#579 - Milo Ventimiglia on His First Big Yes, Gilmore Girls & This Is Us

00:00:06
Speaker 1: Ashley was having a party, and my role was I walk down the steps with a girl in my arm and Ashley runs up to me as this party is happening while her parents are out of town, and she says, nobody's supposed to be upstairs, and I say to her, prelax, ash We're just taking a little tour.

00:00:26
Speaker 2: Hey, guys, Bobby Bones here today on the Bobby Cast, I'm hanging out with my love, vent Emilia, actor, director, producer. I know him mostly as Jack Pearson on This is Us, but also he was on Heroes, he was on Gilmore Girls. Heck, he was even fresh Prince of bel Air. The dude's awesome, Like, I really enjoyed this. I had never met him before, and he's in a new movie I can only imagine too, where he plays Tim Timmins and Tim actually lives in Nashville, and it's pretty cool because my loves in Nashville were recording this. But I can only imagine two in theaters here. He is Amilia. I often try to find the three questions I think people are asked, and not ask them. Okay, but I want to say, if I can guess the three questions that you get asked the most okay, and you don't have to go into a full answer, but just a sure answer. Question number one, how did you feel about the ending of This Is Us?

00:01:19
Speaker 1: I thought it was wonderful. I know that Dan Fogelman, he we prepped for it ahead of time. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with the end of This Is Us at the beginning of season three, so we still had three well four to go if you count season three, four, five, and six. That we had to plan ahead because we needed the kids at that age. So the last episode, you know how it flashes back, it's when the kids are small and like they had already at that point aged out, and their voices are cracking, and they're like they're well into like teenagers. Couldn't capture them and film them again. So he knew he was ahead. And what I thought was beautiful that Dan did was he shifted from you know, kind of centering Jack around the family, and then by the end you realize, oh, wow, it's about Mom and like this journey that we'd been on with this family and these kids, about Mom and where she's going. I just thought it was a beautiful love letter to like the strength of women out there and what they experienced and go through. And I know Dan lost his mom, and I think that was a pretty big impact. I think that might have been a gift for her, changing the perspective or shifting shifting the perspective of the family and the point of view and what with the impact of mom and Mom's death and all that was, and you know, again like Dan's knocked out of the park, I thought it was a beautiful thing to live in that world of ron Cephas Jones, God bless and rest his soul now being a conductor on the train and Mandy Moore's care going through and not knowing what's going to happen, and then hey, there's Jack right at the end, and then jumping back into you know, all the points of view of the adult kids, seeing Sterling, seeing justin, seeing Chris, seeing what they're experiencing, and then you know, jumping to them as children with Lonnie and Parker and Mackenzie and Mandy and I and then just kind of like going out on like that last little beat with the camera just shifts from young Randall to Jack and then boom out black.

00:03:30
Speaker 2: Is that one of the top three questions you get asked no, okay, good the other one. I'm sure you get asked a lot and you can abbreviate the answer. I have to think everybody goes, Hey, your first job was on the Fresh Prince of bel Air.

00:03:43
Speaker 3: Yes, do you stop question? Do you dread answering that question?

00:03:47
Speaker 2: No?

00:03:47
Speaker 3: Not at all.

00:03:47
Speaker 1: I don't care. It's fine. I mean there's a lot of different ways to answer it too. And yeah, that was like my first like real credit. I was eighteen, I was going to school a UCLA. I got a phone call saying, hey, this job you auditioned for, you got a yes to be on Fresh Prince Bell There. I remember my childhood friend, Aaron Stagger. We shared a room. We roomed together in an apartment, and I remember like getting the phone call early in the morning and his bed is there in my beds here.

00:04:10
Speaker 3: I'm like, dude, I got the job. You got the job. I'm cool.

00:04:12
Speaker 1: What do we spend the money on? I went to buy a TV, even buy a vc R? What are we going to buy?

00:04:17
Speaker 3: This is so cool?

00:04:18
Speaker 1: What was the role I played? Party guest number two? Oh, that was what is credited as Party Guest number two. Yeah, Ashley was having a party, and my role was I walked down the steps with a girl in my arm and Ashley runs up to me as this party is happening while you know, her parents are out of town, and she says, nobody's supposed to be upstairs, and I say to her, relax, ash We're just taking a little tour and walked off. The best part about it was it was it was nineteen ninety five. I had overalls on. My hair was parted in nineteen ninety five. I had to share that was open those vintage I'm like, oh man, I'm so nineties. This is around Doc Martin's on, you know, living my best ninety five life. But that'd be my f first job gave me the opportunity to be around the movie star Will Smith, and what I saw on that set was kindness and inclusion from him from him, which I think are important lessons to learn. It before a young actor. It is not about you. You're there as a community. You're there's crew. Will knew everybody's names, embraced everybody. I was a kid who had one line. He came up like walked up to me, not in passing, but walked up to me, stopped to talk to me for probably five or six minutes, felt like about twenty, asking me questions about myself. Oh, I was going to school?

00:05:39
Speaker 3: Cool?

00:05:39
Speaker 1: Where was I from? And things like that, and thanking me for being on his show. And I think that set me in a direction to make sure that every set that I was on, hey be like Will Smith, just like be inclusive, be cool. No people's names make this a very warm place for people to be, make it a safe place for people to be. And I learned that from Will early days.

00:06:03
Speaker 3: That's a that's a great answer, thanks man.

00:06:06
Speaker 1: Uh.

00:06:06
Speaker 3: The third one, do people ever go how do you say your last name?

00:06:09
Speaker 1: All the time?

00:06:10
Speaker 2: I've I've heard your name said, but people often say it differently and there's no gee. How do you say your last name?

00:06:18
Speaker 3: Vin Amilia?

00:06:19
Speaker 1: Okay, so there's no G Like I said, yeah, gee is silent, but like I mean, you look at you know any kind of like you go to Italian restaurant Talia Itlly not tagli itally, but also geographic is regionally you're from like New York, you're from Staten Island. You're gonna say taglely, Telly's gonna you're gonna say things a little differently. It's like I got in a car the other day and, uh, the guy driving me, he talks about Pastavajoel, and I was like, bro, I'm like, where are you from? Pastavajel? Like, im I know that is this? That's a bean soup pasta. Like that's the best thing in the world. My grandma not used to make that.

00:06:47
Speaker 3: That's incredible.

00:06:49
Speaker 1: I'm never offended by it. I realized it's a difficult last name when I was a child, like playing like Pop Warner football, running onto a field, you know, in this like big important game, all these kids are getting their name announced, and as I'm running on, you know, I get Milo Vintimore whatever. Not offended it happens my first name. People call me Milo and I'm like, no, it's Milo. You know, it is what it is. But uh, the nice thing about having a long, difficult last name is I've got a short, not as difficult first name, and so kind of in town, I'm able to be like if you just say Milo, people are like, oh, yes, that's him. They know who that is. It's not like James Vintimilia. There's a ton of James's, you know.

00:07:31
Speaker 2: I think when that kind of popped they put the sign up. Okay, now it's got bullet holes, it's a hole.

00:07:36
Speaker 3: It was like a city council kind of thing. Probably, I just know they I was dropping on the ground having the genus good thanks man. Yeah, I was going back and it was a surprise. Okay, it's super cool. But they have it when you know when you're in. And then we were building the studio.

00:07:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were doing the deal with Netflix and I was like, man, we need something that's like so we asked them for the design of the sign in order.

00:07:56
Speaker 3: Oh cool. Yeah, So did you find out who like shot holes through Itrobably a little bit. Everybody only seven hundred sevent two people, so probably there you do every door like, hey we did that. Well, caliber is your favorite bird shot? It's a lot of birch shot, got it? Oh? So long ago? Okay, I fall along. Yeah where I come from, nobody's shooting handguns. No pistols. It's all shotguns. Wow, like racks in the back of windows of trucks. Oh yeah, we would leave. Are you rolling, Mike?

00:08:22
Speaker 2: This is fun to talk about anyway, By the way, is the best conversations When I was in high school and I graduated in ninety eight. So but we would leave for two reasons without ever having to check out. One if the trout truck drove by. Are you familiar with the trout truck? No, So we would I'm from a very rural town and so the game and fish would stock trout, and so you'd see the truck drive by and to be loaded with trout, and so we would just jump on our cars and drive down. And since they're stalking them, you're just yanking. Really that And then everybody had guns in their cars and trucks because especially during honting season.

00:08:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, just leave. You gotta be ready, or you came to school late because you went early, and you don't go home and drop your you know, your twelve gage job.

00:09:07
Speaker 1: We did the exact same thing in Orth County, California.

00:09:09
Speaker 2: I know, I'm gonna say that's probably not true, but yeah, obviously it was a different time then.

00:09:15
Speaker 3: But yeah, in rural Arkansas, yeah, those are just tools.

00:09:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, but everybody had shotguns in their car all the time because you came from the woods or you went to the woods after school or a fishing pole.

00:09:27
Speaker 3: We had a lot of fish and poles. Did you fish at all? Ever? Once? I think I might have been.

00:09:32
Speaker 1: I might have been in high school, and it was more like out on the ocean. And I went on a boat, and I didn't do so well on boats back then. And I remember before I went, my dad told me to take a drama mean and I didn't take a drama mean, And so I spent quite a bit of the boat ride out on the ocean, which you know is up and down, just not really looking at the ocean.

00:09:53
Speaker 3: That's tough. I had a show on.

00:09:55
Speaker 2: Nat GEO for a while and one of the things that we did was we went out. We were spending time with a guy who he was a career halibut fishermen, and so we went to San Francisco and yeah, the only time I'd ever seen Alcatraz. But we know, we go out that way and we go out like five miles and he's in a small boat. I get motion sick in an elevator being on a small boat, like you're talking about. I vomited so much. It was to the point where I was vomiting nothing. It was just me going.

00:10:23
Speaker 3: It's the worse like screaming.

00:10:25
Speaker 2: I would lay down and just do this until they said we need you. You need five We got even five minutes, stand up shoot the scene.

00:10:35
Speaker 3: So here here's something really quick good tip and trick.

00:10:37
Speaker 1: If you don't have dramamine or like a mechasine patch that goes behind your ear ahead of time pressure points on the inside your wrist either side, you could sit there and squeeze the heck out of your wrist on either side and it should help you to bridge the gap of when you're having motion sickness.

00:10:54
Speaker 3: Why do you think that is?

00:10:56
Speaker 1: I don't know.

00:10:56
Speaker 3: I don't know.

00:10:56
Speaker 1: If you studied like Eastern i'ld say, like, yeah, Eastern medicine or something like that. It was something I feel like my dad. My dad has men ears, which is like a deep inner ear. I don't even know what it's called, like what it really the condition is. But my dad his uh cockliar or something. The fluid's in there just kind of flip and he gets really just knocked down. You know. It's almost like somebody has a migraine, like a really bad migraine. They just like want to be in a dark room and just like have nothing around. So my dad had this issue like his entire life, and I think he was always trying to find remedies and things like that and just pressure points.

00:11:32
Speaker 3: It really it did.

00:11:34
Speaker 1: The only time I tested it out, I was on a flight to Hawaii with my wife and she's watching the documentary about Hawaiian culture, and she's from there, of Hawaiian culture, and I was just trying like not to vomit our breakfast and I didn't have any drama, mean, and I'm trying it to be present, and I'm just in there, just gripped, and it's just turbulent, and it's moving up and down. Hit a bad air pocket or something, and I'm just whole holding for dear life onto my wrists just as hard as I could. Like when the flight was over, I would looked down and just just the deepest.

00:12:08
Speaker 3: Pit of my feather through. Yeah, pretty much you get sick on a flight.

00:12:13
Speaker 1: It was I think it was just circumstantial with uh, with with that flight. It doesn't happen all the time. It Actually, I used to be really good with flights. Boats were like not as much, but I could manage to handle it. But then I spent a bunch of time with the Air Force Reserves and I went up at an F sixteen, and what we were doing in that jet actually tipped the scale to where like the smallest of things like sometimes an elevator or a car drive and like, whoop, you know, bananas.

00:12:43
Speaker 2: I'm curious about that flight. I went and flew at the Blue Angels once. Yeah, I would never do it again.

00:12:50
Speaker 3: I'm so glad I did it. Sure and both can exist.

00:12:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, And they called and said, hey, we're coming to town. We're selecting someone from your city. We think they dont I We.

00:13:00
Speaker 1: Like you do.

00:13:01
Speaker 3: It is an immediate yes, of course, because it's an experience that is not often offered to anybody. And you're like, cool, I get it.

00:13:08
Speaker 1: I'm in a position to go do something cool that I would never get to do in a million years.

00:13:12
Speaker 3: Like I'm gonna do it. Can't pay for it, can't pay for it?

00:13:14
Speaker 1: Well, there used to be a program with the American Express if you got a million points, legit, a million points, you could go fly in whatever particular kind of jet. I was like, man, I'm gonna save up for that, and then yeah, it never happened because like you need a million points on.

00:13:31
Speaker 3: So you could kind of pay for it.

00:13:32
Speaker 1: Pay for it, but also you can't pay for it. Yeah, it's one of those like invited experiences that are just priceless.

00:13:37
Speaker 3: I was nervous.

00:13:38
Speaker 2: I'm not a big fly and a like flying, but I do. And they put the little suit on you, except it's not an anti G suit. It's literally just a bowl constrictor overalls.

00:13:50
Speaker 3: Well you're yeah, you're in.

00:13:51
Speaker 1: You're in like a jumpsuit like a car mechanic.

00:13:54
Speaker 3: And then the the G suit. I didn't have a G suit. You know, have a G suit. No, that's their pride thing. They don't wear a G suit. So there's no but they do this for a living, you don't. But nobody had a G suit on. Why didn't they give you a G suit? Exactly? Do they teach you how to chirp? So I don't know what that means.

00:14:11
Speaker 1: Okay, So chirping is a way of breathing. When you're in a fighter fighter jet, you're basically so the idea really quickly gravity gravity is going against you, and you need to stay awake and keep blood in your heart and in your head when you are flying in under G force or you will get g lock, which means you're just gonna pass out. That happened to maybe exactly. So it happens that all of us, all of us civilians. Man, it always happens.

00:14:39
Speaker 3: But a G suit is like a bowl constrictor.

00:14:43
Speaker 1: So it's from your sternum all the way down through your ribcage and then wraps around your legs. And the idea is under one G, two G, three g's, which is equivalent to your own body weight being forced on top of your blood system. Your G suit is filling up, compressing everything, keeping all the blood out of your extremities and in your heart and in your.

00:15:06
Speaker 3: Head is a compression.

00:15:07
Speaker 1: It's like it's compression suit, but it's I mean, it literally feels like you're being strangled by a bowl constrictor. But on top of that, you have to learn how to chirp, which is a style of breathing that's basically the same thing that.

00:15:19
Speaker 3: Your your suit is doing, which is forcing.

00:15:21
Speaker 1: All the blood up into where you need it, your heart and your.

00:15:24
Speaker 3: Head so it doesn't stop and you don't pass out.

00:15:28
Speaker 1: And so like I mean, this was the the Blue Angels might have been different Air Force reserves. These guys ran me through the program, taught me how to parachute, all this stuff, how to fly the jet, everything, everything I need to know about an F sixteen was told to me ahead of getting into the jet and going up on a flight.

00:15:44
Speaker 3: What's the actual physical chirp though, because the physical chirp you're basically lamon.

00:15:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm doing yeah, boom, there's there's a child.

00:15:59
Speaker 3: Did you fit like that helped you?

00:16:01
Speaker 1: I think it did, But I still hit I think eight and a half g's before I finally succumbed to that and passed out.

00:16:09
Speaker 3: Uh, and I absolutely vomited. So when I went up in the jet, just overalls. Yeah, whatever they are, you're a stud.

00:16:21
Speaker 2: No I'm not, because I get in and what they tea they taught us was a bit different where it was you have to shove your feet into the ground so hard to keep the blood up because and he would tell me because I'm a novice, right, rookie novice.

00:16:38
Speaker 3: All right, we're gonna hit two g's, three gens and they counted for you.

00:16:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, they start telling you push and so I'm pushing as hard as I can.

00:16:46
Speaker 3: And did you pull yourself? I didn't. Pooh my.

00:16:49
Speaker 2: They told me to do it beforehand. I probably would have, but they were like, you need to use the bathroom. And I was like, I'm good. They were like, no, no, no, you need to make sure that other one everything. And so I remember when we were hitting like three or four g's, I would start to see the bottom of my eyes get a little black.

00:17:06
Speaker 3: Great, yeah, just a little yeah. I'd go gray.

00:17:08
Speaker 2: When we hit. You see me in the video, I couldn't. I was pushing back as hard as I could. Yeah, it was overtaking me.

00:17:14
Speaker 3: There was a point where my eyes were wide open and it was all black.

00:17:18
Speaker 2: I was still conscious and you heard yeah, except I couldn't see anything. And then you see in the video me go yeah, we're tumbling and I'm just doing that. And then I come back a lie and I'm like, oh god, dude, it is wild.

00:17:31
Speaker 1: Dude. I had the same thing my pilot. The name's Duke Boy. That was his call sign. And as we're like pushing g's, I hear him count them out, count them out, count them out, and I see the worlds go gray gray, great, gray grey. And then I snapped back and I hear him saying, my name Milo Milo.

00:17:45
Speaker 3: You're still there.

00:17:46
Speaker 1: I'm like yeah, oh yeah, no, I'm still here, and he goes, good, I heard you stop breathing, like chirping, because I was chirping all the way through.

00:17:53
Speaker 3: And we got to eight and a half g's and then I was like, I'm done. I'm tapped out. Why were you doing that? Was it her role? No?

00:17:59
Speaker 1: Noctors just kind of get to do cool things.

00:18:03
Speaker 3: That's a cool thing. That's a cool thing. Yeah.

00:18:05
Speaker 1: No. I I do a lot of work in the military space. I do a lot of work with gold Star families, so families that lost loved ones in combat, do a lot of work.

00:18:13
Speaker 3: With active duty and veterans.

00:18:16
Speaker 1: But that was just one of those things that got invited to spend some time with the Air Force Reserves at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, and they're like, look, you know, put you up in an in and incentive flight.

00:18:28
Speaker 3: What does that mean?

00:18:29
Speaker 1: You basically just to get to go in a jet and go for like a second seat ride.

00:18:34
Speaker 3: Yeah. Credit card points yeah, sorry, American Express points.

00:18:36
Speaker 1: No use my points, hung on my points for like other vacations. But no, they uh, just I just got invited to go spend some time with these like awesome men and women that you know, serve the nation and do it on the reserve side and teach other nations like fighting skills of the F sixteen and other far more superior jets.

00:18:55
Speaker 3: That's crazy that it's pretty cool, I mean.

00:18:57
Speaker 1: And also I mean, like dude, I been on aircraft and Persian golf like a rack Afghanistan and stuff.

00:19:02
Speaker 3: Just kind of there to like serve the community of the military. Did you jump?

00:19:06
Speaker 1: I jumped with the I think they're called the Black Daggers Army Special Forces for brag.

00:19:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was fun.

00:19:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, But also like too, you're kind of like you're strapped to captain in America and you're like going out a plane, like what's going to go wrong?

00:19:19
Speaker 3: That's how it's felt.

00:19:20
Speaker 2: And in my flight, yeah, you know, I'm in a blue Angel And again I don't like flying Southwest.

00:19:24
Speaker 3: It's not about Southwest.

00:19:25
Speaker 2: I don't like flying, but I'm up there with the best of the best, YEP. And so there was a comfort in that. When I got out of the plane, I was I was sick for eight hours. I laid on the floor in the room for a while, and then I was just humiliated. They had to look at me and where were where did you do your flight.

00:19:39
Speaker 3: At like thirty minutes from here. They were, Oh god, it's always like in town. So you just like hopped into a car. Still couldn't get home.

00:19:45
Speaker 2: Now, I laid on the floor for yeah, to drive there, and then I laid on the floor, and then I laid on the floor in the bathroom, which was disgusting. Sure, then I went to my car and leaned the seat back and did that for about an hour and then finally got home.

00:19:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a rough one.

00:19:57
Speaker 1: I I was in Arizona, but then I had light to Vegas for something, and I got onto a Southwest flight and I remember as we're like landing and descending and I'm by myself and I kind of like lean to the person next.

00:20:10
Speaker 3: Men'm like, this is not even like a half a gen.

00:20:14
Speaker 1: Like thinking, I'm all high and mighty, like I just passed out an eight and a half.

00:20:17
Speaker 3: Gen a quarter gee, this is ridiculous. Nothing. What was your jumping out of a plane experience? Like, so was over at Fort Bragg spending time with Army.

00:20:27
Speaker 1: Army Special Forces used to sock over there, and you know, they just the good thing about the military community, Like they pull you in and they want to show you all of the cool stuff that they do, but also just really immerse you with the troops, and the guys and gals are in a uniform that electively serve, and so I mean, you know, I would uh be there like running programs with those guys where you know, we're blowing doors off of hinges and clearing rooms and stuff all the way to watching life saving field medic skills all on. You know, another soldier who's just you know, pretending to be wounded. And then you know, they were like, hey, do you want to jump? And I was like, yeah, of course, never done it before in my life.

00:21:11
Speaker 3: They just say do you want to jump? Yeah?

00:21:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hey, hey do you want to blow you know, here, here's some explosives, Go take the door off of those hinges. Hey, here's a rifle, go, you know, shoot long distance. Hey, here's a parachute. This guy's going to strap you in it. Just jump out a plane. I'm like, okay, cool, here's a jet, go fly in it.

00:21:29
Speaker 3: Cool. Do you chase no adrenaline? No?

00:21:33
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. I mean it's and it's now being a father really not really not like I've had a wonderful lifetime of it gave up my motorcycles, have no interest in going headstrong into anything like that. And to have made it out the other end with all my arms and my limbs and feeling pretty good and my sanity and my mental acuity.

00:21:56
Speaker 3: I'm kind of like I'm good.

00:21:58
Speaker 2: I have friends that became successes and they were like, I'm bored. I'm gonna be a pilot.

00:22:03
Speaker 1: Don't have that itch, Not so much out of boredom, but like curiosity, Like I always have a curiosity. Be like that's a rap practical skill. Maybe I'll go do that, Yeah, flying piloting, flying a helicopter, or anything even down to like boxing or a language.

00:22:21
Speaker 3: I got.

00:22:22
Speaker 1: I don't say I got so bored, but I got so in tune with what I was doing, with like being behind a camera directing and producing and be in front of the camera acting that I'm like, Okay, cool, I get it. I understand what my scope of work is. Let me do something different with my brain. So I went back to school, took a started with three languages. That was too much to do with a full time two full time jobs running a company and being on a show. And then I was like, let me back down. To one, and I just went to school because I'm like, I gotta do something different with my brain. Not out of boredom, but just out of like curiosity, you know, keep it active.

00:22:54
Speaker 3: Do you know other languages?

00:22:56
Speaker 1: Not well anymore? That was that stretch. I started with Russian, Spanish and Japanese and realized that those languages were too much, so I backed off on the Russian and Spanish and just stuck with Japanese for like two years.

00:23:11
Speaker 4: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

00:23:27
Speaker 3: What do you consider your first major?

00:23:28
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I had a few, definitely ahead of Gilmore Girls, you know, or early days of like building a resume and whatnot, and like working in town and being kind of a working actor. I hit early twenty one is the last time I had like a job job.

00:23:48
Speaker 3: What was that job?

00:23:49
Speaker 1: Was selling snowboards at a snowboard shop. And then just before that, I was waiting tables at a restaurant in Brentwood, California. But I'd done a few shows for Warner Brothers. They put me under contract like paid, Hey, you're hell do you work with the studio? Now? I was like, Okay, I guess I don't have to have a job job because this will pay my rent, pay my meals, things like that. But then I think Gilmour kind of uh put me on the map. Beyond that, I was still kind of like working, working, working, a bunch of Warner Brothers shows, a few Universal shows, and then I did Heroes, which put me like above the map where it's kind of like, oh, I went from like known in the industry to known globally with Heroes. Could you feel that, Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely feel the absolutely feel the shift of you know, industry to being out on the streets and someone like just running up to you and sobbing or you know, want a photograph or an autograph back in the day. You feel it energetically, and then it was, uh, I think this is us that hit like a whole other statusphere and even like, you know, along the way, you have things like Rocky Balboa or you know, a movie, a couple of movies with Adam Sandler, or a movie's Nicole Kidman or Jennifer Lopez, and like there's just these little like kind of hits that are happening. You're like, wow, almost some pretty prolific people, and when I'm on set with them, we're doing the same job and they're lovely human beings, Adam and Jennifer and Nicole, and you're like, oh, I get I know this is a job, but also I'm in a very fortunate position to work with legends that I get to learn from and then also pass on to, like younger actors and things like that.

00:25:39
Speaker 2: I feel like there are only a few shows I gave in my lifetime where I can remember kind of where I was in my life. I think music does this to me too, where I can hear a song again and I go, oh, I remember exactly where I was told this song became like a song? Sure, and am I just saying this because you're here? But when this is us hit, that was one of the last, I feel, at least for me, one of the last cultural network phenomenons.

00:26:02
Speaker 3: Totally Do you feel that? Yeah?

00:26:04
Speaker 1: Absolutely?

00:26:05
Speaker 3: It was so big, so fast, and we knew it going in.

00:26:10
Speaker 1: We knew the impact it had because I think it impacted us on the inside that we're reading the scripts and a part of this beautiful show that Dan Fogelman put together. But you never really know, right, No, I mean, you you don't know if it's going to be a hit. What you do know is this made me feel something. This made me feel something, and that is what we try and do as artists. If we can feel it, hopefully someone on the other side of a movie screen or a television screen can feel it too. Like that's the job, you know, that emotional vulnerability, that emotional connection. That's what we do for a living or emotional professionals. But you don't know the successes with it. It could be like the most feel feeling show ever and nobody watches it it that's how it goes. But to get them both the same, like we on the inside were feeling it and then everybody in the outside is feeling it, and then it just kind of kept going and going and going. I think it was also this moment in the world that people needed something like that. They needed family and community and to understand that we're all going through some times and we kind of need to open the valve of communication and understand and recognize our differences. And I think this gave that to audiences to take into their own lives to actually make their lives more connected and make their lives more validated in a way sometimes and we hit so many different subject matters, you know, but without trying or preaching it or staying in for right now. You know, what Dan Foegeman and all the writers do did was they were able to take a point of view and then shift like just two or three degrees one direction and just show it from a slightly different angle, slightly different lens, and then you're able to really understand something and then take it almost as a lesson to apply it to your own life, which I think is a wonderful gift as artists. You know, you get to like, hey, we're handing this to you to do what you will with it.

00:28:12
Speaker 3: Was that an audition? Actually?

00:28:14
Speaker 1: That was that was a yes, did you audition for the role that you ended up getting? I did so when I read the first script, I was like, wow, man, I think maybe am I more Kevin? I'm like, but I don't think I'm a Kevin. But then they wanted me for Jack. But it wasn't that they wanted me, They just said, hey, you know, they want you to read for Jack. And John and Glenn are directors, John Riqua and Glenn Ficara Fakara. We had some common ground with a good friend, Dan Fogelman, who created the show. We had common ground with a good friend. And so I walked into a very warm room and on the page Jack Pearson, which was not named Pearson in the pilot, he uh, as Fogman likes to say, didn't look like me, Like I was off my motorcycle, was holding my helmet walking in, you know, had a conversation like I never met Dan, I knew NOx. No, I'd never met John and Glenn either, our directors. We just all knew of one another and had like friendly, friendly connections, and so we just kind of were talking about the people that we knew.

00:29:20
Speaker 3: And then they were like a.

00:29:22
Speaker 1: Cast nrector, like, okay, so you want to read. I'm like, yeah, cool, let's do it. I'm not pulling pages out. I'm not there to like read lines, like I already have this in my head. And they were like, oh, I'm like yeah, no, I'm ready, let's go, and we just start doing it and we do like a take, and I kind of glanced back at the end of it and I see Dan sitting like a little boy about to open a bunch of presents at Christmas. Just this big smile on his face, and I'm like, Okay, I think that went pretty well.

00:29:47
Speaker 3: I walk out.

00:29:48
Speaker 1: By the time I get back to my motorcycle, like I get a call from my reps, You're like, hey, they want you, And I was like that quick.

00:29:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was that fast. It wasn't like when you do a chemistry we need to well, it was they want you.

00:30:01
Speaker 1: But of course, like you know, for studio purposes and network purposes, like they're gonna have a couple of backup guys. They are, but now Miley, you're the person to beat, Like they the creatives all want you. They would like you to read with other actresses to play your TV wife. So Mandy Moore was in there, and then I think three two or three other actresses were in there that I read with, and so they just pulled me into the process and like I think they were also testing out the waters and like they had an idea about the other actors, Like I think John and Glenn had worked with Sterling and Fogelman knew him, so it's kind of like they were eyeballing Sterling. They didn't have Christy Mettz yet, who's local and wonderful here in Nashville.

00:30:47
Speaker 3: They didn't have Justin Hartley.

00:30:48
Speaker 1: Who's I mean, I got such a talent when one of the best actors i'd worked with her scene and they didn't have Mandy and I. You know, it's like it kind of had ideas, but then I think I was the first one. They're like, Okay, cool, this guy's gonna anchor the family. He's the patriarch, he's the dad. And then once they saw what Mandy and I were doing together, like, oh wow, there's mom and dad, got the two of them, and I think at that point Sterling came on and then brought Justin and Chrissy and it all made sense and took shape.

00:31:21
Speaker 3: That show was a phenomenon.

00:31:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, like really one of the last because it's so fractional. Now everybody everybody has somebody that's sup famous to them that somebody else has never heard of.

00:31:30
Speaker 3: Okay, because I could, I could.

00:31:32
Speaker 2: You know, there's a guy I watch on TikTok named Anatoli who does jokes and is a powerlifter, and I'm sure my friend, nobody's ever heard of them like famous. So fractional now, I feel like that was like one of the last things where everybody knew it. It didn't matter where you were from, it didn't matter. So represented a version of of all different kinds.

00:31:51
Speaker 1: Of people without forcing anything down your throat. It was actually inviting you to just watch these stories to people, offering you to with what they were living through, which was I think again, like the most wonderful thing about being an artist, Like that's what you want to be a part of. Even to me, like that's what I feel like, I can only imagine two is doing. You know, it's you know, has an audience because the first film was like incredibly successful. But I think it also it opens its arms and says, hey, here's a story, and here's some people we think you might relate to. Why you come join us in this and like see what you can take from it.

00:32:29
Speaker 2: There's a guy that I see on TikTok. He is Japanese, speaks English wonderfully, but he goes to people and he says, hey, I know your language, what is it?

00:32:37
Speaker 3: And just people walking through.

00:32:39
Speaker 2: And it doesn't matter Farsi, Mandarin. He knows every language. Well, it's the wildest thing. Some people's brains are obvious.

00:32:49
Speaker 1: That's an incredible miss. I wish I had that skill. I mean even just think about the practical use of it. Communicate, just communicate with people to understand somebody on the other side, and like maybe we'll find more ground if we actually realize just how similar we all are, not to get you know.

00:33:05
Speaker 2: What about accents if you're acting so to more you know, practical talk about what you do for a living, not just random conversation. Well, no, that's the best stuff. Honestly, you're right, Like the best stuff is when you're just talking about stuff that you're pasionate about it. But that that puts me into the space of have you ever had to do an accent and train for an accent and stay in that accent for an entire duration of a shoot.

00:33:28
Speaker 1: I can't say there was anything to targeted or specific, but like sometimes you know, you throw a little nuance into something like working in Boston. You don't want to pack the cat hop it, yeah, but like you kind of throw a little something in there, a little New England more than anything, or playing a character who's maybe a little more traveled. It's like annunciation, pronunciation, things like that to kind of like factor in. I think talking about accents and talking about the current film coming out, I can only imagine too.

00:34:00
Speaker 3: Tim Timmins, He's a real person. He lives here, We know him. He lives he lives here, You know him. He's a real human being.

00:34:06
Speaker 1: Like, my job is to give an honest existence, not performance, honest existence representing this real human being who's living his life, who has a beautiful family, who has all these things. And I'm like, how do I sound like him? And study and break that down? And like I had singing a vocal coach that was getting me to my range what I could do before they kind of married both Tim and my voices together. But then on top of it, I'm like, how do I actually talk like him? Because he and I are very different, even though we're both from Orange County, both grow up in the same era. Both like there's a lot of common ground that Tim and I found in our conversations. But I had a separate dialect coach that I had worked with previously for like random jobs and whatnot, and found out she's as she's studying Tim, and I never noticed. She goes he kind of has a little bit of an overbite. She's like, it's so subtle. The second I was able to plug that into my Tim talk and like kind of just tip my judge.

00:35:12
Speaker 3: A little forward on the front.

00:35:13
Speaker 1: I was like, oh wow, I could capture Tim and hang on to that as like bedrock, you know, foundation of performance again, a performance star existence, you know, So I.

00:35:23
Speaker 2: Would think it would be a different animal too, to play somebody that's alive that you can still talk with, versus either a fictional person which there is no frame of reference, yeah, or a historic dead person because they can't go that's not me.

00:35:36
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:35:36
Speaker 3: Well, and it is even too.

00:35:37
Speaker 1: Like when we were getting into a head of production, Tim was like, hey, are you cool if I'm going to be on set? I said, yes, please as much and as often as you can physically be there. One because I can bounce things off you. Two you can tell me if I suck do it differently. And three just like comfort, like hey man, I'm here representing who you are and I want to do it honestly and as as I can. So please be there, Please help me, please like walk with me with you know in this process.

00:36:06
Speaker 3: What about the music, the guitar part of it. I play already.

00:36:09
Speaker 1: I mean like friends in high school, you know. I think in my twenties. I had a bunch of punk rock friends in Los Angeles and we've you know, thought we'd be a band, but now it never happens. So I kind of like play a little get bit of guitar like by myself as loud as I could in my house, and then I was like, ah, you know.

00:36:26
Speaker 3: Fun, but never stuck with it.

00:36:29
Speaker 1: But for this again, wanting to honor my friend Tim and the script ahead of me that Brent McCorkle wrote, and Andy Irwin's directing those guys, I'm like, hey, let me put the work in. And so I had a buddy who was in music back in California named Nate White, Nate White Shark. He helped get my fingers moving again, and then had a vocal coach to do the singing stuff, Eric Vetro. And then I had Tim as like the best reference to be able to say like, hey, my, you know, this is this is how I'd play the song. This is like these are the chords that I would use. And he would teach me like twelve ways to play one note. I'm like, bro, give me one way to play it. I don't need, you know, the forty two thousand ways and like, it's very fun to watch you do that, but like, help me make it look real and good.

00:37:17
Speaker 3: So I just worked at it.

00:37:19
Speaker 1: And I did all this too, like with a newborn baby and on the road, like out of my house because of burned down and all this stuff. And it was just like, all right, cool, let me just throw myself my entire focus into making sure my family's okay and making sure I'm doing right by Tim.

00:37:32
Speaker 2: Obviously, you're playing a guy that plays music, and again a guy that we know from being here in town. But depending on how much music you actually played, there's learning how to play guitar, line chords, there's learning how to sing, but there's other and the monstra playing and singing at the same time. Yeah, because that's something I didn't know where were you. Did you already kind of have that with your back?

00:37:56
Speaker 1: Dude? Absolutely not add zero, add none of it. So I'm and Tim, he's so gracious. He says to me, like, whenever people were in company people ask me about guitar, He's like, not only did Mila have to learn how to play four songs of his singing, I played a kick drum with a heel tambourine and a harmonium all at the same time. And they threw the harmonium and the kick drum and tambourine in like a week before we filmed all that stuff, Like what, But once I had the comfort of the guitar and not having to think about where things were going, just that memory, that finger muscle memory where things go to play whatever note, and the confidence to sing. Also knowing that, hey, I got filmmakers that are going to look out for me. You know, my voice may not be as strong as Tims, but they're going to make sure that Tim's voice is very present and mold us together.

00:38:48
Speaker 3: What do you mean mold you together? So okay?

00:38:50
Speaker 1: So John Michael Finley, who plays Bart Millard that d's on Broadway, He's like, mega singer, beautiful, wonderful voice, like he does that for a living. Like I'm a straight actor. I don't have vocal in my bag of tricks. I don't have guitar and my bag of tricks those are things I have to like strap on for whatever character I'm playing.

00:39:11
Speaker 3: I e.

00:39:11
Speaker 1: Timmins. So when I said this to Andy and Brent, I'm like, guys, I don't naturally sing.

00:39:20
Speaker 3: How does that?

00:39:20
Speaker 1: How will that work for you, and they were like, well, are you willing to do a vocal coach? I said absolutely, So I got with the vocal coach, worked on it, did the best I could, and got to a point where when I was laying down a scratch track with.

00:39:36
Speaker 3: Andy and Brent and Jeremy Redman, who was doing the.

00:39:39
Speaker 1: Music on the on the movie, I went in for like the first recording and like gave him. I ole, warmed my voice up, did the whole thing, sang into the mic in you know, a little little box room, and then I turned back and look at everybody and they're like, we're surprised. I was pretty good. You want to go again? I'm like, yeah, I knew it wasn't the same ques quality is Tim, and it needed to be for the movie. So what they did was they took my voice what I'd recorded, and Tim's voice and what he'd recorded, and they just put him together and they digitally, somehow musically molded together that it's both his voice and my voice in there as this kind of combo hybrid Hollywood movie version of Tim Timmins.

00:40:24
Speaker 2: Do you feel like after this project you could elevate and do another music role is that or do you think you would want to go out and just do music like as like fun side.

00:40:37
Speaker 1: I mean, I right after this film, my wife and family and I we drove straight from Nashville to Toronto to go do a complete opposite character in what I was playing with Tim, and we've course had I think at that point, our daughter was four months old. Tad, my guitar went back in the case, a guitar that was gifted to me by Tim and Andy Maidan that he plays, which is just this beautiful, beautiful tool, stayed in the case. I think I pulled that out once when I was on this job in Toronto, but I was like, man, not only do I not have time, I've done my job with this instrument and this role, and I need to kind of let it go for a moment so I can focus on where I presently was, which was the next job this Netflix series, and I had to focus on that, and even from there, like drive from Toronto back to California then up to Vancouver on a whole different role, a whole different movie for Netflix again, and you know, it's like I kind of have to stay present where I'm at, so my own desire to even just pick a guitar up and just kind of like find those things that I was finding when I was in rhythm with it in the filming of the movie. It just I have to wait, it.

00:41:50
Speaker 3: Goes to the back of the list.

00:41:51
Speaker 2: Have you had to embrace other skills though, in your other roles, meaning like a snowscier, so you got to learn how to slalo on?

00:41:57
Speaker 1: Yes, Now, like a movie I did years ago, literally like probably twenty seven or twenty eight years ago, was on the mountains and the character was a skier and I grew up snowboarding, had to learn how to ski cool land a bad you know, big action film. I'm playing elite Tier one Army Special Forces. Okay, let me go train with those guys. Let me spend some time over there, and you know, pick up some like weapon skills and things like that. I'm sure if a role came up, or I'm playing a ballerina, hey man, time to do some like toe points and things like that, and you just just dive in and focus. You know. That's the good fun and joy of being an actor, being an artist in that way, Like I get to live another existence and soak it up so much that it's believable on camera, but I also don't. Also, I don't need to necessarily hold on to it. And if I ever want to revisit it, like later in my years, like when I got some time, sure I may. I may, like I still have the guitars. Cool, I may pick them back up. Yeah, it's cool.

00:43:00
Speaker 2: To learn stuff and then also not to be forced. But there's a pressure to learn it because your job says you should.

00:43:08
Speaker 3: I had to learn how to be a stump in. I'm not a stump in, and there's nothing got me this tough. What was the stunts that you were performing? So I had to be lit on fire?

00:43:15
Speaker 1: Oh that's the one sun I want to I was forced to do it. I didn't choose it was it like, hey, your arm is here, we're going to do this portion of your arm. It wasn't my face. Obviously I'm great looking. It's the money maker.

00:43:28
Speaker 3: You don't have force. But it was like the side of my body. So I studied. Yeah, yeah, they jailed me old it's and loud.

00:43:38
Speaker 2: At first, they're going, we're gonna tell you you're not going to feel anything, and they would just do it like on a part of my arm and now I'd be like, oh, there's nothing to it, But then when they would have to put it out, they would all come rushing in like I was about to die. So then I started going, this must be way more serious than I think, because when it's time to put it out, like they're rushing in to cover me. So by the end of it, it was we have this much time, You've got to run and do this. The fire was scary. The worst was falling off a house, yeah, because I had to be in control of how my body landed.

00:44:10
Speaker 3: Humble to a pad, a bag, or.

00:44:13
Speaker 2: A line it was more like, and it was really a mattress, but it wasn't a full pad because it couldn't be high because it couldn't be seen.

00:44:21
Speaker 3: But it was a low path and I was on It was probably eleven feet, which doesn't feel like it's but that's high whenever you're falling backward off. Yeah, of course you gotta trust it and.

00:44:31
Speaker 2: If you don't tuck the right way like you will hurt yourself. So it was on me to make sure that I didn't break my neck. It's something that it was not on me to do, but I learned and I had a real respect. Not that I didn't have a respect, I just didn't have the education to know I should respect stunt people as much as I do now. After doing that, and when you're doing these roles like you're skiing, you're playing guitar, but you leave that with not only a skill set, but with a whole new respect of what people what they're doing. That you probably knew what they were doing, but not what they were doing.

00:45:02
Speaker 1: What's interesting to me is, you know, you look at like the big action films and then you see the actors playing these roles, like delivering the lines, the face and all of this, and then to know that there's another human being behind that person I'll say behind just because you know stunt stunt performers are always hidden because that's the job. You know, they have the face and these guys are guys and gals are like the real deal. But then sometimes to see the actor kind of where the bravado of the stunts, you're like, bro, that wouldn't.

00:45:33
Speaker 3: If people only knew.

00:45:35
Speaker 2: I left that with a real respect for stuff, for stunt people, because it's not nothing is completely safe, just generally speaking, and especially in that world, like they have to do everything right to stay safe and so like that was cool. The only other thing that I did was I don't like heights, and I went over with a guy who cleaned. He cleaned high things, like high buildings, so well, but the top there's a skybridge over the Grand Canyon, yeah, which I hadn't been to, but he has to clean underneath it. Oh it's four thousand feet up. Yeah, and Arizona wire just so I had to do that fun and I thought, this is my new hero, like that guy who does that every day.

00:46:16
Speaker 3: To him, it's nothing.

00:46:17
Speaker 1: Well, it's like you see Alex Hanold, you know, going up the side of El kaberup.

00:46:21
Speaker 3: You know Taiwan one on one or Type one on one.

00:46:24
Speaker 1: You're like, what crazy? You know you have to have something. I mean that guy in general, he also has everything memorized. He knows every way up. It's a math equation to memorize, you know, three thousand moves as you're ascending, Like what like that's the most that's as impressive as the physical going up? Like how are you like learning that dance rhythm three thousand moves all the time?

00:46:51
Speaker 3: How do you do with memorizing?

00:46:53
Speaker 5: Uh?

00:46:53
Speaker 3: Pretty good?

00:46:54
Speaker 1: But it's it's like a muscle, you know, that gets flexed if you're doing push ups every day, like you're gonna do them a little more effortlessly. For me, if I'm away from a set, it takes me away aways a little bit of time to kind of like get back into it. But for me, I got to be old school, Like I read my lines. I write my lines, and I write them in certain ways, like I'll have my page, my script in front of me. I write my lines next to the line so I see them, and then I put that away, and then I get a blank piece of paper and I write only my lines like I'm writing, you know, a journal entry, and then I do it where I'm separating things out, and I just do.

00:47:34
Speaker 3: It over and over and over and over again.

00:47:36
Speaker 1: But I do that in the beginning of a job because that gets my muscle flex my brain flexed. But then after a while, you know, you just hand me the page looking and go, okay, cool, I got it, because it's just you're there, You're in it. You know, you don't have to think about it.

00:47:51
Speaker 5: The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the Bobby Cast.

00:48:05
Speaker 2: We were talking about before you came in the movie, which when this airs Day one, the movie comes out tomorrow, but most people watching this on Netflix the movie will be out, So just so everybody kind of knows where we stand with the movie coming out. Sure, whenever you get a script, like a movie versus if you're doing a television project or you know, a series project, are there different rules on how much you can add lib? If at all, it depends on your filmmakers. So it's not really movie versus television.

00:48:34
Speaker 3: No, no, not at all.

00:48:35
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, it's your filmmakers. And I say filmmakers is a broad term. You know, it's whoever's behind the writing on a TV show, whoever's behind the writing and directing in the feature.

00:48:45
Speaker 3: What about this project? First of all, this.

00:48:47
Speaker 1: Project it was less about the words were so right that they stuck. Brent mccorky's such a talented writer that the words stuck. I didn't have to search for them. I wasn't struggling with retaining the words because they just the rhythm of them, the cadence of them, the choice of them was right. And because of that, as I'm reading it, it's literally like, oh cool, got it.

00:49:12
Speaker 3: It just sits in your head.

00:49:14
Speaker 1: But the way Tim is and you know Tim, like Tim, his brain is just constantly moving all the time, and he holds back on those things that his brain wants. His brain wants to say, but his mouth won't allow him to. And so he and I would have a lot of asides where we'd find I'd find little moments to go touch off script and add something that's very Timmins into the.

00:49:38
Speaker 3: Scene. But it was stuff like that.

00:49:41
Speaker 1: It wasn't like there wasn't a whole lot of ad living that was happening. It was just kind of like, well, this feels more like Tim. And I'd kind of confer with him first, and I talked to Brent and Andy and then I just kind of plug it in without John Michael or Sammy Dell or Riel Kevil like doing I'm sorry, you're rewriting.

00:49:58
Speaker 3: No, not rewriting, I'm adding. But is that not a bit of supplement You're supplementing the writing.

00:50:06
Speaker 1: Sounds like it sounds like, yeah, I'm just trying to flesh it out. Yeah, because there's like an interpretation you jump out as an actor and like, and I've been on sets before, like you cannot change a punctuation. If there's a period you take a pause, it says street, you can't say road. If it says pop, you can't say soda. I've been on those jobs before, but also on that job, that one particular job, the words again were right, and you don't need to muck them up. You just have to get them right in the cadence that they're asking you to do, maybe not asking or telling you to do. And when you do it, you're actually a part of the vision of it and it becomes what it's supposed to be. What do you prefer either or man, I could, I could, I could dance in any of these halls, doesn't matter to me, you know. I think it's good to have filmmakers that know exactly what they want. I think it's good to how filmmakers are saying, make some choices for us. They put put your flavor on it, you know, And like on this one that was Brenton Andy, those guys are like, hey, bring what you bring, you know, like here's the framework, like we're here, but they're they're linking arms with you then kind of like putting a thumb over you saying do it this way.

00:51:14
Speaker 3: How do you feel about watching yourself back that's way too critical.

00:51:18
Speaker 1: Last night at the premiere was the first time I'd seen it on a big screen, and Andy had been inviting me to see it on a big screen. I only saw it on a screeners because you know, again like infant daughter and busy work life schedule, so I just didn't have a chance to hop into a screening room with him. But it was the first time I saw it on the big screen, and I was not as critical of myself. I could actually watch and experience what movie Tim was going through and everyone else, like all my friends on screen, John Michael and Sophie and Ariel and Sammy and trace Adkins. My goodness, like I saw what they were living on camera from the moment I saw the film. But I always have a hard time with myself because like I'm in my head in my performance and you see how things are edited, and you're like, wait a minute, is that the choice that I made?

00:52:10
Speaker 3: Is that?

00:52:10
Speaker 1: You know? But last night was the first time on a big screen where I was able to not look at what I was doing and just let movie Tim exist. And it was enjoyable and it was moving, and I've really felt the what Tim was going through.

00:52:27
Speaker 3: Is that personal growth that's allowed that I don't know.

00:52:30
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's personal growth or just you know, something bigger than you know, seventy inches at home, but where I could see maybe like a little more nuance or detail, or maybe it's like that energy you get watching a movie in a theater with people, which I think is a powerful experience that is kind of lost in modern day or modern day, but in you know, where we find ourselves in twenty twenty six. Everybody wants to comfort of their homes, which I get and I enjoy myself. But being in a theater watching something with a group of people collectively, there's an energy you feel, and it's just different.

00:53:03
Speaker 3: So I kind of felt it last time, which was cool.

00:53:06
Speaker 2: Did you just have your first baby a year ago? So we're about to have our first baby?

00:53:11
Speaker 3: No kidding? Soon?

00:53:13
Speaker 1: How soon?

00:53:14
Speaker 3: Real soon?

00:53:15
Speaker 1: How prepared you feel?

00:53:18
Speaker 2: I have the understanding that I cannot feel prepared, yeah, and that I have done the things that would make me feel prepared if I could feel prepared. But I feel like there is no being fully prepared. So that's why I'm asking you. You're on a time machine. You're a year ahead of me.

00:53:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, what I would offer this, You can prepare, you can't plan because your plans will change.

00:53:42
Speaker 3: And by the way, like your kid is in charge.

00:53:45
Speaker 1: Pick up the four cues when they're babies, of like what their cry means, doesnt mean they're hungry, uncomfortable, tired or gassie.

00:53:55
Speaker 3: Are those different cries?

00:53:56
Speaker 1: They're way different cries and all four distinct when they're infants. When they're infants, all four of those are so distinct. And if you kind of like paid, my wife is amazing and she was able to coach me through these. She's like she's tired, and I'm like, how do you know this? I'm like, Okay, she's tired, put her bed in my arms, whatever, she's asleep, or like she's hungry.

00:54:15
Speaker 3: I'm like, how do you know this?

00:54:17
Speaker 1: She's hungry to get her bottle.

00:54:18
Speaker 3: She's good.

00:54:19
Speaker 1: I don't know.

00:54:19
Speaker 3: Women.

00:54:20
Speaker 1: Women are Women are incredible creatures that just inherently feel these things as mothers and I will never as a father, like really understand.

00:54:26
Speaker 3: But you learn as a dad, yeah beyond that. But like you can't you just can't plan.

00:54:31
Speaker 1: You have to prepare because in preparation you're ready for it, and then be flexible to be like, you know what, oh baby, things didn't go the way I was thinking they were gonna go, and babies in charge and taking us on a whole different direction.

00:54:43
Speaker 3: Cool, we're gonna go.

00:54:44
Speaker 1: This way, you know, I would say it, you know, and I'm new at this and we're just about to get into it again having the second one. But just love that kid and just be happy and know you're not going to sleep and no, you're gonna do everything you can for the rest of your life to just give to this kid and have fun. You know. Everybody would tell me, like I remember, like my brother in law he was holding holding on our daughter and you just see just loving his eyes and his kids, my niece and nephew are you know, late single digits, you know, and double digits now, and he just remembers so reverently that time when they're just babies, and like right now, I just try and like look at my daughter, whether she's crying and upset in my arms and just sit there and just kind of look at her and observe her and be there and like try and connect with her, or she's asleep and peaceful and laughing in her sleep, like just I just stare at her. She's just she's the coolest kid. So I'd say, just get into it. Soak it up. Man, that's gonna be whatever experience like you have with your child. But just enjoy it.

00:55:54
Speaker 3: Did you like the baby the first three to six months?

00:55:57
Speaker 1: Bro? It's so hard.

00:55:59
Speaker 3: Because so from my wife and I.

00:56:01
Speaker 1: My wife was nine months pregnant when we lost our house in California to the fires. Two weeks after that, our daughter was born, so we're in a rental house. And also I was prepping. I can only imagine two the fires actually popped off. I was on a zoom with Timmins, first time we'd ever like talk, you know, face to face in a way, and there's a fire behind my house and we got to go. So we had a lot happening in those first you know, i'd say four months lost the house, had the baby, traveled across country by truck and trailer because we got a one hundred pound dog as well that we had to bring with us, and you know, get there safely and got to Nashville. Dove right in on this movie, which was just such a safe haven for me. I mean, everything Tim talks about, you know, in the course of the film, you know, God, us in the fire and all this stuff and holding even gratitude and like equal measure.

00:57:03
Speaker 3: It was very healing to be a part of.

00:57:08
Speaker 1: But also, you know, I wasn't necessarily thinking about, oh man, I'm really not sleeping, and you know, again my wife allowing me to like go out and handle the mess of what the fires left us with and handle the art of what I have I'm faced with in the music and the performance and all of that for the movie, and then also just the safety of the family. You know, there was just there was so much. It was just hard.

00:57:35
Speaker 3: It's a bit of a blur.

00:57:36
Speaker 1: But when I do look back on photos and videos and everything, and like typically at night, my wife and I will be in bed and one of us will have our phone and we'll come across like a photo of our daughter from whatever time in the last year, and either as we just kind of share it, you know, and talk about that moment, her hair, her smile, or her lap or how pissed off she was, any of that stuff, and like it's it's just fun to revisit. But yeah, those first couple of months are hard.

00:58:04
Speaker 2: Man, I get into the whole existential thing, like, you know, the baby didn't choose. I didn't choose to be to exist, and all of a sudden you're just thrust into existence and expected to figure out your path.

00:58:17
Speaker 1: You know.

00:58:17
Speaker 2: The good news though, please, I need it because I started getting these existential dots.

00:58:21
Speaker 3: I'm like, I need some good news.

00:58:23
Speaker 1: Everybody's done it. You know, you're not the first one to go through this. You're not the only one to go through this. There's other people before us that I have done it under worse circumstances and better circumstances. So you get to have this journey with your kid, which is wonderful and unique and yours and your partners, and you know, it's just it's a beautiful and amazing thing. I mean, I had kids late in life. I was forty eight.

00:58:49
Speaker 3: When our daughter was born. Yeah, I'll be forty five. There you go.

00:58:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and it's different when you're a fully shaped human being and as a man, like you're at a point like a, my life is good and like WHOA, I didn't think life could change as drastically as it just has. But you know what, I'm here for it and I love it and I'm into it and I wouldn't give it up for anything. You know, that's crazy.

00:59:10
Speaker 3: You're forty eight or forty nine, Like you look like you're like thirty one. Thanks, man, what's the skincare routine? I had? Moisturized and good living.

00:59:18
Speaker 1: I guess that I was drinking on through drugs, try and stay healthy, eat well, you hitting the gym I have been recently when we were doing this film, I actually had to back off on weight because I wanted to lean into the cancer journey that Tim was in and also too, like I'd seen a whole bunch of just photos of him when he was in his thirties, which I was playing that era, and Tim was just a thinner, trimmer dude. And you know, not that I live at a gym, but like I like to just stay healthy, and so I backed off. But now more recently, like my next job coming, like I got to pack weight back on. So yeah, hitting the gym and just eating right, like I said, moisturize, sunscreen, drink.

01:00:00
Speaker 3: A lot of water. Yeah, the water.

01:00:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the two fundamental things that should be the easiest or off of the things we do.

01:00:08
Speaker 3: Uh not as much, which.

01:00:09
Speaker 2: Are drink water and sleep? Oh, totally because we think, oh, we can always catch up on that. It's so easy to get water if I sleep tonight. But those are like the two most important things, totally.

01:00:18
Speaker 3: Like I think my watch told me.

01:00:19
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, you're a you're a You got four hours of sleep last night, and I'm like, I did, like so much. So, like I woke up this morning, my daughter was on my chest. I'm like, wait, I don't remember grabbing her.

01:00:29
Speaker 3: What time is it? What time would be up?

01:00:31
Speaker 1: Oh?

01:00:31
Speaker 3: Okay, And I look at my wash and I was like, oh, yeah, you got four hours. Yeah I wore the or ring. Yeah, yeah, I saw.

01:00:38
Speaker 2: What I like about it is if I wake up and I feel a little tired and it tells me I got good sleep, I'll just be better. I'll be like, well, I have the data. But the problem is if I wake up I feel pretty good and it's like, well, you didn't get enough. I'm like, you know, I was thinking, I am kind of feeling bad. I'll let it convince me which.

01:00:53
Speaker 1: Way to go. So my wife wears an orts too, and she's the same thing, and I'm like, don't.

01:00:57
Speaker 3: Let it rule you feel.

01:01:00
Speaker 1: It's amazing though, the influence something can have in our brain and make our bodies feel something. What if it's the other way around, where we influence ourselves positively to feel good. Like there's something about that brain body connection where we're able to really and brain body existence where we're able to impact things. It's like, you walk into a bad situation, think positively. You think positively about the situation you're going into. It's like, hey, maybe things are actually gonna end up on the right side. Maybe you won't feel as tired. You know, like I didn't get a great amount of sleep, but you know what, got a little when I woke up, and I'm here.

01:01:39
Speaker 3: Grateful for that. Yeah, I'm a big perspective guy. Yeah, I'm a.

01:01:43
Speaker 2: Big There is a way this situation could create something awesome for me, depending on the situation.

01:01:49
Speaker 3: Huh. So I'm a big perspective guy. I was.

01:01:52
Speaker 2: I was recently talking about this with a friend of mine and he had been through He lives in la as a big television He's hosted so many major shows. I was talking to him about all the nose that he would get, and I think that's probably something common to one hundred percent, because I would see you and I would be like, man, this guy's acted such high level so many things.

01:02:13
Speaker 3: I know him from all these things, there's probably never a no that come.

01:02:15
Speaker 1: So there's probably about well, it depends on what point in my career early days, probably about ninety nine nos before I get a yes.

01:02:25
Speaker 3: As years march on, maybe about.

01:02:26
Speaker 1: Sixty, maybe it's about forty, maybe it's twenty ten two. And then at a certain point it kind of ships over. Things just show up for you and it's not a no, but you're kind of like, I got through that. I got through those trials. I'm on the other side of it now. But still it doesn't change my work ethic approaching it. It's like, hey, I'm grateful to be here. May I be an offer, But I've had my nose, so I know what that feels like.

01:02:53
Speaker 3: So to be given a gift.

01:02:56
Speaker 1: Like this movie or a role or an opportunity, I'm like, oh, I've not only earned it, but I'm going to be grateful for this thing that's offered or put in front of me, and I'm going to put my whole heart into It's kind of like, you know, why spend your time and your energy on someone that doesn't want you, doesn't want to be around you.

01:03:15
Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of like.

01:03:16
Speaker 1: You know, I tell like like my god kids or things like that. You know, they're teenagers, Like that boy's not good for you. He's not giving you the proper attention. Why I put your energy into him? If you know, or her, If they're not giving energy to you. It's like if there's people giving you energy, it's like, hey.

01:03:31
Speaker 3: Pick up on that, be aware of it. Perspective point of view.

01:03:34
Speaker 1: You know.

01:03:35
Speaker 4: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

01:03:50
Speaker 2: What did you take from this movie? I want to end with this, like, what what did you take from not only learning the story but also being a part of the story.

01:03:59
Speaker 1: I don't know if it is it taking as much and I've said this before, but I truly believe it a little more of an affirmation of how I already lived, which is holding gratitude and grief together, understanding that two things that are completely opposite can actually coexist at the same time. And we have the opportunity with whatever is presented to us, whatever is put in front of us, obstacle wall, whatever you want to liken it to sickness and ailment, difficult times, You're able to get through it. You're able to get around it. You're able to just get through it in a way that will hopefully leave the place better than you found it. That's kind of always how i'd been and watching a man like Tim Timmins, you know, take such a difficult sentence as hey, terminal cancer five years, that's what you got, turn it into this beautiful life of just giving and serving. I think affirmed how I try to be without the cancer presence. You know. I like going into work in a room and just company and be like, hey man, what can I do for you? How can I serve you?

01:05:14
Speaker 3: You know?

01:05:15
Speaker 1: So I think this film was very much for me an affirmation of, Oh, I think I'm on the right path. I think I'm doing pretty good. Let me just keep in the direction that I'm going, knowing that, oh, there's other people out there doing the exact same thing, it's just labeled differently, you know. So that's kind of what I'm taking from it, or actually what I'm giving from it.

01:05:38
Speaker 2: He congrats on the movie, Congrats, and also congrats on as you were talking earlier about Will Smith being that way a lot of times. I'm not putting you in this, but I'll say, Hollywood folks come in and have a different aura about them.

01:05:52
Speaker 3: Oh good yours was awesome, thanks man. It was extremely warm.

01:05:55
Speaker 2: And it was very instantly kind, and you know, just a business. You know, we ever see each other again, and you know that too. But you were, Yeah, just a delight off camera too. So I want to say that on camera so people know, like that, that's what you're saying.

01:06:11
Speaker 3: There about that movie.

01:06:12
Speaker 2: I was thinking, you actually do live that because when you entered the room it felt like that with you.

01:06:18
Speaker 1: So I appreciate that problem. And you mind if I leave us with a quick Trace acting.

01:06:22
Speaker 3: Story, Yes I do.

01:06:26
Speaker 2: Can I tell one first and you tell a better one? Because I know Trace. I have known Trace for a long time. And uh I saw Trace at the Grand Ole Opry. We were both playing the show, probably about two months ago. I was playing a little before him, but he was side stages. I was coming off. I was telling some jokes, playing low guitar song. He's like, right, them shoes you wear those women shoes? And I said, Trace, Yeah, I said they are not women shoes. He goes, they should be women shoes. And so I said, now, Trace, you know, I like to like to dress nice. And he said, you see these and he had an old pair of boots on. So these are my favorite old boots, I said, pair of Justin's. I said, what makes him your favorite? He goes, well, I recently almost died at him and said what happened?

01:07:17
Speaker 3: He goes, well, was this when he got shot through the heart?

01:07:19
Speaker 2: No, this is like he was on a cane at the opery, and this is like three weeks prior.

01:07:24
Speaker 3: And I said, what do you mean this when he fell? Yes, he said they were working.

01:07:29
Speaker 2: They're working on my roof, and I needed to get up there and see if they were doing a good job. So I got up there, climbed up to see if they were doing a good job. And next thing I knew, I was on my back, but I had my boots on. These are my lucky boots. I'm here today.

01:07:43
Speaker 3: And he might have said it probably a little more colorfully. He definitely did.

01:07:47
Speaker 1: I know. I know exactly the line that he used and make it more colorfully, which we won't talk about.

01:07:51
Speaker 3: So it made fun of my shoes. He then told me a funny.

01:07:54
Speaker 2: Story, and he ended it with I wear these boots when good times here at the stage and when I'm working out, when working out at the house. And I met him tonight and I it's just a total Trace three sixty and always.

01:08:05
Speaker 3: Trace is the best.

01:08:06
Speaker 1: He uh some some a quick little thing in in line with Hollywood folk. I'm the outsider on this set, complete outsider. I'm from California. You are in Nashville. Like, so let's start with that. So I think Trace might have said to Andy Irwin, I don't know about this fucking Hollywood kid. I'm like, I'm actually not from Hollywood, California. But he kind of like and what I mean, Hey, Trace, Hey, I'm mileing nice to meet you, you know, just kind of grumbled and I'm like, Trace Akins is cool. Whatever.

01:08:44
Speaker 3: That.

01:08:44
Speaker 1: After that first couple of days of filming, I'd go to the Guitar Center in Nashville to go pick up a few things that I just I needed for my guitar. And I'm about to check out counter and uh, as I'm paying for my things, like at the end of the transaction, the gent behind the register says to me, he goes, hey, do you want to donate you know, a dollar or two whatever too, And before he said I'm like yeah, sure. He goes to the fire relief on in California. I say, hold on a second, absolutely fucking not. Sorry for my language, Okay, clear, I'm like, absolutely fucking not. The guy looks at me. I said, I lost a house. I lost two houses in that fire. I doubt I'm gonna ever see a cent from guitar Center, So no, thank you. I would like to not donate money to my own house that I lost. And thin guy was like, oh okay. I'm like and that was it. That was like my interaction a guitar center. I'm like, wow, where is that money going? And you started kind of like unwrapping those things, like where are people like picking up off of the calamity of others?

01:09:43
Speaker 3: And this is horrible. So I go to work. The next day.

01:09:46
Speaker 1: We're filming the big bus bonfire scene. Bus breaks down run you know, night under this overpass and it's like cold, is dark, and you know, I really hadn't had much interaction again with Trace, and he walks right up to me within his Justin's boots.

01:10:03
Speaker 3: I heard your house burned down. Mine burned down too. That was it.

01:10:10
Speaker 1: And like after that, dude, he was my boy, and I think he kind of figured and he and later on I'm like, hey what and he goes, well, I heard your house, but I heard you told some sales assistant go fuck himself.

01:10:22
Speaker 3: Because he wanted your money and your house burned down.

01:10:25
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, like Trace, look man, I'm like it doesn't make sense. Done that up as bad math? A stallone would call it, you know, it's bad math. And he's like I like that. Yeah.

01:10:35
Speaker 2: I feel like Trace is a guy who nobody gets the free pass or the benefit of the doubt, but once there is an understanding of what everybody's about, Like he is in.

01:10:44
Speaker 3: Oh, he's so in. He's in, and he's your dude.

01:10:46
Speaker 1: I mean. And even last night we're on you know, we're on the press line and there's a Bunchers lined up and hey, mil hey, Trace, what's up? Man?

01:10:52
Speaker 3: Haven't give you a hug yet? Your wife leave you yet? Not yet? Trace?

01:10:56
Speaker 1: Okay, let me know what she does. I'm like, okay, Trace, I'm like, she's the pregnant lady over there. I'm thinking she's in for a little bit. Yeah, But then later on, you know it's like when like the quiet moment happens, you know, for a guy like Tray Satkins who's lived the luft that he's had had successful, he's had to like just come up in like a quiet intimate moment where he's like, how you doing, how's things? How's your house? Like You'm like, wow, dude, this guy is he He cares so deeply, you know, and you're right like once you're in, like you are in.

01:11:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love him.

01:11:26
Speaker 1: He's the best.

01:11:27
Speaker 3: I love him. I didn't could.

01:11:29
Speaker 2: I didn't understand him at first, and he wanted to kill me at first. But now so you've just done enough together. Now there's an absolute understanding, Like I'm the guy that wars the card again. Then he wears the cowboy hat and as the cowboy. But it's like we both know we have very much the same values with people. Yeah, and that's what it is to him. I really appreciate this, mind. I hope the movie does exactly what you wanted to do. A big fan of your work. Thanks, thanks for stopping by the

01:11:48
Speaker 4: Show Man, Thanks for having me, Thanks for listening to a Bobby cast production