Actor Reed Diamond Returns to the Show to Discuss New Film "Drop", Fun Stories on Set & More!

Episode Transcript
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THEME SONG (00:05):
Heavy stars, rock and rolling through the cool
guitars shops got the questionsdigging so sharp, feeling back,
layers hitting the heart.

Reed Diamond (00:20):
Yeah. The Rankin and bass. Those are the best.
Those are our holiday favorites.
So, I mean, but my favorite oneis probably the second one.
Santa Claus is coming to town,but they're all, they're all
pretty good. And then they'vegot some crazy it's always fun
to, like, try to find thebecause I'm much older than you,
because I would see them whenthey originally came out, except
for Rudolph, which slightlypredates me. But then the rest
all came out of my lifetime. Butthey have like, Easter Bunny

(00:42):
ones, and then they've got somethey've got two really crazy
Halloween ones that are superfun.

Chuck Shute (00:50):
Oh, that's cool. I love the what is it? Robot
Chicken. I had the eyes on therethat he's got some new show.
It's like an Easter Bunny thing.
But, yeah, that show. Have youseen that? Because that's like,
that claymation, but it's likea, oh yeah,

no, of course.
Because it was like, peoplealways want to emulate it,
because it was, it was kind ofmagical that they were able to
do it. And it's still, there'sstill the songs are fantastic.
And they got all these amazingfilm you got all these amazing
character actors, but then youalso have, you'll have Fred
Astaire do the narrator. You'llhave in Mickey Rooney. So you've
got all these great people fromthe Golden Age, Gene Kelly. You

(01:25):
have these amazing people do thevoices and play sort of
characters on it. But then thestop motion animation is pretty
magical, and I can only imaginehow painstaking they turn those
things out. They were able to doa bunch of them and and the just
the design, and, yeah, it stillholds up. But they're scary.
There's, there's some scarymoments, because also when we

(01:47):
had to watch them, when I was akid, that was a back in the day
before VCRs and all that. So itwas all appointment television.
So you knew when Rudolph was on,and you knew when Santa Claus
was coming. And you sat there at830 and you watched it, and then
the commercial breaks werereally scary, like the winter
Warlock, who was Ed because hewas keen. And when Edwin's kid
the Cowardly Lion, and he was,No, that's different. That's the

(02:11):
other one. But he was, he wasamazing, so, but he's very scary
winter. And then he come backand he they warmed his heart.
And he got his first Christmaspresent, and we sing all the
songs. And then, of course, yougotta love heat miser and and
cold miser from the a yearwithout a Santa Claus. If you
need, you know, I know weweren't signing up to do the

(02:31):
rank and bass history tour. Ineed to

go back and watch those. Yeah? Because I just, I
don't know if I've seen a fullepisode, I've definitely seen
the clips and stuff, and thespoofs and all right,

you have kids? No, oh yeah. Well, that's if

I have kids. I want to go through and watch all
this. I've missed so many kidsI've never seen what's the one
that everyone the do you want tobuild a snowman? I don't. I've
never seen that movie Frozen.
Oh, everyone talks about it. I'mlike, I've never seen

it. But do you? Do you watch all the Pixar movies,

hit or miss? Yeah.
I mean, I, I've seen, I thinkI've seen all the toy stories.
Those are brilliant. In fact,those are the best three. Yeah,
even Quentin Tarantino, whichis, like, not the thing to go to
bat for that. She said, this isthe movie of the year.

Oh, no, there. I mean, Joss Whedon wrote the
first one. He wrote Toy Story.
Like, okay, yeah. Like, so inhis in the world of things, he's
written alien movies and all ofhis series, he also wrote Toy
Story. Toy Story is magical. Andthose performance because the
Pixar thing, especially in theold days, and when you know Toy
Story was, I guess, really, thething that put every put them on
the map. But they had this sortof company edict that they

(03:36):
wouldn't make the movie untilthe script was there until the
story was there, which is soimportant. So those stories,
they're flawless. The scriptsare flawless. And then that's
and that's really true of anygood piece of art. You know, the
old adage that we say all thetime, it's not on the page, it's
not on the stage, and you need,you need that. You need the
script to be tight and ready togo. And those things were so

(03:56):
good, and so many great vocalperformances. And, yeah, I mean,
all the toy stories aremagnificent, yeah, I

had a buddy in high school, and he was like, really
into Disney and animation,right? So good. And he told me,
he's like, You got to go see ToyStory. And I was like, Toy
Story, that's like, a kidsmovie. I'm like, 17, you know?
And I'm like, All right, I guessI'll take my little brother to
go. And we were both like, wow,this is really good. Like, we
did not expect it absolutely,

because I think the best kids entertainment is
works for all ages. So yeah,things hit you on different
levels, because that's the storythere. So as a child, you can
just enjoy the things that arethe bells and whistles and the
shiny things that are going tocapture your young attention.
But yeah, the real the classics,are good for all ages, and
they're good for all time. But Ithink that's the mark of any

(04:43):
great piece of art, is that it'snot just interesting when it
comes out, but that you canwatch it 10 years later, and
watch it 20 years later, and itstill has an impact, and that
impact will be different everytime you watch it.

Yeah, that's true.
And then some stuff you see whenyou're a kid, and you're like,
This is the greatest movie ever,and then you try to shoot. Out
to somebody, and they're like, Idon't get this. Like, why do you
think? But I don't know. It'sdifferent meanings for different
people. I think it's differentif you saw it when you were a
kid, like a lot of those 80smovies, like the show my
girlfriend Goonies, and I waslike, I don't know if she really
appreciate the way I did as akid. No,

it's so that's so perfectly put because some of
them just resonated becausewhere you were hormonally or
developmentally, and that moviehit you another way. And then
some of those movies are greatfor all time. We used to my wife
and I would go through that. Wewould show her our daughter all
the movies from the 70s and the80s that we love, yeah? And
you'd see what held up. Tootsieholds up like, Tootsie is always

(05:39):
a great movie, right? And thensome of the other movies that I
loved, you're like, Oh yeah,it's a little dated. It doesn't
really hold up. And it's fundated. Well, I mean, there's, I
mean, so many movies, but Imean, if you're talking about,
like, 80s movies that everyonesaw that, you know, obviously
Back to the Future totally holdsup. A solid movie, that's a
solid movie, but it'sinteresting, and the Scorsese

(06:01):
movies all hold up. And myfavorite movie of all time is
Dog Day Afternoon, Pacino andCharles Durning. And it's just,
it's, it's spectacular, and thatholds up. But it's funny, what
some of them, there's a bunchthat don't hold up. And
certainly a lot of movies fromthe 90s don't hold up, but maybe
they will. They'll come aroundagain. But, I mean, I mean, I
think that's the mark of greatart. That's what I was thinking

(06:23):
about. We just had Oscar season,and I'm, I'm always intrigued
and drawn to the movies that Igo, Oh, I'm going to watch that
movie again in 10 years, and I'mgoing to watch that movie in 20
years. Like Sean Baker, youknow, the onora winning Best
Picture, that was amazing,because that guy's a filmmaker.
I want to

get your take on that, because I, I was actually,
we were in LA for the Oscars. Wegot closes the fence, you know,
to looking, but we can, we sawthe red carpet and stuff. We saw
people getting out. I think theywere just like, you know, no
offense. Like they were kind ofno name, people getting out of
the because I think the realstars went through some secret
entrance. But of course, we'retalking to this bartender, and
he was saying at this point,we're just, we'd watch a lot of

(07:01):
on TV, and then we're like, youknow, checking in on know,
checking in on our phones, andwe said, oh and Nora won. He was
like, Oh yes, I love that movie.
Like, wow, this thing must bereally good. So I watched it. I
didn't get it. I didn't think itwas terrible, but I was like,
this is the best picture. Ididn't understand. So explain it
to me. Why is it so good? Okay,

so esthetically, my favorite, I'll go backwards
on this. My favorite period offilmmaking were the films of the
70s, right? So those you gotSydney, Lumet and Martin
Scorsese, and bringing in thisnew esthetic of where you could
tell a story that it looked itseemed like real life. You had
these actors who were given verybelievable performances. But it
also could be funny and be real,but it had all the colors of

(07:40):
human life. It just wasn't justblack and white, just wasn't one
note, one level. And Nora hasall of that you don't know what
it is you think, you think youknow this. That's what I love
about it. It's, first of all,he's just an amazing filmmaker.
I don't know if you had thechance to see any of his other
films, but

it reminded me What else did

he direct? So the one that just, my gosh, it's
going to come to me. Yeah, hehad a great movie that just came
out two years ago before this.
And then he did the tangerinethe movie shot completely on an
iPhone, which is spectacular.
Oh, the Florida project, ofcourse. And then, oh, red
rocket. So I think it's calledRed Rocket, and that's an

(08:19):
amazing movie. Just incredibleperformances, the mixture of
actors and non actors andstories that you don't know
where it's going to go and youhaven't seen before, and very
original filmmaking. I mean,he's a master with and he does
everything right. He edits, hefilms, he directs, he casts
them. And the casts are alwaysspectacular. All the actors are

(08:40):
flawless. And what I love abouta Nora is when you show up,
you're used to the movie trope,and you go, Oh, it's she's gonna
meet a prince, and her life,she's gonna live happily ever
after, and then the movie goesin a completely different
direction. And this character,who seems like sort of an
ancillary side character, endsup being sort of the hero, you
know, and just a really specialguy and all these deep layers,

(09:02):
but you can just see, youbelieve it's happening, but you
don't know where it's going. Andthat's what I'm always looking
for in a movie, is to besurprised and to not know what's
happening, and to have and alsofor something real, some truth
to be illuminated. It'sinteresting, not interesting.
But I mean, just I read a lot,and it's very different when I

(09:25):
pick up, like, say, a Steinbecknovel, or if I pick up Hemingway
or Kurt Vonnegut, or whatever itis, the second you pick it up,
you know you're in good hands,and you don't. And it's funny
talking about going back, I haveHemingway novels that I read, or
Vonnegut novels that I readevery five to 10 years, and I
read it over, and it's like, asif I've never read it before,
because it's so it transcendssort of time, and it reflects

(09:45):
where you are in your currentlife. You have a different
reaction to it. But I can pickup a airport novel, which is
basically just watching anepisode of just regular network
television, and you read it,you're like, Yeah, I enjoy. I
went on a ride. It was a story,but I didn't learn anything. Um.
Hmm, and I probably I wouldnever return to it again. So I
think with something like Nora,this is a movie that I'll enjoy

(10:06):
10 years from now, 20 years fromnow, I think it will stand the
test of time. It won't seemdated, you know, because the
year before, we had anatomy of afall, the French film, and then
we had a zone of interest, themovie about the family, yeah, I
saw both those and they wereamazing. In both those movies,
you're just like, I'm gladthey're doing well, because

(10:27):
you're gonna, you're gonna watchthose movies forever. But
they're, they're and, I mean,zone of interest is so fast. I
mean Jonathan Glazer, I meanthat talk about a filmmaker. I
mean that guy prepares for sevenyears to make that movie, right?
And what's so cool about zone ofinterest is they figured out a
way to put cameras in the wallsso there was no crew, there was
nothing so the actors could justmove from room to room and just
live for 10 minutes or 20minutes and and he just gave

(10:50):
them the most sort of basicoutline of what to do. I mean,
as an actor, that's exciting,because you go, I would love to
be part of a process like that,and then as an audience member,
it just creates an intimacy, arealism that and also you don't
know where that story is going,and it's a very original voice

(11:11):
and a very original way to tellthat story. So that's what I'm
looking for as an audiencemember. And sometimes, you know,
I'm fortunate enough to be onprojects that where the scripts
there and the cast is there.
Drop is one of those. The show,the movie I've got coming out
next week is one of those whereit was just meant to be and the
cast is spectacular. In thescript, I didn't know where it

(11:34):
was going to go, and it's a funand exciting ride. So you

say about that I saw, because there's two
trailers. The first one, yeah, Idon't think they show you, and
then the second one, they showyou as, like, one of the
suspects. Because what it saysthe guy says to the girl is, he
says, You can't send the youcan't AirDrop something unless
you're within 50 feet. So it'sgot someone in this restaurant.
Then it shows your face, andlike, two other people, they're
like, somebody's a bad guy here.
So, well,

there's a lot of people in the restaurant. It's a
really, really well constructedthriller. And the script was
great. And then Chris Landon,who directed it, is also an
amazing writer, so all of histweaks just upped and, you know,
raised rose the stakes rose witheach iteration. Because
sometimes when you get the next,when you get the blue pages, the
pink pages, the different, youknow, additions of script
rewrites, sometimes it can gogets worse and worse and worse.

(12:24):
So it's always nice to be ableto get better and better and
better and tighter and tighter.
And he had such a strong vision.
And what's so cool about talkingabout process and how we shot
it, they built a wholerestaurant. So they built
really, so, so we shot themovie. Oh, so it's, it was an it
was a dream come true. So themovie, they built the one of the
most amazing sets I've ever beenin. So a real, practical

(12:47):
restaurant. They built it astory and a half off the ground
in a in a stage in in Ireland.
So everything's real. All thelighting is practical.
Everything works. The meals arehappening. So we were there for
six weeks or whatever, inshooting the all the stuff that
occurred in the dining room, andwe shoot it all sequentially,
which is amazing too, whichalmost never happens. So we just

(13:07):
go from page one of the scriptto the end of the script, and we
shoot it in there. And soeverything is so well
coordinated. People, you know,some people are on their
appetizers, some people arehaving dessert. The food is all
real. The food is amazing.
Brandon sclennar, the male leadof the movie, who's delightful,
and he, he actually had the guy,he took some of those stakes

(13:28):
home because they were so goodand but it was,

what happens to that set after the like, what do
they do with that? Well,

it's interesting because some sets, it's so
beautiful, right? I Theysometimes store them and they
hold on to them in case there'sa sequel. But I don't imagine
they'll need that restaurant setagain. I don't know you could
literally build a restaurant. Imean, it was and all the lights
were practical, all the tablesreal. Everything was real. It,
which is also really fun as anactor, because, you know, in

(13:59):
this age of green screen or bluescreen, and all of the superhero
Marvel movies where you'reacting to a piece of tape, it's
really nice to have the less Ihave to make up in my
imagination, the more fun andthe easier it is to do my job,
the easier it is to be in thatspace and to really believe it's
happening.

So when she falls out the window, is that a green
screen, or is that just a set oflike that, like that looks like
buildings and stuff? Or how dothey do that? Because

that's true. Well, yeah, I mean, I don't want to
give away too much. I mean, Iknow it's in the trailer, but
it's, it's all real.
Everything's, they have lightsthere have lights out there, and
which is nice too, because it'sinteresting. I was very
fortunate that my first moviewas this movie called Memphis
Belle, about a B 17 bomber crewin the Second World War. And so
that we shot that in 1989 andthat was before any of these

(14:48):
effects. So we literally, wewent to England. They got five
real functioning B seventeensthat were still flying. So they
got two from England, one fromthe United States. Two from
France. I think it was they weregoing and so when we did the
aerial fight, combat fights, Iliterally went up one day in, in
a b 17, in my position, the toptour, and they had German

(15:09):
messerschmitts, real Germanmesserschmitts flying in, and
I'm firing blanks at them. Andso you're really doing it. And
then even on, like, when theplanes crash, they built, like
1/8 scale models that could fly.
So we were at this air base,this Royal Air Force Base, in
the north of England, inLincolnshire. And so they're

(15:29):
literally, so that's sort ofthat forced perspective, like
they used to do in the oldmovie. So we have our plane, big
plane, and then you just put asmaller plane that can actually
fly just a little bit behindyou, but it looks like it's a
lot more behind you. And youcan't tell you can't tell the
difference. It's funny. We werejust flying here to California
for the premiere, and we were onAir Canada, and they had Memphis
Belle on the plane, and my wifewent ahead and watched it, and I

(15:51):
was just dazzled, because Iremember everything about it,
because it was my first film. Soevery moment is etched forever
in my soul. And that's notalways the case with all the
jobs you do, but it was so coolto see how all of the effects,
because they're not effects holdup. It looks real and it has, it
has a tactile realism to it thatjust affects you in a different

(16:12):
way. Because when I see CGI,it's amazing what they can do
these days. But when it lookslike a cartoon, sometimes that
takes you out of, and thisdoesn't, and we did this really
cool thing. And it wasn't myidea. The director had this
brilliant idea. They built awhole B 17 bomber on a stage,
Pinewood Studios, the James BondStudios in London, or outside of

(16:32):
London, and so that thedimensions were real. And it was
inspired, obviously, by Doc'sboot, where they really, you
know, had the dimensions ofbeing in a submarine, because
prior to that, anytime you'dseen someone filmed in an
airplane, there's all this weirdroom where the camera can be,
and he just made it so that youhad that claustrophobia that you
would feel in those planes,because they're very they're

(16:54):
basically, it's 10 guys in therejust defending bombs. That's all
your job is. And the the skin ofthose things is so thin it's not
going to stop a bullet. And sothen the camera had to find ways
to get it so you felt thoughthat scale, and it really works,
and it really holds up. So withdrop, having everything real and
having a real outside you,there's no way when you were

(17:15):
there that you didn't think youwere in a restaurant, and on all
the patrons were so they werejust delightful. All of the
Irish crew was amazing. And soit was sort of a dream come
true, and it came about in sucha magical way. Last year was the
20, my 20th wedding anniversary,and my wife and I both got
married. Well, we both were wegot married together. We got

(17:35):
married in Ireland 20 years agolast year, and so we were
planning on going and and theway this job came about was so
magical for me, because on aMonday morning I called my
manager. I've just come offdoing a TV show playing my sort
of stock horrible, whitebusinessman murderer, serial
killer, basically, where I playlike, I always play like, some

(17:56):
sort of iteration of JeffreyEpstein or Bernie Madoff, right?
This is that's been the last Iwas

just watching, uh, I was like, I gotta watch
something he's done. So Iwatched you in the purge. And I
was like, that's that it is.
Again, like this richbillionaire, evil guy, like a
millionaire, I don't know,lovable

douche bag, whatever it is, but always like
doing a Ponzi scheme or just andthen I meet, I either create
someone's horrible end, or meeta horrible end. And I just call,
I just come off playing justanother Jeffrey Epstein, and I
said to my I call my manager andI go, I gotta play something
else, you know? I i There's, I'dlike to play somebody like me,
maybe not someone cool, maybesomeone slow, because I was
playing like guys in Hugo Bosssuits or decks, right? And,

and that's not like you, though, if you listen to
interviews and stuff like you'renot like that at all, and we
know

each other. We've done this before and Exactly.
And I was like, I'd love to playsomeone more like me, someone
vulnerable, just a regular guywhere I don't have to worry
about, you know, being all slickand looking good. And that was a
Monday morning on, I think bythat afternoon, she presented me
with this character in drop,who's just this schlubby, and
they weren't even going to seeme because he's this sort of a

(19:01):
shlubby, frumpy guy and sadsack. And I go, this is perfect.
This is exactly what I want todo. I had the job and then, but
then I go, it's shooting inIreland. I'm never going to get
it, and it's starring MeganFahey. And funny thing about
this, there's only three actorsin my life that I've ever seen
in something. And I go, I haveto work with them. And I've

(19:22):
worked with all three of them.
The first one was MalcolmMcDowell. I remember seeing
Malcolm McDowell in A ClockworkOrange, and I was like, I have
to work with him. And all theseyears later, I work, I do four
seasons of Franklin and bashwith him. And the highlight of
that show is just getting tospend every day with Malcolm and
hearing stories. And then theother one was Kevin mckid, when
I saw him in Rome and and I waslike, I have to play his

(19:43):
brother. And my wife's like, youhave to play his brother. And
two years later, we playedbrothers on an NBC show called
Journey man. And I haven't had,there's lots of actors I want to
work with, but there's not onewhere I go, I have to work with
them. And I saw Megan in thesecond season of white lotus,
and I go, there was somethingabout I was like, I have to work
with her. It's just, there'ssomething she's I just want to
work with her. So I get thisaudition where it's shooting in

(20:03):
Ireland. So this would be my theyear of my 20th wedding
anniversary. So I get a trip toIreland, and it's starring Megan
Fahey. I was like, and it's thisshluppy character where they're
just, I don't, they didn'treally see me, and they're like,
he can put himself on tape if hewants to. And I had the job
three days later, and so, and itnever did you enough audition I
did, no, I had to put myself ontape, because they were like, he
can put himself on tape, but wedon't see him as this. He's not

(20:26):
this shlubby guy. And I justwanted to do it and and they
liked it. And three days later,we were all set, and I'm in a
movie with Megan Fahey, andwe're going to shoot it in
Ireland. So I got to bring thewhole family over for two
months, and we got to go back tothe place where we got married
in the west of Ireland, and samefamily runs it, and stayed there
for a while, and it was great.
So it was a, it was a, it was amagical mitzvah, that it all

(20:50):
came together and on and on amovie where I was just so
excited, and everyone wasfantastic, and the Irish crews
were through the roof, becauseit's one of those. I mean, the
Irish I love. Obviously, I gotmarried there. I've spent a lot
of time there. I really loveIreland, and I love the Irish,
and it was so lovely to workwith such an amazing crew, where
everyone on the crew had readthe script, and so they're

(21:10):
invested in it. And it's justand we, we shot in a very
civilized manner. We shot theFrench hours. So you just come
in at a reasonable time in themorning, and you leave at a
reasonable time every day. Andbecause Chris was such an
amazing director and and we wereahead of schedule, I think we
finished a week early, which isunheard I've never been on
anything that's done. Why was

it filmed in Ireland? Because it doesn't take
place there. It takes place inAmerica, right? Yeah,

it's, well, Ireland's a big I mean,
obviously this is, you know,something that's getting dealt
with right now. But, I mean,Ireland is just so much stuff
gets shot there. They haveamazing studios. They've got
amazing crews, and it's cheaper,really, to bring your cast over
and shoot it there right now,with the with the tax benefits,
is the reason. I mean, my wifehas a huge career up in in

(21:54):
Toronto, in Canada, there's areason half your shows are shot
in Canada, since it's taxbreaks, you can get local
actors, British actors, you canget people in there a lot
cheaper. And, yeah, that's, Imean, I just saw Rob Lowe talk
about it on a podcast with AdamScott. They were saying, he
said, It's cheaper to shoot awhole show in Ireland and then

(22:16):
to get your crew to walk acrossthe fox lot at this point. Wow.
And I think, I think that'sgoing to change, I mean, and I
hope it changes, because Ireally, I love, I love working
in Los Angeles, love working inHollywood, I love working in the
States. And I certainly think,like, that's a lot of that's
come back, but it just theypriced it out. I mean, the
message, yeah, I alwayswondered,

because I'm in Arizona, right? I know there's a
bunch of stuff going on in NewMexico. Oh, you shot better,
which we can now. We can talkabout couldn't last time because
you hadn't done it, but, oh,that's so funny. Why are they
bypassing us to go one stateover? Like, somebody needs to
give the tax breaks in Arizona.
But I think maybe there's peoplethat are like, we have enough
tourists here. Like we don'tneed more. Yeah, I

think you have to see if it's worth it. I mean,
yeah, the New Mexico thing isunbelievable. Netflix built
these insane studios on the topof a mesa out there, and you can
see it from a distance. Xanaduup there. It's just on these
Mesa, and it's those, the mostbeautiful studios I've ever
seen. Well, the tax breaks havejust have changed the business.

(23:20):
I mean, for a decade, I think Ishot everything in New Orleans
because Louisiana, or inLouisiana because they had given
these crazy tax breaks, and theystill have them, but it'd be
hilarious because, because Ialways play these rich douche
bags. And so you shoot, I'veonly shot in New Orleans once,

(23:40):
for it to be New Orleans. Andhave you been to New Orleans?

Yeah, one time, it was amazing. It was so cool. I
want to go back. It's so

cool. But the thing about New Orleans is New
Orleans looks like New Orleans.
It doesn't look like anywhereelse in the world. So it doesn't
and I've gone there a couple oftimes to play like a guy who
lives in Beverly Hills, and so Ihave literally, on four shows,
had the exact same house,because it's the only house
there that looks like and thensomebody I just walked in, like,
I know where everything is. I'mnot all go downstairs, just up

(24:09):
there. I'll be hanging out inthe pool room. So, but it so the
tax credits are, I mean,interesting, and that's what I
mean with Marvel. Everything'sin Georgia.

Yeah, it is interesting when you talk about
the same house, because I reckonI love there. I have a friend
who who's really into this, butI love it too. I'm kind of an
amateur going to filminglocations. And, yeah, start
recognizing in commercials evenyou'll be like, wait a minute,
I've seen that. There's arecord. I forget what it's
called, but I went there. It'slike, 45 minutes outside of LA
and they so much stuff there.
And you can go there, andyou'll, like, you'll and then

(24:42):
you see the commercial or show,you're like, Oh, I recognize
that place. There's a lot ofthings like that,

yeah, what was the restaurant? I'm

trying to, I'm trying to, I don't remember the
the name, but I think, God,they've shot in so much stuff
there. And then there's anotherone that's like, it's like, a
hotel, gas station, restaurant.
And I think I want to say wasit, was it Jim Cummings that
just did his, uh, one of hismovies there. It's in so many
things. We drove up there, andthere's actually a security
guard like, protect, of course,if so many of these Instagram
people that want to, you know,document and stuff. I mean,

(25:14):
people are getting really intothat stuff, because it is really
cool to see the stuff in reallife. I mean, even the Statue of
Liberty, like, the first time Isaw that, it was surreal,
because I'm like, I've seen thisin so many movies and TV shows
and like, and then it's like, itwas actually bigger than I
thought. For some reason,

the Statue of Liberty, yeah, yeah, yeah, you
can climb up inside it,correcting the tie. I know,

I think you have to book it, like, a month in
advance. I didn't. I wasn'tsmart enough to do that. But
next time, yeah, it'sspectacular,

and it's also just fun. Did you go out there? Did
you go out to Liberty Island?

Yeah, yeah, went out to the island. Got up to,
like, the base of it, I think.
But then if you want to goinside, you have to book it. And
then if you want to go up to theI don't even think they allow
you to go up to the head thetorch or whatever anymore. They
used to, but now it's you can'tdo that or something. Yeah, we

were just there, my daughter and I went up there.
I don't think we got into thetorch because they were redoing
were redoing it, but it'samazing because I saw there when
I was a kid in this you lived inNew York, right? I grew up there
I was. I lived in, I lived inManhattan, from zero to about 24
and when I went there in the70s, it was, it had not been
maintained. And what it was, itwas terrifying. So you've got
the outer shell of of LadyLiberty, but inside, it's just

(26:21):
empty. And they had these weirdsort of like wrought iron spiral
staircases, and you would justbe exposed. And I remember and
wide gaps, of course, like no,no, OSHA, no safety, no, you're
not thinking about anything. AndI remember being there as a kid,
just terrified, because youthought you were going to fall
through. And it's interestinggoing back, because now it's all

(26:42):
been it's quite lovely to go tothe top, and everything's safe.
And I saw one of the old spiralstaircases, and I had a funny
encounter with one of theRangers, going, like, that's
what it all was like, and it wasabsolutely terrifying. I just
did not want to go to the top,but now it's quite user
friendly, but it's such abeautiful you know, you just,
you did the best part, though. Igoing inside the Statue of
Liberty is awesome. But justgetting that VISTA of Manhattan

(27:04):
and lower Manhattan from thewater, there's nothing like it.

And, yeah, I love, I love New York. I was only been
there one time for like, fivedays, but we tried to do as much
stuff as we could. Went toCentral Park and, yeah, went on
to the the big piano from themovie, big the toy store,
whatever, like, all the touristystuff. It was great. I loved it.

Oh, it's great.
And it's, yeah, I mean, so manymagical locations there, and
just iconic, yeah, I love goingback in Central Park. And it's
nice too. It's always nice when,because I grew up in the in the
bad old days where, you know,there was no grass in Central
Park, and if, and you didn'twant to be there after sundown,
and I was many times, and badthings happen, but now it's so
gorgeous, and Belvedere Lake andBelvedere Castle and

(27:45):
everything's been it's just,

are they cleaning it back up again? Because I
went, like, 10 or 15 years ago,and it was like it was fine,
like we didn't have any trouble.
Now I'm seeing things likepeople are saying, Oh, it's
terrible again, the crime, thehomelessness, the drug,
whatever. I don't know if it'sdidn't feel bad.

I mean, it didn't, nothing will compare to the old
days. But also the old days weremagical, because that's also, as
we, you know, going full circleback to the

punk scene. Was there and stuff. There was a lot
of grit that was kind of neat,yeah,

because you could only have all of that great art
that came out of that town. Oh,you know the punk scene, the New
York punk scene, the art scene,the New York Film stuff, if the
city, because, you know, guyscould afford to have a Soho loft
for $500 buy the whole thing,right? Things there's now where
all this fancy shopping is inthe meat packing district and
all that you could just, artistscould live there. Artists could

(28:35):
live in New York. I mean, thatwas the thing that's changed.
And I don't know where we'regoing and where we're heading,
but my dad's still in thebuilding that I grew up in, and
it was all just middle class.
Just middle class and workingclass families could afford to
live in that building, right?
That's in that wholeneighborhood. We lived in a
neighborhood, and so you it waslike a small town you're
building, and all kinds ofpeople from all you know, from
lower class, middle class,working class to upper class,

(28:57):
obviously, could live in thecity together, and that's
changed. But, yeah, that artscene, and it's so cool, that
Criterion Collection this month,I think, is running like, one of
their features is like New Yorkwhen it was down, you know, the
late 60s, in the early 70s, whenit had gone bankrupt, and all
the art that was made there andcapturing that. And for me,
that's still, that's still,because I think you always, you

(29:19):
always see things the way yousaw them as a child. So that's
still my image of New York. Soit's always it's very foreign to
me when I go there, andeverything's clean and shiny and
safe, and there's the High Lineand beautiful and in a weird
way, like texturally. I'm soglad I grew up there then,
because it was, it was this.
There was so much art and musicand punk scene, CBGBs and all
that, and all that, and all myfavorite bands that came out of

(29:40):
there. And also, this is also apre internet thing, and also the
Instagram ification of the worldhas changed everything. But what
was so cool still about the 70sand the early 80s was you could
have scenes because things hadto, you know, information had to
transfer by word of mouth, oryou'd glean something in a
month. Magazine. So you couldhave a music scene in

(30:00):
Minneapolis, and you could havea music scene in Chicago, and
you could have a music scene inthe Lower East Side of New York,
and it took a while for them tobreak. So people got really good
and got their chops togetherbefore they broke
internationally. Now, you know,I can, you can post something
today on YouTube, and everyone,you know, billions, you know,
billion people are going to seeit. So it and things could be
cool and get cool. And, youknow, you could be that snob is

(30:23):
like, cool. I remember thembefore they went big. I saw them
at, you know, the gymnasium,right, you know. And I did. I
remember seeing REM, you know,because there was that whole
Georgia music scene around theAthens scene. And I saw them in
small, a small moon basketballgyms. And then, you know,
suddenly they're playing arenas.
And that's also because I knowyou're really into music, yeah,

and I grew up in Seattle in the 90s, and right,
it's definitely a music scenethat was going on, and

that's and I remember getting there. I
remember getting there rightbefore all of that stuff went
down. And you're just going,like, Oh, you want to go see my
friend's band. I'm like, I don'twant to go see and I'm sure it
was probably sound garden. AndI'm like, I wish I'd gone right,
because you

would have seen back then. I was like, Oh, I
don't know. I'm not really thatinto him. Now. I go, God, I miss
so many great shows. It's sostupid.

And my caveat now is only to go see shows in small
venues. So small

venues shows, those are the best well, because it's
because what am I have sidestage. Like, I my buddy. He's he
plays guitar with BrettMichaels. He's like, Yeah, and
so I get to watch side stage.
And I'm like, D Snyder came upand he's right there. I'm like,
wow, this is cool. Like, if youeither have that or small venue,
I don't want to be in thenosebleeds in an arena, that's,
I'd rather just stay home andwatch it on YouTube. I

saw the pictures of you at Brett Michaels with D
Snyder. I was very jealous, bythe way, yeah, come on, man. I
have never, I've never had thegood fortune for side stage, but
I agree. Well, connections, Imean, we've, I've gotten good
seats from, you know, every oncein a while with a connection,
but I've never done side stage.
I'd like to do it, but becausemy caveat is, if I have to watch

(31:58):
the screen to see the band.
There's no point in going, Yeah,I know, you know,

it's like, when I I saw, I went and saw Paul
McCartney. And I was like, okay,like, you know, this is Paul
McCartney. I gotta pay for agood ticket. So we paid for,
like, kind of, like, not, youknow, first 20 rows, but I was
maybe, like, 100 rows, butyou're still, you're watching
the screen. I was like, youknow, I should have just paid
for the nosebleed. What's I'mwatching the screen? It's,
what's it? Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And it was also, it was funny too, talking
about the old days. It was also,so, there's three, there's
three. Three things that I want.
First of all, if I go see a liveshow, I want it to be a live
show. So I want, I want it tonot be. I don't want to hear you
do the album. And, you know,just, do you just, I want it. I
want something that happenshere, this transference of
energy between the band and theaudience that is only happening

(32:43):
that night, you know, because Iremember, you know, no, there's
the solo. Was never the same,right? I don't want the same
canned banter. I want. And Iwant mistakes. I want craziness.
I want I want the reason to beat a live show is something
unique is happening singularlythat evening. I want that. I
don't want to look at the bigscreen, and I also don't want to
pay $1,000 I remember before,before everything got jacked up.

(33:07):
I remember Van Halen wereplaying on the mean streets tour
at the Garden in New York,because I saw all my first shows
of the garden, and I got online,and I got great seats to see Van
Halen for like, $16 right? $16each, right, and, and you have
to

camp out to get because that was the thing back
in the days, like you wouldn'tgo online. You had to go to the
box office, and sometimes theshows would sell out quick. So
people would like camp out, or,you know, get there real early
and it'd be a big, long line.
Did you have to do that to getthe tickets? I

think we got there before it opened, but we weren't
there overnight, and we stillhad decent seats. And, you know,
we weren't going to be able toget the best seats, but like, 13
to $16 got you a really goodseason Van Halen show. So, and
that's the thing like, becausethere's no way, if I pay, which
I wouldn't do, but I've had,I've had tickets gifted to me
where it's $1,000 to see a bandI'm like, There's no way they

(33:59):
can be that good. There's no,there's no performance that's
worth

Yeah, if I had a time machine, if I could see
some of these bands in theirprime for $1,000 yes, but yes,
to see them not in their primefor 1000 bucks, I feel like
that's, like, overpriced.

It's a lot. And now, you know, I mean, the
Ticketmaster Live Nation, peopleare gonna come murder have me
killed. But, and just like, I'mnot feeling suicidal, anybody?
No, it's just because it's like,the other thing too is now, you
know, scalping was alwaysillegal, but now they do this
scalping thing. So I'll go on ifI haven't bought tickets in
time, and they're like, theyhave they resell them through

(34:36):
them. So say the ticket wasoriginally $50 now someone is
reselling it throughTicketmaster.

They're getting the fees every time. What's

going on here? But we've been really lucky, because
there's a lot of great bandsthat have come through. And my
my kid, there's a great punkrock movement coming out. I've
been coming out for a few yearsout of Australia, and I took,
yeah, do you know the band ammoand the sniffers? No? Oh, there
was a great and that was talkingabout, in the old days, there
was a great punk movement thatcame out in the 70s there,

(35:06):
because that's my favorite, youknow, one of my favorite periods
of music. And the one that mostformed me was like mid 70s punk.
So this great UK scene, there'sthe New York scene, Australia
had this amazing scene, thesegreat bands, and they've got a
new one. And it's interesting,because punk, it needed enough
time, because the sort of OrangeCounty punk rock that I didn't
like of the 90s was just like,well, you guys are, you need to,

(35:30):
it's a working class music. Youneed to be angry about
something. And all you guys seemto be doing pretty well. And
now, you know,

okay, yeah, that's, that's a good way to play. You
need,

you need a righteous anger. You know, I
want that in my in my bands, butthe ambulance sniffers and the
chats, but it was great. So itwhere we were. We were up in
Toronto at the time, and my kidwas probably 14, and there were
no all ages shows, but they wereplaying in Detroit. And I was
like, we can drive to Detroit,it's four hours. And so we went
and we saw it at this old, greatvenue in, you know, 1000s of

(36:04):
great bands that played there,and it's just it was so good for
her first show, standing thewhole time, you know, the band
is 20 feet from you, and you'rejust having that experience. And
it's just fun. So I like to seethat. I got to see Peter Hook
because Joy Division, new to NewOrder, one of my most favorite
bands, and he played a smallvenue in Toronto. But I couldn't
bring my kid, but that wasgreat, because you're there,

(36:26):
you're having this transferenceof energy, and that's, that's
what I go to a show for, andpersonally, but

no, I agree. I'm the same. I think I'm just
pickier too, and like, the olderyou get, for me, it's like, it's
hard to stand for, like, a longperiod of time too. I like
casino shows are the best, yeah?
Like, get in, get out. Theydon't. I don't like when you go
to the show and it's like,there's like, seven opening
bands that you don't care about,and then you see your headliner,
like, two in the morning. Bythat time, you're just like,
you're ready to go to sleep.

(36:56):
Yeah,

you got to time it out, right? Yeah, to know when
they're going to go on, you gotto go. But that's, that's the
that is the beauty of theinternet. You can find out,
like, okay, at what time didthey go on yesterday? Okay, I'll
make sure. I'll get there then.
Yeah,

no, absolutely. I love all that music stuff that's
amazing. I'll have to check outthis Australia punk scene that
sounds fun.

Yeah, I mean aiming with sniffers that now. I
mean, they're big, but they'vethey're great, and she's an
amazing front person, butthey've just got a killer
energy, great songwriting, andthey were amazing Live, which
is, always, is the test. So,yeah, I mean, I love trying

to, like, find stuff before it gets too big.
You know what? I mean? Like, Ihad on this comedian, and he, he
opened for Jim Gaffigan. He's,like, he's like, one of the
like, he's there, like, buddy.
So he takes him out. It's realnice guy. And I was asking him,
like, Hey, who's like, the nextbig comedian in New York? He's
like, Well, there's this guy whodoes kind of some political
stuff. His name's Tim Dillon. Iwas like, Oh, now that guy is

(37:50):
huge. Of course, I was trying toreach out. I think even back
then, I was messaging him like,Hey, you want to do my podcast.
Like he was, he was already toobig, but now he's like, and
there's a lot of people likethat. But people will tell me,
my buddy, he told me, he wastelling me about this kid, this
guitar player. He's like, Oh, Ithink this guy, he could be
like, you know, the next JerryCantrell for Alice in Chains,
like, he's really good, and allthis stuff. And he's been in a

(38:12):
couple bands for a few years,and then now he just got, I
don't know if it's going to betemporary or permanent, but he's
in God smack. And I was like, Idon't know if you know, got some
x like, that's a huge metalband. This guy's guitar player
now, so pretty cool. That'sreally cool. Yeah. Do you know
of any is there any people thatyou see in terms of the acting
world that you're like, oh, thisperson is going to be the next

(38:33):
big thing, because you probablysee it working with these guys
more so than the public.

Well, I don't even know if I can pick that. I think
what's so cool is there's somany good actors out there right
now, and the young actors arereally great, especially now you
because I've gone from being theyoungest guy in the call sheet
to often the oldest personthere, which is always hilarious
too, because now there's,there's some sort of implied
wisdom that I have to offer. AndI'm treated. I'm treated. I'm

(39:00):
treated with a degree of respectthat I think I've only earned by
just surviving and still beingthere and but it's worth
something. It is worthsomething, and I love it because
it's actors are so I've been solucky me, like on this show, on
drop, on this movie, everyonewas just so lovely. And and we
were there together, because wewere there every day. So it was

(39:22):
a really nice communalexperience. And that's what I
love about it. I really lovebecause the joy of it is you get
to play pretend and play aroundwith, like, really fun, cool,
smart, hilarious people, andthat's what this was. And so I
mean all the younger, I mean inthis one, I mean my god, I mean
Megan is a star, and Brandonsclenar, he is

Unknown (39:42):
awesome. What else has he done?

Well, he's, he's in 1923 he's one. He's the lead
of the Taylor Sheridan show 1923Oh,

okay, that's a big show right now. Yeah, he's,

he's really good.
And he is a throwback, like heis a hunky dude in sort of. A
cut of, like, 70s hunky dudes.
Like, he's a real man, man, andhilarious and funny, and he's
got this, it's in his name, andBrando and Brandon. He's got
this Brando esque swagger andhumor. And he is, he's a

(40:14):
singular dude. I really lovehim. So that was really fun.
But, yeah, there's, I mean,there's so many good young
actors out there, which isgreat, because you want it to go
on. And I've been reallyfortunate, too, because, I mean,
I love acting, and I loveworking with actors, and yeah,
but now by exactly by justsurviving, I do have some wisdom
to part to to impart. And likeon this one, my number one thing

(40:36):
I always do, which is reallyinteresting, and it's just
turned out to be a thing is, onthe first day, I'll just say I'm
a little nervous. No, you'renervous. I'm like, Yeah, I'm
always because no one wants totalk about how to nervous there,
and everyone's nervous all thetime. And because anything worth
doing is worth doing well. Andyou're you're you care, you want
to do a good job. And it'sinteresting, my wife has gone
back to acting. She'd retiredfor about 13 years to raise our

(40:58):
child and have our child, andshe's been working all these
great movies with Nick Cage andRichard Gere and these great
directors and everything.

Yeah, the new M Night sholomon movie, yeah,

she's in exactly, oh, and night exactly, with
Josh. They, they had the besttime, but everyone's nervous.
And the second you sort of takethat, but just by even just
throwing it out into the ether,it just calms everyone down,
because you have to be, andthat's, that's the fun of it,
and so, but it's been, it's beenreally exciting. So to work with
people who love doing it, andthat gives, always gives me

(41:29):
hope, because there was a periodwhere I was doing a lot of
television in the early 2000swhere a lot of people just
showing up, not prepared, notinterested in it. And I was
like, Oh, I hope that's not whatthis turns out to be. But it's
not. People are really, reallygood and and really committed
and a ton of fun. And because,because what happened was phones

(41:51):
kind of ruined everything for awhile, once we all got our
iPhones. Because one of the bestparts, you know, talking about
Malcolm McDowell earlier, one ofmy favorite parts as a young
actor, and still as an olderactor, was when you're not
shooting, when you're sittingaround waiting to shoot, is that
everyone tells their stories.
And because there's such greatstories, and I've been so
fortunate, fortunate to workwith all these legendary actors,
and they love to tell theirstories, and I love to hear

(42:13):
their stories, and then when thephone came around, everyone's
playing, you know, Angry Birdsfor a while, and it just, it was
no fun. And now somehow, justsort of, I don't even bring my
phone to set unless there'ssome, you know, there's
emergency I'm worried about athome, because I'm I want to
converse, and it's gone back tothat. And it's really nice,
because I'll never forget thosestories. And the whole point is,
what, you know, what's so greatabout what we do is you get to

(42:34):
do it, as I said, with like,these really fun, funny,
hilarious, smart people andgreat storytellers. I mean, all
I do is collect. I mean, MalcolmMcDowell. I There were so many.
One of my favorite days onFranklin and bash was John land

John Landis, yeah, I told you that they tell you so
good. Yeah, exactly.

So John Landis, stories like this, dancers and
I'm in the middle. It's crazy,right? And I just, I love that.
And then, you know, eventuallyyou have stories to tell, and
they're fun to say and pass onto the younger generation. And I
love that. I mean, I had a beerwith Paul Newman because I'm in
a movie with Joanne Woodward,and he's just telling all these
stories about how he wasterrible and everything, and

(43:14):
self deprecating, hilariousstories,

yeah, and you said Clooney was self deprecating
too, which is great. It's

the best are the best, the best people are self
deprecating. And get

to that level then, because don't get to be
confident and almost like, Iguess, not arrogant though. I
guess you got to know when totake yourself down a notch. I

think the greatest leaders, the greatest people and
the greatest leaders areconfident and but also, yeah, no
arrogance. It's you have to.
It's a that is a classiccontradiction. Is you have to be
confident, but not arrogant, andto be self effacing and open. It
is, it is a quality inleadership that if you don't

(43:55):
have it, you have to have aninnately, you have to know it.
You have to be a good person.
And so you can be a good personand be driven and, and you'll
get the most out of everyone. Imean, you know, talking about
George, I tell this story allthe time. We're making good
night and good luck, and anyonecould come hang out at video
village. You know, you could bethe second craft service

(44:16):
assistant, and he's like, Whatdo you think? You think that was
good and and so just by creatingthat, and it's not a tactic,
it's authentic, because peoplealways smell it out. You know,
that's always what I say. Youknow, you can pretend to be a
good guy, but really be anasshole, and it will only go for
so go so far, but if you're agood guy, it just comes through,
and people will run through firefor you. And I think that's key.

(44:39):
It's actually um, Kyle Secor andI have been doing a re watch
podcast of Homicide Life on theStreet. This, this, this iconic
television show that we didtogether in the 90s. And what
was so interesting about thatwas it was a creative high point
for all of us, but at the sametime, it was profoundly
traumatic, and everyone thoughtthey were traumatized by the.

(45:00):
Cells, because there were bigpersonalities. There was a lot
of conflict, and there were alot of there were a lot of
misbehaving, drug addicted, guntoting children there. And so it
got really intense. And so it'sbeen really fun 30 years down
the road to have everyone comeon, all the people involved, to

(45:20):
really sort of exercise it. Talkabout how great it was. And then
for them, you see the sort ofthe sigh of relief when they
realized they weren't the onlyone. They thought, because
everyone has a sort of thing. Iwish I could do it over again. I
would have done this, but that'sthe way you learned it. And so
there were some very there weresome very difficult, bad apples,
but it made for the beststories. And they are the best

(45:40):
stories. You know, when you'vegot actors pulling guns and
knives on each other anddisappearing on drug binges for
a week at a time, those aregreat old stories. And because
that's also what I loved aboutthis business and why I wanted
to get into it's like, I loveacting, I love it inside out,
but I also love all of thelegendary stories. I mean, you
talk about Arizona shooting inMonument Valley, and all the

(46:01):
crate John Ford, and everyonebeing drunk and going off and
those that's there's somethingabout that, you know, and this,
if enough time passes, they allbecome funny. And it's been
great to sort of work throughthat on homicide and just tell
these funny stories. And nowthey're all funny. No one's
traumatized anymore, I don'tthink. And you

guys call people out by name, though, if it was
they did some crazy things or,

well, we, we tried to be, I feel Kyle, and I tried
to be as gentlemanly anddiscreet as possible. But people
didn't pull any punches, and itwas great. So we'd have, you
know, an executive producer,talk about someone did
something, and then we'd havethat person on them talk about
they did it. So it was. It wasgreat. We didn't really it was.
It was a wonderful conversation.
It was amazing to be with thesevery talented, creative people

(46:45):
and and you didn't really haveto pep you didn't have to pose
any questions. People had a lotto get off their chest, and they
would tell those stories, andthey would name names. And we,
we felt enough time had passed,and everyone had their day in
court, so I don't it never cameacross as mean spirited, or it
was. They were all prettyhilarious and told with a lot of

(47:07):
love, and also talk about selfdeprecation, a lot of people
going like, yeah, I could havedone that better and but it's
funny, because talking abouttrying to be a good guy or a bad
guy, when I got there, I was,you know, I was this young,
eager actor who'd been in what Italk about is it only occurred
to me about a year ago, becauseI was sort of, really the first

(47:28):
actor to be brought on as a newdetective, and they didn't know
that I'd been preparing forthree years, or two years to be
on that show. I saw the pilotepisode while I was shooting my
own pilot up in Vancouver, andgo, I'm going to be on that
show, and I've been preparingfor three years to play a cop on
TV, because I almost became acop in LA and then all the cops
I met, they all wanted to beactors. I'm like, I'm a really
an actor. This is what I'm goingto do. But when I showed up, it

(47:49):
only occurred to me a year agothat I was hired to be like the
hunky guy, because they needed ahunky guy on the show, and I
certainly, and I I did not seemyself as a hunky guy. I saw
myself as a serious actor, and Iwas going to play this cop. So
when what ended up having isthis beautiful sort of arc of
where they had one idea for him,and then I had an idea for who
Maya Kellerman was, and then thetwo met and married and

(48:11):
blossomed into this incrediblecharacter that I consider myself
the great. I consider it was thegreatest character I have had
the good fortune to play, andI'm eternally grateful for him
every day. But I was young and Iwas green when I got there, and
there were some bad act I'm notbad actors. They were very
talented Thespians, but therewas some very bad behavior,

(48:33):
which I witnessed all around me.
I mean, there would be times myfavorite thing would be, we
would shoot an episode, and thedirector would be there for the
next episode, getting prepped,and they would always come up to
me in the lunchroom, wherever,having lunch, because I seem
like the kindest person. I seemlike the most approachable. And
the director would say to me,Hey, Reed, do you have any

(48:53):
advice? And I'm like, Yeah, Igot some advice. I go when
you're on set on Monday withthat actor and that actor, don't
tell them where to come from.
Don't tell them what to do.
First thing you want to say is,like, what do you guys want to
do? And everything will be fine.
Of course, they would neverlisten to me. We'd be there
Monday morning, and the actorthe director would go, all
right, you enter from there, andyou enter from there, and all
you'd hear is slam, slam. As twoactors just stormed off the set

(49:14):
and went to their trailers forthe next three hours. So and,
and, and it was great. And youjust

these were people that were big names and felt
like they couldn't be told whatto do. Or it

was a combination of, well, the beauty of
homicide, what made homicide sospecial is you had all these
feature film directors. You hadwriters, you know, Paul nazio,
incredible Academy Award winningscreenwriter, write the pilot
Tom Fontana, this amazingplaywright and television
writer. And then you had movieactors, you had Ned Beatty, you

(49:48):
had Jaffe Cotto, you had the andthen back in what people, it's
hard to remember, is in the 90s,you either did movies or you did
television, and neither Twainwould meet. But. Barry Levinson,
the great Barry Levinson hadcreated the show, and there was
no interference from NBC,because he was one of those
directors who was not onlysuccessful at the box office,

(50:09):
but made great art. And so hehired who he wanted to hire. But
there were some big egos, andthere were some there were many
substance abuse issues, andthere was a lot of weapons
around. And so the stories weregreat. These

are real weapons.
These aren't weapons, propweapons for the show. Oh, I

before I got there, because, as I say, I'm a
collector of stories, and I lovestories, so I was just
collecting homicide stories whenI got there. Yeah, the first, I
think they were only there twoweeks before one of the actors
pulled a knife on one of theproducers, and I'm gonna, you're
like, I'm gonna gut you.

That was no

no and it was a Cree, because these and these
were creative arguments. So whenpeople started off the stage,
there were they? Were they?
Well, there's two things. Someof them were fighting for the
integrity of their characters,but also there was an ethos, a
mythos at that time in actingthat like difficult was a good
way to be right. So difficult,got you thing, so I'm gonna
fight for my character. And Isaw I saw hilarious. I saw

(51:06):
wonderful, bad behavior. Well, Ican tell this story. I told this
story. Yafa Cotto one of myfavorite actors of all time, a
hero of mine as because I alwaysgrew up thinking I was a
character actor and I wanted tobe a character actor, and Yafa
Cotto was impeachable. He wasone of my he was my most
favorite Bond villain. I lovedhim and across 110th Street,
everything

I saw him in, he was amazing. I'm trying to think
of the one that I know him from.
Okay, keep telling

midnight. Run midnight. Run with Charles.
Wasn't

he in a was he in a war movie or something? What am
I thinking of? Because that,that's the first time I heard
that. Oh, he's an alien, right?

Oh, yeah, of course, alien, yeah, Fauci,
yeah. He's every he is. He's oneof the Running Man.

Oh, that was a good Oh, right,

of course, the Running Man. That's like, my,
like,

era, you know, the 80s. He's great

at all. Yavacoto is amazing in everything. He's
such a great actor. But he whatwe did on this show on Homicide.
What made it very unique is weshot it like a French New Wave
film. So it was all handheld.
There was no traditionalcoverage, meaning that you're
not going to do a close up,close up, you know, over over.
Master shot, the camera's justgoing to find you. So everyone
had to be in the scene. And thatguy, he wanted his close up. And
Yafa Kota was a genius, and Iwatched him, he had three great

(52:16):
tricks he would either do. Hewould either if we were in this,
if we were in the interrogationroom, there was a little square
window, and he would just walkto that window and deliver all
of his lines through the glass,meaning the camera is going to
have to come around and coverhim from the other side, smart,
really smart. Or he would dothis thing where we're shooting
the scenes. He wouldn't know hislines, right? He wouldn't know

(52:39):
his lines. So okay, we've shoteverybody. I guess we're gonna
have to come and do a single onyou, a close up, because we'll
just try to get all of yourlines, and then he would be Word
Perfect. So he was just no soyou I saw all of these, these,
these incredibly bad behaviors,but they were very effective,
and for a while. So this is thislong winded story to bring it
around. I tried to be bad. Itried to be a bad guy. I was

(53:01):
like, Well, I'm gonna be tough.
Going to be tough. I'm going tobe a dick. But you can't be a
dick if you're not a dick.

What are you trying to be a dick? That's I was just
trying to

be like, well, and I mostly did it humorously.
There was one day where thesetwo actors who would always
storm off, were just like,misbehaving. So as a joke, I
stormed off. I walked off theset totally as a bit, and they
were flabbergasted. Like, Reednever leaves. What's Reid doing?
All right, I'm tired, if youguys throw it off, but,

uh, thing in Hollywood, people storm off, but
they're not like, fired like, orthey don't get like, you're not
worried about like, you know,getting fired for doing that.
Or, dude, I had

never seen anything like this in my life,
but I'd only heard thesestories. Heard these stories.
Because what also made homicideso much fun is it sounded like
old Hollywood where peoplebehaved badly. And I think
people were emulating that,where you hear the story of
James Dean not coming out of histrailer for six hours, or taking
a leak in front of the wholecrew on the first day. You hear
all these Brando, obviously,Brando famously just being
difficult. I mean, Brando hadthis famous trick that he would

(54:02):
do with directors where say he'sdoing a Western. He would test
them on the first day, say it'sa Western. He'd go, the
director, he goes, I think Ishould have Martian ears and
maybe a lady's scarf for thisscene. And if the director is
like, get the hell out of here.
Brando Marlon, you're just,you're gonna put your cowboy hat
on. We're gonna do the scene.
But if they go, Oh, that's agood idea. He'd know that they
were weak, and he would justmercilessly torture them for the

(54:24):
rest of the shoot, you know,sort of a canary in the coal
mine, kind of test. And so therewere all these stories of
legendary bad behavior. And Ithink people emulated, I
remember that was that famousDavid Caruso, he, he when he got
on Jade, when he got on hisfirst was a freakin film, I
think. And he heard that someonesaid he had only call me sir. I

(54:44):
can either be called Sir or Mr.
Caruso, and no one can make eyecontact with me, like, one of
those dumb things. And you'relike, and then the movie bombs,
or does it? Well, that doesn'tlast, you know, but there's
famous there's people who arelike, Yeah, you can't make eye
contact with him, and you haveto call him Mr. Cruiser, sir.
And they'd heard that, but it'sa dick move. And like, I say,
like. Yeah, I've worked, whenyou work with Brad Pitt or
George Clooney, those guys arethe salt of the earth. I mean, I
don't know if I told you thisstory the last time, but my I

(55:06):
had this great scene with BradPitt in Moneyball. Yeah,

no, you said he was like, he would improvise with
you and ask, he's amazing. And

he came in, he'd rewritten the scene, and so he
shows up with his sides on theday we rehearse it. I'm like, Oh
God, if an actor rewrites ascene, they're always giving
themselves more to do. And he'dwritten me, like, four pages of
extra dialog, and that's whothese guys are, right? But the
funny thing is, like, the goodthe good stories make fun
stories, the good guys make funstories, but the bad guys do
make they're they're my favoritestories. Because, go ahead.

No, I was just gonna say, I gotta ask, did you
ever work with Val Kilmer?
Because he recently passed. Now,everyone's posts and stuff about
how great of an actor he was,but I don't if you saw his
documentary. Oh yeah. Reallysad. Was heartbreaking. I mean,
he has a brilliant actor, butthey talk about that a little
bit. There's like some he had areputation for being difficult
to work with, but their defenseto that was, well, he just

(56:01):
really wanted to do a good job,and he wanted the art to be
great, but I don't know, like,how was he an asshole about it,
though? Like, I don't know. It'skind of interesting.

I mean, I have no firsthand experience with Val
Kilmer, I but I saw thatdocumentary, and I've always
heard the stories because hewas, he went to Juilliard about
10 years before I went there. SoI heard stories from Juilliard.
I heard stories from directorsthere. I think what's

(56:32):
interesting, I'm basically justa giant mutt of a dog, right? So
I'm just like, I just want toplay, you know, I want to have a
good time. I want everyone toget along and and that's how I
approach acting and art, andthat's where it's, like, fun
place. And in fact, that's how Ihow I remember acting was
explained to me by my firsttheater director. He's like,

(56:54):
look at a dog, if he's if he'sfocused on some he's fully
focused on it. He's fullyimmersed in it. He's in the
moment. And that's how I alwaysthink about it. So I'm not a
strategist. I have, no, I'm not.
I don't, don't play chess. I amnot. I can't think three moves
ahead in anything. I just, whatI love about acting is just
being in the moment and beingwith cool people. But there's a
lot of people who have amazingcareers who are strategists and

(57:18):
know how to play games, and knowhow to set you up and set you up
and create a situation, because,and this goes back to the
homicide story. I come from theschool of all. We all rise
together. I'm an improv guy. I'man improv comedian guy. So the
number one thing in improv ismake the other guy look good.

(57:38):
And as I always say in improv,and when I taught it, and when
I've done it, just like soccer,I give this soccer metaphor that
an assist is better than a goal.
When I watch a great soccergame, the guy who puts the ball
where the guy needs, needs it toget it into the net, that's the
that's the guy. I mean, the guysets you up for success. That's
all. What it is so and I comefrom this spirit of, like, we're

(58:01):
making a play together, and, youknow, get your own props, and
we're gonna take care ofeveryone. And so when I got to
homicide, and it was a it was achillier, it was a, well, it was
all the knives were out. It waslike being at the Court of
Versailles, like everyone wastrying to kill you, and
everyone's trying to kill me,actively tried to kill me. No
one was nice to me. No onetalked to me. And they were
like, you're not gonna be herelong. And they were active. And
I go, but as a little young,exuberant, excited actor, I was

(58:24):
like, Oh, this I would be if Iwas a fresh if I was the new guy
in the squad. No one would giveme the time of day. But I look
at some actors. So then there's,so there's, there's one school
of acting, like we all risetogether, we're in this together
ensemble. And then there's theother where it's like, the worse
you are, the better I am. Andand I saw that. And then there
was that behavior on Homicide,where they would try to actively

(58:44):
mess you up so you weren't sogood in the scene to make the
telling

you're hurting thing.

It's very it's very interesting. And there are
famous actors, a lot of thembeen canceled, who do it, who
are legendary for it. And Iwon't, I won't name names, but I
mean, but all I can say is I'mimpressed. I'm very impressed by
that level of thought andcunning, and because I often
play those characters, I playvery cunning, thoughtful,

(59:11):
strategic characters. But yeah,that's not me. I'll never be
able to be that. I admire them.
I don't think it's a happy life.
I won't name names, but I was atdinner with an act of an actress
who was about to play opposite,and we were having our dinner
because we had to have a sortof, you know, a long, intimate
relationship on camera. Sousually you go out dinner and
just get through the niceties.
And I'm talking about my kid, mykids, like three or four at the

(59:32):
time. I'm talking about my kid,how much love my kid, my kid she
and she turns to me and shegoes, my career is my baby, and
it's okay. And I serious, and Iwent, Wow, too. I was like, oh,
oh. And it was funny, becausethat was the only show I'd been
in since homicide, where it wasreally intense and chilly and

(59:55):
the knives were out from dayone. And. And her knives were
out, and it was great, and Irealized, but having that
experience, and now living 20years or 15 years since
homicide, I was like, I can'tcompete like this. You Yes, the
person who thinks who knowstheir career is their baby, they
are much more invested in all ofthe court politics and the

(01:00:15):
courtier isms than I ever will.
And so you just come and do yourjob, and you hope for the best,
and then you have an experiencelike drop, where everyone's
great and it's super creative,and that's what keeps you going,
because, you know, they're notalways, they're not always going
to be fun, but it's a great lifeand and the jobs, where

(01:00:38):
everyone's there, and thescripts amazing, and you're
working with people you love,and those are the that's the
crack that keeps you comingback. Yeah.

Chuck Shute (01:00:46):
So no, no firsthand experience with Mel Kilmer,
just, just stories, because he,he has done. I mean, whether I
don't know what he's likepersonally, I mean, again, I saw
the documentary, but how much ofthat is acting himself? You know
that he's acting in there. So, Imean, just some of those roles
that he had, though, like it wasinteresting, how somebody
pointed out that he took a lotof supporting roles, but that he

(01:01:06):
kind of stole the show, like TopGun I get, I didn't realize he
only had 10 minutes of screen

Reed Diamond (01:01:11):
time in that Yeah.
I mean, stealing the show is agreat actor trick. I mean, yeah,
he's really good. I mean, AndreBrower, who I did homicide with,
who I was also at Juilliard withand he was an amazing actor, and
he was also the most consummatescene stealer I had ever
encountered. And that was alwaysfun, too. On homicide catching,
I would always try to try tocatch how he was going to steal
the scene from me, and then tryto, which is great, because I

(01:01:33):
like, I enjoy a pricklyenvironment. I'm it's great if
we all get along, but if it'sgoing to be Prickly, I'm down
for that too, because that'sfun, because it's, it's jaunty,
and you're like, Okay, this is,it's got real stakes going on
here. And we're,

how do you play defense to that? Or do you or
just let him you got to play.
It's no,

no, you got, it's the it's the play within the
play. So that can create anotherespecially with a good guy,
like, now, Andre's a good guynow, he's trying to steal the
scene. But like, it's comingfrom just a pure sort of sports,
like athletic competitiveness,and would you like so you know,
if you're you know, you want toplay sports against someone
equally good. It takes up yourgame. You want to box a guy
who's good, right? So with him,it didn't come from a place of

(01:02:11):
malice. It just came like, he'slike, I'm gonna bring my A plus
game every I'm gonna MichaelJordan it every time. Do you
what do you want to do? And so Ithat raises your game. Now
there's people who are justactively, just trying to mess
you up. And that can be, thatcould be that can be
problematic, especiallydepending on where they lie on
the call sheet. Um, they mayhave more juice than you, and

(01:02:33):
that's going to be a problem.
But with Val Kilmer, yeah, he'sactively stealing those seeds.
I've and I, and I've heard thestories. I've heard that he was
very good at playing thepolitics off camera that already
would get inside your head. But,you know, you got to and you
know, I doff my cap to you, sir.
I mean, you had, you had alovely career. And for me

(01:02:56):
personally, I just don't knowthat. I can't imagine that
you're never off, I wouldimagine that tortures you all
day long. You're thinking aboutyou're strategizing. But I don't
know. I don't these, you know,because when I saw that
documentary, his children seemto be madly in love with him, so
he must have been a really greatguy. So, you know, we all play
the game differently. I mean,you know, that's why, that's why

(01:03:18):
I'm so fascinated with sports,not because I'm really, I'm not
a sports fan, but I love asports documentary, seeing the
psychology of it and how peopleget you know, you've got a guy
like Michael Jordan who has tocreate a conflict so that he can
be excited enough to perform,right? And then you've got the
Scottie Pippen, who's got awhole different mentality, how
they go into it. And I'm alwaysfascinated by that, like, how do

(01:03:41):
you get up, get get up, to dowhat you to play the game. And
for me, what it has to I, youknow, for me, like I said, it's
always has to be about play.
It's not about winning. It'sabout I want to serve the piece.
First of all, I want to servewhatever show I'm doing, and
then I want to play. And that'salso talking about getting old,
the best part about being aveteran of this business is

(01:04:03):
people let me do what I want.
You know, the audition for drop,they let me I just improvised
it, most of it, and they werelike, they let me revise on set.
And as I've gotten older, peoplelet me improvise a lot more. I
just finished the show, whichunfortunately got a little
slammed by the strike and didn'tcome out in time. But when I did
Orphan Black echoes on AMC withChris Ritter and Kelly Hawes,

(01:04:25):
which was so much fun, the Annafish go, the showrunner, she
just let me, she let me just domy thing, because there was a
one character on page, on thepage, but then she wanted me to
do it, and we had a greatconversation. We realized we
grew up in the sameneighborhood, New York City. We
knew all the same people, so shejust let me go, and then ended
up being probably 50% of whatthat character did was all make

(01:04:47):
them ups, and which is funbecause it keeps it because I
like it to feel real when we'redoing it. I like to get the
reaction out of you that youdon't expect you're talking
going back to our metaphor ofseeing a band live. I don't want
to see what you did last nightin Albuquerque. I want to see
the what you're doing today inScottsdale, right? And and it's
an interaction of the air andthe thing. And because what the

(01:05:10):
school of acting that I grew upin was that it was supposed to
be real, what's happening infront of you is real. And that's
why I don't ever plan anything.
I never set anything. I do allmy preparation. And then when
Chuck and Reed show up, you sayyour line, I say my line, we put
a spin on it, throw the ballback, and whatever you and I do
together is a million times moreinteresting than anything we
could have thought up at home,right? Because it may be scary

(01:05:31):
and we may it may be some placewe didn't want to go, but what
ends up having is something realis happening and and, like, I
say, like, I love the mistake,because when something goes
wrong in a scene, especially ifyou're you can't cut, or
whatever, like that, theneveryone gets a lot more present
and awake, and then somethinginteresting happens. So I'm
always acting for the mistake. Ilove to play and, and it's

(01:05:54):
interesting because, you know,for the most part, a lot of
people want to play, and thatmakes it fun. But then every
once while, you run into a guywho's got a plan and and if you
have a plan, I'm just like beingstrategic. You know, talk about
Val Kilmer if, if he wasstrategic. I mean, I certainly
know very strategic actors, butif he was, then there's people
who have a plan, and they knowwhat they want to do, and it

(01:06:16):
works for them, and they'regoing to have a certain career.
But it's not fun to play with.
It's not fun to be on set with,because there's no surprises.

What about with different directors? Because,
like, I think I heard, was itSpielberg that I think he was
talking, was it Liam Neeson andSchindler's List, where he was
directing him, and he wastelling him, okay, then you're
going to take a drag yourcigarette, and then you're going
to say this line, then you'regonna take another drag your
cigarette, like, he wasbasically telling him exactly
how to act like, like, beat bybeat like, and you're saying
like, you'd rather have it bemore natural, but then again,

(01:06:45):
Spielberg, I mean, it's got ahuge level of success. So maybe
different directors, differentthings, work for them.

And you also have to if different directors,
especially auteur directors,they may have a very strong
vision, and that's a wholedifferent kettle of fish. So
that's a different experience.
If you're just doing a realisticdrama, or you're doing something
or coming you know you want toinfuse that. But there's certain
visionary directors. My wife hasworked with a few of them,
Norwegian directors, and who arethey? Know each moment that they

(01:07:12):
want to have, how it happens andand I think you can thrive in
that. I certainly think, likeif, if you had a director who
had a very strong visual vision,you know, I would imagine that's
how Wes Anderson is, or somebodylike that, right, where they
know exactly what they want, andyou know, you're in their world
and you trust them. I think thatcould be fun. It's not my forte.

(01:07:34):
Like my wife is much better atit. She's much better at
adapting to that I don't likebeing told what to do. And, and,
you know, it's funny, as youknow, Gene Hackman just passed,
and he's such a icon, right? Youknow, and that guy, and he was
like, No, this is what I do.
And, and he does. He did thistechnique, which I've just gone

(01:07:57):
back to, Sanford Meisner, one ofthe great acting teachers, the
Meisner method. You know, SandyMeisner Neighborhood Playhouse
in New York, one of the greatestteachers. One of the first
things he said is, when you geta script, you cross out all of
the stage direction, you know,or the description of how you
are responding, like he saysangrily, or he goes over and you

(01:08:18):
know, because the words willgive you, will give you a sense
of what's going on, and thenwhat your job is to bring your
interpretation of it and andwhat gets you going and gets you
excited. And so I'm more of thatschool. I mean, I mean, I
certainly, but it just depends.
It goes, director, director. IfGeorge, I always say, like

(01:08:39):
people you love, if GeorgeClooney had had directed me
every movement and every line ofGood night and good luck, I
would have done it, because Ilove that guy, and I would have
jumped on a grenade for him. SoI think it really depends on the
the auteur, the director thepiece, and what you're there to
do, because sometimes you seethat where they're directed with
an inch of their lives, and itlooks like that, and it looks

(01:09:01):
mannered and stilted. And in indoesn't necessarily pay off, but
then it definitely pays off inWes Anderson films, and it
certainly pays off and in more,you know, I imagine I'm trying
to think of like, who are themost mannered directors, but

I'd be curious what you thought of going back to the
Oscars because about a Nora, butlike, the best movie I saw,
which I was so crazy. I saw thismovie, and I saw without my
girlfriend, because I was like,Oh, she won't like this. It's
kind of horror, you know,whatever. And then I saw it, and
I go, I'm taking her. She needsto see this movie. This movie so
good. The substance. Did you seethat? Because what did you think
about that? Because that blew meaway. I thought it was so

(01:09:40):
brilliant.

Yeah, so the substance for me, I It felt very
hands on. It's actually you'vemade a perfect example like and
I watched that director workwith them, and she has a she
designs every single shot, andshe knows what she wants at
every single moment. And for me,as an audience member. Or it
felt like that. So there's

a clip somebody posted, and they showed
different scenes from thesubstance, and then, like,
scenes like, it was like,there's a part where she's,
like, laying on the ground inher eyes, like this. And it's
like the scene from psycho itwas like, all these famous
movies that she copied. I waslike, Oh, that. I didn't even
pick up on that at the time, butnow I look back and oh, it's so
brilliant. It's so amazing.
Yeah,

I mean, I mean the movies, movie great, and people
love that movie, and, and Ithink it's like, you know what i
My opinion is it's like,assholes, everyone's got them,
and most of them stink. I mean,it's like, I would have had a
hard time with that and, and Ifelt it in the final product.
So, you know, I think that's whya movie like onora really
resonates with me more, becauseI can see that he's created this

(01:10:44):
space where stuff is happeningthat's unexpected and really
interesting. And even just as mywife pointed out, because I
think she used to watch it threetimes, you just even hear, like
improvised off stage dialogthat's brilliant. And so for me,
that's more fun. But, you know,

it's kind of like, what's the guy that directed the
player, Robert, what's thatguy's name? Oh,

yes, of course, the greatest blah, blah, blah,
blah, the player, mash andNashville. Oh, come on guy, come
on. Robert Altman. RobertAltman,

he kind of create this, like you're talking over
each other, kind of dialog thathad not been done that much in
Hollywood up until that point.

No, I mean, that's, you know, that's the
beauty of it. You wantoverlapping dialog. You want
people. The worst thing, youknow, it's funny. I just, I just
did a tape right before I talkedto you, and for my wife and I,
the worst thing is my line, yourline, my line, your line, that's
not, it's not how it goes. Youwant to it has to have that

(01:11:50):
temperament. And you know, youknow, Sanford meiser, the
greatest acting teacher, I thinkyou know, of the modern era,
who's really laid it out. Youknow, he said the foundation of
acting is the reality of doing,and you don't do anything until
something happens to you to makeyou do it. And what, what you
know, and your focus is on theother person. So you react off
the other person, and you comein with whatever you're loaded,
you've got whatever emotion, butthen you just play in the

(01:12:12):
moment, back and forth and likeand that's, that's the magic.
It's what I want to see in aplay, it's what I want to see in
a concert. It's what I want tosee in a movie. But I love, I
love, you know, there's stylizedmovies, there's European auteur
directors that I enjoy verymuch, I think. But I don't know
if I'd be able to be manhandledthat much. I mean, I, yeah, I
was, I think, to me

is like, it's kind of like makeup on girls. Like,
if I can't tell that you'rewearing a lot of makeup, but you
look good, then great. And it'sthe same with movies, like, if I
can't tell that, you, you know,piece this out too much, but it
feels natural, like, I don'tknow, is Tarantino a guy that
pieces it out, because his moviescene, the dialog, seems so
natural. Yeah.

I mean, those movies are so great. And those
were obviously, I mean, you, youknow, once upon a time in
Hollywood, I can watch thatmovie over and over again. I
mean, obviously he gave themspace to do those incredible
performances, and, yeah, it'd bea dream to work with. But you
know, it's just, I think it justdepends on the person, right?
You could, there's, there's lotsof people I'm sure I could work
for who could manipulate me lineby line. It's just usually, when

(01:13:15):
you're doing an episode oftelevision, of a show you've
been on for a while, I had adirector say to me once he's
like, okay, when you get to thispoint, was like, three quarters
of the way in this quarters ofthe way in the scene, I want you
to be really shouting. And I'mlike, maybe. And he goes, maybe.
I like, I don't know. I don'tknow how I'm gonna feel by the
time I get there. And if I'mthinking about that moment, the
whole scene, that I'm not in thescene, like, we'll see if it
happens. I don't know, you hiredme to do my thing. Let's just

(01:13:39):
let me do my thing. And that'soften the thing. I mean, you
know what I loved about, youknow, bring Clooney back. He
hired everyone to do theirthing. He hired the best
cinematographers, the bestwriters, producers, you know,
sound people, sound people. Theythe sound guy took me aside.
He's like, he was Academy Awardwinning sound mixer. And he
said, Anyone who tells you youcan't overlap dialog in a movie
is a liar. I think he did theAltman films actually, per your

(01:14:01):
example. He's like, That's alie. It's little bit more time.
And now with Pro Tools, I knowyou probably work Pro Tools. I
can work Pro Tools. I can get inbetween anything I can get you
can make that space just alittle bit more work and it
feels real. And then, you know,if you're doing a fancy thing
that doesn't need to feel real,and I'm happy to act in front of
a green screen and put on my askGuardian outfit. If to be part

(01:14:22):
of the MCU, no problem.

So you think some directors maybe micromanage a
little bit too much becausethere's so much going on. I
agree. I think, like, if you'redirecting an actor, you know
what it should say, What do youthink? And like if even the set
director and the lighting, like,kind of let rely on them for
their expertise and not try totell them what to do, because
otherwise, what's the point?

That's and, you know, and that's going back to,
like him, being a great leader.
That's what a great leader does.
A great leader assembles thebest team and lets them do what
they do best, and then onlyinterferes when that
interference is actuallyhelpful. So like on this movie
on drop Chris Landon. Didn'thave many directions, but when
he had a direction, I'd be like,Oh, I hadn't thought of that.

(01:15:04):
And it's such a welcome gift.
Better Call Saul. We were doingthat scene, and the director
literally, the whole night weshot that scene. Did I tell you
about shooting that scene? You

couldn't tell me a lot of it last time, and you
couldn't even tell me if it'sgonna be more than one episode.
So then, yeah. And then when Isaw it, I was like, Oh, wow.
Like that. Could have been a bigrole, because it would have been
the love interest of one of themain characters. But

that scene was hilarious, because we this
talking about this scene. I'mBetter Call Saul with Giancarlo.
So it was just going to be thisone scene, this big, beautiful
scene, and I, we were called toshow up at 5pm at night, and I
was like, Oh, 5pm and I had an8am flight the next day. And I
was like, Oh, I'll make youknow, 5pm we'll probably be done
by midnight. I'll go back to thehotel, have a beer, get ready
for my flight. So that seemslike a five, six page scene with

(01:15:49):
mostly me talking. We shut wedidn't get to my coverage. We
didn't get to my close up till7am the next morning.

Canceled your flight then, or I

had to move my flight and and I had been there
all and so my one adage aboutacting on camera and acting on
film or television is, whateveryou think it's going to be like
on the day, it's not. It isabsolutely not. And I have one
piece of advice to give theyoung actors, to say, whatever
you think it's going to be likeon that day, it's not. So if you
think it's the most importantscene of the show. You'll have

(01:16:21):
30 minutes to shoot it, becausethey're looting, losing the
light. If the scene a romanticscene on a beach, a tropical
beach, it's going to be 40degrees below zero, and you're
going to both have your hateeach other. Whatever it's going
to be, it's never going to bewhat you think. So you have to
be prepared. And so it's

good life advice, just for life. I'd say it

probably is good life advice. And we did that
scene over and over and overagain, to the point where at one
point I lost my voice and then,and the reason I also thought I
was going to get out of thereearly is because Giancarlo had a
scene that he still had to shootoutside in the dark. So I was
like, well, like, and I wassupposed to be after our scene,
so that I go, Oh, they got to bedone so they can shoot that
scene. They go, Hey, we'regonna, it's gonna the sun's

(01:17:00):
coming up soon. Can we go aheadand shoot his scene before we
come back and do your coverage?
And you know, what are you gonnasay? You say yes. And so I'm in
my room dancing for three hoursto like New Wave music so I can
stay awake, because I know if Isit down, I will fall asleep,
and it'll be all over and on setlike all the extras are sleeping
on the floor.

Yeah, but it's not good for you to take a nap, and
then then wake you up. Youcan't, because

at that point, it's your sleep time. It's just
going to be a mess, right? Andand then you have to remember
that adage. And I remember whenthey were like, you know, you're
going to do your coverage at 7amand after I've been there for 14
hours, and you you have twochoices. You can either fold or
you can just go like, yeah, it'sbecause you at home never are
going to know that. Like, everytime is the first time. So you
got to find your fifth and yoursix wind but that director was

(01:17:45):
amazing. He he, he was like, wedid the first read through me
and Giancarlo, and he's like,it's perfect, perfect. It's
great. And then

who was the director? It wasn't, it wasn't
the main guy. The creator was,it was someone else. No, and

I, I feel awful that I've forgotten his name.
He's so good. I've turned off myphone, but yeah, Michael, I know
his first name and and he waslovely. And he came with this,
this one piece of direction,which was brilliant, and I think
so welcome. And He came over soand so direction is great if

(01:18:19):
you're working with someone whoyou trust. And Michael, sorry, I
knew his first name. That'sgood. That's great. He was
amazing, and he was so lovely.
And it was such a greatenvironment, such a great set.
And that's that's funny too, andthat's a set where you can't
change one word. You knowbetter. Call Saul, those such
great writers, and that when thewriting is at that level, you're
never going to try to change aword. It's like, I'd never, I

(01:18:40):
would never presume to be betterthan Shakespeare or Chekhov or
Arthur Miller. But every once ina while, you're like, I got some
good ideas. It just depends onthe venue and the show. But
yeah, that was a magical time.
So yeah, you can, but you don'tneed to. You need to trust the
people you've hired. And thenwhen you have something to

(01:19:01):
offer, it's so welcome, and theneveryone appreciates it, and
then it brings it all together.
But that's, that's leadership,and I don't know, I don't know
if you can teach it or or ifit's just an inherent quality.

Would you ever try to direct something like a TV
episode or a movie or I'vealways

wanted to, you know, I've always wanted to do
the easy way in, where I do iton a show I'm in, but always by
the time that, by the time it'smy turn, the show gets canceled,
or the too many direct, too manyactors are already directed.
Like on Homicide, my buddy Kyle,he got to direct a bunch, and my
buddy Clark was directing him,and I asked her, like, no more
directors, no more actors candirect. And then on journeyman,

(01:19:36):
when we were doing the firstseason, I was prepping with the
director, and he was like, setme all up to direct in season
two, and then we never got aseason two, so I would like to
and maybe that'll come. Maybewe'll get a series that goes for
a little while, and becausethat's always a nice way to
enter into it, where you knoweverybody, and you know the
world and people trust you, andthat's always great. We talk

(01:19:57):
about this often on the show,when actors direct other. Actor,
especially from the show, it hasa whole different vibe, because
everyone knows what they'recapable of, and so there's a lot
more. It's just, I can alwaystell it, you can tell it when
you watch it, because it hasjust a different vibe, unless
those actors have turned intomonsters, yeah, but I've worked
with a couple of those wherethey were there. She was a very

(01:20:19):
famous actress, and now she wasdirecting, and I'd worked with
her twice. I'm on the secondthing, she's on my show, and
it's me and this other amazingactor, Paul Schultze sopranos,
million shows. And she's like, Iwant to see you do rehearse the
scene. And like, okay, it'slike, 12 hours before we're
gonna shoot it. And so we do it.
And then she's like, Okay, let'sdo it again. I'm like, I'm like,
no, no, no. I go, you've got twothoroughbreds right here. It's

(01:20:42):
gonna be fine, don't Are youworried about the scene? I go,
and would, what was it like whenyou were working with Scorsese?
And she's like, oh, yeah, Iwouldn't have liked this. I'm
like, she's like, Okay, youguys, you guys are fine. Like,
we don't need to manipulate, youknow, manhandle this or
manipulate it, because also, thebeauty of what we do is, and
this goes back to music, too.
It's like, it's on film. Sofirst take is so important, and

(01:21:05):
I heard Gene Hackman talk aboutit, and I really believe it's
like the first take. I don'tlike to rehearse unless it's
something very technical, andyou have to rehearse if there's
a fight or something like that.
But you can actually capture thefirst moment that these words
are set out in the space betweenthe players, and magic will
happen, because the first timeyou say it and you and there's
no other there's no other worldwhere you can do that like, and
the same thing with a band likeyou. Yes, you can work with a

(01:21:25):
producer who will go through andredo every beat of your drums,
you know, like, you know, go inand redo all of rats backing
tracks, right? Or you cancapture them live in the studio,
like, you know, like Tom Petty,and so many bands like you
capture their first take. Imean, the Beatles, you know, you
can capture it happening in themoment where the guys are
playing off each other. And,yeah, it won't be perfectly 127
beats per minute, and some ofthose hits will come off funky,

(01:21:50):
and that's the music of it. Youknow, that's the magic of it. I
mean, you know, musicians talkabout this all the time, and you
love it when bands record liveand get those pieces, because
that drag and people being aheadof the beat and being behind the
beat, that's what makes magic,you know? Because, yes, in Pro
Tools, I can make a perfect drumbeat and, or, you know,
whatever, and I and I can, andyes, it's great. It's great to

(01:22:11):
play to a click and everythingto be perfect, and I can get
every hit right. But that's notwhat makes that's not funk,
that's not groove, that's notrock and roll. The mistake is
the the mistake is the magic,and sometimes they put them into
those things. And that's, that'sreally fun. And, and I, you
know, I have a punk rock ethosfor everything. A punk rock
improviser ethos is how Iapproach music, is how I

(01:22:31):
approach acting and life, likeit's in the moment. You know,
you know, because you neverknow, right? So it's the John
Lennon thing, you know, life'swhat happens while you're making
other plans. And I've never beena strategist. I've never had,
you know, I sometimes set sillygoals, but I never, I don't
really think about it because,because the thing that you
didn't see coming, the job Ididn't get, was what set me up
for the job I did get. And so,you know, it's the I view life

(01:22:56):
as an improv as a punk rocksong.

No, that's, that's great. That's good advice. It's
like, it reminds me, you go backto white lotus. I was thinking
about, did you see the lastepisode where the guy's talking
to the monk and he's giving himkind of his wisdom or whatever?
Oh, yes,

yeah. Okay, so I saw that one. Okay, I haven't
seen last week. Good. Like, he'slike,

he's like, Yeah, you guys, everyone is trying to,
like, you're running fromsomething to escape the pain.
And he's like, You can't outrunthe pain. I was like, oh, that's
like, so smart, yeah. I feellike we try to control things so
much in our life, like, at leastI'm guilty of it, like, and then
it's like, you just, you can'tcontrol everything. You got to
just let go sometimes, andthat's when a lot of the most

(01:23:37):
beautiful things happen. I thinkyou're right,

for sure. I mean, that's the stoic that's the
stoic ethos is to only try tocontrol what's actually in your
control, and really all that'sin your controller are your your
actions and how you react. Youknow, so. But, you know, it's,
it's funny to see people try tocontrol stuff that's not in
their control, and you'll be alot happier, but you have to
live with that uncertainty,

right? Yeah. Or, like, what did I heard? I heard
this guy talking yesterday on apodcast. He was saying, whenever
he, like, when you're making adecision, you you always have
to, you have to, like, take astep back. And not very rarely
is making a decision on emotiona good idea. Like, it may be
different in acting, I'mguessing, because you want to
use that emotion, but in termsof, just like, life decisions, a

(01:24:22):
lot of times you want to stepback and take the emotion out of
it and strategize. Sometimes youwant the emotion though, yeah,

sometimes, maybe in a life and death situation,
you may need that little shot ofadrenaline, but yeah, I mean, a
wiser guy than me, it's like,when you're hooked, when you're
emotional, or, you know, it's Itmight even be emotional, because
emotion is true, but if you'repsychologically in a place you
never want to take, a place younever want to take an action
from that when you're hooked,yeah, I get

it so much on YouTube, when I get a comment or
Instagram social media andsomebody rips my clip or my
video or my I just, and I justwant to tear them a new one,
like you motherfucker, you know?
But then it's like, I step backand I go, No, I. Yeah, I should
either not respond, or I gotta,like, say something more, and I
gotta, like, because, like,yeah, you take that emotion like
you're just gonna go off on yourwith your anger, and it's
usually never a good and then itjust keeps going, like they just

(01:25:09):
never ends.

No, it's like, I mean, you know, that is the
algorithm, that is what theywant, because then you have more
and all that. Yeah, outrage isthe most potent, but is a
terrible place to come from. Imean, yes, I think yes, I think
you should never, you shouldnever tweet or x angry. And
also, there should be abreathalyzer on that thing too.
Don't, don't do it when you hada beer and yet, because it's

(01:25:33):
like, yeah,

Ambien was, she was, but yeah, there's like,
there's some stuff. Like,sometimes even when you're
drunk, you're like, Okay, Idon't know how being on drugs
turns you into, like, a racist,like, it's like, crossing a line
there. I don't know. That'sprobably true. Yeah, yeah. You
gotta, you gotta be careful,like, what you say and in
interviews and stuff. Like, thelatest one was Rachel zegler,

(01:25:56):
like, they canceled her presstour because they didn't like, I
mean, she was, I didn't know ifshe even said that, that many
things that were that terrible,that a lot of people got really
riled up by by her stuff. And Idon't know, maybe it's just
because she's so beautiful. I'mlike, I give her a pass. I don't
know. Yeah.

I mean, we're, we've been in a very interesting
period where people are, areprone to leaping to outrage and
right? And that is thealgorithm, because that you need
to be outraged. And so people gooff half cocked on something
that they didn't even see orhear. And obviously it still
blows my mind that anyone wouldreact to something where they

(01:26:32):
don't know the whole context. Soif you're looking at a clip of
any anyone's podcast or anyinterview, and you didn't see
the words that came before andthe words that came after, I
would think, and I mean, Icertainly, I have, I don't tweet
anything that is not I just,it's either promotion or
support.

Love. Now you're very clean on social media.
Well, you have

to be, because I think we're in this period where
people are prone to outrage, aresort of getting off on it. And I
think, I hope, we'll passthrough it. I mean, it's a sort
of a necessary evil in mybusiness to get on it. I wish I
hadn't get on it. I wish I wasScarlett Johansson on some
level, but, but then I've gottento meet really cool people like
you, so like, it kind of worksout. But, yeah, it's not a
place. These aren't yourfriends. It's not a place to

(01:27:18):
have a nuanced conversation. Idon't know where the venues are
right now to have a very nuancedconversation, so I would always
air Yes.

I think podcasts. I think I've had some really yes
in conversation so with peoplefrom different ends of the
political spectrum, like farleft, far right or whatever, you
know, left or right or whatever,and I've had very respectful,
interesting conversations. Andwhen I look at this, their stuff
on social media. I go, God, thisperson is such a douche. And
then you sit down and talk withthem, you're like, oh, this

(01:27:45):
person's like, a really goodperson. Like, they just hundreds
of media.

No, that's it, because you said it probably
this is the only venue rightnow, long form podcast is the
only place. Because, you know,as Rogan says, you know, you
can, you can spin it for anhour, but no one's going to spin
it for three hours, right? Youhours, right? You won't be able
to be authentic. And that's thetheme of what you and I are
talking about today. Is like, wewant you crave authenticity and
music and performances and allthat stuff. And that's what I

(01:28:12):
love about this. But it's still,but still someone will get five
seconds of what you've said andbe like, I he's canceled. You're
I can't believe they showedthat. And you're like, dude, so
but this is

the place the thing where people make judgments
about someone, and, like, a lotof times it's someone, and I'm
like, I've listened to like,literally hours of the
interviews with this guy or girlor whatever, and I know what
they believe in and what theythink, but they take one snippet
they said something in 1972 andthey're like, this is what they
think. And I'm like, I'velistened to, like, literally
hours of, you know, for decades,they've been saying the opposite

(01:28:45):
of that thing. And then you'retaking it out of context. And I
don't know, it's reallyfascinating to me. It's
fascinating.

And, you know, you spoke about the Buddhists on,
you know, on white lotus, andwe're talking

so I love, I need, I need to learn more about what
I did this thing. It was a, itwas a 10 day retreat where you
don't talk and you justmeditate. And I sucked at it.
They said, You mind? I can't Ican't meditate for shit. I
tried. Though you

have monkey mind.
Well, yeah, I mean, Buddhism isbrilliant. I love the Four Noble
Truths, but there's a secularapproach to it, which the stoics
are basically. It's all the samesort of ethics and edicts of the
Buddhists. It's just about, youknow, life is suffering, but you
have no control over it. Controlwhat you can control. But, um,
but as far as this thing we justtalked about, but people, taking
people out of context and quotedthem, then I've also had go to

(01:29:32):
the Socratic method, where youjust ask more questions, you
know. You go like, okay, so whatdo you say this person is this
x, y and z? What do you knowabout them? Yeah. And what do
you know about that? And weusually, you know, that's, you
know, Socrates famously said,I'm the smartest man you know,
because I know nothing. And hejust would ask questions. And
every time you ask questions,sort of unravels, like, how?
Because a lot of people are justgoing off of, out of, off of

(01:29:53):
nothing, right? So, but it'schallenging, and, you know, you
just want to be kind. Andremember, yeah. All you can do
is control how you react. It.
Don't go off half cocked, don'tgo after someone on, like,
unless that's your business.
And, and I'm sad if that is yourbusiness, like, you know,
engaging people aggressively,and because

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