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Brian Howe · Movie Meltdown

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This is Nick Offerman and you're listening to Movie Meltdown.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: The following feature has been rated R by the Motion
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: and parental discretion is advised. It's showtime, folks.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Enjoy the show. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: kilowatts of power.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Provide more cooling in the containment chamber.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: To your stations, we have Movie Meltdown.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: This place is really fun!
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: What's up, and welcome to Movie Meltdown.
• 1:31
  Speaker 6: I'm Brian, and this week we are coming to you
• 1:33
  Speaker 6: live via digital recording from Wonderfest. And it's a good
• 1:36
  Speaker 6: thing we are, because that's where I happen to sit
• 1:38
  Speaker 6: down with this week's special guest, actor Brian Howe. Now,
• 1:43
  Speaker 6: these days, you may know Brian as Sheriff Pickett from
• 1:45
  Speaker 6: the HBO series Westworld. But even if you haven't caught
• 1:48
  Speaker 6: up on that series yet, when you see Brian, you'll
• 1:51
  Speaker 6: probably say to yourself, hey, I know that guy. Now,
• 1:54
  Speaker 6: where do I know him from? And this is a
• 1:57
  Speaker 6: point and a circumstance that Brian himself addresses later in
• 2:00
  Speaker 6: this episode. But yes, he's one of those actors that
• 2:04
  Speaker 6: you've seen kind of everywhere over many years. Ryan's been
• 2:09
  Speaker 6: in Catch Me If You Can, The Pursuit of Happiness,
• 2:11
  Speaker 6: American Horror Story, Annabelle, K-Pax, The Majestic, Deja Vu, Evan Almighty,
• 2:17
  Speaker 6: Gran Torino, he's on Lie to Me, Criminal Minds, House
• 2:20
  Speaker 6: of Lies, Nikita, Justified, and of course, he's one of
• 2:24
  Speaker 6: the cast of regulars in the Larry Blandmeier films. If
• 2:28
  Speaker 6: you've seen The Lost Skeleton of Cadaver, well, then you
• 2:30
  Speaker 6: know what I'm talking about. But all of those titles
• 2:33
  Speaker 6: still don't quite do him justice. Brian's had a fascinating career,
• 2:37
  Speaker 6: and being the working actor that he is, he really
• 2:40
  Speaker 6: has some interesting perspectives on the entertainment industry. And with that,
• 2:44
  Speaker 6: I say we hear more directly from him right now.
• 2:52
  Speaker 7: No, I'm good.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know what it is you want to ask me,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: but just go ahead and ask me. I assume I'm
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: here for a reason.
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: All of your life. I start at the beginning.
• 3:05
  Speaker 6: I kind of do. I like hearing how people got
• 3:09
  Speaker 6: into their life.
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: So I guess, where were you originally born?
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. And we moved to Barrington,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Rhode Island. I was but a tot. And stayed there
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: for pretty much the rest of my childhood up through...
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: you know, my 20s. No, not through my 20s, because
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I was in college and all that kind of stuff. But,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: you know, grade school, high school, that whole deal.
• 3:42
  Speaker 6: Early on, were you kind of drawn to, again, I
• 3:45
  Speaker 6: always fall back to the arts, but I guess were
• 3:47
  Speaker 6: you like a big sports kid or were you already
• 3:49
  Speaker 6: kind of interested in theater?
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: No, I was already, I was clowning around and being
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: a dork and entertaining people and doing impressions and puppet
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: shows and clowning around. I didn't know it. I didn't
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: have a consciousness of it. But I really liked making
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: people laugh.
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: That's why I like tracking it back this far.
• 4:10
  Speaker 6: Because it is funny how much we start laying the
• 4:12
  Speaker 6: groundwork and we don't even know it.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Don't even know it.
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: That early on, we don't even realize.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: And it's true. And I had two older brothers. And
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I got up through... I mean, I was in a
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: school play in grade school. But that wasn't registering as anything.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: It was just... I knew that I was.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: I did notice that I was one of the only
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: people comfortable even being on the stage. Like I was
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: way okay with being up there. But again, that's in hindsight.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: That's a different mindset.
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  Speaker 5: I know that was true then.
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  Speaker 1: I know I wasn't like all nervous and stuff. I
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: know it was like, you know, this is, I'm okay.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: What's everyone so nervous about? But it was when, and
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I had two older brothers and I knew a bunch
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: of their friends because they came by the house a lot.
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  Speaker 1: And when I was in ninth grade, we weren't physically
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: in the high school building yet because we were such
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: a large, class so we were in the junior high
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  Speaker 1: school building and one night my mom came up and
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: said we're going to the high school to see the
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  Speaker 1: school play and anything that meant I didn't have to
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  Speaker 1: do homework was fine with me and we went to
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the high school and sat down near the back of
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the auditorium and it was Oklahoma was the play and
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I knew nothing about an Oklahoma but the school band
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  Speaker 1: was down in front And they started, you know, striking
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: up the band and all these great songs happening. And
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  Speaker 1: it was, you know, and then the curtain opened and
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the play started. And the audience was laughing and clapping.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: And people up on stage were singing and dancing and
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: saying lines and getting laughs. And then partway through the play,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: a couple of people I knew showed up.
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  Speaker 3: Hmm.
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  Speaker 1: And that was a magic moment.
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: You were like, wait, regular people can do this?
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Because I watch TV and I watch movies, and I
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: didn't know those were people I could know. And a
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: couple of my brother's friends were in the play, and
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I went, that's it.
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  Speaker 5: And were they any good?
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were, because they were getting the laughs and
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: singing the songs, and that was like a side point
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: for me.
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  Speaker 3: Hmm.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: And I went.
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: Planted that seed right there.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: That was the epiphany right there. That was it. I'll
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: never forget it.
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: So at that point, you started reaching out, trying to
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: find that?
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: So then I realized, wait a minute, I can study this.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I can like, you know. So the minute I was
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: in the high school, I went right to the first
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: play audition, which was Inherit the Wind.
• 6:42
  Speaker 6: Did they have a whole setting for theater? Or it
• 6:44
  Speaker 6: was just a couple times a year they did a play?
• 6:47
  Speaker 6: Or did they already have like you could study?
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: They had a theater department. Yeah. And they had some
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: theater-oriented classes. They had a wonderful coach, Barbara Dooley. She
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: was just terrific. And I think she essentially created a
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: theater department there. And I just gravitated to it immediately.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: And it just became my passion right away. And anything
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I could do, I did.
• 7:18
  Speaker 6: Was it at that point you were because you even said, oh, yeah,
• 7:20
  Speaker 6: I can study this. You know, was it something that
• 7:22
  Speaker 6: you were already taking seriously enough that you're like, this
• 7:25
  Speaker 6: is my path. This is what I'm going to do,
• 7:27
  Speaker 6: because I do remember kids in high school that were
• 7:29
  Speaker 6: like the A stars, like they were in all the plays.
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: They were really good. They would get up there and
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: just kind of own the stage. I never saw any
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: of those kids. Like since then, I'm like, and.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: They were good.
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: So I'm like, is it?
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, because it's hard. Yeah.
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: It's not.
• 7:43
  Speaker 6: I wonder sometimes if it's just like filling that need
• 7:46
  Speaker 6: for them at that point for high school and they're done.
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: And then what kind of sets it to like.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I think it's both.
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah, the next level.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I think that's very, very accurate. I think that's entirely
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: justified in that it does fulfill something at that time. Yeah.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Or it's something that they think they want. And then
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: reality hits. This is hard. And it's time to sell
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: real estate. It's just not going to happen for one
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: reason or another. You discover just how hard it is
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: and just how many people you're up against. Yeah, everyone.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: And many of whom are very serious.
• 8:23
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And they're going to do better than you.
• 8:25
  Speaker 6: When did you have that moment? When did it hit
• 8:28
  Speaker 6: you that you were like, oh, this is a lot
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  Speaker 6: to deal with?
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: Was it still in high school?
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Well, because, yeah, it was in high school. And you
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: still had to audition for the plays. Nothing was given
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: to you. You still had to audition and stuff. And
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I knew about being ready early on. Again, it wasn't
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: something I was necessarily conscious of. But I just knew
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: when there was something I wanted, a part coming up,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I read it and read it and read it. And
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I knew... about making choices and how I would deliver
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: that line and how I would deliver this and how
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I would do it. And I would show up and
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I would really pour myself into it.
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: That makes a difference, yeah.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: It makes all the difference.
• 9:10
  Speaker 6: That separates you away from the other kids that just
• 9:12
  Speaker 6: kind of show up, but when you've immersed yourself into it.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: It separates me away from a lot of actors in
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles because it's a climate there that encourages laziness. Oh,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: just be familiar with it. Literal. It's warm outside.
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: I don't have to do this.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: But literal, like, professional laziness. Like, just, oh, just be
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: familiar with it. Get the gist of it.
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: Just show up.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Just read. Like, literally, I'm going to read for part,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: and people go in and read. And I started to
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: fall into that. And then I took a wonderful class
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: by a guy named Larry Moss, who's a renowned acting coach.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: He's coached, you know, Hilary Swank for Boys Don't Cry.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And she won an Oscar. and he coached Jim Carrey
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: for The Majestic he got nominated for an Oscar this
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: guy knows what he's doing he's serious and what he
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: taught me what I walked away from in his class
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: was he introduces the first class by saying welcome to
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles the worst city in the world to be
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: an actor suppose And he said, because it teaches laziness.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: And he said, you're not going to get praise for
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: that here, for knowing your lines. That's expected. He said,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: you're not going to do scenes from TV shows and
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: movies in this class. You're going to do stage plays.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: You're going to do Eugene O'Neill and you're going to
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: do Tennessee Williams. You're going to work. You're going to
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: do Pinter, Mamet, Shakespeare, whatever. It's going to be stage
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: plays because we don't fool around here. And it got
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: me back into a groove where I didn't anymore show
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: up for an audition without knowing in full completely memorized
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: my sides and i would still show up with them
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: in my hand dude because i'm not above playing my
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: own game yeah and i would walk in the room
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: with the sides in my hand and put them down
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: and go all set.
• 11:08
  Speaker 6: Which then makes me wonder what if for a lot
• 11:11
  Speaker 6: of people maybe not even just you but leads you
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: to los angeles like if you're just concerned with acting,
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: like there are, you know, decent theater troops all over
• 11:21
  Speaker 6: the country.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: No, it was a road. You're right. I skipped ahead.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Cause I did, I did go, I, you know, I
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: got out of college with my theater degree.
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: That'll get good luck with that kid.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Um, uh, and, and I went right to work in
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: a kitchen of a restaurant and, um, washing dishes.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: And, uh, And a friend of mine called, who I'd
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: gone to college with, and he was running a summer
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: stock theater in the Poconos. And he called me and said,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: come do plays, and I'll even pay you under the
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: table a decent amount and put you up. I said,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: you're in.
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: This is pretty good.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I'm in. And from that, it was a short hop
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: to New York, where the first time around, I didn't
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: accomplish a whole lot. But I wasn't there even a year.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: And a friend of mine from Boston called, whom I'd
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: known from college as well. And he was directing a
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: play at the Boston Shakespeare Company called The Shadow Box.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: And he said, come on up. I want you to
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: play this part. And I said, I barely have any money.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I don't have a place to live. He said, I
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: need a roommate. I said, what train am I on?
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: All right. I was in such a hurry to get there.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I think I left boxes of stuff that mom had
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: given me in this ratty old apartment that I was in.
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: Free stuff for the next person.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Someday we'll talk again and I'll tell you about the
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: night of a flaming mattress. But moving right along.
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: And so that was my skip hop to Boston. And
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: I stayed there for almost 10 years. And that's where
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I got my equity card and doing a play called
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Sheer Madness. And that's where I got my SAG card
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: doing a show called Spencer for Hire. And Boston was
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: really good to me. My Boston years are very, very
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: fond memories. And then came the time when it was
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: time to make the hop. And I had gotten known
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: enough by local Boston casting directors that I started putting
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: out the word like, who do you know in New
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: York that I might be able to, that I could maybe,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: you know, drop your name or whatever. And one of them,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: sure enough, practically Xeroxed her Rolodex for me and said,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I contact all these people all the time. Try them.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: If they call me, I'll talk you up a blue streak.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: And that was really sweet of her to do. And
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: that started me on the road to having a commercial agent.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: And then eventually, like a manager, I hooked up into
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: a company called the Manhattan Punchline Theater Company. And that
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: was enormous fun to do. But it was going back
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to a day job. Because in Boston, I'd gotten into
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: sheer madness and got my equity card. And I quit
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: having a day job. That was my job. I was,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: for the first time, Working as an actor. I was
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: paying my bills as an actor. And that's a milestone
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: in your life.
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: Would you have been okay with that? Assuming nothing else
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: took off. If you were still part of the troupe
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: there in Boston. Because I wonder that sometimes.
• 14:24
  Speaker 6: I see a lot of people that are just lifelong
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: actors in smaller theaters. And I'm thinking that's what they wanted.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Or it fell back. It was tremendous fun to do.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I would have been content with.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Staying there. In other words, I always had to try
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the next step. If the next step didn't work, I
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: would have been okay going back because I would have
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: been able to be an actor for the rest of
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: my life.
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: And know that you've done what you needed to do.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: That was paramount to me. I want to be able
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: to be an actor. But I always had to try
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: the next thing just because I couldn't be on my
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: deathbed one day and go, why didn't I try the
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: next thing? I should have tried. Try and fail, but
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: at least try.
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: That's part of it, I think. It's a drive that
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: you have that not everybody does.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Right, right. And that was kind of what propelled me forward.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: And then kind of one thing really does actually lead
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: to another if you just stick to it enough. It's
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the having the day job, going out on the commercial
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: calls at lunch hour, rehearsing the play at night, which
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I look back and I go... Only in my 20s.
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: How would I have done that?
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Only in my 20s could I have managed this. That's
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: what the 20s are for. You're insane. And then New
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: York became more comfortable. I was doing pretty well as
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: a commercial voiceover artist and getting the occasional Law &
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Order gig. And then friends out west started saying, you know,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: pilot season.
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: Come out for pilot season.
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: You should come out here.
• 16:05
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Brian's like, Brian, you work. You might consider coming out.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: And so I had an agent that had a West
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Coast office. So I went out and kind of got
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to know them, told them kind of what I was about.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: This is what I do. I don't expect to be
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: the big star, but I'll be the big star's neighbor.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I'll be the big star's partner.
• 16:26
  Speaker 6: It is interesting because there are some people that are
• 16:28
  Speaker 6: so driven to be the focus of everything. And then
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: there are just working actors that are like, I'm fine
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: just being, again, character work is an art form in
• 16:39
  Speaker 6: and of itself.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: It's an art form in and of itself.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting to see, like, all the lead, all
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: the star actors that we know of now didn't start
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: out star actors. It's something that happens to you.
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: And sometimes you go back.
• 16:53
  Speaker 6: And sometimes you slip. You had your, again, somebody was
• 16:57
  Speaker 6: just talking about, because now.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Stars fade.
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: In the new King Arthur thing.
• 17:02
  Speaker 6: Like, 10, 15 years ago, King Arthur might have been
• 17:05
  Speaker 6: Jude Law.
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: But now he's the king.
• 17:08
  Speaker 6: And he's still very attractive, and he's a great actor,
• 17:12
  Speaker 6: but he's got a different role now.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Literally, in life, he has a different... It's really true,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: and I was always attracted to the character guys. I
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: always liked watching what they... J.T. Walsh is a favorite
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: example of mine. God rest his soul. I loved J.T. Walsh.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: And could always make being not likable... okay, like he
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: could make it work because it was rare that he was.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Ever a likable character. You would love not really liking him.
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you'd be like, oh, this guy is terrible.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: He's great at being a dick.
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: I can't wait to see what he does next. Like
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: he's the slimiest.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I loved him. I loved him. And I said I
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: would rather have his part in any movie.
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: He's memorable across the board.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Because stars do a movie a year and supporting actors
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: do five. Yeah, at least.
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: Depending on what kind of run you get.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I'll stand next to the guy making the money. No,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I don't get the big bucks. But I can also
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: go to the mall.
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you keep the insurance.
• 18:08
  Speaker 6: Big stars who don't get a role for two years.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: And when you're asking whatever happened to about the star,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: you don't care about me. I'm showing up with the
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: new star.
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: A few years later, he's back on stage.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I'm the new star's dad.
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: And you're like, yeah.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I'm good with that. I'm way good with that. So,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: you know, that was my, I just decided, you know,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: that was going to be what kind of what my
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: attitude was and what I. I was going to just
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: be happy working. I just like working. And as a result,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: I get to work with Tom Hanks and with Will
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Smith and Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges and Steven Spielberg
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and Clint Eastwood. I mean, that gets to be my resume.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: Which is equally as impressive. Jeff Bridges and Tom Hanks.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Might never do a movie together, but I get to
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: do one with both of them.
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: You're the connecting thread between.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: So I always like, show me the problem with this.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Because I really get to, and I do get people
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: who are ardent fans of certain movies or whatever. People
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: are very sweet, and I do get recognized once in
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: a while. But I get usually what I call reverse recognition.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: If Will Smith pulls up to the gas pump and
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: gets out, someone's going to go, oh, my God, it's
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Will Smith. Huge movies are pumping gas. They're going to
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: flip out because they see him in the movies. If
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: they see me pull up to the gas pump, they
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: don't say shit. But then they go to the movies
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: and see me with Will Smith and go, that's the
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: guy from the gas station.
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: You don't get a lot of, wait, aren't you?
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute. I just saw him tanking up at
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: the shell.
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: Didn't you top off? You weren't supposed to be tanking up.
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: How did he get a movie?
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I'm going to fill up there more often.
• 19:50
  Speaker 6: I mean, in a way, that's the better way to
• 19:53
  Speaker 6: go in the long run. You don't have to put
• 19:55
  Speaker 6: up with near as much insanity as somebody in this
• 19:59
  Speaker 6: crazy high-end scale.
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: It's like they can't leave the house. They can't go
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: to get gas. They have to put fake.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Names on the call sheet.
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: They can't do anything.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Jim Carrey, when we were shooting The Majestic, had to
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: have a fake car to pick him up on one
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: block while he got in a real car on another
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: block just to be able to go home.
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: And that's your life.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: Every day.
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: And that's your life.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: That's insanity. It's like hiding. And I just went... You know,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the fame and the perks and the riches, yes, I'm
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: sure that would be great, but wow, what a price. Because,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: you know, I live in a tiny little hovel in California,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and I wouldn't want... paparazzi stationed outside, and I know
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: my wife wouldn't. She's not in the industry. You know,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: she likes her privacy, and I wouldn't want that. I
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: wouldn't want it.
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: Send her outside. Go in the back yard in the
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: bikini again.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: You know, airports are very good for my ego.
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: Well, that's, yeah, I mean, that is one of those.
• 20:53
  Speaker 6: You also, once you leave that area, like, you can
• 20:56
  Speaker 6: probably go to just about any other town, and you're fine.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: And I'm fine, but airports are very good for my ego,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: because there's a cross-section, and there's someone who goes... Wait
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: a minute. Are you an actor?
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: I've seen Spy Hard. Hold on a minute.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Spy Hard. Yeah, exactly. That was a little bookmark career.
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: Move for me. Yeah, that's breaking into the mainstream there.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Because I loved the Zucker Brothers-style movies. Yeah. And I
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: loved what was always going on in the background. Somebody
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: just doing something mental.
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, the genius.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: And I got to be that guy mixing drinks with
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: plastic beer rings and mittens and a blender. And so
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: that was, yeah, that came from doing a commercial. The
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: director had done a commercial. Yeah. And like all directors,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: during the commercial, he said, I'm going to be directing
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: a movie. Yeah. Okay, pal. You want to put me
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: in it? We all tell you. Yeah. Call me. I'll wait.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Wait by the phone. But sure enough, he did.
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: Credit to him. Were they still involved at that point?
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: Were the Zuckers still?
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: No, no. This was.
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: because they all kind of fell under their.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: This was using Leslie Nielsen.
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: He started doing a lot of those.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: They took him from the airplane movies and the police squad.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: I think Spy Hard was supposed to be another franchise
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: for him, but it wasn't quite good enough to make it.
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: Neither did Dracula Dead.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: No, but it used Leslie Nielsen, who was a lovely man.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: And Robert Guillaume. I got to watch them carry on
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: while I mixed my insane drinks in the background.
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: He's amazing in and of himself. What have you done
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: by that point?
• 22:35
  Speaker 6: But then, I guess, again, I was going to throw
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: out some of the bigger titles, but I guess anywhere
• 22:40
  Speaker 6: along the way, if you have a.
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: Good story, better story, feel free to throw me one.
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: Well, I was just like, again, you were talking about
• 22:46
  Speaker 6: doing the hardcore theater stuff, and then you end up
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: in state and main, so that's kind of this crossing
• 22:52
  Speaker 6: of both. You've got mammoth words, you've got mammoth directing...
• 22:56
  Speaker 6: And then you're.
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: Doing a full-fledged movie about movies, really.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: About movies, yeah. And so I had done, I had done,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine, during my Boston years, a friend
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: of mine, Jim Frangione, was starting a theater company, and
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: he was going to do a fundraiser. And he had
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: helped put together a big fundraiser night for Mamet, for
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Vietnam vets, called Sketches of War. And Mamet being Mamet,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: knew everyone who's everyone. And so Sean Penn, Al Pacino,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Christopher Walken, I mean, name it, they're showing up to
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: do readings and sketches and essays and whatever, what have you.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: So he and Mamet kind of got to know each other,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: and a little down the line, Jim wanted to do
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: a fundraiser for his own theater company, got in touch
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: with Mamet. and said, have you got some material? I'd
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: love to do some stuff. If you've got throwaways or
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: stuff you've never, and he went, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I've got some, yeah, sure, no problem. And he sent
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: him a giant sheaf full of material, like scenes cut
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: out of plays.
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: Just a phone book full of material.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Jim was like, oh my God, this is
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: like a treasure trove. So he starts putting this evening together,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: and he's calling us, like, hey, do you want to
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: be a part of this? And I'm like, yes, absolutely.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: And he puts out an ad that, That's supposed to
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: say an evening of David Mamet, right, at the New
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Orlick Theater, blah, blah, blah, and this and such a date.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: And they misprint the ad to say an evening with
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: David Mamet. Oh, damn it. And Jim, and it's in
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the paper. And Jim has a heart attack because he
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't want this to piss off David. He goes, look,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: it's a fucking typo, dude. I'm sorry. I'll issue a
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: thing right away. And Dave was like, no, no, I'll
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: be there. I'll show up. So Mammoth showed up and
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: offered to get on stage like twice, you know, to
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: like read a thing. And Allison Martin and I, who
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Larry Blemire fans will know from the Blemire films, we
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: read a sketch together called The Tesla Pitch or something
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: like that. And we had a blast doing it. And
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: it got huge laughs. And Mamet was just, like, enamored
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: of both of us. That's impressive. You're a funny fucker, man.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: You're funny. Yeah, you're fucking funny. So thanks, Dave. Thanks.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Tell someone important, which he loved, you know, because I just, like, immediately.
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: You're putting that on the headstone now, right? Here's my
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: quote from Mamet.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And years later, I was in New York, and
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: I literally bumped into Jim Frangione on the sidewalk. And
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: he was understudying Mamet's play Oleana off Broadway with Bill
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Macy and with Rebecca Pigeon. And Macy and Rebecca were
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: going to be leaving soon. And Mamet had offered Jim
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the part to take over. And they were looking for
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: an understudy. And Jim said, you want to understudy me?
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: You'll probably go on.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 26:10
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, I'll do that. And he said, great,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: because Dave already knows you. He won't even have to
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: read you because he hates coming into New York. I said, okay.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: And we did a mere formality because of equity rules.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: The stage manager, Carol, who was a former roommate from Boston,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: so I knew her going in. She said, just come
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: in and just get up on the stage and read
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: some stuff from the play. We have to do it.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: All right, I'm fine. So I did Oleana, and I
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: got to know Dave from that. And then Again, a
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: couple of years went by, and I'm living in L.A.,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: and I get a call from one of Dave's assistants saying, oh,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Dave would love for you to come to Massachusetts to
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: shoot this movie he's doing, State in Maine. You'd be
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: a bartender. But we can't fly you here. And I said, well,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I have the money. I said, what
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: if you just flew me coach? Okay, great. We can
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: fly you coach.
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: We can do that.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: And so I did, and that's how State in Maine happened.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: It's just like one thing– Does actually, with persistence, lead
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: to another.
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: Where you're like, I've already done a bartender.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: You just have to say, damn it.
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: Typecasting already.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Bartender for real, and I sucked at it.
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: So I was going to say, that's your fallback. You're like, look,
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: I've played a bartender.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I have played a bartender.
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: I have a professional.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I made mimosas with the expense of champagne, but still,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: I have been a bartender.
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: A professional pretend bartender.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: It's okay. It wasn't good. It wasn't pretty.
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: Well, you mentioned the lost skeleton. That's around that time
• 27:39
  Speaker 6: it kicks off. We've had Larry on the show.
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: I guess, what is your take? How did you get
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: involved that early stage?
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: The Boston years, going back to the Boston years, I had...
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I think it was before I hooked into the play
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Sheer Madness. So I was still bopping around, might have
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: still been working the day job, and.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: The word got out that Israel Harvitz was going to
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: be doing this play of his, a new play called
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Henry Lumper up at the Gloucester Sage Company. And the director,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: a guy named Gray, who got to know me through
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: other things, wanted me to come up and read to
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: be part of the ensemble. And so I did and
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: got in the play. And it was all these great,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: wonderful Boston actors that I really admired. They were really
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: some Really talented people up there. And I got to
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: be a part of that company. I was very excited.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: And one of the actors in the show, towards the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: end of the run, a guy named Eddie Yapchick, said,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: do you know this Larry Blemire guy? And I knew
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Larry's name because he had done plays with this other
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: company that got written up in the paper and he
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: was kind of getting attention as a writer. And he'd
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: done acting as well. I said, I know of him,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: but I don't know him. And he said, I was
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: doing this really effed up play called jump camp and
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: uh you should read one of the parts because you
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: i think you'd have a really good time i said
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: all right and i read this play it was deeply
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: disturbed it was just so it was just so badly
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: nuts and i loved it i just loved it i
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: said this is wrong and i have to be a
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: part of it and so i read the for the
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: one of the lead roles is a role named axel
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: uh and it's a bunch of uh a famed psychologist
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: takes a bunch of his case studies to a remote
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: town and lets them form their own society. And I
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: play Axel, who you think at first is the psychologist,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: and these are all his patients. It turns out the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: psychologist has to become one of the patients to hide
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: from me. And I'm like the worst psychopath of all
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: of them. And I'm just looking for an angle out.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: I want out. So I can go wreak havoc. And
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: it made like the 10 best list of every critic
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: in town and was just something I'm proud of to
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: this day. It was just terrific. What a cast of
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: all like local actors who were just all just extraordinary.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: And it was one of those bookmark experiences. And then
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Larry and I stayed really good friends well after I
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: moved to New York and including my moving to L.A.,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: And he had gotten a job with an internet startup
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and was coming to town. And I said, bring a screenplay, dude. Like,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: bring something. Adapt Jump Camp or bring something.
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, do something.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: And he said, and so he did. He brought Lost
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Skeleton of Cadaver. And then I pretty much cast it.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: And then we went to an old friend of his
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: for some money, like 70 grand. But this guy was
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: a software mogul. And that was the beginning of that.
• 30:57
  Speaker 6: I mean, do you, are you taken more with that
• 30:59
  Speaker 6: kind of thing? Because it's so, I mean, it's so
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: removed from doing super high end, you know, studio pictures,
• 31:07
  Speaker 6: like the love that goes into the stuff that Larry
• 31:10
  Speaker 6: puts together. And there's, you know, he has no money
• 31:14
  Speaker 6: to piece it together.
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: So, I mean, the fact that it's all built.
• 31:16
  Speaker 6: Around passion and love that like, I don't know, are those,
• 31:20
  Speaker 6: better for you in the in the grand scheme.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Well it's very telling that i went from shooting the
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: lost skeleton for you know a dollar and a bucket
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: of chicken uh to kpax which was a huge universal
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: movie yeah massive and as thrilling as it was to
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: work on kpax i can easily say i had much
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: more fun doing lost skeleton because it was a bunch
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: of friends it was like going on a picnic with
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: your friends.
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: Just hanging out and and and someone had.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: A camera and you get to do this goofy script
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: all the same time you know it was tremendous fun
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: it was really really a great time and we were
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: kind of all in the same boat together those.
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: Are kind of amazing when you get those earlier films
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: sometimes of filmmakers that really are just them and their
• 32:03
  Speaker 6: friends and again i just was doing a piece on
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: the the multiple maniacs which was john water in the early, early,
• 32:11
  Speaker 6: and it really is just him and his friends, and
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: they kind of came up with a basic plot, but
• 32:16
  Speaker 6: you're kind of just watching them hang out on.
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: A normal weekend, really, and doing horrible things.
• 32:22
  Speaker 6: So you do see those early films of guys that
• 32:25
  Speaker 6: just get enough gumption to.
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: Be like, oh, I'm also gonna make a movie, by
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: the way.
• 32:30
  Speaker 6: It sort of has a plot. Let's make this happen.
• 32:33
  Speaker 6: I think that stuff's always kind of fascinating to look at. Also,
• 32:36
  Speaker 6: just it capturing that time and place And that group
• 32:39
  Speaker 6: of people. And, like, it really does kind of just
• 32:42
  Speaker 6: give this little snapshot into that time.
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: Those were always fun.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: ¶ ¶.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Mr. Projectionist, stop the show. Here's great news you ought
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: to know. We've just got a shipment of taste-thrilled treats,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: all tip-top quality and delicious eats. There are hot dogs
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: and popcorn and candy galore. There are soft drinks and
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: coffee and a whole lot more. So direct your steps
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: to our refreshment stand to enjoy the finest snacks in
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: all the land. We're now on exclusive combat radio adventure
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: from the waterlogged adventure book of.
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: Big Dan Prater.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Hey, look, my pencil porter fits right inside this pie partner.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: His curious sidekick, Dutch the Swede Anacromby.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I think it might be the sock side. That thing
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: they always show on TV.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: And the always helpful Millie Healy, town librarian.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: You mean this candle mani is yours? This episode, Big
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Dan Prater and the Night of Presence Tent.
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: Music Keep organizing these fun conversations.
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: About film, and keep booking amazing guests.
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: So just go to patreon.com slash movie meltdown or go
• 34:43
  Speaker 6: to movie meltdown.com.
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: And the link is right there at the top of.
• 34:46
  Speaker 6: The page and you can help keep the show going.
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: Plus you get exclusive episodes every month just for club members.
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: So go to our Patreon page, join the meltdown club,
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: become a milk a tear, get.
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: Cool stuff and keep the meltdown rolling. Damn the man.
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: Save the meltdown.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: You don't know the lost skeleton of Kadabra, but you will.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: You will. Hi, this is Larry Blamire, also known as Dr.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Paul Armstrong, doing science for Movie Meltdown. What's part of
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: your problem?
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: You know, you haven't seen enough movies.
• 35:39
  Speaker 8: All of life's riddles are answered in the movies.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: And now, on with the show.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Um yeah larry had come to la and uh i
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: was the uh de facto casting director for lost skeleton
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: because uh larry had just arrived he had jennifer in
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: tow yeah his wife and uh and very little else
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: uh And so I had been here for, I'd been
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: in L.A. for, you know, a few years, and I'd
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: recommended first Alison Martin to play the role of Betty
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: because I didn't know to what degree Larry wanted to
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: go with Betty. And I knew Alison could have played it,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of straight and still silly or could
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: have gone full absurd. And it was decided that Betty
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: needed to be straighter and so I said okay Larry
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: you make that call you can tell Allison and I
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: had done a pilot a comedy pilot with Faye Masterson
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: and we had stayed really good friends and so I
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: said well you know what about Faye and Faye I
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: guess read for Miguel and for Larry and just you
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: know hit out of the park because Faye's great and
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: that pretty much nailed down the cast I said well
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Dan Conroy was an actor I got to know in
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: New York. We had done a show together, and his
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: nickname was America's Most Beloved Action Figure. And he came
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: in and just nailed Ranger Brad. Bob DeVoe, who plays
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the farmer, was an old friend from Boston. So Larry
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: flew him in just as a tribute to the old gang.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: And it just kind of fell together from there.
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 37:46
  Speaker 6: At the time, again, because you said it was just
• 37:48
  Speaker 6: sort of hanging out with friends, it's now become this
• 37:51
  Speaker 6: whole series and other spinoff movies.
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: Did you see all of that.
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: Coming from it in that first initial installment there?
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know if Larry would try
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: to make more movies. I didn't know if he would
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: make another skeleton movie until Skelly got distribution through Sony
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: TriStar and went on DVD. And then started showing up
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: on internet message boards all over the place of people
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: just totally getting it. And Larry also did a full
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: page of blurbs from virtually every major newspaper in the
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: country that had done a review of it. And all
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: of them just fantastic reviews. Like every critic just got it,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: you know, which is what you want.
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: Impressive.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: They got the joke. Completely got the joke. Um, and, uh,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: and so, you know, feedback was, was like pouring in, uh,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: not that Sony was paying any attention, but, but, uh,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: we were, and, uh, Larry, you know, came up with, with, uh,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: a sequel, and, um, he recruited Frank Dietz, uh, and
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Dave Scow to do a, uh, some, a cameo, um, but,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: you know, corralled most of the rest of us, Trish
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: got in the mix, Trish Geiger got in the mix, um,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: I was doing my other character's twin brother.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: Of course.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And et cetera, et cetera. And, yeah, they just
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: became so much fun. They really became tremendous fun.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: To do.
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: It is one of those, especially with something like that,
• 39:33
  Speaker 6: you either get it or you just don't. And it
• 39:36
  Speaker 6: did find this audience that's like, most people, again, it
• 39:39
  Speaker 6: won't click with them at all, but I remember one
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: of the first times that I think he came to this,
• 39:45
  Speaker 6: it was like the end of the day and this
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: couple comes rushing in And it was like the end
• 39:49
  Speaker 6: of the last day and he was about to close
• 39:52
  Speaker 6: up his table and they're like, oh, he made it.
• 39:54
  Speaker 6: And they had driven from like states away because they.
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: Found Larry was going to be here. And like, That
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: was it.
• 40:00
  Speaker 6: They just came in and they shook his hand for
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: like five minutes and then they walked out before I
• 40:04
  Speaker 6: even left.
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: And I was like, that was your entire trip was
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: just to like say thank you for making this movie.
• 40:10
  Speaker 6: Like they drove all the way here and like bought
• 40:12
  Speaker 6: a copy and had him sign it, shook his hand
• 40:14
  Speaker 6: and walked back out.
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: And I was just like, that's amazing.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: And, you know, one of the side effects is a
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: corollary effect, which was not intended, was that kids love it.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Just because it's so fake and so stupid.
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: It's still kind of very basic in the way that
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: we all latched onto stuff back in the originals that
• 40:33
  Speaker 6: he's kind of making fun of.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: And so we were pleased to know that it had
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: that crossover thing, that the whole family can watch Lost
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Skeleton for different reasons and laugh at different things.
• 40:45
  Speaker 6: Well then, again, kind of around that time when you
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: mentioned doing pilots and stuff, and this was one, especially
• 40:52
  Speaker 6: because you mentioned being fine with playing the neighbor of
• 40:55
  Speaker 6: the guy. When you get to a minute with Stan Hooper,
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: that was kind of coming in right on the edge
• 41:02
  Speaker 6: of the old school version of the way network sitcoms worked,
• 41:07
  Speaker 6: and kind of in their heyday. That 90s run where
• 41:11
  Speaker 6: actors were being paid astronomical.
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: Amounts of money, And they were still getting like, shoot.
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: Well, but I mean like the leads were like pulling
• 41:18
  Speaker 6: in the kind of money that they will never see again.
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: Like no show is ever going to get that again.
• 41:23
  Speaker 6: And the, and the shares that were coming in then
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: versus the like minute things that happened on TV.
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: Now, like it was the end of that.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: That was Norm, uh, McDonald to his credit really wanting.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Cause his, his favorite sitcom was the Bob Newhart show. Yeah. And, um, uh,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: And he really wanted to be, whereas most stand-up comics
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: who get a sitcom want to be the funniest thing
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: on the sitcom. And Norm said, no, I don't want
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: to be the center of attention. I want you to
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: surround me with funny people, and I'll be the reactor.
• 41:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Because they'll laugh at my reaction to it.
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: I mean, that's kind of what he does, isn't it?
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 42:00
  Speaker 6: Like, he's so deadpan in his comedy that you have
• 42:03
  Speaker 6: to kind of apply that.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: But he really, like, took that and ran with it,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: and he surrounded himself, you know, with just a cast
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: of small-town, you know, lunatics and you know I was
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: the butler who unlike Benson who hated being the butler
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: who was better than everyone I loved being the butler
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: and was a point of pride and when he wanted
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: me to stop being the butler I hated him for
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: it because he wouldn't respect my wanting to be the
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: butler so it's just a really fun twist on it
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: just you know just being merciless to him you know
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: and Norm loved it he just told the writers you
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: know keep having Gary just like insult me left and.
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: And that, well, I mean, that was such a great, like,
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: Fred Willard in there.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, having Fred in. Penelope Ann Miller, Garrett Dillahunt, Daniel Roebuck.
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: Daniel Roebuck, yeah. I was like, we've had him on, too.
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: And it was like, it was kind of like such
• 42:54
  Speaker 6: a weird group of people to, like, put together and, like, again,
• 42:57
  Speaker 6: in that weird end of the run of that era
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: of sitcoms.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: That was kind of cool.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: It was really. It was one of my favorite experiences ever.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: I wish, you know, every show I've done, the Bonnie
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Hunt show and Stan Hooper and Journeyman. I would have
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: stayed with any of them for a long run. I
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: just thought they were high-quality, great shows, and I'm proud
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: of all of them. I wish one of them had
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: lasted more than 13 episodes.
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, at this point, it's so hard to get any
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: of that stuff to work. And from that point.
• 43:32
  Speaker 6: On, that weird shift in TV that I'll get back
• 43:35
  Speaker 6: to you by the end, but I guess, again, just
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: sort of going through the timeline.
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: At that point, you're also getting to, again, I was
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: going to.
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: Go to Deja Vu just because it's Tony Scott. What was,
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: I mean, as far as was there dealing with him
• 43:50
  Speaker 6: or watching him work on set?
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: That was, yeah, that was very cool because it was
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the size of the role was such that I probably
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: under normal circumstances might have passed on it because I
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: was looking to try to do Just bigger stuff, you know,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: not star stuff, but at least bigger. But there was
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: a feeling from casting and from my agent that I
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: would stand a good chance of getting this. And it
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: would have been, you know, one big scene with Denzel,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: directed by Tony Scott. And I went, okay, there's no
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: downside to that. I said, I'm not going to get
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: rich off this, but I'll have a hell of a day. Yeah.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: And so I went for that reason and got cast
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: in it. And it was one of those great moments where, oh, man,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: that's awesome. I'm going to work with Denzel. God damn it,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be with Denzel. I can't suck now.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: You have to be really good because I so respect
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: him as an actor. I just think he's phenomenal. And
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: it was a fun day. Tony Scott was a benevolent madman.
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: That was his reputation.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a benevolent madman. and Denzel I got
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: him to warm up to me I cracked the ice
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: with Denzel I think he has kind of a shy
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: streak which a lot of actors have so I don't
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: begrudge them that but I had a great story because
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: I had done Catch Me If You Can with Tom
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Hanks and during Catch Me If You Can Hanks showed
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: up one morning it was a Friday morning and we
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: were talking and he said he was going to be
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: presenting at the upcoming Oscars which was the following Sunday
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: or Monday And I said, what are you presenting? He said,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: best actor. He said, one of the nominees is Denzel.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: And they did Philadelphia together. And Tom won the Oscar
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: for Philadelphia. And he said, I'm going to go, and
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I'm going to present, and I'm going to be packing heat.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: And I said, what do you mean, packing heat? He said,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: because if I read that card and it's anyone's name
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: but Denzel, I'm going to pick them off as they
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: come up the aisle until there's no one left. And
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I told Denzel that story, and he laughed and loved it.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: And so we had a really fun day as a result.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: We kind of clowned around a little and improvised here
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: and there.
• 46:09
  Speaker 6: I'm waiting to see that news report. Tom Hanks wrestled
• 46:13
  Speaker 6: to the ground at the Oscar like that. They really
• 46:17
  Speaker 6: installed the metal detectors after that year.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Hanks loses it.
• 46:21
  Speaker 6: You wouldn't really see that coming from the most beloved
• 46:25
  Speaker 6: man in America, Tom Hanks, loses.
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: His mind at the Oscars.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: Denzel Washington gives thanks on many levels.
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: He also provided bail that night.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very, very nice of him.
• 46:37
  Speaker 6: But, I mean, I did kind of skip over there.
• 46:39
  Speaker 6: I mean, Catch Me If You Can was huge, too,
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: like coming in. Working with Spielberg in that cast alone.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: That was a bookmark moment, that one. Because, you know,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: I hadn't met Spielberg. He doesn't attend the auditions. Because
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: they need to at this point. Me and Debra Zane.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: And she was great. You know, when a casting director
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: kind of goes the extra mile for the actor. She
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: was even helping me stage scenes. Because it took place
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: in a car. And rather than be over there, she
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: would position herself like we were in a car together.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: So I would kind of, you know, have the right
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: way to turn and everything. And just went in ready.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: And we did the scene a couple of different ways,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: a few different ways. And I left trying to, like,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: forget it and put it aside.
• 47:32
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: And we assume you have to do that every time, right?
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: You have to.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: You have to develop the thing. You have to just, like,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: go to lunch and just forget it because now it's
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: in the hands of, you know, others. And sure enough, man,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: it took, I want to say it took the better
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: part of a month to find out.
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: It's a huge production, yeah.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: It took the better part of a month. They had
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of casting to do. And I think they
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: had a board to keep. And I found out surreptitiously, actually,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: because I had... I had done a movie called The Majestic,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: and I had to go in for an ADR session.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: And Frank, I found out later, had shown a print
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: to Spielberg to get feedback. And it was after my
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: audition for Catch. They kind of collided, you know, the
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: end of Majestic, beginning of Catch. And they're both sitting
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: there watching it, and I pop up quite a bit
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: in The Majestic.
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: And Stephen apparently turned to Frank and said, that actor,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: he just read for me. Who is that? And Frank said, oh,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: that's Brian Howe. Yeah, he's great. And Stephen said, he's
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: got a great face, doesn't he? And Frank said, oh, yeah.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: And he's, you know, funny and blah, blah. Frank, you know,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: talks me up. And Spielberg thought a minute and went, Kirstie,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: cast Brian Howe as Earl Amdurski, like on the spot.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: He turned to his assistant and just said, cast him.
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: That's what you need.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: And Frank said he had to keep his mouth shut
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: all weekend long. He couldn't talk to me.
• 49:06
  Speaker 6: You just need to get Darabond to follow you around
• 49:08
  Speaker 6: everywhere you go.
• 49:09
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: And I found out, I think, that like Monday morning
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: or something. Just before I went in to ADR. And
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: I go in and Frank's looking at me just beaming. Like, well. So, yeah,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: that was kind of a Cinderella moment.
• 49:28
  Speaker 6: And then, I mean, Spielberg, as far as dealing with people,
• 49:31
  Speaker 6: I mean, once you get to witness these guys like
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: on set. how does it affect you like looking at
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: other directors or projects yourself when you're kind of watching
• 49:40
  Speaker 6: these guys work?
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, I, I just, I, I, I go
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: in in a state of trust, uh, whoever I'm working for,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: whether I know who they are or not. Um, I
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: just go in, in a, in a state of trust. Like,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: you know what you're doing. I'm going to come in
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: knowing what I have to do. Ding. Fries are up. Um,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: And I have to come in knowing my stuff. And,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: you know, and it's been a good run so far.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: I haven't encountered anyone. Stephen especially was... It was fascinating
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: to watch him work because no sooner did they decide
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: on what this shot was going to be, and he
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: would hand it over to Janusz Kaminski to set it
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: all up. Then Stephen, you know, most directors kind of
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: sit back and wait and, you know... make a phone
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: call or whatever. Steven would immediately head to another part
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: of the set with like a lens and start thinking
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: about the next set up. And then the one after that,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: like he would map out really like geographically on the set,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: what the angle was he wanted to get. And he,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: you'd see him like thinking about it while they're setting
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: up the, so always a step ahead.
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: And again, somebody just immersing themselves in the same thing
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: as you, showing up, knowing your stuff.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: Just know it. Just know what it is you want
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: to do. Have an idea ahead of time. And then
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: just stay busy. And it was an extremely fast shoot
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: for a big production. We shot fast. We had a
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: three-location day on that movie.
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: On that level, nobody ever does that.
• 51:22
  Speaker 8: No.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: No.
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: You're lucky to get one scene knocked out.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly. And we had three different locations. We had
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: a downtown, no, we had a house looking over downtown,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: a downtown print shop, and then a Santa Clarita, not
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: a Santa Clarita, San Pedro, a house up in San
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: Pedro somewhere.
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: That's great.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: And it was just like, it was like the biggest,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: like most lumbering independent film I'd ever been involved with,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: but They were ready, like strategically. They had trucks in
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: both places kind of ready.
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: I guess if you're, again, one step ahead of the game,
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: if you have.
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: Everything already laid out in your head and have people
• 52:03
  Speaker 6: that are ready to put it together.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: It was kind of amazing. It was kind of amazing.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: And it was just a tremendous amount of fun. And
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: my favorite boy-I'm-making-a-Hollywood-movie moment was in late March in Pasadena.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: shooting Christmas Eve on Long Island with real snow.
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: That's impressive put together.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: It was a balmy night, and they had snowmaking machines
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: up the block pumping through ducts real ground-up ice, like
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: real snow. Not Hollywood snow that goes in all directions.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Real snow that falls down to the ground and that
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: you slip in and make your feet cold. And I'm
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: going like, wow.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: This is Hollywood magic.
• 52:50
  Speaker 6: This is what I came to do.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: Pasadena in March.
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: Didn't know it, but this is what I.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: Came to do. It was Christmas Eve on Long Island.
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: Have a snowball fight.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: We could have.
• 53:02
  Speaker 6: Well, then, again, some of the bigger ones, and working
• 53:05
  Speaker 6: with different people, Pursuit of Happiness. I mean, that's, again,
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: Will Smith doing something kind of different at that point.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very different. Yeah. I don't know. That was kind
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: of just my... my luck at that time because Catch
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: Me If You Can was a diversion for Steven. Yeah.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: He'd come off five dark movies, you know, AI and
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Private Ryan and Schindler and AI and Uh, and you know, uh,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: several that were just, and, and catch me if you
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: can was like a piece of wedding cake.
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: I think it's still like, doesn't register to people. Like
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: when you're, they're naming off all the Spielberg, like nobody
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: goes to that one because it feels, especially that era,
• 53:47
  Speaker 6: it feels so different.
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: And it was a blast.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: He was having a blast making it. And I think
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: it shows up on the screen. I just, how light
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: and frivolous and great. And you know, it's, it's a,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: it's a wonderful movie.
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: And, uh, So Pursuit of Happiness is exactly opposite.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: And Pursuit of Happiness was the same for Will. And
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Gabriele Muccino, it was his first American film. Yeah. And
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: they charmed the mayor of San Francisco, so they got
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: to shoot in San Francisco and not another city posing
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: as San Francisco.
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: Pretending Toronto as San Francisco.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, which works like for one hill.
• 54:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: And so that was just tremendous fun. And Will really
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: made that film a joy. Will was just, he's such
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: a genuine, warm, nice guy. You know, he's affable, he's
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: total pro, didn't keep the set waiting, showed up, knew
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: his shit, took the notes, you know, and Gabrielli was
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: not fluent with English. He not only was fresh off
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: the boat, he had one foot still on it. So
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: he didn't understand a lot of words. He couldn't communicate well.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: And we mercilessly mocked him. We were merciless. He would
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: come up to us after a scene and go, that
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: was terrible. That was terrible. I see you acting. I
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: see you acting. It's fake. It's bad. And I'm sitting
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: next to Wilson. And Will's just taking it in stride.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: And he goes, I go, well, what do you mean, Gabrielle?
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: What does the scene need? What does it need more of?
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: And he would go, he would say, it needs more, more,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: and he didn't know the words. So we would start
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: filling in words. And I'd go, table? Does it need
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: more table? You know, and Will would go, lamp? What
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: is table? What is lamp? Magic? Health? Does it need
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: more health? And the crew was just dying behind him.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: And so that's how we got our revenge for his
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: rather indelicate criticism of our Of our work.
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: And then introducing Jaden into the business.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: This little boy.
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 56:03
  Speaker 6: Again, now he's become his own entity, but how was
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: he dealing with it that early on?
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: He was really cute. He was very funny. Will told
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: me a story that they were doing a scene at
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: the kitchen table, and they finished, and Jaden looked up
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: to him and said, Dad, that wasn't good. And he went, what?
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: I didn't believe you for a second. Just like really,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: really balls out honest, you know.
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: You need more table, Dan.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're doing too much acting.
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: You need more table.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: I've been talking with this guy over here. We decided
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: not enough lamp.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: It needs more health and table.
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: Definitely more table.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Less lamp. But that was a great experience. That
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. And it doesn't hurt to
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: have to be in San Francisco.
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: That's a particular perk.
• 56:53
  Speaker 6: I mean, that's one of those that changes so much.
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: How have you dealt with being on location versus occasionally
• 57:00
  Speaker 6: when you shoot in Los Angeles, but now that once
• 57:03
  Speaker 6: you get taken off to different cities?
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: I can say now that I'm older and married and
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: I have a house and two dogs. The bloom is
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: off the rose as far as the traveling goes.
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I would think eventually.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: I've become a bit of a homebody. I really like... uh,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: being at home and, and I, I would, I would
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: just as soon keep shooting in LA. Yeah. Uh, but
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of production in Atlanta and there's a
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: lot of production still in, you know, Toronto and Vancouver.
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: Atlanta's the new Toronto.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: And South Carolina and, you know, um, so, you know, it, it, I,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: I take it with mixed feelings when I'm told I
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: have a gig and I have to fly to one
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: of those places. I'm like, I wonder how often I
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: get to come home. Yeah.
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: I guess I'll take this job.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Well, at least I'll get per diem, you know.
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: Well, then one more of the movies, a more recent
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: being worked into Annabelle.
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: And then, to me, that's interesting because even the horror
• 58:04
  Speaker 6: franchises now have their own universe.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 58:06
  Speaker 6: The fact that it's part of, like, the Conjuring has
• 58:09
  Speaker 6: become such.
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: A huge ordeal now.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: So I guess what was it like being brought into
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: their universe?
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: It was really fun. I forget how that even came about.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know how that even came about. It might
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: have been an offer. Casting might have told production, look,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: I can get you Brian Howe to play Pete O'Malley.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: And it's a small part, but he'll do it. But
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: let's just offer it to him. He's terrific. Take my
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: word for it, whatever. And so it kind of just
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: came down the pike. And I thought, oh, you know,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: a horror. I haven't done an actual... serious horror movie.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: I've done the Blamire kind.
• 58:53
  Speaker 5: Those are very serious.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: But I haven't done an actual horror movie.
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: The characters think those are very serious.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: That would be fun, you know, and then I realized
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: it was part of The Conjuring and I loved The Conjuring.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: My wife and I both just like, wow, that's just
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: a good movie.
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: An old school kind of Hollywood movie. It's a good movie.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: That happens to be a horror movie. That's the key.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: And I just thought, well, this would be fun. And
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: it didn't look like it was going to be more
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: than a couple days. So I thought, you know, go
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: for it. Just have a blast. And I met Carrie O'Malley,
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: played my wife on that. And we've stayed fast friends
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: ever since. We're both in The Last Tycoon together coming
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: up on Amazon the end of July. And we've stayed
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: good friends ever since. And that was just fun. That
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: was just so much fun. I haven't been on the
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: set of a horror movie. And so I was just
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: taking mental notes the whole time. The atmosphere you yourself
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: have to create.
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: It's a different mode that, again, you have to deal with.
• 59:55
  Speaker 5: directors that get it and like if you if you
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: don't it can go horribly wrong.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: Right well john leonetti had been the dp on the
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: conjuring yeah and had worked with with uh james um one.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 6: He'd been a ton of director wasn't he like yeah
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 6: yeah huge because i remember looking at it.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: And so john had a you know he he had
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: it down he had a good feeling for it and
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: and what the suspenseful moments were and how to handle
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: them and all this stuff so um He was a
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: lot of fun to work with. He was fun. He
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: was excited when something went well and everything. He made
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: for a good set. He made for a really good set.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: So when it's a good experience, it makes all the difference.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 5: Do you buy into some of these horror concepts?
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 6: There are a lot of weird supernatural things in the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 6: Conjuring universe.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Are you?
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: On board with any of those? Or is it just.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Like, do I believe if they're real?
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 6: Again, there's so many weird levels to it, but I'm like...
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 6: Because I'm always like, I don't really know what's going on.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: So, like, when you see a movie that puts.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 6: It together so well that you're like, all right, maybe
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 6: I'm buying this for a minute now.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: I don't think I'm on board with haunted dolls. I
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: think I might.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 5: It does get very... Again, that's a very, like... movie
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: way to take it yes.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: It's it's you know it's a movie conceit you know
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: the conjuring is you know there's a bad spirit in
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: the house feels pretty real i think houses can have
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: you know bad mojo.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: They have horrible history sometimes yeah yeah.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Um and i think you know it only takes a
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: small step to kind of go okay but what if
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: that bad mojo really is kind of like a an organism.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: There's weird presences in this universe that I don't understand.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: I'm on board with that. And again, The Conjuring takes
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: that and kind of explodes it a bit. But so
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: well and so convincingly. I like the quiet, scary moments
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: when the camera's tracking with the character walking down a
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: hall and they go past a living room door. And
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: you see into the living room and there's a thing
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: standing in the living room, but they just keep going.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: And there's no music staff.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 5: There's nothing.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Nothing happens, but you just see this thing and you go, ah!
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: It's right there.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: Turn around.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Turn around!
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 6: If you're screaming at the horror movie, you're doing something
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 6: right or horribly wrong, but you're getting a reaction out
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 6: of people.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 5: That's what you're looking for.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: I love that. I love when someone just has a
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: good handle on it and knows how to toy with
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: you in that way. I'd rather a movie get under
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: my skin scare me with a boo. Boo movies are cheap.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 6: I mean, those can be well done, but it is
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 6: one of those, yeah, I'm always drawn more towards one
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 6: that they're just like dread.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a sustained level of dread.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 5: Or just a general creepiness.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: I'd rather have that than creeping down the hallway, and
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: the cat jumps out. Yeah. You know, and you jump
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: for a second.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: Those moments work for a second.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: That's not being scared, that's being startled.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: And they don't stick with you.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: And I can get that in traffic.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 6: A really unnerving movie, like, will stick with you for days.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 6: And you'll just be like, oh, I saw this the
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 6: other day, and let me now tell you to watch
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 6: it so you can suffer too.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 5: I don't want other people to feel this.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. Yeah.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 6: Again, I try to hit mostly movies, but then as
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 6: of late, and this was going to lead to kind
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 6: of a bigger question, I guess you've done a ton
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 6: of really impressive TV series and cable series, and so
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 6: looking through Justified and House of Lies and Masters of
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 6: Sex and even going into Vice Principals, so it's like
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 6: I keep asking this of just general people on the show,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 6: but it's more interesting when it's somebody who's done it.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 5: And because you've done old.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 6: Version TV too, like coming off of a big network
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 6: sitcom and then trying to look at the way things
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 6: are working. And just that span of, you know, 10,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 6: 15 years, the entire industry has.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 5: Kind of changed. So for you, I mean, coming from
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 5: a side of working on it, what.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 6: Do you think of the way that the series is
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 6: now turned and how.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: It's affecting the film world and what's being made?
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 6: And, what used to be TV and how it's kind
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 6: of struggling to keep up too.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, broadcast TV still has some lessons to learn.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: They're still dealing with an old paradigm.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 5: They don't seem to notice the change. Like there still
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 5: seems like there's executives just.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 6: With that same map from 1996 trying to put a
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 6: show together.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 5: I'm like, but you can't do that anymore. The world
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: is different.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: And I'm becoming just my wife and I as viewers are,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: Are becoming just less and less interested in the procedural
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: because they're just that. And we're more tuning into, you know, FX. Yeah.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: Because FX is like the HBO of basic cable now.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: They've got amazing shows on that channel.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: How to tell a big story.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 6: Like that's what these new– and like Netflix series and Amazon.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 6: Like all of them are like, okay, let's just make
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: a 16-hour movie versus– The network shows are still doing that.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: 44 minutes, we've got to knock out the story. It's
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 5: got to be done.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God, a crime happened and it's solved.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 6: There's a little bit of carryover for the characters from
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 6: one week to the next.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: But for the most part, we've knocked out the story.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: We're done.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: That's true, yeah. Again, I feel like it still gets
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: network numbers.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 6: I feel like it's the older audiences, but I feel
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 6: like new audiences have gravitated.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: And I feel like that's going to die.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, there's a major shift coming. No, it's palpable.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: You know, look, I'll take a gig anywhere. And I
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: don't want to get into the weeds about my union's
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: negotiations with these entities and how they're still dealing with
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: basic cable as new media. Let's not go into that
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: because that's frustrating. But it's exciting in that from a
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: purely technical day-to-day point of view, You used to have
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: to bank on getting a job on a TV show
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: between January and March. That was pilot season. And if
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: you didn't get something then, it was a long summer
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: because then you had to wait until production started in
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: July and August. to even get guest star roles on
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: those shows. And you had a long-ass time to wait.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: Figure out how to keep your finances.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: So you had to get either a show or a
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: movie or something. And when you didn't, it was going
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: to be a long slog. Now, yes, there's still kind
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: of a pilot season. But if you don't get something
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: in that period, you're nowhere near done. Because shows come
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: and go. They begin and end in the summer. Summertime
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: is not dead TV anymore. There's brand new shows that
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: crop up. Game of Thrones is a summer show, and
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: it's amazing.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 6: And you don't necessarily wait around to see if the
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 6: show gets picked up, especially like Netflix.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 5: They've knocked out 16 episodes already. And they're already there.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: You can go watch them now.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 5: So it's not like waiting.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 6: Four episodes to see if they're going to green light
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 6: six more.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, Spacey and who was it, David Fincher?
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: On House of Cards went to pitch the show to
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: Ted Sarandos at Netflix and did not expect him to say,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: just make 10.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 5: Go make the whole series.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: Here, just make 10. Because they thought it would be
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: a pilot and green light and blah, blah, blah. And
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: he sat there and listened to them both. And he's
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: not an idiot.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: And so he went, yeah, sounds good, sounds good.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 5: Here, here's money. Considering who you are, I'm going to
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 5: throw some money at you.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: Go make all 10, and when you're completely done, we'll
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: throw them all up on the service and people can just,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: you know. And those two just kind of went, okay.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: We weren't expecting that. And that, in a heartbeat, that
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: changed everything. So it's very exciting for that reason. in
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: that it means more often during the year I can
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: get up for a job. So that's great. It's a
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: new paradigm in terms of residuals and all that financial
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: actor talk. There have to be some changes made as
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: far as that goes too, number of downloads or whatever.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 5: As a viewer, how are you taking it? Oh, I'm
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 5: loving it.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, how can you not love it? It's
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: a new golden age of television.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 5: My complaint every week on the show is... There's so much.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: I can't.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: I don't have time. There's too many good things. I can't.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 5: Especially now.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: What a great complaint to have. I guess.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 6: But that's still why I end up coming back to
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 6: movies so much because I'm like, at least in two
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 6: hours I can knock this out.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 5: But they just drop a whole new season of this.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: I'm like, good Lord. Where do I fit in 10 hours?
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 5: I can't do it.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 6: So it is an undertaking now that I guess people
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 6: just want– I've heard that recently, too. They talk about
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 6: how like the new audiences have no attention span and
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 6: YouTube has killed it.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 5: I'm like– I don't buy that.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 6: But the other side of that coin is they want
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 6: 16 hours continuously of this new show.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: People are sitting for 10 hours and watching the show.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 6: Because they have to wait another year for the next
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 6: season to come out.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: Clearly, the attention span's okay.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 5: But there's no middle ground anymore. We'll complain because we
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 5: don't want to wait week to week to watch a
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 5: new thing.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: I want another 10 hours now.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: I want my new series now.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: No, I'm loving it. I think it's a new golden
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: age of TV. It's very exciting. It's a very exciting time.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't show signs of... No. Of waning.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 6: It's kind of picking up more and more. Just when
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 6: you think it can't get bigger, another.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: Six new shows show up.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: Because creative people are now being encouraged.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: Because they don't have to put it all in a pilot.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: That may or may not hit the notes you want.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: They can now, you know, expand it. They can now
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: just go in and give a hell of a pitch
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: and go, you know, give us six episodes. You know,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: give us, you know, ten.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 6: My other question is, do you think it's, hurting or
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 6: eventually going to really put a hurt on film I
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 6: mean I think it's definitely already changed the way that
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 6: studios make big budget films so because there's no middle
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 6: ground on that either now it's you got you know
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 6: maybe a million dollar indie and a 40 to 200
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 6: million dollar tentpole and like that's it those like middle
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 6: of the road stuff don't get greenlit.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: Now not to sound selfish or anything But when I
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: start booking more giant tentpole.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 5: Movies, I'll feel bad for them.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: I didn't say there were a lot of them.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 5: I said there were.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not worried. That's what they're doing. When I get
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: to do an Iron Man, we'll talk. But I'm not
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: in any of those.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 5: I feel like it's changing everything, though. Just the way
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 5: that people are approaching stuff. If I have... a good
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 5: story instead of making this little indie movie, I'm going
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 5: to go pitch it as this like 12 episode run
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 5: over here.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: And like, Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 6: I think it's changing the way even filmmakers are approaching
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 6: their concepts now is like, it would have, you know,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 6: a couple of years ago been an indie movie, but
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 6: now I'm like, I can probably get this green.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But by the same token, you can make your
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: little indie movie and not depend on Sundance.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's true.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: You can show it to Amazon. You can show it
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: to Netflix, post it on your own page. And there
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: it is. Yeah. And millions of people are seeing it
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: at their leisure. You're not constrained by weekend box office
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: and all that nonsense. If you just want to get
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: your film distributed and seen, it'll still get reviewed. It'll
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: still get awarded if it earns it. So I think
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: it's done more good than harm in terms of that.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: Nothing for me will ever be better than going to
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: the movie theater and seeing a movie.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 5: I'm glad I don't think it's going away. I think
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: it's just changed the way it works now.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting that what's happening now happened in the
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: 50s when TV started to threaten movies. They started doing
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: CinemaScope and 3D, and that's exactly what they're doing now.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 6: How many plates can we spin to bring you in
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 6: over here?
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 5: Look at all this.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: Easy chairs with power recliners.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 5: That just makes it easier for me to go to sleep.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 5: You're not helping me.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: You better make the movie good because I'm napping if
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: I get bored.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 6: Well, then of that golden age of television, I was
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 6: going to let you kind of round out with Westworld.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 6: I mean, that's one that you've gotten a lot of
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 6: acclaim for.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: And that's, you know, that's like, that's the zygote cell
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: because it's such an exception.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Because there's such smarts behind it, which I don't think
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: anybody expected. Yeah. I think everybody thought, oh, every day,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: you know, every week a new robot will go crazy,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: you know, and that'll be it.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 5: Not enough Yul Brynner. That's my complaint.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: Well, he showed up. He was in the background of
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: one of the shots down in the basement. Want more
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: Yul Brynner? A little tip of the hat. Yeah, very
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: exciting to be just even a part of something as
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: huge and awesome as Westworld. That was something I didn't
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: see coming.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: It was the hardest work I've done on a show.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: Hours were long. Temperatures were torturous. Facial hair was not fun. And,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: you know, just like really itchy. And, you know, being
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: scalped was, although it didn't appear on camera in the pilot,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: you see the aftermath of it, but you don't see
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: the actual scalping.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 5: But it was fun, I'm sure.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: It was tremendous fun. Blood all over the place. It
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: was great. Yeah, and, you know, it's always fun when effects,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: when you're in something that involves effects, when they're practical.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: Because Jonah Nolan really wanted to go that route. Yes,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: there is some CGI. There has to be some. Yeah.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: But we're not staring at tennis balls most of the time.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: Most of the time it's something that's really there. You know,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: when I glitch out in the pilot and half of
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: my face is still and the other half of my
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: eyeball is rolling around... That's all really me doing that,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: but it's because there's an optical plate.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: And they shot me doing nothing for 30 seconds. And
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: then they shot me with a fly wrangler putting a
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: fly on my face. And a lot of people don't
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: understand that's a real fly really on my face. They go, no,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: all the flies are real.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 5: It says real. You can feel it.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then they said, move your eyes around and
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: look for the fly. And then they just split the
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: frame so that one eyeball is rolling. It looks so wrong.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 6: I think that's, again, back to that last question, I
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 6: think maybe that's where we're going and maybe that's like
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 6: the most hopeful thing coming out of all of these
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 6: different projects is I see them all kind of working
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 6: in tandem because you see how many things are a
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 6: TV series made from a movie. And now we see
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 6: like there's this weird thing of then they'll take movies
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 6: and turn them into big Broadway shows.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 5: So it's like we're watching it.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: Westworld, the musical.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 6: Well, and then the Broadway show, because I was just
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 6: talking about the Dirty Dancing, and then the Broadway show
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 6: becomes a TV movie again.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 5: So it becomes this vicious cycle of kind of stealing
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: from ourselves.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, these self-consuming hybrids.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 6: So if we take anything, it's like we'll take whatever
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 6: you want and just do.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 5: Something good with it.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 6: I hope that's what comes from this is like, We're
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 6: blurring the lines so much, but as long as we
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 6: find something good in the mirror and just kind of
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 6: do whichever project you want, whatever kind of thing you
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 6: want to make with it.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 5: So I think that that's our hope. That's what we
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 5: can take.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I agree.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 6: Well, I guess, first off, thanks for being on. And second,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 6: what's the best way for people to watch what you've
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 6: got coming?
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 5: Do you have new projects to push other than these
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 5: we've mentioned?
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter, at BrianHowActor.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: Because at Brian Howe was taken by the former lead
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: singer for Bad Company.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 5: Well, I was going to talk about all your songwriting next.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: Songwriting.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 6: Your stage persona, you know.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that, the Twitter account, and if I could throw
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: in a plug for the Adventures of Big Dan Frater.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: By Larry Blemeyer, available on iTunes. The audio adventure book
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: of Big Dan Frater Volume 1.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 5: That should win you over right there.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: And that's all of us actors doing very silly Big
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: Dan Freighter adventures. If you don't know who Big Dan
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: Freighter is, they're in a little scene, Larry Blemmer, a
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: movie called Trail of the Screaming Forehead.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 5: Again, just the title alone needs to win you over.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: I needed, I had to have a big, long, clumsy title.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 5: Well, see, it works.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: And it's, you know, an hour and 15 minutes. Riotous
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: Blimeyer content for a mere $ 5. There you go.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 5: That's your plug right there.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: There you go, my friends.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 5: All right. Well, thank you for being here. It's been great.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me. I'm so glad I
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: did this. It was great fun.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 5: Definitely. Thank you, man.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: And thank you, Wonderfest, for having all of us.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 5: As wonderful as it always is. So show up next year,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 5: all of you.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: Excellent. Sayonara.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 5: Yes, Brian's right.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 6: A big thank you to Wonderfest for not only bringing
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 6: Brian and I to the same place at the same time,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 6: which is kind of handy under these circumstances, but also
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 6: for letting me hang around and be involved in the
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 6: show all weekend long. Again, that is wonderfest.com to find
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 6: out more about them, follow them online, and plan to
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 6: join in next year. And while you're at it, go
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 6: follow Brian on Twitter, because as you heard, he's a
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 6: pretty great guy. And tell him you heard his stories
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 6: on Movie Meltdown.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 5: Speaking of that.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 6: Very show, that about does it for this week's episode.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 6: We will be back at Wonderfest in the near future,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 6: as well as some other awesome episodes already.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 5: In the works. But until then, we will return next time,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 5: same geek feed. Thanks for listening.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 8: Could never be what they want him to be He's
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 8: stranger than fiction And he's got the past, he's a mystery.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 5: He's got ambitions.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 7: And there's always been a mountain to climb And.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 5: This one's just higher But it shows no fear.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: It's just a matter of time. You know he's always.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: Been a fighter.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: There's no need.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 4: To ask him why. Yeah, you can see it in
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: his eyes.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 6: Shouldn't fight.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 4: And no one should fight in it.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: Let the.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 4: Borders break, no, no And here we'll fight for the
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 4: powers above Till the world knows his name Till they
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 4: know his name.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 8: He knows what he's feeling inside He's burning with passion
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 8: There's only.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: One way out He's.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 8: Gotta get that right He wants to go straight.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 7: To the action Sometimes it seems so long But his
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 7: passion is so strong We'll see you next time.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 6: Bye.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: Had to bring the laptop.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 6: Oh, yeah.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: It's Frank Dietz that's sending me a text, for those
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: of you wondering why I'm mumbling incoherently.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: edited by The Oddity Studios, with opening music performed by
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 3: the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: Talk hard!
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 5: This program is a proud member of the Battleship Pretension Fleet.