Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings, The Goonies)

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<v Speaker 2>Do it now?
<v Speaker 1>How you doing out there? It's me Tigger, I am
<v Speaker 1>Doc Wayne Duck. It's me Bunkers Deep Bobcat.
<v Speaker 2>All right, y'all? Is it great? Your favorite firefly you desire?
<v Speaker 2>Hold old knock Gud.
<v Speaker 1>My name is Jim Cummings and welcome to tuned In.
<v Speaker 3>Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Tuned In with
<v Speaker 3>Jim Cummings. Today we have a very special guest for you,
<v Speaker 3>none other than Shawn. Asked and how are you doing today, sir?
<v Speaker 4>It's me.
<v Speaker 2>I'm here. I'm here. I finally made it and I
<v Speaker 2>found parking.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the parking.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we're it was easy once I knew where it was.
<v Speaker 3>We're in a new studio, so there was a couple
<v Speaker 3>of kings to work out. But yes, you guys will
<v Speaker 3>like it.
<v Speaker 2>Going forward, We're gonna have such a good conversation. You
<v Speaker 2>wait and see.
<v Speaker 3>I was since we're already talking about Rudy, I wanted
<v Speaker 3>to ask you, by the way, yeah, okay, I wanted
<v Speaker 3>to ask.
<v Speaker 2>You this is gold Well, it's beautiful.
<v Speaker 3>Joe Montana was talking about Rudy and he said that
<v Speaker 3>Rudy was like not taken seriously, like by anybody on
<v Speaker 3>the team, and like that historic moment of like when
<v Speaker 3>they hoist him up. You know, it was actually like
<v Speaker 3>a bunch of jokesters on the team and they were
<v Speaker 3>like kind of you know, giving them the gas. It
<v Speaker 3>wasn't like a genuine Have you ever heard this before?
<v Speaker 2>Oh sure, yeah, oh sure, I think it was. Well
<v Speaker 2>if you look at the actually the actual footage exists,
<v Speaker 2>you know, I was super right taken by one of
<v Speaker 2>the dads, wasn't it at the end of the movie AI, Yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And then but in the movie, in the dream version
<v Speaker 2>of it, you know, the ideal movie version with the
<v Speaker 2>swell of you know, the score andever Jerry Goldsmith's incredible score,
<v Speaker 2>the whole team picks him up. On the day, it
<v Speaker 2>was like two or three people or maybe four or
<v Speaker 2>five whatever, But the point it wasn't the whole team
<v Speaker 2>picking up but I always got the sense that it
<v Speaker 2>was it's fun because like why are you picking him
<v Speaker 2>off the field. But it also was like they you know,
<v Speaker 2>they didn't appreciate Yeah, they appreciated him, So you know,
<v Speaker 2>we we invested it with a kind of you know,
<v Speaker 2>mythological well you have to, yeah.
<v Speaker 3>You have to you know, story, you're not gonna you know.
<v Speaker 2>But Joe Montana was when the movie came out. First
<v Speaker 2>of all, the movie was not like a successful movie.
<v Speaker 2>It made like fifteen million dollars. Yeah, it was it
<v Speaker 2>only it developed an audience over the life of Cable
<v Speaker 2>and that. But it he was really cool. Joe Montana
<v Speaker 2>was really cool. He did this is super Bowl win?
<v Speaker 2>How many super Bowls? So do you gotta win? And
<v Speaker 2>he was like, oh, yeah, I remember Rudy. He was
<v Speaker 2>really cool. We liked him. Oh that's really great. And
<v Speaker 2>then over time this like I think he had to
<v Speaker 2>put up with a lot of people who were irritated
<v Speaker 2>with Rudy. My friend who I was just texting with
<v Speaker 2>last night about how we were up with our how's
<v Speaker 2>your kids doing? Oh, this one's there, his daughter's moving
<v Speaker 2>out here and so we're friends. But he was on
<v Speaker 2>his mission to tell his story about perseverance and grit
<v Speaker 2>and all this stuff. But the thing that was charming
<v Speaker 2>about it that really appealed to the writer, Angelo Pizzo,
<v Speaker 2>was it It was about the last guy on the bench.
<v Speaker 2>So but something happened where the movie becomes I remember
<v Speaker 2>what was the football coach's name from Washington, newhausel Rick Neuhaus.
<v Speaker 2>He came to coach at UCLA and we went to
<v Speaker 2>this I went to this thing the Spies, which is
<v Speaker 2>the awards, and it's the only time I ever played golf.
<v Speaker 2>Like we won something. I think we came in the
<v Speaker 2>second place. I love with a trophy with a thing
<v Speaker 2>with a golf ball on, and I was like, honey,
<v Speaker 2>I won this, and she goes golf golf. So is
<v Speaker 2>my wife Christine? You know Christine? Yes, I do, I
<v Speaker 2>remember her. They all say to send you their love
<v Speaker 2>by the way, Oh bless her heart. They were very
<v Speaker 2>upset that I was leaving in the house too late today.
<v Speaker 2>Don't make Jim Waite, no, we're gold but he so.
<v Speaker 2>But he Basically it became a thing where the movie
<v Speaker 2>started to really you know, Notre Dame would give Like
<v Speaker 2>Rick when he was at in Washington and they were
<v Speaker 2>recruiting him. They can't give you a car, you know
<v Speaker 2>they can they can give you bring you a gift basket.
<v Speaker 2>And in the gift basket, Rick says to me that
<v Speaker 2>day in the in wherever, Orange County, he goes, you know,
<v Speaker 2>just so you know, Notre name gave me a little
<v Speaker 2>gift basket that had nine copies of Rooty in it.
<v Speaker 2>And I was like, oh, that's cool. He goes, no,
<v Speaker 2>you should know that. Yeah, And I was like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>He's like telling me, well, wait, there's like a there's
<v Speaker 2>like a financial there's a reputational component to this. And
<v Speaker 2>I was like that, okay, I don't okay, Well it's great.
<v Speaker 2>They love the movie. There was a point which the
<v Speaker 2>movie started to become really important in the in the
<v Speaker 2>lore and and at that moment I think Rudy maybe
<v Speaker 2>wasn't as gracious as he should have been and when
<v Speaker 2>talking about it, because he you know, he was He's
<v Speaker 2>still a guy who was fighting to be acknowledged at
<v Speaker 2>this point for somebody figured out how to get a
<v Speaker 2>movie made, a movie that it would had no right.
<v Speaker 2>Who makes a movie about the last guy on the bench,
<v Speaker 2>you know. So, but it was his sheer perseverance and
<v Speaker 2>will and creativity. Rudy's who got that movie made? Who
<v Speaker 2>got the writer director from from Hoosier's stately So.
<v Speaker 3>He really really was interesting.
<v Speaker 2>He did it by you know, and he so. But
<v Speaker 2>at this particular moment, some of the notame folks were players,
<v Speaker 2>you know, alumni, were irritated with him that like it
<v Speaker 2>wasn't he wasn't being respectful enough of like how many
<v Speaker 2>how many championships you have to win before like you're
<v Speaker 2>the guy who you know what I mean? And and
<v Speaker 2>so I think it's sort of Enrich Eisen, you know
<v Speaker 2>the Eisen Show. He was he said Rudy was off side.
<v Speaker 2>He didn't call it. So you know, I don't know,
<v Speaker 2>have possession as nine tenths of the law is that account? Yeah? So,
<v Speaker 2>but anyway, Rudy is now I think it's it's reached
<v Speaker 2>a place where it's respected within the university. But they
<v Speaker 2>have their program and they're off doing their next things
<v Speaker 2>that are championships and so forth. And and but but
<v Speaker 2>your question had to do with Joe Montana, who I
<v Speaker 2>think is a prince and really.
<v Speaker 3>He's a great guy.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I went to school with his kids.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, my kids did too. How old are you?
<v Speaker 2>I'm thirty four and you went to school with Joe
<v Speaker 2>Montana's kids.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. He was my quarterback in high school. Nick Montana. Wow,
<v Speaker 3>because he's like two years ago.
<v Speaker 2>What I mean, Christian, Yeah, oh Christian. Yeah. My daughter's
<v Speaker 2>twenty eight and she went there, and I thought she
<v Speaker 2>was there. Does he just have one kid?
<v Speaker 3>I think?
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. Yeah, anyhow, I always telling them maybe
<v Speaker 2>what I mean is my kids went to the same
<v Speaker 2>school school. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
<v Speaker 3>What happens to football movies? There was like remember the Titans.
<v Speaker 3>There was Rudy any given Sunday there was Yeah, there
<v Speaker 3>was the one with Sandra Bullock where she adopted the big.
<v Speaker 2>Black kids, the left tack left.
<v Speaker 3>The blind Side. And it just feels like they don't
<v Speaker 3>make football movies anymore. It's like they were so popular.
<v Speaker 2>And yeah, I mean they'll they it'll, it'll come back.
<v Speaker 2>I mean I literally I said Brian Song because I
<v Speaker 2>get these messages from people, you know, all the time
<v Speaker 2>saying the Brian Song and Rocky are there too, and
<v Speaker 2>Rudy they go they you know, with the head trauma
<v Speaker 2>that goes on with football. I think football is like
<v Speaker 2>kind of needing a little bit of a relook for sure.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 1>It's uh, well, they're working on the helmets like mad
<v Speaker 1>to make them, you know, like mattresses.
<v Speaker 3>This is off topic, but kind of on topic, but
<v Speaker 3>I thought it was hilarious. Have you seen those new
<v Speaker 3>helmet covers that they made for the NFL And it's
<v Speaker 3>like a padded cover that goes over top of the
<v Speaker 3>helmet and it's like proven to like drastically reduce concussions.
<v Speaker 3>And I'm laughing because you see a couple players on
<v Speaker 3>teams wear them, right, and I think they're brand NU
<v Speaker 3>list last season, and so the NFL, you know, they
<v Speaker 3>come out and they say we have these brand new helmets.
<v Speaker 3>You know, they they you know, they reduce concussions even more.
<v Speaker 3>But it's optional to where it's optional. And it's like
<v Speaker 3>you guys are sitting there saying you're all about player safety,
<v Speaker 3>but the helmet looks goofy.
<v Speaker 2>So then it's like but it's like the baseball thing,
<v Speaker 2>you know, like it takes a while for the culture too.
<v Speaker 2>But I mean, but college and high school you should
<v Speaker 2>have to wear. It's a dangerous sport. They could change
<v Speaker 2>the rules about how you tackle and stuff like that,
<v Speaker 2>but they have big time. They have yeah and there
<v Speaker 2>and you know the penalties and everything else. But still,
<v Speaker 2>you know what does some stories will come up, stories
<v Speaker 2>will happen, they'll I don't know if what you're talking about,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, Rudy certainly didn't help. It was financial success. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. It's a good an interesting question. Football
<v Speaker 2>movies the future. It's hard to see their faces, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>you know what.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, it's so much less recognizaball.
<v Speaker 2>They're wearing shorts and T shirts basically, you know, and
<v Speaker 2>you can see every like little bit of sweat. How
<v Speaker 2>can you tell that, you know from the stands that
<v Speaker 2>One of the cool things we always talked about with
<v Speaker 2>Rudy was they hired NFL films to shoot the football sequences,
<v Speaker 2>so they used long lenses. They didn't come onto the field,
<v Speaker 2>and that is really why they look like authentic football sequences.
<v Speaker 2>Because as soon as because that's how we're used to
<v Speaker 2>watching football games, So as soon as you you know,
<v Speaker 2>get that close up camera of the you know, the
<v Speaker 2>nose tackle or whatever, and you're right in his face,
<v Speaker 2>it's actually, well you are you like a surrogate for
<v Speaker 2>the defense, like you know, so I don't know. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's I mean nineteen seventies. We were making a period
<v Speaker 2>movie in nineteen ninety one, you know, or nineteen ninety two.
<v Speaker 2>Now the seventies is like, you know, is that is
<v Speaker 2>that World War two?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's so true, isn't it. Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>And the helmet, God, they're so different. They're from space,
<v Speaker 1>like you were saying.
<v Speaker 2>There are. But the neck is the issue. It's traumatic
<v Speaker 2>brain injuries. But also like our next even these big
<v Speaker 2>football players who are big thick necks, you know, they
<v Speaker 2>look like, you know, the spine is the fragile little
<v Speaker 2>piece of equipment and you just you know. I remember
<v Speaker 2>when my daughter was going to go play, was going
<v Speaker 2>to do gymnastics, and she had a really long neck,
<v Speaker 2>and I'm like, you shouldn't do gymnastics. Why. My wife's like,
<v Speaker 2>why would you discourage her from something? I'm like, I'm
<v Speaker 2>not going to discourage her. I'm just looking at the
<v Speaker 2>physics so she can. Of course, you don't listen to that.
<v Speaker 2>She goes and doesn't. She comes on one day and
<v Speaker 2>she's like, we got to call the chiropractory because she
<v Speaker 2>landed on her neck. I'm like, let's call the chiroprecture.
<v Speaker 2>Was fine, but it's like at a certain list, just
<v Speaker 2>common sense, you know. Yeah, what are you doing again? Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>Oh ouch painful. We finally are doing this.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I know. I'm really glad to have you pot.
<v Speaker 2>We tried to do it in England. We tried to
<v Speaker 2>do it in Yeah, when you had your traveling road show.
<v Speaker 2>That's right, Yeah, are you traveling these days? Do much?
<v Speaker 2>Gosh so much? That's it so much? I I just
<v Speaker 2>decided I did my Broadway debut last year. I played
<v Speaker 2>two parts Santa Claus. It was a and the bad
<v Speaker 2>guy Mister Greenway, and it was the Broadway Musical Revival
<v Speaker 2>of Elf, and it was it just we got nominated
<v Speaker 2>for some sort of Audience Choice Award or something and whatever.
<v Speaker 2>But it was amazing because my parents had done I
<v Speaker 2>was Santa Wow. How cool is that? It was so much?
<v Speaker 2>Did you do your Ed McMahon.
<v Speaker 1>That's that's like I always end up sounding like Ed
<v Speaker 1>McMahon whenever I do Santa.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I want to hear Ed McMahon. Now the god
<v Speaker 2>that was funny. Those Johnny Carson shows where he was
<v Speaker 2>the Tonight Show always looking at but everything drunk. It
<v Speaker 2>was always drunk. Yeah, always look at him like all right,
<v Speaker 2>put my finger, you are correct sir? No. I got
<v Speaker 2>to sing. Used to be I could depend on the children,
<v Speaker 2>they believe, and I'd be skywood bound something like that.
<v Speaker 2>But uh yeah, So and I got to do all
<v Speaker 2>of the Broadway kind of rituals, the things that you
<v Speaker 2>that as legend, you know, comes down to you about
<v Speaker 2>what what do the actors do? What is a company?
<v Speaker 2>What is where do they rehearse? We rehearse the eight
<v Speaker 2>ninety Broadway, which is this like where I guess the
<v Speaker 2>guy's name was Michael. I can't remember his last name
<v Speaker 2>at the moment, but he put together course line in
<v Speaker 2>that building. So all the wood, the hallways are all wood,
<v Speaker 2>and you just it's like flash dance, you know, but
<v Speaker 2>like you paved with the blood of dancers, you know
<v Speaker 2>what I mean? Like this is like this is a
<v Speaker 2>no joke, serious place with serious people, and I got
<v Speaker 2>to kind of go in in and do that. When
<v Speaker 2>we finished, it was it was nerve wracking for you
<v Speaker 2>at all. I was terrified the entire time, absolutely terrified
<v Speaker 2>until like the last two weeks. You know, I can
<v Speaker 2>learn several pages of dialogue like that. You know if
<v Speaker 2>I why not me? Well, it depends on the dialogue.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah right, Like there are some law show and you
<v Speaker 2>do a scene and it's you and another person in
<v Speaker 2>the logic of what you're saying makes okay. But some
<v Speaker 2>of this dialogue in the in the musical. You know,
<v Speaker 2>it was two months and I was still looking at
<v Speaker 2>the pages. And the mind is a powerful or not.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, a powerful detriment.
<v Speaker 2>It's a powerful detriment. It's a big liability. It's but
<v Speaker 2>the my mind. My wife is like I married you
<v Speaker 2>for your mind. I'm like, what are you saying? You're like, no, ship, Like,
<v Speaker 2>come on, I played Rudy. But I decided at the
<v Speaker 2>beginning of this year that I was going to load
<v Speaker 2>up on like convention appearances. I do speeches about mental health,
<v Speaker 2>kind of my mom's legacy. Uh, there I do. This
<v Speaker 2>is the fortieth anniversary of the Goony, So they're having
<v Speaker 2>a bunch of screenings like so the paint fly me
<v Speaker 2>out there and pay one time.
<v Speaker 1>A couple of years ago, you were hosting one, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>hosting a what would you call it? A watching as
<v Speaker 1>as not a signing.
<v Speaker 2>But we were I remember where we were. Remember where
<v Speaker 2>we were, Yes, at a convention Buffalo, I think it
<v Speaker 2>was Buffalo. No. I remember this because we went your
<v Speaker 2>daughter was going to watch Yeah, went and sat next
<v Speaker 2>to her. And it was like in a proper theater,
<v Speaker 2>not a yeah, an actual yeah, the projector off. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and the people loved it. Yeah, yeah, I kind of
<v Speaker 2>did I do an introduction or something. I think this
<v Speaker 2>one is like.
<v Speaker 1>Well, you were very well dressed and you had your
<v Speaker 1>vest and your that.
<v Speaker 2>Was that was my Bruce Campbell face. Oh okay, that
<v Speaker 2>was what. Well, if you used to go I haven't
<v Speaker 2>seen Bruce Campbell's at a timble. Yeah, I haven't seen
<v Speaker 2>him in a convention in in fifteen years. But he was.
<v Speaker 2>He used to be true. That was his thing. He
<v Speaker 2>was like the mayor of the conventions. And he always
<v Speaker 2>wore a zoot suit. I don't know if it was
<v Speaker 2>technically a zootsuit, but like shoes. Yeah, the shoes were
<v Speaker 2>you look like you in that movie. It looks snappy, snappy,
<v Speaker 2>he looks snappy. Yeah, and he and it was like
<v Speaker 2>you put effort into it, and you know it was
<v Speaker 2>and a lot of us are just didn't shave, you know,
<v Speaker 2>wearing whatever. Yeah, and you just kind of show up
<v Speaker 2>and you're there. And I think the crowd likes whatever
<v Speaker 2>you bring. If they see you put effort in it,
<v Speaker 2>they're like, oh, that's like because they're dressing up, they're
<v Speaker 2>wearing oh, you know, all their clothes and stuff. So uh.
<v Speaker 2>But for a short period of time, I think it
<v Speaker 2>was when I got heavier, I started wearing a vest
<v Speaker 2>and a suit jacket sometimes. I guess I even wore
<v Speaker 2>a very daper. I was dapper. That was a short
<v Speaker 2>lived period of time. You caught me at my best.
<v Speaker 1>There you have it, folks.
<v Speaker 2>But my point is just that this year I decided
<v Speaker 2>that I wanted to you know, the politics, the culture,
<v Speaker 2>like the world is in a kooky place, and so
<v Speaker 2>I decided I'm going to just do these public appearances,
<v Speaker 2>you know, paid public appearances and uh. And so I've
<v Speaker 2>been doing it, and I'm it's a lot between that
<v Speaker 2>and the union. My wife is like, and you are, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Well you've you've been union bound for a good while.
<v Speaker 2>Now, yeah, six years you've been that's six years of
<v Speaker 2>being on the on the job. Man. Good for you.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, you're on the board of SAG.
<v Speaker 2>There's there's a national board, which I'm on, and then
<v Speaker 2>there's the local board. Uh, I'm on that as well,
<v Speaker 2>and I'm on about twenty seven committees. So this is
<v Speaker 2>what I've learned.
<v Speaker 3>How do your time in the day? Well, wow, a.
<v Speaker 2>Lot of work. Actors can do whatever we want. I
<v Speaker 2>got my master's, No way, I onn't got a master's.
<v Speaker 2>I got a master's in public administration and public policy.
<v Speaker 3>Wow.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, from American University. They I just picked up. It
<v Speaker 2>was the only show that I missed of my Broadway
<v Speaker 2>run was to go down to d C and they
<v Speaker 2>let me do the commencement address and they gave me
<v Speaker 2>a Pete Honorary PhD.
<v Speaker 3>And like that's cool.
<v Speaker 2>It was pretty great. Wow, it's pretty great. It's pretty great.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you, thank you. Well, this is the story about
<v Speaker 2>how great. That's good stuff. That's pretty good. But I
<v Speaker 2>I I think my mind is nobody's ever like diagnosed
<v Speaker 2>me as being like on a spectrum. But like I
<v Speaker 2>used to run marathons.
<v Speaker 1>Would you like me to?
<v Speaker 2>I can do it? Hey, Hey, the second American Pope. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that's true. True, Well, maybe you were the first in
<v Speaker 2>this one. Yeah, yeah, no, I I I think when
<v Speaker 2>I do something, in order for me to feel like
<v Speaker 2>I could do it, I have to be like all in.
<v Speaker 2>But like all in at a leve where you're like, okay, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>but I ran marathons and I was I had to
<v Speaker 2>do that, and you think that is about the physical
<v Speaker 2>you know, usually marathon. I did a triathlon like those,
<v Speaker 2>there's the there's a physical like need that you have,
<v Speaker 2>but I mine was mental. Mine was like it was
<v Speaker 2>about a level of heightened concentration over time. That's like
<v Speaker 2>my jam. But then at a certain point it resolves
<v Speaker 2>and then you're like, Okay, what's the next thing that
<v Speaker 2>I get to do. But the union's been six years
<v Speaker 2>and I've learned the ins and outs. I've been on
<v Speaker 2>five negotiating committees, including the one where we had the
<v Speaker 2>big strike. Actually we're on strike. I'm not on the
<v Speaker 2>negotiating committee, but the video games contract is on strike
<v Speaker 2>right now, and there's there's a you know, hopefully who
<v Speaker 2>knows what the story is there, but we have a
<v Speaker 2>big meeting tonight on that. So I my sense of
<v Speaker 2>purpose and mission in life is aligned. You know. My
<v Speaker 2>mom was president of the union so with certain things.
<v Speaker 2>You know, we all like to help other people. And
<v Speaker 2>the best is is when your passion for something align
<v Speaker 2>with how you're helping, you get a kind of super
<v Speaker 2>charged yeah impact, kind of an outsized result, quality of result.
<v Speaker 2>And so that's been so rewarding and maddening and interesting,
<v Speaker 2>and so anything you want about the union, I'm here,
<v Speaker 2>definitely just don't ask me the residuals uh. We we
<v Speaker 2>just uh almost supposed to say. I'm trying to think
<v Speaker 2>there's got to be a pad answer here somewhere. No,
<v Speaker 2>there's there. It's about disclosing whether or not I want
<v Speaker 2>to given committee, and I think I'm allowed to, but
<v Speaker 2>I won't just because I'm not one hundred percent sure.
<v Speaker 2>But I was on the animation committee. So we you
<v Speaker 2>we didn't you zoom in with us at one point,
<v Speaker 2>did you? Yeah, something came to you for some question.
<v Speaker 2>I think zoom in, but yeah, I remember. Yeah. Well,
<v Speaker 2>you see in our circuit, you see, our people are
<v Speaker 2>a voiceover people all different. They they people stepping in help,
<v Speaker 2>you know, stepping and helping, then step out and do
<v Speaker 2>your own thing. That's what a volunteer led union is
<v Speaker 2>supposed to be. Really, so yeah, that's right. Yeah, but
<v Speaker 2>that was that was a great deal. We've got a
<v Speaker 2>great animation deal. Have you seen the I mean people
<v Speaker 2>are pretty happy about that. Yeah. Otherwise not so much.
<v Speaker 2>It depends depends on your yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know.
<v Speaker 1>The one thing that I remember being passionate about was
<v Speaker 1>back in the day, whenever the day was was video
<v Speaker 1>games and they were they and everybody seemed to think.
<v Speaker 2>First they thought cable was not a big deal. And
<v Speaker 2>I remember.
<v Speaker 1>Thinking, yeah, because here's the thing.
<v Speaker 2>Nothing comes out, nothing is innovative, and it's like, and
<v Speaker 2>my best example, historic example is horseless carriages, really horseless. Please.
<v Speaker 2>Well see somebody knows to invest in bumpers though, and
<v Speaker 2>that guy's a trillionaire.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, and you know, and it just
<v Speaker 5>doesn't because nothing comes out and then fades away and
<v Speaker 5>no advancement, easier, better, higher quality.
<v Speaker 2>Nah.
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<v Speaker 2>The funny thing is that performers are so generous and
<v Speaker 2>we're also a little bit we're not necessarily as far ahead, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>in terms of business acumenism. So you you know, we
<v Speaker 2>agree when cable comes in that will will take a
<v Speaker 2>little less while you they're like, well it's a new
<v Speaker 2>but they, the people who design this equipment and who
<v Speaker 2>pay for it, have a long lead time. They know
<v Speaker 2>what the success of the you know, I mean, I
<v Speaker 2>wish I could be in the rooms now as they're
<v Speaker 2>talking about AI with what with how we're going to
<v Speaker 2>be consuming information. Mostly it'll be just like touching something
<v Speaker 2>in your brain like oh, twenty five dollars, Oh twenty
<v Speaker 2>five dollars. But when you're when you're well, when you're
<v Speaker 2>in the union, what you want to what you want
<v Speaker 2>to try and do is anticipate to the best your
<v Speaker 2>ability and protect you know, you want to protect people
<v Speaker 2>from because when you see something people don't. Really. When
<v Speaker 2>you see a cartoon, tell me this about you, it's you, right,
<v Speaker 2>and you see Winnie the Pooh, you're seeing yourself, right. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>A little bit to an extent. Yeah, if I do.
<v Speaker 2>If I do a character, and I've maybe done i
<v Speaker 2>don't know, twenty probably done twenty thousand of them. But
<v Speaker 2>anytime I see a picture of that character, I'm like, oh,
<v Speaker 2>that's me. And once it was it was you. It
<v Speaker 2>was you. You remember that, don't you? Twice? Twice? It
<v Speaker 2>happened to me twice one with that yes, yeah, yes,
<v Speaker 2>and they were if I'm not mistaken, the characters in
<v Speaker 2>there referred to my character as Shawn asked in the
<v Speaker 2>actor Yes, actor Shawn asked it. Yes, yeah, I remember that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>And I have one of those.
<v Speaker 1>And it was at the end of because back during
<v Speaker 1>when we were recording tas Mania, it was test and
<v Speaker 1>they drew me into the run once when Taz comes
<v Speaker 1>out of the jungle and all the animal all the
<v Speaker 1>antelopes and the deer and the elephant are running and
<v Speaker 1>I'm the last one running out and I had all
<v Speaker 1>this long, dark hair. It was a while ago.
<v Speaker 2>Didn't they tell you it was a while ago?
<v Speaker 1>No, No, they said, they said, no, you really have
<v Speaker 1>to watch this one. And I watch all of them. Well, okay,
<v Speaker 1>but watch this one to the ending. And there I was, and.
<v Speaker 2>I went oh ship, that's awesome. Yeah, it just kicked
<v Speaker 2>my but an episode. Oh yeah, many, many many. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Wait, so explain the relationship between you guys, because you
<v Speaker 3>guys go way back, right Uh.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, oh yeah, well my dad. Yeah, I was going
<v Speaker 2>to say your your your dad. I mean, what an icon?
<v Speaker 2>Jesus John John asked who is Gomez? And he did
<v Speaker 2>the three penny Opera on Broadway with uh Ed Asner
<v Speaker 2>that in your pipmate spoke but but yeah, no, he
<v Speaker 2>at a certain point in his life. All of a sudden,
<v Speaker 2>you go to his house and you see different things,
<v Speaker 2>animation things that he was doing. One of them was Taz.
<v Speaker 2>One of them was Ta Yeah. It was great, you know,
<v Speaker 2>he was.
<v Speaker 1>He and Rob Paulson, he was They were Bull and
<v Speaker 1>Axel and they were out there and your dad is, well, we're.
<v Speaker 6>About to be plum olden many interesting and painful ways,
<v Speaker 6>you know, and he's got this great delivery, you know,
<v Speaker 6>sort of ruminating looking at the sky.
<v Speaker 2>Taz was about to kill us.
<v Speaker 5>This is gonna hurt oh boy.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, it's gonna hurt home both. Oh it'll hurd Axel.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, my gosh, funny stuff. So then I was lurch.
<v Speaker 2>You were lurk, which was you know typecast, Yes, you
<v Speaker 2>know the really tall guy. What is a deep was
<v Speaker 2>with that.
<v Speaker 7>Deep voice mister Adam's talent.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, well anyway, mine like that was they cast
<v Speaker 2>me as I was doing a movie. This wasn't the
<v Speaker 2>high point of my like where what I thought was
<v Speaker 2>my juice in the industry. I was over in England
<v Speaker 2>starting a movie and I got a package waiting for me,
<v Speaker 2>and I opened the package up and there was all
<v Speaker 2>this cell art. Not cell art, but it was. It
<v Speaker 2>was images of the title character of their new kids
<v Speaker 2>show called OsO Special Agent OsO. And they where they
<v Speaker 2>had offered me the part. Well, I auditioned for a
<v Speaker 2>lot of parts and I don't get them. So this
<v Speaker 2>is a pretty good just to be offered it out right,
<v Speaker 2>So I there was a deal. They negotiated the deal.
<v Speaker 2>It was fine. I was so excited. I get to
<v Speaker 2>be because I had an auditioned for maybe a thousand
<v Speaker 2>things and never gotten them. The only thing that I
<v Speaker 2>had gotten, I think to that point was.
<v Speaker 1>Was Yeah, I feel terrible for him, don't you.
<v Speaker 2>This is no thist. Oh it was a Strosen directed
<v Speaker 2>thing where yeah, I had my experience too, and you too. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it was called I played Dylan, son of Sinnon in
<v Speaker 2>damn It. I can't remember the name of it at
<v Speaker 2>the moment, but damn It. I think I played Dammit.
<v Speaker 2>It was on the table. No, my wife was working
<v Speaker 2>in a commercial agency and she had sent me this
<v Speaker 2>thing and I got the audition and I got the
<v Speaker 2>part and it was a big Oh I can't remember anyhow.
<v Speaker 2>So now here I am and I go to the
<v Speaker 2>studio on a weekend. Oh, we're gonna do it on
<v Speaker 2>a weekend because you're shooting all week and I and
<v Speaker 2>you know, and I was living in Windsor, and I
<v Speaker 2>just felt like so important and it was so important
<v Speaker 2>for it. It was a good, good fifteen minutes of real importance.
<v Speaker 2>And I get to the London recording studio when it's
<v Speaker 2>just a little closet and I'm patched in and it's
<v Speaker 2>like all the Disney mucky MUCKs and everything else, and
<v Speaker 2>I would I would do it, and they're like, that's great,
<v Speaker 2>that's great. Can you pitch it up a little bit?
<v Speaker 2>And I was like, okay, so I pitch it up
<v Speaker 2>a little bit. They're like, great, Greg, Greg, can you
<v Speaker 2>can you pitch it up a little bit, and I
<v Speaker 2>realized that whatever it was that they were hoping to hear,
<v Speaker 2>I was straining my absolute best to like try and
<v Speaker 2>give them what they want. Hell, especially when I was ah,
<v Speaker 2>it's all part of it, and I'm like leaning backwards,
<v Speaker 2>it's drink what but but but I it was. It
<v Speaker 2>was terrifying because it was like, no, no, now you're
<v Speaker 2>in the group where you actually have to be able
<v Speaker 2>to You have to you have to understand what your
<v Speaker 2>instrument is. And I had understood it better because of
<v Speaker 2>Lord of the Rings. We had dialect coaches and for
<v Speaker 2>six weeks before we did Lord of the Rings. Hmm,
<v Speaker 2>dialogue coaches. We were in dialect dialect dialect coaches. But yeah,
<v Speaker 2>but when we were down there, we would for an hour,
<v Speaker 2>hour and a half a day, five days a week
<v Speaker 2>for six weeks. We'd go into this little building that
<v Speaker 2>was kind of like a hut, and they had pictures
<v Speaker 2>up on the wall of like a cross section of
<v Speaker 2>the human body, so you could really see the teeth
<v Speaker 2>and the tongues, they had, the diaphragm, the throat, the
<v Speaker 2>vocal cords, you could you know, and they would they
<v Speaker 2>would point like this is what's happening. You know, this
<v Speaker 2>is your soft palette, this is where we want you
<v Speaker 2>to do this. And then they would work us through
<v Speaker 2>a whole different series of we'd have homework and the
<v Speaker 2>homework so and what I realized was, I, you know,
<v Speaker 2>when I would do voiceover stuff, the people on the
<v Speaker 2>other side of the glass would have a comment an
<v Speaker 2>adjustment to make, and I would think I was doing it,
<v Speaker 2>but to them it was the exact same. So it
<v Speaker 2>was like I was doing I was making the decision
<v Speaker 2>in my mind, or you know, making an adjustment on
<v Speaker 2>my mind. And it was finally down there in New
<v Speaker 2>Zealand where I was able to hear what they were hearing,
<v Speaker 2>you know, And and so you know.
<v Speaker 1>They recorded it and played it back for you.
<v Speaker 2>I would hope they did. I had a hook for
<v Speaker 2>and they and they gave me a recording of a
<v Speaker 2>farmer in England with his and it was a whole
<v Speaker 2>speech of his but I just took the first bit
<v Speaker 2>and before every single line of dialogue in Lord of
<v Speaker 2>the Rings, I would look off to the side and
<v Speaker 2>I would say this little prompt for myself. And I
<v Speaker 2>don't think I could actually do the accent without their
<v Speaker 2>supervision until one of the video games, like five years later.
<v Speaker 2>I was acting in a video game and Roschen who's
<v Speaker 2>our Irish woman or our dyingite coach, she was unavailable,
<v Speaker 2>so I was there and we just did it and
<v Speaker 2>I sort of worked out. But the line of the
<v Speaker 2>line of dialogue was, or the line from the farmer was,
<v Speaker 2>well that's a nice shiny apple. That's a nice shiny apple.
<v Speaker 2>Well that's a nice shiny apple. Wow. That was my touchdown.
<v Speaker 2>That was a for for turtles. It was come on,
<v Speaker 2>stop talking and start fighting. Come on, Leo, like you
<v Speaker 2>know that. I literally couldn't do any line of dialogue
<v Speaker 2>if I didn't say that about the other offers were
<v Speaker 2>so patient with me, but you sounded just like you.
<v Speaker 2>That's well. Rob Paulson, who was the OG voiceover sure
<v Speaker 2>sure for Raphael for how many years they did the
<v Speaker 2>original then I came into the twenty twelve iteration right,
<v Speaker 2>and he was playing Leonardo. Yes, So every time I
<v Speaker 2>would do a line for Raphael, I would look over
<v Speaker 2>at O g Raphael and he and Rob, I mean,
<v Speaker 2>Rob Paulson is such a you know you guys, you giving, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>give generous and and he he he had a role
<v Speaker 2>to play in that, like he was a leader. He
<v Speaker 2>looked at me, He's like, he just indicate he knew that.
<v Speaker 2>I was hoping that he approved of it. Not that
<v Speaker 2>you need excessive approval, but when people are nice to
<v Speaker 2>each other and everybody's working on something and it's working,
<v Speaker 2>you know, it's successful. People like it. Everybody has their
<v Speaker 2>role to do, not just their role, but like everybody
<v Speaker 2>has their position relative to what the show is. Uh.
<v Speaker 2>And Rob had his and he was he wore it
<v Speaker 2>with real grace and I really appreciated, never liked him.
<v Speaker 2>Piece of ship. Oh that is knucking thuts.
<v Speaker 3>So growing up with parents in the entertainment industry, was
<v Speaker 3>this always something that you wanted to get into or
<v Speaker 3>was it just like, oh, this is you know, this
<v Speaker 3>is going to be my path. You know. We were
<v Speaker 3>just talking to Cam Clark right before this, and he
<v Speaker 3>kind of had a similar upbringing, you know, with parents
<v Speaker 3>show business and all that jazz.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but I'm always curious to hear these stories.
<v Speaker 2>You know. So my dad, I was saying, my dad
<v Speaker 2>did three penny Opera Broadway. My mom, uh did the
<v Speaker 2>did the Miracle Workers. She played Helen Keller brought away
<v Speaker 2>in the early sixty she wanted to Academy Award for
<v Speaker 2>her Yes, she did film portrayal so Valley of the Dolls,
<v Speaker 2>Valley the Dolls, which I can't watch. It's too brutal. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>she's a drug addict. I strung out. I can't look
<v Speaker 2>at it. I can tell you that I had that.
<v Speaker 2>I probably told you this before.
<v Speaker 1>I had a crush on your mom, like like crazy.
<v Speaker 1>And oh, by the way, Patty, yeah, I like Patty.
<v Speaker 1>Kathy was cool. Yeah, but she talked funny. Yeah, you know,
<v Speaker 1>but but but Patty, I'm talking about the Patty Duke Show.
<v Speaker 2>And uh, Patty, most everywhere kat is only seeing the
<v Speaker 2>size of girl can see from Brooklyn night. But what
<v Speaker 2>yeah yeah, yeah, but their cousins.
<v Speaker 1>I did cousin and you'll find they laugh alike, the
<v Speaker 1>walk alike at times. They even talking like you could
<v Speaker 1>lose your mind right.
<v Speaker 2>Right when cousins are you. I never saw that show.
<v Speaker 2>Hot Dog makes her lose control. That's one of the
<v Speaker 2>things Doors the ballet Russa crapes is that as something
<v Speaker 2>minuet or and hot Dog makes her lose control. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that's a funny one. That I always heard like hot
<v Speaker 2>dog makes her lose control. Okay, yeah, but that there.
<v Speaker 2>They basically, you know, they made things possible my mother.
<v Speaker 2>It was a time when, you know, the ratio of
<v Speaker 2>professional young performers two parts available for them was still
<v Speaker 2>relatively low. Now it's you know, ten thousand and one,
<v Speaker 2>that's impossible. So but you know, my mother came to
<v Speaker 2>me when I was seven or eight years old and said,
<v Speaker 2>would you like to do an after school special with me?
<v Speaker 2>This is when ABC had those issue of the weak ones,
<v Speaker 2>you know, yeah, homelessness, team, pregnancy whatever, they solve it
<v Speaker 2>in a week. And my mom was she was going
<v Speaker 2>to play an abusive mother and I would be her
<v Speaker 2>abuse child, and the aptly titled Please Don't hit me Mom.
<v Speaker 2>That was then it was please don't hit me, Please
<v Speaker 2>don't hit me Mom? Was the ABC after school special
<v Speaker 2>and they were I said, my questions were, I didn't
<v Speaker 2>ask for this, you know, this was being an opportunity
<v Speaker 2>to being presented to me. So I know, it's it's
<v Speaker 2>like a Mozart and Salieri, Like some people fight, they train,
<v Speaker 2>they do everything and the imaginable to get the gig.
<v Speaker 2>And I'm like, well do I want to do it.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, but I said, do I get money?
<v Speaker 2>And she said, you get ten thousand dollars, but you
<v Speaker 2>don't actually get it until you're eighteen. I was like,
<v Speaker 2>all right, okay. I was like, do I get out
<v Speaker 2>of school? She said three hours a day? Yeah? So,
<v Speaker 2>and then but I did have to audition for that one.
<v Speaker 2>They needed to make sure that I could do it,
<v Speaker 2>so that, you know, but even there was that, then
<v Speaker 2>there was I did a Was that your first time?
<v Speaker 2>That was the first thing? Yeah? First er No, No,
<v Speaker 2>we did a when I was in diapers. We did
<v Speaker 2>I told this to John and he was like, well,
<v Speaker 2>old does that make me? But we did a lifeguard,
<v Speaker 2>a coastguard, voting safety PSA. Oh, and the whole all
<v Speaker 2>five brothers, my dad's sons from his first marriage, and
<v Speaker 2>my my my brother, my mom's you know whatever, the
<v Speaker 2>five of us and uh so, but the first like
<v Speaker 2>paid gig, which I think they taffed heart lead me.
<v Speaker 2>So I think I was Actually I'm not sure if
<v Speaker 2>I joined the union then no, I I joined in
<v Speaker 2>eighty one. That's what my cards as, so I guess
<v Speaker 2>that would have been I did. I didn't work like
<v Speaker 2>kid actress work. Some some young performers are they're they're
<v Speaker 2>doing it. They're working just as hard as I did.
<v Speaker 2>I did two weeks on this after school special. And
<v Speaker 2>then when I was ten, I did three months on
<v Speaker 2>a mini series with Elliott Gould and Elizabeth Montgomery called
<v Speaker 2>the Rules of Marriage and they were getting divorced, and
<v Speaker 2>I played their divorced son, Mountain Katsolis directed that one
<v Speaker 2>I can remember some things, some things come back. Prince Valiant.
<v Speaker 2>Prince Valiant was the the that was the missing link. No,
<v Speaker 2>that was the first voiceover thing that I did. Then
<v Speaker 2>I play Dylan Sun and said that was directed by
<v Speaker 2>what's his name? Uh, what's his name? So yeah, so,
<v Speaker 2>but so I did that. I auditioned for it. My mom,
<v Speaker 2>I think knew the director. It was a very powerful audition,
<v Speaker 2>the one for Rules of Marriage and the only cold one.
<v Speaker 2>But that was it. So, you know, three months and
<v Speaker 2>two weeks out of twelve years before I got the Goonies.
<v Speaker 2>But I think at that time my parents' agent knew
<v Speaker 2>that I was would be marketable. He could tell, Uh,
<v Speaker 2>he can tell that I because I was naturally charismatic,
<v Speaker 2>and you know, and so and I had the The
<v Speaker 2>one thing that my mother really not the one thing,
<v Speaker 2>but one thing that my mother really did for me
<v Speaker 2>was she really wanted to develop my communication skills as
<v Speaker 2>an infant. Hmm. So like I was terrible at anything?
<v Speaker 2>Good for her anything? She yeah, well it's what she
<v Speaker 2>WASTI presient. Yeah she knew, she knew since Yeah, she
<v Speaker 2>knew language. And so I could speak in full sentences
<v Speaker 2>as you. I can't speak now. I can't put a
<v Speaker 2>sentence again and now, but as a young child, and
<v Speaker 2>I think so, I think my my parents agent could
<v Speaker 2>sort of see that, and so they kept asking to change,
<v Speaker 2>do you Yeah. Richard Lewis was my mom's agent at
<v Speaker 2>the time. Richard Lewis, he smoked these large he was like,
<v Speaker 2>what's his name? It was like, what's his name in
<v Speaker 2>uh uh, Jimmy Glick. He was like, Jimmy is a
<v Speaker 2>journalist that Martin short plays. But Richard Lewis was my
<v Speaker 2>mom's You want to think you'd be gorgeous, So you'd
<v Speaker 2>be fantastic. I think if I sent you something, what
<v Speaker 2>if I sent you something? You know kind of thing, don'tkay? Sure? Whatever?
<v Speaker 2>So they sent the audition for the Goonies and my
<v Speaker 2>parents had gotten separated and or divorced at this point.
<v Speaker 2>I can't remember when the actual dividing line was, but
<v Speaker 2>my dad had a condo where I would see the
<v Speaker 2>task pictures up. Uh. He got it close enough so
<v Speaker 2>that I could ride my bike from Ucla, which is
<v Speaker 2>where my our house was growing up to his place
<v Speaker 2>in West la And he worked with me on this
<v Speaker 2>Goonies audition. And there's so much that I can't remember,
<v Speaker 2>but I remember he took it really seriously. He took
<v Speaker 2>this particular audition really seriously. You know. He directed Night Gallery.
<v Speaker 2>Fielberg had directed Night Gallery, right, so yeah, but it
<v Speaker 2>was also small community, you know, and I think he
<v Speaker 2>I think he saw that thing for me. I think
<v Speaker 2>he was just a grand entrance. Yeah. Great. It was
<v Speaker 2>a nice opening act there. Sure. When he taught me
<v Speaker 2>acting in that audition, he taught me what and is
<v Speaker 2>basically what he said is stop acting, you know, he said,
<v Speaker 2>stop being what you think the idea of that he
<v Speaker 2>was Sean, this is you, this is a kid. You're
<v Speaker 2>a kid. This kid is riding his bike. You rode
<v Speaker 2>your bike over here. Just talk, just say it normal,
<v Speaker 2>you know, basically, and then he drove me over to
<v Speaker 2>the audition. Great advice. Yeah, that's how me. And when
<v Speaker 2>I did Rudy, my whole thing was don't fake it.
<v Speaker 2>You're the title character of this movie. It's a studio movie,
<v Speaker 2>Like who knows how many chances you'll get like this,
<v Speaker 2>Just don't fake it. And when we did the big
<v Speaker 2>scene whe Rudy gets into the end of Notre Dame
<v Speaker 2>finally his final year of the commodity, there's the scene
<v Speaker 2>where he opens the letter, the acceptance letter, and he
<v Speaker 2>starts crying, and we did a few takes of it
<v Speaker 2>and I was like, you know, I was sort of stoic,
<v Speaker 2>and the director was sort of losing it, you know,
<v Speaker 2>He's like what you know, And at a certain point
<v Speaker 2>he goes, what are you afraid of? And I started
<v Speaker 2>balling and he's like wait a minute, Like yeah, But
<v Speaker 2>I always thought as a kid, what if I would
<v Speaker 2>want to do something else. Maybe I would be a teacher,
<v Speaker 2>maybe I'd go into politics. I just realized recently, like
<v Speaker 2>in the last week, that I could have had a
<v Speaker 2>different career. Logistician. I like logistics. We would do conventions
<v Speaker 2>in the early two thousands, you know, regional comic cons Like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>they what the heck? They lots of course, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>So well I just realized, like I would get there
<v Speaker 2>and there'd be you know, a thousand people, or say
<v Speaker 2>say two hundred people. Two hundred people is a lot
<v Speaker 2>of people. If you have a wedding with two hundred people,
<v Speaker 2>that's a big wedding. And you go into these halls
<v Speaker 2>and you'd have two hundred people and they wouldn't have
<v Speaker 2>any real organization. They'd have tables set up up, you know,
<v Speaker 2>where you come up and sign or something, but they
<v Speaker 2>didn't have it organized. So when I would get there early,
<v Speaker 2>I would get tape out and I would get on
<v Speaker 2>the ground and I would make tape leans Oh you
<v Speaker 2>did the oh god, yeah, and I invented them. Let's
<v Speaker 2>just put it here about that.
<v Speaker 1>If you're a fan of everything we do here at
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<v Speaker 2>Well as some of these original ones where the thing
<v Speaker 2>that the people were good at. They realized that if
<v Speaker 2>they they realized that there's a deal to be made,
<v Speaker 2>they realized something that the union couldn't get the studios
<v Speaker 2>to agree to, which is they're developing a relationship between
<v Speaker 2>the people on the screen or their voices and the
<v Speaker 2>people who were enjoying them that they you know, those
<v Speaker 2>you should be able to go anybody who worked on
<v Speaker 2>the cruise should be able to go to a convention
<v Speaker 2>and earn money, you know, because it's like, hey, the dollary,
<v Speaker 2>that moment of Harrison Ford when he sees the whip
<v Speaker 2>or when he sees the gold thing, that's the sensitivity
<v Speaker 2>of a dollar grip pushing that. But that's not who
<v Speaker 2>the audience sees. So we the performers, we can go
<v Speaker 2>out there and we can actually have like a democratized
<v Speaker 2>paid public appearance where somebody pays for your autograph or
<v Speaker 2>they pay for you to do that, you know, wish
<v Speaker 2>we happy birthday or something like that, and it's it's amazing.
<v Speaker 2>So a lot of the people, a lot of the
<v Speaker 2>businessmen or entrepreneurs in the early two thousands were realizing
<v Speaker 2>this was before Big Bang theory, Big Bang theory basically
<v Speaker 2>industrialized it. You know, he made it a he they
<v Speaker 2>made it an accepted American entertainment. I mean, these things
<v Speaker 2>are all over the country. Everybody watched this knows where
<v Speaker 2>there's comic cons. They're all over the country, you can,
<v Speaker 2>you know. So, But when I started doing there was
<v Speaker 2>no photo ops. So every person that you meet, you'd
<v Speaker 2>want to stand up and take a picture with. Even
<v Speaker 2>before these things really were a thing, you know, you
<v Speaker 2>would you know, somebody would have their own, not the
<v Speaker 2>you know, the yeah you know, but yeah, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>but so I would come I would design like these
<v Speaker 2>lines anyhow. But my point, back to the beginning of
<v Speaker 2>your question, is just that I tried to keep my
<v Speaker 2>options optional until I was about eighteen. When I was eighteen,
<v Speaker 2>I did Memphis Bell, and Memphis Bell was working with
<v Speaker 2>really great performers, not just John Lithgow and David Strathorn,
<v Speaker 2>but Matthew Modin and d B. Sweeney and Harry Connock
<v Speaker 2>Junior and Tate Donovan and Read Diamond and Eric Stoltz
<v Speaker 2>and Billy Zane and these cats were trained. Maybe not Harry,
<v Speaker 2>he was a jazz musician. He kept man I don't
<v Speaker 2>know what we're doing. I'm a jazz musician. I don't
<v Speaker 2>just keep walking here, You'll be fine. But I took
<v Speaker 2>a look at what they were doing and I realized
<v Speaker 2>that just natural charisma was not going to be sufficient.
<v Speaker 2>That I actually had to make a commitment to doing
<v Speaker 2>this as a profession and if I wanted to do that,
<v Speaker 2>and I did, I kept open the academic lane. I
<v Speaker 2>did and went to community college for two years, at
<v Speaker 2>UCLA for three years. You know, I always just in case,
<v Speaker 2>it's not even just in case, it's like I want
<v Speaker 2>The best jobs I ever got offered were happened when
<v Speaker 2>I was busy focused on something that I was really
<v Speaker 2>interested in, because I wasn't like I didn't come to
<v Speaker 2>the audition or I wasn't just there wasn't a desperation
<v Speaker 2>is reeks, you know, it just rinks reeks. So and
<v Speaker 2>when you come in and you're like, hey, this is great,
<v Speaker 2>I would love to do this, but I'm also doing
<v Speaker 2>this other thing, you know, just in your that you
<v Speaker 2>don't have to tell them that, but I mean, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>so that so, yeah, that makes sense. I think that's yeah, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I'll tell you. Though I did after UCLA, graduated from UCLA,
<v Speaker 2>and between graduating from UCLA, my wife and I had
<v Speaker 2>our first kid, Ali, and there was like two or
<v Speaker 2>three years now. I was like, yeah, it was like
<v Speaker 2>two years before I got Lord of the Rings. And
<v Speaker 2>in that two years, I actually experienced anxiety related to
<v Speaker 2>like what's my place and all of it, because I
<v Speaker 2>actually had a financial imperative. When you got a young family,
<v Speaker 2>you have to work. And I made a lot of money,
<v Speaker 2>but there's no guarantee that you're going to ever work again. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>so so I definitely And when I got Lord of
<v Speaker 2>the Rings, I remember my abiding feeling like right after
<v Speaker 2>I got the part was like this is I now
<v Speaker 2>have a place? Yeah? Yeah, deep breath, yeah, no kidding, yeah.
<v Speaker 3>And that was that was a situation where you guys
<v Speaker 3>all knew that it was going to be huge, right,
<v Speaker 3>Like I feel like Lord of the Rings has a book,
<v Speaker 3>you know, because we asked this question to certain people
<v Speaker 3>and it's like, you know, we didn't know, nobody knew,
<v Speaker 3>nothing was possiblar. But I feel like Lord of the
<v Speaker 3>Rings may have been different because it was already so
<v Speaker 3>well established in culture. Is that true?
<v Speaker 2>You know? We were down there filming. At one point
<v Speaker 2>we'd been there for a while. It was two years
<v Speaker 2>of filming, six day weeks and you know, eighteen hour days.
<v Speaker 2>It was the most it was the hardest work I've
<v Speaker 2>ever done, at the most rewarding, hardest work I've ever
<v Speaker 2>done in my life. And the the some messages came
<v Speaker 2>around to us that they wanted to do some like
<v Speaker 2>some photo shoot stills and they wanted to record some
<v Speaker 2>stuff for their trailer that they were doing. And they
<v Speaker 2>had sent down some sketches and a little animatic or
<v Speaker 2>whatever that what they had done. And we looked at
<v Speaker 2>it and we were like, no, h oh, no, they
<v Speaker 2>don't get it. Like you know, because we were in
<v Speaker 2>New Zealand with Peter Jackson. It was basically like a
<v Speaker 2>student film. It was a three hundred dollar student film.
<v Speaker 2>It did not there was no films. When you were
<v Speaker 2>down there, you was it looked like it was an
<v Speaker 2>abandoned pain factory. We were filming in. We were constantly
<v Speaker 2>I mean the footprint that we had, we were like
<v Speaker 2>a pretty big circus moving around. But it didn't it
<v Speaker 2>didn't look or feel there was no art. There was nobody.
<v Speaker 2>Even the biggest stars were not the thing that was
<v Speaker 2>cool was like the miniatures. You know, let's go to
<v Speaker 2>the let's go to the studio where the miniatures are
<v Speaker 2>and look at and they call them biggertures because they
<v Speaker 2>were these ginormous things. And you'd get to the bigatures
<v Speaker 2>and uh, you know, and we knew like the swords
<v Speaker 2>they had, they had forged the swords. They created their
<v Speaker 2>own forgery to make the sor to hew this with.
<v Speaker 2>You know that, yes, they had made enough chain mail
<v Speaker 2>for eight hundred costumes by hand chain mail. Chain mail.
<v Speaker 4>Well, it was.
<v Speaker 2>A classic Well I mean this guy did it. This
<v Speaker 2>guy did it, and you know, and they they would
<v Speaker 2>design things, they would design these characters, they would design
<v Speaker 2>stuff and it was incredible. But you didn't necessarily know
<v Speaker 2>that the language, the dialogue would be as poetic.
<v Speaker 1>As it was.
<v Speaker 2>And you didn't know that the filmmaker would have the
<v Speaker 2>sensitivity to do like emotional scenes between characters. So if
<v Speaker 2>you're back at the home office in La at Newline
<v Speaker 2>and you're like, Okay, well we've got yeh, No, we've
<v Speaker 2>got this big will of a project. In their mind,
<v Speaker 2>it's a big like summer thing or I don't know
<v Speaker 2>what they thought of in terms of release times. But
<v Speaker 2>they what they showed us looked like dungeons and dragons
<v Speaker 2>and not Dungeons and Dragons of the last ten fifteen years.
<v Speaker 2>Dungeons and Dragons the like with the cartoony you know,
<v Speaker 2>very very broad kind of not cartoony. It just didn't
<v Speaker 2>look like history. You know. The cool thing about Lord
<v Speaker 2>of the Rings. If you look at Allen Lee these illustrations,
<v Speaker 2>they they it looks like mythology that could be based
<v Speaker 2>in something that really happened. The dragons don't look like
<v Speaker 2>fake dragons, look like real dragons. You know. The Orcs
<v Speaker 2>and all the different characters they so so we thought
<v Speaker 2>were astonishing. The Orcs were incredible.
<v Speaker 1>I was blown away. I remember thinking, shit, yeah, you know,
<v Speaker 1>look at that.
<v Speaker 2>And they designed some actual people. But they but they
<v Speaker 2>they didn't understand that. To us, it was like Shakespeare.
<v Speaker 2>We were doing classic mythology and they were doing something
<v Speaker 2>that was more geared for fourteen year olds or something.
<v Speaker 2>So we were kind of upset about that, and you know,
<v Speaker 2>there was a whole kind of thing went around. But
<v Speaker 2>ultimately they they brought in some people who with a
<v Speaker 2>sensitivity to token subject matter, and they brought whatever. They
<v Speaker 2>they finally understood it. They understood what the wonder they understood.
<v Speaker 2>And but when you say, like, did you know it
<v Speaker 2>was going to be a hit, the answer is no,
<v Speaker 2>you'd never know. You never know. You know that In fact,
<v Speaker 2>nine to eleven happened two months beforehand. I don't know
<v Speaker 2>what movies came out on September fifteenth, but I guarantee
<v Speaker 2>they didn't do very well. You know. But this mythological story.
<v Speaker 3>The first ring was two thousand and one, yeah, it was.
<v Speaker 6>It was.
<v Speaker 2>It was December nineteenth, and the thing was, in a
<v Speaker 2>weird way, the global political moment that happened created this
<v Speaker 2>need for a mythology that dealt with the nature of
<v Speaker 2>good and evil. So, actually circumstance and the product met
<v Speaker 2>at a point where it was kismet. I mean not kids,
<v Speaker 2>I don't want to you know, yeah, but it was.
<v Speaker 2>It almost filled a need that had been created by
<v Speaker 2>this situation. So and if it wouldn't have made a
<v Speaker 2>billion dollars, they wouldn't have put the same amount into
<v Speaker 2>the second one. They and to put the amount in
<v Speaker 2>the third one. So but we knew what we were
<v Speaker 2>doing was important because everyone was doing the best work
<v Speaker 2>of their lives ever. The costume designer, what they did
<v Speaker 2>with the costume so was and not just the look
<v Speaker 2>of them, the industrial scope of producing them. You know,
<v Speaker 2>they I had my stunt double. We had the scale
<v Speaker 2>doubles who they would put our exact clothes on, but
<v Speaker 2>with much smaller size. They had the models, the miniatures
<v Speaker 2>they had, you know, it was it was, it was
<v Speaker 2>really important quality work that we all believed in with
<v Speaker 2>our whole hearts. But you did not necessarily know if
<v Speaker 2>it would.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's really cool to think about.
<v Speaker 3>And like that they probably you know, it gets thrown
<v Speaker 3>around around so freely, but like they probably really won't
<v Speaker 3>make another movie like that with like, you know, how
<v Speaker 3>easy it is to composite background and stuff like that.
<v Speaker 3>I remember, you know, as a kid, seeing like the
<v Speaker 3>behind the scenes on the featurettes and stuff. It was
<v Speaker 3>just like so like what you were saying that you
<v Speaker 3>guys were all enamored by, you know, the props and
<v Speaker 3>the artistry and you know, seeing like hundreds of people
<v Speaker 3>you know as background, like how to coordinate all that?
<v Speaker 3>And yeah, and it's the only fantasy movie that's ever
<v Speaker 3>won Best Picture, right, the only fantasy.
<v Speaker 2>Ever, Spielberg said on the stage afterwards, he handed Peter
<v Speaker 2>the trophy and he said, you guys finally did it.
<v Speaker 2>I can't remember what won the year that Et was nominated.
<v Speaker 2>I'm sure deserved it. But but you know, that's the
<v Speaker 2>kind of movie where he created. You know this they
<v Speaker 2>made real. You know, I believe ET. You believe that,
<v Speaker 2>you know his eyes, you believe. But you know, there
<v Speaker 2>have been I mean, Harry Potter came out right away.
<v Speaker 2>They were they they were into there. Lord of the
<v Speaker 2>Rings was at the leading edge of the technology.
<v Speaker 1>You guys were first.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, just just I think I think we were a
<v Speaker 2>frontier project. And I think all of the Marvel Universe,
<v Speaker 2>all of those other movies that came afterwards, Game of Thrones,
<v Speaker 2>I think they owe a respectful nod towards what Peter
<v Speaker 2>Jackson A New Line did. But it was coming, you know,
<v Speaker 2>it was coming. The technology was coming, and so now
<v Speaker 2>you know, you've got to wonder what's the next thing. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's the Dreadit AI, Well, that's the next thing that yeah,
<v Speaker 2>Or is it the Dreaded? I can't tell, you know, well,
<v Speaker 2>I have I'm of two minds. One as a union member.
<v Speaker 2>We've worked extremely hard to get provisions put in all
<v Speaker 2>of our contracts that recognize that where you have to
<v Speaker 2>give consent to have our visual intelligence made of your
<v Speaker 2>you know, a replica made of you, where if they're
<v Speaker 2>going to use it, they got to negotiate with you
<v Speaker 2>and compensate you for it, and uh and you know,
<v Speaker 2>get your approvals. I mean, those those things have been
<v Speaker 2>were hard fought. We've stuck one hundred and eighteen days
<v Speaker 2>over that right shut down with that thing, and then
<v Speaker 2>we've gone in each contract, we've we've made some other
<v Speaker 2>little improvement with each contract with animation. With animation, the
<v Speaker 2>biggest thing for us was to get the word human
<v Speaker 2>put in the contract. We wanted them to acknowledge in
<v Speaker 2>writing that the entities who they were hiring for these
<v Speaker 2>things were human beings. And the pushback was really interesting
<v Speaker 2>on it because like it's obvious, but they but you
<v Speaker 2>have to the legal mind and the corporate mind are
<v Speaker 2>really uh, it's fascinating how they how they work. But
<v Speaker 2>the other side of it is at the other side
<v Speaker 2>of it is really fun. It's fun, and it's unbelievable
<v Speaker 2>anything that has come up, you know, in the last
<v Speaker 2>some period of time. We're like, oh, well, let me
<v Speaker 2>call the business manager, let me call the lawyer, let
<v Speaker 2>me call this so and zone. You're like, consult with chat,
<v Speaker 2>getp first and see what chattyp Now it can be.
<v Speaker 2>So you better not go to the bank, you know,
<v Speaker 2>don't you better not do? You know, your stock investing
<v Speaker 2>based on what AI tells you to do. But it's
<v Speaker 2>able to respond to your prompts with the level of detail.
<v Speaker 2>You can put a screenshot, you know, I you know,
<v Speaker 2>you can take a screenshot of something and put it
<v Speaker 2>in there and say, can you please explain to me
<v Speaker 2>in Layman's words what this means? And it does?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, you know, and it does.
<v Speaker 2>I'm in an accounting class right now, and there was
<v Speaker 2>this thing about ratios and I want to understand the
<v Speaker 2>ratio is better And I went to the AI and
<v Speaker 2>it generates images and it's like, so the real key
<v Speaker 2>is going to be how can you protect human humanness?
<v Speaker 2>How can you protect the authenticity of the human experience?
<v Speaker 2>How can enough people have something to do? You know?
<v Speaker 2>The fear is that isn't just like what can it do?
<v Speaker 2>It's how many people is it going to displace? While
<v Speaker 2>it does it, you know, so we and we'll be okay,
<v Speaker 2>human beings will be okay. I think that's because we
<v Speaker 2>have no choice. Yeah, we have to be. We will continue.
<v Speaker 2>Whatever the technology can be, we'll use it, We'll figure
<v Speaker 2>out what its limits are, and then we'll we'll frontier
<v Speaker 2>something else. But yeah, yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Just back on the subject of Lord of the Rings.
<v Speaker 3>I had seen online that you had to gain thirty
<v Speaker 3>five to forty pounds. Is that a rumor? Is that true?
<v Speaker 2>Oh? No, that's that's a canon now the Aston household.
<v Speaker 3>So I want to know. I want to know how
<v Speaker 3>that conversation goes, Like at what point are they like, hey,
<v Speaker 3>we need you to gain forty pounds, and then like
<v Speaker 3>what is the process of gaining that weight?
<v Speaker 2>Well? I had been running marathons, so I was skinny,
<v Speaker 2>like skinny, yeah, I like looking at those pictures skinny,
<v Speaker 2>I was, Yeah, I ran the La Marathon and then
<v Speaker 2>I did the audition and they said, well, they really
<v Speaker 2>like you for it. But there's another actor who's in England,
<v Speaker 2>a much more heavy set actor, and he, you know,
<v Speaker 2>the character is described the one character calls him a
<v Speaker 2>stupid fat hobbit. Gollum calls him a stupid fat hobbit. Yes, yes,
<v Speaker 2>so I said, I absolutely I took you know I've
<v Speaker 2>been My weight has always gone up and down from
<v Speaker 2>the time I played a drug addict in a movie
<v Speaker 2>when I was nineteen and I I lost. I went
<v Speaker 2>to the doctor. I said, how much how little can
<v Speaker 2>I eat and not have like my organ shut down
<v Speaker 2>because IM supposed to play this gaunt drug outed person.
<v Speaker 2>He said, four hundred calories a day. He said, you
<v Speaker 2>have to at least e four hundred calories a day
<v Speaker 2>you will start your organ. So so I did that
<v Speaker 2>for two weeks and was like emaciated and gaunt and
<v Speaker 2>looked horrible. This was a horrible thing to have done
<v Speaker 2>to myself. The movie is great. It's called Where the
<v Speaker 2>Day Takes You, And I think my wife's like, that's
<v Speaker 2>the best thing you ever didche on like she because
<v Speaker 2>it's a total transformation, but and has a great casting.
<v Speaker 2>Where the Day Takes You, Where the Day Takes You
<v Speaker 2>more Rooney flamboyle Baltadore, getting Peter Dobson, James Lacrosse, Uh,
<v Speaker 2>Stephen Tobolowski, Christian Slater's in it, David David No, not Coveny,
<v Speaker 2>not governor David. Okay, no, he and Cornel, he and
<v Speaker 2>Courtney got married. Uh no, no, no, it's so stupid
<v Speaker 2>that I can't remember davids last name. Okay, Jesus, I
<v Speaker 2>believed Covid, but yeah, that's right, but David. But anyhow,
<v Speaker 2>so uh but right after that, I like had never
<v Speaker 2>been over one thirty five in my life, and I
<v Speaker 2>got down to like one during the show, and that's
<v Speaker 2>a lot. And then I went up to one seventy.
<v Speaker 2>I had never been over one seventy. I remember been
<v Speaker 2>one over thirty five, and I looked bloated and like unhealthy.
<v Speaker 2>There's a picture. I just looked at it again. No, no, no, no,
<v Speaker 2>this is what happened to me.
<v Speaker 3>Was natural nineteen.
<v Speaker 2>This was the I remember I said at eighteen, I
<v Speaker 2>wanted to take my care seriously. I took it seriously.
<v Speaker 2>I played this drug addict. I fully committed to it
<v Speaker 2>and totally screwed up my my internal Yeah, they didn't
<v Speaker 2>tell you that that was the thing. So I watched,
<v Speaker 2>you know, like Matt Daman or you see these these
<v Speaker 2>people who do this incredible weight lot, and then they
<v Speaker 2>seemed to put themselves right back where they were so
<v Speaker 2>I to Nero, he right back to work. Yeah. So
<v Speaker 2>I so I had the but I knew I had
<v Speaker 2>I knew that I had this problem basically, the ability
<v Speaker 2>to go up and down and uh so I took
<v Speaker 2>footage from and Seena Man I was a little bit
<v Speaker 2>heavier and stuff like that, and I said to them
<v Speaker 2>and the process was basically I actually got in the
<v Speaker 2>gym and started weightlifting, stopped running, started weightlifting, kind of
<v Speaker 2>bulked up over the course of a month and then
<v Speaker 2>and was eating probably at least two thousand calories a
<v Speaker 2>day and just eating like a you know whatever, pig. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and uh and then stopped weightlifting and kept eating and
<v Speaker 2>so the natural. At a certain point, I remember Fran
<v Speaker 2>uh Fran was our producer writer fan while she at
<v Speaker 2>a certain point, I was in their kitchen and she goes,
<v Speaker 2>it's too much. Now you don't no more, no more,
<v Speaker 2>You're done, all done.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah yeah, wow, Yeah, that's amazing. Well that's commitment.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. I think it's stories like those that, at least
<v Speaker 3>for me, really inspired me to be an actor when
<v Speaker 3>I was young. It's because I thought that was like
<v Speaker 3>the coolest thing, like to just like completely transform, like
<v Speaker 3>you're like completely committed, you know, like a like a
<v Speaker 3>Christian Bale or like any of the people that you mentioned.
<v Speaker 3>You know, it's like whoa, like they really take that
<v Speaker 3>art seriously. That's that's we were there for two years.
<v Speaker 2>You know. It was easier for that. It was easier
<v Speaker 2>for me. Some of those people, the Christian Beales, they
<v Speaker 2>do like some extended amount of time beforehand and then
<v Speaker 2>they do the shoot and then it's over. So I
<v Speaker 2>would think it's a lot harder to make that level
<v Speaker 2>of commitment when you're not actually like doing it, when
<v Speaker 2>you're every day. Yeah, I would think, yeah, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that makes sense.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but still I think it's impressive.
<v Speaker 2>Well, no, I appreciate it. It it it's different than
<v Speaker 2>coming to Burbank.
<v Speaker 1>If you're a fan of everything we do here at
<v Speaker 1>tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the show
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<v Speaker 2>When I say we come to we come to Burbank, right,
<v Speaker 2>voice actors know, yeah, we do where you go. It's
<v Speaker 2>only maybe Lord of the Rings, but but really it's
<v Speaker 2>the time of my life where I felt like I
<v Speaker 2>was in a company town and any of those shows.
<v Speaker 2>There was a period of time where I was doing
<v Speaker 2>a bunch of voice o works, turtles and oh so
<v Speaker 2>I did one called Binicula that was so great. I
<v Speaker 2>don't think anybody I think so yeah, yeah, so great.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my god's my favorite, maybe the favorite thing I've
<v Speaker 2>ever done ever. And nobody I played Chester, so that'll
<v Speaker 2>be the promo for the show. And what the hell
<v Speaker 2>did he did? You just say?
<v Speaker 3>Caged bird, Officer Ham, That's what I have.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Chester was the cat. It was set in a
<v Speaker 2>in the bayou in Louisiana, kind of manor, kind of
<v Speaker 2>whatever you call those things, a chateau. And the little
<v Speaker 2>girl Mina Mina was a nice little girl and she
<v Speaker 2>had a cat, and she had a Binicula. And Banicula
<v Speaker 2>was this possessed demonic rabbit. He wasn't demonic. He was great,
<v Speaker 2>but like he could take his head off and he
<v Speaker 2>could take his eyeballs out. And they're all these ghosts
<v Speaker 2>and spirits and hauntings and things that would happen, and
<v Speaker 2>Chester was the only one who saw what was going on.
<v Speaker 2>He's like, yeah, I'm pretty sure I permanently damaged my
<v Speaker 2>vocal course during that show.
<v Speaker 3>You saw Jim you were Jumbo Grunch. Sure you don't
<v Speaker 3>remember Jumbo Grunch.
<v Speaker 2>I can't. Oh wait, it was. He was a Cajun.
<v Speaker 3>He was an agent.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he was. He was the king.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I thing that he would some.
<v Speaker 2>Guy like that. Yeah, yeah, one damn gage and guy
<v Speaker 2>like that. Whenever. Whenever I do that, I I because
<v Speaker 2>I used to be a deckhand on a riverboat when
<v Speaker 2>I was in nineteen in Louisiana, and and I've stolen
<v Speaker 2>a few characters like Leatherhead, teenage Mutant, Ninja Turtles.
<v Speaker 7>He was my first captain on the Leon LeBlanc. He
<v Speaker 7>was from napo Yonville, Louisiana. And does how he talked
<v Speaker 7>like that, Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>And he said, you see, dad boy, that is goody
<v Speaker 1>ride down and it would.
<v Speaker 2>Be some horrid creature that fell out of a tree,
<v Speaker 2>a beetle. Yeah, you see that, that's good right down.
<v Speaker 3>So they really just eat anything down there, Because I
<v Speaker 3>remember that joke from me. Do you remember that joke
<v Speaker 3>from a water boy and they're sitting at the house
<v Speaker 3>and Adam Sadler, you know, they're eating together, and then
<v Speaker 3>the coach, so what's for dessert? Then the squirrel gets
<v Speaker 3>zapped in the bug zappers.
<v Speaker 1>Like oh yeah, yeah, squirrel squirrel.
<v Speaker 2>So Mark Twain Mark Twain's a nautical term.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, oh yes, it is Mark. But I didn't do
<v Speaker 1>that well that He was the inspiration.
<v Speaker 2>He made me want to do it.
<v Speaker 1>I can't tell you how different it is now or
<v Speaker 1>even then in the seventies or eighties.
<v Speaker 2>Whenever I did that a week ago, Oh yeah, go
<v Speaker 2>do b.
<v Speaker 1>Was one of my lines.
<v Speaker 2>I think that was when I have my logistics epiphany
<v Speaker 2>because flying into Shreveport, now it's not You're right, it's different.
<v Speaker 2>It is the most incredible port with with container ships
<v Speaker 2>and greens and like if all of a sudden I
<v Speaker 2>was regretted being at yeah you hear and they have.
<v Speaker 2>The Japanese are really good at how they organize stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Like when you fly into their thing, you can see
<v Speaker 2>how they think, Like from the air you can see
<v Speaker 2>how they think. And it was just like that in
<v Speaker 2>a streetport. But I don't know if there's still like
<v Speaker 2>some old guy on a you know, yeah, I kind
<v Speaker 2>of hope. So I hope.
<v Speaker 3>So it's gotta go out into the country probably, Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's uh yes. Certain things aren't going to stick
<v Speaker 1>around forever, and I think that might be one of them.
<v Speaker 1>We have to tell a story on your podcast, which
<v Speaker 1>which one?
<v Speaker 2>Which? So you you may have portrayed Winni the Pooh,
<v Speaker 2>the the rumor is Okay the Pooh true. So during
<v Speaker 2>this one period of time in the late two thousands
<v Speaker 2>or whatever, like two thousand and seven, eight nine, I
<v Speaker 2>think it was something like that. Oh okay, they brought
<v Speaker 2>me in and they said, oh, we're going to do
<v Speaker 2>an interstitial about Winnie the Pooh. Do you want to
<v Speaker 2>try Winnie the Pooh? Oh okay, Well I already knew you. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>And I was like yeah, they were keen to replace
<v Speaker 2>me lots of times. Yeah. Well so I did. I
<v Speaker 2>did it. I mean I did the audition for them
<v Speaker 2>and they're like, that's great, they'll have you do it.
<v Speaker 2>And I said, well, I got to call Jim Cummings first. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and they're like, what do you mean. I was like,
<v Speaker 2>professional courtesy, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And to skip
<v Speaker 2>the rails for one second, Well my dad did. When
<v Speaker 2>Raul Julia played Gomez Adams in the Atom his family,
<v Speaker 2>you have to wonder what do the people from the
<v Speaker 2>original think. Yes, and my dad was the original Gomez.
<v Speaker 2>He basically created that character from the at Charles Adams cartoons.
<v Speaker 2>No no, no no, but yeah they're cookie mister. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>He is never missed a show, never, not even a
<v Speaker 2>They didn't want anything to do because of some rights
<v Speaker 2>issues or because of whatever with the original cast. So
<v Speaker 2>I think it was heartbreaking for my dad to see
<v Speaker 2>America be introduced, reintroduced to the Adams family without without
<v Speaker 2>a thought, right, uh, And I know, Sam wise Gamgee.
<v Speaker 2>They would ask me in the like right in two
<v Speaker 2>thousand and two three, like do you think it'll ever
<v Speaker 2>get remade? And I said, of course it'll get remade.
<v Speaker 2>Of course it will. And they're like, it'll never get
<v Speaker 2>nobody could ever remake this. And it's like, well, human
<v Speaker 2>creativity as such, it's like the A I think people
<v Speaker 2>will we are going to figure out how to do
<v Speaker 2>People are people, People are creative. Business is business they
<v Speaker 2>want to figure out especially Yeah, so I so I
<v Speaker 2>and Gooni's too. The sequel is getting ready to be
<v Speaker 2>made really yeah, and they would have to be in it. Well,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I mean my point, this is my point
<v Speaker 2>I have to be. I decided with my dad watching
<v Speaker 2>my dad be bummed out, that I would learn from
<v Speaker 2>that and I wouldn't be bummed out when something like that.
<v Speaker 2>I'll get ahead of the bummed out curve and I
<v Speaker 2>will try and make it so that if you know,
<v Speaker 2>and with those two characters, I'm sure that if I'm
<v Speaker 2>lucky enough to live long enough, maybe if Goonies comes
<v Speaker 2>out in two years, I don't know if they'll do
<v Speaker 2>like a continuation or proper remake. I don't know what
<v Speaker 2>they'll do, but at some point, the idea of Winnie
<v Speaker 2>the Pooh is, you know how many generations five generations
<v Speaker 2>of Americans know your voice is whinning woo. I don't
<v Speaker 2>know how long the generations. I might have just jokes
<v Speaker 2>on you. I'm one of so, but I just I
<v Speaker 2>definitely had that moment where I was like, oh, wow,
<v Speaker 2>what's the because in my you know, you talk about
<v Speaker 2>starting your career as a generation, you know, second, fifth generation, whatever.
<v Speaker 2>There's also a kind of there's an ethos in in
<v Speaker 2>an acting family. You if you walk into a room
<v Speaker 2>and there's a mature performer or somebody's in their eighties
<v Speaker 2>and nineties, you go over and say hello, and you know,
<v Speaker 2>you just demonstrate a little respect. If some kid is
<v Speaker 2>coming up behind you and it's appropriate or whatever, you know,
<v Speaker 2>you you look out for him. So I that we
<v Speaker 2>just had a moment of like of that kind of
<v Speaker 2>like pilot to pilot professional courtsing thing. That was that
<v Speaker 2>meant that meant a lot to me because I was
<v Speaker 2>glad I knew you, you know what I mean. I
<v Speaker 2>was glad I knew. I was glad I could call
<v Speaker 2>I could call you. That's a that's a that And
<v Speaker 2>I think I think wars are started in the world,
<v Speaker 2>like actual wars between countries, because people don't have the
<v Speaker 2>ability to communicate. And I feel like this industry is
<v Speaker 2>hard enough. It's hard. It's hard for anybody to get
<v Speaker 2>any job in this business. Yeah, that's right. And so
<v Speaker 2>for people who what what I knew as a kid
<v Speaker 2>of the world of animation acting was that that's a
<v Speaker 2>close knit group of people and they largely hire amongst themselves.
<v Speaker 2>So to have been so to have gotten into that
<v Speaker 2>world a little bit trying to figure out how to honor.
<v Speaker 2>It was pretty yeah, cool. Well, I remember, you know
<v Speaker 2>the great Gordon Hunt.
<v Speaker 1>He have Hannah barbera fame, directed every Hannah Barbera show
<v Speaker 1>you've ever, cartoon you've ever seen, and father of Helen.
<v Speaker 1>I remember, And I was already in the business, thank god.
<v Speaker 1>And I've read his book How to Break Into Show Business,
<v Speaker 1>and it had this and it had of course he
<v Speaker 1>was he came from Brabo. He's a director, stage director,
<v Speaker 1>just on and on and on, and he finally landed
<v Speaker 1>Hinna Barbara for many moons and he's the legendary voice
<v Speaker 1>director for the Flintstones, on and on, and he wrote
<v Speaker 1>this book, How to Break Into Show Business. The fifth
<v Speaker 1>chapter is how to a Voice. It was on a
<v Speaker 1>voiceover and it said, don't bother, don't even think about it.
<v Speaker 1>This is done by five to ten twelve people in
<v Speaker 1>Hollywood and you're not one of them.
<v Speaker 2>And I was thinking, man, I'm glad I didn't read
<v Speaker 2>this beforehand.
<v Speaker 1>That would have been like, really, are you sure? Because
<v Speaker 1>you know, yeah, but at least I was from Youngstown like.
<v Speaker 2>That had to help. You. Remember Charles Grudon's book, Oh,
<v Speaker 2>he wrote it would be so nice that the title
<v Speaker 2>was it would be so nice if you weren't here. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I think you know. Yeah, there's a fine line between
<v Speaker 2>not hearing no rudy. Basically, it is about a guy
<v Speaker 2>who doesn't hear no, that's true, yeah, and and then
<v Speaker 2>being like a zelot who alienates yourself from other things
<v Speaker 2>that you could be doing, because like there's no's that
<v Speaker 2>means something, and then there's nose that are actually like challenges.
<v Speaker 2>So that's right. Yeah, yeah, well that's the way I've
<v Speaker 2>always seen it. You know, people, it's.
<v Speaker 1>Because like, for me, this is probably a flaw, a
<v Speaker 1>character flaw.
<v Speaker 2>I've said this before, but nothing makes me more determined
<v Speaker 2>than does somebody say, oh, are you kidding me? No?
<v Speaker 1>Forget no, you know what, don't bother you? Yeah, go
<v Speaker 1>go go, you know, and I go, oh, my.
<v Speaker 2>Dad would tell stories about people behaving badly in the industry. No. Yeah, Well,
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, I had to look up the word guileless
<v Speaker 2>I go into it and I'm like, it's I can't
<v Speaker 2>believe that. I don't want to believe. No, it's not
<v Speaker 2>that I don't believe it. I'm sure that it happens,
<v Speaker 2>but you know this like backstabbing or out competing or
<v Speaker 2>trying to hurt somebody else. I can say that, that's
<v Speaker 2>for sure. But yeah, because it's so clear, everybody can
<v Speaker 2>see everything that's happening in real time. Yeah. Yeah, maybe
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. But and also only you know. Have
<v Speaker 2>you ever had anybody trying to undermine I don't think so. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>If so, they did it well enough, they sure didn't succeed. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>you can see somebody. The truth is powerful, and I
<v Speaker 2>think I have the ability to kind of when I
<v Speaker 2>look at somebody, I can see you for who you
<v Speaker 2>are and I take what you give. And there's in
<v Speaker 2>the conventions, when you're meeting with hundreds of people, it's
<v Speaker 2>a really powerful boy yift because really quickly you can
<v Speaker 2>create it. You can establish an honest bond with somebody.
<v Speaker 2>It's only going to be thirty seconds long, but it's
<v Speaker 2>there's a quality of looking at somebody where you're where
<v Speaker 2>it's about the truth. And I think if if people
<v Speaker 2>tried to do that with me, they would have to
<v Speaker 2>do it through that they would have to figure out
<v Speaker 2>a way. I don't know if I'm very good at poker,
<v Speaker 2>but but but I look at if you say so,
<v Speaker 2>I had to talk to. I'll put it in a
<v Speaker 2>general terms, but there's somebody who I know who was
<v Speaker 2>being kind of screwed over by a friend where the
<v Speaker 2>friend would say crappy things about them behind their back. No, fine, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>a true friend, a true friend, somebody who had every
<v Speaker 2>right and reason to be a true friend. And so
<v Speaker 2>trying to understand why that would happen it was nearly impossible,
<v Speaker 2>you know, like you couldn't figure it out, And so
<v Speaker 2>trying to give this per and guidance about like, well,
<v Speaker 2>you know, you have control over yourself, so do the right.
<v Speaker 2>But that's the one thing you have control over. So
<v Speaker 2>if someone's gonna behave that way, first of all, you
<v Speaker 2>have to acknowledge that it's painful. So I think if
<v Speaker 2>there was something in show business where I saw somebody
<v Speaker 2>kind of like to me, it's not underminding me. People
<v Speaker 2>in show business who do that, it's very clear that
<v Speaker 2>they're out for themselves and everybody can see it. So like, okay,
<v Speaker 2>well that's that's who.
<v Speaker 1>You are, essentially, not personal, right, Yeah, it's just it's
<v Speaker 1>only it's all about me. It's not that I don't
<v Speaker 1>like you or that I don't think you're any good
<v Speaker 1>it's just I'm better.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's a true yeah, and I you can I
<v Speaker 2>guess it doesn't. It does. It's not as hurtful if
<v Speaker 2>you if you understand that, you know, and then you
<v Speaker 2>sort of figure out for yourself what how are you
<v Speaker 2>gonna how are you gonna do it?
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it depends on how you take it.
<v Speaker 2>I think it used to be more where you could
<v Speaker 2>you could make appeals to decision makers based on things
<v Speaker 2>that were other than the work itself. But I think
<v Speaker 2>it's too hard to do that now. How many jobs
<v Speaker 2>now is it obvious where that person got it because
<v Speaker 2>they were a friend of a person or because they
<v Speaker 2>screwed somebody. I think now you kind of have to
<v Speaker 2>like the you gotta the goods, and some people think
<v Speaker 2>and some people are so right for certain things, you know.
<v Speaker 2>I auditioned for Chris o'donald's part in Sense of a Woman.
<v Speaker 2>Chris o'donald audition for Rudy. There's no question that I'm Rudy.
<v Speaker 2>There's no question that that's the guy from Sensible Woman.
<v Speaker 2>Some people are so the parts come down from the
<v Speaker 2>gods for you, you know, and you and at a
<v Speaker 2>certain point if you're just true to yourself. That's gonna
<v Speaker 2>that will become clear.
<v Speaker 3>What always comes to mind when I hear that like
<v Speaker 3>parts made for like somebody who embodies that part so
<v Speaker 3>well is oh, my goodness, I can't remember his name? No, yes, oh, yes,
<v Speaker 3>for sure, the blonde kid who plays King Joffrey in
<v Speaker 3>Game of Thrones.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, remember slicking.
<v Speaker 3>Like nobody else in the world could have played that role. Exactly, yeah, exactly.
<v Speaker 3>He's just like such a vile little person.
<v Speaker 2>And and that's true. And Jack Jack Gleeson and in
<v Speaker 2>life he's a prince. He's a sweetheart.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>No, or he's just like that.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Ouch.
<v Speaker 1>If you're a fan of everything we do here at
<v Speaker 1>tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the show
<v Speaker 1>on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well as early
<v Speaker 1>in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
<v Speaker 1>and more. You'll feel the difference, So go ahead and
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<v Speaker 1>slash Jim Cummings Podcast.
<v Speaker 2>Do it now?
<v Speaker 3>Do you want to do a little voice swap game?
<v Speaker 3>We have a voice swap game in this podcast.
<v Speaker 2>It's an amazing thing.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, yes, so this is how it work. Jim will
<v Speaker 3>say Jim will say a line as one of his characters,
<v Speaker 3>and then you'll say the same line but in one
<v Speaker 3>of your character voices. And we have a couple ideas
<v Speaker 3>written down here. So the first one would be Raphael
<v Speaker 3>and Shredder.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, oh that's true.
<v Speaker 3>So you would say a line is Shredder, and then
<v Speaker 3>you'll do it the same line, but as Raphael.
<v Speaker 2>This one I think I can do.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, we'll see, I think so. Okay, so I have
<v Speaker 1>to come up with a Shredder line. Let's see something
<v Speaker 1>about Well, an easy one would be.
<v Speaker 2>Get those turtles. Get those turtles. You sound just like you,
<v Speaker 2>I know.
<v Speaker 3>And then we wanted to do one for Balto, Cody
<v Speaker 3>from Balto and steal from Balto.
<v Speaker 2>Remember Cody from Balto. Oh no, it probably just sounded
<v Speaker 2>like me though.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, then not that one. How about Agent also and
<v Speaker 3>dark Wing Duck. Okay, oh how about you started off this?
<v Speaker 2>Oh well I'm trying. I want to feed dark Wing
<v Speaker 2>Duck and they're pretty good specially so well, it's all
<v Speaker 2>part of the plan. You're a special agent. Two, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>something like that. Okay, yeah. Step one, tie your shoes.
<v Speaker 2>Step two throw up on your pants. Step three, call
<v Speaker 2>the cleaner. Congratulations, you're a special agent. Two. Oh great,
<v Speaker 2>I can remember all of that. Tire your shoe, throw
<v Speaker 2>up on your pants, and call the cleaner.
<v Speaker 4>Step number one, tie your shoes. Step number two, throw
<v Speaker 4>up on your pants. Step number three, better clean your pants.
<v Speaker 2>I think that that's an approximation of what you said.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, don't try this at home.
<v Speaker 3>Go ahead try it just because of that story. Is
<v Speaker 3>there any way we can hear your version of po oh?
<v Speaker 2>That's so true? Well, I'm not like I didn't really No,
<v Speaker 2>Please pass the Christopher Robbin. Would you pass the honey.
<v Speaker 2>I'm looking for some honey like that. That sounded just
<v Speaker 2>like you.
<v Speaker 1>That was really good.
<v Speaker 2>The one hundred acre what no bother, no bother? You
<v Speaker 2>can mimic it, maybe a little bit. Please pass the honey,
<v Speaker 2>Please pass the honey. That's too good? Can we cut this?
<v Speaker 2>Mickey Mouse? Your wait? Do you know that joke?
<v Speaker 3>I can't do that.
<v Speaker 2>Make I'm making.
<v Speaker 1>I can't mind what that's not bad?
<v Speaker 2>Maybe Mickey Mouse, I don't know. Huh, that's it. That's
<v Speaker 2>pretty damn good. Brett.
<v Speaker 3>You better watch your ass, Brett.
<v Speaker 2>But I can only do that I can't do anything else.
<v Speaker 2>I agree.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, mine is wow, Wow, that's it.
<v Speaker 2>It is much better than mine. Well, we're goofing around
<v Speaker 2>at one point and somebody said like, oh, you should
<v Speaker 2>audition for Mickey Mouse or something. Not understanding the environment yet,
<v Speaker 2>and I thought, well, that's your that's not a voiceover job.
<v Speaker 2>That's like a brand man, a trademark. Yeah, you're does
<v Speaker 2>can he do other jobs?
<v Speaker 1>His name is on the money, Yeah, his voices or
<v Speaker 1>whatever however that works.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I know what you mean.
<v Speaker 1>Well, he's very careful and rightly.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, well I'm sure he hasn't. I'm sure it's
<v Speaker 2>in the deal. I'm sure. And when they when they
<v Speaker 2>audition for that, it's, uh, it's it's not just what
<v Speaker 2>are you capable of it? So let's hear who you
<v Speaker 2>are as a person, you know, tell us a little
<v Speaker 2>bit about your life, what kind of interest do you have?
<v Speaker 3>You know, I've learned so much about life through work,
<v Speaker 3>where it's just like people want to work with people
<v Speaker 3>who they like. You know, it's not even really like
<v Speaker 3>oh you're so good at this sense.
<v Speaker 8>Backstable, Yeah, it's it really is, And like it's crazy
<v Speaker 8>to me how it even transcends into things that would
<v Speaker 8>to be really easy to like, you know, quantify as
<v Speaker 8>a skill.
<v Speaker 3>Like sports. You know, it's like you'll see like phenomenal
<v Speaker 3>athletes and just nobody wants to be around them, so
<v Speaker 3>no teams hire them.
<v Speaker 6>You know.
<v Speaker 3>It's like this guy is like an amazing basketball player
<v Speaker 3>and can't get on a team, like like uh Deon
<v Speaker 3>sanders Son. You know, we're just seeing all that. You know,
<v Speaker 3>it's like nobody really wants to touch them. It's like,
<v Speaker 3>you know, go and media.
<v Speaker 2>I think I can be very likable. Yeah, I also
<v Speaker 2>think there's a way in which I am a little bit.
<v Speaker 2>Don't say it Unlichael, Yeah, no, I'm not gonna say unlikable.
<v Speaker 2>But there's there's a there's a well, you are a
<v Speaker 2>colossal prick an asshole everyone everyone knows it. No, but
<v Speaker 2>there's a there's a thing about power or control or
<v Speaker 2>being able to tell somebody else what to do, like
<v Speaker 2>you know what with my mother. The idea was that
<v Speaker 2>was ingrained in me is the director is the boss.
<v Speaker 2>You go in there, what the director's asking for something?
<v Speaker 2>You try and give the director what the director wants.
<v Speaker 2>But then I got to a certain age where I realized, well,
<v Speaker 2>the director has a boss too, and those bosses have
<v Speaker 2>another boss, and ultimately the public is the boss. And
<v Speaker 2>so I developed a kind a little bit of an
<v Speaker 2>attitude where like, I both want to make sure that
<v Speaker 2>I'm giving the director what the director wants, and I
<v Speaker 2>also want to make sure it's what I want. Yeah, right,
<v Speaker 2>So I want it to be I want those two
<v Speaker 2>things to be aligned. And sometimes I could give somebody
<v Speaker 2>exactly what they want and I'll walk around, I walk
<v Speaker 2>away from it feeling like and I think it has
<v Speaker 2>to do with the fact that people say, well, how
<v Speaker 2>much of you is in your character? And you keep
<v Speaker 2>saying it's your voice that I think that's my my
<v Speaker 2>superpower is that like, it's I'm I'm authentically meet and
<v Speaker 2>for better or worse, for right or wrong or whatever.
<v Speaker 2>And that probably has little you know, it'll probably boundari
<v Speaker 2>yourself that that you can't get past. But I but
<v Speaker 2>I also think that if you push back a little bit,
<v Speaker 2>you know, and it and it has to do with schedule,
<v Speaker 2>and it has to do with money, and it has
<v Speaker 2>to do with other things that every time I want
<v Speaker 2>to talk about it, people are like, we shouldn't talk
<v Speaker 2>about that, don't you know. I put it in my
<v Speaker 2>book how much money we made on Lord of the Rinks.
<v Speaker 2>You know they and they're like or that not that
<v Speaker 2>we made that I made little. How little money Actually
<v Speaker 2>people will be shocked. But but it's real, and at
<v Speaker 2>a certain point in your life you realize like, well,
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to continue to work because I'm going to
<v Speaker 2>do what i have to do to get the jobs.
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna demonstrate that I am professional, that I will
<v Speaker 2>show up on time, that I'll do what I'm supposed
<v Speaker 2>to do, and that I look like whatever, Like I'm
<v Speaker 2>gonna I figured out how to get jobs. People offer
<v Speaker 2>me jobs too, you know. So, but there's but understanding
<v Speaker 2>that that really in my early forties, I got the
<v Speaker 2>level of comfort like, Okay, I'm now not establishing myself
<v Speaker 2>to the industry. The industry now knows who I am.
<v Speaker 2>There's no there's no like sneaky, sneaky little thing. So
<v Speaker 2>I can stop fighting so hard to try and do
<v Speaker 2>that reintroduce myself to every new person as though it's
<v Speaker 2>a new thing, and I can start like I can
<v Speaker 2>relax a little bit and make sure that the work
<v Speaker 2>I do is because I'm I'm I see an opportunity
<v Speaker 2>or there's something that needs to happen or something like that.
<v Speaker 2>But all of that little dynamic aside, I'm like aware
<v Speaker 2>of the power dynamics. And the truth is, when I leave,
<v Speaker 2>you have they to cut me out, You have the
<v Speaker 2>ability to edit something. It takes a lot of trust
<v Speaker 2>and faith to do something and know that you've put
<v Speaker 2>it over to the filmmakers and they can do with
<v Speaker 2>it what they want. They can change things, they can
<v Speaker 2>make it appear differently, they can choose takes that you
<v Speaker 2>really didn't like. You know, there's and there's nothing you
<v Speaker 2>can do about that. That's actually just that's part of it.
<v Speaker 2>And developing a thickness of skin relative to that is
<v Speaker 2>like good. But sometimes it's not about the work, it's
<v Speaker 2>about personality. And I push back, mm hmmmm, so and
<v Speaker 2>I'm agree, Well, yeah, I mean I don't know. I
<v Speaker 2>don't do now, you know, I have a mini philosophy.
<v Speaker 1>I don't do on camera. But it's I always because
<v Speaker 1>you have to honor the writers and director and and
<v Speaker 1>I'll give them one as written. But and I'm notorious
<v Speaker 1>for better or worse, ad liverer just that's all I do.
<v Speaker 1>And you know I've said it before. Dark Ring Duck
<v Speaker 1>had this thing. I am the tear of the Flaps
<v Speaker 1>in the Night. I'm the winged skirts of pecks of Knightmare.
<v Speaker 1>I am dark Ring Dock. Well, the middle line always changed,
<v Speaker 1>and I'm telling you it was. I wish I saved
<v Speaker 1>the script. I've said this before. I don't want to
<v Speaker 1>bore anybody, but but it would be it would like
<v Speaker 1>seven shows in we did over one hundred. Uh, I
<v Speaker 1>am the Tear of the Flaps in the Night. Doesn't
<v Speaker 1>matter what I say here. You know, Jim's gonna think
<v Speaker 1>up something else anyway. I am dark gingk Duck And
<v Speaker 1>that's awesome. Yeah, and I wish I kept that script.
<v Speaker 2>That is, but I always but see. But do you
<v Speaker 2>what I do is I always do one as written,
<v Speaker 2>and then I always do one as an ad lib.
<v Speaker 1>And do you do you find yourself doing that because
<v Speaker 1>on camera probably doesn't lend itself to that as as
<v Speaker 1>quickly or as easily, because you're going to be in
<v Speaker 1>character still.
<v Speaker 2>Right, certain certain scripts, the language has been so labored
<v Speaker 2>over like the or it's so kind of like revealed
<v Speaker 2>language that first of all, it's easier to memorize and
<v Speaker 2>second of all, you know, that's what they want to hear.
<v Speaker 2>And you so you you being kind of like word
<v Speaker 2>There was one show that I did where I did
<v Speaker 2>it and it wasn't word perfect, and the writer producers
<v Speaker 2>had as scripted as scripted, and I was like, okay,
<v Speaker 2>let me do it as scripted. And I did it,
<v Speaker 2>and I thought I did it as scripted, but I
<v Speaker 2>transposed a word, not for creative purposes but just because whatever,
<v Speaker 2>you know, And it was it was a period piece,
<v Speaker 2>and so you know, maybe it felt a little bit
<v Speaker 2>like out of the period the way I said it,
<v Speaker 2>but that was a chore. That was a chore because
<v Speaker 2>I was I was trying to uh, I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>It just didn't. Whereas the other actors who had been
<v Speaker 2>there a long time I was a guest, they just
<v Speaker 2>they were just in it, in it. They were doing
<v Speaker 2>it exactly as scripted. They hadn't learned it before they
<v Speaker 2>got to the set. They worked for two seconds with
<v Speaker 2>somebody off to the side with their sides, and then
<v Speaker 2>they stepped in and did it and they were flawless.
<v Speaker 2>But then there's other things that you do, contemporary things,
<v Speaker 2>things where maybe the script isn't fully there. Maybe it's
<v Speaker 2>young people doing it. You know, I'll come in, they'll say, hey,
<v Speaker 2>do you want X number of money to come in
<v Speaker 2>for three days to do this thing? And you read
<v Speaker 2>the script and you're like, like, I see what they're
<v Speaker 2>going for. This isn't you know, the greatest thing in
<v Speaker 2>the world. But I have the time, it'd be nice
<v Speaker 2>to make the money and do it. So you land
<v Speaker 2>there on the ground having read the script, having studied whatever,
<v Speaker 2>if there's things background, whatever, and then you realize, like
<v Speaker 2>in the moment, they've certain choices that they've made on
<v Speaker 2>the location, on where to put the camera, on who
<v Speaker 2>else is hired in it. All of a sudden, the
<v Speaker 2>idea that they have isn't being fully realized by the dialogue.
<v Speaker 2>So you riff a little bit and they're like thank you, oh,
<v Speaker 2>thank God, like you understood. You brought so much to
<v Speaker 2>this moment. And you're like, you know, so it's interesting,
<v Speaker 2>Like I say, it's like fighter pilots. You got to see,
<v Speaker 2>like what air battle am I in? Am mine an
<v Speaker 2>air battle? Where I've got to be? This is you know, Shakespeare.
<v Speaker 2>You're not gonna go and ad lib Shakespeare. You're gonna
<v Speaker 2>read Shakespeare, you know, but you know, for you, for
<v Speaker 2>the signature character of a show like that, to to
<v Speaker 2>I mean, that's what the audience love every week. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>to me, that's a love letter to you. Jim's gonna
<v Speaker 2>do something else. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it was pretty funny. It was a lot of
<v Speaker 1>fun and it was true.
<v Speaker 2>So I'll take that.
<v Speaker 3>Well, was there anything you want to advertise plug to
<v Speaker 3>your audience or anything where to find you on social media?
<v Speaker 3>Things like that of that nature.
<v Speaker 2>After the last election, I decided that I was going
<v Speaker 2>to get off all of social media because it wasn't
<v Speaker 2>about I felt like it wasn't about communicating with people anymore.
<v Speaker 2>It was about algorithms and agendas in corporate like you know,
<v Speaker 2>I didn't like you didn't right about that. I got
<v Speaker 2>into it right after the Arab Spring. That's when I
<v Speaker 2>was like, oh, what's this? What's this Twitter thing?
<v Speaker 3>Man?
<v Speaker 2>This is awesome? And afterwards I just thought, you know
<v Speaker 2>what I've done, And my kids said, well, Dad, you
<v Speaker 2>got to be on there for certain contract stuff, right,
<v Speaker 2>don't you have to you put in there? You do
<v Speaker 2>at least, well, you've got all these followers, do you
<v Speaker 2>want to at least. I mean, some of them are real,
<v Speaker 2>right and they're not all bot you know. And I
<v Speaker 2>was and they said we'll do it, and I said, okay,
<v Speaker 2>you do it, you do it. So they've been cool. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and it's interesting, you know. There was Mother's Day. Alie
<v Speaker 2>comes to me and she's like, what do you think
<v Speaker 2>of this picture of you and mom? And we were
<v Speaker 2>I was like nineteen or twenty and she was twenty
<v Speaker 2>two twenty something like that. She's like, I'm gonna put
<v Speaker 2>this out there with pictures of each of us as kids,
<v Speaker 2>and do you want to caption it? So I give
<v Speaker 2>it a little caption. So but no, I mean, people
<v Speaker 2>can The reason I came here today is because I
<v Speaker 2>honor Jim. I honor you. You are a You're a legend,
<v Speaker 2>You're a Yeah, you just you've you've you've encapsulated something
<v Speaker 2>so pure and so good over decades. And for me,
<v Speaker 2>a person who is, you know, in the anti chamber,
<v Speaker 2>I've made it. I'm through the outer wall. I'm in
<v Speaker 2>the anti chamber of this of your particular discipline, and
<v Speaker 2>so I just appreciate you so much and I just
<v Speaker 2>wanted to do it for you. So I promote that
<v Speaker 2>I promote my affection for Jim.
<v Speaker 3>Well, that's awesome. That's awesome. That's really sweet.
<v Speaker 2>I need a moment. Thank you, bless you, bless you
<v Speaker 2>from my heart to yours. God, bless you.
<v Speaker 3>Thank you.
<v Speaker 2>And my kids. By the way, wife and kids know
<v Speaker 2>I'm doing They like him. I don't know what. Yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna stop goosebumping.
<v Speaker 3>Well, thanks a lot for doing this.
<v Speaker 2>It is a lot of fun for sure. Amen. Amen,
<v Speaker 2>it's comfortable couch. You don't want to leave. You're like,
<v Speaker 2>this is a new studio. Yeah, yeah, it looks good.
<v Speaker 1>It works.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, all right, everybody, thanks for watching. That was another
<v Speaker 3>episode of Tuned In with Jim Comming. If you like
<v Speaker 3>this content, be sure to like and subscribe. And if
<v Speaker 3>you like this content so much you want to see more,
<v Speaker 3>you can join Patreon where there's bonus episodes. There's additional
<v Speaker 3>content that nobody else gets to see here on YouTube.
<v Speaker 3>And if you leave a like and subscribe, it really
<v Speaker 3>helps us out with knowing what you guys like to see.
<v Speaker 3>It helps you out with the algorithm. It'll recommend more
<v Speaker 3>videos like this, and I think that just about covers
<v Speaker 3>it for today. Shawn as and thanks so much for
<v Speaker 3>being really appreciate it.