June 1, 2024 • 47 mins
Ever wondered what it takes to narrate over 600 audiobooks and still keep an audience captivated? Our latest episode features the incredibly talented Peter Berkrot, a master of stage, screen, and voice. Peter's journey is anything but typical, starting with making his mom laugh and impressing his kindergarten teacher, leading all the way to becoming a celebrated voice actor. Tune in to hear his thoughts on the irreplaceable human touch in voice narration, especially in today's AI-dominated landscape. Peter shares his beginnings and his humorous approach to a career that has touched so many lives.
From college indecision to landing a role in the iconic "Caddyshack," Peter's story is a testament to the power of unexpected opportunities. Get behind-the-scenes insights into the casting process and the serendipitous moments that catapulted him into the limelight. We also reminisce about our collaboration on the short film "Mini Balls," revealing the camaraderie and joy that come with unexpected roles in the entertainment industry. Peter's vivid anecdotes paint a picture of an industry filled with determination, laughter, and unforgettable experiences.
Ever curious about the intricacies of audiobook narration? Peter takes us through the evolution from physical copies to digital downloads, and the transition from studio recordings to home studios. Learn about the meticulous preparation required to bring stories to life, from understanding material and character nuances to tackling pronunciation challenges. Plus, hear some hilarious behind-the-scenes stories from the making of "Caddyshack," including the beloved addition of the famous gopher. This episode is a feast for anyone interested in the magic behind the mic and the screen.
To learn more about Peter Berkrot or Audiobook narration or take one of Peter's classes, please visit:
www.peterberkrotaudiobooks.com
To listen to Peter's many sensational works:
https://www.audible.com/search?searchNarrator=Peter+Berkrot&page=20&source_code=GO1PP30DTRIAL54703142491H0&ds_rl=1261256&gclid=CjwKCAjwjeuyBhBuEiwAJ3vuoTPkfoopcBHFEIq1tZddS30sIT4OYW5ag4UFP4muj6fgXpbNwOmOrhoCAqwQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
From college indecision to landing a role in the iconic "Caddyshack," Peter's story is a testament to the power of unexpected opportunities. Get behind-the-scenes insights into the casting process and the serendipitous moments that catapulted him into the limelight. We also reminisce about our collaboration on the short film "Mini Balls," revealing the camaraderie and joy that come with unexpected roles in the entertainment industry. Peter's vivid anecdotes paint a picture of an industry filled with determination, laughter, and unforgettable experiences.
Ever curious about the intricacies of audiobook narration? Peter takes us through the evolution from physical copies to digital downloads, and the transition from studio recordings to home studios. Learn about the meticulous preparation required to bring stories to life, from understanding material and character nuances to tackling pronunciation challenges. Plus, hear some hilarious behind-the-scenes stories from the making of "Caddyshack," including the beloved addition of the famous gopher. This episode is a feast for anyone interested in the magic behind the mic and the screen.
To learn more about Peter Berkrot or Audiobook narration or take one of Peter's classes, please visit:
www.peterberkrotaudiobooks.com
To listen to Peter's many sensational works:
https://www.audible.com/search?searchNarrator=Peter+Berkrot&page=20&source_code=GO1PP30DTRIAL54703142491H0&ds_rl=1261256&gclid=CjwKCAjwjeuyBhBuEiwAJ3vuoTPkfoopcBHFEIq1tZddS30sIT4OYW5ag4UFP4muj6fgXpbNwOmOrhoCAqwQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Scott (00:00):
My next guest is Peter Berkrot.
He's an accomplished stage,screen and voice actor, as well
as writer and director.
Odds are, if you've everlistened to more than one
audiobook in your life, you'veheard his voice, as Peter has
narrated over 600 audiobooks andhas won numerous awards for his
work as one of America's mostaccomplished voice actors On
screen.
He's been featured in countlessTV shows and can even trace his
acting roots back to the movieCaddyshack, where he played
(00:21):
Caddy Angie D'Annunzio.
Peter Berkrot, welcome toCarney Saves the World.
Peter (00:25):
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I do want to throw in a littlehumility, even though I did tell
you to go ahead and read it.
I am not one of the mostaccomplished voice actors in
America, really, although, whatis America?
I would imagine that one of thebest in Newburyport,
massachusetts.
Scott (00:42):
There we go, that's all that matters.
Peter (00:43):
I'd be willing to put out a 50, 60, 70 mile radius, say.
But you know I don't like tobrag about being the best
audiobook narrator, you know.
Scott (00:54):
You've got 600 audiobooks Like.
That's got to be pretty good,pretty up there, right.
Peter (00:57):
Thank you, it's my fault I said go ahead and say whatever
you want.
Yes, they don't hire you.
There are no mercy callbacks.
One of my teachers once saidyou know, if I was really bad,
we would be chatting about myplumbing job, probably.
Yeah, I mean I'm okay.
But yeah, voice acting is a bigcategory and in fact I'm lucky
(01:19):
in a lot of ways.
At least knock on whatever thisis.
It's might be wood, with AI andall of that.
Audiobooks may be the lastbastion of safety.
They are already putting outhundreds of virtual audiobooks.
Most people with any heart,soul or inner life is going to
want to listen to a human beingread an entire book.
If I hear an AI voice on thecomputer, I can't stand it.
(01:40):
As long as they can keep hiringme.
Scott (01:43):
You've done it at least 599 more times.
At least I want to go over howyou get started in theater and
acting, but I also want to talkto you about how you got into
audiobooks, because that's sucha special segment of acting.
Was it an easy transition?
How did you get into actingfirst?
Peter (02:00):
How much time you got.
You got 50 years.
We can squeeze it in Hours,hours.
Well, I started acting.
There are home movies of medancing so hard you'd think I
invented amphetamines mostartistic of places.
I didn't hear Shakespeare in myhead telling me go, son, and
(02:28):
trod the boards.
I just wanted my mother tolaugh at my jokes more than my
brother's jokes.
I was always very oh gosh.
You know, we didn't haveprescription drugs for children
yet, so being precocious wasjust something that was a
natural outgrowth of being ahuman child and that just.
I was actually reading at four.
(02:49):
But it's a funny thing to thinkabout the mind of a child.
At four years old I was reading, you know, I was Sally Dick and
Jane and all that.
I had a neighbor who taught mehow to read, but I was in
kindergarten and I told myteacher I could read and she
invited me to read a book to theclass.
Wow, it's a funny thing, thethings you remember.
This is 60 years ago.
I'm sitting on MrsSchoenberger's lap reading a
(03:14):
book about going to the zoo andI looked down at the first page
and I can see the words.
I know exactly what it says.
I can see the sign.
I can still see it, the signthat says to the zoo, and I can
see the words on the bottom.
And I absolutely panickedbecause I was afraid that if I
started reading a book to myclass they would hate me really
it's so weird.
I mean the things we think thatthey'd be jealous, or they'd be
jealous or they'd think I was ateacher's pet or a freak, or
(03:35):
like look at this guy sitting onthe teacher's lap reading a
book and I pretended I couldn'tread it.
Really, I mean, it's funnybecause you know, I have only
one other earlier memory andthat was waking up in my crib
from a nightmare about a frogand a flower and getting spanked
, and it was terrible.
Scott (03:50):
Yeah, that'll do it.
Peter (03:51):
So maybe ever since then I was like I really want to be
out in front of people but Idon't want, you know, people to
hate me.
I started taking acting classes.
Here's the real story 10 yearsold, maybe 11.
My dad had his own business.
This was in the 70s, you know.
These guys were all smoking potand snorting coke all day, but
they sold a lot of stuff and mydad was doing real well.
(04:12):
Oh, yeah.
These adults, these guys Ithought were grownups, who were
probably like 27, 28, took me toCity Center in New York to see
a show and at intermission allthe kids in the audience were
invited up to tell the rest ofthe story and it became a big
improv event.
And for some reason these arethe things again.
I recall these weird moments.
My little group was at anairport in England and I was a
(04:37):
panhandler and I used a Cockneyaccent and I don't know if I had
two lines or three lines.
It was all improv.
It was something terrible.
You know, it was probably fromMartin Oliver.
You know, can you spare asixpence for a cup of tea?
I'm sure it was something likethat.
Really bad, perfect.
And at the end of it, all theseadults were coming up to me
(04:57):
that day.
Everyone was coming up to meand saying are you English?
That was really good, youreally stood out, and I thought
well, that's it.
I was terrible at sports.
I was humiliated throughout myentire life.
I was terrified of getting hitwith a ball, so I ducked.
No matter what sport it was, Iducked and that did not win me
many accolades with the othernine-year-olds.
(05:17):
It's like the story of Superman, the youngest male Jewish child
who gets beat up and can'tprotect anybody.
The whole planet blows up, andso they have.
So that was me.
I overcompensated and I startedtaking acting classes when I
was 12 at the American Academyof Dramatic Arts in New York,
and that was 1972.
And I never stopped, I neverturned back.
Scott (05:39):
Wow so that was the start .
You did a bunch of theater andyou moved on to some screen
stuff.
Peter (05:45):
Well, it was more than that, because I was so into the
American Academy.
I mean, I was in high schoolwhen I was taking these classes
in Manhattan.
Scott (05:52):
Yeah.
Peter (06:06):
And in high school, just like when I was five, I was
afraid people would hate mebecause I could read.
In high school I had these twostrange drama teachers who were
ultimately, I imagine, as bitteror more than I would be if I
spent the rest of my lifeteaching high school theater.
But they also did not strokethe egos of their less favorite
students.
But I was in high school doingyou know guys, dolls and
whatever, and they were not veryencouraging.
I started taking acting classwhen I was 12.
I was going into the city, fromQueens into Manhattan by myself
on the Long Island Railroad andI'd walk from 32nd and 7th to
(06:30):
32nd in Madison, which waspretty crappy in the 70s.
But what did I know?
I was like 12 and I looked 8.
You know, no one's going tohurt me.
Yeah right, I'm singing a song.
Scott (06:42):
What's a peep show?
Peter (06:43):
Show biz, yeah.
So I started taking thoseclasses, you know, when I was 12
, 13, 14.
Every Saturday I'd go in and doyou know voice and I was doing
acting scenes.
This is when it really startedto kick in, even though the
scenes were ridiculous and Ican't believe that this is one
of the best acting schools inNew York at the time.
But I was 13 and I was doingwho's afraid of a junior wolf,
(07:06):
and you know they didn't pickout, like when I was teaching
acting, which I did for 30 years.
I mean, I had all these greatscenes for students that were
age appropriate, age appropriateyes but I was like george, you
know, and who's afraid of ajunior wolf?
shut up, martha, I'm bitter, youknow.
12, 13, 14.
I was doing mark, anthony andfelix and the odd couple, I mean
, you know it was yeah.
I feel like I learned stuff.
Most of what we were doing wasvery instinctive, you know.
(07:29):
I mean, I learned, you know,all of the jaw and drop the jaw,
but doing those scenes itseemed like we were just acting
by ourselves with big capitalA's and getting some direction,
but there wasn't anything like Inever felt like I was honestly
connecting.
But those were my Saturdayurdayacting classes.
I was still went in everysaturday and um, and at that
(07:50):
time I was doing stuff in highschool, but they were very they
could be very, uh, snarky, yeahlike they didn't build up the
kind of acting teacher I like tothink I was, you know, very um,
nurturing, you know, make asafe space so that people can be
creative and feel spontaneous.
It was just playing actors offeach other and doing that kind
(08:10):
of stuff.
So high school was, like, youknow, peyton Place, but by that
time I was taking these classesin New York, where it was a
larger world.
I was very impressed becauseyou know, robert Redford and all
these famous people went there.
It was a major acting schooland the posters were all in the
lobby anyway.
I did that for three years andI also started doing.
I got a manager and startedauditioning for little things in
(08:32):
new york little voiceovers, andso so by the time I was like 14
, 15, I was already doing itlike I knew what I wanted to be.
I was done with worrying aboutwhat I was going to be.
It was just a matter of howlong until everybody knew me.
And then, you know, I was atheater major and, you know,
went from there I just keptdoing theater and then uh yeah,
well, I was at new pulse, um,great school.
(08:53):
John tituro was two years aheadof me, okay, um, he was a uh, I
guess a sophomore or a juniorwhen I got there and he got all
the best parts and I used tothink it was because he was a
senior, but it's because he wasjohn detour and he was already
better than most of the teachersthere.
He was fucking brilliant.
And new pulse was a greatschool.
We did, you know, I mean Iwasn't just doing, you know,
(09:13):
kiss me kate, I mean we weredoing, you know, brecht and it
was a good theater school, um,but at that time I was so
motivated that instead ofstaying at school, new pulse
isaltz is gorgeous.
It's in upstate New York, notvery far upstate, but in the
Monarch Mountains.
It would have been a very easyplace to stay and do summer
theater.
They did regional theater allsummer there, but I wanted to
(09:34):
mix and mingle with the bigstars.
I wanted to do what I alwaysthought.
I basically wrote to everysummer stock company in the
country, I think, and this was1978, 79.
So I was, you know, you weren'tjust copying and pasting shit,
you were writing by hand letters, hand writing letters.
(09:59):
Apprentice program at theBerkshire Theatre Festival.
Okay, which my arrangement wasthat I would work for free but I
wouldn't pay to work somestandards going in.
I did go in and work for free,but I was.
You know, that was the summerthat I met Joanne Woodward and
Paul Newman.
They're a great story but Idon't know if we have time.
Scott (10:17):
We have plenty of time, let's go.
Peter (10:18):
Sure you want to hear the Paul Newman Joanne Woodward
started best thing I ever did.
I always took risks when I wasa kid things I don't do now but
what happened was JoanneWoodward was the loveliest
person I ever met.
She was so kind to all of us.
I mean, I was at that point 18,but I look 12.
And most of the apprenticeswere high school or first year
college and she was soaccessible.
She was doing the Children'sHour with Shirley Knight and
(10:42):
David Selby, first show in 25years.
She hadn't been on stage in 25years, which is interesting
because I did my first show in25 years last summer and I was
like, wow, so that's what thatfeels like.
Anyway, we were talking oneafternoon and she said you know,
I know how tough it is, howhard it is, that they had three
kids.
They're all right, I think.
And she said you know, I got anOscar in 1953, and people still
(11:07):
refer to me as Paul Newman'swife.
She said so you know, you canwork your butt off and you have
to keep reinventing yourself andI remember that story.
And on closing night it was agreat show because there were a
lot of kids in it and there wasa girl.
She kind of had a crush on meand I kind of had a crush on her
.
Her crush on me and I kind ofhad a crush on her.
(11:29):
And her name was Max and itturns out she was Roy Scheider's
daughter.
So I wound up meeting RoyScheider later on.
I was like, oh wow, here I am,I'm so famous.
Better than being in college inthe summer.
So, anyway, it was the lastnight and you know summer stock,
you work intensely for twoweeks and then the show closes.
It's Sunday night andeverybody's packing up to drive
back to New York or wherever andthe apprentices were tearing
down the set because we havethree days to put up a new one
and we don't sleep in between.
(11:49):
There's all that kind of energygoing on and I'm running
downstairs to say goodbye to Maxand to say goodbye to the other
girls and I poked my head in toJoanne Woodward's dressing room
because she was lovely andwanted to say goodbye and she's
standing there, gave me a hugand I said goodbye and thank you
for everything really paulnewman is standing right next to
her reallyI mean he looked like paul
newman this was 1978.
(12:11):
The hair he was wearing, hiswindbreaker, you know, like he
just got out of the car, theblue eyes, the smile, and she
introduces me and I stick myhand out, we shake hands and I
said it's nice to meet you, mrwoodward, and my heart was
pounding because I knew, as Ishook his hand, that I was going
to say it.
And I saw his.
(12:32):
It was almost his mouth open,like his jaw just dropped, like
he had never heard that beforein his life.
He looked at his wife.
She got hysterical and I tookoff down the hallway.
She came out.
Thank you, she mouthed thank.
She's still laughing.
It was fantastic, tony Roberts.
So I was a huge Woody Allen fan.
Tony Roberts was there and Iwound up being his dresser and
(12:52):
his daughter's babysitter, andwe played tennis every couple of
days.
So that's the kind of life Iwas having.
You know, it was a little weird, even.
You know, after the first yearof all of that, going back to
college and it's like you maywant to go to the academy and be
an officer.
But if you can get into space,you know, and just work in the
engineering room, you might justdo that.
You knew, wanting to leaveschool but not wanting to.
(13:13):
And then what happened was Iliterally talked my way back to
the Berkshire Theatre Festivalthe following summer.
There were no positions.
I wasn't going to be anapprentice.
You know, I was too old to bean apprentice.
At that point I was, I justturned 20.
And so I just kept calling.
That was a new.
It was a new artistic director.
Josephine Abadie had taken over.
(13:34):
So I finally called her liketwo weeks before the summer
started.
I said, listen, I'll doanything and I'll do it for free
.
And finally I said fine, youcan come up, work as a carpenter
.
We won't pay you, but we'll putyou up.
And I was so driven to go backthere that summer.
Among other people, I met TomHulse, who hadn't done Amadeus
(13:55):
yet.
We became very good friendsthat summer and the last time I
actually hung out with him wasafter he came back from doing
Amadeus, but he had justfinished Animal House.
It was the summer of 1979.
He was at Animal House in 1978.
They said to him you know, weknow what you're doing in
Summerstock and we need kids.
We need the kind of people whohung out at Animal House and we
(14:16):
specifically need like threeItalian kids, and if you think
of anybody, let us know.
So he pulled me aside and askedme if I was interested in
auditioning for a movie.
He set up the audition.
I drove into New York and spentthe night, had a great couple
of scenes with it was just meand George Ann Walken, who was a
casting director in New York,who was married to Chris Walken.
(14:37):
So I read for her and you knowit was fine.
But it was like every otheraudition I ever had, except I'm
sitting with her just the two ofus.
So, it was a little bitdifferent than showing up with a
bunch of people.
And then I went back to theBerkshire Theatre Festival and
you know, two weeks went by andI heard nothing.
And I was having a particularlyawful day.
It was really hot For somereason.
(14:58):
I kept bashing my fucking thumbin the same place.
I'm not a good carpenter.
I failed woodshop in highschool.
So I was literally in thebathroom downstairs running my
thumb under cold water whensomeone came running down and
said you got a phone call fromHollywood.
So that was when Wallace NesitaWally Nesita, who was casting
it from out there called and Iremember that whole phone
(15:20):
conversation was surrealistic.
I remember saying, okay, soit's $8.65 plus.
And I'm like I'm sorry what?
It's $8.65 plus so-and-so?
And I'm like so this isdefinite.
You know she was talking to melike I had some notion of what
the hell was happening and shesaid, yes, this is an offer.
I said I accept.
And then when she said $8.75 aweek, I said I just wrote down
(15:44):
$8.75.
Is that wrong?
Which was when she realized Ididn't have an agent.
Scott (15:48):
Yeah.
Peter (15:48):
And it went down to $765 a week.
Live and learn, anyway.
So that was how I got intoCaddyshack and I was there.
I was supposed to be there forfive weeks.
It was supposed to be a verysmall role.
There were three Italianbrothers and the youngest
brother was supposed to dobasically everything I wound up
doing.
Brother was supposed to dobasically everything I wound up
(16:09):
doing, but they couldn't find aboy.
For some reason they couldn'tfind an italian boy, you know,
perfect for the role.
So they wound up the day of theshooting casting minerva scalza
, yeah, who was a 10 year olditalian girl whose grandfather
was the head of the teamsters onset.
So you can't put a 10yearyear-old girl in a bathing
suit and pull it off, no.
(16:30):
So I wound up getting all thescenes, you know, getting the
Pittsburgh.
That's awesome.
All the stuff that wasoriginally supposed to go to the
youngest denuncio I got.
So that's how all that greatstuff happened.
And then I came back to NewYork and I worked a lot.
Jump cut 40 years later.
Scott (16:46):
Well, that's such an awesome story.
One of the interesting thingsis that, uh, espn I don't know
if you know this said thatcaddyshack perhaps is the
funniest sports movie ever made.
Did you realize that?
I?
Peter (16:58):
suppose I don't know.
Scott (17:00):
I mean, I never saw happy gilmore well, I would say that
you and I met on the secondfunniest sports movie.
Peter (17:08):
Well, Caddyshack funniest golf movie ever made, but we
worked on the funniest miniaturegolf movie ever made.
Scott (17:13):
Yes, we did, yes, we did Mini balls.
It's a 10-minute short thatonly a few of us have seen, but
it's a love.
Peter (17:20):
I always knew someday I'd get my ass kicked by a nun, but
I didn't think it would happenin a movie, yeah.
Scott (17:25):
I got gotta talk to joe about see if we could get that
out in the public, because Ithink it's only just on our like
facebook group like it comesout every couple of years, you
know for us, but the publicreally hasn't seen it.
But it was.
Yeah, that's how you and I met.
We played buddies in a uhthreesome for not a threesome, I
shouldn't say it like thatbecause yeah, not yeah.
Peter (17:42):
Threesome is we all play golf together.
Yes, yes, and as long as we'retalking about golf.
Scott (17:47):
I mean, I don't want to get plenty of balls on set.
That was a, uh, really funshoot.
It was kind of crazy.
Peter (17:52):
It was like a week tops maybe, but it was like four in
the morning to like time forpeople who to go to work so fun,
yeah, and here we thought wewere getting our starts, you
know, back in the movie business, and it was just joe getting
ready to be a chef yeah, joegatto, he was the first guest on
carnegie's world.
Scott (18:09):
He uh, he's a big, uh famous chef.
He's got his own show, he's gota book, he's crazy.
But yeah, he was our directorand uh got us all together for
shoots that were like four inthe morning till like nine
o'clock in the morning and thenwe all went to work and then so
crazy.
Peter (18:23):
I was trying to remember if I actually went to work or
not.
I did have some jobs.
Yeah, the best thing aboutaudiobooks is I haven't had to
have one ever since.
That's certainly worth, youknow, shifting careers around
for Now, when did you getstarted doing audiobook
narration?
Well, I met Karen.
I met my wife in an actingclass at the Ensemble Studio
Theater in New York and we woundup living together in New York.
(18:46):
So we wound up in New Hampshirebecause when I did Caddyshack I
quit school.
When I came back to New Yorkafter Caddyshack I had a lot of
close calls, but they don'tcount.
I mean there were a lot ofmovies that I was almost in Jaws
3, I almost played RoyScheider's son Wow, they cast
Dennis Quaid as the other sonand my hair was too black and
(19:07):
too shiny.
So you know and it's a goodthing they had a black, shiny
hair Tony DiNunzio and CaddyChakra wouldn't have been doing
that either, so you know.
So I spent a lot of timetraining, doing a lot of
training, a lot of theater.
Eventually I met my wife in anacting class.
She said I can't do thisanymore.
She hated New York.
Things were changing, notterrible.
Yet it was the 80s, not the 90s.
We were getting chased aroundby people on crack, but we knew
(19:30):
they'd stop after a block and ahalf.
So I mean we kind of had itdown.
So we wound up moving to NewHampshire and I went back to
school.
That's why I wound up in NewHampshire.
I went back to school to get mydegree, started doing a lot of
writing instead, because therewas not a lot of theater or film
or stuff going on in NewHampshire.
So instead, because there wasnot a lot of theater or film or
stuff going on in New Hampshire,so I got my degree, graduated
summa cum laude, but in themeantime there was a lot of
(19:51):
acting work in Boston andbecause of my incredible
training in the last 10 years Ihad been in New York audition
classes, voice and body andmovement and advanced scene
study, and you know everythingmoment to moment work.
I kind of got every audition,everything I auditioned for.
So I wound up doing stuff I'dnever done in New York
voiceovers and commercials andstuff that in New York you were
(20:12):
compartmentalized into onelittle category.
But in Boston the ironicexpression was why work in
Boston when you can audition inNew York?
So I wound up working a lot.
Then my son was born and Igraduated from UNH.
I took a couple of years offfrom running into town to do
theater and then, even when hewas still an infant, I started
teaching acting at home and thenstarted getting hired.
(20:34):
I did a couple of courses atNortheastern In 2006,.
I had been really wanting toexplore audiobooks for a while.
Strangely enough, I answered anad on Craigslist.
I was always looking forauditions on Craigslist, most of
them weird.
None of them, as far as I know,led to any kind of mass
slaughter.
(20:54):
It was before the well-known.
You know, uh, what was thecraigslist killer?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just makeair quotes for your listeners.
So, yes, um, anyway.
So I um, I wound up getting agig with guy in boston who,
strangely enough, I'd actuallycontacted him a year earlier
because I'm lucky to have somereally wonderful friends in
Newburyport Andre Debusse, whowrote House of Sand and Fog and
(21:16):
a ton of stuff since.
Hello, it turned out that theguy that I auditioned for in
Boston to do audiobooks was thesame guy who produced House of
Sand and Fog.
And I came in and he was justdoing a subcontract for the
Library of Congress.
He wasn't doing commercialbooks, he was doing stuff for
the blind.
So I wound up getting a gig forthe blind.
I was approved to do fictionand nonfiction, so pretty much
(21:40):
the sky was suddenly the limitand I started doing work for him
.
It wasn't big money and itwasn't the main books that were
going out.
I was doing the same books thatother narrators that I know and
work with now were doing forAudible, and I was doing it for
the Library of Congress for theblind.
So what's the expression?
I cut my teeth.
Cut my teeth, that's right.
Yeah, you don't talk about yourteeth.
(22:01):
They get soft like everythingelse.
So basically, I wound up doinga lot of of stuff.
I did like 18 books over thecourse of a year, which at that
time was a lot, and then Ibecame an audiobook listener
because I was training myselfand I did some great books.
You know, while I mean I did abook about f scott fitzgerald
(22:22):
and I did, um, a book about johnwilkes booth and a a lot of
nonfiction stuff, and I did somegreat novels.
So I pretty much trained myself, and then I got myself to a
convention in New York everyyear.
This was in 2009.
At this point I've been workingfor a couple of years, part time
.
I was still working at arestaurant I mean, jesus, I was
(22:42):
almost 50.
And I was back to waitingtables, and so I was even more
excited about doing audiobooksbecause, geez, I mean it was
like come on, shitter, get offthe pot.
My son's favorite expressionnow is pick a lane.
It's like you don't even drive.
You can't say that Anyway.
So I wound up going into NewYork meeting some people.
I was very lucky, but also thefact that Canishack is the best
(23:05):
C word you can say out loudanywhere and it interested
people that might not have beeninterested, but on the other
hand, you know I was 50 yearsold when I went to my first
audiobook convention.
I had been acting since I was 12and teaching since I was 32.
I had acting chops and so theonly things I had to learn about
(23:25):
audiobook that's bullshit.
I had to learn a lot, but I wasstill able to jump in and get
work immediately.
I learned as I went.
You know I teach a lot.
Now I teach one on one audiobookcoaching and there are two
aspects that you teach.
There's the technical aspects,which is the same thing as with
anything don't fall off thestage, you know.
Don't bang into the scenery.
(23:46):
Memorize your lines right.
There's the basic stuff andthen there's the acting.
Then there's the specificitythat you know when you're
reading dialogue in a novel andyou're playing all the parts
without having to do what you doin an acting class and break it
down into what do I want,what's the next beat?
What's the next beat?
Okay, is this character?
What do I want?
But it's coming into animaginary world.
(24:06):
Understanding the nature ofwhat it takes to enter an
imaginary world, I mostly had toslow down because the
difference between talking toyou now and if I were reading an
audio book, I would speak.
Not necessarily like WilliamShatner or Christopher Walken,
necessarily like William Shatneror Christopher Walken, but you
(24:34):
know it takes a lot for someonelike me to slow down and say
once in the village of DumbDoral there was a young man
named blah blah, blah.
You know, it's just like doingimprov and thinking you got to
be funny or you got to keeptalking.
Yeah yeah, the thing about beinga narrator is, you think if you
go too slow people will leave,but if they're in their car
first of all, that would be dumb.
You're where they go rightRight into the left wing.
(24:54):
Fuck you, let's move on.
So there's a lot of technicalthings I had to learn, but I was
able to apply what I knew aboutscene where the arc of it.
You know all of that.
So, as it happened, I startedgetting work right away.
Archival you know all of that.
Um, yeah, so, as it happened, Istarted getting work right away.
And in 2009 it was beforeeverything changed again.
Like in 2009, they were stillsending actors to studios in new
(25:17):
york and paying their way.
I didn't need to have my waypaid because I had plenty of
friends and family in new york,but you know they're paying for
studio time for actors and youknow, yeah, within a couple of
years, they were encouragingevery narrator to get their own
home studio.
Really that early as it becamea hundred million, two hundred
million dollar business.
For instance, right before Istarted narrating audiobooks,
(25:37):
audiobooks were still physicalcopies.
it was before download yeah,yeah, still cd or tape yeah, to
pay 75 bucks for an audiobook,you got to figure how much the
director's getting paid, how,how much the actor's getting
paid.
There's thousands of dollars,at least twice as much as
standard pay.
Now, as soon as it went to adownload.
Now you're paying $15 a yearfor whatever.
You're not buying anything.
(25:57):
So that's kind of.
When I got into the business,within a couple of years of
getting into the business, theysaid get a studio.
And that was great, because assoon as I got my booth, you know
, one company went from sendingme into New York every six weeks
to giving me three, sometimesfour, books a month.
Scott (26:14):
That's how it all started , so from start to finish.
How long does it take tocomplete one?
It depends, yeah.
Peter (26:20):
It depends on everything.
It's like when you're doing aplay.
If all of a sudden you'replaying a Russian cosmonaut, you
want to, you know, infuse asmuch of the character into your
body as you can.
I know that's kind of a weirdanswer, but no, no, I mean I get
it.
Obviously it depends on length.
Let's say, your standard bookis 400 pages.
Okay, depends on the font.
It depends on how much spacethere is.
(26:42):
I mean, those are all littlethings, they're technical things
.
I'd say about a week or two,depending on the length, because
basically what you do is youread the book first.
So let's say it's a 400-pagebook.
A 400-page book is going to beroughly 12 hours of audio.
So while I'm recording book Aat night, I'm generally prepping
(27:02):
book B.
I'm generally reading at nightthe next book I'm going to do,
while at the same time reviewingbook A right before I do it.
Like reading at night the nextbook I'm going to do, while at
the same time reviewing book Aright before I do it, like just
what are the next 10 chaptersI'm recording tonight?
I've already read it, butwhat's?
Oh, okay, this is where thishappens.
The thing about having an audiobook in front of you is.
It's more like a film in someways, because the mic picks up
(27:25):
nuance.
You don't have to use yourwhole voice.
You know your whole body andvoice, as you would for theater.
When you're in a show, the moreyou know about your character,
the better you know your lines,the more spontaneous it feels,
the more fun you have.
Narrating an audio book is notreading, it's performing, it's
storytelling.
You're telling a story.
(27:46):
So when I go back the nightbefore and I say, oh yeah, this
is where he and she have thisthing yeah because you're
playing all the parts.
That's the joy and this is whatI realized as I was narrating
audiobooks is it's like whenyou're doing fiction and you're
narrating a novel.
It's like being in a movie andplaying all the parts.
So when you know the scene wellenough and you know what all
four of those people are doingin that scene, even if one of
(28:08):
them is just standing thereholding a gun, looking around
and guarding everyone, he hasone line.
He still has one thing going onand if he's playing that part,
he's going to have his own thing.
It's basically really fun to bein a movie and play all the
parts.
So the more you know before yourecord it, the more fun you
have.
So that's why, with a reallygood novel, I will review it the
(28:29):
night before, even though Iread the book a week or a week
and a half ago.
So generally what you're doingis you're prepping a novel, but
what you're doing is you'rehighlighting all the dialogue
with different colors so youknow who's talking at any given
time.
Also, whether it's fiction ornonfiction, you're making a list
of questions.
Sometimes there's a restaurant,for instance.
There was a book I was doingwith a restaurant had a French
name, but the restaurant was inNew Hampshire.
(28:51):
So the question was do theypronounce it with a French name
or do they pronounce it likethey're from New Hampshire?
So you learn how to do thingslike that.
You don't take anything forgranted, including the fact that
you think you know what a wordis Chassis.
First time I ever saw the wordchassis, I said chasis.
That's how they spelled thestupid word.
(29:12):
Who came up with that?
Who do you talk to?
It's too late, right?
You're learning about yourlimited or misinformed
vocabulary with every book youdo and with nonfiction.
I may not read it as carefullyas I would.
Fiction I mean.
That doesn't mean I change thewords, but in terms of prep,
when you're looking atnonfiction, nonfiction is
essentially more like acommercial than a movie.
You are selling something, butyou're selling it with the
(29:33):
passion and authenticity of thewriter, because you're
essentially channeling a writer.
It's first person, it's theirbrainchild, whether it's about
marketing Coca-Cola or inventingthe heart-lung machine.
So, basically, when I reviewnonfiction, I'm listening for
the voice of the writer, becausethe only genuine voice in
nonfiction is the writer's voice.
(29:54):
It's going to be your voicebecause you're reading it.
I'm going to be saying, when Idiscovered the Hart-Lund machine
in a cavern in 1802, I didn'ttell anybody because it was 1802
, and I didn't have any friendsyet.
Scott (30:09):
At 600 books.
You've probably said more thanmost people just in general.
Peter (30:14):
Yeah, I had a lot of practice never shutting up.
It was the one thing I could do.
The only thing I ever won inCamp Toll Timber and that's
where a lot of my humiliationtook place in left field.
Most of my humiliation tookplace in left field.
I managed very often during thegame to go so far back that I
could hide in the laundry roomand nobody knew I was gone.
Scott (30:36):
So when you get a contract for a book, do they say
you have X amount of time, oryou just say, oh, I'll take care
of it, and then you get paidper book and it's just up to you
to be speedy about it.
Peter (30:45):
A little of both, but most of the time people want to
know when you're going to startit and when you're going to
finish it.
I tend to work for most of theestablished producers.
There are a lot of people whoproduce their own stuff.
I've done that with a handfulof authors who didn't want to go
through a publishing house.
You know they have something onAudible called ACX and that's
where an author and a narratorcan come together and avoid the
(31:06):
middleman.
So I have an author friend inTokyo.
He's an American who teachesmusic and film in Tokyo and he
writes a series of detectivenovels.
He hired me originally to dohis books, but that is
essentially.
I give him a price which ismore than I get paid by a
publisher, because I'mresponsible for the
post-production as well as justthe narration.
Scott (31:28):
All the editing and everything.
Peter (31:29):
So in that case I'm going to say to him okay, michael, I
can have this book on this dayand for the most part I'll give
him a date that I know I canfinish it by.
But if you're doing it on yourown, you can play around a
little bit.
Right now I'm finishing a bookthat I actually originally was
going to do two weeks earlier,but I switched it around because
you get other stuff do twoweeks earlier.
(31:49):
But I switched it around becauseyou get other stuff like can
you do this, can you squeezethis in?
Yeah, you negotiate, because Iam not one of the most um
successful voice actors inamerica, well known, I mean I
did do a pulitzer prize finalist.
There you go.
I mean, you do occasionallyjust get occasional brilliant
novel.
But you know, if I was doinglike the major stephen king and
the major books that are theirown schedules, then there's a
(32:11):
definite I need to have this bythis date and you make sure you
have it in your schedule.
You just send the files as yougo.
Send the last files by thatdate, yeah, anyway.
So sometimes room to maneuverand sometimes, like, the book
that's due now is due on the31st, so I can't screw around.
So do you have a director?
No, when I used to go to NewYork at the beginning, they were
still hiring directors.
Yeah, once it got to a pointwhere it became less cost
(32:32):
effective, they just hirednarrators who could do their own
stuff.
So that's one of the things Itry to teach narrators is how to
direct themselves.
Scott (32:39):
Obviously be objective about it too.
You know, sit back and listento it.
Peter (32:48):
No, I couldn't to be easy on themselves.
When I started recording, itall came very naturally to me.
It was not like I was 50 yearsold.
You know I've been acting for30 years or more.
It wasn't like everything wasnew.
It was like I have everything.
Like if I knew how to use everysingle tool in the operating
chamber I could probably removea spleen.
(33:09):
But you know, I'm still gonnawant to read the textbook again
first.
Real quick, I didn't get in myown way a lot, yeah, and it was
working out beautifully.
I talked to a lot of narratorswho'll be like I did this one
take like 30 times.
It's like dude, basically whatI do it.
So let's say I have two weeksto do a book.
I record I don't know seven,eight chapters a night,
(33:29):
depending on the length.
I send those chapters to themand then they can start working
on them.
When they get everything, theygo through them, mark up any
mistakes and then just send meback basically an Excel
spreadsheet with the mistakes,with MP3s of what the mistakes
were, so that you can hear itand match it, and then you just
send them a file of correctionsand then they plug them in and
(33:52):
that's it.
So that's 95%.
When you're working for apublisher producer, you're just
sending them the files and thendoing the pickups.
You know, when I produce thebooks myself, then my wife
proves them, she gives me thecorrections and I have to go
back to the original files andsqueeze in and edit those
corrections and then you knowotherwise, someone else is doing
it.
Scott (34:11):
So that's one of my biggest complaints about doing a
podcast.
The editing aspect is justreally really tedious and
intense and I can't imaginedoing books.
Peter (34:20):
Well, I don't do my own editing.
I never did.
I'm not good at technical stuff, but most people do a punch and
roll, which is a lot easierthan what you have to do,
because essentially someaudiobook companies still and I
don't know why they just rollthe whole time and then they go
back and pick their favoritethings and edit it all together
when I'm recording at home.
If I say once upon a time therewas a girl named Goldilocks
(34:43):
whose hair was brown and itwasn't brown, then my son, who
is also an engineer right now,will go back to the previous
sentence, punch me in before themistake, and then I can say
once upon a time the golden,golden, so that was gray.
She was a very strange oldwoman and I don't know why they
called her Goldilocks.
Scott (35:00):
So you do nonfiction fiction.
When I was doing my researchand I was looking up all the
books, you've done a smatteringof children's books as well, and
my daughter at seven years oldwas noticing some of your finer
children's books and has a newfavorite that we have to get she
wants to listen to thefantastic, flatulent Fart
Brothers big book of farty factsthat you read.
Peter (35:23):
Yes, I'm grateful for that because it's very funny
when you live in a bubble andyou think you're it.
When I got this, this wasactually a four-book series.
There was a three-book trilogyabout the Fart Brothers, save
the Day, go to the Moon andsomething else.
But the woman was like I can'tbelieve we got you this book.
This is such a great book, it'sperfect for you.
(35:44):
And I'm like, yeah, it's.
You know, all the surprises arenice, sure, you know, but give
me the book of hearts.
Yes, those are a lot of fun, butif you want an amazing, amazing
book, I think the first coupleof books I ever narrated are
still the best books I've everdone Three kids.
One of them is called TobyAlone and the sequel is called
(36:08):
Toby and the Secrets of the Tree, and I did those books in 2010
was when I really my first yearworking and they are so gorgeous
.
The writer is a french writernamed timothy de fombelle.
It was translated into englishby an italian writer and it is
the most gorgeous, funny,heartbreaking thing I've ever
read in my life, really.
Um, there are 160 some oddcharacters between the two books
(36:31):
.
It all takes place in agigantic tree.
The characters are the size ofants, so to them, the tree is
the universe yeah like the worstbad guy is.
Actually, I think he's a.
I don't know if he's a maggotor a leech or something, but
he's a character who is drainingthe natural resources of the
tree, ripping huge tracts ofbranches and building you know,
(36:54):
and all the dissidents, all theintellectuals who believe the
tree is alive, are being lockedup.
You know, so it's really got alot to say, but it's also
gorgeous.
It's gorgeous, so I think she'dlove it.
It's just a beautiful story.
Scott (37:07):
All right, we'll check it out.
Yeah, is that one of the onesyou're most proud of?
Peter (37:10):
Yeah, and in a way it's and it's not because I'm so good
, it's because the book is sogorgeous and I actually had a
director for that.
That was one of the first booksI did and somehow we did both
books in five days.
We worked like nine hours a day.
Yeah, those are some of theones I'm most proud of.
The Last Policeman trilogy byBen Winters is one of the ones
(37:31):
I'm most proud of.
Unholy Night it's about threecriminals, three wise guys
essentially, who convince threepriests to change places with
them.
I don't know if they convincethem or if they kill them.
They essentially no, they don'tkill them.
Basically, at the beginning ofthe book they switch places with
them in jail.
So the three holy men wind upgetting beheaded and the three
(37:52):
wise guys sneak off dressed aspriests and they're the ones
that find Jesus.
And it's weird, Like they'reall being chased, Jesus and Mary
and Joseph and the camels,Everybody's running and he just
keeps saying there's somethingabout that baby.
So even though it's completelyirreverent, there's some kind of
spiritual essence that keepsfiltering in.
(38:13):
It's also hilarious.
So, anyway, those are some ofthe books I like.
Scott (38:17):
Let's tackle some Caddyshack Ready Chevy Chase,
Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murraywho was the funniest on set.
That's a good question.
Peter (38:24):
You know, Bill Murray was not the funniest on set.
Bill Murray may haveoccasionally been the funniest
on set, but he was alsochallenging.
He really was weird anddifficult, and when he was being
funny it was also often at theexpense of making something or
someone uncomfortable.
Heard that Rodney was exactlywho he was.
Rodney Dainesfield wasconstantly trying out his jokes.
(38:46):
He was very insecure and he was.
There was no's.
No, I mean, he's not an actor.
He didn't transform intoanything in any of his movies,
that's just what he was, but hewas always trying out his jokes.
Um, chevy chase you knowwhoever people complain about
because they have nothing elseto do was extremely charming,
very fun, constantly spontaneous.
(39:07):
He drove some of the otheractors crazy because he was
ad-libbing a lot.
But the only people who weren'treally ad-libbing were, you
know, like Ted Knight, who wasthe most professional, kindest,
gentlest, nicest guy of all, theonly one who took drugs, didn't
smoke, didn't drink, didn'ttake all kinds of vitamins, died
before anybody else, which justgoes to show you.
But Chevy was great, was great.
(39:29):
I played tennis with him a lot.
He was always always veryeasygoing and charming and funny
.
She didn't feel like he was onyeah whereas bill murray always
felt like he was either on orimpassable, like he wasn't.
He wasn't good at like eyecontact and normal friendships.
So it was a little.
Brian murray was a tough guy.
He was hard to get along withbut for the most part everybody
(39:51):
was awesome.
Doug canney, yeah, harold ramus, everybody was awesome.
It was like animal house.
It was just a huge nine weekparty.
It was basically a year afteranimal house.
Scott (40:00):
Animal house was shot in 78 and came out in 79 and yeah,
I was gonna say it was rightabout a couple years after
animal house, I think.
Peter (40:06):
And um or shot in 77 came out in 78, caddyshack shot in
79 came out in 80.
So yeah, it was right on theheels of it.
So those parties were prettycrazy god, it was all apart.
I mean, we worked during the day, we absolutely worked during
the day.
You know, you got up at fouro'clock every morning or stayed
up.
I mostly went to bed first.
You get up at four, you make upby five and you're sitting in a
(40:27):
golf cart.
Yeah, by six, you know.
And but then by five o'clock,you know, you're jumping in a
car with like 20 people goingout to dinner, coming back and
going into a room to play pokerand snort coke or whatever.
I mean, there's always, alwaysstuff going on.
Oh the 80s, oh the 80s.
Scott (40:45):
It was actually 1979, so for me it was yes, all the 79s.
This is one that um, I've beendying to know, um, and if you
can't answer it and or you don'tfeel comfortable answering it,
I get it.
Okay.
Did you ever get to touch mrgopher?
Peter (41:00):
no, no, there was no gopher.
Until they went back theydidn't even know how the how the
movie was going to end.
Yet there's a lot of confusiontoward the end of the movie.
That I knew really.
Um, I actually narrated a bookabout the making of Caddyshack
which you can listen to.
It's all the questions you wantanswered.
It's by a guy named ChrisNashawati.
I'll put it in the show notesthere.
I was actually in the book.
He interviewed me and then Iwound up narrating it.
(41:22):
So the weirdest part was quotingmyself as myself.
My son kept saying you'respeeding up.
Every time I'd do my own voiceI'd be like really fast.
I was like because I talk fast,he's like, yeah, but I don't
know what you're saying.
You know they shot a movie whichwas about the caddies.
But there was so much pressabout the comic stars and the
rivalry between Chevy, chase andBill Murray that there was a
(41:42):
lot of making sure that they gotscreen time.
And by the time Ted, chevy,bill and Rodney got kind of
equal screen time, there was notime to tell the story about the
caddies.
So like Michael O'Keefe's partwas much smaller, anne Ryerson's
part got much smaller.
My brother Tony, the movie wasabout him and Michael O'Keefe
and their rivalry and goingafter Maggie, who's the Irish
(42:05):
girl, and so on.
But that whole storyline gotscrapped because there wasn't
enough room for it and so theywent back to la and shot all of
the gopher stuff.
So I never even saw the fuckinggopher, which is fine, because
when I saw it in the movie Ithought it was funny yeah,
that's awesome.
Scott (42:19):
Um, when, when you heard that, uh, caddyshack 2 was
coming out maybe pre-productionfor it were you interested in
being in it, and then, once itcame out, were you like, fuck,
no, I didn't ever want to be inthat movie exactly yes and no.
Peter (42:32):
I wrote to them probably every other week because we
didn't have computers right thiswas 1981.
I wrote to the productionoffice in la every like couple
of weeks saying hey guys, didyou get my letter?
I can be in kind of check too,if you want yeah I'll be, I'm
available.
I don't see, I think I'm goingto be free when you shoot it.
Nobody even wrote back and Ithought, well, that's kind of
sucky.
(42:53):
I mean, at least say thanksanyway.
But then when I saw howhorrible it was, I was like,
yeah, fuck you guys.
Good, fuck you.
It's so bad Because I'm such anenlightened soul.
Scott (43:05):
Oh yeah, that could have crippled the rest of your career
.
Peter (43:07):
That's it.
Yeah, exactly.
At least I got in and out on ahigh point.
Scott (43:11):
Yeah, well, you know, I mean, then you had mini balls,
then we shot mini balls and youknow that was fun.
Well, peter, it has beenawesome catching up with you.
It's been too long, my friend.
When did we shoot that movie?
It had to be 15 years ago,2006-ish, maybe.
Yeah, so like 18 years, that'sinsane.
I mean, you look fantastic,first of all for 65.
(43:32):
But anyway, man, this has beenawesome.
Thank you so much for takingthe time and keep us posted on
how you're doing.
And again, it was greatcatching up with you.
Peter (43:41):
It was great talking nonstop.
Scott (43:43):
Take care, my friend.
Yeah, pleasure, look at me.
Peter (43:49):
I look like Gandalf, but you don't have the wrinkles.
You look like a young Gandalf.
Young Gandalf would still belike 50.
Scott (43:55):
I'm Botox, gandalf.
My next guest is Peter Berkrot.
He's an accomplished stage,screen and voice actor, as well
as writer and director.
Odds are, if you've everlistened to more than one
audiobook in your life, you'veheard his voice, as Peter has
narrated over 600 audiobooks andhas won numerous awards for his
work as one of America's mostaccomplished voice actors On
screen.
He's been featured in countlessTV shows and can even trace his
acting roots back to the movieCaddyshack, where he played
(00:21):
Caddy Angie D'Annunzio.
Peter Berkrot, welcome toCarney Saves the World.
Peter (00:25):
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I do want to throw in a littlehumility, even though I did tell
you to go ahead and read it.
I am not one of the mostaccomplished voice actors in
America, really, although, whatis America?
I would imagine that one of thebest in Newburyport,
massachusetts.
Scott (00:42):
There we go, that's all that matters.
Peter (00:43):
I'd be willing to put out a 50, 60, 70 mile radius, say.
But you know I don't like tobrag about being the best
audiobook narrator, you know.
Scott (00:54):
You've got 600 audiobooks Like.
That's got to be pretty good,pretty up there, right.
Peter (00:57):
Thank you, it's my fault I said go ahead and say whatever
you want.
Yes, they don't hire you.
There are no mercy callbacks.
One of my teachers once saidyou know, if I was really bad,
we would be chatting about myplumbing job, probably.
Yeah, I mean I'm okay.
But yeah, voice acting is a bigcategory and in fact I'm lucky
(01:19):
in a lot of ways.
At least knock on whatever thisis.
It's might be wood, with AI andall of that.
Audiobooks may be the lastbastion of safety.
They are already putting outhundreds of virtual audiobooks.
Most people with any heart,soul or inner life is going to
want to listen to a human beingread an entire book.
If I hear an AI voice on thecomputer, I can't stand it.
(01:40):
As long as they can keep hiringme.
Scott (01:43):
You've done it at least 599 more times.
At least I want to go over howyou get started in theater and
acting, but I also want to talkto you about how you got into
audiobooks, because that's sucha special segment of acting.
Was it an easy transition?
How did you get into actingfirst?
Peter (02:00):
How much time you got.
You got 50 years.
We can squeeze it in Hours,hours.
Well, I started acting.
There are home movies of medancing so hard you'd think I
invented amphetamines mostartistic of places.
I didn't hear Shakespeare in myhead telling me go, son, and
(02:28):
trod the boards.
I just wanted my mother tolaugh at my jokes more than my
brother's jokes.
I was always very oh gosh.
You know, we didn't haveprescription drugs for children
yet, so being precocious wasjust something that was a
natural outgrowth of being ahuman child and that just.
I was actually reading at four.
(02:49):
But it's a funny thing to thinkabout the mind of a child.
At four years old I was reading, you know, I was Sally Dick and
Jane and all that.
I had a neighbor who taught mehow to read, but I was in
kindergarten and I told myteacher I could read and she
invited me to read a book to theclass.
Wow, it's a funny thing, thethings you remember.
This is 60 years ago.
I'm sitting on MrsSchoenberger's lap reading a
(03:14):
book about going to the zoo andI looked down at the first page
and I can see the words.
I know exactly what it says.
I can see the sign.
I can still see it, the signthat says to the zoo, and I can
see the words on the bottom.
And I absolutely panickedbecause I was afraid that if I
started reading a book to myclass they would hate me really
it's so weird.
I mean the things we think thatthey'd be jealous, or they'd be
jealous or they'd think I was ateacher's pet or a freak, or
(03:35):
like look at this guy sitting onthe teacher's lap reading a
book and I pretended I couldn'tread it.
Really, I mean, it's funnybecause you know, I have only
one other earlier memory andthat was waking up in my crib
from a nightmare about a frogand a flower and getting spanked
, and it was terrible.
Scott (03:50):
Yeah, that'll do it.
Peter (03:51):
So maybe ever since then I was like I really want to be
out in front of people but Idon't want, you know, people to
hate me.
I started taking acting classes.
Here's the real story 10 yearsold, maybe 11.
My dad had his own business.
This was in the 70s, you know.
These guys were all smoking potand snorting coke all day, but
they sold a lot of stuff and mydad was doing real well.
(04:12):
Oh, yeah.
These adults, these guys Ithought were grownups, who were
probably like 27, 28, took me toCity Center in New York to see
a show and at intermission allthe kids in the audience were
invited up to tell the rest ofthe story and it became a big
improv event.
And for some reason these arethe things again.
I recall these weird moments.
My little group was at anairport in England and I was a
(04:37):
panhandler and I used a Cockneyaccent and I don't know if I had
two lines or three lines.
It was all improv.
It was something terrible.
You know, it was probably fromMartin Oliver.
You know, can you spare asixpence for a cup of tea?
I'm sure it was something likethat.
Really bad, perfect.
And at the end of it, all theseadults were coming up to me
(04:57):
that day.
Everyone was coming up to meand saying are you English?
That was really good, youreally stood out, and I thought
well, that's it.
I was terrible at sports.
I was humiliated throughout myentire life.
I was terrified of getting hitwith a ball, so I ducked.
No matter what sport it was, Iducked and that did not win me
many accolades with the othernine-year-olds.
(05:17):
It's like the story of Superman, the youngest male Jewish child
who gets beat up and can'tprotect anybody.
The whole planet blows up, andso they have.
So that was me.
I overcompensated and I startedtaking acting classes when I
was 12 at the American Academyof Dramatic Arts in New York,
and that was 1972.
And I never stopped, I neverturned back.
Scott (05:39):
Wow so that was the start .
You did a bunch of theater andyou moved on to some screen
stuff.
Peter (05:45):
Well, it was more than that, because I was so into the
American Academy.
I mean, I was in high schoolwhen I was taking these classes
in Manhattan.
Scott (05:52):
Yeah.
Peter (06:06):
And in high school, just like when I was five, I was
afraid people would hate mebecause I could read.
In high school I had these twostrange drama teachers who were
ultimately, I imagine, as bitteror more than I would be if I
spent the rest of my lifeteaching high school theater.
But they also did not strokethe egos of their less favorite
students.
But I was in high school doingyou know guys, dolls and
whatever, and they were not veryencouraging.
I started taking acting classwhen I was 12.
I was going into the city, fromQueens into Manhattan by myself
on the Long Island Railroad andI'd walk from 32nd and 7th to
(06:30):
32nd in Madison, which waspretty crappy in the 70s.
But what did I know?
I was like 12 and I looked 8.
You know, no one's going tohurt me.
Yeah right, I'm singing a song.
Scott (06:42):
What's a peep show?
Peter (06:43):
Show biz, yeah.
So I started taking thoseclasses, you know, when I was 12
, 13, 14.
Every Saturday I'd go in and doyou know voice and I was doing
acting scenes.
This is when it really startedto kick in, even though the
scenes were ridiculous and Ican't believe that this is one
of the best acting schools inNew York at the time.
But I was 13 and I was doingwho's afraid of a junior wolf,
(07:06):
and you know they didn't pickout, like when I was teaching
acting, which I did for 30 years.
I mean, I had all these greatscenes for students that were
age appropriate, age appropriateyes but I was like george, you
know, and who's afraid of ajunior wolf?
shut up, martha, I'm bitter, youknow.
12, 13, 14.
I was doing mark, anthony andfelix and the odd couple, I mean
, you know it was yeah.
I feel like I learned stuff.
Most of what we were doing wasvery instinctive, you know.
(07:29):
I mean, I learned, you know,all of the jaw and drop the jaw,
but doing those scenes itseemed like we were just acting
by ourselves with big capitalA's and getting some direction,
but there wasn't anything like Inever felt like I was honestly
connecting.
But those were my Saturdayurdayacting classes.
I was still went in everysaturday and um, and at that
(07:50):
time I was doing stuff in highschool, but they were very they
could be very, uh, snarky, yeahlike they didn't build up the
kind of acting teacher I like tothink I was, you know, very um,
nurturing, you know, make asafe space so that people can be
creative and feel spontaneous.
It was just playing actors offeach other and doing that kind
(08:10):
of stuff.
So high school was, like, youknow, peyton Place, but by that
time I was taking these classesin New York, where it was a
larger world.
I was very impressed becauseyou know, robert Redford and all
these famous people went there.
It was a major acting schooland the posters were all in the
lobby anyway.
I did that for three years andI also started doing.
I got a manager and startedauditioning for little things in
(08:32):
new york little voiceovers, andso so by the time I was like 14
, 15, I was already doing itlike I knew what I wanted to be.
I was done with worrying aboutwhat I was going to be.
It was just a matter of howlong until everybody knew me.
And then, you know, I was atheater major and, you know,
went from there I just keptdoing theater and then uh yeah,
well, I was at new pulse, um,great school.
(08:53):
John tituro was two years aheadof me, okay, um, he was a uh, I
guess a sophomore or a juniorwhen I got there and he got all
the best parts and I used tothink it was because he was a
senior, but it's because he wasjohn detour and he was already
better than most of the teachersthere.
He was fucking brilliant.
And new pulse was a greatschool.
We did, you know, I mean Iwasn't just doing, you know,
(09:13):
kiss me kate, I mean we weredoing, you know, brecht and it
was a good theater school, um,but at that time I was so
motivated that instead ofstaying at school, new pulse
isaltz is gorgeous.
It's in upstate New York, notvery far upstate, but in the
Monarch Mountains.
It would have been a very easyplace to stay and do summer
theater.
They did regional theater allsummer there, but I wanted to
(09:34):
mix and mingle with the bigstars.
I wanted to do what I alwaysthought.
I basically wrote to everysummer stock company in the
country, I think, and this was1978, 79.
So I was, you know, you weren'tjust copying and pasting shit,
you were writing by hand letters, hand writing letters.
(09:59):
Apprentice program at theBerkshire Theatre Festival.
Okay, which my arrangement wasthat I would work for free but I
wouldn't pay to work somestandards going in.
I did go in and work for free,but I was.
You know, that was the summerthat I met Joanne Woodward and
Paul Newman.
They're a great story but Idon't know if we have time.
Scott (10:17):
We have plenty of time, let's go.
Peter (10:18):
Sure you want to hear the Paul Newman Joanne Woodward
started best thing I ever did.
I always took risks when I wasa kid things I don't do now but
what happened was JoanneWoodward was the loveliest
person I ever met.
She was so kind to all of us.
I mean, I was at that point 18,but I look 12.
And most of the apprenticeswere high school or first year
college and she was soaccessible.
She was doing the Children'sHour with Shirley Knight and
(10:42):
David Selby, first show in 25years.
She hadn't been on stage in 25years, which is interesting
because I did my first show in25 years last summer and I was
like, wow, so that's what thatfeels like.
Anyway, we were talking oneafternoon and she said you know,
I know how tough it is, howhard it is, that they had three
kids.
They're all right, I think.
And she said you know, I got anOscar in 1953, and people still
(11:07):
refer to me as Paul Newman'swife.
She said so you know, you canwork your butt off and you have
to keep reinventing yourself andI remember that story.
And on closing night it was agreat show because there were a
lot of kids in it and there wasa girl.
She kind of had a crush on meand I kind of had a crush on her
.
Her crush on me and I kind ofhad a crush on her.
(11:29):
And her name was Max and itturns out she was Roy Scheider's
daughter.
So I wound up meeting RoyScheider later on.
I was like, oh wow, here I am,I'm so famous.
Better than being in college inthe summer.
So, anyway, it was the lastnight and you know summer stock,
you work intensely for twoweeks and then the show closes.
It's Sunday night andeverybody's packing up to drive
back to New York or wherever andthe apprentices were tearing
down the set because we havethree days to put up a new one
and we don't sleep in between.
(11:49):
There's all that kind of energygoing on and I'm running
downstairs to say goodbye to Maxand to say goodbye to the other
girls and I poked my head in toJoanne Woodward's dressing room
because she was lovely andwanted to say goodbye and she's
standing there, gave me a hugand I said goodbye and thank you
for everything really paulnewman is standing right next to
her reallyI mean he looked like paul
newman this was 1978.
(12:11):
The hair he was wearing, hiswindbreaker, you know, like he
just got out of the car, theblue eyes, the smile, and she
introduces me and I stick myhand out, we shake hands and I
said it's nice to meet you, mrwoodward, and my heart was
pounding because I knew, as Ishook his hand, that I was going
to say it.
And I saw his.
(12:32):
It was almost his mouth open,like his jaw just dropped, like
he had never heard that beforein his life.
He looked at his wife.
She got hysterical and I tookoff down the hallway.
She came out.
Thank you, she mouthed thank.
She's still laughing.
It was fantastic, tony Roberts.
So I was a huge Woody Allen fan.
Tony Roberts was there and Iwound up being his dresser and
(12:52):
his daughter's babysitter, andwe played tennis every couple of
days.
So that's the kind of life Iwas having.
You know, it was a little weird, even.
You know, after the first yearof all of that, going back to
college and it's like you maywant to go to the academy and be
an officer.
But if you can get into space,you know, and just work in the
engineering room, you might justdo that.
You knew, wanting to leaveschool but not wanting to.
(13:13):
And then what happened was Iliterally talked my way back to
the Berkshire Theatre Festivalthe following summer.
There were no positions.
I wasn't going to be anapprentice.
You know, I was too old to bean apprentice.
At that point I was, I justturned 20.
And so I just kept calling.
That was a new.
It was a new artistic director.
Josephine Abadie had taken over.
(13:34):
So I finally called her liketwo weeks before the summer
started.
I said, listen, I'll doanything and I'll do it for free
.
And finally I said fine, youcan come up, work as a carpenter
.
We won't pay you, but we'll putyou up.
And I was so driven to go backthere that summer.
Among other people, I met TomHulse, who hadn't done Amadeus
(13:55):
yet.
We became very good friendsthat summer and the last time I
actually hung out with him wasafter he came back from doing
Amadeus, but he had justfinished Animal House.
It was the summer of 1979.
He was at Animal House in 1978.
They said to him you know, weknow what you're doing in
Summerstock and we need kids.
We need the kind of people whohung out at Animal House and we
(14:16):
specifically need like threeItalian kids, and if you think
of anybody, let us know.
So he pulled me aside and askedme if I was interested in
auditioning for a movie.
He set up the audition.
I drove into New York and spentthe night, had a great couple
of scenes with it was just meand George Ann Walken, who was a
casting director in New York,who was married to Chris Walken.
(14:37):
So I read for her and you knowit was fine.
But it was like every otheraudition I ever had, except I'm
sitting with her just the two ofus.
So, it was a little bitdifferent than showing up with a
bunch of people.
And then I went back to theBerkshire Theatre Festival and
you know, two weeks went by andI heard nothing.
And I was having a particularlyawful day.
It was really hot For somereason.
(14:58):
I kept bashing my fucking thumbin the same place.
I'm not a good carpenter.
I failed woodshop in highschool.
So I was literally in thebathroom downstairs running my
thumb under cold water whensomeone came running down and
said you got a phone call fromHollywood.
So that was when Wallace NesitaWally Nesita, who was casting
it from out there called and Iremember that whole phone
(15:20):
conversation was surrealistic.
I remember saying, okay, soit's $8.65 plus.
And I'm like I'm sorry what?
It's $8.65 plus so-and-so?
And I'm like so this isdefinite.
You know she was talking to melike I had some notion of what
the hell was happening and shesaid, yes, this is an offer.
I said I accept.
And then when she said $8.75 aweek, I said I just wrote down
(15:44):
$8.75.
Is that wrong?
Which was when she realized Ididn't have an agent.
Scott (15:48):
Yeah.
Peter (15:48):
And it went down to $765 a week.
Live and learn, anyway.
So that was how I got intoCaddyshack and I was there.
I was supposed to be there forfive weeks.
It was supposed to be a verysmall role.
There were three Italianbrothers and the youngest
brother was supposed to dobasically everything I wound up
doing.
Brother was supposed to dobasically everything I wound up
(16:09):
doing, but they couldn't find aboy.
For some reason they couldn'tfind an italian boy, you know,
perfect for the role.
So they wound up the day of theshooting casting minerva scalza
, yeah, who was a 10 year olditalian girl whose grandfather
was the head of the teamsters onset.
So you can't put a 10yearyear-old girl in a bathing
suit and pull it off, no.
(16:30):
So I wound up getting all thescenes, you know, getting the
Pittsburgh.
That's awesome.
All the stuff that wasoriginally supposed to go to the
youngest denuncio I got.
So that's how all that greatstuff happened.
And then I came back to NewYork and I worked a lot.
Jump cut 40 years later.
Scott (16:46):
Well, that's such an awesome story.
One of the interesting thingsis that, uh, espn I don't know
if you know this said thatcaddyshack perhaps is the
funniest sports movie ever made.
Did you realize that?
I?
Peter (16:58):
suppose I don't know.
Scott (17:00):
I mean, I never saw happy gilmore well, I would say that
you and I met on the secondfunniest sports movie.
Peter (17:08):
Well, Caddyshack funniest golf movie ever made, but we
worked on the funniest miniaturegolf movie ever made.
Scott (17:13):
Yes, we did, yes, we did Mini balls.
It's a 10-minute short thatonly a few of us have seen, but
it's a love.
Peter (17:20):
I always knew someday I'd get my ass kicked by a nun, but
I didn't think it would happenin a movie, yeah.
Scott (17:25):
I got gotta talk to joe about see if we could get that
out in the public, because Ithink it's only just on our like
facebook group like it comesout every couple of years, you
know for us, but the publicreally hasn't seen it.
But it was.
Yeah, that's how you and I met.
We played buddies in a uhthreesome for not a threesome, I
shouldn't say it like thatbecause yeah, not yeah.
Peter (17:42):
Threesome is we all play golf together.
Yes, yes, and as long as we'retalking about golf.
Scott (17:47):
I mean, I don't want to get plenty of balls on set.
That was a, uh, really funshoot.
It was kind of crazy.
Peter (17:52):
It was like a week tops maybe, but it was like four in
the morning to like time forpeople who to go to work so fun,
yeah, and here we thought wewere getting our starts, you
know, back in the movie business, and it was just joe getting
ready to be a chef yeah, joegatto, he was the first guest on
carnegie's world.
Scott (18:09):
He uh, he's a big, uh famous chef.
He's got his own show, he's gota book, he's crazy.
But yeah, he was our directorand uh got us all together for
shoots that were like four inthe morning till like nine
o'clock in the morning and thenwe all went to work and then so
crazy.
Peter (18:23):
I was trying to remember if I actually went to work or
not.
I did have some jobs.
Yeah, the best thing aboutaudiobooks is I haven't had to
have one ever since.
That's certainly worth, youknow, shifting careers around
for Now, when did you getstarted doing audiobook
narration?
Well, I met Karen.
I met my wife in an actingclass at the Ensemble Studio
Theater in New York and we woundup living together in New York.
(18:46):
So we wound up in New Hampshirebecause when I did Caddyshack I
quit school.
When I came back to New Yorkafter Caddyshack I had a lot of
close calls, but they don'tcount.
I mean there were a lot ofmovies that I was almost in Jaws
3, I almost played RoyScheider's son Wow, they cast
Dennis Quaid as the other sonand my hair was too black and
(19:07):
too shiny.
So you know and it's a goodthing they had a black, shiny
hair Tony DiNunzio and CaddyChakra wouldn't have been doing
that either, so you know.
So I spent a lot of timetraining, doing a lot of
training, a lot of theater.
Eventually I met my wife in anacting class.
She said I can't do thisanymore.
She hated New York.
Things were changing, notterrible.
Yet it was the 80s, not the 90s.
We were getting chased aroundby people on crack, but we knew
(19:30):
they'd stop after a block and ahalf.
So I mean we kind of had itdown.
So we wound up moving to NewHampshire and I went back to
school.
That's why I wound up in NewHampshire.
I went back to school to get mydegree, started doing a lot of
writing instead, because therewas not a lot of theater or film
or stuff going on in NewHampshire.
So instead, because there wasnot a lot of theater or film or
stuff going on in New Hampshire,so I got my degree, graduated
summa cum laude, but in themeantime there was a lot of
(19:51):
acting work in Boston andbecause of my incredible
training in the last 10 years Ihad been in New York audition
classes, voice and body andmovement and advanced scene
study, and you know everythingmoment to moment work.
I kind of got every audition,everything I auditioned for.
So I wound up doing stuff I'dnever done in New York
voiceovers and commercials andstuff that in New York you were
(20:12):
compartmentalized into onelittle category.
But in Boston the ironicexpression was why work in
Boston when you can audition inNew York?
So I wound up working a lot.
Then my son was born and Igraduated from UNH.
I took a couple of years offfrom running into town to do
theater and then, even when hewas still an infant, I started
teaching acting at home and thenstarted getting hired.
(20:34):
I did a couple of courses atNortheastern In 2006,.
I had been really wanting toexplore audiobooks for a while.
Strangely enough, I answered anad on Craigslist.
I was always looking forauditions on Craigslist, most of
them weird.
None of them, as far as I know,led to any kind of mass
slaughter.
(20:54):
It was before the well-known.
You know, uh, what was thecraigslist killer?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just makeair quotes for your listeners.
So, yes, um, anyway.
So I um, I wound up getting agig with guy in boston who,
strangely enough, I'd actuallycontacted him a year earlier
because I'm lucky to have somereally wonderful friends in
Newburyport Andre Debusse, whowrote House of Sand and Fog and
(21:16):
a ton of stuff since.
Hello, it turned out that theguy that I auditioned for in
Boston to do audiobooks was thesame guy who produced House of
Sand and Fog.
And I came in and he was justdoing a subcontract for the
Library of Congress.
He wasn't doing commercialbooks, he was doing stuff for
the blind.
So I wound up getting a gig forthe blind.
I was approved to do fictionand nonfiction, so pretty much
(21:40):
the sky was suddenly the limitand I started doing work for him
.
It wasn't big money and itwasn't the main books that were
going out.
I was doing the same books thatother narrators that I know and
work with now were doing forAudible, and I was doing it for
the Library of Congress for theblind.
So what's the expression?
I cut my teeth.
Cut my teeth, that's right.
Yeah, you don't talk about yourteeth.
(22:01):
They get soft like everythingelse.
So basically, I wound up doinga lot of of stuff.
I did like 18 books over thecourse of a year, which at that
time was a lot, and then Ibecame an audiobook listener
because I was training myselfand I did some great books.
You know, while I mean I did abook about f scott fitzgerald
(22:22):
and I did, um, a book about johnwilkes booth and a a lot of
nonfiction stuff, and I did somegreat novels.
So I pretty much trained myself, and then I got myself to a
convention in New York everyyear.
This was in 2009.
At this point I've been workingfor a couple of years, part time
.
I was still working at arestaurant I mean, jesus, I was
(22:42):
almost 50.
And I was back to waitingtables, and so I was even more
excited about doing audiobooksbecause, geez, I mean it was
like come on, shitter, get offthe pot.
My son's favorite expressionnow is pick a lane.
It's like you don't even drive.
You can't say that Anyway.
So I wound up going into NewYork meeting some people.
I was very lucky, but also thefact that Canishack is the best
(23:05):
C word you can say out loudanywhere and it interested
people that might not have beeninterested, but on the other
hand, you know I was 50 yearsold when I went to my first
audiobook convention.
I had been acting since I was 12and teaching since I was 32.
I had acting chops and so theonly things I had to learn about
(23:25):
audiobook that's bullshit.
I had to learn a lot, but I wasstill able to jump in and get
work immediately.
I learned as I went.
You know I teach a lot.
Now I teach one on one audiobookcoaching and there are two
aspects that you teach.
There's the technical aspects,which is the same thing as with
anything don't fall off thestage, you know.
Don't bang into the scenery.
(23:46):
Memorize your lines right.
There's the basic stuff andthen there's the acting.
Then there's the specificitythat you know when you're
reading dialogue in a novel andyou're playing all the parts
without having to do what you doin an acting class and break it
down into what do I want,what's the next beat?
What's the next beat?
Okay, is this character?
What do I want?
But it's coming into animaginary world.
(24:06):
Understanding the nature ofwhat it takes to enter an
imaginary world, I mostly had toslow down because the
difference between talking toyou now and if I were reading an
audio book, I would speak.
Not necessarily like WilliamShatner or Christopher Walken,
necessarily like William Shatneror Christopher Walken, but you
(24:34):
know it takes a lot for someonelike me to slow down and say
once in the village of DumbDoral there was a young man
named blah blah, blah.
You know, it's just like doingimprov and thinking you got to
be funny or you got to keeptalking.
Yeah yeah, the thing about beinga narrator is, you think if you
go too slow people will leave,but if they're in their car
first of all, that would be dumb.
You're where they go rightRight into the left wing.
(24:54):
Fuck you, let's move on.
So there's a lot of technicalthings I had to learn, but I was
able to apply what I knew aboutscene where the arc of it.
You know all of that.
So, as it happened, I startedgetting work right away.
Archival you know all of that.
Um, yeah, so, as it happened, Istarted getting work right away.
And in 2009 it was beforeeverything changed again.
Like in 2009, they were stillsending actors to studios in new
(25:17):
york and paying their way.
I didn't need to have my waypaid because I had plenty of
friends and family in new york,but you know they're paying for
studio time for actors and youknow, yeah, within a couple of
years, they were encouragingevery narrator to get their own
home studio.
Really that early as it becamea hundred million, two hundred
million dollar business.
For instance, right before Istarted narrating audiobooks,
(25:37):
audiobooks were still physicalcopies.
it was before download yeah,yeah, still cd or tape yeah, to
pay 75 bucks for an audiobook,you got to figure how much the
director's getting paid, how,how much the actor's getting
paid.
There's thousands of dollars,at least twice as much as
standard pay.
Now, as soon as it went to adownload.
Now you're paying $15 a yearfor whatever.
You're not buying anything.
(25:57):
So that's kind of.
When I got into the business,within a couple of years of
getting into the business, theysaid get a studio.
And that was great, because assoon as I got my booth, you know
, one company went from sendingme into New York every six weeks
to giving me three, sometimesfour, books a month.
Scott (26:14):
That's how it all started , so from start to finish.
How long does it take tocomplete one?
It depends, yeah.
Peter (26:20):
It depends on everything.
It's like when you're doing aplay.
If all of a sudden you'replaying a Russian cosmonaut, you
want to, you know, infuse asmuch of the character into your
body as you can.
I know that's kind of a weirdanswer, but no, no, I mean I get
it.
Obviously it depends on length.
Let's say, your standard bookis 400 pages.
Okay, depends on the font.
It depends on how much spacethere is.
(26:42):
I mean, those are all littlethings, they're technical things
.
I'd say about a week or two,depending on the length, because
basically what you do is youread the book first.
So let's say it's a 400-pagebook.
A 400-page book is going to beroughly 12 hours of audio.
So while I'm recording book Aat night, I'm generally prepping
(27:02):
book B.
I'm generally reading at nightthe next book I'm going to do,
while at the same time reviewingbook A right before I do it.
Like reading at night the nextbook I'm going to do, while at
the same time reviewing book Aright before I do it, like just
what are the next 10 chaptersI'm recording tonight?
I've already read it, butwhat's?
Oh, okay, this is where thishappens.
The thing about having an audiobook in front of you is.
It's more like a film in someways, because the mic picks up
(27:25):
nuance.
You don't have to use yourwhole voice.
You know your whole body andvoice, as you would for theater.
When you're in a show, the moreyou know about your character,
the better you know your lines,the more spontaneous it feels,
the more fun you have.
Narrating an audio book is notreading, it's performing, it's
storytelling.
You're telling a story.
(27:46):
So when I go back the nightbefore and I say, oh yeah, this
is where he and she have thisthing yeah because you're
playing all the parts.
That's the joy and this is whatI realized as I was narrating
audiobooks is it's like whenyou're doing fiction and you're
narrating a novel.
It's like being in a movie andplaying all the parts.
So when you know the scene wellenough and you know what all
four of those people are doingin that scene, even if one of
(28:08):
them is just standing thereholding a gun, looking around
and guarding everyone, he hasone line.
He still has one thing going onand if he's playing that part,
he's going to have his own thing.
It's basically really fun to bein a movie and play all the
parts.
So the more you know before yourecord it, the more fun you
have.
So that's why, with a reallygood novel, I will review it the
(28:29):
night before, even though Iread the book a week or a week
and a half ago.
So generally what you're doingis you're prepping a novel, but
what you're doing is you'rehighlighting all the dialogue
with different colors so youknow who's talking at any given
time.
Also, whether it's fiction ornonfiction, you're making a list
of questions.
Sometimes there's a restaurant,for instance.
There was a book I was doingwith a restaurant had a French
name, but the restaurant was inNew Hampshire.
(28:51):
So the question was do theypronounce it with a French name
or do they pronounce it likethey're from New Hampshire?
So you learn how to do thingslike that.
You don't take anything forgranted, including the fact that
you think you know what a wordis Chassis.
First time I ever saw the wordchassis, I said chasis.
That's how they spelled thestupid word.
(29:12):
Who came up with that?
Who do you talk to?
It's too late, right?
You're learning about yourlimited or misinformed
vocabulary with every book youdo and with nonfiction.
I may not read it as carefullyas I would.
Fiction I mean.
That doesn't mean I change thewords, but in terms of prep,
when you're looking atnonfiction, nonfiction is
essentially more like acommercial than a movie.
You are selling something, butyou're selling it with the
(29:33):
passion and authenticity of thewriter, because you're
essentially channeling a writer.
It's first person, it's theirbrainchild, whether it's about
marketing Coca-Cola or inventingthe heart-lung machine.
So, basically, when I reviewnonfiction, I'm listening for
the voice of the writer, becausethe only genuine voice in
nonfiction is the writer's voice.
(29:54):
It's going to be your voicebecause you're reading it.
I'm going to be saying, when Idiscovered the Hart-Lund machine
in a cavern in 1802, I didn'ttell anybody because it was 1802
, and I didn't have any friendsyet.
Scott (30:09):
At 600 books.
You've probably said more thanmost people just in general.
Peter (30:14):
Yeah, I had a lot of practice never shutting up.
It was the one thing I could do.
The only thing I ever won inCamp Toll Timber and that's
where a lot of my humiliationtook place in left field.
Most of my humiliation tookplace in left field.
I managed very often during thegame to go so far back that I
could hide in the laundry roomand nobody knew I was gone.
Scott (30:36):
So when you get a contract for a book, do they say
you have X amount of time, oryou just say, oh, I'll take care
of it, and then you get paidper book and it's just up to you
to be speedy about it.
Peter (30:45):
A little of both, but most of the time people want to
know when you're going to startit and when you're going to
finish it.
I tend to work for most of theestablished producers.
There are a lot of people whoproduce their own stuff.
I've done that with a handfulof authors who didn't want to go
through a publishing house.
You know they have something onAudible called ACX and that's
where an author and a narratorcan come together and avoid the
(31:06):
middleman.
So I have an author friend inTokyo.
He's an American who teachesmusic and film in Tokyo and he
writes a series of detectivenovels.
He hired me originally to dohis books, but that is
essentially.
I give him a price which ismore than I get paid by a
publisher, because I'mresponsible for the
post-production as well as justthe narration.
Scott (31:28):
All the editing and everything.
Peter (31:29):
So in that case I'm going to say to him okay, michael, I
can have this book on this dayand for the most part I'll give
him a date that I know I canfinish it by.
But if you're doing it on yourown, you can play around a
little bit.
Right now I'm finishing a bookthat I actually originally was
going to do two weeks earlier,but I switched it around because
you get other stuff do twoweeks earlier.
(31:49):
But I switched it around becauseyou get other stuff like can
you do this, can you squeezethis in?
Yeah, you negotiate, because Iam not one of the most um
successful voice actors inamerica, well known, I mean I
did do a pulitzer prize finalist.
There you go.
I mean, you do occasionallyjust get occasional brilliant
novel.
But you know, if I was doinglike the major stephen king and
the major books that are theirown schedules, then there's a
(32:11):
definite I need to have this bythis date and you make sure you
have it in your schedule.
You just send the files as yougo.
Send the last files by thatdate, yeah, anyway.
So sometimes room to maneuverand sometimes, like, the book
that's due now is due on the31st, so I can't screw around.
So do you have a director?
No, when I used to go to NewYork at the beginning, they were
still hiring directors.
Yeah, once it got to a pointwhere it became less cost
(32:32):
effective, they just hirednarrators who could do their own
stuff.
So that's one of the things Itry to teach narrators is how to
direct themselves.
Scott (32:39):
Obviously be objective about it too.
You know, sit back and listento it.
Peter (32:48):
No, I couldn't to be easy on themselves.
When I started recording, itall came very naturally to me.
It was not like I was 50 yearsold.
You know I've been acting for30 years or more.
It wasn't like everything wasnew.
It was like I have everything.
Like if I knew how to use everysingle tool in the operating
chamber I could probably removea spleen.
(33:09):
But you know, I'm still gonnawant to read the textbook again
first.
Real quick, I didn't get in myown way a lot, yeah, and it was
working out beautifully.
I talked to a lot of narratorswho'll be like I did this one
take like 30 times.
It's like dude, basically whatI do it.
So let's say I have two weeksto do a book.
I record I don't know seven,eight chapters a night,
(33:29):
depending on the length.
I send those chapters to themand then they can start working
on them.
When they get everything, theygo through them, mark up any
mistakes and then just send meback basically an Excel
spreadsheet with the mistakes,with MP3s of what the mistakes
were, so that you can hear itand match it, and then you just
send them a file of correctionsand then they plug them in and
(33:52):
that's it.
So that's 95%.
When you're working for apublisher producer, you're just
sending them the files and thendoing the pickups.
You know, when I produce thebooks myself, then my wife
proves them, she gives me thecorrections and I have to go
back to the original files andsqueeze in and edit those
corrections and then you knowotherwise, someone else is doing
it.
Scott (34:11):
So that's one of my biggest complaints about doing a
podcast.
The editing aspect is justreally really tedious and
intense and I can't imaginedoing books.
Peter (34:20):
Well, I don't do my own editing.
I never did.
I'm not good at technical stuff, but most people do a punch and
roll, which is a lot easierthan what you have to do,
because essentially someaudiobook companies still and I
don't know why they just rollthe whole time and then they go
back and pick their favoritethings and edit it all together
when I'm recording at home.
If I say once upon a time therewas a girl named Goldilocks
(34:43):
whose hair was brown and itwasn't brown, then my son, who
is also an engineer right now,will go back to the previous
sentence, punch me in before themistake, and then I can say
once upon a time the golden,golden, so that was gray.
She was a very strange oldwoman and I don't know why they
called her Goldilocks.
Scott (35:00):
So you do nonfiction fiction.
When I was doing my researchand I was looking up all the
books, you've done a smatteringof children's books as well, and
my daughter at seven years oldwas noticing some of your finer
children's books and has a newfavorite that we have to get she
wants to listen to thefantastic, flatulent Fart
Brothers big book of farty factsthat you read.
Peter (35:23):
Yes, I'm grateful for that because it's very funny
when you live in a bubble andyou think you're it.
When I got this, this wasactually a four-book series.
There was a three-book trilogyabout the Fart Brothers, save
the Day, go to the Moon andsomething else.
But the woman was like I can'tbelieve we got you this book.
This is such a great book, it'sperfect for you.
(35:44):
And I'm like, yeah, it's.
You know, all the surprises arenice, sure, you know, but give
me the book of hearts.
Yes, those are a lot of fun, butif you want an amazing, amazing
book, I think the first coupleof books I ever narrated are
still the best books I've everdone Three kids.
One of them is called TobyAlone and the sequel is called
(36:08):
Toby and the Secrets of the Tree, and I did those books in 2010
was when I really my first yearworking and they are so gorgeous
.
The writer is a french writernamed timothy de fombelle.
It was translated into englishby an italian writer and it is
the most gorgeous, funny,heartbreaking thing I've ever
read in my life, really.
Um, there are 160 some oddcharacters between the two books
(36:31):
.
It all takes place in agigantic tree.
The characters are the size ofants, so to them, the tree is
the universe yeah like the worstbad guy is.
Actually, I think he's a.
I don't know if he's a maggotor a leech or something, but
he's a character who is drainingthe natural resources of the
tree, ripping huge tracts ofbranches and building you know,
(36:54):
and all the dissidents, all theintellectuals who believe the
tree is alive, are being lockedup.
You know, so it's really got alot to say, but it's also
gorgeous.
It's gorgeous, so I think she'dlove it.
It's just a beautiful story.
Scott (37:07):
All right, we'll check it out.
Yeah, is that one of the onesyou're most proud of?
Peter (37:10):
Yeah, and in a way it's and it's not because I'm so good
, it's because the book is sogorgeous and I actually had a
director for that.
That was one of the first booksI did and somehow we did both
books in five days.
We worked like nine hours a day.
Yeah, those are some of theones I'm most proud of.
The Last Policeman trilogy byBen Winters is one of the ones
(37:31):
I'm most proud of.
Unholy Night it's about threecriminals, three wise guys
essentially, who convince threepriests to change places with
them.
I don't know if they convincethem or if they kill them.
They essentially no, they don'tkill them.
Basically, at the beginning ofthe book they switch places with
them in jail.
So the three holy men wind upgetting beheaded and the three
(37:52):
wise guys sneak off dressed aspriests and they're the ones
that find Jesus.
And it's weird, Like they'reall being chased, Jesus and Mary
and Joseph and the camels,Everybody's running and he just
keeps saying there's somethingabout that baby.
So even though it's completelyirreverent, there's some kind of
spiritual essence that keepsfiltering in.
(38:13):
It's also hilarious.
So, anyway, those are some ofthe books I like.
Scott (38:17):
Let's tackle some Caddyshack Ready Chevy Chase,
Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murraywho was the funniest on set.
That's a good question.
Peter (38:24):
You know, Bill Murray was not the funniest on set.
Bill Murray may haveoccasionally been the funniest
on set, but he was alsochallenging.
He really was weird anddifficult, and when he was being
funny it was also often at theexpense of making something or
someone uncomfortable.
Heard that Rodney was exactlywho he was.
Rodney Dainesfield wasconstantly trying out his jokes.
(38:46):
He was very insecure and he was.
There was no's.
No, I mean, he's not an actor.
He didn't transform intoanything in any of his movies,
that's just what he was, but hewas always trying out his jokes.
Um, chevy chase you knowwhoever people complain about
because they have nothing elseto do was extremely charming,
very fun, constantly spontaneous.
(39:07):
He drove some of the otheractors crazy because he was
ad-libbing a lot.
But the only people who weren'treally ad-libbing were, you
know, like Ted Knight, who wasthe most professional, kindest,
gentlest, nicest guy of all, theonly one who took drugs, didn't
smoke, didn't drink, didn'ttake all kinds of vitamins, died
before anybody else, which justgoes to show you.
But Chevy was great, was great.
(39:29):
I played tennis with him a lot.
He was always always veryeasygoing and charming and funny
.
She didn't feel like he was onyeah whereas bill murray always
felt like he was either on orimpassable, like he wasn't.
He wasn't good at like eyecontact and normal friendships.
So it was a little.
Brian murray was a tough guy.
He was hard to get along withbut for the most part everybody
(39:51):
was awesome.
Doug canney, yeah, harold ramus, everybody was awesome.
It was like animal house.
It was just a huge nine weekparty.
It was basically a year afteranimal house.
Scott (40:00):
Animal house was shot in 78 and came out in 79 and yeah,
I was gonna say it was rightabout a couple years after
animal house, I think.
Peter (40:06):
And um or shot in 77 came out in 78, caddyshack shot in
79 came out in 80.
So yeah, it was right on theheels of it.
So those parties were prettycrazy god, it was all apart.
I mean, we worked during the day, we absolutely worked during
the day.
You know, you got up at fouro'clock every morning or stayed
up.
I mostly went to bed first.
You get up at four, you make upby five and you're sitting in a
(40:27):
golf cart.
Yeah, by six, you know.
And but then by five o'clock,you know, you're jumping in a
car with like 20 people goingout to dinner, coming back and
going into a room to play pokerand snort coke or whatever.
I mean, there's always, alwaysstuff going on.
Oh the 80s, oh the 80s.
Scott (40:45):
It was actually 1979, so for me it was yes, all the 79s.
This is one that um, I've beendying to know, um, and if you
can't answer it and or you don'tfeel comfortable answering it,
I get it.
Okay.
Did you ever get to touch mrgopher?
Peter (41:00):
no, no, there was no gopher.
Until they went back theydidn't even know how the how the
movie was going to end.
Yet there's a lot of confusiontoward the end of the movie.
That I knew really.
Um, I actually narrated a bookabout the making of Caddyshack
which you can listen to.
It's all the questions you wantanswered.
It's by a guy named ChrisNashawati.
I'll put it in the show notesthere.
I was actually in the book.
He interviewed me and then Iwound up narrating it.
(41:22):
So the weirdest part was quotingmyself as myself.
My son kept saying you'respeeding up.
Every time I'd do my own voiceI'd be like really fast.
I was like because I talk fast,he's like, yeah, but I don't
know what you're saying.
You know they shot a movie whichwas about the caddies.
But there was so much pressabout the comic stars and the
rivalry between Chevy, chase andBill Murray that there was a
(41:42):
lot of making sure that they gotscreen time.
And by the time Ted, chevy,bill and Rodney got kind of
equal screen time, there was notime to tell the story about the
caddies.
So like Michael O'Keefe's partwas much smaller, anne Ryerson's
part got much smaller.
My brother Tony, the movie wasabout him and Michael O'Keefe
and their rivalry and goingafter Maggie, who's the Irish
(42:05):
girl, and so on.
But that whole storyline gotscrapped because there wasn't
enough room for it and so theywent back to la and shot all of
the gopher stuff.
So I never even saw the fuckinggopher, which is fine, because
when I saw it in the movie Ithought it was funny yeah,
that's awesome.
Scott (42:19):
Um, when, when you heard that, uh, caddyshack 2 was
coming out maybe pre-productionfor it were you interested in
being in it, and then, once itcame out, were you like, fuck,
no, I didn't ever want to be inthat movie exactly yes and no.
Peter (42:32):
I wrote to them probably every other week because we
didn't have computers right thiswas 1981.
I wrote to the productionoffice in la every like couple
of weeks saying hey guys, didyou get my letter?
I can be in kind of check too,if you want yeah I'll be, I'm
available.
I don't see, I think I'm goingto be free when you shoot it.
Nobody even wrote back and Ithought, well, that's kind of
sucky.
(42:53):
I mean, at least say thanksanyway.
But then when I saw howhorrible it was, I was like,
yeah, fuck you guys.
Good, fuck you.
It's so bad Because I'm such anenlightened soul.
Scott (43:05):
Oh yeah, that could have crippled the rest of your career
.
Peter (43:07):
That's it.
Yeah, exactly.
At least I got in and out on ahigh point.
Scott (43:11):
Yeah, well, you know, I mean, then you had mini balls,
then we shot mini balls and youknow that was fun.
Well, peter, it has beenawesome catching up with you.
It's been too long, my friend.
When did we shoot that movie?
It had to be 15 years ago,2006-ish, maybe.
Yeah, so like 18 years, that'sinsane.
I mean, you look fantastic,first of all for 65.
(43:32):
But anyway, man, this has beenawesome.
Thank you so much for takingthe time and keep us posted on
how you're doing.
And again, it was greatcatching up with you.
Peter (43:41):
It was great talking nonstop.
Scott (43:43):
Take care, my friend.
Yeah, pleasure, look at me.
Peter (43:49):
I look like Gandalf, but you don't have the wrinkles.
You look like a young Gandalf.
Young Gandalf would still belike 50.
Scott (43:55):
I'm Botox, gandalf.
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