-Our first guest tonight is
an Emmy-nominated actor you know from shows such as
"Married... with Children" and "Modern Family." He stars in the new
limited FX series "Clipped," which premieres
on Hulu June 4th. Let's take a look. -Where's my favorite coach? Doc.
-Donald. -Bet you're glad
you're out of Boston. -I love Boston, -Did Doc tell you
when he used to play for me? Well, you were here, Sandy. Minus about 20 pounds of you. -Listen, Donald, I'd like to get
into some personnel issues. -Good.
Andy, you want to... -Oh, yeah.
Oh, come on, back to work. -Please welcome back to the show our friend Ed O'Neill,
everybody. [ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Welcome back.
-Good to be back. Thank you.
Nice to see you, Seth. -We're happy to have you
back in New York City. I didn't realize this. So before
"Married... with Children," which is the role that,
I mean, changed your life, safe to say, you spent 10 years
in New York as an actor. Is that --
-Yes. Yes, yes. And around
this neighborhood, too. -So you came here.
You were doing Broadway stuff? -Did Broadway,
did regional theater, you know, all the, you know, Playwrights Horizons
and Philadelphia Drama Guild. -I mean,
it must have been a hard time, but was it an exciting time? Did you like being
a young actor in New York? -Well, I was young.
-Yeah. Everything's exciting.
-You know, it was great. -And is it true that
you sort of got your first break 'cause somebody --
you were an understudy and you got to go onstage
for a couple nights? -I was the understudy, and for some reason I thought
for sure I was going to, you know, get the part. -Uh-huh. -You know, I got it, but it's 'cause they fired
the guy, you know? -Oh, really? Could you see it going that way? Were you thinking,
"I think he's gonna get fired"? -Yes. No, and I'll tell you how
I knew it was going that way, because it was about a boxer
and I had done some boxing. I mean, amateur.
-Right. -And this guy had never did. And so it was --
Danny Aiello was the star, and I was the bad guy,
and I had to make him look good. Well, you know, if you know
basic boxing, I knew I was making him look
better than the other guy. -Oh, there you go.
Yeah, so it wasn't that you looked better
than the other guy. You made the star look better.
-That's right. -What about your early
New York apartments? -Oh, it was sad.
-Yeah. -I mean, the one
was in Gramercy Park, and that sounds good.
-It does sound good. -It wasn't, and it was -- it was right across
the street from Mother Cabrini. It was a tenement,
an actual tenement. Rats, the whole thing. And I used to come out
in the morning. There was a stoop, and there were these
young kids on the stoop. Not in school.
-Yeah. -And if I was going anywhere,
I would bribe them. I would give them, like,
a couple bucks not to rob me. -Really?
-I said, "Don't rob me. Don't go back in
when I leave and rob me." -I mean, if they were
smart enough to get you to give them money,
they didn't need school. -Really.
-Yeah. -There was nothing
in the apartment to rob anyway. -Exactly.
Yeah, you probably should have just given them a key
and be like, "Do your worst." -Exactly, exactly. I think the rent was like
20 bucks a month or something. It was ridiculous.
-I mean, yeah. -It wasn't worth it.
-No. You couldn't -- I mean, they won't let you lie
down on the sidewalk at Gramercy for 20 bucks now.
-No. -You -- I'll never forget,
last time you were here, we talked about the fact
that you actually had a tryout with my beloved
Pittsburgh Steelers. -Yes.
-So you'd come out of school, and you actually
went to training camp with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
-Yes. -Do you think about it
as often as I do? Because it's your memory. -I do. I got cut in 19--
my rookie year, 1969. -How far into -- Were
you the last round of cuts? -Well, two weeks.
-Okay. So two weeks, yeah. -Not the last round.
-Yeah. -But I was -- I did okay.
-Yeah. -It was the -- My problem was I was out trying
to play outside linebacker and I never played the position. So I was trying to make the team and learn the position
at the same time, which is not recommended. But I have a funny story
about that. And it just recently occurred
to me it was funny. [ Laughter ] I think it's funny.
I'll try it out on you. -We'll find out.
-When I got cut -- so we're talking about 1969 --
I was 23 years old. Every year since then, I would have a recurring dream,
like at least once a year, and the dream would be I was
on the sidelines in Latrobe at Saint Vincent's College,
where the training... [ Person claps ]
...training camp is, in uniform. But now I'm 24. -Yeah.
-It was a year later. And the coach would say,
you know, "You're going in
on the next series." You know, I'd say,
"Okay, Coach," you know. I got another shot.
I'd go in. And then I would wake up. This happened all the way
every year. I'm always the same age --
a different age. I'm the age I actually am. -So when you're 50,
you're 50 on the sidelines. -It's going too long, isn't it? No. The last time I had it,
I was on the sideline, same scenario --
"You're going in. You're going to be fine."
I'd say, "Yeah, Coach. You know I'm 77 years old." [ Laughter ] And he said, "You'll be fine." And I said, "I think I'm done." And I never had the dream again. [ Laughter ] -I love it. [ Applause ] -It's true. -I love that
your subconscious held on until you were 77. -It was incredible.
-Yeah. Do you remember how --
when they cut you, how did you find out? I mean, is it like when you
watch shows like "Hard Knocks" where somebody says, "Hey,
can we talk to you real quick?" -Yeah, yeah. No.
"Bring your playbook." -Yeah. "Bring your playbook."
-So I knew, you know, and I brought the playbook
and I went up, and this is another thing. I didn't remember this
until recently, the whole conversation
with Coach Noll. And how it played out
was, "We love you." You know,
they give you the birdseed, and, "We got to let you go." And I said, "Okay, fine.
You know, thanks. It was great." And he said, "By the way, I talked to Coach Kuharich
with the Eagles. And they're desperate
for linebackers. So how about we rent you a car, you drive down the PA Pike
to Philly, and they'll give you
a good look. But I have to know right now, because they got to fill
the spot." I said, "Uh... no." -Wow.
That's amazing. -I forgot that.
-Yeah. -And I said, "No, I'm done." -That's great.
-He said, "You're done?" I said, "Yeah, I'm sick of it."
-Well, that's really good. I'm glad you actually
got to, like, have a hand in your own exit. -But can you imagine
I didn't remember that? -Yeah. I mean, based on that, I'm glad you didn't continue
to play football. -I was already -- -If your memory
was already that bad. -I must have been concussed. -[ Laughs ] You play Donald Sterling. This is the story, 2014,
owner of the Clippers. -Yeah. -Basically how he lost the team due to some
pretty abhorrent behavior. You -- Do you approach
a role differently when you're playing
a real person? -No.
-Okay. [ Laughter ] -I mean,
I probably should, Seth. -Yeah. But look, what you're doing's
working, Ed. I wouldn't change up. -I mean, it's not because
I'm lazy, although I am. I like to -- I just read the script,
you know. -Sure.
-And the script was written by Gina Welch,
who had worked with David Milch, who's a good friend of mine. I'd done two series for David,
serious ones. -Yeah.
-Neither one made it, but it was "Big Apple"
and "John from Cincinnati." And anyway,
she's a wonderful writer. So when I read the script,
I thought -- I didn't think I was going to
do the part, though. You know what I mean?
I thought, "Ah, I don't know. Donald Sterling.
-Sure. -So I had a lunch set up
with her, and on the way to
this restaurant to have lunch, I was already forming my speech of why I'm not going to do it,
you know? So I get there,
and she's such a nice woman, and she's -- we're talking,
and she's saying, you know, "Oh, you can do this.
It's going to be great." And I said, "Sure, I'll do it." [ Laughter ] And again,
it's like the dream. You know, I'm thinking,
"What did I just say?" -Yeah.
Like, all these stories are just you making a decision
like immediately. -Like that. -Yeah.
-It's true. -You should just start
bringing a coin with you. -Well, it's like --
-Yeah. -It depends on what room I'm in
what person I am. -I mean, you know,
things have gone well. You should continue
to trust your instincts. Is there anything --
Again, real person. Is there something
a little bit fun playing someone who's
a bit villainous? -You know, I hate to say
it is, but it is. You know, I mean,
if you're playing John Gotti or Al Capone or, you know,
Idi Amin. -Yeah.
-I mean -- -You probably
shouldn't play Idi. -Not Idi Amin.
-Yeah, yeah. I'm just worried about you because based on
how I'm hearing, somebody's going to ask, and
you're going to be like, "Yeah." -Yeah. [ Laughter ] It is fun. But it was fun
because this character was inadvertently funny. -Yeah.
-He could be charming. He could be something else,
as we know. And it was
a challenging part, really. It was quite challenging. -It seemed like there was some
challenging hair work for you. -There was.
-Now, how much of this -- -There was.
-How much of this is Ed over here? -Well, that wasn't
a full-on wig. You know,
today they do amazing things. -Really, it's true.
-It's some kind of fitted thing. And then they did a kind of tan. Like, apparently he liked --
-He had a fake tan. -Fake tan and then the glasses. You know, I don't think
I'm wearing them there. But he had certain glasses
that were kind of strange. -We -- You mentioned it,
and then we dug it up. This is not the most
makeup you've had to do. So tell us about this role. -Well, that was
a 10-hour miniseries for NBC called "The 10th Kingdom."
-"The 10th Kingdom." -And I played a character
called Relish the Troll King. -Okay. I want to note
"The 10th Kingdom" got less applause than
Latrobe, Pennsylvania. -Well, yes. Yeah.
And I'm not surprised. But the thing was, I thought
it was going to be a fun, simple role, and I didn't
realize it was prosthetics. -Yeah.
-Which meant two hours into this drag
and an hour and a half out. -Yeah. I can't believe
it only took two hours to get you into this,
because this is a far way from Ed O'Neill. [ Laughter ] -And the worst part is,
it looks like me. -Yeah.
[ Laughter ] Yeah, when it's done,
you're like, "They didn't need to do
that much work." -I said --
I had two children. I had troll children in this. And they didn't look anything
like they looked with it off. And I mentioned that
to the producer. I said, "Why do I look like me?" And he said,
"'Cause we're paying you more." [ Laughter ] -Well, that's fair. Hey, always such a pleasure
to talk to you. Congrats on the new show. Ed O'Neill, everyone. FX's "Clipped" premieres
on Tuesday, June 4th, on Hulu. Stick around. We'll be
right back with Nikki Glaser.
