That’s okay, Larry.’ The rehearsal process we had done, which was four weeks, just the cast rehearsing — at that time that never done in the movies. And [Kevin] said, ‘For four weeks I got to hang around with this cast. I’m just learning how to do this. It was the best education I could possibly have had. It doesn’t matter whether I’m in the movie or not, it was the greatest.’ And I said to him, ‘I’m going to write you a part in my next movie.’ And it turned out to be an impactful part for his career.”

That part – the role of young gunslinger Jake in 1985’s Silverado – would launch Costner to fame. Silverado starred two other actors Kasdan had worked with on The Big Chill, Kline and Goldblum. Kasdan’s 1988 film The Accidental Tourist starred William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Geena Davis, and earned Davis the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Kasdan gave us the inside scoop on how he chose Davis for the role of offbeat but lovable dog trainer Muriel Pritchett.

“She was amazing in that movie, and I tested four women for that part,” Kasdan revealed. “She just walked away with it. She’s so fantastic. And I knew her before casually because she had been with Jeff Goldblum, who I knew very well.”

We asked if he wouldn’t mind sharing the identities of the other three finalists for the Muriel role. No dice.

“I can’t tell you that,” he replied politely. “I have a reputation for some discretion.”