Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum - Fright Night’s CHRIS SARANDON: Humbling Yourself

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

Chris Sarandon (Fright Night, The Princess Bride) joins us this week for an amazing episode full of classic film nostalgia, openness on being humbled at the heights of success, and reflection on an il...lustrious career. Chris shares several behind the scenes stories of landing roles during auditions including how nerves helped propel his performance during his read with Al Pacino for his break in Dog Day Afternoon. We also talk about which film sent him on a mission of discovery and reflection in Africa, his favorite Andre the Giant story, and his relationship with his first wife Susan Sarandon. Thank you to our Sponsors: ❤️ Betterhelp: https://betterhelp.com/insde 🥣 Magic Spoon: https://magicspoon.com/iou 💤 Helix Sleep: https://helixsleep.com/inside 🦎 Geico: https://geico.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Ontario, the wait is over. The gold standard of online casinos has arrived. Golden Nugget Online Casino is live, bringing Vegas-style excitement and a world-class gaming experience right to your fingertips. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting, signing up is fast and simple. And in just a few clicks, you can have access to our exclusive library of the best slots and top-tier table games. Make the most of your downtime with unbeatable promotions and jackpots that can turn any mundane moment
Starting point is 00:00:29 into a golden opportunity at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Take a spin on the slots, challenge yourself at the tables, or join a live dealer game to feel the thrill of real-time action, all from the comfort of your own devices. Why settle for less when you can go for the gold at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Gambling problem call Connects Ontario 1866531-260. 19 and over, physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nuggett Casino.com for details.
Starting point is 00:00:59 responsibly. Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia. So your child can continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes. Light the path to a brighter future with stellar lenses for myopia control. Learn more at SLOR.com. And ask your family eye care professional for SLR Stellist lenses at your child's next visit.
Starting point is 00:01:29 you are listening to inside of you with michael rosenbaum very special guests in the show i'm a huge fright night fan ryan is sitting in front of my fright night poster signed by tom holland who's also coming on the podcast to talk about horror but today we have a great guest i mean you know him from fright night i mean being married to susan sarandon once well that's one that's true princess bride I mean, look, he's done so much work. I mean, he was nominated for an Oscar. We're going to get that. We're going to get into all that.
Starting point is 00:02:03 Chris Sarandon is here, but don't go just yet. Don't, don't fast forward just yet. Ryan, you have a good week? I did. I did a comedy roast over the weekend for someone. Someone's birthday. He wanted to get roasted for his birthday. Did you roast him good?
Starting point is 00:02:18 I did, and then he had to roast everyone else on the panel. It was fun. I had to do a little roast song. Did someone roast you? Oh, I got roasted. You got hurt. hammered. Oh, yeah, in ways I didn't think possible. Oh, really? And also in ways I thought possible. Do you get upset when people roast you? Uh, no. I mean, this, it's all in the good spirit of it. I mean, I got everyone, uh, everyone else got me, uh, I think a good one was, uh, I look like, uh, someone tried to draw Walter Jr. from breaking bed from scratch. I could see that. Yeah, but I said, Walter Jr. It looked like a rough draft of that. I could see that. I've heard that a lot before. That's amazing. I could totally see that. I never thought that until just now. Uh, uh, I would was at uh james gunn's wedding james and james gunn and jennifer holland they got married and uh i was one of
Starting point is 00:03:02 the people who introduced them and it was a it was the best wedding i've ever been to my life i've never seen such a beautiful wedding ever and great people there i knew many of the people that were there so it was really nice and uh you know jan got up at the end and gave a uh beautiful heartfelt speech everybody was in tears just beautiful and uh she said and thank you to sarah sanderson and to Michael Rosenbaum for introducing us. But when they meant, she said my name, all the guys from the Bachelor Party just went, boo, boo!
Starting point is 00:03:34 And it was just, everybody looked at me, and I was like, what the? It was like, well, Rosenbaum, you're the first person ever get booed at a wedding. But it was a treat. I don't do great with altitude, but I survived it. And it was glorious.
Starting point is 00:03:50 I just went and visited my grandmother. She's 94. She lives in an assisted living home, sort of necessities it's really nice actually and she likes it which is most important but you know at the end when they dropped me off at the hotel it was last night and uh she just touched in my face and she just said my boy my boy i love you so much michael don't ever forget that and it was just like one of those moments where i'm like is this the last time i'm going to see her i hope not but i know that time is coming so it made me think just tell people
Starting point is 00:04:24 you love them just be present be it's like again being in the moment not waiting till it's too late of course my grandmother would have done i loved her anymore but uh and then today i just got off a plane some a little out of it took a little nap was with blanche she just brightens my day you know it's so weird i'm like a parent because parents show their oh look at my child isn't you the cutest i constantly now show pictures of blanche my not my grandma my blanche my dog and people are i'm like they're like oh great i mean i constantly do it is that weird yeah It is weird. Like the way you treat your dog like a child?
Starting point is 00:04:57 No, that I show everyone pictures of my dog constantly. I mean, that's kind of the same thing. But I mean, I guess so. But she's a cute pup. I don't blame you.
Starting point is 00:05:07 She is. She's an angel. Hug the ones dearest to you, folks. I've been meditating. I hope you've been taking care of yourself. Ryan, you've been going to therapy still. Yep.
Starting point is 00:05:15 Better helping. Great. I like that. And obviously, you know, better helps a sponsor. They're awesome. They've been with me. I want to just take a second.
Starting point is 00:05:24 to say thank you better help thank you for being a sponsor and staying with us and i think a lot of times we talk about mental health and our well-being and better helps just perfect fit and i think that's why they stick around and that's why uh it's it works it's a nice relationship so thank you our socials please follow us and write a review if you like the podcast it helps substantially our handles are at inside of you podcast on facebook and instagram at inside of you pod on the Twitter. We look forward to reading your review and hopefully you'll follow us and see what we're up to. If you want any merch, go to the inside of you online store. We got great new stuff and great new stuff coming. Autograph scripts, lunchboxes from smallville that they're selling out. You got to
Starting point is 00:06:05 get this smallville lunchbox. They're pretty badass. Tumblr's other great stuff inside of you online store. And if you want to become a patron, the patrons really saved this show. They also save Talkville. They're really, you guys, without you, I've told you this before. I just talked to the patrons on. YouTube live, we do that every month. And I always thank them. But I hope they know that I'm sincere. Go to patreon.com slash inside of you to support the podcast. There's different tiers, different things that I send to you, personal notes, yada, yada, yada. Thank you guys. And also I'll be in San Francisco, Columbus, and Pittsburgh at the end of November and into December. So try to come see me. And I'm also on a cameo and all that jazz. that's it that's really all i got we should probably get into this is there anything else i need to say no let's get into it let's get into the legendary i love this guy i really do love him um i'm going to go on his talking podcast he's got a he's starting a podcast about eating you know foods
Starting point is 00:07:06 and so he wants me to be on the show so nice let's get inside of chris sarandon it's my point of you you're listening to inside of you with michael rosenbaum Inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum was not recorded in front of a live studio audience. Hey, Chris. I'm good. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Doing great.
Starting point is 00:07:35 Just had a birthday, which was a seminal one. Thank you, by the way, for your birthday greeting. And it was both shocking on the one hand and also very kind of freeing and revelatory a lot of ways. Really? I mean, I can't. look at you, I never look at you and see 80 years old. There's just, there's just no way. What can I tell you? I just turned 50 and I'm, I'm freaking out. I think I'm having a midlife crisis. Did you have a midlife crisis when you turned 50? Oddly enough, along the way on those,
Starting point is 00:08:06 you know, those kind of what, signpost birthdays, the 30, 40, 50, 60, it didn't really hit me. This one really hit me. It did. How so? Major. Major. Well, because, you know, you think, just as you said, to me, you don't look 80. Well, that's the juxtaposition of how you look and feel to a certain extent. And also what your chronological age is to the world is. I mean, this is like a major, uh-oh, he's on his way out kind of. Really, that's how you feel? Because, I mean, people let's feel that way.
Starting point is 00:08:45 I'm saying that's the way the world sees it. And so, you know, you can't help. but pick up on the cultural attachments of certain ages. Right. So you're telling me you don't feel 80. No. Whatever 80 is supposed to feel like, I don't. No.
Starting point is 00:09:04 How do you feel? I feel I have what my wife wonderfully calls the, you know, I play the organ recital with my friends who are my age or younger, a little younger. of the organ recital being, oh, yeah, you know, that, I've got that, my, I had herniations in my disc and, let's see, I have a hip, you know, you can go on and on when you get to be a certain age where you've had so many things happen in your life, but you've also had so many wonderful things, incredible things happen along the way. Right.
Starting point is 00:09:38 I mean, you've had, I mean, I look, and how many people could say they've been in so many big movies that everyone knows? Like, you know, I know you know that I'm the biggest Fright Night fan, but like the Princess Bride and Child's Play and Nightmare Before Christmas and Dog Day Afternoon and like it goes on and on and it's got it's cool to have such a legacy to have, you know, to have so much work that you've done that so many people out there have appreciated and love you for. I'm really proud of it. And at the same time, I'm, I'm, I'm sometimes aghast. and kind of, whoa, wait a minute, this happened to me?
Starting point is 00:10:21 I almost, I mean, I remember it. I remember it happening. Right. But the, the cultural, the waves that go out in the culture from particular pieces of work, it's astonishing to me, just how much, just how much resonance they have with people. Yeah, I met you at a convention, one of these Comic-Con. You and I met at a convention, that's right. Yeah. And I was just, first of all, I was just so amazed by how, you know, because when you watch, you know, when I watch you in all these roles, I'm like, God, he's so charming. I wonder how he is in real life. And you were incredibly charming and so easy to talk to and laid back. It's like, you know, you don't seem affected. Have you always been like that? Were you ever, were you ever a pompous Chris Sarandon?
Starting point is 00:11:08 at one point actually I think I was this happened I think after the I was I was nominated for Academy Award for Dog Day afternoon yes and then I was offered a lot of movies I turned down a bunch of movies but I did a few and I was doing TV I was doing like Hallmark Hall of Fame stuff and I was doing I played Jesus for God's sake yeah and I also played Sidney Carton and Charles Dernay in the Tale of Two Cities. And I was really fucking full of myself. And I got a script called Fright Night, right? An offer to do this movie.
Starting point is 00:11:48 And I said to myself, as I picked up and looked at the title of it on the cover page, oh, I can't do a movie called Fright Night. I'm a terribly important actor. Right. And so, but, you know, these people, they offered me the role. And you offer, you owe them the curtain. of reading it and I started reading it and within like five minutes I was completely sucked in and by the time I finished the script I said I have to do this
Starting point is 00:12:18 I got to meet these people and it it taught me a lesson which is you know the old bromide don't love judge a book by its cover don't judge a screenplay by its title right and and also art comes in many forms and I've always considered that when I first start I first started in the theater. Yes. And I've continued to do theater throughout my career. And that keeps you grounded because you are in a medium that forces you to collaborate with people in a totally different way than it does in the movies and television. As you know, in television and movies, very often you are part of the machine. Yes. And the machine is inexorable. It just moves with you or with
Starting point is 00:13:08 without you. Whereas in the theater, you are really integral to the performance of this particular moment in time, and you do it live, which is an astonishing thing to stand before an audience and be somebody else and have that kind of level of communication. And this is sort of a long-witted answer to your question. Please keep them long-ended. But from the very beginning, when I graduated from theater school, if you want to call it that. I got a master's degree in theater, a performing degree. And from the time I graduated, all I wanted to do was to have a career. And I've had a career. Yeah. So I, and along the way, different shit happens. You know, you do a play. You go on tour, you travel, or you're at home for a long time. I have a story that I tell all the time about
Starting point is 00:14:08 one of my children who was at the time, I think she was like five or six, and she and a friend were having a pizza or an ice cream or something with the friend's mom. And they were talking about what their daddies did. And the woman went to talk to her daughter. She said, you know what daddy does, don't you? And her daughter said, yeah, he makes wires in houses. That's this woman, says, that's right. He's an electrician. And she turned to my daughter and she said, you know what your daddy does, don't you? And my daughter Alexis said, yeah, he looks for work. Well, that's the, that's the experience of being an actor. And that also keeps you humble. Right. And the fact that you have to audition for people and that you're rejected constantly,
Starting point is 00:14:54 no matter what level you're at. You know, you read stories all the time, I'm sure, about famous actors who had to fight for a role and didn't get it. Right. At the height of their fame. Yeah. So, you know, you can't take it too terribly seriously if you do your, you won't have a very good time being an actor. Were you a popular kid in high school growing up? Were you always the good-looking athlete or did you get in the theater in high school? And I also want to know what your upbringing was. But how are your parents? Because they worked in restaurants, right?
Starting point is 00:15:28 My dad and his brother, but my dad started. I owned a restaurant in a coal mining town in West. Virginia, called Beckley, West Virginia. And so I grew up playing a role in a way because I was the son of Greek immigrant. I was a first generation of American. In fact, when my parents would take me places where they would get together with other Greeks, because there were no Greeks in my hometown, they would parade me up to people and say, okay, tell them what you are. And I would say, I'm 100% American and full-blooded Greek. And that was the the dichotomy of my growing up in this town, and that is that my parents spoke Greek at home.
Starting point is 00:16:11 We ate Greek. We lived that way. All my relatives were Greek. But when I went to school, I had to be somebody else. And so the answer to the question is, I was popular, but I was popular because I set out to be popular. Because I knew that if I didn't, that I would be perhaps, at least this was in my imagination that I'd be ostracized in some way. Because I was different. So I played that role for a long time. And in fact, all the way through college, not all the way, but like halfway through college, I was in politics at my university, at Western University.
Starting point is 00:16:51 I was on, you know, the coordinator of Homecoming Weekend. I was in the sophomore honorary because I made good grades. I was a coordinator of leadership conference. I was going to be the student body president. So you were confident. You had a lot of confidence. Well, under that patina of confidence was insecurity of I'll be discovered if I don't keep playing this role. And it wasn't until I first appeared on a stage with a sizable audience that I went,
Starting point is 00:17:28 oh, here I can pretend and it's accepted. and I don't have to, I don't have to make excuses for it to myself. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Inside of you is brought to you by Rocket Money. I'm going to speak to you about something that's going to help you save money. Period.
Starting point is 00:17:48 It's Rocket Money. It's a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. This is just some wonderful app. There's a lot of apps out there that really, you know, you have to. do this and pay for and that but with rocket money it's they're saving you money you're getting this app to save money um i don't know how many times that i've had these unwanted subscriptions that i thought i canceled or i forgot to you know the free trial ran at ryan i know you did it that's
Starting point is 00:18:22 why you got rocket money i did yeah and i also i also talked to a financial advisor recently and i said i had rocket money and they said that's good this will help you keep track of your uh budget see see it's only we're only here to help folks we're only trying to give you you know things that will help you so rocket money really does that rocket money shows you all your expenses in one place including subscriptions you forgot about if you see a subscription you no longer want rocket money will help cancel it rocket money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you the app automatically scans your bills to find opportunities to save and then goes to work to get you better deals they'll even
Starting point is 00:18:58 talk to the customer service so you don't have to yeah because I don't want to. Press one now. If you want, oh, get alerts if your bills increase in price, if there's unusual activity in your accounts, if you're close to going over budget, and even when you're doing a good job, Rocket Money's 5 million members have saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions. With members saving up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features, cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Download the Rocket Money app and enter my show name inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum in the survey so they know I sent you.
Starting point is 00:19:40 Don't wait. Download the Rocket Money app today and tell them you heard about them from my show. Inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum. Rocket Money. Inside of you is brought to you by Quince. I love quince, Ryan. I've told you this before. I got this awesome $60 cashmere sweater. I wear it religiously. you can get all sorts of amazing, amazing clothing for such reasonable prices. Look, cooler temps are rolling in. And as always, Quince is where I'm turning for fall staples that actually last. From cashmere to denim to boots, the quality holds up and the price still blows me away. Quince has the kind of fall staples you'll wear nonstop, like Super Soft, 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters, starting at just 60 bucks. Yeah, I'm going to get you one of those, I think.
Starting point is 00:20:29 I like to see you in a cashmere. Maybe a different color, so we don't look like twins. Their denim is durable and it fits right. And their real leather jackets bring that clean, classic edge without the elevated price tag. And what makes Quince different? They partner directly with ethical factories and skip the middlemen. So you get top tier fabrics and craftsmanship at half the price of similar brands. These guys are for real.
Starting point is 00:20:53 They have so much great stuff there that you just have to go to Quince. Q-U-I-N-C-E. I'm telling you, you're going to love this place. Keep it classic and cool this fall with long-lasting staples from Quince. Go to quince.com slash inside of you for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash inside of you. Free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash inside of you. Did you deal with any anxiety growing up being that you felt like you had to cover up?
Starting point is 00:21:32 Oh, like it's false bravado. I have to prove that I'm somebody else. Absolutely. All the time. That was my constant struggle when I was growing up. Plus, there was friction at home. My dad was an old-fashioned Greek and my mom was a very lively, much younger bride. and he was constantly he was psychologically abusive and she had lots of psychosomatic problems because of it
Starting point is 00:22:05 and it's a complicated story. I'm actually writing a memoir and I'll get into that more. Perhaps if anybody listening reads it someday, they'll see. But yeah, I was, I think that's one of the reasons why I ultimately became an actor. I think me too. I think that there was so much, I talked about this recently, but the chaos that was going on in my house, it just did, I wanted, I actually became, I would stay at my friend's house and their parents would sort of be my parents. I would spend in weeks there or nights there. And I just didn't really want to be home all the time. And it was just kind of, it was kind of crazy. And I didn't think it really affected me as a child. But when you get older, you start to have certain issues and things start to come out. And you realize, wow, I was anxious. I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, living in a, you know, I was, I was under a lot of stress and I didn't realize it. And that's how you felt. Yeah. And I didn't realize it either until later. How much later? The first time I went into therapy. When was that? Oh, gosh. That was when my first marriage was breaking up. And I was
Starting point is 00:23:11 completely kind of gobsmacked by it and didn't, you know, totally unexpected. I didn't understand what was going on. And so I needed to talk to somebody. And I went to see this actually, terrific therapist. And a lot of this stuff started to kind of bubble to the surface. And that's when I started talking about it. And I'm still talking about it. I'm talking about it with you. Yeah. Right now.
Starting point is 00:23:33 It's freeing, isn't it? When you start to let these things out or start to understand what may have caused these issues or cause a certain way you act and act out and say things and like, why am I doing this? And I'm, oh, I'm, wow, I sound like my father. I sound like, you know, you're a product of your own environment. So having a deal with it's also very tough. I'm sure it was pretty emotional for you.
Starting point is 00:23:54 Well, tremendously. But out of crisis comes understanding and a certain kind of, what, peace with whatever it was that happened, that was the catalyst for the crisis, you know? And if you haven't been through it, then if you haven't been through any crises in your life, first of all, I don't know anybody who hasn't. Yeah, I don't know anyone. Yeah. So we're all kind of brothers and sisters in that regard that we all have that in common. Humanity does. Right. Some of us recognize it. Some of us don't. But I think one of the things about being an actor is that it says to people, look, this is, do you see something of yourself in this situation or in this character? And that's the great gift that we're able to share with people. Yeah. I feel like a lot of my things, the things that came out were ego. A lot of ego things. I was upset by things because maybe they didn't go my way or I wasn't in control. You talked about your first marriage. Was that something that wasn't your choice that you didn't want a divorce? At the time, no. But in retrospect, it was the best thing that could have happened for me at that time because it made me look at some things that I'd never look at. that before, that I'd taken for granted, you know, ways that I dealt with other people with
Starting point is 00:25:26 women in particular, which kind of mirrored my relationship with my mom, if you get into the kind of the therapeutic part of it. Right. So it was revelatory. I didn't necessarily completely learn my lesson the first time. So I had to get married. Yeah. I had to get married again. Right. And ended up. happily for a time and also having children, which was really important to me. And I have three kids now, and I have nine grandchildren. Wow. My children are grown up, and I have, you know, this passal of grandchildren,
Starting point is 00:26:03 just the delight of my life. And then that marriage ended in a kind of crisis situation that was actually, the catalyst was financial trouble on that time. And now I'm married for, well, married for more than 25 years, but together with my wife, Joanna, for over 30 years. We've got the 30 years. That's amazing. And we live, we have a wonderful life.
Starting point is 00:26:30 We have these grandchildren. So all of that, if it had my first marriage hadn't ended, this life that I'm living now wouldn't have existed. Isn't that something? So when something bad happens, you have to know that you're going to learn from it and hopefully something good from it that's meant to be. If you believe in all that is going to happen. Yeah. And your first wife was Susan Sarandon, obviously.
Starting point is 00:26:51 Correct. And I didn't know that until I read about it. Yeah. I mean, and she took your name, right? She did. Yeah. And she still owes me. Do you guys even talk or was it wasn't?
Starting point is 00:27:04 We haven't we haven't talked in a long time, although we do stay in touch occasionally because I had a very strong relationship. She's one of a number of children. She's the oldest of eight or nine. I can't remember now how many. but I had a relationship with all of her siblings when I was, she and I were married. And so I, and her parents, whom I knew well. And actually, her mom ended up being a friend of my mom's post.
Starting point is 00:27:33 This is like, you know, maybe 15 years ago because they lived in the same town and they ended up connecting. But no, we don't, we're not in sort of constant touch. I think one of the reasons probably is we didn't have children together. Right. Whereas my ex, Lisa, and I have three kids together, and we're still, you know, we have Thanksgiving together. Wow. She and husband come down with their kids because they've had a couple of kids since Lisa and I divorced.
Starting point is 00:28:02 And we all get together and we hang out. And she and my Joanna are good friends. That's that. You don't hear that very often. It sounds to me like even with the first marriage with Susan, it sounds like there's really no ill will. You've let bygones be bygones. you sort of, that's, that's rare. Usually I hear horror stories in Hollywood that they hate each other, they don't talk.
Starting point is 00:28:23 I could tell you about my parents haven't talked in over 20 years. They wouldn't want to see each other. It's not fun. No, it was very, very amicable. In fact, Susan and I used the same lawyer for our divorce. Really? We went to one person as a kind of arbitrator, and he kind of worked things out for us financially. And post the separation,
Starting point is 00:28:46 she went to the Oscars with me when I was nominated. What? She was my date. Yeah. That's remarkable. Yeah. She was great. She is great.
Starting point is 00:28:56 She's a remarkable woman. Yeah, that's pretty special. I mean, were you one of those actors who once you started doing theater and you hear this a lot where that's all I want to do? I'm a theater actor. I'm an actor. I don't want to do movies. Or were you always sort of thinking ahead of the game like, hey, hopefully this leads
Starting point is 00:29:11 me to, what was your dream? What were you thinking about? I think the latter. I think that there. was a hope that I'd have a career in all the mediums, particularly in movies, because I've been a movie lover since I was young and have only become more so as I've gotten older. And I have a veneration of a kind of worship for the history of film. Or as it was called at the time when I'm the biggest fan of the 30s, 40s, 50s, but mostly that golden age of the 30s and 40s.
Starting point is 00:29:46 of motion pictures. Inside you is brought to you by Rocket Money. If you want to save money, then listen to me because I use this. Ryan uses as so many people use Rocket Money. It's a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions. Crazy, right? How cool is that? Monitorers your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings.
Starting point is 00:30:11 And you know what's great? It works. It really works. Ryan. Rocket money will even try to negotiate lowering your bills for you. The app automatically scans your bills to find opportunities to save and then goes to work to get you better deals. They'll even talk to customer service. Thank God. So you don't have to. I don't know how many times we talk about this, but like, you know, you got it and they helped you in so many ways. And with these subscriptions that you think are like, oh, it's a one month subscription for free and
Starting point is 00:30:42 then you pay, well, we forget. We want to watch a show on some streamer, and then we forget, and now we owe $200 by the end of the year. They're there to make sure those things don't happen, and they will save you money. You know, Rocket Money's 5 million members have saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions with members saving up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features. Get alerts if your bills increase in price, if there's unusual activity in your accounts if you're close to going over budget and even when you're doing a good job. How doesn't everybody have Rocket Money? It's insane. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Download the Rocket Money app and enter my
Starting point is 00:31:26 show name inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum in the survey so they know that I sent you. Don't wait. Download the Rocket Money app today and tell them you heard about them from my show. It's Rona Week. Now until Wednesday. Rain or shine, you can always be building yourself a better summer. So head on over to Rona and save 35% on cans of 3.78-liter Rona interior paint. Give that room you keep saying needs a fresh coat of paint, a fresh coat of paint. Build it right, build it Rona. Conditions apply, details in store, and more offers at rona.ca.
Starting point is 00:32:05 We sell buckets too. Ever wonder how dark the world can really get? dive into the twisted, the terrifying, and the true stories behind some of the world's most chilling crimes. Hi, I'm Ben. And I'm Nicole. Together we host Wicked and Grimm, a true crime podcast that unpacks real-life horrors one case at a time.
Starting point is 00:32:25 With deep research, dark storytelling, and the occasional drink to take the edge off, we're here to explore the Wicked and Reveal the Grim. We are Wicked and Grim. Follow and listen on your favorite podcast platform. Who are your influences? Who were the actors that you admired that you wanted it? I don't know if emulates the right word, but sort of like wanted to say, I want to be someone like that.
Starting point is 00:32:49 When I first started, it was Olivier, was Lawrence Olivier, who was a theater actor, but who worked in films and who was a character actor, even though he was a leading man. And I knew that I didn't look like a character actor, but I felt like one because I had a facility with, you know, with accents. I have a great ear, so I'm really good with accents. I have a facility of observation and of curiosity. And I've always thought of myself as a character actor, never as a leading man. What accents can you do?
Starting point is 00:33:26 But I know you could do the English accent really well, but like what other ones can you easily just jump into? Well, I can do lots of accents of people who don't speak English as a first language. You know, I have a great Italian accent because I was in a play where I had to be an Italian Aberdasher, a man who sold great, wonderful clothes, all right? That's amazing. Also, obviously, I do very, I can do my father. Let's do the father. We got to hear the father.
Starting point is 00:34:01 My father was, he had very strong Greek Eklund. and he was a, he was very, he was a quiet man, my father. That is, can you do Scottish? Oh, that's one that I, I won't even attempt because it's, it's not very good, my Scottish accent. It's not good, but wow. I used to do a great North Country accent because I did a play in England, I did a North Country play when I was much younger. I don't remember it terribly well, so I'm not going to embarrass myself here. But I just always, you know, of course, New York, you got to have that one, you know, in your pocket.
Starting point is 00:34:41 Yeah. And Chicago, I played a cop, Chicago cop. You still got it. I mean, it's like, wow. But to me, that was what was, you know, was attractive about Olivia is because he changed. He was a chameleon. As I got older, I started appreciating more the people who were, who worked a little more organically than Olivia. David did, who was, he always said it was, he had to create the outside and then the inside
Starting point is 00:35:09 came. Right. I started learning that the inside is more important. And the outside, you can always, you know, you can always paint with colors on the outside. But the inside has to come from some experience. Right. What about when you're first transitioning from theater to TV, didn't you do a soap opera for a while? Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:30 That was my first job when I got to New York. I got a soap opera almost right away. I mean, it was unheard of. You auditioned and immediately got it. I got it. But, of course, I was, I played the guy who was scrubbing in the pre-op as the lead actors came through on their way to the operating room. Awesome. And basically, my line was, good morning, doctor.
Starting point is 00:35:52 That was my line. But didn't you become a regular? No. I was a part, I was basically, I was like a, you know, I was, I was guaranteed an episode. and a half a week for $275 an episode. So I made like $350 a week, which paid my rent. And my rent was only $250 or something like that in a one-bedroom apartment in New York, if you can believe it.
Starting point is 00:36:16 And then I got a Broadway show of the Rothschilds. And, you know, I was in that for almost a year. And then I started doing theater again. And then I got, I was replaced somebody else in a place where I will Julia in a Broadway. musical. Wow. I'd never done a musical before. So you were getting a lot of attention in the Broadway scene. They were, your name was getting known. I was starting to anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then dog day happened. I mean, did you obviously audition for it? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Did you, who'd you audition for? Sydney, LeMette, the director and Al Pacino and the producers, Marty
Starting point is 00:36:57 Elfond and Marty Bregman. Marty Bregman was Al's manager, I think, at the time. Were you nervous in the room? Well, you know... It's such a cool character who's kind of like the nerves get to him anyway, in a way. Well, actually, it's interesting because it... I don't know about you. And you tell me, when you read something that really fits and you understand it and you know what you're doing, then the nerves are there, but it's not about, oh, my God,
Starting point is 00:37:25 I'm going to fuck this up. It's more about, oh, man, I have to ride this. Right. I have to ride this at the moment. I have to feel that I have to really get into this right now. And the nerves help. They don't help when you're unsure. Do you do anything to prepare before you go into a room?
Starting point is 00:37:45 When you're about to go into a room, is there something you do, any kind of practice that you have, any breathing, or do you just go? You don't think about it. If I'm prepared, I basically just go. Yeah, it doesn't really, I don't think it necessarily. I mean, you know, I got advice one time a long time ago when I was a young actor of just think of them. When you walk in the room, think of them sitting on a toilet.
Starting point is 00:38:09 Everybody you're auditioning for it. That's the common denominator. We all have to take a dump at some point in our lives, right? Yes. And they're not, you know, there's nothing extra special about these people. But for the Dog Day audition, it was really interesting because, first of all, this was, it was a great script. Yeah. It won an Academy Award.
Starting point is 00:38:31 It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, I think, and had won for best screenplay, Frank Pearson. Right. Right. And I immediately understood this character. And I think part of that was understanding the otherness of somebody who is, his body is foreign to him. Yeah. And in my case, my psyche was kind of foreign. I was, you know, I was this Greek-American.
Starting point is 00:38:59 100% American, full-blooded Greek. And so I understood Leon Shermer's, the name of the guy in the movie. Yeah. And I just got it. And so I went in very prepared. Did you read with Al? Did you read with Al? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:39:16 Yeah. We read the telephone scene. The telephone scene. I love that scene because you're like, you're holding your buttons on your shirt or something. That comes from a, I stole that from a photograph of the guy coming, being let out of the police car and his clutching his robe around him to maintain his privacy, you know. Yeah, I just thought it was like a nervous, cool little tick that you were doing.
Starting point is 00:39:40 I stole it. I stole it. Did you, when you, let me ask you, when you finish this audition and you're, you just read with Al, did you get any sort of affirmation or any kind of like, well, it was obvious that it was going well. And Sidney Lumutt came over to me and he gave me. the best note, I think probably I've ever gotten from a director. What was it? He said, because I was playing it very sort of Blanche Dubois, right? Right.
Starting point is 00:40:10 And Sidney said, a little less Blanche Dubois, a little more Queen's housewife when you come back. Wow. And that was the note that went, oh, oh, okay. All right, now I know how to locate this guy. And also that he's not this, what? this elevated queen he was a queen's housewife wow and you just didn't you knew exactly what he wanted so the next time i came in i read with all and i did you know i was it was i was talking you know wow that is so cool i could just i could just see the room i mean did you know after that the
Starting point is 00:40:52 next time you read was there something that made you go i got this fucking thing yeah yeah what was it But just that, you know, there was a real sort of palpable sense of everybody being genuinely, we really like that. That was great. And you don't often have that in an audition because people always play it so cool. Yeah. But you let it all out there. You're like, this is the role. This is the part.
Starting point is 00:41:18 And I think there's something to be said about when you audition and you get the part, you know that that's what they want. But when you get an offer for a movie, and I've had some, you know, a few offers here and there on TV. offer you get there and you're like uh what part of me do they want here i you know you're unsure of yourself and then if they don't want it's it's it's it's almost like an audition believe it or not even though i hate auditioning is better how do you feel about that i don't know that auditioning is necessarily better well yeah maybe if if the circumstances are like the one that i just described but you don't often have that kind of experience i mean you know especially early in my career when I'd go into auditions, I felt, you know, totally disoriented.
Starting point is 00:42:01 I didn't know what the hell was going on. And after a while, you know, you kind of get the feel for what it's like to go in a room and impress people, quote, end quote, impress. And the best way to do that is to be prepared and to know the character. And always the most disastrous auditions are the ones where I don't know who this person is. Yeah. Or you don't know the material or you don't know the material. or you don't know the material well enough.
Starting point is 00:42:27 Yeah. Or I don't really have a line into who this person is. This was your first audition for a film at this point? Or no, no, was this the first role you got, first film role? It was the first role I got. I don't remember. I probably auditioned for things before that. I don't remember, quite frankly.
Starting point is 00:42:45 It's been so long. Yeah. But this was definitely the first big role I got. A big role, not really a big role. Were you surprised when you got nominated for an Academy Award for it? I was, I was grateful. I wasn't totally surprised because I was getting a lot of positive feedback when the movie came out that it was a, you know, that it had an impact. Particularly the phone scene with Al.
Starting point is 00:43:15 And a lot of that, oddly enough, despite the fact that it was a great script, a lot of that scene was improvised. around the original writing of the scene. That is, Al and I, Sidney Lament always rehearses, her rehearsed his movies. And this one, Dog Day, rehearsed for like two or three weeks. Wow. Like a play. You know, the furniture was taped out on the floor. There were, you know, props.
Starting point is 00:43:43 And Al and I were sitting and reading the phone scene the first time. And we were reading it through together. And we both had the same reaction, which was, My wife, who's a wonderful, amazing acting teacher, she calls putting a hat on a hat. When something's already there, when the situation is melodramatic, you don't need to play melodrama. The writing doesn't have to be melodramatic. The situation takes care of that. And in the original writing of that scene, it was high drama immediately, calling each other names, pissed off.
Starting point is 00:44:19 Because their relationship in real life, these two guys, was highly volatile. You know, I mean, crazy shit that went on between these guys, right? And ultimately, they got married and a church wedding and Leon was, you know, a full bride regalia. I have a photo of that, by the way, which is quite a story about that too. Oh, you might have to send that. You might have to send that. And so we both thought, you don't have to start the scene at DefCon 1. The scene should start with, you know, two people who haven't seen each other a while. a while, and what's going on?
Starting point is 00:44:55 How you doing, basically? I don't know. I'm, you know, and then you start kind of, because they've known each other for years. It's not like this is a new event for them, speaking on the phone. But then the melodrama sort of evolves in the scene. And Alan and I started riffing on what it might be like
Starting point is 00:45:15 if we started it differently. And he said, wait, wait, wait, wait. And he got somebody with a tape recorder. And so we recorded one with the information. that was in Frank Pearson's scene, but we kind of redid it, just reshuffled it a bit, right? And when we finished, Cindy said, okay, this is missing, we need this information, so-and-so. And then we did another improv, and they recorded that one. And then we did a, like maybe two or three more.
Starting point is 00:45:41 And then all of us got together, as I recall in Marty Bregman's office one evening, and we looked through all the scripts and we collated them into one. And that's the scene that's in the movie. Wow. That never happens. Rarely happens. Never, never, never. Are you, to this day, when's the last time you talked to Al Pacino?
Starting point is 00:46:01 I run into him occasionally. Last time I saw him, I think I was leaving a restaurant and I think he was arriving and we stood and chatted for a few minutes. And in fact, I wrote him a letter recently, about three or four months ago, ask him to do my podcast. And he demurred because he was very busy, but he wrote me a nice note back. and, you know, we kind of exchange information more than anything. Do you keep in touch with any actors from any of the movies that you've done?
Starting point is 00:46:33 Oh, yeah. You do. You become friends with a lot of people. It depends on the circumstances of the movie. I mean, I'm sure you've had this experience, too, where if the experience isn't great, then you probably end up staying away from those people. Have you had those where you don't like working with someone? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:46:51 Yeah. And how do you deal with that? And I won't speak ill of the dead. No. That's all I'll say. Right. But you just, it wasn't a good experience. Oh, man. Oh, God.
Starting point is 00:46:58 They put you through hell. Oh, Jesus. But the Fright Night people, all, we're all still friends. You know, I'm in touch with them, you know, maybe a couple of times a month. John Stark and Tom Holland and Amanda Burris and Bill Ragsdale. But, you know, whatever we do a convention where the movie is featured, we get together and we sit and we talk and we eat. We laugh a lot. We laugh a lot.
Starting point is 00:47:26 Carrie Elis and I stay in touch from Princess Bride. Wow. Very much. Every once in a while, I'll share a text with Rob Reiner. But Carrie and I are very close friends. Did you have any idea? I mean, I know you like the script and it drew you to, you know, take the part in Fright Night as Jerry Dandrich. But did you, did you, while you were filming, did you say there's something special here?
Starting point is 00:47:52 something different here? I thought so, absolutely. You felt that. Script was great and also Tom knew exactly how he wanted to shoot the movie. He described it to me when we first met. He went through it so literally scene by scene, shot by shot. He described the whole movie to me. I love Tom Holland. I love that man I played tennis with him up into his house.
Starting point is 00:48:11 He's an extraordinary guy. Well, he obviously loved you because he brought you in the child's play as well. Yeah, yeah. He fought, Tom fought for me on that movie. Really? The studio, yeah, the studio didn't want me. and the producers. And Tom basically said,
Starting point is 00:48:25 I'm going to do this movie, and I'm going to do it with him. Yeah. I think, you know, you have this knack for, you play some of these characters that are, you know, evil or dark,
Starting point is 00:48:35 but you bring something to it that makes them so likable, which is very difficult to do, but it's also, it makes the characters more likable. And the believability, when you're doing Fright Night, that's one of the things that I loved
Starting point is 00:48:48 is all the actors really committed. And it wasn't this far. It was like, you had Roddy McDowell and everybody took their part and ran with it. And you played this villainous character and yet you were so likable and charismatic. And is that something that they just offered you the role, right? Yes. Yeah. Did you come up with all these things or did Tom give you a direction?
Starting point is 00:49:09 We had a really nice collaboration in the making of the movie. And I have to credit Tom tremendously for for both accepting my ideas and also offering me stuff. that made the character particularly more seductive because that was an important element than the character. You know, the fact that you have to believe that these, the victims are willingly going to this guy.
Starting point is 00:49:36 Right. And part of that is the fact that he has this kind of seductive charisma. Yeah. Where he's very, very charming and likable when you meet him on a human level. Yeah. Right?
Starting point is 00:49:52 And then there were also, there was stuff like, you know, the kind of light motif of Jerry Dandridge eating the fruit. The apple. Yeah. People, you know, I've talked about this a lot. But how do you create a background for a character who's not human? So you have to, you know, you have to come up with some ideas. And one of the ideas I had was, well, let me check out vampire bats and see if there's anything there. And I discovered that the majority, something like 90, 80, 90% of the bats that live in nature are fruit bats.
Starting point is 00:50:28 So I thought, well, what if there's a little, what if there's a little fruit bat DNA in Jerry Danridge? That he craves fruit. So Tom loved the idea, and we worked it in. And out of that came that great thing that he does cinematically, where Charlie is sitting in the bushes. spying on Jerry and Jerry walks out of the house and he's eating an apple and he takes a bite out of it and he knows Charlie's there and he throws the apple toward where Charlie's hiding. And the apple rolls up and you see this, this grotesque bite that's come out of the apple that's not human. That's Tom taking my idea and turning it into something that's just, you know, a coup to whatever you want to call it.
Starting point is 00:51:13 Well, I have the poster right here. You're so cool Brewster Tom Holland. He's signed my Friday Night poster. It's right across me. You can't see it. But lastly about Fright Night, Roddy McDowell. I mean, what can you say? Are there any special stories you haven't told or that you remember little moments that you're like, wow, this guy's great. I just remember Roddy being so accessible and also being such a font of Hollywood history. And to me, that's, you know, Mother's Milk. I love those stories. The stories about the people he worked with. And he also, over the time, over the years that I got to know Roddy, he included us in his life. And it so happened that my wife, Joanna, and he did a play together on the road. So she knew him really well. So we would go to his house and have dinner
Starting point is 00:52:01 with, you know, folks. We never had dinner with Elizabeth Taylor. But I held out the possibility at some point that we would. Who's the most famous person you've had dinner with? Besides Al Pacina, you've probably eaten with Al. Yeah, yeah. I've eaten. without um golly sean connery sean connery yeah i did a movie with sean in spain how is how was he oh he was so great sean uh very down-to-earth scotsman uh you know this just this assault of the earth kind of guy who also was a very very uh conscientious actor and would love to run scenes and rehearse and and do the work you know sean didn't just show up he He knew what he was doing.
Starting point is 00:52:51 So, yeah. He didn't just depend on that amazing Sean Connery charisma. He was also somebody who worked hard at it. What do you talk to Sean Connery about at dinner? Oh, everything. What did he want to talk about? Well, he wanted to talk. He wanted to talk about golf, which wasn't very interesting to me.
Starting point is 00:53:10 But we talked about the theater. We talked about acting. We talked about movies. We talked about, we also. had the cast of that movie. This movie called Cuba, which is kind of disappeared. It was directed by Richard Lester, who directed Hard Day's Night and Help. Oh, wow. And the three musketeers, the earlier three musketeers. And Richard was a very interesting guy who didn't like making movies. He loved editing movies, but he didn't like making them. So there was a, so we talked
Starting point is 00:53:42 a lot about Richard and, you know, our, our difficulties with Richard. who was a charming, lovely man, but not fun in terms of actually working. Did you get offered, by the way, did you get offered Princess Bride? Was that an offer? No, I auditioned. You did? Yeah, I auditioned for Rob Reiner and Bill Goldman. How many times?
Starting point is 00:54:04 William Goldman. Once. Yeah. Did you have the English accent? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You poured it on. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:54:13 Yeah, yeah. Just with a, you know, with a paintbrush and a, you know, bucket and, you know, whatever I could. Absolutely. No, it was actually, it was a fun audition because it was at William Goldman's apartment on Central Park West and I was on my way to the audition and I remember I took a bus up town and I had the New York Daily News I think it was and on the back page was the, as always the sports section. I'm a big sports fan and I was pissed off because the Knicks had drafted a guy that I thought was a disaster, right? Right.
Starting point is 00:54:50 And so I'm holding this paper. And for some reason, I knew the scene. I knew it, you know, I knew what I was doing. I felt confident. And I walked in and they both, you know, Rob is such a, he's just such a minch. Yeah. And, you know, he came up and he shook my hand. How you doing?
Starting point is 00:55:05 Nice to meet you. How's it going? I love your, I love your acting, you know, a wonderful career. And Bill Goldman, who is a little shy. And I said, well, I said, to be honest, I'm in a really kind of bad mood because the New York Knicks just drafted Kenny Walker. And Bill Goldman immediately perked up because he's a huge Knicks fan, right? And he and I started talking about this trade. Well, I mean, this draft choice.
Starting point is 00:55:33 And we talked for maybe 15 minutes. We were going on and on about the Knicks and how they'd fuck things up and that and that. And finally, Rob interrupted us and he said, excuse me, can I? Can I interrupt you guys? Would you mind reading, Chris? Oh, my God. Of course not. And I read the scene.
Starting point is 00:55:53 And after I finished, not after I finished, just the sort of penultimate line in the scene. Rob started laughing hilariously. And he's a great audience. It's one of his, you know, great talents. Right. And after it was over, I said, he said, that was perfect. That was just fucking fabulous. That was just great.
Starting point is 00:56:17 And I realized that I played the scene very seriously because comedy is a serious business. Yes. You know? Yeah. And the tone that I established in the scene was just what he was looking for. And that's what did it. So you didn't play it up at all. Do you remember the scene?
Starting point is 00:56:36 Do you remember what? Yeah. Yeah. It's where Humberdink says to her, I hope you'll consider me as an alternative to suicide. because she talks about how she's buttercup is going to throw herself off a parapet or something. I can't remember exactly what her line was. And Humberding looks at her very sincerely
Starting point is 00:56:51 because he can sell it, this guy. He knows how to sell it. And he says sincerely, totally sincerely, I hope you'll consider me as an alternative to suicide. You can't play that line humorously. Just as you can't, you know, I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan my wife to murder, gilder to frame for it.
Starting point is 00:57:12 swamped. You can't say, you can't do that with, you know, you can't consider what's the comic timing. Right. Right. You know, you have to, you have to know what Humperding is after at that, at that moment in his life. Was there a lot of direction during the movie? Did he have direction for you or did you, for the most part, were doing your own thing? I think that one of the thing that Rob does really well is he trusts casting. She trusts his actors. He believes strongly in casting the right people and and except for a few things I would get some direction for Rob and I would say okay and I would try it that way and then he'd say okay now try it your way and sometimes he'd take my take and sometimes he take his but that's you know that's
Starting point is 00:57:58 joy to have that kind of director you know that there's a moment at the end of the movie where where Wesley says that they're confronting each other. And you know, the audience knows that Wesley is severely compromised, right? And Humperding is about to engage him in sword play. And he's the world's greatest swordsman, except for, of course, Wesley and Indigo. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, uh, and, and, uh, Humperding says to him something like, you know, I know that you're compromised. I know that you're, you, you're, you're not, are you, you, you're, you're not, are you bluffing, and he says, drop that sword, and he sticks his sword out, and Humbering drops the
Starting point is 00:58:46 sword and goes and sits down, right? The coward beneath the facade comes out. And just as a natural thing, because of the costume, I took my, I took the tail of the costume and tucked it under me as I sat down. And Rob came over to me and thought, I think that's a little over the top. Can you not do that this time and we did it the other way and then he said let's do it again and do it your way and that's the take he kept really yeah and it's it's funny but it's it's situational funny right it's not you know again one of these movies where you're doing it you're like this is special again did you feel that with this one we knew that the this was a great script we all love the script I've read the book like 20 years before, and I just flipped over the book.
Starting point is 00:59:39 And we all knew that it was a great script. The casting was just, you know, out of this world. And Rob's take on it was obviously the right, exactly the right tone all the way through. You don't, and it's the same, I mean, it's actually similar in Fright Night, in that you have fun with the genre, but you don't make fun of it. Right. You don't look at the audience and wink and say, we're having fun with this, aren't we folks? You play it totally straight.
Starting point is 01:00:12 Right. That will kill it. The other way we'll kill it. Yeah. And so we knew that all that was in place. He had the best art director. He had the best, you know, the top of the line, British period, costume woman, Phyllis. I forgot Phyllis's last name now. The makeup people were wonderful. The DP was like one of the top DPs in England. Adrian Biddle. And, but at the same time, you know, as William Goldman said in his great book about Hollywood, he said the quote that everybody quotes is, nobody in Hollywood, nobody knows anything. Right? Yes.
Starting point is 01:00:54 In this case, Rob knew exactly what he had. What was problematic was the marketing of the movie. Because nobody knew how to pigeonhole it. Was it a romance? Was it a comedy? Was it an adventure? Was it a thrill? What was it?
Starting point is 01:01:13 And so when the movie first came out, the marketing was awful. Right. It was terrible. And so the movie did a sort of moderate amount of business, but over time, people discovered it and discovered what the tone of the movie was. And it's become this multi-generational phenomenon. It's extraordinary what happened. But there's no way to know that.
Starting point is 01:01:34 that's going to happen. No. No way. Is that a character you think that if someone asked you to revisit it, you could just jump into it today? Oh, absolutely. You could. You could just jump into it. Absolutely. We did it. We did, you know, we did the reading. We did the reading for Wisconsin Democrats and we made like something like five million bucks. Are you serious? Yeah. I got to listen. Where can I listen to that? Oh, I'm sure it's online somewhere. The Princess Bride reading with the, the, the, yeah, with the whole cast, except for obviously Andre, who had passed away. How was he? How was Andre?
Starting point is 01:02:09 A cutie pie. Really? Yes, the loveliest guy. And also the interesting, smart, and prodigious in so many ways, he was really, it was an extraordinary human being, Andre. That's amazing. When you, you had to audition for Jack Skellington, The Nightmare Before Christmas, right? You audition for that?
Starting point is 01:02:29 Yeah. I mean, talk about a role, a gift that keeps on. giving. Oh, boy. I mean, here's the, here's the luck in my life. Yeah, exactly. And that was, you didn't, you just auditioned. Obviously, Tim Burton just heard your voice. You didn't meet him, right? Yes. And they, they had already done Danny Elpin's songs. So they knew what kind of voice they were looking for for the speaking part of Jack Sealington. And I guess, you know, again, serendipity that I had a vocal timbre that, that matched. Danny's singing and uh that's it do you do anything with your voice could you jump into it do you
Starting point is 01:03:09 have a line you could say eureka eureka hello it's jack did you have to read twice or one audition and they're like this is a guy I just read once and what was Tim Burton like uh Tim I think people who know the movie know he didn't direct it, that Henry Selik directed it, wonderful stop action, stop motion action animated director. And then I got together with Tim after for ADR for looping because he was not satisfied with some of the line readings and I was not satisfied with some of my own work. And so I took some notes and I went in and Tim was very open about, you know, you want to make a change here. You want to try this. You want to try that. He was great. He was really, and still is. I mean, whenever I see him, he's, you know, open arms and he's a lovely guy.
Starting point is 01:04:09 So you're 80 years old. You don't feel 80. It's just a number. You have to keep reminding me. I have to keep reminding you. But what else do you think you want to do? Are you someone who are like, I've done enough, which obviously anybody looks at your body works gone, he's done enough. He can do whatever he wants now. Or do you still love to work? Do you still love doing it? I don't love acting as I shouldn't say I don't love acting. I don't love what goes into it as much as I used to because it's exhausting. Yeah. It's a it's a hard job. I'm not complaining because all those years I've done it. I've enjoyed every moment with the exception of one one movie. One movie.
Starting point is 01:04:55 What you can't say. Huh? What you can't say. say. Well, I can say, sure, the Sentinel. That's one movie you didn't like. From the beginning until the end. What was about that? The director. Really? Michael Winter, who was a not a, I mean, again, the speaking ill of the dead, but I spoke ill of him when he was alive. He just didn't like him. You didn't get along. He was a, he was a, a, a dick. He was a dick. Yeah. I mean, he, he did things on that film that were unforgivable with members of the of the uh some of the extras uh and some of the
Starting point is 01:05:33 things he would say he was a negative human being uh he was um i i it was one of those movies where you're like wow i he's making me hate acting for this movie yeah i i literally i literally quit for a while i i literally i didn't know what to do i was so disillusioned uh i ended up going to Africa. I said, I'm getting out of the country. I got to, I got to completely wash my system of this. And hopefully I'll feel refreshed when I come back. And I ultimately, I did. But boy, I was, I almost. And I, and the reason, this is because I did it for all the wrong reasons. I did it for money. I did it for the fact that I was becoming a movie star and a leading man. And I thought, well, this is the next step. I'm going to become even a bigger movie star.
Starting point is 01:06:30 And so I did it for all the wrong reasons. It had nothing to do with the work. It had nothing to do with the material. And so I learned my lesson. Never did it again. How long did it take to you before you got back to acting? Oh, God, six months at least. I was gone. It took me a week or two to figure out how to get out of the country and where to go. I talked to some people who had been to Africa and I went to Kenya and Tanzania by myself and I drove around for two weeks just driving through you know game reserves and what year was this oh god I have to look it up were you were you were you married at the time no you weren't so that's why you had the freedom I was separated yeah yeah I was by then by then I had separated Susan and I had separated
Starting point is 01:07:17 right man but you learned a lot from it I mean yeah absolutely you know it hadn't been for that movie i i'd have kept going on that path right and uh would have been a very unhappy guy ultimately this is called shit talking with chris sarandon this is these are my top tier patrons this is rapid fire if you want to become a patron you get to ask some questions that are patreon slash inside of you i love you i'll email you back they're great they're amazing and uh they have some questions so you could this is rapid fire if you want if you feel like elaborating you certainly can yeah um michelle k you've sort of talked about this a little bit but maybe There's a story you can share.
Starting point is 01:07:53 Any fun behind-the-scenes stories you can share on the filming of Princess Bride, or at least one? Walking through the halls of an old medieval castle that we shot in called Haddon Hall, and as I'm heading toward shooting a scene, suddenly I hear Rob Reiner, Chris Guest, and Mandy Patinkin singing Duwop. Duwop. Do-wop. Did you sing with him? Sadly, no. No. One of the regrets, only regret I have from that shoot. We already asked this. Emily S.
Starting point is 01:08:30 Did you have any good memories from working on the set with Andre the Giant? You already mentioned that. I mean, yeah, Andre was actually, I never worked specifically with Andre, but I got to be around him a lot. And he was just, yeah, he was a fabulous guy. In fact, I do have a great story about Andre. Say it. My daughters at the time were three and a half and two. And I'm heading to England And I had to be on location So they didn't come with me in the beginning
Starting point is 01:08:57 Because we were at a hotel up in the You know, Derbyshire somewhere And so I said, okay, I'm going to I'm going to England and I'm going to be And there's a princess in the movie And I'm assuming they're going to go, oh, really? And nothing. And then there's a sword fight
Starting point is 01:09:15 And then there's a giant And as soon as like the word giant Got out of my lips, both of my girls perked up and they started throwing peppering me with the question what's a giant like daddy how big is he is he as big as a house
Starting point is 01:09:27 he's as big as a car is he really really big could he pick you up and squash you with you you know just kids right so every time now I'm on location every time I talk to them they're as soon as I'd say hi kitties hi baby how are you
Starting point is 01:09:41 daddy loves you he misses you hi daddy where's the giant is he as big as a house is he big as a car same thing right so finally they come to England and I realize they have to meet Andre so I go to Andre and I say can the kids are yeah sure boss
Starting point is 01:09:56 so we so one day he's working when I'm not working the scene where he rescues Mandy the Indigo from he's in the brute he's the brute squad right and I we go to his trailer his trailer is as big as a box car because he couldn't get into the makeup trailer
Starting point is 01:10:13 and he's sitting down at the end right and I'm holding one of my kids and my ex-wife is holding the other and we walk up the steps and turn the corner and we look down the length of the makeup trailer and Andre gets up and suddenly the reality hits my girls and they start screaming at the top of their lungs
Starting point is 01:10:35 but in this, you know, high-pitched thing that little girls can do that little can shatter your nerves. They freaked out. They, and they wouldn't stop. And so I take them away and I go back to a pop. I apologize to Andre, and I say, Andre, I'm so sorry. And he said, don't worry, boss. They either run to me or they run away from me. And that was his experience because he was the most famous person in the world almost.
Starting point is 01:11:03 Wow. I would have loved to me. But he handled it beautifully. Oh, that is amazing. Sheila G. Just says favorite memory from working a nightmare before Christmas. Do you have any famous favorite memories? The first time I walked into the studio in San Francisco where we were shooting and there were,
Starting point is 01:11:18 The storyboards were on the walls. And I got to look at the sets and watch those extraordinary artists who actually did the stop motion. Do you have a lot of toys? Do you have a lot of Jack Skellington toys at the house? Actually, I have four or five of his, the original heads, Jackheads, because there were 400 of them. And I have the chalkboard, which is, I'm looking at it now in my office. It's over at the other side of the room. that Jack writes on when he's trying to figure out the formula for Christmas.
Starting point is 01:11:52 Right. Yeah. Do you keep anything else from other sets? Anything else? I used to keep flags. I have Prince Humperting's flag. I played A. Blinken a couple of times on PBS. I have a couple of old union flags from that time. I can't remember the other ones I had.
Starting point is 01:12:10 But I used to keep stuff like that. But I don't have a lot of stuff, no. Right. So, wait, did you say you wanted to start, you're starting a podcast? Yeah. Yeah. Well, what's it called? What's it going to be? It's called cooking by heart. I grew up in a restaurant. So I'm talking to friends of mine and hopefully you and I will have this conversation at some point. And we talk about how we grew up around food, what it was like around the dinner table when you were five years old, six years old, 10, 12, 15, whatever. And the stories that come out are extraordinary. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff that happens in these conversations. I don't know if you'd want to talk to me because my mom used to make a lot of frozen foods. That's part of what comes out. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 01:12:54 But also, also it ends up being about, it's not just about the food, it's about the people. And the stories attached to those times in your life. What's it going to be called? Do you have any idea yet? Cooking by heart. Oh, cooking by heart is the title. And when is that going to be available? We're shooting for an early fall launch.
Starting point is 01:13:15 Amazing. And where could they go to find this? I mean, I guess just wherever you get your podcasts. Wherever you're, yeah, wherever you find your favorite podcast. I'm leaving that up to other people. And are you on social media?
Starting point is 01:13:26 I am. And what's your, what's your Instagram? Uh, my Instagram is, uh, the, the Chris Sarandon.
Starting point is 01:13:33 I have to look it up. Look it up. You got to follow this guy. He's a legend. Yeah, yeah. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
Starting point is 01:13:40 It's, because I have, oh, it's the official Chris Sarandon. The official Chris Sarandon. Follow him. Carrie Elway's. follows him. Many people follow him. He's a delight. This has been a real joy. I love hearing
Starting point is 01:13:53 stories. I love here, you know, truthfully, I've seen, I've loved so many of your, of your movies. And I just love, I love meeting you and getting to know you a little bit better. And I got to know you a lot more today. And I think everyone else will. This has been a real treat. Listen to his new podcast. It's coming out. Follow him on Instagram, the legendary. Chris Sarandon. I have a website as well, chrisarandon.com. Chris Sarandon.com. And, hey, I really thank you for taking the time. Oh, please. My pleasure. My pleasure. All right. I'm going to keep in touch with you, whether you like it or not.
Starting point is 01:14:29 That's a deal. All right. Fine. Okay. I'll see you later. It was just really enjoyable. I wish that he was here in person. He wasn't. But just a wonderful guy. He does not appear to be 80 years old. I couldn't. believe it's amazing how he looks i hope i look like that i hope i'm in shape like he is and then i saw him uh you know after we recorded this i saw him at a con and just gave me the biggest hug and it was so sincere and sweet uh chris sarandon folks um yeah legend legend uh let's do it let's do the uh the shoutouts these are the top tier patrons go to patreon dot com slash inside of you
Starting point is 01:15:07 uh again uh these patrons get their name shouted out the end of every episode some have been here the beginning since the inception of the show or since patron started or I started doing it and couldn't thank you more. Couldn't thank you enough. Here we go. Nancy D. Leah S. Sarah V. Little Lisa, Yucico, Jill E. Brian H. Nico P.
Starting point is 01:15:27 Robert B. Jason W. Sophie M. Raj C. Joshua D. Jennifer N. Stacey L. Jamal F. Janelle B. Kimberly E. Mike E. L. Don Supremo. 99 more. Santiago M. Chad. W. Correct. Leanne P.
Starting point is 01:15:43 Jan N. M. M. Mady. Mady. Blanda. N. Chris. Sarandon. No. H. Chris H is right, Dave. Yep, H. Dave H is right. Sheila, Brad, D, Ray, H. Yes, Tabitha, Tom, Lillianna, A, Talia, C, no, M, Betsy, Chad, D, L. Marion, Dan, N, Big Stevie, W, Angel, I don't remember. M. Rianan, C, Corey.
Starting point is 01:16:19 L. Corey, K. Dev Next and Michelle A, Jeremy C, Andy T, Gavanator, David C. Ryan's upset with himself, John B, Brandy D, Camille S, Joey M, Eugene, N. Leah. Correct. Nikki G. Corey, Katie, B, Patricia, Heather L. Megan T, Mel S, Orlando C, Caroline R. Christine S, Sarah S, Eric, A, Shane, R, M, R, R, J.M.R. Jeremy B. Andrew M. Zadoici, 77. Hi, Zotoichi.
Starting point is 01:16:47 Oracle, Chris R. Karina, N. Michelle D. Amanda. to are gen b kevin e stephany k lena 82 jorrell bill yes you know it's nice to seeing a lot of those names are also patrons i'm talkful and they haven't left me on the show nice you guys haven't left me you've stuck with me and i don't know what else to say but thank you thank you so much for sticking around until next time we will see on the flip side uh from the hollywood hills in california i am Michael Rosenbaum. I am Ryan Taylor's. We appreciate you. A little wave for the camera. And as always, be good to yourself. Do what you have to do. Try to enjoy this. I was going to say, get through the day. But don't get through the day. Enjoy the day. Embrace the day, man. All right. We'll talk to you next week. See you. Ryan? Bye. From the pros, one of the most interesting quarterback rooms, to college. Michigan is set at eight and a half wins.
Starting point is 01:17:57 To fantasy. If you feel that way, why didn't you trade them? Become a better fan and listen to the football podcasts from Believe. Just search Believe. That's B-L-E-A-V podcast. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.