Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Danny DeVito

Episode Date: April 7, 2019

After a nearly 50-year run in Hollywood, Danny DeVito is the kind of star with generations of fans. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist talks to the actor and Oscar-nominee about that lengthy career, from his first big role in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” to “Taxi,” “Twins,” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” as well as his latest performance in the new live-action version of the Disney classic “Dumbo.”  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 with us. This week, a good one for you, Danny DeVito. We got together to talk about the live-action remake of the Disney classic Dumbo. Going to be a big deal at the box office, and he stars in the film. He talks about making the movie, being a fan of the movie growing up in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Fascinating childhood, didn't know what he wanted to do with his life when he graduated high school. His sister said, come work at the beauty salon.

So Danny DeVito worked at a salon. He went to beauty school. He did makeup. He did all of it. And that actually helped jumpstart his career and got him into acting. He'll explain that. Then that leap into one flew over the cuckoo's nest, which was his breakthrough. And then taxi, of course, the role as Louis DePama that changed his life.

He went from there into movies like Terms of Endearment, romancing the Stone, War of the Roses, which he directed as well. We also get into his TV career. career most recently in it's always sunny in Philadelphia, a ton to talk about with Danny DeVito, but I always like to give you guys a little background, a little backdrop of the story. So, we conducted this interview at essentially an underground bar in New York City, where you walk in the front door on street level, you go downstairs, and that's where the bar is. Well, upstairs, this being New York City, they were constructing a new apartment building. We couldn't even get up there to ask them to stop the jackhammering and all the construction.

So you will hear it throughout jackhammering. There was no way to stop it. So we powered through. Thank goodness. Danny DeVito is a pro, number one. Number two, he's a director. So he sort of knew when to stop. He knew when to help our production team get what they needed out of it.

You're going to hear it in the background. I promise we keep going. I promise it's worth hanging in for the conversation. You know what? You do an interview in New York. These are some of the challenges. you face my Sunday sit-down interview with the great Danny DeVito right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Thanks for doing this, Danny. I appreciate it. Nice to be here. Nice to be. I like the

environment, like the whole milieu. Yeah. It's very nice. Sort of a dungeon vibe of some kind. We're in New York, right? Yes, as far as I can tell. Perfect. Yeah. Let's talk Dumbo. Dumbo. Oh my gosh, it was so much fun doing Dumbo. I watched it this morning. I got two young kids. You've got children? All I can think about is how much they're going to love it. Oh, they're going to eat it up. They love it, yeah. What's not to love?

I mean, it's like a beautiful thing. Well, you know, for us with parents who kids, my kids are grown. They've seen it, and they absolutely love it. The thing is the 1941 film that I grew up with, like I saw it when I was like in the 50s and I was, you know, a kid in New Jersey. and the I just loved to we are in New York

Yes Okay See this is a director They're working on it They're working on it They're going to drill right through the ceiling The dust is already falling down It's going to be particles

So like let's get back to Dumbo Okay so the idea is that The values in that movie in the 41 Most of them the majority of the crux of it of being, you know, oddball, Dumbos born, he's got these big ears, he's ostracized, he's looked at as like, like, you know, an other, and people make fun of them and everything.

And all the themes of, like, embracing the fact that we're all individuals, you know, and that we've got to take our, whatever strengths we have, whatever we are and be proud of who we are and all those things that we want our kids to realize that we have to you know have them find their own feather that thing that gets them you know launches them into the confidence that they need in order to navigate this great world that we live in and all those good things given to tim burton you know that that thing changes like it just they stay all those values stay but he he except He's such an artist.

He's just like an amazing, like, visual artist. I felt like doing the movie. I was like, I always feel this way with him. I'm part of his paint box. You know, this guy who is, in

a way, Tim, is very much like Dumbo. You know, he is kind of like a guy who always feels, I mean, we all have that quality. You know, you go through life as a young kid, You know, you're a teenager and you have some awkward thing or you some, some weirdness, some shyness, you know, that you have to overcome. You have to embrace.

You have to understand, recognize it. You do it with the help from your parents or your friends or, you know, teachers, educators, whatever. And so Tim, I felt like with Dumbo, he's perfect fit, you know, for this subject matter. Did you know he'd been thinking about doing this? Did he talk to you about it? No, the thing is, we, you know, we met it on Batman Returns, which is also very, you know, it's always a character that is like kind of an odd creature that has to overcome. Whatever the, like the penguin is a bird who can't fly, he's like, he just wants to, you know, he's almost like Harvey Firestein. and I just want to be loved.

You know what I mean? He was like, although he was resentful from the way people treated him, his mother and father threw him in a river. You know, that's kind of tough. And so, you know, Tim has these kinds of oddball things

that are going through his mind. He called me about a year, maybe a couple of years ago now. I was doing the price here in the roundabout in New York and it almost looked like I wasn't going to be free because my contract was continuing with the play and I wouldn't leave the play

but then they pushed the movie and it turned out really be great. When he called me and said, I'm going to do a live-action, CG movie of Dumbo, I just thought it was a perfect fit. How do you describe the Tim Burton thing, whatever that is?

Because when I see a Tim Burton movie, I know it's a Tim Burton movie right away. Well, it's like I feel like you give a subject that has substance that has, like, pathos and has, you know, caring. Like even with Edward Scissorhands, you know, this kind of odd character that he loves to explore. And his thing is that he is an artist, so he's visual, totally. visual. Everything is like when you, like when I walk in to talk about the penguin, what you see is drawings of the penguin. You see what the paint. I have a painting that I glommed from him that when in the early days, glom to people who don't understand that is took from him in the early days. It's a Jersey term. You understand. I'm with you on that. Yeah, you know, it's Jersey boy. And so the thing is that, It was a painting of these circus stripes, the red and white stripes,

and a ball, a round ball, with a little guy sitting on it in a tuxedo, looking like Oswald as a kid, right? Coswald Cobblepot as a penguin as a kid. And there was a legend that said, my name is Jimmy, but they call me the hideous penguin boy. And it's a simple kind of thing that when you see that in his office, when I walked in and saw that, and the evolution of the penguin, you know, you get so much, without even saying a word, it doesn't have to talk to you.

You just get where his head is. With Dumbo, it's the same thing. You see, I did this character basically in Big Fish, where I was the circus, There we had, you know, the giant and the kind of like the giant felt out of place and was needed a friend, needed people to be around. I was actually a werewolf in that movie, but like those oddities, people who don't quite fit into the world that he likes to embrace. And then like I say, he just takes it to a level of artistry. I watch him on the set. Like I say, just I would go, you know, hang out because I love watching him. I love watching him work.

He'll take a massive soundstage with, like, say, for instance, in one of the scenes in our dumbero is, there's all grass. It's like just big field of grass, and it's all real grass, and the studio is ringed with blue screen for like 10 feet. or 20 feet of blue screen. And then there's a blanket of like silk with lights that have these kinds of LED lights that change color temperature. So I'm giving you this picture that he'll take these giant circus wagons that were coming off the train car and place them in places around strategically around that set. and then all the people in the costumes, Colleen Atwood's costumes are just brilliant, and use them as his palette,

you know, his canvas. So it'll take and move things around and put the camera where, and then change the, like, setting and the lighting, like whether it's, you know, morning or afternoon or night, with these magic lights that you have now today, you can do all this. I think, I would say 100% of the movie indoors, but you'd never know it. No, you wouldn't watching it.

No, it's all in five sound stages at Pinewood in London and just, you know, an amazing studio to work in. It's really an artist's studio. You're right when he's described him as an artist or almost a painter. using a blank canvas. It's just like all these elements are taken and used. One of the great things about Dumbo is, when my kids go to see it, I won't have to explain to them the story of Dumbo. Because even 80 years later almost, every kid.

Everybody's seen it. Has seen it, knows the story, knows the lessons of it. But for a lot of people, this will be an entirely new visual. Yeah, this is going to be a new experience. It's totally, it's the same. values, I think, the good values that we're in, Disney's artist, artistic movie that we love, but he brings it into the 21st century. We changed the story a little bit.

You know, Max Medici, I run the circus. It's like a fading circus. We need something to boost us up. I make one good investment, and that is Mrs. Jumbo, who has the baby, our adorable baby. And then we bring in other elements, like, which are current, like, kind of, like, situations that would happen now capitalizing on our success of the circus. Our family is now thriving because we have Dumbo. And then we kind of maybe want to take it to the next level, which is where the evil Michael Keaton comes. Which is really great to work with Michael again.

great in the movie. We've done three movies together. We did Johnny Dangerously, Batman Returns, and now this, and he comes in with just the right. He's perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Energy. Is it true that you, going way, way back, were a fan of Dumbo, like, in your youth even? Oh, yeah, back in Asbury Park, really? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, Dumbo came out a few years before I was born, and I saw it, I guess, when I was in my, I might have been 10 or 8 or 10. My sister, you know, in Asbury, we had five movie theaters. Unbelievable.

In a mile square town down the shore, we had five movie theaters with the Mayfair of the St. James, the baronet, the Paramount, and the lyric. And what would happen was the first one run movies would go to the Mayfair and the St. James, and then they would move around. always get to see the movies. It's a resort town, you know, Asbury, really cool down there, down in Jersey. And so every once in a while, a movie would pop up, like, would come back to fill their, to help them out and fill the circuit. And whenever Dumbo came back, we would go see it.

Now, I don't remember, like, specifically that experience, but I do remember showing it to my kids who had three kids so i've seen it like you know i i i i got to say i've seen it like at least 50 times you know what i'm saying over the years sure with all three kids right you know my son was like into the train and the girls were into this and the girl you know the whole it was like uh you know like get up in the morning you know how it is with kids what are you going to do with them. You know, stick them on the couch, put them, get them a little food, put them on a couch, pop in the movie, get ready for work, whatever you're doing. You know, like, how's it going over there? Good, good, what's Thumbull doing now? You know, he's like, this mother is that taking

up? This is this kind of thing. Even if it's the same movie you saw yesterday. It works. Oh, God. Run it back. That pushes, but I, I've seen the movie now three times, and I can't get through I mean, I, you know, and the great thing about it is the way we've dealt with, you know, the animal situation where the captivity of animals. You know our movie? We had no, we had no live, we didn't shoot with any live, we had seven or eight poodles, which were like Tim had to make, you know, colored their little poodle hair, make them rainbows. And we had a snake. So I played with the poodles, but I stayed away from the snake. wise choice

and in the movie of course the elephants are all these you're working with green like a guy

in a green suit who look a little bit more like a grasshopper than an elephant and then these big framed

kind of green aluminum cutouts that are manipulated that you look at it and then they

magically draw all CG in all these. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right that part of the reason it's such a beloved movie is because we all have something about ourselves that we think is the big ears.

Yeah, like I would walk into a room like when I was a young man or a teenager, I was always the smallest person in the room. And I was always, it's kind of gruff, kind of like sensibility about me. If I walked into a bar when I was a young man like, you know, 18 years old even.

I was always like a, you know, let me have a scotch and soda. The whole bar would look over it. What's in the corner over there, you know? It's like, so you had to deal with that, you know, like growing up. Yeah. I mean, everybody has an awkward thing that they feel. So how did you deal with that? Well, I deal with that.

I think, you know, after watching the movie and thinking about it, You know, the whole idea of the kids giving Dumbo the feather, and the feather being the kind of bridge to his ability to embrace the fact that he has magic inside of him, which we all do, you know. So my feather, I identify as my choice to become an actor. Because before that, I would not ever be as comfortable. in front of strangers or in front of any

you know I was awkward at parties I was awkward at you know I mean I got by and I conquered it but I guess like in Jersey what you do is you tell jokes you know you you break chops and you become

like the so whatever gets you into that spot where you can look at yourself and recognize the fact that you do have a contribution to make. You do have some kind of like, you know, spirit in you that you can share with people. And I think mine was when I decided to, instead of hide from the stage, was to get on the stage.

Yeah. So that started, so famously, you worked at your sister's beauty salon in Jersey. Well, that helped too, because in the beauty parlor, I had to be, my sister, push me in front of everybody. Okay. She was like, when she asked me, I think I was like, I just got a high school.

And I wasn't going to, I was cutting grass with a gardener down in Jersey and in the winter I was shoveling snow. That was my, that's what I did. And every once in a while I get an odd job doing this and that. She said, you should come to work for me and my beauty parlor.

And I said, what are you nuts? What, do I look like a beautician? What am I a hairdresser? I don't know anything. about it. I like girls, but, you know, so she said, well, I'll school you this summer, and then I'll send you to the school down in NASBerry. There was a Wilford Academy of beauty school. So all summer, I dragged my feet. I didn't want to do it, and she forced me into the pin curl business. I, you know, you know, I would, you know, I would,

do her head, my sister, mother's sister, my mother, my aunt, they sit me down and a son. I seriously was not, I didn't feel like I was cut out for this, but it was kind of funny in a way and then, you know, and they're so like, you know, I had matriarchal like the whole thing of the family. I was the baby boy. Like they were all 15 years older than I am 60, my sisters. So when I was a teenager, they were already like pulling me around, telling me to do things. I was like, you know, part-time brother, part-time, go get me a glass of water. You know what I mean? That kind of thing.

You know, so I did it. I went to the school. I walked up the stairs with my bag of tricks, whatever it was in there, a rat tail comb in my And I turned the corner and in there with 35 young women my age, all wanting to be hairdressers. And I said, God, my prayers have been answered. I went downstairs immediately called my sister. Had I go to a pay phone. Didn't have this little cell phone.

And I said, Angie, I owe you my life. It was so great. It was the best thing I ever did. I kind of broke the ice. So I'm surprised then you ever left that business, given how well it was going for you at that point. Well, you know, it was her fault. She sent me to New York to learn how to do makeup.

I said, God, you know, you really push in the envelope here, you know. I'm working now. She gave me all the, I got all the, you know, the elderly clientele. She was pushing me toward, you know, they were like, God love them, you know. I actually even did, this is like the weirdest thing. I had the client, the older clientele in the shop, and then when they passed away,

I would actually go do their hair in the coffin. Wow. I mean, maybe that's why I liked Tim so much. Wow. So you'd go down to the funeral parlor. Yeah, go to the, yeah, mortuary. Yeah, the funeral. funeral parlor and get him ready and they would...

Wow. I didn't know that about you. No. I, you know, it's not something that I talk about a lot, but I'm not ashamed of it. It was good. Of course not. No. Make a buck however you get. Yeah. So then how do you get from doing hair at the funeral parlor to acting? To go study makeup. I couldn't find a makeup class. I come here up, you know, I found a woman who would teach me. she said the only way I could give you my, I could teach you how to do it is if you, I'm teaching at the American Academy Dramatic Arts, I'll teach you one class over there so I'd enroll as a night student.

I mean, the tangle web we weave when we try to do something that your sister tells you to do. So I would come up every like three times a week to do this. I would sort of pay attention. to the other classes. Right. But I had it, it got hooked on it. I liked it. Then I said,

the hell of it that I enrolled in the day school and became an actor and I loved it. And I abandoned my sister. She was okay about it. You had a good run, though, in the beauty business. Pretty good run, yeah.

Made a few bucks. And then, so at some point in your acting career, you decide I'm going to move to L.A. I guess it was free in cold blood, right? Is that the first time out? to incoble, that story was I read in cold blood in installments, I think in the New Yorker

and I thought I could play Perry Edward Smith and I went out to California, saved a few bucks. I just got out of the American Academy, I think at the time. I did some summer stock and blah blah, blah, children's theater, read that thing, went out to California

1967 or eight and tried to meet Richard Brooks. I did. The part was already cast. I stuck out there for a year and we couldn't get arrested and then I came back to New York to work because I think what was happening is I really wanted to act and I was in California and there was no really way to exercise that so I came back here and I went up working off Broadway off off Broadway Joe Papp you know Shakespeare in the park blah blah blah all that kind of stuff if you believe

in twists of fate Danny you came back from LA because it wasn't working out there yeah You came back and met your wife, right? I met really in 1970. Yeah, I was doing a play down at the Mercury Theater, 13th and 3rd. And Ria came to visit a friend who was in the play, and that's how we met. Then that early 70s was great, you know, all the ups and downs and all the, you know, auditioning and this actors go through at all time. Ria was working as a waitress.

I once in a while would get, like, if you got a job at the public theater, that was the big pay. You made $200 a week. If you were off Broadway, you were making $68 a week. But you got to look at it in perspective because the rent was like, you know, $52 a month. Right, right. Like that. You lived in a five-floor walk up on 21st Street or something. Do you look back fondly on those times?

It was good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All that, what they call the salad days, whatever they are. You know, you, you got to go through all that kind of stuff because, you know, you got to, you know, you don't want to, like, you don't want to, you know, meteor to the top because you don't get the, you don't get the good stuff. You know, you just got to have faith, stick in there, stay to, you know, keep your eyes on whatever you want and do the work. And you wind up, you know, you know, sometimes you, you know, and then you, you know, you adapt, you know, and my case.

I got lucky. I did cuckoo's nest off Broadway and then I got to do the movie and then I went to California after that. So, 75, I think. Then taxi came 78. Right. Do you view cuckoo's nests or the beginning of your run? That's a big deal. It was really the big deal. It got me out of, yeah, got me to New York, to L.A. And that was a great part. And then taxi. was like a gift, just came out. And that's the idea of being out there. And a lot of actors, you know, you get a job, you're doing this, you're doing a little of this,

you're doing a little of that. But the thing is that you've got to get that good fortune, that lucky part that comes from out of the blue, which is what happened with Taxi. I came, you know, casting director called me and said, hey, Danny, you've got to go in and see this, and I went, and I, you know, and you know, and you know that it's not, I mean, it's your doing. You've got to be ready for it. So that's what all the other stuff is,

whether it's little theater here, classes here, that, you know, street theater, anything, to get, you know, comfortable with what you're doing. And then when the thing comes along, continuity. When the thing comes along, you know, you're ready for it and you embrace it and do it. taxi was

Are you getting I don't want to ruin it No it's kind of nice It's just like It's like you can hear it But it's like Let's talk about it for instance There's a guy upstairs

Drilling his way to Who knows what At any minute he's going to fall through But the idea is we're doing the interview That's right This is New York baby A little flakeful asbestos You got to go with the flow

That's right You know like listen You get some loom tone Later put it over the thing You'll be fine You want to do it now? No problem, right? You want to do it now?

No, now the guy stops. Hey, keep going, man. We need room tone. Ten seconds are room tone up there. Come on, baby. Pretty good. You don't know what room tone is, do you? But room tone is that...

Oh, yeah. They... I'm talking to the camera now. Excuse me? Pardon me? They know what room tone is. You want to cut between the two? You know? Where's your camera?

camera right there. You use it to smooth over the cuts, see. Little filmmaking class. Free. Okay. It would be dust off the plaster. Yeah, yeah, all right.

I just wonder if we can hear you because the... May I can hear me, right? You guys hear me? Yeah, got it. I'm loud as can be right now. I'm talking over it. So, but in taxi, not only get your break, but you get the lead in a show that goes on to become this iconic deal. Well, you know, actually originally, you know, not to, you know, listen,

originally taxi, they wrote taxi, really Louis as a voice coming over the PA system, yelling at the cabbies, you know, but they also wrote the part, you know. And then in that pilot episode, they're just Brooks and Weinberger these are the writers

Stan Daniels Dave Davis they wrote a great show and it was a you know it was happened to be fortunate for me one of the

you know like an anchor for the rest of the show so that worked out you need that guy that kind of can't tankerous guy with a heart of brass running the

ruling the roost. It was a good one. It really worked out good. And man, I mean, that, if you talk about

a launching point for you coming out of there, in terms of movies into Romance of the Stone, terms of endearment. Well, you know, terms of adheres,

Endearment was the first one because Brooks wrote that, Jim Brooks wrote that, I was doing taxi, and it's very, at that time, in the, in movie,

in television, in movies giving you more room to. I'm giving them more room to him that without the thing, so you get the little refrigerator. When you have a director as your interview subject, it really helps. The idea is that, you know, in those days when you did a TV show, you didn't normally jump right into movies. It was a very difficult time.

I mean, I think Clint Eastwood did it. John Travolta did it. I can't remember in the early days, in the 70s, who else did it? There may have been a couple people before me, but then, you know, very fortunate that Brooks gave me terms of endearment, and then Michael came along with, my good buddy, Douglas, came along with Romancing the Stone.

And literally, that was like, meant so much to my career because, you know, working with Nicholson and Charleston, McLean and Deborah Winger and Jim Brooks's first movie. It was such a great movie. Then Romancey the Stone, I think, was next. Yeah. And Michael actually put my name above the title, which is like one of the things that if you think back and look in history

and the way films are dealt with, you know, that's a big thing. That's a huge thing for an actor. You know, I was a supporting character, but it was Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, Danny DeVito. I mean, I was popular from Taxi and all, I give them that and it's marketing thing, but it meant a lot in the scheme of things. And then to do jewel to the Nile after that. Right. And then, so that was the way, and then I paid him back with War of the Roses. Oh, War of the Roses. See. I'm sorry. Surely. War of the Roses. Come on. That's a classic. Yeah, man.

Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Danny DeVito, including what drew him to the hit show, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Welcome back. More now of my Sunday Sit Down conversation with Danny DeVito. I love It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Great show.

When that was put in front of you in 2006, I think is when you started. What did you think about the script? What did you think about the show? Well, the thing is John Landgraf, who runs FX, FX, FX, X, X, X, X, X, X, whatever they have. He and I work together at Jersey. I had a company that I had a TV. I did movies

and I started a television company and John took it over and ran with me in the early days and then he went to FX and he was doing this show Soie's sunny in Philadelphia and they had already they shot eight episodes

and I watched the I watched the eight episodes and And we all, Maria and I and the kids watched them and just thought it was terrific. I gave them all the notes that I could about how I felt about it. And the guys and the girl, you know, Rob and Charlie and Glenn and Caitlin. And that was that. And then about six months later they said, well, we're going to pick this show up. And we're looking for somebody to be in.

in it, would you think that you might want to join this wacky bunch? And I loved it. So I thought it was really great. I said, as long as the character is organic, you know, you want it to be, you don't want it just to be Danny DeVito coming into the show. And they're just such good writers, so Charlie and Glenn and Rob. And they made it, you know, all the organic as you can get. I became the father of the two,

and the most unlikely father of two, you know, tall, blonde offspring. Of course, my wife was a whore, so it didn't matter. She obviously had a fling with that guy. They brought in later on in the show. But all that kind of stuff was great. And I love the idea of, you know, living in being a guy with a lot of money

who had a lot of things, mysterious things, that Frank did and does, yet he wants to live in squalor with Charlie. So I thought that was like a really cool angle. And now it's just become, in the 13th incarnate season, we're going into 14 in the summer because I think we want to beat some other show like

I can't remember the name of the show that's been on for 13 years. No, some 13 years. We're going to beat the record. We're tied now with something like, you know, Father Knows Best or St. Ben Byington's, I don't know,

some kind of like old show. So we're going to do it again. We want to do it again. We all want to do it again. But now it's become more of like, let's see what we can do to Frank that is just as scathing or outrageous or, you know, how we can embarrass Frank's children the most. And I do it. And I do it. I like it. But my kids are all into it.

So it's cool. Is there stuff out there, Danny, that you haven't done? You've been in this business for, I don't know, almost 50 years or so. Are there still stuff on the horizon for you? I don't know what that I would do that I'd like to do. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I like theater. I like to go back on the stage again.

I had a great time last year or two years ago here with the roundabout, with the price and Arthur Miller. I was in London with, you know, the Sunshine Boys. That was great and did it also in L.A. I like to do, I like to get on the stage. again. But things that I haven't done, you know, I'm not ever going to skydive.

I don't feel like comfortable with that. You know, things like that. But in the entertainment business, you know, I don't know. I just keep... You got to do stuff. That's the thing. You know, so I just keep doing stuff.

Whatever I like. Whatever... If something comes along that I think it's fun and I like it, challenging, I'm going to do it. When you look at the guy who was in the beauty salon in New Jersey to today, do you think? Cool, man. Pretty lucky guy now?

Way lucky guy. No, you got to, you know, it's got to, I don't know why I'm looking up because I don't believe in God. But the thing is that I'm looking up at the drilling. You've got to look at the drilling guy for graces to shine on you. You know, something's got to be in the ether, you know, that's got to be. You know, if you look around all the stuff that's going on in the world today, and you've got to be, think about, you know, say, you know, you're really lucky that you were born in Asbury Park, New Jersey,

when you were born, and all the things that have happened to you, that's a good fortune. Congratulations. Thanks a lot, buddy. Thank you so much, Danny. Thank you. My thanks again to Danny DeVito for a great conversation and for helping guide us through that,

construction site. You can catch his new movie Dumbo in theaters now. And my thanks as always to you for tuning in this week to hear more of the full-length, unedited conversations with all of my guests. Be sure to click subscribe so you never miss an episode. And as always, don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.