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Transcript

Betting on Yourself · Dos Amigos

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Hey everybody, This is Freddy Rodriguez.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Hey, guys, I twelmer about Arama.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: And welcome to the Dose of Egos.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: Podcast where you get all of your podcast I Heeart, Apple, Spotify,
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: everywhere you get a podcast.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: That's where we're at. That's right, shout out to.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Do that network. Hey man, you know, Freddy, I've been
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: really thinking.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Thinking, man, well we now that we got your attention.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Welcome to those amigos.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: So I'm excited. We're we're getting to finally do a
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: solo episode.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Where you know, we.
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: You know that we continue to dig in each other's
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: minds and yeah, and lettle like dig out for those
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: for those moments of gold.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then unlock some of those memories.
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: And our producer Leo Klam ahead of WUV Sounds and guys,
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: first of.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: All, relax relaxed with that. Hey guys.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: For those of you who can't see him, he's wearing uh,
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: he's wearing some like seventies Carrara looking glasses, you know,
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: very stylish, to be very stylish, Verry.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: He has a hat that says, uh, what is that?
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: I believe? I believe oblivion? Oblivion? Yeah, yeah, I remember that.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: What do you know about billion neal.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Uh where we're heading.
• 1:42
  Speaker 5: We're there, you go, but look so so the theme
• 1:45
  Speaker 5: was today's episode is creating our own work.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: That's the first time we originated something.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I and to kind of expand a little
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: bit and make it even more of an invitation for
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: those of you at home who are listening to this,
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: when was the first time that you had an idea
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: and you sighed completely through or from like, you know,
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: i'd be cool to then like, oh my god, I'm
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: doing it. And three they're like, oh man, this thing worked.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: And then like what did I learn from it? And
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: what did they do for me?
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I like about this subject today,
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Wilmer is I remember.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Back I don't know, the two thousands.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: I remember seeing your mama, which, and I've said this
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: to you on many many occasions, I was.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Such seeing your mama too, a beautiful, beautiful person.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: I was such a fan of that show, right because
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: it really spoke.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: To my childhood.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: But what I love the most was seeing you do
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: that show, but then seeing.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Your name on there as a producer. And we were young.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I mean what year was that.
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: I think I was probably twenty four twenty five years old.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know I wasn't too
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: far from that age, and so like I wasn't necessarily
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: producing at that time, I had aspirations for producing.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I had aspirations for creating stuff.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: And seeing you do it and seeing your name on there,
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: and you being one of my friends and one of
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: my contemporaries, I was like, oh.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Snap, Wolmer's doing it. Man, He's produced the show.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: He's created the show, like you made it possible for
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: people like me, for people in our generation, for us
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: to look at and go, oh, he's doing it, but
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: maybe it's possible for us to do it as well.
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: That's really kind brother, Thank you. I mean, I think
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: you know, you're not not shy to say out loud
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: whose shoulders we've been standing on?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: I think it's I you know, we always talk about it,
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: and I think I hope that our audience is you know, understand,
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: and that the word audacity, you know, to dream is
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: this coming theme among our stories and some of our guests.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: But at that.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Time, you know, I wasn't looking for someone.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Like me.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: I was looking for.
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: An opportunity, you know, And and so I just to
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: talk a little bit about your mama, because.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: So those and that was the first thing you produced.
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: That was my literally first creation, and I was it
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: was the way, the way, the way that this idea
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: came to me was so primitive, and it was not like, oh,
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: I'm here doing development, putting things on the board and
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: like just writing and deleting and writing and then finally eureka,
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: you know, like it wasn't. That was not how it worked, right,
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: But but I think, to to make a bit more sense,
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: that's how it works, right, Like it just it's somehow
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: an idea feels so obvious to you that you're like,
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: somebody already made this, and then you realize, wait, someone
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: hasn't made it lately or before or now or never,
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: And so I thought, I started really thinking about the
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: way to do that. But I think to backtrack a
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: little bit on how it all happened. And thank you
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: for saying those those kind words. I will say, like
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: in that moment, I was on that seventies show and
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: I was, you know, I was looking for the mentorship
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: of Tom Warner and Marcy Carcy, Mark Brazil and Bonnie
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: and Terry Turner, you know, Peter Roth, you know these
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: people that were like I was like, I had no
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: business going into their offices. When I was like nineteen
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty one years old and I realized that producing
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: was another form of storytelling.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: I didn't know. I didn't know that behind.
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: The scenes was just as fulfilling as being on camera
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: and being the performer. Like you know, I never connected
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: the two of them, and I never thought that. I
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: actually felt like, Oh, if you're an actor, you're an actor,
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: your producer, your producer, you're a director, your director. I
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: didn't know you could do all three if you wanted to,
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: until they're like, yeah, you know, you can mop with
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: the cool idea, you put together the right people to
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: complement that and then and then you can make it real.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: And I was like, okay, well that sounds crazy.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: And at that time, if anybody remembers, if you were
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: on network TV, if you were a network actor, you
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: never went to cable because cable they didn't have the
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: budgets at the time. They weren't making like premium scripted stuff.
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: So like, so network, what was the holy grail? You know,
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: that's where like you went to make it. You talk
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: about twenty eight twenty nine million viewers. Live cable was
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: this thing that's like like what is the internet?
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: You know, it was this new frontier.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: But there was a couple of runaway pop cultural channels
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: like HBO. They started doing things that were like so
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: a d inifiable as as shows.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: That could only live in this place.
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: And MTV also made us stable for saying like we
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: are like no one else because we are exactly what
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: you need to be. And there were such transsetters and
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: we've seen all the shows, and I think at that time,
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: I remember seeing the way the MTV was heading in
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: that direction where it was like it was all about
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: the La the Laguna Beach kids, and it was about
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: like it was just like.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Because it was a pivot show on there, it was
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: that my ride, which was like we love being my ride,
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: But then it became like very docuphallo or became very drama,
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: became very like rich kids and stuff like that, and
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: and you know, and and it started kind of segregating
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: some of us out of it. You know, the only
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: thing that brought us back was musicians, you know, because
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: the MTV was that place. But you wanted to be
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: a hard dropt, you wanted to be a pop cultural icon.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: You had to be on MTV. That's why people went
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: and promoted movies, promoted TV shows. They went to TRL.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: I was promoting that seven issue on TRL.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: We did really well on MTV.
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: So anyway, it's long story short.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: I kind of knew that.
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: I kind of knew that, like, network never got us
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: unless we were promoting something, you know. So I remember
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: Kutcher had developed Punked and I helped him cast Punked.
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: I helped him you know, oh half a two thirds
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: of my friends got Punked, and it was I know
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: you did.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: It was the last Oh yeah, I know you were
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: the last.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Stuf was the absolutely I was the absolute last person.
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: That's great punk Well punk was this experiment and he
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: was the right guy for it.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, this is awesome.
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: And I never saw myself as like, oh, you know,
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: like I never saw myself as brown white. I mean,
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: I didn't see myself and anything. It's just like, oh,
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: how cool I didam And I remember helping him with that.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh man, it'd be cool to have
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: my own show there too. So I'm watching TV and
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: this is how your mom I was created. All of
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: a sudden, I'm watching the eight Mile and I see,
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: you know, then I see what's his name, Eminem absolutely
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: destroying everyone in that basement right like he's just like
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: it's like they're they're they're just battling on.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: There's these lyricists and they're like some some stuff is funny,
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's dangerous. Like it's like the
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: tone was so cool, and I was like, oh, that
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: that energy, that culture is so rad And then ironically,
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: when I changed the channel, it stops on one of
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: one of my movies, the one that Matthew Lillard and
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: I talked about a couple of episodes ago, Yes, and
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: it was it was a summer catch, yes, and it
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: was about ballplayers. And then we were at this bar
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: and the scene opens with two ball players uh snapping,
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: uh your mama, your mama jokes. Yeah, And you know,
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: I was like what I forgot that that scene was happening.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: I forgot that that was a culture thing. I was like, oh, yeah,
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: that's something everyone has a ya mama joke, you know.
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: And I think one of the jokes was and again
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: this is our jokes that don't fly today. Okay, So
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna make a disclaimer that these jokes don't fly today.
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: But it was like, your mama is so fat that
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: when she wears heels, she drilled oil.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: And wait, that was that was a simpler times so
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: over there.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: That was in a movie.
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: That was That was a line from that was. That
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: was a line in Summer Catch the movie. And I
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: was like, oh, and then it just stopped and it
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: just knownd me. And I was like, what if what
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: if I took the eight mile and I blended with
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: your mama jokes?
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Right right?
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: That'd be kind of cool.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is cool.
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: So I talked to some of my friends, right, I
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: ran it by Tadao, I ran it by all my
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: our friends, you know, shout out to Tarau, my brother
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: for life, you know, and I said, I said, hey,
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: it's like it's like the eight Miles by your Mama jokes.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: And they're like, oh, that's hilarious. It's like snaps, you know.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: And I was like, I guess it used to be
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: a thing where used to like clown people back in
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: the day or whatever. And I was like, there's nothing
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: like that anymore. So I ran it by a few
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: other comedian friends of mine. They're like, dude, that'd be
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: really fun. And I was like, all right, cool. So
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: then I was like, and you know what this is,
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: like how I hack MTV? I said, I'm going to
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: put the faces that MTV no longer.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Has on the network back on the network.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And so I called Brian Graydon, who at the
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: time was the you know, he was the CEO is
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: the head of MTV Networks.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: And I thought it was that easy, right, like.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Here's like this this kid like you care called the
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: CEO of MTV Networks.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: I didn't even call the development executives.
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: I didn't pitch it like with my agents. I just
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: literally called the head of MTV. I thought it was
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: that simple, Like I because you had his number, because
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: what I just found his numbers. Just I was like, hey, hey,
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: Brian Wilmer, here goes Oh hey Wilmer, it's a pleasure, man,
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: big fan. I was like, oh, thank you man, you too.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: You're an amazing leader of the MTV. And I said
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: him and I have a crazy idea. He's like, okay.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: I said, it's like it's like the eight mile of
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: your mama jokes.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Did he know what your mama jokes? Oh?
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. At that time, it's like pop culturally, hip
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: hop or whatever.
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: It was the thing, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, and
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: everyone knew how your mama joke. So he was like, wow,
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: and are you gonna host it?
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: I was like, yes, I'm gonna host it. Let's go.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: And you know, like that was the big deal, right.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: I was coming from Fox Network and I was like,
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: I was going to host something on MTV.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: The idea is that he could do well in the
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: ratings because there could be some carryover from the network numbers. Right,
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: So you're like that was the thought. Look story, sure, man.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: I went in there and asked, okay, so what did
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: he say? So he's like, hey, you know what, this
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: is really interesting. I want to plug in Lewis Current
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: and rod Asa. And at the time, they were like
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: current executives, they were like development executives on MTV and
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: they were the ones making all that dope stuff m HM.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: And so I got on the phone with them and
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: I was like, hey, d and Lewis Corean says, you
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: know what, Wilmer, there's something about rewarding bad behavior.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Right right, And dude, it was like, let's go wait, wait,
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: were they talking about your bad behavior?
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: No? No, like philosophy on MTV.
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like MTV is known for being like
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: row you know, rebels, like we're gonna say it our way,
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: we're gonna sing it our way. We're going to create
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: music that you don't need to understand because we do.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: It was like it was just an identity thing. And
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: when so when she said there's something about rewarding bad
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: behavior that really works on MTV, I mean you were
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: talking about jackass to talk about all that stuff, you know,
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: pop culture really reward them with like not only viewership,
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: but loyal too, you know. So like you know, so
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: to make a really long story short, you know, which
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: is already.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Too long and already too late. I basically.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: She and Robbie sa like further developed that I partner
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: up with a production company. At the time, I didn't
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: have a production company, right, I just I created one
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: in my mind. Yeah, And and so I partner up
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: with Evolution, which they were doing a lot of reality
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: TV back then, and they jumped on, They're like, okay,
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: let's come up with this, and so we create a
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: format where we will go to all the hoods. Yeah,
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: and I would have each hood battle among each other
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: to pick the winner.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Who the winner? Who was going to uh represent that hood?
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Okay, hold on, hold on, pause, pause, pause, How would
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: you even audition people in the hood who were the
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: best yo mama joke tellers?
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: How did you find those people?
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly? What it sounds like? What did you put like
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: a like a add the paper. Yeah, we literally we
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: put like fan forums. At the time, We're like, hey,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: MTV is casting this show. You have a you're the
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: class clown. Ye, you know you're you're the class clown.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: Everybody tells you you you know, you're the funniest guy
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: in school.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: You know you have any jokes.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And you know you like, you know whatever.
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: And they're like, you know, we need your audition, and
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: we send all these tapes. So then my casting directors
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: will grab all these real young people from all these
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: areas around LA then second season New York, then Thursdays
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: in Atlanta, and we will grab all these people and
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: then we're like, okay, where you're from, Oh, south Central?
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Great? South Central?
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: Okay, great, We're going to put the South Central cast together.
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: You guys are going to battle each other, and whoever
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: it winds is going to represent South Central against I
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: don't know, Venice, Venice, you know, and so the winner
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: of Venice and the Winter of South Central, you know,
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: we'll go against each other and then and then that
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: would be the winner of the episode, right, and then
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: by the end of the week. We did this Monday, Tuesdays, Wednesdays,
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: and Thursdays. On Friday, I would have the winners of
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: every episode meet on a the best of the best week.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: So and then on that episode.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: I bring like, you know, method Man or Jaman Duprix
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: or like, you know, people like would.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: They would they would they also participate?
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Oh you know, they were the judges.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: They were the judges, you know, like the I you know,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: I have like everybody on the showy and uh.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: And that was it, man, And like it became this
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: pop culture thing where like teachers were pretty annoyed by
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: me because kids in school were just snapping, like they
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: were just yeah, they were just doing your mama jokes.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: And every coteria.
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: And so that was the first pop culture moment where
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: I literally said to myself, let me feed my ambition
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: and say.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, that wasn't that hard.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: And I thought that producing was that easy, right, Like
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: you just come up with a cool idea you called it.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: The head hot if he says, yes, you're gonna make
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: it right, right.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's been quite a joy that were the
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: executive pissed that you went over their heads and you went.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Straight to oh, you know, I think they were.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's the thing about Lewis Current and rohde Asa.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: They're such beautiful people. There were such empowering people, and
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: Agat shout out to Louis and shout out to rod Asa.
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: They really gave me my first shot at being like, oh,
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: he's a real producer and he has great ideas and
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: I would come up with the other solutions. And then
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: I also stood for a lot of integrity, like if
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: we were if we were shooting in you know, and uh,
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: if we're shooting in East La, then our contestants had
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: to be, you know, really natives of East La, right,
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: And sometimes you know, network can be like, well, you know,
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: if we can put like, you know, a girl there
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: and maybe uh, you know, maybe a white kid or
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: an Asian kid, and you're like, well, I mean, sure.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: This is what East La really looks like, you know.
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: So I was hanging out by that making sure that
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: authenticity on the show was there, and I think that's.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Why I correcked really well. But but you know, that's
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: how it started.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: So that's like my one memory, and I love to
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: hear yours now, but it's like my one memory of
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: being like, you know, have a cool.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Blah blah blah blah blah blah blahlah, and.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: Then all of a sudden, it's like, you know, cut
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: to like this crazy global sensation.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: And Our Times Live was right after TRL too.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: So how many episodes would you do a season? We
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: would do?
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Let me see, we would do.
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: We would do five a week, and we did a
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: bracket of I think four weeks, and then we did
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: one week where it was just the best of all
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: the weeks, you know, and then it was like a
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: big episode at the end. Yeah, so five weeks. Yeah,
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: five episodes per week. Yeah, I think we were doing
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: twenty one.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: To twenty one dude, that's like a full freaking season.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Then it was crazy, And were the episodes like every
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: day or once a week every day?
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Right after TRL?
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: Wow, as soon as people got home they watched TRL,
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: they're full their right into your mama.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah wow, no puny intended.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, oh man, I used to love that show.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: It was so of the time, so fun and so silly.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, what about what about you? What's what
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: what brings you? Your moment with you go, oh man,
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna do this.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: In terms of creation, I've always felt like I had
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: this sort of producorial bone in me.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I've always well, You're.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Always been a connector. You love people, you love bringing
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: people together.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: You You're like you'll do your dinners and like you'll
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: have your discussions and your people and like, yeah.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm really good at like I just I just
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: think I was born with good instincts right at the
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: end of the day, and and I'm always really good
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: at like spotting someone who's talented or an idea that's good,
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: and and and and and then I see it like
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: a puzzle, and I like to piece it together like
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: a puzzle. So I think I think in the mid
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: the mid two thousands, an opportunity, uh came across my
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: table where I got to produce a film called Nothing
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: Like the Holidays. And it was and it was with
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: the producers of SOFO. They did Sofu, they did Barbershop.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: Shout out to Bob Title and to George Tillman over
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: at State Street Pictures, and it was a company that
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: was from Chicago. Guy As I had met, like right
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: when we had all moved to la but we all
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: have this sort of Chicago connection. And so they were
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: coming off of the success of those films and they
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: were like, well, what about the sort of Latin.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Version of Soul Food?
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, that that may be interesting,
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: and so they asked me to come on board as
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: an executive producer, you know, and so, like I just sort.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Of helped develop the idea of it.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: How did that feel to you, Like, you're like second producer.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: What exactly does that mean? Did you, like, did you
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: have an idea what producing ment at the time.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: I mean not really.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: I just knew I was just going off gut instinct,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: you know. I was just I was just putting the
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: pieces together in the way that my gut was telling
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: me to do it. And I let them handle the
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: technical aspect of it, you know. So if I had
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: an idea for something, I just went off of that instinct,
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: right and so and so they came up with it
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: with the sort of structure of the film, and I
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: assisted in that and it took place in a neighborhood
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: that was right next to my neighborhood in Chicago and
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Humble Park. I'm from Bucktown on the northwest side. Uh
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: and so I knew the neighborhood well, I knew the
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: culture of the people, and so I just sort of
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: helped and contributed to to to that aspect of the story.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: And then once that was done and Overture, which was
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: the company who financed it, gave us.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: You know, a pretty decent amount for that time.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Then came to casting, you.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: Know, which was which was wonderful because I got to
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: reach out to like John and Guizamo and Louis Guzman
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: and people who I knew.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: I was I mean talk about that cats, I know,
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: because like that one of the things that was groundbreaking. Yeah,
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: and you get me some flowers. I gotta I gotta
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: pull a full truck. You decided to do on your
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: first time that you produce. You decided to do, single
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: handently the hardest thing that anybody can.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Do, which is make a movie.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Bro.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: It's so crazy hard to make a movie.
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: So that's where like when people don't go to the
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: movies and then just like oh I'm on I stream
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: it or whatever, like, yeah, it's it's tough for the
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: movies because you know, they it's almost a three to
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: four year process just to get to that.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Screen, you know.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: So so you're so you're like calling your friends and
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: talk a little bit about the cast you put together,
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: because that was crazy.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, John Leguizamo, Louis Guzman, Alfred Molina,
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: Deborah Messing, Jay Hernandez.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: God, who else, Elizabeth Pana rest in Peace.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was just this big, gigantic cast and
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: it was so much fun to go, how can we
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: put these pieces together? Like Guzamo, I knew we did
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: a movie called The Past in the nineties, so I just,
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: you know, just kind of called out.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: To the past.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, shout out to the iconic cled classic the Past.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Louise Guzman, I knew because we did a movie called
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Dreamer together with Kurt Russell and Dakota Fanning.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Uh god, who oh. Deborah Messing, I knew because.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: We did a movie called The Walk in the Clouds
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: and it was actually both of our first movie.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: So a lot of it was just really going through
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the list.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: Me and Mary renew and and and Bob and and.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Going like, well, who's shout out to Mary?
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Mary has made many many people's careers.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Mary's cast me and like love Mary, so shout
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: out to Me's a teacher of mine.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: She's a beautiful person, amazing in her office. Everybody works
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: at her office is beautiful. Shout out to the Venice crew,
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: and just for everybody to know, Mary Vidou is one
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: of the most iconic casting directors of our generation. She's
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: cast some of the most pop culture moments and cinemaia
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: in television. So you know, she's been responsible for, you know,
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: for cultivating and tour generation of actors.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she has. She she gave me my start.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: She cast me in Dead Presidents, and then she cast
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: me in like seven other things after that. So she's
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: been instrumental and and just like a good human being too,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: And so she came on board as our casting director,
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: and it was so much fun to just get to
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: go through the list and to decide who and what
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: and where and what I discovered in the produce oial game,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: because I think that the misconception is like, oh, you're
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: a producer on the movie.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Man, you could just like wave the magic wand and
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: like cast me.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: You know, It's like, no, it's it's a democracy, right, Like,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: like all you have is a vote.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: You have a vote and an opinion, and that's it.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Where And that was? That was it? You asked me earlier,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: like what was the big thing?
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: That's the big thing that I learned, you know, not
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: that I had went into it thinking like, oh, I'm
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: I'm the executive producer. I'm going to just put whoever
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: I want in there. It's just that it's not that easy.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: And that's the perception. Is that that easy?
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: And I say that.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: To like, you know, there were there were certain people
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: afterwards that were like, well, why don't you kiss me?
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't. I don't have that kind of power,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: you know, I can't. I'm not Jerry.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: That's a perception that like, oh, well, you did you
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: create the idea you're producing.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: When your production company executive producer? Oh, then like make
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: me like the actor in it, you know. And and
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: the truth is yeah, yeah.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Even that right because you know, the network still has
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: a vote, right. The studio has their money too, by
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: the way, it's their money. The casting director has a vote,
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: the director.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Has a vote.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: You know, you have all of these other people that
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: have votes and so like. So although I was sort
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: of the face of it as a producer, like I
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: realized at the end was like, oh, it's not really
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: like my decision, you know, I just I just have
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: an opinion in a vote, and everybody else gets to
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: do the same.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: And so I got to do that.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: I got to cast my vote, and we got to
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: sort of and everyone sort of winning different directions, and
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: I was.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Really happy with it.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: Look, it's not a perfect movie, you know, but I'm
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: proud of it.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Like you said, getting a movie made is like the
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: hardest thing.
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: But that movie is also remembered so funny by our
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: people and our culture. So you so, you know, like
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: you think about, you know, at the time when you're
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: releasing those movies, think about what other movies we're releasing
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: that weekend.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, god, I.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Don't, I don't recall, man, it's been so long.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Let's just say, let's just make up some let's just
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: we'll make it up, you.
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: Know, The Godfather, The Matrix, Jurassic Park, same weekend, Joss
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: same weekend.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, I hear you, I hear you.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: But just to just to have it just look, just
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: getting a movie made is an accomplishment in itself. And
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: that's what I learned, right, because you always hope that
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: your movie makes a hundred million dollars.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: You always hope it's wildly successful.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: And then when it's not, it's really easy for you
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: to get down on yourself or to feel a certain
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: way about it. And then afterwards I just kind of realized, like, oh,
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: I accomplished something, this thing in my life.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: And it's going to live forever, and it'll live forever, man.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: And it set me on this path.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: This sort of protosorial path where I've produced stuff after that,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: and I got better at it and I got more
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: mature at it, and and that's been what's That's why
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: I'm loving that we're doing this episode because it's it's
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: something that I know that you love to do. Also,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: it's something that you and I have in common. And
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: so there's not a lot of people that I can
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: really talk to about these types of things, you know,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: And and so that's why I love every time I
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: come here or we get on the phone, like I
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: can tell you about the stuff that I'm doing, you know,
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: and I know that you get it, and I know
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: that you understand every every step of the process, and
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: you give me you always give me really good advice
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: and opinions, and I know it always comes from a
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: good place. But there's not a lot of people that
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: I can do that with because they don't they're not producing,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: they're not creating, they're not on that same path as me,
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: So yeah, man, no, I mean, that's beautiful.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: I'm glad you brought that one up because I was
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: going to force you to talk about that one because
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: it is.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: It is a remarkable time to do that.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: So as we kind of ask ourselves a wrap a
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: wrap up question, what do you think is a common
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: denominator to just like get off your ass and do
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: that thing you're being thinking about doing.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: You got to just do it, man, you have to.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: You have to have the tenacity, the want, the motivation
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: deep down inside that makes you take that heavy swing,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: and you have to have the humility, the humility enough
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: to know that you might fail. And if you fail,
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: then you fail. Then you got to get back up.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: You got to dust yourself back off, and you got
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: to keep going because all people see, all people see.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Is the yo Mama is on screen, right.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: All people see is the Suarez documentary that you just did,
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: or the other stuff that you've produced and the other
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: stuff that you have on screen.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: People don't see the thousand other times that people have
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: said no to you, right, the offers that you've made
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: the actors where they said no, or the pitches that
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: you've done to certain networks or studios where they said no. Like,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: people don't see those those failures, right, And so it's
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: a it's it's definitely a profession of numbers of grit,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: of will, of tenacity, and you got to just keep
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: going and know that when you do get a chance
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: to produce something that all of your good instincts and
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: all of your good taste, everything goes into it and
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: it's reflected on screen. And I can say that, you know,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: I just we just came from your screening of Suarez,
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: of your documentary and it and it didn't surprise me
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: what I saw on screen.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I was like, this is very.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Consistent with what I've seen from from Wilmer and his
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: company and the other documentaries that I've seen and some
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: of the other works that I've seen you do. It's
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: very consistent, you know, And and and your company's fingerprints
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: are all over it and you see it.
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: Thank you for that. I appreciate that, man. For those
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: of you who are catching up to that. A couple
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: of weeks ago, we premiered exclusive world premiered of the
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: Suarez documentary based on the already now iconic Yeah, first
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: foreign born Mexican you know, NASCAR NASCAR driver, And so
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: we we did a documentary on his life and did
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: a little snapcat on what is what it's like to
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: be him in this very moment and what he represents
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: to our culture. And it was just it was a
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: beautiful love letter to him and we're very proud of it, man.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: And it was a full house. It was, you know,
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: a big theater. Everyone came and you came to support,
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: you know, shout out to Nicholas Gonzalez and Jessic Garcia and.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: What you say to me. I heard you all were
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: sitting together.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I heard you guys are all hodd enough.
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: And all I kept hearing from the crowd is like,
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: oh my god, my brother, My brother's embarrassed me in
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: front of everybody, trying to be the producer, you know.
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: But but it was beautiful to celebrate another Latinos story.
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: You know someone who's like really doing a lot to
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: alter it. I mean, you would think about, you know,
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: a Mexican driver winning NASCAR, you know, a races. It's
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: like psychonic, psychonic, you know, to see that we have
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: one in there too, We have one in that lineup.
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: So so yeah, thank you for coming for that. And
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: I just but I think to your point, I mean,
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: the point of making all this, the point of doing
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: these podcast is that we get to have an idea,
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: we get to take it to the people, and who
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: knows where this episode lands in their life.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: This podcast is a perfect example of producing a perfect
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: example of what this episode is based on. A creation. Right,
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: we went out to dinner. We had a great dinner
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: like we always had in the past. You you were
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: in a situation where you were thinking about doing your
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: own podcasts and what that would look like, and there
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: was something that you saw on the dinner that sparked
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: the idea of those Amingos podcasts.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just thought it'd be more fun this.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Way to Yeah, apiate, but but you had more foresight
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: than just going like, well, this would be more fun,
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: right you had You know that that comes.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: With your producer brain, right you.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: You sort of saw the big picture and what this
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: could become if we all did it together.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: And here we are.
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: Here we are on that note, Ladies and gentlemen, this
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: was dose amigos.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: I'm Wilmer Valderama and Freddie Rodriguez, and I'll see you
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: on the next one.