May 28, 2025 • 66 mins
On this episode, we're in conversation with acclaimed actor Dylan McDermott. We delve into Dylan's challenging childhood, his journey to sobriety, and his illustrious 43-year acting career. We're talking Dylan's epiphany moments, transformative auditions, and insightful advice on persistence and reinvention in the entertainment industry.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It was a dark time. They always say, maybe have
(00:01):
your troubles early. Luckily I had mine early. I had
to find a way out of the darkness because there
was a lot of darkness to jump over the bar.
I'm fighting these two guys on West fourth Street, and
as I'm fighting them, another voice comes and says, you
don't have to have this life. That just stopped me.
So my audition was good enough for me to get
(00:25):
in the line of fire. So that's why it's so
important to show up every single time, because you just
never know. I've worked forty three years as an actor straight. Wow.
And then I was thinking before that I must be,
you know, ten years old, and I'm bringing your doorbell.
Can I shovel your snow? Can I rake your leaves?
(00:46):
Can I wash your car? Whatever? I have been doing
that since I'm ten. I have not stopped.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Everybody it's seen on Farlan. If you're enjoying this Sino show,
make sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast app.
New episodes drop weekly. Oh man, hey, today's guests. Isn't
just a celebrated actor, a Golden Globe winner. He's so
much changed my life. When I was at a Crossroads.
(01:20):
Dylan McDermott just didn't just believe in me. He backed me.
He directed me in a play when others wouldn't cast me.
He let me crash this place in New York when
I needed a landing pad, and maybe most importantly, remind
me don't quit man, keep going, you keep showing up,
keep creating. He's been my brother in recovery, my sponsor,
my friend for over three decades. He's now over forty
(01:42):
year sober or spiritual warrior, a force in the arts,
and a man who's lived through pain.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
And turn it into purpose. My brother. Welcome to the
SINO Show, Dylan McDermott. Thank you, thanks for having me.
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, so this is can we We're here, We're here
the Magic of Recovery here.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Otis is here too, is making a special guest appearing.
He's making his appearance here on the podcast. I think
this is his first podcast, first podcast. Can we see
Otis here?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Let's get come on making appearance because you know this,
it does part of your life.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Make his insurance every year.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, oh, how's your Dayvin Man, It's good, I'm here.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you. And you know
get down and dirty and talk about the good stuff. Yeah,
let's do it. And you do this for kind enough.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
You know you've been asked, you're you know, to do
a lot of different things, and this is probably the
first real podcast you've done.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah. I've been asked many times. But you know, I
trust you. I don't trust everybody, So I know that
your heart's in the right place, and I feel like
I can talk to you. I think if you're meeting
someone for the first time, maybe a bit guarded or whatever.
So with you, I think we can talk freely about
a lot of things. All right, Shure we get at it.
(02:54):
Let's do it. Let's talk about young Dylan. Sure upbringing. Yeah,
walk us through. I mean, you know it's my My
childhood is was pretty rough and tumble, you know, it's
it's I think it's it's hard when I tell people
about my childhood, it's, uh, it's hard for them to
(03:15):
understand because they don't have a reference for it, so
it kind of goes over their head, just doesn't make
any sense. And it formed who I was in many
ways because as it does as a kid. You know,
there are certain things that happened to you that forge
(03:37):
so many different layers, but I had gone through a
hell of a lot by the time I was five
years old. My mom was gone by the time I
was five. My my dad wasn't in the picture. My
poor grandmother had to raise me and my sister. She
had raised three kids of her own, and suddenly she
(03:58):
was she had two more to raise. Wow. You know,
that was it was dark. It was a dark time.
They always say, maybe have your troubles early. Luckily I
had mine early. But you know, I had to. I
had to find a way out of the darkness because
there was a lot of darkness and I was alone.
(04:19):
So I understood at a very early age that I
had to rely on myself. And that was a that
was an epiphany when I when you realize that I
was probably nine, Wow, when I realized that no one
(04:40):
was coming to save me, which I always say, you know,
I think Joseph Campbell talks about this and in his
books that I am the hero I came to rescue. Yeah,
that's beautiful, right. And I realized at a very young
age that there was no one coming. And and I
(05:04):
think that when you when you have that epiphany, as
we all do in life. I think there's a fantasy
that everyone has that maybe someone's coming to rescue them,
to save them, to take care of them, to fix them.
And when you realize that they're not coming, that it's you,
(05:26):
is when you become an adult. My story is more
extreme than most, but I feel like I understood that
at a very early age that I was responsible for
my life and I better figure out how to how
to live in this world that was filled with a
lot of violence and a lot of destruction. And I
(05:48):
had to navigate those very choppy waters at an extremely
young age.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Where were you living at now? Were you in Connecticut?
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Yeah? I was. I was born in a small town
in Waterbury called I mean in Connecticut called Waterbury, Connecticut.
And funny enough, you know all my trials and tribulations
that happened there. They gave me my own boulevard. There's
Dylan McDermott Boulevard. It's a short boulevard, but nonetheless it
(06:18):
gave me the key to the city. You know, I
was celebrated there, and believe me, I was not celebrated
as a kid. So it's it's a small miracle that
those things happened, because you know, on paper, None of
those things should have happened for me. My life shouldn't
have happened. You know, people who have my story either
end up in prison, have a needle in their arm,
or they're dead. So I'm very I'm very fortunate. I'm
(06:42):
very lucky that I was able to stay alive long
enough to find recovery, to find therapy, to get out
of my own way, to help others, and to have
a life. Those are things that I actually thought about
as a as a kid. So those were things that
(07:04):
you know, I was conscious of. I was blessed with
maybe having that ability to see at a very early age.
I don't think I ever. I didn't have time to
be a kid. There was no time. My childhood was.
It was over walk us through that. Boy, what was
that like for you? Just? I mean, you know, there
was a I had. I had to. I became the
(07:24):
man of the house at a very early age. I
had to help my grandmother. She worked two jobs. You know,
she worked in a machine shop in the daytime and
she catered at night. There was no money, so I
had I had to go out and I had to
I had to work, right. I was just thinking to
myself the other day that I've worked forty three years
as an actor, straight. Wow. And then I was thinking
(07:47):
before that, I must be, you know, ten years old
and I'm bringing your doorbell. Can I shovel your snow?
Can I rake your leaves? Can I wash your car? Whatever?
I have been doing that since I'm ten. I have
not stopped. I have no stopped since that moment working.
(08:10):
So I'm really sort of institutionalized in many ways because
all I know is how to work. Even now, I'm like,
you know, I just finished this show and I was
in my yard today and I was enjoying sitting down,
and I was like, I got to get the next child.
I'm just built to work. I'm my shiny sign is
the Ox, and the Ox just plows the field until
(08:32):
they drop dead. That's what the Ox does. They work,
And I'm just I'm just bred for that. But as
a kid, you know, it was there was no time
to be a child. There really wasn't. It was. It
was like I had to help my grandmother. I had
to bring in some money. I had to make sure
that she was safe. I had to make sure that
(08:52):
my sister was safe. So I don't remember, you know,
being a quote unquote kid, besides playing some basketball.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
And where was your dad at that time?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
My dad was an alcoholic, you know, he was a
He was one of those falling down drunks, you know.
When I'd see him once in a while, he'd come
and take me to the movies, and but it was
it was intermittent, and he always smelled leg booze wow.
And so there wasn't a lot of time for you know,
(09:29):
our relationship until he got sober. I think I must
have been because he took me to a meeting when
I was I must have been around he twelve thirteen
years old, and I remember going to my first meeting
with him. I tagged along. Yeah, and those were the Yeah,
(09:51):
those were the days of people smoking lucky strikes and
camels and trench cokesh It was only older men, right,
it was. It was completely different vibe. But nonetheless, I've
been around aa as long as I can remember, so
you know, he maybe he knowingly or didn't, I don't know,
(10:13):
but he was able to kind of help me. He
certainly helped me get sober. I went to I think
my first meeting when I when I decided that I was,
I wanted to get sober in Massachusetts. We went together.
So I've been around for a long time.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
When did you leave Connecticut for New York City?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
I left when I was about sixteen. Yeah, I really was.
I was enamored of New York. I was. I would
take the bus down from Connecticut to New York and
and it was metallic.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Man.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
It was like, wow, the city was just so alive
and art was happening, and I was so attracted to
the art world. And you know, New York was a
different place then. There was. There was real artists, you know,
there was. It wasn't like gentrified or as expensive as
it is now. It was. It was it was That's
(11:12):
what I was the most attracted to. You know. I'd
see Andy Warhol walking in Chelsea and and and I
knew painters, and I was just so attracted to it
that it really something struck me so deeply because I
realized at some point, you know, I had always been
(11:33):
I was born an artist, and the way I when
I saw the world was through an artist's eyes. It
wasn't through anything else because I could see I could
see the beauty and the art in distortion, even though
things were so out of control. I could still, you know,
I can make art out of it in some way
(11:54):
by scribbling in my notebook. Music saved me. I would
hitchhike three states to see see Kiss, you know what
I mean. I would just like I put my thumb
out and oh yeah right, and I would hitchhike and
not know where I was or you know, somehow, and
(12:14):
miraculously I would end up at the concert and then
had to get home. Oh my god, you know you
had to do it. That's just who you were. It's
gonna happen. Well, yeah, it was just said. I was
just I just loved music and going to concerts. And
Kiss eventually signed a guitar with all their signatures on
it for me. Yeah. So I don't know, it's just
(12:35):
I really I think I've always seen the world through
an artist's size. You know, I can just walk I
walk into a room like this, and I I can
pick out the thing that I think is the most artistic,
which is this? The time is now, you know what
I mean, it's just right on.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Just are you living with your dad?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Then?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
At sixteen, I.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Lived with him briefly. It didn't really didn't really work. Yeah,
we just it just wasn't I needed my own place,
so very quickly I got my own place at sixteen. Yeah,
and were you working at the bar at your father'sh bar?
Then I was a bus boy. When I was fifteen.
He put me to work as a busboy, which was great.
I really enjoyed it, and I would work, you know,
(13:18):
to I don't know what time I came in. I
came in pretty early and maybe like five o'clock, and
I worked at four o'clock in the morning. And then
at that time we would go to after hours clubs.
There was all these Irish after hour clubs that it
had gambling, and you'd stay there till like, you know,
(13:38):
one in the afternoon, and you go home and sleep
a few hours, then you do it again. And it
was so exciting. And I'm fifteen at that point, with
no real restrictions or guidance, I could do whatever I wanted.
And so that's when I first understood this idea of
(13:59):
celebri and how people treated celebrities differently. I used to
wait on John Belushi when I was a kid, and
I could see how people treated him differently, and I
was like, wow, that's that's so interesting that they they
they they hold him in such high regard. That's the
(14:21):
first time I ever understood that what that was. I
didn't even know. You know, when when I was a kid,
I was Television taught me everything. It's ironic that I
would end up on television because I would I would
look at television programs and I would mirror what they
did on television. I would learn from how to live
(14:44):
from I dream of Genie f Troop, Yeah, whatever, whatever
it was on TV. I was like, Oh, that's how
you Oh, that's how you behave, that's what you do.
Oh okay, I'll just do that. And I bet you
were good at mimicking the yes. So I would just
I sort of made up my personality as I went along.
(15:05):
So it is funny that I would end up on
television because I spent so much time not even watching television,
but studying it. How did people, how did people actually live?
The courtship of Eddie's father, the relationship between the boy
and his father fascinated me. So maybe, oh, that's how
I'll act with my dad. So everything was just a mirror,
(15:28):
got it.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
And when you saw Paulushi, were you like, I want
that or I want to be an actor, or like,
this is how do I do this?
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Or what were you thinking?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Well, you know, I think to be successful you have
to link up pleasure to it. So I linked up
pleasure that it was actually pleasurable that people liked him,
and success meant that people liked you. And I was like, oh,
(16:00):
that makes sense. M that makes sense. That's the first
time I was aware of what that the power of
what is fame? I suppose obviously it's a double edged sword,
but at that point it didn't seem like it was.
It just seemed like it was like, wow, unincredible.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
When did you decide you wanted to be an actor?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
It really was my father's third wife, Evensler, her name
is now v She wrote the Vagina Monologues. She saw
something in me that I don't think I saw in
myself at a very early age, because I would make
her laugh and I was a bit of a clown
(16:44):
and and she said you should be an actor, and
I was like, really, what how do you? How do
you do that? She goes, there's there's a school in
the village called HB Studios. Why don't you go over there? Well,
go over there or enroll you? And I was just
like this is this is crazy. I had no concept
(17:08):
of what it was to be an actor. For me.
The first time, the exercise was just walk across the stage.
It was still to this day one of the hardest
things I've ever had to do. How old were you fifteen?
I think it was because people were looking at me
and there was this exposure suddenly that someone was watching
(17:32):
me walk across the stage, or watching me at all,
or looking at me. I think for most of my
life and it's probably why I became an actor is
because I felt invisible. I never felt that anyone saw me.
So this idea of acting was, Oh wait a minute,
you mean someone would see me? That is that possible?
(17:58):
Oh wow? Because I've felt as a kid, I felt
incredibly visible. I was always shocked when the teacher would
even call on me. So there was a there was
a lot of There was a lot of pain, a
lot of hurt, and a lot of isolation that I
had to work through to become, you know, the actor
(18:20):
I am today. That really was transformative. I think I
think acting in many ways saved my life because I
could act out all these emotions that I couldn't normally
do and in my waking life, I could I could
suddenly act them out and there was such freedom in
that I could be all these different characters and I
(18:41):
could work through these emotions that I never could as
as as Dylan, and that gave me. Wow. That that
really just transformed me emotionally. And then I caught up
in time, in real time, I finally caught up to myself.
But it was the acting that allowed me to have emotions.
(19:02):
That's why acting is. So that's why I think everybody
should take an acting class at least, because it frees
you up somehow.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And where were you at that fifteen stage in your
addiction at that point?
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Oh yeah, I mean it was full blown at that point.
I started very early with everything with drugs and alcohol
to anesthetize myself pretty quickly. And so I was, Yeah,
I was, I was, I was. I was in trouble.
Thank God for me. She really. I always say, you know,
(19:39):
you always need one person right in life just to
who could change your life. All it is is one person.
That's why it's so important to help others because you
never know how it's going to hit them. You know,
you never know what it's going to do to them,
and she believed in me. She was the very first
(20:00):
person to believe in me.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
And she wasn't that much older than you, right, No.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
She was when I was fifteen, she was like twenty three,
and she became my mother essentially, and then she adopted
me when I was nineteen, and we've had this long relationship.
Incredible human being. Yeah, she is very specially, very very special,
so bright, so talented. She's in London right now working
(20:25):
on one of her plays. So it's just but without her,
I don't think I'm here. Now you're not here, I
don't think I'm here. She saved my life. I always
tell her that, truly, truly, she saved my life.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Did you study at the Neward Playhouse? Yeph was Sandy
there when you were there?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
He was my teacher. God, it's Samford Meisner. Yeah, what
was that like? It was rough? You know. I had
gone to Fordham for a graduated from Fordham and Lincoln
Center and that's when I first started acting. I started
getting roles there, you know, significant roles. And there was
(21:04):
one time when I was doing equis and there was
actually only a couple of times in my life when
that small still voice comes to you and what I
was doing equis and I'll never forget it. I think.
I'm I'm nineteen at this point, and a voice came
to me as I was performing, and it says, you
(21:27):
can do this, and I believed it. Yeah, I remember
it like it was yesterday. I really I believe that voice.
And I never looked back from that moment. By the way,
I threw myself into being an actor because of that belief.
(21:48):
Whatever that was, whether that was God, whether it was
divine intervention, it almost doesn't matter because I believed it
and it helped me, and it was like a and
on my shoulder, and it said you can do this. Wow.
And I believed it wholeheartedly and still do to this day.
(22:13):
And then another time I was bartending, these two guys
come in. It's like four o'clock. I forgot to lock
the door. They come in and I'm so sorry. Guys
were closed and they said, no, you're not, and so
I knew there was going to be trouble. So sure
enough we start getting into it. I have to jump
(22:36):
over the bar. I'm fighting these two guys on West
fourth Street, and as I'm fighting them, another voice comes
and says, you don't have to have this life. That
just stopped me. And I was like, you don't have
(22:58):
to have this life, because that's the life would have had, right, Wow,
you know I would have just I would have would
have been quiet desperation and I uh not long after that,
I quit being a bartender and I decided I was
(23:18):
going to make my my my way as an actor.
I didn't know how, but I threw everything into it.
I had no And I tell this to people sometimes,
you know, don't have a backup plan. Right. If you
have a backup plan, you're going to use that right.
And I said to myself, you know what, I don't
(23:38):
know how. I don't know how it's going to happen.
I just know it's going to happen. And I'm going
to have to make money to eat as an actor
and I don't I don't have any money. But I
was like, fuck it, let's go. Okay. You know, I
want to talk about your career that I want to
talk about, Sobriet, can you do that?
Speaker 2 (23:59):
I think I got this right. Was your first like
real big break? Hamburger Hill?
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah, Hamberger Hill was I was doing. I was on Broadway.
I had I just finished acting school and somehow I
think it was V again. Knew the casting director Meg Simon. Wow,
and they were replacing the cast of Biloxi Blues. And
(24:28):
I got an audition and it was Neil Simon. Oh
my god, of course Neil Simon was in the room.
I had audition for Neil Simon. Yeah, how were you?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Then?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
I'm like, I don't even know early twenty one. Wow.
And I remember I got several callbacks and it was
coming down to it and there was only, like, I
don't know, three guys, and I knew it was a
turning point because I had auditioned for William Morris and
(24:59):
they like, you know, you don't have any credits, come
back when you have credits, blah blah blah, the whole spield.
So I remember, like it was yesterday again. I was
in my kitchen in my small apartment in New York,
and I had I had this callback and it's Neil
Simon and Gene Sacks, and I remember talking to myself saying,
(25:27):
there is no doubt here. We are a racing doubt.
In fact, you are getting this role. I remember, I
remember having that conversation with myself, like this is fucking
it pout. You get this role, it all changes, so
(25:49):
there can be no hiccups here. You go into that
room and you take it, you take you take it.
And indeed I was just I was so laser focused
and I got the role and suddenly and and I
had three rehearsals with the stage manager and I was
(26:11):
on Broadway. Oh three rehearsals. Well I didn't know that fuck,
And suddenly I'm I'm on Broadway And what is that like?
Speaker 3 (26:21):
But what was that like?
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Well, you have no process. I mean, you're you know, you're,
you're you just barely know the lines and suddenly you're
you're thrown out into the sea and it's just like whoa.
So you're you're working just the opposite of what the
way you should work. You know, there's no there's no process,
so you just you're just you're learning as you're going,
as you're performing in front of fifteen hundred people. You know,
(26:45):
you're learning. You know where the laughs are, the timing,
you know your backs to everything. You just kind of
you have to work backwards. How long did that show
run for? I was I was on it for over
a year. It was great. I was making money, I
was on Broadway. I enjoyed performing eight days, I mean
(27:07):
eight shows a week. Uh so it was it was
it was good training. Wow. But that opened the door
for me. William Morris comes. Then I signed me because
now I'm in a play.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Where did you learn that a race it's on you
will win. This role is yours, there's no doubt about it.
Just go claim it at yours take it? Yeah, where
did you get that?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
You know? From my hard scrabble childhood. I you know,
I had to fight a lot when I was a kid.
You know, there was always always fights, and so I
had to you know, when I when I when I
got out my door for the day, I would have
to run because there was always somebody, some beef, some
(27:50):
ship that was going down. So for me, you know, again,
I wouldn't recommend any of this. It's just it was
my life that that that way of living made me tough,
and that toughness allowed me to be tough on myself
(28:13):
in a way where that there was going to be victory.
M I believe in victory in life. It's one of
my favorite words. That there is victory m hm. And
you only know victory by failure. You don't just become victorious,
(28:33):
right you know, you you you evolve into victory. But
by failing, you know, which we all do, and there's
a lot of lessons to learn through failure. You realize
that it's better to be victorious. You know, I was
born One of the greatest things I say is that,
(28:55):
you know, growing up poor was one of the greatest
things ever happened to me. Because as I value money,
I value what it's like not to have things. I
value what it's like to struggle, and I work my
ass off in this life so I could provide for
my kids and have a different life than no one
(29:16):
in my family ever did. So when you asked me
that I think there was there was. There was a
fierceness to me from from the get that you're going
to have to kill me to stop me. And that's
that started a very early age. And then I just
kind of, you know, transferred that into my into my career.
(29:41):
If you will and use that same technique of that
I'm not I'm not I'm not giving up no matter what,
it's just not going to happen. You can you can
say no to me a million times and I'll will
show up for for for because I know that there's
(30:05):
a chance you're going to change your mind. There's a
chance that somebody might drop out. Whatever, right, I'll be
here and I will be here. So I have learned
to and I think you need this as an actor.
You're really happy. And I talked to my daughter about
this and a lot of actors. You know, the hardest
(30:25):
thing for all actors is this rejection that we all
go through. It's an enormous amount of rejection and that
that's hard, man, it's really hard. I'm sure you lost
big roles. Oh yeah, and you're rejected all the time.
But once in a while, you know, they pay baseball
(30:46):
players a lot of money. They hit that ball, you know,
two out of ten times. So I kind of rely
on that that. You know, I'm not going to get
every role, but what with the roles that I do get,
I'm gonna fight tooth and nail to make it great. Yeah.
And my god, you've gotten some good ones, brother.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah, Hamburger Hill, open call.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Right, seven callbacks. They kept bringing me in for bigger roles.
There was a freedom that I had when I auditioned
because I never thought that I was going to get it.
So I was free. I wasn't tight at all because
(31:35):
I'm like, you're never gonna cast me. I have no credits,
you know, doing a play on Broadway. You know, they'll
give it this somebody else, so all right, keep calling
me back. So there was there was a real freedom.
And also, you know, for that particular role, the director
John Irvin cast me because he said that I had
(31:55):
the thousand yards stare. Yeah, and that came from my childhood. Yeah,
explain to people at the thousand yard stairs. It's you know,
it's it really is someone who has seen too much
right on and he recognized that in me, and that's
why he cast me. He told me so again. Turning
(32:17):
poison into medicine is what we do in life, straight up, man,
That's what we do, no matter what happens to you.
And it almost doesn't matter what happens. But if you
can transform that in term that that poison, whatever happened
to you in life, and turn it into medicine, then
you will be victorious. And that's what I was using
(32:40):
when I started to get these these roles. I think
you told me that was a very difficult shoot, right, Oh, yeah,
there wasn't.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
There was there coup going on during that time.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, it was nineteen eighty six. It was the Philippines.
A kino was just coming in, a lot of unrest.
Two people. We had at least two funerals that I
remember making the movie. Wow, that's how difficult the situation was.
Makeup artists died, we had a funeral for him. Another
(33:16):
an electric was electrocuted. Oh wow, it was brutal. It
was brutal. It was like you're in the jungle of
the Philippines burning thirty eight thousand black tires, you know,
to black out the sun. Wow. Wow, there's no trailers.
(33:38):
We have one uniform. They hose you down if you
get money. And I was like, man, this is making movies.
I don't know if I want to this is this
is a little rough, you know. But that that really
was the beginning, you know. The New York Times wrote
an article about me called a searing debut, and that
(34:01):
really opened up. It's a great movie, still holds. Yeah,
it's a great movie. It really, it's it changed everything.
And I was I remember I was in my bathtub
and I was reading I think another script and I
got the call that I got the role, and I
was I was. I was shocked. I could not believe it.
I was like, what, I'm going to be in a movie?
(34:23):
I just thought I would be in a stage actor
and the idea of being in a movie was just
beyond my scope. I didn't think it was it was
going to happen. And then suddenly it was like, I'm
in the Philippines and I'm one of the leads of
this movie. It's like, how the hell did this happen? Yeah,
you're sober? Then? Uh? Yes, how many years? Just one? Wow?
(34:48):
First year sober? Yeah? And the Philippines doing a movie? Wow? Yep?
Wow man, yep.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
And did you struggle in your first year with wanting
to relapse any of that or did it? I'm like,
you were like, no this, I'm not going back. I
don't remember.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
I forget, you know, I didn't. I I there was
so much addiction in my family that I had made
a conscious decision that I wanted to have a life.
I really wanted to have a life that was different
from my family, and I think that sobriety was was
(35:26):
really the bridge that that allowed me to have a life.
But I knew that I wasn't going to be successful
if I I remember, you know, working with the the
the bartenders and the waiters and waitresses, and they of
course they were all actors, and they were always drunk,
(35:47):
and they were like, I understand, I can't get a job.
I'm on thish in od time. I mean, just like
fucking wasted. And I was like, the dream from my
life was was big. I had a dream. You know,
I'm a dreamer. I still dream to this day. And
my dream was like I'm gonna I'm gonna do this.
(36:11):
I'm gonna I'm going to be a successful actor. I
don't know how the hell I'm going to do that.
It was delusional in many ways, but you kind of
need a little bit of that delusion in order to succeed. Otherwise,
if you think about it, you're never leaving the house.
You live me in the bar, Yeah, which happens. Happens.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
And then still Magnolia after that, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Still Magnolia's came, which was another big movie. The casting
director really loved me in Hamburger Hill and suddenly I'm
just the opposite of Hamburg Hill. I've never seen more
food in my life. And you know, catering and they
got movie stars galore and I was like, this is incredible,
(37:00):
this is now, this is making movies, movie trailers and
hair and makeup, and none, none of that stuff existed
on on the Hamburger Hill. So suddenly I was in
the heart of you know, this huge Hollywood movie. And
what did you.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Learn on that from anythings?
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Stand out? Oh my god? Yeah, I mean, you know,
watching Sally Field work, Wow, you know, was just an
acting lesson. I saw her, you know, when she was grieving,
she was screaming into a pillow, and you know, she
was doing the work. You know, she was she was rooted,
(37:39):
she had a technique, she was committed to her craft,
and I really admired her for that. I was like, damn,
she's she's all the way in. I love that. That's
how I want to work. That's how I am working
for now on. And and I thought, wow, she's a
huge star and she's she's doing the work. And so
(38:03):
I was like so impressed by that. And she taught
me a lot because that's what I want. I wanted
to be like her. H that's you know, that's that's
what you do, right, you give yourself these little heroes
and and you're like, I want to be like him.
I want to be like her. I want I want
that career, I want what she has, what he has,
(38:25):
that attraction. So I was, I was, really I was
attracted to what the way she worked in the Line
of Fire. I think I was with you when you
got that role. I think, right, yeah, that was like
ninety three maybe yeah, And I remember there was a
(38:47):
bit of a little low. But luckily I had auditioned
for other movies. I didn't even audition for that movie.
They they the casting directors had my I auditioned for
Jurassic Park I think it was, and they gave Wolfgang
Peterson my audition tape for that and he cast me
(39:08):
off of that audition for another role. This is why
it's important to show up every single time for auditions,
because you never know who's watching, right, So my audition
was was good enough for me to get in the
Line of Fire. So that's why it's so important to
show up every single time, because you just never know, right,
(39:30):
You just never know. And I remember I was so happy.
I was. I was on the ten and was I
forget where I was going, and I look in the
rearview mirror and the motorcycle cop that's behind me with
his lights on, and I was like, oh shit, and
I pull him all the way over on the on
the left. I pull over to the right and I
see him throw the gloves down on his bike and
(39:52):
he's coming straight towards me. And I'm like, oh man,
this is bad. And I said he. I rolled down
the window and I said, I'm so sorry. I just
got cast Clint Eastwood movie and he was like, oh really,
which one did you get? No, let me go. It
was like, it's fantastic. What did you learn from him?
(40:15):
I mean, you know, there's not too many people, you know,
I've been fortunate enough to be around some incredible movie stars,
people who are like Paul Newman when I was a kid,
hanging around with him and friends with him, and and
of course working with Clint, people who are bigger than
the camera. You know, Clint is an icon. There are
(40:41):
very few of those in the world. You can't teach that.
He just is bigger than the camera. He's an icon.
So I knew that I was never going to be
that when I got that role. So I had made
a decision that I was going to be as vulnerable
as possible. Oh wow, because I knew I couldn't. There's
(41:05):
no way I was going to be a competition with
him at all. So I decided that I was going
to be as vulnerable as I could. My character was
very well, he was scared, and I had used that
to contradict what his character was, you know, Harry, you know,
a bit of a hard ass. And I was like, okay,
I know what to do. And it worked worked really well. Yeah,
(41:31):
because I was like, I was trying to be as
vulnerable as possible, as scared as possible. Everybody knows that
Clint Eastman partners dies all die. It was not as
shocked anyone, so everybody knew that was coming. So I had,
you know, enough time on screen where I had to,
you know, create this character and and you know, make
(41:55):
that decision to be as vulnerable as I could. What
about Malcolm It, Yeah, I mean he was great in
that movie. Yeah, you know he was. He was doing
the work too, he was he had this character devised
and he knew he knew exactly one of his best
roles and by the way, one of the Clint's best roles.
You know that the Wolfgang Peterson did such a great
(42:18):
job on that movie. When I look back on that movie,
it's probably the most perfect movie I ever worked on.
Everything really, Yeah, the script was beautiful, the director was perfect,
the casting was fantastic, everything was there, and the whole
thing shot like butter, It just shot itself. I never
(42:38):
had that experience again, not like that, right, maybe with
Jodie Foster because she's such an incredible director. But everything
worked in that movie. I thought that that was gonna
be every movie. But no, it's so hard to make
it really hard to make a great movie. Yeah, and
that's a great movie. That's a great movie. So I
was really blessed to be a part of it. Let's
(43:00):
talk about the practice. Yeah, how long did you do that?
For seven seasons? That part was custom design for you man. Well, again,
you know it was. It was a time not like
it is today. Back then, television was you know, there
was a clear delineation between being a movie actor and
(43:23):
a television actor. Now it's all the same. You know,
all movie actors do television shows, but back then that
was not the case. So I I knew that I
wanted to get better as an actor. I knew David
Kelly was a good writer. But at the same time.
I was scared that if this didn't work, you know,
(43:47):
it would have it would have hurt me. But again,
you know, my intuition and my instinct for the practice,
as it was with American Horror Story. Always tell Ryan
this too, you know that I said, and this is
going to be your biggest show. And I had this
(44:07):
huge intuition with the practice that it was going to
be successful, like I knew it, and it wasn't. Initially
it was it was, it was. It really sort of
hobbled along, and then they moved the time slot and
then it became successful, but initially it was not. And
(44:29):
I thought, damn, how could I be so wrong about this?
I knew it, and then sure enough it kicked in. Wow.
I only had that a couple times in my life,
by the way, the Practice and American Horror Story really yeah,
well my intuition was so huge. Wow that I just
knew other things not so much.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
That's interesting man, Yeah, American Horror Story. Yeah, we got
to see a real interesting part of your personality.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Brother. Yeah, because you know, I had done the practice
for many years and people thought I was that guy.
And this is the problem with being an actor, right,
is that people decide who you are, right, it's your
job to change their mind. So suddenly I'm seventh season
(45:21):
of this character. Everybody thinks I'm this earnest lawyer. I
couldn't be further apart from that. So I knew, again
being ahead of the curve, that I had to change.
I needed to do something a little darker, weirder, whatever.
So when I read that script the pilot of American
Horror Story, I was like, this is it. Oh wow,
(45:44):
this is it. I need to do this.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
Did you have to convince your management where they like, no, no,
let's keep doing.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
These well again, you know horror on television, right, maybe
the Twilight Zone. Yeah, wow, it wasn't done. No one
had done it successfully. So Ryan was the first person
to do it. So everybody was not sure about it,
but I knew it was like, oh no, this is
(46:10):
this is this is my ticket. So when I met
with him, we got along like Gangbusters. I met with
him and Connie and we just all got along and
it was on. Yeah. But I knew again, I think
you have to have some kind of awareness of who
you are. And now, by the way, I'm in the
same place again. I just finished five years shooting two
(46:33):
shows in New York. I have to change again. And
that's your job as an actor that you always have
to change. You have to reinvent yourself really every ten
years if you want to have any kind of longevity.
I can't be one guy. The people who are one guy,
(46:54):
they don't usually have a forty year career because people
get sick of you, just defiably. So if I saw
myself as that that that one character, I would be
sick of me too. So you have to change. You
have to evolve, You have to reinvent all that stuff.
Otherwise you're gonna have a short career. Now. My favorite
(47:14):
show brother is Hollywood. Yeah, what fuck do they tell
that character? What?
Speaker 3 (47:24):
How'd you come up?
Speaker 1 (47:25):
How did that all work? Well? Ryan It had called
me and said I have such an interesting show man
and short lived There was too short lived. There should
have been another season. At least he called me and
I came to read the script in his office and
I was just like, oh my god, this is the
role of a lifetime. This is the role of a lifetime,
(47:49):
and this is the this is the stuff that I
want to do. I mean, even though I've done a
lot of leading roles. The character work was always the
thing I was most intrigued with, you know, And funny enough,
I was shooting Hollywood and American Horror Story at the
same time, two vastly different characters. Probably the happiest I've
(48:11):
ever been because I would go from set to set. Wow,
and it was American Horror Story in nineteen eighty four.
Oh Wow, And I was playing this dude with like
shot shaggy hair and a mustache and he lost both
thumbs and he's a killer, and it's just like fucking nuts.
(48:32):
And then I'm going to this pimp Hollywood at the
same time, and I was like, oh man, I couldn't
be happier. Yeah, because you know, I for Hollywood. I
made sure I knew I had my underwear custom made.
I knew exactly how this guy was going to look.
(48:54):
I wanted the mustache, I wanted the hair, the suits,
everything was custom. He was a failed actor, so emotionally
I knew exactly where he was coming from. Just he
was in a desperate position where he didn't make it
as an actor. So now he's got to have a
side hustle. So now he's pimping out dudes. So it's
(49:15):
just like wow, you know, I mean, the whole thing
was just what a character.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
You can't play that character unless you come from a
background like you did, man, Yeah, because you got you
just too on your instincts.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
You learn, right, Yeah, yeah, you have to. You know,
growing up in the bar business was really helpful because
even on Organized Crime, when I played you know, gangster Mafioso,
I had waited on those guys. I knew those guys.
So growing up in a bar, it's sort of like
(49:48):
you know, Eugene O'Neil Iceman cometh. You're surrounded by all
these characters. That's how I was as a kid, all
these you know, the our tender pulls his glass eye
out and sports it with a soda gun and then
pops it back in his eye. You know what I mean.
He's inhaling cigars all night, and and you're just surrounded
(50:13):
by all these characters, right And I'm and I'm just
a voyere, you know, I pick up on everything. I'm
I'm recording everything every moment. It's art. Yeah, So that
was so rich for me. All these characters that I
got to create later in life, A lot of them
came from you know, my time in the bar, you know,
(50:35):
or growing up as a kid, and you know, being
being surrounded by gangsters. My mother's boyfriend was a bank robber,
and to see him come home and have the money
from the bank robberies and and the gang that was
around him, and that whole world. So there was just
(50:58):
there was rich with with the danger and characters.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
Why did that show get picked up? What happened just
get to get an audience?
Speaker 1 (51:08):
I don't know exactly. It was so well done, it
really was. And the next season I was they were
talked about me. I was gonna play Marlon Brando in
the next season. There was some talk of that. Wow yeah, wow,
So that was already. I hope they bring it back.
I don't think so thing. It's too late now. But
I will always love that character, you know, I even
(51:31):
in my head. Again this is an important thing, is
I dream about my characters as well, so I make
sure I want to. I want to I want them
to infiltrate my dreams. So one night, I'm I'm sleeping
and I have a dream that that character tap dances
Oh wow. And they came to me in a dream
(51:52):
and I was like, oh, I have to tap dance
in the show. So I go to the director, I said,
I want to in this scene and Musso and Franks.
There was a scene of Musso and I want to
tap dance before I sit down. So I had my
tap shoes on and I do a little tap and
then I sit down for the scene. But that came
to me in a dream. So that's that's the kind
(52:13):
of work that I love, you know what I mean,
when it's just you're always dreaming, You're thinking, you're day dreaming,
You're what if I do this, and what if I
do that? And what what what about this? That's the
thing I love about acting because then i'm you know,
I'm always thinking about what's what can I do in
(52:34):
this scene? When others are sort of like, you know,
goofing off in between takes, I will stay in character.
I remember I did a movie called The Clove Hitch
Killer where I stayed in character the whole time. It
was really difficult, but I just I knew I couldn't break,
you know, being Dylan. I had to stay in him
(52:57):
to have that authenticity of that character because it was
so far from me and I would look like a
clown if I didn't do it properly, and so you know,
I shaved my hairline back, I put a fat suit on,
I changed my voice, I changed the color of my eyes, everything,
(53:17):
my walk, everything was different. So I had to stay
in that in order to maintain the realism.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Wow, all right, bro, let's talk about sobriety. Sure, how
many years now?
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Forty? Fuck? Yeah, forty years. It seems inconceivable. Forty years
of anything.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
I know, man, forty career, forty years sobriety because you
got super health twenty three, right.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
Talk about some of the things you learned sobriety, man, Yeah,
I mean I learned everything. Just I mean, you know,
the program is h it's taught me everything. I know,
those twelve steps doing them you know quite a few times,
you know, you change so much over over over time.
(54:10):
I remember for me, five years was very difficult because suddenly,
you know, all the stuff that you learned to do
in life doesn't work anymore and you have to change.
That's when the steps really started to worked for me.
I had to I had to root out everything. Can
(54:31):
you give us an example, please? Well, you know, just
just you know things that I how my behavior. I
think that you know you can be you can put
down the drink and be dry, but not sober, you know.
I think it's the steps really that give you that sobriety.
(54:53):
I always had a pretty good relationship with my higher power,
you know. I think being as a kid, I really
reached for to God for you know, help, because there
was so much chaos. So I had a pretty good relationship.
I thought I had a good understanding of what the
(55:15):
higher power is. But I think that I was stuck
in many ways. I was stuck inside my own stuff.
And I think that the steps really helped me make
amends that that was really important for me. But for me,
(55:39):
it was really the spiritual part of the program, helping others,
you know, being of service. That really also I didn't
fully understand that until I started to do it. And
that's something I admire about you, by the way much
service you do. I think that when you do service,
(56:03):
you're not self conscious, you're not thinking about yourself, You're
thinking about someone else, and you're getting the attention off
yourself in many ways, and you you feel good. You
know you're you're you're helping someone, and that that always
feels good when you help another. So I know that
(56:24):
I took a commitment very early at the Mustard Seed
in New York. You know, I ran the meeting for
for at least a year, and that really helped me.
So I think that showing up, going to meetings, being
(56:47):
of service, helping others really get help me get out
of my shell. You know, how about forgiveness. Forgiveness is
a I mean, that's kind of lifelong journey, isn't it. Yeah.
I wish I wish you could just forgive yourself or
(57:07):
forgive others, But it seems like you have to constantly
forgive yourself and forgive others, you know, mm, at least
for me. What are you thinking right now? Just about
you know, the journey, the journey of my life, you
know all of it. You know. Suddenly I'm sixty three
(57:29):
and you're like, wow, you still want to you still
want to live more, you want to do more. You
know you're not finished yet. But there's always you know,
you never know when your time is up, you know,
(57:50):
and sometimes it feels like you're just beginning, you know
what I mean. There's so much to learn. There's not enough,
there's not one lifetime is not enough, you know, there's
so much to do. Mm hmmm. I think you always
want more time, no matter how much time you have.
(58:11):
Even if I live to one hundred, you still want
more time. Just what you would do anything for one
more day here, as hard as it is, you would
still do anything for one more day.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
My audience till it's going to be very interested to
know where you came from and everything they up your father.
You know your mom's life was taken. How do you
make how did you make peace with all that stuff?
Speaker 1 (58:36):
I don't know if you make peace with it? I
think you learned to live with it. Mhmm. You accept that,
you know, I had to accept this is where I
come from, and this is just where the cards that
were dealt me and what am I going to do
with them? And you make you make, you make something
(58:59):
out of nothing, right, you turn poison in the medicine,
whatever is, whatever saying you want to use it almost
doesn't matter. You can transform your life no matter who
you are, no matter what's happened to you, you can
transform it. You can make it better. You know, thank
(59:24):
God for alcoholics Anonymous, Thank God for the program because
you know that gives you a great foundation, A lot
of people don't have that foundation. A lot of people
who are in prisons and mental institutions it is because
of drugs and alcohol. They don't have those tools or
it never it never took. Maybe they were introduced to it,
(59:47):
but it didn't take. I always believe that, you know,
the angels are out there, right, the angel of the
messengers are out there, and they will come and they
will tell you, and they will give the information. You
may not take that information, but they come and they
tap you on the shoulder. You have to be open
(01:00:10):
and you have to listen. But they come. They always come. Yeah,
they always come. But sometimes you're blinded. Sometimes you don't
want to hear it, but they come for sure. Speaking
of angels, you became a father in sobriety a couple
of times, yeah, a couple of Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
What's happened like for you man to be a father?
About your kids?
Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Man? Yeah? I mean the thing I didn't know about
kids is that one day, when you at least expect it,
they start taking care of you. You know, you think that, oh,
because you just give your kid everything, you take care
of them and make sure they're safe and make sure
they're good. And then one day as they get older,
(01:00:55):
suddenly you know, the script is flipped and they start
taking care of you. Funny enough, and that was that
was so surprising to me. But I think that, you know,
me having kids was like me healing myself in many ways.
(01:01:15):
I gave to my kids what I never had. I
gave them everything I ever wanted, and in doing that,
I was able to heal a part of myself while
loving them. So it was great to be able to
do that because I healed a part of myself by
giving them everything I wanted. A beautiful man. Yeah, wow, wow,
(01:01:40):
wow wow. What if you learned about love and sobriety, Well,
I think you learned how to love. I'm not quite
sure I knew how to love before being sober, because
you know, being sober for all these years is that
it you strip away so much and your heart opens.
(01:02:06):
You know, my heart is open more so now than
ever before. It really is. I think I'm less afraid, truly.
There's nothing to be afraid of now. Really, I'm not
trying to prove anything. And I want love. I mean,
(01:02:33):
the most important thing in life is loved. There is
nothing else. You know, when we leave here, we will
remember by the people that we have loved and who
loved us. That's it. The television shows and the movies
will all fade, but then you will live on in
(01:02:55):
people's hearts, in your children's hearts, and your friend's hearts,
your mate's hearts, whatever it is, you will live on
in their heart. That's what life is, that's what love is.
And there's nothing more important than that, you know, And
(01:03:15):
it's not a hallmark card, it's not a cliche. When
you truly truly love someone and you open your heart
and you give your you give yourself freely, just because
you love that person, that's what you will be remembered for,
not for any accolades or how big your house is
(01:03:38):
or what car you drove. It will be because you loved.
And I think I'm keenly aware of that now, hm.
Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
If I remember correctly, you were a big fan of
Saint Francis prayer. Yeah, right, sure, to love, then be
to loved, right to love then.
Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
That's right, that's right, yeah, Because again you know it's
you're helping others, right, You're getting out of your way
and those people who have you know, the mother terraces
of the world. You know that being that selfless. They
did good works. Yeah, they did good works. Thanks for
(01:04:19):
loving me, man, Well, you know you're easy to love.
You're easy to love. Well, yeah, you would come from
the same place because that's right.
Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
When I get in the in the company somebody like you,
you respect that person. You take the direction and you
follow it because you're great in the play.
Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
What year was that, Short Eyes? Yeah? No, no, Short
Eyes had to be ninety five. What's it? Did I
get that wrong? Jeez? I don't know. Maybe you know,
I have the poster at home. I'll look at it.
Maybe there's a dad on it. Yeah. Yeah, we just
(01:04:57):
some magic there man on main Street. Sure we did
some magic there. Yeah. Yeah. Final final thoughtsph people, brother,
I think do you know it's a I would always say,
keep dreaming, Yeah, dream dream your life, right, you know,
see your life before it happens. That's what I try
to do. I try to see it before it happens.
(01:05:20):
Whatever I manifest, if you will, and I've been a
big believer in that. You know, don't be afraid to dream,
don't let anybody steal your dreams. Don't shrink yourself because
someone said you can't, you know, dream big? Yeah, right
(01:05:42):
on that live hard, straight up yep. All right, thank you, brother,
thank you, thank you absolutely well.
Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
The Sino Show is a production of iHeart Podcasts, hosted
by me Cina McFarlane, produced by pod People in twenty eighth.
Av Our Leave producer is Keith carlak Our Executive prowser
is Lindsay Hoffman, Marketing lead is Ashley Weaver.
Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.
It was a dark time. They always say, maybe have
(00:01):
your troubles early. Luckily I had mine early. I had
to find a way out of the darkness because there
was a lot of darkness to jump over the bar.
I'm fighting these two guys on West fourth Street, and
as I'm fighting them, another voice comes and says, you
don't have to have this life. That just stopped me.
So my audition was good enough for me to get
(00:25):
in the line of fire. So that's why it's so
important to show up every single time, because you just
never know. I've worked forty three years as an actor straight. Wow.
And then I was thinking before that I must be,
you know, ten years old, and I'm bringing your doorbell.
Can I shovel your snow? Can I rake your leaves?
(00:46):
Can I wash your car? Whatever? I have been doing
that since I'm ten. I have not stopped.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Everybody it's seen on Farlan. If you're enjoying this Sino show,
make sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast app.
New episodes drop weekly. Oh man, hey, today's guests. Isn't
just a celebrated actor, a Golden Globe winner. He's so
much changed my life. When I was at a Crossroads.
(01:20):
Dylan McDermott just didn't just believe in me. He backed me.
He directed me in a play when others wouldn't cast me.
He let me crash this place in New York when
I needed a landing pad, and maybe most importantly, remind
me don't quit man, keep going, you keep showing up,
keep creating. He's been my brother in recovery, my sponsor,
my friend for over three decades. He's now over forty
(01:42):
year sober or spiritual warrior, a force in the arts,
and a man who's lived through pain.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
And turn it into purpose. My brother. Welcome to the
SINO Show, Dylan McDermott. Thank you, thanks for having me.
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, so this is can we We're here, We're here
the Magic of Recovery here.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Otis is here too, is making a special guest appearing.
He's making his appearance here on the podcast. I think
this is his first podcast, first podcast. Can we see
Otis here?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Let's get come on making appearance because you know this,
it does part of your life.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Make his insurance every year.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, oh, how's your Dayvin Man, It's good, I'm here.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you. And you know
get down and dirty and talk about the good stuff. Yeah,
let's do it. And you do this for kind enough.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
You know you've been asked, you're you know, to do
a lot of different things, and this is probably the
first real podcast you've done.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah. I've been asked many times. But you know, I
trust you. I don't trust everybody, So I know that
your heart's in the right place, and I feel like
I can talk to you. I think if you're meeting
someone for the first time, maybe a bit guarded or whatever.
So with you, I think we can talk freely about
a lot of things. All right, Shure we get at it.
(02:54):
Let's do it. Let's talk about young Dylan. Sure upbringing. Yeah,
walk us through. I mean, you know it's my My
childhood is was pretty rough and tumble, you know, it's
it's I think it's it's hard when I tell people
about my childhood, it's, uh, it's hard for them to
(03:15):
understand because they don't have a reference for it, so
it kind of goes over their head, just doesn't make
any sense. And it formed who I was in many
ways because as it does as a kid. You know,
there are certain things that happened to you that forge
(03:37):
so many different layers, but I had gone through a
hell of a lot by the time I was five
years old. My mom was gone by the time I
was five. My my dad wasn't in the picture. My
poor grandmother had to raise me and my sister. She
had raised three kids of her own, and suddenly she
(03:58):
was she had two more to raise. Wow. You know,
that was it was dark. It was a dark time.
They always say, maybe have your troubles early. Luckily I
had mine early. But you know, I had to. I
had to find a way out of the darkness because
there was a lot of darkness and I was alone.
(04:19):
So I understood at a very early age that I
had to rely on myself. And that was a that
was an epiphany when I when you realize that I
was probably nine, Wow, when I realized that no one
(04:40):
was coming to save me, which I always say, you know,
I think Joseph Campbell talks about this and in his
books that I am the hero I came to rescue. Yeah,
that's beautiful, right. And I realized at a very young
age that there was no one coming. And and I
(05:04):
think that when you when you have that epiphany, as
we all do in life. I think there's a fantasy
that everyone has that maybe someone's coming to rescue them,
to save them, to take care of them, to fix them.
And when you realize that they're not coming, that it's you,
(05:26):
is when you become an adult. My story is more
extreme than most, but I feel like I understood that
at a very early age that I was responsible for
my life and I better figure out how to how
to live in this world that was filled with a
lot of violence and a lot of destruction. And I
(05:48):
had to navigate those very choppy waters at an extremely
young age.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Where were you living at now? Were you in Connecticut?
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Yeah? I was. I was born in a small town
in Waterbury called I mean in Connecticut called Waterbury, Connecticut.
And funny enough, you know all my trials and tribulations
that happened there. They gave me my own boulevard. There's
Dylan McDermott Boulevard. It's a short boulevard, but nonetheless it
(06:18):
gave me the key to the city. You know, I
was celebrated there, and believe me, I was not celebrated
as a kid. So it's it's a small miracle that
those things happened, because you know, on paper, None of
those things should have happened for me. My life shouldn't
have happened. You know, people who have my story either
end up in prison, have a needle in their arm,
or they're dead. So I'm very I'm very fortunate. I'm
(06:42):
very lucky that I was able to stay alive long
enough to find recovery, to find therapy, to get out
of my own way, to help others, and to have
a life. Those are things that I actually thought about
as a as a kid. So those were things that
(07:04):
you know, I was conscious of. I was blessed with
maybe having that ability to see at a very early age.
I don't think I ever. I didn't have time to
be a kid. There was no time. My childhood was.
It was over walk us through that. Boy, what was
that like for you? Just? I mean, you know, there
was a I had. I had to. I became the
(07:24):
man of the house at a very early age. I
had to help my grandmother. She worked two jobs. You know,
she worked in a machine shop in the daytime and
she catered at night. There was no money, so I
had I had to go out and I had to
I had to work, right. I was just thinking to
myself the other day that I've worked forty three years
as an actor, straight. Wow. And then I was thinking
(07:47):
before that, I must be, you know, ten years old
and I'm bringing your doorbell. Can I shovel your snow?
Can I rake your leaves? Can I wash your car? Whatever?
I have been doing that since I'm ten. I have
not stopped. I have no stopped since that moment working.
(08:10):
So I'm really sort of institutionalized in many ways because
all I know is how to work. Even now, I'm like,
you know, I just finished this show and I was
in my yard today and I was enjoying sitting down,
and I was like, I got to get the next child.
I'm just built to work. I'm my shiny sign is
the Ox, and the Ox just plows the field until
(08:32):
they drop dead. That's what the Ox does. They work,
And I'm just I'm just bred for that. But as
a kid, you know, it was there was no time
to be a child. There really wasn't. It was. It
was like I had to help my grandmother. I had
to bring in some money. I had to make sure
that she was safe. I had to make sure that
(08:52):
my sister was safe. So I don't remember, you know,
being a quote unquote kid, besides playing some basketball.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
And where was your dad at that time?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
My dad was an alcoholic, you know, he was a
He was one of those falling down drunks, you know.
When I'd see him once in a while, he'd come
and take me to the movies, and but it was
it was intermittent, and he always smelled leg booze wow.
And so there wasn't a lot of time for you know,
(09:29):
our relationship until he got sober. I think I must
have been because he took me to a meeting when
I was I must have been around he twelve thirteen
years old, and I remember going to my first meeting
with him. I tagged along. Yeah, and those were the Yeah,
(09:51):
those were the days of people smoking lucky strikes and
camels and trench cokesh It was only older men, right,
it was. It was completely different vibe. But nonetheless, I've
been around aa as long as I can remember, so
you know, he maybe he knowingly or didn't, I don't know,
(10:13):
but he was able to kind of help me. He
certainly helped me get sober. I went to I think
my first meeting when I when I decided that I was,
I wanted to get sober in Massachusetts. We went together.
So I've been around for a long time.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
When did you leave Connecticut for New York City?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
I left when I was about sixteen. Yeah, I really was.
I was enamored of New York. I was. I would
take the bus down from Connecticut to New York and
and it was metallic.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Man.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
It was like, wow, the city was just so alive
and art was happening, and I was so attracted to
the art world. And you know, New York was a
different place then. There was. There was real artists, you know,
there was. It wasn't like gentrified or as expensive as
it is now. It was. It was it was That's
(11:12):
what I was the most attracted to. You know. I'd
see Andy Warhol walking in Chelsea and and and I
knew painters, and I was just so attracted to it
that it really something struck me so deeply because I
realized at some point, you know, I had always been
(11:33):
I was born an artist, and the way I when
I saw the world was through an artist's eyes. It
wasn't through anything else because I could see I could
see the beauty and the art in distortion, even though
things were so out of control. I could still, you know,
I can make art out of it in some way
(11:54):
by scribbling in my notebook. Music saved me. I would
hitchhike three states to see see Kiss, you know what
I mean. I would just like I put my thumb
out and oh yeah right, and I would hitchhike and
not know where I was or you know, somehow, and
(12:14):
miraculously I would end up at the concert and then
had to get home. Oh my god, you know you
had to do it. That's just who you were. It's
gonna happen. Well, yeah, it was just said. I was
just I just loved music and going to concerts. And
Kiss eventually signed a guitar with all their signatures on
it for me. Yeah. So I don't know, it's just
(12:35):
I really I think I've always seen the world through
an artist's size. You know, I can just walk I
walk into a room like this, and I I can
pick out the thing that I think is the most artistic,
which is this? The time is now, you know what
I mean, it's just right on.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Just are you living with your dad?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Then?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
At sixteen, I.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Lived with him briefly. It didn't really didn't really work. Yeah,
we just it just wasn't I needed my own place,
so very quickly I got my own place at sixteen. Yeah,
and were you working at the bar at your father'sh bar?
Then I was a bus boy. When I was fifteen.
He put me to work as a busboy, which was great.
I really enjoyed it, and I would work, you know,
(13:18):
to I don't know what time I came in. I
came in pretty early and maybe like five o'clock, and
I worked at four o'clock in the morning. And then
at that time we would go to after hours clubs.
There was all these Irish after hour clubs that it
had gambling, and you'd stay there till like, you know,
(13:38):
one in the afternoon, and you go home and sleep
a few hours, then you do it again. And it
was so exciting. And I'm fifteen at that point, with
no real restrictions or guidance, I could do whatever I wanted.
And so that's when I first understood this idea of
(13:59):
celebri and how people treated celebrities differently. I used to
wait on John Belushi when I was a kid, and
I could see how people treated him differently, and I
was like, wow, that's that's so interesting that they they
they they hold him in such high regard. That's the
(14:21):
first time I ever understood that what that was. I
didn't even know. You know, when when I was a kid,
I was Television taught me everything. It's ironic that I
would end up on television because I would I would
look at television programs and I would mirror what they
did on television. I would learn from how to live
(14:44):
from I dream of Genie f Troop, Yeah, whatever, whatever
it was on TV. I was like, Oh, that's how
you Oh, that's how you behave, that's what you do.
Oh okay, I'll just do that. And I bet you
were good at mimicking the yes. So I would just
I sort of made up my personality as I went along.
(15:05):
So it is funny that I would end up on
television because I spent so much time not even watching television,
but studying it. How did people, how did people actually live?
The courtship of Eddie's father, the relationship between the boy
and his father fascinated me. So maybe, oh, that's how
I'll act with my dad. So everything was just a mirror,
(15:28):
got it.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
And when you saw Paulushi, were you like, I want
that or I want to be an actor, or like,
this is how do I do this?
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Or what were you thinking?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Well, you know, I think to be successful you have
to link up pleasure to it. So I linked up
pleasure that it was actually pleasurable that people liked him,
and success meant that people liked you. And I was like, oh,
(16:00):
that makes sense. M that makes sense. That's the first
time I was aware of what that the power of
what is fame? I suppose obviously it's a double edged sword,
but at that point it didn't seem like it was.
It just seemed like it was like, wow, unincredible.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
When did you decide you wanted to be an actor?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
It really was my father's third wife, Evensler, her name
is now v She wrote the Vagina Monologues. She saw
something in me that I don't think I saw in
myself at a very early age, because I would make
her laugh and I was a bit of a clown
(16:44):
and and she said you should be an actor, and
I was like, really, what how do you? How do
you do that? She goes, there's there's a school in
the village called HB Studios. Why don't you go over there? Well,
go over there or enroll you? And I was just
like this is this is crazy. I had no concept
(17:08):
of what it was to be an actor. For me.
The first time, the exercise was just walk across the stage.
It was still to this day one of the hardest
things I've ever had to do. How old were you fifteen?
I think it was because people were looking at me
and there was this exposure suddenly that someone was watching
(17:32):
me walk across the stage, or watching me at all,
or looking at me. I think for most of my
life and it's probably why I became an actor is
because I felt invisible. I never felt that anyone saw me.
So this idea of acting was, Oh wait a minute,
you mean someone would see me? That is that possible?
(17:58):
Oh wow? Because I've felt as a kid, I felt
incredibly visible. I was always shocked when the teacher would
even call on me. So there was a there was
a lot of There was a lot of pain, a
lot of hurt, and a lot of isolation that I
had to work through to become, you know, the actor
(18:20):
I am today. That really was transformative. I think I
think acting in many ways saved my life because I
could act out all these emotions that I couldn't normally
do and in my waking life, I could I could
suddenly act them out and there was such freedom in
that I could be all these different characters and I
(18:41):
could work through these emotions that I never could as
as as Dylan, and that gave me. Wow. That that
really just transformed me emotionally. And then I caught up
in time, in real time, I finally caught up to myself.
But it was the acting that allowed me to have emotions.
(19:02):
That's why acting is. So that's why I think everybody
should take an acting class at least, because it frees
you up somehow.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And where were you at that fifteen stage in your
addiction at that point?
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Oh yeah, I mean it was full blown at that point.
I started very early with everything with drugs and alcohol
to anesthetize myself pretty quickly. And so I was, Yeah,
I was, I was, I was. I was in trouble.
Thank God for me. She really. I always say, you know,
(19:39):
you always need one person right in life just to
who could change your life. All it is is one person.
That's why it's so important to help others because you
never know how it's going to hit them. You know,
you never know what it's going to do to them,
and she believed in me. She was the very first
(20:00):
person to believe in me.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
And she wasn't that much older than you, right, No.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
She was when I was fifteen, she was like twenty three,
and she became my mother essentially, and then she adopted
me when I was nineteen, and we've had this long relationship.
Incredible human being. Yeah, she is very specially, very very special,
so bright, so talented. She's in London right now working
(20:25):
on one of her plays. So it's just but without her,
I don't think I'm here. Now you're not here, I
don't think I'm here. She saved my life. I always
tell her that, truly, truly, she saved my life.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Did you study at the Neward Playhouse? Yeph was Sandy
there when you were there?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
He was my teacher. God, it's Samford Meisner. Yeah, what
was that like? It was rough? You know. I had
gone to Fordham for a graduated from Fordham and Lincoln
Center and that's when I first started acting. I started
getting roles there, you know, significant roles. And there was
(21:04):
one time when I was doing equis and there was
actually only a couple of times in my life when
that small still voice comes to you and what I
was doing equis and I'll never forget it. I think.
I'm I'm nineteen at this point, and a voice came
to me as I was performing, and it says, you
(21:27):
can do this, and I believed it. Yeah, I remember
it like it was yesterday. I really I believe that voice.
And I never looked back from that moment. By the way,
I threw myself into being an actor because of that belief.
(21:48):
Whatever that was, whether that was God, whether it was
divine intervention, it almost doesn't matter because I believed it
and it helped me, and it was like a and
on my shoulder, and it said you can do this. Wow.
And I believed it wholeheartedly and still do to this day.
(22:13):
And then another time I was bartending, these two guys
come in. It's like four o'clock. I forgot to lock
the door. They come in and I'm so sorry. Guys
were closed and they said, no, you're not, and so
I knew there was going to be trouble. So sure
enough we start getting into it. I have to jump
(22:36):
over the bar. I'm fighting these two guys on West
fourth Street, and as I'm fighting them, another voice comes
and says, you don't have to have this life. That
just stopped me. And I was like, you don't have
(22:58):
to have this life, because that's the life would have had, right, Wow,
you know I would have just I would have would
have been quiet desperation and I uh not long after that,
I quit being a bartender and I decided I was
(23:18):
going to make my my my way as an actor.
I didn't know how, but I threw everything into it.
I had no And I tell this to people sometimes,
you know, don't have a backup plan. Right. If you
have a backup plan, you're going to use that right.
And I said to myself, you know what, I don't
(23:38):
know how. I don't know how it's going to happen.
I just know it's going to happen. And I'm going
to have to make money to eat as an actor
and I don't I don't have any money. But I
was like, fuck it, let's go. Okay. You know, I
want to talk about your career that I want to
talk about, Sobriet, can you do that?
Speaker 2 (23:59):
I think I got this right. Was your first like
real big break? Hamburger Hill?
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah, Hamberger Hill was I was doing. I was on Broadway.
I had I just finished acting school and somehow I
think it was V again. Knew the casting director Meg Simon. Wow,
and they were replacing the cast of Biloxi Blues. And
(24:28):
I got an audition and it was Neil Simon. Oh
my god, of course Neil Simon was in the room.
I had audition for Neil Simon. Yeah, how were you?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Then?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
I'm like, I don't even know early twenty one. Wow.
And I remember I got several callbacks and it was
coming down to it and there was only, like, I
don't know, three guys, and I knew it was a
turning point because I had auditioned for William Morris and
(24:59):
they like, you know, you don't have any credits, come
back when you have credits, blah blah blah, the whole spield.
So I remember, like it was yesterday again. I was
in my kitchen in my small apartment in New York,
and I had I had this callback and it's Neil
Simon and Gene Sacks, and I remember talking to myself saying,
(25:27):
there is no doubt here. We are a racing doubt.
In fact, you are getting this role. I remember, I
remember having that conversation with myself, like this is fucking
it pout. You get this role, it all changes, so
(25:49):
there can be no hiccups here. You go into that
room and you take it, you take you take it.
And indeed I was just I was so laser focused
and I got the role and suddenly and and I
had three rehearsals with the stage manager and I was
(26:11):
on Broadway. Oh three rehearsals. Well I didn't know that fuck,
And suddenly I'm I'm on Broadway And what is that like?
Speaker 3 (26:21):
But what was that like?
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Well, you have no process. I mean, you're you know, you're,
you're you just barely know the lines and suddenly you're
you're thrown out into the sea and it's just like whoa.
So you're you're working just the opposite of what the
way you should work. You know, there's no there's no process,
so you just you're just you're learning as you're going,
as you're performing in front of fifteen hundred people. You know,
(26:45):
you're learning. You know where the laughs are, the timing,
you know your backs to everything. You just kind of
you have to work backwards. How long did that show
run for? I was I was on it for over
a year. It was great. I was making money, I
was on Broadway. I enjoyed performing eight days, I mean
(27:07):
eight shows a week. Uh so it was it was
it was good training. Wow. But that opened the door
for me. William Morris comes. Then I signed me because
now I'm in a play.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Where did you learn that a race it's on you
will win. This role is yours, there's no doubt about it.
Just go claim it at yours take it? Yeah, where
did you get that?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
You know? From my hard scrabble childhood. I you know,
I had to fight a lot when I was a kid.
You know, there was always always fights, and so I
had to you know, when I when I when I
got out my door for the day, I would have
to run because there was always somebody, some beef, some
(27:50):
ship that was going down. So for me, you know, again,
I wouldn't recommend any of this. It's just it was
my life that that that way of living made me tough,
and that toughness allowed me to be tough on myself
(28:13):
in a way where that there was going to be victory.
M I believe in victory in life. It's one of
my favorite words. That there is victory m hm. And
you only know victory by failure. You don't just become victorious,
(28:33):
right you know, you you you evolve into victory. But
by failing, you know, which we all do, and there's
a lot of lessons to learn through failure. You realize
that it's better to be victorious. You know, I was
born One of the greatest things I say is that,
(28:55):
you know, growing up poor was one of the greatest
things ever happened to me. Because as I value money,
I value what it's like not to have things. I
value what it's like to struggle, and I work my
ass off in this life so I could provide for
my kids and have a different life than no one
(29:16):
in my family ever did. So when you asked me
that I think there was there was. There was a
fierceness to me from from the get that you're going
to have to kill me to stop me. And that's
that started a very early age. And then I just
kind of, you know, transferred that into my into my career.
(29:41):
If you will and use that same technique of that
I'm not I'm not I'm not giving up no matter what,
it's just not going to happen. You can you can
say no to me a million times and I'll will
show up for for for because I know that there's
(30:05):
a chance you're going to change your mind. There's a
chance that somebody might drop out. Whatever, right, I'll be
here and I will be here. So I have learned
to and I think you need this as an actor.
You're really happy. And I talked to my daughter about
this and a lot of actors. You know, the hardest
(30:25):
thing for all actors is this rejection that we all
go through. It's an enormous amount of rejection and that
that's hard, man, it's really hard. I'm sure you lost
big roles. Oh yeah, and you're rejected all the time.
But once in a while, you know, they pay baseball
(30:46):
players a lot of money. They hit that ball, you know,
two out of ten times. So I kind of rely
on that that. You know, I'm not going to get
every role, but what with the roles that I do get,
I'm gonna fight tooth and nail to make it great. Yeah.
And my god, you've gotten some good ones, brother.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah, Hamburger Hill, open call.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Right, seven callbacks. They kept bringing me in for bigger roles.
There was a freedom that I had when I auditioned
because I never thought that I was going to get it.
So I was free. I wasn't tight at all because
(31:35):
I'm like, you're never gonna cast me. I have no credits,
you know, doing a play on Broadway. You know, they'll
give it this somebody else, so all right, keep calling
me back. So there was there was a real freedom.
And also, you know, for that particular role, the director
John Irvin cast me because he said that I had
(31:55):
the thousand yards stare. Yeah, and that came from my childhood. Yeah,
explain to people at the thousand yard stairs. It's you know,
it's it really is someone who has seen too much
right on and he recognized that in me, and that's
why he cast me. He told me so again. Turning
(32:17):
poison into medicine is what we do in life, straight up, man,
That's what we do, no matter what happens to you.
And it almost doesn't matter what happens. But if you
can transform that in term that that poison, whatever happened
to you in life, and turn it into medicine, then
you will be victorious. And that's what I was using
(32:40):
when I started to get these these roles. I think
you told me that was a very difficult shoot, right, Oh, yeah,
there wasn't.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
There was there coup going on during that time.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, it was nineteen eighty six. It was the Philippines.
A kino was just coming in, a lot of unrest.
Two people. We had at least two funerals that I
remember making the movie. Wow, that's how difficult the situation was.
Makeup artists died, we had a funeral for him. Another
(33:16):
an electric was electrocuted. Oh wow, it was brutal. It
was brutal. It was like you're in the jungle of
the Philippines burning thirty eight thousand black tires, you know,
to black out the sun. Wow. Wow, there's no trailers.
(33:38):
We have one uniform. They hose you down if you
get money. And I was like, man, this is making movies.
I don't know if I want to this is this
is a little rough, you know. But that that really
was the beginning, you know. The New York Times wrote
an article about me called a searing debut, and that
(34:01):
really opened up. It's a great movie, still holds. Yeah,
it's a great movie. It really, it's it changed everything.
And I was I remember I was in my bathtub
and I was reading I think another script and I
got the call that I got the role, and I
was I was. I was shocked. I could not believe it.
I was like, what, I'm going to be in a movie?
(34:23):
I just thought I would be in a stage actor
and the idea of being in a movie was just
beyond my scope. I didn't think it was it was
going to happen. And then suddenly it was like, I'm
in the Philippines and I'm one of the leads of
this movie. It's like, how the hell did this happen? Yeah,
you're sober? Then? Uh? Yes, how many years? Just one? Wow?
(34:48):
First year sober? Yeah? And the Philippines doing a movie? Wow? Yep?
Wow man, yep.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
And did you struggle in your first year with wanting
to relapse any of that or did it? I'm like,
you were like, no this, I'm not going back. I
don't remember.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
I forget, you know, I didn't. I I there was
so much addiction in my family that I had made
a conscious decision that I wanted to have a life.
I really wanted to have a life that was different
from my family, and I think that sobriety was was
(35:26):
really the bridge that that allowed me to have a life.
But I knew that I wasn't going to be successful
if I I remember, you know, working with the the
the bartenders and the waiters and waitresses, and they of
course they were all actors, and they were always drunk,
(35:47):
and they were like, I understand, I can't get a job.
I'm on thish in od time. I mean, just like
fucking wasted. And I was like, the dream from my
life was was big. I had a dream. You know,
I'm a dreamer. I still dream to this day. And
my dream was like I'm gonna I'm gonna do this.
(36:11):
I'm gonna I'm going to be a successful actor. I
don't know how the hell I'm going to do that.
It was delusional in many ways, but you kind of
need a little bit of that delusion in order to succeed. Otherwise,
if you think about it, you're never leaving the house.
You live me in the bar, Yeah, which happens. Happens.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
And then still Magnolia after that, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Still Magnolia's came, which was another big movie. The casting
director really loved me in Hamburger Hill and suddenly I'm
just the opposite of Hamburg Hill. I've never seen more
food in my life. And you know, catering and they
got movie stars galore and I was like, this is incredible,
(37:00):
this is now, this is making movies, movie trailers and
hair and makeup, and none, none of that stuff existed
on on the Hamburger Hill. So suddenly I was in
the heart of you know, this huge Hollywood movie. And
what did you.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Learn on that from anythings?
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Stand out? Oh my god? Yeah, I mean, you know,
watching Sally Field work, Wow, you know, was just an
acting lesson. I saw her, you know, when she was grieving,
she was screaming into a pillow, and you know, she
was doing the work. You know, she was she was rooted,
(37:39):
she had a technique, she was committed to her craft,
and I really admired her for that. I was like, damn,
she's she's all the way in. I love that. That's
how I want to work. That's how I am working
for now on. And and I thought, wow, she's a
huge star and she's she's doing the work. And so
(38:03):
I was like so impressed by that. And she taught
me a lot because that's what I want. I wanted
to be like her. H that's you know, that's that's
what you do, right, you give yourself these little heroes
and and you're like, I want to be like him.
I want to be like her. I want I want
that career, I want what she has, what he has,
(38:25):
that attraction. So I was, I was, really I was
attracted to what the way she worked in the Line
of Fire. I think I was with you when you
got that role. I think, right, yeah, that was like
ninety three maybe yeah, And I remember there was a
(38:47):
bit of a little low. But luckily I had auditioned
for other movies. I didn't even audition for that movie.
They they the casting directors had my I auditioned for
Jurassic Park I think it was, and they gave Wolfgang
Peterson my audition tape for that and he cast me
(39:08):
off of that audition for another role. This is why
it's important to show up every single time for auditions,
because you never know who's watching, right, So my audition
was was good enough for me to get in the
Line of Fire. So that's why it's so important to
show up every single time, because you just never know, right,
(39:30):
You just never know. And I remember I was so happy.
I was. I was on the ten and was I
forget where I was going, and I look in the
rearview mirror and the motorcycle cop that's behind me with
his lights on, and I was like, oh shit, and
I pull him all the way over on the on
the left. I pull over to the right and I
see him throw the gloves down on his bike and
(39:52):
he's coming straight towards me. And I'm like, oh man,
this is bad. And I said he. I rolled down
the window and I said, I'm so sorry. I just
got cast Clint Eastwood movie and he was like, oh really,
which one did you get? No, let me go. It
was like, it's fantastic. What did you learn from him?
(40:15):
I mean, you know, there's not too many people, you know,
I've been fortunate enough to be around some incredible movie stars,
people who are like Paul Newman when I was a kid,
hanging around with him and friends with him, and and
of course working with Clint, people who are bigger than
the camera. You know, Clint is an icon. There are
(40:41):
very few of those in the world. You can't teach that.
He just is bigger than the camera. He's an icon.
So I knew that I was never going to be
that when I got that role. So I had made
a decision that I was going to be as vulnerable
as possible. Oh wow, because I knew I couldn't. There's
(41:05):
no way I was going to be a competition with
him at all. So I decided that I was going
to be as vulnerable as I could. My character was
very well, he was scared, and I had used that
to contradict what his character was, you know, Harry, you know,
a bit of a hard ass. And I was like, okay,
I know what to do. And it worked worked really well. Yeah,
(41:31):
because I was like, I was trying to be as
vulnerable as possible, as scared as possible. Everybody knows that
Clint Eastman partners dies all die. It was not as
shocked anyone, so everybody knew that was coming. So I had,
you know, enough time on screen where I had to,
you know, create this character and and you know, make
(41:55):
that decision to be as vulnerable as I could. What
about Malcolm It, Yeah, I mean he was great in
that movie. Yeah, you know he was. He was doing
the work too, he was he had this character devised
and he knew he knew exactly one of his best
roles and by the way, one of the Clint's best roles.
You know that the Wolfgang Peterson did such a great
(42:18):
job on that movie. When I look back on that movie,
it's probably the most perfect movie I ever worked on.
Everything really, Yeah, the script was beautiful, the director was perfect,
the casting was fantastic, everything was there, and the whole
thing shot like butter, It just shot itself. I never
(42:38):
had that experience again, not like that, right, maybe with
Jodie Foster because she's such an incredible director. But everything
worked in that movie. I thought that that was gonna
be every movie. But no, it's so hard to make
it really hard to make a great movie. Yeah, and
that's a great movie. That's a great movie. So I
was really blessed to be a part of it. Let's
(43:00):
talk about the practice. Yeah, how long did you do that?
For seven seasons? That part was custom design for you man. Well, again,
you know it was. It was a time not like
it is today. Back then, television was you know, there
was a clear delineation between being a movie actor and
(43:23):
a television actor. Now it's all the same. You know,
all movie actors do television shows, but back then that
was not the case. So I I knew that I
wanted to get better as an actor. I knew David
Kelly was a good writer. But at the same time.
I was scared that if this didn't work, you know,
(43:47):
it would have it would have hurt me. But again,
you know, my intuition and my instinct for the practice,
as it was with American Horror Story. Always tell Ryan
this too, you know that I said, and this is
going to be your biggest show. And I had this
(44:07):
huge intuition with the practice that it was going to
be successful, like I knew it, and it wasn't. Initially
it was it was, it was. It really sort of
hobbled along, and then they moved the time slot and
then it became successful, but initially it was not. And
(44:29):
I thought, damn, how could I be so wrong about this?
I knew it, and then sure enough it kicked in. Wow.
I only had that a couple times in my life,
by the way, the Practice and American Horror Story really yeah,
well my intuition was so huge. Wow that I just
knew other things not so much.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
That's interesting man, Yeah, American Horror Story. Yeah, we got
to see a real interesting part of your personality.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Brother. Yeah, because you know, I had done the practice
for many years and people thought I was that guy.
And this is the problem with being an actor, right,
is that people decide who you are, right, it's your
job to change their mind. So suddenly I'm seventh season
(45:21):
of this character. Everybody thinks I'm this earnest lawyer. I
couldn't be further apart from that. So I knew, again
being ahead of the curve, that I had to change.
I needed to do something a little darker, weirder, whatever.
So when I read that script the pilot of American
Horror Story, I was like, this is it. Oh wow,
(45:44):
this is it. I need to do this.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
Did you have to convince your management where they like, no, no,
let's keep doing.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
These well again, you know horror on television, right, maybe
the Twilight Zone. Yeah, wow, it wasn't done. No one
had done it successfully. So Ryan was the first person
to do it. So everybody was not sure about it,
but I knew it was like, oh no, this is
(46:10):
this is this is my ticket. So when I met
with him, we got along like Gangbusters. I met with
him and Connie and we just all got along and
it was on. Yeah. But I knew again, I think
you have to have some kind of awareness of who
you are. And now, by the way, I'm in the
same place again. I just finished five years shooting two
(46:33):
shows in New York. I have to change again. And
that's your job as an actor that you always have
to change. You have to reinvent yourself really every ten
years if you want to have any kind of longevity.
I can't be one guy. The people who are one guy,
(46:54):
they don't usually have a forty year career because people
get sick of you, just defiably. So if I saw
myself as that that that one character, I would be
sick of me too. So you have to change. You
have to evolve, You have to reinvent all that stuff.
Otherwise you're gonna have a short career. Now. My favorite
(47:14):
show brother is Hollywood. Yeah, what fuck do they tell
that character? What?
Speaker 3 (47:24):
How'd you come up?
Speaker 1 (47:25):
How did that all work? Well? Ryan It had called
me and said I have such an interesting show man
and short lived There was too short lived. There should
have been another season. At least he called me and
I came to read the script in his office and
I was just like, oh my god, this is the
role of a lifetime. This is the role of a lifetime,
(47:49):
and this is the this is the stuff that I
want to do. I mean, even though I've done a
lot of leading roles. The character work was always the
thing I was most intrigued with, you know, And funny enough,
I was shooting Hollywood and American Horror Story at the
same time, two vastly different characters. Probably the happiest I've
(48:11):
ever been because I would go from set to set. Wow,
and it was American Horror Story in nineteen eighty four.
Oh Wow, And I was playing this dude with like
shot shaggy hair and a mustache and he lost both
thumbs and he's a killer, and it's just like fucking nuts.
(48:32):
And then I'm going to this pimp Hollywood at the
same time, and I was like, oh man, I couldn't
be happier. Yeah, because you know, I for Hollywood. I
made sure I knew I had my underwear custom made.
I knew exactly how this guy was going to look.
(48:54):
I wanted the mustache, I wanted the hair, the suits,
everything was custom. He was a failed actor, so emotionally
I knew exactly where he was coming from. Just he
was in a desperate position where he didn't make it
as an actor. So now he's got to have a
side hustle. So now he's pimping out dudes. So it's
(49:15):
just like wow, you know, I mean, the whole thing
was just what a character.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
You can't play that character unless you come from a
background like you did, man, Yeah, because you got you
just too on your instincts.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
You learn, right, Yeah, yeah, you have to. You know,
growing up in the bar business was really helpful because
even on Organized Crime, when I played you know, gangster Mafioso,
I had waited on those guys. I knew those guys.
So growing up in a bar, it's sort of like
(49:48):
you know, Eugene O'Neil Iceman cometh. You're surrounded by all
these characters. That's how I was as a kid, all
these you know, the our tender pulls his glass eye
out and sports it with a soda gun and then
pops it back in his eye. You know what I mean.
He's inhaling cigars all night, and and you're just surrounded
(50:13):
by all these characters, right And I'm and I'm just
a voyere, you know, I pick up on everything. I'm
I'm recording everything every moment. It's art. Yeah, So that
was so rich for me. All these characters that I
got to create later in life, A lot of them
came from you know, my time in the bar, you know,
(50:35):
or growing up as a kid, and you know, being
being surrounded by gangsters. My mother's boyfriend was a bank robber,
and to see him come home and have the money
from the bank robberies and and the gang that was
around him, and that whole world. So there was just
(50:58):
there was rich with with the danger and characters.
Speaker 3 (51:03):
Why did that show get picked up? What happened just
get to get an audience?
Speaker 1 (51:08):
I don't know exactly. It was so well done, it
really was. And the next season I was they were
talked about me. I was gonna play Marlon Brando in
the next season. There was some talk of that. Wow yeah, wow,
So that was already. I hope they bring it back.
I don't think so thing. It's too late now. But
I will always love that character, you know, I even
(51:31):
in my head. Again this is an important thing, is
I dream about my characters as well, so I make
sure I want to. I want to I want them
to infiltrate my dreams. So one night, I'm I'm sleeping
and I have a dream that that character tap dances
Oh wow. And they came to me in a dream
(51:52):
and I was like, oh, I have to tap dance
in the show. So I go to the director, I said,
I want to in this scene and Musso and Franks.
There was a scene of Musso and I want to
tap dance before I sit down. So I had my
tap shoes on and I do a little tap and
then I sit down for the scene. But that came
to me in a dream. So that's that's the kind
(52:13):
of work that I love, you know what I mean,
when it's just you're always dreaming, You're thinking, you're day dreaming,
You're what if I do this, and what if I
do that? And what what what about this? That's the
thing I love about acting because then i'm you know,
I'm always thinking about what's what can I do in
(52:34):
this scene? When others are sort of like, you know,
goofing off in between takes, I will stay in character.
I remember I did a movie called The Clove Hitch
Killer where I stayed in character the whole time. It
was really difficult, but I just I knew I couldn't break,
you know, being Dylan. I had to stay in him
(52:57):
to have that authenticity of that character because it was
so far from me and I would look like a
clown if I didn't do it properly, and so you know,
I shaved my hairline back, I put a fat suit on,
I changed my voice, I changed the color of my eyes, everything,
(53:17):
my walk, everything was different. So I had to stay
in that in order to maintain the realism.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Wow, all right, bro, let's talk about sobriety. Sure, how
many years now?
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Forty? Fuck? Yeah, forty years. It seems inconceivable. Forty years
of anything.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
I know, man, forty career, forty years sobriety because you
got super health twenty three, right.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
Talk about some of the things you learned sobriety, man, Yeah,
I mean I learned everything. Just I mean, you know,
the program is h it's taught me everything. I know,
those twelve steps doing them you know quite a few times,
you know, you change so much over over over time.
(54:10):
I remember for me, five years was very difficult because suddenly,
you know, all the stuff that you learned to do
in life doesn't work anymore and you have to change.
That's when the steps really started to worked for me.
I had to I had to root out everything. Can
(54:31):
you give us an example, please? Well, you know, just
just you know things that I how my behavior. I
think that you know you can be you can put
down the drink and be dry, but not sober, you know.
I think it's the steps really that give you that sobriety.
(54:53):
I always had a pretty good relationship with my higher power,
you know. I think being as a kid, I really
reached for to God for you know, help, because there
was so much chaos. So I had a pretty good relationship.
I thought I had a good understanding of what the
(55:15):
higher power is. But I think that I was stuck
in many ways. I was stuck inside my own stuff.
And I think that the steps really helped me make
amends that that was really important for me. But for me,
(55:39):
it was really the spiritual part of the program, helping others,
you know, being of service. That really also I didn't
fully understand that until I started to do it. And
that's something I admire about you, by the way much
service you do. I think that when you do service,
(56:03):
you're not self conscious, you're not thinking about yourself, You're
thinking about someone else, and you're getting the attention off
yourself in many ways, and you you feel good. You
know you're you're you're helping someone, and that that always
feels good when you help another. So I know that
(56:24):
I took a commitment very early at the Mustard Seed
in New York. You know, I ran the meeting for
for at least a year, and that really helped me.
So I think that showing up, going to meetings, being
(56:47):
of service, helping others really get help me get out
of my shell. You know, how about forgiveness. Forgiveness is
a I mean, that's kind of lifelong journey, isn't it. Yeah.
I wish I wish you could just forgive yourself or
(57:07):
forgive others, But it seems like you have to constantly
forgive yourself and forgive others, you know, mm, at least
for me. What are you thinking right now? Just about
you know, the journey, the journey of my life, you
know all of it. You know. Suddenly I'm sixty three
(57:29):
and you're like, wow, you still want to you still
want to live more, you want to do more. You
know you're not finished yet. But there's always you know,
you never know when your time is up, you know,
(57:50):
and sometimes it feels like you're just beginning, you know
what I mean. There's so much to learn. There's not enough,
there's not one lifetime is not enough, you know, there's
so much to do. Mm hmmm. I think you always
want more time, no matter how much time you have.
(58:11):
Even if I live to one hundred, you still want
more time. Just what you would do anything for one
more day here, as hard as it is, you would
still do anything for one more day.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
My audience till it's going to be very interested to
know where you came from and everything they up your father.
You know your mom's life was taken. How do you
make how did you make peace with all that stuff?
Speaker 1 (58:36):
I don't know if you make peace with it? I
think you learned to live with it. Mhmm. You accept that,
you know, I had to accept this is where I
come from, and this is just where the cards that
were dealt me and what am I going to do
with them? And you make you make, you make something
(58:59):
out of nothing, right, you turn poison in the medicine,
whatever is, whatever saying you want to use it almost
doesn't matter. You can transform your life no matter who
you are, no matter what's happened to you, you can
transform it. You can make it better. You know, thank
(59:24):
God for alcoholics Anonymous, Thank God for the program because
you know that gives you a great foundation, A lot
of people don't have that foundation. A lot of people
who are in prisons and mental institutions it is because
of drugs and alcohol. They don't have those tools or
it never it never took. Maybe they were introduced to it,
(59:47):
but it didn't take. I always believe that, you know,
the angels are out there, right, the angel of the
messengers are out there, and they will come and they
will tell you, and they will give the information. You
may not take that information, but they come and they
tap you on the shoulder. You have to be open
(01:00:10):
and you have to listen. But they come. They always come. Yeah,
they always come. But sometimes you're blinded. Sometimes you don't
want to hear it, but they come for sure. Speaking
of angels, you became a father in sobriety a couple
of times, yeah, a couple of Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
What's happened like for you man to be a father?
About your kids?
Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Man? Yeah? I mean the thing I didn't know about
kids is that one day, when you at least expect it,
they start taking care of you. You know, you think that, oh,
because you just give your kid everything, you take care
of them and make sure they're safe and make sure
they're good. And then one day as they get older,
(01:00:55):
suddenly you know, the script is flipped and they start
taking care of you. Funny enough, and that was that
was so surprising to me. But I think that, you know,
me having kids was like me healing myself in many ways.
(01:01:15):
I gave to my kids what I never had. I
gave them everything I ever wanted, and in doing that,
I was able to heal a part of myself while
loving them. So it was great to be able to
do that because I healed a part of myself by
giving them everything I wanted. A beautiful man. Yeah, wow, wow,
(01:01:40):
wow wow. What if you learned about love and sobriety, Well,
I think you learned how to love. I'm not quite
sure I knew how to love before being sober, because
you know, being sober for all these years is that
it you strip away so much and your heart opens.
(01:02:06):
You know, my heart is open more so now than
ever before. It really is. I think I'm less afraid, truly.
There's nothing to be afraid of now. Really, I'm not
trying to prove anything. And I want love. I mean,
(01:02:33):
the most important thing in life is loved. There is
nothing else. You know, when we leave here, we will
remember by the people that we have loved and who
loved us. That's it. The television shows and the movies
will all fade, but then you will live on in
(01:02:55):
people's hearts, in your children's hearts, and your friend's hearts,
your mate's hearts, whatever it is, you will live on
in their heart. That's what life is, that's what love is.
And there's nothing more important than that, you know, And
(01:03:15):
it's not a hallmark card, it's not a cliche. When
you truly truly love someone and you open your heart
and you give your you give yourself freely, just because
you love that person, that's what you will be remembered for,
not for any accolades or how big your house is
(01:03:38):
or what car you drove. It will be because you loved.
And I think I'm keenly aware of that now, hm.
Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
If I remember correctly, you were a big fan of
Saint Francis prayer. Yeah, right, sure, to love, then be
to loved, right to love then.
Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
That's right, that's right, yeah, Because again you know it's
you're helping others, right, You're getting out of your way
and those people who have you know, the mother terraces
of the world. You know that being that selfless. They
did good works. Yeah, they did good works. Thanks for
(01:04:19):
loving me, man, Well, you know you're easy to love.
You're easy to love. Well, yeah, you would come from
the same place because that's right.
Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
When I get in the in the company somebody like you,
you respect that person. You take the direction and you
follow it because you're great in the play.
Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
What year was that, Short Eyes? Yeah? No, no, Short
Eyes had to be ninety five. What's it? Did I
get that wrong? Jeez? I don't know. Maybe you know,
I have the poster at home. I'll look at it.
Maybe there's a dad on it. Yeah. Yeah, we just
(01:04:57):
some magic there man on main Street. Sure we did
some magic there. Yeah. Yeah. Final final thoughtsph people, brother,
I think do you know it's a I would always say,
keep dreaming, Yeah, dream dream your life, right, you know,
see your life before it happens. That's what I try
to do. I try to see it before it happens.
(01:05:20):
Whatever I manifest, if you will, and I've been a
big believer in that. You know, don't be afraid to dream,
don't let anybody steal your dreams. Don't shrink yourself because
someone said you can't, you know, dream big? Yeah, right
(01:05:42):
on that live hard, straight up yep. All right, thank you, brother,
thank you, thank you absolutely well.
Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
The Sino Show is a production of iHeart Podcasts, hosted
by me Cina McFarlane, produced by pod People in twenty eighth.
Av Our Leave producer is Keith carlak Our Executive prowser
is Lindsay Hoffman, Marketing lead is Ashley Weaver.
Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.
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