Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Billy Crystal Opens up About ‘When Harry Met Sally’ Legacy (December 2024)

Episode Date: June 29, 2025

Willie gets together with Billy Crystal in NYU Tisch's "Jack Crystal Theater" named for his late father.  Billy opens up about his time in film school at NYU and about his professor, the legendary film director Martin Scorsese. They chat about the enduring legacy of "When Harry Met Sally" and about his acclaimed new series, "Before."  (Original broadcast date December 15, 2024) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. I am absolutely thrilled to bring you my conversation this week with a man who truly needs no introduction. He is a legend in Hollywood. He is a legend in comedy. He is Billy Crystal. I will just give you a little background about our location. Sometimes when we do these interviews, we reach out to the team around our guests and say,

is there any where you'd like to do the interview? Is there anywhere meaningful to you? And Billy Crystal immediately said, I would love to do the interview in the Jack Crystal Theater at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in New York City. Why? Because that theater is named for Billy's father, Jack Crystal, who was a bandleader, a guy who in the 1950s had a record label, a guy who kind of brought in all these different sounds and these voices into that very building, that space. It of course has been changed and renovated since. But Billy Crystal, basically as a young kid, grew up going to shows at this very theater where he and I are sitting and talking

and it was the first time he ever got up on a stage. His love for performing and entertainment was sparked in that room. So it was very special to sit there with him inside those four walls in the Jack Crystal Theater, now named for his father. So I don't need to tell you about Billy Crystal's career. I don't need to tell you about SNL.

I don't need to tell you about Harry Met Sally, City Slickers, Monsters, Inc. Everything he has done over the course of his career, getting his break with the Dean Martin celebrity roast of Muhammad Ali in 1976 that sparked a friendship between the two for some 40 years. Now, Billy Crystal, obviously so known for comedy, is in a very dark series on Apple TV Plus. It's called Before. He plays Dr. Eli Adler, who's a child psychiatrist caring for this very,

troubled young boy who kind of exposes Crystal's character's own demons and makes him explore all these other things about himself. It's a really heavy, dark show, but he's so good in it. It's called Before. So I'll get out of the way, sit back, relax, and just imagine how significant and meaningful and moving it is for Billy Crystal to have kind of borne his career in this room with his dad, who he so reveres and who he lost when he was just 15 years old and who was the inspiration. for his Tony winning Broadway show 700 Sundays and to be able to be in a position in his life and his career to have a theater named after his dad. So sit back, relax, and enjoy Billy Crystal right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Billy, thanks for doing this. Oh, my pleasure. So good to see you. In fact, doing this in the Jack Crystal Theater of all places. Jack Crystal is your father. Can you tell me why this room is so significant to you and your family? My dad produced great jazz concerts here on the weekends. They were called The Sessions from 1949 until his untimely death in 1963.

I used to come with my brothers and my mom on weekends and watch the shows just to be with him. And this place was a catering hall. It was known as the Central Plaza. The sessions were called Jazz at the Plaza. So I couldn't help myself. Music started. I was five. I ran up on stage and tap dance with the band as best I could.

Crowd went wild. It gets us little kids up there with the great Dixieland stars of the day. And that always stayed with me. It always stayed with me. I talked about it in my Broadway show on 700 Sundays. And then over time, this became an NYU building and raised a lot of money to renovate the hall. a dance recital hall in theater. And they were, you know,

they understood the history of my dad, and they said, can we name him for your father, at the theater for your father? And I said, it's the greatest compliment you could have. A lot of great things happened here. He was one of the first producers to integrate bands to play white players with African-American players. And even a great Navajo named Big Chief Russell Moore.

who was so an indigenous American to also play. I mean, it was like an amazing melting pot of talent. So it means a great deal to me. So when I knew you wanted to talk, I said, this makes a lot of sense. I'm so honored, honestly, to be here. This is really cool. And you say you remember being five years old on this stage. Is it because of the reaction you got?

You never forget that. Oh, you never forget your first laugh, your first applause. And that feeling of that music, you know, just drove me. still does to this day. What's it like to sit here now? Is there any memory that rushes back, or is it too different for that? It's too different, but it is still the air. You know, it is still the space.

And the floors are pretty much the same in certain areas. Great Broadway shows would rehearse here. And Playhouse 90, the live television dramas, would rehearse here. So oftentimes the floor would have tape all over for where the sets were. And then over time, as I made my way in the industry, I would talk about this place, all these people would come say,

I used to go to the sessions. I mean, Carl Reiner told me several times. Oh, yeah, we would go to Mel Brooks, Jack Nicholson. Really? When he came to see Seven Just Sundays, and he saw the section about the Central Plaza, said to me, I used to go there on the weekends when I was in high school.

God. Damn, that's cool. Yeah, it was really something. These were happenings. I mean, your dad had a major label in terms of the acts that he brought in, Billy Holiday and all kinds of really well-known jazz acts. Yeah, and that was, they were the family friends, you know. So it was, it's a big reason why I ended up doing whatever, whatever it is I do. It's probably inevitable from that tap dance when you were five years old.

Oh, no, I was hooked. I was hooked and I just, uh, You know, never spit the hook. Well, here we are now from a five-year-old to your new series, which is just extraordinary, called Before. Yeah. As I said to you a minute ago, it is going to be at first a shock to people, I think, to say, this is the Billy Crystal I've known in love for so many years in a way I've never seen him.

How do you describe this series to people? It's a psychodrama thriller. It's the story of a pediatric psychiatrist dealing with a troubled young boy who's presenting trauma in a way that this psychiatrist has never experienced before. And it's a story about a man who's losing his mind in order to find himself. And it's so well, I know I'm in it, but I'm just. saying it's so well made it's a brilliant cast rosy perrez hope davis judith light robert townsen and this incredible young actor who plays noah the trouble boy named jacobie

jup and it was a find of a lifetime to have him join us and be the incredible actor he is it's it's a surreal world that'll make total sense right at the very end of the ten episodes So I'm halfway through. I'm five in. It hasn't quite made sense yet, but I can feel it building to that place. It's coming. It's coming. And that's why I like that apple. We started with two on October 25th. And it's been one a week since then. Yeah. So it just keeps you now what? And it keeps people talking about it. You know, it's very exciting that way. And it's a world I never thought I would perhaps be in. But once I was in it, I loved every second of it. I was going to ask you about that. I said people will be surprised and have to reorient themselves to Billy Crystal in this series in a good way. When it came across your desk, given the scripts and the pitches you hear, how did you respond at first?

Well, I was one of the creators of it. So I was responding before there was something to respond to. You were seeking this, right? Yeah. You were seeking something different, though, in other words. Yeah, but it wasn't a conscious effort of or thought process of, I got to do something. No, I'm fine. It just was an amazing character to play.

And I hadn't intended to play them. I was going to produce it. The short, long strokes of it is. This started as a show called Deathbed. And it was a story loosely based on my grandmother's tapes that she made before she died about how the family came to America. And like when she first comes on the tape, I want you to know that my grandfather was the tailor for Zahar Nicholas

and that when the program started, they got us out of there because they were going to kill us because we were Jews. That's how the family came to America. And I went, oh, my God, oh, my God, I'm in. I'm in. So the thought was this older man recounting like these tapes his life. And talking to a gerontologist who was trying to think was this dementia, what was, you know, these stories, could they be real?

So we could never break it. And I was working with a great screenwriter, Eric Roth, who won the Oscar for Forrest Gump and Dune and Killers of the Flower Moon. I mean, as good as you can get. And Howie Miller and Sam Spreck, and we were working together, and we couldn't bust it. And then came across a book that Howie gave me, just take a read this, and it was called Life Before Life.

It's a story about kids who present a past life experience. And it's a phenomenon. And it was just to read it. So one day in a meeting, we weren't getting anywhere. We couldn't bust the story about, and I said, well, wait a minute. What if he's not 100? What if he's eight? But he has these memories.

He has these memories of an old person. What is that something? And we went, got it. Then Eric said, want you to meet Sarah Thorpe? She writes amazing stuff. Sarah came in two weeks after we told her the big bones of it and pitched out this world of Dr. Eli Adler dealing with this young Noah and where that would lead us,

his late wife, Lynn, how do they tie together? Where are we, you know, and who did this and who did? And it was an incredible pitch. And I said, stop, I'll play him. I want to play him. And that's really how it started. And then once we got a commitment from Apple to do 10, I was on Broadway with Mr. Saturday night. So they were writing.

So my only day off was Monday. So Sarah would send a script and say, what do you think? And I would read and go, oh, my, I get to do what? Are you kidding? So that was a discovery process that I did the, oh, my God, how she and the writing staff she put together wrote an amazing amazing 10 episodes. And it sounds like, Billy, you got into this character, Eli, differently than you have previous characters.

By that, I mean, you kind of had to stay there for most of it. Yeah. You know, it really developed a method for me, which I hadn't had to have before. I couldn't shake him. Janice and I over are 54-year... Your wonderful wife, yes. I've tried to maintain a rule that were never apart more than two weeks, and sometimes it's just impossible. This time was very difficult for us to be together for it. Eli's alone. His wife, Judith Light, has passed away.

Judith didn't die, the character. And so we were shooting in New Jersey, and I'd be on a set 12, 13, 14 hours a day. You see, I'm like in every moment. Yeah. So I'm him all day. I would come home, learn my lines for the next day, all alone, maybe make something to eat and not him again. Morning comes out the door at 5.30, 6 o'clock with my teamster driver. And pull over. You're this character, run these lines with me. So we got to the sound stage. Then I'm him again. So I was so immersed in Eli and fearless and, fearless. what I would do and all the, when you're mad, you can go places that are pretty spectacular, you know, as an actor. And I had great directors who I said from the time, you know, we're together, push me, stretch me, never hold back what you want.

Nothing's impossible. If it's way too much, I'll say I'll do 75% of that. But whatever I can physically do. And it was emotionally so satisfying to inhabit this guy. And I really feel like I did that. You know, I was really, and it took a while to shed him. I'm sure. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know how you shake that. I mean, I came out of watching the fifth episode, you know, 30 minutes before this, and I saw you and I just had to take myself, take myself. Take myself out of it. I wasn't in the series. But you mentioned Jacoby, the young actor who's 11 years old, was 10 when you were shooting, I guess. And he plays eight. That's how good he is. He's an extraordinary kid. He's an amazing actor.

Yeah. And, you know, kids almost insulting to him. He's a great actor. He has a natural instinct about him that's very rare. You find it in veteran actors. And he just gets it. He's just instinctual. And in the first half of the series, he doesn't speak much. And he has these panic attacks and these fantasies and these horrors and he's violent and he's mute. He's sort of feral in a way.

And it's all here. And it's in his soul. And he just does it over and over again. and then I'll go cut and I'll go, could I have a cruller? I mean, it just turns it on and off. I mean, he was astounding and he's a wonderful young man. Yeah, I mean, too, I was thinking about from his side of it, you're 10 years old, and here you are with Billy Crystal,

this legend for really your big acting debut. But man, he stands in there with you, doesn't he? Oh, for sure. I mean, he's there. We wouldn't have a show if he didn't. Yeah. We wouldn't have a show. We auditioned over 700,000.

kids in the U.S. and Canada. Wow. So we came across Jacoby who had just done a Disney film where he played one of the the darling kids in a Peter Pan movie with Jude Law. And he's the little guy, Michael. But there was something about him. And they put him on tape and they said, he's pretty special, this guy. And we looked at him and it was good.

So let's arrange an audition. But he was in London and I was in L.A. So he did it over Zoom. And he blew me away. We did the mad game, which is one of the episodes. So I was setting up the blocks in my computer in L.A., and he was knocking him over in London. And he just, and then we just spoke for a long time.

And so it was coming close to shooting. So we got him to the States. I think seven or eight days before he actually started until I first physically met him, which was perfect. Because in the show, he just shows up one day. Right. out of the blue. So it was like I didn't want to spend too much time with him.

I didn't want to over-rehears it. And just let it just naturally be. And he's so good. And it came together so well. I'm sure. Is it one of those shows where you're in it and you have a feeling that you're onto something, that this is going to be special,

that this is going to be good? And then when you sit back and actually get to watch it, it delivers on that. Was that one of those cases? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. With comedies you never know. know sometimes.

Right. Because it's, you know, you set up the joke in September and you don't get to laugh till May. So in between us, a lot of, it's just going to work. These scenes were so intense and so well directed and performed, I think, that you had a feeling that this was really something. And then, you know, it has a lot of, you know, visual effects that take a while to come in.

And in post-production, Sarah and I, you know, worked very closely together until we finished, you know, I think about a month before we debuted. And the music is spectacular. And it's, it's, you have a feeling this is going to work. Yeah. You know. And it does. It does.

You mentioned Nicholson in a different context. I was interested to read that you found something in the shining to sort of compare yourself to or the way that character so slowly goes mad. Yeah. It was like, you know, let's go fool Jack Nicholson on it. Jack Nicholson on this. And just watch, you know, he's like my favorite. And to watch that as a, oh, and he was a writer. And the scariest moment is when Shelley DeValle looks at the page

and he's just written the same thing over and over and over. But the whole movie has an atmosphere to it. And we wanted that in the Brownstone, that Eli, lives in where all of these bad things happened. And, yeah, so Jack, at any time, is a role model. Do you love doing the miniseries now? It's something you haven't done much of, right? And to be a creator and a star and this format where you get to make ten little

movies kind of? Yeah, I like that's what it feels like. You know, it's like five hours of television, and then you're on to the next thing. And, you know, it's something great about it. It's very interesting. And all production values are like a feature film working with great people. The directors are great. The DPs are great.

Camera crew was amazing. And then you can move on. You know, maybe there's talk of a second one, second season with a new patient or what happened to Eli? I don't know. It sounds like the door is open to a second season. I had a great time. Yeah. I had a great time.

At this point in my life and my career to find something, new and so invigorating is really thrilling. I was going to ask you that. You've done everything. You've succeeded at everything. What does it take to get you out the door and spend as much time and invest as much energy as you did in this character these days?

It has to be something new, something that feels challenging like that? Something really like, oh, I would like to do that. You just sort of know. I'm sort of itchy to get back on stage. Mm-hmm. you know, back to where it started here, you know, just in front of people, you know, talking. You're working on something? As in noodling around, noodling around.

All right. But, yeah, that would be great. But I, and if nothing happens, it's all been great. I have a feeling there's plenty more ahead, Billy. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Billy Crystal right after the break. Welcome back. Now more of my conversation with Billy Crystal. We were talking about your dad a minute ago, and I'm curious, beyond the five-year-old tap dancing,

when the performance or entertaining bug really bit you, to the extent where you said, this is something I want to do with my life. Was it at Long Beach High School? Was it before that? It was all before, yeah, my brothers and I were the relatives performing. It all just felt all right. what else am I going to do? And then performing in high school, we had a show called The Swing Show, which was a variety show. It was a dance band, singers, something.

I did stand-up in it. And it just sort of came naturally. And I'm at ease in only a few places, honestly, talking to people. and fielding ground balls. Otherwise, I don't know why I am. No, it's always been the safe place. Always has been.

That's interesting because it's the exact opposite for most people. The safe place is not standing up in a bunch of front of people. No, I get it. I get it. It always felt like that's where I wanted to be, you know. And you chase that here to NYU, right? Were you... I was in film school.

here. Mariscoe says he was my film production professor. He was a graduate student at the time, just doing his first movie called Who's That Knockin on My Door? And it was 1968, 1969, 1970. This neighborhood was wild. It was a terrible time for America, but a great time at the same time. Because through all of that, all of that adversity, and all of that protesting against the Vietnam War, it brought us together. It also, you know, what came out of it was a renaissance in music and poetry and art

that we're still feeling today. I mean, suddenly there were voices. There was Joan Baez. There was Dylan. It was The Grateful Dead. There was, you know, we shut down in New York State Thruway. There was all of that.

World was like right here. And so when I was at NYU, Marty was a professor. And big, big beard and granite glasses, hair down on his shoulder. And he looked like everybody. But he'd stand behind you while you're editing your film. And he would be very scary because he would look and he was so intense. And he would speak very quickly. Even then, he spoke quicker then because he was 50 years younger.

And he was, why did you shoot that boy? Use a white shot. He should have Howard Hawks. Oh, he used the white shot. I said, I'm 19. I don't know who Howard Hawks is. One time he spoke so quick, he dissipated into the future. It's just, where'd want to go?

Oof. Yeah, God. So he was basically what he is now, a version of that. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's the same. It's the same energy. Every time I see him, I say the same thing. Why'd you give me a C?

Did he really give me a C? No. No, no grades. It would just, I think you could do better. I think you could do better. So what was the vision then? What was the ideal? You're in film school here. What do you want to do with it? You want to make films?

I thought so. I thought so. But then I really always was acting. And then I had gone to this junior college before NYU called NASA Community College. And I had an amazing theater department. That's who I broke through as an actor was there. I still wonder why I came here as a director. I'm just, I don't, even now I don't, I'm not sure why I did that because my soul was always in acting. So then we had an incredible head of the theater department at Nassau.

I have to say his name because he was a wonderful man for me, Dr. Wesley Jansby. And Wes started something called the Alumni Theater Group. These were all graduates. This is a two year school, right? And we did a summer stock program. So, you auditioned for the team to be part of the team, the acting team, and we did four plays in rep for the summer, Somersstock, and he got an equity bond, and that's why I got my equity card. So it's really interesting because the theater, well, this was a concert hall, an event hall, weddings, bar, bar, misfism, now it's a theater.

Out there was an Air Force base. Right. And they were hangers for planes. So we turned one of the hangers into a theater. And you could open up those huge doors and people would sit on the runways. Wow. And we had big musicals. We did Finian's Rainbow. Janice and I went Finian's Rainbow together.

Funny thing happened away the forum. Sweet Charity. It was a summer of rep, you know, summer stock. And we'd get 2,000, 2,500 people sitting under the stars, indoor, outdoor. You know, if you got there early, you got to sit inside the hangar. And then there was no turning back. There was really no turning back. It was kind of an extension of what happened to you were five here.

You were feeling the crowd and the excitement and the energy putting on a show. Yeah, and you got to play good parts. I was Rosencranton, Rosencrantz and Gilden's Turned Dead, Og and Finian's Rainbow, the leprechaun, got to sing when I'm not near the girl I love. I love the girl I'm near, and I was near the girl I loved, so it made a lot of sense. Can we talk about the girl you love? We can talk about her if she's not here, even though she's sitting right there. I am also, my wife and I were high school sweethearts, actually met in junior high school.

Wow. So now I know what it's like to grow up together. How gratifying, I guess, has it been to have the life and the career that you've had with Janice at your side from the very beginning? Yeah, from before the beginning. Yeah. The most important moment for us was I was substitute teaching, right, in the same junior high that I had gone to in Long Beach. And I was really frustrated with myself. I was with two friends.

We was an improv group called Three's Company, where that was the three of us. And I loved these guys. They were my best friends. and we were very funny together. But I was hiding. I needed to be on my own, and I didn't know how to do it. I was really scared. And it was at the beginning of when the comedy clubs were becoming a thing.

The improv here in New York that started it. And then it was a club on E-Sy called Catch a Rising Star. And we would go there's a group and work, and it was, things just weren't happening. And then my manager, who was managing the group at the end, was the let tail part of us, said, the group's not going anywhere. Have you thought of being a single?

Because we'll be there for you. And these are the managers who managed Robert Klein, Cavett, Woody Allen, like they were the Jack Rollins, Charlie Jaffe, Buddy Moore. They were like the class comedy managers. And I said, he said, because we'll be there for you if you want to do it. A couple of days later, I get a call from a friend at NYU saying,

you know what comedian can do like 20 minutes in front of a folk singer Friday night at ZBT, fraternity house on Mercer Street? I said, I'll do it. He said, when did you start doing it? And I lied. Oh, I've been doing it for a while. So I threw together some stuff.

I did. you know, pretty well that night. It went great. And now there's no turning back. In the interim, we have a baby. So now Janice comes to me and says, the baby's six months old. And this is the turning point in my life. She says, I'm going to go back to work. We really need the money. I get health benefits at my job. You'll watch Jenny all day. I'll come home. I'll come home. around five and you go off and you'll be the comedian I know that you can be. And that was the deal. So two things happened.

I'm now responsible for this six-month-old all on my own and with this amazing gift of time at night and go do it. And it's now, now you're on the clock. And I found with Jenny that you can love something. so much more than yourself or anything else in your life, she can't get through today without you. And that was, and then Janice would come home, to hand her off, and then drive an hour into the city and try to get on before 1 o'clock in the morning.

Drive all the way back, Janice would leave for her job. And there's like 6, 7, 8 o'clock in the morning, I'd be up, and then it would start all over again. But that was the, that was a turning point for me because I, I talked before about a guy losing his mind and finding himself. I was finding myself in spectacular ways, you know, that you can't really almost explain anyone

unless they have their own kids and they have a, you know, a goal that they so want to achieve. and I don't know, I might have, if that didn't happen, I don't know, would I have backed off and say, is there a full-time teaching job that I can have? I don't know. And a partner who believes in you and says, go do it. I think you can do it. I love that. Yeah, I think that's critically important to have somebody at your side who says, you're good at this. I was, I was, I was Mr. Mom before it was cool. So then things do start happening for you. I'm looking at, I think in 76, you do Carson. You're on the dais, the Dean Martin Rose with Ali.

I mean, those are big gigs at that point. Well, the first one was with, and it would turn out to be an amazing relationship. 1974, Ali beats George Foreman, the Rumble in the Jungle. They're going to honor them at the Plaza Hotel in a tri-state special. It was only going to be seen in New York. Pennsylvania and Connecticut. It was a sport magazine was a great magazine at the time. And its editor-in-chief was Dick Schap,

who's a great writer and would later become one of our best friends. So he calls my agent, because they're going to do this special for Ali. Is Robert Klein in town? Because Robert did a lot of great sports stuff. And she said, no, Robert's not in town. But I have this new kid and he does this imitation of Muhammad Ali and Kosell. It's really funny, Dick. It's like three minutes long.

I've seen him at Catcherizing Star and I signed him. And Dick said, great. It's a Plaza Hotel Friday, 8 o'clock. Give me his number. I want to talk to him in person. So I'm actually feeding Jenny. But Billy, Dick Schap, hi. We're doing this thing as I'd like you to be on the show.

Really? Yeah. And he's telling me all about it. And he said, and Ali, I know he'll love. I said, wait, Ali's going to be here. Oh, yeah, we're honoring him. And we'll see you a Friday night at o'clock. So I hung up the phone.

I just, I couldn't believe that this was going to happen. Jazz and I drive in from Long Beach at the Plaza Hotel. We walk into the ballroom and cameras are all set up and all of these people are mingling around and we hold hands and we look like, as I described, two people who had just gotten to America. We had, we were just like, oh, my God. And then I saw Ali for the first time. Still, I mean, he was just, there was, everyone else was like, it was like a Scorsese shot.

Everybody else was in slow motion except him. It was amazing. And then Dix meets us, and he says, Janice, you're going to sit with me. Billy, you're like two seats from Ali on the dais. Yeah. And he goes, how should I introduce you? Because no, I was not on anything. So I said, just say I'm one of Ali's closest and dearest friends.

I said, good, good, all right, good. Because then in my mind, I'll go right to the mic. I'll just launch into the Howard CoSell of it. I won't have to talk as myself. My dry mouth will go away, and then it'll be fine. So I'm sitting next to Gino Marquetti from the Baltimore Colts, Archie Griffin. It was all the great individual sports stars They were all on there

Including Neil Simon And oh my God Talk about an all-star team, right? And George Plimpton. And you're still a kid at this point? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've never been on television before. And there's Ali, my hero.

I mean, because with the Kennedy's gone And Martin Luther King gone and Malcolm X gone, all these people gone. This was the man. who said this war is wrong, who stood up for something and stood up for all of us by saying, I will give up everything because this isn't right. And I just loved him for that.

And on top of it, he was unbelievable. And now his Ali's closest and dearest friend. So I get up, and there's like two people applaud, which was Janice and Dick Chap. And so I got to the mic, and I went right into the co-cell of it. Hello, everyone. Howard Kosel in the ring, here in Zaire, Africa.

And someone starts yelling at me from the audience. It's Drew Bundini Brown, who was all these right-hand man in the corner. Bundini, float like a butterfly, that guy. And he's yelling at me. I'm getting heck, 20 seconds into my breakthrough. You got a man. That's what he's yelling.

You got a man. And I just kept going, and I hit the Ali. everybody's talking about Joe Fraser. I don't talk about Joe Fraser. George Farmer is a slow motion, and went on and on and on and on. And it ended.

Big applause. Ali grabs me and whispers in my ear. You're my little brother. Oh, wow. And that's what he called me for 42 years. Oh, man. It was unbelievable that we would know each other all of this time. So flash forward, sadly he passes on.

Lonnie, his amazing wife, calls me and says Muhammad wanted you to be one of his euloges. It's in Louisville. Of course, of course, of course. So Janice and I fly to Louisville. It's in a where the basketball team plays

in a big arena, 17,000 people. They just had a funeral where they chased after the coffin. Not unlike Robert Kennedy on the train with everyone waving goodbye and watching the great man go. And we're still holding hands. And I'm sitting next to President Clinton. And all I'm thinking about Willie is this, what if Robert Klein was in town? Right. All right. Maybe this didn't happen. None of this happens. Maybe none of it happens if Robert Klein is in town. Have you told Robert Klein that in help? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You thanked him?

Oh, yeah, and he was pissed off. Why, damn, I should have been in town. With this fate, it's destiny. You know, like the first time I met Janice, it was like meant to be. Yeah, but you also have to deliver in that moment. You get the opportunity and you got to do that. No, it was electric. It was crazy because no one knew who I was.

And, you know, it just worked. And Ali recognized that. And he was on at Dean Martin Roast when I went and went from there to do my first car show right up to that. But another one, we have time? Oh, all of that. Okay. You talk about the things.

I'm a new guy. I come to L.A., second or third time. And they set up a night for me at the comedy store to do 20 minutes, and they invited a bunch of really heavyweight people to come if they wanted to see this new guy from New York. So Carl Rine was in. the audience. Norman Lee was in the audience. Jim Brooks was in the audience, all of these people. It went really good. I'm standing outside. If you've been to a comedy story,

the scene is outside. Excuse me. And Mr. Reiner walks out, introduces himself, like he had to, you know, I'm Carl Reiner nice to meet you. Like, what was the name? What do I know you from? And then Norman Lear comes out. Same thing. Hi, I'm Norman Lear. So nice to meet you. Really enjoyed it. Tell me about your stuff. Tell me about your so and so forth. Two weeks later, I'm again feeding Jenny. She's like, it was such a good omen for me. Good luck. Good luck, John. Hello. Hold on for Norman Lear, Mr. Crystal. So did I, what did I, did I offend it? What was it? Billy, hey, Norman Lear, we met at the comedy store and I want to go, I don't, I don't recall. You know, what do you, so self-effaced.

There's a part on all in the family that's coming up next week. week. And I think you and Robbie would be really good together. The script's not there yet, but it'll get there. That's how we work. And so can you get here? Yeah, of course. Great. We'll make all the rangers and I'll see you when you get here. And I went on all-in family and played Rob's best friend. And we became, you know, best friends after that. We sort of said, this worked good. Should we keep it going? And that relationship, he's like a brother to me. And I was fortunate enough to be in three

amazing movies. I have one line and spinal tap, a bunch of lines into Princess Bride, and most of the lines in there. And that body of work of just with Rob and I alone means so much to my career and so much to me personally that,

you know, we're in our 70s now and that we have this great friendship still and the body work. It was a big reason why, you know, nice things have happened for me. Yeah, those three movies are all classics, obviously. Stick around for more of my conversation with Billy Crystal right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Billy Crystal. I know you've been told this 35 years since when Harry met Sally. You and Rob work together.

Are you playing play? pleasantly surprised by the endurance of that movie. By that, I mean, young people today quote it. Everybody's, I mean... No, I'm very upset about it. No, of course. I'm not even... You know, after a while, you're not even surprised

because it keeps happening. And I'm not surprised because there's so much truth and love in that movie. There's so much romance in that movie. There's so much confusion in that movie about relationships. That's an eternal... It's a situation for people.

And young kids now, they're into the phase of their life where they may be falling in love. And is this the right thing? It took Harry and Sally 12 years to figure it out, you know. But it's thrilling that it still happens. I mean, one of my granddaughters in school last year as a senior, they were doing a class on Harry and Salish. And she said, Grandpa, you're not going to believe that. this. You're not going to believe this. Could you come and talk to the class about it? And it's very, it's so satisfying. You never know, right? That's one of you asked me, do you know if you,

you know, before, do you know if it's good? We knew it was good. There's a wonderful script. Meg and I were so good together, Bruno and Carrie. Um, amazing director. Um, and a great cinematographer, Barry Sanoffield, it became a terrific director in his own, right? And it was New York, it was the fall, and you were here in Gershren, whether it was playing or not, you know? And it was like the perfect, it was the perfect time for, for Meg and I in our careers to have this moment together. We would, had done some, to throw Mama from the train, and things were happening a little bit. It just was meant to be. What did that movie, Billy, do for your, not just your career, but your life.

It obviously changed things. You were a great stand-up. People knew you in comedies. They knew you from television series and some of the other movies you'd done. But this was something else. This had a life of its own. And it still does. Yeah.

You know, it just was, it's a way, suddenly you're being told you're a romantic lead. That took a lot of adjustments. for me. No, but it's, even to this day, 35 years later, people come up and they want to meet Harry. You know, they want, where are they now? What's happened to them?

Do you know, what do you think and all of that stuff? And then, you know, when I got the, it was fortunate enough to receive the Kennedy Center honor last year. And Rob was sort of the maestro of it. And Meg walked out. And a set that was, you know, a duplicate of the Katz's Deli. It just, you know, it just, I'm wearing the beautiful Kennedy Center honor medallion. And there she is, you know, talking about it.

And she was so charming. And from all of that distance, there was still that chemistry. It was just, you know, it means as you get older and you look back and you go, that was a good one. I'll have what she's having. You could hear it anywhere out on the street tonight in a bar or somewhere. Rob is always quick to point out that you actually wrote that line. I did, yeah. I mean.

For his mom. Right? A cell. That's Estelle who says that line. Incredible. Did you think of that on the spot? We were in a rehearsal. And it started to happen, the concept.

Nora brought up the fact that women made fake orgasms and Rob said, well, they haven't fake one with me. And she goes, well, that may not be true. And I could hear Nora writing, you know, just those lines. And then Meg said, I think I should have one. I said, now. No, no, I knew. And I said, yeah, in a public place, like at a restaurant.

Now we're all laughing. laughing. And she said, yeah, I'll do. And I said, then we'll, we cut to a woman, an older woman, and she'll say, I'll have what she's having. And that was, that's how it's, that's how it happened. And the rest is history. To tie it up, I want to ask you about 700 Sundays, which is, in December will be the 20th anniversary of the debut. I'm free. It's incredible. Yeah, that's, that's, that was when we real, I realized that, like a couple of months ago, it's, it's 20, years. 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. And those Sundays, a lot of them were in here, you were saying, because it's the time you had with your dad. Sundays were home because he's always home. He was here

Friday and Saturday nights. The Sundays were in Long Beach, yeah. And so that was, it's such a, the concept is so moving because you lost your dad when you were 15 years old and that's too young to lose your dad. Yeah. For you stop and think about that. That had to be so special to be able to tell that story to an audience every night. Well, it came at a time when I needed to say it. The luggage gets heavy carrying it around all that time. And I just needed to do it in a way that I was comfortable with and that's in front of people. And telling

them the story of my family from my experience and and trying to deal with the loss at 15 out of the blue after a night where we, evening we had an argument and then he never comes home. And it was, it was just, I just wanted to do it in a theatrical way that was honest and doing it here and talking about the music and the family in front of the house that I grew up in the set was the house I grew up in in Long Beach was the highlight of my creative experience. I gave, you know, so much every night and got back so much from audiences.

I have so many hundreds of letters from people who experience pain like that and found strength through the show. They would leave me notes. They would leave me notes. They would leave me, someone left me a brick from the hospital that I was born in, which was doctor's hospital right across from Gracie Mansion. He said, did you show made me think about that? And I lived there. But yeah, that, that was, that was, the most amazing experience was, was hearing 1,500 people and I not make a sound sometimes during the show. I would sit on a lawn chair. and just talk to them about what this house meant to me, what, how important it is to fight through

and putting a face on grief as this boulder that I pushed around. The high school, when I went back to school and just feeling all of that terribleness and understanding that life isn't always, there's no guarantees, you know, and just being taught that as a young age hardened me maybe before I really wanted it. it too, you know.

And it took you that long to work through it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, but then you work through it in with your, you turn it into something that's art. You know, I liken it to rumple still skin. You take all the straw in your life and you turn it into gold if you can, you know. And for that, seven inches Sundays.

And again, why I wanted to be here, because it basically starts. here in many ways. And that was so important to me. And that it was important to audiences, too, still makes me glow. I can't help but think sitting in the Jack Crystal Theater what your father would have thought, seeing the things you've done in your life, in your career, and the person and the artist you've become. Do you think about that sometimes? All the time. When things happen, the baby's being born, the baby's going off to college, our grandchildren. It's those moments, the career moments, of course, I couldn't get them out of my head, and my mom, too, at the Kennedy Center, shaking hands with President Biden

and wearing the medallion and sitting up in a box and all of these wonderful people coming to say nice things. I kept saying, ah, man, what they missed. But in some ways you think, they've seen. They've been watching. But the five-year-old kid here, who's a movie star, who's hosting the Academy Awards, who's getting the Kennedy honors. That's beyond any father's dream.

Big time. But I think hopefully the thing that would be most important is he'd say, you did good. You're a good man. would mean the most. Thank you, Billy. I appreciate the time. You're great, Willie.

Honor to be in here with you. Thank you. In this theater. Thanks. My big thanks again to Billy for a great conversation and for helping us open the doors to the Jack Crystal Theater at NYU, the Tisch School for the Arts. You can check out Billy's series before on Apple TV Plus. And my thanks to all of you for listening again this week.

If you want to hear our conversations with our guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an effort. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on IndyC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down Podcast.