The Big Picture - Greg Kinnear on The Bill Simmons Podcast | Interview (Ep. 95)

Episode Date: November 7, 2018

Bill Simmons sits down with House of Cards actor Greg Kinnear about his pre-acting career and how he made the transition into Hollywood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, this is Bill Simmons. I am the CEO of The Ringer. I host a podcast called The Bill Simmons Podcast. I host the Rewatchables Podcast, which I hope you're listening to. If you listen to this podcast, you probably listen to The Rewatchables. That's coming back this week. Be ready for that. Hey, I interviewed Greg Cunier for my podcast, and my podcast was so stacked that we ran a piece of it on that. And then we decided to run the whole thing here. So we talked to him about his whole pre-acting career and then what happened as soon as he went to Hollywood to start making movies. And he made Sabrina

and then a whole bunch of other ones after that. If you want to hear Sean Fennessey, he's coming back, I think, later in the week with at least one interview. And we're doing the Oscars pretty much every Tuesday and a whole bunch of other stuff. This feed is going to be very active over the next four to five months, almost entirely pods hosted by Sean, but sometimes we'll run some other interviews here. Here it is right now, me and Greg Kinnear.

But before we start, don't forget to check out TheRinger.com and The Ringer Podcast Network. All right, here it is, me and Greg Kinnear. But before we start, don't forget to check out TheRinger.com and The Ringer Podcast Network. All right, here it is, me and Greg Kinnear. All right, Greg Kinnear is here. This is your first time on the BS Podcast. It is. It's happening right now, live. You used to do this. You used to interview people way, way back when.

I did. Later. Oh, my God. Later. Later is in my salad golden years. Way before that, I was doing it on borderline public access cable without even a C in the word cable. Doing it for a thing called movie time and just trying to- What was movie time?

I don't even remember that. Before E was E, it was called movie time. And it was on? I don't remember that. Before E! was E! It was called movie time and it was on, I don't know, some satellite dish and it was like literally like going back to college for me. You know,

I kind of came out of school and caught out here and crashed on a couch just like this one that I'm sitting in for, you know, a few months

but I got this gig doing this kind of low-budget cable channel. And we would fill the hours with just interviews and show behind-the-scenes interviews and run trailers, anything we could to fill time. Was that what you wanted to do even in college? You were like, I'm going to be a host? Did you want to be like Letterman? You know, honestly, no.

I really don't know. I didn't have a strong, clear drive specifically of what I wanted to do. I mean, I was in broadcast journalism at Arizona, and I started as a drama major. So I definitely ended up in the right zone. But I honestly didn't know anybody in this business. Yeah. So it always seemed so far removed. You know, the idea of actually ending up in it is, it was just seemed preposterous to me that you could actually get a, get a gig out here.

So, so I just never anticipated it, but it's funny. Justine Bateman, as I was reminded the other day, played a big part in my career. Yes. Yes. She was dating a friend of mine who was a sound mixer. And she had gone to this MTV, used to do those Super Bowl events. I mean, this is way back in the eighties. Yeah. And she was there doing, you know, helping out with one of those things and doing her thing.

She was on family ties and she told this guy who, uh, who worked at MTV, she was like, yeah, you should, you should talk to, um, my friend's friend, Greg Kinnear, at some point. And so I ended up getting a chance to audition for MTV via her. Those are big, big days for MTV, late 80s. They were huge. They were huge. And I went into this, sat on the stairs where J.J. Johnson sat and Mark Goodman and Martha Quinn, the whole gang. And I basically did a terrible audition. Good God,

I still have it. It's awful. And I didn't get the job out of it, but I did get a nice tape out of it. And that tape said MTV audition. So when this fledgling cable channel was starting up called Movie Time, they were like, oh, this guy might be legit. He's got an MTV audition that he didn't get the job for. I don't remember the Movie Time thing. And I feel like I have a really good memory. And I love pop culture. But man. Yeah, I'll get you a hat.

But now that you said that, I'm like, oh, yeah, E wasn't always E. Because I remember when they became E, I was like, E? That's going to be their name? That's right. And literally, before E was E, it was this movie time channel for three years. And just one day, they came in and they changed the sets. They changed the name. They changed the hosts, i.e., I was fired by E.

And I left and did some other stuff for like a year and a half and then came back for TalkSoup. So that was all much later down the road. And you started TalkSoup and then you told them, someday there's going to be this family named the Kardashians. And they're going to blow up the mountain. Keep your eye on them. Just watch this family.

I know they're little girls now, but they are going to save your channel. Yes, yes, exactly. I saw it in my crystal soup bowl. Talk soup was, I mean, it's funny now because it's basically the internet. Right. We're talking 1991? I think so.

91, 90, well, no, 92. I think we went on the air with it, 92, January 1st. And I was on it 92, 93, 94. And what was like the prototype for that? Did you have one? There wasn't a prototype. Honestly, they brought me in. I had just, I don't know.

I'd done some other, a couple of other things. And they had been running periodically clips of like Sally Jessie jesse rafael or heraldo or you know ricky lake they just periodically would run a clip and so i i went in with the guys of of creating a show once a day that would just run a number of these clips rather than just run one they'd run you know a number of them there was no idea of what the show was going to be there was no prototype in fact i the they thought it was going to be like a serious reverend look back at the highlights from jerseys and we all got in there and i don't think they knew we were on the air for like two years but

we just kind of started running i remember watching in college i graduated in think they knew we were on the air for like two years, but we just kind of started running. I remember watching in college. I graduated in college in 92, but we were like, this is great. What is this? This guy's just making fun of all these terrible shows. I love this. And it's so funny. I mean, even now, people know that show. They know the history of it. I didn't know that people knew it. It just, there was no internet. So there was no, you couldn't like see how your Twitter response was, or there was no way to gauge it. We just, there was no internet. So there was no, you couldn't like see how your Twitter response was, or there was no way to gauge it. We started to get a rating. I think we, at one point, my producer Eileen Graham came in and said, we got a one this weekend, which in that world on E at that time was unbelievable. And they were, you know, and we got a lot of mail as well. So I started to realize towards, not until like

the third year before I left, that people were actually seeing it out there. But I didn't know we had an audience. I just thought we were just kind of in a little echo chamber screwing around. I remember that and then Comedy Central, whatever it was called back then, was running the SNL reruns. And those were like the two kind of, oh, this is great. I'll just kill some time and watch this show. But going backwards, I'm going to say it's like 87, 88, the crazy talk show started to take off. The Morton Downey Jr.

Maybe that was even 86. Morton Downey Jr. He's just yelling at Nazis. And it's like, what is going on? And those shows were massively successful. And then that kind of led into the early 90s when nobody was really making fun of them publicly, but everyone was making fun of them who watched them.

And then it tapped into that. But I really feel like it was like a pre-internet. The internet comes in. Message boards start coming in, 93, 94, 95. And then the internet, people start getting email. But this was kind of existing pre all of that. It's so true, yeah. And Morton Downey Jr., you're so right.

I just remember him like, he'd always have a cigarette in his mouth. And it would always invariably kick somebody off. Get out of here! He's such a bully. Get out of here! You know, it's great. It's amazing Donald Trump didn't have one of those shows.

Yeah. He probably tried. That could have happened. That could have happened, actually. He would have fit in that. I think, I'm trying to think some of the crazier ones. Martin Johnny Jr. That's a, Richard Bay?

Yeah. Was Montel Williams on back then? Yeah, he was on there. Yes, he was. Yes, he was. I feel like I'm missing a really good one. Oh, Jenny Jones. Jenny Jones.

Was Wendy O. Williams on back then, though? No. No. No, no. So you had all these people, and they were just watching these shows, cutting VCR tapes, VHS tapes. That's right. And you were trying to figure out which ones and then you're screening

it i mean it'd be so much easier to do it now the internet it would be much easier to do it it's almost like the internet saved us uh uh no it was it was crazy how convoluted it was i i just come in in the morning and we basically taped the show but we did it sort of live we once we started we just didn't stop and we just let it go, whatever it was. It'd drive me crazy if we stopped. And we had a technical issue here and there, but not a lot. And in the morning, I'd go in and there's this nice guy, like line up. He'd say, well, here's what we got.

And we'd sit there and he'd show me, you know, probably 12 or 13 different potential nominees. Yeah. We only had time for about nine or 10. And we'd just kind of say, okay, let's do this, this, this, this. We kind of thought, hey, what do we do? We had like different gags and stupid things that we'd come up with on the fly. And then, you know, we'd sit down and do the show.

I feel like that show, Dennis Miller and Weekend Update, it was the first kind of people kind of wise asses, which is basically where we ended up with the internet, were just people being wise asses about anything. You're not blaming me for all this, are you? No, I think you should take credit. I think this is great. But I remember when you left, it was like devastating.

Yeah. And then you were in this great situation where everyone who followed you were like, yeah, but he's not Greg Kinnear. It's like they could have followed you with Eddie Murphy in 1984. Well, you know, but Greg- So you do that later show, right? As the kind of, I mean mean that was basically now we have podcasts but back then we had these kind of long-form interview shows that people were doing that

really kept going all through the 90s and then i think in the 2000s started a flame out as a gimmick but um that for two years they still do later don't they yeah they still do them but it's now you have to like make them you have to make them, you have to kind of catch the viewer's eye a little bit more. Oh, for sure. You can't just be like, hey, two people are talking. Yeah, exactly. Three cameras.

I know, I know. Well, listen, I took over that show from Bob Costas. Yeah, he loved that show. And he was quite good at it. And by the way, they did it without an audience, which was always my big regret. I got over to NBC and they were like, oh, we got to put you in front of an audience and have you walk out. And it was just,

it felt completely wrong. Oh, you didn't want to do that? I didn't. I didn't like, I didn't like walking. I even tried to say, why don't I just sit here? I'll just sit here and we'll just start the show. You know, we can have the audience, but anything but the walkout, we had the whole walkout deal. And I just, I don't know, just the whole thing felt like it felt very, uh, even for me at that time, it just felt like a formula that had been, you know, had been done to death and, and we weren't going to do it as well. But the idea of having a one-on-one interview with somebody and kind of talking to them you know rather than moving them down the couch after seven minutes that appealed to me yeah on some nights it depended who the

guest was the booking every night is well we a lot of times we just pilfer whoever you know jay leno had down at the end of the right you know the other stage we just grab whoever. You literally grab them. Yeah. Stop. Yeah. And then you left to become an actor. Yeah. Which I remember being like just flabbergasted by. It's like, what? Yeah. He's going to act?

I thought this guy was going to be like a Letterman type. Now he's going to be in movies? Makes no sense. And that was something you always wanted to do i i had i i did uh um oh i did have great interest in acting a really good friend of mine always was like you want to be an actor and i was always no no i don't but i guess i kind of did the truth is again i just didn't think it was it was something that was like really possible to to to make happen and and you know even my first movie i mean which was which i did

a couple little things but i mean just kind of like a day gig here there but the first thing was sabrina with you know that sydney Pollack directed. And he- That's a big ass movie. It was a big, huge movie. That was like a big deal that it was being remade. It was kind of an iconic movie that meant a lot to a lot of people. And he had me come in and meet with him a couple of times. Eventually, they put me on videotape and I ended up getting the gig.

But I was not searching for that. put me on videotape and, and, uh, you know, I ended up getting the gig, but I, you know, I, I was not searching for that. He literally, somebody, Lindsay Duran, who used to work for, for Sydney dropped off a tape of me, I think on talk soup and just said, after he had tried to get thousands of other people to play this role, uh, who passed for different reasons. He at least entertained it. And then I went in and I think, you know, we had a good connection. He's from Indiana.

I'm from Indiana originally. Maybe that helped. I don't know. But yeah, that was my first. Harrison Ford. Yeah. Kind of at his second apex, the double apex that Harrison Ford. Yeah. The 80s apex and then like in the just an double apex that Harrison Ford. Yeah.

The 80s apex, and then like in the, just an unbelievable run early 90s. Right. At that point, he was like the most bankable A-list star in Hollywood other than Tom Cruise. For sure. I mean, he had just, I think, I'm trying to think what he had come off of. Was it- He'd done like Clear and Present Danger, Presumed Innocent, The Fugitive. Right. It was a murderer's row.

Witness. Remember how great Witness was? god yeah um yeah he's he's his 20-year run is kind of unassailable so i had never met harrison through the whole process so the big elephant in the room when i'm like trying out for this just the thing that you just don't want to ever ever think about is the fact that you haven't really acted in a movie. And now you're going to do it with Harrison Ford. It was just too much. I think I just compartmentalized it and kind of said, I'm not going to acknowledge this. Eventually, I did have to meet him. Yeah.

And that was in, I guess, in New York. We met at, I don't know, Sidney's office in New York. And he says, you want to go grab some lunch? And so we went down the street and got a little lunch. And of course, you walk in the restaurant and it's, they ain't looking at me, man. It was pretty cool. And you're right.

He was kind of at that great apex. I remember the lunch specifically at one point. It was a very straightforward lunch, talking a little bit about the movie. I don't know. Baseball game. Random stuff. And at some point, we got the movie thing. And he's talking about, well, we were doing this thing. And he mentions Star Wars.

And I got to do, of course, the joke that we all want to do, which is, no, I haven't seen that. What is that one about? Star Wars? Yeah, yeah. That was the title? Yeah. I think I got half of us, maybe a quarter of a smile out of him on that. It worked. Sabrina, didn't it do really well, but people were like

mad about it. Like it had like a weird reaction. Yeah. I mean, it, uh, you know, I think you were good in it, but they, they didn't understand why it got remade, but they, people saw it anyway. Yeah. They didn't realize that tons of movies were about to be remade for the next 20 years. Yeah.

Um, yeah, no, I think it was controversial a little bit that it was being remade, but, and then some people didn't dig it. Some people did. I mean,

it, even now, I mean, I've, I've saw it. My kids saw it. Uh, and I, I watched with my kids a few years ago

and remember thinking it's it's kind of a you know i i like the film but it's yeah it does have a strange a slightly you know strange vibe to it but i but i do i did like it and i did think it was a worthy remake i mean i really i really um I really don't remember the box office, though. I don't think it did tremendous. I think it was because Audrey Hepburn was so iconic in that role. Sure. But now it's like- Julie Ormond, though.

She was wonderful in it. You can do that again. I mean, yeah, exactly. I mean, it was kind of a damned if you do this thing anyway, so I think it was a hard remake. Who doesn't like to watch that with your daughters? Yeah. They see Dad in a movie. What was it like to watch that with your daughters? Yeah. They see dad in a movie.

That's gotta be weird. Yeah. They don't like to watch dad in movies. I can tell you that that's, that's the general takeaway that I, I've experienced is that it's strange for them and, and they haven't seen me in a lot of stuff, you know?

So I, I don't, I, I'm not, I'm not pushing me around the house. So we're at a nice neutral place where- Hopefully we'll never see autofocus. They know what I do, but they're not that keen on watching it.

Yeah, hopefully we'll never see autofocus. Just tell them, don't ever watch that one. It doesn't happen. So when you hooked up with Nicholson a couple years later, and he was another guy, one of the all-timers. Yes. And that was a really big movie for him because he hadn't had kind of a movie where it was like, oh, my God, Jack Nicholson's amazing in a few years. And that became kind of the signature middle-aged Jack Nicholson movie.

Man, I just remember reading the script and thinking, oh my gosh, this is really an incredible script. This is just going to be an incredible movie. I'm never going to get it. And Jack playing this role is going to be one of the great things to watch at some point when I pay my $8 like everyone else to go to the movie theater and watch him and whoever got to play my role in Helen in this movie

because you just knew that he was going to crush it, and he does. It's such a well-acted, well-written movie. Yeah. It's weird. Some parts of it has an age well, because I think- You think? Yeah, because- Some parts of it, I guess, don't age well?

Well- Or haven't aged well? Culturally, yeah. He's gay bashing him for the first hour plus of the movie. Right. And when you watch it now under the current lens, you're like, oh, man. Come on, dude.

Right. But in the moment, it was kind of like, oh, he's a crank, but we know he's going to come around. But then you see it in the 2018 lens, and it's a little rough. I haven't seen it in a while. That's probably a fair point. But I don't know. I just, I mean, I'm interested to see it with that idea in mind.

It probably is different. We talk about this. We do a podcast called The Rewatchables about going backwards and legislating content. It's like, look, it was 1997 or 1996, whatever it was. It was just like, it's the way it was.

That's the way it was. And he's so good in that movie. I still, the one thing with that, him and Helen Hunt getting together, the age difference, it is a tiny bit of a leap of faith, but then you think like,

well, I take a leap of faith in every movie. So this is like a very tiny one. I mean, in in this town if you live here and you're like looking at that and worried about the age difference i i mean i i don't i don't see it myself i was always very comfortable with it but yeah there's a little bit of a of a span there but i feel like i've seen that enough where would you learn from nicholson? Were you studying him? Were you watching little weird things he did? Front row seat, baby.

It was great. Yeah, I don't know. I can't tell you specifically what I learned. I mean, hard working and took the role incredibly seriously. And it was never easy. It was never easy for him. Jim Brooks did a wonderful job with the movie and everyone cared a lot and nothing was taken for granted. Not going to work. And then it was just trying to find it and it would get better and get honed. And Jim has an incredible ear, and it would just get better. Big sports fan, that Jim Brooks.

Yeah. See him at a lot of Clipper games. Yeah. He's like a diehard, tortured Clipper fan. Yeah. It's amazing he hasn't written the Clippers sports movie that the world needs. He'd be the perfect person to write it. I know.

That would be. He would do great with a sports movie. Well, he did have one. Didn't he have a sports movie? Paul Rudd and Reese. Yeah, she was a softball player. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I need the Clippers.

A little bit touched on sports. I need a Clippers movie. Yeah, yeah, I need a Clippers movie. So that movie went, that movie cleaned up at the Oscars and you got nominated. It was one of those movies. It was just like, oh, that next person's going up. The big movie that year was Titanic, too. A lot of people don't remember that that was the other

movie that was in the category, which was... It's a good year. A little feature-length motion picture that people remember. Yeah. It was supposed to be a bust. It was supposed to be a bomb. They spent so much money. It's going to be the biggest

bomb in Hollywood history. It is funny. Anytime that happens, half the time the movie ends up being really good. Right. And then the other time, it really is a disaster. Yeah. But when you start hearing the buzz about, oh, my God, this is good. Jesus.

Then it's like, oh, yeah, this is actually a pretty good movie. Any buzz is good buzz, baby. Good or bad, it's like maybe that's the message out of that though the autofocus with bob crane is one of the most disturbing darkest kind of fascinating cable movies that comes on when you're flipping channels and it's like oh yeah this movie bob crane it's kind of hard to explain you. I'm in my late 40s. The guy from Hogan Heroes, Hogan's Heroes, everybody knew who that was.

Or Mr. Brady. Or, I don't know, the dad from My Three Sons. There were these 20 people that were just in your life and you just assumed they were perfectly normal. And he was not normal. He was the opposite. And when that stuff started to come out, it was absolutely flabbergasting. It's like, really?

Bob Crane? I know. I remember hearing about it in high school that some story – I think he had been – maybe it was after he was murdered and had been murdered recently. So there was a little – just a little buzz. I was in high school in Greece, by the way. So I'm in a parking lot in Greece having this conversation. But somehow Bob Crane – yeah, I he was you know he had kind of a he had a crazy he liked the girls something like the ladies yeah he liked the ladies filming the

ladies didn't never hear much more than that i mean it was a tiny blip on uh that registered for me back at that time and then the whole story went away for many many years like with everybody i think and and only uh only when you know paul schrader sent me the script was i like oh yeah it's a really good movie yeah paul schrader by the way yeah another legend yeah i i mean it basically seems like his buddy killed them but yeah he didn't get ever convicted for it right i nobody researched it better than than schrader and he he said there's no question if he had sat on that jury he would have voted to convict him at the end of the day they had botched the case badly enough the scottsdale police department that of course they had to um you know they had to let go of like some key evidence but

you know there was there was uh you know it was all there and and very very clear yeah one of the things that's cool about that movie is um it was that era where you became famous for the one thing and then after that you're just kind of chasing the fame that came with that one thing. But each year becomes further and further away from thing. And it goes like deep into, you know, this weird post Hogan's Heroes career where he's just like working in nightclubs. Yeah. Like patching things together. It's just getting darker and darker.

Yeah. It was a very, it was a really well-written script, and I had the benefit of Willem Dafoe playing creepy. Oh, super creepy. Who was so awesome, and I was such a fan of his. So that was just an added bonus. But yeah, it gets pretty far out there. And we – you know, there was an element of the movie that seemed slightly – it was funny to me. Just – I don't know how to – because it's not really something you should laugh at. I mean, I definitely think this man had a problem. that obviously but but i think sex addiction now is something that is probably in the public consciousness a little bit more and you can have a sober conversation about it but

i mean when i saw this thing i mean i don't remember what year we made it but it just it just seemed like he what you know sex addiction how how you know bob was creeping around outside of being in hogan's heroes, this kind of, you know, charming role that he plays that he had this dark energy that was, was driving him. There were moments within the script that had some really funny beats in it that I, that I liked, but ultimately it's a, it's a drama and it dark, and it does kind of tip over into a different place. But it's a lot of different colors in that movie, and I enjoyed it. You made Little Miss Sunshine in 06.

Does a movie like that get made now? And if it gets made, what's the budget? I mean, it was considered kind of a low budget indie when you made it. And now it's like, I love that movie. I wonder who's making that movie now. I talked to Matt. Matt Damon was on the pod a month ago

and he was talking about how hard it was to get the Casey Affleck movie they made, the Manchester by the Sea. And he was saying like the 15 million to 70 million movie is just disappearing. Yeah. Unless somebody with a lot of clout gets behind it. I think Little Miss Sunshine's a good example. Like, I don't know if that movie happens in 2018.

It almost didn't happen when it happened, because I remember Abigail Breslin, who plays Olive, kept getting older. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie, they're the directors. They were like, we've got to make this movie. Oh, there was like a time limit? Well, they just were in love with her as Olive, and she kept getting older. Yeah. From when they originally kind of were out trying to, you know, they were very close. They were on the one yard line a couple of times. Really? And then it slipped away. And they just couldn't get the financing for it. And finally,

one of the producers, uh, who at that point had just been a producer on it, uh, just said, you know, he was a, he was a wealthy guy and he just said, screw it, I'll write a check. And he wrote a check for $7 million to make the movie. And that's how it got made. It wasn't sold. It didn't get any – it wasn't financially solvent in the sense that it didn't raise any money as a project. So he just said, I'll do it. And that turned out pretty well for him.

Yeah, I was going to say, that was a nice check. But listen, that doesn't happen very often for good reason, because there's a thousand stories of losing your money and any kind of movie investment for every one that hits. But that one hit, and it hit big. And I don't know if it would be made under normal circumstances. I mean, listen, the script was, it was good. I remember reading it the first time when it was brought to me and thinking, yeah, yeah, that'd be fun. It didn't knock me out. As Good As It Gets was like, I thought, wow, this is, it was, by the way, As Good As It Gets was originally called Old Friends. They changed the name. Really yeah and i uh and i loved old friends i told jim i said i think you're crazy man you want to change the name and

he was right um but i that script was seemed really ready it was just a thousand percent there for me when i read it and and little sunshine i thought was really good i didn't think it was a bad script but i i don't remember being knocked over by it until we got in and finally we're going to make the movie now. And we started doing some rehearsals and we all started to do it. It did a couple of read-throughs of the script and all of a sudden it hit me. I was like, wow, this thing is so great. And every moment of it kind of works. And the development of the story works. And then I realized how well it had been cast with everyone. But it was a bit of a slow burn for me to kind of, I'm slow anyway.

Well, I was going to say that was a good example of, I think you need to get lucky, especially in a movie like that. And in that movie movie it's perfectly cast yeah like even if you go I don't know there's maybe five key people in it even if you go four for five

I think it really hurts the movie like you really had to go a strong five for five right with the five parts and the little girl's great and then all on down the line, it's just like.

Yeah, Paul Dano, who I just did the Tonight Show this week, and I ran into him like he was on the show too. And we were just, I hadn't seen him for a long time, and we were just kind of ruminating. And he has like, yeah, he's had a big career now. Oh my gosh, he's doing incredible work. Get tough from that movie though. From that movie, you'd be like, that guy's going to be something.

Yeah. Right. He was so good. And I didn't know him when we did the film. And I was like, OK, this kid. Same for Abigail. I mean, really, everybody was doing great stuff. Jonah Hill was here two weeks ago.

He was talking about his kind of class. Paul Dano's in it. And that part, everyone wanted that part oh really they're all going for the same parts from like 06 to 09 but that was one of the parts yeah it's pretty funny i like i always like the concept of acting classes yeah where uh it's just like the same damon talked about that when last month about like his class was you know obviously affleck mcconaughey and all those people, but also Ed Norton. Ed Norton got the primal fear part.

Everyone else wanted that part, but then he got him back with the Coppola, the John Grissom movie. He got that over Ed Norton. Yeah. Actually, you did Stuck on You with Damon. I did. I did. I did. I saw Matt not too long ago at a UFC fight,

and we were kind of reliving our anguish of having three or four hours of a prosthetic put on our body. Because now you would just do that with all CGI. You probably would never be attached. I know. Yeah, maybe. I mean, they did it with a big giant piece of of silicone that was literally taped you know kind of stuck to our

body and the guy after they put it on and this was whenever you saw us like in our well there's a scene where we're in our swimming suits so you have to see the whole yeah connection and and uh but it was, you know, it was a couple of weeks where we had to put that thing on and it would take like five, six hours. I mean, we would get there at five o'clock in the morning. We couldn't shoot till lunch. And then I remember getting this thing on and, and I'm like walking with Matt. And then the guy comes up and he says, now, listen, guys, it's important. I just want you to know this. Everything's fine. You guys are gonna be fine. But if one of you were to fall or trip and you got separated, this could rip your flesh off. So try to be really careful when you're walking together.

Oh my God. And, and, and I remember thinking, okay, okay, don't trip. Don't trip. But it was a great fun to do that film. And we did have hours and hours. That doesn't sound fun. That part wasn't fun. That sounds not fun at all. That part was not fun.

But we shot Miami. I mean, only the Farrelly brothers would shoot Miami for Los Angeles. Don't ask me why. Yeah. Matt's a tremendous, you know, guy. And, and we, we had a lot of, we just had a lot of laughs doing that movie. Matt will tell you today, he'll say that, you know, he says that is the most fun he's ever had on any, any movie. And I think I would say the same thing, just in terms of like, going to work those guys are fun to work with the environment

is crazy plus we were just it was such a nutty idea to begin with so uh it was fun the uh you agree to do a movie like that and it's like oh yeah there's gonna be some prosthetics and then you're on the set and it's six hours. Yeah. There's got to be some moment where you go, oh man, really? Right. Yeah. I heard like Jim Carrey like almost went bonkers in like the Grinch or something. He had to, because it was like eight hours a day or something. Oh yeah.

And it just, and I get it. I mean, it just, listen, fortunately, usually if we were, if it was just Matt and I, we would just, they'd put a shirt over us. Yeah. And we'd have a piece of Velcro holding us together or an elastic band or something. That was the majority of it. So the prosthetic thing was the pain point that we had to hit for a couple of weeks. But aside from that, basically, we'd throw a shirt on, and we'd have to rub bodies throughout the day.

CGI now. I'm telling you. You guys could be in just separate cities and do it. Yeah. Well, I smell a sequel. Stuck on you too. It's back. Stuck on too.

House of Cards, what's your role? What's your job? What's your profile in this movie? Job? I mean, TV show. Yes. It is a, well, listen, it's kind of a great show, man. And they have-

They had to retool it, shall we say? They had to retool it. So I was cast along with Diane Lane, his brother and sister, Bill and Annette Shepard, who are showing up to – we are in Washington, sort of that fifth estate, just kind of quietly doing our bidding from – very stealthily, but using our influence and our money to try and change policy. We certainly have a problem with Claire Hale, who has ascended to the presidency. Robin Wright's character. Kevin Spacey will be this sort of, you know, he's the former president now, and he will basically be running a foundation and all sorts of things span out of that. Got there, shot a couple of days, like a day, just a camera test, and then a couple of scenes. And then I was shooting a movie in Memphis. I went back to Memphis, and then I got a call, I don't know, two days later to turn on CNN.

And the bottom dropped out of this whole thing and it went uh everything went a little crazy so credit robin for you know as one of the along with the producers for you know keeping this thing on the tracks i think the easy move would have been to walk away from it all i mean if you know she didn't she didn't have to keep this thing going and right to get her running the other direction i think you'd be a little vulnerable right i mean yeah the you know he's such a significant part of the show and you know this happens maybe the move is just to walk away and i think she you know uh she she made the decision that she wanted to stay and that the show was you know worth finding an ending for and and the writers you know frank and melissa had the

you know very tough work ahead of them because they had to then totally re um you know rewrite and kind of reconfigure the the season out and they did a really good job and uh in in doing that and we um you know so we're just there wreaking havoc and we want Claire's head on a platter. There you go. Did you think about backing out after this whole thing or no? No, I just didn't think it was going to happen. I just assumed that this was, when I heard, I was like, well, that's done. That's just not possibly happening.

And then a little time went by and I was just told, hey, stand by. The producers are trying to maybe keep this together. And then Netflix, I know, ended up taking care of the crew, which was really cool, I thought. They took care of that crew in Baltimore for quite some period of time while they reconfigured what it is we were going to do. And that can't be overstated because I think there's a lot of production companies that would just say, Hey, tough luck. We'll pay, you know, we may, we may come back. We may not, if you've got to go find another job, good luck. Yeah.

So that was kind of cool. And. You came back cause you just wanted to be married to Diane Lane for the TV season. No, I, I, I am not, I don't even get to be married to Diane Lane. She's my sister. Oh, she's your sister? She's my sister. Now, it's true.

My story is I'm in love with her. That's my backstory. But I don't know if that's what the producer's had in mind. But yeah, she's lovely and great. And it was great fun work with her and she's such a talent as i knew her socially over the years but we'd never worked together so this was this was terrific she's awesome i agree i'm a huge diane lane fan me too right there with you i'm always i'm always up for diane lane in stuff i wish she did more stuff. So you have three daughters? How old are the daughters?

They're 15, 12, and 9. I have a 13. Oh, you do? We can talk, kid. It gets complicated at 12, huh? I'm actually, I'm having a pretty good experience, but there's little... Comes and goes?

Yeah, little snippets where I'm like, oh, now I understand what other people were trying to warn me. What's it like to have three? Well, with three, you say with one, it comes and goes. Well, just assume that if it comes and goes periodically and you have three, just the law of averages, it's always coming and it's always going. But I don't know anything different. I mean, they're really great girls, I will say.

I might be slightly biased in that assessment, but it's fully from the heart. I love them like mad and they're all different. You always hear that, well, can you believe how different they all are? And that's true. They're all very different. But one of them is going to be trouble. A lot of averages if there's three. That's probably true.

It's true. One of them is the candidate to sneak out of the house after everybody falls asleep. I've got one earmarked as possible trouble. Scouting. Yeah, I ended up with a daughter and then a son who's two and a half years younger. And he's, have him marked. Yeah, yeah. Watching his every move.

He just turned 11. Very careful with him. Yeah. Did you get a male dog at least? I do have a male dog. Somebody to talk to? I do. I think he's a male dog.

I think he's a male dog. You can feel outnumbered with all those ladies in the house. I? I do. I think he's a male dog. I think he's a male dog. You can feel outnumbered with all those ladies in the house. You bet I do. And by the way, this dog gets so much love that I don't get. I mean, this dog is beyond spoiled and loved and adored in the family dynamic. But yeah, got a dog. Would you let any of them go into show business? I certainly, Oh man, I, I just want like, I don't know about you, but I, I, my greatest wish would be that they would be passionate about something, you know, that they'll,

they'll have a thing that they want to do. And if that's show business, fine. You know, I don't care, you know, really, I don't care what it is, but I want them to be, um, I think that that's, that's the great advantage you can have in your, in your, in your life and your work is, is just a, uh, an interest and, and some sort of passion for, for what it is that you do. And so if that led to show business, which is fraught with complications that have all been talked about, I don't think I would try to talk them out of it. I think I'd just encourage it and hope for the best. And I think show business is like encourage it and hope for the best. And I think, you know, show business is

like, it's not just one thing. I think people envision everybody ends up as an actor or a director or, you know, it's a million different facets and there's so many different things in it that like any industry, it's not at all one thing so you know bring it on I think that's good parental advice you just laid out there yeah let the kids follow the passion

I'm going to write a book my daughter just started playing volleyball randomly for her school and she loves it she's like I want to keep playing I'm like great knock yourself out

did she just she's always been soccer since like age four she's still going to play soccer but she's like I really like volleyball too I'm like, great. Knock yourself out. Did she just- She's always been soccer since like age four. She's still going to play soccer, but she's like, I really like volleyball too. I'm like, awesome. And how did she know she liked volleyball? She had played it when like fourth grade, fifth grade, and then came back for the eighth grade team just to be with her friends and was just good at it.

And she's like, I want to keep doing this. That's great. All right, cool. We're in LA. You can play volleyball whenever you want. But yeah, I think- I remember my youngest daughter, we were at a Halloween party and she was probably like six.

And there was this kind of this, one of those inflatable sort of kickboxing things out there or something, you know, like one of those, it's sort of a practice bag. Yeah, yeah. And she just out of nowhere just did this massive roundhouse kick on this thing. And I was like, huh. And later said to her, do you have any interest in ever doing something with that? Maybe karate classes and stuff. And she was like, yeah, I'd like to do that.

I'd like to try karate. And she's done it since then for, I don't know, like eight years. And she's working on her second degree black belt. And she loves it. And it's just a thing that you wouldn't see coming. It was just this thing all of a sudden. She's like, yeah, that would be cool. And so I kind of feel the same way about any advice I do give is is that you kind of have to let their let them

lead the way you know yeah they know what they want to do well good luck with house cards when does it drop uh drops uh november 2nd oh so that's today we're taping this on a friday yeah it's running next week though so yeah it's on netflix it's on netflix it's officially on netflix it drops that's what we all say you probably wouldn't know what's the new logo did they read they must have redone the logo right used to be spacey well it's yeah it's it's not robin right it's by the way it is really a it's a tour de force i mean it's really robin's thing i mean in that in that show. I mean, she carries it. And it's so cool, I think, to see her. She's, of course, you know, she's devious and horrible in certain respects as the president. But she really kind of owns the role in a fantastic way.

So it's good stuff. We had her. We did the Andre the Giant documentary last spring for HBO because he was in Princess Bride. Oh, right. So it's this documentary. It's Andre. It's all these wrestlers.

And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, like an hour in, Robin Wright just comes in. It's like this white light shining. It's just one of the most beautiful actions ever. And then it's like, all right, back to the wrestlers. Back to Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan but she just kind of passes through

for two minutes is Robin Wright one of the greats how did he get cast for this I have to see this I have not seen Andre the Giant

it's a documentary I'm going to watch that I haven't seen it yeah oh it's great you would love it I will I will love it

it was a really good one I love that movie and I kind of like you know I don't seen it. Yeah. Oh, it's great. You would love it. I will. I will love it. It was a really good one. Because I love that movie and I kind of like, you know, I'm not a huge wrestling fan, but, you know. The cool thing about how he did this is you don't have to be a wrestler.

Was he like a Hulk Hogan-y type? He was, right? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You'll like it. It's on HBO.

I'm going to. HBO On Demand. Which I have. Yeah. You watch that, I'll watch House of Cards. Deal. Greg Kinnear,

thanks for coming in. Thank you very much. Alright, thanks again to Greg. Don't forget to subscribe to the Rewatchables podcast, to Channel 33, where we have Jam Session and a whole bunch of other good culture podcasts. Don't forget to subscribe

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