March 27, 2018 • 41 mins
The legendary heavy, Robert Patrick, rose to fame as T-1000 in Terminator 2. But the Georgia-raised son of an engineer has had a long and colorful knockabout life. He also has a son and a daughter and many, many thoughts about raising children. Also, Josh Krisch, our Science Editor, drops some science on why a gravelly voice like Patrick’s is so damn trustworthy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm an alcoholic. I've been sober for twenty two years.
I gave up all that for the right or the
privilege to have kids, and so my kids have only
seen me sober. Hello and welcome to the Fatherly Podcast.
(00:25):
I'm your host Joshua david Stein. Today my guest is
the actor Robert Patrick, who first gained fame as T
one thousand, the bad guy in Terminator Too. When I
first saw the movie way back in I just remember thinking, man,
that bad guy is handsome. More than twenty five years later,
he still is. Patrick has acted in countless films since
T two. Currently he appears on CBS's Scorpion, but that
(00:47):
journey has left him with scars and bruises and happily
a family. We get into how he channeled his own
father and rolls like great Cash Johnny's Dad and walk
the Line, how he spiraled into addiction after Terminator two,
and how we got clean to have kids. The man
does not hold back. Stay tuned. Welcome to a folly podcast.
(01:08):
My name is Joshua David's die. I hope you endoloy yourself.
Hey there, Hey there, hey there, Hello Joshua, Hello, Joshua,
I heard him for a second. There, can you hear me? Now?
I can hear you? Okay, great, let's do this podcast
(01:29):
interview anyway. I'm so happy to hear your voice. I'm
so happy you can hear mine. I can hear you
loud and clear. Now, I hopefully you can hear me
loud and clear. It's a gravelly thing of wonder your voice.
So the way that I'd love to do this podcast
in in this interview is I'm going to start off
with a series of questions that we ask all of
our guests, all of our guests who are fathers, and
(01:49):
since all of our guests are fathers all of our guests,
it starts off really basic and then it gets a
little more nitty gritty about being a dad. How old
are your children my daughter the oldest, my son? And
what are their names? My daughter is Austin Jessica Patrick
and my son is Samuel Robert James Patrick. My daughter
(02:11):
is named after my character in Terminator to Judgment Day
No Ship. Yeah, the name tag is Austin on that guy.
I wasn't sure if I was going to have more
than one kid, but we thought it was a great
name for her. If you knew you were going to
have a son after would you have waited for Austin
to name your son Austin? Uh? No, because the name
(02:33):
of my son was predetermined. He had to be a
Samuel and he had to be a Robert. How did
you have to be a Samuel? Because the Patricks have
been in America since before it was in America, and
there has always been a Robert Patrick and there has
always been a Samuel Patrick. So it was my duty
to name my son either one of the two names,
(02:54):
and I chose to give him both. So being a
Southerner myself too, so I can call him Sammy, Bob,
Jimmy Patrick. What do they call you they used to
call me when I was a kid. Of course I
was little Bobby because my dad was Bobby and I
was little Bobby. And then uh I requested when I
(03:15):
was thirteen to be called Robert and did they abide
by that? They did. I still have some people in
my family that call me little Bobby. I still have
some people that call me Bobby. I have some people
that annoyingly call me Rob. The question with actually, what
do your kids call you? Oh, it's what did my
kids call me? My? Daughter calls me dad, and my
son calls me pops. Pops. That's the dream. It's so
(03:39):
fun to have him call me pops. Okay, pops. How
often do you see them? Well, my son still lives
at home, and my daughter is living in Brooklyn right
now doing an internship with a digital media company, the
only kind of media that exists. Describe yourself as a
father in three words. Boy, wow, boy, wow, oh boy wow.
(04:01):
Those are the first ones to go. Okay, that's it. Uh.
I don't know how to describe myself as a father.
I think I'm a loving dad. Pretty straightforward, Uh, pretty
easy going. I think that's pretty good. You get a
lot of syllables, but only three words. Wise, choice, thank You.
Describe your father in three words stern, demanding, prideful, prideful
(04:27):
in what sense, Very worried about what people thought of me,
Very concerned with the impression he made on other people
and the respect or lack of that he got. You
grew up or you were born in Mariotte, grew up
in outside of Cleveland, Is that right? The first ten
years of my life was Mariotta, Georgia, but then we
(04:50):
moved to Boston. Nitam Massachusetts for one year my dad
got his masters from m I T. We returned after
that year to Georgia, Atlanta, same place, Marietta, and then
we moved to Kettering, Ohio, outside of Dayton for three
or four years. And then I went to high school
outside of Detroit in a place called Farmington, Michigan, and
(05:13):
graduated high school there, and my senior year, my father
moved to Cleveland, Ohio, Bay Village, Ohio, and um I
ended up moving to Cleveland after high school. And how
come you bounced around so much? My father was in
the aerospace industry, uh Lockeed Aircraft Corporation in finance, and
(05:37):
when he got his masters from my Tea, it was
in management, but he went back to work for Lockeed Aircraft.
The Vietnam War was going on and they had just
developed a C five A and my father predicted that
it was bankrupt the company, and he wasn't so sure
he wanted to stay with them, so he made a
switch and went into the banking industry, started at Winters
(05:57):
Bank in Dayton, Ohio, and then after a few years,
got a better job in Detroit and moved there, and
then after a year or two there he realized he
made a mistake and then found another bank that he
wanted to go to in Cleveland, Ohio, and that's where
he ended his career. He retired at the age I'm
at now, you're just getting started. Yeah, exactly, That's the
way I see it. I'm I'm the same age he
(06:20):
was when he retired with five kids. You're the oldest
of the five, right, Yes, that's correct. And your brother
is a musician rivals you in fame of well, he
is a very famous He's a very very talented musician.
He's ten years younger than me, so he's forty nine.
Is he one of the youngest ones? Was that the
spread of the Patrick children? Yes, ten years. They were twins.
(06:40):
His sister is a fraternal twin. For some reason, I
imagine that Patrick childhood as like a pretty rough and
tumble with the kids and fighting and raith in hell?
Is that true or is that just something I'm making
up based on your professional I would say that was true.
The reviews are ext on me as a big brother,
(07:02):
I was maybe a tormentor and a protector all in one.
We moved around a lot, so we were pretty close
knit family. I I you know, I had a lot
of friends, so I was pretty rawdy. I seemed to
be a protector of my uh my middle brother. And
then when the twins came along, I think I was ten,
so they were interesting to me. You know, you said
(07:23):
your dad with stern How did that sternness and how
did interestingly, how did the pridefulness express itself to you?
How did you experience that as a kid. Well, he
was very serious and took himself serious and um, he
had high expectations of all of us, and there was
a certain amount of pressure, I think, and as we
(07:45):
moved around, you know, uh, there was certain things he
expected us to be and do, certain pressures he put
on himself. And hindsight now you know, my my father
was the son of a colonel in the United States Army,
a career soldier with her Robert or Samuel he is
Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Patrick. And uh my dad is Robert
(08:08):
Merle Patrick, emmy r L E m R L E yes,
and he he passed away three years ago December ninth. Yeah.
One of the roles that you play that sticks with
me is in Walk the Line, you play Johnny Cash
is Dan. It's a good father figure right there. Yeah,
he's a real tough son of a gun. He's a prick,
(08:29):
I guess we could say that, but he really embodied
a figure who was very hard on his son. You know.
I think the interesting thing and the main reason I'm
doing this podcast is because I think this whole take
of fatherhood, he's a dynamic that is so huge in
my own life. I know, my relationship with my father,
my father's relationship with his father. And then to actually
(08:51):
get roles where you're playing these fathers of some famous
pete like Johnny Cash and realize and read about, you know,
Johnny Cash's relationship with his father from his point of
view of what his dad was like, and then you
realize that's what kind of forges you as an individual,
(09:14):
as your relationship with your dad, and how important it
is the father son dynamic, you know, all the way
back to the Bible. It's a huge formative relationship. Yeah,
if only I could have had Isaac on the podcast
and aska about Abraham. Yeah, So the the whole Johnny
Cash experience playing Ray Cash was really intriguing to me.
(09:35):
I am from the South. I was born in a
lot of the fathers that I looked up to. Over
the years, I've stolen from and the you know, for
some of the portrayals I've played the men that had
made a big impression on me when I was a
kid growing up. Your dad included, my dad included, and
I think the Ray Cash. Uh, Let's see, how do
(09:58):
I get into this what I out the opportunity to
play him. I started reading his autobiography and there was
a lot of things that came through. Johnny Cass's dad
was not a real educated man. He was a sharecropper.
He was trying to get his family through the Great Depression.
They were picking cotton. His kids were like farm implements.
(10:18):
He had seven of them. They were expected to work
as as a matter of fact, it was more important
for them to work than it was to go to school.
And it was just the times, you know, and it
was what was expected. So I'm sure he was a
very demanding guy, you know. Johnny sort of said that
in his autobiography. The tell for me with Johnny with
(10:39):
the relationship with his father was the fact that he
had the respect to bury his dad, but he never
went back to his grave to visit again. And I
think that sort of summed it all up. He had
a real dynamic thing happened to him losing his older brother,
the brother that was most loved, and the father sort
of blamed him. And I think that darkness sort of permeated,
(11:01):
um the career of Johnny Cash, and he drew on that,
and that was actually the source of his talent and
and his pain and his fame. Yeah, was that darkness.
Towards the end of his life, he did that cover
of the Bonny Principality song I See a Darkness Yeah, Yeah,
which you're good man. I'm I'm a Cash and Bonny
Prince Billy fan and Father fans. But you know, it's
(11:21):
really really interesting. Um, when I did that movie, you know,
the grandchildren of the Cash family came out and said
and a few of them said that, you know, I
don't remember my grandfather being that big of a prick.
And my response was, yeah, but this was not your
point of view. This was Johnny's point of view. The
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(12:08):
by the Laughing Cow. Snack like you. And now back
to the show. What of your roles do you think
really embodied most your father and what of the roles
that you've played, if any embody how you are as
a father. I think maybe the father I played in
(12:28):
Bridge to Terabithia was a great role for me. That
was closer to how I thank I am as far
as a father. He was pretty loving guy, kind of
hard working dude, blue collar guy that really tried to
understand his children and what they were going through and
(12:49):
wanted to be there for them emotionally. I thought he
was a good dad, and that's a good movie. I'm
really proud of that movie. Recently, I've produced a movie
where I started it and it was again, it's this
great dynamic of fathers and sons in an evil way
called Last Rampage, where I play a convicted murderer who
utilizes his three sons to escape from prison and uses
(13:15):
the father's son dynamic to his advantage to get himself
out of prison and doesn't really give a shit about
his kids. Uh, it's funny around the office we've been
talking about. You know, obviously there's a prominent father thun
dynamic which is playing out nationally right now with the
President and his son. A dynamic of a father using
or leveraging the father son dynamic for a nefarious ends
(13:38):
is one of the most troubling I think and unsettling dynamics.
You know, you touched on something that's very interesting. There's
an expectation and I think I know personally as a father,
I've tried to take all that off my son. The
only thing I've wanted my son to do. I want
him to be true to himself and find his way himself.
(14:00):
I want to give him all the tools that I
can to go about doing that, and I re feel
a real responsibility as a father to giving the best
education he can get and try not to make the
same mistakes my father did. But what's interesting about you?
You know, out of five I know that you know
you and your youngest brother, Um, you're an actor and
(14:20):
he's a musician. I don't know what that the other
three siblings do, but someone was encouraging maybe, I don't know.
Did you get encouragement from your parents to kind of
pursue your own truth? Well, my dad, you know, my
parents made me feel very, very special. I did feel special,
not only my parents, but my uncle's and aunts because
I was the first born grandson to this mythical figure
(14:45):
of the Colonel Samuel Patrick, and I was the only
grandson that he ever saw a live. He died by
the time I was five, I believe. I think early on,
looking back on it, I feel like I had this
responsibility to do something extraordinary, whatever it was, it was
sort of expected of me. Now that manifested itself in
(15:08):
me failing at some things before I I pursued this career,
but I've been successful at this career now. I don't
want to say I have an expectation for my children,
but I do want to try to provide them every
opportunity they have to be exceptional in their own right.
Does that make sense what I YEA, you want them
(15:29):
to measure against themselves. You're not trying to put an
external guide post on them, but you're saying, however you
want to measure what you do, be excellent at that metric.
I don't want to come across as like a delusional
person that I have always felt like there was a
motor running in me that they're I've got to do
(15:49):
something that's not normal. Why. I don't know. It's a
tangible thing feeling that I have that I'm I'm being
watched to do that. There's something in me that's pushing me.
Is it the Lieutenant Colonel from the Great Beyond? Maybe
it is? Maybe it is, I don't know, is it?
Is it it? Or if you want to really strip
it down to you know, I'm a believer, so you know,
(16:11):
I believe God puts you here and he your it's
your obligation to find your talent what it is, and
then go out there and utilize it to the fullest.
That's the best way you honor God. That's what you're
supposed to do. In a weird way, Yeah, maybe that's
maybe that's what it is. What was the lowest you
feel like you got before you started making it. Well,
(16:33):
I struggled for a long time. And I'm gonna be
real honest with you, because if the young people that
are listening to this, you know, I failed at some
stuff miserably, like what, Well, Well, I I went off
to college, and I was there to play football, and
my dad loved the fact that I was a football player,
and my dad loved the fact that I played baseball.
You know, he really encouraged me that way. And then
(16:56):
when I kind of realized that football is not gonna
go any where past college, I don't really know why
I'm doing it. As a matter of fact, I don't
even know why I'm at college. Who the hell am I?
And then I was lost and miserable, and you know,
all this stuff that was expected of me is now gone.
(17:17):
Now what do I do? I remember literally praying for
what is it that I'm supposed to be doing? What
the hell am I supposed to be doing? I gotta
find it, I gotta find some sort of direction. And
I you know, I did some stupid stuff. I tried
some stupid stuff. What was the thing? What was the
stupid Well, you know, you get involved with some abuse,
(17:39):
some things you shouldn't be doing you. There's a lot
of self hatred for not fulfilling the expectations you have
on yourself, so you take it out on yourself. But
you know, I had to fail. I failed in a
bunch of stuff. I tried a bunch of stuff. I
painted houses, I worked in factories, I bartended, and none
of it was fulfilling that need to do something great.
(18:00):
And then finally it dawned on me that what I
really like to do was act. I hadn't done it
since I was in third grade. But how now, how
the hell you do that? I'm like, I'm two year
old guy. I've said in a drama class, How the
hell do I approach this? How do I make this happen?
I live in Cleveland, Ohio, for God's sakes, how did
you make it happen? That's what I'm saying, brother. I
(18:21):
had a life or death experience that really slapped me
in the face and said, you better get on with
it if that's what you want to do. That was
um that was a voting accident, and all this was
going on, and I was trying to figure out, what
the hell, what the hell, what the hell? I've read
a line about that. So you have a Wikipedia page
because you're famous, and everyone also has a Wikipedia page.
Everybody has a Whipipedia. I don't. I considered briefly writing
(18:43):
it myself, but then I thought I need some dignity
in my life, so I didn't. You know, I want
to meet you. I like it. I wish we were
in the same room here. Me too. I wish I
was in l A because it's fucking freezing here. But
it's a It's something like, you know, when you were
twenty six, there was a voting accident Lake Erie, and
after that you moved to California, and it feels like
there's a whole novel written that one Wikipedia sentence. So
(19:06):
tell me what happened. Then, well, okay, so you know
I'm I'm living in Cleveland. I've gone to high school
in Detroit. Like I said, I'm failing miserably at things.
My father has now taken to calling me Bob the
slab by. Live in the basement. I'm drinking a lot.
I'm not really living up to my potential. I'm now
waiting tables and I want to be an actor. I
(19:26):
don't know how to tell people I want to be
an actor. I don't. There's nobody I know that's an actor.
I figure, you know, eventually, I'll do it. I meet
this girl that I put it off more. I find
another reason to put it off was with this girl.
Finally the girl breaks up with me. I'm in this
boating accident. I swim for three and a half hours.
I saved myself and four other people. It was a
(19:46):
boat thinking it was a thirty foot dragon slayer that
was not prepped for a lake Erie storm to hit,
had a four tonk keel, took in water. It was
a wet deck. The next thing to know that that
we're three miles off. Boat takes in water. The boat
sinks in like a second, and there you are in
the middle of Lake Area, three miles off the coast
(20:07):
to Cleveland. Uh, swimming for your life. And it's right
there that you literally, you know, Uh, if I survived this,
I am going to do what I want to do,
and I'm gonna make something on myself. And I swam,
and I set a date, and I packed my bags,
and I remember my parents. I remember the only time
(20:28):
I ever saw my dad literally, you know, kind of
tear up, was when I said goodbye to him, And
I know what it was because he couldn't help me.
I was moving to California. I was gonna try to
pursue this business that I had no experience in, and
there was nothing he could do. And he was saying
goodbye to his oldest son. You know it was. It
was a tough experience for him. Do you think he
(20:50):
was proud of you heading out there? Well, I think
he was more scared. There was a certain amount of
fear that I grew up with in my family. Uh,
there was a certain amount of worry. The kids that
had survived the Great Depression that we're parents. You know,
save your money, you know, They're always worried about There
was the other shoe was gonna drop all the time,
(21:10):
you know what I mean. Fear was very prevalent in
my house. They were always like reasons why I shouldn't
do it. I can't say that I had the full
backing of my family when I did it. I think
they thought I was crazy, but they were pretty damn
proud of me. When they were at the terminator to Premier,
I'll tell you that much. And they saw all that
and they were gonna, Holy, how the hell did you
do this? I had no idea he was made out
(21:31):
of liquid metal. I didn't know he knew how to act. Hell.
I remember my father meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was one
of the most embarrassing moments of my life. My dad
said to Arnold, so do you think my son's gonna
make it? I just sat there going like, seriously, your
(21:52):
son has the work ethic. He is going to be
a fantastic He's fantastic in this film. You should be
very proud of your son what he's done. Arnold Schwarzenegger
says it. I'll take it. Yeah, it was really good.
I don't mean to get so nostalgic here with all
this kind of stuff. You know, you mentioned why you
wanted to do this podcast because the dynamic between a
father and a son is like when you walk by
(22:14):
cement and someone's written their initials in it, or someone's
put their hand in the cement, and forevermore that outline
will be there. So many of the guys I talked
to on the podcast their fathers themselves, but we end
up talking a lot about their relationship with their father
because it is such a huge formational relationship. These experiences
are so meaningful when I look at your career. Yeah,
(22:38):
you're known as like a heavy, but you're also sort
of known as this authority figure. You are in some
ways like the stern father of American cinema. Well, that's
a great compliment where I fit right now. It's interesting, Uh,
the age I'm at and the responsibility I feel to
(22:58):
portray that ideal. And I've been given that opportunity. This
sounds like a segue, but I've been given that opportunity
on Scorpion each week. It's an interesting paternal relationship with
the cast that I have. I grew up where you
needed to be counted on. You you, Um, how do
(23:22):
mean word this? You were the you were the sault
of the earth. You you you, you knew what was
right and what was wrong. Uh, you could be depended on.
And I think that's translated to me as a father.
My wife and I've been married for twenty seven years, Barbara. Yes,
and I'm very lucky that I found an exceptional woman
(23:45):
at the right time in my life. Yeah, I was
in l a and I've got these two great children,
and they've got a wonderful mother, and she's committed to uh,
supporting me emotionally and UH giving me belief in myself.
We feel like we have a real commitment to our kids.
Did you wait until you were successful? Were you ready
(24:06):
to have kids at that time? Well, that's the story
in itself. Let me see if I can tap into
this real quick. Barbara and I got married five. We
got married while I was making TTOO, so she had
been with me through all the struggling years. We couldn't
scrap two pennies together, so she shared in has been
a big part of my success, and it's somewhere around
(24:26):
thirty eight years old, thirty six years old. I kind
of hit her with the idea of let's have some kids,
and she was like, man, I don't know you. You
got some recreational things going on that you're gonna have
to get rid of before we seriously think about having
some kids. So I got sober. Had you been drinking
a lot before then? Yeah, I'm an alcoholic. I've been
(24:48):
sober for twenty two years. I gave up all that
for the right or the privilege to have kids. It
was a very smart move on my wife's part, and
so my kids have only seen me sober. Yeah, they
know that I took care of my own self and
(25:08):
gave all that up so I could have them. So
I want to say it was a sacrifice made. It
was a good decision what I did, and it wasn't
a sacrifice. It was a real attempt to be there
for him from from the from the get go. And
and you know, I think that's what's so important in
our society right now, that dad's have a real responsibility
and the family unit is something to be honored, and
(25:30):
getting married and having a job and having kids is
a great value. A lot of my guests, especially actors,
but other people as well, they have a starter family
almost while they're trying to make it, and then they
get success, and maybe through how hard they worked and
how much they sacrifice for their career, their family falls apart,
(25:52):
and then they become successful and then they have another family.
So you have like two sets of kids. You have
the first one and the second one. And it's really
interesting to me that you in Hollywood, which seems like
a town where there's a lot of that you've been
with your wife for so long and you have kids
and you have this real strong family unit which seems
not impervious to that pressure but has survived. Yeah, we've
(26:14):
been lucky. I'm just eternally grateful for that. I don't
like to judge. Try Well, what am I saying? I'm
kidding myself. That's probably my worst thing that I do
do is judge people. But I don't want to admit
to it, but I do. I that's the thing that
I revere the most is my wife and my family.
I don't want to sacrifice my wife and my family
(26:35):
from my own pursuit. However, I am still very driven
and committed to what I want to do. But I
think you can have both Personally, I think, uh, there's
ways to do it. You said you're recovering alcoholic and
you have two kids who are seventeen and twenty, presumably
experimenting like all kids do. How do you handle that
(26:56):
because obviously you've seen the dangers of going too far.
But if any dad knows if you yank the chain
too hard, they're only gonna pull harder. So however, you
navigated that, I've been very honest with him from the
get go. I've started talking to them openly about it.
This is this, this is what this does, this is
how it happens. I've had a problem with it, doesn't
mean you're gonna have a problem with it. You may
(27:17):
experiment with this stuff, but I'm gonna tell you right now,
if you go down this road and you tried this,
you're really headed in the wrong direction. I'm very scared
of heroin. That's not something I ever tried myself, thankfully,
you know. I just want to let them know that
there are certain gateways and you may not think this
as much now, but it could lead to something. So
(27:38):
you've got to be very honest with yourself. You're gonna
be around this kind of stuff. But they've also my kids,
since I've been honest with them from the get go,
they don't really have an interest in it. They know
a bunch of my sober buddies, they know a bunch
of my buddies that have had problems. They've heard from
my buddies that have had problems, and they kind of
(27:59):
get the idea is that it's not a winning situation.
So they have a respect for it and uh an awareness.
You know. It's just like the gun issue. All right,
I'm gonna bring that up. If you don't acknowledge what
it is and the tool that it is, and you
don't explain it and give out the information, they're never
gonna know. Do you know what I'm saying. Are you
saying that families should have guns that teach gun safety
(28:22):
or are you saying I said, if you have a
family and you have a family that has weapons, or
you have children, and you have children that are gonna
be in the society where weapons exist, they need to
be educated. Yeah, it's the same thing to me in
an interesting way, It's like I'm gonna hand my kid
the keys of the car. Okay, you're gonna drive this car.
(28:45):
This car is a weapon. If you don't handle it correctly,
you can injure yourself. You can injure other people if
you drive it impaired, If you drive it texting, okay,
you're gonna have a big problem. It's the same thing.
These dangers are out there. You need to be a
are of it. Yeah. Well, not mentioning it is not
protecting them. That's what I'm trying to say. And thank
you Joshua for bailing men. But yeah, but that's what
(29:08):
I'm saying. I think kids appreciate honesty. Me and my
wife we've decided, you know, we'll be very honest with you.
This is this, and these are the repercussions. I have
some more questions from the questionnaire which actually kind of
feed quite well into this. What are your strength as
a father? I think maybe being honest and frank and
your weaknesses? Ah, my weaknesses. Wow, that's funny how that
(29:31):
doesn't pop into my head right away. I can worry
a little bit, and I have to watch that when
they come to me with something that I don't fall
into the environment that I was raised in where I
would be overly worried. Does that make sense, Yeah, that's good.
Your biggest regret, My biggest regret is a father. The
time I've spent away from my kids, being away at movies,
(29:53):
and the times I missed when they were kids when
I was on location. There was no other way to
do it. I didn't want my kids to be pulled
up and move around like a bag of gypsies like
I was. I wanted them to have a strong foundation.
This is where you're born, this is where you go
to school, This is your community. You live in Hollywood,
this is you, This is your environment where you're from.
What heirloom did your father give to you? If any
(30:15):
I'm wearing it right now. My dad gave me a
Rolex g Master two. What heirloom do you want to
leave to your children if any I mean, think about that.
Hm hmm, Well, I guess I'll pass this watch onto
my son. I've already given him the two names, so
that counts. Who has that name tag from terminator to
(30:35):
not me? I did. I don't know what happened to it.
It's on probably in some hard rock somewhere. Joshua, what
is your favorite activity to do with your kids that
is your special dad and son or dad and daughter thing.
We like to go hiking with the dogs. We like
to play football. We like to throw the baseball around.
We like to my son and I we we like
(30:56):
to go do some skeet shooting from time to time.
My daughter. Most of the time i'm with her. It's
like walking and hiking. We seem to have our best
times doing that. Where do you guys like to hike?
There's a lot of great places to hike here in
the Hollywood Hills. Yeah. As a matter of fact, Joshua,
I'm going to the Rams game tonight and I gotta
(31:19):
take my son. And that's my father and son time
with my son today. What is the mistake you made
growing up you want to ensure your children do not repeat.
I wish I would have taken school a little bit
more serious when I had the opportunity, because that's all
on me. But I was going through some emotional stuff
at the time and just didn't handle it well. But
I've already done that. My my daughter is going to
(31:40):
be the first one in my family to graduate from college.
My son will be the second one. And my family,
not my father's family, but my family, My my wife
and I neither one of us graduating college. You dropped out,
but and you've been working since then. Do you feel
like you're learning? I don't know through like like how
you're learning the whole time? Right. Yeah, My life is
(32:02):
different than my father's, which I think ultimately is what
I wanted. And I'm a little bit more street smart
and knock around. My dad was more of a white
collar guy. I'm a I sort of straddle that white collar,
blue collar world and I'm pretty comfortable there and as
an actor, it's benefited me greatly. And what about your son.
He's so much more talented than me that you know,
(32:24):
he's a vocalist, he sings, he does musical theater, and
he's an actor. I mean, this guy's got so much
talent and my daughter does too. So um, you know
they've they're already better than me and now they've just
got to go out and prove it. Last question, besides
telling your kids that you love them, how do you
let them know that? Well, I'm a big hugger. I'm
(32:45):
I'm a very affectionate guy, and uh, I've got great kids.
I would really wish you would get a chance to
meet my kids sometime. Well, someday, Robert Patrick, I hope
to get a Robert Patrick hug. But for now, enjoy
the football game with your fun and thank you for
being a guest. Joshua. It has been a great pleasure
and I look forward to meeting you someday. It shall
(33:06):
be so farewell. This is Joshua. David Stein hosted the
Fatherly podcast I'm here with josh Krisher Science had to
do it funny, you sound like Robert Patrick. Yes, you
might hear that. I have a lower, more gravelly voice,
and instantly I'm more attractive and have more authority. I'm not,
and I don't, but I did just talk to Robert Patrick,
(33:28):
who among the many things I like about him, which
is almost everything, is his voice, which I could listen
to forever and in many movies have So you want
to know the secret of dad voice. To give me
the secretive Dad voice so I can get it. Well,
you hit on the main findings already. That is, lower
pitched voices, according to virtually every scientific study on the topic,
(33:50):
are rated more attractive. The person who has them, is
considered physically stronger, considered more dominant, all the things you'd
like to be as a death That was very good. Yes, Josh, yeah,
my my squeaky voice doesn't really my low registered dad voice.
Do I sound attractive? You sound and look like Moses
(34:10):
Beard reference every episode Mandatory. One very interesting study examined
recordings of every presidential debate between nineteen sixty and two
thousand and found that the candidate with a deeper voice
won a higher percentage of the popular vote almost every time.
So it's not just that we find these people more
attractive or stronger and more dominant. We actively seem to
be voting for them as we put people in office
(34:31):
who have deeper voices. And there was another study that
looked at the two twelve United States House of Representative
candidates and found that those with lower voices won a
larger vote share. Even after they controlled for things that
you would hope would swing elections like um campaign spending,
district ideology, incumbency. They controlled for all of that and
the only major variable between candidates was how low their
(34:52):
voices were. So we'll never have a female president. No,
we could have a female president. She would just have
to have a relatively low registered voice. Studies show that
in general, we are more critical of women with high
voices than men with high voices. Interesting, so a particularly
high voiced woman is going to have trouble making it
in public office. Remember when Jared Kushner gave that press
(35:12):
conference and he sounded like in a eleven year old castrado. Yeah,
didn't didn't increase my perception of his leadership abilities. Bernie Sanders,
on the other hand, has an incredibly low registered voice. Yes,
millionaires and billionaires. Hillary Clinton had a relatively low voice.
Donald Trump has a fairly high registered voice. But also
he lost the popular vote, and the studies always show
(35:34):
popular vote now electoral college. The three million that he
lost could have been because of his high registered voice.
According to these studies, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had
very similar pitches. When we analyzed the pitch that they
used during their debates. I believe Hillary Clinton's was one
eight eight hurts and Donald Trump averaged one nine hurts.
So the final two candidates were both higher than the
average thirty hurts. What is the average register for a voice?
(35:56):
The low end is like eighty one hurts. When you
hear like James Earl Jones, you're like, yeah, that's quite low.
And one hundred and thirty six is like a high
pitched male voice, not a very high pitched male voice,
but a little higher than average. They say, Sean Connery's
around there, so you can picture Sean Connery's voice is
not terribly low, but not terribly high. I always thought
he had a deep, gravelly voice. But I guess that
leads to the point that gravelly and register quality and
(36:19):
register are two different things, right. These studies specifically look
at the average hurts, so that's the average frequency. It's
not about how much they smoked, it's about how deep
their voices register. Ted Cruz had like two hundred and
thirty two hurts. He's like he's like a squeaky little mouse.
Men don't usually go a lot higher than two hundred
or a lot lower than eighty, and women also operate
(36:41):
pretty much in that register. It's just that women tend
to skew closer to the higher ones and men tend
to screw closer to the lower ones. So your range
is like eighty to two hundred. So why are we
attracted to your male voices? Why do we think that
dad voices the ideal? There are a few possibilities. One
possibility is that lower voices indicate higher levels of testosterone.
Pretty straightforward, we're wired to seize testosterone as a sign
(37:03):
of competence and strength, even if it's not. Goes back
to our caveman brains are primitive minds. Consider somebody with
a deep voice most likely to win wars and club
people over the head, so it's useful to have a
leader like that. A lot of scientists don't love this theory, though,
because in the modern day, our leaders are not in
charge of clubbing mammoths and fighting wars for us. They
kind of sit behind a desk while other people do
(37:24):
that work for them. So you would think we would
have evolved out of that but if you talk to
an evolutionary biologist or an evolutionary psychologist, they'll probably tell
you that it's so deeply ingrained into our personas that
we want a leader who could kill somebody with his
bare hands, even if they're tiny, tiny hands, even if
they have tiny, tiny hands. You know that brings the
mind of recent study we covered on fatherly, the Americans
(37:44):
for the first time prefer daughters instead of sons, and
I wonder if down the line that's going to result
in privileging higher registered voices rather than lower. Maybe there
are other studies that suggest that we're always going to
privilege lower voices for other reasons. There are at least
two studies that blinded people completely well, I shouldn't say
blind people completing a picture of eyes poking up. There
(38:06):
were There were at least two studies that just had
people listened to voices and in the voice, the person
would say something like vote for me this coming November,
or trust me, and when their voices were lower, they
did what the voice said to do. When the voice
were higher, they did not, And when asked why, the
participants invariably responded that the lower registered voice sounds more
trustworthy and sounds more competent, and I want to do
(38:29):
what a trustworthy, competent person says to do rather than
a shrill, incompetent person. Are there any studies or is
there any science that can catch respondence before they've been
indoctrinated into a patriarchal, heteronormative society. It would be difficult
because a lot of these biases started a few months
and you can't really get a five month old or
six month old to answer survey questions like this. The
(38:51):
indoctrination happens early. I guess you'd have to find participants
from a society that's not patriarchal. Those exist, but there
are few and far between nowadays. What's one a woman's
land called sure run a study in a fictional universe
that wonder Woman comes from. Yeah, it'll be easy. I'm
sure they have more funding for the National Institute of sciencests.
I'm guessing they fund basic science better than we do.
(39:13):
There's another thought you had as to why we are
attracted to a dead voice. Yeah, this one just seems
the most compelling to me. It also seems the most
compelling to the researchers looking at this question perception of
age has a lot to do with how you pick
a leader. Studies have shown that if different leaders are
put up on a board and participants are told nothing
about them besides their ages and few basic stats, they
(39:33):
will pick the older ones unless they're incredibly old, unless
it's like a hundred years old, So you don't want
somebody frail and about to die. But generally speaking, we
want older people to lead us. We consider older people
more competent, and older people have deeper voices as we
get older. The physiology of the vocal tract and the
larynx ensures that when you start out young, you're going
to have a higher voice than when you get a
(39:54):
little bit older. So a voice pitch is a reliable
signal of age because it decreases greatly from childhood to
middle age, and then decreases much less after middle aged.
So you get this kind of very high pitched voice
when you're dealing with a kid. That higher pitched voice
drops significantly lower when the child becomes a regular adult.
We're wired to follow people who are older, which makes
(40:15):
a lot of sense. We should follow people who are older.
Generally speaking, they're considered wiser, they have a little more experience.
We want to follow people that are older, and one
of the best indicators of age his voice. I think
there's another possibility I just want to float, is that
Robert Patrick has been active in Hollywood for so long
and so many films, and he's such an attractive actor,
(40:35):
displays such breath and depth in his character portrayals that
we've grown to associate a deeper voice with Robert Patrick,
and that's why we're attracted to deeper voices. You're telling
me you think that Robert Patrick would make an excellent president.
I'm saying Robert Patrick is the er dad of America.
We should all vote for him. Vote for Robert Patrick. Well,
(40:57):
josh thank you for that. It will make me self
conscious time I talk. You're welcome. It's been a pleasure
to be here. That's it for this week. Thanks for
listening to the Fatherly Podcast. I'm your host, Joshua David Stein.
Today's episode was executive produced by Sandy Smallens and engineered
(41:19):
by Dave Savage. The music is by Kyle Forster with
little help from my son Aggie here in Stein. If
you enjoyed the podcast, give us a high five rating
and subscribe on I Heart Radio or wherever you get
your podcast. That's it for me. Hey kids, you got
anything to say. B
I'm an alcoholic. I've been sober for twenty two years.
I gave up all that for the right or the
privilege to have kids, and so my kids have only
seen me sober. Hello and welcome to the Fatherly Podcast.
(00:25):
I'm your host Joshua david Stein. Today my guest is
the actor Robert Patrick, who first gained fame as T
one thousand, the bad guy in Terminator Too. When I
first saw the movie way back in I just remember thinking, man,
that bad guy is handsome. More than twenty five years later,
he still is. Patrick has acted in countless films since
T two. Currently he appears on CBS's Scorpion, but that
(00:47):
journey has left him with scars and bruises and happily
a family. We get into how he channeled his own
father and rolls like great Cash Johnny's Dad and walk
the Line, how he spiraled into addiction after Terminator two,
and how we got clean to have kids. The man
does not hold back. Stay tuned. Welcome to a folly podcast.
(01:08):
My name is Joshua David's die. I hope you endoloy yourself.
Hey there, Hey there, hey there, Hello Joshua, Hello, Joshua,
I heard him for a second. There, can you hear me? Now?
I can hear you? Okay, great, let's do this podcast
(01:29):
interview anyway. I'm so happy to hear your voice. I'm
so happy you can hear mine. I can hear you
loud and clear. Now, I hopefully you can hear me
loud and clear. It's a gravelly thing of wonder your voice.
So the way that I'd love to do this podcast
in in this interview is I'm going to start off
with a series of questions that we ask all of
our guests, all of our guests who are fathers, and
(01:49):
since all of our guests are fathers all of our guests,
it starts off really basic and then it gets a
little more nitty gritty about being a dad. How old
are your children my daughter the oldest, my son? And
what are their names? My daughter is Austin Jessica Patrick
and my son is Samuel Robert James Patrick. My daughter
(02:11):
is named after my character in Terminator to Judgment Day
No Ship. Yeah, the name tag is Austin on that guy.
I wasn't sure if I was going to have more
than one kid, but we thought it was a great
name for her. If you knew you were going to
have a son after would you have waited for Austin
to name your son Austin? Uh? No, because the name
(02:33):
of my son was predetermined. He had to be a
Samuel and he had to be a Robert. How did
you have to be a Samuel? Because the Patricks have
been in America since before it was in America, and
there has always been a Robert Patrick and there has
always been a Samuel Patrick. So it was my duty
to name my son either one of the two names,
(02:54):
and I chose to give him both. So being a
Southerner myself too, so I can call him Sammy, Bob,
Jimmy Patrick. What do they call you they used to
call me when I was a kid. Of course I
was little Bobby because my dad was Bobby and I
was little Bobby. And then uh I requested when I
(03:15):
was thirteen to be called Robert and did they abide
by that? They did. I still have some people in
my family that call me little Bobby. I still have
some people that call me Bobby. I have some people
that annoyingly call me Rob. The question with actually, what
do your kids call you? Oh, it's what did my
kids call me? My? Daughter calls me dad, and my
son calls me pops. Pops. That's the dream. It's so
(03:39):
fun to have him call me pops. Okay, pops. How
often do you see them? Well, my son still lives
at home, and my daughter is living in Brooklyn right
now doing an internship with a digital media company, the
only kind of media that exists. Describe yourself as a
father in three words. Boy, wow, boy, wow, oh boy wow.
(04:01):
Those are the first ones to go. Okay, that's it. Uh.
I don't know how to describe myself as a father.
I think I'm a loving dad. Pretty straightforward, Uh, pretty
easy going. I think that's pretty good. You get a
lot of syllables, but only three words. Wise, choice, thank You.
Describe your father in three words stern, demanding, prideful, prideful
(04:27):
in what sense, Very worried about what people thought of me,
Very concerned with the impression he made on other people
and the respect or lack of that he got. You
grew up or you were born in Mariotte, grew up
in outside of Cleveland, Is that right? The first ten
years of my life was Mariotta, Georgia, but then we
(04:50):
moved to Boston. Nitam Massachusetts for one year my dad
got his masters from m I T. We returned after
that year to Georgia, Atlanta, same place, Marietta, and then
we moved to Kettering, Ohio, outside of Dayton for three
or four years. And then I went to high school
outside of Detroit in a place called Farmington, Michigan, and
(05:13):
graduated high school there, and my senior year, my father
moved to Cleveland, Ohio, Bay Village, Ohio, and um I
ended up moving to Cleveland after high school. And how
come you bounced around so much? My father was in
the aerospace industry, uh Lockeed Aircraft Corporation in finance, and
(05:37):
when he got his masters from my Tea, it was
in management, but he went back to work for Lockeed Aircraft.
The Vietnam War was going on and they had just
developed a C five A and my father predicted that
it was bankrupt the company, and he wasn't so sure
he wanted to stay with them, so he made a
switch and went into the banking industry, started at Winters
(05:57):
Bank in Dayton, Ohio, and then after a few years,
got a better job in Detroit and moved there, and
then after a year or two there he realized he
made a mistake and then found another bank that he
wanted to go to in Cleveland, Ohio, and that's where
he ended his career. He retired at the age I'm
at now, you're just getting started. Yeah, exactly, That's the
way I see it. I'm I'm the same age he
(06:20):
was when he retired with five kids. You're the oldest
of the five, right, Yes, that's correct. And your brother
is a musician rivals you in fame of well, he
is a very famous He's a very very talented musician.
He's ten years younger than me, so he's forty nine.
Is he one of the youngest ones? Was that the
spread of the Patrick children? Yes, ten years. They were twins.
(06:40):
His sister is a fraternal twin. For some reason, I
imagine that Patrick childhood as like a pretty rough and
tumble with the kids and fighting and raith in hell?
Is that true or is that just something I'm making
up based on your professional I would say that was true.
The reviews are ext on me as a big brother,
(07:02):
I was maybe a tormentor and a protector all in one.
We moved around a lot, so we were pretty close
knit family. I I you know, I had a lot
of friends, so I was pretty rawdy. I seemed to
be a protector of my uh my middle brother. And
then when the twins came along, I think I was ten,
so they were interesting to me. You know, you said
(07:23):
your dad with stern How did that sternness and how
did interestingly, how did the pridefulness express itself to you?
How did you experience that as a kid. Well, he
was very serious and took himself serious and um, he
had high expectations of all of us, and there was
a certain amount of pressure, I think, and as we
(07:45):
moved around, you know, uh, there was certain things he
expected us to be and do, certain pressures he put
on himself. And hindsight now you know, my my father
was the son of a colonel in the United States Army,
a career soldier with her Robert or Samuel he is
Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Patrick. And uh my dad is Robert
(08:08):
Merle Patrick, emmy r L E m R L E yes,
and he he passed away three years ago December ninth. Yeah.
One of the roles that you play that sticks with
me is in Walk the Line, you play Johnny Cash
is Dan. It's a good father figure right there. Yeah,
he's a real tough son of a gun. He's a prick,
(08:29):
I guess we could say that, but he really embodied
a figure who was very hard on his son. You know.
I think the interesting thing and the main reason I'm
doing this podcast is because I think this whole take
of fatherhood, he's a dynamic that is so huge in
my own life. I know, my relationship with my father,
my father's relationship with his father. And then to actually
(08:51):
get roles where you're playing these fathers of some famous
pete like Johnny Cash and realize and read about, you know,
Johnny Cash's relationship with his father from his point of
view of what his dad was like, and then you
realize that's what kind of forges you as an individual,
(09:14):
as your relationship with your dad, and how important it
is the father son dynamic, you know, all the way
back to the Bible. It's a huge formative relationship. Yeah,
if only I could have had Isaac on the podcast
and aska about Abraham. Yeah, So the the whole Johnny
Cash experience playing Ray Cash was really intriguing to me.
(09:35):
I am from the South. I was born in a
lot of the fathers that I looked up to. Over
the years, I've stolen from and the you know, for
some of the portrayals I've played the men that had
made a big impression on me when I was a
kid growing up. Your dad included, my dad included, and
I think the Ray Cash. Uh, Let's see, how do
(09:58):
I get into this what I out the opportunity to
play him. I started reading his autobiography and there was
a lot of things that came through. Johnny Cass's dad
was not a real educated man. He was a sharecropper.
He was trying to get his family through the Great Depression.
They were picking cotton. His kids were like farm implements.
(10:18):
He had seven of them. They were expected to work
as as a matter of fact, it was more important
for them to work than it was to go to school.
And it was just the times, you know, and it
was what was expected. So I'm sure he was a
very demanding guy, you know. Johnny sort of said that
in his autobiography. The tell for me with Johnny with
(10:39):
the relationship with his father was the fact that he
had the respect to bury his dad, but he never
went back to his grave to visit again. And I
think that sort of summed it all up. He had
a real dynamic thing happened to him losing his older brother,
the brother that was most loved, and the father sort
of blamed him. And I think that darkness sort of permeated,
(11:01):
um the career of Johnny Cash, and he drew on that,
and that was actually the source of his talent and
and his pain and his fame. Yeah, was that darkness.
Towards the end of his life, he did that cover
of the Bonny Principality song I See a Darkness Yeah, Yeah,
which you're good man. I'm I'm a Cash and Bonny
Prince Billy fan and Father fans. But you know, it's
(11:21):
really really interesting. Um, when I did that movie, you know,
the grandchildren of the Cash family came out and said
and a few of them said that, you know, I
don't remember my grandfather being that big of a prick.
And my response was, yeah, but this was not your
point of view. This was Johnny's point of view. The
Fatherly Podcast is brought to you by Cheese Dippers, by
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(11:45):
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(12:08):
by the Laughing Cow. Snack like you. And now back
to the show. What of your roles do you think
really embodied most your father and what of the roles
that you've played, if any embody how you are as
a father. I think maybe the father I played in
(12:28):
Bridge to Terabithia was a great role for me. That
was closer to how I thank I am as far
as a father. He was pretty loving guy, kind of
hard working dude, blue collar guy that really tried to
understand his children and what they were going through and
(12:49):
wanted to be there for them emotionally. I thought he
was a good dad, and that's a good movie. I'm
really proud of that movie. Recently, I've produced a movie
where I started it and it was again, it's this
great dynamic of fathers and sons in an evil way
called Last Rampage, where I play a convicted murderer who
utilizes his three sons to escape from prison and uses
(13:15):
the father's son dynamic to his advantage to get himself
out of prison and doesn't really give a shit about
his kids. Uh, it's funny around the office we've been
talking about. You know, obviously there's a prominent father thun
dynamic which is playing out nationally right now with the
President and his son. A dynamic of a father using
or leveraging the father son dynamic for a nefarious ends
(13:38):
is one of the most troubling I think and unsettling dynamics.
You know, you touched on something that's very interesting. There's
an expectation and I think I know personally as a father,
I've tried to take all that off my son. The
only thing I've wanted my son to do. I want
him to be true to himself and find his way himself.
(14:00):
I want to give him all the tools that I
can to go about doing that, and I re feel
a real responsibility as a father to giving the best
education he can get and try not to make the
same mistakes my father did. But what's interesting about you?
You know, out of five I know that you know
you and your youngest brother, Um, you're an actor and
(14:20):
he's a musician. I don't know what that the other
three siblings do, but someone was encouraging maybe, I don't know.
Did you get encouragement from your parents to kind of
pursue your own truth? Well, my dad, you know, my
parents made me feel very, very special. I did feel special,
not only my parents, but my uncle's and aunts because
I was the first born grandson to this mythical figure
(14:45):
of the Colonel Samuel Patrick, and I was the only
grandson that he ever saw a live. He died by
the time I was five, I believe. I think early on,
looking back on it, I feel like I had this
responsibility to do something extraordinary, whatever it was, it was
sort of expected of me. Now that manifested itself in
(15:08):
me failing at some things before I I pursued this career,
but I've been successful at this career now. I don't
want to say I have an expectation for my children,
but I do want to try to provide them every
opportunity they have to be exceptional in their own right.
Does that make sense what I YEA, you want them
(15:29):
to measure against themselves. You're not trying to put an
external guide post on them, but you're saying, however you
want to measure what you do, be excellent at that metric.
I don't want to come across as like a delusional
person that I have always felt like there was a
motor running in me that they're I've got to do
(15:49):
something that's not normal. Why. I don't know. It's a
tangible thing feeling that I have that I'm I'm being
watched to do that. There's something in me that's pushing me.
Is it the Lieutenant Colonel from the Great Beyond? Maybe
it is? Maybe it is, I don't know, is it?
Is it it? Or if you want to really strip
it down to you know, I'm a believer, so you know,
(16:11):
I believe God puts you here and he your it's
your obligation to find your talent what it is, and
then go out there and utilize it to the fullest.
That's the best way you honor God. That's what you're
supposed to do. In a weird way, Yeah, maybe that's
maybe that's what it is. What was the lowest you
feel like you got before you started making it. Well,
(16:33):
I struggled for a long time. And I'm gonna be
real honest with you, because if the young people that
are listening to this, you know, I failed at some
stuff miserably, like what, Well, Well, I I went off
to college, and I was there to play football, and
my dad loved the fact that I was a football player,
and my dad loved the fact that I played baseball.
You know, he really encouraged me that way. And then
(16:56):
when I kind of realized that football is not gonna
go any where past college, I don't really know why
I'm doing it. As a matter of fact, I don't
even know why I'm at college. Who the hell am I?
And then I was lost and miserable, and you know,
all this stuff that was expected of me is now gone.
(17:17):
Now what do I do? I remember literally praying for
what is it that I'm supposed to be doing? What
the hell am I supposed to be doing? I gotta
find it, I gotta find some sort of direction. And
I you know, I did some stupid stuff. I tried
some stupid stuff. What was the thing? What was the
stupid Well, you know, you get involved with some abuse,
(17:39):
some things you shouldn't be doing you. There's a lot
of self hatred for not fulfilling the expectations you have
on yourself, so you take it out on yourself. But
you know, I had to fail. I failed in a
bunch of stuff. I tried a bunch of stuff. I
painted houses, I worked in factories, I bartended, and none
of it was fulfilling that need to do something great.
(18:00):
And then finally it dawned on me that what I
really like to do was act. I hadn't done it
since I was in third grade. But how now, how
the hell you do that? I'm like, I'm two year
old guy. I've said in a drama class, How the
hell do I approach this? How do I make this happen?
I live in Cleveland, Ohio, for God's sakes, how did
you make it happen? That's what I'm saying, brother. I
(18:21):
had a life or death experience that really slapped me
in the face and said, you better get on with
it if that's what you want to do. That was
um that was a voting accident, and all this was
going on, and I was trying to figure out, what
the hell, what the hell, what the hell? I've read
a line about that. So you have a Wikipedia page
because you're famous, and everyone also has a Wikipedia page.
Everybody has a Whipipedia. I don't. I considered briefly writing
(18:43):
it myself, but then I thought I need some dignity
in my life, so I didn't. You know, I want
to meet you. I like it. I wish we were
in the same room here. Me too. I wish I
was in l A because it's fucking freezing here. But
it's a It's something like, you know, when you were
twenty six, there was a voting accident Lake Erie, and
after that you moved to California, and it feels like
there's a whole novel written that one Wikipedia sentence. So
(19:06):
tell me what happened. Then, well, okay, so you know
I'm I'm living in Cleveland. I've gone to high school
in Detroit. Like I said, I'm failing miserably at things.
My father has now taken to calling me Bob the
slab by. Live in the basement. I'm drinking a lot.
I'm not really living up to my potential. I'm now
waiting tables and I want to be an actor. I
(19:26):
don't know how to tell people I want to be
an actor. I don't. There's nobody I know that's an actor.
I figure, you know, eventually, I'll do it. I meet
this girl that I put it off more. I find
another reason to put it off was with this girl.
Finally the girl breaks up with me. I'm in this
boating accident. I swim for three and a half hours.
I saved myself and four other people. It was a
(19:46):
boat thinking it was a thirty foot dragon slayer that
was not prepped for a lake Erie storm to hit,
had a four tonk keel, took in water. It was
a wet deck. The next thing to know that that
we're three miles off. Boat takes in water. The boat
sinks in like a second, and there you are in
the middle of Lake Area, three miles off the coast
(20:07):
to Cleveland. Uh, swimming for your life. And it's right
there that you literally, you know, Uh, if I survived this,
I am going to do what I want to do,
and I'm gonna make something on myself. And I swam,
and I set a date, and I packed my bags,
and I remember my parents. I remember the only time
(20:28):
I ever saw my dad literally, you know, kind of
tear up, was when I said goodbye to him, And
I know what it was because he couldn't help me.
I was moving to California. I was gonna try to
pursue this business that I had no experience in, and
there was nothing he could do. And he was saying
goodbye to his oldest son. You know it was. It
was a tough experience for him. Do you think he
(20:50):
was proud of you heading out there? Well, I think
he was more scared. There was a certain amount of
fear that I grew up with in my family. Uh,
there was a certain amount of worry. The kids that
had survived the Great Depression that we're parents. You know,
save your money, you know, They're always worried about There
was the other shoe was gonna drop all the time,
(21:10):
you know what I mean. Fear was very prevalent in
my house. They were always like reasons why I shouldn't
do it. I can't say that I had the full
backing of my family when I did it. I think
they thought I was crazy, but they were pretty damn
proud of me. When they were at the terminator to Premier,
I'll tell you that much. And they saw all that
and they were gonna, Holy, how the hell did you
do this? I had no idea he was made out
(21:31):
of liquid metal. I didn't know he knew how to act. Hell.
I remember my father meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was one
of the most embarrassing moments of my life. My dad
said to Arnold, so do you think my son's gonna
make it? I just sat there going like, seriously, your
(21:52):
son has the work ethic. He is going to be
a fantastic He's fantastic in this film. You should be
very proud of your son what he's done. Arnold Schwarzenegger
says it. I'll take it. Yeah, it was really good.
I don't mean to get so nostalgic here with all
this kind of stuff. You know, you mentioned why you
wanted to do this podcast because the dynamic between a
father and a son is like when you walk by
(22:14):
cement and someone's written their initials in it, or someone's
put their hand in the cement, and forevermore that outline
will be there. So many of the guys I talked
to on the podcast their fathers themselves, but we end
up talking a lot about their relationship with their father
because it is such a huge formational relationship. These experiences
are so meaningful when I look at your career. Yeah,
(22:38):
you're known as like a heavy, but you're also sort
of known as this authority figure. You are in some
ways like the stern father of American cinema. Well, that's
a great compliment where I fit right now. It's interesting, Uh,
the age I'm at and the responsibility I feel to
(22:58):
portray that ideal. And I've been given that opportunity. This
sounds like a segue, but I've been given that opportunity
on Scorpion each week. It's an interesting paternal relationship with
the cast that I have. I grew up where you
needed to be counted on. You you, Um, how do
(23:22):
mean word this? You were the you were the sault
of the earth. You you you, you knew what was
right and what was wrong. Uh, you could be depended on.
And I think that's translated to me as a father.
My wife and I've been married for twenty seven years, Barbara. Yes,
and I'm very lucky that I found an exceptional woman
(23:45):
at the right time in my life. Yeah, I was
in l a and I've got these two great children,
and they've got a wonderful mother, and she's committed to uh,
supporting me emotionally and UH giving me belief in myself.
We feel like we have a real commitment to our kids.
Did you wait until you were successful? Were you ready
(24:06):
to have kids at that time? Well, that's the story
in itself. Let me see if I can tap into
this real quick. Barbara and I got married five. We
got married while I was making TTOO, so she had
been with me through all the struggling years. We couldn't
scrap two pennies together, so she shared in has been
a big part of my success, and it's somewhere around
(24:26):
thirty eight years old, thirty six years old. I kind
of hit her with the idea of let's have some kids,
and she was like, man, I don't know you. You
got some recreational things going on that you're gonna have
to get rid of before we seriously think about having
some kids. So I got sober. Had you been drinking
a lot before then? Yeah, I'm an alcoholic. I've been
(24:48):
sober for twenty two years. I gave up all that
for the right or the privilege to have kids. It
was a very smart move on my wife's part, and
so my kids have only seen me sober. Yeah, they
know that I took care of my own self and
(25:08):
gave all that up so I could have them. So
I want to say it was a sacrifice made. It
was a good decision what I did, and it wasn't
a sacrifice. It was a real attempt to be there
for him from from the from the get go. And
and you know, I think that's what's so important in
our society right now, that dad's have a real responsibility
and the family unit is something to be honored, and
(25:30):
getting married and having a job and having kids is
a great value. A lot of my guests, especially actors,
but other people as well, they have a starter family
almost while they're trying to make it, and then they
get success, and maybe through how hard they worked and
how much they sacrifice for their career, their family falls apart,
(25:52):
and then they become successful and then they have another family.
So you have like two sets of kids. You have
the first one and the second one. And it's really
interesting to me that you in Hollywood, which seems like
a town where there's a lot of that you've been
with your wife for so long and you have kids
and you have this real strong family unit which seems
not impervious to that pressure but has survived. Yeah, we've
(26:14):
been lucky. I'm just eternally grateful for that. I don't
like to judge. Try Well, what am I saying? I'm
kidding myself. That's probably my worst thing that I do
do is judge people. But I don't want to admit
to it, but I do. I that's the thing that
I revere the most is my wife and my family.
I don't want to sacrifice my wife and my family
(26:35):
from my own pursuit. However, I am still very driven
and committed to what I want to do. But I
think you can have both Personally, I think, uh, there's
ways to do it. You said you're recovering alcoholic and
you have two kids who are seventeen and twenty, presumably
experimenting like all kids do. How do you handle that
(26:56):
because obviously you've seen the dangers of going too far.
But if any dad knows if you yank the chain
too hard, they're only gonna pull harder. So however, you
navigated that, I've been very honest with him from the
get go. I've started talking to them openly about it.
This is this, this is what this does, this is
how it happens. I've had a problem with it, doesn't
mean you're gonna have a problem with it. You may
(27:17):
experiment with this stuff, but I'm gonna tell you right now,
if you go down this road and you tried this,
you're really headed in the wrong direction. I'm very scared
of heroin. That's not something I ever tried myself, thankfully,
you know. I just want to let them know that
there are certain gateways and you may not think this
as much now, but it could lead to something. So
(27:38):
you've got to be very honest with yourself. You're gonna
be around this kind of stuff. But they've also my kids,
since I've been honest with them from the get go,
they don't really have an interest in it. They know
a bunch of my sober buddies, they know a bunch
of my buddies that have had problems. They've heard from
my buddies that have had problems, and they kind of
(27:59):
get the idea is that it's not a winning situation.
So they have a respect for it and uh an awareness.
You know. It's just like the gun issue. All right,
I'm gonna bring that up. If you don't acknowledge what
it is and the tool that it is, and you
don't explain it and give out the information, they're never
gonna know. Do you know what I'm saying. Are you
saying that families should have guns that teach gun safety
(28:22):
or are you saying I said, if you have a
family and you have a family that has weapons, or
you have children, and you have children that are gonna
be in the society where weapons exist, they need to
be educated. Yeah, it's the same thing to me in
an interesting way, It's like I'm gonna hand my kid
the keys of the car. Okay, you're gonna drive this car.
(28:45):
This car is a weapon. If you don't handle it correctly,
you can injure yourself. You can injure other people if
you drive it impaired, If you drive it texting, okay,
you're gonna have a big problem. It's the same thing.
These dangers are out there. You need to be a
are of it. Yeah. Well, not mentioning it is not
protecting them. That's what I'm trying to say. And thank
you Joshua for bailing men. But yeah, but that's what
(29:08):
I'm saying. I think kids appreciate honesty. Me and my
wife we've decided, you know, we'll be very honest with you.
This is this, and these are the repercussions. I have
some more questions from the questionnaire which actually kind of
feed quite well into this. What are your strength as
a father? I think maybe being honest and frank and
your weaknesses? Ah, my weaknesses. Wow, that's funny how that
(29:31):
doesn't pop into my head right away. I can worry
a little bit, and I have to watch that when
they come to me with something that I don't fall
into the environment that I was raised in where I
would be overly worried. Does that make sense, Yeah, that's good.
Your biggest regret, My biggest regret is a father. The
time I've spent away from my kids, being away at movies,
(29:53):
and the times I missed when they were kids when
I was on location. There was no other way to
do it. I didn't want my kids to be pulled
up and move around like a bag of gypsies like
I was. I wanted them to have a strong foundation.
This is where you're born, this is where you go
to school, This is your community. You live in Hollywood,
this is you, This is your environment where you're from.
What heirloom did your father give to you? If any
(30:15):
I'm wearing it right now. My dad gave me a
Rolex g Master two. What heirloom do you want to
leave to your children if any I mean, think about that.
Hm hmm, Well, I guess I'll pass this watch onto
my son. I've already given him the two names, so
that counts. Who has that name tag from terminator to
(30:35):
not me? I did. I don't know what happened to it.
It's on probably in some hard rock somewhere. Joshua, what
is your favorite activity to do with your kids that
is your special dad and son or dad and daughter thing.
We like to go hiking with the dogs. We like
to play football. We like to throw the baseball around.
We like to my son and I we we like
(30:56):
to go do some skeet shooting from time to time.
My daughter. Most of the time i'm with her. It's
like walking and hiking. We seem to have our best
times doing that. Where do you guys like to hike?
There's a lot of great places to hike here in
the Hollywood Hills. Yeah. As a matter of fact, Joshua,
I'm going to the Rams game tonight and I gotta
(31:19):
take my son. And that's my father and son time
with my son today. What is the mistake you made
growing up you want to ensure your children do not repeat.
I wish I would have taken school a little bit
more serious when I had the opportunity, because that's all
on me. But I was going through some emotional stuff
at the time and just didn't handle it well. But
I've already done that. My my daughter is going to
(31:40):
be the first one in my family to graduate from college.
My son will be the second one. And my family,
not my father's family, but my family, My my wife
and I neither one of us graduating college. You dropped out,
but and you've been working since then. Do you feel
like you're learning? I don't know through like like how
you're learning the whole time? Right. Yeah, My life is
(32:02):
different than my father's, which I think ultimately is what
I wanted. And I'm a little bit more street smart
and knock around. My dad was more of a white
collar guy. I'm a I sort of straddle that white collar,
blue collar world and I'm pretty comfortable there and as
an actor, it's benefited me greatly. And what about your son.
He's so much more talented than me that you know,
(32:24):
he's a vocalist, he sings, he does musical theater, and
he's an actor. I mean, this guy's got so much
talent and my daughter does too. So um, you know
they've they're already better than me and now they've just
got to go out and prove it. Last question, besides
telling your kids that you love them, how do you
let them know that? Well, I'm a big hugger. I'm
(32:45):
I'm a very affectionate guy, and uh, I've got great kids.
I would really wish you would get a chance to
meet my kids sometime. Well, someday, Robert Patrick, I hope
to get a Robert Patrick hug. But for now, enjoy
the football game with your fun and thank you for
being a guest. Joshua. It has been a great pleasure
and I look forward to meeting you someday. It shall
(33:06):
be so farewell. This is Joshua. David Stein hosted the
Fatherly podcast I'm here with josh Krisher Science had to
do it funny, you sound like Robert Patrick. Yes, you
might hear that. I have a lower, more gravelly voice,
and instantly I'm more attractive and have more authority. I'm not,
and I don't, but I did just talk to Robert Patrick,
(33:28):
who among the many things I like about him, which
is almost everything, is his voice, which I could listen
to forever and in many movies have So you want
to know the secret of dad voice. To give me
the secretive Dad voice so I can get it. Well,
you hit on the main findings already. That is, lower
pitched voices, according to virtually every scientific study on the topic,
(33:50):
are rated more attractive. The person who has them, is
considered physically stronger, considered more dominant, all the things you'd
like to be as a death That was very good. Yes, Josh, yeah,
my my squeaky voice doesn't really my low registered dad voice.
Do I sound attractive? You sound and look like Moses
(34:10):
Beard reference every episode Mandatory. One very interesting study examined
recordings of every presidential debate between nineteen sixty and two
thousand and found that the candidate with a deeper voice
won a higher percentage of the popular vote almost every time.
So it's not just that we find these people more
attractive or stronger and more dominant. We actively seem to
be voting for them as we put people in office
(34:31):
who have deeper voices. And there was another study that
looked at the two twelve United States House of Representative
candidates and found that those with lower voices won a
larger vote share. Even after they controlled for things that
you would hope would swing elections like um campaign spending,
district ideology, incumbency. They controlled for all of that and
the only major variable between candidates was how low their
(34:52):
voices were. So we'll never have a female president. No,
we could have a female president. She would just have
to have a relatively low registered voice. Studies show that
in general, we are more critical of women with high
voices than men with high voices. Interesting, so a particularly
high voiced woman is going to have trouble making it
in public office. Remember when Jared Kushner gave that press
(35:12):
conference and he sounded like in a eleven year old castrado. Yeah,
didn't didn't increase my perception of his leadership abilities. Bernie Sanders,
on the other hand, has an incredibly low registered voice. Yes,
millionaires and billionaires. Hillary Clinton had a relatively low voice.
Donald Trump has a fairly high registered voice. But also
he lost the popular vote, and the studies always show
(35:34):
popular vote now electoral college. The three million that he
lost could have been because of his high registered voice.
According to these studies, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had
very similar pitches. When we analyzed the pitch that they
used during their debates. I believe Hillary Clinton's was one
eight eight hurts and Donald Trump averaged one nine hurts.
So the final two candidates were both higher than the
average thirty hurts. What is the average register for a voice?
(35:56):
The low end is like eighty one hurts. When you
hear like James Earl Jones, you're like, yeah, that's quite low.
And one hundred and thirty six is like a high
pitched male voice, not a very high pitched male voice,
but a little higher than average. They say, Sean Connery's
around there, so you can picture Sean Connery's voice is
not terribly low, but not terribly high. I always thought
he had a deep, gravelly voice. But I guess that
leads to the point that gravelly and register quality and
(36:19):
register are two different things, right. These studies specifically look
at the average hurts, so that's the average frequency. It's
not about how much they smoked, it's about how deep
their voices register. Ted Cruz had like two hundred and
thirty two hurts. He's like he's like a squeaky little mouse.
Men don't usually go a lot higher than two hundred
or a lot lower than eighty, and women also operate
(36:41):
pretty much in that register. It's just that women tend
to skew closer to the higher ones and men tend
to screw closer to the lower ones. So your range
is like eighty to two hundred. So why are we
attracted to your male voices? Why do we think that
dad voices the ideal? There are a few possibilities. One
possibility is that lower voices indicate higher levels of testosterone.
Pretty straightforward, we're wired to seize testosterone as a sign
(37:03):
of competence and strength, even if it's not. Goes back
to our caveman brains are primitive minds. Consider somebody with
a deep voice most likely to win wars and club
people over the head, so it's useful to have a
leader like that. A lot of scientists don't love this theory, though,
because in the modern day, our leaders are not in
charge of clubbing mammoths and fighting wars for us. They
kind of sit behind a desk while other people do
(37:24):
that work for them. So you would think we would
have evolved out of that but if you talk to
an evolutionary biologist or an evolutionary psychologist, they'll probably tell
you that it's so deeply ingrained into our personas that
we want a leader who could kill somebody with his
bare hands, even if they're tiny, tiny hands, even if
they have tiny, tiny hands. You know that brings the
mind of recent study we covered on fatherly, the Americans
(37:44):
for the first time prefer daughters instead of sons, and
I wonder if down the line that's going to result
in privileging higher registered voices rather than lower. Maybe there
are other studies that suggest that we're always going to
privilege lower voices for other reasons. There are at least
two studies that blinded people completely well, I shouldn't say
blind people completing a picture of eyes poking up. There
(38:06):
were There were at least two studies that just had
people listened to voices and in the voice, the person
would say something like vote for me this coming November,
or trust me, and when their voices were lower, they
did what the voice said to do. When the voice
were higher, they did not, And when asked why, the
participants invariably responded that the lower registered voice sounds more
trustworthy and sounds more competent, and I want to do
(38:29):
what a trustworthy, competent person says to do rather than
a shrill, incompetent person. Are there any studies or is
there any science that can catch respondence before they've been
indoctrinated into a patriarchal, heteronormative society. It would be difficult
because a lot of these biases started a few months
and you can't really get a five month old or
six month old to answer survey questions like this. The
(38:51):
indoctrination happens early. I guess you'd have to find participants
from a society that's not patriarchal. Those exist, but there
are few and far between nowadays. What's one a woman's
land called sure run a study in a fictional universe
that wonder Woman comes from. Yeah, it'll be easy. I'm
sure they have more funding for the National Institute of sciencests.
I'm guessing they fund basic science better than we do.
(39:13):
There's another thought you had as to why we are
attracted to a dead voice. Yeah, this one just seems
the most compelling to me. It also seems the most
compelling to the researchers looking at this question perception of
age has a lot to do with how you pick
a leader. Studies have shown that if different leaders are
put up on a board and participants are told nothing
about them besides their ages and few basic stats, they
(39:33):
will pick the older ones unless they're incredibly old, unless
it's like a hundred years old, So you don't want
somebody frail and about to die. But generally speaking, we
want older people to lead us. We consider older people
more competent, and older people have deeper voices as we
get older. The physiology of the vocal tract and the
larynx ensures that when you start out young, you're going
to have a higher voice than when you get a
(39:54):
little bit older. So a voice pitch is a reliable
signal of age because it decreases greatly from childhood to
middle age, and then decreases much less after middle aged.
So you get this kind of very high pitched voice
when you're dealing with a kid. That higher pitched voice
drops significantly lower when the child becomes a regular adult.
We're wired to follow people who are older, which makes
(40:15):
a lot of sense. We should follow people who are older.
Generally speaking, they're considered wiser, they have a little more experience.
We want to follow people that are older, and one
of the best indicators of age his voice. I think
there's another possibility I just want to float, is that
Robert Patrick has been active in Hollywood for so long
and so many films, and he's such an attractive actor,
(40:35):
displays such breath and depth in his character portrayals that
we've grown to associate a deeper voice with Robert Patrick,
and that's why we're attracted to deeper voices. You're telling
me you think that Robert Patrick would make an excellent president.
I'm saying Robert Patrick is the er dad of America.
We should all vote for him. Vote for Robert Patrick. Well,
(40:57):
josh thank you for that. It will make me self
conscious time I talk. You're welcome. It's been a pleasure
to be here. That's it for this week. Thanks for
listening to the Fatherly Podcast. I'm your host, Joshua David Stein.
Today's episode was executive produced by Sandy Smallens and engineered
(41:19):
by Dave Savage. The music is by Kyle Forster with
little help from my son Aggie here in Stein. If
you enjoyed the podcast, give us a high five rating
and subscribe on I Heart Radio or wherever you get
your podcast. That's it for me. Hey kids, you got
anything to say. B
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