July 29, 2025 • 37 mins
Griffin Dunne is an actor, producer, director, and author of his recent memoir The Friday Afternoon Club. Dunne is known for his memorable roles in cult films such as An American Werewolf in London and Martin Scorsese's After Hours, which Dunne also produced. Dunne is also known for his roles in popular TV series such as This Is Us and Succession. His directing credits include films Practical Magic, Fierce People, and the documentary The Center Will Not Hold about his aunt, Joan Didion. Dunne tells more stories about his family and his unconventional Hollywood upbringing in his memoir The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from iHeartRadio My guest Today is an actor, producer, director,
and author of a new memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club.
Griffin Dunn is known for his roles in cult film
favorites like An American Werewolf in London and Martin Scorsese's
(00:23):
After Hours. You may have also seen done in popular
TV series such as This Is Us and Succession. As
a director, Griffin Dunn's work includes Practical Magic, Fierce People,
and the documentary on his aunt titled Joan Didion The
Center Will Not Hold. Growing up among famous relatives and
(00:44):
a father in show business, Griffin Dunn had an unconventional childhood.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
My father when I was growing up was very different
than the man he ended up becoming. You know, when
I was growing up, he was very angry, Irish Catholic
kind of rage you know, suppressed. He was closeted, which
was you know, not known at the time, and he
was also very kind of superficial about how things looked,
and he dictated what we would wear and what we'd
(01:12):
go to school in. And it was really tough kind
of being around him, and I had that awful feeling
as a kid to be a little embarrassed of my dad,
you know, like he wasn't like a manly, manly guy.
And you know, my best friends. I went to a
school in la and everybody was in show business, all
the parents and my best friends their father was one
(01:36):
was Jack Palance, who you know almost killed Shane, and
the other was Howard Keel who was a lumberjack. And
then there was my dad, and you know comings exactly.
You know, I was once so embarrassed that I came
to school and I said that my dad was in
jail for robbing a bank. And the lie went through
(01:58):
the school like small party or something, and the principal
of the school called my dad and go, oh my god, Nick,
you're out. And he goes, what are you talking about? Well,
I heard you were you were in jail for robbing
a bank. And he brought me. My dad brought me
into the you know, into this room, and he said,
is that something you'd like me to do? So when
(02:22):
it came time, you know, for him, as many couples
do when they break the news to their kids that
they're going to get a divorce, they plan what they're
going to say, you know, so they looks like a
mutual decision.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
And did your dad say he was going back to prison?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Now we would have loved that, but he, you know,
my dad had the first line and he went off script.
He just burst into tears and went, your mother doesn't
love me anymore and she's dumped me and she's leaving.
And you know, we were all. I was about ten,
my brother was eight, my sister was six, and we'd
(03:02):
never really seen adults quite cry before, and it was
particularly my younger brother and sister. So they burst into
tears and they were really crying, and my dad was
really going at it. And I got nothing I got.
I'm dry as a bone, and I just feel awful
thee Yeah, I felt nothing. I felt nothing, and so
(03:23):
I try to, you know, get a couple of whimpers
going and yeah, and it cleared my eyes and making
sounds and I'm looking I see my mother. She's crying.
I'm wow, that's really bad. And then I opened my
eyes and she's looking at me through her eyes and
they're just totally dry, and I catch her faking it.
(03:45):
She knows I'm faking it, and a bond happened any
of a beautiful beginning of a beautiful relationship. And when he,
you know, moved out, I became, at a very young
age sort of the man.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Of the house.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I was eleven.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Two stings happened with me really well, not so much
in divorce, but at some point my sister and I
was Cinderella, Me were the help.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, my brother.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Spent the whole day every day shooting basketballs, playing with
football in pools, and my sister and I did the laundry,
rake the leaves, cut the grass, shovel of the snow,
cooked the meal. Then so you're twelve, and when he leaves,
where does he go? Does he go far away or
is he nearby?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
He goes to an apartment, you know, real kind of
a Jack Lemon bachelor park in California, and you know, real,
you know, sad sech kind of a apartment that we're
supposed to go to on the weekends that we never do.
And you know, my mom was like she what she
became very I would say, she she would over share,
(04:45):
and you know, and she you know, she liked her wine,
and she let me stay up late. I felt terribly
grown up. And she'd let me have a little SIPs
of wine like they do in Europe with the children
in Europe, and she get a little bombed and just overshare,
and I felt terribly grown up.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
My dad would be come home from work. He'd come
home and he'd get on the couch and have the
New York Times, and he'd read those pithy little blurbs
about the movies on TV on a million on the
Late Show, and he'd read it and he say, you.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Know, Ball of Fire, that's a great movie. You'd say
to me, let's watch a few minutes.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
My dad would, oh, you gotta go to bed. It's
eleven thirty. You gotta go to bed. It's eleven thirty.
I go, let's watch ten minutes of him. Just ten,
You go, all right, we'll watch tennis. Ten minutes goes by.
He's fast asleep. He passes out on the couch, and
I watched all the Bowl of Fire. How Green was
My Valley? Sorry, wrong number, passage to Marseille. I watch
all the movies I watched in my life, and.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Like like you, they wanted they were lonely. They want
to compassion.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Absolutely No. That's the other thing that happened too, was
like all the structure went out the window, and my mother,
you know, was beginning to get sick. She had MS
and and so we would go to her bedroom and
we'd eat on TV trays everything, and it would be
you know, we had a housekeeper that pretty much raised
(06:04):
me as well. She was Mexican, and we would have
rice and beans just on the thing. We would eat
at all different hours. We'd take our tray and we'd
watch them and we would watch movies till my brother
and sister go to sleep, but she'd let me stay
up and we would watch. You know, there was one
movie called Suddenly Last Summer that was so terrifying to me,
(06:27):
you know, and I guess there was like a really
scary gay theme that was under in cannibalism, and there
was Catherine Hepburn, you know, on one of those chairs
that would come down the stairs, and for some reason
we it would be a million dollar movie, and you know,
they'd play the movies over and over and over. So
we would watch this movie. We knew it line by line.
(06:48):
And then when my mother, you know, advanced further, she
had to get one of those chairs and we would
just do Catherine Hepburn imitations. On this chair coming down
the stairs. All those late night movies, you know, really
were imprinted. They became like the language that we would speak.
My mother just knew every movie, every musical, every She
(07:12):
wanted to be but she wasn't she She when she
got pregnant with me, she decided to just become a housewife.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
And when she when you say her symptoms of MSS,
her battle with them, I speagan when she was how.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Old, I'd say in her thirties, because.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
She done when she was sixty five.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, down in No Gallas, No Gas.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
That's kind of her family's.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
That's where she went. She returned there.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
So your family, your mother's family, that was the railroad
wheel car enterprise exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Her father was from family that in Chicago, Chicago called,
and they had the Griffin Wheel Company, and the Griffin
wheels were at one time on all the pullman cars
in America. So it was quite an empire. Yes, And
my grandfather really had no interest in taking on that business.
(08:01):
He yeah, I know what was he thinking? And he
went to he was like, you know, like Teddy Roosevelt.
He had weak lungs and ended up in Arizona when
he was a kid, and just fell in love with
the landscape, the air in the desert. So when he could,
he was supposed to be married in a society wedding
(08:23):
in Chicago, and he literally left her on the altar
and went to Nogalis, where he became a cattle rancher
and knew nothing about cattle and bred this like a
very risky kind of cow and was very successful at it.
And my mother grew up on this ranch.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So I'm assuming not to be ghost about this, but
your mother's family was on all the resources that you
grew up with exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
She flirted with being an actress, but she didn't take
it seriously.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
She didn't. She didn't and she wasn't. I think she
had tremendous regret about it, you know. And when I later,
when I got kicked out of school and I decided
to become an actor, we moved to New York and
was the high school dropout. She actually wasn't disappointed. She
was a little oddly envious, and she was like, kind
(09:13):
of go for it.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
That.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah, now your was your mind.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
I didn't see the photos of there were Your mother
was a beautiful woman.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
She camera ready, she was so beautiful. She was often
mistaken for Jennifer Jones and for Elizabeth Taylor in a
place in the sun. That's the look I rememorder. Oh
my god, you know. And I was as a little boy,
I knew how beautiful she was. I was just in
awe of her beauty. And in this family, as you said,
all this Griffin Wheel company money kind of withered down.
(09:47):
She was very comfortable and was able to want she
married my dad. My dad was able to, you know,
buy a house that he wouldn't normally have been able
to cry. But you know, the previous generations outside of
the founder, griff of Griffin who in the team seventies,
they were all scoundrels and drunks and philanderers, you know,
(10:07):
and absolutely it just sort of dwindled down. You know
that her grandfather, my mother's grandfather, you know, died with
his mistress on a on a yacht off Palm Beach,
and his crew loaded his body onto a tender and
checked him into.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
The breakers and propped him up in the breakers.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
They propped him up, and then they called the wife,
missus Griffin, and said, we have terrible news. Your husband
is dead. And she turned to her lover, who was
an admiral in the navy, and.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
They were the Coronado.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Where were they and Coronado exactly, and she said, my
husband died.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Ever a split screen scene in the movie this.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Is this is like sturges, you know, and she says,
my husband died. We can get married, and do you
want to go to the funeral? And so they get
married the next day, and then they train, and then
they get on.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
A train and.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Then they the Griffin family is so outraged because it's
front page news in the New York Times. It's all over.
It's called widow for a day. And they derail the
train to go to.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Wisconsin, the train to send him on their way.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
And she got all the money too.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Now, your dad, who I knew of him, met him
at the screening of The Dock in Southampton years I
remember the latter day people called him then Nick Dunn.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
The latter day Nick Dunn and his pals was just
very very warm and sweet and kind.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, he loved you and he kind of really just
divested himself of all of angry Well what we'll called
Mick done. Yes, how about that happened? Anyway, When you
decide you want to become an actor. How does it begin?
Meaning you start you go where to become an actor?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Quote unquo.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Well, I was sent studied, Well, my parents always sent
me to these boys' schools. I never went to school
girls from the time, well probably, I mean it was
just like the thing that you can't have. And you know,
when I went to this boarding school when I was eleven,
and we did operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan, and only
(12:16):
we would wear dresses. I would wear like buttercup, and
I'd have tennis balls for breast, and we'd wear lipstick
and wigs. I mean it was pretty, you're too, So
I didn't really think I wanted to be an actor
after that. And then and and also you know, as
I ended up in high school and another school, I
(12:37):
really wasn't crazy about showbiz. I loved what my aunt
and uncle were doing that they were journalists. I thought
maybe I'd like to do that. And this guy taught
me the drama teacher, a guy named Hunter Frost, just
insisted that I auditioned for Zoos Story by Ed in Colorado.
I read this play and I understood Jerry and Zoos
(12:57):
story immediately. I auditioned and I got the part. And
once I did that play and I felt that thing
from the audience, and I just knew that was what
I was going to do. So I became kind of
Joe actor on the campus. And then I was doing
Iago and Othello. We were in rehearsal and literally kids
(13:18):
would come watch me, and the principal would watch, sit
in the back and watch, and I knew he was thinking,
this kid's going to be great for fundraising in the future.
This would be great. And my best friend at the time,
we got really heavily into drugs, comes in my room
the night before the performance with a joint, you know,
or a hash pipe, and he lights it up and
I take a toke and the a teacher walks in
(13:40):
and I got kicked out of school and I never
get to do a Fellow, but it gave me the
bug to It was just a matter of time. At
that time, I was seventeen. By the time I was eighteen,
I was moving to New York. I went to the
Neighborhood Playhouse. Only did one year there. I had real neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
That's a win.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, Well, Wyn Hammond was a teacher there. I had
a guy named Freddy Carramon, who was incredible. So I
only went there a year. I wasn't asked back a
second year, and then I studied with with a Hogen,
who I was well out of my league. You know.
When I went there, I hadn't done anything, and I
(14:20):
fibbed about what I did on the resume, and I
prepared a monologue from Catcher in the Rye. As soon
as I saw her, I immediately forgot every word and
I just made it up. So I took a bus
down here and I changed the thing and I bought
a doughnut at the whatever occurred to me, and I
made it sound like Holden Cawfield, and she, darling, that
(14:41):
was incredible. She could tell I didn't know what the
fuck I was doing, like you know, yeah, but I
begged her to let me stay, and then I kind
of found myself in that class, and she was incredible.
Did you ever study with stell Adler?
Speaker 1 (14:57):
No?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
I went to Strasburg.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I was sent back then and they had Stella Jack
Garfine their own in house ETW Strasburg, and my teachers
were Marshall Halfret, who.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I love, and Jeffrey Horne, who is my dear friend.
Jeff ninety two.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Now, Stella used to do a workshop in Los Angeles
for one summer, and so I went to audition for
that is before I went to the playhouse. And I
was just such an earnest young man, and I thought
it was auditioning for her, but it was for a
guy who sounded very much like your teacher. And I
did Candida the Shaw play and I was acting my
(15:34):
little heart out, and he had a dog with a
collar that must have had a million charblays, and he
would scratch all the way through my thing. And he goes,
I'm not really sure you quite got the stuff for Stella.
You might have to come back. So I came back.
I did it. I worked so hard, and he said,
I'm going to take a chance on you. So he
(15:57):
lets me be with Stella, and I come to Stella
the first class. She's just this dynamic, strong woman. And
sometimes she would say she would grab her the hem
of her shirt and she go, it's gotta come from here,
and you think she means her heart, but then she
pulls down her t shirt and you see her breast
for like two seconds, and then she pulls them back up,
(16:18):
go it's gotta come from there. Sorry, and I'm looking
at that at the class. Around the class there are
not many women and the most incredibly handsome men I've
ever seen in my whole life, right, I mean, no.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Jaws that come out here, and you know, Josh things.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
So he goes, all right, so we will take the
first scene here Vick Ronson and Rock Thurber, you and.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
These guys hospital.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
They go, what, let's sell? I goes, so, what scene
you boys going.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
To be doing?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
We're gonna do the uh, the shootout scene, the final
shootout scene from Butch Cassidy in this dance kids I
did Canada, I did Shaw. So they go and they
stand behind these they crouch behind these Samsonite chairs. They
take out their fingers and they go, you ready, Butcher
ready Sundays And they just do for the whole scene.
(17:17):
And she goes, oh, that was wonderful. And so I
was just the only straight guy in the class. I
guess I don't know what this is in la. Yeah,
of course it is.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
My great gift from doing Strasburg was gender rehearsal casting.
You know, they cast a production of Cuckoo's Nests and
I was nurse Ratchet as a man but I remember
that whole idea. So when I teach acting, I got
gender reversal everything.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Then, Gary, Well, I gotta tell you, you know they My
daughter was in American Buffalo in high school, and to
do it with an all female cast. It was mind
blowing because you see that those guys are protecting their masculinity.
They have so much going, you know, to protect in
(18:03):
their manhood, and to see women play that is an
entirely another dimension. It was incredibly moving. I love when
that happened.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
In an acting class. I had a guy.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
This was an acting class for non majors at Southampton College.
And the guy comes in. He's a mailman's a male
man who wanted to take the acting class with may
probably forty pounds overweight. He's a big barrel of a man.
So I made him do the children's hour. I made
him stand there with the guy. I made him stand
on the stage with another guy and go. But I
do love you that way, you know what I mean.
I wanted everybody to try everything.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I love that when people have that drive but they've
got a life that has nothing to do with acting.
Before they decide to become actors, a real life and
that's so fascinating to me how some people get into it.
Was one guy at the Neighborhood Playhouse who went through
(18:57):
the entire medical school head a degree, a doctorate degree
to be a brain surgeon, a brain surgeon, and he said, no,
I want to go to acting class. Like wow, Okay.
I mean, that's the kind of poll of doing what you.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Love, Actor and director Griffin Dunn.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
If you enjoy conversations about complex family relationships, check out
my episode with novelist Erika Jong and her daughter, writer Malyijang.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Fast.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
On the one hand, you're supposed to look like a
fashion model retouched, and on the other hand, you're supposed
to claim to a sophistication you don't and cannot have
at that age. And I think that women who are
fourteen fifteen are in the most difficult position they have
ever been in modern society.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
What do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
I mean, I agree, I think there's a lot of sexuality.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
I think it's not explained to young girls in.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
A way, very confusing, Molly.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
But I think that's a legacy of the feminist movement.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
I mean, we said we.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Wanted a legacy. I'm the feminist movement.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
To hear more of my conversation with Erika Jong and
Mali Jang fast go to Here's the Thing dot Org.
After the break, Griffin Dunn shares how Tim Burton almost
directed the film After Hours instead of Martin Scorsese. I'm
(20:36):
Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing.
Griffin Dunn starred in Martin Scorsese's nineteen eighty five film
After Hours, which has since become a cult classic. In
addition to his leading role in the film, don was
also a producer. I was curious about his involvement in
the project. After what Donn describes as a difficult start
(20:59):
to his act career.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I had a very hard time getting the acting job,
and I really didn't establish myself and start to work
somewhat regularly until I produced a movie with my partner
Amy Robinson and a guy named Mark Metcalf, and we
actually produced a movie with no experience for United artists,
and I gave myself a small part in it and
it got the biggest laugh and that led to Werewolf
(21:23):
and Amy and I then produced another movie called Baby,
It's You with John Sales, and we had an incredible
crew that we put together. There was a member of
union called Nabit, and so we had this all these
wonderful people working together. And Amy read this script. So
I had a little bit of credit as an actor.
But Amy read this script when she was at the
(21:44):
Sun Dance Institute by a Serbian director named Doujon mcaveef.
Gave her the script and said, you know, my assistant
wrote this. He's from Columbia. This was his thesis. And
Amy reads it and goes, this is unbelievable, and she
sends it to me. I'm in Los Angeles at that time,
and I'm blown away by the script, the anxiety. I
(22:08):
had to read it standing up and turn the pages
with my big toe and just go, oh my god.
And so Amy was Teresa in mean Streets and she
knew Marty Scorsese and she said he'd be really good
for this, like he's really funny, like really, So we
got it to Marty and but Marty was just off
(22:29):
to do Last Temptation of Christ the first time around
with Aiden Quinn playing Christ, so he was unavailable. And
then we go to Amy and I were wondering who
to direct, and my friend Terry Garr had signed on
already but we didn't have a director, and we go
see this movie I Forget, which the movie was, but
the short was directed by a guy named Tim Burton,
(22:52):
and we went, well, what about him? And so we
go to Burbank Studios where he's an animator at one
of those desks, you know, with lots of other animators,
and we go to lunch and it's this brilliant young guy,
you know, with the pencil pocket pencil thing and the
ink coming through the protector, the pocket protector, and he
(23:13):
does little drawings and stuff and you just go, Wow,
what's gonna what's this going to be? And around this
time we're trying to raise money with me Nobody, Terry, somebody,
but still Tim had not done a movie. It was
a tough sell. Marty's movie get canceled in Morocco and
he's got to come back, and on his way back
(23:33):
he reads at the top of the pile is after
hours and he lands and he gets back to us.
We all had the same attorney named Jay Julian. So
then we had to like tell Tim and we went
craziest thing happened, and he knew that. We went to
Marty first, and we start to tell him like, very guilty, intrepidationous.
(23:56):
Are you telling me mister Scorsese wants to do this movie?
Well yeah, he said, we haven't gotten back to him yet,
but I gracefully withdraw. I won't do anything to stand
in his way. So then it was just meeting Marty
and I kept waiting for him. I mean, it was
implicit that I was going to play Paul Hackett, but
(24:17):
I did wait for him to also say how great
Bobby would be in this, But then he was like no, anyway,
he started to say, oh, I saw you in Werewolf
and that was really great and he never thought twice
about it. So anyway, we're off and running. And then
I mentioned the Nabit crew because this was so low
budget and he was in a bit of director's jail
(24:38):
from King of Comedy, which we now know to be brilliant,
but at that time was just getting the shit kicked
out of it, and it was very expensive and all
that stuff. So he was like, had to be had
to show that I can do a mean streets again.
I can, you know, be a low to the ground,
but not with an IA crew. So we gave him
the Nabit crew and all those people, you know, from
(25:01):
Michael Ballhouse. That's how we met Michael Io. Yeah, I know, yeah,
and I remember. So anyway, he took all these people
on with him with movies, many many of the people
from that crew.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Where do you get the money from?
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Geffen? Geffen Films, David Geffen?
Speaker 3 (25:18):
He did Beatlejuice with him, He.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Did Beatle Juice with you with him, and yes, and
matter of fact, I wanted that part really bad, and
I thought, how come I can store in this movie?
And maybe it's because I gave tim a movie and
then took it away that I didn't get your part.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Just be honest, that was probably a lot cheaper than
you were there.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Well he was cheap. No, you could have gotten me
for a song. So yeah, he did that. He financed
it and he god, it was like thirty It was
considered like, look how fast we are running and gunning
to the ground and getting it. Marty was unbelievably prepared.
So there was never a we never fell behind or anything.
(26:00):
But it was like in those days too, with a
movie like thirty days. That's all I mean, you know,
nine and a half weeks. I'm sure it took a
lot longer than nine and a half weeks. I mean
you would, you would shoot for months and now it's like, no,
you only got thirty days. Oh, we can do it,
and so you know, helicopters bring it down the thing.
(26:20):
That's more than enough. With a gun to your head,
you can do whatever. Well, Adam, I haven't been on
one of those movies for months and years.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
I mean I did the movie Kat and the Half
with Mike Myers, which was just a silly role. I
wanted to do Kat and That because a boat I loved.
I love I love Bow to Deathic we're one of
the greatest guys in the business, Catherine O'Hara's husband who
did all the you know.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Scissor Hands and everything, and Catherine from After Ours.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
And Catherine exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
And you knew it was a long movie because the
makeup room decor changed from pumpkins to turkeys to Christmas trees.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
AT's see it all Valentimes. We were there for fucking
six months doing this stuff. We were a lot of breaks.
But I mean, yeah, I haven't done like that a
long time.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
No, I mean that doesn't exist anymore. You know what.
I just fell into a you know, when you're clicking
around and then you just went That's not what I
intended to watch at all, and then you're there for
The next was Hunt for Red October. How long did
that take?
Speaker 1 (27:14):
That was a few months because I think that they
gave McTiernan, who was coming.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Off of a couple.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
He did die hard, he was doing well, this is
the launch of the Clancy Yeah, Library, this is the
first one they did, so they were really behind it.
I always remember that movie that I remember sitting there
at one point. It didn't hit me till I was
there was like how many great actress that were.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
In that movie?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Almost makes me cry. I mean, is Scott Glenn, James,
Earl Jones, Sean or Tim curry Firth who speaks that
unbroken monologue in Russian as they push in.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I love That's my favorite thing. I've always wanted to
steal that for something. Did you ever dream that that
director would someday be in prison?
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Well?
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Now, I kept in touch with him, and I think
what he basically told me was it was not I
don't know if this is the right word, prosecutorial for
which I think that he is involved in a case
where they want to get him for something and they
finally get him for what you can perjury.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
He lied about something in a time.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Once they catch you in a lie then and they're
going after the lie, after the bigger fish. And the
bigger fish was the detective, you know, the private elly
who tapped everything. He's actually in the book.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
And yeah, he was on our show. Oh really yeah, yeah,
our show. We're talking about Anthony Pelco and Pelicana was
on the show. He did our show. Oh really yeah,
Well because of the the but he went to prison
for years ago. I'm well aware, he says.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I think he says in our show, I'm no rat
alec and I mean he went he went to jail
for to prison for a long long time.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
He's in your book, was he he? What was he
doing for the Dune family?
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Well, he changed tones possibly here when the man who
killed my sister is right here on the cover of
this book. There, when the man killed my sister and
did such a small amount of time three and a
half years, both my father and I became obsessed with
rage and ruining where he would be.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
And you had an alternate plan for him, Yes, we did.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Actor and director Griffin Dunn. If you're enjoying this, conversation.
Tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the
Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get
your podcasts. When we come back, Griffin Dunn explains his
family's shared obsession in the aftermath of his sister's tragic death.
(29:43):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
In nineteen eighty two, Griffin Dunn's sister, Dominique, was murdered
by her ex boyfriend. She was only twenty two years old.
A jury acquitted her killer of the second degree murder
charge and found him guilty of only voluntary manslaughter. He
(30:04):
received a six year prison sentence for the lesser charge
and went free after serving.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Nearly two and a half years.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
As a result of what they considered a miscarriage of justice,
Griffin Dunn and his family sought their own ways to
write the situation.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I used to find out where he worked and get
him fired, and my mother actually would organize he was
a chef, and if he worked in a restaurant, it
was a place called the Santa Monica Chronicle, and my
mother organized a picket and had signs that the food
the man who prepared your food strangled my daughter, and
(30:42):
the Santa Michael Chronicle got rid of him. And sometimes
I would find out if he had a girlfriend, and
I would get in touch with a girlfriend and break
them up, and both both my dad and I kind
of lost our shit. Anyway, he kind of fell off
the map, and he called Anthony Pelicano to find out
(31:02):
where he was. And Pelicano found out that the guy
had changed his name and had moved to Washington. I believe,
you know, just Sayattle moved out of the state. And
he was very you know, you know, my dad, you know,
loved he loved cops, he loved a journalists, he loved
(31:22):
crime and uh and he really, you know, he was
really charmed by Pelicano. You know, he really loved the guy,
and he was really helpful. I don't think he charged
him a dime. He just you know, Pelicano was pro
bono work. He done a little pro bono you know
what he wanted to say. You know, I gave I
threw a bone to dominant gun. I helped him out
a bit, you know whatever.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Now, two things. Yeah, so the thing, obviously the book
is steeped in these tragedies. You've had to deal with
and there's not I'm not going to see this death everywhere.
But obviously you and your father are your lives are
changed by what happened to your sister. Without without a doubt,
I was friends with Jelko Ivonic, I mean I am
with him.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
I never see him anymore. And he was dating Rebecca
Shaffer right before she was killed.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Well we know that. And from that, the families that
supported Rebecca Schaeffer attended at our trial. They were called
parents and murdered children. And I believe that was started
by Sharon Tate's mother, Doris Tate. She started this group
as a support group, and Rebecca Shaffer's parents were involved
and were there, and there was a trial. I think
(32:25):
for some that guy who was you know, as a
fan or something, and there was a guy with it
who you know delivered arrowhead water. I remember he's the
one who captured the killer horrible thing. Yeah, and Teresa
Seldono's family was also a member. But yeah, that was
a crazy time.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
I mean, obviously this is a long time ago in
your life. What's the business like for you now in
terms of you still like to make movies, you want
to produce movies, act in movies, TV shows. Is acting
still interest you?
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah? You know, my desire, my ambition has not dropped
at all. At one point I thought I was going
to just hang it up with the acting. It was
like I was just doing I went from you know,
after hours and made stupid choices over the years, and
suddenly it was the fourth banana, if that kind if
(33:17):
a banana was even that big, and I thought, I
don't get this, and I'm getting older, and you know,
everybody who I went to the neighborhood playoffs with my age,
and I've never heard of anybody. So I'm going to
just go off on the sunset. And then somebody suggested
told me they were taking a checkoff class taught by
a Russian, a guy from where Stanislawsky came from the
(33:38):
Russian Institute, and this teacher who didn't speak a word
of English through a translator. I did ivan off and
I've never done checkof before. And I'm like, this is
like maybe six years ago. I'm you know, looking like this,
I'm feeling, you know, the middle age, and I'm feeling
I'm coming up on all sorts of shit, of ag
(34:00):
and everything. And I got it. I got like I
think I know who I am as an actor. I'm
funny and tragic and pathetic and kind of brave, and
I want to take chances. And I just I got
so excited about acting, and out of the blue, around
that same time, as it can only happen in our business,
(34:22):
I get a call from Dan Fogelman to be in
the show This is Us. He said, I want you
to play a guy who's he's suicidal, he's a drunk,
he's a diabetic, he lives in a cabin, but he's
actually kind of funny. And I went, oh, my god,
I know.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
How to do that. I'm a suicidal diabetic.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
I can do this and I can get a laugh
putting a gun in my mouth, And so it was
just a wonderful part. Then it just reinvigorated my feeling
about acting, and ever since then, I've done really interesting stuff.
I'm in this very funny movie called ex Husbands, where
I'm a guy who's my age with grown sons, who's
(35:06):
going through a divorce, who crashes his son's bachelor party
getting married in Tuloom. And you know, I'm suddenly tearing
on this whole checkof thing, you know, with the director
Noah Pritzker.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Oh I know, no a Pritzker.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Oh you do, of course, of course, you know in
the he's got a house up where are.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
You guys, I know, the whole Pritzker gang.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, yeah, well his uncle, let's you know, he could
be one of the We could be hearing a lot
more from his uncle and the governor of Illinois.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
So what about a play. When's the last you did?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
A play that I haven't done a long time?
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Would you want to do one? I would? I would.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
The last play I did was called Search and Destroy
that Howard Corter wrote at Circle in the Square and
that was a fantastic part. We made it into a
movie that no one saw, but it had Chris Walkin
and Ethan Hawke and Marty produced it. And uh, I'm
just thinking, like I've done a lot of things that
(36:01):
no one likes at the time. Then you know, Criterion
we discover them. Yes, yes, And.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
It's like the Orson Wells Lost Movies.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Absolutely, yeah, you know, the longer you wait, it's twenty
minutes of a guy walking along the shore and then
finally stops and finds a boat and that's it, and
that's it, and then twenty years later, someone will come
up and go, that guy who walked along the shore
that changed me.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
My god, that was so good.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
And then the word gets out and suddenly you got
like five rotten tomatoes when they hated it the first time.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Well, let me just say, you're one of those people.
Everybody in this business loves you.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Thank you, Ellen.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Good to see how you too.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
My thanks to actor and director Griffin Dunn. This episode
was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City and
Monk Music in Easthampton, New York. We're produced by Kathleen Brusso,
Zach MacNeice, and Victoria de Martin. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.
Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Is brought to you by iHeart Radio.
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from iHeartRadio My guest Today is an actor, producer, director,
and author of a new memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club.
Griffin Dunn is known for his roles in cult film
favorites like An American Werewolf in London and Martin Scorsese's
(00:23):
After Hours. You may have also seen done in popular
TV series such as This Is Us and Succession. As
a director, Griffin Dunn's work includes Practical Magic, Fierce People,
and the documentary on his aunt titled Joan Didion The
Center Will Not Hold. Growing up among famous relatives and
(00:44):
a father in show business, Griffin Dunn had an unconventional childhood.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
My father when I was growing up was very different
than the man he ended up becoming. You know, when
I was growing up, he was very angry, Irish Catholic
kind of rage you know, suppressed. He was closeted, which
was you know, not known at the time, and he
was also very kind of superficial about how things looked,
and he dictated what we would wear and what we'd
(01:12):
go to school in. And it was really tough kind
of being around him, and I had that awful feeling
as a kid to be a little embarrassed of my dad,
you know, like he wasn't like a manly, manly guy.
And you know, my best friends. I went to a
school in la and everybody was in show business, all
the parents and my best friends their father was one
(01:36):
was Jack Palance, who you know almost killed Shane, and
the other was Howard Keel who was a lumberjack. And
then there was my dad, and you know comings exactly.
You know, I was once so embarrassed that I came
to school and I said that my dad was in
jail for robbing a bank. And the lie went through
(01:58):
the school like small party or something, and the principal
of the school called my dad and go, oh my god, Nick,
you're out. And he goes, what are you talking about? Well,
I heard you were you were in jail for robbing
a bank. And he brought me. My dad brought me
into the you know, into this room, and he said,
is that something you'd like me to do? So when
(02:22):
it came time, you know, for him, as many couples
do when they break the news to their kids that
they're going to get a divorce, they plan what they're
going to say, you know, so they looks like a
mutual decision.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
And did your dad say he was going back to prison?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Now we would have loved that, but he, you know,
my dad had the first line and he went off script.
He just burst into tears and went, your mother doesn't
love me anymore and she's dumped me and she's leaving.
And you know, we were all. I was about ten,
my brother was eight, my sister was six, and we'd
(03:02):
never really seen adults quite cry before, and it was
particularly my younger brother and sister. So they burst into
tears and they were really crying, and my dad was
really going at it. And I got nothing I got.
I'm dry as a bone, and I just feel awful
thee Yeah, I felt nothing. I felt nothing, and so
(03:23):
I try to, you know, get a couple of whimpers
going and yeah, and it cleared my eyes and making
sounds and I'm looking I see my mother. She's crying.
I'm wow, that's really bad. And then I opened my
eyes and she's looking at me through her eyes and
they're just totally dry, and I catch her faking it.
(03:45):
She knows I'm faking it, and a bond happened any
of a beautiful beginning of a beautiful relationship. And when he,
you know, moved out, I became, at a very young
age sort of the man.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Of the house.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I was eleven.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Two stings happened with me really well, not so much
in divorce, but at some point my sister and I
was Cinderella, Me were the help.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, my brother.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Spent the whole day every day shooting basketballs, playing with
football in pools, and my sister and I did the laundry,
rake the leaves, cut the grass, shovel of the snow,
cooked the meal. Then so you're twelve, and when he leaves,
where does he go? Does he go far away or
is he nearby?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
He goes to an apartment, you know, real kind of
a Jack Lemon bachelor park in California, and you know, real,
you know, sad sech kind of a apartment that we're
supposed to go to on the weekends that we never do.
And you know, my mom was like she what she
became very I would say, she she would over share,
(04:45):
and you know, and she you know, she liked her wine,
and she let me stay up late. I felt terribly
grown up. And she'd let me have a little SIPs
of wine like they do in Europe with the children
in Europe, and she get a little bombed and just overshare,
and I felt terribly grown up.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
My dad would be come home from work. He'd come
home and he'd get on the couch and have the
New York Times, and he'd read those pithy little blurbs
about the movies on TV on a million on the
Late Show, and he'd read it and he say, you.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Know, Ball of Fire, that's a great movie. You'd say
to me, let's watch a few minutes.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
My dad would, oh, you gotta go to bed. It's
eleven thirty. You gotta go to bed. It's eleven thirty.
I go, let's watch ten minutes of him. Just ten,
You go, all right, we'll watch tennis. Ten minutes goes by.
He's fast asleep. He passes out on the couch, and
I watched all the Bowl of Fire. How Green was
My Valley? Sorry, wrong number, passage to Marseille. I watch
all the movies I watched in my life, and.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Like like you, they wanted they were lonely. They want
to compassion.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Absolutely No. That's the other thing that happened too, was
like all the structure went out the window, and my mother,
you know, was beginning to get sick. She had MS
and and so we would go to her bedroom and
we'd eat on TV trays everything, and it would be
you know, we had a housekeeper that pretty much raised
(06:04):
me as well. She was Mexican, and we would have
rice and beans just on the thing. We would eat
at all different hours. We'd take our tray and we'd
watch them and we would watch movies till my brother
and sister go to sleep, but she'd let me stay
up and we would watch. You know, there was one
movie called Suddenly Last Summer that was so terrifying to me,
(06:27):
you know, and I guess there was like a really
scary gay theme that was under in cannibalism, and there
was Catherine Hepburn, you know, on one of those chairs
that would come down the stairs, and for some reason
we it would be a million dollar movie, and you know,
they'd play the movies over and over and over. So
we would watch this movie. We knew it line by line.
(06:48):
And then when my mother, you know, advanced further, she
had to get one of those chairs and we would
just do Catherine Hepburn imitations. On this chair coming down
the stairs. All those late night movies, you know, really
were imprinted. They became like the language that we would speak.
My mother just knew every movie, every musical, every She
(07:12):
wanted to be but she wasn't she She when she
got pregnant with me, she decided to just become a housewife.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
And when she when you say her symptoms of MSS,
her battle with them, I speagan when she was how.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Old, I'd say in her thirties, because.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
She done when she was sixty five.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, down in No Gallas, No Gas.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
That's kind of her family's.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
That's where she went. She returned there.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
So your family, your mother's family, that was the railroad
wheel car enterprise exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Her father was from family that in Chicago, Chicago called,
and they had the Griffin Wheel Company, and the Griffin
wheels were at one time on all the pullman cars
in America. So it was quite an empire. Yes, And
my grandfather really had no interest in taking on that business.
(08:01):
He yeah, I know what was he thinking? And he
went to he was like, you know, like Teddy Roosevelt.
He had weak lungs and ended up in Arizona when
he was a kid, and just fell in love with
the landscape, the air in the desert. So when he could,
he was supposed to be married in a society wedding
(08:23):
in Chicago, and he literally left her on the altar
and went to Nogalis, where he became a cattle rancher
and knew nothing about cattle and bred this like a
very risky kind of cow and was very successful at it.
And my mother grew up on this ranch.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So I'm assuming not to be ghost about this, but
your mother's family was on all the resources that you
grew up with exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
She flirted with being an actress, but she didn't take
it seriously.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
She didn't. She didn't and she wasn't. I think she
had tremendous regret about it, you know. And when I later,
when I got kicked out of school and I decided
to become an actor, we moved to New York and
was the high school dropout. She actually wasn't disappointed. She
was a little oddly envious, and she was like, kind
(09:13):
of go for it.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
That.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah, now your was your mind.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
I didn't see the photos of there were Your mother
was a beautiful woman.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
She camera ready, she was so beautiful. She was often
mistaken for Jennifer Jones and for Elizabeth Taylor in a
place in the sun. That's the look I rememorder. Oh
my god, you know. And I was as a little boy,
I knew how beautiful she was. I was just in
awe of her beauty. And in this family, as you said,
all this Griffin Wheel company money kind of withered down.
(09:47):
She was very comfortable and was able to want she
married my dad. My dad was able to, you know,
buy a house that he wouldn't normally have been able
to cry. But you know, the previous generations outside of
the founder, griff of Griffin who in the team seventies,
they were all scoundrels and drunks and philanderers, you know,
(10:07):
and absolutely it just sort of dwindled down. You know
that her grandfather, my mother's grandfather, you know, died with
his mistress on a on a yacht off Palm Beach,
and his crew loaded his body onto a tender and
checked him into.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
The breakers and propped him up in the breakers.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
They propped him up, and then they called the wife,
missus Griffin, and said, we have terrible news. Your husband
is dead. And she turned to her lover, who was
an admiral in the navy, and.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
They were the Coronado.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Where were they and Coronado exactly, and she said, my
husband died.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Ever a split screen scene in the movie this.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Is this is like sturges, you know, and she says,
my husband died. We can get married, and do you
want to go to the funeral? And so they get
married the next day, and then they train, and then
they get on.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
A train and.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Then they the Griffin family is so outraged because it's
front page news in the New York Times. It's all over.
It's called widow for a day. And they derail the
train to go to.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Wisconsin, the train to send him on their way.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
And she got all the money too.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Now, your dad, who I knew of him, met him
at the screening of The Dock in Southampton years I
remember the latter day people called him then Nick Dunn.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
The latter day Nick Dunn and his pals was just
very very warm and sweet and kind.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, he loved you and he kind of really just
divested himself of all of angry Well what we'll called
Mick done. Yes, how about that happened? Anyway, When you
decide you want to become an actor. How does it begin?
Meaning you start you go where to become an actor?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Quote unquo.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Well, I was sent studied, Well, my parents always sent
me to these boys' schools. I never went to school
girls from the time, well probably, I mean it was
just like the thing that you can't have. And you know,
when I went to this boarding school when I was eleven,
and we did operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan, and only
(12:16):
we would wear dresses. I would wear like buttercup, and
I'd have tennis balls for breast, and we'd wear lipstick
and wigs. I mean it was pretty, you're too, So
I didn't really think I wanted to be an actor
after that. And then and and also you know, as
I ended up in high school and another school, I
(12:37):
really wasn't crazy about showbiz. I loved what my aunt
and uncle were doing that they were journalists. I thought
maybe I'd like to do that. And this guy taught
me the drama teacher, a guy named Hunter Frost, just
insisted that I auditioned for Zoos Story by Ed in Colorado.
I read this play and I understood Jerry and Zoos
(12:57):
story immediately. I auditioned and I got the part. And
once I did that play and I felt that thing
from the audience, and I just knew that was what
I was going to do. So I became kind of
Joe actor on the campus. And then I was doing
Iago and Othello. We were in rehearsal and literally kids
(13:18):
would come watch me, and the principal would watch, sit
in the back and watch, and I knew he was thinking,
this kid's going to be great for fundraising in the future.
This would be great. And my best friend at the time,
we got really heavily into drugs, comes in my room
the night before the performance with a joint, you know,
or a hash pipe, and he lights it up and
I take a toke and the a teacher walks in
(13:40):
and I got kicked out of school and I never
get to do a Fellow, but it gave me the
bug to It was just a matter of time. At
that time, I was seventeen. By the time I was eighteen,
I was moving to New York. I went to the
Neighborhood Playhouse. Only did one year there. I had real neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
That's a win.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, Well, Wyn Hammond was a teacher there. I had
a guy named Freddy Carramon, who was incredible. So I
only went there a year. I wasn't asked back a
second year, and then I studied with with a Hogen,
who I was well out of my league. You know.
When I went there, I hadn't done anything, and I
(14:20):
fibbed about what I did on the resume, and I
prepared a monologue from Catcher in the Rye. As soon
as I saw her, I immediately forgot every word and
I just made it up. So I took a bus
down here and I changed the thing and I bought
a doughnut at the whatever occurred to me, and I
made it sound like Holden Cawfield, and she, darling, that
(14:41):
was incredible. She could tell I didn't know what the
fuck I was doing, like you know, yeah, but I
begged her to let me stay, and then I kind
of found myself in that class, and she was incredible.
Did you ever study with stell Adler?
Speaker 1 (14:57):
No?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
I went to Strasburg.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I was sent back then and they had Stella Jack
Garfine their own in house ETW Strasburg, and my teachers
were Marshall Halfret, who.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I love, and Jeffrey Horne, who is my dear friend.
Jeff ninety two.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Now, Stella used to do a workshop in Los Angeles
for one summer, and so I went to audition for
that is before I went to the playhouse. And I
was just such an earnest young man, and I thought
it was auditioning for her, but it was for a
guy who sounded very much like your teacher. And I
did Candida the Shaw play and I was acting my
(15:34):
little heart out, and he had a dog with a
collar that must have had a million charblays, and he
would scratch all the way through my thing. And he goes,
I'm not really sure you quite got the stuff for Stella.
You might have to come back. So I came back.
I did it. I worked so hard, and he said,
I'm going to take a chance on you. So he
(15:57):
lets me be with Stella, and I come to Stella
the first class. She's just this dynamic, strong woman. And
sometimes she would say she would grab her the hem
of her shirt and she go, it's gotta come from here,
and you think she means her heart, but then she
pulls down her t shirt and you see her breast
for like two seconds, and then she pulls them back up,
(16:18):
go it's gotta come from there. Sorry, and I'm looking
at that at the class. Around the class there are
not many women and the most incredibly handsome men I've
ever seen in my whole life, right, I mean, no.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Jaws that come out here, and you know, Josh things.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
So he goes, all right, so we will take the
first scene here Vick Ronson and Rock Thurber, you and.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
These guys hospital.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
They go, what, let's sell? I goes, so, what scene
you boys going.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
To be doing?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
We're gonna do the uh, the shootout scene, the final
shootout scene from Butch Cassidy in this dance kids I
did Canada, I did Shaw. So they go and they
stand behind these they crouch behind these Samsonite chairs. They
take out their fingers and they go, you ready, Butcher
ready Sundays And they just do for the whole scene.
(17:17):
And she goes, oh, that was wonderful. And so I
was just the only straight guy in the class. I
guess I don't know what this is in la. Yeah,
of course it is.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
My great gift from doing Strasburg was gender rehearsal casting.
You know, they cast a production of Cuckoo's Nests and
I was nurse Ratchet as a man but I remember
that whole idea. So when I teach acting, I got
gender reversal everything.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Then, Gary, Well, I gotta tell you, you know they My
daughter was in American Buffalo in high school, and to
do it with an all female cast. It was mind
blowing because you see that those guys are protecting their masculinity.
They have so much going, you know, to protect in
(18:03):
their manhood, and to see women play that is an
entirely another dimension. It was incredibly moving. I love when
that happened.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
In an acting class. I had a guy.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
This was an acting class for non majors at Southampton College.
And the guy comes in. He's a mailman's a male
man who wanted to take the acting class with may
probably forty pounds overweight. He's a big barrel of a man.
So I made him do the children's hour. I made
him stand there with the guy. I made him stand
on the stage with another guy and go. But I
do love you that way, you know what I mean.
I wanted everybody to try everything.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I love that when people have that drive but they've
got a life that has nothing to do with acting.
Before they decide to become actors, a real life and
that's so fascinating to me how some people get into it.
Was one guy at the Neighborhood Playhouse who went through
(18:57):
the entire medical school head a degree, a doctorate degree
to be a brain surgeon, a brain surgeon, and he said, no,
I want to go to acting class. Like wow, Okay.
I mean, that's the kind of poll of doing what you.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Love, Actor and director Griffin Dunn.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
If you enjoy conversations about complex family relationships, check out
my episode with novelist Erika Jong and her daughter, writer Malyijang.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Fast.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
On the one hand, you're supposed to look like a
fashion model retouched, and on the other hand, you're supposed
to claim to a sophistication you don't and cannot have
at that age. And I think that women who are
fourteen fifteen are in the most difficult position they have
ever been in modern society.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
What do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
I mean, I agree, I think there's a lot of sexuality.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
I think it's not explained to young girls in.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
A way, very confusing, Molly.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
But I think that's a legacy of the feminist movement.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
I mean, we said we.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Wanted a legacy. I'm the feminist movement.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
To hear more of my conversation with Erika Jong and
Mali Jang fast go to Here's the Thing dot Org.
After the break, Griffin Dunn shares how Tim Burton almost
directed the film After Hours instead of Martin Scorsese. I'm
(20:36):
Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing.
Griffin Dunn starred in Martin Scorsese's nineteen eighty five film
After Hours, which has since become a cult classic. In
addition to his leading role in the film, don was
also a producer. I was curious about his involvement in
the project. After what Donn describes as a difficult start
(20:59):
to his act career.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I had a very hard time getting the acting job,
and I really didn't establish myself and start to work
somewhat regularly until I produced a movie with my partner
Amy Robinson and a guy named Mark Metcalf, and we
actually produced a movie with no experience for United artists,
and I gave myself a small part in it and
it got the biggest laugh and that led to Werewolf
(21:23):
and Amy and I then produced another movie called Baby,
It's You with John Sales, and we had an incredible
crew that we put together. There was a member of
union called Nabit, and so we had this all these
wonderful people working together. And Amy read this script. So
I had a little bit of credit as an actor.
But Amy read this script when she was at the
(21:44):
Sun Dance Institute by a Serbian director named Doujon mcaveef.
Gave her the script and said, you know, my assistant
wrote this. He's from Columbia. This was his thesis. And
Amy reads it and goes, this is unbelievable, and she
sends it to me. I'm in Los Angeles at that time,
and I'm blown away by the script, the anxiety. I
(22:08):
had to read it standing up and turn the pages
with my big toe and just go, oh my god.
And so Amy was Teresa in mean Streets and she
knew Marty Scorsese and she said he'd be really good
for this, like he's really funny, like really, So we
got it to Marty and but Marty was just off
(22:29):
to do Last Temptation of Christ the first time around
with Aiden Quinn playing Christ, so he was unavailable. And
then we go to Amy and I were wondering who
to direct, and my friend Terry Garr had signed on
already but we didn't have a director, and we go
see this movie I Forget, which the movie was, but
the short was directed by a guy named Tim Burton,
(22:52):
and we went, well, what about him? And so we
go to Burbank Studios where he's an animator at one
of those desks, you know, with lots of other animators,
and we go to lunch and it's this brilliant young guy,
you know, with the pencil pocket pencil thing and the
ink coming through the protector, the pocket protector, and he
(23:13):
does little drawings and stuff and you just go, Wow,
what's gonna what's this going to be? And around this
time we're trying to raise money with me Nobody, Terry, somebody,
but still Tim had not done a movie. It was
a tough sell. Marty's movie get canceled in Morocco and
he's got to come back, and on his way back
(23:33):
he reads at the top of the pile is after
hours and he lands and he gets back to us.
We all had the same attorney named Jay Julian. So
then we had to like tell Tim and we went
craziest thing happened, and he knew that. We went to
Marty first, and we start to tell him like, very guilty, intrepidationous.
(23:56):
Are you telling me mister Scorsese wants to do this movie?
Well yeah, he said, we haven't gotten back to him yet,
but I gracefully withdraw. I won't do anything to stand
in his way. So then it was just meeting Marty
and I kept waiting for him. I mean, it was
implicit that I was going to play Paul Hackett, but
(24:17):
I did wait for him to also say how great
Bobby would be in this, But then he was like no, anyway,
he started to say, oh, I saw you in Werewolf
and that was really great and he never thought twice
about it. So anyway, we're off and running. And then
I mentioned the Nabit crew because this was so low
budget and he was in a bit of director's jail
(24:38):
from King of Comedy, which we now know to be brilliant,
but at that time was just getting the shit kicked
out of it, and it was very expensive and all
that stuff. So he was like, had to be had
to show that I can do a mean streets again.
I can, you know, be a low to the ground,
but not with an IA crew. So we gave him
the Nabit crew and all those people, you know, from
(25:01):
Michael Ballhouse. That's how we met Michael Io. Yeah, I know, yeah,
and I remember. So anyway, he took all these people
on with him with movies, many many of the people
from that crew.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Where do you get the money from?
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Geffen? Geffen Films, David Geffen?
Speaker 3 (25:18):
He did Beatlejuice with him, He.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Did Beatle Juice with you with him, and yes, and
matter of fact, I wanted that part really bad, and
I thought, how come I can store in this movie?
And maybe it's because I gave tim a movie and
then took it away that I didn't get your part.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Just be honest, that was probably a lot cheaper than
you were there.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Well he was cheap. No, you could have gotten me
for a song. So yeah, he did that. He financed
it and he god, it was like thirty It was
considered like, look how fast we are running and gunning
to the ground and getting it. Marty was unbelievably prepared.
So there was never a we never fell behind or anything.
(26:00):
But it was like in those days too, with a
movie like thirty days. That's all I mean, you know,
nine and a half weeks. I'm sure it took a
lot longer than nine and a half weeks. I mean
you would, you would shoot for months and now it's like, no,
you only got thirty days. Oh, we can do it,
and so you know, helicopters bring it down the thing.
(26:20):
That's more than enough. With a gun to your head,
you can do whatever. Well, Adam, I haven't been on
one of those movies for months and years.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
I mean I did the movie Kat and the Half
with Mike Myers, which was just a silly role. I
wanted to do Kat and That because a boat I loved.
I love I love Bow to Deathic we're one of
the greatest guys in the business, Catherine O'Hara's husband who
did all the you know.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Scissor Hands and everything, and Catherine from After Ours.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
And Catherine exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
And you knew it was a long movie because the
makeup room decor changed from pumpkins to turkeys to Christmas trees.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
AT's see it all Valentimes. We were there for fucking
six months doing this stuff. We were a lot of breaks.
But I mean, yeah, I haven't done like that a
long time.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
No, I mean that doesn't exist anymore. You know what.
I just fell into a you know, when you're clicking
around and then you just went That's not what I
intended to watch at all, and then you're there for
The next was Hunt for Red October. How long did
that take?
Speaker 1 (27:14):
That was a few months because I think that they
gave McTiernan, who was coming.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Off of a couple.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
He did die hard, he was doing well, this is
the launch of the Clancy Yeah, Library, this is the
first one they did, so they were really behind it.
I always remember that movie that I remember sitting there
at one point. It didn't hit me till I was
there was like how many great actress that were.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
In that movie?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Almost makes me cry. I mean, is Scott Glenn, James,
Earl Jones, Sean or Tim curry Firth who speaks that
unbroken monologue in Russian as they push in.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I love That's my favorite thing. I've always wanted to
steal that for something. Did you ever dream that that
director would someday be in prison?
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Well?
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Now, I kept in touch with him, and I think
what he basically told me was it was not I
don't know if this is the right word, prosecutorial for
which I think that he is involved in a case
where they want to get him for something and they
finally get him for what you can perjury.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
He lied about something in a time.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Once they catch you in a lie then and they're
going after the lie, after the bigger fish. And the
bigger fish was the detective, you know, the private elly
who tapped everything. He's actually in the book.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
And yeah, he was on our show. Oh really yeah, yeah,
our show. We're talking about Anthony Pelco and Pelicana was
on the show. He did our show. Oh really yeah,
Well because of the the but he went to prison
for years ago. I'm well aware, he says.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I think he says in our show, I'm no rat
alec and I mean he went he went to jail
for to prison for a long long time.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
He's in your book, was he he? What was he
doing for the Dune family?
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Well, he changed tones possibly here when the man who
killed my sister is right here on the cover of
this book. There, when the man killed my sister and
did such a small amount of time three and a
half years, both my father and I became obsessed with
rage and ruining where he would be.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
And you had an alternate plan for him, Yes, we did.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Actor and director Griffin Dunn. If you're enjoying this, conversation.
Tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the
Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get
your podcasts. When we come back, Griffin Dunn explains his
family's shared obsession in the aftermath of his sister's tragic death.
(29:43):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
In nineteen eighty two, Griffin Dunn's sister, Dominique, was murdered
by her ex boyfriend. She was only twenty two years old.
A jury acquitted her killer of the second degree murder
charge and found him guilty of only voluntary manslaughter. He
(30:04):
received a six year prison sentence for the lesser charge
and went free after serving.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Nearly two and a half years.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
As a result of what they considered a miscarriage of justice,
Griffin Dunn and his family sought their own ways to
write the situation.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I used to find out where he worked and get
him fired, and my mother actually would organize he was
a chef, and if he worked in a restaurant, it
was a place called the Santa Monica Chronicle, and my
mother organized a picket and had signs that the food
the man who prepared your food strangled my daughter, and
(30:42):
the Santa Michael Chronicle got rid of him. And sometimes
I would find out if he had a girlfriend, and
I would get in touch with a girlfriend and break
them up, and both both my dad and I kind
of lost our shit. Anyway, he kind of fell off
the map, and he called Anthony Pelicano to find out
(31:02):
where he was. And Pelicano found out that the guy
had changed his name and had moved to Washington. I believe,
you know, just Sayattle moved out of the state. And
he was very you know, you know, my dad, you know,
loved he loved cops, he loved a journalists, he loved
(31:22):
crime and uh and he really, you know, he was
really charmed by Pelicano. You know, he really loved the guy,
and he was really helpful. I don't think he charged
him a dime. He just you know, Pelicano was pro
bono work. He done a little pro bono you know
what he wanted to say. You know, I gave I
threw a bone to dominant gun. I helped him out
a bit, you know whatever.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Now, two things. Yeah, so the thing, obviously the book
is steeped in these tragedies. You've had to deal with
and there's not I'm not going to see this death everywhere.
But obviously you and your father are your lives are
changed by what happened to your sister. Without without a doubt,
I was friends with Jelko Ivonic, I mean I am
with him.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
I never see him anymore. And he was dating Rebecca
Shaffer right before she was killed.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Well we know that. And from that, the families that
supported Rebecca Schaeffer attended at our trial. They were called
parents and murdered children. And I believe that was started
by Sharon Tate's mother, Doris Tate. She started this group
as a support group, and Rebecca Shaffer's parents were involved
and were there, and there was a trial. I think
(32:25):
for some that guy who was you know, as a
fan or something, and there was a guy with it
who you know delivered arrowhead water. I remember he's the
one who captured the killer horrible thing. Yeah, and Teresa
Seldono's family was also a member. But yeah, that was
a crazy time.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
I mean, obviously this is a long time ago in
your life. What's the business like for you now in
terms of you still like to make movies, you want
to produce movies, act in movies, TV shows. Is acting
still interest you?
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah? You know, my desire, my ambition has not dropped
at all. At one point I thought I was going
to just hang it up with the acting. It was
like I was just doing I went from you know,
after hours and made stupid choices over the years, and
suddenly it was the fourth banana, if that kind if
(33:17):
a banana was even that big, and I thought, I
don't get this, and I'm getting older, and you know,
everybody who I went to the neighborhood playoffs with my age,
and I've never heard of anybody. So I'm going to
just go off on the sunset. And then somebody suggested
told me they were taking a checkoff class taught by
a Russian, a guy from where Stanislawsky came from the
(33:38):
Russian Institute, and this teacher who didn't speak a word
of English through a translator. I did ivan off and
I've never done checkof before. And I'm like, this is
like maybe six years ago. I'm you know, looking like this,
I'm feeling, you know, the middle age, and I'm feeling
I'm coming up on all sorts of shit, of ag
(34:00):
and everything. And I got it. I got like I
think I know who I am as an actor. I'm
funny and tragic and pathetic and kind of brave, and
I want to take chances. And I just I got
so excited about acting, and out of the blue, around
that same time, as it can only happen in our business,
(34:22):
I get a call from Dan Fogelman to be in
the show This is Us. He said, I want you
to play a guy who's he's suicidal, he's a drunk,
he's a diabetic, he lives in a cabin, but he's
actually kind of funny. And I went, oh, my god,
I know.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
How to do that. I'm a suicidal diabetic.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
I can do this and I can get a laugh
putting a gun in my mouth, And so it was
just a wonderful part. Then it just reinvigorated my feeling
about acting, and ever since then, I've done really interesting stuff.
I'm in this very funny movie called ex Husbands, where
I'm a guy who's my age with grown sons, who's
(35:06):
going through a divorce, who crashes his son's bachelor party
getting married in Tuloom. And you know, I'm suddenly tearing
on this whole checkof thing, you know, with the director
Noah Pritzker.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Oh I know, no a Pritzker.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Oh you do, of course, of course, you know in
the he's got a house up where are.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
You guys, I know, the whole Pritzker gang.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, yeah, well his uncle, let's you know, he could
be one of the We could be hearing a lot
more from his uncle and the governor of Illinois.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
So what about a play. When's the last you did?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
A play that I haven't done a long time?
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Would you want to do one? I would? I would.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
The last play I did was called Search and Destroy
that Howard Corter wrote at Circle in the Square and
that was a fantastic part. We made it into a
movie that no one saw, but it had Chris Walkin
and Ethan Hawke and Marty produced it. And uh, I'm
just thinking, like I've done a lot of things that
(36:01):
no one likes at the time. Then you know, Criterion
we discover them. Yes, yes, And.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
It's like the Orson Wells Lost Movies.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Absolutely, yeah, you know, the longer you wait, it's twenty
minutes of a guy walking along the shore and then
finally stops and finds a boat and that's it, and
that's it, and then twenty years later, someone will come
up and go, that guy who walked along the shore
that changed me.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
My god, that was so good.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
And then the word gets out and suddenly you got
like five rotten tomatoes when they hated it the first time.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Well, let me just say, you're one of those people.
Everybody in this business loves you.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Thank you, Ellen.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Good to see how you too.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
My thanks to actor and director Griffin Dunn. This episode
was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City and
Monk Music in Easthampton, New York. We're produced by Kathleen Brusso,
Zach MacNeice, and Victoria de Martin. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.
Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Is brought to you by iHeart Radio.
Host
Alec Baldwin
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