Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend XX
[0] Hi, my name is Quentin Tarantino, and I feel trepidacious about being Conan O 'Brien's friend.
[1] Why trepidacious?
[2] Why would you, who've created so much fear in other people's hearts and minds, why would you be trepidacious at all about a simple guy like me and being my friend?
[3] Well, I could flatter you and say because you're such a legend.
[4] But I shant.
[5] Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brandy shoes, walking loose, climb the fence, books and pens, I can tell that we are going to be friends.
[6] I can tell that we are going to be friends.
[7] Hey, and welcome to Conan O 'Brien needs a friend.
[8] This is a very unique episode.
[9] We do this from time to time.
[10] We're going to drop this one out of sequence.
[11] There's going to be none of the usual banter of foolishness because this is a guest I've been wanting to interview in this format for a very long time.
[12] This gentleman and I have a lot to discuss.
[13] I'm a huge fan.
[14] We're going to go down some crazy rabbit holes and I can't afford to lose any time.
[15] So let's get started.
[16] This is exciting.
[17] My guest today is an Academy Award -winning script.
[18] screenwriter and director whose films include Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Django Unchained, and Inglorious Bastards, just to name a few.
[19] His new book, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, based on his movie of the same name, is available now.
[20] I'm really honored.
[21] He's with us today.
[22] Can't wait to get started.
[23] Quentin Tarantino, welcome.
[24] You know, I have been very excited to talk to you because, as we were just mentioning off mic, seconds ago when you walked in, crashed in, really, kicked the door down.
[25] You weren't even scheduled to be on the podcast, and you said, we're doing this now.
[26] We were talking about how we both are a similar vintage.
[27] I think we were born the same year, and we both guard our careers started around the exact same time.
[28] Yeah, you went on the air in 91, right?
[29] I think it was 93.
[30] 91, I'm at The Simpsons, but my career is starting to heat up a little bit, and then 93 is when it really...
[31] That's when it actually premiered.
[32] Yes, 93, yeah.
[33] Okay.
[34] So then I had, as a matter of fact, yeah, I had just been on the scene since 92.
[35] So, I mean, there's this weird.
[36] Anybody who became famous around that time, I always feel this kinship with them that we all kind of came up in the show business high school together.
[37] In the trenches together, yeah, around the same time.
[38] But the thing about with you, it took me actually a little bit to see your show because I was actually just going around doing publicity all the time.
[39] But all my friends at video archives were what had.
[40] were watching it.
[41] And they were telling me about it.
[42] And they were telling me two things, sisters of my old girlfriend and everything were saying, one, he's kind of like you.
[43] That's what they all said.
[44] He's kind of like you.
[45] It's almost kind of like if Quentin has a talk show because he likes a lot of the same things you like and he's in the same kind of vein.
[46] And then they also told me, and he brings up reservoir dogs from time to time.
[47] Yeah, yeah.
[48] Yeah, well, it's really funny because We've been able to talk before, but it's six, seven minutes, go to commercial music, come back, six, seven minutes.
[49] We talk about your movie.
[50] We show the clip and you go.
[51] But not only that, though, more than on the other talk shows, I'm not sure I pulled it off, but on your show, particularly, as opposed to all the other talk shows, I tried to kind of come on as a comedian, and not like some dorky director just like plugging his movie.
[52] I came up with bits.
[53] Yes, you did.
[54] I worked out stuff.
[55] You did.
[56] And I prefaced it for you a little bit beforehand, so you could feed me the right kind of inline.
[57] I treated it like the way a stand -up guy would deal with his couch time.
[58] But it was nice because I got to see, first of all, how much we have in common.
[59] And I say this with the massive caveat that I would be a terrible film director.
[60] And Hollywood is blessed that I've never tried to direct a film.
[61] and...
[62] You're not going to go the John Stewart route?
[63] No, no, no, no. It's just no one wants to see a film.
[64] The Conan.
[65] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[66] No one wants to see a film I direct because I would keep wandering in and looking at the camera and winking and doing a bit and then going back behind the camera.
[67] So, no, that will happen.
[68] You say that like it's a bad thing.
[69] Yeah, exactly.
[70] But one of the things that I, has always struck me about your work that resonates with me so much, and I think one of the reasons I'm such a massive fan is that, Many people have explored your, you know, how much you have an encyclopedic knowledge of film and how much film has meant to you.
[71] What's always struck me is your knowledge and reverence for 1970s TV.
[72] Yeah.
[73] Because you and I came up at the same time.
[74] And the actors that you've used and the references that you make are born from a little boy watching 70s television.
[75] Yeah.
[76] And I, you know, and down to when I was a kid and they would show reruns because there wasn't as much TV as there is now.
[77] You know, now we also, but you know, yeah, there's a ton of TV now, but it means less because it's just all over the place.
[78] Right.
[79] You know, but back when we were a kid, it's like, you know, especially during the afternoon when all the syndicated shows would be playing.
[80] No, we had that and that was it and we watched it.
[81] But, you know, the thing it stunned me is when I was with my brother, My brothers and I, particularly my brother Neil, who's older than me, we would sit and we would watch The Big Valley.
[82] And it would be an episode with Bruce Dern.
[83] Now, we knew who Bruce Dern was because he was the baddest badass that ever came on the Big Valley.
[84] He'd always come on, it was the Barclay family, they were the good guys, they were rich, and he'd always come on and go, You high and mighty Barclays, with your high and mighty ways.
[85] And so we would - Like prairie scum.
[86] Yeah, prairie scum.
[87] He was prairie scum.
[88] And we revered Bruce Dern and we knew his name.
[89] And we cared about Bruce Dern just from his appearances on The Big Valley.
[90] Flash forward to you using him.
[91] And the same thing, the way that you would take characters from the 70s or actors from the 70s that you clearly revered and you would help David Carradine.
[92] And you would use him.
[93] And that show meant so much to me, Kung Fu.
[94] And then you brought him back.
[95] You did the same thing over and over again.
[96] And I realized really so much more in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood that, yes, it's a movie about so many things.
[97] But really, of all the movies you've done, it might be the one that's really going into television the most and your reverence for TV and some of these actors and the whole subculture and the whole subgenre of this world and these terrific actors.
[98] And you realize that Burt Reynolds came out of television.
[99] And Clint Eastwood came out of television, 1960s TV shows.
[100] It doesn't happen so much today.
[101] You know, it's a, it's a completely different world.
[102] Well, yeah, it's funny because I had this feeling at some point when I was writing once upon time in Hollywood.
[103] And that had almost felt even more so in the book because I was able to actually utilize all this stuff as opposed to a movie.
[104] Well, I'm making a movie.
[105] I got to tell a story at some point.
[106] But as I was writing the script, I was like, it's just as if I've spent my entire life, filling my head with all this knowledge that I started picking up around when I was a kid at the expense of everything else.
[107] When I was writing this script, I was like, oh, wow, this is almost like the script I was born to write.
[108] Like, right at the point when I'm in my 50s, where I'm starting, did I waste my life putting all this stuff in my head?
[109] Right.
[110] Now that, which actually was a thing when people did.
[111] didn't have all this information at their fingertips by going on a computer.
[112] And when you ask me a question, no, I'm answering it from my memory.
[113] I'm answering it from what I know.
[114] I'm not looking at up.
[115] But the thing about it is in writing this, it was like, oh, no, I am an expert on this.
[116] And so almost as if I've been filling my head just to write this script with this type of expert, expert analysis that a shark expert would have on sharks.
[117] Right.
[118] If he's writing a book.
[119] Right.
[120] So you, you know, what's interesting about.
[121] a pilot expert would have on the, how the, how a plane's engine works.
[122] Right.
[123] A 747 how it works with the, you know, ratio of drag to lift.
[124] In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
[125] Very good use of adjectives on that.
[126] Made my point very well.
[127] In Once Upon a Time Hollywood, you know, there's a TV show within that called, that is Bounty Law.
[128] And it's fascinating because you're using a lot of your knowledge of 60s TV because there was a show called Lancer.
[129] Yeah, yeah.
[130] And you can see that you're using your sort of reverence and your knowledge of these shows.
[131] Well, you know, so that was an interesting thing of how I ended up using Lancer because I didn't start off.
[132] I didn't start up I was going to use Lancer.
[133] It was going to be, Rick was doing an episode of, it wouldn't exactly have worked because it was not the right time period.
[134] Rick is Leo DiCaprio's character.
[135] Yeah, Rick Dalton's character.
[136] Leo's character, Rick Dalton.
[137] It wouldn't have worked, so I would have had to change it to something else.
[138] But initially it was going to be he was doing a Green Hornet episode.
[139] Right.
[140] And so they all kind of tied into what later became a flashback.
[141] Right.
[142] And then one of my things I was the most happiest about writing is I actually watched a bunch of different Green Hornet episodes.
[143] And then I wrote this big megalomaniac, based on an episode, I wrote this big megalomaniac speech for Rick that you'd see him film.
[144] And the whole idea was he was, he's the leader with a bunch of other million there guys that are ridding the city of crime.
[145] Right.
[146] And so they're like knocking off all these kingpins of crime.
[147] And now they've wiped out all these guys and the hunting club or whatever they call themselves.
[148] And then he has this big speech.
[149] And he's like, we've read this town of all these people.
[150] But now we are after the number one criminal of this entire town.
[151] And we're going to bring him down when we bring down the Green Hornet.
[152] And that would be the first time you realize that this has been a Green Hornet.
[153] Hornet monologue.
[154] Yes, yes.
[155] But it wasn't the right timeline, because it was like a few years earlier, if I wanted it to be in 69, but out of the blue, a woman Western fan expert writes Western novels got in touch with me, just sent me a letter.
[156] And I got it somehow.
[157] And she was like, look, you're really into Westerns and you've done two Westerns already.
[158] And you're talking about you.
[159] You like to do a third.
[160] Well, I'm a big fan of the show.
[161] Lancer.
[162] Wow.
[163] Okay.
[164] And I think you should do Lancer as your third Western.
[165] And so she sent me and she goes, and I happen to know the people, the guy who created the show Lancer, he's passed on, but I know his wife.
[166] And he actually has underlying rights to the show that you could get if you wanted to.
[167] And here is, and she sent me like a crappy black and white copy of the pilot episode.
[168] Now, it was funny because it was like, huh, I remember that show, Lancer, but that was just one I never watched.
[169] I didn't watch it either.
[170] Yeah, I knew other.
[171] I knew of the James Stacey, I knew about him getting his arm and his leg cut off.
[172] James Stacey was the star.
[173] He was a star.
[174] And he's kind of played in a way indirectly or directly by Tim Oliphant.
[175] Yeah, yeah, you know, he's, well, he's playing James Stacey.
[176] He's playing James Stacey.
[177] And what's really fascinating, just as a side note, because I have to get this in from my brother, my brother, Neil, I'm friends with Tim.
[178] I love him, and he's one of my favorite people and my favorite, I love him as an actor, I love him as a person.
[179] He and I are hanging out, and he was super excited because he had just got, he told me, I'm not allowed to talk about it yet, but I can kind of be working with Quentin.
[180] I said, that's so crazy.
[181] And he said, yeah, all I know so far is it's something to do with this guy, James Stacey.
[182] So we both get on the phone.
[183] And we call my brother Neil.
[184] And we say, Neil, tell us about James Stacey.
[185] And he has an encyclopedic knowledge.
[186] James Stacey started in Lancer.
[187] Now, Lancer began because James Stacey had done a star turn in 1966 on this show and it had done so well and rated so well.
[188] Oh my God, it's like right out of my book.
[189] All right?
[190] You're like doing the entire.
[191] No, I'm telling you.
[192] The whole chapter, the James Stacey chapter could have been written by your brother.
[193] Yes.
[194] No, and my brother might even make a correction or two.
[195] My brother would say, and then he knew all about James Stacey and Tim O 'Lefant was there.
[196] My brother's on speakerphone.
[197] And James, and Tim O 'Felt was like, what the fuck is this?
[198] I went, this is my family.
[199] My brothers and I would watch this stuff.
[200] We both know.
[201] Why are I doing the show with your brother?
[202] We'll have him call in.
[203] He sounds awesome.
[204] Yeah, but the only thing that would annoy you about my brother is that he loved once upon a time in Hollywood, but, and you did everything just perfectly, but he'll probably find one.
[205] But he'll pick out the one thing.
[206] He will find that.
[207] That song was not on the radio in 1969.
[208] Not in February 69.
[209] Yeah, yeah.
[210] And he'll also say that that Buick only came out in 70.
[211] That Buick was not commercially available.
[212] It had slightly different taillights and you would throw your headset through the wall.
[213] And my brother would say like, oh, he seemed kind of upset.
[214] Anyway.
[215] Well, I knew who James Stacey was because a few years after Lancer, he got into a horrible motorcycle accident and he lost his arm and his leg.
[216] And he was just kind of out of it for a long time.
[217] But then Kirk Douglas cast him in this movie he directed called Posse, where he played the newspaper editor of the small town.
[218] And he's just on his little wooden crutch.
[219] And he's kind of awesome in that movie.
[220] And then this is how I really, really know him.
[221] He did a big deal TV movie at the time called Just a Little Inconvenience.
[222] That's him and Lee Majors at the height of Lee Major's fame and Barbara Hershey and it was one of those things where Lee Majors had got the script and he goes, oh my God, this would be perfect for Jim.
[223] This is like an acting role for him.
[224] Well, it was like a big, that TV movie ended up being a big deal.
[225] So he did the talk show circuit.
[226] Him and Lee Majors did the talk show circuit.
[227] I especially remember the Merv Griffin episode.
[228] He did, you know.
[229] And then like he got nominated for an Emmy for just a little inconvenience.
[230] It's a good movie.
[231] It holds up.
[232] What I finally got like the, so I started getting the TV guides around the time of when the movie takes place.
[233] So I know exactly, oh, okay, so it's at eight o 'clock and they're hanging out in February 8th.
[234] Okay, what was on TV at that time?
[235] Right.
[236] And then so I get the TV guide and I actually look at Lancer and I see where it aired.
[237] I think it aired on Friday.
[238] Well, no wonder I never watched it, okay, because at the same time as Lancer on NBC, they were showing Star Trek.
[239] Yes, of course.
[240] Yeah, yeah.
[241] And what are you going to do?
[242] And at the same time on ABC, they were showing the Mod Squad.
[243] Well, there's no fucking way that Lancer's ever going to win.
[244] Compared to Link Hayes and Captain Kerf, that might as well not even exist.
[245] But so anyway, she says me with this thing.
[246] So I watched the pilot episode, and it's actually written by spacing a dean Reisner, who's actually one of Don Siegel's big writers.
[247] He did a big rewrite on Dirty Hair.
[248] It was actually written by him.
[249] I go, wow, this is a really good show.
[250] This is a really, really good premise.
[251] And it turned out that Samuel Peoples, who created the show, Fox owns the show, but he had the right to do, he kept the right to do a movie version of it if he wanted.
[252] Well, I was able to buy those rights from his wife.
[253] Oh, okay, okay.
[254] So, and we kind of made a movie version of Lancer.
[255] So I was able to actually own the show as far as that was concerned and own the characters, and I thought that would just be a neat thing.
[256] And then all of the whole, now all of a sudden, now Rick playing the bad guy.
[257] on a Western after him being the hero, it all tied in.
[258] Well, also, I think what's cool is that these shows, when you and I are the same age growing up in the 70s, alias Smith and Jones, which I know was a big show of yours.
[259] I remembered that was a very cool show.
[260] Did we talk about that before?
[261] No, I don't think we have.
[262] And then Pete Duel, really, the co -star of it, commits suicide.
[263] And suddenly the show, they tried to keep the show going without him.
[264] But I remember that being like a moment, in my childhood that this very charismatic actor had killed himself.
[265] I had this exact same conversation with Brad Pitt, who's on our age too.
[266] He brought up Aaliyos Smith and Jones.
[267] Right.
[268] And then I said, yeah, as a matter of fact, I remember that very well because I remember he died.
[269] Yep.
[270] And then my dad said, oh, wow, Clinton, Pete Duel.
[271] And we watched that show every week.
[272] I was like, what, he died?
[273] How did he die?
[274] Well, he committed suicide.
[275] And I'm a little kid.
[276] I go, what's that?
[277] What's suicide?
[278] Well, that means he killed himself.
[279] Wow.
[280] So the first time I ever hearing what suicide is is because of Pete Duel.
[281] And it was someone you knew because, I mean, I had the same bond.
[282] I had a bond with someone on TV and I didn't know people could die.
[283] And then he, and then I go, he killed himself.
[284] Well, why did he kill himself?
[285] And I go, I don't know, I guess he was depressed.
[286] And I'm like, he's Hannibal Hayes.
[287] What the hell does he have to be depressed about?
[288] He's on TV.
[289] He's the coolest guy on television.
[290] I know.
[291] But then Brad Pitt goes, Yeah.
[292] Actually, the first time I ever, suicide was ever explained to me was because of Pete Duel's death.
[293] Right.
[294] When I was watching once upon a time in Hollywood, and I was seeing all these references, they were firing in my brain.
[295] I mean, clearly there were the major references that we know, which are the Mansons and, you know, Sharon Stone and those killings.
[296] I'm Sharon Stone.
[297] I'm sorry.
[298] I made an attempt on Sharon Stone's life once.
[299] I apologize, and it failed, thank God.
[300] The killing of Sharon Stone.
[301] That sounds like a TV movie.
[302] I twice went after Sharon Stone.
[303] Linda Day George and Richard Crenna and the killing of Sharon Stone.
[304] I'm glad that you guys corrected me. CBS Thursday Night movie.
[305] I thought you guys corrected me because I would have gone on for 10 minutes about the Terrible, the terrible, shocking murder of Sharon Stone, and people were like, what?
[306] What's Conan talking about?
[307] And Sharon Stone's hearing it.
[308] crying.
[309] What happened to me?
[310] But I think I there are so many things that you're that are firing.
[311] You're drawing on such a rich tapestry of stuff that I think other people have not drawn on.
[312] And to the point where in your book, and I want to stress, this is a, you've done a very cool thing, which used to be pretty common, which, and I think it's kind of, it has gone away and you've resurrected it, which is it's a novelization.
[313] Yeah.
[314] Of a movie.
[315] So a movie, it used to be a movie would come out, and then if the movie was popular, they would quickly put out a novel that basically told you what was going on in the movie.
[316] Not even just waiting for it to be popular.
[317] It was actually meant to sell the movie.
[318] Yeah, here's a book that we wrote very quickly.
[319] In weeks.
[320] In weeks.
[321] So what you've done is you've written, and it's a really entertaining book.
[322] It's a novel, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
[323] But I read it, and I was like, I love this because you are really going into the weeds here and going much deeper.
[324] on the relationship between Rick's, I mean, sorry, Leonardo DiCaprio's character and Brad Pitt's character.
[325] You're really going into the weeds on who they are and you're filling in lots of detail that I didn't know, wouldn't have known from the movie.
[326] Yeah, because you don't have time.
[327] In the movie, I've got a story to tell it.
[328] I got to keep moving.
[329] But one of the things about the book that was actually kind of fun was, one, I get a chance to tell the story in a different way.
[330] But while it's, on one hand, it absolutely positively is a, novelization of a movie, it also fits into that subgenre of books about Hollywood.
[331] And there's a whole, that's a whole subgenre of literature, you know, books about Hollywood.
[332] And again, that's where I was saying where, well, my expertise in this subject, well, now I can just, now I have a place for it all.
[333] And I, and I, I worked out Rick's entire career.
[334] Yeah.
[335] Even past what it takes place in here.
[336] I know what, I know everything you did in the 80s.
[337] And I just had a lot of fun time of getting so specific about it and being So everything he did, he could have done.
[338] Yeah.
[339] There's nothing, I'm not winging it at all, you know.
[340] And so then it was just fun, it was just fun to describe Hollywood in that period, that little period of Hollywood describing it in as much detail as I was able to do, which is what you want in a novel about Hollywood.
[341] Yeah.
[342] And it's also, I mean, you do capture it in the film and you go into greater detail here, and maybe the business really hasn't changed, but you realize, I think one of the ways It has changed in the late 69, you know, Rick's characters panicked.
[343] And you see it in the movie, it's all changing so fast.
[344] So he came out to Hollywood to be a star, like one of the people he grew up watching, you know, in the 1930s and 40s or whatever in Westerns.
[345] And yeah, he gets a big part and he's on Bounty Law.
[346] And this is great.
[347] Yeah, he's big.
[348] But a couple of seasons on Bounty Law.
[349] And then it's, what have you done for me lately?
[350] Yeah.
[351] And you're knocking around.
[352] You're looking for bit parts.
[353] He has the flashy movie career.
[354] except it just doesn't really go anywhere.
[355] Right.
[356] You know, they don't take them 100 % seriously.
[357] So they just kind of stick them in their studio films, but they're more routine westerns.
[358] And usually, as he describes in the book, you can cuss on this, right?
[359] What's that?
[360] I can cuss on this, right?
[361] Yeah, yeah, of course.
[362] This is just mostly a children list of people, but very, very cynical children who've heard it all.
[363] Well, his whole thing is, like, his problem with his movie career was always, you know, new guy with old fuck.
[364] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[365] So him and Dale Robertson, him and George Montgomery, him and Ralph Meeker, you know, and so they just don't take off and that kind of, it runs his course.
[366] And now he's back doing television, but now he's usually the heavy because that's normally the guest star parts.
[367] And I remember when I was, you know, that's just a trajectory for the actors that didn't quite make it.
[368] I mean, there was a time in the late 50s.
[369] George Me Harris was one of the hot, because Root 66, he was one of the hottest actors out there.
[370] And people really thought he was going to have a big time movie career.
[371] And he had the opportunities.
[372] He did about four or five movies.
[373] But by 1970, he's guesting on Cades County.
[374] He's guesting on, you know, he was a big name guest star.
[375] But, you know, he's the bad guy on all these different shows.
[376] And I remember even when I was a kid watching that phenomenon because I was a huge William Shatner fan and not just from Star Trek, but always absolutely from Star Trek.
[377] But his Twilight Zone episodes.
[378] I mean, I totally knew who William Shatner was.
[379] And it broke my heart to see him play the bad guys on other people's TV shows because he always got the shit kicked out of him.
[380] He was always getting beat up.
[381] And you're like, this is Captain Kurt.
[382] Back off.
[383] I know.
[384] You can't do that and it's literally people hitting him with trash cans in an alley.
[385] Oh, I remember because I was a fan of that Bill Bixby show The Magician.
[386] Of course, yeah.
[387] It was really cool.
[388] Sure.
[389] And the William Shatter episode he gets his ass kick from the beginning of the episode to the fucking head.
[390] No, but you literally see the pecking order.
[391] It gave my heart problems, all right?
[392] Yeah.
[393] No, you see...
[394] At the end of his Petracelli episode, all right?
[395] He's going to get punched in the mouth by Barry Newman.
[396] fucking cannon's going to beat them up.
[397] I know, everyone, God, all those Quinn Martin shows.
[398] He got beat up on every Quinn Martin show.
[399] But I got to say, though, after living through all that William Shatner time, that's the way it was.
[400] And, you know, they also had all those really cool TV movies.
[401] Yeah.
[402] The Pray for the Wildcats.
[403] That's a great one.
[404] Did you ever see that one?
[405] I don't think I saw that one, no. Oh, that's the one where it's Andy Griffith, William Shatner, Robert Reed, and Marshal Gortoner, and Angie Dickinson.
[406] they're all, the guys who aren't Andy Griffith are advertising executives.
[407] And they're trying to sell this new advertising campaign to Andy Griffith, who runs his company.
[408] But he's a megalomaniac crazy.
[409] I mean, it's like the, along with a face in the crowd, it's his other crazy benevolent performance.
[410] Right.
[411] And so he goes, well, I'll tell you what, I don't really do business with nobody.
[412] I don't really know that well.
[413] Well, I'm going on a dirt bike riding trip through Arizona.
[414] Why don't you boys join me?
[415] And so, okay, these Madison Avenue guys get their little motocross shirts and rent their bikes.
[416] And then he leads them on a trip to hell.
[417] That he's the captain.
[418] Yeah, and it's great.
[419] Yeah, it's Kurt's going up river, but it's Andy Griffin.
[420] And finally, at William Shadner, the wimpiest of the whole group now asked to go up against him in a mono -a -mono dirt bike.
[421] Please tell me he gets his ass kicked.
[422] There were so many great actors from that era and you've utilized so many of them, but there must have been some that are on your wish list, but they passed away like a Victor Bono, you know, who played King Tutt, and who was an amazing actor.
[423] And were he alive today?
[424] He was actually much younger than you think.
[425] You know, he'd be in his 70s or 80s.
[426] I actually have a comedy album that Victor Bono did.
[427] really good.
[428] Oh, he was hilarious.
[429] Yeah, I didn't even know that there was a guy that he had a comedy album.
[430] I found it.
[431] I always go to a huge record store.
[432] I go to the right to the comedy section.
[433] I go, yeah.
[434] Dr. Bono, wow.
[435] There'll be six years to listen to it.
[436] And when I finally did it, oh, well, this is really funny.
[437] You know what?
[438] Also, everyone had a comedy album.
[439] Yeah, yeah.
[440] And people you don't, like, think should have had a comedy album, had a comedy album.
[441] There's so many actors, I just.
[442] Or you miss. If I, yeah, even if I had, even if I had been who I was six years earlier, I could have utilized Aldo Ray.
[443] I could have utilized David Cassidy when he still had his David Cassidy thing going on.
[444] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[445] I think the same thing about, you know, obviously you were fortunate to get so many people, but I think the same thing about my talk show career, the people I just missed.
[446] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[447] You know, like, oh my God, if it had been just a few years earlier, I could have talked to, blah, blah, blah, yeah.
[448] You know, Fred Astaire or something, but I missed it.
[449] It didn't happen because he was murdered by Sharon Stone.
[450] Yeah, which is why I then tried to murder Sharon Stone.
[451] Murder, because she's the murderer.
[452] On this topic, on this topic, Bert Reynolds was going to get, was going to play the part that Bruce Stern got.
[453] Yeah, George Spahn, yeah.
[454] George Spahn, who is the owner, proprietor of Spawn Ranch, and passed away before he could do it.
[455] Bert Reynolds, another guy who I mentioned was a TV star who then made it as a huge movie star.
[456] You got to do one of the last, he was reading for the part, or not reading for it, he was playing the part in the script reading.
[457] In the script reading and passed away.
[458] Like weeks later.
[459] I have a story, so you got his last performance.
[460] I interviewed him, and he was quite unwell, but he came on the show, came out, sat down and he did the interview and he was terrific.
[461] The next day I get a bottle of wine sent to me and it said, I hope this is the beginning of a long friendship, Bert.
[462] I think weeks later he was gone.
[463] Oh, wow.
[464] Murdered.
[465] By a combination.
[466] Who is it now?
[467] We have a long list of murderers.
[468] Sheraton, Vince Edwards.
[469] No, but I mean, it was really sweet and just I teared up at the time because I thought you talk about these people that they're constantly leaving us.
[470] But one of the, I mean, but one of the, I mean, one of the things that I, I think we always vibed with each other that was funny was, along with being geeks about all this other stuff on television, we were also, which is strange for male boys, we were talk show geeks.
[471] Yeah.
[472] We, I spent my whole childhood watching talk shows.
[473] Yeah.
[474] And I would get home around 3 .30.
[475] from school, that's when it let out.
[476] And around 4 o 'clock would be you had your choice between Dinah, the Dinah Shore Show or the Mike Douglas show.
[477] And then you had Merv Griffin on at 8 .30 at night on syndication.
[478] And you kind of just go home and say, oh, who's on which show, all right?
[479] And, oh, Ben Boreen's on Dinah.
[480] I love him when Ben Burrines on Dinah.
[481] But the thing about it, though, is we watched all these guests and we had our favorites.
[482] And to me, the two superstar guests of all guests that took over the show whenever they were on was Bert Reynolds and Robert Blake.
[483] Either time, any one of those two guys were...
[484] Same thing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
[485] You could tell Johnny loved it when they came on and they would come on and they would just take over.
[486] And they were fantastic.
[487] But Bert Reynolds, to such a degree...
[488] I mean, Robert Blake had his own thing going on.
[489] But Bert Reynolds, the way there is...
[490] The way there's acting in movies before Brando and there's acting in movies after Brando.
[491] There are actors on talk shows before Bert Reynolds, and then there's actors on talk shows after Bert Reynolds.
[492] He created the whole kind of self -depreciating non -public relations, non -publicity kind of talk that people did on talk shows.
[493] He wasn't just there to plug anything.
[494] Well, he really made fun of his old movies.
[495] Right, right.
[496] But he was so charismatic, Bert Reynolds.
[497] And he...
[498] Like, what leather suit is he going to wear tonight?
[499] Exactly.
[500] And he had that great laugh.
[501] Yeah.
[502] But the thing is, I've met him, the first time, I didn't really get to know him, know him, until I talked to him about the movie and cast him in the film.
[503] But I bumped into him like a couple of times.
[504] And it was always like we wanted to get this friendship started and finally we had an excuse.
[505] But earlier on, the first time I bumped into him, he had his son who was also named Quentin.
[506] And he wanted to introduce me to him.
[507] And so it did.
[508] It was at a party or something.
[509] And then just before he splits, he leans into me. And he goes, I love watching you on talk shows.
[510] That's amazing.
[511] To what he said?
[512] I love watching.
[513] Okay, however, okay, I took it as this massive compliment.
[514] Yep.
[515] Only years later did I start dissecting it a little bit because he didn't just say, I love you on talk shows.
[516] That was it.
[517] He added a little thing at the end of it.
[518] I love you on talk shows.
[519] Dot, dot, dot, dot.
[520] You just don't give a fuck, do you?
[521] I took the compliment as given for years.
[522] Sure.
[523] Then years later, I was like, you just don't give a fuck.
[524] I'm to me. That's what he's saying.
[525] I'm to me on the talk shows.
[526] I was supposed to be cooler.
[527] I'm supposed to have more of a persona.
[528] I was to me. That's what he means by I don't give a fuck.
[529] No, but I don't, I still think it's a compliment.
[530] He meant it as a compliment, you know, and I think, but I realize I've been doing it wrong.
[531] Yeah, clearly, your career has gone nowhere.
[532] Yeah, I wanted to find out about Burt Reynolds, and I also know that Burt Reynolds kind of suggested a line that ended up in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which was that?
[533] Okay, well, you know, Bert Rettles definitely somebody who knows who stunt men are and knows all the stunt men out there.
[534] And so when we having our first additional talk, he goes, okay, so let me get this straight.
[535] Brad Pitt's playing the stuntman?
[536] There's no stuntman to look as good as Brad Pitt.
[537] I think if you're going to have a play the stuntman, that somebody should say, hey, you're pretty good looking for a stuntman.
[538] Right.
[539] Someone should comment on it.
[540] Somebody needs to comment on it because it's something that would be commented on.
[541] Yeah.
[542] So, and then you have, is it Bruce Lee who says?
[543] Yeah, uh -huh, yeah, uh -huh.
[544] Bruce Lee is?
[545] Yeah, you're kind of pretty for a stuntman.
[546] But I love that because I know also that Brad Pitt probably doesn't love anyone talking about his good looks.
[547] But because Bert suggested it, he kind of had no choice.
[548] That's amazing my observation about, and I'm sure it's not an original one, but Brad Pitt, he's the best -looking, amazing character actor you'll ever see.
[549] Because he's a tremendous actor.
[550] Well, that's all cliche about him now, as oh, he's a character actor trapped in a leading man's body.
[551] But, I mean, he always has been.
[552] I think he's always been able to access that.
[553] It was actually kind of interesting because, you know, he's another one in our little club.
[554] We all came out around the same time, Brad Pitt.
[555] And I was asking him, I go, do you watch your movies, you know, years later and everything?
[556] No, not really.
[557] Oh, come on.
[558] You don't really, I don't buy that.
[559] No, not really.
[560] Wait, me. Okay, so even if you're going through the cable guide and you're going through the Showtime 1, 2, 3, and HBO 1, 2, 3, or 4, and you see one of your movies on there.
[561] You don't just hit it to just, you know.
[562] Check it out.
[563] Check it out for a little bit.
[564] And he goes, okay, I do it on a couple of them.
[565] I do it on Snatched.
[566] I do it on the Coen Brothers movie.
[567] I do it on your film.
[568] I do it on the funny ones.
[569] He likes the funny ones.
[570] He doesn't want to get bummed out.
[571] He doesn't want to get bummed out.
[572] He wants to see the funny ones.
[573] Yeah, he doesn't want to be with Morgan Freeman, you know, opening a box to see if there's a head in it.
[574] No, but he considers Fight Club one of the fun.
[575] funny ones.
[576] Well, it is.
[577] Actually, it is very funny.
[578] Let me go back to Bert Reynolds.
[579] Yeah, yeah.
[580] Yeah.
[581] So we had this wonderful conversation on the phone.
[582] And I send him the script.
[583] And when I send him the script, one, I wanted him to play the part.
[584] But also, he was like the first guy who actually got like the whole script because this is his era.
[585] I wanted him to read it.
[586] And I wanted him to be impressed by how well I did it.
[587] And he was.
[588] And so we talked about stuff.
[589] And look, I just grew up listening to Bert Reynolds tell Bert Reynolds stories.
[590] Right.
[591] So when I'm talking to Bert Reynolds, I'm telling Bert Reynolds stories.
[592] And then we even had our rehearsal period.
[593] We did our rehearsal.
[594] And so he spent the rehearsal, Bert Reynolds telling Bert Reynolds stories.
[595] And then me telling Bert Reynolds stories.
[596] And they're all stories I heard either he gave in a written interview or just on the Tonight Show.
[597] As a matter of fact, if you read the book, that whole section in the book where it talks about how Rick and and Cliff got together, and how Rick caught fire.
[598] Yes.
[599] And he realizes that he's, and he thinks he's going to do it.
[600] He's going to panic.
[601] He's going to run.
[602] He's going to do the worst thing you can do.
[603] Just run when you're on fire.
[604] Yeah.
[605] And then Cliff just says, Rick, calm down.
[606] You're standing in a puddle of water.
[607] Just fall down.
[608] Fall down.
[609] Yeah.
[610] That's a Bert Rennel story.
[611] That happened to him in the movie Fuzz.
[612] Oh, wow.
[613] If you remember the movie Fuzz, did you remember see that one?
[614] I saw it, but I don't remember.
[615] Yeah.
[616] In it, there's these kids, one of them, Charlie Martin Smith, that they're setting bums on fire.
[617] You know, they're going and finding a bum and they're throwing whiskey on him and then, like, setting him on fire.
[618] And so, Bert Reynolds is, like, is playing a bum.
[619] He's a cop who's doing a stakeout as a bum.
[620] And then they come and they set him on fire.
[621] And apparently it went bad.
[622] And he just really went up.
[623] And then he said, like, oh, my God, I'm starting to panic.
[624] And then he just heard this guy, said this stuntman's name.
[625] It wasn't held him with somebody else.
[626] He goes, you're okay.
[627] You're standing by a puddle of water.
[628] Just fall down.
[629] Just fall down.
[630] And he did.
[631] That's great, though, that you have so much at your fingertips because of years and years and years of loving this stuff and hearing it and being that it's in there.
[632] And then you get to use it.
[633] You know, you can access it.
[634] Let me tell you my favorite Bert Reynolds story, because this is the one that really just shows how sharp the dude was.
[635] Because one of my favorite directors is this old Western director named William Whitney.
[636] And he directed a bunch of the Roy Rogers movies and stuff.
[637] and he worked into the 70s.
[638] He directed Jim Brown and Ice Skate from Devil's Island.
[639] But he also did a whole lot of television stuff.
[640] And he directed a couple of episodes, only a couple, only a couple, of Bert Reynolds TV show Riverboat with Darren McAvon.
[641] And I've watched those episodes, and Bert doesn't have much to do in those episodes, but he's in them.
[642] But anytime I meet somebody who ever worked with William Whitney, I always make a point to ask him about him.
[643] And, you know, some people in the know, know who he is, but a lot of people don't.
[644] So we're at the script reading, where all the cast is there and we're sitting around a table, acting.
[645] It was one of the greatest moments of my life at script reading.
[646] It was fantastic.
[647] And so we get to the middle of it and we stop and have a break.
[648] And I go over to where Bird is because, yeah, once Bert sits down, he's going to be sitting down there for a while.
[649] Right, right.
[650] And so I leaned down, I go, hey, look, I got a question I've been wanting to ask you.
[651] I've been asking him about everybody.
[652] It deals with a show, Riverboat.
[653] He goes, oh, boy, okay.
[654] What do you got to put this in perspective?
[655] I'm asking him about a director he only worked within the 50s, only a few times who directed episodic television on a show he didn't like.
[656] Yeah.
[657] And then you're asking someone who's had a career that blew up and he became the biggest star in the world.
[658] He has worked with everybody.
[659] So I am positive.
[660] Nobody since the 50s has brought up William Witt.
[661] to him.
[662] Right, right.
[663] And so I go, you worked on Riverboat with a director named William Whitney that I'm a big fan of.
[664] Do you remember him?
[665] Of course I do.
[666] Oh, of course you do.
[667] Oh, well, that's great.
[668] Well, you know, personally, I think he's one of the most underrated action directors in the history of Hollywood.
[669] You're right.
[670] He is.
[671] Let me tell you about what working with William Whitney was like.
[672] William Whitney worked under the assumption that there was no scene ever written that could not be improved by the addition of a fistfight.
[673] So you'd be doing a scene with him.
[674] And you're saying exposition.
[675] And he was like, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.
[676] You guys are putting me to sleep.
[677] Here's what I want, Bert.
[678] He says that and that makes you mad.
[679] So you punch him.
[680] Yes.
[681] And now he's punched you.
[682] Now you're mad at him and you punch him.
[683] Now we've got a scene going on.
[684] Action!
[685] So literally people are just like at the reading of a will or a very dry scene and people start punching each other.
[686] For Bert Reynolds to tell that greatest story, That perfectly worded, that kind of comic intention into it, not planned in any way, shape, or form about a guy he has not worked with in 50 years.
[687] It's just right there.
[688] It's right there.
[689] Yeah.
[690] That's lost.
[691] Yeah.
[692] That is just lost.
[693] That's gone.
[694] Well, I think, too, and I've talked about this, I think that there's two kinds of actors that are actors that think, I can't be funny on a talk show.
[695] because almost in the Brando Dean tradition, I need to mumble, I need to sort of seem uncomfortable because that's what's cool.
[696] I can never be caught smiling.
[697] I can't be part of the machine.
[698] I got to be a rebel to the machine.
[699] Yeah, to be a machine.
[700] This is the machine.
[701] And I always thought, take a page from, look at all these amazing British actors.
[702] I got to have Richard Harris on once before he passed away.
[703] He's Richard Harris.
[704] He's one of the most iconic actors of all time.
[705] And he's, and he loved just being hilarious.
[706] Well, if, if, if, to use my Conan knowledge on you, I actually think you've all, you've said that in that first season.
[707] Yeah.
[708] The episode that you thought really kicked in.
[709] Yeah.
[710] And this was like, hey, if we can make the show close to this every week, we've got something, was the first time Michael Cain.
[711] Yeah.
[712] In the first season.
[713] Oh, no. Michael Cain came on and I remember.
[714] He killed it.
[715] He killed it.
[716] Killed it.
[717] And then, you know, he's, he's, he's, you realize, wait, this guy hung out with the Beatles and was making them laugh.
[718] And now he's sitting here talking to me, and I remembered in the commercial break, he was telling me which island in the Caribbean I really should vacation to a guy who had never gone to the Caribbean on a vacation.
[719] And then he was saying, and, you know, I don't do a Michael Kane impression, which is tragic, but he was saying, and you merely must try, there's a special sun cream you could use that I have found quite helpful.
[720] Like, Michael Kane is telling me which island to go to and which, like, I'm in the club.
[721] Of course, I quickly forgot it.
[722] And I was probably quickly kicked out of the club.
[723] like the idea that he's like, okay, you might have a problem there.
[724] However, I can solve the problem.
[725] I am quite worried.
[726] Quite worried, old boy, about your lack of melanin.
[727] You know, one of the things to sort of Google Earth out for a second and look at the bigger picture that I think, I love your films, and one of the things I think you do almost better, better than anybody, is you take opposites, you put people together that almost shouldn't be together, and it's explosive.
[728] You take this compound and that compound and you put them in the same room with each other and you think, oh, my God, you put, and I think about like in Inglorious Bastards, you take Christoph Waltz, who, by the way, what an achievement I thought that you cast him as Hans Landa because I, here's a Nazi who's in the beginning of the movie, he's hunting Jews and he's called the Jew hunter.
[729] So he is the worst person that you can possibly imagine.
[730] And then you fucking trick me into finding him charismatic.
[731] Yeah, right.
[732] And I think, no, I'm like every sense is, I have to keep reminding myself, no, he is the bad guy.
[733] He's a terrible guy.
[734] But he's also so goddamn charismatic.
[735] And I think very few people, when you have your Nazi, they're just supposed to be, this is black and white here.
[736] This is the Nazi.
[737] And I think that was ingenious.
[738] But then to put him, you know, I've got to put him in the same room with the person who's going to hate him more than anybody, which is Brad Pitt's character.
[739] I'm going to put those two together.
[740] And I'm going to put them, I'm going to take these two, this matter and this anti -matter.
[741] And I'm going to shove them together and then realize that, hey, they have something in common.
[742] They're both kind of funny.
[743] Yeah, right.
[744] The Nazi and the Nazi hater, the guy who's sworn to kill Nazis.
[745] And I think you do that in Reservoir Dogs, you take Michael Madsen and you have him do the most horrible thing in the world, which is torture a policeman horribly, but you make me kind of think he's a cool guy.
[746] Yeah, right.
[747] And so all my neurons are misfiring because it doesn't compute.
[748] Well, you know, one of the things that's actually interesting in the case of Hans Landa is it's just one of those things where it's a movie.
[749] you're watching a movie.
[750] You want the movie to be entertaining.
[751] You want the movie would be good.
[752] After both myself and Christoph, I've done a pretty good job of illustrating that Blonda's a great detective.
[753] You know, like right up there with Sherlock Holmes kind of guy.
[754] Fantastic, yeah.
[755] He's a great detective.
[756] The audience buys that he's smart.
[757] They buy all that.
[758] Basically, not because the audience is rooting for Landa to win, but the audience wants Landa to figure out what the bastards are doing at their premiere.
[759] Because it's, going to be a more exciting movie if he does.
[760] Right.
[761] And it'll be really disappointing.
[762] We expect him to figure it out because we've just showed you that he's a genius.
[763] So we want him to be a genius because it's going to make a more exciting movie.
[764] Yeah.
[765] You know, it's like, I'm not, you know, I'm not worried about any of the implication.
[766] When I watch taxi driver, I'm not worried about any of the implications about Travis Bickle taking a gun and going out and shooting up that horror hotel.
[767] Right.
[768] Even if he did start it, I'm on his side.
[769] Right, right.
[770] There's like the, there's the pimps that are trafficking, a 12 -year -old girl, and there's Travis.
[771] Of course, I'm rooting for Travis.
[772] Also, but because it's a movie.
[773] I wanted to have a really exciting ending at the end.
[774] I've watched it this far.
[775] I wanted to explode.
[776] I thought the same thing about the hateful eight where you're taking all of these people and trapping them in a cabin together.
[777] Talk about shoving all the hot coals into one.
[778] Well, see, that goes back to almost our TV talk a little bit, because one of the things, you're bringing in the Big Valley, one of the things that was, because I got into a whole big thing of watching a lot of these Western TV shows, I watched them when I was a kid, but I started watching them as I was writing this stuff more.
[779] And one of the things, and I'm also going to the episodes that have good guest stars.
[780] So Robert Culp's on it, I'm going to watch it.
[781] Darren McGavin's on it, I'm going to watch it.
[782] There's a heavyweight guest stars.
[783] They usually have the best role on the show.
[784] But if you watch these guys who are the guest stars, whether it's Charles Brunson or James Coburn, who are Vic Morrow, whoever it is, usually it's a situation where they show up at the Barclay Ranch or the Ponderosa Ranch or the Shiloh Ranch or wherever it is and they make friends sort of, you know, with Heath, or they make friends with Trampus or they make friends with Little Joe.
[785] And there's something about the, there's something you don't know about these guys.
[786] There's something, there's a secret.
[787] Yes.
[788] They're there for a specific reason.
[789] that's not revealed to us.
[790] Now, maybe somebody's after them, maybe they're after somebody, maybe they're planning some sort of robbery.
[791] They've got some agenda that the lead of the show doesn't know and we don't know.
[792] But we have to watch the whole episode to find out who these guys are kind of sketchy, though, but we kind of like them.
[793] But we have to watch the whole show to find out whether or not they're a good guy or not.
[794] And if they are a good guy, then usually Trampus and Little Joe and he helps them.
[795] If not, they end up killing them.
[796] Right.
[797] So I thought, wow, those are interesting characters.
[798] What if I did a whole movie with nothing but those guys?
[799] Yeah.
[800] Those guys who are guesting on the Virginian.
[801] Those guys who are guesting on Lance or those those dubious guys that we don't know anything about.
[802] But there's no Heath, there's no Little Joe, there's no the Virginian.
[803] I like the fact that his name was only the Virginian.
[804] I'm the Bostonian.
[805] Not Lance, the Virginia.
[806] No, just the Virginia.
[807] No, what you did was you said, let's have lucky charms, but only the marshmallows.
[808] Which I've done, by the way.
[809] It takes about an hour, but it's, man, it is better than any drug you'll ever have.
[810] You put some milk on that.
[811] A lot of people take a lot of time bringing these elements together.
[812] You are so economical and also kind of imping.
[813] in a great way.
[814] No, this, we have to get these people together.
[815] We have to put these people that are diametrically opposed in close contact with each other.
[816] I don't know how you feel about it because I love the movie, no country for old men.
[817] But at the end, when Javier Bardem's fantastic serial killer and Tommy Lee Jones miss each other.
[818] Oh, yeah, yeah.
[819] I think a day doesn't go by.
[820] when I'm not enraged.
[821] And I love the Coen Brothers.
[822] But I wanted my money back.
[823] I was like, no, you've got...
[824] And I thought, Quentin Tarantino wouldn't do that to me. If you ever get the right to remake the last 10 minutes of that movie...
[825] I wouldn't do that.
[826] And then give Tommy Lee Jones a monologue that's apropos of nothing.
[827] And then say the end.
[828] What?
[829] Here it is.
[830] The Quentin Tarantino ending to the Coen Brothers, country for old men, a 10 -minute really cool speech about slim gyms.
[831] Yeah, I just love, and I mean, look, Django Unchained is another amazing example of you saying, let's take the coolest, you know, black gunslinger and put him in the antebellum south where there's slavery.
[832] And for a technicality, he's allowed to kill a bunch of people.
[833] And he's allowed to take a whip away from a slave driver and whip...
[834] Whip this shit out of him to really fucking great music.
[835] Yeah, yeah, right.
[836] And I think, yeah, that's the idea.
[837] Yeah, exactly.
[838] That's fantastic.
[839] So I'm just encouraging you to continue making movies.
[840] Oh, thank you.
[841] I mean, I really like the book.
[842] Yeah, right.
[843] But come on, you know.
[844] You can do that every once in a while.
[845] Sure, sure.
[846] You know, I'm curious if you have said, I read a quote of yours, which is you don't, it's very important, to that your last movie, whatever that is, be a really good movie.
[847] Well, obviously, I want it to be a really good movie.
[848] No, no, I know everybody does.
[849] Everybody does, but you're very conscious.
[850] Well, no, it's not, it's not a Max Ophus.
[851] Oh, I've got to do Lola Montez.
[852] And if it's not the greatest movie I ever made them, my entire career is worthless.
[853] No, I'm not coming from that point of view.
[854] Like, oh, I've got to make the ultimate movie as the last movie.
[855] I kind of think, once upon time in Hollywood is the ultimate Quentin movie.
[856] Yep.
[857] So I don't know what the last movie is going to be, but I'm, I'm imagining it'll probably be a little bit more epilogue -y than, like, you know, the dynamic final chapter.
[858] I think this is the dynamic final chapter.
[859] You've been once upon a time in Hollywood is the final, is...
[860] Yeah, and this is the epilogue.
[861] Right.
[862] So that's a movie I could be in.
[863] I mean, you don't need the best people in it if it's going to be a different tone.
[864] Well, it's not so much a different...
[865] But it's not, oh, now I've got to make the...
[866] end -all movie.
[867] Right.
[868] I just want to be in it.
[869] Yeah, okay.
[870] I mean, in the background, as a waiter, for Christa.
[871] No, I'm actually, what I'm actually thinking would be really good is, like, if they're watching television and we come up with a show for you to do on television.
[872] So you're a character.
[873] Trust me. Yeah, I'll do what, yeah, I'll do anything.
[874] But I also really like the idea of something where it's like, I don't think I haven't 100 % ever done it before, but like where it takes place in the Quentin universe and then there's a character on TV that's popular.
[875] you see the characters watch them, watch them a little bit.
[876] But when they go driving around, that person is all like all over billboards.
[877] You know, there's like Conan Mania is going on because this show has just become big.
[878] You're as big as David Carradine in the first season of Kung Fu.
[879] Yes, yeah.
[880] And Don Johnson, the first season of Miami Vice.
[881] You've got your record album coming out.
[882] Yes.
[883] It's all.
[884] Not a comedy album.
[885] No. And I have my own line of leisure wear.
[886] Yes.
[887] My own line of clothing that's coming out, and all the men are trying to dress like coming.
[888] They're all trying to dress like you.
[889] I'm just a bit of a personal question, but I know you have a very young son now.
[890] Do you ever think, how old is he?
[891] He's about two years old?
[892] Yeah, he's almost two, yeah.
[893] Do you ever think about when it's the appropriate time for him to watch, check out your uvra, your body of work?
[894] Yeah, I think actually the appropriate time is whenever he wants to.
[895] Right.
[896] You know, whenever he really, really, you were like, hey, Daddy, let me see this.
[897] Let me see this.
[898] He'll hear about it for a little bit.
[899] But when he's actually, I want to see this.
[900] I would imagine probably Kill Bill will probably be the first one he watches.
[901] Yeah.
[902] He's a little boy.
[903] If I was seven years old, Kill Bill is the one I'd want to see.
[904] Right.
[905] Yeah.
[906] Kill Bill, I think, could be first.
[907] I don't think he's going to have seven.
[908] He's going to be getting into the pop culture monologues.
[909] 70s, 60s, minutia.
[910] but the bride -finding 88 guys or the samurai sword shooting the fountains of blood from a cut -off arm, that he'll appreciate.
[911] There was also, I mean, it was hard not to see some of, man, the scenes in Kill Bill with blood shooting out of, I mean, it was fantastic, but it also had a hint of the Monty Python.
[912] It's hard not to see some of the comedic angle of it, too.
[913] Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.
[914] of people who were firing blood everywhere and screaming, it can take you a little bit back to Lonnie Python, the Holy Grail.
[915] Well, obviously, I do like that sequence a lot in that movie, but I was kind of jumping off more from the pop Japanese samurai movies, like Shogun Assassin or, you know, the Zadawichi films were just and then all of a sudden people have garden hoses for veins, you know, and they just like a fire hydrant.
[916] Everyone suffers from hypertension.
[917] Everyone has incredibly high blood pressure.
[918] The first time I, before I saw the original Japanese versions, the first time I saw any of the lone wolf and cub movies was that Shogun Assassin version, which is a really good version.
[919] I thought it was just thrilling the way the blood just like shut out like the Belasio fountain.
[920] I thought that was fantastic.
[921] But also, the thing about it that was actually really cool was.
[922] is, well, you're not going to get this confused with real life.
[923] This takes place in this hyper, hyper -realized, hyper -violent, hyper -comic -booky kind of world.
[924] And then you see that.
[925] Then you kind of take yourself off the hook for how you're supposed to react.
[926] First of all, there's no restaurant like that.
[927] And no one has immediate, no one can just flip a switch and have 88 assassins at their disposal.
[928] So in a way, you've put yourself in a different realm where it's all cool.
[929] It's all fine.
[930] Yeah, it's all aesthetics.
[931] Yeah.
[932] Yeah.
[933] And I wanted to, last thing I wanted to mention was westerns, which is I know that once upon a time in Hollywood, you're dipping a lot into the Western genre and you did it with hateful eight.
[934] And clearly, Westerns are a big part of your life.
[935] I know that you believe, or I've read that you believe that Westerns are this ultimate reflection kind of of what's happening in that decade.
[936] But it ends up being that case, I think.
[937] Yeah, meaning a Western of the 50s will represent.
[938] what people think in the Eisenhower time.
[939] Yes, exactly.
[940] No, yeah.
[941] They end up being a mirror to whatever is going on in that decade, those 10 years.
[942] I don't know if you have a favorite Western.
[943] I think mine personally might be the unforgiven.
[944] That's a good one.
[945] Because it's a movie where every single character is trying to do the right thing and nobody's doing the right thing.
[946] That's a really well said on that.
[947] Even Little Bill thinks he's...
[948] Little Bill is a...
[949] sadist and has his, you know, but Little Bill is trying to keep the piece.
[950] Yeah, he thinks he's just being a good sheriff.
[951] Right.
[952] And everybody misinterprets and misunderstands what's happening.
[953] And that movie really spoke to me because I thought that is so true if the world we're in.
[954] People don't say, even without getting too political, people on Fox News or MSNBC, people don't say, I'm going to go be evil now.
[955] Everybody in their own way thinks they're doing the thing that's going to save the day.
[956] And we're all careening off a cliff.
[957] Yeah, no. And actually, it's their righteous indignation about it.
[958] That's so sad.
[959] Yeah.
[960] Because there's never a chance to listen to the other guy.
[961] Yeah.
[962] Because you're demonizing the other guy.
[963] Right.
[964] And in The Unforgiven, if Clint DeSwood and everyone else and Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman, if everyone got in a room for a minute and talked.
[965] Yeah.
[966] They go.
[967] Oh, wait a minute.
[968] Okay, no. Oh, so that was a minute.
[969] Right.
[970] Okay.
[971] Let's go.
[972] Let's get out of here.
[973] But one of the highlights of my life is I never got to interview Clint Eastwood.
[974] I don't know him.
[975] I've obviously idolized him as an actor and his work.
[976] I ran into him once, and I told him, I said, I hate to bug you.
[977] I just ran into him, and I was introduced to him.
[978] And I said, I just got to tell you that how much I love that movie, The Unforgiven.
[979] And he's just nodding and being Clint Eastwood and very cool, nice, but very not saying much.
[980] And then I said, and I made my point that everyone's trying to do the right thing.
[981] and he was nodding like, yep, kid, I think you got it.
[982] That's right for you.
[983] Here's a cookie.
[984] And then I said, and I love the line at the end where Kill Bill's lying on the floor.
[985] I mean, Kill Bill, like where I'm doing everything, I love the part at the end where Gene Hackman's lying on the floor, and he realizes that he's going to die.
[986] And he says, I don't deserve this.
[987] Clint Eastwood looks at him and says, and just then Clint East would cut me off and said the line, it's got nothing to do with deserve.
[988] and I tingle, I'm still tingling even thinking about it and I like bowed and then like backed away because I thought it's never going to get better than this Yeah no you just hold on to that pressure sealed Yeah I went to a doctor immediately and he said all your life signs showed that you were now 30 years younger biologically I have a situation sort of like that that was a wild thing where I set it all up and the actor ended up saying the line, I couldn't believe it.
[989] The great wild man character actor Timothy Carey kind of came in for Reservoir Dogs and I was just so excited that I'm like, Timothy Carey's outside and he shows up with his son, Romeo and they sit down and he's talking about the script that he really likes it and I go well there's that scene of you in a passive glory when you're in this jail cell and the next morning they're going to take you guys out and shoot them and Joe Jekyll does that whole bit he goes, see tomorrow that cockroach will have more to do with my wife and child than I will have and I said the whole thing and I'm just doing it just exactly like Joe Chirkel and then he's sitting right next to my desk and Timothy Carey, boom!
[990] Slops the imaginary cockroach and goes now you got the edge I wanted to masturbate.
[991] I mean, it was just like...
[992] I just did.
[993] I just did.
[994] I'm very fast.
[995] I'm a very fast masturbator.
[996] But I have to say, you know, to try and sum this up, which is impossible, because I swear to God, I could talk to you for 35 hours and just enjoy every second of it.
[997] But I do think, yes, you have gobs and gobs and gobs and gobs of innate talent and ability in this area, but I think one of your greatest strengths is enthusiasm.
[998] I know that you, and it just comes out of you.
[999] You are very, very enthusiastic about what you do.
[1000] It means a lot to you.
[1001] And I think one thing we have in common is there's lots of stars in the world, but God damn it, the ones I get most excited about are the ones that I saw on TV when I was a kid.
[1002] And we're losing them every day.
[1003] But the moments that still to this day changed my life is when Andy Griffith came on my show and knew my name.
[1004] And I'm thinking, no, I sat in a high chick.
[1005] eating bologna strips in 1968 watching you...
[1006] I was in a high chair for a long time.
[1007] I was in a high chair until I was 35, but I sat in a high chair and watching...
[1008] Mayberry R &FD, wait a minute, you were 11.
[1009] I had polio.
[1010] Look, you're missing the point, Mr. Griffin.
[1011] But those are the ones that I can see that you just lose your mind if you heard...
[1012] Don Knott's still alive and he's downstairs getting an ice cream.
[1013] That would blow your mind more than...
[1014] You know, as much as you love Leo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, that would mean, you know.
[1015] Don Nauts is Don Nott.
[1016] Yes, come on, it's the incredible Mr. Limpit.
[1017] Yeah, absolutely.
[1018] Well, I'm encouraging everyone listening, once upon a time in Hollywood, obviously, the movie was and is a true delight.
[1019] Now, have you read the thing that we added to the, uh, well, here's what I love.
[1020] The screenplay for a bounty law episode.
[1021] Yes, here's what I love, because you're, this is you.
[1022] This is the essence of, I call you QT behind your back.
[1023] But, but the essence of Quentin Tarantino.
[1024] is so you write this very good novel, novelization of, and again, this is not a replication of what happens in the movie.
[1025] It's sort of a deeper dive in some ways.
[1026] And, and, but then it's, tell the story in a, it's the same story, but I tell it in a vaguely different way.
[1027] A very different way, yeah.
[1028] And then, um, then you get to the end.
[1029] And you have written, I believe, a script for a TV episode of Bounty Law.
[1030] And you've written, that it was, it's, and you have a very realistic front page of the script.
[1031] With a coffee ring on it.
[1032] With a coffee ring on it.
[1033] And it says it's written by Robert Fuzz.
[1034] Yes.
[1035] Don't know who the fuck that is.
[1036] And it says, revised final draft July 6th, 1959.
[1037] And then it's a very good Bounty Law.
[1038] Episode.
[1039] You get a sense of the show.
[1040] Yeah, episode of Bounty Law.
[1041] And then you have all of this like the Bounty Law lunchbox and the Bounty Law.
[1042] The TV guides which are, and then you have the Mad Magazine parody of Bounty Law which is fantastic and spot on.
[1043] Okay, this is the perfect last story for this episode that you will appreciate.
[1044] Okay, go back again to the cover of the Mad Magazine there.
[1045] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, got it.
[1046] Okay, so the idea was, okay, he's gonna, when it comes to Rick's apartment, yeah, apartment, his house, He's going to have, like, you know, some of his posters will be up and framed.
[1047] And, like, the TV guides that he's on, he'll have those framed.
[1048] But also was the idea that Mad would have done a spoof of bounty law.
[1049] And so he would have had the cover of that.
[1050] And so we went to the Mad Magazine people and we said, look, what we want to do is we want to have a real Mad Magazine cover that you guys draw.
[1051] And we want to draw as if, we want to draw on as if Jack Davis was doing the drawing.
[1052] on.
[1053] Right, right.
[1054] And I had the whole idea in my mind that it would be Alfredine Newman on the wanted poster with his finger up his nose.
[1055] Yep.
[1056] And Rick kind of doing a double take when he sees him.
[1057] Yep.
[1058] And so I described to them exactly what I wanted for the poster.
[1059] And they go, okay, and so they have their Jack Davis guy, and he went it, and he drew it.
[1060] And then when it was done, it looked so terrific.
[1061] It's perfect.
[1062] And then we came back to us, and then we said, hey, look, guys, I don't if you want to do this or not, but if you want to do it, we can show you all the footage we shot for Bounty Law.
[1063] And if you wanted to do a spoof in the magazine of Bounty Law, Lousy Law, I'm the one that came up with the Lousy Law title, we would be into that.
[1064] Well, they thought that was kind of a good idea, too.
[1065] So they came down into the editing room and we showed them all the Bounty Law footage we had, and then they wrote their little spoof, and then they came out with it.
[1066] And so they used that cover as their real cover.
[1067] And then they had the spoof in the magazine, it turned out that that was the last original episode, last original issue of Mad Magazine ever published.
[1068] Oh, you're kidding.
[1069] They still publish Mad Magazine, but it's all re -prints now.
[1070] Yes, I've actually seen that because I've run across them and I wanted my son to know, because Mad Magazine was such a big deal to me, and I used to actually always go to the movie spoofs.
[1071] Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[1072] And I would read those.
[1073] And often, often I...
[1074] Some really good movie criticism of these spoof.
[1075] Yeah, really good movie criticism.
[1076] and also often I read those without seeing the movie.
[1077] Yeah, I happen a bunch of times.
[1078] I'm like, I don't need to see this movie.
[1079] Okay, but you're not getting the most important part of this story, Conan.
[1080] Sorry.
[1081] I designed and formatted the cover of the last original Mad Magazine issue.
[1082] I want to put a little twist on your summation.
[1083] Uh -huh.
[1084] You killed Mad Magazine.
[1085] What about that?
[1086] After all the other carnage, you've unleashed.
[1087] I didn't just say...
[1088] It could be something like this or that.
[1089] I described it to the T and they did it.
[1090] It's beautiful.
[1091] Take that, Judd Apatow.
[1092] So my question is, are you going to make Bounty Law?
[1093] You've got the script.
[1094] You probably, would you make some now?
[1095] I might.
[1096] I might, I might do it as a, if I did it, it would be like a 50s half hour Western show.
[1097] Yeah, yeah.
[1098] And true to itself.
[1099] Absolutely true to itself.
[1100] exactly.
[1101] Well, I've got about five episodes written, so I could do that.
[1102] I don't know when I'm going to do it, but I could do it.
[1103] All right.
[1104] Well, just make sure you keep, God damn it, keep making stuff, because you will not, listen, thrilled, absolutely thrilled that you could do this.
[1105] Oh, it's my pleasure.
[1106] And you know what?
[1107] I have to say, I've known you, you know, whatever, 28 years, you know, off and on and we've passed each other, and you've done the show, and you've always been lovely to me, and I've watched everything you've done countless times.
[1108] but my dream was to sit and have a real conversation with you where people like Warren Oates would come up or whatever, you know, Bert Mustin or who, you know, Pete Duel, Bruce Stern and talk about this stuff.
[1109] It just meant the world to me. No, it's my pleasure.
[1110] Thank you so much.
[1111] No, it is actually funny.
[1112] I have many times that I've done the show.
[1113] But to give you some credit on that, though, when we did the show, we would slip in 30, 40 seconds to a minute of this kind of geeky talk.
[1114] Yes.
[1115] It always ended up happening.
[1116] Yes.
[1117] It was a tight schedule, but there was like 40 minutes or to a minute of back and forth about minutia.
[1118] Thank God.
[1119] We now have way too much of it now.
[1120] But check out this book Once Upon a Time in Hollywood because it's really special.
[1121] And I can't wait.
[1122] Whatever, I swear to God, if you were manufacturing asbestos, I'd go out and get some.
[1123] Thank you very much.
[1124] I'm not suggesting that, because apparently it's very bad on the launch.
[1125] Gwen Tarantino, God bless and go on and do good works.
[1126] Thank you very much.
[1127] Good to be here.
[1128] Conan O 'Brien needs a friend with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gourley.
[1129] Produced by me, Matt Gourley.
[1130] Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Solitaroff, and Jeff Ross at Team Koko and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf.
[1131] Theme song by The White Stripes.
[1132] Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.
[1133] Take it away.
[1134] Jimmy.
[1135] Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples.
[1136] Engineering by Will Beckton.
[1137] Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Brit Khan.
[1138] You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode.
[1139] Got a question for Conan?
[1140] Call the Team Coco hotline at 323 -451 -2821 and leave a message.
[1141] It too could be featured on a future episode.
[1142] And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O 'Brien needs a friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.
[1143] This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.