April 30, 2023 • 58 mins
Larry Hankin, has over 150 movies and television shows to his credit. Perhaps you know him as "Mr. Heckles" from Friends, "Charley Butts" from Escape From Alcatraz, "Kokolovitch" from Armed and Dangerous, "Kramer" from the Seinfeld pilot-within-a-show "Jerry" or any of his other many roles. Larry Hankin talks about his life and career in his new book, That Guy: A Cautionary Tale."
Larry stops into the Outhouse Lounge to talk with host Chris Cordani about:
His early life in show biz as a stand-up comedian
How he escaped a life-threatening situation involving a former room mate
A controversy involving The Lovin' Spoonful and the Local Authorities
Some of his iconic characters
Why a large amount of footage of his Kokolovitch character from Armed and Dangerous was censored from the movie.
How Hankin approaches auditions (perhaps a good way to approach any job interview)
His book A series of videos and stories written by Hankin about a character he created and developed over the years
The inspiration for Mr. Heckles
#podcast #LarryHankin #friends #mrheckles #acting #interview #actor #characteractor #book Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OuthouseLounge Follow Chris on Twitter at @ChrisCordani1 Our website; outhouselounge.com
Larry stops into the Outhouse Lounge to talk with host Chris Cordani about:
His early life in show biz as a stand-up comedian
How he escaped a life-threatening situation involving a former room mate
A controversy involving The Lovin' Spoonful and the Local Authorities
Some of his iconic characters
Why a large amount of footage of his Kokolovitch character from Armed and Dangerous was censored from the movie.
How Hankin approaches auditions (perhaps a good way to approach any job interview)
His book A series of videos and stories written by Hankin about a character he created and developed over the years
The inspiration for Mr. Heckles
#podcast #LarryHankin #friends #mrheckles #acting #interview #actor #characteractor #book Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OuthouseLounge Follow Chris on Twitter at @ChrisCordani1 Our website; outhouselounge.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Welcome to the Outhouse Lounge where werelax and talk about dounge whatever you want
to call it, with me inthe lounge today. As an actor,
you know, probably from a plethoraof on screen appearances and varied roles.
You might know him as mister Heckel'sfrom Friends. Perhaps you know him as
Charlie Bunts from Escape from Alcatraz.Or maybe if it is Creamer from the
(00:29):
show within a Show, Jerry,that's from Seinfeld. Of course he has
a book about his life, experiences, roles, and other work. Welcome
to the Outhouse Lounge, Larry Hankin. Well, I'm happy to be here.
Thank you for having me. Yourbook is called That Guy, A
contionary memoir, a roller coaster,a ride only matched by Edmund, A
(00:49):
butler's tale. I would say,perhaps what prompted you to write the book
about your life? Though I didn'twant to forget it. That's at the
bottom. You have to write itdown. I just had to write it
down because uh my mind was startingto go no. I all these stories.
(01:11):
There were there were stories that Iwould tell after I would do a
show. You know, you know, something would happen on the show or
and you know, you tell yourfriends hey, you know, like they
say, hey, you were onfriends. What was that like? And
I go blah blah blah blah blah, Hey was this and that and the
other thing? And they go,oh, that's a funny story. And
(01:34):
each time I would do a showthat would happen, you know, blah
blah blah and oh that's a funnystory. So I thought, I gotta
just tape these because I'm gonna I'mgonna forget them. And they're really good
stories. So I kept taping themor doing them on I have a one.
I had a one man show,you know, on stage, just
(01:55):
me talking about basically what's in thebook. So I was doing them on
stage, but they were all comingout of my own mouth, and I
thought, I got to get thisdown so I can get on with my
life and not just keep repeating these. So I recorded them. And then
there's an app on Microsoft where youcan put a tape into it and it'll
(02:15):
type it out. So I gotI got another guy, like a podcaster
like you, and we worked onSaturdays and he recorded everything, or I
gave him all the recordings, andhe was in New Jersey and he typed
it out and sent them to me, and then I edited that into the
(02:36):
book. So that's how it cameabout. That's a good idea. You
don't want to forget these stories anyway, or you don't want to leave any
details out right now? Right?Well yeah, I mean, like now
I'm writing a second book, andit's kind of hard because these are things
I didn't write down. I mean, you know, everything that I wrote
(02:58):
down I put in the book.So I've got news stories, but they
happened a long time ago, andI didn't tell these stories. These are
just you know, my personal lifestories that happened a long time ago.
A lot of details I can't remember, you know or I. So it's
(03:19):
it's harder. The second book isalways the second one is harder. Whatever
you do, the second one isharder. That's because you know what you're
in for. I guess I thinkthat's what it is. The first one
you don't know what you're doing,you know, you know, hey,
let's just go, and then thesecond one you know what it's going to
be like. So I think that'swhy it's harder. Well, let's get
(03:39):
into this book. You talk aboutyour life as well, you talk about
things you did. Yes, yourroles, we're going to get into that,
but you talked about when you werestruggling. A lot of people think,
hey, let's go let's let's let'sgo active. I think these guys
don't do much. They go in, they audition and get out. It's
a very tough life, especially whenyou're starting out. And your book not
(03:59):
only not only really shows people.I understand you call it a cautionary tale,
might be half joshing, but theidea is your book shows that you
really went through a heck of alot, even some time living in your
car. Oh yeah, yeah,it's not easy. Well maybe maybe no
job. It's easy because I consideredit a job, not a calling.
(04:25):
You know, my calling is I'ma storyteller. That's I'm a born storytelling
anthropologist is really what I am.What I love to do. Acting was
just a lot of money and itwas kind of fun and and very and
kind of interesting, and it wasusing my performing abilities. But it never
(04:50):
was a calling. It never wasmy dream. I never dreamed of being
an actor. So after a whileit just became a job, a hard
job, job, a difficult job, auditioning and you can't have any kind
of other kind of job because youhave to leave to go auditions. So
you got to get a special kindof job, maybe a temp job,
(05:13):
so you can leave to go audition, because that's what you where the money
is. That's funny. It's funnybecause one of your first roles was in
That Girl, which is about astruggling actress who had to take a lot
of temp jobs. Yeah, wellthat that's just ironic and just lucky or
foreshadowing. But I didn't know aboutthat, and I didn't realize it,
(05:38):
and I didn't even know what theshow was about. I remember doing it.
I never talked about it much becausenothing really happened, and I was
just dressed in ordinary clothes and Ijust played an a d you know,
television ad, so I was justnormal me. There was no act thing
(06:00):
involved. I had a very fewlines. You know, it's my first
job, so I mean, therewas nothing to it. I just went
in, I said my lines,and I went home, and I don't
remember too much about anything about it. Nothing happened, so there was nothing
that impinged on my memory. Butas things went along, I started to
(06:21):
pick up things, and funny thingshappened and so I started to tell stories
when I came home, you know, like I kind of know where it
came from. When I used tocome home from school, you know,
like in public school mainly, mymom would always say, you know,
(06:42):
well, what happened in school today? And I would tell her. So
coming back from you know, actingjobs or whoever it was worth, I
would, you know, say hey, you know, how is it on
Seinfeld? And I tell them.So it was just the same thing over
and over again on the different level. And I was getting paid. But
that's just where it came from.And I just started writing down the interesting
(07:08):
things or talking about them more andmore, telling them over and over until
you know, and as you tellthem over and over, you're editing them.
You're making them better, you know, verbally, did blah blah blah,
Oh they left here or I gotto remember that, blah blah blah.
So yeah, the book is reallythe best of it now, and
(07:30):
I want to tell one of thosestories in the book. I gotta go
check the book. But at leastyou can. That's a good thing,
right, I have a whole bunchof them here this way, you know,
you won't forget it because they're there. Yeah, and they're they're honed
now in the book, they're honed. And if you don't remember effects already
written down in the book, yousay you had a knife held to your
(07:51):
throat by your next roommate. Yeah. Yeah, Well that it comes from
not having enough money and having toget a roommate and not doing the proper
vetting of the roommate. I wasno Internet. The ironic thing was that
(08:16):
back in college it was a seeI feel. I thought I knew him
because I knew him from college.And this is years later and I called
him and he said, oh,I need a place to live. I
just broke up with my girlfriend.And I said, oh, well,
I remember you from college. Okay, But I didn't know that he was
a veteran and that he was incollege on some sort of you know,
(08:41):
government thing, and he had PTSDwhich I didn't know about, and it
didn't show in college. I guesshe was young and could fight it or
something. I don't know, maybenobody got a mad But when years later
when I called him and I said, hey, you know I heard you
(09:03):
maybe looking for a roommate, andhe said yeah. So he became my
roommate and I didn't bother asking himwhat he'd been doing or anything like that.
I just figured, well, we'lljust pick up where we left off
in college. And then we wentto a bar. He liked to drink
and I didn't drink, but Iwould go and played a game of pool
(09:24):
with him. And then he gotto know a fight in the bar,
a bad fight, and he cheateda little. But hey, man,
it's a fight. You know.You can't you can't. It's a fight,
man. The other guy would havekilled him or put him in a
hospital. So but basically what hedid is he kicked him in the chest.
(09:48):
You know, he kicked him andpushed him back, and he yelled
at me. My friend yelled atme, said Larry, run and we
both ran. Now you know,we ran and ran and ran and ran,
and we outran everybody. Because inmy mind, all iways thinking was
if they catch me, I'm dead. So they will not catch me.
(10:11):
I mean, I just sent itfor my life. I was running for
her life. And and then whenwe got home, you know, he
was a marine, that was whathe was, and he goes, hey,
we run upstairs. We locked thedoor. I mean it was but
we ran along about twenty or thirtyblocks. Okay, we get home,
(10:31):
we locked the door, and hegoes into the kitchen and he takes the
sharpest, biggest knife in the kitchendrawer, in the knife drawer, and
he walks out and I go,where are you going? He said,
I'm going back to the bar andI'm going to kill the guy, fucking
kill him. And they go,no, what are you talking about?
And I thought, wow, man, I didn't know about this. Now,
(10:52):
in college, he had broke upa fight where I was getting beat
up, so he kind of savedme, you know, from being injured,
but he broke up the fight.So now he's going out and going
to kill this guy with a knife, and I'm going, whoa, whoa,
wait a minute. But I didn'tchase him. I just said,
don't do that. And then heran downstairs. So I called the bar
(11:16):
and I said, hey, man, you know the guy who you know
the fight that just happened. Ohyeah, man, it was really terrible.
Yeah, Well, the guy's comingback. This is his friend.
I was with him, and he'scoming back with a knife. So the
guy who beat him, who theywere fighting with, get him out of
there, because he said he's crazy, he's an ex marine. He's got
a knife. I mean, justget him out of there. So he
(11:39):
said, okay, So he gothim out of there, and then about
a half hour later he came backto the house, to the apartment with
the knife and there was no bloodon the knife, and I go,
boy, and then he goes,you rat it on me? Go,
what do you mean? He said? The guy the bar telling When I
(12:00):
got there, they said that yourfriend called and said to get the guy
out of here. You're coming witha knife, so talk to your friend.
So he comes back to me now, and that's when he put the
knife to my thirty said I wasgoing to kill that guy, but there's
gonna be blood on this knife,so it's gonna be yours now, Larry,
(12:22):
and boom man. He puts hisknife to my throat. And then
that's not bad enough. I meanthat puts fear. I mean, I've
never been that frightened him. Iwas immobile, that's how scared I was.
I wouldn't think. And he startspushing me back, and I'm going,
what was he pushing me against thewall? No? And he starts
pushing me back into the bathroom intothe shower. I'm like, oh,
(12:46):
no, man, because you knowwhat that is. Can you guess why
I was so frightened I saw themovie. Yeah, I mean because he
wanted it to catch the blood.So there's no blood on the floor.
It's I'm in the bathtub in theshower, and he's got me pushed up
(13:07):
against the pipes, you know,the shower patches that go there. I'll
never forget that, the feeling ofthe pipes on my back. And I
talked my way out of it.I don't know what I said. I
mean, I put a little ofit in the book, but it might
be right, it might be wrong. I just was talking that and he
didn't. He didn't hold it away. He held it against my throat.
(13:31):
And the other thing was that myformer roommate Carl Gottlieb, who later wrote
Jaws. So we were buddies inSyracuse, in college Syracuse. He went
into the knife that he took outof the kitchen drawer. Carl was my
roommate before he left. He wasdrafted. So then I got this guy.
(13:54):
He goes into the drawer and hetakes out the biggest knife, and
I know for a fact that Carlhad bought that knife to carve steak or
to carve big things. So Ihad used that knife, and I knew
how sharp it was, so Iknew this is real, man is real.
(14:18):
But I talked my way out ofit. I mean to make a
longer story shorter. I talked myway out of it. He finally came
back. I basically, I thinkbecause I was so frightened, I talked
extremely calmly. I was amazed atthe tone of my voice. It was
very calm, and look, youknow, you don't want to do this.
(14:41):
And I even had a theme inmy head. I said, don't
talk about me, don't say don'tkill me, don't say I want to
live, don't don't talk about meat all. Talk about him and his
girlfriend, you know, and breakingup. So that's what I You know,
hey, you know you're gonna don'tknow you did it. You don't
(15:05):
have to spend time in jail forthis. You know, you got a
girl friend. And he came tohis senses and he just said, okay,
so you ever to do that again, you're dead. Okay. So
about four in the morning that thisall happened. You know, if I'm
two o'clock at the bar one thirty. Okay, so about four in the
(15:30):
money, I stayed up the restof the night. He went to sleep.
Yeah, well, you know,hey just out. So I waited.
I stayed up, and about eighto'clock, seven o'clock, I said,
as the light came, I don'tknow, six o'clock whatever, I
just packed up whatever I could andI just left and I gave him the
(15:50):
key, and I said, thisis your place, goodbye, and I
just split where I packed a suitcase. Uh. And that was the last
I've ever seen of him or heardof him. Good advice for an aspiring
actor with the roommate who so crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So in other
(16:11):
words, what I'm what I'm sayingabout the questionary tale about the book is,
yeah, there's these stories about youknow, friends and Steinfeld and breaking
bad and stuff. But in between, as an actor, you got to
make a living and you got tohave a life. And I just was
making very poor choices in that section, you know. Uh, you know,
(16:34):
because at the time show business wasokay, I was, I was
a stand up comedian. At thetime, I wasn't I didn't get to
Hollywood. This all happened in NewYork. So I was a stand up
comedian. I was working with coffeehouses, you know, small nightclubs,
and I was and then I gota you know, on an eight a
(16:55):
manager, and he started booking mein bigger places. And when I got
to Chicago, I was being pulledoff the stage by cops. Stand up,
yeah, because I got into criticalthinking. You know, Carlin and
Prior and Lenny Bruce. I mean, these were my semi hemi demi contemporaries.
(17:15):
They were a little ahead of me, but I started to I saw
Lenny live about four or four orfive times, the whole arc. I
saw the whole arc from the yearsright as he was being pulled off the
stage and getting famous. And thenI saw that his very last ever performance
(17:40):
of his life, and the arcwas just sad. It was very sad.
He was funny, God knows hewas funny. He's a funny guy.
He's one of the funniest people I'veever known. But he it was
like I likened that I think Imentioned in the book. It was like
(18:03):
Don Quixote on stage trying to befunny and prove he was sane. Nothing
wrong with that, you know,but it was don Quixote, Well you
did, don Quiote wasn'tsane. Well, look, those windmills are pretty tough,
you know, you never know.Maybe maybe he was sane and he
knew way ahead of time though itwas windmills are going to destroy things.
(18:26):
Maybe well no, because the copthere was cops standing in the back of
the room. Just I'm only kidding. I know, I know, I
know, but there was. Hewas a beaten man, and I looked
up to him. I mean,it's very rare that you can see an
icon of yours of ones, youknow, if it were maybe you were
(18:48):
an actor, would be de Naroor Brando, and then to see him,
you know, just babbling and tryingto be an actor but old,
and you go wow, why Sothat you know, it was hard.
It was hard, But it wasfilmed. Not only was I there and
(19:12):
he was at the end of hishe never performed again, but it was
being filmed, and that's why hedid what he did. That's why he
performed. And that's why I saidit was don Quixote trying to prove because
he came on with law books.He made a hunk a bit a twenty
(19:33):
minute he was on for an hour, but about forty minutes of that hour
was him with books, trying toprove to the audience and to the cops
in the back, and to thecamera, to the people who are going
to watch this movie that he wasright and the cops were wrong and they
should leave him alone. And hewas trying to also make it funny.
(19:55):
And that was a sad part becauseit was funny, but it was also
sad. It was his life.This wasn't a bit. He was pleading
to please leave me alone and letme do what I love to do,
which was tell stories and talk ina normal voice, which meant, you
know, talking about some guy whodid some dumb shit, and then the
(20:18):
cops would bust him for the shitpart. But he was just being conversational.
He wasn't pursing like hey you blahblah blah. No, he was
just saying, you know, alot of stuff is you know, stupid
dumb shit. And that was sad. That was because he was right and
now and I then became being pulledoff the stage for the same thing and
(20:41):
even less and even less, andI called my manager, who was Woody's
manager. So I had a bigtime at manager, and they said,
look, man, I can't dothis. This isn't fun. I mean,
I saw what happened to Lenny,but this is ridiculous. And I'm
not doing drugs. I mean theywere busting him from drugs and cursing.
(21:03):
But were you pulled off the stagefour? Excuse me? What were you
pulled off the stage four for?Saying? Well, okay, I'll tell
you exactly one time that I waspulled off the stage four, But then
that one time was spread because Iwas doing arenas. I was opening for
UH. I was opening for TheLove and Spoonful. I was opening for
(21:30):
The Love and Spoonful and they wereon tour, so I was opening for
an arenas. Okay, so Iget on stage. Is a college audience,
a college arenas, you know,college auditoriums. I'm on stage and
I'm doing clean stuff. Everything isfine, I'm funny, I'm doing my
job. And then I said,okay, let's go into I said to
(21:52):
myself, cool, I'm gonna gointo the uh, the other stuff,
you know, the darkness, thedark So you know, I started,
I say, this is what Iwas pulled off stage one. Is the
first thing that I did from theclean stuff. I have a microphone,
you know, you know, Ihave a microphone, and I go and
I take this little place. Isaid like, hey, let's talk about
(22:14):
God now. And all of asudden, the audience went quieter than ever.
Something was wrong, and I said, okay, let's and then I
said and then I said, okay, So here's a little guy and I
put him on the top of themicrophone and I started talking to him and
I said, hey, how areyou doing, a little guy? I'm
(22:36):
God. And as soon as Isaid I'm God, how you doing,
I heard about like a thousand sphinterssnap shut, you know, and I
go, oh, oh, thisis not going to be You can tell.
You can tell by the silence ofan audience that what you're doing is
not being approved by them. Youcan tell. And I knew it.
(23:00):
I just kept on going and thenI said, hey, where's your clothes?
And what's that between your legs?And that's when the cops came on
on stage and I saw a fountain. Now that's not bad, but a
couple of weiner chokes basically, so, yeah, it's a weener show.
It's a winner joke, it's yeah, okay, but I didn't say that.
(23:22):
I just said, what's that betweenyour legs? And then I saw
from the back on the aisles,ten cops on each aisle, on each
wall aisle, come down. They'vebeen waiting back there. And I found
out later that, well, okay, the first time I did this,
(23:44):
when I said, okay, what'sthat between your legs? The audience started
to boo. The audience started toboo at what's that between your legs?
And no cursing, nothing, okay, So they started to but no,
no, dud, the funny stuff, dude, the clean stuff, dude,
clean stuff. This is a collegeaudience. So I stopped and I
and I started talking to them.I said, what are you doing?
(24:07):
I said to them, As they'rebooing no the funny stuff, I said,
what are you doing? Man?You're a college audience. You know
what happened to sex, drugs androck and roll. You just wants to
like this stuff, you know,And you're booing me. I said okay,
And then they wouldn't stop. Theylistened to me do that. They
stopped booing to to listen to mesay that. But then I said,
(24:30):
okay, I'm going to continue nowbecause they shut up it's okay, so
what's that between your leg boo?They started again, but even even worse.
So I said, okay, I'lldo the clean stuff. Geez,
because the love and spoonful in thein the wings and they're yelling do it,
no, do the dirty stuff,do the dirty stuff, because they
(24:52):
wanted to riot. They're the rocketright yeah, trap roll doing the dirty
stense. So I'm going to dothe clean stuff. So they shut down,
they shot up, shut up andlistened. So I'm doing the clean
stuff. Now Here's what I foundout later when I When I did,
but what's that between your legs?Them? We cut the head of the
(25:15):
school. The dean of the schoolwas in the back listening, and when
I started to say that, hecalled the cops immediately, as I'm god,
you know your naked boom he calledthe cops. Now the cops came,
but in the meantime, by thetime they got there, I had
done. I had gone back tothe clean stuff. So now I'm doing
(25:37):
the clean stuff. The cops arein the back, twenty of them,
and they're standing there talking to thedean saying he's not doing anything that we
see is I don't know why shouldwe put them up the stage and the
dean said wait here, so theywaited, and then you know, I'm
going clean stuff, clean stuff,clean stuff, more cleans. And then
when I got a really big laugh, I said, okay, let's go
(26:03):
back to the god stuff. What'sthat between your leg and boom? You
see the cops coming down? Allright? These are now see that that
coming. And they came up onstage and I was just standing there watching
this, and the and the kids. We're quiet, they saw cops and
(26:25):
they're just shut up. And alsothey were pulling off the sides of the
the armrests or the chairs and throwingthem at me, you know, the
wooden armrests or of their Yes,what a ra don't I guess? There
were no tomatoes or whitefish around?Huh yeah, right, just just well,
if I was hit by one ofthem, would you know, hurt
me? Bade? So the copstook me up. But you see that.
(26:48):
So then when we went to thenext venue, which was in Northwestern
University, when we got off thebus to go to register into the hotel,
there was the dean, a cop, and a priest waiting for us.
At the beginning of the joke.What excuse me, sounds like the
beginning of a joke. Yeah,yeah, yeah. Well, a cop
(27:11):
and a priest and a dean walkedinto a hotel and they said, we
would like to Is there a LarryHankin in this group? The dean said,
and the managers immediately knew what thiswas all about. The managers are
traveling with us. They're managers Loveand Spoonful. So they stepped in between
(27:33):
us and they said, um or, they stepped in between us, and
they turned their backs on the priestand the and the cop and the priest
and the dean, and they turnedto us and they hid their finger and
they said, you know, becausethe cops are back there, and now
the cop and the dean and theand the and the priest, and they
(27:56):
goes, okay, look, Iwant everybody to go up to his room.
And he pointed at me his room, locked the door, and don't
let anybody in. Accept us goand we just split for the elevators.
They turned around and then he startedtalking, Okay, so we're up there
(28:17):
for about twenty minutes, knock onthe door and in the Love and Spoonful,
you know, meanwhile we're talking aboutwhat should we do. The Loving
Spoonful and me in my room,locked the door, and we're talking about,
well, should you do the dirtystuff for the clean stuff? And
the Lovin Spoonful was saying do thedirty stuff because they wanted a riot,
(28:41):
and they wanted me to be busted, you know, for for publicity.
They liked me, They just wantedthe publicity. So I'm saying, well,
yeah, but I got a careertoo, and blah blah blah,
and knock on the door and themanagers come in. They say, well,
they don't want you to go on, Larry, I go why And
(29:03):
they said, the dean of theother school Washington you in Saint Louis,
called Ahead. See that's what thewhole thing was. They kept calling Ahead
and saying he's a dirty comedian.Well, the correct quote was the Loving
Spoonful are traveling have an opening witha filthy mouth comedian. That was what
(29:29):
they called me, a filthy mouthedcomedian. So they said, if he
goes on, we're shutting the concertdown. They then the Love and Spoonful
camp play, so Love and Spoonfulthought that was okay. They said,
hey, Larry, do the dirtystuff and we won't do the concert.
That's fine, let him shut usdown. We were the publicity's worth it.
(29:52):
The managers weren't like the love andspoonful that. They were like managers.
No, look all right, lookLarry, I'll tell you why.
They said. They gave us asecond option. Oh now that good loving
spoon they want to close down theconcert. Suddenly a second option came up
from yeah, of course, ofcourse, So really, what is the
(30:15):
second option? If you do cleanmaterial, you can do the concert.
But as soon they said, assoon as you do anything dirty, we're
shutting down the lights. So hesaid, so the lemon spoons, So
let's do that, and just dothe dirty stuff, you know, let's
do that. So I said,okay, but I was going to do
the clean stuff, I thought.And then as we're as the audience is
(30:41):
filling up, I said to them, oh fucking I'm gonna just do it.
I mean, I can't. I'mnot gonna play this game. So
I just went out there and Idid my my regular material, you know,
just what I was doing, youknow, and about five minutes of
clean stuff, and then the restis just critical thinking stuff, not dirty
stuff, just critical thinking stuff,politics, sacks, religion, blah blah
(31:04):
blah, just the topics that youtalk about, you know, get you're
fired today. Yeah, I thinkit should castle shut down today. And
uh, nothing happened, just laughs, and everything was fine though nobody did
nothing. No cops showed up,and that was and that was the way
it went for the rest of thetour. But in nightclubs, yes,
(31:26):
uh um, the headliners that Iwould open for would say cleaner, cleaner,
dirty. You know, you can'tdo dirty stuff. If you if
you do dirty stuff, you can'topen for me, you know for us.
Uh Kingston Trio clean stuff. Theycame out and we would beer bottles,
(31:47):
get the fuck off the stage becauseI said shit or something. And
that was a nightclub, so theycan get at me. I mean it
was just a dance floor and thenyou know, upside down beer bottle.
So I mean, that's life inshow business. That's you know, that's
crazy man. So I called theseguys seems so mild mannered. The Kingston
Trio they come here. Yeah,I mean, oh, you know,
(32:10):
I'm a funny guy, just wantto make people laugh. You learn new
things here on the Outhouse lounge.And yeah, so I called my manager
and I said, look, it'snot fun anymore. I don't want to
do this, you know I don't. So he said, joined Second City.
So I you know, you auditionedand joined Second City. Then we
opened and set and San Francisco withfounded maybe you co founded that, right,
(32:34):
and then and then we became actorsbecause Hollywood was right down the block,
you know, San Francisco to La. From what I'm noticing, that's
your book, Larry. From whatI'm from your book. As far as
getting into acting, a lot ofyour characters seem again I'm just sitting here
reading and watching and looking, soI'm not there, and I wasn't there,
(32:55):
but only some of these characters seemto be drawn from your experiences before
becoming before becoming famous, I shouldsay, and in what way do you
do you mean? Can you meana little more specific some of them,
a little bit of uh, justsay, just a little way out there,
a little different take. Oh now, that's that's just me. And
(33:17):
maybe the survivorship of some of thecharacters that's sort of well. Yeah.
In otherwise, there was an edgeto whatever I did because of what I've
been through. I mean, likeI was going yeah, whatever the role
was, I was saying, no, this is a piece of cake.
I've been I've been in worse situationsthan this character. I mean, even
(33:38):
uh old Joe. You know,it was just fine. Yeah. I
once I'm out there in front ofa camera. You know, I dropped
any facade or mask, and Ijust through the character. I just me.
(34:00):
You know, it's always me.Well, that's the funny thing.
One of your more famous characters.And I guess a lot of young people
know you because the resurgence of friendsand everything else and all the syndication is
your mister Heckel's character. I'd loveto know how much of you as in
this guy. Well, there's certaincharacters that I know instinctively, because You're
(34:25):
right, I may have lived it. But more important, more specifically,
it's somebody that I know. Notit's not me, but like mister Heckel's
is my grandfather, that's it.I mean he was the manager of an
apartment house and he wouldn't turn upthe heat or take out the garbage.
(34:50):
He just didn't care. And Iwould always get not me. I was
about five or six or seven oreight years old this point, but my
mom would always get calls from theapartment house, people say, would you
please come here and tell your fatherto take out the garbage and take care
(35:12):
of the hot water or whatever.And then he said, you know,
Larry, put on your coat.We got to go talk to grandpa,
you know. And so we getin the car and go over to the
apartment house and talk to my grandfather. My mom would talk to her father
about Pop, you got to takeout the garbage. You get You're a
manager, you know, you gottatake care of these people. You can't
(35:35):
just forget it, you know.All right, Okay, so that was
mister Heckles. You know, hewas a fun character. Though I understand.
I want to step back on thisone because I thought I read something
about the producers not wanting you onthe or not wanting mister Heckel's on the
reunion special. But you were thereanyway. They brought you in well because
(36:00):
because um, I'm very hard todeal with. Man. I didn't get
along with anybody on the uh onthe set you know, of friends,
I never got uh. Not notthat I was angry or that I was
(36:21):
feisty or anything like that. No, but I just I'm not I'm I'm
kind of shy. I guess Idon't know. I just keep to myself,
you know. And also I'm justI have dyslexia. I've had it
since I was I was born withit, so it's very hard for me
to remember lines. So I takeextra time. And it's in It's in
(36:44):
my almost I think it's in mycontract. But I have to get the
the script early. No, therewas the first of the of the first
people who get any script. Ihave to be one of them, uh,
in any show that I do,and then I can memorize it because
I need the time. That's allit is. And they everybody's you know,
(37:07):
find sure, you know, sendthem the script early whatever, even
with the changes. Send it tothem early. Okay, fine, so
I'm okay, but sometimes they changeit in rehearsal and then I get a
little flummocks a little so, youknow, so I kind of stand up
(37:28):
for myself, you know, sayall right, just you know, blah
blah, back off. And Ithink that's also called ahead. So they
think I'm hard to work with,and I think that's why I wasn't.
They didn't want me in the reunionbecause because they wouldn't let me on the
set. They wouldn't let me anywherenear anybody. When I came in,
they put me in my own dressingroom, and I said, well,
(37:52):
can I go downstairs and watch theshow the reunion? And they go,
no, you have to stay inyour room. What that's not very nice.
No, And then I said,well, I'll have to go to
the bathroom one time, you know, because I was in there for about
twenty thirty minutes, forty minutes,I don't know, a long time.
So I had to go to thebathroom. So I said, you know,
(38:13):
so they had to, so theysah, yeah, well, so
they took me down and the bathroomwas downstairs near where they were shooting.
So I saw the shooting. Isaw them shooting, and I saw a
lot of other actors, and theyhad you know, the seats you know,
for the audience, you know,the the bleachers, you know,
(38:34):
so everybody was watching. There wasa whole about one hundred people just standing
around all over the set watching themtake And I said, can't I just
watch and they said, no,you have to, So I said okay.
But so that was kind of theI thought, well, this is
part of the friends thing, youknow, I just didn't get along on
(38:55):
the set, and that's why theykilled me. That's why they gave him
a heart attack on the on theon the fifth show, I mean on
the sixth show, they would havehad to raise my salary because that would
have been a recurring So that's howit works. The five episodes and and
your yeah, you paid more byby by contract, by union, by
(39:21):
legal, and they said, well, let's kill them off because they needed
a they needed an apartment for well, one of the characters. They here's
his house. See when your audition, my attitude, See, I have
an attitude problem. I do.I know it. Sometimes I try to
(39:43):
deal with it. Sometimes I don'tbother. But when I went into audition
for like Friends, you know,generally my attitude is you people are way
stupider than me. But okay,let's audition. I'm going to audition for
you. You're gonna judge me.You you stupid people. Then that's kind
(40:07):
of you know, And every oncein a while you run it to some
people. Hey, you people aresmart, you know what's good or bad.
And sometimes I'll say, you know, you should have hired the other
guy. He's much better than me. The guy who went in before me.
I listened at the door. He'sreally good. Hire him. I've
done that. I mean, Ijust see it's not my stick. I
(40:30):
wasn't born to be an actor,so I can you know, this is
a free for all. I'm gettinga lot of money. I've got some
money in the bank. I'm equalto you. If you want to be
stupider than me, that's your prerogative. There you go, you're sitting on
that side of the table, sogo ahead. But then I can talk
(40:50):
back to you if you get outof line. I mean, I loved
that freedom that I gave myself.I didn't do it very often. I
mean, can't do it all thetime, man, I mean, they
would just get tired or wouldn't hireyou. But in other ways I would
do it, and I, youknow, my talent just out distance my
attitude, you know, said theywouldn't hire me and I could get away
(41:14):
with it, and I would,you know, And I minded my p's
and queues when I said no,I've been to not do it this time.
These people, look, mean whathappened with what happened with Kreamer?
Looking at Kramer, I just lovedthe same I was watching the guy the
Real Creamer when he was running frommayor of New York City and talking to
(41:36):
you. Now I can see Ican see some people I believe it was
I guess somebody was. You wereone of the original choices to play to
play play Kramer. I can seethat because there's a lot of you and
him and him and you, atleast from talking to you today. Well,
it's real New York. It's wherewe're new We're in New York and
we're ex hippies, you know,and would call and we kind of look
(41:58):
alike, you know. So Iwere quirky. But Larry David wanted to
wanted me for Um Kramer from thebeginning. It was the producers and the
director and everybody else who didn't uhMichael Richards wanted me. Well, I
mean you still got to be Kramerin one episode. Well yeah, finally,
(42:23):
I mean it got down to becauseof my imitation, right. They
gave me that um that episode thatwas a Kramer episode, that was real,
that was real. It was theKramer words that I was saying was
from an episode they did about ayear before or months before. So I
(42:46):
so they sent me the episode ofme, you know, do it the
pillows and stuff. So they saidthat, So I just watched it for
I think ages. I think Iwatched it a thousand times and I wasn't
acting. I was just imitating MichaelRichards doing Cramer what I saw on the
TV. And I don't think anybodyelse had was privy to that. So
(43:09):
that was a great thing that somebodydid me the favor of sending me that.
So I don't think they had anychoice. I mean, there's nobody
who could do Cramer like I didit because I watched it a thousand times.
I mean I had it pretty muchdown, so that's how I finally
(43:30):
got the role. But I hadan addition five times. I mean that
was unheard of. It's unheard of. Well, you might be able to
run from Mayor then just like theother Cramer. Who knows, Yeah,
that would work perfectly. I haveto ask this, though, because you
were in one of my favorite movies, Armed and Dangerous. Oh wow,
yeah, that's cool movie. Yeah. From what I understand, a lot
(43:52):
of your stuff was left on thecutting room floor for a rather peculiar reason.
Yeah, well I didn't get alongwith um. Yeah, I love
that scene. But you see thatpicture right there. Okay, that's a
(44:15):
very iconic picture in the industry becausewhen that scene happened, everybody thought again
that I was Kokolovitch and I lovedfiring guns. They thought that was real
(44:36):
that scene. But I was doingright there. They thought that guy loves
firing guns, and nobody would comenear me. Man, and the director
thought that I was crazy and onacid, so he didn't shoot me at
all. He didn't photograph, hedidn't film me at all, or or
(44:57):
let me put it this way.He filled me when he had to when
I is part of a scene sayingsomething, but he always did it in
a two shot because he told me. The director told me that he was
ordered by the producers to put LarryHankin back in the movie. He had
cut the heart of the movie totallyand didn't film me as well as anybody
(45:21):
else, because he thought he wouldn'tuse me. He thought, I don't
have to shoot him. I'm notgoing to keep him in the movie.
He's crazy, he's on acid,and he's wild. He's dangerous. Look
at that he's firing a gun man. He loves it. So he was
afraid of me. He wouldn't eventalk to me. Now. He told
me this about a year later whenI met him at another thing and I
(45:43):
went up to him and I said, you know, you always talk to
me rudely or loudly, or youwould talk to me twice. Why And
he said, because I thought youwere on acid. Man, I don't
think, he said, man.I think he said, because you were
on acid and I didn't want toget near you, and I thought,
you know you you love guns.I didn't understand. I'm sorry, but
(46:08):
he says, if you go ohwas that the casting screw cast and crew
screening? That he said that tome before I went in. He said,
before you go in, I wantyou to know what you're going to
see about your part. And heexplained why it looked like it looked because
what he did was he didn't doany answer shot. You know, any
(46:29):
answer you know what the answer shotis. You know, if you do
a close up on me talking toyou, you got to do a close
up of you listening to me,you talking, I'm listening to you.
Boom boom, answer shot. Hedidn't do it. If somebody was talking
to me, they get a closeup of him, and then they get
a master shot of me answering orjust him listening to me and you just
(46:53):
hear my voice. I know thathe tried to keep me out of the
frame as much as possible. Andthen when the UM producers hollered at him
after they saw the final cut ofhis where's Larry hankin, Where's Kokolovitch right?
And he said, well, he'son the on the cutting room floor.
(47:14):
We cut him out. He's he'scrazy, He said, he's not
crazy, he's funny. Put himback in under orders from them. Standing
in the editing room, he hadto go through. He told me.
He confessed this to me before Iwent in to see the cast and cruise
screening. He confessed to me thathe had to go through the outtake bins
(47:38):
to find anything with me, anyscene with me in it, just because
he was scared of you acting.Yeah, yeah, I think he because
of my gun. He thought,well, he'll he'll shoot me if I
don't do this. You know,I guess that that's that's the mark of
a good actor, when you whenyou scare the h happens. It happened
(48:00):
three times in my career where thedirector thought I was the character Kakolovitch.
Um, who's the other one?Oh the Hell's Angel in hay Landlord,
oh boy um and uh Larry Um. I don't remember. The director wouldn't
(48:24):
come near me because he thought Iwas a real Hill's Angel. Yeah.
And then and then one other oneI can't remember. Yeah, I was
the real, real thing. Andthat Seinfeld episode George was afraid of you
because a couple of things too,But that was kind of funny. It
seems like it kind of came toa little head there too in that Seinfeld
episode in uh, when I was, when I was Kramer, when you
(48:45):
were a Kramer. Yeah, thereal child. No, he's no Costanza,
George. That's what I mean.George Costanza was afraid of you.
Character. He's he is a greatactor. He's never actually been stretched.
But doing the scene with him,I realized that this guy is really cool.
(49:07):
Uh No, he's not afraid ofme. He's the character. The
character was, Yeah, the character, but that was the actor. He's
a really he really is a goodactor. I think the man's fantastic.
I just like the dynamic between youand him. Yeah, yeah, because
he brought it man right right.I knew when I was he made me
(49:30):
even be better. There's a lotof times where somebody, you know,
make you be on your toes.Man bring you, I would bring your
best game. Well, that's thefunny thing what we were talking about today,
A little bit, a little bitof each of what you were discussing.
That scene just rings in my headwhere you're sitting here saying I'm the
(49:50):
smart one, you're the stupid oneon the other side of the table.
You're gonna have to bring it tome. I'm gonna bring it to you.
But I know I'm the and andof course the director of being afraid
of you here and there. Thatkind of comes to ahead in that particular
scene. That's why what we're talkingabout is is a little extra funny for
me. I suppose, Well,yeah, he means the scene where I
go, I don't want you totalk talk to you know where I'm hot,
(50:10):
you know, don't tell me aboutor any other dried fruit. Right,
Yeah, that's that scene. Yeah, and that's what exactly I was
channeling that anger from, you know, don't tell me I'm stupid, You're
stupid. Yeah, exactly, Isee what what you're talking about. No,
definitely that is true. People thatstuff. I'm always I'm way out
(50:36):
there too sometimes so yeah, butbut that's what good acting does. And
then you but you you're you're underyou're controlling it, but you're using it.
Yeah. Yeah, And sometimes Iwould do that in the committee or
in the second City. But Iwouldn't even it would be subconscious. I
wouldn't know it. You know you, but you would do a good scene.
(50:58):
Why because you were tapped into theadrenaline of that hop happenstance. You
know, we have a few minutesleft. We have a few minutes left
for the show, Larry, Iwanted to ask you this question because this
is where it all boils down to. I am always a fan of the
actor who can play not the biggestroles in the show, but make the
smaller roles memorable, make the recurringcharacters memorable, make this guy steal the
(51:22):
scene here and there. Those aremy favorite actors and why it's fascinating to
see how you all do that.So I'm going to ask that question,
how do you make these characters lovableand memorable even with the smaller parts.
Oh okay, that's a great question. Two answers. One is, well,
(51:47):
maybe there's just one answer. Ithink because when I used to come
off the stage in the committee andthe audience could be, you know,
applauding, I would wonder, whatare they applauding about? I mean,
now, it was a scene thatI just did with say another guy or
girl. Okay, so there's onlytwo people in the scene, big laughs,
a lot of applause I got.Okay, so half the applause is
(52:12):
hers or his and half the applausehis mind. But I don't know what
I did to even deserve half ofit. I never understood what the audience
like, and they would come upafter the show and they'd say, hey,
that's really really great. So theonly thing I can think of is
that I was born with what theylike. And any other actors that you
like because their character actors, notthe star, but you like it.
(52:37):
It's because they're there. They wereborn with something that's attractive that you like
about them, and they have nocontrol over it. I have no control
over it. I have done somethings that I thought were really bad and
people say, oh, that waswonderful, we loved you. But I
always want to ask, what didyou love? What? I don't understand
(52:59):
even what I did something really greatthat I thought was great and the audience
thought was great, or they didn'tthink was great. I just wondered,
what what did you see that thatattracted There's no explanation for what you just
ask. Is my answer to that. I can give you technical and specific
(53:20):
things that I do. You know, like I channel my grandfather, or
I channel my uncle, or Ichannel my anger. But how I steal
scenes? That's your word, notmine. I don't steal scenes. I
just be there at m I supposeno. Well, but that's what it
(53:42):
is, you know. And theyalways say like, here's the here's here's
the only answer I could give you. It just occurred to me. There's
an old saying in acting. Neverdo scenes with children or dog or animals.
Dogs, never do scenes with childrenanimals. Why do you think that
is, Chris, Because they're socute, supposedly that people will stare at
(54:07):
them. Okay, that's the dogmight pee on you, that's the other
actor. Okay, the kid mighttoo, by the way, all all
correct, All correct. The thingthat we take is they the dog or
the child is not doing whatever callsthe audience's attention to them on purpose,
(54:32):
right, exactly smart. See thesmart actors know what they're doing. That's
why when you see at the table, you're the smart one and they're the
dumb ones. That's perfect. Ilike it, right, you didn't hire
me. How stupid can you get? I say, they're stupid because we
were a lot of us. Rememberyour characters. I remember I produced a
(54:57):
show where I brought in El Q. Jones to talk to the host.
He was the guy who was shotand killed at least at that point,
more than anybody else in TV andmovie history. But that's that, that's
where you're memorable. I guess Ilove Jonathan Harris because Jonathan Harris is always
memorable to look on his face thatthings he doing. Yet, I mean,
they just react in the right way. But it has nothing to do.
(55:19):
I mean, they do their homework, they do their research, they
memorize their lines, they get relaxed, they go into the scene, they
move the scene forward. They comewith energy. But really the reason you're
watching them is there's no explanation.There's no explanation. I do want to
say thank you because people come tome and all the same I say,
(55:40):
how come I always watch you inthe scene. I don't know, man,
I don't I'm not doing that onpurpose. I don't want you to
watch me. You gotta watch thestar. But you know fine, I
get paid a lot of money becauseyou watch me. Thank you exactly.
You and those are the smart peopleon the side of the table who know
(56:01):
when it can bring somebody in likethat. So that works too. Speaking
of smart, this book is fun. It's it's a roller coaster, it's
it's real life, and it's yourstories. It's what you had written down.
It's called That Guy, a cautionarymemoir by my guest Larry Hankin.
Larry for our viewers and our listeners, where can they find more about not
(56:25):
just a book and you, butwhat you're doing nowadays and maybe next while
I'm writing the next book, andI'm going to be in a movie in
September, so I got some thingscoming and I'm gonna try to turn this
book into a movie. So that'scoming up. So those are the three
things. But you can get thisbook on Amazon mainly Amazon dot com and
(56:47):
Patreon going Patreon, that's my channelon Patreon, Patreon. It's Patreon dot
com slash Larry Hankin Patrion dot com, slash forward, slash Larry Hankin one
word, Larry Hankin. So that'smy channel. You can find on my
(57:09):
little video videos, my little videosthat I make with my money that star
me and they're funny y Chicago comedies. So that's so those are the two
places. And then just buy thebook. It's really funny, and give
me a gold star. Amazon lovesgold stars, and so do I because
(57:30):
they'll advertise your book. If Iget enough gold stars, they will advertise
my book for me. Well that'swhat you need, gold stars. I
knew that. Do that. Youcan find it on Amazon, find Larry
on Patreon, Supporters work support iscool. Shorts and everything, which we
didn't get much of a chance totalk about. Well to do that another
time. We'll do it that anothertime. Yeah, I want to focus
(57:52):
on your characters there and you're inyour shorts a lot of fun. Maybe
play some clips on the last thingI gotta say. Last thing I gotta
say is um, if you ifyou, if you buy the book and
give me a gold star, I'llbe your best friend. And thank you
all for joining us on the OuthouseLounge. We'll have some more coming up
where we relax and talk about more
Welcome to the Outhouse Lounge where werelax and talk about dounge whatever you want
to call it, with me inthe lounge today. As an actor,
you know, probably from a plethoraof on screen appearances and varied roles.
You might know him as mister Heckel'sfrom Friends. Perhaps you know him as
Charlie Bunts from Escape from Alcatraz.Or maybe if it is Creamer from the
(00:29):
show within a Show, Jerry,that's from Seinfeld. Of course he has
a book about his life, experiences, roles, and other work. Welcome
to the Outhouse Lounge, Larry Hankin. Well, I'm happy to be here.
Thank you for having me. Yourbook is called That Guy, A
contionary memoir, a roller coaster,a ride only matched by Edmund, A
(00:49):
butler's tale. I would say,perhaps what prompted you to write the book
about your life? Though I didn'twant to forget it. That's at the
bottom. You have to write itdown. I just had to write it
down because uh my mind was startingto go no. I all these stories.
(01:11):
There were there were stories that Iwould tell after I would do a
show. You know, you know, something would happen on the show or
and you know, you tell yourfriends hey, you know, like they
say, hey, you were onfriends. What was that like? And
I go blah blah blah blah blah, Hey was this and that and the
other thing? And they go,oh, that's a funny story. And
(01:34):
each time I would do a showthat would happen, you know, blah
blah blah and oh that's a funnystory. So I thought, I gotta
just tape these because I'm gonna I'mgonna forget them. And they're really good
stories. So I kept taping themor doing them on I have a one.
I had a one man show,you know, on stage, just
(01:55):
me talking about basically what's in thebook. So I was doing them on
stage, but they were all comingout of my own mouth, and I
thought, I got to get thisdown so I can get on with my
life and not just keep repeating these. So I recorded them. And then
there's an app on Microsoft where youcan put a tape into it and it'll
(02:15):
type it out. So I gotI got another guy, like a podcaster
like you, and we worked onSaturdays and he recorded everything, or I
gave him all the recordings, andhe was in New Jersey and he typed
it out and sent them to me, and then I edited that into the
(02:36):
book. So that's how it cameabout. That's a good idea. You
don't want to forget these stories anyway, or you don't want to leave any
details out right now? Right?Well yeah, I mean, like now
I'm writing a second book, andit's kind of hard because these are things
I didn't write down. I mean, you know, everything that I wrote
(02:58):
down I put in the book.So I've got news stories, but they
happened a long time ago, andI didn't tell these stories. These are
just you know, my personal lifestories that happened a long time ago.
A lot of details I can't remember, you know or I. So it's
(03:19):
it's harder. The second book isalways the second one is harder. Whatever
you do, the second one isharder. That's because you know what you're
in for. I guess I thinkthat's what it is. The first one
you don't know what you're doing,you know, you know, hey,
let's just go, and then thesecond one you know what it's going to
be like. So I think that'swhy it's harder. Well, let's get
(03:39):
into this book. You talk aboutyour life as well, you talk about
things you did. Yes, yourroles, we're going to get into that,
but you talked about when you werestruggling. A lot of people think,
hey, let's go let's let's let'sgo active. I think these guys
don't do much. They go in, they audition and get out. It's
a very tough life, especially whenyou're starting out. And your book not
(03:59):
only not only really shows people.I understand you call it a cautionary tale,
might be half joshing, but theidea is your book shows that you
really went through a heck of alot, even some time living in your
car. Oh yeah, yeah,it's not easy. Well maybe maybe no
job. It's easy because I consideredit a job, not a calling.
(04:25):
You know, my calling is I'ma storyteller. That's I'm a born storytelling
anthropologist is really what I am.What I love to do. Acting was
just a lot of money and itwas kind of fun and and very and
kind of interesting, and it wasusing my performing abilities. But it never
(04:50):
was a calling. It never wasmy dream. I never dreamed of being
an actor. So after a whileit just became a job, a hard
job, job, a difficult job, auditioning and you can't have any kind
of other kind of job because youhave to leave to go auditions. So
you got to get a special kindof job, maybe a temp job,
(05:13):
so you can leave to go audition, because that's what you where the money
is. That's funny. It's funnybecause one of your first roles was in
That Girl, which is about astruggling actress who had to take a lot
of temp jobs. Yeah, wellthat that's just ironic and just lucky or
foreshadowing. But I didn't know aboutthat, and I didn't realize it,
(05:38):
and I didn't even know what theshow was about. I remember doing it.
I never talked about it much becausenothing really happened, and I was
just dressed in ordinary clothes and Ijust played an a d you know,
television ad, so I was justnormal me. There was no act thing
(06:00):
involved. I had a very fewlines. You know, it's my first
job, so I mean, therewas nothing to it. I just went
in, I said my lines,and I went home, and I don't
remember too much about anything about it. Nothing happened, so there was nothing
that impinged on my memory. Butas things went along, I started to
(06:21):
pick up things, and funny thingshappened and so I started to tell stories
when I came home, you know, like I kind of know where it
came from. When I used tocome home from school, you know,
like in public school mainly, mymom would always say, you know,
(06:42):
well, what happened in school today? And I would tell her. So
coming back from you know, actingjobs or whoever it was worth, I
would, you know, say hey, you know, how is it on
Seinfeld? And I tell them.So it was just the same thing over
and over again on the different level. And I was getting paid. But
that's just where it came from.And I just started writing down the interesting
(07:08):
things or talking about them more andmore, telling them over and over until
you know, and as you tellthem over and over, you're editing them.
You're making them better, you know, verbally, did blah blah blah,
Oh they left here or I gotto remember that, blah blah blah.
So yeah, the book is reallythe best of it now, and
(07:30):
I want to tell one of thosestories in the book. I gotta go
check the book. But at leastyou can. That's a good thing,
right, I have a whole bunchof them here this way, you know,
you won't forget it because they're there. Yeah, and they're they're honed
now in the book, they're honed. And if you don't remember effects already
written down in the book, yousay you had a knife held to your
(07:51):
throat by your next roommate. Yeah. Yeah, Well that it comes from
not having enough money and having toget a roommate and not doing the proper
vetting of the roommate. I wasno Internet. The ironic thing was that
(08:16):
back in college it was a seeI feel. I thought I knew him
because I knew him from college.And this is years later and I called
him and he said, oh,I need a place to live. I
just broke up with my girlfriend.And I said, oh, well,
I remember you from college. Okay, But I didn't know that he was
a veteran and that he was incollege on some sort of you know,
(08:41):
government thing, and he had PTSDwhich I didn't know about, and it
didn't show in college. I guesshe was young and could fight it or
something. I don't know, maybenobody got a mad But when years later
when I called him and I said, hey, you know I heard you
(09:03):
maybe looking for a roommate, andhe said yeah. So he became my
roommate and I didn't bother asking himwhat he'd been doing or anything like that.
I just figured, well, we'lljust pick up where we left off
in college. And then we wentto a bar. He liked to drink
and I didn't drink, but Iwould go and played a game of pool
(09:24):
with him. And then he gotto know a fight in the bar,
a bad fight, and he cheateda little. But hey, man,
it's a fight. You know.You can't you can't. It's a fight,
man. The other guy would havekilled him or put him in a
hospital. So but basically what hedid is he kicked him in the chest.
(09:48):
You know, he kicked him andpushed him back, and he yelled
at me. My friend yelled atme, said Larry, run and we
both ran. Now you know,we ran and ran and ran and ran,
and we outran everybody. Because inmy mind, all iways thinking was
if they catch me, I'm dead. So they will not catch me.
(10:11):
I mean, I just sent itfor my life. I was running for
her life. And and then whenwe got home, you know, he
was a marine, that was whathe was, and he goes, hey,
we run upstairs. We locked thedoor. I mean it was but
we ran along about twenty or thirtyblocks. Okay, we get home,
(10:31):
we locked the door, and hegoes into the kitchen and he takes the
sharpest, biggest knife in the kitchendrawer, in the knife drawer, and
he walks out and I go,where are you going? He said,
I'm going back to the bar andI'm going to kill the guy, fucking
kill him. And they go,no, what are you talking about?
And I thought, wow, man, I didn't know about this. Now,
(10:52):
in college, he had broke upa fight where I was getting beat
up, so he kind of savedme, you know, from being injured,
but he broke up the fight.So now he's going out and going
to kill this guy with a knife, and I'm going, whoa, whoa,
wait a minute. But I didn'tchase him. I just said,
don't do that. And then heran downstairs. So I called the bar
(11:16):
and I said, hey, man, you know the guy who you know
the fight that just happened. Ohyeah, man, it was really terrible.
Yeah, Well, the guy's comingback. This is his friend.
I was with him, and he'scoming back with a knife. So the
guy who beat him, who theywere fighting with, get him out of
there, because he said he's crazy, he's an ex marine. He's got
a knife. I mean, justget him out of there. So he
(11:39):
said, okay, So he gothim out of there, and then about
a half hour later he came backto the house, to the apartment with
the knife and there was no bloodon the knife, and I go,
boy, and then he goes,you rat it on me? Go,
what do you mean? He said? The guy the bar telling When I
(12:00):
got there, they said that yourfriend called and said to get the guy
out of here. You're coming witha knife, so talk to your friend.
So he comes back to me now, and that's when he put the
knife to my thirty said I wasgoing to kill that guy, but there's
gonna be blood on this knife,so it's gonna be yours now, Larry,
(12:22):
and boom man. He puts hisknife to my throat. And then
that's not bad enough. I meanthat puts fear. I mean, I've
never been that frightened him. Iwas immobile, that's how scared I was.
I wouldn't think. And he startspushing me back, and I'm going,
what was he pushing me against thewall? No? And he starts
pushing me back into the bathroom intothe shower. I'm like, oh,
(12:46):
no, man, because you knowwhat that is. Can you guess why
I was so frightened I saw themovie. Yeah, I mean because he
wanted it to catch the blood.So there's no blood on the floor.
It's I'm in the bathtub in theshower, and he's got me pushed up
(13:07):
against the pipes, you know,the shower patches that go there. I'll
never forget that, the feeling ofthe pipes on my back. And I
talked my way out of it.I don't know what I said. I
mean, I put a little ofit in the book, but it might
be right, it might be wrong. I just was talking that and he
didn't. He didn't hold it away. He held it against my throat.
(13:31):
And the other thing was that myformer roommate Carl Gottlieb, who later wrote
Jaws. So we were buddies inSyracuse, in college Syracuse. He went
into the knife that he took outof the kitchen drawer. Carl was my
roommate before he left. He wasdrafted. So then I got this guy.
(13:54):
He goes into the drawer and hetakes out the biggest knife, and
I know for a fact that Carlhad bought that knife to carve steak or
to carve big things. So Ihad used that knife, and I knew
how sharp it was, so Iknew this is real, man is real.
(14:18):
But I talked my way out ofit. I mean to make a
longer story shorter. I talked myway out of it. He finally came
back. I basically, I thinkbecause I was so frightened, I talked
extremely calmly. I was amazed atthe tone of my voice. It was
very calm, and look, youknow, you don't want to do this.
(14:41):
And I even had a theme inmy head. I said, don't
talk about me, don't say don'tkill me, don't say I want to
live, don't don't talk about meat all. Talk about him and his
girlfriend, you know, and breakingup. So that's what I You know,
hey, you know you're gonna don'tknow you did it. You don't
(15:05):
have to spend time in jail forthis. You know, you got a
girl friend. And he came tohis senses and he just said, okay,
so you ever to do that again, you're dead. Okay. So
about four in the morning that thisall happened. You know, if I'm
two o'clock at the bar one thirty. Okay, so about four in the
(15:30):
money, I stayed up the restof the night. He went to sleep.
Yeah, well, you know,hey just out. So I waited.
I stayed up, and about eighto'clock, seven o'clock, I said,
as the light came, I don'tknow, six o'clock whatever, I
just packed up whatever I could andI just left and I gave him the
(15:50):
key, and I said, thisis your place, goodbye, and I
just split where I packed a suitcase. Uh. And that was the last
I've ever seen of him or heardof him. Good advice for an aspiring
actor with the roommate who so crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So in other
(16:11):
words, what I'm what I'm sayingabout the questionary tale about the book is,
yeah, there's these stories about youknow, friends and Steinfeld and breaking
bad and stuff. But in between, as an actor, you got to
make a living and you got tohave a life. And I just was
making very poor choices in that section, you know. Uh, you know,
(16:34):
because at the time show business wasokay, I was, I was
a stand up comedian. At thetime, I wasn't I didn't get to
Hollywood. This all happened in NewYork. So I was a stand up
comedian. I was working with coffeehouses, you know, small nightclubs,
and I was and then I gota you know, on an eight a
(16:55):
manager, and he started booking mein bigger places. And when I got
to Chicago, I was being pulledoff the stage by cops. Stand up,
yeah, because I got into criticalthinking. You know, Carlin and
Prior and Lenny Bruce. I mean, these were my semi hemi demi contemporaries.
(17:15):
They were a little ahead of me, but I started to I saw
Lenny live about four or four orfive times, the whole arc. I
saw the whole arc from the yearsright as he was being pulled off the
stage and getting famous. And thenI saw that his very last ever performance
(17:40):
of his life, and the arcwas just sad. It was very sad.
He was funny, God knows hewas funny. He's a funny guy.
He's one of the funniest people I'veever known. But he it was
like I likened that I think Imentioned in the book. It was like
(18:03):
Don Quixote on stage trying to befunny and prove he was sane. Nothing
wrong with that, you know,but it was don Quixote, Well you
did, don Quiote wasn'tsane. Well, look, those windmills are pretty tough,
you know, you never know.Maybe maybe he was sane and he
knew way ahead of time though itwas windmills are going to destroy things.
(18:26):
Maybe well no, because the copthere was cops standing in the back of
the room. Just I'm only kidding. I know, I know, I
know, but there was. Hewas a beaten man, and I looked
up to him. I mean,it's very rare that you can see an
icon of yours of ones, youknow, if it were maybe you were
(18:48):
an actor, would be de Naroor Brando, and then to see him,
you know, just babbling and tryingto be an actor but old,
and you go wow, why Sothat you know, it was hard.
It was hard, But it wasfilmed. Not only was I there and
(19:12):
he was at the end of hishe never performed again, but it was
being filmed, and that's why hedid what he did. That's why he
performed. And that's why I saidit was don Quixote trying to prove because
he came on with law books.He made a hunk a bit a twenty
(19:33):
minute he was on for an hour, but about forty minutes of that hour
was him with books, trying toprove to the audience and to the cops
in the back, and to thecamera, to the people who are going
to watch this movie that he wasright and the cops were wrong and they
should leave him alone. And hewas trying to also make it funny.
(19:55):
And that was a sad part becauseit was funny, but it was also
sad. It was his life.This wasn't a bit. He was pleading
to please leave me alone and letme do what I love to do,
which was tell stories and talk ina normal voice, which meant, you
know, talking about some guy whodid some dumb shit, and then the
(20:18):
cops would bust him for the shitpart. But he was just being conversational.
He wasn't pursing like hey you blahblah blah. No, he was
just saying, you know, alot of stuff is you know, stupid
dumb shit. And that was sad. That was because he was right and
now and I then became being pulledoff the stage for the same thing and
(20:41):
even less and even less, andI called my manager, who was Woody's
manager. So I had a bigtime at manager, and they said,
look, man, I can't dothis. This isn't fun. I mean,
I saw what happened to Lenny,but this is ridiculous. And I'm
not doing drugs. I mean theywere busting him from drugs and cursing.
(21:03):
But were you pulled off the stagefour? Excuse me? What were you
pulled off the stage four for?Saying? Well, okay, I'll tell
you exactly one time that I waspulled off the stage four, But then
that one time was spread because Iwas doing arenas. I was opening for
UH. I was opening for TheLove and Spoonful. I was opening for
(21:30):
The Love and Spoonful and they wereon tour, so I was opening for
an arenas. Okay, so Iget on stage. Is a college audience,
a college arenas, you know,college auditoriums. I'm on stage and
I'm doing clean stuff. Everything isfine, I'm funny, I'm doing my
job. And then I said,okay, let's go into I said to
(21:52):
myself, cool, I'm gonna gointo the uh, the other stuff,
you know, the darkness, thedark So you know, I started,
I say, this is what Iwas pulled off stage one. Is the
first thing that I did from theclean stuff. I have a microphone,
you know, you know, Ihave a microphone, and I go and
I take this little place. Isaid like, hey, let's talk about
(22:14):
God now. And all of asudden, the audience went quieter than ever.
Something was wrong, and I said, okay, let's and then I
said and then I said, okay, So here's a little guy and I
put him on the top of themicrophone and I started talking to him and
I said, hey, how areyou doing, a little guy? I'm
(22:36):
God. And as soon as Isaid I'm God, how you doing,
I heard about like a thousand sphinterssnap shut, you know, and I
go, oh, oh, thisis not going to be You can tell.
You can tell by the silence ofan audience that what you're doing is
not being approved by them. Youcan tell. And I knew it.
(23:00):
I just kept on going and thenI said, hey, where's your clothes?
And what's that between your legs?And that's when the cops came on
on stage and I saw a fountain. Now that's not bad, but a
couple of weiner chokes basically, so, yeah, it's a weener show.
It's a winner joke, it's yeah, okay, but I didn't say that.
(23:22):
I just said, what's that betweenyour legs? And then I saw
from the back on the aisles,ten cops on each aisle, on each
wall aisle, come down. They'vebeen waiting back there. And I found
out later that, well, okay, the first time I did this,
(23:44):
when I said, okay, what'sthat between your legs? The audience started
to boo. The audience started toboo at what's that between your legs?
And no cursing, nothing, okay, So they started to but no,
no, dud, the funny stuff, dude, the clean stuff, dude,
clean stuff. This is a collegeaudience. So I stopped and I
and I started talking to them.I said, what are you doing?
(24:07):
I said to them, As they'rebooing no the funny stuff, I said,
what are you doing? Man?You're a college audience. You know
what happened to sex, drugs androck and roll. You just wants to
like this stuff, you know,And you're booing me. I said okay,
And then they wouldn't stop. Theylistened to me do that. They
stopped booing to to listen to mesay that. But then I said,
(24:30):
okay, I'm going to continue nowbecause they shut up it's okay, so
what's that between your leg boo?They started again, but even even worse.
So I said, okay, I'lldo the clean stuff. Geez,
because the love and spoonful in thein the wings and they're yelling do it,
no, do the dirty stuff,do the dirty stuff, because they
(24:52):
wanted to riot. They're the rocketright yeah, trap roll doing the dirty
stense. So I'm going to dothe clean stuff. So they shut down,
they shot up, shut up andlistened. So I'm doing the clean
stuff. Now Here's what I foundout later when I When I did,
but what's that between your legs?Them? We cut the head of the
(25:15):
school. The dean of the schoolwas in the back listening, and when
I started to say that, hecalled the cops immediately, as I'm god,
you know your naked boom he calledthe cops. Now the cops came,
but in the meantime, by thetime they got there, I had
done. I had gone back tothe clean stuff. So now I'm doing
(25:37):
the clean stuff. The cops arein the back, twenty of them,
and they're standing there talking to thedean saying he's not doing anything that we
see is I don't know why shouldwe put them up the stage and the
dean said wait here, so theywaited, and then you know, I'm
going clean stuff, clean stuff,clean stuff, more cleans. And then
when I got a really big laugh, I said, okay, let's go
(26:03):
back to the god stuff. What'sthat between your leg and boom? You
see the cops coming down? Allright? These are now see that that
coming. And they came up onstage and I was just standing there watching
this, and the and the kids. We're quiet, they saw cops and
(26:25):
they're just shut up. And alsothey were pulling off the sides of the
the armrests or the chairs and throwingthem at me, you know, the
wooden armrests or of their Yes,what a ra don't I guess? There
were no tomatoes or whitefish around?Huh yeah, right, just just well,
if I was hit by one ofthem, would you know, hurt
me? Bade? So the copstook me up. But you see that.
(26:48):
So then when we went to thenext venue, which was in Northwestern
University, when we got off thebus to go to register into the hotel,
there was the dean, a cop, and a priest waiting for us.
At the beginning of the joke.What excuse me, sounds like the
beginning of a joke. Yeah,yeah, yeah. Well, a cop
(27:11):
and a priest and a dean walkedinto a hotel and they said, we
would like to Is there a LarryHankin in this group? The dean said,
and the managers immediately knew what thiswas all about. The managers are
traveling with us. They're managers Loveand Spoonful. So they stepped in between
(27:33):
us and they said, um or, they stepped in between us, and
they turned their backs on the priestand the and the cop and the priest
and the dean, and they turnedto us and they hid their finger and
they said, you know, becausethe cops are back there, and now
the cop and the dean and theand the and the priest, and they
(27:56):
goes, okay, look, Iwant everybody to go up to his room.
And he pointed at me his room, locked the door, and don't
let anybody in. Accept us goand we just split for the elevators.
They turned around and then he startedtalking, Okay, so we're up there
(28:17):
for about twenty minutes, knock onthe door and in the Love and Spoonful,
you know, meanwhile we're talking aboutwhat should we do. The Loving
Spoonful and me in my room,locked the door, and we're talking about,
well, should you do the dirtystuff for the clean stuff? And
the Lovin Spoonful was saying do thedirty stuff because they wanted a riot,
(28:41):
and they wanted me to be busted, you know, for for publicity.
They liked me, They just wantedthe publicity. So I'm saying, well,
yeah, but I got a careertoo, and blah blah blah,
and knock on the door and themanagers come in. They say, well,
they don't want you to go on, Larry, I go why And
(29:03):
they said, the dean of theother school Washington you in Saint Louis,
called Ahead. See that's what thewhole thing was. They kept calling Ahead
and saying he's a dirty comedian.Well, the correct quote was the Loving
Spoonful are traveling have an opening witha filthy mouth comedian. That was what
(29:29):
they called me, a filthy mouthedcomedian. So they said, if he
goes on, we're shutting the concertdown. They then the Love and Spoonful
camp play, so Love and Spoonfulthought that was okay. They said,
hey, Larry, do the dirtystuff and we won't do the concert.
That's fine, let him shut usdown. We were the publicity's worth it.
(29:52):
The managers weren't like the love andspoonful that. They were like managers.
No, look all right, lookLarry, I'll tell you why.
They said. They gave us asecond option. Oh now that good loving
spoon they want to close down theconcert. Suddenly a second option came up
from yeah, of course, ofcourse, So really, what is the
(30:15):
second option? If you do cleanmaterial, you can do the concert.
But as soon they said, assoon as you do anything dirty, we're
shutting down the lights. So hesaid, so the lemon spoons, So
let's do that, and just dothe dirty stuff, you know, let's
do that. So I said,okay, but I was going to do
the clean stuff, I thought.And then as we're as the audience is
(30:41):
filling up, I said to them, oh fucking I'm gonna just do it.
I mean, I can't. I'mnot gonna play this game. So
I just went out there and Idid my my regular material, you know,
just what I was doing, youknow, and about five minutes of
clean stuff, and then the restis just critical thinking stuff, not dirty
stuff, just critical thinking stuff,politics, sacks, religion, blah blah
(31:04):
blah, just the topics that youtalk about, you know, get you're
fired today. Yeah, I thinkit should castle shut down today. And
uh, nothing happened, just laughs, and everything was fine though nobody did
nothing. No cops showed up,and that was and that was the way
it went for the rest of thetour. But in nightclubs, yes,
(31:26):
uh um, the headliners that Iwould open for would say cleaner, cleaner,
dirty. You know, you can'tdo dirty stuff. If you if
you do dirty stuff, you can'topen for me, you know for us.
Uh Kingston Trio clean stuff. Theycame out and we would beer bottles,
(31:47):
get the fuck off the stage becauseI said shit or something. And
that was a nightclub, so theycan get at me. I mean it
was just a dance floor and thenyou know, upside down beer bottle.
So I mean, that's life inshow business. That's you know, that's
crazy man. So I called theseguys seems so mild mannered. The Kingston
Trio they come here. Yeah,I mean, oh, you know,
(32:10):
I'm a funny guy, just wantto make people laugh. You learn new
things here on the Outhouse lounge.And yeah, so I called my manager
and I said, look, it'snot fun anymore. I don't want to
do this, you know I don't. So he said, joined Second City.
So I you know, you auditionedand joined Second City. Then we
opened and set and San Francisco withfounded maybe you co founded that, right,
(32:34):
and then and then we became actorsbecause Hollywood was right down the block,
you know, San Francisco to La. From what I'm noticing, that's
your book, Larry. From whatI'm from your book. As far as
getting into acting, a lot ofyour characters seem again I'm just sitting here
reading and watching and looking, soI'm not there, and I wasn't there,
(32:55):
but only some of these characters seemto be drawn from your experiences before
becoming before becoming famous, I shouldsay, and in what way do you
do you mean? Can you meana little more specific some of them,
a little bit of uh, justsay, just a little way out there,
a little different take. Oh now, that's that's just me. And
(33:17):
maybe the survivorship of some of thecharacters that's sort of well. Yeah.
In otherwise, there was an edgeto whatever I did because of what I've
been through. I mean, likeI was going yeah, whatever the role
was, I was saying, no, this is a piece of cake.
I've been I've been in worse situationsthan this character. I mean, even
(33:38):
uh old Joe. You know,it was just fine. Yeah. I
once I'm out there in front ofa camera. You know, I dropped
any facade or mask, and Ijust through the character. I just me.
(34:00):
You know, it's always me.Well, that's the funny thing.
One of your more famous characters.And I guess a lot of young people
know you because the resurgence of friendsand everything else and all the syndication is
your mister Heckel's character. I'd loveto know how much of you as in
this guy. Well, there's certaincharacters that I know instinctively, because You're
(34:25):
right, I may have lived it. But more important, more specifically,
it's somebody that I know. Notit's not me, but like mister Heckel's
is my grandfather, that's it.I mean he was the manager of an
apartment house and he wouldn't turn upthe heat or take out the garbage.
(34:50):
He just didn't care. And Iwould always get not me. I was
about five or six or seven oreight years old this point, but my
mom would always get calls from theapartment house, people say, would you
please come here and tell your fatherto take out the garbage and take care
(35:12):
of the hot water or whatever.And then he said, you know,
Larry, put on your coat.We got to go talk to grandpa,
you know. And so we getin the car and go over to the
apartment house and talk to my grandfather. My mom would talk to her father
about Pop, you got to takeout the garbage. You get You're a
manager, you know, you gottatake care of these people. You can't
(35:35):
just forget it, you know.All right, Okay, so that was
mister Heckles. You know, hewas a fun character. Though I understand.
I want to step back on thisone because I thought I read something
about the producers not wanting you onthe or not wanting mister Heckel's on the
reunion special. But you were thereanyway. They brought you in well because
(36:00):
because um, I'm very hard todeal with. Man. I didn't get
along with anybody on the uh onthe set you know, of friends,
I never got uh. Not notthat I was angry or that I was
(36:21):
feisty or anything like that. No, but I just I'm not I'm I'm
kind of shy. I guess Idon't know. I just keep to myself,
you know. And also I'm justI have dyslexia. I've had it
since I was I was born withit, so it's very hard for me
to remember lines. So I takeextra time. And it's in It's in
(36:44):
my almost I think it's in mycontract. But I have to get the
the script early. No, therewas the first of the of the first
people who get any script. Ihave to be one of them, uh,
in any show that I do,and then I can memorize it because
I need the time. That's allit is. And they everybody's you know,
(37:07):
find sure, you know, sendthem the script early whatever, even
with the changes. Send it tothem early. Okay, fine, so
I'm okay, but sometimes they changeit in rehearsal and then I get a
little flummocks a little so, youknow, so I kind of stand up
(37:28):
for myself, you know, sayall right, just you know, blah
blah, back off. And Ithink that's also called ahead. So they
think I'm hard to work with,and I think that's why I wasn't.
They didn't want me in the reunionbecause because they wouldn't let me on the
set. They wouldn't let me anywherenear anybody. When I came in,
they put me in my own dressingroom, and I said, well,
(37:52):
can I go downstairs and watch theshow the reunion? And they go,
no, you have to stay inyour room. What that's not very nice.
No, And then I said,well, I'll have to go to
the bathroom one time, you know, because I was in there for about
twenty thirty minutes, forty minutes,I don't know, a long time.
So I had to go to thebathroom. So I said, you know,
(38:13):
so they had to, so theysah, yeah, well, so
they took me down and the bathroomwas downstairs near where they were shooting.
So I saw the shooting. Isaw them shooting, and I saw a
lot of other actors, and theyhad you know, the seats you know,
for the audience, you know,the the bleachers, you know,
(38:34):
so everybody was watching. There wasa whole about one hundred people just standing
around all over the set watching themtake And I said, can't I just
watch and they said, no,you have to, So I said okay.
But so that was kind of theI thought, well, this is
part of the friends thing, youknow, I just didn't get along on
(38:55):
the set, and that's why theykilled me. That's why they gave him
a heart attack on the on theon the fifth show, I mean on
the sixth show, they would havehad to raise my salary because that would
have been a recurring So that's howit works. The five episodes and and
your yeah, you paid more byby by contract, by union, by
(39:21):
legal, and they said, well, let's kill them off because they needed
a they needed an apartment for well, one of the characters. They here's
his house. See when your audition, my attitude, See, I have
an attitude problem. I do.I know it. Sometimes I try to
(39:43):
deal with it. Sometimes I don'tbother. But when I went into audition
for like Friends, you know,generally my attitude is you people are way
stupider than me. But okay,let's audition. I'm going to audition for
you. You're gonna judge me.You you stupid people. Then that's kind
(40:07):
of you know, And every oncein a while you run it to some
people. Hey, you people aresmart, you know what's good or bad.
And sometimes I'll say, you know, you should have hired the other
guy. He's much better than me. The guy who went in before me.
I listened at the door. He'sreally good. Hire him. I've
done that. I mean, Ijust see it's not my stick. I
(40:30):
wasn't born to be an actor,so I can you know, this is
a free for all. I'm gettinga lot of money. I've got some
money in the bank. I'm equalto you. If you want to be
stupider than me, that's your prerogative. There you go, you're sitting on
that side of the table, sogo ahead. But then I can talk
(40:50):
back to you if you get outof line. I mean, I loved
that freedom that I gave myself.I didn't do it very often. I
mean, can't do it all thetime, man, I mean, they
would just get tired or wouldn't hireyou. But in other ways I would
do it, and I, youknow, my talent just out distance my
attitude, you know, said theywouldn't hire me and I could get away
(41:14):
with it, and I would,you know, And I minded my p's
and queues when I said no,I've been to not do it this time.
These people, look, mean whathappened with what happened with Kreamer?
Looking at Kramer, I just lovedthe same I was watching the guy the
Real Creamer when he was running frommayor of New York City and talking to
(41:36):
you. Now I can see Ican see some people I believe it was
I guess somebody was. You wereone of the original choices to play to
play play Kramer. I can seethat because there's a lot of you and
him and him and you, atleast from talking to you today. Well,
it's real New York. It's wherewe're new We're in New York and
we're ex hippies, you know,and would call and we kind of look
(41:58):
alike, you know. So Iwere quirky. But Larry David wanted to
wanted me for Um Kramer from thebeginning. It was the producers and the
director and everybody else who didn't uhMichael Richards wanted me. Well, I
mean you still got to be Kramerin one episode. Well yeah, finally,
(42:23):
I mean it got down to becauseof my imitation, right. They
gave me that um that episode thatwas a Kramer episode, that was real,
that was real. It was theKramer words that I was saying was
from an episode they did about ayear before or months before. So I
(42:46):
so they sent me the episode ofme, you know, do it the
pillows and stuff. So they saidthat, So I just watched it for
I think ages. I think Iwatched it a thousand times and I wasn't
acting. I was just imitating MichaelRichards doing Cramer what I saw on the
TV. And I don't think anybodyelse had was privy to that. So
(43:09):
that was a great thing that somebodydid me the favor of sending me that.
So I don't think they had anychoice. I mean, there's nobody
who could do Cramer like I didit because I watched it a thousand times.
I mean I had it pretty muchdown, so that's how I finally
(43:30):
got the role. But I hadan addition five times. I mean that
was unheard of. It's unheard of. Well, you might be able to
run from Mayor then just like theother Cramer. Who knows, Yeah,
that would work perfectly. I haveto ask this, though, because you
were in one of my favorite movies, Armed and Dangerous. Oh wow,
yeah, that's cool movie. Yeah. From what I understand, a lot
(43:52):
of your stuff was left on thecutting room floor for a rather peculiar reason.
Yeah, well I didn't get alongwith um. Yeah, I love
that scene. But you see thatpicture right there. Okay, that's a
(44:15):
very iconic picture in the industry becausewhen that scene happened, everybody thought again
that I was Kokolovitch and I lovedfiring guns. They thought that was real
(44:36):
that scene. But I was doingright there. They thought that guy loves
firing guns, and nobody would comenear me. Man, and the director
thought that I was crazy and onacid, so he didn't shoot me at
all. He didn't photograph, hedidn't film me at all, or or
(44:57):
let me put it this way.He filled me when he had to when
I is part of a scene sayingsomething, but he always did it in
a two shot because he told me. The director told me that he was
ordered by the producers to put LarryHankin back in the movie. He had
cut the heart of the movie totallyand didn't film me as well as anybody
(45:21):
else, because he thought he wouldn'tuse me. He thought, I don't
have to shoot him. I'm notgoing to keep him in the movie.
He's crazy, he's on acid,and he's wild. He's dangerous. Look
at that he's firing a gun man. He loves it. So he was
afraid of me. He wouldn't eventalk to me. Now. He told
me this about a year later whenI met him at another thing and I
(45:43):
went up to him and I said, you know, you always talk to
me rudely or loudly, or youwould talk to me twice. Why And
he said, because I thought youwere on acid. Man, I don't
think, he said, man.I think he said, because you were
on acid and I didn't want toget near you, and I thought,
you know you you love guns.I didn't understand. I'm sorry, but
(46:08):
he says, if you go ohwas that the casting screw cast and crew
screening? That he said that tome before I went in. He said,
before you go in, I wantyou to know what you're going to
see about your part. And heexplained why it looked like it looked because
what he did was he didn't doany answer shot. You know, any
(46:29):
answer you know what the answer shotis. You know, if you do
a close up on me talking toyou, you got to do a close
up of you listening to me,you talking, I'm listening to you.
Boom boom, answer shot. Hedidn't do it. If somebody was talking
to me, they get a closeup of him, and then they get
a master shot of me answering orjust him listening to me and you just
(46:53):
hear my voice. I know thathe tried to keep me out of the
frame as much as possible. Andthen when the UM producers hollered at him
after they saw the final cut ofhis where's Larry hankin, Where's Kokolovitch right?
And he said, well, he'son the on the cutting room floor.
(47:14):
We cut him out. He's he'scrazy, He said, he's not
crazy, he's funny. Put himback in under orders from them. Standing
in the editing room, he hadto go through. He told me.
He confessed this to me before Iwent in to see the cast and cruise
screening. He confessed to me thathe had to go through the outtake bins
(47:38):
to find anything with me, anyscene with me in it, just because
he was scared of you acting.Yeah, yeah, I think he because
of my gun. He thought,well, he'll he'll shoot me if I
don't do this. You know,I guess that that's that's the mark of
a good actor, when you whenyou scare the h happens. It happened
(48:00):
three times in my career where thedirector thought I was the character Kakolovitch.
Um, who's the other one?Oh the Hell's Angel in hay Landlord,
oh boy um and uh Larry Um. I don't remember. The director wouldn't
(48:24):
come near me because he thought Iwas a real Hill's Angel. Yeah.
And then and then one other oneI can't remember. Yeah, I was
the real, real thing. Andthat Seinfeld episode George was afraid of you
because a couple of things too,But that was kind of funny. It
seems like it kind of came toa little head there too in that Seinfeld
episode in uh, when I was, when I was Kramer, when you
(48:45):
were a Kramer. Yeah, thereal child. No, he's no Costanza,
George. That's what I mean.George Costanza was afraid of you.
Character. He's he is a greatactor. He's never actually been stretched.
But doing the scene with him,I realized that this guy is really cool.
(49:07):
Uh No, he's not afraid ofme. He's the character. The
character was, Yeah, the character, but that was the actor. He's
a really he really is a goodactor. I think the man's fantastic.
I just like the dynamic between youand him. Yeah, yeah, because
he brought it man right right.I knew when I was he made me
(49:30):
even be better. There's a lotof times where somebody, you know,
make you be on your toes.Man bring you, I would bring your
best game. Well, that's thefunny thing what we were talking about today,
A little bit, a little bitof each of what you were discussing.
That scene just rings in my headwhere you're sitting here saying I'm the
(49:50):
smart one, you're the stupid oneon the other side of the table.
You're gonna have to bring it tome. I'm gonna bring it to you.
But I know I'm the and andof course the director of being afraid
of you here and there. Thatkind of comes to ahead in that particular
scene. That's why what we're talkingabout is is a little extra funny for
me. I suppose, Well,yeah, he means the scene where I
go, I don't want you totalk talk to you know where I'm hot,
(50:10):
you know, don't tell me aboutor any other dried fruit. Right,
Yeah, that's that scene. Yeah, and that's what exactly I was
channeling that anger from, you know, don't tell me I'm stupid, You're
stupid. Yeah, exactly, Isee what what you're talking about. No,
definitely that is true. People thatstuff. I'm always I'm way out
(50:36):
there too sometimes so yeah, butbut that's what good acting does. And
then you but you you're you're underyou're controlling it, but you're using it.
Yeah. Yeah, And sometimes Iwould do that in the committee or
in the second City. But Iwouldn't even it would be subconscious. I
wouldn't know it. You know you, but you would do a good scene.
(50:58):
Why because you were tapped into theadrenaline of that hop happenstance. You
know, we have a few minutesleft. We have a few minutes left
for the show, Larry, Iwanted to ask you this question because this
is where it all boils down to. I am always a fan of the
actor who can play not the biggestroles in the show, but make the
smaller roles memorable, make the recurringcharacters memorable, make this guy steal the
(51:22):
scene here and there. Those aremy favorite actors and why it's fascinating to
see how you all do that.So I'm going to ask that question,
how do you make these characters lovableand memorable even with the smaller parts.
Oh okay, that's a great question. Two answers. One is, well,
(51:47):
maybe there's just one answer. Ithink because when I used to come
off the stage in the committee andthe audience could be, you know,
applauding, I would wonder, whatare they applauding about? I mean,
now, it was a scene thatI just did with say another guy or
girl. Okay, so there's onlytwo people in the scene, big laughs,
a lot of applause I got.Okay, so half the applause is
(52:12):
hers or his and half the applausehis mind. But I don't know what
I did to even deserve half ofit. I never understood what the audience
like, and they would come upafter the show and they'd say, hey,
that's really really great. So theonly thing I can think of is
that I was born with what theylike. And any other actors that you
like because their character actors, notthe star, but you like it.
(52:37):
It's because they're there. They wereborn with something that's attractive that you like
about them, and they have nocontrol over it. I have no control
over it. I have done somethings that I thought were really bad and
people say, oh, that waswonderful, we loved you. But I
always want to ask, what didyou love? What? I don't understand
(52:59):
even what I did something really greatthat I thought was great and the audience
thought was great, or they didn'tthink was great. I just wondered,
what what did you see that thatattracted There's no explanation for what you just
ask. Is my answer to that. I can give you technical and specific
(53:20):
things that I do. You know, like I channel my grandfather, or
I channel my uncle, or Ichannel my anger. But how I steal
scenes? That's your word, notmine. I don't steal scenes. I
just be there at m I supposeno. Well, but that's what it
(53:42):
is, you know. And theyalways say like, here's the here's here's
the only answer I could give you. It just occurred to me. There's
an old saying in acting. Neverdo scenes with children or dog or animals.
Dogs, never do scenes with childrenanimals. Why do you think that
is, Chris, Because they're socute, supposedly that people will stare at
(54:07):
them. Okay, that's the dogmight pee on you, that's the other
actor. Okay, the kid mighttoo, by the way, all all
correct, All correct. The thingthat we take is they the dog or
the child is not doing whatever callsthe audience's attention to them on purpose,
(54:32):
right, exactly smart. See thesmart actors know what they're doing. That's
why when you see at the table, you're the smart one and they're the
dumb ones. That's perfect. Ilike it, right, you didn't hire
me. How stupid can you get? I say, they're stupid because we
were a lot of us. Rememberyour characters. I remember I produced a
(54:57):
show where I brought in El Q. Jones to talk to the host.
He was the guy who was shotand killed at least at that point,
more than anybody else in TV andmovie history. But that's that, that's
where you're memorable. I guess Ilove Jonathan Harris because Jonathan Harris is always
memorable to look on his face thatthings he doing. Yet, I mean,
they just react in the right way. But it has nothing to do.
(55:19):
I mean, they do their homework, they do their research, they
memorize their lines, they get relaxed, they go into the scene, they
move the scene forward. They comewith energy. But really the reason you're
watching them is there's no explanation.There's no explanation. I do want to
say thank you because people come tome and all the same I say,
(55:40):
how come I always watch you inthe scene. I don't know, man,
I don't I'm not doing that onpurpose. I don't want you to
watch me. You gotta watch thestar. But you know fine, I
get paid a lot of money becauseyou watch me. Thank you exactly.
You and those are the smart peopleon the side of the table who know
(56:01):
when it can bring somebody in likethat. So that works too. Speaking
of smart, this book is fun. It's it's a roller coaster, it's
it's real life, and it's yourstories. It's what you had written down.
It's called That Guy, a cautionarymemoir by my guest Larry Hankin.
Larry for our viewers and our listeners, where can they find more about not
(56:25):
just a book and you, butwhat you're doing nowadays and maybe next while
I'm writing the next book, andI'm going to be in a movie in
September, so I got some thingscoming and I'm gonna try to turn this
book into a movie. So that'scoming up. So those are the three
things. But you can get thisbook on Amazon mainly Amazon dot com and
(56:47):
Patreon going Patreon, that's my channelon Patreon, Patreon. It's Patreon dot
com slash Larry Hankin Patrion dot com, slash forward, slash Larry Hankin one
word, Larry Hankin. So that'smy channel. You can find on my
(57:09):
little video videos, my little videosthat I make with my money that star
me and they're funny y Chicago comedies. So that's so those are the two
places. And then just buy thebook. It's really funny, and give
me a gold star. Amazon lovesgold stars, and so do I because
(57:30):
they'll advertise your book. If Iget enough gold stars, they will advertise
my book for me. Well that'swhat you need, gold stars. I
knew that. Do that. Youcan find it on Amazon, find Larry
on Patreon, Supporters work support iscool. Shorts and everything, which we
didn't get much of a chance totalk about. Well to do that another
time. We'll do it that anothertime. Yeah, I want to focus
(57:52):
on your characters there and you're inyour shorts a lot of fun. Maybe
play some clips on the last thingI gotta say. Last thing I gotta
say is um, if you ifyou, if you buy the book and
give me a gold star, I'llbe your best friend. And thank you
all for joining us on the OuthouseLounge. We'll have some more coming up
where we relax and talk about more
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