KPCS: Kev's Fav - Tom Hanks

[Music] although my guest today is known in celebrated the world over for his work as an actor producer writer director and one of only two men in history to win back-to-back best after Academy Awards to try that again the dossier we've compiled suggests that his earning the Best Actor trophy at Skyline High School in 1974 as well as the best actor award at the Cleveland Critic circle a few years later did far more to shape his life and career if not destiny please welcome a descendent of my very own Abraham Lincoln mr. Tom 74:4 High School 78 78 78 for the Great Lakes beer festival yeah big deal we got a free lunch midday which was it was magnificent yeah because man we working a classical Repertory Theater the free lunch is a rare rare thing and huge but you're building sets you're doing everything well as an intern I did the first year I was there yes we were there essentially in order to dodge Union regulations and change over the sets and we did some building but mostly were there to run the shows change the sets over because Vincent Dowling wanted to keep the this season rotating Repertory Theater for those of you don't remember what rotating repertory it's kind of cutting and you mount six shows that you would do one show on a Tuesday night in a different show on a Wednesday matinee change the shed over to a different show that night so you had six shows that were running continuously this wasn't done often again well it was prohibitively expensive provided you did not have a bunch of interns to do the money for either for free when I started off for no cash sort of like your podcast then we moved on to some people got like 45 bucks a week which was all the difference in the world but we would not get any free meals let's say a benefactor of the theater brought it a bunch of chicken wings or something like so how long had you been doing shows for the Cleveland I was there for three seasons I did that I did 77 78 79 so so you just won the award in 70 my 70s I join the equity company at the end of my first season there and then was then had a good season in 78 and then played lousy roles in 79 that's pretty much right there's a lot of bad roles in Shakespeare though and I played almost all of them in 1979 there's one guy in Twelfth Night this is Louie this is notoriously for all you erudite podcasters there's the role of Fabian who is he's known as being the tender of the dogs Fabian literally like the song Fabian sure and he's one of the comedic trio of feste Fabian and I don't know some other guy there's some other bad part and we have to sit there and laugh uproariously well maybe it's I don't know we have we have to laugh uproariously Barney Cates reads that reads the fake letter that we that we leave for him right and they have a line Fabian has a line and this is how we were told to deliver actually the director was Dan Sullivan who was you know very well regarded on Broadway Wow he said we said what's the secret of this famous bok-bok stre scene for me and me and feste and egg you cheek and Toby belch says well just say the lines like did the funniest things you've ever ever heard in your life and laugh uproariously which is a great piece of direction except for when the line is literally soccer will cry out on though it be his rank as a fox that was the line I had I do love that you oh if you remember the painful ones oh my god it was terrible bring that bring that bad boy don't be afraid just on in what pretend we're in Germany they're your friends and by the way on a Sunday what could be better hey look everybody I'm Canadian for one day if not all Canadians go to your gray Cup Canada football game is that early they carry beers in both hands instead of mittens you know to you know to really make it to equalize the the pain yeah thank you very much I will sip one of these not a sponsor by the way I love cards against humanity' that's a great game I just played it last week with my wouldn't mind one of my kids yeah Sherman and his pals his pals from school nice yeah and it was your first time playing the game yeah I didn't even know what it was what are you guys doing here there's always a game you have a card for Humanity card against humanity it's a hilarious game I recommend it highly yeah and yeah you say and you also find a little bit more about people playing the game do you in a human only in there like with their sense of humor is right because some people play it very very straight you're right and there's other people that play it for comedic effect well this this begs the question if I may since I'm the one asking them technically don't you think that we gather our friends by a similar sense of humor oh my lord yes yeah and all of our loved ones don't you think yeah or the family don't have a choice they produced no offspring you know they're there they're there squat out of luck aren't they but no the people that we hang out with is all about the hang they said what's your business is is it not more than anything else a great hang at its best yeah that's a fabulous hang I never understand when someone's off in their trailer if there's people to hang with on the set I mean if you need some time sure oh yeah yeah or if you'd like just taking a nap which happens more and more as the years go by and you know a lusty sand which is a good thing to enjoy every now and then or and if you know what I mean by lusty sand I think I do I live in being a good sandwich that is brought to you yeah you eat before lunch yeah but though the hang of show business is it it's uh it's the lollygaggin I think I go from trailer to trailer knocking on door saying do you want to know until I find someone I do the company thing that going on I know and I now try to have my trailer door open and all the windows open because otherwise I feel like I'm in jail this was one of the things I'll never forget about the Great's of Fela rent on the grumpy old men movies her trailer door was open every day and she cooked pasta for the loved one you know it's that thing that just levels the playing field I think and with the responsibility of being number one on the call sheet lo these many years now that's pretty great that the windows and the dog they got to do it otherwise otherwise it's a job as opposed to a life and I don't worry for a life yeah for the hang not in the laughs yeah in the comedy and and the joy and the love three out of those three I did that get you I was gone I knew you were committed or something then I saw I turned I saw a bluff he's gonna get down to corn my eye as you were looking at me I saw seven people pointing at the monitor for you to check it out because and I almost broke thinking I've got to let him know that I'm coming this L so I'm not going to break until he's I was married ever I got we pause just for a moment lost of Peter O'Toole today December 15 2013 if you've not seen them folks to yourselves an extraordinary forever and watching Lawrence of Arabia and my favorite you might hear back here so many others among the countless if not never-ending comments written about his performance in Lawrence of Arabia still considered the greatest debut of any lead actor in film history no coward shared his own perspective evoke tools placed in the film history by adding if Peter had been any prettier it would have been called the Florence yeah he was also our researcher a producer Jason magneto sent me an 81 page dossier for you today which is technically a record so I like this thing that you said on the NPR that uh on via NPR on the NPR like the Internet and the other thing that was with the internet yeah but you had 51 and everything's though though yeah yeah what did I say well getting to it here we always it's always dangerous where they say you know you gave an interview one said I remember your saying said ah my god understand I'm just trying to get through interviews I'm not trying to say anything I'd rarely thought about these questions and they come off like you know policy statements well there isn't a true sir than you once said for in England is it not true would you not agree that's the thing I love would you not agree well I'm just trying to figure out the syntax of this question what I'm nodding you once said does that mean I do agree or that I think I don't know what it it is a little bit of a double negative you know what we're gonna skip that face um I'll try - I'll try to talk actually it was about they asked the what I thought was an annoying question and I thought your answer was pretty cool and that's why it sort of caught my eye they were asking you what you thought what would think of your performance it just seemed like the worst possible really what them was so now I'm gonna tell you well let's get out my Ouija board and bring on you know madam Tallulah and she and I will divine what the dead spirit of Walt Disney would so instead of saying that to NPR was thank you for sharing here you were you said I think it would have appreciated the suit in the mustache on the whatnot but I think he would also say hey you didn't seem to be working very well that's because the guy never stopped working and apparently in the film which I can't wait to see they got the screeners baby movies we're actually gonna go we made plans to go see this afternoon in the theaters open it open it open small this 17 nothing I'm here promoted here because of an off-the-cuff remark I made four years ago this is why I am here I ran into Senor knucklehead over here complimented him on his recent appearance on world poker tournament I notice I didn't say though world poker tournament and he says you gotta park I said hey that sounds like fun let's try it four years later here my the timing is just ostentatious yeah when you go out on on what I call the celebrity meal train yeah they're all the questions really get down to whittle down to about five or six eight at the most there is you know what drew you to this project you picking what were the challenges that you face doing this what is it like working with blank right and the other thing is like the generic what do you think so-and-so would think of this yeah and that was the Walt Disney thing and Walt Disney was the busiest human being on the planet is that one of the things you found the research that basically never stopped working and well I also loved everything that he did yeah and they and he work I think at the same pace understand this is a guy that when he was in Kansas City making like goofy gag slides for the local movie theater he did it in his garage by himself with pen and ink and he just was always he was always involved in everything line he never stopped coming up with something and the reality I told that John Lee Hancock I said look honestly all these scenes should be me with like eight men in shirtsleeves you know smoking cigarettes and having coffee arguing about something you know that's what they all should be but they don't have a room for eight people and they and they can't show people smoking cigarettes in a movie otherwise it's rated R it swear to God and so it was always just me kind of like drawing on it well here's a script that I'm making notes here's some plans and I'm looking at them hmm well we'll put Tomorrowland here and well if we buy more Florida property here that's what it turned out to babies wow he was actually very busy man a non-stop we're huge lovers of a Disneyland like on oh that is wonderfully placed with the holding up the apple of the Apple logo yeah yeah we're a wonderful season pass holder really yeah yeah you could go anytime you want she's got the premiere Wow yeah I have the mega pass MegaPath do anything new down there would have you noticed anything new down there Burton throws up on the Haunted Mansion every year you see that throws up throws up the upchuck subscribe it like that it's hot Mansion holiday and yeah yeah and they do you the Nightmare Before Christmas and now and and what Pirates of the Caribbean is pretty much the print and the movie franchise Pirates of the Caribbean right now they're in holiday time so like you know it's a small world holiday and they started this year jingle cruise which is the Jungle Cruise has a holiday theme which is very nice have they changed the pattern on the other day let me change this feel that rhinoceros will get his gift in the end too bad there's not a chimney on that Lion King what I don't understand how they could how could they change it like that well they that's crass commercialism they buy the word they peppered the regular pun I'm going to be getting an email from Bob Iger did you really have to criticize the park there is a reasonable answer what is it what is theirs about the people that go through the turnstiles each day it's like 60 or 70 percent annual pass holders so they have to constantly change things up and in order to keep this car I disagree they do not have to constantly change it up it should be absolutely pure from the way it came out so you see it again and again and again I Got News for you every time you see Star Wars it's the same friggin movie and every time you ride on the Jungle Cruise you'd be safe turn around and say goodbye to the civilization and two of you to appears for one of yours or whatever whatever their regular pattern is a backside of water it should always be ideal always be the same well I thought just enough time but as an either as a season pass what you want to see what yeah how they've altered the I like that they change it up because they do change it back but I also appreciate Disneyland more than Disney World because Disney World is so quick to get rid of it and like a traditional attraction and they never will never do that in Disneyland like they got rid of the snow white dark ride because they had me and they're like we need more thorough ride so we're gonna put in a rollercoaster here's the interesting tidbit about the history of Disneyland because we play the stuff we were there when that win when fantasy when he first opened it up he ran out of money and so Fantasyland was not much more than like a two-dimensional kind of like almost like a County quality attractions the rides were fun and they had the carousel and the carousel had multicolored horses and they discovered that the line was blocking up and they were getting less less rides in per day because kids wanted particular colored horses they wanted to be on the red horse of the black horse of the green horse and so it just mult mucked up the work so they have now painted every horse white and so you can get on and you have a white horse maybe with green bells and things like that or red big but now all the horses are white so they never stop toying with the psyche of the people now I got no problems with that because that's that's just better quite frankly right engineering and management that's right but it's kind of the patter it's this this makes me this makes me berserk I hadn't been on it for a long time I went down with the kids we went on a submarine ride which is not really a ride no the submarine is literally it's like a submarine I mean it son rails but you're underwater in a you know in a watertight you know they had to build those things they're like they're like ships and they changed all of those wonders of the deep that kind of uh the audio track two kooky underwater sound effects with like splish Splash I was taking a bath and it was just it was not the same ride whatsoever I wanted I wanted literally to be on the Polaris going under the thing yeah Disneyland purest one well yeah and historian about mostly a little sip of cranky juice Tom Hanks crank hey here's one for you why did you hate Barry Levinson's film Avalon's oh it stopped [Laughter] okay remember this um you were hoping I should I go through a 12-step process I would make amends to you because literally that no I remember it very well because like three hours later I thought what did I just do I just took off on this guy's he's in a movie for God sorry the first big but one with Ursa mini well oh and some others and all I did was because I just seen you know how people are when you sit when they see movies all you do is riff on the movie you just saw that's right and I rift on that far too long and I was I was a I was a I was an ass I was impressed no you weren't what the anger you had towards this incredibly loving me it's actually a beautiful movie it's this but filled but filled with the ire of hey I went to college I know about films if I fall I'm gonna I'm me it's certainly not diner you know yeah I'm sorry because it was about 40 minutes in Dana Carvey yes was it you do remember I remember it yes well listen you're more than made up with it by allowing me some historical moments earth-moon and that thing you do so you were the only choice let's talk about that at the casting process because I remember showing up on the set of that thing you do and seeing Charlize Theron photo it was a photo of her in period a hair and makeup for them officially sure leaves his second movie right he had made three days in the valley two days okay whatever it was the original III like that they caught one of them yeah but her photo was right there on the by video village and I just walked up and saw the photo and said oh my god what is that who because she looked like a starlet from yeah yester you yeah and not so you were just in the casting process and oh she made the most sense kinda know I remember very specifically because she was I swear this is their there's no hyperbole in this she was the first actor I read in the casting process and she came in mm-hm and she dress she's smart and that she's sort of dressed not identically like that but she's had a hint of period about her right and talking to her she was a formidable physical presence as well as a psychological one she's confident that is a confident woman who was very sure of herself yeah and I said well look I think you might be really good for the for the role of a penis she said she says I am Tina but I'd like to read for Fey which was played by by live live yeah and and she read and I said Alyssa you are so fantastic it's just great but I you're a little too sensational in order to be yeah to be face oh you'll be team and but it was like I thought well this is gonna be easy I'll meet with six people and [ __ ] will certainly take my call we just then I just call you yes you did just call and I said don't tell me who else you called the forms now there was nobody else boss Vic Koss and I love that you pronounced it a cost love it tossed Levitch a little brighter but I do have a question about Ethan's on credit as the bass player yes he is one of the leads arguably yeah and yet the name of the character in the credits t be player B player well I thought it was funny that no one ever called them by a name no say this is called hey where's your bass player right that's all they referred to them because it felt in keeping with the sort of spirit of the time well there's always a band member that you're not sure who they are I mean outside of outside of the Beatles and perhaps the Rolling Stones handful of other words by and large those guys are the best there's a front person and there's other people you know I mean quick name name the other Supremes well I mean you know there's there were leave Nancy Wilson was one and Diana Ross and I'm sure someone out there screaming the name of one of the many things yeah I was going through the bass players in my mind already of all the other there's a lot of bands and so I just thought it was hilarious that he just never had a and replacement was the Wolfman the wool jacket always ascot pal wolf down Scott Bell we had a we had the painful screaming what a recruited screening process of the movie which never tells you anything the card process never tells you anything because the way the audience feels and listens to the movie is the movie yeah there's no there's no change they always do that card thing and the guy who runs the research group you know says does anybody have any problems with some of your favorite scenes well what do i do what did i what is it does anybody had any real putt no one guy any problems with if anyone got shot his hand up yeah yes the bass player doesn't have a name even recognize that I thought I was the only one who got that and I was I mean he was very upset former bass player it was Garry tallent of the Bruce of the E Street Band he was really pissed off and that I know that Gary put me on I just a napkin please hey somebody asked about the Genesis though was it just your love of the music of that time for writing and directing there was there was there was a I was I lived and died I was the youngest of three three kids who were living alone in a small apartment in Alameda California my sister all of her friends right and my older brother all her friends okay all his friends and me and it was it was that we were just in the mall of the brief invasion I became a socially conscious human being about 1963 1964 and that's when the meals are on and I was convinced that other bands were just as good as the Beatles I thought the Dave Clark Five were actually a little better than the field first and all the other things that came along as I said well that that's just that's it was a very rich jazz Jeremy they were nice they were better than Jan and Dean but I loved Jan and Dean at the time man I went to a huge Jana Dean face so but this was unique and I'm not I don't want to I don't want something like an old guy but it was unique because the radio that we all listened to had every type of genre of music playing on it I grew up listening to Johnny Cash and Motown and other country Western artists of floyd cramer like jazz we've listened to vince guaraldi all these people had hits and was part of part of what we listed it's not like a different type of chart a different type of you know genre or whatever radio station one yeah they has broken so the mood the music I just absolutely adored and I heard this story about a guy when the Beatles made I think their second tour of Australia and Japan Ringo got sick and they just they replaced him for about eight or nine gigs right with a guy with drummer named Jimmy nickles they just replaced him he's playing with the Beatles at the live at the Budokan and places like that and he was in the parades and they all said John Paul George Ringo they didn't even change his name on the thing he was so bad and I just thought that guy had a pretty interesting ride there for a while and so I took that and transposed it two of them because the story of that thing to do is the the drummer breaks his arm and so this a guide Patterson shows up and ends up and he ends up being on live TV and his life changes because he could play the drums and keep a beat yeah that just came out like that but you co-wrote some of the songs as well uh yeah I wrote some of the lyrics of the goofy not the real songs the more interstitial goofy stuff right I can write the hits and I didn't write like drive faster or I need you I actually brought mister down did you really I wrote mister it's one of our favorites I wrote mister downtown I wrote hold my hand hold my hand hold I wrote that that movie it's so magical yeah oh that's lovely no I wrote the theme to the Hollywood television showcase it was it was it was as much fun as I have I don't trust it when anybody says it was the most fun I've ever had because there's a lot of fun to be had in this kooky gig yeah like today and and it was it was just a credibly vibrant time and I must say that I can my son was born during the Christmas break the one that I have since played you know cards against humanity' would he was born I can literally show you between the Mercyhurst College talent show right and whatever comes next that my son was born during that during that break and then your old this first son I think has a small yeah he plays a page that shows a that shows a live Tyler to see yeah my daughter's in a in a in a shopping scene you know that's what you slap your kids and I just so you can see them well that well that was merciless job yeah that's the thing I mean I one of the reasons I asked about the genesis is because I have to assume not even checking the dossier that you had been asked to direct a few times if not many prior to that and and this was one I'm not an instinctive directive I I'm not like almost every director I've ever met where that had just like like a major boner about directing III was acting as an instinctive thing they you don't have to talk about you just do it you know directing was was a I got involved in I started doing that thing you do because the the celebrity knew I swear to God the celebrity mule train right for Forrest Gump right started in June and it did not end until the following March and I was in the middle of that thing and I thought I was going insane sure from this kind of like white-hot brand of attention yeah and I just needed a a creative break from that and I was traveling all over the country and all around the world so I started developing this this idea and I ended up writing and then once you write it and if you like it well then you're doomed because you don't want to hand that over some not head director who's gonna screw it up is if anybody's gonna screw it up it's gonna be me yeah and so that's that's the way that happened right it was enough of hey look at me you you want to do I wanted to disappear into something a little a little bit as much as possible right and you know the movie did fine and it's actually what's amazing about these films was and that was made at a time when you weren't absolutely sure movies would live forever that's right you know because eventually they go into a bargain bin you know and they do disappear yeah no no sure okay well we all do yeah but now you know you gotta admit that you know that's out there and is visible and now meet little kids who have you know asked me questions about you know the bass player and yeah and you know why Lenny said I am hey Skitch why did Liddy call guys get the time what isn't that well because I just thought of like Skitch Henderson you know he probably saw them they watch The Tonight Show right sketch Anderson I was the leader of the Tonight Show Band before a doctor yeah have you know I saw that movie twice in theaters so they're quieter okay that's the thing I noticed an associate with you and we're talking about the Kubrick film 2001 based Odyssey you claimed to have seen it 22 times in the theater in a theater in a theater 22 time that's like and I actually you can add one because they just played it on the new 4k projector at the Aero about a year ago and I saw it there and I swear to God I saw stuff I'd never seen before yeah because a digital projection was so clean how great is that era we went to see Planes Trains automobiles Oh was it Thanksgiving Eve yeah oh yeah just recently yeah I saw that on the marquee yeah that's pretty [ __ ] who spoke did somebody speak did they come up and talk about no but what John Candy's daughter daughter and wife and and though the Sun no we're just in attendance they didn't get up and say anything but but yeah that so that's pretty great well that's the thing when people are passionate about a film there's no talking them out of it so the people who love a movie like that of yours that they're gonna hold it dear til the end of time and I've got movies that I do that of you know other people's films like Fargo and stuff like that I can watch that movie a hundred million times yeah what have you seen this year that you're like I'm a little behind the curve I've seen inside and speaking of the the Cohens who the bachelors who will not give me another job I don't know why I you know I did The Ladykillers for yeah you sure did in fact I have here Sophie's Choice one of the Coen brothers has to die which one gun deer head you got a pick one man oh man really yep gotta pick one gotta pick one I ran into Joe at a fig in New York and I didn't even let him say hello to me I said come on what did I do you work on a repertory company I went back in that thing you work with Clooney every other week there are they are they are truly pails their movie inside Llewyn Davis is Magne but I saw August Osage County which is sensational I haven't seen what happen I say American hustle spirit I haven't seen American spectacular I haven't seen I've seen 12 years of slave which is one of the most mind-boggling gripping depressing movies of everything and magnificent you know I'm just talking about his chairs who's moved by it I saw a couple of other two things you know what I saw recently I'm late to the game please sports documentaries Harvard beat Yale 29 29 oh yeah have you seen that that is one of the most elegance of a beautiful its elegant simple and the football looks fantastic in it a videotape of again from 1968 67 yes 60 and you know the game ends a tie but your heart is in your mouth the entire it's a magnificent recommend it highly enough but it's got Tommy Lee Jones in it who was an offensive lineman for the Harvard football team oh wow about that we made of Al Gore we're all made of Al Gore's one of my favorites and a picture of one of the Yale football players whose girlfriend was Meryl Streep what the I know it's a I can't recommend it highly enough and they get Sun Netflix it it no it no yeah it is is you the Netflix or the other EMAS honor and you can find its streaming one of those I've had I've had bad luck with the Netflix I'm sorry because every time I go on there let me come down look at your system because it's clearly yes first of all we had to get the whole password username getting down as human errors what I'm going to suggest which is like when the guy who sets it up he says are I gave you a password Oh what is it it's 2 KQ small case iwd and so I'm never gonna remember that can you not just put forest down yeah this be Apollo 13 but every time every time we go into Netflix I'm trying to find something that at one time another plate on HBO right that's a no no no no they don't they don't HBO stuff it's not on that no that's what we got to get it the HBO go and I have I turns out I had that who knew yeah I wasn't not told I know what cuz the guy who gave you the bad first now I know now I'm going back and watching the wire which I know how this time it came out we're into something great here Mike how deep are you I am on Episode four of the first season oh my and I'm driving my family insane I've got the best news for you I have it all to look forward you know that are hardest four episodes to get are you kidding oh then I'm home that's your climbing the roller coaster alright its co-star actually Envy the innocence of having not yet seen it the wire yeah yeah it is reminiscent of some of your work Lana when you know you were playing non-jews which is how he described usual suspects I'm running around with a machine gun Jews don't do this no you know what they do in some country well yeah I mean they call a six day war because we needed a day to rest um now I'm gonna have a little bit another sip of cranky please do hey let's talk about this on the award front because I've not seen the wolf of Wall Street except for a couple of scenes I haven't seen it either yeah okay so you've worked with DiCaprio and one of my absolute favorite favorite of yours catch me catch me if you can is this kid is it the movie star status that has undermined the fact that he is a truly brilliant actor I think yeah I think he is a brilliant actress yeah and I think he's proven that again and again and again because you know he was a kid actor that I don't recall seeing great well that was it but I think prior to that he was actually in the TV version of Parenthood he played one of the kid you know this perfect there you go the team the first go-round of Parenthood right here but as soon as I saw him in Gilbert Grape you just say okay alright he's one of the five just one of the 5% brilliant guys yeah and I've never seen him do anything that wasn't fascinating on somehow so and you know I think he's maintaining the mystery that I have let lapse out of the bottle I have none well you didn't have to worry about the pretty thing that other co-star Paul Newman it befell him for many years it didn't matter how great the work it was it initially it was he's just a handsome movie star this is what I am suggesting good yeah and Redford for that part who I think probably wins this year for an entire career I think it might be one of those years he rates without a doubt without a doubt but he's I've always thought he was a fascinating actor and I mean you don't have got just for the for the big hits but some might be three days of the time right and I honestly if you look for a pound for pound the performance that he gives in the way we were oh yeah this is one of the most subtle I mean he puts on a clinic how to act for in the cinema yeah and also how about because Butch Cassidy Sundance Kid was for me the 2001 I saw that's a 13 times in the theater if they hit movie it's a holds up hill holds up well he and Newman end up giving back more individually between Newman's Own oh yeah son damn the Sundays that all came out of that it came out historical yeah to to what to whom much is given much is owed what is what is the staff don't look out here much is owed no help is so sure they're gonna go to their phones meaning that if you've had good for can you you gotta get it back right and for you I'm guessing this may have been an exceptionally important the distinguished public service award the highest award the US Navy can offer a civilian that must have been that was nice yeah that was that was you know that was in tandem to all essentially of all the sort of like veteran World War two attention that we yeah that's not something opposed this goes after though no no or a student no they didn't that was that was just that was just a very nice thing yeah we got to their way there was some stuff that was like that did someone thought that we had been given the Congressional Medal of Honor sure and and there was like argument you know like how did I think folks it was not the Congressional honor it was like it was a way thank you for making the movies and bringing some attention Matta fact Steven Spielberg and I got that together and we were on we were on a we were on a ship in might have been no other no folk it was somewhere and we were on the the SS Normandie and we had a figure on that we were there for something else but they gave us that and we helped celebrate yeah helps where a guy back into the Navy it was reaping and stuff right and also the thing where you brought the veterans after Saving Private Ryan to back to Normandy yeah yeah we did that and a lot of we just lost like three of those guys just just recently babe Heffron died and earl McClung died in their 90's i mean yes they're there yeah we major winners died a little a year about a year eight months ago that was yeah tough it's hard to wondering yeah the you know thing time is relentless and their their time came but they were they were astonishing guys they were they're fed when we were doing Band of Brothers in in England we shot it at the same sort of abandoned airfield as we shot much of Saving Private Ryan and so we had like villages built all over the place and two units were going simultaneously so there were always about a hundred guys in uniform actors in uniform shooting two different things and babe Heffron and Wild Bill showed up and Bill only has one leg sure because he lost he lost one in Belgium and he's over in Belgium like he sees he like an ego Bop and tour the tour the literally the the forest where they was all still there you could still see it and he says hey kid I give you five bucks knowing that voice if I my leg but when they showed up man it was it was it was like it was like Lennon McCartney were there they everybody just came running out of every costume shop transportation apartment suddenly there was like 300 people around to look at these old guys sit on a Jeep and say how are your kids how I well there's the actors and costume and then there's pretty great those two yeah yeah well this there's so many of the quotes over the years that actually is that babe that actually let that yeah yeah here's the bed and a singular leg somewhere somewhere in the forest I am a lay historian by Nature I seek out empirical reflection of what truth is I sort of want dates and motivations and I want the whole story but if I would have taken out empirical and sorted I would have taken out a couple of water certainly I'll give you a chance to rewrite that's why I'm sharing it but I've always felt unconsciously that all human history is that connection from person to person to person event event event from idea to idea yeah that is the deal isn't it I yeah I think that's why we I keep going back in the company and saying hey here's this here's this piece of history that no one's really ever talked about and it's always it's always recognizable human behavior I think it always comes over I do that oh that sounds like something I would do and we live today with with all the encumbrances of modern life and it's not that much different from decisions people made and you know in back at a time when it took three days to get from Philadelphia to New York you know right or you know you had to no one had ever you hadn't been outside of your town in your entire lifetime in xaml you're parachuting into mmm into Normandy that was the astonishing thing how many of those kids had never actually left their home oh well you know America was such a different place understand you know this is amazing you know we did not have an interstate highway system the ten hadn't been built hadn't been built until Eisenhower was president of United States so just getting across the country was a formidable formidable task yeah and so no wonder that you know if you lived in Pennsylvania maybe you maybe went into Pittsburgh you know once or twice but chances are you just lived right around you know whatever whatever town you were in Ashtabula you know Steubenville Ohio sure you just didn't get it yeah you know and then next thing you know you're with three thousand other guys on the Queen Mary and you hear Europe you're going this shouldn't be too fun Oh Continental cut - yeah okay I can't get bad sir I always think about look like you know what kind of a knucklehead were you at nineteen ridiculous I was still truly redic I was literally a cluck I was a [ __ ] now and I couldn't I couldn't even read the New York Times when I was 19 because it was too confusing yeah and back then by the way at 19 you never said these words you know I think no no and these were guys insane what oh I'm gonna go join the army I'll go I'll do whatever they want me to do that's that that I that gets me man that got that spirit and I also think to like your you're 19 years old you're in France right sure god you're just a 19 year old guy you run around France and you hear like hello listen the evil dictators are at the river and they're gonna take over this town right now you either stay or you run down to the beach get on a boat and sail across the English Channel to some other country and plan on how to come back and throw these guys out there were 19 year old guys who did that and that that's that's just an astounding thing that did staggering it is I read it for pleasure as well as for financial gain decided to try to try to make a TV show about it yeah for me just going to pick up the dry-cleaning as a [ __ ] tough man are you kidding with this construction have you seen Robertson I was confounded and I have the GPS it was telling me how to get here let me before we do the the mid show ads I want to ask after the amazing experience with Vincent Dowling and and the start of it all why it took so long to get you on the boards at Broadway with lucky men Nora Ephron's was this past was it I mean April May I the great thing about the great lake chase because Vincent Dowling said to all of us who were interns he says for the most part I cannot pay you any money I don't have it but I can give you something more precious than a paycheck and that is professional it working in the together with professional and he was absolutely right yeah because most of the actors were from New York there was there was a contingent from Minneapolis a big contingent from Kansas City where where Vincent at work and a bunch of us came not from California but we were all interns and but the lion's share of them were were guys from New York many of them were gay sure who just said look if you want to be a professional actor there's only one place for you to be have you done to do your gonna do Shakespeare for a living you have to come to New York where you can audition for something that might give you a paycheck three or four times a week if you can't audition for something three or four times a week in Minneapolis or good and there's no reason to go to Los Angeles because you'll just disappear and two years after the end of the second year that I was there because my son was born in between the because my son Colin was born so I went back and had that fabulous thing happened and then you had to move on and they were right and if they if those wonderful people hadn't like taken me under their wing and said here's how you have a card in your wallet that says you're a professional actor now so here's what you have to do and I and the reason I did not do any plays on Broadway is because no one would hire me to do plays on Broadway it was just there was just nothing happening well I understand that then but the chasm between then and oh well after that I was in my childbearing years - Terry the truth yeah I I had kids and to go off and say daddy loves you but I'm gonna go off and do a play for eight months or ever long it worked but I couldn't have done it and your youngest now is 17 17 so so they're all out the house so that had that contributed to more to it than anything else there wasn't this dying need along the way oh there's always the diners we're gonna do it I need is let's not get you know I don't trust any but it says I must well if you do it then you know pursue and get it was if you have the opportunity pursue and when the time came Nora was alive and she wrote this thing that I had never seen anything like it before and we were going to work at and develop it and the director George George Woolf Georgia Woolf I had seen a bunch of stuff that he had done I just thought he was some brand of theatrical you know madman genius which in fact he is and then we had Peter Scolari oh well yeah Peter III you know I've had Peter in almost everything you you cannot go through something like Peter and I did on Bosom Buddies in which I swear to God we had I could tell how many deep philosophical profound heart-to-heart talks we had about ourselves as as men and our stature in the industry and our just place in the zeitgeist in which we're leaning in each other's doorway and I'm wearing pantyhose and I have I have the orange lipstick on and I'm wearing a wig that makes me look like Stockard Channing 'he's big sister just like Glenn I tell you man it's just like a thing just to get back to the purity of what you know it's like that so we we come round around on each other all the time yeah so when you when you and Peter in rehearsals oh are you is it falling back into step in terms of the lives in front of an audience because I just did a week on show with Allison Janney and Anna Faris their show on CBS there that live in front of the audience that rehearsal week that building up to it having done every aspect of show business now do you think maybe that still might be the greatest job in show business it's the only time it's the only time the actors in charge that's the way I look at it it's the only time the actor gets to do to to control the tempo everything that's going on yeah I've heard I didn't write this but I've heard you know like television is a writer's medium because the writer writes the arcs of all the characters they have to keep pumping it out film is the director's medium the director makes all of the tiny minut decisions from the get-go but the theater once the show is up you know the live audience then the actors are in charge of everything and they it we went to town a couple of times on a few things just to see where it would just where it would go and lucky guy did you oh yeah yeah just you know just a you know and suddenly you find yourself it's pumped up and you don't know why and or as you're hearing something for the first time there's no better lie for now that's why I come back again you know the directing thing instinctively I'm an actor I it everything else is like kind of like a learned write a chore or a craft that you have to you know go through an apprenticeship for right sit there and comfortable yes what show is this when is it on yours with Allison Janney is that there it's called mom mom yeah I thought Oh mom Oh mom stop it Chuck Lorre Oh mom oh the two and a Half Men Mike and Molly Big Bang Theory and now mom I believe he's known as Chuck catching Laurie because he's a he's CBS's money in the bank an E and Warner Bros well what else does he do is that it just those four shows just the mere four but he doesn't do does he new Big Bang Theory there's some saying Big Bang Theory Mike and Molly my you know is very fun two and a Half Men all right that's the juggernaut if it keeps on giving and now mom yeah but Big Bang Theory turns out to be the single most were you at common history really yeah worldwide yeah okay I'm not kidding did you ever do like sitcom did you ever do series television had a couple of wildly failed pilots so I got to experience that a little bit which counts not sure I joined the writers guild in 1980 25 years ago because I was six lead on a Barry Kemp remember him five yes he did a thing with Paul Dooley and Alan Young and Glynnis John would short-lived like six eight episodes in gone and then I did a very very fantastically failed four episode and gone so really no I have not had and I was there one week and I said this is a Johnson I've done it all could you could they write you again they are you doing art I'm get by at least six episodes right now yeah I said you know what tell Scorsese we've done it already good gig I want the gig but the life of it quite honestly pretty spectacular is that thing - it's a show business Outsiders the best gig is that that sketch lifestyle is there is the half-hour multi-camera comedy yeah cuz we rehearse you right at you rehearse and then you shoot it two days one day one day camera block when we did Bosom Buddies Peter and I sure they were saving money by sticking us on video like the most like almost like the electronic can't do Mont elect contrary it was an ancient technology and it looked horrible I had somebody say did we get this stuff from the Soviet Union today getting rid of some of their cameras we've had fun with the guys who were the camera operators but every other show on the Paramount lot was filmed and they had this scheduled on Thursday they're just second team did most of their work but our Thursday's our camera blockings we were in front of the cameras the entire day yeah just over to hold please hold please that's how we heard all day long all right can you take it back to sunny sunny sunny sunny all right and sunny sunny sunny sunny sunny kid you know that I well you know what kid day hey Buffy blah blah blah hold please hold please hold please he's in the tree Tom can you wait for the tally light on camera three before you say that yeah yeah so but what we and so it was that we ended up putting in like 14-hour days on Thursdays but because we were doing the scenes over and over again we started goofing around sure and that's honestly for I think I could speak for all the Casas that's when a lot of really magical stuff God that you can use we just got bored started goofing around we incorporated it into the show yeah as opposed to you go down to happy days or tax with Laverne and Shirley and they'd have second team you know stand-ins with placards string signs that would say Potsie that's right and then he would move from that mark and then and ready and reset and the guide said pottsy would not walk over to the other thing I said well I want this gig man I don't have to show up on that's right Tom you want the standards well no I want to be on film that's that's what I stop with the kicking Oh see now this is the first time I was aware of the great Kevin Pollak we were at we were at one of those like backyard events in that's right that was going to promote understanding and then goodness and niceness right and you got up and did a what was probably going to be a seven minute routine that went on into easily triple digits but one of them's like too long no no I was dying I thought it was meant he was saving us from the speeches about you know the heartfelt you know fundraising or something yeah yeah but your routine stop with the kicking was advice we still say it around the house do you ever stop with the kicking well it was celebrating the Jewish action stuff right the Jewish a yeah which never made sense to me why he had that name Jeff Speakman yeah because that's where you get in central casting send over Jeff's be starring in the motion picture film stop with the kiss up with the kicking stop with it kicking all right we're gonna segue not finish these beers oh no please just put them take your it's Sunday and I got a going for the cookie yeah you committed to the bits right alright now when I get a segue nice nicely cue the red epic with its nice little uh the red pro 5.0 yeah I do want to know this because I threw the dossier I did not see an answer to this question who was the first person you remember that made you laugh family or friend but not from TV or show business at all just someone from real life it was my brother Larry really my brother Larry who was two and a half years older that three and a half years older than I who had to dry a sense of humor on the planet Earth the guy just killed nature and even now when we're all together the family's all together right it's like it's like when's Larry coming you know let's all drive together Larry which car are you gonna go and everybody wants to ride with my brother Larry it wasn't that kind of sense of humor that just kind of owned you like oh oh I absolutely present he he he did a couple of things to me when I was young uh-huh he came to me in my brig but I was I'm little I'm like four maybe and he says hey Tommy you want to play follow the leader and I thought my brother wants to play with me this is the greatest thing I was sure sure Larry yeah I'll play let's play follow the leader okay I'll be a leader and you follow so he led me all around our backyard and it went on for like it's 15 minutes and I just this is great because we're making face and stuff like that until I finally stepped in the coffee can of muddy water that he had planted that he was always walking me over he led me over it like nine times before I finally stepped in it and first I cried because I thought it was too cruel but three minutes later I thought my brother's a genius there's a funny thing about another time he was we were like my dad was divorced we were essentially three feral kids sure living in an apartment you know and the dad was never home and we had to do their chores ourselves and he was washing the breakfast dishes one day they said hey Tom finish your grapefruit and because we would slice up grapefruit and put sugar all over it and I hit hen finishes that okay I should finish it and I and I took him it took a bite of a wedge and it tasted like dishwashing detergent weird weird and I said oh man and three bites into it I realize Larry had sprayed just washing liquid into my into my grapefruit and I laugh because it's funny I didn't realize how stupid I was because what do you stop after just one bite no my brother was always able to get me to just you know sum over over Pete funniest funniest man on the planet that was an odd wedge of grapefruit yeah but he was the one that made me laugh like crazy yeah and then who was it from either radio or albums or television from the professional world of comedy that sort of caught your eye initially you remember anyone from the Pharaohs well you know you could be over at somebody's house and they'd play like chicken heart you know the Bill Cosby thing I didn't know such thing as comedy records existed yeah but they say he won't eat your chicken heart what is that and they put it on I'd be yeah it'd be I be like hypnotized and it could go back over and listen to it again and it again it again then later on George Carlin on the Flip Wilson show how about that yeah that was that was that was that was amazing I remember seeing the Richard Pryor on an Ed Sullivan Show yep in which the routine was about the toughest kid in school and for no reason at all the toughest kid in school would like point a say you after school I'm gonna bite your foot off and you'd have to believe him because be walking around with the big shoe and out of his mouth I mean that was his routine for the for the Fred Sullivan Show yeah the actual return was you after school I'm gonna bite your dick off and you had to believe because we walk around with a dick I mean it was it was pretty fun when you realize that so that I was just in awe it wasn't like a guy who tried to practice what you know was who was Fanta John Byner yeah John Byner he was a guy on the way John he would do the impressions and he was like mad kinetic kind of kind of energy later on who was a guy that did the Nixon David fry David fry I had the great Nixon comedy album that was that was pretty great yeah well there was von mated with the Canada album before him which we would have been really young for that I remember that my dad thought that was hilarious it was I remember being a kid wondering if it was legal can you actually block the promote the President and have people that sort of looked like the president on the cover of the president now that's an interesting story one meter yeah you know that you know that the great story about little Lenny Bruce yeah man Vaughn meters [ __ ] was opening like carnac yeah yeah that's amazing that you remember that how do you know that well I was fascinated with Vaughn Meader story for a while we were trying to develop it into a possible thing I don't know if it would have been a movie or a maybe one a play or something like that right because I read an interview of him he was now going by his middle name something abot meter his real name was Vaughn Abbott meter and after all of that he just said let's not let's let's make Vaughn meter go away I'm now Abbot then it was smart and he essentially ended his life playing piano for people in in Maine in a small town in Maine and an interview he said you know you have to understand about that it was exactly one year of the hottest Fame you could imagine utterly and it did not peter out it disappeared overnight right he was in a he had done he had done a like he was like one of those kind of like hungry iconic comics you know he had a bit of a company and they do kind of like routines mildly amusing but when he did this three-minute Kennedy and precedent impersonation it just took off it was like please do that and as an artist he didn't want to just be known for one thing but then he eventually said alright alright we'll develop this and we'll do more because that's all the people want and they recorded this this comedy album which was the biggest success of all comedy albums up to that point first family I mean if my dad went out and bought a comedy record everything first that everybody had and everybody listened to it and it became it was a monster success huge big read he was a guy that was just he was booked everywhere and he was performing constantly and they wanted a second one and so he didn't want to do a sequel but he did a second comedy album and it sold half as well which was still a monster success and even one of the last comedy bits is now I'll never have to do another you know JFK no that was it and he was in a he was a flew to Detroit to do a big gig and the taxi driver said to him did you hear about Kennedy and he said no how does it go that's what he said Wow think he was going to get because people treated him like he was John F Kennedy right and the phone the gig was cancelled and the phone stopped ringing it was exactly one year of everything you'd want women parties money attention fame access all that and then it was gone yeah that don't you get when you hear that Kevin Pollak don't you think a little bit one hear what if I'm do when I do what have I done they'll always come back to that one podcast you did for the Kevin Pollak show show you did the prior dick in the mouth that was it that was it speaking of which what is the fourth thing about you you'd rather no one no one of the prior thing the fourth thing is what we're after I want to save you from the first three no one needs to know though because there's such common I'm gonna text you from the first three no one needs to know that oh I want to know this is one of these things I'm gonna tell you right now that is the problem of doing any sort of like yeah let's call this press it's not really press this is because you know press needs a mass audience I understand that eight billion people can get the internet but I'm not sure they all search there what else urge note that they won't all say unless I really do something stupid so if you say something will sound as though I've thought about it and so it would be it all comes off like FA Proclamation it's exactly right so I say the fourth thing I would not that I don't want anybody to know about me I don't give me a couple of moments I come up with okay can I say the thing that I've learned how to say now yes doing this which is I don't accept the premise of the question this is something that you can pull out of your pocket anytime you want to and the Fourth Estate has to accept it really yes you can say well look that's a hypothetical situation I don't deal in hypotheticals they could still come back and say yes but if you didn't believe in hypothetical in which case you still sort of have to answer the question but if you say straight up I do not accept the premise of the question they can't come back at you I've learned it from a journalist friend of mine Wow who who was you know is there any way I could get out of something yeah I just say you don't accept the premise of the question send that friend $1,000 I'm gonna sit him so I'm still thinking about what the fourth thing oh no that's fine because everything about I look I'm pretty obvious man I you taught you not you don't painfully I look stupid in a hat trans which is why like I'm the only one at this pen I'm right back on doing a buffering come on I love that all right give me if you will that first time on stage where you did something it got a yeah in specifics a laugh not a moment that was powerful necessarily well this is interesting this is a very important show business lesson and this is why I always come get a look all I am is an instinctive actor I don't know how to do anything else alright this is another story about repetition and learning by doing we we did Twelfth Night in in high school I was playing Andrew aguecheek and that not Fabian Fabian is a bad role I might have been cut from any was playing argue a Gucci Andrew aguecheek and we had done it like most high schools you know do it what-ho I told you it did it we all sounded like that except John Gill christen who was a great actor and we one day we were told by our drama teacher that we were going to perform scenes at every assembly for the day so we performed these scenes three times in six times in one day we didn't have to go to class we just had to perform these these scenes from Shakespeare for about 300 people at a time 300 of our friends and or enemies or the people that we you know hoped we wouldn't see at school when we'd show up because they were evil but and so about third assembly well we started cutting up and by the time we got to the sixth one I had five or six gags a surrender trick that were absolute killer and when you know when somebody laughs at Shakespeare in high school you're done then you're just you're just settled it's that's all you want to do from then on yeah I was I was a worthless stood in anyway but that made me even more so it's crazy powerful isn't it that yeah yeah I think I just did a silly dance you know I said something about and bear-baiting and then do two different dance and that was it man they laughed a bit they laughed at the silly dance yeah I mean cut to this silly day a lot of the why is it always end up in Dana Carvey dress excuse me I'm gonna have a sip of my bitter juice if anyone has a right to be bitter you know a lot of things I'm talking to performers of comedy in front of a live audience about is getting to the point specifically monologist getting to a point where but it's true of an actor on stage where you hear the silence of the audience and you lean into it because you know they're actually listening yeah yeah as opposed to the early training which is don't let there be silence the magic of that silence sometimes sometimes creates a sense of power do you have any recollection of that of realizing there was silence for good like in the play just did for example there was that there was actually I I did a play at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival understand that I was just a guy who was loud and funny sure and then I did three years of classical repertory and I came out of that and I was an actor and that you know I got the job because I was loud and funny but then I was literally disciplined and and by the experience of working with those professionals and we I did a performance of Juno and the paycock by Sean O'Casey and I played a role called Jerri divine but she only has two little tiny scenes and most think a lot in a lot of productions he might be cut though it comes in so so fast and in the second time he shows up he breaks the heart of a girl Juno's daughter and it was it was a great it was a magnificent production of it and I was on stage with more silences and I had lines and there was powerful and that was probably the first time that I'm actively remembering there being a silence in which everybody was leaning leaning forward and part of the power of it was the the words in the play but there was some other thing about the way I was directed and and some aspect of being in a moment there that I remember is being like it shouldn't be that good you know and that was you know that was one of the building blocks of figuring out how to do it for a living it is one of those weird things where as powerful as that first laugh was and a drug that lasts a lifetime the maturity of appreciating the silence is this whole other but no so how did you go from being you know stop with the kicking stand to a guy that you know can carry weight extremely dramatically and it's some of the work that you've done even at Playtone I mean in in front of you earth to the moon as well right Joe Shea yeah it's not the same thing no dear Joe Shea delightful man what a man sacrifice himself yoshida yeah how do you do that a couple hundred auditions yeah well they it felt like they weren't just saying no they were saying how about anyone but you were gonna get but but there's this other thing to you Mary Levinson to be to be totally honest Barry love stand ups was a standard yeah yeah man Craig T knows they were partners with Craig Gmail and so he puts a stand up on every one of his movies if you go back and look at them even Dennis Miller and disclosure I think it was you got and well diner they had you know tons of them yeah but everyone so you know but did he or other directors say stop talking your job is not to make up line this is something that happens is that yeah so much of the great comedies that are being made right now is they literally come in and they improvise and they build the scenes even right there but to be the actor you don't get to do that it's about listening you don't get to make stuff up look you don't get the mixed up up in this one all right yeah so you got to listen and ya know it was about nailing the scene exactly as it was written and then the screen test it was the whole thing mm-hmm and it was the ticket to the bigs so you did you did a belong and he did and then a couple years later a few good men and then usual suspects you know few good men sure yes yeah you and Kevin Bacon that's right that's right no no I mean that was that was an impressive movie well yeah and you were yeah that's right you were Aaron Sorkin serious lawyer there yeah yeah Jack mr. Nicholson what was that like spectacular yeah yeah must have been yeah also goofy I did did you forgive me I know Neve did you fly down to Guantanamo Bay where they asked to and then the Marines read the script and said wait a minute but you see your character flew down in the film so you wore those white shoes yes we wore the whites we wore the whites there is there is some no I because I live a die by costumes and stuff like that there is something about a recognizable actor wearing navy white it's a little on the group the rest of the Navy uniforms look cool they do I mean they do you know the dark blue and all that kind of stuff but when you put on the navy white said look at looking kevin pollak wearing those navy white Tom Cruise wearing the name yeah so but though Sarah there you are but do you think that being a stand-up comedian because no no not all comedians can do that most can can't make the makes that you can't stop themselves from being because stand-up fancy often do you not agree so stop themselves from talking they can't allow themselves the silences I think it was because I did impersonations and I was fascinated by building the character and the boy not just the voice but the physicality help me to study acting without studying it with a class but more importantly I think comedians are not trained to listen a train to tal sure yeah yeah and then acting is just listening yeah and reacting so I don't know where the hell that came from when comedians are silent that means they're pacing the stage breathing into the microphone Wow bin Laden but now what you obviously studies stand up for punchline yes I did so you went to the dark recess oh my god that was petrifying why well because it's one of the smart things I did Barry Sobel was and an old pal minor a defector were that we we sort of like began to build an act and David Selter who wrote the screenplay he just wrote kind of like jokey chuffa in the screenplay that was not the act I mean it wasn't funny and it didn't have any cohesiveness to it so we had to like kind of like build an act and I had no standup I wasn't a guy that went down to open mic nights or anything like that but I had to start doing that before we had an act I had to start I went there was one time I couldn't get on at the at the Comedy Store of course not because Mitzi said he's not funny yes I did yes I didn't have an act yet so that was tough going on for three minutes and being as petrified as when was thinking that no I got some I got some material here and all of a sudden 17 seconds in you've said all the material yeah and there's no way for you to get off but eventually we got some stuff and it worked out and I was able to get into the rhythm of I had I had enough stuff that was cohesive and work and then I could I could riff off of if if the audience was there I'd ended up doing some things that catch a rising star in New York how did you how did that oh I'm sorry when you finally had that cocaine yeah Rock'em rock okay crack okay because it Rock big rock okay because when you're alone and you're solo up there and you can modulate them and you get the laughs and you can build on it you could go back and forth and you could the power of like calling back something and having them it's like you're you're you're the one-man show and the adrenaline and blood shoots through your head in a way that I think is identical to to crystal meth yeah well that's why so many comedians are just shambles you know offstage which we sort of explored in that movie a little bit in punchline yeah the fact that there was a miserable human being but actual endorphin is released like a runner's it is that yeah yeah yeah and the sense of I would do gigs I would do a shot at 12:30 and at 4:00 o'clock in the morning I still can't figure out why I'm not asleep because it had just shot you know the adrenaline shoots through in a way that was just undeniable yeah unlike something you hadn't felt as an actor I'm sure not no no well it's that high wire act of living and dying on your own which moment by moment well the freedom of being you know doing it all yourself I had you know at the Great Lakes Shakespeare fed in a couple of other places but you know in college and what not it was the performing gave that same certain type of high but though it was part of an ensemble you know y'all went out together and had pancakes you know at the at Lyon's on how in Sacramento but when it's you and you alone oh my god your head burst and I can't remember what I said you know once would you come offstage what are you you know you're in a fog you know you feel like you're you know 27 feet tall and you're still you're still stretching yeah no I I pity some some some comedians well you have to find a way to digest it afterwards it eventually becomes part of it it was it self-destructive for you at some point no because I I it's all self destruct on I don't want to be it is a percentage it's a very high percentage which is why the documentary is being made and it begs the question do you think you have to be miserable to be funny there was something you might probably know this more than I do I saw something that at a collection of a lot of the comedians that were all over the place at the time that I was doing that preparing punchline and these guys were just sensational man they were just great and you know 20 20 years after the fact you know they were they're kind of you know the the business there's no longer comedy clubs in every every city and they don't have you know you can't go to the chuckle hut into in Topeka and stay in the condo with the other comedians and stuff like that yeah tough tough game yeah you can't make a living as an unknown the way you could in that particular moment in time during the gold rush really of stanlon was that what you late eighties late eighties for how long did it last about 87 to 91 you think cable television killed it I because it robbed everybody of their material to be honest whether it's the same thing two killed vaudeville which is inventory problem here it is you've got evening at the improv and four other shows on television at the time featuring five comedians and you'd sit home and you'd watch well that that's five comedians on this show and then four others so that's 25 comedians with five minutes times 13 episodes there aren't that many comedians with five television ready five so eventually during the season of these shows you'd sit home and watch me on TV any given night and think this guy's not terribly funny but before that happened these comedy clubs exploded from 50 to 300 around the country as you said so suddenly you've got 300 headliners needed to fill these clubs around the country whether year before there was only 50 headliners yeah well there wasn't 300 headliners did you ever go on the road and do some stuff and people say oh we heard you say that on TV that's your TV act absolutely was there not just a need that you couldn't like do the stuff that killed on you know whatever the hit shows you it happened to other guys more than me I think because of the impersonations I was able to yeah to change it'll you can always rip that yeah but you you had 300 comedy clubs 300 headliners doing an hour so suddenly middle acts were moved up prematurely to be headliners opening actor moved up prematurely to do the middle twenty minutes and guys who the week before were saying do you want fries with that we're suddenly MCS in comedy club yeah I mean I'd seem to remember you'd go to like a place like ho ho ho and we're I'm stocked in California that's right picking something sure and there would be three company would be three comedians there'd be a first one in a second one in the third yeah and they do what two shows they do two shows on the weekend so in vaudeville in the 20s it happened there were the cassini exploded that to many venues opened up and there warn't enough qualified performers and that's in fact what killed standup by the early 90s which fortunately for me is when a few good men happened there you go and I went from auditioning to two offers and there we went how about that moment for you when you went from auditioning Stu to offers because that really you know there are moments in time that change everything that's a goal line but somebody's got cancelled after two seasons and I signed a development deal with CBS to come up with some other television series that never came to pass you know just I don't know why and like a year deal yeah like you know a year didn't order development and I think we actually with me working with some writers who I think at some point maybe two different you know treatments or drafts had been come up and nothing they've been anywhere you know because when they were the three networks at the time yeah and so I was yeah but two things then I got a I got a call to audition for splash with Ron Howard a smaller part initially I didn't know what part I thought I was just going in I read the screenplay and I said well obviously the only thing the only stuff I'd come close to reading for was you know the sidekick or the brother or the you know whatever Eugene Levy the brother I thought I thought I was reading for the brother in splash but you know Brian Grazer and Ron Howard were essentially young unproved Turks they had made you know Ron had made all of his Roger Corman movies Brian was just beginning to to produce stuff and they had had Michael Keaton late shift Michael Keaton nitrogen nightshift thank you Michael Keaton and Henry Winkler show a long yeah and that bit was a bona fide movie yeah I had lost out on police academy I could not get into police academy and I thought well I you know this is I'm I'm friggin oh the Guttenberg no look on the aged there's God but I think there's like 19 guys and the police except I should be able to score some nothing really couldn't get you an audition no no I auditioned there was like thank you I was like oh it's just I was just kind of out so I was a little demoralize and then this call can go in and meet Ron and bribed with this guy Ron and Ron I'm a TV star on our Iran hell yeah who I had never met I had done an episode of happy days in my year of not being on you know employed and logan's and Babaloo Mandel who were the writers of happy days were like ultra supervising producers they had written the screenplay about the mermaid and they had told her on you know this guy came in he did one thing he was pretty funny so I went off and met guys and it was the first time I met produce I producing a director who were like peers usually that even though everybody was like at least a generation older than me and kind of like big shots and you'd have meetings with them at like the ivy on Robertson everything like that and I dressed like a schlub and I can't afford to pay for the parking and stuff like that but meeting Ron and Brian I thought these these are guys like I went to college with I mean Ron was with it he was Opie Cunningham so there was a little bit of that but they were in crappy offices with this bad furniture and ancient you know posters of Old Yeller and stuff on them right old Disney and they and I thought that they were incredibly approachable so we sort of like talked almost like you and I are talking right now that a pragmatic you know overview of you know what's good you know what's going on the business and what I thought of the thing I said great and I was just a meeting and I said well you know I don't really think it comes about something like that and probably later in that day I got a I got a call at the at the house that I was wondering if I could afford to keep you know yeah I'm the valley without a TV show and okay we we went to bran was on the place I want you to come in but I don't want you to read for the brother I want you to read for the the main guys Oh Oh dear me okay Oh jeepers you know I said something like that so prepared and went in and went in and and did it I did it well and Ron was rarely rarely happy because he had one of the first remember with Jay Jay Jay V see the the home video thing he had the little miniature VHS that went into the VHS you know two pieces and it out of it you got like 20 minutes of video and he was just like he was just he was just so happy it without all this gonna be great so he was videotaping the the audition which i think is on one of the you know you know I think it's on one of them probably is because I'm one of this you know the celebration DVDs of it yeah and so I did it and I just I believe I just did one audition on tape and he called me the next day and said well listen listen you got the job but I don't know Jesus you know thanks but part in my head you know in that nanosecond of what goes on it says I you believe you don't get a job just that doesn't happen no there's got to be some other thing that it's going to screw this up for me and he said you've got okay you've got the part but I really want this actress named Daryl Hannah to play Madison and the studio is fighting me on this so I want you to come in and we're gonna do a real camera test with Daryl Hannah that needs to have you in it so you had to you had to prepare like four scenes and and we'll do a you know it'll be a really serious test so you'll have to be up on your game I said okay hey Ron can I ask you a question yeah yeah you know what is there any way after this test are you gonna fire me to worry about a thing and I did not believe him for an instant no I said this is a sandbagging opportunity there there's someone at the studio is going to see this and they say I love her get rid of him and Ron will say you know you know Tom so we did some stuff in it I think the test is on maybe on one of those DVDs as well and that's our dam and the only reason this happened and this is like the vagaries of the business and like when young people say oh mr. Hanks yeah you know so just you know just plug away man just do it any chance your cake don't take anything juicy just do your best that came about because number one it was a low-budget Disney movie about a mermaid and this was before Eisner and Katzenberg took over so this was literally the Disney of the lovebug and condorman and movies movies like that and everybody else who was on the list of hireable actors who said no they turned it down I mean everybody George Segal and Dudley Moore and everybody who was anybody had had turned it down so it was a Ketchum there was a pick'em it was like a leftover you know double-a league kind of game and those guys were just starting up we're on and Brian just wanted to get wanted to get the movie made and so they were very well organized so lo and behold and after that I I don't think I had to I don't I probably went in for some other things to audition for but then that goofy thing happens is people start asking you to be in movies okay yeah and I you know I said yesterday like 96 movies in a row because they asked me right to be in movies learn a little something on everyone but that was that was it initially yeah when you make that transition it is yes to everything yes and yeah how old is he's my he's your time in my man let's go that's right I know how to do that yeah and I remember reading that you said after league of their own and that wonderful character you know what I don't think I want to play [ __ ] I can play [ __ ] anymore any minute now I don't mean [ __ ] in the oh I know in the bad term the Panasonic the pejorative sense well actually it is but it's not in the nasties so you mean guys who have are out of can't have any control over their over their desperate yeah why is this happening to me yeah I'm in love with a girl and yet I can't do the thing and they're like because you know remember the era where essentially Bill Murray's early comedies established every other comedy that was written yes they were all kind of like variations of stripes or meatballs or something like that and there were a million guys that look like we all looked more or less the same and we're all hapless heroes in these kind of like not low budget but medium budget comedies and some of them worked really well and by and large they were kind of like cannon fodder for the distribution machine and by that time I was like 36 years old and I just said you know you make a sort of movie in your 20s and early 30s and you just can't you have you got to stop doing right and so I sat down with my crack team of show business expert and he says what do you think I said you know I'm 36 and I just I just I think I got to stop playing [ __ ] and really was about playing men instead of boys men who understood the compromise and the next the next movie that came out of that I think was well we started working on Apollo 13 I you know not long after that Apollo 30 and I think I made Sleepless in Seattle after that and you know you gotta you gotta hit it to the point where you say alright alright you got it got a stress you gotta gotta learn how to say no which is a very hard thing to say it is it's a very very hard things to say it's so easy to say yes to something you know it's great they're gonna pay and every time you say Thailand you know you know I'm gonna get to do I'm gonna hit the trifecta on this I get to play baseball shoot a gun and kiss a girl I get to do all the three things that you want to do in a movie yeah so yes yes I'm doing it's hard to say no you have to say at the end of the day I don't know what to bring to this and is it true that no matter how cuz that Jimmy Stewart said this at one point no matter how quickly the train is moving how well things are going and how on top of the world one might feel when you do say no there's a part of you that instantly thinks well that'll be the last time they ask a smart guy in show business who was running one of the agencies it's Ron Meyer who now runs and he was at CAA at time and there was some there was something that was on the on the table and I didn't know him well enough in order to have this conversation but I was down meeting my my Richard Lovett is my crack show business you know Swami III remember on do you think what do you think of this table look we look at the other day so you gotta ask yourself you know if somebody else does it are you gonna shoot yourself in the head you know I said oh actually that's a good way of looking at it you know if you say no somebody else says yes are you gonna see that yeah I'm gonna see them do it and so I should have done a shoot yourself in the head and then you know that that's a good way of looking at I have yet to I've seen other people be brilliant and said I couldn't have done that I haven't felt as I want to shoot myself in the head except four years ago when I ran into you Wow and again we're right back in Dana Carvey dress you know what maybe I had just a good buddy I am taking I just want to say I'm taking the smallest I'm taking you literally movie sips from this that's delicious and it's not an advertisement don't send me any perhaps Blue Ribbon what's the most important thing you know Oh God secret of happiness which is tell the truth Simran its babe that's simple there's no you could get you into trouble sometimes but just being home that doesn't cares man this is way it works just tell the truth yeah easiest thing to remember well yeah yeah by the way I figure that out two and a half years ago that's right that would be fifty four and a half years of living in self-loathing darkness so you get past that ah know what that slug you know the self loathing darkness we wake up three o'clock in the morning and kind of go but this is old Steve Martin bit we just kind of like go in you spring some water in your face and you look at yourself in the mirror you say so so now at this point what are your weaknesses the same ones they they never do they ever change and I don't think a degree of procrastination right you know enthusiasm that starts on Monday that but just disappears sometimes Thursday morning you know it's like ah what are you gonna do that I don't know answer some emails or something I'm gonna dodge every responsibility that's that's it that always comes down to it you see other people doing stuff and they're always busy and you think you know I I wish I was like that you wanna be and you just can't get there sometimes you know what it's like and all you want to yes you just can't you can't you can't turn it on but it's a very human procrastination that's you know I didn't goes back look I remember being in high school you know it's life that different from high school have we all ever you guys all change since high school more so business is exactly like high school Martin Mull confirmed that 35 years ago he did say that show business was high school with money yes that was probably the greatest truism bad and nobody knows anything William Goldman's thing about show business nobody knows anything is that even in high school where I start off the school year and you get the binders and the thing and but it know exactly how you're gonna approach that yeah and it's all just it's all just gone for you know for crap by you know week but I promise you is all your doing is go to school for the hang you know I would I would the school for the hand man that was it but I love going did you not love going to school yes I I went to high school or the hang for the hang know that everything else was like you know to be dealt with the hang was like magnificent you dealt with it's like you know you being a class and then then in between classes you know you just just looking for somebody to interact with yeah just mix it up with and then go back into class and not pay attention unless the few classes that you'd like yeah I had one teacher who taught creative writing and one semester we just learned about Samuel Clemens what his writings and that absolutely changed my comedic point of view in the same way that early Bill Cosby album did I had a brilliant Believe It or Not trigonometry professor to tell who was the last time I took any math class his name was dr. Cherrington and he just made it fun I don't I don't know what it was he just had a way of talking to it I didn't understand it at all but he was charitable you know he wasn't one of those hey stop the buzzin cousin it wasn't one of those kind of math that's actually a guide he was just very was just really fun and and and a couple of other teachers that were like just great but you know I went to a public school with like 2,000 students in it so the same year mike-mike Romani history would give you a test and at the top it would say test instructions right and you'd been the first thing said preheat the oven to 350 beautiful and that kind of effort there you go honestly that's right yeah you're dialed right into that guy well no one would believe that you're I had mr. Farnsworth in drama that was the big change that was I couldn't believe that you this is a class you're kidding me yeah this is I'm sorry this is what I do in every class he loud and funny this is what I do in composition is what I do in typing 50 what I do Jim thank God we took typing by the way not knowing the computer was about to come out that was the easy class yeah yeah yeah well no one would believe you find time to procrastinating based on all the work that your production company oh you should come down to the office sometime a couple of times I have stopped by Plato nits have you caught me designing stationery which I kind of do everything through a little typewriter right here and put my name off and printed that up take this to Kinkos you give me a thousand copies I'm gonna see what it looks like that's why that's what is then by Thursday Danny strong sat here and talked glowing Oh game change yeah game change yes I think everyone knows your involvement with your lovely wife read on My Big Fat Greek Wedding but also I don't think everyone knows that you were also a production company behind Mamma Mia and I was surprised to see for Spike Jonze were the wild things yeah yeah now I understand there's some times where you really are the lead production house and you make it happen and other times they're part of it to begin with and really other people make it happen we we Mamma Mia Plato and was very much involved in the shooting and the post that was not me and we ya readin actually Rita Witten saw the show and just said this has got to happen yeah but and we called up actually the the true producers who were running the the stage show years before the movie was made because everybody was trying to get them to do it everybody wanted to hey we want to make a movie and they were sent they were sitting on it and when we talked to them I just said look everybody in the planet wants you to do your show into a movie but you don't want to because they got 19 you know touring companies out and you're making a lot of money playing in Jakarta and Stockholm and Tokyo and and you know Adelaide and they were they were just had all these I said but when the time comes didn't want to make it in a movie do it with us because we'll make it fun and easy for you and we won't boss you around too much and and and that's what happened but Rita was that when one of the key players in that without a doubt and the other stuff that had like like Spike Jonze from where the wild things are that yeah that came about because it was Maurice was still alive more recent act and we started talking on the phone a little bit and you know look this is a hard thing to do it's hard to take a very thin book and turn it into a full-length motion picture and he loves spike and spike loved him and they almost did another project spike almost did something I think Harold in the Purple Crayon by Clurman another really really classic children's book and but that was all spike that we were involved because we were we had a connection with with more recent but that was that was really all spike so we're guys had come in and help facilitate the making of the movie right but we're not like the creative Quality Assurance drivers of it we you know they write the scripts and they pursue it and they make them but there's other things where it's the opposite we are the people that maintain the scripts govern that do the quality assurance pass on it and and like the HBO things we've done even though they've been with Steven Spielberg Steven and I talked about like the grand philosophical aspect of it and he's in what he sees everything but it was really plate owned that that does everything from soup to nuts yeah in the case of Band of Brothers in Pacific yeah yeah yes and Adams John Adams yeah that was that was that was all played oh yeah but we make alliances would be you know Kirk Kirk Ellis who wrote John Adams he wrote every single word he wrote every episode and Tom Hooper directed every single one sometimes you you can't do that on a long-form miniseries because time is just of the essence never never on both on both the world war two things Band of Brothers the Pacific we had two units going full-time you know we had a red and blue unit we had different directors different cinematographers and they have to go full-bore 24 hours a day because otherwise yeah it would cost five hundred million dollars to do and would just take too long right but you have actors that are jumping back and forth all the time which is pretty cool actually yeah I would think really cool they all adult [ __ ] I think some of the actors without a doubt probably hated the experience because all because all these not headed producers you know like they don't call me at the right time I'm gonna say maybe 7% of the actors end up having that kind of experience because it is physically unpleasant but for the other nights at 7:00 that other 93% it changes their lives yeah they go off and have because they're long gigs you know you off for six months and you're putting on the same clothes with the same outfit with the same guys somebody gets killed and they're gone forever you know it's a it's a it's a it's a emotional arc everybody goes on and it's as close to an actual operation in the in the field as a productions going to get yeah you feel how hot and miserable and all is when we were doing a I said it to both of them cuz we kind of have a day where everybody's gonna start their training and I just say look you might not have lines on the day you work but show up ready to work because you're gonna be in the background of some shot and as it lives and people see the episodes more and more they'll recognize that the guy from Episode seven was the guy in the back making a cup of coffee in episode three so just come to work have a sandwich in your pocket you know you got all these big pockets on your combat pad put some juice have a protein bar have a sandwich in the back there and just hang out all day and see what see what you can make out of it and God bless a man they all they always seem to do we still have they still have reunions for Band of Brothers the guys still get together I think once a year when they're I'm the anniversary of them starting boot camp and I've gone a couple of times that's pretty speaker then great actors guys have went off and did you know fantastic stuff what's his name on homeland yeah yeah Damian yeah Damian Lewis now how does that Ron Livingston feel when you know we feel like geniuses well I didn't want to say I'm glad you did we feel like you we're not when we did Band of Brothers like everybody that was just out of or coming out of Radha and guild hall and lamb to all of the great drama schools they were just beginning to like get work on BBC there they all in you go you go through you go back and look at the cast of branded brothers it's got every almost every amazing actor that's working today had some kind of like role in Tom who's there forgive me he's in 12 years of slave he plays the bad guy at the end of 12 years of slave yes yes yeah yeah yeah he's in Banda brothers yeah actually he was in an episode I directed abandoned brother as a matter of fact goes on and on Sammy worked with him and inglourious basterds right yeah there you go yeah in the Andorian in Indian glorious the Indian glorious bastards film I have to ask you who did the you did the Tarantino he did the turn Tim that was a great movie by the way oh holy smokes what a did you have fun doing that I had tremendous I would imagine it would be a blind camp we went we were there for months in Berlin in Berlin and that a great town Berlin Z swinging that's a swing in town good joint you'd like it eventually when we do reunion for Avalon I think it's really see myself in trouble I just got myself in trouble damn that goes on the web okay listen I got asked a couple minutes about dragnet yeah really yes bring it on I'll tell you why there's a photograph that you need to see it takes place this last Halloween we're gonna throw it up now so that Tom can see it they're asleep at the wheel it's not up there it is oh my god on the right there portraying your character our very own Jamie Foxx get out yes I made the costumes myself she made the costumes for boner honey with a hairnet and the face oh my god undercover is a mama's man oh man that's right buzz core 11 oh my god yeah no I'm saying you if you guys did you show up and say guess who I am and no one could guess who you were it was like a small house party nobody got it but then we went to a comedy club that was throwing away everybody got it oh my lord yeah well as the West guide comedy theatre they all understood what was happening man oh man is it tell me it has it has it reached cult status our dragnet I love that movie do and I my friend Cory and I quoted quite a bit and there were quite famous I mean what are we talking and we got stopped by a lot of people to ask us to do the goat dance all the goat dance yeah shot us which was shot in San Pedro I'll have you know throw the photo back up they Jamie found goat I think I know you made them do one on this case I know I had the goat stuff I was so into my undercover costume that's right III wanted to say look at what I want to look like you know a vato youth gang the mustache and the thing I always I had been working out a little bit and I was kind of proud of my arms really I had so could I have a short sleeve shirt he's kind of like pegged right okay just a little bit of a little bit of your muscle cleavage just a tiny bit yeah I'm never doing that again I'll just wear whatever they tell me to do it I'm never going to try to study this movie quite a bit to replicate these costumes your shirt was pretty much unbuttoned Blake yes it was another thing yeah I was going for like a Puerto Rican Latin American thing I would try to drink a lot of horchata you know on the step you know trying to do that you know what horchata is least I'll make the only delicious rice drink that is like manna from heaven you can get it at almost any non franchise Mexican food taco stand horchata I can't and so damn good not good for a man with to diabetes nowadays but now I think about dragnet we did the the fabulous rock video yes to city of crime now remember this era when every network of maybe was only NBC had late-night you know it you have a reputation going somewhere else I thought you were gonna go with the era of like when like movies in the 80s had their own like titular song they did which I talk about all the time and I'm like movies should still absolutely having all made video starring the people who recorded the song and like I did a movie I did a video with the Thompson Twins or the remaining Thompson Twins because they had broken up for nothing in common we went to Chicago and shot it over a day and we shot a city of crime with a bunch of dancers that was choreographed by Paula Abdul was the choreographer of it and it ok this was this is this is all coming together because at the advent of the YouTube on the internet on the WWE Internet dot we were sitting around the house one day and and we're having dinner and my kids were younger I don't know what year this was and Rita started making fun of me my wife about the goofy dance I did with Paula and the name Paula Abdul came up he said oh she choreographed that and my younger kids what was this what are you talking about dad well you used to make rock videos that would show on like what was the name of the show of Friday night videos on NBC or something like that yeah it was when they were trying to like compete with MTV and so they throw a video show on and it was always people promoting their movies you know like like Romancing the Stone bade they do a video and so we were on and we're describing this this goofy you know video where I had to dance and bite my son chat with berserk at the thought of it says well where where is it I said well it's probably on a VHS cassette somewhere down in the basement in a box and he ran in the other room came back with the early laptop computer and found it on YouTube in 90 seconds read it and I said well the future is here and it's embarrassing now that's great so now I'm empowering my 12 year old son to always always be able to ridicule is that it's actually it was a fun day of shooting but we kind of ran out of time when we when we did it but it was it you could slap that on actually if you're watching this on YouTube just wait till the end of the thing and then put it in city of crime tom dragnet you'll see it choreographed by Paula Abdul so there should have been the titular song for let's say cast away wonder what that what would you write this song you like to compose it for yeah I know that could have had something a bob always wanted to use Elvis Presley's return to sender and Bobby Darrin's you know somewhere across the sea there's a bunch of like those kind of references it but it didn't have an all-encompassing theme no the thing I found about nothing in common in the dossier that was surprising that I didn't know that is to say was that you were involved in the development it was a big turning point in terms of you being involved in the development of material before the director in this case Gary Marshall was brought in and hired well actually it was pretty much hand in hand with with Gary the script existed it was written by comedian you have the names offhand was it in your dossier it'll be brought forth and thrown upon the screen in a matter of second in command and a screenwriter it was really a sort of a autobiographical biographical story and they they they wrote it and it it was a fine blueprint on which to start and we were I went as though it needed something more and I didn't I was neither in the position nor did I have any understanding of how to remember other than to complain to the right I don't like it it should be borrow why can't it be this why can't it be that yeah I was one of those guys and when Gary became a possible director for it we talked about what to do with it so Gary invited Gary Marshall invited me into the process of shaping where was going to go next and that was the first time that that it ever happened and that's kind of you got a you got a warrant that I think you know you have to prove that you know to be a dick you can't put that in the hands in the wrong first premise Rick Bedell and Michael premature yes Rick Bedell was the comedian he had done some comedy I remember it brilliant is that a Greatest American Hero yeah was an actor in the day you go yeah that is a responsibility that an actor thinks they want until they're given it and then they're either good at it or they aren't oh it can unravel you know the joke is oh let's just get rid of this one little loose strand actually you know you got no sweater that that happens a lot but it was the beginning of the what would become Plato where that is to say you weren't a full fledged production company any way shape or Foe no not at all and the development deal is you had were just about you being town well you go through an ego thing where you think that well now one don't you want my notes on the script you know I might be playing the guy I think you'd want to hear some of the ideas I have for where the script should go I'll tell you what actor boy why don't you wait in your trailer and we'll just like completely follow I'm gonna be all sulky now on Mad they're not treating me seriously I we didn't start Playtone until that that thing you do right which was written actually it was done in tandem with Jonathan Timmy's clinica aesthetic oh because I was talking to him at some point what do you well I'll help you do that I'll help you and that was done with his auspices and Gary gets Minh who is he he is a he is the tone to my play and vice versa depending on what crowd were in yes I go to I go to like some like music industry things and they all say hey Tom good to see he's getting real and they all want to just hang out we there yeah he and I that's where he and I got together and we said hey this is villain let's keep doing this it's gonna this is fun right and you're not at the mercy of waiting for the phone to ring which was you know that's that that's us as you know you got to generate your own stuff be proactive yeah yes just so you have an opportunity you're not just asking for permission to be in things the best thing I stumbled across was if you're not creating you're waiting yeah yeah yeah you just look at the phone yeah hey why aren't they yes I this work now I've I've given you credit for far too much for a heads up that you gave me in terms of directing really the moment you have with tak Fujimoto the great tech fukumoto on that thing you do where you confess to me oh well I asked you what's the one moment as a first-time director you'd like to have back and you said what was this one morning at maybe three four in the morning I had this Epiphany so I went him to work and I went up to tak and I said listen it's a scene in the theatre when the guys come in why don't we start on that giant shandler that beautiful incredible Chandler and as they're saying their dialogue will eventually just find them and tak said mm-hmm okay well why don't we bring the actors in and let them rehearse the scene and then watch them and then we'll figure out where to put the camera and you said oh right like we do every other time and which is what I want to do when I'm an actor in a movie as opposed yeah yeah I've learned more about what not to do as a director as opposed to what do do as what to do is in directory right that's mine had no instinctive thrust and and tak if you've seen the movie if you've known the movie after after the guys play at the Wisconsin State Fair at the racetrack mm-hmm we have a scene it's when they find out they have the number seven record in the country and they're gonna fly to they're gonna fly to Hollywood they're gonna fly to the coast we had I had staged that because I was just so in love with the dialogue you know I just loved it when the actors said the words that I wrote that he essentially had a stage in the dressing room and and Pat Fujimoto was over there looking at it like this I said hey come in say yeah what any marks would be down the hallways underneath the grandstand and there's a long there's a long passageway that leads back over to the other side of the racetrack says what if we just started them back there and they're saying the dialogue we carried them around and then the scene ends ends them entering the room as it just taking place in the room and I went okay there's like a thousand times about a cinematic yeah yeah it's just the idea that a guy like me who wrote it is too close to it and maybe does not do you not agree sir that you are not the person then you are not the expert to tell to tell the cinematographer what the shot should be maybe you should find out what the actors can do and then play off of that yeah outside of you know the bigger choreographed beats there was only one thing in that movie that was exactly as I imagined it would like literally down to drawing the storyboards and that was the scene where they hear there's the record on the radio for the first time they're running around and ones running and then meets up with somebody else and guys in and he hears and they run in a car screeches up that's the only that's the only one that actually that's the only sequence was actually in my head that that have lived to all the other sequences meaning that all the other sequences that win that were in my head that we shot suck we had to do something other than those things it's just the way it works out well in terms of writing directing you know I keep going back to Barry Levinson but in this case it's appropriate because he said or insisted his work was done and the writing and the casting and then it was up to the DP to help him figure out how to do what he's a filmmaker so yeah he knows what to do yeah I have to tell you that electric city is stunning and amazing Wow stunning an amazing god bless you no no no holy smokes my dear friend and your co-star ireneandjason and tune does the little Danny DeVito looking sinner oh god he's great yeah he's amaze knobs Butler yeah we count he turned me on to it and it's spectacular and this is just an odd little thing in it yeah but what was the genesis of that because man oh man is it a lot of work oh dear Lord I think we worked on that for four years Oh God meeting after meeting at the desire desire was to do something that could exist without any rules attached to it right that it was for a modicum amount of money I mean how'd he get my god I think it mean I didn't make anything look at money we spent money on that but we got it from relativity and a few other I don't know if we got it from anybody we paid the salaries of everybody who worked on it and that's it you know there was no profit to be made on it per se except by the yeah we had a great animation how six point harness was the name that we had great act as it came in that we paid we paid them they got you know they got the deal that was a gold standard of doing I guess that kind of thing but then as I was to tell a story that had that had no boundaries on it that we could literally if we could make it up it could be drawn we went through a we were going to originally try to do it like fireball xl5 puppets puppet trees and we found it there was just we talked to a great puppet house out in the valley as well as the team America guy yeah who just said you don't understand it if it takes a long time to do it with real people it takes five times as long to do it with puppets yeah so that was prohibitively constraining both timewise and money-wise and so well what are we doing so we came up with this animation kind of angle and let some people run right but the great fun the thing that we kept coming back into it over and over again is telling this really outlandish Lee wild story set in this place it doesn't really exist and coming up with mostly backstory that plays itself out as the story itself the the history of the electric city impacts every scene that happens in the electric city and if you haven't seen it you don't know what the hell we're talking about but you can find it on the Internet well it's a great app now to play on the mobile on the on the iPhone I mean this is one of yeah that's what we were shooting for yeah that would the guys from relatively came over and said I said why do you from India so what do you why do you guys want to even talk to us about something like this and they said because there are 1 billion phones in India a billion yeah let's go for that idea let's try to make that happen yeah and so we did it was a long time but we you know and we do that then you get into like I couldn't understand I thought can't we just put it out can we just like how do you do just put it on YouTube and it would live that way what you get to does but we entered into a thing with Yahoo that went through Yahoo went through nine regime changes from the moment we started with them to the moment that it actually that doesn't help it did not help and then we ended up sitting on it for a really long time and I kept saying why are we sitting on this it's done just just put it up yeah but the story was the thing that I just always done we would get together four of us and just dream and come up with stuff and and without the rules of you know we nobody gave us notes we literally just we were hands on it's the thing we say I say to everybody oh you want to make you want to be in the movie make movies you got the cameras you do you have a bed that you can sit on and edit on your laptop well then you have everything you need yeah go off and make something have you seen the people that recreate with incredibly startlingly great production values unseen Star Trek episodes no the original I mean I'm talking about the you know the velour shorts and the sheriff and the paper mache rocks there's something I don't know where are there in South Carolina or something like that they started doing it and I swear to God they look exactly I mean the actors are different they're they're amateur actors but it looks exactly like the Starship Enterprise yeah and the bridge and they're the only thing that doesn't that sound they don't quite have the money in order to to record elevator door opening show that they have that it's literally the production value from the right from the boom mics and stuff like that I know if they can afford to sound it but if you have you seen I think they're trying to raise money to do it anybody here young people finger on your pulse of the Internet's over here we've seen it to be yes yeah pretty interesting are they still doing it do you know well get on that now you've got three minutes in the morning but it's had some clap shot how about our buddy Ron's film rush god I love that movie I love it to death you know what the thing is let's just say that Americans don't understand Formula One racing which I have to admit I don't know anything about but that was a great movie it puts you inside the cockpit the same DP that did that one for Danny Boyle on the India yeah Slumdog Millionaire same DP from that movie reinvented how to put the camera inside the car make you feel like you're in it unbelievable yeah truly astonished unbelievable movie he got the Golden Globe nomination as did you congratulate thank you very much Daniel Boulud was awfully good and then movie as Niki Lauda was he not fantastic from a glorious path that's right yeah geez this guy this guy is some three degrees he is amazing I don't know why Kevin Bacon needs seven degrees three degrees of 73 degrees and then I've been in a film with Paxton yeah what did you do with Paxton oh we made a little movie called Club dread which is a very goofy comedy the same guys who did Super Troopers it was their follow up and hear you they say a little pony it's called Club dread that's Bill Paxton I can't believe they're asking us to do this now that's Bill Paxton the most enthusiastic man on the plan Jaime invented a great game called Paxson or Pullman bridges our Daniel did their own is one of my favorite ones to throw out for that that's wrong yeah Bill Pullman yeah that's right that's right yes like one Scene some people bring out yeah yes he does yeah he was a Gina's fiance that's right what can you tell us about Kay blows top Jack Johnson or American Gods these are the three ah things in foreign you know in development pipeline the type of thing that may happen if they're great people you know the fact is you you have this you know how you have done you drove down the freeway go pass a Long Beach there's big tanks that are just full of oil yeah that's what there's where though they're just in tanks full of oil that's right it will eventually maybe they'll get refined into gasoline or you know some Valvoline or something like that some things just sit because they are waiting for either person or a talent or a vision to come along and crack the nut but also there there's a lot of stuff that that you have well okay this theme is being examined by this story but what is the media that is both best going to allow us to examine see like Electric City was an example there was only something one way we've just discovered to do that in these odd three minute episodes there you know the total I think two hours of of entertainment but then other other things need to be mini-series another thing needs to be motion pictures another thing to me be regular series we just got to figure it out yeah it's hard work we asked your fans in the interwebs to forward of some question on my internet via Twitter or otherwise Stephens Seiji Rankine asked what actor actress has taught you the motion okay is that like as you worked with them and as opposed to sitting down you and working on a math problem well no I mean that's opposed to watching their movies and saying hey I'd like to be like dealer's choice well they tell me watching actors perform in movies are that that's the type of method that the inspirational and aspirational thing you say I want to be able to do something like for me it was Jason Robards Jason Robards and Robert Duvall when I was when I was in college when these were the guys that I looked at and they said because they weren't there they weren't the idols no they weren't like the John Wayne's or the Lee Marvin's or the Steve McQueen's they were these other guys and they were always delivering this thing with thought behind the eyes that was mysterious to it so that's where that was the aspiration but when you start working actually with people and you see how they do it I made a movie with sandy Bullock it's called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and she and I only had one scene together but we were always rehearsing and I saw some other stuff that you did and she has this she has a tendency in which I swear to god I don't I don't dialogue she's delivering stuff that was written down on paper written down on paper but it does not come out as dialogue it comes out as conversation and I don't know how she necessarily suspends the self-consciousness of being an actor and make it come out that way I probably learned a lot from quite frankly from actresses yeah Halle Berry is another one she is she is effortless she just there is no there's no artifice that comes out of it she just says it like so simple I made a movie called a Cloud Atlas with her we we worked together quite a bit on that yeah and I always found her to be confounding I said do that just say it like that I'm here you know I feel like I'm acting with chickens on my shoulders you know you know trying to you know steer things in certain directions and she just would would be kind of like Placid and say it from a very and it was tough dialogue sometimes it came out like that I learned from people who make it that just have a tendency to to do it right just to say it quite simply straight out of their face and you said something to the effect about Gleason was like that where he didn't apologize for anything or make excuses for anything no showed up and just did it well he was you know entertainer par excellence well you get into that kind of here man that was an intimidating gig I had I had to I had to make a decision not to be a pain in the ass around around Jackie Gleason right I didn't want to talk too much I didn't want to ask him questions I wanted to be a peer we were I was playing his son so I wanted to maintain a degree of I was intimidated by him but like and his his ability just to bark it out with no no artifice was that's how the greats do it Paul Newman on on he did Paul Newman on on Road to Perdition did the grit he gave us all the greatest gift in the world it was the first day of shooting we were shooting a huge I think it was it was awake for a guy who died actually a guy like I killed yeah and Paul Newman ordered me to kill him so all this stuff went down and with its it's a room full of actors date players and we're all dancing the way the Irish do and still added he had to get up and make a big speech too you know here's to the devil and whatnot and so it's the first day of shooting and he gets up and does it and we're all thinking we're all thinking the same thing we're in the room with Paul Newman and he did it and as soon as he was done with his lines he hear a he had a glass he raised up his glass and as soon as he was Della's he said it's pretty intimidating the first day isn't it I just thank God he feels that way yeah he's as self-conscious as we already laughs and we all happen and after that it was all fine but yeah so he it doesn't you know it doesn't change just because you're your Paul Newman there's oh I gotta tell you while everyone's swinging for the fences with between Daniel Craig trying to establish himself brilliantly which he did Jude Law oh yeah director yeah yeah and then you as the muscle the sociopath muscle who had guts does having a conscious was such a different turn I wasn't sure if you said yes because it was Paul Newman or because you it was this character that was no that was a cat was the character yeah just yeah and nowhere near the center of anything had done no yeah I was yeah that was some well you know I was older and you know I'm a relation great movie but the darkest of the Bing Crosby Bob Hope series yeah it had a thing it had well you know and your your grandparents watch you thank you what to replace you know Myrna Loy yeah yeah with you know Pam Anderson it just you know it just did another thing that's just dead wood it was the coldest there was a day where it was the great exciting thing about that it was shot by a Conrad Conrad there rdp yeah and he had Paul knew each other from you know years ago and they were out at hall Sohan right oh I'm sorry yes Conrad Hall T's Connor hall one of the greatest cinematographers of all time and it is a beautiful it's like a Vandermeer painting stunning and he said hey I'm 17 I'm 76 years old is I can't work anybody you don't like the way it's been worked fire me he was not cantankerous he was very very honest we were shooting outside in February in like Joliet Illinois outside Chicago cold as cold could be and the scene called for there to be snow on the ground but rain falling from the sky that's what was required so it's like the frigid winter took a term for the woman so when night shoot that was night shoot so it was three o'clock in the morning and we had every type of fake snow that exists in the motion picture technological realm we had just rolls of white paper we had soap we had plastic flakes we had the guys just spraying that kind of like stuff that kind of like literally on Christmas trees blocking it so we had every kind of fake snow you could have on the ground and then they brought out these rain birds to sprinkle us with a heavy dose of you know cortisol like you know dense rain that's not the down hue take out Newman in the end no no no we had that too was but now he's here but that was shot in LA and it wasn't nearly as cold I mean it was freezing cold so and because then and then it started to actually snow hello so we were out trying to grab this shot at night with me and and me the boy who played my my son it was a really great kid yeah and it was like okay we've got is it's a minute or so say I'm gonna get this straight we got the fake snow paper on the ground we got the fake rain coming down on it so if you get sweat in these clothes and now we have a real snow that's joining it so before we enter the shot that we have to dust our clothes off of the actual snow to be in the place well this is just great think and I gotta tell you and it's three o'clock in the morning and it's he laughed it was as bad as miserable as but what are you gonna do ya know and that was here I killed Danny crank in that thing I shot him dead you know that yes you did yeah well that was the thing about that that muscle of that character the quietness of that man it just followed orders you know he just just did what do you do what he was supposed to do and the protective sense of yeah that hopefully yeah he wanted it not to do that he wanted a better life is he didn't want its kids to be that way right and yeah but there is that moment of you walking down the hall and the gun just gets cocked to the side yeah yeah that's cool stuff it's incredibly complicated that I can't tell you how complicated that shot was to shoot it's amazing this is just to make Conrad Hall say that what that was a great movie to make that was a very interior very rarely in movies were in a lot of stuff does the the director Sam Mendes come up you say not so much not so much I said really not so much not so much so there's there's times when on that movie where this this is literally the shot that's too much literally he says you know what you don't mean to look up yeah all those little do you not agree that I should do that but I'll tell you the effect is astounding because you are that character is more stoic and therefore more menacing yeah because of the lack of movement because of the lack of expression yeah it's the dead eyes of a shark yeah yeah yeah which yeah yeah which was a blast that's that's the reason to take that gig do we know what it's like you know in in when I got to shoot an ak-47 oh my god the docks of San if you get hurt oh sure I'm not going to tell you you know in the in the robert langdon movies which i insist on calling them oh good they're not but they're not The Da Vinci Code no bees they're the Robert Langdon mystery let's be clear this is I I I'm not going to talk about these movies unless they're called the Robert Langdon mystery I love that memo we were a laser and I were in Rome and we had to run all over ancient Rome yeah you did and we did we did it night after night day after day and all of ancient Rome is cobblestones meaning that it's this fun week we came so close a million times to two twisting our ankles and it actually hurt to run around Rome and we got to jump out of cars and run into the pantheon we got to jump out of cars and run into run into the cheeky chapel we got to jump out of cars and run into castle San Angelo run and run and run and run and run and it's just for a gag say you want to turn on those scenes of us running just just say this as you see us running out as we're all running I'm trying to maintain not trip or fall we're all wearing special running shoes but it hurt running on these things after a while because you're landing on these sharp uneven kind of things the fact is nobody runs in ancient Rome no they did there's a reason the Romans ran barefoot yes but of course they were trying to track down the Illuminati were they like we were we were trying to we were trying to save the Pope so that requires speed that puts beyond okay let's see if there's no way I want to make sure that the the wonderful is the wonderful viewer who were kind enough to to actually write these questions I'm sure you've got easily a couple of hundred viewers and I'm sure twelve of them might have questions these questions are sent in and watching my Brooke McMaster what is the first film you saw that made you fall in love with acting we I think we might have conferred [Laughter] like like like ooh how do you do that ya know it's probably like sons of Katie elder or something like that so my dad took me to you see the sons of Katie elder John Wayne Dean Martin Yale Holloman yes somebody else playing fist fightin the sons of Katie elder that was probably one of the coolest movies I've ever seen or as a kid the Great Escape man come on forget it come on I once ran into the late James Coburn at a party and you know you know you know what this like sweet would you meet your idols you you want to be cool you don't want to say oh we moved you in blah blah blah but I said I said look forgive me Jimmy is this a man called Flint no I just said can you just give me just anything from The Great Escape can you just because I said look I'm a guy and if someone said hey would you like to go off with 20 of the other guys that are working in movies right now and hang out and wear old uniforms and run away and be prisoners of war and do would you like to do I would do that on a bet I said did you not just have the greatest time of your life making that movie it said yeah it was pretty great yeah good times at the hotel you know that kind of thing look at it it's just like yeah James Garner and Steve McQueen and him and Charles Bronson well you like English guys Kelly's heroes dirty does Oh God Kelly's heroes Bannerman when I saw Don Rickles being serious although he was you know getting last but it's a dramatic performance yeah I thought that's as good as a submarine movie you know yeah run silent run deep man that that that that's just I'm such a sucker for that stuff yeah but some decay deal did I answer the guy's question something like it when you're young yeah Cat Ballou for me okay dad Baloo really why stubby kaye yep you saw it say I could probably play him cause I saw Moloch hosting shenanigans it's okay I'm here to tell you Nana can wk and Nat King Cole as the as the minstrels sir that area like the core I yeah chorus yeah Caligula the the you know oh that one really that Caligula that's a good one I've never seen that but I hear it's pretty great copy well who's that who was the producer of that the Penthouse magazine Bob Guccione 'he's son follicular went on to carry the torch I believe Oh Bob Guccione jr. he had a music magazine did he not was it then magazine did he handle that or something it was spin and he went to block yep all right two more tone down the enthusiasm spin not you've been on the Twitter for a while you've been on the Twitter for a while I've done that yeah people want to know if it's actually you writing oh absolutely every one of those is me and their photographs would I take you you follow a select few you follow the are you actually reading other things that people are writing though or you just want every now I don't the life is long right mean our life the day sure life is long for the day in short then you have no choice but to join us for what's going to be an amazing round of a game we like to call really who tweeted okay yeah this is very oh it's exciting now do I look here or you better look here I thought I thought we're gonna have a graphic and a thing a survey says kind of thing no we're gonna look up there but this all right do I need pencil and paper no not he does oh you don't know them either it's a competition is a competition there's a multiple choice yeah alright bring it on so here's how the game works hold on wait a minute I need some smart juice by all means it's just my tweet elixir so the game is called who tweeted alright and the authors of these tweets are either Tyra Banks Paris Hilton oh geez or Justin Bieber oh now we're home the big three yeah the fun of this is neither of us follow any of them yeah so it's catch-as-catch-can misses catch yeah centers it works but if you want to hit like our wheelhouse you know maybe Steve Martin Mamie Eisenhower and by the way nobody's Peter Marshall that what they used to be closer most of you know Hollywood's let's go to Tom eggs in senator square to block so here's how it works one at a time I'm gonna read a series of eight tweets all right now who is it again peregrine Tyra Paris or Bieber or Bieber okay I'll read the tweet as soon as you feel like you know who wrote it you ring in by saying your name and you get three seconds to say either Tyra in Paris or like you have somebody timing yes yeah the problem is I used to not say that and he'd ring in and then wait 20 seconds oh I see so so you can't say I don't line yeah alright so at the end of it you bring and you get it right you to yourself five points ring and you get it wrong you're gonna lose three at the end of eight a winner will be crowned and i'm just knocked out by the production value or twenty five the production value of this game is essentially a clipboard that's right do you think we took during the production meeting debating whether or not we would put tom hanks to the test all right who's laying between hi right now let me just let's go through this tyra beautiful fashion model supermodel her own talk show for a while yep definitely an icon of fashion right yep and opinionated and in what okay paris hilton celebrity par excellence here is built a bit of a empire and branded herself who travels around the world fragrances fashions music music he does that and justin bieber perhaps one of the hottest musical commodities going around the world if not fine young Canadian who's made well for himself as hit records none of which I know alright so that all beings like that all are you read alright okay let's say who tweeted here we go week number one I'm so happy right now happy birthday happy birthday Britney Spears hope it's amazing and that all your birthday wishes and dreams come come Hanks I'm done with Justin Bieber Oh you you get to answer no no he does not move on cell really not we don't get to find out who I'll tell you who but now you're in the hole at negative 3 that was Paris Hilton oh yeah Mitzi Britney a happy birthday that's all right I was fooled by the enthusiasts look well that's that's all on Maya he's gonna read them every time okay all right all right yeah here we go tweet number two just one of the types of questions are you eight okay so it's not like the real one okay it'll be Justin Bieber again all right got it it could be any three on anyone so if I said Justin Bieber to all eight I could probably end up even in a theory theory okay I'm just asking I'm just working on my strategy all right treatment for to no one has deconstructed who tweeted no one no one oh I sense it I believe it just well I'm not leaving here just with two empty Pabst Blue Book you were kind of contribute to there's a signed copy in that bag to see the day here we go just wanted to type something ever feel that way Kevin Bieber Oh No tied at negative three are you telling me and like a beer bet I could tweet I just wanted to type something you could in fact Tyra tweeted that after her I don't know 11 million followers and they allowed it beautiful yeah I just know that twitter has that kind of past change the lives of a lot of people yeah you want to touch people that's like Paul I just wanted to pass something so I you know put a bill okay all right all right here we go tie game tweet number three all right sending love to everyone with the dream Tom yes sir Justin Bieber but I admire your strategy you're sending love all right it was just sending love to everyone with a dream be inspired by Beyonce and think how - Wow surprise and inspire people well that's that would have been Tyra Banks of course it would have been that maybe I should listen to the entire competitive in front of you I'm taking that potent potables for 800 hours I think there's like a there's a thing I don't know cherries you wanna you want to push your buzzer as alex is saying the last word yes all right all right this is for I'm gonna tell you right now if I say my name I'm saying Justin Bieber right now fair enough this is gonna plan a continuous loop with my house by the way for about a month number four great show one more Kevin Bieber so you're in the plus that's correct makes me worst homies ever by the way I told you what I was going to say all right do what I was gonna say I can't be competitive also and oh by the way now I'm a sucker I'm waiting for the rest of the tweet right there is the promotion know there's still time to halfway through you got four left for left all right all right time to turn it all around all right with suite number five nine so you know when peeps are speaking in another language in front of you and about you thinking you don't understand thanks Paris Hilton oh so close Tyra Banks well Tyra Banks booth things have her in a foreign language Tyra Banks I refused that question you know I've never seen Tyra Banks and Paris Hilton the same room at the same time there you go doppelgangers each other I just want to say for the record if we finish this and you've not answered one correctly I will strike this from the show I'm gonna beg you not to beg you all right we're gonna all right okay I've been wrong with two Justin Bieber's and one Paris Hilton that's array all right yeah all right though this is a tough game but I would have got the Bieber you would have gotten it all right all right number six going to bed have to be up in a few hours for the fight I can't believe I'm going to a boxing match at 9:30 a.m. hashtag early flight hashtag team Pacquiao thanks thanks Tyra Banks that's Bieber so sorry that's Paris what fine boxing yeah that was on at 9:30 in the morning well she had to get a 9:30 flight yeah dear lord if you can hear me huh let Tom Hanks get one right just one you know what I'm gonna be proud of it before before I just want you to remember your original strategy you were on to something all right tweet number seven right there new it because of that's glad the slight twist its glasses in the what's the tweet bus you are all beautiful you are all beautiful I would said Tyra bad yeah yeah geez thank goodness I have a strategy and final or eighth and final tweet worth 10 points as always this is a chance to steal so if you ring in and get this one the game is yours my friend you'll be + 3 2 + 2 I'm not gonna answer them it's really to sit back at soundcheck for my performance tonight at Cavalli Club it's going to be an incredible night thanks Hilton yes sir there's no and there man that ladies and gentlemen is how you play who tweeted because I waited to the very end that's the reason why thank you very much oh my god I can say is they'll be Christmas at the house after all holla jolly Christmas it's the best time of the year the dancing Andrew Jackson saves the day once again there I can't thank you enough I'll see you in four years for the reunion show when this will be a hologram by the way and look at this wad that I madness oh holy - money got some premium and a dot how about per diem by the way oh I haven't asked any guests in 190 shows and dammit I'm glad I thought of it per diem it doesn't matter how much the the actor makes you're on location you know number want to call us down to whatever whatever that number is be it's $60 or six thousand whatever that per diem is because the system takes the Paycheck the Paycheck doesn't come to the actor goes to the system and then the bills come and you sign the thing but there's no money other than that crazy per diem and it doesn't matter how much it is it's actually cash they delivery to the things I found it to you you can't believe on too long yeah and I've seen giant movie stars get two per diem and treat it like it's the most important money in their lives it's like you're just walking by the crap table they say sir you winnings I mean even play it's like it's fantastic it is great by the way there's nothing it's I think the perfect amount of per diem three hundred dollars I was gonna say 180 is paid for most of the lunches are at work they got you write a card it's really it is great what are we talking about simple pleasures are the best month let's go and write in the pocket all right to close out the show the long-standing tradition 190 shows other than maybe a couple of Ritz is that we stare down the barrel when you're ready sir you've got to play the Larry King game and this is very simple Larry got bloody New York around there that's how it will end really okay you're gonna do a bad Larry King impression I don't want a good one cheese okay and right before Larry goes to the phone he looks in the camera and he shares something about himself that nobody wants to know really and then he goes to the phones so you're Larry King that's the moan I'm looking for Carol Larry King and right before you go to Schenectady pick any town a funny sounding is good you look in the camera you share something about yourself as Larry we don't want any Tom Hanks in for me yeah you're Larry I want you to deep into Larry King and you look in that camera anything about Larry that nobody wanted to know and then go to the phones that's the Larry King game in here as Tom Hanks not right ready Larry King asking the questions that you want answered from the people that you want answers from good news I just looked at my condo in Miami Beach doubled my money right off the bat feeling mighty rich feeling mighty good Rochester New York with Penny Marshall how's that just look the condo in Miami Beach oh my I'm assuming you still has a company better you know there was a period of time when Larry King was the only show to do on the celebrity mule train yeah the one only white but the other ones were you want to do a Letterman certainly wanted to do in Carson you want to do Carson because of the the the spiritual juju that it got but as far as reaching a worldwide audience neutral area King it was it was all around the world Mary Kay yeah and before the CNN the mutual radio he had that overnight radio show that was spectacular haven't been lying on a long long drive and landed on that and having saved your life yeah what times I was on a long drive down from Northern California once and I listened to Larry Crowne from honestly from cattle Kettleman city straight down to the grapevine man after a stand-up gig I would listen to him you'd do a gig way out and Sausalito where's one of the suburbs around San Francisco you would drive uniformed yeah not for nothing you just said Larry Crowne so did I really instead of Larry King on to you I'm gonna go with pal that's it I'm gonna go to Pat's the block crowd I think about them for the rest of your life thank you so much oh my you know what this was fun right yes well you great you ended up having a good time careful be careful don't put up too much of a fun thing we have too much of a good show and hop it I got Joseph gordon-levitt sitting here talking about his movies oh no no he's a good guy you know that there's a lot of three named actors now let's go over them you know why why well because when you join the guild you got to make sure nobody make sure nobody else has the same name Michael J Fox out of the Jay that's that right guys there with you yeah I'm the poster child for the very famous Broadway actor Sam Levine well exactly what Sam had to add an M - M - Lilly which does not look like an epic that sounds the same though so let's spoken you my name is Jamie Foxx hurry yeah are you are you in are you in the Screen Actors Guild well there you go you'd what would you change it to Jamie Foxx my wife Jamie Foxx see yeah by the way imagine being 12 with the name Jamie Foxx and then an actor decides to become famous and then for the rest of your life it's everybody's always well you know that remember when Matt Dillon was became the sensation and he was PA he's named after the guy from Gunsmoke and now no one no one says it no no one says thank you but this has been fun thank you thank you crack staff thank you enthusiastic audience and anything KP is a delight I must say I'm fun shot Joe I couldn't be more relieved and thank you for saving Matt Damon because we've appreciated over the years happy Holidays to all the hanks indeed thank you yeah sit there uncomfortably while I wrap things up for the folk you got it all right we'll be doing am I on camera now that everybody on Canadian not making what it's like to be and it's Saskatchewan Roughriders game everybody went to Canada do the Alan Thicke show oh man all right I'm afraid that's it we've just about hit the record here two and a half hours and don't tell Tom that's how long he was here I want to thank everyone here in the studio and around the world Samantha Ward wonderful makeup Josh and J Mack out there running the ship in our own evil doctor chance Sam and Jamie and Danielle our media maven happy Holidays to each and every one of you we're done for the year this is our 190th show and the last one of 2013 so happy holidays and Happy New Year we'll see you wait for it next year [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: kevinpollakschatshow

Views: 66,157

Rating: 4.6065574 out of 5

Keywords: kevin pollak, tom hanks, saving private ryan, apollo 13, forrest gump, chat, talk, podcast, otm shank

Id: sliHFwJcyTs

Length: 153min 33sec (9213 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 28 2017