Ron Howard

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] I'm Dax Randall Shepard.

[2] I'm joined by Monica Lilly Padman.

[3] Hi there.

[4] Hello there.

[5] We got one of my previous bosses on today.

[6] That's right.

[7] Did you feel like you needed to like, you know, be a good employee for him?

[8] When I worked for him, indeed.

[9] Yeah.

[10] Which was actually a fun experience to meet him as, I guess, a peer.

[11] Yeah.

[12] I don't want to call him a peer, but you know what I'm saying?

[13] Yeah.

[14] Usually I'm like, you're in charge.

[15] I've got to make a great impression on this guy so I don't get fired.

[16] But this time was just like, hey, you're going to see real me. And it was so much fun.

[17] What a nice person.

[18] It's almost impossible what a nice person he is.

[19] It's really incredible.

[20] And he has one of the most incredible Hollywood stories there are.

[21] Yeah.

[22] Ron Howard is an Academy Award -winning film director, producer, and actor.

[23] He's directed A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, Frost Nixon, Cinderella Man, the Da Vinci Code, Parenthood, Ding, Ding, and Arrested Development.

[24] He has a new book out called The Boys, a memoir of Hollywood and family by Ron and Clint Howard.

[25] And this book is so fun because they unpack their upbringing.

[26] It seemed normal of them yet was anything but from a newfound perspective of time and success.

[27] He's got great stories and it was such a pleasure to talk to him and I just adore him.

[28] And you will too.

[29] So please enjoy Ron Howard.

[30] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and add free right now.

[31] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[32] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcast.

[33] I was getting a little work done.

[34] Sorry about that.

[35] We may have learned more about you in the last 40 seconds than we will in the next hour.

[36] It's great to see you.

[37] How are you doing?

[38] So good.

[39] So good to see you.

[40] Was that personal stuff or work stuff?

[41] That was work stuff.

[42] Getting ready to do a rough cut screening of my latest movie and I was asking a few friends if I could send them a link and get their feedback.

[43] And after 740 movies and awards and whatnot, is that initial screening process, does it get any less daunting?

[44] No, probably worse.

[45] I call it the gauntlet of judgment that begins.

[46] It starts with the friends and family screening, then it goes to the test screening crowd, of course, the studio's in there in the mix, then it goes all the way to the critics.

[47] And it's all agony, because all you want is just for them to at least really like.

[48] I mean, come on.

[49] Yes, yes.

[50] And most of them tend to, but there's always those naysayers.

[51] Well, let me ask you, what do you find to be more productive, the friends and family or the recruited audience screen?

[52] I'm finding the friends and family.

[53] Really?

[54] Well, because I think friends and family know that I really would like the help.

[55] I really want the help.

[56] I just don't want a pat on the back.

[57] And I usually conduct my own little discussion afterwards where I'm sort of imploring people to please just tell me. I don't want to find out when I read the newspaper.

[58] I want to know now when I can maybe still do something about it.

[59] The best of all of these was a test screening of Apollo 13.

[60] And this was before digital, before visual effects were something you could sort of rapidly build into a cut.

[61] And we tested it.

[62] And nobody knew much about it.

[63] It was also an era when you would just sort of spring a movie on a test audience.

[64] They wouldn't even know what they were going in to see.

[65] So in this case, it was a part.

[66] Paul of 13 with still storyboards in it and of space.

[67] But it tests great.

[68] It was so exciting.

[69] And I remember looking at it.

[70] And it was like, I don't know, 385 cards.

[71] And literally, 375 were just fantastic.

[72] Sort of eight or nine were okay.

[73] And one was rated it poor.

[74] You know, they're asked to rate it, excellent, very good, fair poor.

[75] Poor.

[76] And so naturally, that's the one I had to read right away.

[77] Yeah, yeah.

[78] It's the only one that confirmed everything you feared about yourself.

[79] That's always it.

[80] But I looked at it and I remember a 24 -year -old Caucasian male.

[81] Didn't have a lot to say, but it was all negative with these bold pencil strokes and exclamation marks, two or three.

[82] And didn't say a lot, just rated it poor, wouldn't recommend it.

[83] Finally, on the back page, it said, please, any comments on the ending?

[84] And he said, terrible, three exclamation marks.

[85] More Hollywood bullshit, four exclamation marks.

[86] They would never survive.

[87] Five exclamation words.

[88] Okay, well, this guy didn't know what's true story.

[89] And that's the beauty of telling true stories is you pick stuff that you couldn't get away with in fiction and then you dramatize that.

[90] Oh, man, that makes me think of someone sharing with me the link of someone re -recorded a Metallica song and then someone, the point being, yeah, like what they were critical of, they didn't even realize it was a remake of a thing.

[91] They don't know anything they're talking about, but they give a masterclass on, I just ripped it.

[92] What's wrong with this genre and whatnot?

[93] Hey, how are you?

[94] It's so good to see you, man. I know, it's so good to see you.

[95] I'm seeing you over the Zoom, which is better than nothing.

[96] And very nice to meet you.

[97] Monica, esteemed host, are you in L .A.?

[98] I'm in London.

[99] Fuck, we could have put a pin in this.

[100] We're going to be there in two weeks, Monica and I for, yeah, for a few weeks.

[101] We're going to be interviewing people.

[102] Oh, excellent.

[103] Yes, we could have.

[104] But instead, maybe I'll recruit you for a rough cut, friends and family screening if you're around.

[105] Okay, so having been now in L .A. for 26 years, having been involved in this business, I've both attended many as a friend or a family.

[106] And then I've hosted them for movies I've made.

[107] Of course.

[108] And I got to say, it can go a lot of ways because what you are also getting with friends and families that you're not getting with a recruited audience of strangers is personal baggage.

[109] Like, hey, most my friends and family aspire to do this thing as well.

[110] So they all have some relationship with it, whether it's gratitude or resentment or whatever it is.

[111] And also everyone in L .A. is a director.

[112] You know, everyone has a – and they do.

[113] They have a much better understanding of story and whatnot than your average viewer, but they can get carried away.

[114] And I've seen a lot of these things really go off the rails, the interpersonal stuff.

[115] I mean, look, my motto about all that is you've got to kind of hear everybody, but listen to yourself.

[116] All it is supposed to do is inspire you or your closest colleagues to sort of say, oh, that person is saying something that I get.

[117] It rings a bell, and I didn't quite know how to address it, but that person is addressing it in a way that I find helpful.

[118] Part two is a really genuine consensus.

[119] Right, that's super valuable.

[120] You know, like, oh, wow, half the people are confused about something or didn't unknow the character's name or their relationship to somebody else or whatever the confusion may be.

[121] That's really what I'm looking for.

[122] I feel like it'd be hard to have a screening in L .A. Because there's so many people, and the bigger you are as a director, I feel like, oh, everyone's just going to try to impress you on the car.

[123] It's like someone, everyone in there is like, oh, maybe he'll recognize that I'm like, I should be his first AD or something like.

[124] Everyone wants your approval too.

[125] Your inciting incident is coming in real too, and I really think it should be coming in half through real one.

[126] You do get that with test screenings in Los Angeles, even the broad, you know, whether, wherever it is in the greater Los Angeles area, it's a crowd with people who've read a couple of screenwriting books.

[127] They watched a couple of master classes.

[128] Maybe they made them some short films, at least.

[129] They're armed with opinions.

[130] I think that's what's really valuable about trying to take the films elsewhere.

[131] But look, almost anywhere that you show them, you learn something.

[132] I tell the story in the book Clinton I did, The Boys.

[133] The Boys.

[134] And which is really just about our childhood.

[135] And it starts off when we began acting.

[136] And my segment kind of ends with the first movie that I directed, which was Grand Theft Auto for Roger Corman.

[137] And that was my first test screening, but Roger Corman was so cheap that he wouldn't have a normal test screening.

[138] First, he wouldn't let us add any music.

[139] It was a black and white work print with just, and this was a car crash movie.

[140] You know, a lot of it was just kind of silent.

[141] It was terrible.

[142] I'm most impossible to watch.

[143] But Roger made a deal so that he could go to ASI, you know, the place where they test pilots and you have a dial.

[144] And people, People who are, if you're liking it, you turn the dial to the right.

[145] And if you don't like it, you turn it to the left.

[146] I think the system is more or less still in, you know, functions.

[147] For TV, right?

[148] For TV and TV commercials.

[149] A lot of like, you know, do I like the product or do I like the product?

[150] And on days when they didn't have a pilot or an episode or anything to show or a movie, it was only commercials.

[151] Roger was allowed to bring his movies in because people would be a little annoyed of all they did was sort of look at that commercials.

[152] So we walked in, we're going to test this movie.

[153] It's my first movie as a director.

[154] It's this kind of rude, as kind of as rude as you could be in 1977, kind of this rude car crash comedy, very low budget, kind of zany, certainly for a young audience.

[155] We walk in there, and I'm telling you, even in 1977, it was all blue -haired ladies.

[156] And, you know, and because the commercial was Geratol.

[157] And I said, Roger, this is not our audience.

[158] Roger.

[159] He said, a laugh is a laugh.

[160] And lo and behold, we did actually, in the screening.

[161] We learned something.

[162] And they did laugh.

[163] So I think people kind of can't help themselves.

[164] And they do sort of reveal themselves.

[165] Yeah, yeah.

[166] Yeah.

[167] Several of those ladies who were sitting right in front of us were laughing their heads off at like people getting kicked in the nuts and like the stuff that you would think.

[168] And when it was over, they stood up and they said, well, that was just rude and despicable.

[169] And walked out, but they'd been laughing, like, right along with everybody else.

[170] Yeah, I love that.

[171] Before I wrap up the screening thing, I just want to know, have you over your career had an ace in your sleeve?

[172] Is there someone you most reach out to?

[173] Like, you know they'll help you crack the solution.

[174] Do you have a peer?

[175] I have several writer pals who are just incredible.

[176] One is Lowell Gans, who did parenthood, night shift, splash, along with Bob Blue Mandel.

[177] He's just got a great editorial mind, fantastic.

[178] Another one is Akiva Goldsman, who is a writer -director, wrote Beautiful Mind, and had been working on the Star Trek series for the last couple of years and writing and directing.

[179] And David Kep, another screenwriting pal of mine.

[180] The guy I was texting with is Peter Morgan, who does The Crown.

[181] I've done a couple of his movies that he wrote.

[182] He's brilliant in the editing room, brilliant and willing to do this for me. So I've got some really bright friends who are willing to do that, and they don't hold back, but they actually do know what's practical.

[183] They've all directed as well.

[184] Yeah.

[185] Okay.

[186] So what's normally can be cumbersome for guests is that I want to talk about their childhood.

[187] Right.

[188] So it's kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

[189] Yeah, yes, my dad did that, right?

[190] Yeah.

[191] My mom did famously jump off a bridge, yes.

[192] But in your case, you are here, which is so easy, with a memoir of your childhood, which is right where I love to be talking to people about.

[193] Oh, well, here we go then.

[194] Yeah.

[195] Yeah, so first and foremost, I think, and I don't know if other people have this sense of you, but you have a Midwestern vibe.

[196] And I don't think it's just whatever you absorb from the Andy Griffith show.

[197] I think they're like, you have some kind of like Midwestern stock.

[198] I can feel it as a fellow Midwesterner.

[199] And in fact, yes, you were born in Oklahoma?

[200] I was born in Duncan, Oklahoma, which was my mom's hometown.

[201] They refer to themselves, or at least they used to during her childhood, which might have been more the boomtown days as the buckle on the oil belt.

[202] Also, the original home of Halliburton.

[203] Oh, no kidding.

[204] Yeah.

[205] And my dad was raised on farms back and forth between the Oklahoma and Kansas border, both Depression -era kids, neither Dust Bowl refugees, but they're products of that time.

[206] But both with this dream of being in the movies, basically.

[207] Somehow they made it happen.

[208] They had no right to make it happen, but they did.

[209] and opened the way from my brother, Clint, and I. Yeah, so their mutual interest in Hollywood predate them being together, and in fact, like, did they meet in an acting class?

[210] They did meet in an acting class at OU.

[211] And Dennis Weaver, you remember Dennis Weaver?

[212] He was McLeod, and before that, he was Chester on Gunsmoke, and he introduced them.

[213] Later, he starred as my brother's father in Gentle Bin.

[214] So Dennis played a big factor in our family history, but yeah dad just knew he didn't want to be a farmer we talk about that a little bit in the book and his relationship with his own dad which was dysfunctional but not cruel not mentally a little bit cruel but wasn't an abused kid he certainly wanted to parent in a different way and he he did he broke a kind of a cycle there but more than anything he had this amazing imagination and he decided he wanted to be a singing cowboy nobody told him he couldn't carry a tune i mean hopeless to the day he died We could all benefit from taking ourselves to a friends and family screening, getting a little feedback, just as people.

[215] And my mom loved it, and in fact, right out of high school, was accepted at the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts and went to New York.

[216] Family had a store, and they weren't wealthy, but they had enough money to be able to send somebody away to school.

[217] She had a horrible accident.

[218] It was hit by a truck, nearly died, came back home, recovered, and then decided, okay, I'm not going to be.

[219] back to New York, but I will go to OU, which was like, you know, 90 miles away from Duncan.

[220] And there, they met, yes, in a scene class of some sort, fell in love.

[221] My dad felt like she had two or three guys interested in her.

[222] And one thing kind of led to another, I describe it in more detail, and so does my brother Clint in the book.

[223] But they ran away, basically, and they kind of joined the circus, not the circus circus, but our circus and show business.

[224] And they came to Hollywood, and what level of success did they have?

[225] And how were they supporting you guys before you were starting to make money?

[226] Acting, although my mom was a typist at CBS in the days when they before copy machines and whatnot.

[227] And she could really type.

[228] I mean, she was a dynamo.

[229] And they would also make money typing envelopes for a penny apiece, for companies, businesses, and so forth.

[230] So they were constantly doing that sort of thing.

[231] But outside of right at the very, very beginning, kind of odd jobs working as a theater rusher or loading refrigerators and stuff like that that my dad did early on.

[232] He was able to make a living acting.

[233] Now, he never became a star.

[234] He was one of those guys that you sort of see his face and you recognize it from Chinatown or some sitcom or you just have just a sign felt.

[235] You've seen him.

[236] You don't know.

[237] You wouldn't necessarily know his name.

[238] And he did that all his life, but he was always a journeyman, always a journeyman, always struggling, always auditioning, always not getting as many parts as he wanted, playing the numbers game, and every 10 auditions, he'd maybe get a job, you know, that kind of thing.

[239] Yeah.

[240] And so how much older are you than Clint?

[241] Five years.

[242] So what's so nice when I look at your thing from the outside is you seem to have always been so supportive and loving and outwardly praiseful of Clint.

[243] My brother's five years older than me, and we're like in a different century or something.

[244] I think it says a lot about you that you would be five years older and also show such kindness to your brother.

[245] That's rare.

[246] Well, we'd wrestle and fight and carry on.

[247] And, of course, we're the only siblings in our family.

[248] My mom lost a child, stillborn baby before me. And that had an impact on her and on the family in a lot of ways that resonated over the years.

[249] But we were close.

[250] And also, we did move around quite a bit.

[251] And we were working and sometimes on location and sometimes together on the location.

[252] And these things really pulled us together.

[253] We're two very different dudes.

[254] Ideologically, in terms of personalities, he's much more of an extrovert.

[255] I'm an introvert.

[256] It's very different.

[257] But we just always loved each other.

[258] And dad would sort of remind us of that.

[259] When we were having these spats, and of course, I was the big brother.

[260] We were supposed to be cool and never hurt the little guy.

[261] So I had that responsibility, although he was hard to hurt.

[262] He was tough.

[263] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[264] He looks like he'd keep coming.

[265] He did.

[266] You always did.

[267] I mean, with a laugh, a maniacal laugh.

[268] I mean, you know, but he said, you guys are going to grow up and you have a chance to be friends for the rest of your life.

[269] And if you do that, that's going to be a great thing.

[270] Now, it turns out that he was estranged, really, eventually, and later in adulthood, with his younger brother.

[271] And so I think he, even then, I think he was feeling some distance and sort of a longing in a way.

[272] I would also imagine for him coming from Oklahoma where there's a kind of tight -knit community, there's a safety net, there's probably an occupation you would inherit from your family.

[273] And now you guys are out here and you have each other.

[274] I feels like the stakes would be higher if I was a parent coming from there landing here.

[275] I'd be like, you guys, you know, you got to look out for one another.

[276] We're in a crazy dog -eat -dog city here.

[277] They loved it and they both had this great outlook that while of course dad would have liked to have been Gary Cooper or something.

[278] And when mom retired from acting for a long time while we were being raised and then came back and kind of worked a ton on sitcoms, kind of like the, I called it the new little old lady on the sitcom block.

[279] She got all the neighbor parts and all that stuff.

[280] But they loved that they could actually make a living at this thing.

[281] And at a certain point, they just embraced that.

[282] But they never really fully fit in.

[283] My mom coined this phrase, sophisticated Hicks.

[284] And she, She felt like that's kind of what they had become.

[285] But they never were not Hicks, and they never had that kind of mentality, you know.

[286] You should stop by our house.

[287] It's a beautiful, very coveted one -acre flat lots that I've parked 65 vehicles in.

[288] Wow.

[289] So I can relate.

[290] Now, you started so young, so you get on Annie Griffith at six, or maybe even got it at five and started at six.

[291] Yeah, that's right.

[292] Was that instigated by you, or did your parents say you should do this?

[293] How did, where did the interest come from?

[294] I go into real detail in the book.

[295] The reason we did this about our childhood, by the way, came from, it really came from Tom Hanks because people have been asking me if I was going to do a book and would I ever do it?

[296] And I didn't really want to.

[297] I certainly wouldn't want to do some kind of tell -all thing, you know.

[298] That would interest me. And I just didn't feel it.

[299] And I was talking to Hanks one day on the set.

[300] And he said, just do your childhood.

[301] That's the strangest aspect of your life and the one people are most curious about.

[302] And it's great because you've had a terrific adult career.

[303] So, you know, like how did that happen?

[304] And he's the one who sold that idea.

[305] I put it away, still didn't do anything about it.

[306] And 18, 19 years later, our dad passed.

[307] And Clint and I were getting ready from the memorial.

[308] And in preparing the memorial and looking through the photos and doing all of that stuff, I told Clint what Hanks had said.

[309] And I said, should we do it together?

[310] Should we do our childhood?

[311] Because I can't separate mine from yours in a way.

[312] And it's a way to also help people understand the mostly good and not entirely wonderful things that our parents did.

[313] But mostly, they really helped us navigate this thing.

[314] And so how did that happen?

[315] If I were you, but I'm sensitive and fragile, like I would have been for many years, I would have been like, I know, I know I was on those shows.

[316] Right.

[317] I direct these movies.

[318] It takes two years of my life.

[319] It's very, very hard.

[320] Yeah.

[321] I know it's so exciting.

[322] I was on those shows, but onward.

[323] I've always felt that, and I feel it far less in the last decade or so than before now.

[324] Now I view it as an unbelievably rare relationship that I have with the business, and I certainly have with fans.

[325] And now I appreciate it.

[326] I'm going to freaking name up right now.

[327] I can't imagine you have a ton of friends.

[328] that wouldn't be named.

[329] Yeah, it's okay.

[330] It's your life.

[331] I did a documentary about the Beatles eight days a week, it was called.

[332] And when we were promoting it, and I spent time with Sir Paul and Ringo and family and et cetera, and got to know them a bit, interviewed them a few times.

[333] And once the movie was out, they both really liked it, which of course meant the world to me. And I was walking in a publicity situation just down a hallway with McCartney, and he said, I'm really glad people are like, I really like the film.

[334] I really like the film.

[335] And I don't think we could have done it up until about three or four years ago.

[336] Because up until then, I didn't want to talk about it.

[337] I would.

[338] I knew I had to, but I didn't want to.

[339] And I turned a corner and suddenly I want to.

[340] As I was beginning to work on the book with Clint, I felt that.

[341] So here's the book.

[342] But to really answer your question, our parents, they recognized through my dad directing the Summerstock productions and my mom helping out either acting or ushering or being the ticket woman or the wardrobe person or whatever she was doing to make these summer stock productions happen that I was picking up on all the dialogue when I was like around three and they thought that was adorable and so my dad cooked up a scene my dad had been in the Broadway version of mr. Roberts and also on the road with Henry Fonda and so that was his favorite show and he would often direct that show in summer stock and so he cooked up the scene.

[343] He would play the Henry Fonda character from the movie and the play, and I would play Inson Pulver, the Jack Lemon character from the movie.

[344] And we would do this scene and people would just get a huge kick out of it.

[345] And I kind of remember that.

[346] Well, can I quickly ask you, when you would do that, was that in front of five people or that was on stage?

[347] No, no, five people, living room entertainment.

[348] But I have like one memory of actually doing it in a living room and people laughing.

[349] And that felt good.

[350] It was fun.

[351] Of course.

[352] So dad sort of stumbled into this opportunity where he saw a bunch of kids being auditioned.

[353] And he just left a note saying, I have a son who's a fine actor.

[354] It's Rance Howard stopping by.

[355] He wanted the casting director to just have his phone number and remember his name.

[356] And they called back and they said, well, bring your son in.

[357] So he did.

[358] And we did this scene from Mr. Roberts together.

[359] They said, do you think he can learn anything else?

[360] And my dad said, I have no idea.

[361] But if Jack Lemming gets on the next movie.

[362] We're in great shape.

[363] We're golden.

[364] So anyway, they gave him some sides, and I did the scene, and he helped prepare me some very interesting ways, which again, I sort of go into more detail into the book.

[365] But that was the key is I think he turned out to be kind of a genius at teaching a young mind how to connect with a character, play act, not be like a performing animal that looks adorable and cute.

[366] It was actually understanding what was going on.

[367] And my brother was writing about it as well.

[368] We both really, really felt that.

[369] And so in that initial audition, I think it was revealed that I had an aptitude for it.

[370] I think it was also revealed that he had a kind of a gift for in a gentle Obi -Wan Kenobi kind of way, bringing that sort of thing out of me and then later did the same thing with Clint.

[371] Yeah.

[372] Yeah.

[373] Well, you must have thought this over the year.

[374] So my daughters are six and eight.

[375] And your job as a parent is to gently nudge them places.

[376] If you tell them where to go, they ain't going there.

[377] So you really learn how to work with these two actors, really.

[378] Yeah.

[379] And I have many times thought, like, oh, I think I could really get them to do something.

[380] I would never do it, but I could see where your father probably had a wonderful shorthand knowing exactly how to talk to you.

[381] Yeah.

[382] Once you got Andy Griffith, would he be around at all during?

[383] Oh, a lot.

[384] Oh, a lot.

[385] Well, he was a freelance actor.

[386] So if he got a job, he wasn't there.

[387] My mom would come out.

[388] He wasn't on a series.

[389] He wasn't getting 12 weeks on a movie.

[390] It was a week here and two days there.

[391] And otherwise, he was there.

[392] He and Andy, about the same age, hit it off.

[393] Oh, wow.

[394] Yeah.

[395] Andy later told me many years later, he said, you know, your dad came to me early on and said, they're writing Opie the way they write every sitcom kid.

[396] And the father -son relationship is this kind of wise -ass thing.

[397] I understand that works.

[398] But what have Opie actually respected his father?

[399] And he said, you know, he went to the writers and he said, let's write Opie, Andy, a little bit like Rance and Ronnie.

[400] So I'm always grateful for that, that Andy was willing to listen.

[401] And then my dad had the gumption to sort of actually speak up.

[402] Well, and also, if you think about what the appeal of that show is, I suppose there's many explanations, but one most certainly has to be like male wish fulfillment, that you would be a man respected in your community and your son would look up to you.

[403] Yeah.

[404] It's not something every dad has.

[405] Yeah.

[406] It certainly evolved.

[407] The other interesting thing about the show, which doesn't have that much to do with fathers and sons, is it is completely about a created family environment.

[408] Nobody's married.

[409] If you think about it, everybody lives in this town, but Barney doesn't have a wife, has a girlfriend, Andy is a widower, Aunt B is coming to help.

[410] It's all about people finding the love and support they need from others.

[411] And it's so unique in a lot of ways.

[412] Okay, so now I would imagine a lot of things are going to grow out of this crazy experience, crazy opportunity, one being, You're not in school.

[413] Sometimes you're in school.

[414] Your brother at some age probably is aspiring to do the same thing.

[415] He never aspired, but at age two, he was recruited.

[416] And he showed up in a funny little, with his cowboy hat, and they put a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at his hand.

[417] And he wound up being a character on the Andy Griffith Show for, he would play this character, Leon, who was constantly trying to get Don Knott's, Barney Fife, to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

[418] And he never, never said a word.

[419] but the regular every week director Bob Sweeney took over a show and brought Clint over into that and Clint was a regular on that show at age, I don't know, four, three, four, and could do it.

[420] And so when all these other elements start accompanying this experience, of course, this is your only experience, so obviously you have nothing to compare it to.

[421] It's not relative to anything else.

[422] But let me just say in my school, if I had disappeared.

[423] for like 12 weeks and I came back and I was super popular because TV, they would kill me. They would just kill me. Other boys would not have been able to stand that threat to their standing.

[424] There was some killing.

[425] I've had some deaths.

[426] Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

[427] We've all been there.

[428] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, strange rashes.

[429] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[430] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[431] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[432] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[433] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[434] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[435] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon music.

[436] What's up guys?

[437] It's your girl Kiki and my podcast is back with a new season and let me tell you it's too good and I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest.

[438] Okay, every episode I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[439] And I don't mean just friends.

[440] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[441] The list goes on.

[442] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[443] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[444] Going back to school was always a trial.

[445] And the very first year that I went sort of back to public school, you know, I think it was the second grade.

[446] It was really miserable.

[447] I was embarrassed.

[448] It was uncomfortable.

[449] Kids weren't necessarily kind.

[450] And I remember my parents saying, well, you know, I would go back in like in March or something, you know.

[451] So, I mean, there were only a few months left in the year.

[452] And they said, well, we can't get you into a private school or anything right now.

[453] So hang in.

[454] And if you don't want to go to Stevenson Elementary School in Burbank, California, next year, you won't have to.

[455] But just try to soldier through this if you can.

[456] And we talked about it.

[457] And dad had, he also, of course, my dad was kind of tough.

[458] He was kind and gentle.

[459] Was he in the Air Force?

[460] He was in the Air Force.

[461] but he also had really been a kind of an amateur boxer, kind of thought about being a pro, and had some skills and whatnot.

[462] He was always telling me, punch him in the nose, which I never did.

[463] I never took him up on that advice, but he and I wrestled all the time.

[464] We loved Channel 5 wrestling with Woe Nilly Dick Lane, who was, if you were from the era in California in the 50s and 60s, who Woe Nelly Dick Lane was.

[465] But I loved wrestling, and we wrestled all the time, and I would wrestle these kids.

[466] And, you know, fighting was wrestling.

[467] So you'd say, you want to fight.

[468] and you'd clash, and I could, I could do that.

[469] I could do that.

[470] Later, when people started punching and stuff, couldn't do that.

[471] You realized right away I was not, it's not a natural born fighter.

[472] Pugilist.

[473] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[474] But I did wind up in really enjoying that year.

[475] I got through the couple of weeks, and it wasn't a nightmare.

[476] And they said, do you want to, what do you think about next year when the time rolled around?

[477] And I said, no, I want to go back to Stevenson.

[478] So I stayed in the Burbank school system the whole time.

[479] went to John Burroughs, yeah?

[480] Yeah, John Burroughs High School, yeah, yeah.

[481] Yeah.

[482] That's where I met Cheryl, my wife, Cheryl.

[483] We met in Ed Burrough.

[484] You met her at?

[485] You're kidding.

[486] Yeah.

[487] Oh, my gosh.

[488] We talk about that in the book a little bit, too.

[489] And that's the high school that Glee is based off of.

[490] That's right, years later.

[491] And at the time, they weren't as tremendously competitive, but they had a good theater program, which I stayed away from.

[492] Of course, that's not what I wanted to do.

[493] I was co -editor of the paper, and I was on the basketball team.

[494] That's my thing.

[495] Now, what about the gals like you and the guys?

[496] were they threatened by you?

[497] I was pretty introverted, and I think I was a little bit, probably a little squelched socially by that sort of that weirdness that I would feel.

[498] So I was extremely tentative, so not a lot of dating.

[499] I had a few very close friends.

[500] Noel Salvatore is one of them.

[501] We were still close.

[502] We were the co -editors of the paper together.

[503] And met Cheryl, fell in love with Cheryl in our junior year.

[504] But I was tentative and cautious about these kids.

[505] I got along with them.

[506] They were teammates.

[507] But I don't think I really trusted them entirely.

[508] Well, you must have always felt other.

[509] You were just too famous to not feel other, I'm sure.

[510] Yeah.

[511] Which made life on sets pretty great because that's a place I was comfortable.

[512] We just interviewed Elijah Wood.

[513] And I did this movie, Zathurah, speaking of David Kep, with two great young actors, Josh Hutcherson and Jonah Bobo, and I would talk a lot with his family.

[514] The families had tons of concerns, as you would expect.

[515] But in some weird way, I was like, oh, man, I understand their fear, but at the same time, here you have this seven -year -old and a 12 -year -old in an environment where they're applauded when they're emotionally available, and they're applauded when they're sensitive.

[516] And I was like, I mean, in some way, this is like Eden for a nice, sensitive kid Yeah.

[517] To be respected and celebrated for being emotionally available.

[518] I think it means so much, first of all, for any child to feel competency, to understand that in a genuine way, there is something they're capable of doing well.

[519] And I don't think it has to be show business or sports, but I think if you can help your kid find that thing which they can actually and learn it, practice it, to the extent that you actually can feel competent.

[520] I think that's a huge confidence builder that means the world.

[521] We both benefited from that.

[522] It makes the fall a little bit harder when you get to the awkward years and suddenly that environment that you found so welcoming is kind of closed off to you, which really happens to most kids, especially boys, when they kind of go through what they call the awkward years, where they also, you know, the rules.

[523] If you're under 18, your hours are limited and you can't do them much night.

[524] shooting you can work but you can't do as much so if you're 16 they'd rather hire any production would rather hire somebody over 18 who can work in 16 hours and not be cut off at 8 so that's where a lot of trauma occurs because there's at that very raw vulnerable period in your life you're also suddenly being you can't help but feel rejected no matter how much you might understand it on some intellectual level or somebody might explain it to you, you feel like I thought I had a place there.

[525] Right.

[526] That would be, I think, the most nerve -wracking is like all of us, even when you're nine and 14, you have an identity and the identity includes that thing.

[527] And then to recognize, oh, this thing that's always been there, wait, that cannot be there.

[528] And then who am I, if I'm not that, now I re -enter this whole, you go from knowing what you want to do to going, what else do I want to You know, it's very scary.

[529] And are there two different experiences?

[530] Like, is Andy Griffith one experience for you?

[531] And then Happy Days is another one due to either maturity.

[532] Yeah, so like what level did you want to be on either show?

[533] Well, again, I never aspired to anything around the end at Griffith's show other than to be a part of it, which they allowed me to be to a very kind of mature level, certainly by the time at the end of the show, by the time I was 13 and 14, I was a part of this cast.

[534] Happy Days was very different.

[535] Tonally, it was very different.

[536] I was handling my own career.

[537] There were career decisions.

[538] There were some shifts in dynamics that occurred.

[539] My character was sort of the lead.

[540] And Henry Winkler's character just blew up and sort of took over, which was fantastic within our little unit, because we viewed the whole thing as an ensemble sort of experience.

[541] And Henry's the most gracious guy.

[542] And we were almost immediately great friends.

[543] to the point of almost feeling like brothers.

[544] I mean, within almost no time.

[545] And so that was always fine.

[546] But the way the executives perceived me, the kind of feedback I was getting from the press, kind of always trying to stir up anxiety, creatively, all of these things I had to face as an adult.

[547] And, of course, there were no politics.

[548] There was nothing like that around the Andy Griffith show.

[549] That was a childhood experience.

[550] This was a grown -up experience.

[551] This was the real world of show business, even at an elevated level where you're the star, you're the top -billed guy on a hit show.

[552] And yet, it's still this complicated emotional mind field.

[553] What do you do about that?

[554] And I also had a push and pull because I had such a fire in the belly to become a director.

[555] And I'd actually left film school to do the show.

[556] And so I wondered whether I was taking the money and short -changing my dream.

[557] There were other factors there.

[558] Okay, well, if you don't understand the great appeal of your personal story, which I have to imagine you do, let me tell you from the outside.

[559] What's so intriguing, I believe the reason people will always want to talk about this with you is you took a job that's impossible to get and impossible to achieve that, and you did it twice, and then you left.

[560] And so you must recognize, like, you're taking something.

[561] that is almost impossible to acquire and achieve, and you're saying goodbye to it.

[562] I mean, you actively left that show and you could have continued on for another few years.

[563] And so that act of conviction about what you wanted to do and who you ultimately were, it steers every fear in us we could possibly have.

[564] We have the courage to do that.

[565] You happen to be an example of someone who listened to themselves, and it worked out beautifully.

[566] And I do wonder, even as I read about you over again today, thinking, he must not have the same fear of financial insecurity that I have, because I don't know that I could have, just financially speaking, walked away from security.

[567] You know, it's really interesting.

[568] Even though my parents were of the Depression era, they were not very materialistic.

[569] Now, they were not hippies, but stuff didn't really matter to them beyond a certain level.

[570] level.

[571] They had a kind of a mindset, which is why I think they always took joy in the fact that they owned their own home.

[572] That was it.

[573] Yeah.

[574] Done.

[575] American Dream.

[576] Yeah.

[577] And even around the Andy Griffith Show and later, I mean, they were open with me about what I was earning.

[578] And at a certain point, I was quite clearly out earning my father.

[579] Right.

[580] Which, again, I think he handled incredibly well.

[581] But I think they sort of armed me with a sense.

[582] Also, I saved my money.

[583] So by the time I was making that, decision about happy days.

[584] I had a bank account.

[585] It wasn't a retirement in a circumstance, but I had a bank account.

[586] And that was a tremendous luxury.

[587] Yeah.

[588] So what kind of dynamics other than like so obviously social, school, all those things get complicated?

[589] It sounds like your father navigated this almost perfectly, but you certainly hear of parents who just can't help but have jealousy over their kids.

[590] Realizing their dreams.

[591] And I imagine when it has, happens probably isn't even just like it doesn't probably start with jealousy it probably is triggered by witnessing the kid maybe not be grateful for it or being quote lazy about it like I think the frustration of do you know what you fucking got I wanted this forever or you've got to take this like I can't imagine escaping that yeah I can't imagine it either and yet it was my experience which is I think one of the reasons that I think we both wanted to do the book is there's an outlier story here.

[592] And it's not just my dad.

[593] It's also my mom.

[594] And it's even their unlikely romance and the life they had.

[595] And somehow these sophisticated Hicks kind of navigated this thing for us required a lot of sacrifice on their part.

[596] They didn't bank this money.

[597] They took a very nominal manager fee, far less than a real manager would ever charge.

[598] And decision after decision, and at least the major ones were kind of remarkable, and yet they were flying by the seat of their pants.

[599] It was just instinct.

[600] It was just some kind of an instinct.

[601] Did you and your brother have a competitive nature or any jealousy or anything like that?

[602] I only felt it a little bit later, and it was kind of when I was going through my dry period where people were not casting me so much and the Andy Griffith show was over and other things were not so great.

[603] and I was trying to decide what my adult identity was going to be and I wanted to be a director and I'm feeling moody and crappy and all that stuff.

[604] He was getting like tremendous parts one after another.

[605] And once or twice we went up for the same thing and he got him.

[606] Oh.

[607] It's like the Williams sisters.

[608] Just for a brief moment.

[609] But the age difference actually really benefited us.

[610] Right.

[611] And so that wasn't ever a problem.

[612] and Clint's, I don't know if you know him, Daxe, have you ever worked with him?

[613] I've never met him, but most comedians are obsessed with your brother.

[614] I can't explain why I just inherited it.

[615] I went to the groundlings, and there was a show called The Clint Howard Show.

[616] Is that right?

[617] Clint Howard.

[618] Yes.

[619] And then there was a Clint Howard band.

[620] People are obsessed with Clint Howard.

[621] He's a very unique guy.

[622] The way we wrote the book is I wrote, Clint wrote, we were interviewed by this guy David Camp, He helped us collect thoughts.

[623] He'd do a little writing and organizing.

[624] He'd send it back to us and rewrite it.

[625] And Clint's voice just comes out at you in the book.

[626] It's offbeat.

[627] It's very particular.

[628] There's a wisdom in it.

[629] He's lived a lot of life.

[630] And through it, a kind of gained a kind of clarity that even though he's my younger brother, sometimes I'll lean on him for advice because he just sees the world in a different way and voices it in a different way.

[631] And he's just a character and he was like that from by the time he could walk he just had a completely different vibe great athlete all kinds of things can i postulate as to why as someone who's five years younger than my brother which is when you're clint and i right they're doing it correctly right the correct route is taken uh -huh literally yeah like what am i going to eat with my mouth closed you've been doing that for four years and he's going to pat me on the back it's not exciting I've got to fucking throw my dish on the ground and eat like a dog and make everyone laugh.

[632] You know, so you're already doing everything the correct way.

[633] So I'm not going to get attention doing it the right way.

[634] I'm only going to get attention with a novel approach to anything mundane.

[635] He found that novelty.

[636] And he's made a life out of it and a career.

[637] I'm going to argue one other point.

[638] And you have four kids.

[639] So you must have noticed this.

[640] I noticed this with our second child, which is she didn't give a fuck about consequences.

[641] And I couldn't figure out, where does she get this fortitude?

[642] Yeah.

[643] And what I realize is like, if I give her a negative reaction to something, she has an older sister.

[644] She's gotten 6 ,000 negative responses by breakfast from the older sibling.

[645] So guess what?

[646] She's like over it.

[647] Oh, you're disappointed too?

[648] Okay.

[649] No big deal.

[650] Yeah, everyone's disappointed.

[651] I'm over it.

[652] Yeah.

[653] Yeah.

[654] There's so much that happens.

[655] Yeah, definitely.

[656] Well, it's fascinating.

[657] This is a digression, but Cheryl and I have twins.

[658] They're grown women, and ones have three kids.

[659] But I learned the most watching these two kids grow up together.

[660] Are they fraternal or identical?

[661] Fraternal.

[662] So they're always just sisters and close, but raised in the same environment, totally different attitudes and outlooks.

[663] And it's definitely, I'm going to take this space, you go in that lane, or you're in that lane, I'm going in that lane.

[664] and you could see it from jump.

[665] So I think what you're saying just makes a world of sense.

[666] I have to try it out on Clint.

[667] Yeah, a family's a band.

[668] So if you're already playing trumpet and dad's playing drums, I got to play the harmonical.

[669] What other instrument is left for me?

[670] I want to say it kind of maybe there's a bit of grace in that you've been able to probably have more control over your career than Clinton has.

[671] Yeah, sure, yeah.

[672] And you're the older brother, I actually could speak personally about this, which is my sister's an actress, and she's fantastic.

[673] I've put her in a couple things, and she's really dynamite.

[674] And moving here from Michigan, to anyone in Michigan, to know that she's been in TV shows and in movies with many, many lines and did great and done press, that's a fucking home run.

[675] Right.

[676] But I'm her brother.

[677] Yeah, yeah.

[678] It's relative to me, which really sucks for her.

[679] Yeah.

[680] But the age helps now, I think.

[681] If I were the younger sibling, it'd be harder for her.

[682] Look, Clint's, again, sure, but although he never projects that, and maybe because he sort of is following in dad's footsteps in that way.

[683] Also, I think he always felt like I'm working too fucking hard.

[684] Sure.

[685] And it's not really worth it.

[686] And he loves it and he does it, but no great Jones to direct or run the show.

[687] And would he like bigger parts, make a little more dough?

[688] Sure, maybe.

[689] But he's kind of got his life together.

[690] And so...

[691] Well, you've missed some things.

[692] Again, I have a couple friends that are in the stratosphere, and it's a very specific life, and it's pretty isolating, and it's pretty lonely, and you're gone a lot.

[693] And so when you're on the outside, you can also recognize, like, oh, yeah, I want the house, but I certainly don't want to be gone for eight of the next 12 years.

[694] Yeah.

[695] I think he's always sort of had that feeling that, sure, he loves it, but he doesn't love it the way I do.

[696] I have a craving and a kind of ambition that's beyond monetary.

[697] It's something else.

[698] And maybe it is, I think it goes to self -analyze.

[699] I think it does go back to that satisfaction that I felt and comfort around a set versus the real world.

[700] Clint was always very comfortable in the real world, far more so than I was.

[701] Got a long grade in school.

[702] So I think the fact that the outside world was of more interest to him and he was willing to take more risks in it probably made him not want to get lost on a sound stage and stay there more or less forever.

[703] Definitely.

[704] Until someone comes and wheels you out, takes you to hospice.

[705] Yeah.

[706] Can I ask you a few fun smoldering questions?

[707] First of all, I think we're on about 380 interviews in this first time I've interviewed a boss, former boss.

[708] This is kind of novel.

[709] This is exciting in that way.

[710] Tell people about that in case they don't know.

[711] Yeah.

[712] So, of course, Ron directed the most amazing movie ever, Parenthood, who I grew up loving and watching.

[713] And then I was lucky enough to be on a television show version of that movie.

[714] Right.

[715] And then through that, I got to meet Ron a couple times.

[716] And then I even auditioned for you at one point while on the show.

[717] Yes.

[718] And you were such a kind person to audition for, for a movie.

[719] He was directing that Vince Vaughn was in.

[720] Channing Tatum got it.

[721] And you know what?

[722] That's all right with me. I'm friends with Channing Tatum, you know.

[723] Yeah, there's a lot of people.

[724] That sort of introduced him to comedy.

[725] Crosby, Braverman.

[726] Yeah.

[727] Well, you were great on the show.

[728] And Brian Grazer, I mean, we're just fans.

[729] You want us over in a big way.

[730] That was a terrific experience because we didn't have to do much, if anything, except support Jason.

[731] And he took the format, the names, the number of offspring, which he felt like, because when he first came in, Brian and I both said, why parenthood?

[732] you just make up a show?

[733] He'd already done Friday Night Lights with Brian for a few seasons.

[734] And he was great.

[735] We would support him in anything that he wanted to do.

[736] He said, there's something that you guys and Gans and Mandel just got right about that.

[737] And it's a title people recognize deservedly.

[738] But I want to take it another way.

[739] It's not for laughs.

[740] There's comedy.

[741] But I have this other idea and this set of problems and a dynamic within the family.

[742] And if you'll give me that freedom, I really think the framework will accept it.

[743] And he was so right about it.

[744] And it was just great to see it the way it flourished.

[745] Well, I think what you achieved in the film, we wouldn't call parenthood a dromedy.

[746] That's not the right ratio, maybe a comma, whatever the fuck, you know, comedy first, but drama, real life stuff.

[747] Yeah.

[748] Real emotion.

[749] And so in some sense, the brand, the parenthood really meant that.

[750] It meant this fun, messy, real.

[751] And so he did, you gave him that cornerstone to start on it.

[752] I think it allowed him to let you parachute into the show without much explanation, which I think is great.

[753] Yeah.

[754] By the way, if you took the screenplay of parenthood and sort of took it around to studios today, nobody would do it because it was kind of dark at time.

[755] There were minutes without laughs, minutes without laughs and real discomfort.

[756] And then when the laughs came, they came hard because, you know, you were, you broke.

[757] You were ready.

[758] Well, I don't know.

[759] What a fucking crazy gift.

[760] I mean, you would never to connect these dots because you're not busy thinking about me, but I spent a ton of time thinking about myself.

[761] And the notion that, you know, you do that movie when you do it, that leads to this show that, for me, buys me, like, another two decades as an actor, truly.

[762] Like, I got to do something I had never done and opened up all these things.

[763] Did you first direct on the show or had you directed elsewhere?

[764] Yeah, I'd made a $5 ,000 movie.

[765] and then a million -dollar car chase movie and then directed on the show.

[766] I see.

[767] All right, yeah.

[768] Yeah, and I think even, I said this to you when we got together, but we share this in common in that you directed Grand Theft Auto virtually right out of the gates.

[769] I mean, and if I could brag for us, shooting cars is not easy.

[770] No. Count on a couple hands how many people have done it right.

[771] It is not easy to make cars look like they're going fast.

[772] That's all true.

[773] And years later, when I was doing Rush, which was very realistic, Formula One drama based on real relationship of rivalry in the sport in the 70s.

[774] I found myself going back to Grand Theft Auto and remembering a lot of little tricks and things like that.

[775] Oh, well, I watched your movie prior to making my car chase movie, and I watched Duel, and you kind of recognize, let's nerd out for one second.

[776] You can see the talent awaiting because some of his shots, the way he showed you how cars were going fast, were so inventive even for his first movie.

[777] Yeah.

[778] People haven't seen Spielberg TV movie Duel, which, by the way, stars Dennis Weaver, the man who introduced my mother and father.

[779] You get it because I haven't watched it in 15 or 20 years, but the last time I watched it, it still rocked.

[780] And it's intense.

[781] I stole shots in 2012 from that.

[782] There's a way to stay in the backseat of a car.

[783] Yeah.

[784] When you're in the backseat of a car, if that's your point of view of something, you're just instantly more terrified because you know you don't have the steering.

[785] That's right.

[786] Yeah, yeah.

[787] He had something that young director.

[788] Turned up.

[789] He knew a thing or two already.

[790] As I go through these questions, I've never asked you in the times we've been around one another.

[791] First and foremost, just for me, I mean, night shift.

[792] What a special movie night shift is.

[793] That was Gans and Mandel.

[794] And Lowell had been a head writer and showrunner at a certain point.

[795] I'm probably Gary Marshall never fully relinquished that credit.

[796] But Lowell was really responsible for Happy Days for a couple of key years.

[797] And we became great pals, but more than anything, this guy was just kind of remarkably talented.

[798] Now, remind me, where is Michael Keaton at before night shift?

[799] He was an up -and -coming comic who was taking off, but he was acting in a show with Jim Belushi called Working Stiffs, also on the Paramount Lot.

[800] And it only went one season, but it turned out that Lowell had directed the pilot or the first episode or something like that and knew Michael and when we were doing night shift which was Brian grazer's idea that was the beginning of imagine really that was the beginning of our I mean it wasn't an imagined project we didn't form the company for another five six years but that was the beginning of the partnership and we couldn't get movie stars couldn't get movie stars to be in it they just didn't trust me you know and and we couldn't get them script was good studio was behind it couldn't get stars it almost died and we went to to Henry Winkler, and I said, you can play either part.

[801] And the studio will green like the movie if you say yes, because they can get a pre -buy from CBS.

[802] And he was, you know, the biggest television star in the world at that point.

[803] Movies, he hadn't had any blockbuster hits, but he was doing movies.

[804] And he said yes.

[805] And he said, I want to play the straight man, though, because I feel like if I play this crazy person, it's just sort of a cousin to Fonzie.

[806] And I don't want to do that.

[807] I want to play.

[808] I know this guy.

[809] I grew up on the southwest side.

[810] I know this guy.

[811] Well, really quick.

[812] Ironically, does anyone even know at that point that Henry Winkler really isn't the fond?

[813] I mean, has that been revealed?

[814] No one even knew, right?

[815] Not really.

[816] Well, he'd been in a TV movie, a serious TV movie that was about the weather underground.

[817] He'd done a couple of comedies, so he'd done a few things away.

[818] But he is a sweet, sweet man. Oh, and highly intelligent and a real artist and a remarkable guy, which is so great that Barry is such an amazing show and he's so amazing in it because he's still going and you're still getting to witness what he has to offer.

[819] But anyway, once he wasn't going to do that part, but we had a green light, Lowell said if we didn't need a movie star and since Bill Murray and Chevy Chase all passed, if we just want somebody who's really fucking funny, this guy Michael Keaton is on fire.

[820] Nobody knows him.

[821] The show's canceled, but he would kill.

[822] And he came in and just won it.

[823] He won him with the audition, and he was amazing.

[824] And the studio was so terrified.

[825] They wanted Brian and I to fire him after about three days.

[826] And I said, are you kidding me?

[827] And they said, he's all over the place.

[828] And I said, yes, but that's what coverage is for.

[829] I'm going to take that.

[830] The first reading when he walks in the door, dynamite.

[831] The take falls apart, but the first reading, dynamite, the middle.

[832] Look at that two shot.

[833] And I had to like, I mean, I was 27.

[834] years old having to walk these veterans through how we could get a comedy performance out of this that was brilliant and I was right oh my I can't tell you even like within four days ago I had a kid in the car asked me if I could turn the stereo up and I said I can turn it up I can turn it down I can put it in back and put it in front make it reverberate okay and then another thing I have to ask you about because I wonder if this kind of thing percolates up to you do you know there's a pretty big fascination with Brimley being 49 in Cacoon?

[835] Yes.

[836] Look, I saw the movie as a kid.

[837] He was a grandpa.

[838] I'm fucking 47 in a minute.

[839] Like, what are we talking about?

[840] I know.

[841] No, he was like 15 to 20 years younger than everybody else.

[842] Yeah.

[843] Did you have reservations about that?

[844] Or did you, like, how did that happen?

[845] Oh, I met him.

[846] The producers liked him for it.

[847] He was very good.

[848] He'd been great in the natural and a couple of things that I'd seen.

[849] tender mercies, and we did a test.

[850] I mean, he came in, basically, he had dyed his hair white.

[851] He was, you know, bald on top, and he just dyed the fringe.

[852] And he said, with a little makeup, I can get there, I can play it.

[853] And we just believed him, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made, even though he was pretty crumaginally and difficult.

[854] But talk about improv, you know, without being jokey or reaching for comedy, although he could be very funny, or straining in any way, he turned that movie on its ear by being improvisationally brilliant and in rehearsals I identified this and totally ran with it and it scared the hell out of everybody else because that's not what they did well nobody did that then well not as much, not so much but he was just great and there's a famous scene or fairly famous scene where he's fishing with his grandson and he's talking about he's probably going to to go up on a spaceship and he's telling the kid and it was a scene that was written in a bedroom kind of like a sitcom scene or a walton's episode or something and he said how about if it was just me and the boy fishing and i said okay we can try that yeah i mean i had to talk the studio into it and everything but and i said but i want to just talk to the boy he'll know the lines but i'd like to just talk to the boy and i said okay just as long as if we need it we can go in and do the scripted version and I sort of had to negotiate these things with him because he was pretty prickly.

[855] Sure, sure.

[856] And I went in and where I basically said, okay, we're going to, we're betting on his improvs and we'll get three cameras and we'll do it like a TV show.

[857] We'll do wide, medium, tight and tighter because I knew he wouldn't want to do a lot of takes and it was improvised.

[858] And that's what we did.

[859] And it was this beautiful.

[860] And he gave it to you.

[861] Oh my God.

[862] And I mean, it was a real lesson.

[863] It was a real lesson for me also to take a risk and trust.

[864] an actor, even though we weren't like buds.

[865] We annoyed one another in a lot of ways.

[866] But this thing we agreed upon.

[867] I thought it really changed the whole movie because suddenly everybody had to not be in a sort of a sci -fi comedy, but instead be in a movie that was grounded.

[868] Had real moments.

[869] And had real moments grounded in reality.

[870] To the point where he didn't like that there were aliens.

[871] He said, why do they need all these aliens in spaceship?

[872] I said, well, that's kind of entire movie.

[873] Yeah, but how about if we just talk to each other?

[874] Well, I like the talking to each other, but we need the aliens.

[875] Let me sit down with an extra thick bowl of Quakers.

[876] Talk to these Martians.

[877] Straighten them out.

[878] Let me take the Martians fishing.

[879] To get him to actually look at the sea stand with the tennis ball on top of it that was the alien, I had to get people to play them.

[880] And he would look at people, which I kind of get, you know.

[881] Yeah.

[882] kind of gap.

[883] Yeah.

[884] Look, whatever takes to be great.

[885] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[886] So that kind of leads me to the last question I want to ask you about your career.

[887] I would view this as potentially like a double -edged sword or a great blessing you have, and also perhaps a curse, which is you became so successful and such a great director that you had access to virtually everyone, or at least a good shot at everyone.

[888] Which also means you worked with most people in, like, the height of their powers.

[889] And so you've worked with a ton of people that had most of the leverage and probably idiosyncratic personalities and probably too much attention.

[890] How have you navigated those huge personalities and gotten what you've wanted?

[891] Having met you, knowing you're a bit of an introvert, you probably don't love getting in screaming matches.

[892] No. How have you done that?

[893] What is your secret?

[894] I have had great experiences with actors.

[895] and I think they just trust me. And early on, I think I'm able to earn their trust, and now I have a good resume to go with it.

[896] I'm able to use logic.

[897] When we're having a difference of opinion, we can work it out.

[898] It's only a short period of time.

[899] We're meant to do this thing together.

[900] And I've never not been able to get an actor to try what I needed to try, but I've always been very willing to go down his or her road as well.

[901] And so I don't get hung up on digging in.

[902] I try to find their path to the thing I need as much as possible and as wordlessly as possible unless some people want to overanalyze in which case I can participate in that.

[903] But a lot of people want to just be guided gently.

[904] And I remember very early on I was just beginning to make a lot of short films.

[905] I was probably 18, 19.

[906] And I was making sound 16mm.

[907] and they weren't very good.

[908] The acting wasn't very good.

[909] And yet I was getting professionals to be in my stuff.

[910] And I went off when I did a television movie.

[911] Chloris Lechman starred in it and Sissy Spacic was in it.

[912] It was written by Landford Wilson, a great playwright and from a Tennessee Williams story.

[913] It was a really good piece.

[914] And it was called The Migrants.

[915] Terrific television director who did some movies as well, Tom Grice.

[916] And we shot this in like 12, 13 days.

[917] And on the plane flight back, I thought, God, he's one of the best directors I've ever worked with.

[918] And then I realized he really only gave me about three directions.

[919] Really?

[920] Which was always bailing me out or answering a question.

[921] And he had cast me without an audition.

[922] There was a level of trust.

[923] And I began to apply that to the short films I was making and kind of make the actor -director thing a collaboration.

[924] Yeah.

[925] And not a, you're my puppet.

[926] I need you to do this thing.

[927] is kind of what I was doing before.

[928] But I try to create this environment where they know I'm there to back them up.

[929] I'm also a safety net.

[930] And I'm not going to agree with everything that they say.

[931] But when people realize that you're very eager to say yes, they're much more willing to accept no. Uh -huh.

[932] You're not just a hater.

[933] You're not just there to - No, no, you know, and over -controlling or anything like that.

[934] You earn your nose.

[935] But I also love rehearsal, which.

[936] which is a place where you get to sort of work through how you're going to get on with this.

[937] How am I going to bring out their best?

[938] How am I going to create the environment where they can feel confident and really sore?

[939] And it's always a kind of an imperfect process.

[940] Some days are better than others.

[941] But I love it.

[942] Still love it.

[943] I'm not asking for any names, but has anyone had the power to ruin an experience for you?

[944] Yeah.

[945] Or color it.

[946] I can't say anything's ever been ruined because I'm proud of the films.

[947] And if I'm not happy with the entire film, there's always like there's that scene or that sequence or something that I feel like, wow, we really nailed that.

[948] But there are some people that wasn't a great collaboration.

[949] But there's no one, probably no one I've worked with who I patently wouldn't work with again.

[950] Like if exactly the right circumstance came along, I would say, sure.

[951] Why?

[952] Because we owe it to the audience and we owe it to the story to make it great.

[953] Okay, other director nerd question.

[954] What mistake do you make over and over and over again as a filmmaker?

[955] Oh.

[956] Is there one?

[957] Yes, there are far too many to mention.

[958] But because I do like to try to create a safety net for actors, and as an actor, I did not like to be rushed.

[959] I don't often enough say, pace it up.

[960] I don't often enough go in and say, let's do that, but 30 % tighter.

[961] Yeah, yeah, twice speed.

[962] Twice to speed.

[963] So sometimes it forces me into edits when the performance is cooking, but it's just not unfolding in the right tempo.

[964] And I kick myself for that.

[965] And sometimes with the staging, same thing.

[966] And I'll box myself into having to edit in a certain way because I didn't just get them to move quicker or stage it more simply or something like that because I was going for something that was kind of honest and relaxed and that the actor really connected with.

[967] So it's kind of, in the grand scheme of things, I think that kind of rapport with the actors and seeking that kind of honesty and comfort benefits films more than it hurts them.

[968] But I do kick myself every single film in the editing room for that sort of thing.

[969] And now what percentage of your focus is visual versus performance?

[970] Do you think you could give a ratio to that?

[971] It's always tilts more toward, I would just say, the character more than the – and so sometimes that's getting the right visual around that.

[972] character at that time.

[973] This is something I had to learn.

[974] Because in the beginning, I was just all about, there's one thing you can count on.

[975] That's a great close -up of an actor.

[976] I still feel that way.

[977] You know, that's like the greatest weapon in the arsenal is a well -written scene, an actor who can play it, and a good close shot of that person.

[978] You kind of can't go wrong.

[979] But as I've gone along, I've learned that there are other ways to build that character and support that performance.

[980] And sometimes they're a tiny figure on a horizon.

[981] And that's as powerful.

[982] And so a lot of my work as a director, and it continues to be, is trusting audiences.

[983] It's not a TV show.

[984] You don't have to spoon feed.

[985] You can be a little more elusive.

[986] And I mean, I learned this rapidly, on Apollo 13, and I've continued to sort of work with it more and more and trust it more and more as I've gone along, just how smart audiences are and how ready they are to put the pieces together.

[987] Even the blue hairs.

[988] Even the blue hairs, even though afterwards, they'll say that was disgusting, but yeah, they will have connected with it.

[989] The movie I'm editing right now is called 13 Lives, and it's about the rescue of the soccer team in Thailand a few years ago.

[990] What an amazing experience.

[991] It's great international cast of Thai and Western actors, 25 or 30 percent of it is in Thai.

[992] We focus a lot on the rescue team, which were foreigners, mostly Westerners.

[993] But it was a great adventure, although hampered a little bit by COVID, but still actors you'd know, Vigo Mortensen and Joel Edgerton and Colin Farrell.

[994] Yeah.

[995] Good luck getting performances out of those things.

[996] It was a real drag.

[997] And, man, they went all in.

[998] They just so invested in trying to get it right.

[999] And, of course, the Thai cast felt like this was their opportunity to reflect what this story meant to them.

[1000] Yeah.

[1001] You know, as a country and as a people.

[1002] Man, it makes me really want to spend time in Thailand.

[1003] Great people.

[1004] Great people.

[1005] Yeah.

[1006] I was talking to one actor at one point.

[1007] I said, man, are you doing okay?

[1008] The actor playing this coach who was trapped in the cave with the boys.

[1009] and he'd lost a lot of weight, and he just looked terrible.

[1010] And I said, are you doing okay?

[1011] You're here barefoot.

[1012] It's not eating.

[1013] Are you holding up all right?

[1014] And he said, oh, yeah, we usually work 18 hours a day on films.

[1015] This is really easy.

[1016] They're tough.

[1017] They're tough.

[1018] They're tough.

[1019] Have you allowed yourself to float up to 30 ,000 feet and recognize that you occupied some pretty significant chapters in the story of Hollywood?

[1020] you were in an era where TV was going to dethrone movies.

[1021] And that looked like it was happening.

[1022] And then you were part of the directorial efforts that brought film back and defeated TV in some sense.

[1023] And here we are now.

[1024] We're going back into a phase where TV's destroying movies.

[1025] You've played in all these time periods.

[1026] Is that wild?

[1027] It's wild.

[1028] And I think about it.

[1029] And I think about a couple of things.

[1030] When I was young, a lot of the actors I worked with talked about their act.

[1031] And they still had a vaudeville mentality, which was, you can be in the movies, you can be on radio, you can be on TV, but you always, you better have your act.

[1032] Because that was the meal ticket.

[1033] That was the one, that was the insurance policy.

[1034] You go up to the cat skills and do a show or something.

[1035] That's right.

[1036] Well, vaudeville died, per se, that yielded stand -up comedy, that yielded Cirque du Soleil, that yielded touring rock and roll shows.

[1037] And so I feel like that storytelling has an issue.

[1038] I was talking to Martin Scorsese, here I am name dropping again.

[1039] Keep doing it.

[1040] We love it.

[1041] You know, about these changes and so forth.

[1042] And he said, yeah, but there were decades, well, not decades, but 15 years where you saw a movie by putting in a nickel and cranking the crank.

[1043] And that was the medium.

[1044] And so, you know, it was shocking when you could go do it this other way.

[1045] And some people really liked the crank still.

[1046] Sure, get a little workout.

[1047] And so it's still a new medium.

[1048] and it's these moving pictures and the way they're delivered, it keeps changing.

[1049] One other thing that informs my attitude toward all of it.

[1050] When I was doing cocoon, we cast a local actor in St. Petersburg, Florida, who had been an actor, but now he was 96 years old, and I still drove himself to work.

[1051] We found him to the Rotary Club or something.

[1052] He was an active guy, Charlie.

[1053] Charlie had been an actor.

[1054] Well, when was the last time Charlie acted?

[1055] But 1916 or 17.

[1056] And Charlie had been too old to be drafted into World War I, but had been an actor in the silent, early silent movie days on the East Coast when it was New Jersey and New York.

[1057] Right.

[1058] And when it moved to L .A., he didn't want to move to L .A. And it kind of died on the East Coast.

[1059] He went to Florida, became a salesman, and that was that.

[1060] And I said, so, wow, this must be kind of wild for you to see what movies are like today.

[1061] compared to what you experienced.

[1062] And he said, no, it's kind of the same bullshit.

[1063] He said, the biggest difference now is, he said, the only difference is that in those days, we didn't have to stop the card game if you weren't in the scene when they were shooting.

[1064] You didn't have to shut up.

[1065] Now with the sound, you have to stop every time you're doing a tape.

[1066] You can't play pinnacle.

[1067] So the putting on the show, the getting, it told, it really hasn't changed.

[1068] And yes, I've seen a lot.

[1069] And technology, my daughter Bryce is now directing episodes of Mandalorian in what they call the volume.

[1070] It's a whole new technological approach in a way.

[1071] And yet, none of it is that different from what I remember at age five when I was just learning about the medium and the way it worked.

[1072] It was still about breaking these moments down, understanding them, recording them, and presenting it.

[1073] And it is just not all that different.

[1074] Yeah.

[1075] And I got to add, if I divorce myself from my personal feelings about this industry, and I just look what was available to me at night on television.

[1076] Yeah.

[1077] It's great.

[1078] It's the high watermark creativity.

[1079] I mean, we're living at the fucking apex of, you know.

[1080] I do not disagree.

[1081] And I think it only benefits creative people, audiences.

[1082] It's tough if you're the bank, if you're the studio, If you're the distribution system, right at this moment, it's hard to know how much to invest in what.

[1083] And of course, I love the movie experience.

[1084] I don't think it's going to vanish entirely, just as vaudevillians found another way to do their comedy or their acrobatics.

[1085] And I think that that shared experience is not going to go away entirely.

[1086] But I also don't think it's ever going to quite be the same.

[1087] And it may not be the predominant.

[1088] It may be the hardcover sort of a publication of a book.

[1089] but more people are going to read the paperback or get it on Kindle or something like that.

[1090] And so I certainly still hope that people don't go through their lives I never realize how cool it is to sit in a room with a lot of people, especially for a comedy or especially for something that really does transport you and understand what that shared experiences like.

[1091] But also just great that so many hours of fantastic writing, acting and directing.

[1092] Doints of you, you've never even considered...

[1093] From all over the world.

[1094] To me, it's a, you know, Incredible time.

[1095] I agree with you.

[1096] Okay, well, I'm going to end on this.

[1097] I don't even need to ask you this question.

[1098] I can look at how you regularly work with the same people.

[1099] You've had the same partner for 40 years.

[1100] What I can answer for you is that I know it's not the money and I know it's not the awards and I know the real gift of this job is getting to spend your life with the people you've gotten to spend it with.

[1101] And I want to tell you you're that person for so many people.

[1102] I was just, my heart was warm to meet you and to be in your orbit and to get to talk to you, you are such a special person and you're one of those people that other people, it's made the whole experience worth pursuing.

[1103] Wow.

[1104] Thank you.

[1105] You're just a beautiful dude and I've always felt so lucky that I've got to meet you in my life.

[1106] Well, thank you.

[1107] Keep up your great stuff.

[1108] Man, you're bold.

[1109] You're doing all kinds of things.

[1110] I'm Clint.

[1111] Thanks for spending some time with me. I really appreciate it.

[1112] Yeah, I want everyone to check out The Boys, a memoir of Hollywood and Family by Ron and Clint Howard.

[1113] It is out October 12th, my lovely father's birthday.

[1114] So an auspicious date.

[1115] Please watch it and do yourself a favor.

[1116] If you are not hip to night shift, to gun hoe, to splash, man, treat yourself.

[1117] These are all awesome movies, too, to show like your young teen kids.

[1118] They're like safe and wonderful.

[1119] and we got to keep Ron Howard alive and well.

[1120] So great to talk to you.

[1121] Great talking to both of you.

[1122] Thank you.

[1123] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1124] Hello.

[1125] Hello.

[1126] Hello, lady.

[1127] Hello, man. How are you doing?

[1128] We have an exciting weekend ahead of us.

[1129] We do.

[1130] Let's talk about it.

[1131] Yeah, we're going to go see Hus and Minaj.

[1132] That's right.

[1133] Do stand up live.

[1134] I'm so excited.

[1135] Can I brag a little bit?

[1136] He sent me a pair of Jordy's.

[1137] Oh, yeah, you got to brag about this.

[1138] They're so sexy.

[1139] And I'm going to tell you something.

[1140] I think I've even said it before on here.

[1141] I am allergic to white shoes.

[1142] It makes me feel like my feet are way too big, even though they're moderately sized for a 6 -3 individual.

[1143] Oh, I thought you were just scared because dirt.

[1144] Oh, no, I don't give a shit about that.

[1145] Yeah, yeah.

[1146] No, I just feel like all of a sudden my feet are like size 15 when I wear white shoes.

[1147] But these are going to get me over the same.

[1148] that hump and i told them these shoes are going to take me to new places and i'm not shocked i'm not shocked that it's you that is going to bring me to these new places oh that's nice i mean they're not pure white they have a couple like hints of color which is they're off white and then they have some like mauve in it and they have some some tan a there's a pop of a tumult i like a mob he's so stylish you know i thought do you follow him on instagram yeah he just posted some cool outfits he was in you know like i don't know he's like turned into robert doughty junior or something I mean, so fashion -friendly, fashion -friendly, fashion -forward.

[1149] It's fresh and friendly.

[1150] What was I saying to you, and it was Elmer Fudd?

[1151] And then I left you a voice message.

[1152] You said you were going to keep a voice memo.

[1153] Oh, I kept it.

[1154] Let's see.

[1155] Your true colors are beautiful, like a rainbow.

[1156] It's true color.

[1157] You're true colors.

[1158] I was a beautiful like a rainbow.

[1159] Also, to be noted, we started an incredible documentary series called Bad Sport.

[1160] Yes.

[1161] Or sports.

[1162] On Netflix.

[1163] On Nettie.

[1164] It's really good.

[1165] We've started a few very good things.

[1166] Okay.

[1167] These are good wrecks.

[1168] Bad sport, we think, singular.

[1169] Two cowards.

[1170] Well, the first one we watched was about a point shaving skin.

[1171] scandal at ASU.

[1172] And it was so juicy.

[1173] And you feel so bad for these guys.

[1174] I felt really heartbroken by the end of it.

[1175] It was a mix of feeling bad for them and so impressed and proud of them.

[1176] I mean, the way you bring these fucking games in to the number.

[1177] I know.

[1178] I was like, this person, I mean, how good would you have to be to do that?

[1179] Yeah.

[1180] And then heartbreaking.

[1181] Yeah, that's heartbreaking.

[1182] We're not going to spoil, but you guys should watch that.

[1183] And then, scenes from a marriage.

[1184] Scenes from a marriage.

[1185] With Jessica Sastain.

[1186] God, no one can talk.

[1187] Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac.

[1188] Oh, fuck, man. And, man. Are they good?

[1189] They are so...

[1190] It's bonkers.

[1191] They're so good.

[1192] I mean, they're just so natural.

[1193] You really feel like you're in there.

[1194] And honestly, I was like, hmm, I got to take a break and get into something a little lighter.

[1195] I'm going to watch Squid Game.

[1196] Yeah.

[1197] And Squid Game is lighter than that.

[1198] Exactly.

[1199] It is.

[1200] It is.

[1201] The Squid Game is incredibly violent and awful, and it was lighter.

[1202] Yeah.

[1203] It's so good scenes from a marriage.

[1204] It was recommended to us by a guest, upcoming guests.

[1205] And the acting's off the charts.

[1206] The writing is, I mean, you're watching it, and there's just a point where you're like, why do humans try to cohabitate?

[1207] Well, why?

[1208] And obviously, I'm not married, and I was still like, oh, my God.

[1209] God, just being a person is so hard.

[1210] Being a person interacting with any other person is almost impossible.

[1211] It's hard enough to be a person, period.

[1212] And then now you try to make two of these lives.

[1213] Messiness being human.

[1214] You know, we should think about describing the show that way.

[1215] Really?

[1216] You don't think it's cliche?

[1217] Yeah, you're right.

[1218] Let's not.

[1219] Yeah, man, it's just like, God bless all of us who give it a shot.

[1220] It's not easy It's not easy Yeah But it's a beautiful show And Impeckably acted I don't know Maybe you have an opinion on this I don't know If it's smart To watch it with your partner I agree I agree In fact when I saw The kind of trailer for it I was like Yeah I don't know that this is something I want to watch With Kristen Yeah You know It's just if you watch it Yeah I intentionally did not watch it with Natalie Yeah Yeah, that's probably...

[1221] She watched it and she said she cried four times in the first episode, and I was like, I don't want to be part of this.

[1222] Yeah, yeah, I don't want to...

[1223] Yeah, I just imagine, like, a trillion different conversations could spiral out of that thing.

[1224] And, you know, the power of art is that you start, you know, you identify with these people, whether...

[1225] By the way, it led to, I thought, kind of an interesting breakthrough for me personally.

[1226] That's how good it is.

[1227] Which was what?

[1228] Well, we were watching it.

[1229] And the male character, when he gets bad news or he gets news that is clearly going to turn emotional, his attempt to ground it in something logical that they can then construct their way out of is so me. I was watching it just embarrassed of what it's like to be around me, to be engaged with me at all in an interpersonal relationship or as a sexual partner.

[1230] At first I was just like, yeah, that's me. But then I was thinking, well, it's me for a very specific reason.

[1231] I'm terrified of someone I care about going through something emotional that I can't fix.

[1232] Yeah.

[1233] It's, I hate it.

[1234] Yeah, and I was just like, oh, man, that's.

[1235] But more than that, you don't want to go through anything emotional.

[1236] So you're looking at it through the lens of logic for yourself as well.

[1237] Yeah, it's almost like, I can't be emotional.

[1238] Like, I have this sense that if I am, it's like, you'll see me in two weeks.

[1239] Like, it's just like the whole thing's going to open up in a way that'll be very overwhelming for me. The only two times it's really happened in the last decade is when I thought Aaron was dying, which you were privy to.

[1240] And then when I admitted I was using drugs, like both those times, even while it was coming out, I was like, choke this thing back in.

[1241] Like, don't, you know.

[1242] It helped, but it...

[1243] Oh, it's so necessary.

[1244] You didn't die from it.

[1245] I didn't die, and I actually aspire to have much more emotion, but it's just, it is terrifying to me. You might have died if you hadn't had that emotion.

[1246] That's true.

[1247] Oh, boy.

[1248] Oh, just brought him down.

[1249] Our friend, speaking of that, also kind of a downer, our friend is sick.

[1250] He has a very, very, very bad bacterial infection in his mouth.

[1251] Uh -huh.

[1252] And he's a sober friend.

[1253] Yeah, yeah.

[1254] And he has to take some opiates.

[1255] Some opiates right now.

[1256] Yeah.

[1257] And it's so funny.

[1258] His wife is perfect.

[1259] Literally.

[1260] She's incredibly even keeled.

[1261] I go to her for so much.

[1262] Like, she is a real rock.

[1263] And she's having a hard time.

[1264] Sure.

[1265] And I've never seen it.

[1266] Yeah.

[1267] And she's really, like, having some PTSD.

[1268] Oh, sure.

[1269] from when her husband was ruining his in their lives.

[1270] Yeah.

[1271] And like, it's just.

[1272] You're watching someone juggle chainsaws and you're like, okay, let's try to do this in a manner that, you know.

[1273] It's so scary.

[1274] And it's so overwhelming and I feel for her.

[1275] Yeah.

[1276] Because I'm an idiot and I fucked up the next time I had to be on them since my relapse because I had my entire shoulder rebuilt.

[1277] Like I'm talking there's pieces in there.

[1278] They got to put two plates in there.

[1279] they had to take a bone graph out of my hip.

[1280] It was a for real fucking thing.

[1281] And then I have this infection.

[1282] I'm in the hospital overnight.

[1283] Well, because of my idiocy before, it was decided by Kristen and my doctor what I would get medicated.

[1284] And what's really funny is I was on the exact same medication that our friend is currently on.

[1285] And he was like, we were talking about it.

[1286] He's like, you know, I can't even feel it.

[1287] Like I'm taking it as prescribed and I don't even feel it.

[1288] And I was like, yeah, and that's what I was on post bone graph.

[1289] Yeah.

[1290] And I deserve that.

[1291] Yeah, but no. But to put it into perspective a little bit of what the last go around was like.

[1292] Although, I will say, I think there is something to be said about the total disproportionate pain that happens in your mouth.

[1293] It makes no sense that those things should hurt the way they do because it's small and who cares.

[1294] But like, I don't, I do find mouth things.

[1295] and highly miserable, but not saying, I'm not.

[1296] 17 years ago, I got my teeth zoomed, it was called, I think.

[1297] It was like a teeth whitening.

[1298] Oh, yeah.

[1299] And I, of course, was like, I want to say they were like, well, you can either do a 15 -minute interval or a 22, and it'll heard of it.

[1300] And, of course, I'm like, I can't handle it.

[1301] I don't give a shit.

[1302] Cut to three hours later.

[1303] I agree.

[1304] I would say that was one of the worst days of my whole life where my teeth, every single single Tingle tooth felt like it had an ice pick in it.

[1305] And it was just, it's inescapable.

[1306] It doesn't stop.

[1307] I used to get off on it.

[1308] Like when I had braces, when they would tighten them, it would make your teeth really sore.

[1309] Yeah.

[1310] But I came to really like that feeling.

[1311] And I would, I think in an OCD way, like a tick way, I did everything back then, it would blink down really hard and it would hurt really bad.

[1312] But then the sensation of when it would dissipate was so satisfying.

[1313] I get that.

[1314] Yeah.

[1315] That was just another downer.

[1316] I thought I'd bring it up on this Friday.

[1317] Anyone die that you loved recently?

[1318] No, but I did feel like maybe my grandpa's going to do this.

[1319] Oh, geez.

[1320] So we talk about the bagels?

[1321] Oh, my gosh.

[1322] Okay, let's bring up something really good.

[1323] Rob is friends with the best bagel maker in all of Los Angeles, Courage bagels.

[1324] It's not sufficient.

[1325] Now, look, we're about to make the problem worse, but it's not adequate to call it a bagel.

[1326] Yeah.

[1327] They're Montreal -style bagels that, That's the theme?

[1328] Well, Montreal style, you boil them and then you bake them in like a wood fire oven.

[1329] It's crispy and like burnt on the outside and real soft on the inside.

[1330] I've never tasted something like it.

[1331] And it's such a departure from all the bagels I've ever had.

[1332] And it is insane.

[1333] And in fact, it was such fucking torture because I had given myself a pretty gnarly arthritis flare up because Monica and I are partying with trash food right now.

[1334] First was a spaghetti and I had like I know upwards of a gallon of noodles yum.

[1335] And then the next day I had three chicken salad sandwiches on white crap bread and then I was delicious bread.

[1336] I could barely lay in bed and everything was hurting.

[1337] My fucking thumb was all swollen.

[1338] Then we had burgers.

[1339] Yeah, we had burgers with more white gluten.

[1340] So good.

[1341] All of these.

[1342] Oh, it's all so good.

[1343] And then I finally like my neck was hurting, my hip was hurting, my fucking hand was and I finally was like, I got to clean, I got to write the ship.

[1344] Yeah.

[1345] So I made it a whole day with no gluten, like show up to record in the morning.

[1346] And wabi wab has bought me one of those bagels.

[1347] And it was, it was torturous.

[1348] It was so torturous.

[1349] I had that tiny bite.

[1350] I just had to have the texture for one second.

[1351] So I had a milly bite.

[1352] I mean, yeah, I'm afraid to talk about it because there's already an insane line for them.

[1353] Yeah, yeah.

[1354] But I guess since there's already an insane line for them, I'm like, yeah, whatever.

[1355] 45 minutes, don't even bother.

[1356] Just don't go.

[1357] Don't go, don't go.

[1358] But go.

[1359] But go.

[1360] But go before you die.

[1361] You got to try this before you die.

[1362] And I posted a picture and I got so.

[1363] Do people yell at you?

[1364] No, but just, but they were like, oh my God, yes.

[1365] Yes, my favorite.

[1366] Like so many.

[1367] When you watch the Seinfeld episode about the soup Nazi and you're like, I want to know so bad what that soup was like, right?

[1368] And that's this.

[1369] You're right.

[1370] That is funny.

[1371] When there's things on TV or.

[1372] books and like it's the coveted item we can't have it like we can't have the soup nazi soup and like butter beer was like that in what harry potter uh -huh terence posner but then they they do now make it at like the parks and stuff but it's not it's just butter beer yeah it's um what did the butter beer consist of it tastes just like cream soda oh and i love cream soda or i enjoyed it But it's too sweet.

[1373] It's not what the real butter beer tastes like in actual...

[1374] Terrence Posner World.

[1375] Yeah, and Hogwarts.

[1376] But I'll never get to taste that.

[1377] Why do you think it was named Hogwarts?

[1378] I mean, I love the name, but it's off -putting.

[1379] Should I ask?

[1380] Why?

[1381] She suggested in interviews that she got the idea for the name Hogwarts from the Hogwarts plant, which she had seen at Q Gardens before writing the Harry Potter books.

[1382] What's the Hogwarts plant?

[1383] Hogwort plant.

[1384] It's also called woolly crawton.

[1385] This is all so English.

[1386] It is.

[1387] It looks like that.

[1388] Oh, I was thinking manufacturing plant.

[1389] Oh, I'm sorry.

[1390] An action.

[1391] Well, she saw it at the gardens.

[1392] Oh, right.

[1393] Okay.

[1394] I thought she was in a garden and looked over, and there was this huge hogwort plant, which made the airplane, the whart hog.

[1395] Oh, my.

[1396] Okay.

[1397] I went somewhere.

[1398] You really went somewhere.

[1399] Yeah.

[1400] That's what Terrence Puzziner will do.

[1401] It'll take you places.

[1402] I know.

[1403] Like these shoes that Hussing got me. Ron.

[1404] Howard.

[1405] Oh, God.

[1406] What a sweetie pie.

[1407] And he's so Andy Griffith's show.

[1408] Mayberry.

[1409] Yeah.

[1410] Yeah.

[1411] He's really taken that vibe with him throughout his whole life.

[1412] It's beautiful.

[1413] It is.

[1414] And so talented in so many different pursuits with hitting the apex of each pursuit.

[1415] It's pretty crazy.

[1416] Yeah.

[1417] So he said, whoa, Nelly Dick Lane.

[1418] as like one thing as a person because he was talking about wrestling and i was like wo nelly i don't know who that is and then i looked it up and it's it's dick lane but his catchphrase was wo nelly which of course i've heard but he said it all as one and i was like wo nelly dick lane what is that dick lane was an announcer oh yeah and he would say obviously he would say wo nelly But our favorite thing that a WWF or E announcer has ever said is when Andre would take a fart.

[1419] That is our favorite.

[1420] Okay, so that's cleared up, thank God.

[1421] Oh, Jesus, yeah.

[1422] Also, fun fact, I didn't say it in the episode, which I'm kind of surprised I didn't, just went to Burroughs High School.

[1423] I said it.

[1424] I just listened and I didn't hear it for some reason.

[1425] I don't know why.

[1426] Maybe I didn't.

[1427] I brought it up.

[1428] Just went to Burroughs High School.

[1429] I know, and he was in Glee Club.

[1430] I'm pretty positive.

[1431] Maybe, maybe.

[1432] Well -renowned for their Glee program.

[1433] Glee program, sorry, not club.

[1434] I don't think they would want to call it a club.

[1435] No?

[1436] Because it's like, clubs are like extracurricular, but this is their life.

[1437] Okay, coin club, stamp club.

[1438] What club?

[1439] Were you in any clubs?

[1440] God, no. I was in one.

[1441] I was in craft club.

[1442] Craft Club.

[1443] Is it like a baby?

[1444] That was...

[1445] Not as a fucking teen.

[1446] No, as a teen.

[1447] Craft Club?

[1448] Yeah, it was Secret Society because there was like 12 seniors and they picked a junior.

[1449] Oh, God, this is right up your alley.

[1450] Yep, limited edition.

[1451] Picked a junior and then we all would meet.

[1452] And you got picked, clearly.

[1453] Yeah.

[1454] How many people were applying?

[1455] No, no one applied.

[1456] No one applied.

[1457] A senior just picked, a junior, they liked and thought would be invested in good, yeah.

[1458] And then we met once a month and like did a craft.

[1459] It wasn't connected to the school, to be fair.

[1460] Good, that would have been a misallocation of funds if they were funding the craft club.

[1461] I don't know.

[1462] Why?

[1463] I learned stuff.

[1464] Benefit to society there.

[1465] Like how to make a piggy bank out of a glass jar?

[1466] It does remind me, even though I was defending that school we argued about last fact check, we did both share a big, big belly laugh when they said, you know, we field over 300 applicants.

[1467] Exactly.

[1468] And I said, I think more than 300 people have applied to Pizza Hut this week like this.

[1469] I know.

[1470] I know.

[1471] I know.

[1472] To me, that was validation.

[1473] I know.

[1474] I felt good.

[1475] You know, I was too cool to do so many things that I robbed myself of.

[1476] I've told you this.

[1477] Like, I should have played high school sports, but I was like, I had defined myself against jocks.

[1478] And I would have, I probably would have loved smashing into people on a football field.

[1479] And I was a big boy.

[1480] I probably could have done okay at it.

[1481] Were you too cool for stuff?

[1482] I put sports until high school I was in a computer multimedia arts club Fuck I love you so much I get that I love that That tracks and that's worked out in your life Yeah you're rich because of it You know well that's a good club And I am because of crafts Well it all worked out I don't know if that we see Yep That's okay I'm having a new car built Talk about it Okay well as some folks might know I named well we named our first daughter But really I Because she would never do this Why would she after a car?

[1483] Our first daughter is named Lincoln, not after the president.

[1484] She was named after my Lincoln Continental, which is the car that I have the biggest emotional tie to.

[1485] I've had it for 26 years, and I've redone the entire thing.

[1486] I made a whole movie about it.

[1487] I love it.

[1488] So clearly Lincoln's getting that car at some point.

[1489] Yeah.

[1490] Well, it turns out, even though Delta's not named after the car, they did make an Oldsmobile Delta 88.

[1491] And so a couple things are coming down the pike.

[1492] I'm getting a Delta 88 tattoo, which makes me really nervous because 88, is a problematic number because white nationalists get it because of Heil Hitler.

[1493] H is the eighth letter of the alphabet.

[1494] So these Nazis get 88 put on it.

[1495] And it's a Delta 88.

[1496] I just got to do.

[1497] I can't let that not be the reason I. Why do you want it to, why don't you want, I thought you were just getting her name.

[1498] No, I'm getting the actual.

[1499] Oh, the car.

[1500] The car logo.

[1501] Oh, that's cute.

[1502] Yeah, Delta 88.

[1503] I was just saying, you know, let me pronounce it to the world.

[1504] If you ever see me, don't ever think it's that kind of 80.

[1505] It is a Delta 88.

[1506] Yeah.

[1507] Very specific.

[1508] So that's happening.

[1509] And then in addition, with the help of this amazing company, three pedal, and they're not paying me and they're not giving me anything.

[1510] So I'm just telling you, I've been following them for years.

[1511] I love them.

[1512] They take really stupid cars the kind I like, like B -Bodies, like my Roadmaster, Caprice Classics, fucking dumb sedans.

[1513] And they make them stick shift and they put obnoxious engines in them.

[1514] I've always loved their cars.

[1515] They take them to auto cross tracks.

[1516] They're fucking awesome.

[1517] Well, that group and I have found a pretty.

[1518] premium, 1985, Delta 88, a big square, dumb -looking car.

[1519] And we're putting a 580 horsepower motor in it with a six -speed, big disc brakes, suspension off a vet.

[1520] It's going to be so fun.

[1521] Cool.

[1522] I'm really excited about it.

[1523] And then Delta will get that car.

[1524] Yeah, that's nice.

[1525] But you could also get her an airplane.

[1526] An airplane?

[1527] A Delta.

[1528] Well, okay.

[1529] Just saying.

[1530] I mean, sure.

[1531] You could have.

[1532] Yeah.

[1533] Very trusted airline.

[1534] Oh, I wrote this.

[1535] This was, because Jonah Bobo comes up on this episode, because you're talking about kids who are...

[1536] Oh, who are nurtured.

[1537] Yes.

[1538] And I love crazy stupid love.

[1539] I was watching it on the airplane.

[1540] That's my airplane movie.

[1541] For like the third time that week.

[1542] It's my airplane movie go -to.

[1543] And Jonah Bobo is the main kid in it.

[1544] I know.

[1545] It's so incredible.

[1546] He's so hyper -talented.

[1547] And he's so good in it.

[1548] But it was just funny because you have talked about him a lot.

[1549] I love him.

[1550] I love him, and I've seen that movie 40 times, and I had no idea.

[1551] Now I get to put two and two together, and I like it.

[1552] Well, you were watching the credits.

[1553] That's how much you love the movie.

[1554] You were actually reading the credits.

[1555] Yeah, because the last song in the movie is Blood.

[1556] Oh, by, Middle East.

[1557] Yes.

[1558] It's so good.

[1559] That's one of my favorite all -time songs.

[1560] And it's a beautiful end of the movie, and then it goes into the credits, and so I was, like, in that.

[1561] So another funny thing that happened on the airplane is that I told Delta, who really didn't really want to watch, she's not, she's like moderate with her TV consumption.

[1562] It's not like she asks to watch TV much.

[1563] But of course, I on the plane, I wanted to watch TV for 11 hours because I don't want her to start crying.

[1564] Yeah.

[1565] And I saw cheaper by the dozen was in there.

[1566] And I told her, hey, this was the first movie I was ever in.

[1567] I'm in it for about five seconds.

[1568] Tell me if you can find me. So then I she launches into that And then I'm watching now Squid Games And I've got my noise canceling headphones on So I'm watching the thing And I don't hear her I hear you And I look over and you're going Answer Delta Because Delta is screaming at the top of her lungs I was just doing this Like waving my hands to get your attention Yeah I thought the fusel lodge had broken half or something You look like you saw a monster on the wing or something And then She's screaming I mean Dadda!

[1569] Daddy!

[1570] Daddy!

[1571] Daddy!

[1572] I found you!

[1573] Oh, my God.

[1574] Oh, my God.

[1575] So I see you flapping your arms like a fucking chicken in Main Street, doing the chicken dance on Main Street, and then you point to doubt that I look over it, and then I take my headphones off, and yes, I hear it at full volume, and she has found me, and she's so excited.

[1576] It was really funny and cute, and probably horrendously annoying to all the people that were sleeping.

[1577] That was, I was my fear.

[1578] I didn't care, but I was like, uh -oh.

[1579] There's too many people who've paid too much money.

[1580] We're standing out.

[1581] We're standing out.

[1582] We're a tall poppy.

[1583] We are very tall poppy at that point.

[1584] Maybe the tallest poppy in the airplane was the shortest passenger.

[1585] What's your go -to?

[1586] Do you have a go -to plane movie?

[1587] I'm not, and I don't know if we talked about this, but I had sent you a meme I read.

[1588] I saw this and I was like, oh, my God, this is wonderful.

[1589] This is Monica.

[1590] And it basically said often people with a lot of anxiety like to watch movies over and over again because they know what's going to happen.

[1591] And that makes them feel.

[1592] safer.

[1593] And I shot it over to you or immediately.

[1594] I was like, oh, my God, that is you to a T. It was like that.

[1595] Yeah.

[1596] Like during the initial stages of the pandemic and quarantine, you could not stop watching contagion.

[1597] And then when I thought of it in that framing that it was an anxiety related thing, it's like, of course you're terrified of what's happening.

[1598] And you get to live this version where it works out in some way, although it doesn't work out that well.

[1599] But, you know.

[1600] For my boyfriend, it worked out.

[1601] And that's all we care about.

[1602] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1603] Yeah.

[1604] Someone gave you a box that had a big red button on it and they said to you if you don't hit this button Matt Damon is going to be killed right now and if you do hit it Lithuania is going to disappear off the map.

[1605] Oh my God.

[1606] Sorry anyone in Lithuania.

[1607] They're gone.

[1608] Sayanara suck ass.

[1609] I want you to be honest.

[1610] I want you to be honest.

[1611] I want you to be honest.

[1612] Can I, can I ask for a favor?

[1613] Yeah.

[1614] Can all of the people in Lithuania, can all their families be in Lithuania at the time?

[1615] So that everyone dies at the exact same thing?

[1616] Yeah.

[1617] Yeah, absolutely.

[1618] Okay, then yeah, bye.

[1619] Okay.

[1620] Then yeah, bye.

[1621] I don't want anyone to suffer.

[1622] This could pick up some news traction.

[1623] This is on par with Akdimajad saying that he's going to wipe Israel off the map.

[1624] For my boyfriend.

[1625] Yeah.

[1626] They'd have to first learn how committed you are to him.

[1627] So I even understand it.

[1628] And that's a big ask.

[1629] They'd have to go through like 400 episodes.

[1630] 2 .8 million people.

[1631] I wouldn't.

[1632] I'd kill him.

[1633] But I'd kill myself too.

[1634] And then we'd be together.

[1635] Finally.

[1636] Well, oh my God, that was a test.

[1637] I didn't even know it was a test.

[1638] But the right answer would have been.

[1639] I'm tribute.

[1640] And then you kill yourself.

[1641] You go, I'll kill myself.

[1642] I didn't know that was an option.

[1643] Well, you have to hit the button or not hit the button or you're dead.

[1644] Okay.

[1645] Then I would die.

[1646] I'd rather die than any of that happened.

[1647] I pray to Jesus, you wouldn't die over Matt Damon.

[1648] Please tell me that.

[1649] Of course I would.

[1650] What?

[1651] No. I would die.

[1652] How much better of a life you want this guy to have?

[1653] He had a fucking storybook live.

[1654] My life's been fucking awesome too.

[1655] This is a little more storybook.

[1656] Just a little more.

[1657] I don't think so.

[1658] He doesn't get to do what we do.

[1659] And he has children.

[1660] Yeah, they're going to be rich.

[1661] He's going to die and they're going to hear it all that money.

[1662] No, I'm going to go.

[1663] You're going, oh, my God.

[1664] There's new movies out today.

[1665] What's the new one?

[1666] With Ben.

[1667] The last duel.

[1668] That Ben, oh, oh, oh, on what?

[1669] On a stream?

[1670] In theaters?

[1671] Oh, my God.

[1672] The Ridley Scott.

[1673] Well, great.

[1674] Okay.

[1675] Now I have to fit that into the weekend.

[1676] Okay.

[1677] That's all.

[1678] The last thing I want to say is I follow Valentino Rossi.

[1679] Okay.

[1680] And he posted, I guess, it would be a photo dump of he and his, I think, either his fiance say now, or maybe his wife.

[1681] I don't know.

[1682] He's found love.

[1683] That's what's clear.

[1684] And I think this is the first batch of pictures I've ever seen where he's outwardly celebrating his love.

[1685] And this woman is, by all accounts, in 11.

[1686] Okay.

[1687] And I did not look at her in one of those pictures.

[1688] I flipped through and I literally just stared at how cute Valentino Rossi is and how good he looks in these clothes and God, look how good he looks in a simple white t -shirt and blah, blah.

[1689] And then my thought was like, you know you're a MotoGP fan.

[1690] If you are straight, and you can't even be bothered to look at the 11 because you're just pinhole on Valentino.

[1691] God, is he cute?

[1692] What are you going to say?

[1693] Can, um...

[1694] You find this problematic, I can feel it.

[1695] No, I'm just, I'm, I'm going to ask you a favor.

[1696] Okay.

[1697] Well, I don't know if it's worth it.

[1698] I wonder if we can move away from the number system.

[1699] Sure.

[1700] And still, you can still be as effusive as you like to be about.

[1701] Yeah, I'm just looking for a shortcut to point out that this person's a supermodel.

[1702] Am I allowed to say that?

[1703] Yeah, sure.

[1704] Okay, so it's just the number because it feels like I'm making...

[1705] It feels really reductive.

[1706] Rating someone's looks.

[1707] I understand how you feel that way.

[1708] And I can leave it at that, but can I tell you how I feel?

[1709] Is the point I need to make is that she's, by all traditional measures, flawless.

[1710] simply so I can point out that I'd rather look at Valentino.

[1711] I get it.

[1712] So I need to do that.

[1713] Well, can you just say that?

[1714] By all traditional measures, she's flawless.

[1715] Oh, okay.

[1716] All right.

[1717] I mean, to me, and that's the exact same thing as saying on 11, but it's not.

[1718] It's not.

[1719] Okay, I'm learning.

[1720] Yeah, I know.

[1721] And that's why I brought it up because I thought, is it worth it?

[1722] And then I'm like, I think it is worth it.

[1723] Okay.

[1724] Can I do it to dudes still?

[1725] I find that a little less problematic, but I still don't.

[1726] I think using words is nicer.

[1727] Okay.

[1728] All right.

[1729] I will lament.

[1730] I will, I will transition away from the numbers.

[1731] Charlie needs a new nickname then.

[1732] Yeah, what do we do about Charlie?

[1733] Perfect Charlie.

[1734] This is his fucking brand now.

[1735] Well, we might have to leave it because it is his brand.

[1736] P10C.

[1737] Do we read tell how funny that story he told was about he was on vacation and he got recognized?

[1738] Oh, I don't think we did.

[1739] No. It's so great.

[1740] Wait, no, me, I think when he stopped in, when he and Aaron stopped, stopped in.

[1741] I think we did.

[1742] Yeah, that he was just, he wasn't feeling his best and he hadn't worked out.

[1743] Oh.

[1744] And he's, he's feeling much more like perfect HR.

[1745] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1746] Perfect HR.

[1747] Oh, my God.

[1748] Okay, I love you.

[1749] Love you.

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