Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Kevin Pollak

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

Actor, comedian and impressionist Kevin Pollak joins Gilbert and Frank for a frequently hilarious conversation about the legend of Harry Houdini, the cinema of Barry Levinson, joining the cast of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" and sharing the screen with Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro, Jack Lemmon and Rod Steiger. Also, Steve Martin packs arenas, Walter Matthau hits on Sophia Loren, Don Rickles runs afoul of Joe Pesci and Kevin explains France's affection for Jerry Lewis. PLUS: Anne Bancroft! "Morton & Hayes"! In praise of "Avalon"! Pranking Paul Reiser! Remembering J.T. Walsh! And Kevin wows the boys with impressions of Alan Arkin, Albert Brooks, Peter Falk and Jack Nicholson! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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New episodes Sundays. Watch free on CBC Gem. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. Our guest this week is an actor, writer, producer, occasional director, and one of our favorite podcasters. A gifted impressionist and one of the world's most successful and dynamic stand-up comedians. In fact, Comedy Central deservedly named him one of the top 100 comedians of all time. As an actor, you've seen him in hit TV shows like Entourage, From Earth to the Moon, The Simpsons, Better Things, Mom, Billions. The Rob Reiner created Morton and Hayes. And most recently, it's the force of nature known as Moshe Maisel on The Marvelous Miss Maisel. You've also seen his outstanding work in popular and critically acclaimed films like Willow, Avalon, Ricochet, Casino, A Few Good Men, The Usual Suspects, Grumpier Old Men, The Whole Nine Yards, just to name a few. He also directed

a fascinating documentary called misery loves comedy about the connection between comedy and being miserable and how I wasn't in it remains a mystery this man started performing comedy at the age of seven. Well, that's not exactly true, but it's close. And has gone on to work with icons and luminaries such as De Niro, Don Rickles, Walter Matthau, Tom Hanks, Sophiaanna Arquette, Joe Mantegna, and Barry Levinson. And speaking of podcasts, for 10 years, he hosted a great one, the terrific and essential Kevin Pollak Chat Show. and essential Kevin Pollak chat show.

And you can find it on YouTube. And he's currently the host of the new iHeartRadio podcast, Alchemy This. And did we mention the guy does a more convincing Peter Falk imitation than Peter Falk. Frank and I are excited to welcome to the show one of the world's funniest humans and a man who says he got notes on one of his stand-up specials from none other than Jerry Lewis himself, the multi-talented Kevin Pollack. Yes, hello. Yeah. And I don't know where to start, but I'll start with the last comment.

The funny thing about Jerry Lewis giving me notes on my stand-up special, it was after he watched it on television. He called me and said, I have notes. And then I thought it was the hippest joke ever. He was already way late in his 80s. I thought it was the hippest joke ever. And then he said, no, I mean, I wrote down notes so that when we talked,

I would remember what to tell you. Which was, he went from super hip edgy to incredibly sweet. Yeah. And then he would call and leave random voice messages on my machine. Kevin, I just saw a ricochet. And then hang up.

So he became like my aunt bessie it was basically our relationship so first he told you how cool and hip your special was and then said uh he has notes. I got notes, yeah. Yeah. Well, he never disappointed. But he was a hero. I mean, we should also give it some context. You played his son in Max Rose. After, yes, after many of these phone calls and sitting with him for a redonkulous lunch, that he brought as a gift. He brought the script and then he brought 10 refurbished films, five Martin and Lewis and five of his film. Wow.

As like a DVD collection parting gift. Yeah. So we get to add Kevin to the list of people Jerry was nice to, Gil. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I even got to, the film we did together ended up playing at the Cannes Film Festival. So I got to see, I got to be with Jerry and see how the French react to him, the long-running. Wow. I don't know if it's a joke but certainly observation that the french love jerry

lewis but i got to find out why because i i was curious and made a point of asking so jerry after martin and lewis broke up in the late 50s jerry got a unprecedented deal with Paramount to direct and star in 10 films over 10 years for $50 million or $5 million a year in 1959. I don't know what that would be equivalent to today, but a lot more. Yeah. And so he did those films, and from those films came The Naughty Professor and many others. But towards the end of that, he started hosting the telethon. And then at the end of that 10 year run, he was focusing just on the telethon. telethon and because there was no internet and no international version of the telethon while we here in america got to see the decline of a once biggest star in the world to the host of the annual telethon and i say decline simply because of well obvious, obvious reasons. But while he was doing this great philanthropic work,

he had walked away from his show business career. But to the French, and if not all of Europe, but to the French who revered that 10-year run, they saw him just walk away early in his life and into the ether. You know like imagine charlie chaplin doing a handful of films and then never being seen from again that's what the french were insisting was the ghost nature of the exit um because again they had no coverage of the telephone which over decade over decade over over decade in America became this

diminishing of what was once. You know, he and Dean were not unlike the Beatles in terms of leaning out of a fourth floor hotel room and down below were 10,000 screaming kids. They were matinee idols and worshipped by all ages, but teenagers in particular also considered them sort of pop icons, which is silly and strange and bizarre to me to think of a comedian, you know, a clownish comedian at that. Yeah, biggest rock stars in their day. They were the original sort of touring rock stars

in that way yeah yeah yeah he told me that they had like a three car train when they went on they did like something like 60 cities in 63 days almost like a whistle stop for a presidential campaign and there were three cars on this train one car for just the two of them one car for the band and one car for the suits you know the accountants and the managers and the agents and um i just that tour to me seems like there's there's a movie in there somewhere it sounds it and and it's funny when i watch Martin and Lewis movies, you know, they're entertaining. Right. But I don't see any of that.

Like people talk, people who saw Martin and Lewis live. Yeah. They talk about it like it was a religious experience. Yeah. Yeah, I think because Dean Martin had established himself as this hit singer and extraordinarily handsome fella, but, you know, silly at times in his own act, but for the most part, a stoic, handsome singer. and this clownish comedian sort of heckling him from the audience and in his 19, 20-year-old self and improvising tremendously so that each of those audiences that saw them live had that unique experience of,

oh, this is only happening right now in the world. And that was a fairly unheard of sort of act. And I think it contributed a great deal to their legend. And then the radio show and then the TV show. Right. I like your idea, by the way, sort of a hard day's night. Martin and Lewis on tour. The craziness and the hotel rooms and the crazy fans. Be fun. Yeah. It's nice that the two of you too because meeting your heroes in the business as we know can be treacherous and both of you had a very positive experience of jerry which is which is nice and i always get to use that my favorite line which is well he was always nice to me yeah exactly hey did you see that movie this was a strange movie that was obviously

supposed to be martin and lewis and the where the truth lies oh yes yeah the one with kevin bacon kevin bacon is jerry lewis you're talking about yeah colin firth and kevin bacon it was based on rupert holmes book rupert holmes book about martin and lewis or just about these two characters rupert grew up loving martin and lewis so he wrote this book where these characters are loosely based on so he wrote a novel yeah they made a film about it with colin firth and and the characters in the novel and this movie a singer and a comedian? Yes. Yes. Oh, wow.

I'm going to have to see. It's an oddity. And they acted just like them. And also, we were in the same movie, but we weren't in the same movie. And that is that I was working. I did a couple of weeks on a movie called Another You. Oh, my. Oh, yes.

That was the last of the Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor comedies. Yes. And when I was doing it, I knew it was bad. And then the original director, Peter Bogdanovich, was let go. And then they said, we'll let you know when we're going to continue shooting. And then they called and said, they don't want you in the picture anymore. And we're scrapping old previously shot footage wow okay so what do you know about this i didn't know any of that i just i just knew that um uh richard pryor was was certainly

ailing at that point oh yeah in his life um with ms MS and a very long, hard-lived life. But MS was settling in pretty good. So it's difficult to fathom why the idea sounded like a good one to put someone who was clearly visibly not in good health into a comedy to elicit laughter instead of breaking your heart every time you see him on film in the movie um yeah there was it was difficult to say no to this is richard pryor and gene wilder um when i in fact, asked to be in the director's version who took over. I don't think I even knew until this very moment that there was a Bogdanovich version. There you go. This show's nothing if not educational.

And I thank you for that. Yeah. And I remember when I met Pryor, he couldn't have been nicer to me. Sure. prior he couldn't have been nicer to me sure he he treated me like he was a kid and i was the biggest star he ever met and but it was it's like you looked at him and you go you can't laugh at a guy in such horrible shape yeah yeah and they especially given their chemistry as a comedy team in previous films was was buoyant, if nothing else. Yeah. And the buoyancy was was completely gone and it was just heartbreaking. Yeah. Yeah. I find it interesting, too, that another thing you guys have in common is how young you started in stand up.

And Gilbert, you were 15. Yeah. And I believe, Kevin, you guys have in common is how young you started in stand-up. And Gilbert, you were 15? Yeah. And I believe, Kevin, you were even younger than that. We're talking about high school, junior high school? I started performing in front of large audiences when I was stand-up. I was lip-syncing a comedy album when I was 10. All through junior high, what they call now middle school. all through junior high, what they call now middle school.

I would wish I could have been present for the decision-making process for that transition because junior high just wasn't working out as a name of a form of institution of lesser-than-high learning. But I did it all through junior high and high school, this record act, until I was about 16. And then I started doing impressions and spoke. And then I was doing nightclubs by the time I was 17. So professionally, I was 17. Early bloomers. I heard you say that San Francisco was very welcoming and a nurturing environment for standups in those days. Well, starting back at the 50s with Lenny Bruce and George Saul and Woody Allen and Jonathan Winters and a lot of great acts who had tremendous success in the 50s and 60s in San Francisco. And in the 70s, mid-70s to late-70s was sort of the next wave of Robin Williams

and Dana Carby and myself. And did you tell Jerry Lewis that you started off miming records? Because that's how Jerry Lewis started. Yeah. A lot of those guys. Dick Van Dyke, too. Yeah, we did talk about it. He did a Danny Kaye album.

That was his. That was Jerry's shtick, was lip syncing a Danny Kaye album. And we did talk briefly about it. Because the idea was, we didn't have to write the material. in both cases. And, you know, it was stealing their magic. As a young, you know, I started out, like I said, 10 years old. So imagine a 10-year-old precocious Jewish kid lip syncing a comedy album.

And you just had to clear your throat at the right times to match the album. And it was astonishing how this 10-year-old could do this. Yeah. Telling Gilbert some of the funny stuff from the album. And it was astonishing how this 10-year-old could do this. Yeah. Telling Gilbert some of the funny stuff from the book, I love Penn Jillette saying that Kevin Pollack is the man to play Harry Houdini.

Yeah, he wouldn't let go of that for the longest time. Yeah, I mean, Houdini was a squat Jew that looked somewhat like— Eric Weiss. Looked a lot like my relatives. Eric Weiss, yeah, his father was a squat Jew that looked somewhat like Eric Weiss looked a lot like my relatives Eric Weiss yeah his father was a rabbi but he did look a lot like my relatives so when Pendant started insisting on this

over I don't know 25 years ago when I first started you know to know him I found it you know endearing as hell but also I had for some reason grown up not with any

interest in performing magic but mesmerized by the lore of harry houdini it really and also the way that he tried to um um debunk you know uh spiritualist yeah this is the mind readers charlatans of the day seances yeah yeah he devoted his life later on yeah to just exposing these frauds yeah i totally like kevin pollack as houdini yeah yeah way more than Bernie Schwartz. You talk about those early traveling performers. You know, you could argue that Mark Twain was one of the first stand-up comedians, and Will Rogers. And so Harry Houdini was this larger-than-life traveling singular performer that would draw crowds of tens of thousands. You know, that really wasn't a thing. performer that would draw crowds of tens of thousands.

You know, that really wasn't a thing. I know in Gilbert in my age, Steve Martin was the first sort of arena comedian who started playing to 15,000, 20,000 people, which he hated. I ended up doing a couple movies with him and getting to know him. And, you know, there was no one in the workings who said, yeah, don't do this. As you rise through the ranks of success as a stand-up comedian and you get to this newfound lofty position of, you know, you could sell 15,000 tickets in one location all across the country. There was no one mindful enough to say let's not do that because it isn't what you're what stand-up comedians you know should be should be doing

necessarily because losing that intimacy you know we all prefer theaters i suppose just not to hear the clanking of glasses and bar service. But and there are certainly comedians who have played larger venues in the last 10 years. But, yeah, Steve did say it's sort of law. And he said also because it was such pandemonium, he said, I would put my worst material in the first 10 minutes because it didn't matter what I said. Interesting. They were just cheering and going nuts with every gesture. That's what the Beatles said. That's what the Beatles said.

Yeah. Couldn't hear themselves. They didn't know what they were singing up there. Yeah. And they just heard screams. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny you're talking about magic, Kevin, too, because Gilbert and I talk a lot on this show about forms of show business that you just don't see much of anymore. Growing up, magicians were on television. Magicians were on The Sullivan Show. Also comedic magicians like Carl Ballantyne. Sure.

And people like that. And impressionists. Impressionists. Rich Little, Frank Ocean, Will Jordan. George Kirby. Yeah. John Beiner, who we had here. George Kirby.

Will Jordan. Yeah. It's interesting. There are those kind of forms of show business that we all grew up with that are considered, I guess, quaint. Yeah. Yeah, maybe, or novelty acts. But, you know, the magician Penn and Teller would certainly argue that they've done a hell of a job keeping alive the comedy magician. Yeah. And certainly David Blaine.

And then there was this guy who had the theater piece that ended up being on HBO, forgetting his name, that Frank Oz directed. Sort of a magic experience. I know you're talking about it. It seems like Vegas. Vegas you could find magicians and impressionists. Right. But it's not like it used to be on TV when they pop up. Yeah, even when Letterman asked me to do, be the closing night of Impressionist Week.

I remember that. You know, it was a silly novelty idea for his show to do, bring back what he was almost showcasing as archaic, representing another time when you would see people doing impressions on TV all the time. Yeah, he had Beiner on there, and I remember that. Which brings me back to my earlier question. Do you remember the first time? Because both of you getting on stage early. Gilbert, your early act was impressions.

Yes. Like Lugosi and Bo. Yeah. See, even back then I was stated. Like Lugosi and... Yeah. See, even back then I was dated. Well, yeah, because when you're young and you do the stars of the day, they're all considerably older.

You know, you're not doing your contemporaries like maybe you would now. So, yeah, I mean, I was doing Groucho and... Oh, you were? Sure, sure. And the like, you were? Sure, sure. And the like. You know, and first impression I ever did, I guess, was the high school football coach who had a very distinctive walk and demeanor. And it turns out he was not a fan. which I found out in an unfortunate way as I was gathered with some friends,

school pals in the quad at lunch, and someone came up from behind me and got me into a headlock. And it was the coach, and he whispered in my ear, I heard about it, and I don't think it's funny. And I remember as I was passing out i thought i could probably learn how to do marlon brando much safer yeah what are the chances that fat fuck's gonna get me in a headlock and and the funny thing is like every single impressionist basically it was and if your waiter was james cagney it might go something like this yeah i even tried to personalize all of that um from the very beginning which then eventually became stories of working with these people so like when i would tell a story of working on a

few good men i would tell where my mom came to visit the set and ended up hitting on Jack Nicholson. And then I would impersonate Nicholson within the story. But even from the beginning, I told a true story when I was a waiter and the cook would screw up the order. For most waiters, that's a nightmare. There goes your tip. Most waiters, that's a nightmare. There goes your tip. But for me, it was a golden opportunity to launch into an impression, be it Peter Falk.

Oh, geez, I'm sorry. Did you ask for rice? Why do you have a baked potato? This makes no sense. And the tip went through the roof. So when I started doing impressions, I would draw from personal experiences when I found times to hide behind voices that helped me through life. And, you know, I should tell the audience who isn't seeing you that you're doing an imitation also of Peter Paul's glass eye. That's the uncanny part. Yeah.

So he was very open about having a about having glass i was in a car accident when he was three years old and had a glass eye from the age of three and so when i started doing it and i saw him tell stories about that on the tonight show i thought well i i should train my figure out how to move just one eye and i saw n bancroft in a close-up shot on a mel brooks film her husband um oh it's in silent movie yeah where she she crosses her eyes and then uncrosses them and crosses them and and she moves one i mean i could do it again on the zoom and your audience won't see it wow and so i thought if i could just isolate one half of that then it'll be just one eye moving back and forth. And I sort of figured it out. Yeah, I remember one of the stories Peter Falk told.

He was playing literally at age 12, slid into second base. The um called him out and he took out his eye and handed it to him and said, you clearly need this more than I do. That's great. And I thought that's the the hippest 12-year-old that's ever lived. So when I, yeah, so it became a great thrill when I did do The Tonight Show to sit next to the King, Carson, and do the Peter Falk, because I knew he loved Peter Falk, and I took advantage of that. And he flipped out at the one-eye moving. That was the thing that completely for it's great and then he asked me to teach him how to do it the next time on and and then here's the brilliance

about carson that i'm convinced he had the something similar with a lot of the gas so you're backstage you're about to go on you hear the band playing down and and from commercial and you hear johnny introduce you you know commercial and you hear Johnny introduce you. You know, it's one of the most nerve wracking six minutes of your entire life, let alone that year. And every time after that second appearance, when I taught him how to do the Peter Falk guy and he announced me, please welcome. He's a friend of the show. He's been on before. Please welcome actor, comedian Kevin Pollak. And I would come out and I would, you know, wave the dock and sit. But there was three seconds or less where you would pass in front of him.

He would stand at the throne waiting for you to arrive. And you would, as you were in the motion of sitting to his right, you would pass in front of him with your back to the audience for a nanosecond to shake his hand, what have you. But in that nanosecond, religiously, after the second appearance for another, I don't know, 12, a dozen and a half, he would lean over, move one eye and say, excuse me, I hate to bother you. That's great.

The genius of that is in the most nerve wracking six minutes of the year, we have an inside joke, have a seat, you know, that sort of calming effect of that. No matter how nervous or in my head I might have been the moment he did that, it was, oh, I belong here. And as I'm sitting down, this is all playing out right every time and i i know he must have had something like that with guests that he that he liked he had that ability to to put people at ease yeah oh and then falk what you you run into him in a supermarket one day at ralph's in los angeles about six months after after that first of that that appearance rather where i i did the peter falk and johnny flipped out i did i was accosted by peter falk in the produce section

and he he literally stopped me and said how do you do that with your eye no no me i understand but how do you do that he was tickled and also genuinely curious that's great he wanted me to teach him how to do it that's surreal yeah and we we sort of were friendly in the sense that anytime i would see him thereafter he just got such a kick out of me you know just the monkey who impersonates him i guess but he really did get a kick out of to his credit he had a sense of humor about it oh boy yeah we will return to gilbert gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast after this. And so you knew both Peter Falk and Alan Arkin. My two heroes, because The In-Laws is my favorite comedy film of all time. And to meet Peter that day and become friendly

and then work with Alan Arkin on the film Indian Summer and become friendly with him for life. Yeah, it's a bit surreal. But Alan told me the story of how he put the in-laws together as a film. Sitting at home one night watching late night television oh that's right he saw peter falk on the tonight show and he he's as alan tell told me at the time i had a little juice at warner brothers and i called him the president of the studio and i said i want to do a picture with p Falk. And he said, great, what's the picture?

And I said, I don't know. He annoys me, I think, is the story. And, you know, the studio had said, all right, well, when you figure it out, let me know. And so then I had read a very early draft of Blazing Saddles written by Andrew Bergman, where the black fellow who comes into this western town is actually a jazz singer from the 40s. It was the most fucked up story I've ever read. And they didn't make it, obviously. But I remember it stayed with me as just surreal and crazy and hilarious.

And so I'm the one who selected Peter and Andrew Bergman to write and direct. And again, had just enough juice at the studio to get the damn thing set up. Yeah. How about that? Miraculous. Yeah, we had Andrew here, actually. So that would have been the Tex-X version before it became. Right. Yeah. It was much more militant.

Yeah. Yeah. And we had Alan Arkin here, too. We had Alan and Adam. We did a Father's Day show with Alan and Adam last year. Oh, that's spectacular. What a national treasure. We got to put you on the spot and make you tell the story, though, of calling riser when you were a young performer.

It's so good. And it's why, let me plug the book too, Kevin. It's called How I Slept My Way to the Middle. Really funny. Great stories. Great backstage stuff. And I think one of my favorite stories in the book is you calling riser in his hotel. Well, yeah.

So I was a San Francisco comedian. And, you know, I, seven, eight, nine years old, would watch comedians on the Tonight Show and collect them like my friends collected baseball cards. And so when I started doing stand-up, I already had many years of being a devoted fan of comedians and their nuances and their presence, really grabbed me and also instilled me with enough stupid confidence that, well, clearly starting out as a stand-up comedian to become an actor is a path, which I'd already devoted myself to the stand-up comedian part. And I hated school, so the idea of going to acting school just sounded like the worst possible idea. So when I saw the marquee that Paul Reiser was in town, I had loved his work in Barry Levinson's movie Diner

and as many comedians did, it was truly inspirational to standups who wanted to be film actors. And so I didn't know if he knew or cared about Peter Falk, but I knew it was recognizable enough. So I got the number of the hotel that he was staying at while performing in San Francisco from the club, Booker. And, you know, back then you could say to whatever receptionist answered the phone at the hotel,

could you ring Paul Reiser's room, please? And there was no questions. They just put you through to Paul Reiser. In those days. Yeah. They just rang his room. I didn't need a room number. These days, for the longest time, I stay under the name John Lovitz.

That way no one will bother me. time i stay under the name john lovitz that way no one will bother me but um so i i uh i just called him up and they put me through and he answers the phone yes hello and i just launched into it paul listen this is peter fork i'm in i'm in town and we are the wife and i saw your name on a marquee someplace called Cobbs, I think. Anyways, we would love to come to the show tonight, tomorrow night. Well, he launches into such reverence and and and overjoy. He just can't believe that Peter Falk tracked him down and is talking to him in his hotel room so much so that within three or four minutes of his adoration for the real peter falk i couldn't

stop doing peter falk for fear that he would never speak to me again because he was so happy to be talking to Peter Falk. You know, it would have gone from, oh, that's very funny to what is the matter with you? You know, I just it played out in my head if I were to break character. So I didn't. I didn't. We talked for over 10 minutes and I never broke character. didn't we talked for over 10 minutes and i never broke character and he spoke to peter falk through me at the end of which we the arrangements were made i was good peter falk was going to the second show and then after i hung up i realized i had to call back and bust myself, but it also meant the end of any chance I had at a friendship with Paul Reiser.

Because it just wasn't going to go well. So I called him back, and sure enough, they put me through to his room once again. And he answered, yes, hello. And I said, Paul, it's Peter again. Listen, I have bad news. And the bad news is this isn't Peter Falk. I'm a local comedian. My name is Kevin Pollack, and I'm the biggest fan of your stand-up and your acting.

Your work in Diner was the most. And he just stopped me and said, you're a bad guy. Can I be honest with you? stopped me and said, you're a bad guy. Can I be honest with you? You're not a nice person. That is really. But he also had a little bit of laughter in his voice. He let me off the hook instantly.

And we did become friendly. And you became friends. I love that. And you once left a crank call on Alan Arkin's machine. Yeah. So the way it goes is I was in the habit of calling people as Alan Arkin for a while. And just to leave messages on their voice answering machine. And I had not seen Paul in quite a while.

And we ran into each other. And we set up dinner with the wives for a couple of weeks down the road. The two weeks go by. I call him that morning to reconfirm. But I got his voice answering machine. And I spoke to it as Alan Arkin. And I said, hi, Paul. Alan Arkin, how are you? Listen, I don't know what your schedule's like.

We'd love to see you. You could come over. You could stay for a while. Whatever works for you. We'd just love to see you, okay? And so that night at dinner with paul and his wife paula and my then wife and myself um you know we're having a good time and at one point during the meal um i see paul lean over to his wife and say something to the effect of that's like when i got the call from Alan Arkin this morning.

And, you know, and rather than just saying that was me, we'd already been through this. Oh, God. I thought for sure that he would have known it was me. So I just let him go for a while. And finally I said, putz, that was me. And he was very upset again and he said he got alan's number he made a point of getting alan's number to call him and leave a

message saying how tickled he was so when i when i got home from dinner that night this message was waiting for me on my machine hi kevin it's alan listen um that's not funny i i don't know paul riser but apparently he's staying over for a week. That's great. Yeah. Well, listen, Paul got to work with Falk. He got to make that movie with him. He got to live out his Peter Falk dream in the end. Yeah, and he certainly got to listen to Alan Arkin talk to him on his voice answer.

Yeah. That's an embarrassment of riches, Kevin. We love these impressions. Is there a Richard Kind impression? Not to keep putting you on the spot. Well, everyone, to my knowledge, does a bad to good Richard Kind. Have you heard of Bjarke's Richard Kind? I have.

It's tremendous. It's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a group of people who Stephen Weber actually went to the point of having a, like, puppet plush doll made. Oh, yes. I've seen it written in Craig's house.

Yeah. Yeah. And you squeeze the hand and there was like six recordings of different kindisms. So, yeah. And, you know, Hank Azaria. There's just so many better richer kind impressions out there i see that i don't know um if if uh i mean i'm i'd be happy to do it listen i don't want anything from you

if you want to just write a check for ten dollars that's fine. That's fantastic. Yeah. Let's go to A Few Good Men since you mentioned it and the story of your mom. I got a kick out of the fact that both your dad and your mom visited film sets. Your dad, I believe, at the set of Willow. Yes. And your mom came to the A Few Good Men set. I introduced my dad to George Lucas, who was producing Willow.

And my dad said, I really loved E.T. And George Lucas, to his credit, said, so did I. Yeah, pretty sweet. It yeah pretty honest mistake pretty sweet when my father became homer simpson but my uh yeah my mom i i told it was such a almost cornerstone of my stand-up act um i'm i'm a little uh underwhelmed at the opportunity to tell the my mom hit on Jack Nicholson story just because I've kind of told it to death. But yeah, but yeah, it's it was it was based all in truth because she did visit. And when they. When she came to visit, we're shooting a courtroom scene. The camera was already set up and it was over Nicholson's right shoulder shooting his point of view or POV of the entire wide courtroom from his point of view. And so within that wide camera angle,

there was no place to put my mom where she could stand and watch us shoot where the camera wouldn't see her. So they ended up having to put her over Nicholson's other shoulder. So just without going into the detail, just imagine you know you're working on the most important film, arguably, of your life, and you're surrounded by giant movie stars, and your mother is in your eyeline.

You know, I'm sitting across from Nicholson at the table with Tom Cruise and Demi Moore, and I'm supposed to be looking at Nicholson in the shot, and two inches from his head is my mother's head bobbing up and down with excitement. And, yeah, it was about as unnerving as any moment I've ever experienced. But how nice that your parents got to see your success up close like that. Oh, very much so.

To share in that. Yeah. When I worked on Barry Levinson's film Avalon, my mom visited with my stepdad. They were actually together longer than my folks were together, 24 years. And then stepdad of them were visiting on Avalon. Now, I have no objectivity because I'm in Avalon, but I insist it's Barry's masterpiece. I think that it is an extraordinary film for all the reasons cinematic.

One of which, if not near the top, is the cinematographer, Alan Davio, who did E.T. and Color Purple and Empire of the Sun and Defending Your Life, many beautiful, stunning, gorgeous films. And while my mom and stepfather were visiting, we decided it was time to have a picture taken of the three of us. Just when my stepfather looked up to see who might take it the uh multi-award winning cinematographer alan davio was walking by and my dad didn't know him from adam and said pardon me sir would you mind taking a photo of us

and i just to say this moment was cringeworthy for me might be an understatement. But Alan couldn't have been sweeter and took the camera was probably a disposable little camera and took a few photos of us. And in in a few good men, you didn't have any direct scenes, direct dialogue with Nicholson, I don't think. And then you were surprised at one point during one of his speeches. the play and screenplay, I guess, decided that this hate-filled and hate-worthy colonel that Nicholson was portraying in the movie was not only sexist and misogynistic and, and, you know, sort of evil incarnate, but he was also anti-semitic because yes there's a moment in the film where he's on the stand he's giving his this is the soliloquy you know you need me on that wall you want me on that wall who's gonna do it you you lieutenant weinberg now why he singles out Lieutenant Weinberg, I believe is your question. When our characters meet once, we shake hands in his office, we're introduced, but we don't speak to each other.

Tom, to me and I and the colonel and his right hand and maybe Kiefer Sullivan's character seated at a lunch outdoors in what's supposed to be Guantanamo Bay, which was shot in Long Beach, California, because the Marines read the script and said, yeah, I don't think we're going to support this. Yes, I'd heard that. That's painting, portraying a Marine colonel as a lunatic. So for that outdoor scene, our characters don't speak either. We do not address each other, correct to your point, Gilbert. So, yeah, there's no other reason for him to single me out than Aaron Sorkin wanted everyone to know, this prick is also an anti-Semite. Now I'm going to, I've seen the movie a hundred times.

Now, every time I see who's going to do it, you Weinberg, I'm just going to laugh because it's very, it's very funny. Yeah. I mean, it's a secondary. He's, he's asking, uh, Caffey first, who's going to do it. You, you know, spitting into Tom's face. Who's going to do it. You. You, you know, spitting into Tom's face. Who's going to do it? You?

And then turning as a completion of the thought. You, Lieutenant Weinberg? Like he even knows the guy's name. Yeah, I know. Why not just say who's going to do it? You? Or is the Jew over there going to do it? And you said that Nicholson, when he wasn't in character as the colonel, had to describe how Nicholson was when he wasn't.

You didn't expect him to be so approachable. It was a complete surprise to me. communications, who wore sunglasses in the front row of the Academy Awards, who, you know, I thought in order to be that cool, you know, he never did a talk show in his entire life. He did only three, maybe four print journalistic interviews and no other interviews exist. Think of another star of his stature who pulled pulled off that feat i didn't know that yeah and so consequently i no one knows much about him unless you know him and uh i had such reverence so i i thought i'll talk about jack i won't talk to him even though we're technically if not not legally, co-stars on this

film. I'm going to leave Mr. Nicholson alone. And so I was absolutely thrilled and baffled that he was such a goofball and an absolute silly, gregarious, approachable. I'd never seen anyone more comfortable in their own skin. No one does a Nicholson impression better than him. It's spot on. He's got all the nuances and all that. It's so authentic. But yeah, he was just a larger than life, silly goofball who they'd finish a take. goofball who they'd finish a take and his one assistant he nicknamed her staff to suggest he had a team of people working for him and he that's funny yeah rob reiner would say

cut and jack would stand up from the stop from the stand and yell out for her staff like me holding up two fingers ready for his cigarette break you know i've told i've told you i've watched so many episodes of of the chat show which we'll get into i talk about your your wonderful podcast that you retired not not long ago you're interested in some of the things we're interested in which is journeys and career turning points i heard you talking to richard benjamin about that very thing here's an odd thing that mort're interested in, which is journeys and career turning points. I heard you talking to Richard Benjamin about that very thing. Here's an odd thing that Morton & Hayes, which is beloved by people like Gilbert and I who care about Abbott & Costello and Laurel & Hardy and those kind of people, which is a failed series, winds up being a turning point for you because it leads to this mega movie. Well, there's no question if I wasn't having lunch every day with Rob Reiner, who, along with Christopher Guest, created Morgan Hayes.

If I wasn't in his face while he was casting A Few Good Men every day at lunch, we would hole up in his trailer. And yeah, one day he wagged his sizable finger in my face and said, this next movie I'm directing was a big Broadway success. It's called A Few Good Men. I got Tom Cruise to play the lead and Jack Nicholson. I think I'm going to get Jack Nicholson to play this insane colonel. But there's this part of Tom's co-counsel and friend that you're kind of perfect for.

I have an offer out to Jason Alexander. And if Seinfeld gets picked up for a second season, you know, I feel like you would be a great choice. Well, for context, Seinfeld, in its first season, had only aired four episodes. It was called the Seinfeld Chronicles. It was on Friday nights, not Thursday. And about 11 people were watching it. So I did, I was flattered and amazed that he brought it up, but I also instantly thought, well, Jason Alexander is going to do a few good men. He's certainly not doing another season of that crap. And thankfully I was dead wrong and things worked out very, very well for Jason and I both. Yeah, it's a great twist, though, that the failed the noble failure of.

Oh, let me tell you one more. Let me tell you one more aspect of it, bringing back the aforementioned Andrew Bergman. So Andrew Bergman wrote and directed a film. I'll get to the title in a moment to not give away the end of the story. And was enamored with the idea of me starring in it prior to A Few Good Men, which is a time when no one was thinking such things. But the character in the script was a younger Albert Brooks,

a very nebbishy, funny, you know, Jewish fella, a mama's boy. And he wanted me to do it. And the studio did not. The studio wanted someone else. And that someone else and I both screen tested opposite the female lead, Sarah Jessica Parker. And the film went to that someone else by the name of Nick Cage, A Honeymoon in Vegas. But again, if you had read the script, it would be clear to you too that physically and what have you, I was certainly, it made sense why Andrew Bergman wanted me for the

part. Fascinating. Or any other funny squat Jew. But in this case, he did want me. And that was as close as I got to that ginormous brass ring of starring in a studio comedy, which was kind of the fantasy after seeing Michael Keaton in Night Shift or Tom Hanks in Splash. You know, there was this idea of that world

opening up in a second, right? So when that vanished, you know, again, the writer-director insisting I'm his star, screen testing with Sarah Jessica Parker, all these things to end with thank you, goodbye, was something I also had not experienced. And I was devastated beyond the ability to speak for several weeks until three or four weeks later, I was cast in a few good men and honeymoon in Vegas is great. Nick Cage is fucking hilarious. It's a fun movie, super fun, but it's not a career starter for me the way a few good men was.

And I went from auditioning to getting offers, which has been the case since 92. Yeah, big prestige picture. You can't beat that with that cast. I would say that, again, things worked out went home for the day and they had like a scene to shoot that had Nicholson in it. Right. So Jack worked 10 days on the film total. And for five million dollars, by the way, I didn't have the courage to ask him, when you're making half a million a day, do you hit the snooze alarm?

I think I would race into the shower. Yeah. I don't think I would snooze. But so, yeah, he worked 10 days total. And on the 10th day, Rob Reiner reiner the director was not confident he was going to finish shooting with jack and so he had the nerve to go to jack and the relationship at that point and ask if jack could stick around for uh the next day only half a day he said i promise i'll get you out at noon no matter where we are in the shooting. And of course, we can't afford your daily rate.

I just it's a big favor. And Jack said, whatever you want, Robbie, you want me here tomorrow? I'll finish. We'll finish this tomorrow. So he comes back the next day and at 12 noon on the button, Rob Reiner stands up no matter where we were in the moment of shooting. Yells cut, says that's a wrap on Jack Nicholson. The crew of hundreds and cast erupt in applause the way you do in a moment like that.

And what they were shooting was coverage on the judge from Jack's point of view. So off of Jack onto the judge. So off of Jack onto the judge and Jack at that point was actually doing what's called off camera lines for the judge. Which is why it made sense for me to go to Rob Reiner and say, hey, if it's helpful to AJ, the actor playing the judge, I could sit on the stand and do Jack's lines for him. I'm not doing it to entertain the crew for anyone's laughter, but if it's helpful to AJ to have Nicholson's aura continue doing the lines, I've been watching Jack do this. I'll even hold the sides, you know, the script. I don't want to mess up the dialogue, but I've been reciting it in my rear view mirror on the ride home every day, so I think I got it. But again, I don't want to do if it's stealing focus from AJ's work. Those are the three of you that can see the Zoom.

That's Andy in the background. Oh, look at that. Kitty cat. A cat of prey. That is scary. Wow. That's like something out of Universal Classics. And he's just a black cat.

I'm not expecting Stata Lugosi. That's like something out of Universal Classics. And he's just sneaking. I'm not expecting Stato Lagosi to buzz at it. Except as it turns out, he's an idiot because that's a pile of T-shirts he's just snuck up on. Nice work, Andy. So I explained the situation to Rob. And Rob went to the actor, AJ, and explained what I was offering. And the actor said, man, I would love that. And I sat on the stand with the script in my hand and I did Nicholson's off-camera lines. And the greatest compliment I think I've ever had of any impersonation was two days later, Rob came up to me while we were shooting and said, I saw dailies at lunch today of Jack's last half a day work.

And it was it wasn't right away that I knew it was you doing his lines. There's probably two or three takes of you doing his lines before I even remembered. Oh, shit. That's not Jack anymore. That's Kevin. So that was, you know, something silly and a personal high. And and yeah. And a nice thing for you to do to your, for your friend, for Rob. For, for Rob and AJ, the actor. Yeah. Yeah. If it was helpful, you know, um, it's kind of, uh, silly. Well, you know, there's no shame in losing a part to Nicolas Cage, uh,

Kevin, but there may be shame in losing a part to Billy Barty, which Gilbert did. I lost a part to Billy Barty. Who's in Willow, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? You're different types. He's taller than me.

He can't play Jewish. I wouldn't worry about it. Speaking of playing Jewish, I did want to mention Deterrence from 1999, Rod Lurie's film. Terrific performance by you. Our friend Sean Astin is in there and Timothy Hutton, great little cast. It's a really interesting movie shot in one location. It's a little bit of fail safe. It's a little bit of the missiles of October, if you will, but also notable because possibly the first Jewish president of the United States on film.

Yeah, which Rod Lurie wrote and directed. His next film got a lot of attention and a couple of Oscar nominations called The Contender. It's a good one, too. And Jeff Bridges and Gary Oldman, a great film. But so naturally, I starred in the one he did right before that that nine people saw. But I did play. It's quite good. I did play the first Jewish president,

but he also painstakingly over-explained how a Jew got anywhere near the Oval Office, which is he was a Jewish vice president, and the president died, and so the vice president became president, and when the movie starts, this president, who's not been elected um is on the campaign trail to be re-elected or elected for the first time to continue his

presidency um and uh you know it was it was pretty amazing and well-written and a tight little political thriller. And, yeah. Something different for you. Did he write that for you? I know you knew he was a poker player. Yeah, we did. We met playing poker and one night at the poker game. He was a Los Angeles film critic.

Yeah. And I knew him as a film critic on ABC and and as a friend who i played poker with and one night he said i'm writing the script i'm about 40 pages in and i'm writing you as the lead and i said so you want no one to see your film what do you what do you mean you're writing the lead he said well you know it's a small film i'll be lucky if i raise a little over a million i want to direct it and so anyways um would you read it i said yeah when you get past 40 pages maybe over 100 sure uh and i read it and it was extraordinarily impressive and um yeah i'm very little film i will tell our listeners to find it i'm very proud of it i think yeah might be from hard to find. Deterrence from 99. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast.

But first, a word from our sponsor. You are in Grumpy Old Man. Yes, and it's geniusly entitled sequel Grumpier Old Man. Yes. I must apologize that we had Grumpier Old men in the intro instead of grumpy old men. Well, what's the difference? We wouldn't lead with the sequel. One had Sophia Loren, one didn't.

Yes, Gilbert took great delight in what Matthau said to Sophia Loren when she showed up for work. Well, yeah, so we did the first movie and it was outrageously successful, which was thrilling for Matthau and Lemon in the twilight years of their lives and careers. And to be anywhere near greatness like that, along with Burgess Meredith and Buck Henry and Margaret. So when they announced the sequel, it was very exciting, and not just because ain't no money like sequel money, but also because they were adding Sophia Loren. And she had not starred in a film in maybe 25 years.

She was in the player, but certainly not a star in the movie. And other than the player where she played a small part, she had not acted in a film in decades. So it was like royalty from cinema and from Italy showing up. And everyone was very intimidated when first order of business was the table read. And Walter was doing a play on Broadway, I'm Not Rapaport.

And so they flew the rest of us on the Warner jet from sunny Los Angeles to Walter Matthaus, New York. Um, and on the plane, I'll tell you, everybody was on eggshells. Nobody really wanted to say the wrong thing to Ms.

Loren. So it was a pretty quiet flight. Um, it was being very nice, but still no one wanted to bother her. And we go, we're, we're limoed in from the airport we're rushed into a conference

room at the hotel that walter's staying or can get to from where he lives and uh we're sitting around this large table waiting for walter uh to start the table read he's late we flew across the country and he's late getting to the table. But he walks in and he walks straight up to Sophia, having never met before in either their lives or careers, and says, Great to meet you.

Love to eat you. So good. Yeah, as an opener. And maybe a closer. i don't know but but every chin other than hers uh drops to the table when he says this she sort of waved him off very um you know demure and flattered and also, oh, well, you know. And he turned to the rest of us and said, I'm not kidding. Everybody else clear out. Great. Yeah.

What did he say to you on the first day of shooting? You were trying to break the ice? Oh, I did. On the first movie. I had a golden rule to never do an impersonation for the actual person, unless they ask for it, because they don't see it almost ever. Alan Arkin loved it from the beginning, and he added, You know what, Kevin?

I've decided after watching you do me, I'm going to stop stammering. I don't like the way it sounds yeah i'm gonna lose the stammer look at me look at me right now i'm just talking there's no stammer this is great uh yeah now so oh go ahead no i was so uh... First day on Grumpy Old Man, I decided like an idiot I was going to make, you know, Walter laugh at small talk. I said, so, Walter, good script, huh? And he turned to me and said, the script sucks, kid. I owe my bookie two million.

And he wasn't kidding and said, the script sucks, kid. I owe my bookie two million. And he wasn't kidding. Oh, wow. And then once I got comfortable enough to have an actual conversation with him and not, you know, being what they call now a fanboy, but just sort of trading barbs about working on this and working on that and i said you know that that scene in in the in the odd couple where um you throw the bowl of pasta against the wall when you're arguing if it's called pasta or spaghetti and you throw it against the wall and say now it's garbage and mathau said no r garbage i love that so it was an instant uh review and critique and did you witness like you must have witnessed the friendship of mathau and lemon extraordinary you know we we shot in minneapolis st paul um in the dead of winter, which was really stupid, but it worked for the story. And both of their reps were looking for the best hotel room to stay in.

And it turns out there was one extraordinary presidential suite and their reps were fighting over who was going to stay there. And Matthau and Lemon, as the story goes, found out there was a second bedroom. going to stay there and and math allen lemon as the story goes found out there was a second bedroom and so while we shot the grumpy old men movie the two the odd couple were roommates um in this giant you know with a kitchen and a piano and it was really it really was something and so we would be asked up there for dinner on occasion and and um so i got a chance to see them away from work a little bit they just loved each other uh uh lifetime friendship and yeah what a nice nice thing to be part of truly was yeah ridiculous gift you i you're talking before about how you collected comedians names and took comedians into your heart almost the the way a kid collects baseball cards.

I've heard you say you did that with character actors as well, that you share our fondness for character actors on this show. You've worked with some great ones, John Lithgow and Gabriel Byrne and Joan Plowright and Giamatti. I could go on. Yes. But tell us about, and this is not necessarily a character actor he could be character actor at certain points in his career but also a leading man and that's rod steiger a

favorite of gilbert's in end of days yeah well yeah you did favreau show with him too you did dinner dinner for five yeah yeah yes um he he was uh i would call him a character actor. I mean, you know, in my opinion, Matt and Lemon were character actors who got to be movie stars. They were definitely character actors. And I would even push the notion as far as to say Brad Pitt is one of our best character actors. He is a bona fide, bigger than life movie star, but his character work in Glorious Bastards, his character work in Burn After Reading. Oh, that's a fun one. Even True Romance. I mean, he's always looking to do, it seems to me, a character rather than a romantic lead.

it seems to me a character rather than a romantic lead he's he's amazing that way because here's this guy who's like the most handsome guy on the planet yeah and yeah really a talented character oh benjamin button moneyball so many yeah but you know you could argue even moneyball was a sort of leading man oh you're saying when he's not the main focus. I'm saying it seems to me he has a real heart for character work. And I mean, his character in Inglourious Basterds is damn near cartoonish. And it's pulled off brilliant. And there are moments of Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And you were on a horsey.

I remember you. Yeah, you know, where he sort of leans into the character guy. I like your theory, too. There's a thin line sometimes between character actors and people who become leading men. Well, yeah, I'm sort of pushing the idea of how I've collected character actors. It's really, from a very young age, it was the sidekick or the character supporting actors who really caught my attention for whatever reason. The Slim Pickens of the world and the Strother Martins and those guys.

And what was Rod Steiger like to work with? Well, I don't have too fond of a memory about it. Oh, uh-oh. I mean, it might have been that he didn't want to be there. You know, sometimes you just sort of sense that. I mean, he was doing really solid work and but he was he was pretty difficult and demanding in terms of his work process. Interesting. Which made for a slightly unpleasant environment.

It didn't mean he deserved less respect, but it's just his process. Because I don't come from the theater or am even a trained actor, I'm there to have fun. And it was Rob Reiner, actually, who almost as a mission statement, at some point we're shooting,

he said, if you're not having fun there's literally no point to any of this and there was less than zero fun on set when I did work with Rob sorry well I am going to remember we had James Caron on this show

another great character actor and he had worked with Steiger and I asked him to. And he had worked with Steiger. And I asked him to tell the audience about working with Steiger. And he just said, I don't like to speak ill of the dead. Yeah. Yeah. In my book, I tell a very funny but disparaging story about Michael Clark Duncan. And he passed away about six weeks before the book was published. And the publisher called me and said, I don't know if you heard today's news, but Michael Clark Duncan and he passed away about six weeks before the book was published and the publisher called me and said I don't know if you heard today's news but Michael Clark Duncan passed I don't know if you want to keep the story in the book and I thought for four seconds and said you don't get a pass for dying um you know he the story's funny and he just was a really

shitty thing that he did and there were were witnesses, and, you know. On the whole nine yards. What did he do? There's too much detail in that one. But Gilbert, since we have two gifted mimics here, give Kevin a little bit of your Rod Steiger. Please. For him to appreciate.

Please. My people, you want to know the secret of our success will you start off with the no nothing no land to call your own and then you find a piece of cloth and you rip it in half and you sell that for two for one cent profit and do you never do you think of buying a toy for your child. Oh, man. But then you find another piece of cloth and you rip this cloth in three pieces. That's beautiful.

You love character actors. Do you know John MacGyver? Do you know that actor? Do I? If you saw him in a second. Heavy, bald actor. Did a million TV shows. He's in Midnight Cowboy.

He's the John. What's his name in there? Do the voice for him, Gil. Wait one second while I look him up. John MacGyver? You'll get it right away. He was short, bald, always played like buffoonish authority figures. Always in everything.

Oh, love him. Yes. Go ahead, Gil. This company is run like a ship. I will have no slackers in this company. This is a ship and I am the captain of this ship.

Andrew Bergman could not get enough of Gilbert's John MacGyver. No, there's no way to get enough. Speaking of great character actors. That's beautiful. That's beautiful also because of the joy of doing someone so esoteric that's beautiful also because of um yeah the joy of doing someone so esoteric that no one thought previously of doing you have a few of those in

your repertoire don't you yeah i mean i didn't hear a lot of people doing albert brooks before i did it right and um i don't think i've ever heard anybody do albert brooks but you yeah i mean uh it is it is amazing to come across a gem uh like that that just some someone who you know caught your fancy and your attention can you do some albert brooks listen gilbert i don't want to be the one to say this this has been a lot of fun but i've got a life to get back to you understand don't you i'm gonna i'm feeling a little nauseous. I'm going to go lie down. Okay? Is that okay with you? Jesus.

Great Albert Brooks story in the book, by the way. Here's a character, just to get back to Avalon for a second, and I agree with you, I think it's Levinson's. I love Tin Man, and I love Diner. And I love Good Morning Vietnam, but I do agree with you about Avalon. And here's a character. Yep. You know, and I love Good Morning Vietnam.

But I do agree with you about Avalon. And here's a character actor, a great one, that has been kind of indirectly inspiring your Mrs. Maisel performance. Not indirectly. Directly. Lift. Complete lift and ripoff of Lou Jacoby. Yes. Your audience would know him if they didn't see Avalon.

Oh, Diary of Anne Frank. Yeah. So many. I can't believe I ate the whole thing. Yeah. I mean, he's been around for every year. Yep. Woody Allen's movie, Everything You Want to Know About Sex.

Yes. Plays the guy who dresses up in the lady's clothing and has to sneak out of the house. Yeah, just brilliant beyond belief. brilliant beyond belief and i i for because i did not have this formal training when i finally got into acting in films that were more drama than comedy and i just did not want to ever get caught acting it's one of the barry levinson schools of acting is he hates to see acting and rather everything looks spontaneous and i was very fortunate Avalon was my first real film in terms of that sort of drama and comedy. But, yeah.

So I was hell-bent on throwing everything away to underplay. The less is more technique. In fact, J.T. Walsh on A Few Good Men, I confessed to him one day in his trailer. One of the great character actors out of Chicago a lot of David Mamet stuff and I confessed to him one day in his trailer I said I'm going to be found out on this movie

A Few Good Men everybody around me is brilliant and I'm a comedian who's fooled everyone this is the 8th attempt and it's not going to end well. And he said, well, you're already doing a form of acting that people train to learn and master. It's called less is more. But I will tell you, if you can figure out the other half of that, less is more,

nothing is best. If you can do nothing in a scene and steal focus you win and it resonated to the point where i spent the next 30 years underplaying trying to and then the first time i play a loud obnoxious jew channeling lou jacobi and the marvelous mrs mazel i get the best notices of my entire life my own significant other of 14 years says it's a role you were born to play born to play did you not hear me just describe it as a loud obnoxious jew i i remember jack lemon would tell that story of working with billy wilder and uh where he said could you give me a little less? And then he goes,

no, less, less. A little more or less. And Lemons says, well, you're telling me not to act at all. And Wilder says, oh, God, yes. That's great. Speaking of great impressions,

Billy West's Lou Jacoby, which is one half fluji his dr zoidberg on futurama part one part jacobi and the other half georgie jessel yeah to behold that's a great combo yeah i know you've had uh you've had billy on on chat show let's talk about chat show and then i want to i i just want a couple of a couple of more questions i want to ask you about Mrs. Maisel. Why did you stop after 400 shows? And I want to give this show its due because I was telling Kevin on email that it's not only a terrific show, it's a show I relied on as a resource. We have Richard Benjamin coming up tomorrow, I re-watched your Richard Benjamin interview

it's a master class well thank you I got into doing it at a time when you had to explain to people what a podcast was us too but now there's 2 million when I started in 2009 there were less than 50 on iTunes. And so to me, it wasn't I was starting something that I thought would take over the world.

I was, as you guys are, genuinely fascinated by people's trajectory. And how did you get from there to here? We are. So the idea was to have a one-on-one conversation with comedians and character actors and writers and directors and musicians. Sugar Ray Leonard was one of our largest. And we streamed live on video. I made the mistake of choosing video podcasts,

which they were all available as an audio track as well. So anyways, yeah, we average about 40 a year, 10 years. And so as we were coming up on the 10th anniversary, I realized that we were also rounding up on the number 400. And because I had always diversified my output from all the things you spent 14 minutes in the opening describing, I never sort of pursued the podcast to be an institution like Mark Maron or the others. And so after 10 years and 400 episodes, I realized I had not in fact turned it into an institution.

And those who came around the same time as me had. And I sort of felt like I feel like 10 years is a good time. Yeah, it's a good run. Yeah. It will still be, in the insistence of a couple of friends of mine, my legacy in terms of what you're describing, you know, just a long-form conversation. And I was super proud of it, but yeah, it was— And you should be. Well, there's such little long-form conversation anymore.

But I also no producer who, who, you know, handled the pre-production of the show. We had a crew and we, you know, I had people helping to render it and put it up, but the casting of 400 episodes was almost solely on me.

And it got to the point over the years where every time I entered a social gathering where there were famous people, I was incapable of enjoying myself because I was trying to angle and figure out ways to invite people to be on the podcast. And after spending 10 years doing that, I was wildly ready to give that up. That's what I'd heard, that you were tired of asking friends to do it. Yeah. I coined the phrase, being asked to be on a friend's podcast is the new jury duty. Yeah. Well, you should have been like Gilbert. He's never asked anyone. Yes. Yeah. I would have loved to have that good fortune. Yeah.

I'll meet with Frank and say, I was having lunch with Charlie Chaplin yesterday. He'll go, did you ask? Yeah. Here's just a quick question, Kevin, from a listener, Paul Krosulik. Years ago, I stumbled across the movie Indian Summer on cable. I fell in love with it. I waited for it to play again. I watched it again, loved it again.

I watched it for the third time. Even though the movie doesn't change, you kind of have to be in the mood for nostalgia to enjoy it. What are your memories of filming that? Terrific little movie. You and Diane Lane and Kevin. Bill Paxton and Alan Arkin. Late great Bill Paxton.

Sam Raimi. Kimberly Williams. Matt Craven. I'm forgetting people but... Elizabeth Perkins in it too? Elizabeth Perkins. There you go. Yeah. It was extraordinary.

Great deal of fun. It was a shot at the actual camp that the writer director Mike Binder went to as a child. So he refurbished it for the filming of it. You had to take a boat to get to this camp. So there were no trailers available. So our actors at trailers were cabins. trailers available so our actors at trailers were cabins so sam raby and i shared a cabin while we were shooting you know those kind of things in terms of a work experience uh make it pretty damn special and then just to follow my one of my heroes alan arkin around on the set every day was pretty extraordinary had you done the ar impression? Was that in your repertoire before you met him? No, I didn't think of it and learned it while being around him. There's no greater source than the actual. And I heard something that happened that I was lucky enough to happen to me a few times, too, was Robin Williams inviting you on stage.

Oh, yeah. So while, you know, having come out of San Francisco, having started the San Francisco stand-up scene in the late 70s, Robin had also, before moving to L.A., sort of came up through San Francisco. His family had relocated there, and he had grown up. And, you know, it was the birthplace of that wave of stand-up. And he had already gone on to start Morgan Mindy around when I showed up in 78. But he came back constantly and befriended and supported all the young comedians. To great joy for all of us.

And so when in the 80s, when I was shooting the film Willow in Northern California, around San Rafael, the largest blue screen facility in the world, Rick Overton and I were the two brownies. And Rick's one of the all-time brilliant improvisers. We love Rick. Yeah. He was here. He was very close to Robin Williams as well. And Rick was very close to Robin Williams as well. And so Rick would, while we were at work, call up Robin and say,

we're thinking about going to X club in San Francisco tonight, whatever that club name was at the time. Do you want to maybe jump on stage and fuck around a bit? So the three of us would get on stage and improvise, fuck around a bit so the three of us would get on stage and improvise which really equaled or turned into me working my way to the back wall of the stage and watch those two brilliant people go at it but we did share several you know scenes over that six-week period on stage improvising and fucking off but then robin was very very sweet to appear in my first one-hour HBO special. I did this black-and-white mockumentary along with a concert in color.

Madonna's Truth or Dare had just come out in theaters where she hired a crew to document herself, which I couldn't stop laughing about. And so David Steinberg, the great comedian director, directed the piece and helped shape the, we wanted to do sketches and stuff. And he said, you know, you should really pimp Madonna's truth or dare. So we did this black and white mockumentary backstage. And one of the scenes starts with me in a dressing room, sitting in front of a lighted mirror and looking into mirror talking but you

hear me in voiceover saying over the years people have asked me how do i learn impersonations well i find uh that studying the right uh you know people uh is the best i think i may have found the best way so my voiceover uh dissipates and we hear my verbal track sitting in front of the mirror where I'm impersonating Robin Williams. Whoa, done, Mr. Happy. That's not quite it. Whoa, don't be frightened. Shit, that's not it. How did you do it?

And the camera pulls back and Robin's standing right there. That's cool. And then I stand up and he teaches me how to do the Robin Williams impression. Yeah. He was a great joy to be around. Gilbert,

how many times did you get on stage with Robin and mess around? Yeah, he'd just be on stage and he'd yell, you know,

oh, Gilbert, come up here. He loved you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I saw that on a number up here. He loved you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I saw that on a number of occasions. He loved you.

Much missed. Much missed. And a terrific actor. Brilliant. You know, I'm discovering films like What Dreams May Come and some of these other performances, some of his lesser-known, Bicentennial Man, some of his lesser-known performances.

Right. Everybody knows, you know, Moscow on the Hudson and Good Will Hunting. But Fisher King really turned in a lot of wonderful screen performances. Yeah. Yeah. I watched something he did on Homicide, Life on the Street. Yeah, the pilot. Yeah.

He was terrific. Speaking of great actors, before we get you out of here, Kevin, you've got to tell us a little bit about the blueberry muffin and De Niro and Scorsese. Because I watched Casino again. And Gilbert found it fascinating, by the way, that De Niro was tickled pink by Rickles' antics, but not so Joe Pesci. Yes. joe pesci yes well uh the best part of the experience as hard as it may seem of working in a scorsese de niro pesci sharon stone film with bob ridgidson cinematographer i mean the whole thing

was incredible written by nick pelegi who wrote good fellas was that don rickles is in the movie. So he and I would pal around and watching him, Don, go after De Niro on set in front of everyone. I don't know that there's been a more enjoyable experience working on film than seeing De Niro in the middle of a scene, camera rolling, Scorsese's watching, De Niro is acting brilliantly. In the middle of a shot, Rickles, who's in the scene camera rolling Scorsese's watching De Niro is acting brilliantly in the middle of a shot Rickles who's in the scene with him would just step out of the moment and turn on him and say is that the way you're gonna do it like that no no you got the awards I'm sure you know what

you're doing go ahead and and Rickles and De Niro loved it. I mean, loved it beyond belief. Because he had a background in New York where he enjoyed those guys in the street who would rank on each other. Well, yeah, so as Rickles explained it to me, yeah, the dozens. It was two types of peer groups on the street corners. It was a doo-wop group where you stood around in a circle singing songs, or it was a put-down group where you stood around the circle and said, your mother this, your mother that.

And Demure De Niro, believe it or not, was in the put-down group. Hard to believe. Rickles, I know. So Rickles tells me this as a way of explaining why Rickles knows he owns De Niro. Because to those kids in that circle, De Niro was God. Rickles was God. That's why Rickles freely went after De Niro on set. To De Niro's delight.

He just couldn't get enough. Whereas Pesci, weirdly, seemed to have no sense of humor at all. Wow. I'm sure he does, but he didn't when Rickles pointed out that Joe was so short, he's going to ride him around the set like a Shetland pony.

And Pesci did not appreciate it. No, I get it. I get it. You're a genius and I'm a... Go fuck yourself. You know, he was really upset. Wow. The scene watching it today, the scene with you and De Niro,

and look at all these wonderful, iconic actors you're sharing scenes with. I mean, Lemon and Matthau and De Niro and on and on. I've carried them all. What's that? I've carried them all. You carried them all. The blueberry muffin though there's a yeah well you know in the book about it yeah you've uh you've just got a great little

moment written by the great nick pelegi and i happen to be in a scene where it's just denaro and i sitting at this table this four top. And the way that Bob and Marty, which is ridiculous to say, work is they like to do 30 takes or more. And I'm, again, not a trained actor, so I'm dead in the face after about five takes. I mean, I just feel like I'm acting. There's nothing fresh.

There's nothing. I don't have the technique. But they just love to warm up. But after every take, I just remember a little bobbing Scorsese head at the edge of the table. He was kneeling down. He's not that short. But he was kneeling down and his little bobbing head. So that was great.

That was great. What do you think? Is he more angry? Is he less angry? What do you want to do? And he really was saying and meaning, what do you want to try? As opposed to some directors, if not a lot, who will know I'd like you to do more, but they don't want to say, I want you to do more. So they'll come up and say, what do you want to try more or less? and then if you say less and they want more they go all right let's try less so that they can get it out of you and get it out of your system and come up the next take let's try more now and then that's what they'll have in the editing bay whereas marty uh definitely wanted to a childlike in his interest

and loving of actors and wanted to see them play and come up with magic. I remember hearing after one of the takes of Don Rickles and Robert De Niro that Rickles started yelling, we have to do we have to do that scene over again. He left out seven fucks from that last scene. Yeah, it's a perfect example. He would find the stuff that he thought De Niro would be upset about. That's classic. Since you brought up David Steinberg, one more bit from Gilbert. You have to tell Kevin about David Steinberg directing you. He was once directing me where I had to say a line and then, you know, run off.

And so I do it. And then he walks over to me like very meekly and unsure. And he goes, I'd like to do that scene again. But this time, could you run a little faster? And I said, I guess I could run faster. And he goes, no, no, I don't really mean faster. I mean more graceful. Could you run a little more graceful?

And I said, and then I like just, I'm staring at him. And he says, well, you know, not so much like stumbling moves, more even. And then he stops and he shrugs his shoulders

and he goes, can you run less Jewish? That's a perfect David Steinberg story and impression. Let's plug this book from 2012, which you can still get. Kevin Pollack, How I Slept My Way to the Middle. Great stories. I will not give away all the stories. We'll make people buy the book because they should.

People who love this show will love these stories. There's a Rip Torn story in there that'll knock your socks off, and a couple others. You'll find the Michael Clarke Duncan story. Really, really funny stuff in there. One thing about Maisel 2, as I was saying to you before we turned the mics on, Kevin, you know, this show, we try to make this show a valentine to old showbiz and character actors and people we love. There is a show that is a Valentine to old show business. And we were talking about Don Sherman, Amy Sherman's father, who was a comic. And I don't know how many people know that the show is kind of a little bit of her tribute

to her dad in a way. Well, it's a tribute in the sense that she grew up around that world. Yeah, and that world, I should say. sense that she grew up around that world and could draw from it freely. And of course, in that regard and others, it's a love letter to her father. The idea of finding a female central character to drive the narrative, of course, not at all inspired by her father. Yes. But the era and the rhythm and pattern with which people spoke and all of that was something she grew up around because of her father being a touring professional comedian.

Do you, and you get to, you really get to chew the scenery as Moishe. Oh boy. Yeah, and I wrote down one line when you're up at the resort and Tony Shalhoub is telling you to take it easy because you're not fully understanding what a vacation is. You've got a phone in each hand and you say, excuse me, but in my business, a man sweats and stinks until he dies. Do you regret looking back, underplaying all those parts? Well, it's been an extraordinary journey,

and no one pointed out from the beginning. I just needed to be a loud, obnoxious Jew, and had they. You know, everything comes in its time. And I was, I find that to be true with a fan of other people's work also, that people grow into certain abilities of moment in time of a character meeting a performer. So, yeah, I think the timing was exceptional in terms of me being ready and free enough. You're fun to watch in that part. You and Tony enjoy going at each other? We do.

Because we're both character actors, we'd not met because we were always up for the same parts. We both figure. So we hadn't met, let alone work together. And we fell instantly in love and still are. And I'm so happy to report that we just finished season four and everyone is still madly in love with each other. There's no divas in the cast. I remember they had me on one episode.

You're in the first one. Yeah. And so I should know the name of the show. Technically. Yeah. Far be it should know the name of this show. Technically. Far be it for me to point that out. It took four takes. I'm with you, though, Gilbert. If you just use me in one episode, I don't have to remember your name.

We want to shout out Luke Kirby, too, who was being interviewed by the New York Times and said that he listened to this podcast. Oh, wow. Which was very flattering to us. And the episode I'm on, I'm, you know, like a strip club MC, and I bring up Lenny Bruce. Yeah. Yeah, played by Luke. Yes. And, yeah, I thought he did a terrific Lenny Bruce.

He's astonishing. We won't get into how Kevin was forced to play Lenny Bruce once, but it's in the book. And tell us about the guy from the Green Mile or whatever. Oh, it's a long one. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, just know it's salacious, real, funny, awkward, unfortunate, and funny. It's dinnertime in L.A., and I'm sure Kevin wants to eat,

but tell us about the new podcast. Oh, so it's an all-improvised comedy podcast called Alchemy This. I frequent the west side comedy theater near my home where there's a lot of sketch and there's a lot of improv and stand-up as well and you know improv is one of those things that's magical when it works so i i also was raised on these um comedy albums fire sign theater and lemmings and National Lampoon Comedy Hour. Radio Dinner. Yeah. Yeah.

And so they were sketch, but the idea of theater of the mind always interests me. And when I decided after chat show ended and I wanted to do another podcast, that I love these improv performers at the West Side Comedy Theater in Santa Monica, California. So I sort of cherry picked five of them and asked them to join me. And the scenes are all suggested by fans. I am the only one who sees them. I read the emails with the scene suggestion, and then the six of us improvise scenes from those.

And we've been doing it coming up on three years on the iHeartThere media. And, yeah, it's a great joy. And fans all over the world of improv. It's very good. Yeah, these other performers are masters. I've gotten better at it. But they are all extraordinary. And less work for you. You don't have to ask anybody else.

You don't have to hit up your celebrity friends. Yeah, no. It's all play. No work. don't have to ask anybody else to you don't have to hit up your celebrity friends yeah no i it's uh it's it's all play no work i also will recommend your doc uh misery loves comedy we made a joke if there's a miserable comic that should have been in it it's gilbert yeah i i wish i had i wish i had access to you would have been perfect for it i didn didn't. It was one of the things, based on the chat show all those years, I just reached out to people who I could text. And so if I knew you, you were in the doc.

I didn't use anyone's agent or manager. It's a talking heads documentary. But the premise being, do you have to be miserable to be funny? So yes. I found it fascinating because we've run into a lot of comedians on this show. And one of the first things in the movie was, you know, stories about their parents.

Did you become funny to make your parents laugh one or the other or cure their depression, which we know is true of Gleason and other people. And that was really fascinating. Yeah, it was a hell of a journey. I ended up with over 60 hours of content with no script or story, and I sort of had to make one. This is why I edited the film for about 10 months. But I'm very proud of it. Yeah, it's on Amazon. Good.

You should be. So Mrs. Maisel Season 4, Alchemy This is the podcast. Let's thank Ed Krasnick, who introduced us. Indeed. Thank you, Ed Krasnick. He and I were working on a new project together that I can't yet talk about, but it's unbelievably exciting in the podcast world, an audio book, but one that'll be right up both of your alleys, I promise, and I'll tell you more when I can. Oh, I'm excited. Yes, we love Ed. Let's give Ed

a shout out. And the book, again, How I S I slept my way to the middle, which is full of wonderful, great stories. Anything else for this man, Gilbert? No, I think that. Thank you both. Yeah. Kevin, this was a kick. Thanks for making the time. My pleasure. Thanks for your interest. Thanks for being a podcast inspiration. Well, you guys have carried the torch beyond anyone's hopes and dreams, and please continue success to you. Thank you. We're coming up on that magic number on 400. You're doing extraordinary work, and as long as you're having fun, don't stop.

We are. We're proud of it. Thank you. Thank you. So this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and we're talking to the man who's now in the fourth season

of The Amazing Muselman Kevin Pollack What did you say Slayton called it? The Amazing Mrs. Moxer Oh Pollack I love you on that show The Amazing Mrs. Moxer Thank Oh, Bollock, I love you on that show, The Amazing Mrs. Moxer. Thank you, Kevin. All right, take care of both of you.

I'd work for you. I'd slave for you. I'd be a beggar or a knave for you. If that isn't love, it'll have to do. Until the real thing comes along I'd gladly move the earth for you To prove my love, dear, and it's worth for you If that isn't love, it'll have to do

Until the real thing comes along With all the words dear at my command I just can't make you understand I'll always love you darling Come what may My heart is yours What more can I say I'd sigh for you

Oh cry for you I'd tear the stars down from the sky for you If that isn't love It'll have to do Until a real thing comes along guitar solo

With all the words, dear, at my command I just can't make you understand I'll always love you, darling, come hold me My heart is yours, what more can I say? I'd sigh for you and I'd sigh for you when I cried for you I'd tear the stars down from the sky for you If that ain't love, it'll have to do Until the real thing comes along

Until the real thing comes along Until the real thing comes along Until the real thing comes along