Latest / Untraditionally Lala / and Ben Mankiewicz
Transcript
- 0:13Speaker 1: Well, hello, gorgeous, we are back at it again.
- 0:17Speaker 2: Give them la la with rample.
- 0:19Speaker 1: Dude, exciting things today.
- 0:23Speaker 2: Well, first of all, it is a season finale. Vander
- 0:26Speaker 2: Pomp has happened. Yes, it's over. Let's just take a
- 0:29Speaker 2: minute and celebrate that. You just rock twenty episodes of
- 0:33Speaker 2: vander Pump Rules. Yes, yes, Okay, Now I'm gonna interview
- 0:40Speaker 2: you for a second. Okay, how do you feel about
- 0:43Speaker 2: your season?
- 0:44Speaker 1: I feel absolutely epic. You don't, yeah, because like you know,
- 0:49Speaker 1: here's the thing, and I'm going to really make this
- 0:52Speaker 1: short and sweet.
- 0:53Speaker 2: You get the hands up, so I definitely think it's
- 0:55Speaker 2: gonna be It's going to be intense.
- 0:58Speaker 1: For me, vander Pump Rules is very much real life, correct,
- 1:03Speaker 1: that's our real lives correct. However, the show is one
- 1:07Speaker 1: hour long. It is a produced show. So for me,
- 1:11Speaker 1: when I have my freakouts or my meltdowns, or I
- 1:14Speaker 1: have a really great scene, like however I feel about it,
- 1:17Speaker 1: I disconnect because I'm like, if I take this home
- 1:21Speaker 1: with me, I'll crawl into a hole.
- 1:23Speaker 2: No, first of all, we'll back up years before when
- 1:27Speaker 2: we first started dating. You did take this shit home
- 1:29Speaker 2: with you, and it was World War three. Right, what
- 1:32Speaker 2: I'm most proud of is that it really is your
- 1:35Speaker 2: real life and it kind of all blends together. But
- 1:37Speaker 2: I think that when you have tough scenes where it
- 1:40Speaker 2: gets like a little tough for you, I think you're
- 1:42Speaker 2: able to disconnect.
- 1:43Speaker 1: Now, well, you have to. And when I watch it,
- 1:46Speaker 1: when I have to like relive it, I sit there
- 1:48Speaker 1: and I'm like, fuck, this is entertaining, you know, like wow,
- 1:53Speaker 1: look at me go And then I know when it's
- 1:56Speaker 1: like great and I should probably apologize. But in order
- 1:59Speaker 1: for me to maintain like sanity, I have to just
- 2:03Speaker 1: look at it and be like, damn, that's so entertaining,
- 2:06Speaker 1: Like we did a great job. You know. That's how
- 2:08Speaker 1: you have to look at it. Are you gonna freak out?
- 2:10Speaker 2: Well, now that Astas calls me a Bravo leberty, I'm
- 2:13Speaker 2: gonna say that I just had a season vander promp
- 2:15Speaker 2: as well, so I have something to contribute. I after
- 2:18Speaker 2: my first scene coming out of the gate how to
- 2:21Speaker 2: let it go too, because I felt that they made
- 2:24Speaker 2: me look like I am the only person eating at
- 2:26Speaker 2: that dinner when I had a double chicken.
- 2:28Speaker 1: Sandap Oh, wow, you're really throwing it back to like
- 2:30Speaker 1: episode four.
- 2:32Speaker 2: I only had like two episodes the whole season, so
- 2:34Speaker 2: let me just revel in my one. First of all,
- 2:36Speaker 2: I didn't order two chicken fucking sandwiches. And second of all,
- 2:39Speaker 2: I'll order two more again. And by the way, y'all
- 2:42Speaker 2: ate two? Why was it only me? Why was it
- 2:44Speaker 2: only Randall?
- 2:45Speaker 1: Because it's because it's entertaining, Like that scene there memes about.
- 2:49Speaker 2: It, there's like slow motion to be eating chicken sandwiches.
- 2:51Speaker 1: Which keep in mind, I ordered like five dishes. Right wait, wait,
- 2:55Speaker 1: by the way, you when I know production is paying,
- 2:57Speaker 1: I'm like, bring them out, bring them out, give me
- 3:00Speaker 1: all the goodness.
- 3:00Speaker 2: Off the way you you jacks, you Jacks and Brittany
- 3:04Speaker 2: or multiple dishes and I was a slow motion chicken
- 3:07Speaker 2: sandwich heater. It's bunch of bullshit. I also want to
- 3:09Speaker 2: say that the end of the season was.
- 3:12Speaker 1: Very Yeah, why are you asking me how I feel
- 3:13Speaker 1: about it? How do you feel about it? Your first
- 3:16Speaker 1: your first time ever appearing on Vanner Pump Rules, which
- 3:20Speaker 1: I literally told everybody that will never happen.
- 3:22Speaker 2: Never the way I told everybody will never happen.
- 3:24Speaker 1: And not only did it happen, your manipulator, absolutely, I
- 3:27Speaker 1: do reality TV. No one is safe.
- 3:30Speaker 2: And you also you also gave me that bullshit when
- 3:32Speaker 2: you're like, you know, this is my real life and
- 3:35Speaker 2: like we need to show this side. And I said,
- 3:37Speaker 2: you know that's not happening, he said, and then you
- 3:39Speaker 2: gave me that look like give me right now. And
- 3:41Speaker 2: then I folded like a like a like a like
- 3:42Speaker 2: a you know, just fold it.
- 3:44Speaker 1: Fold is like an envelope, licky lick, throw a stamp
- 3:47Speaker 1: on it, deliver it to Vanner pump rules.
- 3:49Speaker 2: But I will tell you I didn't film a lot.
- 3:51Speaker 2: Obviously I didn't.
- 3:52Speaker 1: You didn't, but it was hardcore. You had a scene
- 3:55Speaker 1: with James Kennedy. You're like, not only am I going
- 3:57Speaker 1: to film now, I'm going to have a scene one
- 3:59Speaker 1: on one with James.
- 4:00Speaker 2: Now, hold on a second. I got trapped. They call
- 4:03Speaker 2: me your little producers for they're big producers, but your
- 4:06Speaker 2: big producers call me. They said, will you show up
- 4:08Speaker 2: at the at the season finale? And they said, there's
- 4:10Speaker 2: no reason for me. I'm not relevant to this. I'm
- 4:12Speaker 2: just going to stay home let Lalla do her thing.
- 4:14Speaker 2: They said, no, no, no, you got to be there
- 4:16Speaker 2: for her. It's a last night. We're going to celebrate.
- 4:18Speaker 2: It's a big party. So I come, I get wasted.
- 4:22Speaker 2: I'm having the time of my life. And by the way,
- 4:24Speaker 2: I bring Emma, Martin Scorsese's partner, so she and she's
- 4:28Speaker 2: a fan girl of the show. So she's going crazy
- 4:30Speaker 2: taking selfies and we're having the best time. So I
- 4:34Speaker 2: think this is easy. They're focused on you, guys. I'm
- 4:37Speaker 2: over in the corner with Emma drinking, and all of
- 4:39Speaker 2: a sudden, I get a little tap tap and they say,
- 4:42Speaker 2: when will you come over here for a second. We
- 4:43Speaker 2: just need to shoot one little thing with you. I
- 4:45Speaker 2: was like, oh, this is a good bye randal or
- 4:46Speaker 2: something like that, or maybe they want me to eat
- 4:48Speaker 2: a chicken sandwich again. Long story, short, long story, Well,
- 4:51Speaker 2: I was going to order chicken sandwich. I thought they'd
- 4:53Speaker 2: want a slow motion shot. So they bring me over
- 4:55Speaker 2: and there's James. They say, James wants to say something.
- 4:58Speaker 2: You know. I'm like, these fucking people are good. They
- 5:01Speaker 2: are so but but having said that, now I'm going
- 5:04Speaker 2: to be the serious side. James was sober, and he
- 5:08Speaker 2: came over to me and he was beyond sincere and
- 5:10Speaker 2: very genuine, and it was so endearing and he said,
- 5:14Speaker 2: you know, I want to apologize for all the things
- 5:16Speaker 2: I said and did. It wasn't in my right state.
- 5:18Speaker 2: It doesn't make it okay. I will you, you know,
- 5:22Speaker 2: forgive me. And I said, dude, that is such a
- 5:24Speaker 2: big step and a big so big of you to
- 5:27Speaker 2: do that. Of course I am. I know my fiance,
- 5:30Speaker 2: you know, and you are very good friends, and I
- 5:32Speaker 2: want to have the same friendship. And the fact that
- 5:35Speaker 2: you did this is so honorable and I I forget,
- 5:40Speaker 2: know and I forgive. And you know what since then,
- 5:43Speaker 2: he since he's been our podcast and we text each
- 5:46Speaker 2: other here and there, and it's like, you know what,
- 5:48Speaker 2: he has come so far, and you know, life is
- 5:51Speaker 2: about forgiveness. You know we've done We've forgiven each other
- 5:54Speaker 2: for shit, and we forgive people for doing things to
- 5:57Speaker 2: us that maybe, you know, aren't the kindness. And at
- 6:00Speaker 2: the end of the day, I'm glad I went to
- 6:02Speaker 2: that party. I'm glad I went to that final taping
- 6:05Speaker 2: or filming, whatever you call it. And it was very sweet.
- 6:08Speaker 2: And I watched the episode, which I don't watch a lot,
- 6:10Speaker 2: you know, and the ending was exciting. It was like
- 6:14Speaker 2: music and that exit and Jackson Lisa going at it.
- 6:18Speaker 2: I loved it.
- 6:19Speaker 1: We broke the fourth wall on vander Pump Rules, Like
- 6:23Speaker 1: Jax goes crazy and he's talking to Lisa vander Pump
- 6:25Speaker 1: and he's like, this is my show, and she just
- 6:28Speaker 1: was like, oh, it's your show, vander Pump Rules, that's
- 6:32Speaker 1: my name. Like it was crazy. It was amazing, the
- 6:36Speaker 1: first finale episode I've ever like got intery.
- 6:41Speaker 2: Oh when you watched it.
- 6:42Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was really sweet.
- 6:44Speaker 2: I loved it. I love the music. I loved how
- 6:46Speaker 2: each person or each couple kind of or each cast
- 6:48Speaker 2: member walked out.
- 6:49Speaker 1: Hold on. I have a really fun fact though. So
- 6:52Speaker 1: that night, Danica gets into a little scuffle with like
- 6:56Speaker 1: this new person that hooked up with Max. Her name's Kara,
- 7:01Speaker 1: and Danica shoves Kara, and Danica spills her wine on
- 7:05Speaker 1: my outfit okay, And in the interview process, they wanted
- 7:10Speaker 1: me to talk about the outfit because in their mind
- 7:13Speaker 1: it was like some fabulous outfit.
- 7:15Speaker 2: Okay.
- 7:15Speaker 1: I was like, I'm not going to talk about it
- 7:17Speaker 1: because that outfit costs me all of like maybe a
- 7:19Speaker 1: hundred bucks for the whole thing, So like we're not
- 7:22Speaker 1: talking about no big deal, you know. The throat in
- 7:25Speaker 1: the wash. It's all good exactly like I come. I'm
- 7:30Speaker 1: a pretender. People think I'm a bougie bitch, but hell no,
- 7:34Speaker 1: I am scrolling the internet for a good deal. What's happening?
- 7:37Speaker 2: Sorry?
- 7:39Speaker 1: Wow, Randall, are you for real?
- 7:44Speaker 2: No? I was trying to do something.
- 7:46Speaker 1: Pull it together. Yeah, hold on, get it to the chorus.
- 7:53Speaker 2: It's coming.
- 7:56Speaker 1: Turn it to the chorus. It's coming, It's coming. We
- 8:03Speaker 1: free hold. I wait for every young boom. You know that.
- 8:24Speaker 3: The best day your glasses, Hi, this one's for you
- 8:34Speaker 3: soon night, dude.
- 8:38Speaker 1: It did make me happy. It did make me happy.
- 8:41Speaker 1: You know what, we are fucking young, wild and free man. Yeah, well,
- 8:46Speaker 1: we may have birthdays that make us older. You guys
- 8:49Speaker 1: are young, You're young, wild and free. To age is
- 8:52Speaker 1: just a number. I don't believe in celebrating a birthday
- 8:55Speaker 1: to be like a year older. It's like, no, we're
- 8:57Speaker 1: celebrating this day because without it, I will an exist.
- 9:00Speaker 2: I got to tell you eight years.
- 9:01Speaker 1: So you're freaking welcome.
- 9:03Speaker 2: You know eight years you were on this show so far?
- 9:06Speaker 1: Only five I've completed five seasons.
- 9:08Speaker 2: But the show eight years what an epic run so far?
- 9:10Speaker 2: And I know you guys are going to go into
- 9:11Speaker 2: your ninth season, so I get I got to give
- 9:13Speaker 2: you this episode.
- 9:14Speaker 1: I love that you said you know that we're going
- 9:16Speaker 1: into our ninth season, because we don't know that yet.
- 9:18Speaker 1: But put it into the universe. I speak it.
- 9:20Speaker 2: I know you are good, not if when when your
- 9:24Speaker 2: ratings are good, you're going another season.
- 9:26Speaker 1: It was definitely epic, and you know, the just the
- 9:29Speaker 1: cast when I watch them. Some like to blame editing,
- 9:33Speaker 1: which is fine, but it's like if we all just
- 9:36Speaker 1: looked five star like, we wouldn't be eight seasons in,
- 9:39Speaker 1: you know, so just be like, thanks for making a
- 9:42Speaker 1: great scene, even though I look like an asshole. Put
- 9:44Speaker 1: it out. Mention it all, mention it all.
- 9:47Speaker 2: Oh you got the hands up fire today? Holy shit,
- 9:51Speaker 2: I am Yesterday you were like in a hole. Today
- 9:53Speaker 2: you're like, boom, she's away.
- 9:55Speaker 1: Boom baby, Bring on the virtual reunion. I'm about to
- 9:58Speaker 1: slay these hosts. Just kidding a lot at the reunion. Okay,
- 10:01Speaker 1: I cried a lot, a lot of apologies.
- 10:04Speaker 2: O question, what was your favorite moment of vander Pump
- 10:08Speaker 2: this season and your worst moment of vander Pump this season? Oh,
- 10:12Speaker 2: by the way, don't feel like any pressure to say
- 10:15Speaker 2: me being on the show, but go ahead.
- 10:16Speaker 1: That was definitely a highlight. Having you on the show
- 10:19Speaker 1: was a highlight because we got to hang out all summer.
- 10:21Speaker 1: It was awesome, which usually we don't get to do that.
- 10:23Speaker 1: But I think that, yeah, what else besides me, I'm
- 10:26Speaker 1: gonna get cheesy again. I think the highlight of this
- 10:28Speaker 1: season was just being so clear and aware and waking
- 10:33Speaker 1: up and not feeling guilty about anything I had done,
- 10:35Speaker 1: you know, being sober. Completing a season of reality TV,
- 10:39Speaker 1: which can be a nightmare. I completed that shit.
- 10:41Speaker 2: Sober and I give you mad props for that.
- 10:44Speaker 1: Thank you, babe.
- 10:45Speaker 2: I agree with you and I support that answer. I
- 10:48Speaker 2: love it. And what was the what was the worst moment?
- 10:51Speaker 2: Because I don't even know what your worst moment was,
- 10:53Speaker 2: So what was the worst moment?
- 10:55Speaker 1: The worst moment was the way I treated Raquel, for sure,
- 10:59Speaker 1: Like there are a few things that when I watch
- 11:01Speaker 1: I'm like, don't regret it that it was like, oh,
- 11:06Speaker 1: can someone please muzzle you? Like you know, but it
- 11:11Speaker 1: is what it is like again silver Lining. People were entertained.
- 11:15Speaker 1: They had an opinion whether it was good or bad.
- 11:17Speaker 1: People had an opinion.
- 11:19Speaker 2: By the way, that's what makes you, in my opinion,
- 11:22Speaker 2: why your show is so successful is all of you
- 11:24Speaker 2: have this thing that happens and then everybody just you know,
- 11:30Speaker 2: has an opinion because you drive people and what you
- 11:32Speaker 2: guys do.
- 11:33Speaker 1: Yeah, when people when people write me crazy DMS, they're like,
- 11:36Speaker 1: I can't believe you acted that way, all I send
- 11:40Speaker 1: back is thank you so much for watching me. I like,
- 11:44Speaker 1: for real, without you wouldn't be eight seasons in just
- 11:47Speaker 1: saying yeah, you know.
- 11:49Speaker 2: Well, I think the fact that you I have never
- 11:52Speaker 2: seen you have such conflict right over the years I've
- 11:56Speaker 2: been with you, where yeah, that's such conflict and it
- 11:59Speaker 2: be resolved and such amicable and quick way. Like normally
- 12:03Speaker 2: back in the old days, hence, you know, pre sober,
- 12:07Speaker 2: you would just assassinate the world, continue to assassinate, blow
- 12:11Speaker 2: it up three more times, and then eventually start repairing.
- 12:14Speaker 2: Now I see you.
- 12:15Speaker 1: Now what I would do is blow things up. Tornadoes
- 12:18Speaker 1: come through AK forty sevens, and then I'd look behind
- 12:20Speaker 1: me and be like, why is everyone so sad and upset?
- 12:25Speaker 2: But now but now you handle things so gracefully. I
- 12:28Speaker 2: really give you a lot of props, like something will happen,
- 12:30Speaker 2: and then you'll you'll get home and you'll be like,
- 12:32Speaker 2: you know, I feel bad and I really, you know,
- 12:36Speaker 2: didn't want to do that, and and blah blah blah,
- 12:39Speaker 2: and then you and then on your own, like without
- 12:41Speaker 2: cameras there, I see you sending text saying, look, I
- 12:45Speaker 2: really don't feel that way, and I'm sorry that I
- 12:47Speaker 2: said something. It's just very jack cat.
- 12:50Speaker 1: My cast members are not just my cast members, that's
- 12:52Speaker 1: my that's my LA family, Like I love them so much,
- 12:55Speaker 1: and I know that we're all always going to go
- 12:57Speaker 1: toes with each other because we're all very strong foreronalities.
- 13:00Speaker 2: When you go toes, what does it mean exactly?
- 13:02Speaker 1: Step up, bitch? Oh go toes? Toe to toe? Baby.
- 13:06Speaker 2: So if I'm in a meeting at a studio talking
- 13:09Speaker 2: about a movie and the guy's pissing me off on
- 13:11Speaker 2: a deal, can I be like, let's go to toes, bitch,
- 13:15Speaker 2: I'm just asking you can.
- 13:17Speaker 1: Yeah, but.
- 13:21Speaker 2: Right because you have done that.
- 13:24Speaker 1: Though, when I say let's go toes, if I know
- 13:26Speaker 1: that that person really is a fighter, like I don't
- 13:29Speaker 1: want to do it. I'm a very fast runner, like.
- 13:32Speaker 2: Let's fight the words, you'll back down, you are.
- 13:35Speaker 1: You kidding me? Do I look like someone who's gonna
- 13:37Speaker 1: punch anybody?
- 13:38Speaker 2: So just tell me one thing.
- 13:39Speaker 1: I am a classy bitch.
- 13:41Speaker 2: Oh okay, just tell me one thing. Then tell me
- 13:44Speaker 2: one thing. So in the four years when I've got
- 13:46Speaker 2: toes with you, I'll give you a never back down.
- 13:49Speaker 1: Oh the drink. The drink is like like the battery,
- 13:53Speaker 1: you know, the the drink is like a battery, the
- 13:55Speaker 1: little fucking engine that could. We're getting up the hill.
- 14:00Speaker 2: But you know it's funny. I talk shit and you're
- 14:02Speaker 2: you are a fighter. I pushed in the wrong direction,
- 14:05Speaker 2: but you know what, at the end of the day,
- 14:06Speaker 2: you are way more of a lover than a fighter,
- 14:09Speaker 2: way more, way more.
- 14:11Speaker 1: Of course, I always say like, I hate confrontation, but
- 14:14Speaker 1: I'm extremely good at it. You professional professional. So I'm
- 14:19Speaker 1: excited for our guest today though, because he I'm gonna
- 14:24Speaker 1: be honest. I looked at his resume and was like,
- 14:26Speaker 1: am I up for this challenge? Like he's, you know,
- 14:30Speaker 1: graduating from Columbia, And I'm like, have you ever heard
- 14:33Speaker 1: of slick like Sally Community College? Up in this bitch?
- 14:36Speaker 1: Two years? Oh shit, don't be rude. I attempted.
- 14:40Speaker 2: You know, if I would have known this when I
- 14:41Speaker 2: met you, I might have diverted.
- 14:44Speaker 1: And then I got all the credits I needed to
- 14:46Speaker 1: transfer to the University of Utah.
- 14:48Speaker 2: University hardly did you go for one day?
- 14:51Speaker 1: I went for like a month, and I was like
- 14:54Speaker 1: going through from one class to the other in the snow,
- 14:57Speaker 1: and I like literally was like, what am I doing?
- 15:00Speaker 2: You a work?
- 15:00Speaker 1: Hate this and literally went home and was like, Mom,
- 15:03Speaker 1: by the way, I'm moving to LA.
- 15:04Speaker 2: Can't give you a word advice? Tell me from now
- 15:06Speaker 2: when we lead in about your education, can you just
- 15:08Speaker 2: start with the University of View talents and pretend the
- 15:10Speaker 2: community college thing to happen.
- 15:12Speaker 1: This is who I am. Randall shit, like, are you crazy?
- 15:16Speaker 1: Why would I ever?
- 15:17Speaker 2: I thought you went to Harvard?
- 15:20Speaker 1: Don't I act like it didn't sound like it.
- 15:22Speaker 2: They So we have Ben Mankowitz, who is the host
- 15:29Speaker 2: of Turner Classic Movies Channel, the host of screen Time
- 15:32Speaker 2: segment on CBS Sunday Morning show. His grants. He's his
- 15:37Speaker 2: grand sorry, his father was a press secretary to Senator
- 15:40Speaker 2: Bob Kennedy. I mean, this guy is loaded to the girls.
- 15:43Speaker 2: Now I'm gonna say something. I don't get impressed. That
- 15:45Speaker 2: easily takes a lot at my old age, right, this
- 15:48Speaker 2: guy is impressive. And by the way, this and I
- 15:52Speaker 2: want to tell you, Lala, what really is putting us
- 15:55Speaker 2: to the test? This this next guest. This isn't like
- 15:58Speaker 2: a movie guy that I can just kind of like
- 16:00Speaker 2: sit back and have a cigar. Or it's not a
- 16:02Speaker 2: cast memory or is that you could just sit back
- 16:04Speaker 2: and spill the tea as you say this dude, This
- 16:07Speaker 2: dude is the real shit.
- 16:09Speaker 1: So we're not only not only is he like epic
- 16:12Speaker 1: in his family Randall, you're such a rookie. When Ben
- 16:15Speaker 1: gets on the line, you better mute your phone.
- 16:16Speaker 2: Okay for real. But this is what I want to
- 16:19Speaker 2: say about this guest. I feel like this like the
- 16:22Speaker 2: network threw this guest on us to see are we
- 16:26Speaker 2: ready for the next level? Yeah? Because if we fucked
- 16:30Speaker 2: this up, we have to go back to what we
- 16:34Speaker 2: know and we can never get outside our comfort zone.
- 16:36Speaker 2: But if we crush this and I want, I want
- 16:38Speaker 2: your fans and my three fans to write in after
- 16:41Speaker 2: this episode and tell us did we handle ourselves in
- 16:44Speaker 2: a professional, engaging manner or did we flop? And we
- 16:47Speaker 2: need to go back to what we.
- 16:48Speaker 1: All try try to make the criticism constructive. I don't
- 16:52Speaker 1: really respond well to people telling me I suck.
- 16:55Speaker 2: You know, well, just give us advice, like did we
- 16:57Speaker 2: handle ourselves? Well, we're did we ask intriguing questions? Was
- 17:02Speaker 2: or were we boring and dismal? Right?
- 17:06Speaker 1: I don't think that's ever going to be a problem.
- 17:08Speaker 1: So let's take a short break, and when we get back,
- 17:11Speaker 1: we have Ben Mancowitz. I won't lie. Our guest is
- 17:20Speaker 1: someone I read your resume, Ben, and I am extremely intimidated,
- 17:25Speaker 1: and I don't get intimidated by many things. We have
- 17:28Speaker 1: Ben Mancowitz on our podcast today.
- 17:32Speaker 2: Yes, I'm freaking and you're the man I just want
- 17:35Speaker 2: to say. He is host of the new TCM podcast
- 17:37Speaker 2: The Plot Thickens, about the life and career of one
- 17:40Speaker 2: of my favorite most epic directors, Peter Bugdanovich. This is
- 17:44Speaker 2: the coolest thing ever. I just want to know, Ben,
- 17:47Speaker 2: how do you even come up with the idea to
- 17:49Speaker 2: do that? Because now I want to go do a
- 17:52Speaker 2: podcast about every epic director I've ever loved. So can
- 17:55Speaker 2: you just tell us, like how that even started?
- 17:57Speaker 4: Well, many of them, of course, have lives that are
- 18:00Speaker 4: worthy of being chronicled. But first of all, Peter and
- 18:02Speaker 4: I were friends, and I like Peter. The first time
- 18:06Speaker 4: I met him, as I tell the story in the podcast,
- 18:08Speaker 4: I think in episode one, I was very nervous when
- 18:11Speaker 4: I first met Peter. It was in an event I
- 18:13Speaker 4: think in twenty twelve or thirteen in Toronto where we
- 18:17Speaker 4: in advance to the TCM Festival. We did some events
- 18:21Speaker 4: around the country, and so I was in Toronto with Peter.
- 18:25Speaker 4: We weren to screen the Last Picture Show. And because it's
- 18:27Speaker 4: Peter Bogdanovitch the same reason that you admire him, I
- 18:30Speaker 4: was nervous. This guy. He is an encyclopedia of classic movies,
- 18:35Speaker 4: and I just thought, you know, you know, the way
- 18:37Speaker 4: all of us are frequently where you sort of think
- 18:39Speaker 4: that you've perpetrated your any success you've had in life
- 18:42Speaker 4: is because you've perpetrated some great fraud. And I thought
- 18:45Speaker 4: he'd see right through me. But he had a cold,
- 18:50Speaker 4: pretty bad cold, and he was sniffling and drinking hot
- 18:52Speaker 4: tea at this bar we met in a hotel, and
- 18:56Speaker 4: you know, it just humanized him instantly, and he made
- 18:58Speaker 4: some joke and then Sybil Shepherd, who he hasn't been
- 19:02Speaker 4: linked to romantically since nineteen seventy nine, called him to
- 19:06Speaker 4: check on Hi because she was worried about him traveling
- 19:08Speaker 4: with a WOW And I was like, oh, listen, this
- 19:10Speaker 4: guy's he's still friends with his ex and he's got
- 19:13Speaker 4: a cold just like me. And that began a friendship.
- 19:17Speaker 4: And then so there's a long way of answering your question.
- 19:20Speaker 4: Peter did all these wonderful interviews with classic film directors Hitchcot,
- 19:23Speaker 4: john Ford, Orson Wells, Howard Hawk's, many others, including dating
- 19:27Speaker 4: back to the Silent era before he became a director,
- 19:30Speaker 4: when he was a film writer, a very good one
- 19:32Speaker 4: wrote for Esquire magazine, Most Freak Wow, and he compiled
- 19:36Speaker 4: them into a wonderful book called Who the Devil Made It,
- 19:38Speaker 4: which is a great Howard Hawk's line about how when
- 19:41Speaker 4: you watch a movie, you should know who the devil
- 19:44Speaker 4: made it, like there should be some signature about the
- 19:46Speaker 4: director which you would be able to identify. Peter had
- 19:49Speaker 4: recordings of these interviews, and I thought we should do
- 19:52Speaker 4: a podcast. I wanted to do a podcast for years,
- 19:54Speaker 4: and TCM was interested, but I was pushing, i must say,
- 19:57Speaker 4: and I thought Peter would be a great topic and
- 20:00Speaker 4: we would spend each episode talking about one of these
- 20:03Speaker 4: directors and play clips, and then professional storytellers took over,
- 20:09Speaker 4: namely our executive producer for this podcast, Angela Corone, and
- 20:12Speaker 4: they were like, yeah, that's a great idea. Here's what
- 20:14Speaker 4: we're going to do instead with Peter, And they just
- 20:17Speaker 4: made this whole thing ten thousand times better because Peter's
- 20:21Speaker 4: life is a story worth telling, full of success, failure,
- 20:26Speaker 4: horrible tragedy, hubris with the normal parts of recovery from
- 20:31Speaker 4: a tragedy, and it turned him into a different person
- 20:34Speaker 4: and he is an interesting guy, incredibly funny, incredibly smart,
- 20:39Speaker 4: and I find now incredibly inviting and caring and thoughtful.
- 20:44Speaker 4: So it worked out great, and Peter was so open
- 20:47Speaker 4: with us and willing to tell his crazy, crazy Hollywood story.
- 20:52Speaker 1: Well, it's absolutely fantastic. I found myself listening last night.
- 20:57Speaker 1: It's very well done, and it's such a safe platform,
- 21:02Speaker 1: so people just are feeling comfortable to tell it all.
- 21:06Speaker 1: And I thought that it was you know, the episodes
- 21:08Speaker 1: that you have out are very well done. So again
- 21:11Speaker 1: that is the plot thickens and it's about the life
- 21:14Speaker 1: and career of Peter Bogdanovich amazing. And I have a
- 21:18Speaker 1: question because I know that, you know, you come from
- 21:21Speaker 1: a background of journalism. I mean, your resume as far
- 21:24Speaker 1: as education is incredible. What you've done, you know in
- 21:28Speaker 1: your your what is the word I'm looking for your
- 21:31Speaker 1: career when you, you know, started as the reporter and anchor
- 21:35Speaker 1: for w c SCTV and Charleston, Like, when did you
- 21:39Speaker 1: realize that news journalism wasn't really what you wanted to do? Well?
- 21:44Speaker 2: You know, first of.
- 21:45Speaker 4: All, I grew up a Jewish kid in Washington, DC,
- 21:49Speaker 4: you know, in sort of a middle class to upper
- 21:51Speaker 4: middle class upbringing. And you're like, well, I guess I
- 21:53Speaker 4: go to law school. That's what we do, doctor, I'm
- 21:58Speaker 4: a jew from Miami. Well that was or lawyer? Yeah, doctor,
- 22:02Speaker 4: there was no chance of that.
- 22:04Speaker 2: I did not.
- 22:05Speaker 4: I thought, you know, you can sort of you know,
- 22:07Speaker 4: I have these images of me in front of a jury,
- 22:10Speaker 4: and I'm like, well, I can try to be charming
- 22:12Speaker 4: in front of a jury, but you can't, like be
- 22:15Speaker 4: charming in front of a ruptured spleen. Like I'd actually
- 22:18Speaker 4: have to know what I was talking about. So but
- 22:21Speaker 4: I wasn't really into that, And and my you know
- 22:25Speaker 4: father was in politics and the media, and and you
- 22:29Speaker 4: know he'd sort of been a pre bitnot sort of.
- 22:31Speaker 4: He was press secretary to Robert Kennedy.
- 22:33Speaker 2: Oh, Ben, Ben, Ben, real quick, Yeah, I heard that.
- 22:37Speaker 1: He just dropped you.
- 22:39Speaker 2: But Ben, let me tell you something, the fact that
- 22:41Speaker 2: your father was a press secretary to the center of Robert Kennedy.
- 22:45Speaker 2: Just explain what that was like for a minute, please,
- 22:48Speaker 2: because that's that's epic. Epic. Yeah.
- 22:51Speaker 4: Well, first of you know, my dad he died six
- 22:55Speaker 4: five and a half years ago and he was ninety
- 22:57Speaker 4: and he led this. He wrote a book called so
- 23:00Speaker 4: As I was saying because everything every story my dad
- 23:03Speaker 4: told is like in the middle of a story, like
- 23:05Speaker 4: he would starting expect you to He's like, you got
- 23:07Speaker 4: to have to catch up, like I.
- 23:10Speaker 2: And so I met.
- 23:12Speaker 4: But that helped me tell the Peter story. That helps
- 23:14Speaker 4: me in interviews, right, I mean I and it helped
- 23:17Speaker 4: sort of. It helped me even though I'm talking a
- 23:20Speaker 4: lot now. It helped me be a really good listener,
- 23:23Speaker 4: which is definitely a strength that I have when I
- 23:25Speaker 4: do these interviews. But the so he was in the
- 23:29Speaker 4: he was my dad was the Latin American director of the
- 23:31Speaker 4: Peace Corps first Latin American Director of the Peace Corps.
- 23:33Speaker 4: And he met Senator Kennedy first in a phone call
- 23:37Speaker 4: when the Senator was going to come down to Peru
- 23:39Speaker 4: and sort of figure out what was wrong with American
- 23:42Speaker 4: foreign policy in Latin American, and he got this itinerary
- 23:47Speaker 4: to like, you know, go to the American language school
- 23:50Speaker 4: and go to a party at the you know, at
- 23:53Speaker 4: the ambassador's house, and tour the embassy. And my dad
- 23:57Speaker 4: spoke up and he was like, yeah, look, man, you
- 23:59Speaker 4: could do that from Washington, Like that doesn't matter. You
- 24:02Speaker 4: want to meet striking you know, vegetable pickers, right, and
- 24:07Speaker 4: you want to go through the barrios of people living
- 24:09Speaker 4: in incredible poverty in Lima. And my dad was like,
- 24:12Speaker 4: who's this guy? And said, can I meet you? I'm
- 24:15Speaker 4: flying into Panama, come meet me. Who's gonna land in
- 24:17Speaker 4: Panama to refuel like two thirty in the morning.
- 24:19Speaker 2: Oh.
- 24:20Speaker 4: So my dad went to Panama to meet him and
- 24:21Speaker 4: they met for like three hours, and Hannity was like, look,
- 24:25Speaker 4: whenever you're done here, come work for me.
- 24:28Speaker 2: Come on.
- 24:29Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, if you knew my dad, you would
- 24:31Speaker 4: know that story is that makes total sense. He was
- 24:33Speaker 4: just my dad was always the smartest person in the room,
- 24:37Speaker 4: and I wow, other people thought that too, So he
- 24:40Speaker 4: hired him. He was the press secretary in the Senate
- 24:42Speaker 4: and then he ran for president and then famously you
- 24:44Speaker 4: can see my father announcing the senator's death after he
- 24:48Speaker 4: was when he was murdered.
- 24:49Speaker 2: So I have a question, So growing up with a
- 24:51Speaker 2: father who was the press secretary, I mean, did you
- 24:54Speaker 2: grow up going to the White House like it was
- 24:56Speaker 2: like a regular thing.
- 24:57Speaker 4: No, of course, all know the uh no, because as
- 25:01Speaker 4: soon as I was of age, Richard Nixon.
- 25:03Speaker 2: Was in the White House.
- 25:04Speaker 4: Oh, my dad very famously was on the White House
- 25:08Speaker 4: enemies List, something he was very proud of till this wow,
- 25:11Speaker 4: till the day he died. He wrote two really good
- 25:13Speaker 4: books on Nixon. His first book was the bestseller, was
- 25:17Speaker 4: called Perfectly Clear. And then after Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon,
- 25:20Speaker 4: my father wrote a book about what the prosecution of
- 25:23Speaker 4: Nixon would have looked like.
- 25:24Speaker 1: Oh, my god was blown. So then, with you know
- 25:29Speaker 1: your dad and what he was doing in his accomplishments,
- 25:32Speaker 1: did you ever feel pressure to be on that same path?
- 25:36Speaker 1: Did he kind of pushed that onto you in any way.
- 25:39Speaker 4: So my dad was as good a dad as you
- 25:41Speaker 4: can get. So he never he never pushed anything onto me.
- 25:44Speaker 4: He was great, he was supportive. I was a huge
- 25:46Speaker 4: sports fan. He was as he was. He was very
- 25:49Speaker 4: you know, I wanted to go into sports, you know,
- 25:51Speaker 4: when it became clear I couldn't play, I wanted to
- 25:53Speaker 4: be as you know, like a baseball broadcaster.
- 25:55Speaker 2: That was sort of but.
- 25:56Speaker 4: I was shy, and so it was hard for me
- 25:58Speaker 4: to sort of do that. I'd go to ball games
- 26:00Speaker 4: and sit up in the you know, behind home plate,
- 26:02Speaker 4: way up in the top deck, and I you know,
- 26:04Speaker 4: broadcast games into a.
- 26:05Speaker 1: Tape recorder, and oh I love this.
- 26:08Speaker 4: So and then my dad was president of National Public
- 26:10Speaker 4: Radio two for six years. So journalism was just sort
- 26:13Speaker 4: of in my blood. My brother is twelve years older
- 26:15Speaker 4: than I am. He's a correspondent for Dateline NBC. And
- 26:18Speaker 4: so my brother sort of taught me how to be
- 26:20Speaker 4: on TV and you know, how to do all these things.
- 26:23Speaker 4: I mean, you know, he taught me how to be
- 26:25Speaker 4: a reporter, which I was first. And so eventually when
- 26:27Speaker 4: I sort of got and became less shy, I just
- 26:29Speaker 4: sort of thought, well I try and I'll try and
- 26:31Speaker 4: do what my brother does. But politics was always super
- 26:35Speaker 4: important to me also because I grew up with I
- 26:37Speaker 4: grew up in DC, and I grew up where in
- 26:39Speaker 4: a family where were very prominent, and they just they mattered.
- 26:44Speaker 4: They weren't like, they weren't a game. They were about
- 26:46Speaker 4: the future of country, of the country and making people's
- 26:50Speaker 4: lives better. Like That's how it always seemed to me.
- 26:53Speaker 4: So I never had this cynical view of politicians. I
- 26:56Speaker 4: thought the people who many of the people who served most.
- 26:59Speaker 4: And I think it's still true. Most of the people
- 27:01Speaker 4: who serve they get.
- 27:02Speaker 2: Into it because they they want to change the world.
- 27:05Speaker 4: Yeah, because my dad ran George McGovern's campaign in nineteen
- 27:07Speaker 4: seventy two, and so you know, Robert Kennedy and George
- 27:10Speaker 4: mc govern with these sort of like these were guys
- 27:12Speaker 4: who were in it for the right reasons.
- 27:14Speaker 1: You know, Wow, it's really amazing to hear all of
- 27:17Speaker 1: these things. And then you know, you say, Ben, like, no,
- 27:20Speaker 1: there was no pressure, way could do it. You know,
- 27:22Speaker 1: like it's pretty insane. You would think coming from that background,
- 27:25Speaker 1: that there would be tremendous pressure on you to kind
- 27:29Speaker 1: of stay on the same path. I think that's really beautiful.
- 27:32Speaker 4: Well okay, so now you think it won't be beautiful my.
- 27:35Speaker 1: Dad, Okay, just spill the tea. Spill the tea.
- 27:37Speaker 4: My dad put note pressure on. But you know, he's
- 27:40Speaker 4: the person I admired most. And you know, boys who
- 27:44Speaker 4: love their dads and admire their dads want to impress
- 27:46Speaker 4: like him. I want to impress him. And the way
- 27:48Speaker 4: to impress him was to try and be as smart
- 27:50Speaker 4: as he is. And so eventually you just give up, like, okay,
- 27:54Speaker 4: he loves me anyway, that's good, but I can't fight
- 27:57Speaker 4: this back. I can't do it. So there was enormous pressure.
- 28:01Speaker 4: You know, my grandfather and my great uncle they you know,
- 28:03Speaker 4: won Oscars for you know, my grandfather wrote Citizen Kane and.
- 28:06Speaker 2: Okay, it's away fen so Ben, you know what, But
- 28:08Speaker 2: you know, I'm a movie nerd. Obviously I've produced a
- 28:11Speaker 2: lot of films. So I read I read this, Just
- 28:14Speaker 2: just take a beat on that he co wrote Citizen Kane.
- 28:18Speaker 2: Come on, I mean that's I mean for me, that
- 28:21Speaker 2: would thrust me into like movie anxiety at the highest level.
- 28:26Speaker 2: Did you like, what was the takeaway you got being around,
- 28:29Speaker 2: you know, this family that has epic oscars and you know,
- 28:33Speaker 2: writer Citizen Kane, the greatest movie of all time period.
- 28:37Speaker 2: Did you get anything out of, you know that, that relationship? Yeah,
- 28:42Speaker 2: of course.
- 28:42Speaker 4: I mean, you know, it's weird because my dad was this,
- 28:46Speaker 4: you know, mythic figure to me. But again it was
- 28:49Speaker 4: totally normal, dude. I mean, you know, but my so,
- 28:53Speaker 4: my grandfather, who Sherman Manglho by the way, wrote Citizen Kane,
- 28:56Speaker 4: didn't co write it. I know that it says he
- 28:58Speaker 4: co wrote it, but he okay, I the uh so
- 29:01Speaker 4: the uh that was a you know, source of great controversy,
- 29:04Speaker 4: the writing credit for that. Whether it's my grandfather's Orson Wellson,
- 29:07Speaker 4: oh my, but it's.
- 29:08Speaker 1: A fun story about that.
- 29:10Speaker 2: We deal with that every hour.
- 29:11Speaker 4: And by the way, Peter's on the other side, Bogdanovitch,
- 29:14Speaker 4: So that's a fun conversation for me and Peter to
- 29:16Speaker 4: have a good natured conversation. And by the way, just
- 29:19Speaker 4: real quick, doesn't matter. It's Orson Wells's movie, and nobody
- 29:21Speaker 4: should mistake that one hundred percent his movie. He just
- 29:24Speaker 4: didn't write, right, this is great, you know, but like
- 29:27Speaker 4: you know, it's like saying that, you know, I mean
- 29:29Speaker 4: Martin Scorsese. He didn't write screenplay for The Irishman, but
- 29:31Speaker 4: that's a Martin Scorsese movie, and nobody should doubt that
- 29:33Speaker 4: for a second. So the Hollywood part of the family
- 29:36Speaker 4: I knew about, of course, but it didn't mean anything
- 29:40Speaker 4: to me. The politics part mattered. I came out to
- 29:44Speaker 4: La I think when I was twenty one, like before
- 29:47Speaker 4: my senior year of college, and a cousin of mine
- 29:49Speaker 4: who's also a Mankowitz, but he doesn't have the same
- 29:51Speaker 4: last name. I went to a party with him and
- 29:54Speaker 4: I got introduced to the coast of the party because
- 29:56Speaker 4: he was like, I brought my cousin, he's out here,
- 29:58Speaker 4: you know, Ben Mankowitz, and the guy I put his
- 30:00Speaker 4: heels together and bowed and said Hollywood Royalty. And I
- 30:05Speaker 4: literally I just remember thinking, is like, you know, Larry
- 30:08Speaker 4: Spielberg behind me, like what.
- 30:10Speaker 2: About you know?
- 30:12Speaker 4: So it just was then I was like, oh, like,
- 30:14Speaker 4: I mean, of course I knew it. We have you know,
- 30:16Speaker 4: Joe Maco, who's one of the great writer directors of
- 30:18Speaker 4: all time, and Herman's brother, my great uncle, and and
- 30:21Speaker 4: other cousins who you know, my cousin Tom Mancowitz, you
- 30:24Speaker 4: know wrote three Bond movies, Superman one and two. But
- 30:30Speaker 4: I didn't know that it like to the people who
- 30:33Speaker 4: love movies, right, that it mattered to them like that,
- 30:38Speaker 4: and so and that was nice, of course, you know.
- 30:41Speaker 4: But so yeah, there's pressure to make sure you're not
- 30:43Speaker 4: the You're not the one in the family who.
- 30:47Speaker 2: Faltered fault right, who screws it up.
- 30:49Speaker 4: You're the You're the one who didn't. He didn't get
- 30:51Speaker 4: that gene, you know.
- 30:52Speaker 2: I I think I think hosting uh the uh Turner
- 30:56Speaker 2: Classic Movies Channel and doing all the different things that
- 30:59Speaker 2: you do far exceeded all of those, you know, expectations
- 31:03Speaker 2: on you. We're gonna cut to a quick break then,
- 31:05Speaker 2: and we're gonna come right back to talk to you about.
- 31:13Speaker 1: We are back my Loves with Ben Mankowitz. You're super legendary.
- 31:19Speaker 1: I'm just listening to you. My mind is blown. And
- 31:23Speaker 1: I'm actually really curious because Randall just said earlier, you know,
- 31:27Speaker 1: like he's over here making movies and then he sees
- 31:30Speaker 1: you know that you come from a line of family
- 31:33Speaker 1: that's I don't know, just writing citizens Kane, Do you
- 31:36Speaker 1: have any interest in ever directing or producing films?
- 31:41Speaker 4: I have some you know, I'm not a director, and
- 31:43Speaker 4: I'm really appreciative of the I love artists, man, and
- 31:47Speaker 4: I you know, admire what they do. I'm not I
- 31:50Speaker 4: would never be a director. First of I don't. I
- 31:52Speaker 4: don't really think visually, guys. Wife, you could literally hang
- 31:55Speaker 4: a new painting or poster in front of me in
- 31:58Speaker 4: my home office and nine months later I'll be like,
- 32:01Speaker 4: when'd you put that up? It's ten feet from your face,
- 32:04Speaker 4: and I put it up in twenty eighteen. But I'm
- 32:08Speaker 4: not a bad writer, and you know, a storyteller, So
- 32:10Speaker 4: I mean, if I ever got the courage, it would
- 32:12Speaker 4: probably be to right. And you know, producing, I love
- 32:15Speaker 4: that producing can mean ten billion things. I have come
- 32:19Speaker 4: to meet some producers who are so hands on. I mean,
- 32:22Speaker 4: I you know Irwin Winkler, of course, who you know
- 32:24Speaker 4: worked on the on the Irishman, and but who had
- 32:27Speaker 4: produced you know, some of the Seminals Corsese movies earlier, earlier.
- 32:32Speaker 2: I've known Irwin forever. I produced. I produced the movie
- 32:35Speaker 2: that Irwin directed. That's how he met.
- 32:37Speaker 1: What movie was that Home of the.
- 32:40Speaker 2: Brave, Home of the Brave? Well, yeah, sure, a while back,
- 32:42Speaker 2: but that was how I met Irwin yeah, and Irwin
- 32:45Speaker 2: is uh so like and Irwin. You know, Irwin's not
- 32:49Speaker 2: the kind of producer who you know, just puts up
- 32:51Speaker 2: money and then you know, has his name on the credits.
- 32:54Speaker 2: At least he wasn't.
- 32:55Speaker 4: Then you know producers who who.
- 32:57Speaker 2: Now he's his hands on?
- 33:00Speaker 4: Yeah, and and sort of and you protect the director
- 33:02Speaker 4: from the studio that's who have the money, right, That's
- 33:05Speaker 4: a big part of it. And I admire that part too,
- 33:08Speaker 4: and that that has always struck me as something that
- 33:11Speaker 4: but I don't do it. I mean, the fact is
- 33:12Speaker 4: I don't so I you know, I think we have
- 33:15Speaker 4: our answer.
- 33:15Speaker 2: I don't do it. I have a question. So so
- 33:20Speaker 2: now we know how you know, TV has become epic
- 33:22Speaker 2: and huge and really gone to another level today. I'm
- 33:25Speaker 2: just curious on your take with film versus TV today.
- 33:29Speaker 2: You know, how do you feel and what are your
- 33:31Speaker 2: favorite TV shows, if any that you watch?
- 33:35Speaker 4: I know I watch a lot of television. I mean,
- 33:37Speaker 4: I've been so busy the last few years that I've
- 33:40Speaker 4: watched less. But I still manage with a you know,
- 33:43Speaker 4: young daughter and fairly busy schedule, which I'm grateful for
- 33:47Speaker 4: to to get a fair amount of shows in. I
- 33:50Speaker 4: love that we're at this sort of you know this,
- 33:53Speaker 4: what is it be third Golden age for for television.
- 33:57Speaker 4: I don't see television and movies competing. I just think
- 34:00Speaker 4: they're all this visual storytelling. And I hope we never
- 34:06Speaker 4: lose the theater experience. I don't think we will. I
- 34:08Speaker 4: think it'll come back. You know, it's going to change
- 34:11Speaker 4: and maybe there won't be as many, but you'll still
- 34:13Speaker 4: be able to go to a theater. It's still a
- 34:15Speaker 4: night out. It's still a social connection, and I think
- 34:18Speaker 4: we all realize now how valuable that is, how much
- 34:22Speaker 4: we miss it. So I think as soon as it's safe,
- 34:25Speaker 4: it will come back. I don't think people will be like,
- 34:27Speaker 4: oh great, I never have to leave my I think
- 34:30Speaker 4: it'll be the opposite. But that's okay. It's also okay
- 34:34Speaker 4: to have movies show up on streaming services. There's no
- 34:38Speaker 4: it's all good. But you know, I mean, I have saved.
- 34:41Speaker 4: I have not watched this season A Better Call Saul.
- 34:43Speaker 4: I wanted to watch it all at once. It became
- 34:45Speaker 4: easier during this to do that because nobody was spoiling
- 34:48Speaker 4: it for me. I love Better Call Saw, I love
- 34:50Speaker 4: the Americans. I love succession of.
- 34:54Speaker 2: Our favorite show, our.
- 34:55Speaker 4: Favorite successions, maybe a top ten. That's season two of
- 34:58Speaker 4: Succession one of the best seasons.
- 34:59Speaker 2: To tell it was unbelievable, unbelieved.
- 35:01Speaker 4: I watched Homeland, you know, I mean it sort of
- 35:04Speaker 4: run its course, but I watched it all. I watched
- 35:07Speaker 4: you know, Ray Donovan.
- 35:08Speaker 2: And Billions are are two of my favorite I love.
- 35:12Speaker 4: Well a dollar Bill on bill the great an actor
- 35:16Speaker 4: named Kelly o'coyney's one of my best friends. Oh really, guy, yeah,
- 35:20Speaker 4: and would be a great guest for you guys.
- 35:22Speaker 2: He would love wait wait, not only hold on, not
- 35:25Speaker 2: only will I kiss his ass on the show, but
- 35:28Speaker 2: tell him that I am a fan, and if he
- 35:31Speaker 2: wants to reach out to me through you, I would
- 35:33Speaker 2: love when he's off the show to put him in
- 35:35Speaker 2: one of my films. He is. What a great actor,
- 35:38Speaker 2: What a great actor.
- 35:40Speaker 4: I don't know if you guys watched The Americans, which is,
- 35:42Speaker 4: by the way, the show totally worth seeing.
- 35:44Speaker 2: It's great.
- 35:44Speaker 4: It's not rand on FX, it's done, it's phenomenal. It's
- 35:47Speaker 4: as good as TV can be. And but Kelly played
- 35:50Speaker 4: a character there that is so dramatically different than Dollar Bill,
- 35:53Speaker 4: so it buttresses your point. Kelly is a really skilled actor.
- 35:57Speaker 4: I went to high school with him, were on a
- 35:58Speaker 4: basketball team. He's one of my closest friends.
- 36:02Speaker 1: Yes, thout my the Americans. That's on the list.
- 36:05Speaker 2: We're going to watch Americans and we have to get
- 36:07Speaker 2: him in.
- 36:07Speaker 1: And since we're talking about guests that we should have on,
- 36:13Speaker 1: I want to know, Ben, who have been some of
- 36:16Speaker 1: the favorites of yours that you've interviewed this year?
- 36:19Speaker 4: Well this year, I mean obviously Peter. You know that
- 36:21Speaker 4: was fifteen hours of interviews Peter Bogdanovich. Wow, And you know,
- 36:25Speaker 4: interviewing for a podcast where you're trying to get somebody
- 36:27Speaker 4: to sort of tell their life story to take you
- 36:29Speaker 4: through the highest point. You know, he was at the
- 36:31Speaker 4: top of the world nineteen seven. He was Scorsese and
- 36:34Speaker 4: Coppola and Friedkin and Mike Nichols. In the early seventies
- 36:38Speaker 4: he was as big as any of them. And then
- 36:40Speaker 4: he had some flops and people didn't like Peter. He
- 36:43Speaker 4: was perceived as arrogant in part because he was arrogant,
- 36:46Speaker 4: but that's sort of his his his but his arrogance
- 36:50Speaker 4: is like it's the right kind of arrogance in that.
- 36:53Speaker 2: It's his genius. It's probably his genius, right.
- 36:55Speaker 4: Yeah, And he's not putting it on. It's sort of
- 36:57Speaker 4: just the way he talks. He doesn't look down on people. Well,
- 37:00Speaker 4: he just he's very smart about the things he knows
- 37:03Speaker 4: and he wants to talk about them. And anyway, he
- 37:06Speaker 4: was he and Sybil were so perfect together and on
- 37:09Speaker 4: the cover of Magazinis and so so his fall was
- 37:13Speaker 4: his fall. Hollywood sort of took lee in his fall.
- 37:17Speaker 4: Billy Wilder, the great director, great writer, director, said I'm
- 37:21Speaker 4: gonna paraphrase it here, but he basically said that, you know,
- 37:25Speaker 4: everyone says that that Hollywood is a splintered town, that
- 37:29Speaker 4: we're all, you know, in this for ourselves and we
- 37:32Speaker 4: never look after each other. He goes, that's nonsense. We
- 37:36Speaker 4: all come together to celebrate a Peter Bogdanovich flop.
- 37:39Speaker 2: Oh my god.
- 37:41Speaker 4: So that's sort of what Peter was up against. And then,
- 37:44Speaker 4: you know, and then is the woman he loved, the
- 37:46Speaker 4: woman who's going to marry, was murdered and he went
- 37:49Speaker 4: into a five year depression, tail spend, lost all his money.
- 37:53Speaker 4: So that's a challenging interview and a great interview. But
- 37:56Speaker 4: TCM is fort you got.
- 37:57Speaker 2: No, I just want to say I agree with you.
- 37:59Speaker 2: By the I was just thinking about Hollywood. It's like
- 38:01Speaker 2: they lift you up, they build you up, they build
- 38:04Speaker 2: you up, they build you up here the underdog. Once
- 38:06Speaker 2: you get there, then they want to see you fall.
- 38:09Speaker 2: And it's just this weird, weird, bad thing. And yeah,
- 38:13Speaker 2: I hope that through this pandemic that we're in, and
- 38:16Speaker 2: I feel like people really come together and I feel
- 38:19Speaker 2: like the world is changing for the best. I mean,
- 38:21Speaker 2: I'm an optimist, you know, Ben, So I don't know
- 38:24Speaker 2: if I'm delusional, but I do feel that people are
- 38:27Speaker 2: really leaning on each other right now, more than I've
- 38:29Speaker 2: ever seen, you know, versus like a hurricane or a tornado.
- 38:33Speaker 2: You know, maybe they'll come together and then once it's
- 38:36Speaker 2: kind of gets better, everybody goes back to their regular lives.
- 38:39Speaker 2: This is effect that the entire universe all at the
- 38:42Speaker 2: same time, and we've never experienced this. So I'm hoping.
- 38:45Speaker 1: Well, the silver lining is, you know, we have to
- 38:48Speaker 1: figure out how we can do better.
- 38:49Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, Yeah, I hope.
- 38:52Speaker 4: So I'm not as I'm pretty optimistic. We know, we
- 38:55Speaker 4: started talking about my father, and my father's the most
- 38:57Speaker 4: optimistic person in the world. So in a sense, I'm
- 38:59Speaker 4: glad he's not living through the last few years politically
- 39:03Speaker 4: because it would really have distressed him. But I hope
- 39:06Speaker 4: we come back together. I certainly do. Hollywood, though, is
- 39:08Speaker 4: a there's a and I love Hollywood and I love
- 39:11Speaker 4: the people and yeah, I just meet Yeah, I like,
- 39:14Speaker 4: you know, I had this reputation when I came out
- 39:16Speaker 4: to l A about you know, what kind of town
- 39:19Speaker 4: it was going to be, and you know, it's superficial
- 39:22Speaker 4: and that's all horseship.
- 39:23Speaker 2: I mean it can be and it can like it
- 39:26Speaker 2: can be and yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
- 39:28Speaker 4: I'm sorry, no, yeah, of course we could have that
- 39:30Speaker 4: idea where, you know, where people celebrate other people's failures.
- 39:33Speaker 4: And there is a slightly weird thing when a friend says, hey, man,
- 39:36Speaker 4: they bought my screenplay that you think, why did they
- 39:39Speaker 4: buy my screenplay?
- 39:40Speaker 2: You know, for an.
- 39:40Speaker 4: Instant that that that's that's sort of unique to LA.
- 39:44Speaker 4: But the flip side is, man, I would you know,
- 39:46Speaker 4: I'd play poker and I'd meet some guy.
- 39:49Speaker 2: Oh, hold on, we're super time out.
- 39:52Speaker 1: Then you keep dropping things like, you know, Robert Kennedy
- 39:56Speaker 1: than poker, like your.
- 40:00Speaker 2: You know, I don't know what they call it, semi
- 40:02Speaker 2: professional poker player. I live for poker. I play on
- 40:05Speaker 2: television on a regular basis up until COVID. I am obsessed.
- 40:09Speaker 2: If you google me, you'll see my poker antics. I
- 40:14Speaker 2: play in the World Series. I go for the entire month,
- 40:16Speaker 2: play all the events. I live for poker. So if
- 40:18Speaker 2: you love poker, when I wherever you where are you based?
- 40:24Speaker 2: Oh you're based there? Okay, So when when COVID goes away,
- 40:27Speaker 2: I'm gonna invite you over to my poker game so
- 40:29Speaker 2: we can hang out and play poker.
- 40:31Speaker 4: You know, by the way, we have the same birthday.
- 40:32Speaker 4: I just want to point that out.
- 40:33Speaker 2: Oh this is getting better by the minute. This is
- 40:35Speaker 2: just getting better. We're gonna party together next year, and
- 40:38Speaker 2: we're gonna have poker together. This is great.
- 40:40Speaker 4: Most of my gambling is a sports gambling. I mean,
- 40:43Speaker 4: I love gambling. I just you know, it's part of mine.
- 40:45Speaker 2: That makes two of us funny, two of.
- 40:48Speaker 4: But you know, you'd go and you so you'd be
- 40:50Speaker 4: I just playing poker with friends and they some friend,
- 40:53Speaker 4: some guy somebody there would bring a guy. And you know,
- 40:55Speaker 4: I met a couple of incredibly successful writer producers on
- 40:59Speaker 4: big s and comedies, and like the whole night he
- 41:03Speaker 4: would you know, the guy would like, never say anything
- 41:06Speaker 4: remotely funny. He tried and I and he didn't seem
- 41:09Speaker 4: and I'd be like, how's this possible? And then the
- 41:11Speaker 4: next week somebody else would come and it's a bartender, right,
- 41:14Speaker 4: and a waiter and a guy working hard to make it,
- 41:17Speaker 4: and I would think, this is the most talented person
- 41:20Speaker 4: I've ever seen in my time, Like, how how is
- 41:23Speaker 4: this guy not? You know? So I love that And
- 41:26Speaker 4: I love meeting creative people. You know, every time I
- 41:29Speaker 4: run into somebody you can make fun of writers at Starbucks,
- 41:32Speaker 4: but then you have a conversation with him and it's
- 41:34Speaker 4: incredibly interesting. Like I love artists, man, I like being around.
- 41:38Speaker 2: I do to not only that, I want to say everyone,
- 41:42Speaker 2: my guy, oh on, my, my producer Timmy, who was
- 41:44Speaker 2: sitting here too. I found him at Starbucks. He was
- 41:49Speaker 2: a a barista, then he became an intern, then he
- 41:52Speaker 2: became an assistant, then he became a junior development executive,
- 41:55Speaker 2: and now he's the president of the company.
- 41:57Speaker 1: Wow, Hollywood dreams come true?
- 41:59Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, yeah yeah.
- 42:00Speaker 1: Working at Starbucks one day filmmaker the next So yeah,
- 42:05Speaker 1: of course you touched on how your wife sometimes decorates
- 42:08Speaker 1: your office and you don't notice, which I love that.
- 42:11Speaker 1: How did you meet this epic woman who was just
- 42:15Speaker 1: like putting fabulous art in your office.
- 42:17Speaker 4: We met at the TCM Film Festival, the first ever
- 42:22Speaker 4: TCM Film Festival. She was like, she's a big movie fan,
- 42:26Speaker 4: she loves TCM, and she tried to get she was
- 42:30Speaker 4: working in the city. She was in New York, and
- 42:33Speaker 4: she wanted to get a bunch of her girlfriends to
- 42:36Speaker 4: come out with her to the our first ever film festival.
- 42:40Speaker 4: And you know, they were like, oh, we don't want
- 42:42Speaker 4: to go to a film festival black and white movies
- 42:44Speaker 4: or whatever, whatever dumb thing they said.
- 42:47Speaker 2: And so she's cool, and.
- 42:48Speaker 4: She was like she loves architecture too, so she's like,
- 42:50Speaker 4: screw it, I'm going. So she went herself, why don't
- 42:53Speaker 4: you take a week a week afterwards in la and
- 42:56Speaker 4: Palm Springs to tour to just look at great houses,
- 42:59Speaker 4: look at you know, Frank Lloyd Wright designed houses, and
- 43:02Speaker 4: like she was just she was like, I'll take a
- 43:04Speaker 4: ten day vacation by myself. And we met at the festival.
- 43:06Speaker 4: I had a girlfriend at the time, but we met
- 43:08Speaker 4: and then you know, I broke up with my girlfriend
- 43:11Speaker 4: like three months later, and I met Lee Lee again
- 43:14Speaker 4: then at a TCM event in Atlanta where she was
- 43:18Speaker 4: with girlfriends and I was hosting some event and we
- 43:21Speaker 4: hung out. And then you know, over the next like
- 43:24Speaker 4: year and a half, she lived out of town. She
- 43:26Speaker 4: lived in New York and then moved briefly to Saint
- 43:28Speaker 4: Louis and we you know, she'd come into town a lot,
- 43:31Speaker 4: and we'd see each other and it's just sort of
- 43:33Speaker 4: and then one because again she takes charge. It's like
- 43:36Speaker 4: two Christmas seasons later, she was like, yeah, I got
- 43:39Speaker 4: work to let me come to LA for two months.
- 43:41Speaker 4: I'm going to rent a small little house in LA
- 43:43Speaker 4: for two months and let's just see how this goes. Wow,
- 43:47Speaker 4: and now we have, you know, dogs and a family
- 43:50Speaker 4: and a daughter.
- 43:51Speaker 2: How many years have you guys been together since then?
- 43:54Speaker 4: So we've been sort of like seeing each other since
- 43:57Speaker 4: like twenty eleven, and we got married in twenty thirteen.
- 44:00Speaker 2: Okay, Now I have one other question. You got married
- 44:03Speaker 2: on a cruise for the same festival, is that or
- 44:08Speaker 2: explain it?
- 44:09Speaker 4: The festival is here in LA like at those great
- 44:12Speaker 4: theaters at the Chinese and the Egyptian sort of in Hollywood.
- 44:15Speaker 4: That's where were the base at the Roosevelt Hotel. We
- 44:18Speaker 4: of course had to cancel it this year, but it'll
- 44:19Speaker 4: be back, you know, hopefully in twenty twenty one. We're
- 44:23Speaker 4: working on it. So, but that's here, that's where we met.
- 44:26Speaker 4: But then we also have a cruise and so you know,
- 44:30Speaker 4: we were seeing each other and we were on the
- 44:32Speaker 4: cruise and I proposed to her and we thought, oh,
- 44:37Speaker 4: this will be fun since we met at TCM, like,
- 44:39Speaker 4: let's get married on the cruise and have you know
- 44:42Speaker 4: Gavin McLeod marius, you know, and oh wow, and you
- 44:49Speaker 4: know it wasn't Captain Steuben, but it was. And then
- 44:52Speaker 4: of course it turns out it turns out you get
- 44:54Speaker 4: married in the Caribbean on a cruise, it doesn't really count,
- 44:57Speaker 4: right because.
- 44:58Speaker 2: You have to have allasis of the piece in the city. Yeah.
- 45:00Speaker 4: Mostly you have to pay for a marriage license. That's
- 45:02Speaker 4: what that's what California wants.
- 45:05Speaker 1: Exactly.
- 45:06Speaker 4: We came back and got married again, and but do
- 45:09Speaker 4: we count the real date is that one of the crews.
- 45:12Speaker 4: That's our anniversary was fun. Robert Wagner, who was a
- 45:15Speaker 4: guest on the cruise. He walked, he walked my wife
- 45:18Speaker 4: down the aisle.
- 45:19Speaker 2: Come on, I mean, you just live. You live. Honestly,
- 45:22Speaker 2: we are definitely playing poker together. You live the coolest life.
- 45:24Speaker 2: I'm dead serious. As soon as this shit's over, where
- 45:28Speaker 2: you're coming to a poker game because I think you
- 45:30Speaker 2: and I have a lot more in common. Even though
- 45:32Speaker 2: I am not as highly educated as you, I'm a
- 45:36Speaker 2: film school education. I definitely can relate to the gambling
- 45:40Speaker 2: and the fun that I think you are.
- 45:42Speaker 1: Just the story like I want to come to just
- 45:45Speaker 1: hear everything.
- 45:47Speaker 2: Yeah, I have one last question question. I know you're like,
- 45:52Speaker 2: you know, you're a phenomenal interviewer and you've interviewed pretty
- 45:55Speaker 2: much everybody on the planet. What interview tips would you
- 45:59Speaker 2: give us young ones who are only like twelve episodes in?
- 46:04Speaker 2: What what? What? What? What?
- 46:05Speaker 1: What?
- 46:05Speaker 2: What do we need.
- 46:06Speaker 1: To give used?
- 46:08Speaker 4: So the best thing that I look first of all,
- 46:10Speaker 4: I paid attention to Howard Stern, David Letterman, and Dan Patrick,
- 46:15Speaker 4: who I think is actually a really good interview interviewer.
- 46:18Speaker 4: They're all different, but the most important thing, you know,
- 46:21Speaker 4: prepare right, like, don't get caught up because the preparation
- 46:25Speaker 4: helps you, and it helps it also helps them, but
- 46:28Speaker 4: it helps you. You don't need to memorize it. But
- 46:31Speaker 4: when you feel secure that you're not going to get blindsided,
- 46:34Speaker 4: that you're not afraid to figure out how to pronounce
- 46:36Speaker 4: somebody's name or what movies they did or who directed
- 46:39Speaker 4: those movies, it just gives you confidence. It gives you
- 46:42Speaker 4: confidence to then be funny because you're not scared. So
- 46:46Speaker 4: the preparation, it's not so much that you need to
- 46:48Speaker 4: recall what you prepared. It's fine if you can't remember something.
- 46:50Speaker 4: But when I realized that if I prepped and I
- 46:54Speaker 4: felt confident, then when I couldn't think of something, I
- 46:57Speaker 4: didn't have to pretend I could day. You know, when
- 47:01Speaker 4: you were doing oh for crying out loud the Hitchcock
- 47:04Speaker 4: movie with Carrie Grant Ingrid Bergmann had come down the stairs,
- 47:07Speaker 4: you know, you know, and then the person go notorious.
- 47:09Speaker 2: I go right notorious.
- 47:10Speaker 4: Whereas if I weren't prepared, I'd be terrified of that moment.
- 47:15Speaker 2: So it's really just doing your homework, like, really do
- 47:17Speaker 2: your homework.
- 47:18Speaker 4: So they do two things, Okay, two things real quick,
- 47:21Speaker 4: So yes, do your homework because it lets you be
- 47:23Speaker 4: funny and spontaneous, which you might be afraid to do.
- 47:26Speaker 4: And then secondly, this is obvious, but it's really hard
- 47:30Speaker 4: to do. It took me a long time. Don't worry
- 47:32Speaker 4: about your questions. Think about what you want to ask,
- 47:34Speaker 4: but then just listen. If you're really listening, you will
- 47:39Speaker 4: ask something different. And frequently the best questions are really
- 47:44Speaker 4: because then there's some personal just because then the person
- 47:45Speaker 4: will just go on or huh, and I didn't know
- 47:49Speaker 4: that really those three things that just gets people talking,
- 47:53Speaker 4: and they like it when people are interested in what
- 47:56Speaker 4: they had to say. And if you avoid the cliches
- 47:59Speaker 4: of in an interview, and don't fake laugh, and don't
- 48:02Speaker 4: you know these little things. I learned all that stuff
- 48:04Speaker 4: from being on local TV. And I'd see myself fake laugh.
- 48:07Speaker 4: If I recorded a and i'd cringe.
- 48:09Speaker 1: I'd be like, you knew it was a fake laugh.
- 48:11Speaker 1: You're like, oh, that's the time that I pretended super hard, right.
- 48:14Speaker 4: You could you know you're an ankor you're an anchor
- 48:16Speaker 4: and the weather person says, you know, you'd say to Sherry,
- 48:19Speaker 4: you'd be like, you know, our weather person, you know.
- 48:22Speaker 4: I'd be like Sherry, what's our Sunday looking like? Like,
- 48:26Speaker 4: why a laughing laugh?
- 48:28Speaker 2: That's not kidding, I'm kidding. It's not even a joke.
- 48:31Speaker 2: That's right.
- 48:32Speaker 4: Well that no, right, My laugh is like now you know,
- 48:35Speaker 4: because it's so absurd, you know. Okay, Sherry, great stuff,
- 48:37Speaker 4: thanks you, Thanks for the good weather today.
- 48:41Speaker 2: This is good. Honestly, Ben, that is really good advice
- 48:45Speaker 2: because number one, I need to shut up a lot.
- 48:47Speaker 2: You can see that, so I'm going to get better
- 48:48Speaker 2: at that. But two, I do like the preparation because
- 48:52Speaker 2: I feel like in the twelve episodes we've done, when
- 48:55Speaker 2: we're prepared, baby, we we are really like on point.
- 48:58Speaker 1: But we'll be honest though, Ben. Sometimes I'm interviewing, you know,
- 49:03Speaker 1: like people on vander Pump Rules, which you probably don't
- 49:05Speaker 1: even know. That is easy. When I look at a
- 49:07Speaker 1: resume like yours, I'm like, what's my name again?
- 49:12Speaker 2: I feel like I feel like I'm talking to a
- 49:16Speaker 2: colleague versus having no clue. When we bring on the
- 49:19Speaker 2: vanderfug people and I'm like, who did you beat the
- 49:21Speaker 2: shit out of last episode? I have no clue. So
- 49:24Speaker 2: this has actually been really enjoyable, Ben, and very appreciative
- 49:29Speaker 2: and I'm a huge fan of yours now and we
- 49:32Speaker 2: could go on for another hour, but they're telling us
- 49:34Speaker 2: we got to wrap it up, which Ben, is there
- 49:37Speaker 2: anything else I can say or or let people know
- 49:40Speaker 2: where to find you besides the new podcast? Is there
- 49:42Speaker 2: any other things? Sure?
- 49:44Speaker 4: Definitely check out Definitely check out the block thickens. I'm
- 49:47Speaker 4: still Peter Bugdanovich. Wherever you get podcasts. We've had four episodes,
- 49:51Speaker 4: we got I think the three or three more and
- 49:53Speaker 4: you can on Twitter's really the only place I am.
- 49:56Speaker 4: Ben MANK seven seven perfect.
- 49:58Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Ben, I'm so appreciative your your
- 50:01Speaker 1: story is epic. Plus you gave us advice. I feel
- 50:03Speaker 1: like I should be paying person.
- 50:05Speaker 2: Thank you, it was fun.
- 50:06Speaker 4: Thanks for having me guys.
- 50:07Speaker 1: Thank you, Ben.
- 50:09Speaker 2: Hi, this is Kim.
- 50:10Speaker 3: I love, love, love your podcast.
- 50:12Speaker 2: And just to let Randall know he does have fans
- 50:14Speaker 2: because he is the number one guy.
- 50:18Speaker 1: Thank you, my loves to everyone who has already left
- 50:20Speaker 1: us epic messages and keep.
- 50:23Speaker 2: Them coming because we love hearing from you. Guys.
- 50:25Speaker 1: Call us anytime at eight sixty six La La Pod.
- 50:28Speaker 1: That's eight sixty six La La Pod.
- 50:31Speaker 2: Yes, thank you for listening.