The Bill Simmons Podcast - Bryan Cranston on TV Dads, Streaming Shows, and Creative Freedom (Ep. 296)

Episode Date: December 6, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Bryan Cranston to discuss his first big break (5:00), Erik Estrada's ego during 'Chips' (12:00), Larry David's comedy bootcamp (23:30), playing a TV dad on 'Malcolm in the Middle' (32:00), dealing with fame (43:00), the importance of streaming with 'Breaking Bad' (54:00), and working with Richard Linklater (1:04:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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year, including Larry Wilmore, Black on the Air, House of Carbs with Joe House, Against All Odds with Cousin Sal, and One Shining Podcast with Tate Frazier and Mark Titus. Go check out ringer.com, theringer.com slash podcasts if you want to see all the podcasts we have. Don't forget about my column every Friday on theringer.com as well. Coming up, an interview we did with Brian Cranston. That was awesome. What a great guest. This is a really good one.

Sit down, enjoy this one. First Pearl Jam. Brian Cranston in the studio office. We've never done this. The studio office. You're considered to be one of the Mount Rushmore guests. You just come in hot. You get stories. And I'm made out of stone.

That's exactly correct, yes. People love having you on. Thanks, man. My friend Jimmy Kimmel has had you on many times. Yeah, yeah. I used to coach Kevin Kimmel, his son, in baseball, in Little League. Seriously? Yeah, yeah.

What Little League? What Little League system? It was a park league here in the San Fernando Valley when Jimmy was all humbled and not a big, swelled head Jimmy. Before he became a big A-list celebrity. Yeah, exactly. So you're talking 90s? Yeah, that's right.

In the 90s. Mid-90s. I was looking at the breadth of your career. A breadth with a D. A breadth with a D. A breadth with a D. But stuff came late for you. I noticed probably late 30 30s early 40s was when you

really started working seriously and I'm always fascinated by this topic I had John Hamm on a few years ago and we talked about it for a while about these people that either they moved out here they're out here to begin with and they get into acting they do a whole bunch of things and there hits a point where you might get your break you might not and around like 35 36 37 you see people start to give up or stay with it what made you stay with it i love it that that's the thing i always tell young actors i said you know i want to find out why are you doing this why do you want to do this and if it's if it's for any other reason other than you love the empowerment of acting and how it makes you feel as a person, then you shouldn't try as a professional. Right. Fine.

Use it as an advocation. Go to the local theater at night after work and express yourself. But if you're talking about trying to do this for a living, the only way you'll sustain the hardship of it, the toughness of it, is if you love it. It's like not giving up on a relationship. Yeah. No, you hit a rough patch in a marriage, work it out. Don't give up.

Work it out. Figure things out. Did you hit, what was like your darkest moment where you're like, I love this. I know I can do this, but I can't get through here. No. Frustration is always a part of any creative endeavor. You know, a writer will sit looking at a blank page.

Yeah. Singers will go through rough times with their voice or is changing or to write music or to sculpt. You need a muse. You need something that breaks through sometimes. With an actor, it's opportunity. You need opportunity. Every actor is willing to fight to earn a job, but you need the opportunity. You need the chance to get into the room and show people what you can do and without that opportunity you don't have it so i tell actors all the time there are really four components to becoming a successful actor you need talent that's first and foremost and you and not in aful way, but you have to say, yeah, I'm talented.

Secondly, you need persistence. And then you need patience. And then the fourth component is luck. There is no career, successful career, that's been created without luck. I'm sure that you can look back and you go, well, what were the lucky breaks in my career? I had like seven. Yeah, exactly. It's not even just one it's like several you were prepared to take advantage of the luck of the opportunity and that's what you have to do so keep working for an actor keep working on a monologue keep keeping that instrument that muscle strong and then when you get the break you're ready i always tell people always ask me about uh writing how do i get a break i want to write for i want to be on the

radio like what should i do give me some tips and the tip is always just like work hard just keep working at what you're doing and try to get better at it and especially like it sounds really simple but with writers it's like i would always ask people, who are some of your favorite writers? Who are you reading? And sometimes they wouldn't have an answer right away. They'd be like, oh, man, you're sunk. It'd be like if you asked somebody, who are some of your favorite actors? They'd be like, I don't know, like De Niro?

You have to have that answer. If you want to act for a living, there has to be like four or five people that you love and you idolize and you want to grab pieces from and pieces of their style. That's right. Well, and that's because you need to be a student of the business that you want to get in. Yeah, because when you're young, you're like a sponge. You're picking up things from all types of people. You have the natural talent, but also you've got to be a student of what you're trying to do.

That's right. And I think a lot of people miss that. I always worry now that younger writers are just reading stuff online and on their Twitter feed. It's like, read some books, too. It's good to read books if you want to write. I think we're training a whole generation to only be able to absorb 140 characters at a time. And then they have to take a break or something you know which is a little scary you uh what was your first lucky break

um my first lucky break was realizing what i wanted to do for a living i was stuck on the blue ridge parkway in virginia during a severe rainstorm i I was on a motorcycle. And my brother... You a motorcycle guy? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Much to my wife's... Yeah, Jesus.

Discouragement. Much to probably many producers' discouragement too, I would guess. Yeah. Although, interestingly enough, in the second year of Breaking Bad, AMC, our network, gave me as a present for being nominated a Vespa. And I thought, don't they know this is probably the worst thing they could have done? Super dangerous. Yeah.

But yeah, it was in 1977. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. I knew, I thought I was going to be a cop. I went to college to be a cop. You thought you were going to be a cop? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I knew, I thought I was going to be a cop. I went to college to be a cop. You thought you were going to be a cop? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I didn't know this.

Yeah. Just because of the motorcycles? No. Like you saw Eric Estrada on Chips and you got fired? I was on Chips, actually. I didn't have a father influence. My dad left the family when I was 11 years old. Yeah.

And so I was kind of trying to figure my own way through things. And in those days, they used to have, you know, career day. So kids who didn't really know what they wanted, you go to your high school auditorium, and then they're at a fire department, the members of the military, they're at a police department, the gas company. You know, what are you going to do after high school auditorium, and then they're at a fire department, the members of the military, the police department, the gas company. You know, what are you going to do after high school? And at 16, my brother had joined this police explorer group,

and they got to travel. And I thought, oh, I'm going to join that so I can travel. And I found out that I had an aptitude for police work, which completely surprised me. Aptitude like being able to solve mysteries and or like- In a way. Perceive human nature and things like that. In a way, observational skills, not being suspect, listening, not taking what you see

as gospel or what you hear at all and figuring things out, making sure that everything is a curious question to you and investigate until proven. I guess these things were coming natural to me. I didn't know it. So I was going to be a police officer, and then the second year in college, I took an acting class and met girls. Oh, that was it?

Eight. Yeah. Like eight to two was the ratio of girls to boys. And my first acting class, my responsibility in this scene was to make out with this pretty girl. Well, I'm 19. That spun my head around. I thought, this is a thing? This is people? Wow, I'm 19. That spun my head around. I thought, this is a thing? This is people?

Wow, I'm in. And so I left because I didn't know what to do. I didn't finish college because I wasn't going to be a police officer. But I wasn't sure that I should just jump into acting. So I need to go get lost so that I can find myself, hopefully. So we're traveling around, brother and i and raining cats and dogs on the blue ridge parkway normally beautiful but foggy and rainy you can't see a thing pulled on to a slab uh cement slab with four posts and a roof um at a at a rest stop

in the middle of nowhere and this is way before any gps we didn't know how far we were from the next town or anything and it's very dangerous so we just stayed well we'll wait until it clears up six days later it finally stops right oh my god and during that six days is when i had this epiphany it's like okay i i am attracted to this i was reading plays one after another after another to spend my time and i thought okay but if i'm going to do this i i better really get to know this and do it well and this is not about girls this is about finding something yeah deeper and that was it and then you're on chips that was it and then and then you and estrada are going head to head yeah i who are you on chips i was something like billy joe and i was talking like this almost like gomer pile and like it and uh i was a newlywed and and the the beautiful

young woman that uh played my wife in the show she and eric estrada they they were having this thing they were having a thing yeah in in his trailer and it was like wow this is that's my introduction to hollywood it's like oh wow so that's really going on estrada said to you like hey kid this is my set don't you forget this you stay off my corner he was a bit cocky he was a bit cocky. He was a bit cocky. He had reason to be. He was a huge star in 1981 or whatever. You know, whenever I tell this, it's like Estrada was full of himself when he was a huge star on Chips, right? Yeah. Years later, maybe 15 years after Chips, I bumped into him, I think at like a Screen Actors Guild meeting or something like that. And I just said hello.

And I was on his show. And he says to me, hey, was I a real jerk to you? On chips? Yeah. And I go, no, you were fine. He goes, oh, OK, good. Because I'm just apologizing to anybody I was a real jerk to. I was a stupid kid.

And I didn't appreciate what i had and i'm sorry if i made a mess of things the 70s and 80s were really dangerous times for celebrities because yeah there were no checks and balances right there were drugs everywhere nobody knew of what drugs were good and what drugs weren't good and people egos were just ran amok yeah there's so many especially stories yeah if you're they didn't know any better they didn't and i think you learn from the mistakes of the generations before you and who were they learning from nobody and and you still won't learn them until you're a little older and that gets back to the other thing i i didn't get malcolm in the middle until i was like 41 years old which is great yeah so i i knew i you know you better know by then what you don't want in your life anymore.

Yeah. And what you do want. Wasn't this like a famous George Clooney theory about fame? The older you are when you become famous, the better you can handle it? Much better. I think when he hit on ER, he was probably in his 30s at that point. And he just had a better perspective of it. He had a much better perspective.

And then you see, I mean, I'm sure you saw with uh malcolm in the middle like if you're a child actor frankie who seems like he came out okay he's had some issues but yeah seems like i don't know it could have been worse yeah um but to be that famous and have that much money when you're like 15 how do you process that i don't know how do you reconcile who to trust that's right because you have these sycophants coming up and telling you how great you are and here can i get this for you and right and kids are being catered to as if they're you know royalty and how does that not affect the immature mind you're 15 you can get any girl you want you can have any friend you want you can buy anything you

want and you've already achieved something so you have nothing to dream for i don't i don't know go ahead there's a reason it's gone bad a lot of times i think it's a lot depends on the parents are the parents i would say all of it depends on the parents by and large but then again like if you're a parent is it i'm not positive i don't think I would want my kids to be child actors. I don't know if I'd want them to have that level of notoriety and fame at age 12. It's an interesting thing. A good parent will honestly assess the desires and ability of that child. The child is constantly saying, and, and you see them on

stage at your school or something. And they're like, boy, they're just advanced. They just need to want this. Yeah, they're like a prodigy. You really just start thinking about it. Then you kind of have to open up to that. I produce now and I have a show coming out next year called The Dangerous Book for Boys on Amazon. It's a family show. And on it, we have a lot of kids. And I embrace them and say, listen, and the families, keep monitoring them. If you have any questions, if you're concerned about anything, let us know. We want to make sure that this environment is healthy for your kids. It's unusual. And I tell them that right off. this is not a normal lifestyle for a child yeah so we want to try to normalize it as much as possible and uh so far so good we have good

although i guess at this point i don't know what a normal lifestyle is for a child anymore i don't because even the youngest it's such an issue i have a 12 and a half and a 10 and it's and it's you know you really have to watch out all the time. Yeah. You never know what the hell's going on. Sal and I, on Mondays, we do this podcast, Jimmy's Cousin, where we end each one with Parent Corner, where we tell stories about the story of the week,

about something that happened to us as a parent. And most of them are technology-based. Yeah. Some sort of, you know, one of our kids stumbling into something that shouldn't have happened and it's not until you live now yeah it's not until you become a parent that you start lamenting about the current status of of your kids lives right and and and you also you look back in a very romantic way at your own childhood and say, boy, things were better back then. You know, we could hop on a bike and go for a ride.

We could do it. We didn't have this oversight. We had more freedom. We didn't need babysitters in 1979. Well, I mean, one of the things is like when my daughter turned 16, it's like, 16, you want to get your driver? Yeah, at some point. I'll get my driver's license at some point i'm 61 on my birthday and everybody i knew on your 16th birthday the greatest day you went to get your

driver's license it was your only way to have some independence otherwise yeah it's like i can't imagine if i asked my mother um can i have a play date with someone who lives 20 miles away? It's like, she started laughing. You play with the kids in your neighborhood. You go to the school that's in your neighborhood. That's your life. Yeah, the play date is down the street. Two block radius. So when you got back in the middle, you became a TV dad.

Did you study the other famous TV dads from the 70s and 80s? I didn't have to. You know them. One of my favorite shows was Andy Griffith. And God, such great characters. And even that was romantic. You look back and how simple life was. And I long for a life of Mayberry. Just the simple things of life.

A theme song with whistling. Yeah. Yeah, just happy. People holding fishing poles. Yeah. Yeah, it was great. And Dick Van Dyke was a big influence. So where would you rank that dad against the other TV dads?

What were his strengths? What was his best TV dadness? He allowed Opie to get into a little trouble. that dad against the other tv dads what were his strengths what was his best tv dadness uh he allowed opie to get into a little trouble he allowed him to learn the lesson as opposed to the the modern day parent i think it's like okay i'm not going to allow my kid to scrape his knee yeah as opposed to okay here it comes. It's going to happen. I've warned him, and he's still kind of doing it. And then you kind of have to, you make sure it's not tremendously dangerous, but you have to let them learn that lesson.

I thought Mr. Brady was a very important dad for me growing up. Yeah. A Brady Bunch. Really? Just like, you know, he had six kids. He had to make a lot of decisions. Well, he had three kids. Three were kind of like.

Wow, he took them over. You know, the stepkids. Come on. He didn't love those as much. But I remember the three-part Hawaii episode. Vincent Price kidnapped the three sons. Yeah. And then they found the kids.

And then they allowed Vincent Price to come to the luau. They, like, forgave him. And I always thought that was. I was really down on Mr. Brady after that. then they they found the kids and then they allowed vincent price to come to the luau they like forgave him and i always thought that was i was really down on mr brady after that well it's like you should be reporting this guy to jail he kidnapped your kids in a cave he's a crazy person yeah he's crazy yeah he just kidnapped your children yeah they're like hey would you like to come to luau and then they get the show ends with them they're all at the luau vincent price is eating pineapple he should be in jail. Yeah.

The other ones, my favorite dad was the Good Times dad John Amos played, James Evans. Yeah, yeah. Great dad. Always life lessons. Would bring out the belt every once in a while for Michael. Yeah. Did he ever actually spank him?

Oh, he would take him to the room, and the kids would be scared. Yeah, he'd lay down a little authority, but a lot of love. Yeah. There were always life lessons. He was good. Mr. Drummond was good on different strokes. Oh, okay.

Growing Pains' dad was good. Was it? But yeah, that was the legacy you walked into. Yeah, you're younger than I am. Well, you probably weren't watching those shows, because you were an adult at that point. I wasn't watching those shows, no. Your generation was the Andy Griffith.

Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke, that. When did you feel that show hit? My Three Sons. My Three Sons, yeah. When did you feel that show taken off? Which show? Malcolm in the Middle. Malcolm in the Middle?

I learned early on that if you can develop an ability to spot well-written material and attach yourself to that, chances are you won't be disappointed. It doesn't mean that that show or that play is going to be a hit. But for your own self-satisfaction, it was the thing thing I always look for when I read Malcolm in the middle, I thought this is genius. This, this script is beautiful and funny and heartfelt. Um, and you can go crazy.

The, the, the genius part that Linwood Boomer wrote about in Malcolm in the middle was if you establish a sense of a dynamic, a family dynamic that will back each other when push does come to shove and they have a foundation of love and you don't show that too much.

You just couch it. You just give a feeling of that. And then you can go crazy because the audience feels like yeah they're a family yeah that's a family that will that will fight that is true every great family show has had that yep and then you can kind of veer off and then get crazy right yeah so it was i you know who knows if something's going to be a hit i didn't know breaking bad was going to be a hit i didn't know malcolm in the middle was going to be hit i don't know anything's going to be a hit. I didn't know Breaking Bad was going to be a hit. I didn't know Malcolm in the Middle was going to be a hit.

I don't know anything's going to be a hit. If everyone knew that, every show would be a hit, if there was an actual alchemy that you could follow. But there isn't. So you just have to hope that you're in the zeitgeist, that your story is coming along at the time that society is like, yes, we want this, and it's not too early or not too after yeah that kind of sensation but then you started dabbling in seinfeld like right at the height of

that show too it's perfect that's like a different level of fame with that i mean that was like 30 35 40 million people a week right it's crazy it was crazy you're still probably the dentist to some people yeah yeah i get i get that all the time um and and they know the episodes backwards and forwards and i was honored over a course of like three years i and i did it only a total of six episodes as the dentist but i wouldn't guess i would have said like three it was six six Six. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And that, you know, it was like going to comedy boot camp. Yeah. I was still, you know, quite young. I was in my 30s and being able to be on the set and watch Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld craft a joke, either visual or verbal, like a surgeon a surgeon yeah it was just amazing to watch like

no no hang on wait two seconds before you answer that yeah give a look give and it's like oh my god they're just they're they're enhancing the laugh like in with such precision that it was just it was genius and then years later i get to do kirby enthusiasm with larry to play his therapist oh yeah and um it's just a blast and now we're on a we're on a different playing field it was it's a it's great it's really really wonderful did he he must have remembered you were the dentist oh yeah years later. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and. Because I can't. He's worked with so many people.

I'm sure he's. I don't know what his recollection is. Yes. That's right. 200 Seinfeld episodes. Like, oh, yeah, you were the dentist. I forgot. But he does remember the key guest stars on that show.

Because he did bring them back on Curb. There has been like some Seinfeld people have tricked them back in. A lot. And there's a comfort level that you want to work with people that you feel can deliver and that you remember

from working with them before. You must have loved Curb because that's the combo of they give you the story but you're ad-libbing within the framework of it. It's fantastic. Let's say everyone says for the actors that's like the it's so you can pull it off it's like the highest level of yeah if you like improvisation yeah if you feel comfortable with

it then you'll be fine in fact everybody loves it because there's no lines to memorize yeah in in a scene any particular scene he'll have a little page of what could be discussed but mainly he just tells you verbally at some point during the scene your character needs to come out with this uh line with this understanding this this that you for instance with me in one scene uh he said truffles that you have let me know that you love truffles and in any way you want to tell me that okay and then his responsibility in that same scene was to to let me know that he didn't like the chair that i would give to my patients i played his therapist and you have no idea what direction he's going you just know that it's heading that way and you don't know when it's

going to come out you don't so you veer off you go into different places you talk about different things to try to mine the comedy yeah and then at some point you kind of go in and you kind of know like in the scene we're going along and we're doing saying all kinds of things. And and he said something about. So what are you doing this weekend? And I just took that as a as a nice tee up to to launch into to something personal and told him about, oh, my wife and I, it's it's restaurant week. And so we go out and we go out every night and primarily to where they serve truffles because my wife and i love truffles and it's you know just get find the best ones do

you like truffles no you know it's like oh well okay and uh and you just play it on you know it's it's fabulous and it's a fun show funny i i just love that's one of those he's reached that point where if he's like i need you for an episode of Curb, no matter who you are, you're in. Like he had Lin-Manuel Miranda on Sunday. I would think whoever he wants, he could probably get, because A, it's a great show, but B, it's so much fun to do. Pretty much. Okay, I'm in. What day?

Exactly right. That's what it was for me. I didn't even know what character he wanted me to play. I swear to God, he said, you want to? Yes. I feel that way about several people. Linwood Boomer from Malcolm in the Middle. Certainly Vince Gilligan from Breaking Bad.

If they called and said, would you? I'd say, yes. Just tell me when. And I'll do it. Let's take a break to talk about holiday shopping. It can be tough. Thanks to movement, all that gift-giving anxiety can disappear with the press of Abutment movement-made watches

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and free returns by going to mvmt.com slash bill that's my name it's a watch with a clean design that makes a great fashion statement step up your watch game go to mvmt.com slash bill join the movement you hosted snl right i did one time or more just once what year was it um it's been a while uh let me think it was about 2011 because you must have loved that oh my god it's so much fun and it goes it goes like like you're in fast motion yeah it goes so fast for from monday through saturday you're going your your mind is exploding because everything's going so quickly yeah um you're reading maybe 50 sketches on wednesday 50 by thursday they've narrowed it down to like 15. By Friday, you're putting it on its feet for the first time. You're doing some preliminary blocking of where you're going to be,

and everybody's looking at pages and looking at cue cards. And Saturday, you perform it live. Good luck. Steve Higgins, who is a head writer and executive producer over there, and I know him because I know his brothers and I work with his brothers on Malcolm in the Middle. Steve said two things. Trust the cards. Yeah.

Believe me, we change it so often. Trust the cards. Just look at read the cards. Yeah. Don't think that you got it memorized because it changes fast. And and this is not a place for perfectionists if you're a perfectionist if you need everything designed to a t you're going to be frustrated because this is fly by the seat of your pants yeah just throw it out there

and good luck so if you're and i find that very exciting and thrilling and i would say trust the writers too trust the writers yeah the ones that get into trouble are the ones that bring their own writers or have their own i have some sketch ideas or some thoughts it's like these are the best sketch writers like maybe trust them for five days i i brought in a couple sketch ideas i brought in like three different sketch ideas. All of them shot down. And Lauren said, no, I don't think so. But, you know, I wanted to just throw myself into that world.

Yeah. And it was great. But you probably rolled with it. I'm sure some celebs were probably like, what? You don't like my sketch idea? Yeah, I just, I'm an actor. I just want to be part of a company. Yeah.

And because I've had some good fortune and more leverage has come to me, what that means to me, stardom or celebrity, means I am exposed to greater levels of talent, writing, directing, producing, and the material is superior. But you were never in a sports movie, right? Or were you? No. I did a television pilot called Dogs a while ago

that I was hoping would go. Dogs? Dogs. It was about this softball team called the Stray Dogs. What? And every week we were going to play softball. Oh, my God. Yeah, it was going to be great.

It was going to be great. You could have done the Bad News Bears remake in 2005. It was kind of like that. The coach. It didn't work because, you know, figure, a softball team, 10 guys, right? I'm trying to think how, what the hook would be of that. So it would be like the lives of the 10 guys. That's right.

So that means. So it's like a male soap opera. Girlfriends. Yeah. Or wives or kids. So in the hour, it's an hour long show. It's 28 characters. Yeah.

It's like even I that was in it and read the script several times, I'm going, wait, who's that? Yeah. Who is she related? I have no idea. I got completely lost. That could have been the This Is Us for that generation. I know.

See? We would have had it. We were just ahead of our time. This Is Us crossed with softball. I know. Maybe you should repitch it. Yeah. Do you like This Is Us?

Do you like softball? Well, then you're going to love this. This is soft us do you like softball well then you're gonna love this is softball this is softball yeah i'm surprised you didn't uh because obviously you like baseball i'm surprised you didn't weasel your way into one of these for love of the game man hardball one of those baseball flicks i'm i'm there's still time i figure i just have to write it myself and pitch it i have an idea right now that i'm i want to develop about a baseball a story good yeah man what about what about like a 58 year old knuckleballer who's making one last stand he figured out something with his fingernails the ball's really hopping yeah there's been some injuries on the local team yeah he. He's got to come back.

Believe me. There's no age ending for a knuckleballer. I am that guy. Yeah, you can do it. Called Wakefield. Wakefield comes back. Wakefield returns.

After you did Malcolm in the Middle, did you feel like you were pigeonholed as a certain type of character? Or were you actually liberated to go do a whole bunch of other stuff no i was uh we we had seven years of that show and i i knew that it's up to the actor to not allow that to happen right because everybody is saying oh he does when someone spots someone doing something well oh you do that really well how would you like to do that next

with me you know and it's like no it's up to the actor to say i just did seven years of a sweet silly goofy dad i can't do it anymore yeah and so i was offered two different pilots comedy pilots to pay to play sweet goofy dads and that would have been the rest of your career that would have been it yeah had i wanted to but it was an easy no it was like oh no i'm i'm i'm going the opposite direction you're like can i be an oz yeah can i can i be can i be schillinger's new partner and if actors feel that you have to have the courage to say no yeah that's why if you're money motivated you're you're at a disadvantage because you're thinking dollars and i don't even know what i make on things i honestly don't know what i make you probably did pretty well on a couple things i did really well because i have

agents who are incentivized yeah to do really well so i asked them are you happy with the contract and they go well we think we can do a little better well do better go i'm yeah hope you get it it's not like oh no i i don't need money oh man i've been poor yeah i've been in a home where we got kicked out of our house yeah uh foreclosed on because we didn't have any money and it split up the family and now i I'm wealthy. And wealthy is better. It's really a lot better. I don't know if you've noticed that. I just said Ta-Nehisi Coates was on the pod two weeks ago when we were talking about this.

It was like, yeah, it's better to actually have money. Absolutely. You've had it both ways. Nobody's like, I really missed when I was poor and I couldn't afford anything. But I'll tell you, like that, I think if you've had the experience of not having money, I so appreciate it now. And I don't take it for granted.

I don't waste it. I don't spoil it. It's very important. But I also don't focus on it. It's not why I act. I don't focus on acting to be a celebrity, to be more famous. I don't think in those terms. It's all story.

I'm doing a play in London. Yeah, I was reading about that. It sounds like it's a really cool play, Network. That's awesome. Did you ever see the movie? Yeah, I mean, I was seven, but it was a seminal movie. I mean, it won like every Oscar in 1976. Yeah.

And kind of has 2017. It's an interesting. It's resonating yeah because at the time it was resonance yeah it was it was written as a satire yeah um not as satirical anymore what if news was actually like an entertainment show it's like yeah what if what if the news had a slant to it a a bias? Well, what if you're putting out something that's not necessarily true, fake news? Well, it's very prescient. What if a star anchor became kind of a crazy self-parody, but it made it more famous? What? What?

That would never happen. Yeah, wow. So I'm having a great time. What a great role. I mean, that's one of the great characters. Howard Beale. You get a couple of awesome scenes in there where you just unleash. He gets unleashed.

Yeah. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. It was one of the most famous scenes of the 70s. Yeah. I would say. Yeah. Well, it works really well on stage because Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote the screenplay, wrote in a very theatrical

way not short little sentences but a lot of big speeches i have four speeches that are like a page and a half two pages long each so why are you here if you're doing a play in london good question i teleported yeah i'll go back are you on tonight yeah i'm gone i'm on tonight in london you were able to take like two weeks off to promote no um i it's it's at the national theater in london and the national theater is a repertory company yeah so almost all the time there are two plays sharing the same stage just alternating dates well the show that is in there right now about to be you know open is pinocchio of a new kind of wacky wild it's a sexier pinocchio it's a sexy pinocchio and you had to drop the voice come on watch out uh pinocchio watch his nose grow it's the most erotic Pinocchio ever

so because it's a family show not at all like we were alluding to they need the holidays and so that's why we've been giving a month break so you're in this mode of you're playing this character you're all in on this play

you're memorizing every single line and moment and then all of a sudden it's gone for six weeks. That's right. That's gotta be weird. It's very weird. It's very unlike any theatrical experience I've ever had. Although I guess it's not much different than Breaking Bad ending

and you being a normal person again, and then going back to playing this guy who's basically losing his mind. Yeah, I'm kind of used to that. In a sense, when we were shooting Breaking Bad in New Mexico, I would be there for six months at a time for six straight years. So you're six months on, six months off. Six months on, six months off.

And you just kind of get used to that. As an actor, you get used to periods of unemployment. Did you hear about the Jim Carrey, Andy Kaufman documentary? It's on Netflix right now. Yeah, no, I've heard of it, but I haven't seen it yet. It's basically about when he did the Andy Kaufman movie, which is a really good movie. It's good.

There were so many good movies in the late 90s that got a little bit lost in the shuffle, and it's aged really nicely. But he played Andy Kaufman.man he basically became andy kaufman and there's he took a lot of video that he hoarded till this point and when i say he became andy kaufman like he became andy kaufman like he acted like andy kaufman 24 hours a day on the set and andy kaufman's family came and he was andy meeting the family and jerry lawler the wrestler then andy k's family came and he was Andy meeting the family and Jerry Lawler the wrestler then Andy Kaufman Feudal with was there and he fucked with uh Jerry Lawler like Andy

Kaufman would and Jerry Lawler actually assaulted him he was so mad at one point no kidding and he just kind of lost it and the whole thing is about like he he kind of never recovered from it he he really did he had like a little mental breakdown he just as an actor he probably made two more movies in the next five years after that never really was able to he just kind of went so far in he couldn't come out of it which is exactly you would love it you love it i gotta check it out it's uh and it's also amazing to watch him that everybody else in the set like danny devito and people like that, just kind of watching like, what the fuck is this guy? Because Danny witnessed the same thing in Andy Kaufman when they were doing Taxi.

Tony, what's his name? Tony Danza, all those people. No, his character. Oh, Louis De Palma. No. Oh, Laka, Andy Kaufman. Yeah, yeah. Andy Kaufman had another character, that other character that came up. Oh, Tony Shelton Kaufman. Yeah, yeah. Andy Kaufman had another character, that other character that came on.

Oh, Tony Shelton. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And on the set of Taxi, he absolutely had to have two different dressing rooms. One for Andy Kaufman and one for Tony. It was like, oh, wow. So then there was, in this thing, there's this whole Andy Kaufman where they're shooting the Tony scenes. And he's now Tony.

And he's in there as Tony, not as Jim Carrey for like a week and just crazy and insulting everybody. And it's really nuts. And it's also a really good kind of about, I'm always fascinated by fame and what fame does to people. And he's just like he was kind of a late bloomer and became the biggest comedy star in the world and just kind of kept up in the ante and it all led to this movie it's good it's almost as if you think that he sort of

created a self-sabotaging yes condition he says that oh wow yeah he's basically like i this was my way of kind of sabotaging everything that was happening to me. Yeah. Because there is a thing. I'm still trying to reconcile with fame and celebrity and attention on the street and how much freedom I have or not. And I usually always wear a cap and watch where I'm going and try to avoid that only because I'm just not comfortable with it. It's not anything that I ever really thought of before. And you can't train for it. You don't know what it feels like when you're looked at and talked to and approached on a daily

basis, on an hourly basis, if you're out and among the public. And it takes a lot of energy. And the older I get, the more I feel like I need to conserve my energy. Even receiving compliments is an unbelievably, it's enjoyable. And I never thought that any of that was I was spending energy or it was stressful in any way. You can't match the compliment with whatever your response is. No, yeah. It's a weird thing.

And anybody on the outside who doesn't have a celebrity looks and they say often, is it fun when people recognize you? And it's like, well, it's really interesting. Because you're still the same person you were before anything happened. You are and you aren't. But now you're not to the people that are around you. You are and you aren't.

I mean, everything, we should grow and change and mature, of course, as we get older. We were just talking about parenting and how we feel differently. And celebrity will do that too. Fame will change you. And it's how you handle that fame. And when you see these kids come out of college,

the one and done, and they go in. I mean, how does a 19, how does Lonzo Ball, how does he handle this? How does he? What's funny is that NBA guys have lately have handled it about as well as we've ever seen the rookies handle it. Because it's like what I said before about you learn from the mistakes of the people before you. And you had these generations before LeBron where they just handled everything badly. They made money. They spent it immediately. They got in trouble and did had these generations before lebron where they just handled everything badly they made money they spent it immediately they got in trouble and right did all these things

and people have kind of learned now what to not say and what to not do well they have they have they have checks and balances and maybe the guys didn't have every team as as a person to guide them in the league here's how you talk to the press yeah here are the things that you should say here are the things you shouldn't say well think about these guys are 19 and they're famous and they have a platform and at any point they can get mad at anybody and just tweet at them and be like oh shit i shouldn't have done that and it never happens it's you think it would happen all the time yeah just 19 full of testosterone like well d'angelo russell did it d'angelo russell is a great example yeah like he totally screwed up and it led to him getting traded yeah so interesting hey how about your celtics i know wow i know wow it's our season started with a guy breaking his

ankle i didn't i didn't see that coming yeah and then then 18 and 4 it's a good year it's that the nba it's where we talk about a lot at the Ring, trying to not be too negative with the NFL because the NFL stories seem so constantly negative, whereas the NBA is more celebratory and exciting. Even when you're kind of breaking down a team, it's still kind of fun. It's like, what's wrong with Lonzo? Can he shoot? It's not like, what's wrong with Lonzo?

Why won't he stop assaulting women? There's this extra layer that's not there we need sports more than ever right now because we're in a very cynical cycle here you know that the sexual predators and and what's going on in the world and our president and all this craziness um i think i i think having this outlet and and looking at the purity of sports and being able to just embrace that it's fantastic well especially like every day you wake up especially on la time because we're later here and you just wake up and you look at look at your phone you don't know what you're gonna see today

i woke up matt lauer's career is over done it's just done that was the first thing i saw in the morning yeah email from my mom matt lauer wow what happened oh he's gone be more yeah and that's it Matt Lauer's never gonna be on TV again yeah so it's possible that you may be done as well maybe we're taping this podcast this might be the last podcast this could be it we could they might be cut pulling the plug when when you were doing Breaking Bad, Breaking Bad went in two waves. The show takes off, but it's still not massive. And then the streaming thing starts happening as you're doing the show. That's right.

And really probably the timing of it is perfect for the show, as strange as that sounds. No, no no it's not strange at all people are like you're like three seasons in i caught up on it late i was watching i was in 2013 um i was doing the the uh nba stuff for espn right and we're on the road for a month and i'd been saving breaking bad everyone on my staff's writing about it and they're all mad at me that i'm watching. I'm like, I'm waiting. It's going to be the perfect time.

I want to make sure when I do it, I'm all in. I started watching them and banging them out on my iPad on the Amazon. I'm falling asleep to it. Then I'm having crazy dreams. I just went all in, banging out four seasons. You had that wave and you're winning emmys but then by the time you got to like the last extended two-part season everyone had caught up and it was so many more people right for that last round than it was in the beginning so you might could you feel that in the moment or not really we certainly didn't feel anything in the

beginning yeah we're just as again getting back to It was a brilliant script and it was the best hour long television. Beloved by TV critics. TV critics going, you guys got to watch this. This is really good. But even before that, when I read it as a script form, I thought, oh my God, this is the best. So I want to be a part of it. And Vince Gilligan said, well, I want to try to do something. I want to change a character from a good person to a bad person within the course of the series.

And I thought about it and I said, you know, that's never happened before in the history of television. Television has always been about stasis, about characters you can depend on. Oh, a condition is different, but you know how they're gonna how they're gonna respond to any certain thing breaking bad was different or the or they'd flip it a bad person slowly becomes a better person yeah well that hasn't happened before either i guess like soprano tony soprano by the end even though he was a bad person people warmed up to him more well people have warmed up to him just like people were were actually fans of of walter white and yet despite his actions they were still in his camp and i said really how many people does he have to kill last season it's yeah last season it's tough to stay in the camp yeah yeah

but even you know when when walter white had had this in the last when he said no i did it for me i'm not gonna hide behind it anymore i didn't i'm not saying i did it, no, I did it for me. I'm not going to hide behind it anymore. I'm not saying I did it for my family. I did it for me, and I was good at it. And that's why. There's honesty in the writing. But anyway, the serendipitous experience of Breaking Bad on a smaller network, AMC,

that was just really starting to catch its ground. And when Netflix went from sending out the discs in mail, if it was still that system, we wouldn't have taken off. It was too hard to catch up if it was just on conventional TV. Banking 20 DVR episodes. You'd be on the road and you'd be like, to catch up if it was just on conventional tv where yeah if i if i had banking 20 dvr episodes you'd be on the road you went oh man i forgot to pack the dvd yeah you know it's like no but because the streaming just was kicking off at like 2010 everybody was catching up with us two years after we premiered i think it was the first binge watch it was even though like house

of cards gets credit for it i really feel like breaking it was the first binge watch. It was. Even though like house of cards gets credit for it. I really feel like breaking bad was the first one that people were just watching six, seven and two nights. It was. And, and the, and that's what propelled us up.

So it, the synergy of that, we needed that to be there as well, to, to really create that avalanche of attention. I'll tell you, it was awesome for grantland when when uh i was running that place like because we had we always talk about 2013 we

had in the same year mad men breaking bad and thrones yeah and they were staggered like perfectly i think two of them were going even on at the same time but it was like yeah it was like having the nba playoffs with three shows anything we wrote about any of those shows people loved and they just wanted more and more there's really no show like that now other than thrones and thrones has seven episodes left left to go they were these shows that eventually could grab everybody from my mom to the younger brother of our intern yeah they had this 50 year age range yeah it's really hard i don't know there's so much tv now i don't know if we're gonna see that anymore there's just too much content and it's too niche now and i don't know how you cross over i don't know it's it's

a good time and a challenging time when you have platforms that are across the board you have so many opportunities to create material. So it's a good time for actors, writers, directors. Best time for content creators. Best time. But I don't know if Breaking Bad is possible anymore. I don't know. Maybe it is.

Maybe I'm being cynical. Maybe it's supposed to be that way, ephemeral, and it's supposed to be gone. And that's why I love theater, because I'm doing this for this period of time, this play, whatever it is, and when I'm done, that's it. It's gone.

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Fuck. That was it. Yeah. I just kind of moved on and kept doing stuff. Well, unlike, there are some parallels with professional athletes, but unlike the athletes, an actor, especially a white male actor, has more opportunities. And I say that only because it is unfair. It is not a level playing field.

And it should be. I just saw Hamilton again on Broadway. And what they did is break open the acceptance of, here's George Washington, an African-American man, and you go, okay, all right, and just knocks you out. And it's like, this is cool. This is great. This is opportunity for everyone to be involved in the world of creativity and i hope it continues that

way yeah i think it's i think it's wonderful well i think all the all the different outlets that people have now to sell shows and get shows up and all that it will probably lead to more small scale kind of creative miracles like that because i think we're going to see more chances i think that's what has to happen and that's the good thing about it because there are going to be so many uh platforms and a tremendous just a a glut of product that you're going to say what how do we break out how do we get any attention we have have to be different. We have to be specific. We have to carve out something that we haven't seen before. It's funny, though.

You look at this century and it's the rise of these prestige TV shows, not taking over for movies, but definitely moving into some of that creative territory. And almost every time it was one person writing the show, sometimes two at the most, but always one. It was always one person's vision. And yet you see how they do TV in some ways, and it's network notes and consensus

and all these people weighing in, and yet like Vince Gilligan just did Breaking Bad. They left him alone, and he just came up with stuff and i want i i hope that that's what that leads for this next generation the people kind of just trusting like we found this person and we're gonna trust him or her and they're gonna come up with stuff and we're gonna leave them alone hopefully that was one of the lessons of this last 10 years. I think so. I mean, I think a very smart CEO of any corporation of any company, big or small, has a policy where they listen to every suggestion idea. Best idea wins. Yeah. That's all it should be. Best idea wins. And you never know where it's going to come from. On Seinfeld, playing the dentist.

Yeah. There was an episode where I give Jerry laughing gas, nitrous oxide. And he goes out and he doesn't know if I molested him or not. Right. I'm with this like a penthouse pet hygienist. And it's like, I don't know if I was tucked or untucked. He might have molested me. Right.

And we rehearsed the scene. And they all left. I stayed on my set just to work with the instruments and get comfortable with the stool and how it slides and things like that. And I hear this voice say, hey, you know, it would be funny. And I, first I didn't know someone was talking to me. And I looked around and up on a ladder was a guy adjusting a light. And I went, are you talking to me?

He goes, yeah. He goes, you know, it would be funny. And I'm thinking, and I took a little attitude to it. I go, well, no man on a ladder. Why don't you tell me what would be funny and i'm thinking and i took a little attitude to it i go uh well no man on a ladder why don't you tell me what would be funny yeah uh since i do this for a living and you obviously adjust lights for a living and he said what if you took a hit of the laughing gas first before you gave it to jerry and i thought oh my god That's a great idea. That's genius. So I waited until we were shooting,

and there's Larry David. Jerry didn't know what I was going to do. Nobody knew what I was going to do, but I thought, I think I need to surprise people. Yeah. So I said, nurse, may I have the nitrous oxide? And she hands it to me. I put it all over my mouth. I go, that's good. And Jerry hands it to me. I put it all over my mouth. I'd go, that's good.

And Jerry lost it and bent. It was just, he lost it. And Larry David laughed. And it's hard to get Larry David to laugh. And he said, that's great. We're going to keep that. That's good. That's good.

Okay. Jerry, stop laughing. And then we'd do it again. We must have done that 15 times because jerry would continue to laugh and i said you want me to tone it down no no jerry you need to stop laughing you know and he's chastising him and jerry is doing all he could to just try not to laugh and and there and it praised me of course they said hey said, hey, great, great. And I said, wait, no, it wasn't me. Of course, there's no ladder now.

We're shooting the show. And I'm looking around for the face. I'm looking, I'm looking. And finally, I spot him leaning against a door jam in the far back. I go, no, he gave it to me. And everybody's head turns toward where I'm pointing. And there is this guy. And he happened to be taking, he happened to be already in a pose where his arms were crossed.

And he was leaning against a door jam. And it's hard to describe it. But he merely shrugged and gave a little, like, a grimace. Like, yeah, I got a lot of those. You know, he just kind of went yeah and and like yeah if only people would listen to me you know and it was like wow so that i wrote it in a book i wrote a book last year and i wrote that because i wanted to reinforce that philosophy of best idea wins yeah and and just because you didn't come up with it don't try to don't even don't take

ownership don't steal give credit where credit is due you're still going to get um praise for it because you were part of that if it's a good idea and it's like our company does that that's the way to create goodwill and keep your your colleagues happy and involved and engaged and that they feel like any idea i'm just gonna throw this out there and what about this boss and you're wow you left out that the guy on the ladder vince gilligan the guy on the ladder yeah actually i was saving that thanks for jumping the gun that's yeah vince gilligan came down that story. Do you think Vince Gilligan was a genius?

I hate the word when people throw the word genius around because I think it gets thrown around too much. It is, yeah. Borderline genius? He's a visionary genius writer. He agonizes over every word, every scenario. He painstakingly goes into it. So writing to him is not like oh this comes easy i'll just bang this out he's it's painful to a lot of writers and it's painful to him because

he wants he cares so much that he wants it to be every detail every line everything perfect yeah and when it's not perfect, he's troubled by it. Yeah. And we live in an imperfect world anyway. Humans are imperfect. Everything about us is imperfect. So instead of embracing the imperfection of that, he strives to make it perfect. And I think that's the difference.

Someone who goes with complacency says, ah, that's good. That's good enough. The good enough attitude for a real true artist is not good enough. Yeah, I think that show, with some shows they lose their luster or they feel like they belong in a certain decade.

I think that show's gonna last. I think like 20 years from now, I don't feel like it's gonna feel much different. It'll still be what it was. It would be cool if it was, you know, it's almost like how some of the great books just keep going. Yeah.

And you could read, I don't know, Lord of the Flies right now. And it's still fucking great. I think, I think Breaking Bad has a chance to be that. Some of the other ones that hit, I think they'll start to feel dated or different or whatever.

I don't know if that's going to happen. And i and i laugh when i hear people say i'm gonna i'm out to make an epic story and it's like no no only audiences create a classic or an epic yeah only audiences can do that and the same thing in sports only fans can determine that and people in the know your profession yeah what you write and that's why it's good that a hall of fame vote is not immediate yeah it's got to have a it's got to have that five-year period this is my dream for the oscars it's good i would wait five years to give out the oscar how about that wow it's way five years hey we're announcing the 2012 oscars tomorrow and everybody going wait what movies was that i don't remember does the artist win the oscar if we wait five years no way wow okay because sometimes you get caught up in the whatever or some narrative it's like there's

no narratives five years have passed we have digested these movies where we watch you are clearly never going to be a studio right you are are never going to have that job, Bill. But I mean, I guess we couldn't do that with Emmons. But I think the Oscars would be really a fun thing to do. They'll never do it. They'll never do it because they want the immediate hit and it has to be fresh in your mind, apparently. Quick break to talk about underwear.

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own. Once again, MeUndies.com slash BS. MeUndies, start wearing the best underwear of your life. This turned out to be a surprisingly lively movie here. People were worried at the start of it. You have one, we should mention. Last Flag Flying. Is it out

or is it like out in some cities or is it all the way out? It's a small movie that comes that is opened up. I don't know how many theaters

it's in now but it's in every major city I think. I think it is. It should be. It's a great film. Explain it in 30 seconds. 30 seconds.

It is a story about three old Marines from Vietnam era who got into a lot of trouble. One of them paid for it with two years in the brig. All three suffering from PTSD, handling it in different ways. But this Last Flag Flying explores male friendship. friendship how men bond how deep is that bond how do we treat each other after over all these years and it's also how we how we grieve how we handle disappointment and loss and tragedy in our lives and all that said it's it turns out to be a really wonderfully entertaining film very funny it's heartfelt women and men will cry during this movie it's one of those movies you go man it really i

got caught up in it and under the orchestration of richard linklater a brilliant writer director one of the greats he just pulled it all together. And Steve Carell, Lawrence Fishburne, and myself, we bonded greatly in this thing. And had some of the similar experiences of male bonding. Yeah. And how we bring it together. How we kid each other and bust balls all the time. Because that's how men show that we like each other women

going wait a minute how come you're giving him such a hard time because i love him yeah but i can't say i love him i gotta bust his balls that's how we and that's how i say i love him yeah and women are going this is insane you guys are out of your minds and in a way they're right so are you in the link later are you in the thelater? Are you in the family now? I hope so. Like when they do Before Sunrise 4, you could be like the psychiatrist? I hope so, because he's a great, great guy and a brilliant filmmaker. I like that he takes all kinds of swings.

He does. He really does. He'll just fucking try shit. He'll try it. Like the two Before Sunrise, there's three now, but those were so original in the moment. he does he really does he'll just he'll just fucking trash it he'll try it like the the the two before sunrise and but there's three now but those were so original in the moment original and then boyhood it took 12 years to that was great boyhood are you in uh in on everybody wants them i haven't seen it yet so i think that one's gonna have legs i gotta check it out on my staff there

here at the ringer there's that it has some momentum yeah it's one of those you kind of have to watch it four times right and it it kind of grows which was what dazed and confused was like yes that's right it just kind of gained steam as the years went along it's kind of like a very pungent cheese yeah where at first if you're younger you go oh no i was too strong and then after as you grow older and your taste matures, you go, no, I really love it now. Well, you know, that usually happens with movies that have a ton of characters. You almost have to, like what you were saying before about the softball show you did. Yes.

Where in a movie where you rewatch it three, four times and you get a feel for everybody and then it kind of, the jigsaw puzzle kind of comes together. Yeah. I think everybody wants something that's like that. Good. It it has a great it's good baseball that was the only reason i yeah it's surprising that you could have yeah you could have taken some swings we gotta get you a baseball role after you're done conquering uh london broadway yes uh some sort of base the knucklebauer i think that'll be the one that's a great story yeah i'm giving it to you because you came on my pod. I have arthritis in both shoulders.

I played adult baseball for years. You played adult baseball? Oh, those are a special brand of psychos. I did. I played adult baseball until I blew out my throwing arm and had to have arthroscopic surgery on the rotator. Any adult baseball brawls or near brawls? Head hunting?

Yeah, they're going to get the testosterone flying around. Yeah, man. That's what's great about it. It's like, men, this is how we get. We can't, you know, we're not going to ever just have lunch. It's like, what do you want to talk about?

Men have to have an activity. That's why golf is popular golf is baseball poker poker you got to have something you're actually doing because you don't want to have too much attention on oh jesus right i'll go out with a friend and my wife will say how's john all right and i go um good is he still seeing that girl? Yeah, I think so. So is anything happening? I go, what do you mean? Yeah, we never know what's going on. Are they going to get married? I go, I don't know.

He said, you just spent two and a half hours with him. I go, yeah. I just said, hey, how you doing? Good. Yeah, good. Okay. I'm good too. We're done with that. We don't need to discuss that further. That's the great thing about guys.

Yeah, women will go out. It's two hours. They just dive in. They know everything about everything at the end. We go out and we just talk about like Kyrie Irving for two hours. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Kyrie Irving's great, huh? Yeah, he's great.

You see the game last night? That's right. Or else look at that commercial. Look how hot she is. Wow. Wow. Okay, back to the game last night that's right or else look look at that commercial look how hot she is wow wow okay back to the game the adult baseball the funniest person in adult baseball is the catcher because it's like even major league catchers don't want to do it anymore by age 32 and you have like this 37 year old guy who's squatting for three hours but they paid nothing he said that guy really loves sports they love it the tools of ignorance and they wear it like the

badge that it is that's it they don't want to give it up yeah brian cranston this was a pleasure thank i'm glad we finally did this yeah do we cover everything we hit over we had just about everything we covered everything you want to make fun of adam krola for 10 seconds oh ace the ace man was in on you early like he was he took a lot of credit for breaking bad it's like you didn't do anything so i always told you i always show crash it was gonna be something ranchton you valley boy yeah we're valley boys he and i yeah he's the definition yeah that's right i mean he he was in high school with porn stars he was christy canyon canyon was in his class i don't know her whatever her that name yeah it was famous 80s porn star uh yeah i don't know what you're talking about he was the all-time valley guy yeah big rams fan though i was too now they're back and now they're back

they're red hot i you know three i was mad at them because 20 years ago, they left me for another city. Yeah, literally left you. They literally left me. And now they come back and say, will you take me back? And it's like, you have the smell of another city on you. You whore, you. Sleep on the couch. They'll take you back.

You've got to prove yourself to me. Now they're proving themselves. There's some new energy going on, and it's fun. They have fun players. I must admit, I'm being lured back in. 62,000 at the last game. That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

I'm going to go to the Eagles game when the Eagles come out. How about that team? That's going to be trouble, because that's going to be about 50,000 Philly fans there. Yeah. And they're going to be angry and ornery the entire time. And will they have every right to be? 10-1? Yeah. Plays. Yeah. That's going to be a good gonna be good and wensylvania wensylvania is in what's your favorite football or baseball baseball yeah but i love i love hockey i love who's your baseball team

oh i'm i'm pure la all the way i'm dodgers and Lakers. So you went to the World Series, right? I think I saw you at one of the games. No, you did not. I didn't? You did not. In fact, it was a bad experience for me. Because you were in London? I was in London the entire time.

Did you go to one of the playoff games or nothing? No, I was in London the entire time. Of course, I made these plans a year before. We needed you because all the celebrities at the games were like 89 years old they just kept showing larry king like folding into a seat that's right so a 61 year old would be a kid hey the kid larry king calls me the kid hey kid did you throw out the first pitch ever i did i did a couple times strike first time and then when i knew I had this injury, it was like, I didn't think about it. I go, I can always, I used to pitch.

So I went 60 feet, six inches, and it's like, no, I'm not going to do it from the grass. I'm going to go up on the rubber. And the first time I threw out pitch, yeah, boom. Now, this was maybe three years ago, Dodger Stadium. Here. And I didn't think of it. I went to throw it.

You chicken winged it? Yeah. My arms, like, I can't do it. It was like the Baba Boo. Shoulders are rough. Yeah, you need to almost get older. You need to warm them up for forever. I couldn't do it.

I couldn't do it now. My arm won't let me. I've got so much arthritis in my shoulders. Now I'm sounding like the old man. I'm sounding like Larry King. But it sounds like you need PEDs. Yeah, that's right. It sounds like you need to go to Miami and go to one of those weird A-Rod clinics.

Hey, if it would help my shoulder, man, I would do it. I did. Before I retired from pickup hoops, I almost took PEDs to make one last run. And I did all the research and I got scared. You got scared. I was going to write a whole three-column series about PDs because my legs were going, and I could really feel it. And I was like, I wonder if PDs would help me. I think this is interesting.

Because when I said I played adult baseball, you gave me shit for that. I know. Adult baseball. And then you said my pickup basketball. I was like, that's adult basketball. It's adult basketball. Well, but I was also playing with college kids, which is even crazier, man. That's when you're really holding on.

That'll let you know. Oh yeah. Holy crap. Yeah. It's I can't do this anymore. Yeah. Well, you gradually, you, you evolve into the person you always made fun of when you were younger.

Yeah. You just become like the three point stretch to defense shooter guy who knows where to go in the right spot. Let them take that shot. Yeah. And you're so proud of it. Like I know where to go in the right spot let him take that shot yeah and you're so proud of it like i know where to go man yeah i'm fun to play with you start talking to stuff and all these things i played in a couple basketball charity games right yeah and you you can't wait to get out there and then you run up and down the court twice and then you're looking to the bench like take me out because you just it's like you forget how how much big court athleticism

is is necessary for that man we played uh we played the staples a few times which is the giant court but then also the depth perception thing yes because you know it's glass backboard and then the seats are way behind it and it's like optical illusion yes and you just go and every shot is two feet short for a half hour before you kind of reconfigure but yeah it's it's humbling weird basketball is humbling when you get older i'm sure baseball is the same thing same thing yeah now i just live vicariously through my kids yeah that's that's the move well because we're so used to watching basketball football baseball on television and there's a timing element to that yeah you know how long it takes to get up and down the court but for an old guy it's like oh i should already be down there by now

it's like i can't believe i'm only at half court well and they're also all giant yeah you know like enormous steve nash and kairi irving and those point guards who we think of like the little guys, they're all taller than I am, but I'm 6'1.5". And they're called tiny. Yeah, that tiny Kyrie Irving going into everything. Brian Cranston, thank you. Thanks, Bill. That's it for the BS Report.

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