In Search Of Excellence - Greg Kinnear: Talk Soup, Academy Awards, and The Power of Showing Up | E146

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Greg Kinnear is an academy award winning actor whose career spans decades, earning him acclaim across film and television for his ability to bring depth and nuance to a wide range of roles. From his Academy Award-nominated performance in As Good as It Gets to memorable roles in films like Little Miss Sunshine and You've Got Mail, Greg has demonstrated a rare talent for combining charm, wit, and emotional complexity. As one of Hollywood’s most reliable leading men, he has skillfully navigated the industry's shifting landscape, balancing critically acclaimed dramas with lighthearted comedies. Movies which Greg starred in have cumulatively sold over $2 billion in ticket sales. Timestamps00:00 – Introduction12:30 – From Indiana to Lebanon: Early Childhood and Family Influence27:15 – First Big Break (MTV to TV)41:45 – Talk Soup: How Greg Turned a Simple Concept into a Cult Hit56:20 – Leaving Talk Soup and Walking Away from Fame and Big Money1:11:00 – Lessons on Rejection and Staying Relevant1:26:30 – Transition to Movies and Earning an Oscar Nomination1:43:50 – Balancing Career and FamilyPurpose2:01:10 – Advice on Resilience, Risk-Taking, and Staying True to YourselfSponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

Do you think you're a movie star? No, I don't think of that for sure. I don't feel that way. But I've been, you know, fortunate and lucky enough to kind of, you know, stay in the game. And I've been very grateful to work with a lot of great people. And that is one of the coolest things about, you know, building whether it's a series or whether it's the television or movie, you know, the idea of you build this little family experience together. You know, I've built a lot of families out here over the years.

Welcome to In Search of Excellence, where we meet entrepreneurs, CEOs, entertainers, athletes, motivational speakers, and trailblazers of excellence with incredible stories from all walks of life. My name is Randall Kaplan. I'm a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and the host of In Search of Excellence, which I started to motivate and inspire us

to achieve excellence in all areas of our lives. My guest today is Greg Kinnear. Greg is an actor and former talk show host who's been in over 50 movies, including Sabrina, Nurse Betty, You've Got Mail, Little Miss Sunshine, Anchorman, and As Good As It Gets for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. He's also been in over 25 TV shows and has won two Emmys, one for outstanding lead actor in a

mini series or a movie for his leading role in The Kennedys and one for outstanding guest actor in a comedy series for the hit TV show Modern Family. In total, the movies he's acted in have grossed more than $2 billion. Greg, thanks for being here. Welcome to Unsearch for Excellence. I had no idea. See, I think we should just wrap it up on that note. I mean, it'd be all downhill from here. Drop the mic.

Thank you. Good night, everybody. Thank you. It's very good to be here and this is a very cool setting that you have. I was just hearing about your amazing missing tape of a previous interview you've done. So, we are hopeful that at the conclusion of this podcast, the tape will get back to you. Right. Well, we're filming at Studio Place, My favorite place to record, very professional. Shout out to Michelle and Andy.

And of course, my producer, Matt Hickerson. Well, we're on the West Side of Los Angeles where our whole journey, and I think we should tell the audience because God knows they're going, what the hell is Greg Ginew doing on your show? Is my daughter attends school in England, and she was headed off recently to college in the month of September and she had gotten a coat because the year before she was like, dad, I'm freezing and I'm a neglectful father.

So we got her a nice warm coat. And she's leaving with her mom to go to England and to kind of get situated and they're goodbye and they're running a little late for the airport and da da da da. Say goodbye and moments later my phone rings and my daughter says, dad, I left the coat in the house and I'm in like sweats and like barefoot and I throw in some flip flops and I tear like hell out of the house with the warm coat. And she gives me a general area of where they are waiting for me. And again, the clock is ticking, they got to get to the airport.

So I'm driving like a bat out of hell. And I come down right around this area and I park my car and I'm looking around. I don't see their car, it could be anywhere, it's a busy area and I realized I don't have my phone. So I'm like, oh my God. So I get out of the car with her coat and I run up to the first person I see and I go, this is my daughter's coat. And the guy just kind of freezes and turns and runs away like anybody

would do in Los Angeles because I'm a freak and then the next person comes and I try to I show up with them and I'm like hey how you doing um my name is Greg and I they're leaving they're gone too now I look across the street and I see a handsome man who I've never met before walking across. He's on his phone. He looks like a respectable guy and I'm like, all right, I'm going to stop the bullshit. Tell him what the story is. I go, I am so sorry to bother you.

This is my daughter's coat. She's somewhere in the vicinity. I don't know where I need to call her. Can I borrow your cell phone?" And you were like, boom, you hand it right to me. So, I make the call and then as I'm making the call, you're like, are you Greg? And I'm like, yeah. And then we start talking about podcasts and I do get the phone to her and that is what

led me to this moment. Yeah. So, you have a lot of heroes in your life and now I'm one of them? I think if you're, the fact that you're not wearing a cape when I show up here for the podcast today is stunning. So what's so interesting, and there's actually a couple of lessons in this story. The first is- I'm so bad.

I like read your background of everything you've done, all the accomplishments I told you, your way of, your huge overachiever, which makes me nervous. I don't ever quite understand lessons in stories. So I am ecstatic to hear, other than always keep your tennis shoes on when your daughter leaves for the airport,

I'm ecstatic to hear what the lessons are, because I'm sure you're right. Well, I'm sure a lot of people have had the experience where some stranger approaches you you don't know. Right, right. With something in'm sure a lot of people have had the experience where some stranger approaches you you don't know with something in their hand and again, you hear stories and I know someone in LA who's someone similar story, this guy was on meth and he went to give him something and the guy was stabbed 18 times. He lived by the way, but this is a friend of the family.

Oh my god. And so, as I saw you approaching, you know, I had like several milliseconds to figure out what was happening. Yeah. And as you came up to me, my first reaction is this guy's a freak and here we go and I gotta back up. Get that all the time. I gotta back up.

So, I took a half step back and I said, Greg? And you said yeah, like maybe you didn't know who I was and we knew each other. That clearly wasn't the case. He said yeah. I said, Kin, like maybe you didn't know who I was and we knew each other. That clearly wasn't the case. He said, yeah. I said, Kinnear? He said, yes, because I recognized you from all of your incredible acting days. I watched so many of your movies and I'm a huge fan.

So, you know, one of the stories for me is you have to strike when the iron is hot, when the opportunity presents itself. Yeah, exactly. This guy closes an appearance on a talk show faster than anybody on the planet. It's unbelievable. You should book Jimmy Kimmel. I want Jimmy on my show and I'm sure you know him.

And so I may ask you after the show if I've done a good job to make some intros. All right. All right. Very good. But that was a very, I did thank you at the time. I will thank you again. And my daughter who just got home, I told her where I was headed and she said,

well, I've stayed so warm, you think, you thank Randall for me. Every time she puts on that jacket, here's a stranger, here's a stranger in Brentwood. It's not about me, it's never about me, it's about the person who got the product to him. How has Spur of the moment introductions influenced your career?

What impact does it have? Can you give some examples? Spur of the moment introductions, I feel like they do, they happen periodically for sure. And I feel like I should be like equipped with like so many examples of surprise meetings or just a... I mean, obviously I've met a lot of people in my life, in my career and sometimes you meet somebody at an event or a place and then you have an opportunity to work with them down the road and your roads, you know, you find a way to connect.

And, but I mean, I mean, there's been, I've had a lot of, I guess, moments that happen. Oh, I'll give you one. A buddy of mine who's a sound guy used to date- Bobby Anderson. Yes, Bobby Anderson used to date Justine Bateman. And Bobby was an old friend of mine who I knew through friends that I went to high school in Greece with and Bobby's dating this girl and I became friends

with Bobby. He's dating Justine. She's on this big show. Which is MTV. MTV. She's actually, it was Family Ties was the show. Oh right, and she's auditioning for MTV. She's actually doing MTV Spring Break weekend and meets a guy named Joe Devola who's casting MTV. And I go, because of her, I end up going and auditioning for MTV to sit on the goofy steps and try and become a VJ back in the 17th century. And I don't get the job, but I get a nice tape out of it says MTV audition looks very official. And that ends up leading to another crazy startup channel called Movie Time. And Movie Time, before it was Movie Time,

it was, before E was E, it was called Movie Time. And that was my early broadcast kind of world. And now it's so weird because, you know, at that time, yeah, it was kind of a very off the, you know, Movie Time was a very kind of a random cable channel, but at least it was cable. Now you have podcasts, you have these shows. I walked in there, I thought we were just, we had two microphones suddenly, we're, hey, look, we're on TV. It is, it's changed so much and there's such a proliferation of so many forms of broadcasting

now, but back at that time, it was kind of an unusual thing to get on TV and it was an unusual break for me and that was a hell of a meeting early on. You stole the order of the chronology of my podcast, but I'm glad we talked about Justine, who I know a little bit because she married my friend Mark Fluent.

Oh, okay. And by the way, just so you know, I like to do a lot of research, so I texted Mark, can I talk to Justine, who I haven't talked to in 15 years, because I want to find some tidbits about Greg that nobody knows. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. She was very, very responsive, meaning she ghosted me.

So I didn't really get any on that. Well, she was being shy. Obviously, what she wanted to tell you is he's an incredibly generous fellow. He's kind, he's warm. You'll get all this later, I'm sure, in the memo. Let's go to the beginning. And I want to talk about you're born in the massive town of Logan Sport, Indiana.

That's right. Your mom, Susie was a homemaker, your dad, Ed, owned vending machine business, tobacco, candy. Tell us about... All the vices. All the vices. Tell us about him getting called out in the middle of the night and bringing a shotgun with him some of the nights and how his work ethic influenced your future career.

Well, he worked hard. Him and his father had these, had vending, they had pretty big thriving vending business. There was a clothing business. And he was... My dad was a... It's funny, before I came here, I was talking to a director about a project. And the character was kind of reminding me of my dad a little bit. So we were discussing him. And he was a pretty... He had a great sense of humor. Scot he's pretty he had a great sense of humor

you know scotch irish great sense of humor but he grew up in kind of depression era and you know like my mom was very you know don't think they had an abundance of anything and and you know always had a sense of urgency and always a great work ethic and always took his work very, very seriously. So, yeah, periodically when you have a business like that, it gets robbed apparently back in, you know, today they definitely get robbed, but I think this robbing of businesses was going on for a long time. And I do remember my dad, yeah, leaving the dinner table a couple of times and grabbing, having to grab like, one time he grabbed a shotgun and said,

there's a robbery going on at the office and left the house. And I was like, you know, with some like beef stew in my mouth, staring at this moment where he was out the door in order to go take care of business. And I don't, you know, nothing ever happened with it. And it wasn't like intended in any sort of issue. But I just remember thinking, holy shit, this is a guy who has to not only sell stuff,

but has to make sure that people don't take stuff from him. My grandfather was a jeweler and he carried a gun with him because at some point he was tied up in the back room and bound and gagged and you know, armed robbery. And from that point on, he carried a gun until the point where Alzheimer's took over and that's not smart if you have a gun and you have Alzheimer's. That's probably not a good idea. But it's, but yeah, a real reminder of, I guess when you're, yeah, when you run a small business,

that's your livelihood, that's your ability to feed your family and take care of the people that you love and so, you kind of have everything counting on that and there's not really a safety net. So, you know, people I think and also I think generationally, there was a little bit of, you know, even less of a safety net so that people just manage shit that they needed to manage. A lot of us, a lot of my friends, a lot of your friends want their kids

to go into what I call normal profession, being a doctor, a lawyer, investment banker, working at a tech company, whatever the case may be. Your parents, you've said, didn't really want that. They said their primary job was to keep you out of jail. What were they talking about? No, no. I think I was just, I think I was trying to fill time on another podcast when I said that.

There was no sense that my parents thought I was going to jail, little did they know. No, I don't think that I wasn't a, yeah, I was way too much of a coward for them to actually fear that I was going to, you know, cross the line and end up in any sort of trouble. But I definitely didn't have a real clear path. You know, years ago I did a talk show at NBC, like literally at 1.30 in the morning. Was it the one that you replaced Bob Costas? That's right. And Bob Costas took over from Tom Snyder, who said at that hour,

you get your smokers and your tokers. But I remember Bob telling his story, he used to carry in his wallet, like this Mickey, a famous story now, he carried a Mickey Mantle baseball card in his little wallet when he was a kid. It's like when he was a kid, he was carrying this around because he wanted to be a talk show host.

And then when he got older, he wanted to be a... So, he still has, I think famously, I think he showed me at dinner that he does still have it one time. But I thought that was amazing because it's so much not the way I grew up. I didn't have, as some people do, like a real clear pathway to where they were headed or what they were going to do. And I certainly didn't see the path that I ended up falling into. But I don't consider it a... I can be very self-critical and yet I don't consider that necessarily a shortcoming. And I certainly don't feel that way about my own children.

You know, leaving your... the ideas open of what you might do or what you might not do and letting that come to you with time has benefits. It does yield something. If you're like, look, I'm doing this, this, and this, I do think it closes off certain opportunities. At least that was my experience that kind of came by my openness to maybe certain parts of the universe. I do a lot of mentoring. I have a summer intern program. We have 32 kids.

I have five kids of my own. Yeah. And I also coach and mentor a lot of professionals from people starting the workforce to CEOs, startup founders. Actors. Actors. One in particular. We'll get to that. Okay so what's your advice to

everybody out there whether they're an actor or anything else that they're doing where they do suffer from constant anxiety I have this job I don't know what I want to do is it all gonna work out? Gosh it's so terrible because I you know I really don't know how the world finds itself in this place for children. I don't understand the... I shouldn't say I don't understand it. I guess I do understand it. I think social media has been a terrible villain in all of this. Awareness, global awareness, everything happening at the, in the moment on your phone, being able to see the success or what party or what event every other person in your social circle

is doing at any given time cannot be healthy. And my wife is a voracious reader, is constantly saying, did you read this book? Have you read this book? And I'm like, no. But I- You can't argue with her then. No, I can't argue with her.

Nor do I want to argue with her. I'm like, honey, you win. I get it. And I do think that in this environment that we're in, in this kind of world we find ourselves in, that it's very, very difficult to be a kid and just kind of hold on to your innocence and just kind of hold on to a, hey, let's see what happens. Let's see, let's figure this out as we go.

I mean, people, we're raising kids like young CEOs now and you know the even these you know schools across the country and certainly a lot of these private schools and have been written about and right when the we're in the you know zone of it right here um and you know what we're talking about here just you know to make it clear to people three suicides at a very well-known prestigious West Side School. Six. Six suicides? Yeah. Teachers having sex with students when the administration knew about it.

Yep. Yeah. Craziness. Crazy stuff that is part of a... Listen, part of that might be an environment of being in a big, sprawling metropolitan city, but I think the problem of these kids and the pressure that's being put on these kids is kind of a, it's a national problem and I think it's affecting people just as much in Logan's Port as it is probably in Los Angeles and it's a problem. So let's talk about some of the good things that parents do as well in terms of great moments with your kids and things that we should do as dads.

When you're nine years old, you had a Sony cassette recorder. Tell us about that moment and what your dad asked you and how important is it to check in with your kids? Well, that was the Sony tape recorder that my dad gave me that allowed me to record things. This was the first time I ever heard my voice on a cassette. And yeah, I was nine years old. And I didn't even really know how to work it. The way that I got introduced to it was my dad said,

let me interview you. And he hit play and record and we sat there and he said, Greg, hello to you. And I was like, nine. And thus began a like 30 minute unbelievable interview. One of the great interviews of all time. My father interviewing me at nine years old that was so funny and so kind of whimsical and unexpected. And years later, I said to my mom, I said, where is the interview? Because it says on it, Dad interviewing Greg, and somehow I'm off God knows where, college or whatever. I'm like, where's the

interview with dad interviewing Greg? I got to hear that again. So I go and I listen to it and my father has accidentally recorded Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon days, the whole broadcast over our interview and it's completely gone and I'm destroyed by this. And my dad has this cockamamie idea where he's like, well, I think because it was only recorded once, you can go back, you can erase the, the, the, oh, Lake Wobe gone and your interview will somewhere be in there. And I researched that and that is not true. So, at any rate, that was my first interview experience and being a father is, yes, I think it's important to be checking with your kids, it's important to be focused on them and I had very good parents, I really did. And I felt very grateful for that.

And my mom was a very loving, great mom who's coming into town tomorrow. You have anything special planned? So I have to say that. No. Well, yes, we have a lot planned. She just turned 90. We were just back in Arizona for her birthday.

So that was exciting. But I had great parents. And I think that, you know, I was lucky enough and it really is luck of the draw these days when you look statistically at things of having parents that are still together and having parents that, you know, loved you and were supportive of you when you, you know, as you go as you're being raised and that's something that is, you know, as you go, as you're being raised. And that's something that is, you know, is one of the problems when we are talking about the difficulty, I think, of what's going on with that generation, you know, is part of it is that. Many people have to move a lot in

their life because of jobs that their parents had. Let's take each move one at a time. When you're nine years old and an uncle living in Washington, D.C., tell us about the move and your dad's job and what that entailed while you were still living in the United States before the move, which we'll talk about next. So my dad ended up becoming, he was an advanced man, got in a job being an advanced man for Richard Nixon who's coming through the Midwest in the 70s, early 70s.

And his brother worked in Washington, so my dad ended up getting an opportunity to work for the Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. So we leave Indiana when I'm nine and we go to Washington DC. We're just outside. I recently met Terry McAuliffe actually who lives just not too far from where I grew up. And I was talking about my fond memories of Rest in Virginia and being there near Lake Anne, for those of you in the tri-state area. And so, yeah, I went to school there. I was an okay student three years. And just when I started to get settled, he sat us all down and said, listen,

I got an assignment to another place. And I was like, oh, what city is that? And he's like, Beirut, Lebanon. So, we went from DC to Beirut. So, I think the headline there is we went from Logan Sport to Beirut in the course of 36 months. So, you get to Beirut and the father of your friend, friend of your father gets kidnapped. The US ambassador and two bodyguards get assassinated. Acting ambassador. Acting ambassador.

The bakery that you used to visit or visited a couple very close to where you live blew up. That's right. Tell us about the lessons you learned watching the Lebanon Civil War and the impact it had on you at 12 years old. Well, I warned you about lessons. Greg does not learn lessons, as you know.

We're gonna pull them out of you today. God, I don't know. I mean, yeah, all of that is true. And, you know, our arrival there was otherworldly. I remember the call of Mecca happening as we were driving through the sun, the last vestiges of the sun setting, and Beirut, and just the sounds and smells.

Very odd experience that we ended up there. experience that we ended up there. You know, in a very short period of time, the Civil War kind of crept up. And again, I'm 12 years old. It's not like I'm tracking any of this with any sort of, you know, political awareness or really asking any of the big questions, but I was aware that on certain days of the week, in the evenings, you started to hear gunfire. And I was aware that my parents were starting to get a little bit more serious about what was going on.

They were from the moment we got there, but, you know, I had a, I think going to school, we started to have periodic lockdowns. The fighting, which you started initially in the evening hours, started to move to more random times, the bombing of the little bakery near our place, which we loved and we loved the owner of the place. That was a crazy moment where, you know, you heard it, you felt it, we were close enough for where it rocked the hell out of us. And it definitely was, it was pretty, pretty spooky. And we, you know, it just got progressively worse. And deep, pretty deep into this situation, we were, my brother and

I, you know, my parents were heading to an event they had to go to. And we had decided in the late afternoon to go investigate the local pinball palace. Pinball was big in Beirut in the 70s as you know. And so we- It was big here. Yeah, sure. But not like this, not like Beirut. You'd go into these halls and they would just have a thousand pinball machines. It was crazy. But at any rate, we went to go check one out and, you know, it costs like a piaster to play a pinball game, which is about a half a penny.

So we were, you know, nobody paid a lot of attention to the clock. And suddenly my brother goes, we got to get out of here. By the time we got back to the house, my parents had returned hours ago from the event. And they showed up at the house and we weren't there. So when we finally made our way back to the house, like 10 o'clock at night or something, there were like 15 black cars surrounding our place and just I could see lights and some police cars.

My brother looked at me and he said, we got lost. And I was like, got it, got it. Yes, I will act the shit out of this. We got lost. And we went in there and of course, there was a, we had caused quite a stir for the few hours that we had been out. But you know, there were a lot of incidents like that and it ultimately cultivated in listening every night to the BBC for how bad, you know, I remember waking up periodically

and just coming out in the living room, My parents would be up listening to BBC and you know, kind of following and tracking what was going on and eventually my dad got the call that was for him to stay, but my mom and my you know, brothers and I had had out and so we took the car took us down to the St. George Hotel where we were met with all the other kind of dependents in the American embassy there. So there were quite a few people and we're just hanging out and Tom Brokaw is over there saying, and the war continues in Beirut, Lebanon with the dependents leaving. That's my Tom Brokaw impersonation. I know you were going to ask me about it. 100% I was. And others by the way, so get ready.

So he's over there, I mean it's like a big thing, right? And they load us up onto buses and we head out past the PLO camps, can't get to Beirut International Airport without going past the PLO camps. Buses stopped, guys get on the bus with loaded rifles to check passports. My mom is white as a ghost and I'm like, you know, it's like that John Borman movie, Hope and Glory, you know, you're not really thinking about your mortality at that age. So I'm just kind of like, it's kind of cool. But it was pretty, pretty hairy. But you're evacuated. We're evacuated. We're evacuated.

At 12 years old. Yeah. Scared shitless? You know, I really wasn't. As I say, I was... I don't ever really remember being scared. I never felt like I'm gonna die here. I never felt that way.

By the way, now I'd be terrified. But just at that age, it was just kind of all this crazy adventure. And I don't want to say it was all great because there were a lot of days where the school was closed at the end and I was bored and all of that. But I mean, like, I never felt threatened. And the Lebanese people are lovely people. One of my closest friends to this day comes from this big Lebanese family. So they were wonderful and warm. But you do look around and in a moment like that, I think I do still carry with me this

sense of what a division within a country can do and how it can split people apart. And to know how bad this got, and you know, families killing families, and people, friends breaking up, and people who spent their lives together, cared deeply about each other, people who looked after people, are suddenly turning their back on them and saying, you're on the other team and feeling like at a young age, that was what I struggled with. It wasn't the fear, it was just the totally not understanding how this very beautiful country with a real sense of just warmth and love there would be, you know, broken apart that quickly. So many of us have interesting jobs in high school. I want to talk about a few of yours. I bag groceries. I waited tables in college. I stuffed envelopes.

How were you at waiting tables? How was I waiting tables? Yeah, because I feel like you and I, I waited tables and I feel like you were the kind of guy that unlike me didn't get fired a lot. Well, I want to talk about some of your firings, but I worked at the ChiChi's Olive Garden. So you know. Were you a waiter or a busboy? No, I was a waiter.

No, I got. And how were you when you showed up to the table? I was nervous. I mean, I stuttered too. I was bullied as a kid. So that was a challenge for me to do that. But did you ever get fired? I did not get fired, no.

I knew it. I knew it. No, but the most embarrassing moment was I don't drink wine and I never opened a bottle of wine. So, they brought the thing out. I figure I could figure out and crash. The cork went and so did the bottle of wine, red wine, on a family table all over the woman.

It's red obviously staying beside myself. PTSD to this day. I think I'm going to get, well now you just get the thing. You just put it in there. I don't drink wine anyway, probably from that moment. But I do like IPA beer. That's my thing. And margaritas. That's probably one of the reasons I don't drink. But I didn't get fired and I still got a tip. You know, I think they've, I know they felt sorry for me. They could see I was in horror. I definitely got good tips too. I think we share that. people feel feel like

These guys I got it. We got to take care of these guys one of the crazy things about my waiting experience and I'm not gonna tell you which restaurant this was because I don't want to have the CEO calling me and okay yelling at me, but As you know in the kitchen, there are these rubber mats, right? And the rubber mats have holes in them. It's about a half inch thick. That's right. And that's where all the shit goes.

That's where all the stuff from the place line sits slime. It's disgusting. You would never want to touch it with your finger without scrubbing your finger and... Unless you're trying to quickly lose weight. Okay. Well, there you go. Or get some E. coli bacteria in your stomach. So this, I won't even tell you the dish it was because then you can identify the restaurant,

but this dish fell on the rubber mat and again, it was covered, it's wet, it's disgusting. And it was another waiter. So I looked at it and he looks around and he says, without saying anything, he picked it up off the mat, put it back on the plate, kind of molded it like it was clay, took a napkin around to get rid of the sauce, the refuse and he went back and he served it. Yeah, yeah. Did we work at the same restaurant? I don't know.

Wow. Yeah, yeah. Did we work at the same restaurant? I don't know. I don't know. Wow. So you did an... Did you ever, would you ever periodically, my wife always like this, did you ever in any time pilfer any food? Of course I did. Okay, yeah. That's a big tell. That's what I told my wife. I was like, yeah, man, I was in college.

I was starving. Yeah, the guy leaves a half a steak. Oh yeah, you mean take some of the leftovers? I mean, okay. Only if it was lightly eaten. Someone gets something, they don't want it. We're not proud of it. You could cut off. Yeah, you could cut it off.

Well, yeah, of course you cut it off. I'm saying you use certain, there's tricks. Yeah. So you were fired- Why this conversation is really going south. You were fired for impersonating somebody at the restaurant. So who were you impersonating and what happened? Oh, that was the manager of the restaurant that I was in. So what was the impersonation? Why did you get pissed and then can you do it for us? You know, it's like, no, I can't. And it wasn't even

actually a great impersonation, but I, it was a good lesson. Hey, wait, I guess I do learn lessons because my guy who had got me the job one day, we're back there. And you would appreciate this as a former waiter, right? Who scares the shit out of you? It's the GM. It's the man, you know, the head manager guys, like you know that that guy he makes everybody either live or die and and Suddenly we're we're back there and I've been working at this place not that long

and it was a really very good gig to get because the tips were great because it was kind of like people spent money at this place in Tucson and so I I'm a little weary of him, and I can tell he doesn't like me to begin with. And my buddy who helped me get the job says, hey, Kenear, do that impersonation for Bob. And all the waiters just kind of look,

and everybody's like all eyes on me, and I'm like, I don't do an impersonation. He's like, yeah, you do, come on, do it. So I do my kind of gum chewing kind of Joe Pesci kind of, yeah, yeah, you know, like kind of slightly assholic behavior that this manager had. And I remember him looking at me and going, that's really good. That's really good. I'd say 72 hours. I was unemployed.

So at any rate, people, you know, they're always like, I don't know how, I mean, Dana Carvey must just have like a wake of people that he's deeply offended. But I think he does it and it's like a badge of honor. But if I was doing it, they're notably pissed. But today they're not pissed when you do impersonations. No. It's very cool now. No I'll have a good Randall Kaplan by the time we're done here. Will you? Can you give us your top three impersonations of what you think you're best at? Well I always thought I was I always thought I had a

pretty good mine many of mine are dead deceased or retired like my Ted Koppel was always pretty good. Good evening everybody, I'm Ted Koppel, this is Nightline Tonight and forgive me for sounding over jealous on this one particular point. Greg Kinnear sits down with Kaplan and shits the bed or what have you. And then, so there's that and then there's I already gave you a little bro car. Who else? I don't know. I did the last season of House of Cards and the guy who I thought I was going to be working with had been let go shortly before and this isn't really a Kevin Spacey but he does take these pauses and I realize that if you think about it, the other guy who also

takes the same pauses is the guy we've all known for years and he takes those pauses the same way Kevin Spacey takes his pause. Christopher Walken, Kevin Spacey, that was what was happening. We're gonna talk about Kevin a little later in the show. Oh we are. Oh yeah, we're gonna talk about Kevin and Harvey and Bill. Wow. And kind of craziness. I don't really have, I'm trying to think of a, no, I don't really have any contemporary,

I don't know. You did Bill Clinton at some point too, didn't you? Huh? You did a Bill Clinton at some point, didn't you? No, no, I never did a Bill Clinton. Very hard to do Bill Clinton. Can't do Trump, that's a tough one. Have you ever seen the Trump ones on TV?

Like you see somebody like doing a Trump like on social media or something. I mean some of the, it's like people, what's amazing about social media now is like, you don't, well it's the hands, but what's amazing in social media is, you know, you used to have like, you know, who's the guy who used to, instead of it being a very small select people

who succeed in show business and suddenly are doing their impersonations. Social media allow, it's like everybody in the planet now can do their impersonation. And so the level of good impersonations has risen to an insane level where you can't, nobody can compete with, you know, you go find, you know, there's a guy in Des Moines, Iowa, who does You know, there's a guy in Des Moines, Iowa who does a, you know, you know, a George Foreman that'll just knock your socks off, you know, and it's just I just find it amazing when you look around for impersonations now on social media, it's remarkable. You probably do that, too.

I'm not a good impersonator. My my son Charlie does some some funny ones. He can do Trump and he's. Can he do Trump? Yeah, he can do Trump. I haven't seen him with the hands, but he does some funny ones. He can do Trump and he's... Can he do Trump? Yeah, he can do Trump. I haven't seen him with the hands, but he can do... You know, these politicians too, what's with this? I don't know.

Did you ever notice like Bill Clinton did this? It's the thumb over the index finger. I had a little of that. Kamala did this too. I played this. Did you guys ever see that and all the... Where did this come from? I had to uh...

I really wondered about that. American people. I had played Bill Clinton in an HBO show with Kerry Washington and I was always like, I was always like, American people, American people, you know, American people, you got American people, American people, you got American people. That was always the touch tone to kind of get into his voice a little bit. But that was impersonating Joe when he was during

the Clarence Thomas hearings. And obviously it was a big shift towards the end there, which I don't really do. But I loved it. The Dana Carby stuff's amazing on that. I dug ditches for the world weight watchers, world headquarters. You dug ditches? Yeah, and there was a summer job before my freshman year of college at Michigan. Yeah.

I get out as a skinny kid and all these construction workers were there and I remember taking my shirt off. I mean, I probably weighed 150 pounds and thinking I'm cool. I think I wore a bandana on some of the days. You sure you did. You were doing some hot mopping in high school. So, I think, tell us about the value of manual tough labor sitting there. I'm sure it was boiling out there. Yeah, that was in Greece. We evacuated Lebanon to Greece and we were there for the next six years which were some of the high points of my life. It was really, really great. I had made great friends there and loved Greece and the people. But yeah, one summer I was, Lockheed had a base, big building and kind of a practice

runway I guess in some part of Athens, northern Athens. So my buddy called me and said, listen, they'll pay us a thousand drachma a day. Think about that, a thousand drachma a day. Sure, you don't have any, drachma doesn't exist anymore, but it was big money at the time. And if they're paying you a thousand anything, right, and you're a kid, that's a day. Sure, you don't have any. Drakma doesn't exist anymore but it was big money at the time. And if they're paying you a thousand anything, right? And you're a kid, that's a lot. But are we talking 50 bucks a day or 100 bucks a day? Yeah, I think it was like, I think that was like $3, no, I'm kidding. I think it was like

50, yeah, I think 50, 40 or 50 a day, which was a lot at that time. And the job was they were roofing. So, they were building, you know, hangers and they had a lot of roofing to do and so you had hot mopping and you had a tar and you'd... And I don't know what it taught me other than it was very, very, you know, it was very long and tedious hours. But I certainly appreciated, you know, you thought twice about how you spent the money. You know, if you stole the money out of, you know, from someone, you know, or you found a thousand drachma, you thought about that thousand drachma different than the thousand drachma you had spent, you know, nine hours in the blazing sun, hot mopping.

Never wore a bandana, by the way. That is not a cool way to do your manual labor, as you probably learned. But don't forget, Stephen Seagal was really big back then, so I did try to grow a little, you know, the tail. So I'm not sure. that bandana was somewhat cool. Yeah. Half the workers wore one. Yeah.

Yeah. You and Segal. Yeah. You and Segal. Yeah. I mean, he was huge for a few years. Mike Ovitz's former trainer. That's how he got that job.

That's right. So, the lesson I learned from that is I sure as shit don't want to do that when I'm older. Yeah. Yes. I learned that lesson too. See, you record the lessons in your head though, and you're able to record them and remind, you know, hang on to them. So, yeah, that's why you have gone on and overachieved. But me, mine's more instinctual. Like, I'm out there sweating sweating and I don't think I'm recording that lesson, but I do believe there is a quarter that has dropped and somewhere I'm like, I gotta make sure this, I'm not here again in 20 years. We all have important teachers in our lives that make a big impact. I know if I had Don Corwin economics class last year of high school, I just lit it up

in that class and I want to be a CEO, I was reading all these profiles. There was no YouTube, nothing like that back in the day. I took my daughter who was going to college in New York to Billy Joel Madison Square Garden, sold out. And Billy Joel calls out his music teacher who inspired him and said, you got some real talent, you should try that. And he's saying 20,000 people saying happy birthday to his 90 year old music teacher who inspired him and said you got some real talent, you should try that. And he's saying 20,000 people saying happy birthday to his 90-year-old music teacher

who couldn't be there because of medical problems but he they recorded and sent it to him which is you know great great moments. Tell us about Miss Panopoulos and Miss Gibbs and the influence they had on your future. Well, Miss Gibbs, are you out there, Miss Gibbs? We'll track her down for you. Deborah Gibbs. I have had guys, I'm not, I have a social media footprint of zero. So I don't really, you know, know how to dig deep and find these things out. But I have friends who are good at it and nobody has been able to...

Got Matt Hickerson right there. He's on it right there? Oh yeah. Really? Yeah. We're gonna get him. If she's living, we're gonna get him for you. I'm looking off camera.

I'm like, this is the dude who can track her down if there's anybody on the planet who can do it. All right, good luck. But she was a lovely woman who was, you know, addition to Miss Monopolis, who we have talked about, Miss Gibbs was a wonderful teacher, very warm, very great instincts and she put on a lot of shows, I remember, over there in Athens in our little theater department and she punched way above our weight as a theater department and she was smart, had great instincts. And if you could be incredibly subtle.

And I remember her being, oh, no, that's good. You know, whereas, you know, I think the interacting tends to be a little broader. And and and I not I'm not a broad. I don't think I'm a broad actor. And so she was encouraging, she was funny and unexpected and had us do some bizarre stuff. So I often do think about her. I haven't ever been able to track her down.

Have you tried? Until you hit her. Have you tried to track her? Just through friends, just through hate. Does anybody know? Cause obviously there's a little network of people who went to ACS in the time I went. And ACS is American Community Schools of Athens.

And they- They have them all over the place, by the way, not just- That's right. But ACS Athens is one of the better ones. I mean, if you were to really research, really do your work, Randall, you would know that- and maybe I'm being biased, but there's a few schools better than ACS Athens. The 10th grade happens and you have an opportunity to have your own talk show. Tell us about that

and then talk to us about how important punctuality is in our success. I guess punctuality is important. I was punctual for this podcast, was I not? You started at one, you walked in at 12.59. It's pretty great. Yeah. Thank you, by the way. You're welcome. I really did. You were nervous. You didn't think I was going to show up for this.

No, because I confirmed a couple of times. I knew it last week. I wouldn't say you confirmed a couple of times, but I would say you're like Rain Man. I forgot. You're definitely doing the podcast. I got a lot of hits, and I had a sense. What was your reaction, by the way, when I kept sending these? My sense was, wow, this is a guy who takes this seriously.

And obviously, then I did listen to your podcast, which I thought was very good. And I was like, wow, you take it seriously and you want the person who has said they're gonna show up not to kind of give you an LA, yeah, man, we should do that sometime. You want to set a time and you want to make sure that that time is agreed upon

and that the contract will be executed completely. And so I felt that that was a, you made the obligation clear. And I mean that in the best way. Yeah, thank you. I mean, the backstory on this is too, I did something nice for you and I just do something nice and now I put you on the spot.

And so it's like, oh, I mean, I- I didn't have any choice but to be here. I mean, it's like, what were you gonna say? I gave you the phone, I saved the day. I'm a hero. This is like a hostage situation here, for God's sakes. I'm an instant hero, and now I hit you up for my show, like right at the second.

So I sent you a note as well. The production people have all left too. We're literally losing audience during this podcast, by the way. All right. I did put you on the spot, and then I sent you a note. Hey, I know I put you in the spot, you don't have to do it. I still love you to be on my show. So I was a little nervous

about it and that I could write you back and say, no, I'm not going to do it, which would have been fine. I mean, I would have been disappointed. I told you I was going to do it. I know, but I'll tell you, I've had three people cancel on me the day of the show. We have a studio, we pay for the studio. I do a shit ton of research. You did use the word studio is booked a number of times. Well, I did. Should I book the studio? I did. Then I kind of was like, yeah?

I did. And then you were like, the studio, we booked the studio. And then I think you followed that up by telling me that once again, the studio is booked. Well, we all aren't. So a lesson for me in having people cancel on that is you always wanna maximize the highest probability for successful outcome.

And so for me, when you tell people that you booked the studio, that means you've now spent money and I'll say it's non-refundable. I mean, it's not. You didn't use the word non-refundable. I have before. By the way, it was certainly implied. I have, okay, all right.

I was like, he's not getting his money back on this. Job, job, it worked. And if I'm being honest, I did wake up this morning and I did think to myself, shit, I got a lot going on. Do you think, do I have to go? And then I thought, wonder how much that studio is that I'd have to reimburse him for. Turns out not that much, I guess. But no, I definitely wouldn't have done that.

That's just not in my DNA. Thank you, I appreciate it. But talk to us about punctuality and then your talk show, what happened there due to lack of punctuality? Are you talking about like when I was in Greece? Yeah, when you were in Greece, you had a- Oh yeah, I had a radio show every week called School Days with Greg Kinnear.

And I went in and I spun records and talked shit about the principal and stuff. And yes, the show started after American Top 40 with Casey Kasem. So as soon as they count down, as I was on the bus riding from northern Athens to down to the Air Force base in Glafada, I'd be listening to the number three song, an American Top 40 and I'd be like, oh, shit, I still got another 20 minutes to get. So, I tended to cut it a little close. And I know that sounds like a lack of professionalism, but I found that when I started Talk Soup, I found the same type of thing, which was I like to get to the show, I'd like to come in here, I'd like to do it. You know, I don't like a lot of buildup and time and I feel like it kind of lets air out

of the balloon. So, I do like creatively, in a lot of the work that I've done, if I can make it a little tight, I tend to add a little chaos to it. And for some reason, that helps me creatively. It's not a smart thing to do. I don't recommend it to people. I don't recommend it to my kids. But if I'm being honest, I think there's

a little bit of that at play. Does that let me off the hook? No. But I do think there's a little bit of that at play to for so that does that let me off the hook? No, but I do think there's a little bit of that in everything I do you were fired for being late by I don't like this I don't like this reoccurring That you're building into the These are lessons What yes, I guess if we're technically being accurate, then yes, there might be a lesson in that. Yes.

It's true. You're early, you're on time, you're on time, you're late. That was well said by many people. Cliff Kingsbury, the football coach, was my third guest, he said on the show. His dad was served in the armed forces and he taught him that at a young age. I believe that. I also believe in getting somewhere. What was I saying? Early, you're on time.

If you're on time, you're late. Never got that. I didn't get that from my dad. So that is a good thing. I'm gonna bring that home. I'm gonna put it up on the big board, chalkboard. Footnote from me on your... Footnote, I will credit you on that.

And I do think that's good. So now I got the coat, and then I have this too. But again, I also find like, you know, if you go to the airport and, you know, for me, the perfect catching of a flight situation is my foot's coming onto that plane and they are closing that door right behind me. That is actually just used to be for me absolute joy. That has changed.

As I've gotten later in life, I do find myself not liking the chaos as much anymore. And I do like to be... I was actually here before 1259. I was right down the street, so I was actually hovering 10 or 15 minutes early. So I think I have found that ultimately that mechanism that was in me as a young kid and when I was starting out and bringing chaos was something that I used, it fueled me, but I don't like it as much anymore. This has turned into more therapy than it has a podcast. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I'm enjoying the therapy. Right. Okay. So you go to college, University of Arizona, and you thought you were going to be a drama major, and then second

day of class, what happened? And how much influence can somebody negative have on our confidence and our career? Well, I had a teacher who pointed out that less than, you know, 2% of you are ever going to make a living being actors. And I thought, OK, that's not good. And I, like I said, I didn't really have a game board of where I was going, but I didn't like those numbers. And I also didn't, and I guess it was negative, but I also think it was there was a factual element to what he was saying. And by the way, I don't know if it was 2% or 4%, but it was a reminder from him, for better or for worse, that this was just a fact. The number of people that were pursuing that particular career path were only going to

find... This number was what was going to find success and the other ones were going to have to find alternative, you know, means of employment. And I just thought that whether it was negative or whether it was meant as a kick in the ass, I don't know. Maybe the guy was just sour grapes. But I remember thinking, wow, I'm glad I knew that. And it did. It made me think twice about, you know, because at that point, I was kind of interested in acting, but I wasn't really sure if that was the career.

I ended up switching to broadcast journalism there. And I was glad I did. And I don't know that it, you know, I don't not sure what that was leading to either, but I ended up liking the classes that I took in that area a lot more anyway. You switched to broadcast journalism. Obviously, you're very easy with people. You seem like a good conversationalist.

At some point, was it your dream to sell copper and PVC piping? Tell us about that fun experience. No, it wasn't. That was my first job, like everybody out of college. I ended up up in the Bay Area just with a buddy of mine's brother at a development company and I was yes trying to fill the hours and I was a purchasing agent for a development company and I would buy PVC and copper wire and light bulbs. And I was a purchasing agent and I did not get fired from that job, you'd be happy to

know, but I did finally after six months feel like this wasn't my future and I left and came back to LA and in that time, full circle is where I ended up having an audition for early E-days and that was kind of my transitional point. In today's day and age, a lot of parents tell their kids, they're not happy in their job, you should leave. If it's really that miserable, it's time to leave. Yeah. Mark Kueboh is on my show. He said, if you can't be successful with a difficult boss,

you're not gonna make it in the real world. You gotta learn to deal with difficult people. You were yelled at in that job constantly. And my question to you on this is, is being yelled at and being able to succeed in an environment like that necessary ingredient to our success? Yeah, I agree with Mark Cuban on that. I think that it's your ability to be able to manage adversity and kind of deal with unexpected, you know, behavior in difficult situations is something that is,

you know, not hoped for. It's mandatory. You have to be able to kind of deal with that. And I do think that, you know, there is a, you know, in the environment today is it's a little softer approach, you know. I think it comes out. Very different today. Everybody has to win an award kind of mentality. And I'm not a kind of dad or parent or guy who thinks, hey, you know, you need to get back in there and pull your bootstraps up.

But I do think that it's good that pendulum swung so far from over to a side of nurturing and caring and, you know, puppies and unicorns that we are not benefiting from allowing a child to, or a kid, or a young man or young woman to build up some sort of callous, some sort of resilience, you know, you have to kind of fight your way through some difficulty and adversity and you have to kind of deal with a lot of shit and a lot of different expected things and unexpected things and a lot of negative people and negative behavior or difficult people, that's part of the job. And it's like going to a doctor's office and getting a shot. It's no fun, but after you've done it, you get better at it. The next one's a little easier and I do think that you just have to write it out.

Obviously, there is a point where that no longer is sustainable. I would support somebody saying, listen, I tried this for six months and the son of a bitch is still throwing paperweights at me. Might be time to look for another job opportunity. But I do think you have to, as best you can, try to ride out the storm of early employment. And it can be very messy and very disappointing,

I think, as a young person. Because there's a lot of people, older people, who are like negative ideas or they're kind of, you know, they have, I don't know, behavior qualities that may surprise you. And you are going to face that. And unfortunately, you're just going to have to deal with it. Your first, I guess, real job in L.A.

You work for Empire Pictures, which you answered phones and got coffee. So can you tell us about and I think they're this, this was a, they made B movies, you know, Roger Corbin, the king of B movies, and their hit was the reanimator. That was our Titanic. That was your Titanic, which grossed $50,000. How much did that gross? Way more, like a hundred thousand. Okay, a hundred thousand.

No, I don't know. I don't know really dollar for dollar what the comparison would be by today's market value. But I would suspect it would have been like by today's marketplaces, it might have made 15 or 20 million dollars, which is not nothing. So you've talked a little bit about movie time, but tell us about what you, the tape you made. You met Justine. Yeah.

So you're at Empire Pictures, you meet Justine, your sound producer, they're dating. Yeah. You make this tape for MTV. Yep. You don't get the job. Correct. And then you're still at Empire Pictures,

but walk us through kind of that and how you got to your next job at TalkSoup. But what I really want you to focus on too is you tell the story about the disappointment and rejection you had when you didn't get the MTV job. Yeah. I mean, I kind of went there. I think I had a slightly protective device early on, which was, I'm Scotch-Irish, so a little bit like, nah, it probably won't work out.

This will never happen anyway. You know if you keep low expectations it can be quite empowering. Did Mark Cuban say that? Or did he phrase it a different way? He phrased it a little bit of a different way he phrased it a little bit whatever whatever mark Anyway, that's that's column now It's true though, I'm being honest, you know, I went in there with low expectations I did not go in there with the I'm gonna go get the MTV job BJ man job I did not go in there with it I went in there with the idea of like, wow, this would be incredible and I'll do the best that I can and we'll see what happens.

And I didn't get it and I knew that pretty early on. But as I said, I had a nice tape out of it. This other channel was starting up and I knew a person who was working there who said you should drop that tape off. So, there wasn't really a great story. I dropped the tape off and I went in and I sat down and you know, they called me back for, I actually had to do an audition. So, I went in and basically auditioned to be a host and I was called back to do it again and I felt like that went well too. And each of these times, it was always done on my lunch break because then I had to speed back up to the former Gold's Gym, I think is what it is now on the corner of like, La Brea between sunset and Vineland or something. Anyway, that building there for you locals. That was Empire Pictures.

And you said I got coffee and I answered phones. I also placed ads. The idea of this low budget film company was, it was back in the video days. And if you could get a movie into a theater, The idea of this low-budget film company was back in the video days. And if you could get a movie into a theater like Reanimator or Space Lutz and the Slammer or the Imp or whatever you were selling, if you could get it to play first in a theater, its video value, Charlie Band, the CEO would tell you, was of much greater value.

So I actually worked in the department where they would try and place an ad in the Des Moines register that Reanimator was going to be playing on Friday night in the Wembley Theater and at seven o'clock and ten o'clock. And so that had to all be done through a phone. There was no cell phones at the time. So that was kind of how you set it up. And that was my job in addition to getting coffee and getting yelled at and, you know, that type of picking up Danish here and there. Lots of times in our career, we think we're doing something that turns into something else. I want to talk about talk soup and how it was supposed to be something that turned into

something else. I want you to talk about Lulu and Topsy Curvy, the man who was raped by an alien in Coco. Oh, right. Right. Well, those were... Yeah, that was best of the worst. That was a show I created with my friend Mark and we actually sold that to Peter Churnin was at Fox actually at the time and we took it in there and I ended up, I was just going in there to sell it as a show and they ended up saying, hey, why don't you host it? So I ended up hosting the show too. It was called Best of the Worst and we would look at the worst jobs of all time, the worst inventions of all time, the worst shows of all time, of which ours was one. But it was a fun little, you know, I think 11 episodes

or something. And it was early reality television. And so, yeah, we had, you know, we had this, you know, I would go and interview, you know, Dr. Delgado or somebody who through hypnosis could make a woman's breasts enlarge. And these were the kinds of stories that I would have to travel around and cover for our prestigious best of the worst program. And it didn't really turn into, I guess it did turn into something. It morphed into just kind of a sort of a reality show that was looking at the worst of everything. And it eventually we brought an audience in and it did change in its form a little bit.

Talk Soup, same thing. When I started Talk Soup, it was gonna be a very sort of sober look at today's talk shows, featuring Sally Jessie Raphael, Geraldo Rivera, Richard Bay. And eventually we were looking at these clips of these daytime shows and we realized

this shit is insane. It's just insane. And eventually the show turned into a real kind of comedy show that was very loose in format and we'd come up with gags and we occasionally did it with a live audience and it just really morphed into a sort of stream of consciousness early You know it I guess it was ahead of like The way you look at your Instagram feed and just kind of flip through a bunch of clips of things. This was early clips of what people had been talking about that day on television. And the stuff that was happening, I don't think most people living their lives out, you know, working jobs and stuff were aware that this was happening on the hours

of, you know, 9 a.m. to 3 o'clock in the afternoon, that these shows were just absolutely morphing into insanity and so we were just making clip after clip of every imaginable topic you can think of and we'd put nine or ten of them together and I'd make smart ass comments about it and wasn't supposed to be a comedy show it wasn't supposed to be a comedy show it was supposed to be like I say a very sober, serious, look at these shows. And in fact, I don't think even the, first of all, nobody knew we were on the, the people at E didn't even know the show was on the air for about a year and a half.

And then we actually started to get a rating, and then we started to get an audience, and then we started to get mail, and it really did turn into something. But, you know, I'm convinced that it was the fact that we were left alone to just kind of let it, because it was just kind of this loose organism just left to kind of, you know, cut up and make fun in the room every day. And all of us busting up who were making it, it just kind of

took on its own organic chemistry and that led to a really successful run of the show and to a real big audience for a place called E. You did it for three years. Three years. And then your contract was up. Yep. They offered to pay you a shit ton of money, at least back then. Yeah. You're going to be the highest paid person on the show. You said no, and you didn't have a backup plan. So what is the lesson? Would you advise your own kids to quit their job when they're offered a lot of money and

not have a backup plan? I remember my dad being like, are you sure you want to leave this talk soup thing, man? It's really funny. It's funny. You're getting paid well. You're becoming famous and well-known. Yeah. So, that really landed with me.

I was like, really? Yeah. But no, I felt like I had done it for three years and I felt like it was, I just didn't, I couldn't imagine that the future of Jerry Springer was bright. I just had, I believed that I had witnessed, I had come in there at a time where this was happening. I was as stunned as I think the audience we were showing these clips to every night were.

It was fun to riff on. And I think after three years, I just thought to myself, I don't see this as really the future for me anyway. And it wasn't really an act of bravery as much as it was just an act of feeling confident that I had done it and it was time to move on. Also, at that time, at the end of that year, that broadcast year, I didn't have the offer yet, but I had met with the director, Sidney Pollock, a couple of times, who had talked to me about playing Harrison Ford's brother in this movie called Sabrina. And that was in the back of my mind. I guess I was thinking, what if Jerry

sees me, if Sidney sees me on this show, is he seriously going to offer me this role in this movie? So maybe that was playing around in the back of my head. But the truth is, Sidney had actually seen me on Talk Soup and that was how I probably ever got the audition to begin with. So it, listen, it opened as many doors. It opened a lot of doors too. We'll come back to Sidney and Sabrina in a minute,

but I wanna talk about in as an actor, it's a catch-22, you need an agent to book a movie but you need to get a role to get an agent so can you talk about what's your advice to all the actors here on how to get an agent who don't have a big role or aren't getting parts is that possible? I honestly you know I am asked about that periodically and I don't really know how to answer it because the environments just change so much. I mean, I think getting noticed is very difficult. I think the environment for, you know,

young people starting out probably in the, certainly if their pursuit is to be an actor, it's a great vocation, but it is harder than ever, at least in the mainstream, to find maybe a job or an opportunity. But I think by the same token, as we sit here talking in this space, and you think of the internet and the opportunities that that is opening up for people, by today that by today's standards, you know, I definitely would have started on YouTube or something. I was on a, it was a technically a real-life cable television channel, but comparatively by today's standards, I

probably started on like a YouTube type, you know, operation and there is no end to a YouTube type operation. And there is no end to what that can do for a person trying to get noticed and get started. And I know there's plenty of success stories out there from people using it. So that area seems to me like a good one to get started. But in terms of then parlaying that into an opportunity with an agent, I just don't know how that works. That's for your next episode talking to my agent. Right. Speaking of agents. He's out here right now.

Rick, come on in here. No. Sorry. Rick. Kurtzman. Rick Kurtzman. Yeah. At CAA.

Yeah. So my daughter works at CAA. She just graduated college. We Kurtzman. Yeah. At CAA. Yeah. So, my daughter works at CAA. She just graduated college. We'll call it CAA is the best agency, talent agency in the world. Shout out to Bianca. Shout out to CAA. How important are agents to actor's success? I don't, it's always hard to, it's hard to qualify anything, obviously, in this business because you don't know when

you meet somebody, how did that affect your opportunity? So, it's always difficult. But I would say that I have found that I work with Benji and Dar, shout out to those guys. I work with a great team over there and they're excellent. And the difference between working with agents who really know, care about you and effectively are on it versus ones who aren't is probably a pretty big, you know, that's a pretty big chasm. But I don't know exactly how to qualify other than for me, it's a great, I have great confidence

in the people I get to work with over at CAA and I have great confidence in that they are professional, they know how to execute. I know if I have a question about something, I know if I wanna talk about something. I mean, hell, you probably have to be half a shrink to deal with talent in this world. And they're all really good at that. They're really good at just being there.

So the only reason I know how this works is because I live in LA. I have friends in the business at all levels. You have a daughter in the business. Well, she's brand new. So she's been at CAA for two months. She's in the- Is she in the training program?

Branding group. So she doesn't want to be in Asia. Oh, branding. Yeah, right. So she works on a lot of corporate clients. She's not even allowed to tell me what she's doing. They're very strict on confidentiality. Okay.

But one of- What if I want to start the Greg Kenier golf clubs and create the Greg Kenier golf brand? I need to call your daughter. So, explain to people, get. So explain to people. Get out of here, man. You just took another nugget out of the, you just took another rabbit out of the hat. What, was something else? Are we gonna do this later on?

A lot of, a lot of. So tell me a little bit about the importance of hair. Would you believe, do you think, let me turn the tables on you, Randall. Okay. How important do you think hair is? In my profession, as an entrepreneur, and now, so I have a venture capital investment firm.

Oh, I know. I have- We'll be getting into that pretty soon. I got a movie that needs a little support, if you know what I mean. I've got a small real estate company. I have my main job, moneymaker, I hope next billion dollar opportunity.

Now I'm listening. Company called Sandy, S-A-N-D-E-E and we're building a Yelp. This is beaches. This is the study of beaches all over the globe. Well, we've created the world's largest beach resource for the $5 trillion beach tourism business. That doesn't even include the local tourism business. So there's tens of billions of beach visits around the world. There's no definitive resource. We've cataloged over a hundred categories of data for more than a hundred thousand beaches, 140,000 beaches now in 212 countries. So am I going to see, how do you film them? How

do you capture the, is that what I'm going to see is I'm going to You're going to get to know all the information about them, but I'll also get to see the beach I'm assuming right so people want to see what the beach looks like Yeah, before they go everybody has had a bad experience on a on a vacation And this is not this is valuable cherish time these are expensive days for you, right? People get a week vacation two weeks they plan the average vac vacations, four days, four and a half days, you're going to a beach and it's the wrong beach. So drones, drones.

You and your company are responsible for the drones on New Jersey shoreline. I mean, the country's pretty easy. Exactly, yeah, those are not our nighttime drones. And those are, those drones are about this big. Our drones are DJI, you know. I fly a Mavic 2 Pro. It folds up into a neat case. But no, we always have pain points in building companies.

One of our pain points is finding photos for 140,000 beaches throughout the world. It's a very difficult process because we have to abide by strict copyright laws, right? We don't steal copyrights. And so- Big mistake. I mean, we would never do that, right? I'm a tech guy. I mean, it's wrong, but we have

to find all these photos and they have to have the proper commercial use licenses. So that's a huge task. But the answer to your question is yes, we have about 50,000, 60,000. How many photos do we have now in the database? Photos? Yeah. 180,000, 180,000. 180,000 photos now. For 140,000 beaches. Well, we don't have one per beach.

I mean, some beaches we have 10 or 15 photos for. One beach you've got 120,000 photos of and it's well documented. They're all great. They're all great, by the way. We've had a lot. But explain how it works. I mean, you're an actor and you're very established, you're very successful now.

You have one of the top agents at CIA, Rick is very well known. So walk us through how it works. An agent will get a script and will say, hey, this is great for Craig, right? He's going to, there's someone in the mailroom, by the way, who's reading that script first, right? They may or may not know what they're doing, right?

That script will get sent to the agent, junior agent, then the senior agent, it goes through various reads. And then Rick will call you up and say, hey, Greg, I really want you to look at this, and then you read it. I mean, is that the process? Just walk us through how it worked

at the beginning of your career and how it works now. Hasn't really changed that much. By the way, Benji and Dar, who also work with me, I can get a call from any of them. Some work in film, some work in television. There's a person who handles podcasts. So there's a group, always a team. And they'll call and say, you know, maybe give a call about a script that they have read and is

being produced at so-and-so place, whatever details are relevant to it in terms of what who's attached and kind of you know the director is and who the writer is I might get kind of a brief overview and then eventually you get it sent and then it's it's the process of you know reading it and and usually in you know but something I like you know or something that seems like it's coming together in a good way, it might involve a meeting. With a director? Yeah, sure.

Sure. I mean, the director ultimately is the key to anything. It's a little different in television because the showrunner is also, is probably more the person that you're talking to, but with a film, yeah, it's the director. And it's just a conversation and that conversation... At that point, it's the rope's been cut and you're on a boat with somebody else now and you're talking about creatively, well, how would this happen? And what is this? What's it about? And what are you asking me to do? Why am I being a part of this and what can I bring? Or maybe me advocating a little strongly

about what I can bring if I really like it. And then either the thing sets sail or it doesn't. And that's kind of the process. But, you know, so it's not particularly complicated. That's pretty much it. I never answer your question about my hair. No, you didn't. I'm not a politician. But the answer is now that I am on camera for the first time, it is you didn't. I'm not a politician, but the answer is

now that I am on camera for the first time, it is a little awkward when you start. We've done a lot of these. This isn't your first time. No, but it's still, what I notice is that, I mean, obviously I wanna look good, right? So my hair does matter. You always wanna put your best foot forward.

I mean, as part of the preparation, I'm writing a book on preparation called Extreme Preparation. And one of the things that we talk about, it's that I write about and I coach about it's amazing How many people show up at an interview or meeting without taking a look in the mirror and seeing that their hair Is put together. Yeah, I've seen people Just all over the place if you can't Look in the mirror

And know how you look, it's, and you can take two minutes to fix your hair. Have you ever like come across anyone, like so unprofessional that they would just show up to one of your podcasts in like a hat and think that a podcast was just like two microphones and wouldn't even think to ask you, hey, are we gonna be in front of a giant camera

so that I can actually not look like I'm falling out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show? Or have you found that most actors would actually ask, they would have learned lessons and they would know to call you ahead of time and say, am I going to be on camera? And that you could prep them. That's probably more your experience, right? Well, except for the actors making $30 million a movie. Those people show up with the, yeah. Clean, clean, scrubbed, groomed, ready to go.

Interesting. So let's talk about Sydney Pollock. What do you think about the drones back in New Jersey as a drone flyer? What is your take on that situation? Let's talk about Sydney Paul. What do you think about the drones back in New Jersey as a drone flyer? What is your take on that situation? Number one, the laws are what they are. You can fly your drone within 400 feet.

Yeah, totally. But the crazy thing is you have to be in eye contact with your drone at all times. Are you allowed to fly it at night? Well, you are. There's no restriction on it. But well, there are some, you can't fly it in there. Well, you are. There's no restriction on it. Well, there are some. You can't fly it in an airport. Each location is different.

You can't fly it within five miles of an airport. You need a commercial license if it's for commercial production. And to get that license, it's basically a pilot's license. You got to study. There's a test, FAA certificate. So that's a real thing. But You sound like Majorca.

Here's my question. What the hell's going on in the East Coast? I have no idea. You really are a politician. These are big drones. So this is not Randy Kaplan. First of all, my drones won't work at night. These are big drones.

How big? That doesn't seem like that big of a drone. My drone is this big. Oh,'t seem like that big of a drone. My drone is this big, right? A hobbyist drone. You didn't wanna have to give that up, did you, on the broadcast? Yeah, that's too bad. These are my drones.

Disappointing. Don't come arrest me now, these are my drones. I'm filming infrared. The value of the beaches thing just. I'm taking nighttime images of every airport in New Jersey. We didn't know you were shooting these beaches with a pack of cigarettes, for God sakes. I was impressed.

All right, so you have little miniature drones. These are bigger drones. They're very big. But they're not military size. No, well, some military drones are that size as well. Now they're building military drones of that size in Ukraine where a drone that size can actually shoot a missile. So you think it's just people up, hey, I'll take, like you,

you're a drone enthusiast. You think people are just like, hey, I'm gonna go fly my drone. There's a little bit of talk about it. I think there are, a lot of these drone sightings are really aircraft, helicopters. You can't see far enough and I do think a lot of them are drones. I don't understand and don't believe that the government, either local or the US government knows nothing about these.

You can't fly a drone over a military installation, which is happening in different parts of the country, without knowing what's there. What's scary about it is drones are often not picked up by the radar. So you can fly beneath the radar, you can fly into a military base these days, unless you put drone jamming equipment there. Technology, yeah. Which is out there as well. Right. Which would prohibit a drone from being able to fly? Yeah, there's basically a wall. Well, why don't they go put up a,

why don't we put one of those up in this area where everybody is obsessed with? I don't know the answer to that question, but it may have something to do that it may interfere with an aircraft, although I'm not sure if that's the case. But if I fly my drone from a fly zone to a no fly zone, it's like it hits a wall. Right.

Like you could fly your drone at 20 miles per hour. It'll just drop off. It's like a fence. It won't drop. It will not drop, but it will hit the fence and it won't go anymore. Oh, I see. Oh, I see. There are some technology that can drop a drone, but, you know a normal no-fly zone won't do that. And there's air maps, et cetera, et cetera. So it's, there are technological answers here. Why are you a drone enthusiast? What makes you a drone enthusiast? So beaches are my happy place. And I love photography. I'm the guy that takes

500 photos on a family, and you know, the kids bitch and moan on it, right? And then later they're so happy that they have all these photos. Of course they have pictures, they love us. Have all these photos. And so someone introduced me to a drone years ago, Jason Spielman, meeting with you next week, can't wait to hear what we're talking about.

And I said, okay, well, this is great. I saw the picture and I had seen drone pictures, you know, before they're beautiful images, you can see everything. I thought I think I have a good eye for it. I started taking drone photos of beaches. I like how they look. People like them. And when I go on a beach vacation, I travel with two drones and I have a coffee table book and I've blown the surprise, but I am giving it to you as a thank you for doing my show. It's called Bliss. It sold 10,000 copies.

I don't pay for it, right? No, it's free. It's free. That's a matter. I saved you $29.95. By the way, if you could post to all your followers and tell all the directors and A-list actors and the famous people you know that this makes a phenomenal gift to go to somebody's house better than a bottle of wine is

Unique you're very appreciated. You're trying to make money off of your gift to me You know overachiever. I I do it I do it because because you know, it's a labor of love by the way That's cool. I actually love drones and I've never flown one and I Well, I mean I have I used to have like a one little crappy one I had with the kids one time, but I get it. Yeah, I like it. I'll take a fine. It actually, it's hard.

You know, I probably have- I think it is, yeah. I probably have a thousand flight hours, probably more than that, two or 3000 flight hours. Yeah. But it's hard. I see it, we use it, you know, in a movie or anything now,

is like, they're always pulling drones out in order to get a shot of something. And when those guys come in, they're so organized, and the stuff they have is fantastic. And it's just, you can ask anything you want, and they'll give you every kind of answer, but their ability to give you a smooth aerial shot of almost anything is, they're amazing.

So Sydney Pollack's from Lafayette, Indiana, close to you. You get invited to audition for Sabrina with Harrison Ford, who then was probably the biggest movie star in the world. Julia Ormond, I remember seeing the movie and thinking, oh my gosh. She was one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. And I thought, oh my gosh, that's great. I said, God, one day I'd love to meet a beautiful movie star like that. And sure enough, walking out of Starbucks one day, there's Julia.

I met her at school. Our kids were friends. Oh, yeah. She's married to a guy and I was married to my ex-wife and we're talking and it's like hey, hey What are you up to? Hey, divorce. Oh, I'm divorced too. So I had a chance to get to know her a little bit and you know, I Never told her this by the way,. So I'm good to tell her that we're doing the show. I'm sure she'll watch it. But I think so. I can't she watches everything I do. I was, I was, I was, and maybe I said this to you, Julie, I'm not 100% sure. I don't remember this. But I was infatuated with her. I thought this is incredible.

But Sabrina, back to the movie, Sabrina was an incredible movie. Yeah. A remake of a movie. And you said that this was really your first big break, but you said you weren't that nervous, even though you should have been nervous. Yeah, I mean, I think so.

I think I should have been, I was a lot, I was way more nervous like going to lunch in New York with Harrison, you know, the first time I was told I was going to go meet him at some restaurant, grab a bite to eat and. You know, and we and just kind of going and kind of meeting him because he I was a fan like anybody and I had seen from Star Wars, you know, all of it was kind of overwhelmed to finally sit down with him. But nice guy and,

you know, really funny and cool and that was, you know, made me very comfortable and didn't feel by the time I got to day one of shooting, I didn't, I just remember not feeling overwhelmed at the level I should have been. But I was conscious that, holy shit, this is Harrison Ford and I'm getting out of a car to go talk to him right now on a movie set. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2023 said the average actor makes $20.50 per hour. Two thirds of people coming to LA or want to be a professional actor leave after the first year. You were 31 years old when you got that big break. Yeah. Is 31 years old too late today to become an actor? And what's your advice to people who are trying to make it?

What age is it, hey, I think you should probably not do this. It's not gonna work out. Well, first of all, I would say that the business has changed drastically, right? The industry has changed drastically. I mean, like, you know, you think of all, I would say that the business has changed drastically, right? The industry has changed drastically. I mean, like, you know, you think of Harrison, like, you know, I think he's on two TV shows now. If you had said that to me back at that time, you know, I'd have been like, what?

And he should be because there's a great audience. He's on, you know, he's great in that show Shrinking and there he is on Apple TV. The audience is there for him. And, you know, but it used to be, you know, that you were kind of dedicated, you were in television or you were in film or maybe you were made documentaries. And now it's kind of everybody does everything. And, you know, it really has changed drastically, you know, since that time. And I do think that, you know, you can show up here and you probably can do a lot of different things. Hell, I did. Good God, you've gone through the whole list. I did a lot of stuff before I was ever on that movie set at 31 years old, you know. There was a lot of stuff and some of it was, you know,

hosting and some of it was television. But there were plenty of other jobs and oddball things that I was doing, you know, before I ever got there. So I guess coming out and trying to get an opportunity to find yourself and maybe lowering expectations of how quick it's going to happen. Are you going to die of choking there? I don't know what happened here. Ladies and gentlemen, Greg Kinnear killed the Dull Count today.

I'd rather have CPR from Michelle than that. No offense. Mustache is not my thing. Mouth to mouth? Have you ever had mouth to mouth? No. Okay. No, but if I did have it, I hope it's my wife or someone who looks like my wife.

Yeah, I understand. I understand. I've played a doctor in a number of shows. I think you're gonna be fine. How are you now, okay? I feel good. Okay. Yeah.

Anywho, if we could just bring it back. Thinking about Matt's mustache, and I'm just like, Matt's just never gonna cough again. Never gonna cough again. I just played the head of a fire department in Dennis Lahane's next show. We did a show called Blackbird and then we followed it up with another true crime story and it takes place in the world of arson and did it with Taron Edgerton, a lot of the same people and I have a mustache and it's pretty good mustache. That's a very good mustache.

We have so much material to cover today and I had cut out the Dennis Lehane part of this. One of my favorite, I love fiction. One of my goals on my bucket list is to have a bestselling fiction book. Wouldn't that be great? I get it. I'm with you right there. And he's absolutely phenomenal writer. Have you ever written a chapter? I wrote a book. So, all right, we're going to digress right here. I've

never shared this story either. But for years, I worked on a fiction book called Election Day. And it's about a third year law student who finds himself involved in and motivated to solve a series of murders. And there was a guy named Larry Kirschbaum. I don't know if you know that name, who ran Warner books for 40 years. He was the Richard Lovett of the book business, right? He was there forever. He had everybody, James Patterson, and we were on a board at the University of Michigan together. And I said, hey Larry, and we became friends. I said, hey Larry, you know, I'm writing this book. And it took a lot of years. I would come into work every day from 7 to 1. No email, no phone. My assistant wasn't allowed to talk to me.

The only thing I did was I sat at the desk. When I had to go to the bathroom, I'd sit back. And when my kids were younger, they would say, daddy, happy writing. That would be what they said in the morning when I left. And so, I finally sent some pages to Larry. He said, sent it when I was ready. And you know, you're so nervous, right? You got one shot. If you suck, he's not gonna read the rest of the book.

What, you sent him the first pages of the book? Yeah, I sent in the first 10 pages of the book. And he said, I really like it, send the whole thing. So I sent him the whole thing. And during this process, he left Warner Books to become an agent. Oh boy. And I'm like, oh shit, I waited too late.

I blew my chance. You missed your moment. But then I thought, okay, well, I need a book agent anyway. It would have been better if he was still CEO of Warner Books. But so, he read it and he said, I love it, you're a great writer. I want you to be my client. So, I was Larry Kirschbaum's first non-published author client. He gave me some notes and I was so excited. He gave me and then he had someone that worked with him at the agency. They sent me their notes together and they said, okay, here's what you got to do. And they sent me, so I did a rewrite. It took three months. Now I was working from like

seven to four every day. I mean, there's only so much you can take mentally to stay sharp. So, I did this for three months and I wrote it and I was so happy my wife and I celebrated. She got me a nice dinner. I think she had a private chef come to the house. This was like a really big moment. And so I was waiting, waiting. And Larry calls me and he said, this has gone downhill a lot. He said, the changes are not good and you need to think about this book. And at that point I thought, you know, I could have hired a ghostwriter to help me with,

you know, my book. James Patterson has a lot of ghostwriters. Come in and fix this chapter, adjust things. Yeah, fix it. So. That's what I need, some ghost writers. So Larry, I said, and I didn't want to hire someone. It's like, I've got money, and that wasn't the right way to do it.

I wasn't going to use my money and have someone else help me write my book. I want to make it on my own. I was stubborn about it. And Larry said, you need someone to help you with the book. Editor. So I said, can you recommend somebody? He said, well, you can call this guy Dick Merrick. I said, can you recommend somebody? He said, well, you can call this guy Dick

Merrick. I said, will you introduce me? And for whatever reason, he said, no. I said, okay. So, but he gave me his contact information. Dick Merrick was older, wasn't taking new clients, was very gruff on the phone. Hey, I have this book, et cetera, et cetera. I'm not taking new clients, I'm not in the book business. Where'd you get my name? Larry Kirschbaum. Larry Kirschbaum told you to call me. Yes, he did. He said, send me the first 10 pages.

Send the first 10 pages. He said, you're an excellent writer, send me 100 pages. I wanna charge you $5,000 to read that page. I'm like, oh fuck, I gotta spend 100,000. Wait, he's gonna charge you $5,000 to read the 100 pages? Yeah, to read the 100 pages and give me comments on it. That's fair, I mean, whatever. But I thought- I'll do it for 2,000.

Okay. If you're ever in that situation. So I sent him, it's like, okay, send me the whole book. So I did, and I was excited to get his comments back. And the comments were exactly the same as Larry's. And by the way, this, he had written two of James Patterson's books as the ghostwriter. James Patterson now puts the writer on the book with him. Dave Ellis, a classmate of mine

from Northwestern Law School, shout out to Dave, is now a best selling because he writes with Jim Patterson, James Patterson, who's the most successful fiction writer of all time. He makes like 70 million dollars a year. I'm uncomfortable with all the success, but go ahead. It's yeah. So so I have that book. And I need to get back to my book, but I got extremely busy. I got divorced. Right. I was taking care of three kids book, but I got extremely busy. I got divorced, right? I was taking care of three kids part time.

My career, just the responsibilities, but I will go back to that book. My book, Extreme Preparation, is gonna come out in 2025. That's a how to. So you're telling me that you wish you wrote, but you do write. I mean, you wish you had done a fictional book, but you did a fictional book.

I have it. It needs a lot of work, and I'm going to... You wanna finish it. I am you had done a fictional book, but you did a fictional. I have it. It needs a lot of work and I'm going to... You want to finish it? I am going to finish it. Yeah. I am going to finish it. Do you know what the primary... What was the primary note that you look back at and you say, okay, so they're big problem

stumbling rock. Can you just describe it in a sentence? Yeah, one sentence. The character wasn't likable. Oh, that's easy to fix. We didn't feel sympathy for the character. I don't want to give too much. I'm not kidding.

I think that in the world of structure and all that, that is much more difficult than I would think something like that, although I haven't written any books. We could go into the book. I want to go back to you, and I want to go back to the podcast. No, no, no. Let's keep it on you. But, okay, this has turned into the Greg Kinnear podcast.

I'm glad to be a guest. Thanks for having me. I'm really good at this. All right, go ahead. So Jack Nicholson at one point was the biggest movie star in the world, right? He was the guy everyone wanted to work with. I guess people today may say, you know, the pre Leonardo DiCaprio, maybe. I'm not sure if that's the right comparison or not. Tell us about the audition you had at his house for what has been noted as your

biggest best movie role. Tell us about how Spaghetti was such an important part of that interview. Well, yeah, it's true. It's true. My first meeting with Jack took place up in his house on Mohon, famous house up there and Jim Brooks and I went up there to meet him. I hadn't met him. I was going to play Simon. He's playing Melvin. Jim thought it was a good idea to have us together. I think we maybe read through a few scenes too. And I didn't, I don't think I had the job at this point. And he was very nice.

We read through a couple of things together and I was like, assuming it was time for me to get out of the house. And he said, do you like spaghetti and meatballs? So I said, yes, I do. And so we sat down, had a little bite to eat. And I don't think that the particular thing on the menu played any sort of significant role in the events of the night, but you know, it was very nice.

We sat and had a nice bite to eat and just talked and got to know each other. And I always, I listen, there's few people I can think in the world who hold, you know, quite the place in cinema that he does that are still around. And he's a remarkable actor with just an incredible body of work. And so that was a thrill to get to work with him. He didn't let me down. His work was fantastic on it. He took it seriously, but it was fun to work with in Total Pro and just everything you would want. I would ask you to do an impersonation of Jack.

I just said, you want spaghetti meatballs. She heard it. No, no. But I'd like you to do, did you order the code red? Oh, did you order the code red? Is that what he says? He was asked by Cuba Gooden Jr., I think it was Cuba, did you? You want me on that wall, right?

Yeah. You need me on that wall. Hey, look at that. Look at us. We should take this show on the road. You're goddamn right I did. So when you fly a drone, are you looking like at a monitor or something? Hey, Rick, I have had some acting experience

and I'd like to maybe try out for another role. Rick, it's not true. Stay away from this man, whatever you do. He has no acting skills that I can see. I'm kidding. Everyone's an actor, you know that. You probably go into these meetings, like when you do your fancy get rich schemes and

And you to some degree you have to everyone's acting right around the table when when when people are doing their I Think in these you know in finance world which I know nothing about I world which I know nothing about. There's a lot of money on the line and people go in. There is acting going on all around the table. I always say to my kids, none of them have any interest in being an actor. I say, trust me, you're going to be acting whether you know it or not. That's part of a lot of the coaching I do is it's all about sales, right?

Sales, you know, you're acting. Everything you do is about sales. Right. I wanted you to like me. Yep. When I met you. Yeah. I think I am generally.

I didn't have a choice because you gave me your phone. I think I am generally likable, but I want, I, you know, you need people to like you to want to work with you. You need people to like you if you want to build a team and be a leader. And all all that is about sales. Yeah. You know my friend is a very successful investment banker and

I remember he said to me you know he makes probably these days 20 million dollars a year and he said I'm in sales. Michael Govan who runs LACMA is my brother-in-law. Oh wow. And I remember him coming over, sitting on the couch. I have a friend there for Thanksgiving dinner, and she doesn't know who he is, right? She's not in the art world, and says, you know, what do you do? And he says, I worked at a museum,

and it was back and forth. He didn't say, he was director of LACMA, and he said, I'm in sales for the museum. And it was very interesting. And he said, well, what's your primary job? He said, I'm a fundraiser. And it was very interesting even to hear that from someone who works in the museum, running a museum, they're in sales. Right. And it's something a lot of people don't understand. Back to Rick,

Kurtzman by the way, our pickleball coach, we have a similar pickleball coach, Michael. I know he plays at your house. I know you're interested in playing at my house. So, I'd love to invite you to play at my house, but I want to get Matthew McConaughey on my show. So, Rick, you and I can talk about that as well. I'm sitting right here. on my show. So, Rick, you and I can talk about that as well. I'm sitting right here. All right, anyway folks, we're gonna wrap this up. This has been great.

Randall, we want you back on the show anytime. And I apologize, it's two hours, I had no idea. The time goes fast when you're speaking with somebody as dynamic as myself. Go ahead. The movie is as good as it gets, and you play a gay man. And my question is, is a straight man,

is it difficult to play a gay man? What's involved in the research, and is it more difficult than a regular role? No, it was very well written. Jim Brooks was the director, and he's an incredible writer. And it was all there on the page and there was a real person there who had great dignity, who I had great compassion for. He gets horribly maimed during the show.

He loves his dog and is trying to operate his know, operate his life as best he can. And there's a horribly abusive homophobic guy living across the hall from him and he is just dealing with a bit of a life crisis all at once. And no, I didn't, it wasn't difficult playing him as gay, you know, I felt like it was a, you know, lovely person and beautiful role. One of my favorite movies of all time, by the way. Which one? As good as it gets. It was a fantastic movie. Thank you. 1998 Academy Awards.

The year Titanic was all the rage, They won 11 Oscars that year. You're up for best supporting actor against Robin Williams. Detroit Country Day man, graduate of high school. I went to the same high school. I have an interesting Robin Williams story I'll share with you in a minute. But you didn't win and what I'm always, congratulations on the nomination by the way.

I mean, it's huge. Why didn't I win? Is that your question? No, that isn't the question. The question is, you know, you're always sitting there watching this, right? It's a great show. Yeah. And I'm always wondering when you don't win, everyone just immediately starts clapping

for are you sitting there saying to yourself, fuck, I didn't win and I really, the camera is on me that I really gotta be happy? Yeah, you kind of do because before they announce it, of course, somebody comes down and gets down on a knee right in front of you with a camera about a foot away from you. So when you see, you know, the actors kind of, you know, the camera is set right in front of them. So it's, it is, you're very conscious that you're, they're about to tell you whether you win or not at any of those award shows.

And it's- Cause I watched it by the way, yesterday. Watch what? That you, your reaction- Really? Robin, yes I did. There's a YouTube video. Wow.

How much time do you have on your hands between the drone business and... I wanted to see because I... How did I manage it? By the way, it wasn't even a millisecond by you look happy. It's so fast. You look happy, you know, it's like if they're not happy, I kind of would think like... That's the acting. No, I would kind of think like, like you know you get hit in the gut but

you're probably knowing that you know you got to be a good sport and and you gotta be likable yeah i guess but there's also a fairly good chance that you know before you ever before i did that that show before i had ever gotten to that place you there has been golden globes and other things and and you know so i you, you know, you don't go in with any expectations. So, I don't think anybody ever goes in with a huge expectation one way or the other. And no one's stupid enough to go, you know, when they lose because again, there's a camera sitting there. So, that might internally be happening for people and there are some funny ones where people I feel like have like miss maybe like not handled as well as they

Should have or told a little too much of their internal story outside even though they had a camera right there But yeah, I mean like also was a great night for me I had my wife and I had my mom and dad came it was a it was a great evening for us Yeah, I'll win and by the way, Robin Williams won that year and he was absolutely magnificent. Were you in the same years in high school? No, no, I wasn't. Thank you. You're older than him or younger? No, I'm much younger. Thank you.

You're much younger. Okay, sorry. No, I went to a public high school and then I want to go to a private high school. Very good. I was doing well in school and grades were my thing. And I visited a school called Detroit Country Day. And Robin Williams had gone there and Morgan Mindy was the number one show on TV. He was a biggest TV star in the day. And he came back that day to visit. And then the lunch lunchtime, everyone's in there. There's, you know, all.

And he came in. You must have been. He came in and for 30 minutes, just monologue, had everyone on the floor laughing. I thought, yeah, this school's kind of cool. Yeah. I think I'm gonna come here. Yeah. So I, and interesting, I always wanted to meet him.

Yeah. And I saw him one day at Barney's, and he was leaving Barney's. I was walking in and I said, you know what? I kinda wanna go over there and if it were today, then I would in a heartbeat. And I never had the chance, obviously. Yeah, of course.

You know, unfortunately. Because you didn't do it. I did not do it. What lessons did we learn that day? Well, you already know when you accosted me that day, I had learned my lesson. Exactly. What do you do when you already know when you accosted me that day, I had learned my lesson. Exactly. What do you do when you're, yeah, you were accosted. I was the perfect thing. You couldn't even, it wasn't about you trying to, the moment you didn't talk to an actor, it was like literally

the actor running up to you and accosting you. It was the reverse. Apple had invested in our technology company. Really? Not for my technology. Steve Jobs was a CEO. He had sent someone out when we attend people to try to buy the company. Did you ever meet Steve Jobs? So I'm going to tell you the lesson learned story. Sorry, I like to cut to the money shot. So they made a lot of money on the investment. They invested $25 million in a $250 million valuation. At some point when you could sell your stock, I think our company had a $25 billion market value. So they made a lot of money on the stock.

Wow. And I saw him, I was in Kona at the Four Seasons and there was a property next door that they called Kona Village, where there's no phone, no nothing, right? No TV or whatever. And he had come over to the Four Seasons for lunch one day and he was sitting far away from everybody. And my wife Laura at the time said, Steve Jobs over there, said, oh yeah, you know, you're gonna go talk to him.

What year is this? This was, let's see, coming to the public in 99. It would have been after his graduation speech at Stanford, which was 2006, 2007. So somewhere in that range. Right around the iPhone time. It was before the iPhone time. I think it was before the iPhone time. Yeah, it for sure was before the iPhone time.

I think it was just given the speech. Certainly before I took my company public too. So I'm trying to think time. Your third public, yeah. Your third public. So my wife said to me, uh, you're gonna go talk to him. I said, no, I was with his family over there. Clearly there was no one within a hundred feet of them. And she said to me, the old Randy would have,

I was already out of my seat before she said off. And I go over to the table and no one looks at me. You know, it's his wife, two kids. I'm literally standing right here. I'm not existent at all. And I felt horrible and embarrassed. I said, excuse me. And I heard he could always be, he could be a pretty tough guy. It was very rough. So I say, excuse me, Mr. Jobs, I'm Randy Kaplan.

Is he looking at you now? Co-founder of Akamai. Is he still not looking at you? He wasn't looking. And then he finally went like this. Yeah. Akamai was the name of the company and when I mentioned that he looked up and the first thing he said to me

was you must have made a ton of money. Hmm. You know, interesting. What do I say to that? I said, yeah, we, you know, I was very grateful and lucky, you know, and that is how I feel. And I said, I know you made a lot of money as well, Apple did. They made hundreds of millions of dollars at a time where they needed it, right? Apple had a 1% PC market share at the time, you know, business week and all these covers, magazines, Forbes said that they were gonna go bankrupt.

And this was before they got the Windows settlement with Microsoft for $240 million. So these things all propelled the company and helped them materially, financially. And I said to Steve, I said, I really enjoyed your graduation speech at Stanford. And he looked at me and he said, thank. I looked down, it was over and I walked back to the table you know doing this and that was that. So I did meet Steve Jobs, that was the story.

Oh man. And at least I have a story to tell. I'm glad I did it. At least you tell the story honestly. Do you know how many people would twist that into so I tell Steve And then Steve says to me, I mean that's what everybody does I gotta school you a little Steve. We got a doctor that story. He did say and I Want to be very humble about his art, but he did say I was probably the smartest person he'd ever met. Oh He did say that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I left that out. Okay, now I'm understand. You should leave that in the story.

If he said that, I think you should leave, I know you liked Omeda and the modesty thing and all that, but I think you should leave that fact in the story. I think you should lead with it. Yeah, well no one would ever say that about me, but I do wanna talk about. With all this money, do you pay people to come on these podcasts, or how does this work?

Never. I've never paid anyone. You never do? No, ever. We've had an... You ever thought about it? I've thought about it since the beginning. What's that? You ever thought about it? So, the only person I ever considered this... I was in Vegas shooting Dana White and Dana White UFC is a huge deal, right? And so I'm

in a studio, I rent one there and they shoot all kinds of very interesting people So everyone knows Dana's coming in. Yeah, right. So everyone is waiting, you know, they're podcast finishing and whatever Pete Rose is there he's a guest on the show and Pete's hanging out to meet Dana and so Pete hangs out, you know Dana's there Dana says I've got 60 minutes He went two hours and 40 minutes, by the way, because the assistant's blowing up my phone, which obviously I don't have my phone with me. We were supposed to be at some police league two hours ago,

but I met Pete. He said he would do my show, and he had a guy who said, Pete charges $1,500 a podcast. This is how he makes money. I mean, he didn't make money. And I thought, you know, a lot of my viewers and listeners are not gonna know who Pete Rose is.

Right. Right? He's too old. Pete Rose is one of the greatest baseball players to ever play the game. For sure. He gambled on the sport. And that was the end of that. Band, no Hall of Fame, no nothing. Little unfair on that Hall of Fame business, if you ask me.

Very, very, I mean, you have all these guys, Jack on steroids who are in the Hall of, I mean, some. We don't need to go into the names. But so I blew off, I'm back to Vegas to see Pete. And I've been to Vegas with my wife for a show or two or whatever, and I didn't film Pete. So when Pete, I was going to pay Pete, I blew it off. He died and I didn't film Pete so when Pete I was going to pay Pete I blew it off he died and I regret Not paying Pete and I really regret not doing that because there's a huge kid

Pete Rose was my idol one of them at least right so that was a bummer for me, but he was the only one I Had to consider paying and the only reason was because he needed it. I think he would have been offended Huh? I think he would have been offended. I think he would have been offended. To what? If you had paid him. No, he no, he wanted to get paid. It was a requirement for him to do my show. So in that way, my theory doesn't work. No, it doesn't work.

But one one thing interesting about your career that's different from people like the the Rock or Rabia is you never had an acting coach. No. How? Is that possible? I didn't hire one. But 99.99999% of actors, professional actors,

especially every actor, I mean, I Googled this before we got here, right? And I mean, everybody has acting coaches. Yeah. I don't know of a therapist either. I'm short of all of the needed things to actually exist in this business. I don't think that number is true. I think it's probably, you'd be surprised, I think there are a lot more people than you realize who haven't sought a coach or whatever. And by the way, I've seen it work so well with many people I've worked with to the point where I'm like, I think I'm intimidated. It's like, my God, it's worked so well for people, certain people I've worked with. I'd be like, wow, that's amazing. That is amazing technique.

And I'm afraid that I would fail out of the class. Maybe it's the University of Arizona baggage carrying me or I carry with me, but I'm afraid I'd end up failing out of the acting class. But I just never have had one. And I respect it so much when people choose to do it. I just, I haven't had one. And I guess the only thing I would say is the experience of, you know, working with, you know, directors and other actors and even people peripherally within the crew, I feel like

I have learned, I learned an enormous amount from on every project. So I don't, I feel like I've been in school for many, many, many, many years and I have been in classes many, many, many times and tough classes, some very, very tough classes. But the technical term acting class, no, I haven't had that experience. You've had a ton of success and you said also the imposter syndrome. Yeah, I mean, for anybody. How, why?

Well, just for, I think anybody who feels like, you know, it's a very fickle business and to find success in it, there is, you know, it's of course great appreciation for it. And I don't take any of it for granted, but I definitely think some, there are moments where you're like, geez, wow, what, looking back on my career,

there's so many accidental things that happened to kind of help to me fortify my career that feel very much like accidents and incidents that were kind of maybe outside of, you know, the control the way you might in the finance world say, okay, we're going to build a deck, we're going to go in, we're going to go sell the product, then we're going to go try and meet Steve Jobs. Okay, maybe that won't work, but we're going to do all the other, you know what I mean? you build out a more

Step-by-step process and I don't think this business necessarily lends itself to that. There is a accidental quality to some of the stuff Do you think you're a movie star and? What is a movie star? Yeah, I don't know. No, I don't think of that for sure I don't feel that way and and and there And there are a plethora of big stars all being featured next week on the show. Join us. But I've been fortunate and lucky enough to kind of stay in the and I'm I've been very grateful to work with a lot of great people and That is one of the coolest things about you know building whether it's a series or whether it's television or movie You know the idea of you build this little family experience together. It does eventually break down

It is a weird thing where you get to the end and everybody shakes hands and walks away. But but, you know, I've built a lot of families out here over the years. In the venture capital business, which everyone thinks is so sexy, it's not sexy when you lose eight out of 10 deals, go to zero. Right. No one no one bats 100. The venture capital business. I wasn't going to say it was sexy, but those are your words. Well, I mean, I want to go on a venture capital. I mean, all the interns, I want to go on a venture capital business. I wasn't gonna say it was sexy, but those are your words. Well, I mean, I wanna go into venture capital.

I mean, all the interns, I wanna go into venture capital. Of course. And it is a highly risky business and you strike out seven to eight or 10 times. As an actor, a lot of films also bomb. You had, What Planet Are You On, Mystery Men. Do you know when you're filming a movie that it's going to bomb?

No. I know I can feel, I think I feel, you feel success more when it may be when it's happening. And you can be disappointed by that too, where it can just be OK. But I think when you know, when you say, you know, really a movie that isn't going to connect with an audience, you know, there's usually a sense, I think when maybe when you're doing it that somehow it's not, it doesn't have a certain amount

of buoyancy happening within the cast or the crew or weird things. It just, it's like a tune that's a little off. And I have sensed that. But listen, I've been surprised on both sides of that equation of failure and success. And you know, failure is, you know, just as you, God knows your lesson on failure, I can't imagine. Feels terrible by the way. It does feel terrible. Failure's no fun. as you, God knows your lesson on failure, I can't imagine.

Feels terrible, by the way. It does feel terrible. Failure's no fun. No, but it's a great motivator. It is a great motivator and it's also, yeah, that really is a learning process. There is a learning process in failure and it hurts and isn't fun but it's necessary and you know, there's no alternative.

Do you learn things? I guess there is an alternative but... Do you learn things from movies that bomb where you say, okay, here's what didn't go well, I should do this better or I learned a lesson? Or is it more of a team thing that causes it to fail? Yeah, because I don't think the equation ever changes of, you know, the process for picking or choosing or ending up doing whatever you're doing is always, at least for me and I think for most people, they all, everybody kind of has their own code and you know, you pick a base, the best you

can based upon a bunch of criteria that you don't know. Well, I don't know what the environment is going to be in the place we're going to shoot and I don't know what the real, what the director's behavior in the stress of actually shooting is going to be like and I don't know what the different actors are going to, you know, how how we're gonna all integrate once we get started. I mean generally more often than not I mean that's part of the job. You know part of it is you know Nora Efron and I did you know you've got mail years ago. I mean she was like this wonderful woman that was incredibly talented you know writer and director and she was it was almost like she was great at hosting a cocktail party, you know She would make sure that everything was set when we started and each day felt like a little joy

I mean it was that was really nice We have cool moments as parents, you know One of my coolest moment was I take my kids away on a trip every year, one-on-one trip. I have twins taking away every year and I took them to Cablas and Lucas and I was sitting in front of an agent who was... I was sitting in front of someone who behind said Kelvin Harris is playing opening this hotel and I was fortunate enough my wife Madison, her best friend was dating Kelvin for some period of time and I knew his manager Mark, shout out to Mark, and Mark Gillespie, shout out and we ended up in the DJ booth with Calvin, with four 16 year old girls.

They brought their friends. You had a Calvin Harris Rihanna incident with your kids. I think Rihanna called your lawyer, your lawyer called her and there was a, they wanted to use a movie, a song that you did in a movie to ask your permission. Can you tell us about the song Cockiness? And I don't know if you remember the lyrics on that song. And if you don't, I'd like to tell you what the lyrics of that song are. I don't really. What are the lyrics?

Okay. The lyrics are... This is a song that I had recorded a song in a movie... Called Stuck on You. Stuck on You, a movie I did with Matt Damon during the period where Hollywood was making a lot of the conjoined twins movie. We were doing one of those and the film was by the Fairly Brothers. It was really fun to do. But at any rate, at the end of it, I had to sing a song and that song, I got a call from my lawyer one day, said, Hey, did you record a song in a movie one time? And I was like, yeah.

And he said, well, Rihanna wants to sample a piece of that song. And I said, Rihanna, huh? Wow. And I said, that's possible. How much would she pay me? And he said, nothing. And I said, all right, let's do it. And so I think they actually did give me some sort of, they had to give some sort of stipend. But anyway, I thought it'd be great, great. I could modify this with my kids and tell them dad's going to do a song with Rihanna. And so they, sure enough, were little girls and I told them daddy's gonna

do a song with Rihanna and they were very excited. And one day I was driving them home from the little parochial school we took them to and he sent me the song and said, hey, I just emailed you the song that you recorded with Rihanna. It's called Cockiness and go ahead and listen to it. And I was like, girls, guess what? Eddie's got the new Rihanna song. And then I hit play and it opens with suck my cockiness, lick my persuasion.

And then I don't really know the rest of the lyrics. It sounds like you have them, right? I don't, but I did. You know that part. Yeah, I knew that part. Suck my cockiness, lick my persuasion. It's a hit. Oh, it's a hit. It's a hit. But it's a very filthy, filthy song. And my daughters were

like, huh? Danny, what's that mean? And never mind. That was, we never went on tour together. Greg Rowe, very short. Gr- Rowe-Gre? I don't know, Grey Rowe? I don't know. It was a very short run love story between the two of us. We'll see if anything else comes of it. But it's a great way to wrap up the podcast and I'm glad you asked about it.

There's a lot of bad actors in any profession. In Hollywood, we've got Phil Cosby, who everyone loved until all that came out. You've got Kevin Spacey, which we've talked about. Harvey Weinstein, everybody in Hollywood, at least that I know, and it's probably less than 1% of the people that you know, kind of knew what was happening with him, that he was basically just a complete and total pig.

Did you know and did your friends know and was everybody afraid of Harvey? I don't know, honestly. I never worked directly with him. He financed a movie, I think a movie I did. I met him at a party or two over the course of many years, but I didn't know him well. I wasn't in his circle. And I didn't really know this side of him. I didn't know that he was... That was all revealed when I saw the story come out and heard all of the women who came forward and obviously it was horrible.

I guess unsurprising looking back in our business that there were bad actors and probably plenty more and plenty since then who have you know been sort of outed so you know it's it's Was a long time coming but That that is the end of that one of the hallmarks of my career That's led to my success is the preparation I do. I'm writing a book called Extreme Preparation. We've talked about it a little bit. How much

preparation goes into a role? Are you memorizing? I mean, I watch these actors. How are they memorizing all this stuff? I mean, there's no cue cards. I mean, on TV shows, I know when Will Smith got going, you know, he was looking at the cue cards, I think that's well known, but I mean you're not doing that in a movie obviously. Right, or play. Or play, right? Yeah. So how much preparation goes into memorizing all those lines and what's the methodology

that you go through? Honestly, it's one of my few gifts. I can memorize really, really well. And if you gave me a page right now, I could probably, you know, certainly in the course of this podcast, be able to- We're almost done. We're getting towards the end, I promise. Certainly be.

As long as it was under 300 pages, I would be able to nail it for you pretty quickly. And I don't say that lightly. It is, of course, it isn't the most meaningful thing. I don't think most actors would tell you the ability to memorize is the key to success. But it's valuable because I think- But give us a sense of the hours. Yeah. Oh, I'm serious.

I could very quickly learn whatever you gave me. Yeah. But do you practice in front of a mirror? Do you role play with your wife or someone? No, I can read it like this and start it like it would start literally reading it like this at my desk. And I can very and then driving around and then I'll put... I take a... I have screenshots of the pages on my phone and can once in a while as I'm taking a hike and, you know, process it and it just keeps getting more and more solidified. And, you know, at the end of the day,

it's valuable to have that element out of the way. It really is because I think there are people who struggle with the words and having the ability to kind of compartmentalize that and then focus more on the specifics of what the character is doing or what you are trying to convey in terms of the behavior or what the intention is of whatever you're doing or seeing, you know, all of that is ultimately, I think, far more important than the ability to know what the character has to say. But that said, obviously, that's important too. For me, that's always been pretty easy.

And I don't know why. One of the three most... And I don't know why. What are the three most important elements to be successful as an actor and is it different for non-actors? Yeah. I mean, the ability to tell the truth, you know, the ability to, you know, I guess, find the truth. The ability to... I don't know. These are the things. I didn't go to school, for God's sakes.

I told you. For me, this sounds like an acting class thing and I don't really know how to answer that. I mean, there's probably a lot of things and I don't know whether or not they correlate. I mean, having manners and showing up and being respectful to the people you work with and being on time and working hard and being there when they need you and trying to be as good as you can and give the job 110%. Sure, those apply to every job, right? But I feel like you're kind of get me into the specifics of acting and I don't really know when I take on a job what the most important thing is.

I don't have a list. I don't know what it is, honestly. And it's, you know, when it's done, I kind of know whether or not it delivered on all the things I wanted it to deliver on. But that's the job, folks. Sharon Stone was on my show and she and one of the things that she does that people really love is she writes thank you notes to every single person who's on the set,

and she knows everybody's name, from the lowest person there, the grips, to obviously all of her co-actors, director. I think that's amazing. It is amazing. I think it's really important. I'm terrible with names, too, by the way. Sharon gets to be the person who not only can memorize dialogue, but also can remember

everybody's names. And I walk in and I meet 10 people and honestly, if you put me in a lineup, I'll, you know, I can't do it. And it's like a, it's a weird thing because it feels like it should be, I should be a, I very likely could run into you at a restaurant and be like, you know, in two weeks from now. I did a podcast with that guy. I think I did a podcast with that guy and it would be of no reflection of you. I like you very much and I have this and my wife knows I have it and it's a weird thing and I can't tell you anything other than it just

doesn't... I did read in the New York Times an interesting article about some sort of thing, condition where the brain kind of has a hard time putting the name with the actual, it's the ability to recognize a facial structure and be able to have the recall of that thing. And I forget what it's called, but it was a hell of an article. You track that down for me too,

when you're looking for Deborah Gibbs. We're going to track that down, very interesting. I'm not sure if it's, is it Deb Gibbs? I think it was Debra Gibbs. So as part of a tech trip, I was invited to Israel back in 2000. Our company had gone public, and this group had organized a group of tech leaders to go on this trip.

And beforehand, the leader of that trip asked me if I wanted to host a dinner for Prime Minister Net Yahu at my house. So the first thing I asked is, how much is that going to cost me? They said nothing, but you have to bring in a kosher kitchen. I'm like, okay, well, yes, I would like to. And I love my dog. And our dog at the time was Pua, Brittany's mountain dog. And I wanted a picture of Prime Minister and my dog and his wife Sarah thought that was very disrespectful. I didn't mean any disrespect, but I thought it'd be a cool picture to have the three of us.

Netanyahu's wife thought it was disrespectful? Yeah, Sarah did not like that very much. That you were going to get a picture with you, your dog and... And Prime Minister... Bebe. Yeah, and Bebe. She was not happy about that. So nonetheless, we took the photo.

How do you know she wasn't happy about it? me she said that's very disrespectful. She kind of do it cute though No, you I know. No, there was no she didn't try to Mask it with a smile. There's but so between this and Steve jobs Like he said there's a thing happening with you. He said I got and I never really put together I think I'm gonna have to as my therapist about this when I see her next. But it was very interesting. Honey, that's the guy I did the podcast with. He's coming over.

No. It was interesting because my dog's name was Pua, means flower in Hawaiian. Our company had a Hawaiian name. Akamai means cool, clever, intelligent, smart. So I thought that was a very cool name. Akamai means cool, clever, intelligent, smart. So I thought that was a very cool name. So we took the photo. Then we go to Israel. I think six months later, there's, I don't know,

500 people there. And we got to talk to him again. And he said to me, Randy, how's Pua? Oh my gosh. I was, it's like someone hit me with a battering ram. Oh my gosh. I mean, how many people had he met in between?

I've heard Bill Clinton, very similar. And there are people who have this, didn't Mary Lou Henner have that ability? Oh sure, hers are dates. You can tell her any, she came on my show once. Do you know this story? She was on 60 Minutes about this. Well, it's one of the stories about you that I don't know.

I'm sorry. Yeah, she can tell you, you can give her a date and you can say, where were you on November 12th, 1991? I saw that episode, yeah, I saw that. And she'll say, oh, I went to, and she'll walk you through the whole day. And for me, it's the most terrifying thing I've ever seen in my life. This ability, I can't imagine, thank God, you know, that this kind of recall ability

and what she's capable of is, it's astounding. That show, they ran through four or five different people, autistic people. That's right. Who didn't have the ability to communicate and have a normal conversation. But they did in fact have the ability. And they learned, some of them learned they could do that. They could record anything from three years old. It was a remarkable thing.

Talking about success, one of the things that's important to our success is getting over rejection. Mark Ruffalo auditioned 800 times before he got his first job. How important is overcoming rejection to our success? Yeah, I think it's you get better at it, you know. I do think it's like a muscle you strengthen and it's again, we were talking about earlier, you know, just failure is no fun but you do get better at it, rejection, you know. I think same. I figure it's kind of in the same basket. I don't know anybody who got rejected and didn't feel the sense of failure, you know.

So I guess they're kind of in the same basket a little bit. Do you still have to read for roles? I mean, you're so established now. You are a star. I would. I don't, I mean, I haven't, but I mean, if there was something I really wanted, I like to think I'd still, you know, I'd, you know, sure, I'd go for it.

You play golf? I do. You hit a hole in one? I did. You play pickleball? I do. Are you a good pickleball player? I was told by my friend who's a good pickleball player

that I should play more, cause I'm pretty pretty I could be good I think I'm alright, but I don't know how to You know, you have a handicap in golf and yeah pickleball you have a three Yeah, they have like tennis like a five-oh and four-oh. Yeah. Yeah, it's the same. You've been are you a pickleball player? I am we have a quarter at our house. I'm gonna buy you over to play. I'm gonna come We have some really fun games. All right. Great. Very, very great people.

Can we continue the podcast? We can continue the podcast. You know, it's very interesting. I've had the number one female pickleball player. I interviewed her two weeks ago. I had Ben Johns, the number one men's, you know, the goat. They're both the goat. Annalee Waters has been the she's been number one since she was 14 years old.

Really? She just won her I don't know 10th Triple Crown last weekend. Did she play singles or doubles? Singles doubles mixed. Everything. Everything. Boy the difference between singles and doubles is crazy. We talked about it. Yeah we talked about it. So yeah as a thank you I'm giving and we may even do it for this show, their paddle sponsors, their paddle sponsors, free sponsorship on this show, which is just a nice thing to do for them and their sponsors, their paddle companies like it. And Hula just sent me like a shit ton of free stuff,

like Ben's, Ben's Lace Rackets, I've got the bag, and they wanna shoot at my house. And I said, you know, sometimes I become friends with a lot of guests on my show and I mean this sincerely, you know, I love to get to know you better and you know, meet your family. And I said, you know, we have some really cool people, you know, normal people and I've had rappers on my house and they said, yeah, you know, we'd like to come shoot some footage. I said, yeah, you know, I'm totally open to it. So so I haven't shot a show there, but, you know, coming.

I it's hard to shoot a show there, right. It's like, you know, you're playing your huffing and puffing. Yeah. Yeah, we're we're at the end of the show. I always finish it with a game called Phil and the Blank to excellence. Are you ready to play? Yes The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is be open my number one professional goal is To be a good father my biggest regret in life is How people how fast are people at answering these questions? You know what?

Annalee Waters was, I think, the fastest we've ever had. And she's 17 years old. I got asked to be the grand marshal at New Orleans. What do they call that? The big? The Mardi Gras parade? Mardi Gras. Yeah, I didn't do it. Huge, huge disappointment.

I gotta live with that every day in my life. Go ahead. My biggest fear is... I thought you were gonna finish that. Oh, this is for me too? Yeah. Okay, what is your biggest fear? My biggest fear is not living long enough to enjoy my kids and have grandkids. Oh. yeah. Followed by a close second being eaten by sharks.

My biggest fear is if we're playing like the Fear Factor version, i.e. sharks would be drowning, so we're both in the water world. My number three. Yeah. And, wow. Yeah. What's two? Sh Yeah. What's two? Sharks.

What's one? Not living long enough to see my kids. What's four? Four would be... Good God, he's got a four. Being buried alive somewhere. Now you're just making it up. No.

Do you know those people who were in that cave? And I forget what country and they were down there country and oh yeah, it was like Thailand? Yeah, somewhere like that. And I just, I would have died of a heart attack the minute that I got down there. Yeah. The proudest moment of my career is? I rarely feel proud. It's not like I have a, you know, great, I mean, I, the proudest moment is every time

I finish a project, I have some pride in that. But I don't know that there's a specific moment where I'm holding up the trophy over my head. The craziest thing that's happened in my career is... What's the craziest thing that's happened in your career? Man, there have been a lot. See? That's my answer. Yeah.

You know, it's funny. I've had tons of shows, and I often thought about, how would I answer these questions if someone asked me? And I don't have the answers to a lot of them. Yeah, I understand. Because they're difficult questions. Yeah, they are. Which is meant to elicit all kinds of things in people, because you learn a lot about people, and I think it's-

Mostly deflection is what you'll learn from me. Yeah, I've noticed a lot of deflection in this. The funniest thing that's happened to me in my career is- Oh my gosh. I feel like you gotta be prepped for these, man. I really do. You go in a, I know you're looking to have chemo on. I mean, like, before you go out there, they tell you we're gonna talk about

the funniest thing that's happened in your career so that you have a little prep time so that you don't end up, I don't, I'm deeply resistant to filling in blanks unless I feel confident that that's the right answer. I had too much of my schooling experience where I was filling in whatever came to mind. I don't really have an answer for that.

10 years from now I'm going to be doing? I don't know if I'd be retired at that point. I don't know how it really, somebody's asking me recently, would you retire? I don't really know how to retire because I would do this, I, you know, somebody's asking me recently, would you retire? I don't really know how to retire because it's, I would do this, I love doing this and I love, you know, still enjoy the process greatly and performing and so I don't know, you know, retirement always sounds like a word that has a certain attraction to it.

But I don't look at that and think, oh, that's what I'm pursuing. And so perhaps it's more of the same, still working on finding interesting projects, probably recording another album with Rihanna. If you go back and give your 21-year-old cell phone piece of advice, what would it be? No fear.

The most important thing that's contributed to my success is? No fear. If you were President Trump, the first thing you would do when you stepped foot in that office and sat down at that desk would be? Build a pickleball court

in the White House Outside right on the lawn. Yeah the one male actor that I wanted to work with but have it is Al Pacino Lavelle the one female actor I want to work with but haven't is? Oh, Charlize Theron's fantastic. We had a project we were talking about at one point and she's great but I haven't worked with her. If you could meet one person in the world, who would it be? I don't know. I really don't know who that person is.

The one question you wish I had asked you but didn't is? Are you ready to wrap this up? No. Yeah, you, I think you pretty much covered it. There's no question this is the longest podcast or any sitting period. This is the longest I've ever sat in my life. How long have we been here? It's like two hours and two and a half hours. Wow. But I've enjoyed it and seriously enjoyed it. Thank you very much. It was great. I appreciate you. And I appreciate you being willing to come on the show and not

bailing and following through. It really does sail out. But I have been a fan for a long time. I'm so happy to meet you. Congratulations on your tremendous success. And if you want to give one Congratulations on your tremendous success. And if you want to give one plug for your next movie coming out, I think it's called Shiver. I did a movie with Josh Dumas called Off the Grid and a movie called Shiver and a show that I did with LeHain for Apple is called Smoke, come out next year. And oh, and a movie I did with Adam Scott and Daniel Dedweiler called The Saviors, which is really fun. Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate you.

Thank you. Awesome. Thank you.