Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right. Have you ever had a job you regretted taking? Well,
imagine if that job put you in the spotlight. Whoras. Yeah,
No matter how quickly you move on, everybody can see
what you did for all time. That's the case with
some really famous movie stars like Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock,
Jacob E, Lordie, Richard Gear, and Julia Roberts. I'm Patty Steele,
(00:21):
stars who admit that some of their flicks really sucked,
at least in their eyes. That's next on the backstory.
The backstory is back, Okay, admit it. You have taken
a job you're not particularly proud to put on your resume, right,
Maybe you thought it would be something different than it
(00:41):
turned out to be. Maybe somebody talked you into taking it,
or maybe you just needed the money. Honestly, I think
there are very very few of us who've loved and
been proud of every job we've had. And that's okay.
When I was a kid, I took some jobs in
radio and also making commercials. And I look back now
and I sometimes run into old audio and video from
(01:03):
those days. That makes me kind of grip my teeth.
I don't want anybody to see or hear. I remember
doing a commercial for a little haircare company where they
didn't like the way my bangs hung down over my face,
so they just walked up with a pair of scissors
and without a word, snipped a full inch off one
side of my head. Yeah. In another case, I took
(01:23):
a late night job on the radio with a really touchy,
feelly boss I had to hide from, and on top
of it, I was playing music I had no passion for.
But you know what, those jobs and others like them
paid the bills until I began getting offers for jobs
that I really loved. Well, imagine you're Sandra Bullock. She
(01:43):
had just crashed onto the Hollywood scene in her first blockbuster,
Speed with Keanu Reeves voila instant movie star. Right then
came time for the sequel, and Sandra says I should
have known not to do it. When Keanu opted out
of it. She went on to make what is regularly
considered to be the worst blockbuster sequel of all time,
(02:07):
as well as the worst action film of all time,
Speed two Cruise Control. In it, Sandra and her new
costar Jason Patrick try to stop their cruise ship from
crashing into an oil tanker after an angry ex employee
of the boat takes control. The original Speed has a
ninety five on Rotten Tomatoes, while Speed two has a
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pathetic four. Yeah you heard me four. Sandra says. No
one went to see that movie, and I'm still embarrassed
I was in it. It makes no sense. Slow boat
slowly going toward an island. Duh. Brad Pitt has been
able to write his own ticket almost since he first
popped on movie screens in nineteen ninety one's Thelma and Louise.
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He went on to make more early hits like A
River Runs Through It, Legends of the Fall, and Ocean's
Eleven and all those Ocean sequels, but that didn't prevent
him from making a few sucky choices. In particular, in
nineteen ninety seven, he made The Devil's Own with Harrison Ford.
Says Brad, I thought it could be a good movie,
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but it was ridiculous, irresponsible filmmaking. If he can't even
call it that. We had nothing. It was a victim
of this drowning studio head who said, I don't care,
We're making it shoot something. Brad tried to get out
of his contract a week before filming started, but the
studio said he would have to pay them sixty three
(03:33):
million dollars to walk away, so he made it. It
wound up with a Measley thirty seven on Rotten Tomatoes.
Then there's the Australian heart throb Jacob el Lordy. He
was just twenty years old when he got his big
break making the first The Kissing Booth movie for Netflix
in twenty eighteen. He plays a high school bad boy
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who's crushing on a girl in school when she opens
a kissing booth at the school carnival. Now the problem
is it was such a huge hit. They did two
sequels and he had to do them, and he couldn't
wait to be done with them, says Jacob. I didn't
want to make any of those movies. Before I made
any of those movies, those movies are ridiculous, not universal,
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They're just an escape. He went on to star in Euphoria,
Saltburn and in Priscilla, where he plays Elvis Presley. Eddie
Murphy made a comedy in two thousand and two called
Pluto Nash that was a major bomb. It cost one
hundred million dollars to make and only made seven million
at the box office. Eddie says he's only met two
or three people who actually liked the flick, and he said,
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when he needs a good cry, I watched Pluto Nash
and that breaks me down. That breaks me all the
way down. Charlie's then called her two thousand and seven movie,
Reindeer Games, which she started in with Ben Flick, a bad,
bad movie. Woody Allen hated his movie Manhattan so much
when it was finished he begged the studio not to
(05:00):
release it, and he blamed himself. The studio said, you're nuts.
We like it, so they put it out and it
was actually a huge success. Go figure. Alec Baldwin starred
in the movie musical Rock of Ages with Tom Cruise,
Catherine Zada Jones, and Paul Giamatti. He says, despite that
great cast, he soon realized it was gonna suck, and
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he remembers thinking, this is a complete disaster. I was
just like a week in and I thought, oh God,
what have I done. Channing Tatum is a little more
blunt when it comes to his least favorite movie. Early on,
as part of a three picture deal, he agreed to
make Gi Joe The Rise of Cobra. He loved Gi
Joe when he was a kid, So what could go wrong? Right, Well,
(05:45):
he says, now, I'll be honest, I epping hate that movie. Wow.
Then there are two movies I personally love and I
was devastated when their star said they hated making them.
One was nineteen sixty five's The Sound of Music, Christopher
Plumber playing Captain von Trapp. Critics say it's one of
the most beloved movie musicals ever made, but Christopher never
(06:09):
got it, and he said The Sound of Music was
the toughest role for me because it was so awful
and sentimental and gooey. I had to work terribly hard
to try and infuse some minuscule bit of humor into it. Wow,
Captain von Trapp. But The Sound of Music did go
on to win five Oscars, including Best Picture, and was
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one of the most financially successful films of all time.
And this is going to shock you. I mean, who
doesn't love the nineteen ninety flick Pretty Woman. I'll tell
you who. Both Julia Roberts and her co star Richard
gear And they looked like they were having so much fun.
I mean wow. Richard called Pretty Woman his least favorite
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thing I've tried to forget it. It was a silly,
romantic comedy. He said. His wealthy businessman character makes guys
like that seem dashing, which is so wrong. Today, he says,
we're all more skeptical of those kinds of guys, and
Julia simply says, I thought it would be darker and
grittier when I first read the script. I had absolutely
(07:11):
no business being in a movie like that. It is
all kind of hindsight, and truthfully, in a lot of cases,
these movies, like them or not, made these stars their careers,
and they made them a bundle of money. But think
about this. If we were all able to remove the
survival instinct from the equation and simply concentrate on what
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we do as a passion project or an intellectual challenge
or a work of art, they've given the chance for
a do over, would any of us have chosen the
path we actually took. I hope you're enjoying the backstory
with Patty Steele. Follow or subscribe for free to get
(07:55):
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Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia,
Premiere Networks, the Elvis Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions.
(08:15):
Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We
have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to
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on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at
Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele,
the pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.