Greg Kinnear and Rafe Spall, "Smoke"

Smoke is an American crime drama television miniseries created by Dennis Lehane, inspired by Firebug, a podcast about the crimes of arsonist John Leonard Orr. It premiered on Apple TV+ on June 27, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh Broadcasting live from Houston, Texas and around the world
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Speaker 3 (00:30):
TV host, best selling author and radio personality, Brad Gilmour
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Matthew McConaughey, Brad Gilmore, Mark wohlburg By, how are you
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Jimmy Fallon joins us this morning.

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Jimmy, how you doing, my friend? Good morning. Thank you
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Kelly Ripperd, thank you, for having me. Comedy.

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Jay Leno joins us, Jay, how you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Hey, Brad?

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What's going on? Chris Tucker is in the bill and
Chris Tucker, good morning to you.

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Hey you are.

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George Lopez joins us right now, George, how are you doing?

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Sorry?

Speaker 4 (01:17):
Good morning music.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Lola man Ro, thank you, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
The legendary front man of ac DC. Brian Johnson joins
us right now, Brian, how you doing?

Speaker 4 (01:28):
Good morning?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Brock what look a talk?

Speaker 4 (01:30):
Give me funny?

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Megan trainer than you.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Chloe Bailey joins us. I appreciate your time.

Speaker 4 (01:36):
Appreciate you and more and more.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
This is the collection. Now you're host of the boat,
Bret Gilmore, he has your radio.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
You get thirty nine of great ray. Thank you so
much taking time, Congratulations on the show.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Hey, I want to I want to start with obviously,
this show from the pilot on is so fascinating and
the subject material is so fascinating, and I know it's
based on real life events loosely for you all as actors. Greg,
if we could start with you, how important is it
to look at source material or do you want to
stick to what's on the page. In terms of your character,

(02:23):
I think it depends.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
It depends on what the project is. I mean, this
is I would say, loosely based on true life events.
And and I think Dennis Lahane, our creators, is uh,
you know, entertaining first and foremost. He's a novelist. The
story is what matters first and foremost. And and I

(02:45):
think and I had worked with him on Blackbird before,
so I had a little familiarity with him, and I
I trusted, you know, we did have some resources on set,
and you know as much. Obviously this is loosely based
on a podcast called Firebug, But you know, I felt

(03:06):
like the script really nailed the central story of what
we were telling. And all of the characters throughout the
show are amazing in terms of what they go through
and what they experience.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
And it was it was like a novel.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
It's like nine episodes of a great novel. So I
had everything what I needed with the text.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Would you agree with that?

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Rape?

Speaker 2 (03:32):
You know, you was all right there on the page.
Not so much you had to go look at the
Firebug podcast or did that help at all?

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (03:39):
I mean I enjoyed the podcast as a as a
as a fan, really as someone who was just enjoying
it as a brilliant piece of podcasting, but really, in
this specific occasion, the material was there on the page,
and I think the thing that attracted to me, attracted

(04:00):
me to the show was that it's about something which
is ostensibly sort of fascinating and exotic in arson, and
so that's the thing that hooks you in. But really,
the things that keeps you there are there the universally
identifiable themes between the characters, and the characters are the
things that keep you there.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
And this is a this is a.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
A collection of very interesting, flawed, relatable characters. Like the
best TV shows, like The Sopranos, it's the mafia that
gets you in, but it's the universal themes that keep
you there, right, And I think that that's what the
best TV shows do, and I think this is what
this show does, hopefully and its best, which is it's

(04:45):
about something fascinating, but it's the it's the characters interactions
with each other which are identifiable.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Well, and it does do that. I mean, the complexity
of the characters are just it's an incredible show to watch.
And I guess Greg, that's kind of the privilege or
the joy sometimes a television is, lack of a better term,
the slow burn of the character. You kind of get
to see this arc over nine episodes and really dive
into the small nuances as opposed to you know, a
film where you have the two hours that you need

(05:15):
to kind of show a character arc. In this you
get to play a little bit.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
More absolutely and and uh and and I think there's
a real arc and development with each every character in
this show. I mean, no, no, no one finishes anything
close to where they start on this And you know,
I think Dennis has said, you know, all all these
characters are attracted to things that ultimately hurt them, and

(05:38):
I think it's it's true. So so there's a lot
of duality, a lot of different shades and and I
think essential, by the way, for a story like this,
what rayp Is saying is so true. It's it's fire.
An arson to me is a very exist it's a
very exotic crime in a way. Right, It's hard to

(06:00):
get a handle on. So so you have to have
the springboard of deep uh characters and characters that you
really want to follow in order for to to really
keep the audience uh paying attention. And I think Dennis
does that.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Here, Oh Dennis does that. You all do it in
fantastic performances. I really love this shows to congratulations again.
I really appreciate you taking the time.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
Thank you, thank you, Thanks the best.