Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum - Horror Legend TOM HOLLAND: 60 Years of Stories

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Tom Holland joins us this week to share incredible story after story from his 60+ year tenure in Hollywood. From taking on the sequel that nobody dared to touch in Psycho 2, to the difficulties of making a doll that people feared in Child’s Play, to resurrecting the vampire genre with a love letter to horror fans in Fright Night… this man has stories! Tons of tales from some memorable eras of cinema. We also talk about how rare horror fans were during his youth, how he left law school to continue pursuing film, and how he found Lee Strasburg emotionally exhausting. Enjoy. Thank you to our Sponsors: ❤️ Betterhelp: https://betterhelp.com/insde 🛍️ Shopify: https://shopify.com/inside 🧑‍🦲 Freedom Grooming: https://freedomgrooming.com/inside ⛑️ First Alert: firstalert.com/firepreventionmonth 🦎 Geico: https://geico.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Good to see you, my friend. Good to see you, too. It's Halloween. It is Halloween. It is Halloween. You can feel it. You go to horror movies and pumpkins and trick-or-treating. And I might be a little too old for trick-or-treating.

You? Probably. No. But, you know, I've been watching some horror movies. We're watching more than ever because it's the holiday season, you know? A lot of bad ones. but i did see a good one and i saw one called smile and i really enjoyed it and guess what i got both the leads of that movie to come next week so we will see them next week kyle gowler and

socy bacon yeah they were just here yeah and i had no idea at all because i looked her up after it was kevin bacon and uh kira sedgwick's daughter isn't that fun isn't that fun isn't that fun very pretty bright fun eccentric talented actress she nailed it anyway Another awesome person that you're about to listen to, if you, those of you who listen to the podcast and don't, you know, veer away when you don't know someone or, you know, this guy is a legend. To me, he's a legend to him. Many people. He's a legend. His name is Tom Holland, not the actor Tom Holland. You can see Ryan is sitting right in front of my Fright Night poster. He signed it, You're So Cool Brewster. Tom Holland. He did Child's Play, created that and wrote that. He did, wrote Psycho 2. a ton of stuff the guy has done some amazing work we became friends i played tennis with him before i've gone on hikes with him i love his wife i got him to do the podcast actually he called me says i want to talk about my new book which sounds incredible but you guys are going to dig that

i appreciate you listening and making this podcast the podcast you're listening to it means the world to me and it really helps out please write a review after the podcast is over after you listen to it hopefully it will be a good review and our social if you want to follow us which helps are at inside of you pod on twitter at inside of you podcast on instagram and facebook you can watch on youtube you can listen anywhere uh that would be great go to the inside of you online store new merch great merch a whole bunch of smallville stuff sign stuff tumblers coffee mugs anything you can imagine and of course go to sunspin.com any minute we should have uh somewhere on that site with new sunspin t-shirts for the band uh new sunspin mugs

Sunspin calendars, Sunspin CDs that are going to be for order available before they come out. So you might want to get on that. Go to Sunspin.com. Keep checking. And you could also book us on a Zoom. You could also book us the band. So there's a lot of fun there. I think that's it.

And of course, Patreon. If you don't know what Patreon is, they really support the podcast in more ways than one. I give them shoutouts at the end of every episode. The top tiers, they get packages. More importantly, they keep the show alive. and I couldn't do the show without them. I always say that. So thank you all patrons.

Go to patreon.com slash inside of you. And I'll send you a message after you sign up. That is pretty much it. I can't wait for you guys to hear this podcast. I think Tom was a lot of fun. So, Ryan, did you enjoy Tom? I love good old Hollywood stories. I love when the good veteran.

I don't know much about them, but I know when the veterans come in, you're going to get some stories. Yeah. And they're good. Great stories. And, you know, I was surprised by a lot of things.

but we'll let you listen to it. Let's get inside of Tom Holland. It's my point of view. 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. I can't believe I can't believe I'm sitting here with the Tom Holland, not the English actor Tom Holland folks but Tom Holland the gifted

writer and director also actor now novelist you're sitting you're the first guest to actually sit in front of his poster I think actually Kiefer Sutherland sat right in front of his lost boys poster but you are sitting in front of the one of my favorite movies of all time

it's Halloween this is out Halloween and this is a perfect time for it but you directed and wrote one of my favorite movies of all time and a lot of people feel this way a lot fright night. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, it's just, it's one of those movies that you watch as when I was, I don't know, my teens, and it's one of those movies that last. You could watch it again and again and it still works. It's not like those movies

that you watch and you're like, huh, I remember Motel Hell being kind of scary, but I don't know, it's not that great anymore. And then, but this is one that holds up. And you've had a long career. You've done a lot of stuff. You look at your residence. man i'm like going holy shit psycho two you wrote child which was a success child's play created wrote directed langoliers fright night thinner it's just like i mean you're a legend you know that right you know you're a legend you're one of those big directors that people look up to i did i i did not know it it started about oh i don't know a long time ago maybe maybe even uh i don't know 16 17 years ago Rob G. Rob Galuzzo, if you know him.

Who's that? He's a horror fan. Right. And he's the first one that appeared on my doorstep, knocking on my door, because he was crazy in love with Psycho 2. And he ended up doing the documentary of Psycho 2. But that was the first inkling that I had that the movies that I had done decades previously still had a life and were appreciated.

Was this the way this guy showed up to your house? He showed up with another friend of his from Long Island, and he wanted to do a documentary on Psycho 2, and he knew everything about it. Really? Yeah, but then we got into it, and he couldn't afford to get the photographs from the movie, from Universal, because they were so expensive to license. And I had all the Polaroids that I'd taken on set. Me and Tony, me and Robert Loja, me and Vera Miles, and I let him use them in the, in the, in the documentary for free.

Wait, you, so you are like, it sounds to me, and I think, I've been to your house a few times. We've been on a hikes. I've seen your stuff. I love your wife. By the way, how's she doing? Is she doing a little better? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's all right. Yeah, it's all right. It's all right. It's all right. It's all right. I love her. She's got an attitude on her.

Yeah, she's got an attitude on her. I like her. Um, but is this something that you always wanted to do? Were, like, were you fascinated by horror? I mean, I know you acted a little bit when you were younger and you actually acted not too many years ago, but is it, did you always want to, did you like the macabre, the dark, was that always in your mind? And what started all that?

Well, it's very, very hard to describe Michael because it was such a different time. When I, I was a horror fan before there were horror fans. I'm talking the late 50s. I'm taught, it's the, it's Stephen King's growing up. It's pretty much the same thing. It was EC Comics. If you look at his short stories, he's doing EC Comics. EC Comics was like 1955 or 56.

Then they created such a furor that they were banned. And what happened, that of course made high school kids like me go absolutely crazy for EC Comics. And when they were banned, a small group, maybe four or five other guys, it was guys, not girls, in Osseting Public High School, started trading EC Comics under the table. And EC Comics was a horror kind of comic? EC Comics is like Tales of the Crypt. Oh, or like Fangoria. Yeah. Well, way before Fangoria. Way before Fangoria. This is back in the late 50s. So it was, horror was a hidden pleasure or a, yeah, or a dangerous pleasure. And the only horror movies that were around really

are what I grew up with was Hammer and AIP. And AIP American International was ripping off Hammer. Right. But so I grew up with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, you know. Peter Cushing, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, the, I had lunch with Christopher Lee once, believe it or not. Really? Just after he had finished Lord of the Rings, I ended up at a, that Guy Green's house invited. Guy Green won the Academy Award in 1947 or 48 for great expectations. He shot it. Wow. And there was a very active British community in Hollywood. And there has been since forever. David Niven, etc. And they had a big party for David Lean. And Christopher Lee was there. And Christopher Lee was there. And it was David Lean because he was doing the new print of Lawrence of Arabia, I think. And so everybody who was anybody in the British community was there and I ended up at that table with my wife and Christopher Lee. Were you starstruck?

Yes, but not as star struck as I was when I ended up with Vincent Price. Oh, I ended up. You ended up with Vincent Price? I ended up having dinner with Vincent Price and his wife was her name Coral Brown and at Roddy McDowell's house. Come on. And Roddy did it because I had originally written Fright Night for Vincent Price. I thought he would play, you know, with Peter. Right, right, right, right. Well, that's why I'm Peter Vincent.

The Vincent Price and Peter Cushing. And I sat there and wanted to talk about all the great horror movies that Vincent Price had made. And all he wanted to talk about was art. and the cookbook he just finished so I couldn't get anything out of him but just listening to that voice yes yes yes yes yes ghouls from every tomb

are there to seal your doom and even though you try to you know who that is right you know Vincent Price yeah that's the thing from Thriller he is he was also in the Brady Bunch but he did a lot of movies he was in the Brady Bunch

he was in an episode of the Brady Bunch years ago that I didn't know yeah I think they went to Hawaii and Vincent Price was was there and he was kind of this eccentric character but yeah he was but he also did wax museum and no he could really act oh man he was great he was just he had such a presence yes but he could do character work too if you go back and look at the movies in the 40s and the 50s you could see him really working noir he did noir films right were your parents a little freaked out by the fact

that you loved horror did you let it be known at a young age where they like going up tom's a little different yeah no exactly they they wrote a letter to The first job I got was as an apprentice at Bucks County Playhouse in Bust County, Pennsylvania. And the man who ran it was named Ellis, Michael Ellis, and my parents wrote him a letter, which they kept. And they were saying, we think something's a little wrong with our son. He may be a little bit different. How is he doing as an apprentice of Bust County Playhouse? Well, that was, anyway, that was...

What did he say? Did he write back at City? No, I didn't. I don't know. You don't know what he said. All I saw was their letter, you know? But you were always in horror movies, like into seeing horror movies and reading these magazines and whatever.

That was in your world at a young age. Yes, but there wasn't a fan community out there. You were just really weird in one of a tiny, tiny minority. And the other one was science fiction films. In the late 50s, you had, you had the horror films, which were the, the hammer films were highly saturated, the color, and the cutting and the way they shot them were very standard because they had great sets. They'd gotten all these old houses in London. They shot in them. They always had a wide shot to show you how great the set was first. Right. And maybe you got

to over the shoulders. You very seldom got a single. And I don't know if I ever saw an insert. No inserts back then. No inserts back then. the uh well so i mean film film didn't start to change till breathless god god godard who did jump cuts i'd never seen a jump cut before in my life the m tv style started back then with him and that would be that would be 60s no late 50s 1960s look up breathless and see when the ryan look up breathless with jean paul billmondo you know what's crazy is like you went to law school that's crazy but but you weren't thinking of becoming a director or a writer really at this point when when you're studying law right i wasn't seriously studying law i was an actor i started working very very young i was under contract to warner

brothers when i was 19 and i have been a member of sag since oh my gosh 19 how how did you get a contract with warner brothers at 19 i there was i wanted to get into film and And when I had apprenticed at the Bus County Playhouse, all they could tell me was various acting classes in New York. So what I started to do was I signed up for the HB Studio on 21 Bank Street. I went to HB Studios in New York in the 90s, mid-90s. Udahog and Herbert Burbaugh. Yeah. For a year I went there, HB Studios.

Okay, so I did that in like my, I guess between my, before. I went to my first year of college. And I got... At Northwestern? No, yeah, Northwestern. But I was in New York in that summer before, and that's when I started to get commercials. And then after my first freshman year at Northwestern,

which didn't have a film school. I became an actor because there was no way to get into film. There was no way to get to Hollywood or to learn how to make films. And I just, I don't know, I was just desperate to get into film. And because there was no way in except acting, I became an actor. Inside of You is brought to you by Quince.

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Do you think some of your looks could help you out a little bit, too? About 99.9% because I came into New York after my first year of college at Northwestern, and I got a seven-year contract at Warner Brothers. They flew me out here, and Jack Warner himself signed me. What was it like? I mean, when your contract ended with Warner Brothers, what were you thinking? Like, what do I do now? Or how do I, am I going to still get work?

All that. But what made your focus? turn to directing or writing. Writing was really at first that started, right? I got in the act, well, I'd start, I wanted to write from when I was 13. I have been trying to write short stories and then later novels and I couldn't do it. Anyway, the, the, I got into the actor's studio down here on the Long Prae. And you studied with Strasbourg. Oh, God, I couldn't get rid of them. Yeah. Really? Oh, God, yeah. Wherever I ended up, you seemed to end up there. You'd do a 20 minute, you'd do it, you'd do a scene for 20 minutes.

Then they'd talk for 90, you know, I mean, my eyes crossed. And this, what year was this? It'd be like, I met Stewart Stern there in 19, 60, well, 67 through 70 or 71, I was in the actor's studio. And they had what they, and I was working production and commercials, both in front of the camera and behind the camera. And I was making enough to keep going along with the acting jobs. It was pretty tight depending on what month it was. Some months I had comparatively a lot of money and some months I was dead broke. And I got in the actor studio and they had something called the playwrights wing. And they had writers, screenwriters. And they wrote one act plays and they cast them out of the studio. And I got cast in a number of those one act plays. And I met a number of aspiring screenwriters, working screenwriters. Jim Bridges and I became friends. I can't remember Carol Eastman, her brother. So that's how you started getting really creative in writing, started writing.

Well, what was happening was I was doing these plays. And the directors would say, okay, cross here or do this or that or pick up here. And I was saying to myself, no, uh-uh, you don't want to do that. It's better if you do this. And I became more and more aware that I had an instinct for directing, for staging, for making the scenes work. I can take a scene and put it on his feet and I can get something out of it. Right. You know, somehow.

And you knew that inside yourself that, hey, I'm good. I know what I'm doing. I started to discover it. And then I had people like, like Jim, Jim did the paper chase. I like the paper chase. Yeah, he, well, he leveraged himself into directing. John Housman. Well, John Housman was something else too.

Yeah. You met John Housman? Yes. Through Stuart Stern. I'm sorry, Mr. Holland. He almost was like a hitchcocky. And I kept asking you about, about Orson Wells.

Oh, the things I've done. Good. You know, so anyway, so I realized that I would like to direct. I couldn't get in through doing commercials. No, I could. If I started to direct the really inexpensive children's toys commercials on the weekends. The Tonkins. and shit?

No, bigger than that. That's your price? But you were directing commercials for kids that were airing on TV? Yes. Yeah.

And were you making good money doing that? No, but I was making a living. The, and everybody around me who was getting a, the people around me were getting a chance

to direct drama were doing it through being successful screenwriters and leveraging themselves into an opportunity to direct. Most of which

they could not do. But some of them, like Jim Bridges, could. And that gave me hope. And I had, being a nice middle class boy, which basically I am, lower middle class with aspirations to get solidly into the upper middle class, I started to write screenplays. And I had been covering myself. I was compelled to get a college degree. My life has been sent. spent in scene study classes. There's hardly anybody that I, that I, I miss Sandy Meisner, but otherwise I studied with everybody. The best that I ever had, I thought was, it'll come to me in a second. She was married to the group theater. Stella Adler. Steller,

was hands down, the best teacher that I ever had. And I know it's, it's to say, it's almost the apostasy to say this, but Lee Strasbourg bored me to tears. Bored you to shit. Oh, my God. He just talked all the time. Oh, God. You know, and it was, it was all, it was all, it was all one way. It was, it was all about somehow you becoming that character.

Right. It was, it was all inside, you know, the, it was, it was emotionally exhausting. Anyway, I was lost. I graduated my undergraduate at UCLA, and I looked around, and I had just gotten dropped from a pilot for a TV series, which I thought was going to change my life in Hollywood. And I felt, you know, really rejected and really depressed, and it was hopeless. And what was I doing? I didn't have a degree. I wasn't trained for anything else.

You know, I'd have some weeks where I'd make a living, and I'd have some weeks where I'd make a living, and I'd have some weeks where I'd, I was starving. Starving. Yeah. So I thought I should get a college degree. It's what your mother says to you. Well, fine, but have something to fall back on. Right, right.

And so I graduated and I looked around and I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had no idea of being able to do anything except something to do with film. So I went to UCLA law school. And I finished the first year, which is supposedly the most difficult. and I was bored to tears. Yeah. I mean, I had made a terrible mistake. A lot of things I might be able to do.

I could do windows in a dress shop. You know, I could help design a restaurant. I don't know. I mean, you know, I could make, I could frame a picture. I could do a lot of things. But, you know, going through being an attorney and reading contracts and all of that, that was too much for me. But I started to use, I could not stop myself. self from being in love with film. I was, I was at Greystoke, the Doherty Mansion, in the third

year that AFI was in existence. And I was there as the legal liaison from UCLA. And all I did was go to the seminars, go to the talks by the various directors that came in. I was, I was like I was a student at AFI. It wasn't like I was in the law. And I, I had people encouraging me. to write screenplays right and i i started doing it and you know something i got better inside of you is brought to you by rocket money if you want to save money then listen to me because uh i use this ryan uses 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 monitors you're spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings and you know what's great it works it really works ryan rocket

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Rocket Money app today and tell them you heard about them from my show. Ever wonder how dark the world can really get? Well, we 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 Grim, a true crime podcast that unpacks real-life horrors, one case at a time.

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. are Wicked and Grim. Follow and listen on your favorite podcast platform. And I kept writing. I got a literary agent who was sending the material out. I took the bar and I was waiting for the results of the bar and I sold my first screenplay. And I was like, ah! And I thought to myself, well, then I got the results of the bar and I passed the bar. Oh, wow. So I was faced with the decision. I had sold one screenplay, and I have the copy of the check on the wall framed. How much?

$1,500 was more than I'd ever seen in one place for years. $1,500 bucks in 19... What would it be? Maybe 1970, three or four. 1974, so that's the most money you had ever seen. Pretty much. So I had a choice to make in 1974 about whether or not I was going to be a lawyer

going to be a screenwriter. And I was so used to being poor and starving to death. And I knew that if I practiced law, I'd start to make a living. And one of the dangerous things about making a living is you start to live up to the level of whatever money you're making. At least I had that problem. Right. So, you know, so I thought, well, I really wouldn't much rather get back into a film. It's been my love all my life. And so I didn't practice law. I kept on writing screenplays. And I was working production once again in TV commercials, which is where you, it's one of the ways you get into making movies or television is through becoming a director of TV commercials, even then. And I worked for five years until, well, the first one was

initiation of Sarah in 1977. It was a big TV movie. It was quite a scandal. It was the first time that they tossed a girl in a fountain and she came out wearing a t-shirt and you saw her wet hard nipples Jesus oh my gosh it was on it was on the cover of the LA Sunday LA times that initiation of Sarah yeah and then I got my first movie done uh the beast within yes and I wrote that in 79 it was released in 1980 and it was a success it made money but nobody knew because it got buried in the wreckage of the bankruptcy of United Artists. And I spent a year out of work. Wow.

And an entire year I didn't get a job. And then I was offered a property that nobody else in town wanted to touch because they were sure it was suicide. Psycho 2. Psycho 2. So Universal asked you to write it. Did you have a pitch prepared for it? No. They just asked you to write it?

I, it was Richard Franklin, the director, the Australian director, who had the assignment. And he read a couple of screenplays of mine. And he really liked one called the Crystal Tower. And he had me in and we talked about Psycho 2. And I can't tell you how or why, but he chose me to write it. Now, nobody in town wanted to do it. Oh, yeah. How do you touch it?

It's a masterpiece. Probably one of the best horror movies in the history of cinema. It is, it's, it's, it's, it's the beginning. Oh, yeah. It's the beginning of horror, really. Yeah. It's, it's the first, it's the first slasher that we, you know, it was so much more than that. But the, and, but nobody, everybody knew they were going to get ripped by the critics for having

the temerity to try. You can't win. It's a winless situation. And on top of that, it was a cable movie. Ocommunications, look on the credits, you'll see it. And this was just as cable is coming in and just as VHS is coming. is coming in. And nobody wanted to do it, but Richard and I talked to you. I said, the only way you're going to get this made is a feature film is if you get Tony Perkins back

to play Norman Bates. And Tony didn't want any part of it. Yeah, I read that. He didn't want any part of it until he read your script. Well, then, so what I had to do was try to figure out how to make a piece of actors bait that was so strong that one of the great movie star, actor would say, I can't turn it down. And Tony blamed Psycho for ruining his career because he had been a romantic lead before that. Shannon Doa Valley, they're old, uh, he'd been a star on Broadway and look Homeward Angel. And then all of a sudden he did Psycho and everybody sees him as that. And that, that really put a, took the, took the edge off of, uh, being a movie star. Right. And turned him more into a character actor.

So he had very mixed feelings about it. But what I wrote was one of the great, I thought, one of the great acting parts to come out in the horror genre. Because Norman starts out coming out of the mental institution, and he's sane, and he's desperately trying to hold on to his sanity. And, of course, the relatives of his victims come back to drive him mad. And at the end of the film, he kills his own mother, and he's totally raving mad.

So that is a hell of a character art. Right. It was a real... And it was a success. It was the number two movie behind Return of the Jedi that year. That's right. And that really put you on the map, didn't it?

That made me. That made you. That made me. This guy did the impossible. Yes. Because without Psycho 2 being a success, they probably wouldn't have made anymore. You wouldn't have had the whole Psycho Legacy.

The Psycho Legacy. You would have had none of it. I think there were three or four sequels to Psycho 2, and then they did at least two or three TV series. Right. And that last one was very good. The Bates Motel was incredible. Yeah, I mean, so, you know. But that more importantly got you the opportunity probably to direct, I mean, pretty soon after. It gave me the visibility that if I wrote a few more scripts than they did well, that I was going to have a shot. And then I wrote Cloak and Dagger.

Which was a success? Yeah, it was a success. The, uh, I happen to love that script. The, uh, you're a class of 1984, which became a cult. That became a cult hit, but at the time, that was, we're, we're, once again, you're, you're in, you're in the horror genre, we're in the bottom of the basement. You don't, at that time, and we're back, what year am I in? I'm in, we're in, uh, Psycho 2 is 1982.

Right. So, 1982 to 84, 85 when I did Fright Night, I, I. I did, I had a failure with Scream for Help, which is Michael Winter. I have stories about all these people. The, I had, I had Cloak and Dagger. Richard Franklin directed that. And I, I had class of 84, Mark Lester did a place. Michael J. Fox was in that, right?

First movie. First movie Michael J. Fox did. Did you meet him? No, I did not. I was not on location. That was a Canadian tax shelter. Of course. The, but I mean, I, I think it's the best movie

that Mark Lester ever did. The, I mean, that thing works. And the actors were all just terrific. And I think a few of them are directors now. But during cloak and daggers, when you came up with the idea for Fright Night, right? What happened was they came to me and they said, we want to do, we want to do, we want to do a remake of the window. The window was the juvenile version by Cornell Woolrich of Rear Window.

And Cornell Woolrich wrote both books. Right. And it is the quintessal. boy who cried wolf story. And I said, you can't do this. I've seen this too many times. It's too thin. You know, and that's when I came up with the imaginary character, Jack Fly. I wrote an original, basically. Cloak and Dagger's an original. And, but I said, if you really want to do a kid looking out the window and seeing a murder in the house next door and you want to make it fresh and you want to make it appealing to your younger demographic.

Have a kid love a horror. I have a mad horror fan look out of his window and see a vampire chomping down on the house next door. And everybody thought I was nuts. I mean, they all thought I was crazy. Really? It's such a cool idea. I went in and took a meeting at Universal Tom Mount, I think, and I couldn't convince him.

Everybody thought I was crazy. Now, you've got to remember, that moment in time, vampires were, excuse the expression, dead, dead, dead. The vampire, the most recent vampire movie was Love at First Bite with George Hamilton, which is farce. When they start doing farce, it lets you know that the genre is dead. It's exhausted. It has to be reinvented. Right. It needs a breather. You see that with... Yeah, sure. I see it all the time. See it all the time. And so I, I... You didn't give up. No, I couldn't get the idea out of my head because it was so delusely.

delicious. Yeah. And really, so I sat down, I couldn't think out of, I kept saying, well, what would Charlie Brewster do if he had a vampire next door? Well, who would he go to for help? Nobody's ever going to believe him. And then I thought of all those horror hosts that I had grown up with. Oh, yeah. You know, Vampire, oh, God, Vincent Price. Well, they had, I grew up with what they called the Friday Night Frights. If you wanted to find a horror movie on TV back in the like in the 60s you had to go to Friday night 11 o'clock on a local station which would have a temerity to you know the guts to run one and then you always had some horrible tacky horror host right and I mean really they did the sets with no money

flats falling down people who were looking at that's the only way people would know to watch this horror movie yeah but that but that's where the idea spawned well that's that I said, well, that's, if I was Charlie Brewster, I'd go to Peter Vincent. And when I had that, I couldn't get home fast enough to write. I mean, and I, I don't think I've ever had an writing experience like it because I was literally falling on the floor and screaming with laughter. Really? And pounding my feet and my hands of saying, this is so funny. I can't believe this. I was just it was I I it was it was it was so so ripe with so amusing right with possibilities so much fun I don't know what and what it turned out to be is a love letter

to horror fans everywhere yeah and and and I think what's given the what's given fright night the legs that it has is that is that horror fans recognize themselves in it and oh okay AIP and Peter Cushing and Christopher, they all may be gone now, but every generation has new horror figures, whether it's, you know, whether it's, you know, whether it's, you know, the guy, you know, with a hand, Freddie or, yeah, Michael Myers or whoever. Right. But was that the most fun you've ever had writing a script was Fright Night? Yes, hands down, yes. It's one of those things that you were like, oh, my. God, this is brilliant. This is brilliant. I'm going to sell this. I don't know if I thought that,

but I was laughing when I wrote. I mean, every, every joke I told I thought of something even funnier. You know? Are you high? Yeah, no, I wasn't. I would don't. In those days, I was as straight as, you know, it was a pin. Well, I mean, you couldn't, you know, those were the times. Right. I mean, you're talking, you know, the 80s. Well, you're talking the late, it started in the late 70s. You're talking about Hollywood and blow. Oh, yeah. Did you ever do blow? We're on public airway, for God's sake.

This is a real story. This is like your life. It doesn't mean you do it now. I've tried blow before. You know, I don't do it now. Yes, I tried. The, what happened was everybody around me was doing it was doing it. And it started, it started in the very early 70s.

And by 1980, it was a snowstorm. and it was it was it was it was it was wrecking it was wrecking multi-million dollar pictures really it wrecked people were doing it on set all the crew it wrecked it wrecked uh the corsacy film new york new york it wrecked that film that chevy chase did about about the making of the wizard of oz with all little little people in it they were so wrecked on blow they couldn't remember they couldn't they couldn't hit their marks oh my god you know so they it you go into a meeting at a studio and the executive you were meeting with would put out a glass

vase on the coffee table and you'd sit there and discuss story in between doing lines. Seriously? Yeah, seriously. It was just part of the industry. And everybody said, well, it's not addicting. You know, I went, I was working with Stuart Stern,

I was writing with him when they were shooting Sybil. And Stuart wrote Sybil. Right. And we'd be on one side of the set, and on the other side of the flat, Joan Woodward and Sally Fields would be rehearsing. And I would be sitting with the camera crew, and all of us were doing lines. I mean, it was that pervasive. Wow.

But nobody had yet figured out that it was, that it ruined lives. Right. Nobody had yet. Caused heart attacks. No, nobody had yet. Today, it's slaced with fentanyl, which has killed people instantly. Well, in those days, it were just. ruin your septum you need a nose operation right a lot of people probably had those well i when i did the

when i did uh when i acted when i played the lead in the young lawyers i were i did a scene with uh richard prior richard prior right richard prior and i had a scene and i mean oh no well i went in i went into he had a he had a trailer and he was hanging out with his with his and you snorted with them no what i i don't remember me doing it because i was working but they all were i mean literally you couldn't You couldn't turn around for the late 70s through maybe the mid-late 80s. It was just part of the norm. You were unaffected by it. Well, what happened was I started to make money so I could buy by the ounce, I think.

And then what you say to yourself is, well, I'm going to sell all this. And that will pay for me to have a couple of extra grams of my own without me putting out money. Of course, what happens is you end up doing the entire ounce. Right. And then I turned around and I wasn't writing anymore. And the last line of cocaine I ever did was a summer of 1981, and I have not touched it since 1981. Wow.

Because I think it's a destroyer. Yeah. I watched people wrecked their lives, their careers on it. Who did you finally sell Frightonite 2? Eventually sold it to Columbia, the Guy McElwain. He believed in it. You pitched him? Or did he read the script?

He read the script. He read the script after he'd given the green light. That's funny. too. I'm in pre-production on it. And he calls me desperately and says, you have to change the ending. And I said, what are you talking about? I said, well, I read the script. And at the ending, you have Peter Vincent turning into a vampire. They're going to hate you if you do that. You can't, you got to end the script happily. That's a good note. That's a good note. And that's when I realized he was finally reading the script when I was in pre-production. Wow. He was a, he was a wonderful man,

by the way. And I had meant him previously. I'm doing Hollywood gossip, which only the insiders would, and the historians would possibly. I had become friends with a young, with a young woman named Lynn Geiler, G-R, and her best friend was Morgan Mason. Morgan Mason was Pamela Mason's daughter. She was also James Mason's daughter. Okay. Now, nobody remembers probably who Pamela Mason was she was the first iteration of you. She had a talk show on radio and it was a huge sensation. Wow. And she was extremely sophisticated. And she had a salon every Sunday at her house. And her house was the one that had been built by the great silent comedian with the face that never showed anything. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know. The, the, the,

The general, the car, the house falling down on him, the train, picking up things off the trestle by riding the train. Oh, I wish I had them of names. Anyway, she had his old house, and there were phenomenal parties there with the who's who. It was the who's who of the previous generation. Oh, my goodness. I mean, the one experience I'd had with it prior, I was in a movie.

I acted in a movie called The Walk in the Spring Rain with Ingrid Bergman and Tony Quinn okay and I couldn't believe it and I was pinching myself all the time saying oh my gosh that's that's Elsa from from Casa block I just I was like you know I was a fan of course I mean I mean that's what I basically have always been that's that's what I am I mean you can look around you can see all the things I I'm a fan I'm a fan of horror I'm a fan of cinema well you're you're you're coming from southern Indiana up against the Ohio River yeah and who even knows where that is. No, the odds were definitely against me. Well, I'm from... And probably a Poughkeepsie, boy. They were against you. Well, yeah, I'm from a small town

across the river called Highland, New York. You know, I... You know, I... Nobody had anything to do with any of this, and everybody thought I was crazy. Could you believe the success when Fright Night hit? Were you stunned? I've never been able to believe my success ever. Really? Yeah, I can't. I don't. I don't. I don't. know why. I've never been able to. I mean, right now, I couldn't, I couldn't, you had to sit there in a test audience watching Psycho 2 to realize that you'd really done something. When you heard those screams, when you heard people feeling terrible for Norman, you know, and then, then with fright night, when you hear the laughter roll over you, you hear the screams.

The biggest one, I guess, was Chuck, was child's play. I mean, how do you come up with a Chuckie? I mean, did this just come to you? Were you high one night? And you're like, I got this. There's this doll. No, I have been extremely disciplined as far as narcotics or alcohol is concerned. And if anybody is out there listening who aspires to do what Michael or I have done,

stay straight okay seriously you go well you take you take a hit of this hydroponic today and it's instant stupidity you know i mean forget writing anything you're lucky if you can sign your own name yeah the okay so that's that so no i i i don't know i mean i i can't believe i'm here at this point in my life i think i feel the same way about you know my career i'm like how did i i don't know how i i wasn't supposed to amount to anything i i every time i do something i'm like really they're they're hiring me really there it's always that disbelief of like you know i think our perceptions of ourselves like how did this happen it was always a dream but dreams do come true you know they do come true and sometimes you have to just say let's just go with it after a while you start to say

fright nights a success psycho two's a success child's plays a success hey my brain is working. Well, I can't believe we've come here to this, got to this point. Look, I, I, oh, you don't want to talk about all this stuff. But I mean, I just have my first novel published, Fright Night Origins. Right. It's the first of a series. And it's, it's, I can't believe it's only been a week.

Today is Wednesday. So it's been a week and one day. We released it. Did the press release last Tuesday? We could go like yesterday. And I thought, well, I felt pretty good that at least we'd get a sampling because of the Fright Night fan base. And nobody reacted.

Nobody picked it up. No other horror sites mentioned it. No social media, nothing. So I went to bed Tuesday night and terribly disappointed. I'm past the point where I'm going to put a gun to my head. But I mean, you know, but I mean, but I thought, well, I'm really miscounty. And this is after I've spent months writing the book, and I wrote it with a good friend called Jack Yorick. And but there was nothing.

And then I woke up Wednesday morning and it started. And Wednesday morning, bloody disgusting and Joe Blow picked it up. And they got it out, which is not that it gets, it's probably nothing compared to the people that are listening to us here. but for the for the community for the horror community the you know a couple of those sites really get the word out and they got it out and then all of a sudden we started to get a tarotan dot shop everybody I'm being shameless go buy the book go buy the hard cover fright night origins if you're a horror fan if you're a fan of fright night you've got to get this book and work can they get this you can get it you can

get it at uh terror time dot shop or you can get it on amazon right that's amazon if you're into one click if you if you want it signed you got to buy it through uh through through through terror time shop let me ask you something when they make a sequel to fright night which they did and then they rebooted it with colin farrell since you created that and wrote that do you still get a nice check and do you get residuals for that or did they give you a buyout how does that work you're upset well i mean listen i mean i am i am to all of you aspiring screenwriters out there aspiring directors and actors they screw you financially hollywood rapes you how do they do that because they have definitions oh this this everyone we can be talking an hour each on on every of course but in

in you know how because they have a definition the profit definition is always is hardly ever gross, which is the only way you ever see anything. It's net points, which means that they take all the expenses off before they give, before they get to your profit participation. And they have it set up so the expenses are such that the movie will not ever go into profits even after 35 years. Thank you very, very much. MGMUA, now Amazon for Child's Play, which is still how many millions of dollars? Is that still in the whole? How much? How many millions of dollars? Is that still in the whole how many sequels did that's did that and you created it yeah well no there was the damn mancini wrote the wrote the first draft he wrote an original screenplay right

and it couldn't get it done in town and i couldn't figure out how to solve it left it came back to it when i figured i saw the the clown in poltergeist reach out from under the bed oh the scariest thing ever that's right scariest thing ever and what that is is every everybody, every kid has looked around as he was falling asleep at his playthings, stacked up on the shelves and on the windowsill, and has said to himself, what if my toys come alive? And I knew that that was a premise that would appeal worldwide. And I came back to Child's Play when I thought of when I thought of the hillside strangler, the Brad Durev part.

Right. And, you know, before that, before that, it was more of, it was, the little boy, it was called blood buddy. The boy made a blood buddy of the doll. And when he fell asleep, the dog got up and killed people

like his teacher and his dentist. But you felt no sympathy for anybody. There was no bad guy. Right. And when I put the serial murderer inside of Chuckie, that's when that that's when that damn script that was your idea oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah wow oh yeah and i could go on and on but so to this day when you know they have a they have a tv show child's play

you don't get anything from that no i do not nothing zero no any back end from the child's play socks that you have on from the merch no i did not have merch my lawyer did the worst deal any lawyer has ever done I will never forgive him it's really if I only knew now what I knew then I never would have made the deal like George Lucas he was smart enough

or he thought ahead of time I want merch and like nobody buys Star Wars action they gave it to take it they gave it to him because nobody bought merch exactly exactly right and he somehow kept the rights see this is a long

yeah of course course I just want to but it's just it's just It's painful to hear it, not only obviously your pain, but to hear someone who was responsible, you and a couple people, for the creation of this franchise and not receiving a dime of it after is just, it's bewildering. Well, the money was always there in the merchandise. That's why David Kirshner, who was the producer, did it because he was a maven. He was a merchandise maven. and look at look at them i can't imagine how many tens of hundreds of millions he's made

off the merchandise right but that's what he did it for yeah the uh these are only i was just naive i'm probably still naive but i don't think you did okay didn't you not i think you did pretty damn for for a guy who was born in vassar hospital in pockypsey i've done incredibly well right i mean you know and you're completely i mean you're just you're just you you're a normal guy you're just a laid back good humble man of the years i've known you it's just like wow this guy's just i can hang out with this guy and that's how i've always you just seem like an older brother or whatever that i could just hang with and has a lot of experience very knowledgeable very talented but and you're still going you're you know that's the amazing that's the amazing part

it's like you know i look at my mom she's 75 and she's like you know she's like you know she she's already fallen she's like she doesn't have I'm sorry yeah there's just a lot of stuff going on with her health and I'm like you look great knock on wood let's knock on wood no I I I spent five years dying and I came out of it how was that pulmonary problems another long but you had hard problems no I had sinus I had sinus I had consecutive sinus infections and they discovered that I had my sinuses had had polyps and I had to do a sinus operation.

You almost died from that? Well, before that, my my oxymeter, which is your breathing was something like 80 and it should be 95, 96, I couldn't get a breath. I could hardly walk across a room. So would they do? They went in and they cleaned out my sinuses. They rotor-rudered my sinuses. And it did help.

It's helped. And that, combine that with the tennis, I'm finally able to breathe again. how do you get that tested your sinuses like if it's they they shove a camera up there up there and they could tell if you're oh you got all this shit you can see them and they changed your life when you figured that out and corrected it well yeah before that what happened was i was i was sicker and sicker and i stopped working because i didn't want to take a uh anything you do you have to have insurance for and they send the doctor your house and all you had to do was listen to my lungs put the stethoscope to my back and it sounded like the rumble of the of you know of like like like a hurt or an earthquake right in other words I was uninsurable right and I turned everything down because I didn't want anybody to know it had its own kind of insanity wow that went with it and I was afraid to to let anybody know and so you're risking your own life because you didn't want to seem insane isn't it it's crazy yeah health is well

wealth well that's what your mother always said as long as you have your health you're wealthy and there's a hundred percent true there's a hundred percent truth to that you know and and the do you have a caregiver with your mother um she has someone she has my stepdad and uh she's going to a lot of doctors he has insurance so you know we'll see what happens i mean she's doing she's okay i don't know i i don't know i just know when she was here she's back in indiana she's in indiana am so um she's you know we're figuring it out we're figuring it out but um it's called practicing medicine yeah that's one of the problems if you if you have something that is routine that's easily diagnosable you're okay and they can do miracles with hearts with heart today or not so much

cancer yeah that's that's yeah that's that's yeah that's that's you can't figure that out and if you don't have something that is that is easily diagnosable you're in for what I went through, which is years of going from one doctor to another and trying this and trying that and everything else. I know how that goes. Yeah. Have you ever dealt with any depression in your life? Do you get, were you, one of those guys that, one of those people who are attached to a project

and when it doesn't succeed like you thought, do you kind of go into a hole? Yes. And what would you do in the beginning? Like, what did you learn from that? Was it something that you, it kept happening? And how did you correct that? Or how did you learn to deal with it in a healthy way? I think that creating a successful piece of art, i.e. a movie, there's a lot of luck involved.

People don't like to hear that, but it is. Making a movie is such a group effort. And it requires the skill and talent of so many people that you have to be blessed. the actors have to have some kind of connection, some kind of charisma. The cinematographer has to arrive and not fall asleep while they're setting up a shot. The set decorator can't be behind the flats doing something you shouldn't. He's got to be dressing the set really well. On and on.

If everything doesn't come, you know, the quality, I mean, if something's missing, it could create something that, you know, something will fail because of that. I had extraordinary luck on Fright Night. And since it was the first movie that I directed, I didn't know it was atypical. That was a great cast. It's a great cinematographer. It was, I had John DeCure, Sr. doing the production design. I had, I had Richard Edlin.

I had Steve Johnson. I had Randy Cook doing the effects. I mean, I inherited the Ghostbusters crew. Wow. I inherited for Fright Night, this little movie that nobody paid attention to that everybody thought was a toss away that they gave me because there was one slot left on the distribution and they didn't expect anything that I got not probably because of the success of the screenplays, but because Guy McElwain knew me from Sunday salons

at Pamela Mason's house. I never said that to me, but I suspect. Did you get nervous when you were your first directorial debut, were you constantly under a lot of stress and couldn't sleep and was worried, you're going to get fired and all these things? Was this happening or were you confident and comfortable and hunky dory? That happened to me on Child's Play. It didn't happen to me on Fright Night. So what happened on Child's Play? You just were really stressed out?

Well, I was really stressed out because you try to make a damn doll work, you know, with the, with the, with the, the way I wrote that script of things that I had that doll ago. Oh, yeah. Well, that was a huge laugh. That's the biggest laugh ever. But I mean, the doll, I mean, I, I, nobody had ever tried to make a puppet movie of that, of that, of that specificity and complexity. And there were a ton of shots that didn't work. There were a ton of things where, you know, I'd written for the doll to do this or that and they couldn't do it. And then I had to figure out, well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, put them behind furniture and run them along behind furniture so we don't see the puppeteer or whatever it was, you know, but it was on ending. And I kept, I was terrified. We were going to

show the film and the audience was going to laugh at the doll. I was afraid they wouldn't believe Chuckie could be murderous and be really, I didn't, I was afraid they wouldn't believe Chuckie could kill you. Wow. And those are huge fears because that's the entire movie. That's the entire movie and I did not really know until the first preview and the first preview all of the chucky set pieces meaning they would now call the kills but all of the all of the things I used used to build suspense you could see that it was all working you could see the audience have fallen in love with Chuckie and it was it was the first first one out and after that the previews were a matter of tightening, tightening the film.

Did you cast Brad Dorff as the voice of Chucky after you were completed film? No, I wrote it for him. You wrote it for him. He had been the bad guy in the movie that I'd done previous to that that nobody ever asked me about called Fated Beauty with Whoopi Goldberg. But who was doing the voice during the filming? I was. So you were going, fuck you.

And all those things, you were doing the voice. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I bet that was kind of fun. Oh, it was a lot of fun. I mean, the only thing has kept me at all sane is I've tried to rehearse every movie that I've done. I think that's huge. And I had a solid two weeks on Fright Night, and I was dealing with a really professional cast. Oh, Roddy McDowell, Chris Sarandon.

Well, Roddy McDowell and Chris both supported me. Yeah. And that carried the other actors, including Stephen Jeffers. Hey, Stephen. The, I mean, you know, the, we, I took and I ran that entire movie as a play on a soundstage, taping out the, the rooms, you know, how big they were and everything else. And I had Colin Higgins come down to watch it. Do you know Colin is? Colin wrote a few things like Silver Streak.

Yeah. uh nine to five sure uh best little horror house in texas oh yeah Colin was Colin was was some kind of genius he died early so you wanted him to be on set he came down and looked at it and told me whether or not it worked he had also read the screenplay and gave me a few jokes he could do comedies is what Colin he gave me the uh the mother the lines of the mother had. You want a tranquilizer? It was a big laugh whatever it was then. Sonoma. I forget what it was.

But, you know, I woke up from a nightmare, and there I was naked in a white sale. You know, that was... Right. Anyway, so Colin came down, and Colin was extremely supportive and supportive of the cast from what he'd seen. Yeah. And Colin was at that moment

in time with the top directors in Hollywood. Wow. So he was a huge help and god bless colin this is called shit talking with tom holland this is my top tier patrons who get to ask questions uh if you want to become a patron and support the podcast you know i love you all message after go to patreon.com slash inside of you uh this is from raj this is fast talk this is uh rapid fire so you answer rapid fire fast okay roj tell me about a time you struggled to get the right performance out of an actor how did you work through it oh ha ha ha ha i failed sometimes I can't, I don't want to name names

of Stephen Jeffreys I just had to point him and he went I had terrible trouble on the temple film another film that nobody asked me about What about thinner? No, thinner was a great experience and a terrible experience.

I had a wonderful actor there, Robert John Burke. And then I did, I did I did rehearse that and I thought everybody was just terrific and that was a very difficult piece it's a character piece I enjoyed it I enjoyed thinner

it wasn't too disturbing for you no I liked it it was it was dark it was weird it was I remember singing in the theater but when you have trouble with an actor do you ever raise your voice you ever get mad do you ever lose your shit have you ever lost your shit Tom Holland yeah a number of times but i never lost it i don't don't think i ever lost it with actors have you ever said god damn it i told you to do that move to yeah well what happens is you as as the movie proceeds

has got closer and closer to the end the pressure from the studio builds on you to finish it to cut to save money i don't think i've ever been involved in a movie where they weren't knocking on the door in the last two or three weeks saying can we cut this can we cut that and it's just horrible it's always stressful you got that guy on set who's like we got to go we got to go you're going to miss it you can't do that we got to cut this and you're always you're always ending up at magic hour with three shots left that you need and time for only one always that's always 99 more do you have any recurring nightmares if so what do you think they stem from growing up oh i can't answer Did you have troubled grow, uh, no, I mean, I, I love, I love my parents dearly, but yes, but I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a little sensitive about how revealing personally I should be under these circumstances.

We're having a private conversation here, but six million people or whatever may be listening in. I wish six million people are listening. But this is great. This is what people want to hear. They want to hear the real you. This is like, you know, anyway, Danny, awesome guest, love Tom Holland. We'd love to hear Tom Holland. We'd love to hear Tom's favorite story about working with the legendary Roddy McDowell. He's fantastic and Fright Night, as we all know. So a quick story that you remember at Roddy. Quick story. I cast Roddy because of the performance in Class of 84. If you look at that, he's terrific. And Roddy came in to meet with me. And Roddy said, he's the, he's the lion, isn't he? I said, the lion? He said, yes, from Wizard of Oz. He's the lion without a heart.

he is he has no courage and he finds his courage and that's my image that's brilliant and i thought that's brilliant you have the part yes holy shit i don't have any courage but he kind of was peter was like that vincent well he has he has the hero's journey he does he has to become strong he starts that weak and just like a facade yes and that's unusual usually that would be given to charlie but charlie's the motor right it makes it go and if you want all the answers to why this is by Fright Night Origins because I explained the novel get it you guys are going to love it yeah little Lisa what's the scariest thing you've ever done and why'd you do it the scariest thing I've ever done in making a movie anything I put I put the little person in

child's play I put a body harness on him and I had them walk a ledge five or six floors above above ground for over the camera with him and the chucky in a full chucky costume, which means he couldn't see that well. When he goes and he's getting to the little boy inside the insane asylum. Yeah. I mean, so I've done... So you were scared at that moment like something's going to happen. Yeah, but I needed the shot. But see, that's the craziness of directing. When you're into directing and you're really into it, if you think you need a shot, you'll do anything for the shot. Yes. I mean, it, it, it, it, I, I, I, it, I, I, it, I, I, it, I, I, I, It's just, there is a, there is a, there is a ruthlessness involved that one would never admit to for fear of being on sympathetic.

Everything for the art. What do you do about your, we're wrapping this up, but what, what do you do when you're depressed? When we talked about that briefly, but like everything rides on this and it fails in your eyes and you get depressed. What gets you out of depression? Time. A lot of time. If you look at, if you, if you were to look at my career, you can find. find long periods when I was down.

And that was because I was turning everything down. What did you turn down? What were the biggest things you turned down? Robocop. The original? Mistake. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah, that, I can't. But you've turned down a lot of stuff. I turned down a whole lot of stuff. Did you ever turn down something because you were, it was fear based? Like, I can't do this. I couldn't do that. Yeah, if the technical knowledge that was required ran beyond my expertise, I was very nervous because I would have to depend on somebody else,

the effect supervisor, telling me whether or not it was possible. And the more you get into film, less you trust people as far as that's concerned. Right. What do you... I love actors, by the way. Yeah, I know that. You can tell you love actors. and they love you i've talked to chris sarandon who just

admires you so much and uh so many actors that just love you adore you um our good friend nick peterson i love nick nick loves you he loves you um do you ever tell your age i mean you can look online see how old you yeah of course i i became no well-known so early i didn't lie about my age i turned 79 last july 79 we're born on the same day we are you July 11th. Are you really? You and I have the same birthday. No kidding.

Yes, we do. There's got to be something in that. There's a connection, man. That's amazing. We're both sensitive. We're both very sensitive. But at 79, most people, when they're 70, 60s, they'd be like, I'm good. I made a fortune.

I have a big house. They created these huge franchises. I've got money. I don't need to worry. I'm not doing anything else. I'm retiring. At 79, you just wrote a. novel, Fright Night Origins that's out what you guys need to get. Do you think that you've got

another movie in you? Do you think you want to direct again or write another screenplay or do you feel the need that you have to? And if you do, are you doing it for you or are you doing it to prove yourself? Because you don't need to prove yourself. But what is it? What gets you going? Right now, I am really pissed at the accounting in Hollywood. I really have. I really the majors. They all cheat you blind. I have been, I have spent a lot of money with lawyers in the last two or three years with forensic accounting on Fright Night and Child's Play. And I'm now on the queue to be, I have to, there are so many people suing the Hollywood studios for their accounting that you have to wait two, three, four years in line before

they'll, before they'll take the case in court. I mean, I look at child's play, and I really forget the numbers now, but what they do is they charge you such a high interest rate, like 17 percent on whatever the unpaid amount of the debt is, so that they set it up so that the interest rate on the deficit is always growing larger and is larger than the profits coming in. It is worked out. So as time goes along, the film, Fright Night, Child's Play, Psycho 2, falls deeper into debt. Now, I figure I have made billions for Hollywood, none of which, not even the taste of which they passed on. I'll tell you a very brief story about Tony Perkins. Talking to Tony after Child's Play, after Psycho 2 had become a huge

international hit. It was going for something like $100 million world. wide. And Tony called and said, I have, where's, where's, I have, I have, I have, I have, I have, I have, I have points. Where's, where's, where are my profit statements? And they told them they didn't have any profits. We had done that movie for 4.9, for a little bit less than 5 million. They made 34 million first weekend. Yeah. And we'd done it for a little less than 5 million. That was the actual real cost. And Universal was saying they were still in debt. And so Tony said, I'm going to sue you. And Universal, and I will not say the executive who said this, said, you do that and you will never work in Hollywood again. To Tony Perkins, he's saying this. And so Tony said he says back, yeah, sure, until the next time you need me. Okay, Tony directed Psycho 3, and he directed it because he was so pissed off at Universal trying to short him on his profit participation. And also when he did that, and they had to pay Tony his profit of participation, I got $43,000 in deferred salary.

And that's Hollywood for you. If you can't sue, you're never going to see anything on the back end. That's true. Pisses me off. I wanted to sue someone once. Well, but no, but if you'd ever had a piece of any of those beyond the residuals, you'd ever have it a piece of Superman, you'd be in this too. this this has been incredible i love talking to you yes you can come back of course uh there's there's so much else to talk about you have so many stories okay a real a real quick one all right

my father was a diagnosed manic depressive on lithium maintenance for the last 13 years of his life and he was institutionalized once end of it okay thank you very much hang on hang on um wow you're an extraordinary man. You're a super talented guy. I love you. I'm going to come over and play tennis with you. I'm going to visit the wifie. I miss her. And this has been a real treat. Guys, buy the book, Fright Night Origins. This is a legend that's here with us today. And thank you all very much for listening. And I can't tell you how terrific Michael Rosenbaum is, both as an actor and even more importantly, as a human being. You hear that, guys? Coming from a legend. Thanks, Tom.

Thanks for allowing me to be inside of you today. Thank you. I love it. I love it. I love hearing about like how he's not getting money for like all the sequels with child's play. Yeah, it sucks. Like I don't like it.

I think it's just horrid. And you can tell that he's obviously a little upset. It's like you put your heart and soul into something. And then your contract says, oh, you don't get anything. And then I guess that's his lawyer's fault. Oh, you wouldn't be able, if you were listening, you wouldn't be able to know. But he was wearing Chuckie socks. Chuckie socks.

He was wearing Chuckie socks. And I asked him, like, if he was getting residuals on the merch and it doesn't sound like it. No. I love you, Tom. Thanks for being here. Go check out his new book. Watch Fright Night if you've never seen it. Child's Play.

I don't know how you've not seen that one. But thank you guys for supporting the podcast. Right now, it's the top tier patrons, the shoutouts. Become a patron today. Join us and support us. I can do it without your patreon.com slash inside you. Here are the names, top tiers. Nancy D, Leah S, Sarah V. Little Lisa, Yukiko, Jill E, Brian, H, Nico P, Robert B, Jason W, Sophie M, Kristen K, Raj C, Joshua D, Jennifer N, Stacey L, Jamal F, Janelle, B, Kimberly E, Mike E.

Changing glasses, we can read. Yes, please hold. Oh, there we go. Hell done, Supremo. 99 more, Santiago M, Chad, W. L.M.P., Janine R, Maya, P, Maddie S, Belinda, N. Chris H. Dave H. Sheila G. Brad D. Ray H. Tabitha T. Tom and Liliana A. Talia M. Betsy D. Chatt L. Marion. Dan N. Big Stevie W. Angel M. Rian N. C. Corrie K. Nexon. Michelle A. Jeremy C. Andy T. G.? David C. John B. Brandy D. Camille S. Joey M. Eugene and Eugene and Leah Nikki G. Corey. K.D. B. Patricia Heather L. Megan T. Mel S. Orlando C. Caroline R. Christine S. Christine S. Sarah S. Eric H. Shane R. N.R. N.R. Jeremy V. Andrew M. Zdoichi, 77. Oracle. Chris R. Karina N. Michelle D. Amanda R. Gen B. Kevin E. Stephanie K. Lina 82. Jorel. And Billy S. Couldn't do it with that, you guys. It's been a real treat being here with you every week. Week in, week out.

Cumulus picked up the show for another year. So go for another year at least. And, you know, that might be it. But just depends. We need more listeners. We need more, you know, patrons. We need, here we go. Thanks for allowing me to be inside of each and every one of you. From the Hollywood Hills in California, I'm Michael Rosenbaum. I'm Ryan Tehism. Thank you for listening, watching.

Thank you so much. And, of course, be good to yourselves. Will you? Just be good to yourselves. All right. We'll see. Football season is here. Oh, man.

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