The Bill Simmons Podcast - ‘Palm Springs,’ ‘SNL,’ and "I’m on a Boat" With Andy Samberg, Plus ‘Almost Famous’ With Jim Miller

Episode Date: July 22, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by actor, comedian, and writer Andy Samberg to talk about his new movie ‘Palm Springs’ on Hulu, his time on ‘SNL,’ and the role YouTube played in The Lonely Island’s success. Later they talk about scary movies, Andy’s Bay Area sports allegiance, video games, and quarantine (3:02). Then Bill is joined by journalist James Andrew Miller to talk about the sixth chapter in his podcast ‘Origins: Almost Famous Turns Twenty,’ including behind-the-scenes stories, casting what-ifs, interviews with the cast, the movie's cultural impact, and more. Finally, they discuss the current state of sports media and what the future holds (62:13). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Hiring can be difficult, but if you're currently hiring, you face new difficulties, HousingWire, they can relate. They needed to hire a reporter to cover news stories on the US housing markets. They turned to our presenting sponsor, ZipRecruiter, and that's how HousingWire found Alexandra Roja. She never imagined she could get a reporter job during COVID-19, but then she created a profile on ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter matched Alexandra to HousingWire's reporter job because she was a great fit for the role.

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I don't know why we don't do more horror movies. This one was a really fun one. We talked about the history of haunted house movies and how the genre kind of died and then it came roaring back in the last 10 years or so. So The Conjuring, go check that out. Also, the Ringer Fantasy Football Show, Danny Kelly, Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck. He always makes fun of me that I can't say his name correctly. Craig Horlbeck. Yeah, that launched this week. You know what else is launching? Our big 2020 Ringer Fantasy Football Draft Guide Extravaganza.

That site is launching on Wednesday. Also launching on Wednesday, The Connect. Shea Serrano, Jason Concepcion. They take two movies and connect them in a whole bunch of different ways. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. And I don't know. We just keep creating content here. Basketball's coming though.

It's happening soon. We're going to have a little FanDuel thing we're going to be talking about halfway through that podcast. But coming up, Andy Samberg, our old friend. He's coming back. He just had the most successful Hulu movie of all time. So he's going to be talking about Palm Springs, what he's doing back he just had the most successful Hulu movie of all time so he's going to be talking about Palm Springs

what he's doing during the quarantine the Bay Area sports scene and a whole bunch more and then Jim Miller who wrote the ESPN oral history he wrote the

SNL oral history he wrote the CNN the I'm sorry the WME oral history he's probably working on a CNN oral history who knows with him he has a new podcast about Almost Famous

and it's five episodes. It's a deep dive. And as you know, it's one of my favorite movies. So he's on to talk about that and a little ESPN and SNL at the end as well. So that is all happening. It's an action-packed podcast. First, our friends from Pearl Jam.

All right. Everyone's losing during the pandemic, but sometimes this guy just keeps winning. He can't resist getting a W, Andy Samberg. Palm Springs comes out on Hulu. It's a good movie. Everyone's bored as hell. It's a new movie, and it broke all kinds of records. What a great achievement. Yeah.

I mean, who knows what the records actually mean? Cause it's Hulu. Yeah. Make them up. I'd say it's the biggest movie of all time. Palm Springs and ET. Who's the top two ever? It's those two.

I mean, if you, if you account for the quarantine, I would say it's easily in that Avatar space. What made you do it at Avatar? What made you do it at Hulu? I mean, because obviously it worked out perfectly, but when did you know it was going there? It was well before the pandemic, right? Yes. The decision was made when Hulu offered the most money at Sundance.

Oh. That's when I said, I want it to made when Hulu offered the most money at Sundance. Oh. That's when I said, I want it to be at Hulu. It was at that point completely out of our hands. They just wanted it and we were happy to give it to them. So you went to Sundance and you shot the shit out of it and then Hulu happens and then a pandemic happens six weeks later and then it are you thinking that the movie's going to be delayed or is it just everything's on track uh no we had no idea i mean we originally sold it to and still it's distributed technically by hulu and neon and the idea was for a limited theatrical release and then to Hulu, which I was of course excited about because who wouldn't want two bites of

the apple and neon is fantastic. You know, obviously they just did parasite and everything. Yeah. We were stoked, but you know, in a lot of ways, it's a silver lining because streaming is what everyone sort of has access to now. And it worked out nicely for us that a small movie like ours we get watched so much more because all the other big blockbusters and stuff are pulled for the time being so it really actually shined a much brighter light on Palm Springs for me it was exciting because as we're five months into quarantine now or month five. I've now seen every movie ever.

I've seen all them. HBO Max, Peacock. They just released these. And I'm like, I've seen all these 1200 movies. I'm just, I'm out. I've run out of movies. So anytime there's a new movie, I'm like, oh, cool. A new movie.

Yes. Agreed. I mean, certainly we're benefiting from that too. And the fact that people actually like it, I think makes them want to watch it. If you hear somebody say like, hey, that was it, I think makes them want to watch it. If you hear somebody say like, hey, that was actually good. You're already going to watch it. So you might as well watch it.

Yeah. And the backhanded compliment scale, that was actually good. It's like weirdly insulting if people are surprised. You're so, I think people at this point with the stuff you've done over the years, I think even stuff that maybe missed a little bit when it came out,

but like Popstar is now a cult movie and the same thing happened with Hot Rod. I don't, you've done that twice where these movies have like a slow burn.

Yes. And I can't help but think that if they had gone straight to streaming, it would have been fine. You know? Right. Hot Rod has less of an excuse,

but Popstar certainly came out right as the tide was turning for comedies and theaters. You know, there's kind of the year before that, since there's been maybe two comedies that do big at the box office, and often they're like action comedies or, you know, something that's hilarious, but like is a big rom-com like Crazy Rich Asians,

which is a you know a huge feeling movie it felt very eventized that kind of stuff so it's been tough when you're making something that's a little more niche in any way to put out a comedy in theaters recently and i think the bigger success stories in that department have been on streaming so i think it actually worked in our favor well Well, when Sandler did the big Netflix deal and it was like, what's this? That's strange. And then, but none of us realized at that point

that Netflix has amassed this war chest of intelligence on the habits of all human beings who use their service. Yeah. And the algorithm spits out Sandler and they're like, pay this guy lots of money and that's it. And that to me was kind of a tipping point where I'm like, oh, this feels like something's happening here. Yeah, and also just knowing that all the Happy Madison movies

were not going to be in theaters. We were like, well, that's a huge chunk of studio stuff that's getting made just gone. So it really was, yeah, a canary in the coal mine, so to speak. So if your movie just comes out in the theater, what happens? Comes out for like two weeks. There's no pandemic. It's a two-week release then goes right to Hulu?

Well, I guess it would depend. I mean, I think it would have been a limited release and then maybe they would have tried to grow it slowly the way that most indies work. And then if there's good reviews and good build and word of mouth and stuff, then they expand on it a little bit. i'm sure hulu would have implemented some sort of time frame of when it had to come down to streaming or it might have been theaters and hulu same day i'm not even

really sure we never got to have that conversation because quarantine started is it true that hulu added they wanted you to add the scene of you jerking off near the beginning because they felt like it was low on jerk off stuff or was that already in there? There was a lot of debate. You know, there's a version of the script where that scene came later. And I actually was a little more in favor of it being later because I felt

like you knew the character better at that point. And it seemed like situationally funnier instead of maybe funny that it was me doing it because you don't really know anything but that it's me at that point. Yeah. But, you know, it got laughs when we did it that way. So we ended up going with that version. Just a restructuring of the order of revealing information.

It sets the tone. It does. That this is going to be an R-rated comedy. Like you lay this smack down early because sometimes you don't know what these things. And somehow I've never jerked it on camera before. Even all the subject matter of the Lonely Island songs. A lot of method acting.

Like there's a lot of, I'm sure you had to research how to do it, all that stuff. Yeah, first time. It was weird. Yeah, first time. Virgin experience. like there's just a lot of sure you had to research how to do it all that stuff yeah first time it was weird first time virgin experience it was great yeah um what made you want to do this movie script great script yeah uh and it split the difference between comedy and a little more serious stuff in a way that i felt like i could actually do it. You know, I've, I've been offered more dramatic stuff before that I liked, but I was like, I'm going to fuck,

I'm going to fuck this movie up by being in it because people are going to be like, I don't want him in my drama. So this one, I knew there'd be moments that really played to what people's expectations for me are. And then it sort of had a, a to me what felt like a seamless pivot into that other stuff um and also just it was just neat to read a script where it was blending a lot of different genres like rom-com comedy sci-fi existential indie and it it felt seamless to me like a lot of times you read stuff and it's like i see what you're going for but it's

like a little bit of you feel the work happening whereas this one felt pretty smooth and and fun so um yeah that was kind of it when i heard about we had just done a rewatchables on groundhog day and i that movie's kind of sacred with how creative it was and when i heard it's like palm springs it's like groundhog day across to this and And I'm like, Oh no, they didn't do the Groundhog. But then when you watch it, it does, it doesn't feel like it's more of an homage than you guys just, you know, ripping off Groundhog Day. I don't feel like it was a rip off is my point. I'm very glad to hear that. We were trying to stay super aware of that.

Obviously we all sort of bow at the altar of Groundhog Day. It's like, it's yeah like it's an original you know it birthed a thousand different things and you know is also a great movie and it's also hilarious and all that stuff so when we were first talking about whether or not we wanted to do palm springs we wanted to really go down a long checklist and make sure that for anyone who actually sits down and watches it, they'll understand that we are aware of that, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I think for me, the reason it felt personally like it was okay to just go for it is there are a lot of moments in it that acknowledge that we, the filmmakers, know

that you know that groundhog day is a movie and edge of tomorrow is a movie and russian doll is an amazing show and happy death day is great you know and we're picking up kind of where your expectations and what you already know of those things and and leave off and saying what if it you know was 100 or 200 or 1,000 years past that point? Right. And sort of mix it up that way. And how much further could we take it if we sort of picked up, grabbed the baton from the end of Groundhog Day and ran with it in a new direction?

Yeah, and add some science to it too. Some hardcore, unimpeachable science. Yeah. Don't factachable science. Don't fact check our science. Did you have to spend this whole time in Palm Springs? I wish. We didn't get to shoot in Palm Springs at all because we got the California tax rebate.

This is fun and interesting to talk about. But yeah, we got the tax break and it was an LA shoot. So we had to stay inside the 30 mile zone. Oh, because I was going to ask you what you thought of Palm Springs because it's such a weird place. I love Palm Springs. Yeah. I love it there. Part of the reason I signed on to the movie was because I was so excited to rent a house with my family and stay in Palm Springs for a month.

Yeah. Didn't happen. Ripped from my, my hands. I was, we were all very, very bummed, not just because we wanted to actually show Palm Springs, but like just experientially, that was one of the things I was the most excited about. Yeah. My daughter had every year she has soccer games in Palm Springs, Palm desert for some reason. I had never been there until five, six years ago. And it's definitely one of those areas where you go and you're like, what the fuck is going on here? But in a good way.

Yeah. You're like, what's happening? People live here? Yeah. And there's all these stores and there's these weird downtowns and like old school ice cream shops. Yeah. I talk about it a lot, but there's a restaurant there called Melvin's.

It's like an old school steakhouse and they have a bar attached and it's almost like a, like a, what you call it? Dresden vibe where there's like an old couple that plays covers. And, you know, there's a lot of older folks there dancing and me and Akiva and Jorma went there one time for a Lonely Island, like retreat, I guess, to talk about ideas. Yeah. Drink and hang out for the weekend. And we went there and had a blast. It's a great town.

I really like it up there. I felt genuine sadness that we didn't get to do it there. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah. So you mentioned people, as you're making movies, trying to make choices, what people expect from you. Right. Usually with comedians, they always hit this point. You look at like, you can go look at the IMDbs of any of like the great comedians.

And they always have that one run where somebody said, hey, you should be in a drama man you should and they have like those one or two like serious movies in there where it's just kind of they have to mix it up and break out of you know the habit of basically being themselves in these different movies did you did you feel i mean you you didn't do that with this movie but do you think about that stuff at all i know that it's a thing because i watch so much comedy and i follow other comedians so much because it's just what I love so I'm aware of the phenomenon and I know that I even have peers that have done it successfully and for me it's like it would just be if I got offered the right thing you know I'm not I'm not ever actively pursuing something ever in my career. You don't make the Bash Brothers special if that's what you're doing.

It's whatever idea pops up or whatever offer comes through that you're like, okay, yeah, good. I didn't want to make a sitcom. And then Mike Schur and Dan Gore asked me about Brooklyn, and I was like, fuck, okay. Like I want to work with those guys. So I did it. And then outside of that, it's really just like whatever comes across my desk or whatever idea me, Keith and Jorm are talking about really. So you're still in close contact with those guys?

Oh yeah. Every day. What's, is there stuff brewing? Is stuff coming? Stuff in the mix? There's nothing active that the three of us are creating together. We all have stuff being developed, and our company is developing a ton of stuff now, which is great. It's hard. I wish I could say we're working on an album or something, but that stuff really does a lot better when we're all in the room together,

and that clearly hasn't been possible. So everybody stayed tight. Cause usually that can go one of two ways after a few years, right? Yeah. That's not going to be us. Yeah. Yeah.

We just, we feel good with each other. It's, it's kind of just the way we navigate everything is together. Was there a Yoko Ono type situation at any point? Somebody's girlfriend just starts coming in creative. I was just reading about, I was reading something about the Beatles recently

and everybody knows the Yoko Ono story, but actually like the whole details of just Lennon's like, hey, she's just going to be here from now on as we do everything. And those guys were like, wait, what? You know, it was just the four of them. Like, yeah, she's just going to be in. She's going to help us with stuff. And they're like, what? It was just the four of them. Like, yeah, she's just going to be in. She's going to help us with stuff.

And they're like, what? Like every day? And then the wheels really did come off like that. But I think when you're so tight, when you're working together, it's like any sort of foreign activity to that threesome or that dynamic can totally upend it. I think the one way in which The lonely island is different from the beatles the soul way the only way yeah is that we were like buddies before we ever decided to work

together yeah and it was more like hey we're friends already and we all want to do the same thing should we now decide also to start working together whereas my understanding with um the fab four the beatles i called them fab four is uh is that they were all like let's let's put together a band who plays and it sort of came together that way so then once they achieved musical success they were probably a little less beholden to one another in terms of their friendships. Right. I think that's the one difference. That's the only way. Yeah. That's the only difference. Do you guys talk at all about how this is the most humorless year we've

probably ever had? And how do you even find comedy and pursue comedy when everybody is as serious as probably they've ever been in our lifetime? Not really because not to sound like too lofty, but it's like, it doesn't come up because we're all preoccupied with what's going on. Yeah. So it doesn't it's never like, oh, when is the country going to get it right on racism and COVID going to end so we can keep doing dick jokes? It's more.

Right. Holy shit. This is like a heavy year. Yeah. And where does comedy even fit in it just doesn't feel like it does in a lot of ways i mean a lot of the best quote-unquote comedy right now is just not as actively goofy it's just talking about what's going on you know you have like seth's show and john oliver's show and stuff like, you know, it's been like that before and it'll be

like that again. I think there's always room for comedy. And I think at the end of these days, which can be really tough sometimes, we're certainly watching funny things to sort of give ourselves relief and catharsis. So there's always a space for it. It's more that it's harder to be funny specifically about current events. And if that's your bread and butter, I think it's a little more serious right now. That's just how it is. Yeah, it almost seems like a complete stay away. You guys, 15 years since the first SNL music video, right?

Wasn't that 06? Might have been 05. Oh, was it earlier than that? 05? So have been 05. Oh, was it earlier than that? 05? So yeah, 05. Yeah, I guess that's 15 years. I can't add. Yeah, 05. And then YouTube happens 06 and everything kind of goes.

Yeah. I mean, as far as I understand it, YouTube really happened the day after Lazy Sunday aired. It was certainly, if they were doing a documentary about YouTube, I think that would be in the first 20 minutes, right? Because it was the first one that got shared in a really significant way.

I mean, people have said that to us and we like to jokingly take credit, but I'm sure there's some truth to it. I just wouldn't know any of the numbers on it. But I mean, it was the first time I had ever heard of it was people texting and emailing us saying i just saw your your video from the show last night on a thing called youtube right oh cool i remember i wrote a piece for espn it's got to be like spring 06 somewhere in there

where it was like this new thing youtube here are 33 are 33 things I found on YouTube. And I wrote like a paragraph about each thing. But it had been that thing I'd been kind of waiting for my whole life. All these moments you have that you loved over the course of your life, and then they're just gone. These things that I remember when I was a kid, like the Motown 25th anniversary show or whatever that was, the Michael Jackson moonwalk or some wrestling moment. You're just like, I kind of remember those things, but they're now gone.

I don't know where they went. And then all of a sudden they're on YouTube. It is wild that almost anything, you just remember it and go like, oh, I want to watch it now. And it's there. Well, Peacock. Have you been on Peacock? No. So they have an SNL channel.

Is it? And it's just SNL channel. Is it? And it's just SNL sketches one after the other, I guess just infinitely. Like on Shuffle? Yeah. So you could see Lazy Sunday, and then you could see some sketch from like six months ago, and then some sketch from like, I don't know, 2010. And it just kind of never ends. And then they'll have a couple of commercials in there. Yeah, it's like an Unshuffle SNL sketch channel.

Interesting. Very strange. They also have like, they have, Pluto has the same thing where it's like these channels of content that you could get anyway, but it's on a channel. So somehow it feels like watching TV. I don't totally understand it, but it's on a channel. So somehow it feels like watching TV. I don't totally understand it, but it's kind of cool.

It's like the video equivalent of like, um, like a comedy channel on like satellite radio or something. Totally. One bit from a millennia album. And then one from like an old, you know, Lenny Bruce thing or something.

Lauren's tried like 10 different ways to take advantage of that old SNL IP. And he's never really settled on because remember that there was one point where I was at Yahoo and it was a Yodi Yahoo you get everything and then it was like now you got to go to NBC and you get everything and then all of a sudden then it was on Comedy Central and VH1 again and it just kind of travels around

and then then they show like ones from the 70s and 80s they show in primetime on NBC which I thought on Saturdays. Oh, they've been doing old ones like repeats. Yeah. And then I'm like, who's the audience for this? Because it's like me and eight other people, like this Buck Henry SNL from 1978.

Right. Well, I think there was like a dead spot in the schedule right before the new SNLs were airing. So they were, why not? Yeah. It's, but at no point have they ever just been like, here's everything here's in this one spot.

It's all searchable and you get everything. Maybe that's what Peacock will eventually have. I do wonder if it'll ever be possible. Cause I know that there's like, especially with the musical guests and licensing all the songs that there's it's almost impossible to clear it all. Yeah. Like we even have just like one-off sketches and stuff that you can never see

because they had a song in it that we couldn't clear. Well, you have, well, when you did the OC parody and what was the name of that song though? What you say? Hide and seek. Yeah.

So if you didn't clear that one, that sketch is just just gone forever i do think it's hard to find yeah um and we did one too with paul red called stumbling that was essentially just nine to five but it was if the verse part just never ended right um and you i don't i can't find that one anywhere. And we had an Aphex Twin sample in Iran so far, which was the Ahmadinejad one we did. And he was cool with it, but I think they wouldn't make the deal. NBC wouldn't to clear the sample in perpetuity. So I think that one's hard to find. That's why I like those Saturday Night Primetime ones,

because they still have the rights to show the musical acts. Yes. Which is killer. To see an old Talking Heads performance from the 80s or something. They had one. I think they showed Nirvana. I think they showed the Barkley one when Barkley was the host with Nirvana as the musical act

when they were at the peak of their all-time powers. Yes. Yeah, it's too bad it's too bad that uh all of those performances can't be somewhere yeah because you feel like there's a server at snl that you can access a lot of the old library but obviously that's private because one of the things i love about yeah one of the things i love about the music is that a lot of times they're catching the band at the greatest moment of their career. Yeah. Right?

It's like they just have this awesome album coming out and they have enough momentum that they can actually be on SNL. Yeah. So it's either that, like they're taking off like a rocket ship moment or this is the one time this ever happened for them moment. But then when they come back the second time, that's when you know. They're legit. Yeah, this is a real. Yeah, usually people's second performance is better.

Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I think going on SNL for the first time and knowing it's truly live without Annette is probably pretty terrifying as a performer. I wonder, do you think there's this whole reckoning now with workplace and being nicer to people that work for you and what kind of positions you put them in, and yet SNL is a place where you're encouraged to stay up

until six in the morning writing sketches. At what point does everybody look at that and go, wait a second, what are we doing here? Or do you think that's just the way the show has to be? I don't think people there generally think they're being mistreated. If you work there, you know that the show's not going to happen if you don't do it. That specific way? Yeah, it's it's not intentionally but it is inherently designed to be like almost impossible you know like what you're attempting to do in that amount of time is really something from a bygone era especially now that they're doing so much pre-tape which a lot of people blame us for. Right. Yeah, it's true. So, you know, it's,

you definitely leave affected and worn out and burnt out and often, you know, psychologically damaged, but you also know like if you want the show to be good and, and air in a competent way, like everyone's got to just be all hands on deck the whole time. Well, also, I always thought part of it was people have to peak at 1130 and 12 o'clock and 1230 at night, right? Yes. Yeah.

It is crazy to get your adrenaline up right before the show at that hour. Yeah. So almost like your whole sleep cycle thing has to be different. It's funny to talk to NBA players about this, where they play and they eat dinner after, and they're eating at like 11.30, 11 midnight, and they go to bed at like 4 or 5 o'clock. And I remember talking to one guy, and he was talking about how people give them shit.

Cause it was like, they were at a club at four 30 in the morning. It's like, we're like vampires. We're, we're trained to perform and peak. Yeah. You know,

sometimes it'll be 10 30 at night and it'll be the fourth quarter of a game. Like we, it can't be like, that's can't be bedtime. That's when we have to be at the peak of our powers. And you can't eat a huge meal before you play an NBA game. No. Or you eat at like three o'clock

and then you've just worked out for three hours and then you're hungry after. That's actually almost exactly, just a little earlier in the day, but it's the same cycle as an SNL on a Saturday. Yeah. You have like a light meal in the early evening, late afternoon.

And for me anyway, i wouldn't eat until the after party which is what 1 32 in the morning by the time you get there right you're having like a full-on steak right it's like 2 a.m and you're drinking like red bull and vodka and steak yeah that idea what have been been your quarantine deep dives? What have you gotten into? Well, I never watched Mad Men and we watched it. My wife and I watched the whole thing. Fantastic. Yeah. Turns out good show.

And it's weird. Cause I've been like friendly with ham for a long time and it's never come up but I now I'm like waffling on like should I text him to be like hey man I checked out the show 10 years later and like you know he knows it's one of the best shows of all time so we could do the whole thing like I never saw because we were grinding on SNL. Right. I just felt two years behind and I'd always been meaning to watch it. Yeah, I think he would understand. I think I've been off of SNL for like seven or eight years though.

It came out in 06 though, right? It was when you were on. Yeah, true. Then it's a lot of seasons, just was never the right time. I also did a Madman sketch when i hosted the emmys like i did a whole pre-tape bit of it where i like the world you know give the world a poke or whatever with me and i was him meditating on the bluff and big sir and everything so like it's really exposing like i was really acting like i knew the show publicly well it's an easy one to explain in

two sentences to somebody who hasn't seen it also he'll be like cool yeah i want an emmy i don't care if you watch it but yeah is it mad men what else mad men uh we watched the great on hulu enjoyed that um watched i don't even been in we watched a lot watched watchmen a while back that's fantastic um we've been watching some movies some documentaries we watched this documentary called crip camp that was incredible uh crip camp yeah i was at sundance it's about like a camp on the east coast in the 60s i think for kids with disabilities and then it like tracks their stories as they grow up to get older and a lot of them go into like activism involving like the rights of people with disabilities in the u.s and a lot of it goes through Berkeley, California, which is where I grew up, which was really cool. But it's just incredible and inspiring.

And you really get to know a lot of the people in it over the course of the movie. It was great. Well, if this thing keeps going, you might have to start finally getting into horror movies. I'm too scared. This could be the last frontier for you. I am too scared.

I still haven't even watched Us. I'm too scared to watch it. Really? And that wasn't even like technically a horror movie. It was more like a weird thriller. Yeah. I mean, not to name drop, but I know Jordan. And I told him I'm too scared to watch Get Out.

And he was like, you can watch Get Out. It's not that scary. And I watched it and it wasn't too scary. So then when Us was coming out, I was like, is it too scary? And he was like, yeah, it's probably too scary for you.

It has a couple of scary. Yeah, it is true. I enjoy those in the moment when I'm watching them, but then I can't get them out of my head and I have like bad dreams and shit and it's just not worth it. So like there's something wrong with the house, that genre of movie you're out.

Oh no way. Yeah. Something's in the attic. That shouldn't have been there. Oh, yeah. Home intruder stuff I really can't fuck with. Yeah, those are tough, too. And torture stuff I can't do either.

Like, I watched the trailer for Midsommar, and I was like, no. No way. I got to say, that movie is, like, especially disturbing. The shot at the end of the trailer where she's, looking in the barn and you don't even see it. You just hear all the like moaning. I was like, no way. What are you doing? Any more comedy stuff along the lines of the tennis one you did for HBO?

No, nothing planned. You know, that's it. The last sports related thing was Bash Brothers. Right. Which was very fun. Have I talked to you since that came out? No. What was the response? Well, the people who found it liked it. It was a very kind of a niche crowd that I think we were appealing to there. But the coolest part about it was we went on tour for the first time, like right after it came out and can say,

go reached out and he like came and came out on stage with us at a couple of shows and like best around. Really? Yeah. It was, what was he like? Cause I've always heard, I mean,

the consensus is he's kind of a dick, but then other people are like, no, no, he was amazing. What was he like? Because I've always heard, I mean, the consensus is he's kind of a dick, but then other people are like, no, no, he's great. He was super nice to us, and we just put out a thing about him without asking. And he was like, it's great, I love it. Interesting. He was really kind of upbeat and goofed around with us a lot and spoke very openly about everything, you know, that he had been through. And, uh, you know, for us, it was like,

really cool to meet him. We grew up in the Bay. Like he was truly on our hero list. Bash Brothers was like fucking it. Um, so, you know, it was, it was, it it was fun we like went out and did some of the songs and did like kind of pulled like an snl update you know where he like came out behind us with a bat like oh but then you know the crowds were just so stoked that he was really there because who the fuck's expecting that so it was pretty funny I think that was the last time I saw you, you were about to do that tour and you were excited about it. How many cities did you do? I think 20 something.

Wow. Yeah. It was great. We were not ready for how into it people were. How big were the crowds? Like what kind of stadiums were you playing? It was like anywhere from 3000 000 to 8 000 damn for our solo shows and then we did a couple festivals and those were like uh 15 or 16 000 one of them and then bonnaroo we did like the 12 30 a.m slot and it was apparently like 30 something thousand people oh my god all like singing along to i'm on a boat you know it was so tight it was just like what is happening could you see why um why so many famous musicians like lose their minds when they had that happening to them night after night after

night it's hard to it's hard to chase that rush yeah Yeah. Being like, and they're all looking at us. Right. But I don't know. I remember so many concert experiences and it's like, it's partly about the band, but it's really about the experience of like, whatever you're, you know, taking that night and like your own personal connection with the songs.

And it's fun to be like, to turn that around and be on the stage for it but i also am not like trying to act like i don't it's not the same as like being in a real band is all i was listening to uh jim miller did an almost famous podcast about the whole making of that movie so it's like five episodes and like billy crudup had to learn how to play the guitar and it was like a whole they had them in rockstar camp, but then they actually filmed the songs that they play in the movies.

So they're in front of like a whole stadium of people. Yeah. And he was just saying like, I kind of get it now. I get why these stars, they go out there and they're like these gods to these people, the connection they have and the people are losing their minds and they're just doing that night after night and how can you be normal after

that i was like pretty good point billy crudup yeah uh it's a trip it's definitely a surreal feeling to be up there especially for us like having known each other since junior high and high school yeah to be like up there especially like Bon Iver one and the Summerfest one we did in Milwaukee. It was like, you're on stage, look over at each other, and it's like, it's still the three of us dummies. Yeah. And to be like, and we're playing songs from multiple records we've made together.

And we're still going. What a fucking dream. It's great. It's crazy. What song turned out to be like your meal ticket song? In the concert? In concert. Yeah, the one that made people seemingly the craziest.

I think I'm on a boat. I was going to guess that that was the one. That and Jack Sparrow also went off. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Um, but you know,

a lot of them, frankly, it was pretty, pretty fucking fun. Like threw it on the ground, played pretty big and lazy Sunday played good. And we did a little medley of the songs with Timberlake where we had puppets for him and Lady Gaga and stuff.

Um, and a lot of it just had sex was a big one. We had puppets for him and Lady Gaga and stuff. And a lot of it. Just Had Sex was a big one. I remember I was at a Super Bowl weekend in Miami, I think like 2010. And it was that Saturday. And they have all those parties. And I was actually on a boat.

I was on this huge boat. And they're having this huge party. and I'm on a boat came on and the whole, the whole boat started singing it. And we were like, what the fuck is going on? Is this, is this song? All these people, they were like lose their minds singing like every word. All of us were like, Holy shit. Yeah. Like, because I never have any feel for how big those songs are unless there's moments like that, you know, if you're at a club or whatever.

And it's like, oh, shit, everyone knows the lyrics to this. That song actually, I think, is our best-selling song. Like, people actually got it. I think it's like two or three times platinum which is just wow yeah um i think part of it is it's just musically one of our best ones like agree and having t-pain on it all throughout like the beat is just big business and then t-pain has just killed it so like you can throw it on and if you hadn't seen the video and weren't paying attention it does bump like i think it is musically satisfying in that way and it goes pretty hard

um but also i think a lot of people put it on when they're on boats which is so funny i mean yeah i always had i always thought people should do this for sports songs, where songs specifically designed for an NBA team to play when the opening lineup's about to be introduced. Somebody could really craft a song that's like, now it's time for our starters. And that's literally the chorus. And it would just play for 30 years. Like location-based good songs.

Yes. That seems like there's a whole real estate for that we did a really cynical one in that vein called we are a crowd and we were we were hoping that it would like ironically become real in the same way where it didn't happen we are a crowd and we are loud we're cheering for a sport at our favorite event or something and i think it was too too on the nose and it kind of yeah but we had that exact thought i think somebody's gonna nail it one of these days it's sitting there i mean i heard i'll say this i heard that some of the bash brothers songs not to keep coming back to it but some of the bash brothers songs were getting

played at the Coliseum. Really? In Oakland, yeah. Like, for a while, quite a bit. And, like, we have buddies that have season tickets and shit, and they were like, Dude, Bash Brothers is playing. It's this guy's walk-up music. And, like, when someone hit a home run, they played Les Bash and stuff like that. It was like, you can't top that.

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Were you upset when the Warriors moved to San Francisco or did you not care? I was upset. I'm not going to front. I still support them. They're still my team. But, you know, I'm East Bay. So I know what it means to everyone in the East Bay

that we had a team there, you know, and then the Raiders are gone. Yeah. That for me is easier to swallow because when I was a kid, they were in LA and then they came back. They're kind of like the dad who leaves and then comes back six years later and he's living with mom again. And now he's gone again. And you're just kind of have your guard up. Yeah, Warriors is tougher because it's not just the recent years of them being insanely great. It was also the like, you know, run TMC years and Sprewell. Oh, yeah. Weber years and, you know, Rick Barry and all that stuff.

So there's a lot of like, I really truly grew up watching the Dubs and loving them. So it was definitely bittersweet, but they're still my team. I'm still real excited for next season. The stadium's amazing. I haven't been, I heard it was just bonkers. It's pretty cool.

They're probably going to have a top three draft pick. They basically threw away one season with some injuries. It ended up not even being a full season. They got, I think they're going to It ended up not even being a full season. They got, I think they're going to trade the pick. I think so too. I think they'll trade

the pick to regroup and either package it with a couple other players or just say fuck it and just try to basically do what they did when they got Durant and they just kind of

front load it with five good players for three years. I'm seeing a lot of people talking about like, they're going to go after Giannis and I'm like, they can't get him. What? I don't understand why everyone thinks that's.

Well, the other thing is the cap's going to go down. Right. Cause God only knows like what kind of season we're going to have next year and where there's going to be fans, whatever it is, it's not going to be the same kind of revenue. So I don't even know how Giannis would jump teams. Cause he we're going to have next year and whether there's going to be fans, whatever it is, it's not going to be the same kind of revenue. So I don't even know how Giannis would jump teams.

He's not going to. Like Curry makes over 40 a year. Klay makes like over 20. They're not going to have the money anyway. Like the Durant thing was so fluky. It was like the once in a lifetime, the cap jumps right as this generational guy becomes available and says, fuck it, I'll play with these guys.

That's never happening again. No, for sure. And I think people will eventually realize that. How do you feel about Durant these days? It's like a hired gun. Just kind of pass through your life for three years. Not that he cares what I think, but he seems like someone that you really just want to find peace yeah I agree everyone wants to love him so bad and I think he he's just a sensitive dude like I get

it he hears people talking shit about his decisions and you know the the way that the fans in OKC treated him was truly garbage. And like he poured his heart into that franchise. I would be pretty pissed off. But I look, it's hard for me to truly speak on it because I'm a Warriors fan. So I, I love him. You know,

he came in and fucking destroyed. It was like the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Yeah. Especially after what went down in the finals the previous year with like Draymond getting suspended and all that stuff. It was like some game of Thrones shit. I like wanted to see complete domination on the side of the Warriors from, from that point forward.

Basically I didn't care if it was fair or not. I wanted that, that revenge and the glory and all that as a fan. So, yeah, my short answer is I love him. And obviously, he's one of the best players of all time. So, he's going to be fun to watch no matter where he is. That game was on when Draymond punched LeBron in the nuts. Uh-huh.

It was on recently. Pretty innocuous, I got to say. Did he punch him in the nuts? He kind of flicked him like you would do to somebody in college. And it was unclear how intentional it was. He stepped over him very much on purpose.

So LeBron definitely goaded him into it. He fell for it. But it's really weird that that decided the title because I just don't think they would have lost Game five. Game four, they definitively beat them in Cleveland and laid the smack down. And then the series is getting game five.

And it's just a weird one. It just doesn't add up to what the penalty was. You know, I completely agree. The thing that you can knock Draymond for is all the stuff that came before it. All the technicals that led to that being the 16th technical. I get it. He talks about it the same way. But there were times throughout that playoffs where

as a fan, you're just like, no! You're winning! Yeah. You don't need to do it. But that's his MO. He plays with his heart on his sleeve. Some of those guys can't help themselves because like what you just said, they play with so much emotion they literally can't harness it correctly and they don't they're almost like they're blacked out like they don't realize what they're doing

until it's too late who else is like that garnett was i mean rashid wallace was the ultimate example he just couldn't rashid wallace had 41 technicals in one season it's like the all-time record by 20 he just there's certain guys that just they can't

reign it in you know for me Rasheed Wallace is the most like the thing I always think of him the most is that he was

on an E40 diss track oh yeah what year was that? I want to say I was in college, so it was like 97 or 98. You can get

there's this Amazon has this thing called MTV Hits. And it's like basically the entire MTV library for like seven bucks a month. And they have a lot of the old cribs and they have the Rashid Wallace cribs from like Oh three Oh four. You could just Rashid Wallace takes you through his entire gigantic house in

Oregon. He shows you his cars. It's pretty great. Does he get a technical in it? No, he shoves over a cameraman at one point. Cribs is one of those shows that I'm not entirely sure why it ever went away. I don't know if social media killed it or what,

but I was always into seeing people's houses. I feel like maybe people do it on their own now on their Instagram. Yeah, it's like Instagram Live has replaced Cribs for some reason. That to me is a nightmare. Being like, look at my house. This is where I live. Oh my God. I never, never understood it. I remember watching one where it was Moby and he just had like this two bedroom studio in New York and it was over in like seven minutes.

It's like, here's my office. I've got one bathroom. That's hilarious. It just plowed through, but yeah, there's been some great ones. All right. So you're, you're laying low now, just coasting on the success of your massive Hulu movie? I mean, I'm doing a podcast. That's not laying low. What are you going to do the rest of the summer? Mostly just hang out with my daughter.

How old is the daughter now? Three. Oh, man. Yeah. Some good times ahead. You have a daughter. How old is your daughter playing soccer in Palm Springs? My daughter's 15 now. Yeah. Some good times ahead. You have a, how old's your daughter playing soccer in Palm Springs? My daughter's 15 now. Yeah. So is she on like a traveling club team if you go that

far? Yeah, but they're not traveling anywhere cause there's no, there's no soccer, but yeah, we would, we were going all around California, but yeah, I think with the daughters age four, my favorite years were four, six, and 10. All right. I'm going to file that one away. Okay. Six. Kimmel's daughter just turned six.

And I was like, oh man. You start talking about it like, oh man, six. What a great year that was. They're like this little human being. Plus the girls are much smarter than the boys. The boys are just like dumb asses. Yeah. The girls are like, they kind of know what's going on.

You know, like they're very perceptive. I feel like she's pretty much on the same level as me now at three right yeah they really do and boys until they're seven they're just like a lump of a lump of coal like like they're just shitty look at their face yeah and bumping into stuff and just no, no, no, uh, regard for their own safety in any capacity. Just peeing on stuff. Oh yeah. Girls are like, what's going on? They're like navigating anything. That's a good answer. It is. It's been great. But yeah, that's, that's pretty much it. That and, you know, developing stuff, but half of that goes nowhere. So.

So fun. Take some Zoom meetings. So many goddamn Zooms. Everyone in every field must be ready to pull their hair out on these Zooms. It does feel like people got better at Zoom over the last four months, though, because that first month was super choppy and people interrupting each other. But now it's like almost everybody's doing a podcast all day, every day. Would you like to get into your audio settings?

We move stuff around. Yeah. Yeah. We talk about this, go audio settings next to the, next to the microphone icon. Then you go in the bottom right corner, click advanced in there.

You can suppress persistent background noise. You can suppress intermittent background noise. If you want, you can throw on some echo cancellation that's just the way i roll do you do the fake backgrounds behind you you know in the beginning i did at a certain point i just stopped but i have a couple people that have stayed committed to it in my life and how does it make you feel i I appreciate that in month five, people are still buying into the gimmick. I feel like when I do like big fun zooms with friends, the game is putting up the most embarrassing photo of your friend behind you that you can. And that to me, that yields great, great joy. this is what i'm into right now version i think is a

little less because it's all pixelated and their hair and hair disappears into it i do feel like i'm more in touch with people in my life now than i was before the pandemic like i had a zoom with all my friends from college and it was like we hadn't all seen each other, you know, like that in a long time. You know, it's like, why don't we do this more often? It was fun. How's everybody doing? Everybody's great. Yeah.

I mean, my group's getting old though, you know, cause I hit the big five. Oh, so we start like, you know, a guy who was on our hall, he died this year. You said, we're like talking about that. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. You start, I don't know, you hit 50 and you start thinking things differently. Just got depressed.

That's a heavy one. No, yeah, we're all in our early 40s and everyone's got kids now. So it's like, wow, this is not how it was. Well, the thing with the early 40s is athletically, that's the last stand. If you ever had any sort of athletic, anything left in you that any sort of itch you needed to scratch, like this is the time. If you've ever like, oh, I got to pick up rugby. Like you got about a year. Yes. I actually, I grew up playing soccer and loved it. And I started playing soccer again the last couple of years and I was just getting it going again.

And then, you know, now we can't leave our houses so i'm definitely worried about my health video games not really i've got the reissue old uh nes that you can like play tecmo bowl and like oh yeah i burned through that in one day that's kind of it every like five years i need to beat tecmo bowl again. And then I play the one. Which one? The 89 or the 90? The original, not the super. With the four plays? With the four plays. And you're either Bo Jackson or Walter Payton.

And you can beat anybody. I wrote a whole column in 03 about video Bo Jackson. And just that whole era and the four plays and how it was like chess trying to figure out what the other guy was doing and the mind games. And then Bo Jackson would just break whatever the defense was and they made him too good. It had to be that they guessed your exact play or else you can break free. Right. But Bo, if you were playing with somebody against somebody who was really good and they had Bo and they would just do the run backwards thing and then run

forward and all kinds of ways, like a lot of like fights and near fights because of Bo Jackson, like in real life, people are like, come on, man, fuck you. That and then there's the one spot in double dribble where you can always hit a three. Right. Yeah, that was a weird area. Every game had a glitch.

Yeah. If you got good at defense and double dribble you could have a run where you like steal it like 15 times in a row and hit the exact same three and be up like 50 in two minutes I can't believe like double dribble compared to the game now like my son plays 2k and the amount of detail

into those dudes where like he got he was all excited because you know i'm friends with jaylen because we work together we've known each other a while and gayla jaylen had a galaxy opal card that's like the top card it basically gives you super powers yeah yeah so he's playing with the jaylen card and it's kind of like watching jaylen but they really have down like how his body moved and kind of the vibe. I was like,

this is fucking amazing. Do they do that based on footage or do they get players to come in and do like pads and not nodules? Yeah, they do the

mocap. Do they really? But it can't be for somebody like Jalen because he's retired so they must have figured out some way to crack the science of it.

But yeah, they usually have the guys they fly them to wherever they make the game. They put them in a suit with all this stuff. Cause I did a thing for ESPN on it in 07, where I wore the suit and then they made like a video game character out of it. Not, not high jumping ability for my guy, but. So wait, did they ever put you in as like an Easter egg character? I think they did. Yeah. Oh, that rules. I think I was just like a stretch four. But you wear these suits. They're almost like scuba diving suits.

And they put all these sensors all over it. And then you just kind of play basketball. And then the sensors capture how you move. And then it translates it. And it goes. So it's pretty cool. How did you feel about how they made your body look? I told them to, well, first of all,

I don't think I ate for like a week before because I wanted my guy to be thinner. But yeah, I was doing it with Paul Pierce and he was wearing the suit too, but he was like six, seven and a half or whatever. So he looked ridiculous. Yeah, different types. We're all kind of moving around

and he's practicing like lefty layups, righty layups, follow his shots. And he's just going through his whole arsenal for like six hours. And you were like free throw. Yeah. I'm like, put back jump hook. Yeah. Let me, let me do like two of those. How bad it would be if I did like one of the, um, like the celebrity all-star game because there's like guys

that and girls that do that that can really ball the move for you is just go three point line to three point line and kind of bide your time or coach maybe that's what I did say they wanted me to play and

when I was doing countdown but Jalen and I ended up coaching because he didn't want to play. That's smart. And coaching was the move. Although I did, Snoop Dogg,

Snoop Dogg did coup de Tommy in the fourth quarter. He just put himself in. Yeah. It's like, coach, I'm going back in. I'm like, okay, Snoop Dogg.

He's genuinely great at basketball, right? He's shocking. Yeah. Because he was like kind of an amazing offensive rebounder. Uh-huh. He was a little like mid-90s Rodman-ish. And then he just had a really nice flow to his game.

Yeah. Michael B. Jordan was really good too. Yeah, I can see that. He had a nice one. He should do a sports movie at some point. I feel like if you're that good, if you're a good actor and you're that good at basketball, you're kind of wasting it if you don't do the sports movie. Well, he did Creed. No, I'm saying the basketball. He should do basketball straight up. He's got to do something where he's like an aging athlete or something.

Yeah, it could be. I don't know. I mean, I've done tons. Cycling, tennis. Right. I was going to say you're due for some sort of basketball. I would love to do a soccer one because that's the only sport I'm actually good at. The soccer ones, we've basically...

Victory is still the best soccer extended scene ever in a soccer movie. And then other than that, it gets really dicey. It's hard to shoot because the field's so massive and the stadiums are so huge well like Bend It Like Beckham the girl wasn't they did except she wasn't good at soccer and they had to edit around her the entire

movie oh yeah well that's most of it was a lot of like just close ups I want somebody if you're gonna make a soccer movie build it around somebody who's actually really good at soccer they should have got beckham literally put put a wig on him he just could have gone out there this the title would have made way more sense totally he does get a cameo in that movie though oh he does yeah this is you'll probably be the only person in the plane who appreciates it one of my passions with watching dumb shit on cable

is when they have it's like a Lifetime movie or something and there's a soccer scene or a basketball scene and it's just a complete abomination because clearly nobody on the set knows what's going on. Football is actually usually the worst. When there's like a bad football

scene, you're like, oh god, this is like a bunch of background actors that are like forced into pads well soccer's soccer's funny because I think they think soccer is easy because it's like oh yeah we'll just get a goal and well but then when they try to execute it it's some of the worst

shit you've ever seen in your life and they'll do it I remember there was a commercial with soccer where it was the same thing where it's like this girl's on a breakaway, but she can barely run. They just can't get the hang of it. Yeah, I'd like a soccer movie for you. You know who was the best on-camera soccer actor was Andrew Hsu. Oh, yeah.

It was Melrose Place, right? Yeah, he was like the captain at Dartmouth. Didn't he play MLS or something he was like professional maybe yeah yeah and I was always jealous of that because I was like hey you got to play soccer on camera he well he wore his Dartmouth jersey a lot on that show yeah he bet he would break it out which never really made sense with the character but yeah he he uh he was definitely flaunting it save the wardrobe department a buck totally um this was a pleasure it was good to see you you too buddy congrats on your movie i was really excited you're one of the good guys so i was excited uh i like seeing um i like seeing massive

success for you thank you i'm sure it will lead to Palm Springs too for a ridiculous paycheck that you won't be able to turn down. If they offer that, yeah, screw it. Who cares about artistic integrity? Yeah, whatever. Nothing's going to get made ever again. It doesn't matter.

It'll be a Zoom movie. The same Zoom meeting happening over and over again in Palm Springs. I have to get a mocap set up in my house because I think that's going to be the only thing made. It could be. Yeah, think about that. Invest in it. All right.

Good seeing you. Thanks, Andy. You too. Talk soon. Hey, if you've been dealing with acne, redness, dark spots, or wrinkles, finding treatment that works can be complicated. You need skincare that actually performs. But getting started can be overwhelming.

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All right, Jim Miller's here. Andy Sandberg was just on before him. You wrote the SNL oral history way back then. Then there was another edition. There's probably another edition. There's probably another edition coming five years from now. Did you expect Sandberg out of all of the SNL stars of the last 15 years to be the one who would have the biggest movie in Hulu history? Would you have made that? Would you have made that bet?

I think I wrote that at the time before Hulu. No, but I mean, look, he was always incredibly enterprising. And one of the things about SNL is you can never tell who's going to fly and who's going to crash afterwards because the marketplace is so different. And Andy, just particularly given the fact that he was joining at the hip with the Lonely Island guys, I mean, they were just a huge creative team. And you knew they were going to be in the game big time. I wonder if that's the last SNL class that has all of the breakout guys and girls that they really had. I mean, that whole 2000s, but then especially that Samberg class when Polar and Seth come in right before that, but then Hader and Sudeikis and Kristen Wiig

and Maya Rudolph's already there and all those people go on and do all these things. And then you look at this decade and I don't know, I think that's a talented cast, but I just don't see the same kind of, you know, somebody eight years from now being the number one streaming movie star in the history of Hulu, anything like that.

Do you see a ceiling for the current cast like that or no? I mean, I think, you know, people always expect Kate. I know people thought two or three years into Kate's time at SNL that she was going to be bigger than Kristen, bigger than, bigger, bigger than, I mean, a lot of people. And, you know, part of it is the roles and the nature of the movies have changed and sitcoms have changed and stuff like that. But I know Michael Che is, you know, he's trying, you know, he's got an HBO show coming up and he's got some other things. I, I look, there's a lot of talented people, but it is about, ultimately it is for some of these people about material.

Yeah. And that was an unusually loaded class. Like if you compare it to, if you're comparing SNL to the NBA over the years, sometimes you just have loaded generations, you know, and you're going to have a three or four year stretch. I mean, anybody who bet against Hader was smoking crack. This guy is so unbelievably talented in so many different ways. And I mean, you just look at what Barry has accomplished and he's just amazing. Yeah.

Well, you just did a, you have the Origins podcast that this is what, the sixth season? Sixth chapter, as we call it. Yeah. Sixth chapter. as we call it. Yeah. Sixth chapter. Can you name the other five seasons? It's been so long. I don't even know. Can you rattle them off now? What the first one was? Third enthusiasm with Larry David. Yeah. Went on Sex and the City with the cast. Went down to Tuscaloosa and hung out with Nick Saban and Scotty Cochran, who was a strength coach down in Alabama for a while, did Origins of a Champion, did ESPN, including five different episodes,

including one with you and the Origins of 30 for 30, and did SNL, the Origins of what was then going to be the 44th season. So yeah, we've had five before, and now number six is the 20rd anniversary of Home is Famous. This is a personal one for you. One of your favorite movies. And then you tell a story in the last episode about how you waited until your daughter was 12 to spring it on her.

And she became enamored. At the Simmons house, where we move our kids way Um, both my daughter saw it by the time she was like seven or eight. And it was just like the two scenes that I knew I had to like cover eyes. I just did. So then my son was probably, I don't know, six and this movie, you know, to them, it's like almost like Hamilton or some of these other things where the music is so essential to the movie. And that's what really gravitated them to it over and over again. And if I have it on, it's obviously one of the most rewatchable movies ever. You just kind of get sucked in. They love the tiny dancer part. They love the Mona Lisa, Matt Hatter's part and on and on and on. You waited. I think you probably made a smarter

parental move than I did. But the point is it hits kids a certain way, it hits adults a certain way. But when it hits the kid a certain way, it kind of becomes their movie. And it's definitely happened in my house. I watched it. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do it. I mean, look, it's a movie that I love and I know a lot of people do. But I think seeing the impact that it made on my daughter, I mean, three years later, she was begging me to go to Coachella. And that wasn't just because she grew up in a house full of music and i think like so many people and by the way does it ever surprise you that there are people that i mean like their second favorite movie is like

taxi driver or something you know it's like you can never almost famous as like switzerland it just cuts across people who like love different genres and stuff and i just thought to myself this is this is, this is something that I think appeals to a lot of people. And I couldn't believe it was already 20 years. And so once I got Cameron and the cast and, you know, uh, involvement, it was just, it was just great to roll it out. I remember 2009 near the end of the year,

I did a whole, remember I used to do those, I would take movie quotes and I had to hand them out as awards for like the NBA or whatever. I took like 40 quotes. So I used Almost Famous, I think that's summer. But the premise was, this is the best movie of the decade. And I was really interested to see what the feedback was going to be at that point. Because by that point, the movie had been on nine years. It had settled into an exceptionally rewatchable run on cable, on TNT, wherever it was. And I was just like, man, when I look back at this decade, I think this is the most satisfying movie. So I made the whole case, put it out there,

and I just assumed I was going to get annihilated. I was just waiting for all the emails like, fuck you, you're crazy. And it was the opposite. People were like, oh man, I love that movie. And that was when I was like, oh, this one, this is going to last. And I think now that it's been 20 years, same thing. Like you look at like the best movies of the century. It was just not, it was just put on the list of the a hundred movies of the century by, I think, some film

academy or something. But to your point, though, I'm blown away by the emails I'm getting from people who saw it and it was transformational. I mean, it wasn't just like they liked it or they had a good time or they saw it a couple of times. It was like one person decided to come out after seeing it, another person. I mean, it was just amazing. Actually, Cameron Crowe has, some of his movies have that effect. I remember I was at,

I was actually at the Hollywood premiere, the industry screening of Jerry Maguire and some, and an agent proposed to his girlfriend right up to the end. Cause he was so like caught up by the love story. Wow. Cameron does that to people, and he certainly did it with this one. I think this is his most emotional movie.

I think it's his deepest movie. I think it's his best movie. Well, it's funny because the other one I really love from the last 25 years, I think the two movies I've probably watched the most are Almost Famous and Boogie Nights, neither of which we have done on the Rewatchables podcast. I'm kind of like, when the podcast is ready to die, we'll do those two. But both of them are similar in that there are these big sprawling movies with

a lot of characters, but then there's this theme, right? Where in Boogie Nights, it's like, porn's about to change. We're not going to be making real films anymore. It's just going to be about quantity, not quality. There's this whole era. It's about to die. And Almost Famous, it was like rock and roll is dead. We are now moving into this difference. The commercialization of rock, everything you loved about rock is slowly dying and being ripped away right in front of you, kind of symbolized by the bus turning into the private jet

and all the stuff Lester Banks is saying to William Miller, all that stuff. But same kind of thing, right? End of an era. But with Boogie Nights, you have to wait. You have to wait through two hours of incredible sadness to get to that. Like where Burt Reynolds all of a sudden realizes the landscape is changing. And it's so, I mean, I understand the craft of Paul Thomas Anderson and everything. But the movie is so freaking sad.

And it's just, I just, it's just unrelenting in its sadness for me. With Almost Famous, it's the opposite. Because there's so much infectious enthusiasm. There's this powerful love triangle with William loving Penny and Penny loving Russell. And, you know, it's just like, there's so much oxygen that it gives you along the way that you're almost, the fact that rock and roll is changing is almost beside the point. So I knew some of the stuff that you had in there and I don't want to step on it too much, but I feel like if anyone who likes the movie, they're going to like the podcast. And I don't feel like we're to step on it too much but I feel like if anyone who likes the movie they're going to like the podcast and I

don't feel like we're going to spoil it too much I knew Brad Pitt was potentially Russell Hammond I'd heard that whole thing I had no idea it was Brad Pitt for four months was Russell Hammond and they're auditioning him with different actors and

crafting the role and so there's this whole alternate universe now with Brad Pitt where, cause I think Billy Crudup's amazing in that movie. Like really that in pre Fontaine, you would have bought all the Billy Crudup stock after 2000. The Brad Pitt version of Russell Hammond, I don't think is that much different except Brad Pitt brings all the Brad Pitt baggage. Cause he's already such a massive star was Billy Crudup. I don't think is that much different except Brad Pitt brings all the Brad Pitt baggage

because he's already such a massive star was Billy Crudup. I really only knew him from Prefontaine, right? The band, look, think about how many scenes with the band where they're talking about how Russell's just a little far out ahead with the t-shirts and everything else with Brad Pitt. I mean, that's like a tsunami that washes over the other three bandmates. I don't think there's any kind of hope for equality um with that and I think also the dynamic with Penny is

over sexualized I mean it just it just I mean it's Brad Pitt I mean that's nothing I mean I know Billy women you know think Billy's incredibly attractive and he is, but he had a way of kind of like constraining it a little bit in certain scenes. And I just don't think that would have been possible with Brad. Although, you know, Kate would have suffered through it. Yeah. She would have been, uh, well, she was only 19 when she filmed it and Cameron theorized that one of the re in the podcast, that one of the reasons maybe he bailed was it was borderline creepy because he was in his mid-30s at that point. And it was once Kate was potentially going to be the Penny Lane that it wasn't going to work or that he just didn't feel comfortable with it in general.

Do you think that was the reason or was there more going on? Well, remember though, before you got to get all the kind of the chronology lined up because before Kate was there. Oh, Sarah Polly. Yeah. Yeah. And before Sarah Polly, Natalie Portman. So it's like almost famous Meryl Streep, Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman. Right. Right. Wait, wait a second. So, I mean, not that Natalie was, I mean, Natalie was young too. So she would have been like 18, 19, Natalie Portman, 17, 18, somewhere in there. Kate was 19. I mean, so clearly you had someone who was very, very young. I tried to get Brad to talk for the podcast, but it didn't happen.

But I think also one of the things that Cameron said though was, was he wouldn't have spent four months trying to get into the character if that was really a deal breaker. Because he also could have said, listen, I really want to do this movie. Find me somebody in their mid-20s. And Cameron probably would have to get Brad at that point. But the fact that they spent four months talking about this and working their way through scenes and playing out scenes and everything else suggests to me that it was just larger than just that one dynamic. It was also about money, though. Remember, I will say this to you, and I didn't put it in the podcast, but I did go back and look. Brad got $17.5 million from Meet Joe Black, And DreamWorks was not spending a lot of money on this, on the cast there.

And I think that the offer, I'm pretty sure that I got to verify, the offer to Brad was $5 million. Now, I'm not saying that he turned it down because of the money. But it's also, that's a big difference at that point in your career to go from 17.5 to five. So, you know, I mean, there are people that believe that money was a big deal with it. Well, ironically, if he had done it and he had killed the party, he probably would have gotten nominated for an Oscar, I would assume. And I think Billy Crudup should have been nominated. The movie didn't have those kinds of Oscar legs, but I appreciated that you spent so much time on the what ifs part of that, because that's something we love to do

when we do the rewatchables. There's so much luck that goes into the right version of a movie happening. In this case, Brad Pitt, Natalie Portman, I'm pretty sure it would have worked. It's just a different movie. Because I think part of the reason I loved this movie initially when I saw it in the theater and then when we got the DVD

and then the Blu-ray and all that stuff was, I didn't really have a history with Billy Crudup and Kate Hudson. And it was like basically everybody in the movie I didn't have a history with except Philip Seymour Hoffman. Jason Lee, I had seen him in two things. Or Frances, you had seen her as a mother. Right. I mean, she had won an Academy Award already for Fargo.

And she was, you know, she had a great film career. But this is one of the first times she was playing a mother, which was a whole different dynamic for her. And I thought it was so interesting to watch her. You know, she was nominated as well as Kate was for Best Supporting Actress. They split the vote. And yeah, Billy Crudup got robbed.

Yeah, Marsha Gay Harden won for Pollock, which has not aged well. I think you're right. I think they did split the vote. This was an old William Goldman thing about show us the votes. And I think the votes would have shown the two almost famous performances probably split. But yeah, so they stumble into Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson.

I think it seems like- Jason Lee. Jason Lee. But you know, he had, Chasing Amy was a pretty big Kevin Smith movie when it came out. Like I at least, he'd had like a big at bat. Crudup had really only done Prefontaine, right?

He was like a Broadway actor. Yeah, but I think that appealed to Cameron and he just blew it away. Although I did try and capture particularly from Billy just what a huge weight he had on his back because he was trying to do the movie and play the guitar

and nothing like Peter Frampton saying to you, so you just do this, this, this, and this and it's like, wait a second. hold on a second. You know, that's, that's just crazy. And, um, you know, he, he just, he just couldn't do that. I mean, it was really hard for him. You know, it's interesting. He was at Kimmel's wedding, which was in 2013 and Carolla and I, we,

Carolla knew him cause he had, I think he'd been on his podcast, but I'd never talked to him. Everybody had had a few drinks. It was like post-reception. And I said to Carolla, like, you got to bring me over there. It's like one of my top four. I got to talk to him about it. But in the back of your mind, you're going, I hope this guy's not a dick. I hope this guy's not going to be completely put out that I really just want to talk about Almost Famous for 10 minutes. Went up to him, Adam set it up and he was like so fired up to talk about it. Like he, he was so, the movie had such a dramatic impact on him. And we just talked about Almost Famous for like, I don't know, 15 minutes. And he was telling a lot of the stuff

that he did with your pod about learning the guitar, what it was like to play in an arena with how many, what was it, like 5,000 extras or something, 3,000 extras. And now he could understand how musicians lose their mind because you have this power when you're on stage. You feel like you're immortal. And it was just really cool. And celebrity interactions can go either way. And that was one of the good ones.

He, he had really put in some genuine thought on what that movie meant to him. And it seems like that was the recurring theme of your podcast for everyone involved. It was like the highlight of their career. It was the outlier. And you know, Billy started off by saying, you know, cause I said, how often do you think about Almost Famous? And when you're doing a new project, he said, what's 365 times 10 times two? He says, 20 years I've been waiting for a script like that. And I mean, I think Kate, I mean, Kate did an amazing job in Almost Famous. I don't know if she's ever really had a part that she was so, she felt like she was so made for. You got to remember

when Sarah Polly dropped out, she was like to Cameron, please let me audition for Penny Lane. And Cameron was like, I don't think you're right for it. It's not, that's not who I see. And Kate and Gail Levin, the casting agent, they really, you know, gave her the opportunity to wow Cameron and she did.

And it wound up being a different Penny than he had had on the page. And by the way, the guy had been writing the movie for like 10 years. Right. I mean, it's like ridiculous, right? And so somehow Kate was able to prevail and get that job.

And I think that Cameron to this day, you know, thanks God that she was so persevering. And then she was supposed to play Anita. So she slides over. And then all of a sudden they have room for Zoe, who was just coming off her... She had only done one movie before. You hit on it a little in your podcast,

but I think it's worth talking about here. The expectations for that movie because of the movies he had made before that, right? Like he makes... First, he writes Fast Times. Then he makes, first he writes Fast Times, then he makes Say Anything, which becomes basically the last iconic

kind of high school ladies movie. But it's like, we just did it as a rewatchables. It's like at a whole other level than like the John Hughes type movies, things like that. Then he does Singles, which I was the same age as basically every character in that movie. And I think for my generation is a really important movie. It's flawed, but really lovable.

Then Jerry Maguire. And then it's like, what's his next thing? Oh, he's going to do this thing about a band drawing on his Rolling Stone experiences. So I feel like I knew about that movie for two years, living in Boston as a freaking bartender web columnist. I was like, when's that movie coming out? I had season tickets for him.

I know, but how cool is it that, I mean, it really, I mean, I think it's so rare. He could have done any movie he wanted after Jerry Maguire. I mean, it was a great Tom Cruise movie, Cuba Gunn Jr. It was terrific at the box office, total big hit. And he decides instead to like use that capital to make this small, personal, semi-autobiographical movie that winds up having no really great big actors in it.

And that's what he did for, you know, film number four, which is, I mean, a pretty, pretty amazing thing. Cause I think he knew, and he was really smart about the fact that if he didn't do it, then who knows? And you, you, he asked for a lot of things. I mean, they got, they shot on location. They shot the movie in chronological order. Well, they shot in sequence, which is nuts. Nobody does that anymore. Ridiculous. They're at the Plaza in New York. They're in Central Park. They're all, they're in San Diego. I mean, they got San Diego. As Cameron said, they got the A-ride and he wouldn't have gotten it without that capital from Jerry Maguire. A recurring theme that people said in your pod was that they don't make this movie anymore. I think at least three people said that at some point during the five episodes, like in 2020, this movie doesn't get made.

I slightly disagree. I think it does get made. I think it's just a TV show. I think that's how it gets made. Right. It's, it's like an eight episode order on one of the streaming services. And I'm like,

all right, Cameron, if you're going to do this, it's gotta be this way. And it's interesting. Cause he ended up trying to do that with roadies, which didn't work. And that was basically doomed by the casting,

which was ironic because almost famous, the casting was what pushed her over the top and roadies, the casting just wasn't there and they, they, they could never unlock it. But I do think that's what almost famous is in 2020. I think it's an eight episode Hulu series or something. It certainly, I mean, look, he tells the story.

I mean, the great bus scene, even though he and John Toll had gone through the whole movie, when they really got there, Cameron just started to think about it in a different way and said, look, I think we can do this. I think we can do this. I think I can do this. And John Toll said to him,

you're talking about two full days of shooting and karen said well do we have the the time and space and he says no we don't and they did it anyway and they were able to move some other things like you can't get that done now and you think about everything that goes on in that scene i mean thank god he knew he had elton john and the song but you think about the uh think about what went on in that scene and the ability to take two days out and just do that scene on HBO and they would run like the little half hour mini documentary about the movie, like a behind the scenes thing. Yeah. And they did that for almost famous. And the best part in it,

which I always remember when I see this scene is Patrick Fugit, Kate Hudson, when they're standing in the ramp outside the arena and his mom's whistling and he's about to leave. And, and she's like, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to go. Do you want to leave and and she's like blah blah blah i'm gonna go do you want to come and he's like yeah yeah and and he's like are you sure you want to come and he's like ask me again and she says do you want to come he said ask me again as him not the character

because it was like he would keep the scenes rolling. And so he was like asking me again, like asking Kate, hey, can we do this part again? And Cameron Crowe's like, I just loved it because it seemed like the character said it. So I kept it in and he's like, you can kind of tell how in love he is with Kate Hudson. But you hit on that in the podcast, like he's this 16 year old kid

and he's in a movie with Kate Hudson where he's supposed to be in love with Kate Hudson who's three years older. And obviously he's going to fall in love. I mean, he's never seen anybody like that in his life, right? I mean, it bled through. It definitely bled through. And I think there are times when with Kate,

I mean, I talked to her about that scene. The first time we see her see Russell in the movie backstage, you know, she got really teary eyeyed as an individual not as penny lane and all of a sudden like she's crying and even though the close-up was on russell he's like what you know he's like thinking what's going on here and then after they were done you know it was cut he's like i'm sorry i just got really really emotional just as like kate feeling like oh my god i have this role i'm in this movie joni mitchell's playing in the background. I'm like, you know, two feet away from Billy Crudup. It's like, it was just too much for her, but you know what? It really worked. I mean,

and that's the thing that's really cool about Cameron is, I mean, that's like, you know, one of the things I got Kate to talk about was the fact that You Are Home was not in the script. It was an ad lib, right? It was an ad lib. I mean, Cameron was so open to things that, and look what he found. I mean, you know, I mean, you have to have the ability as a director to like maybe try it one more time, even though you think you got everything you had on paper. I asked Zoe why when Billy walks in at the end of the movie and she's standing there with her hands on her hips and she gives this little motion

with her leg, I said, did Cameron give you that or did you plan that out from the beginning? She said, no, that was on the 10th take. That just came to me in that moment. That's the one he uses. I think that's really cool. If you did five episodes, if you had, if it's five, you did five episodes.

If you had done six, I think you could have done at least half of an episode and possibly even a whole episode on every musical choice in the movie. And why? I had some of that in episodes two and three. And, you know, unfortunately, you know, well, you know, podcasting, you can't like do an hour and a half. You got to kill some of your babies. That's going to come out. I interviewed Cameron.

I went down to San Diego and I interviewed everybody in the musical, almost finished the musical. I saw it and I interviewed the entire cast. And that's going to come out when the play goes to Broadway. Cause he has some of the choices he makes and everybody like defaults to tiny dancer and stuff like that. But like when he plays the hooves sparks, like when he's looking at the albums and just the way that starts and it's just like the perfect tangerine at the end is perfect. When we meet Lester bag, Lester bangs and he, and he's like, well, Iggy pop, hell yeah.

And Joni, of course. It's just like, he just nails it. And I'm always curious about how they decide. Because I'm sure he's looking at it almost like he's making a mixtape, right? For somebody he cares about. When Patrick was auditioning, when Patrick Fugate was talking with Cameron, Cameron, one of the first questions, you know, because Patrick's like a 15-year-old skateboarder.

Yeah. So Cameron says, well, do you listen to a lot of music? And Patrick says, yeah, I got a Chumbawamba CD. And then Cameron goes, well, do you listen to a lot of Led Zeppelin? Do you like Led Zeppelin? And Patrick said to him, yeah, I'm not familiar with his work.

And that's where it started. So by the time Cameron wanted to cast Patrick, he gave Patrick literally that pile of albums that we see that he pulls from underneath the bed that his sister left for him. He gave that to Patrick and said, next time I see you, I want this oozing from your pores. And so there's a lot of overlap between that pile and what he uses in the movie.

And it's funny that the vinyls actually come back now. Yeah. So there's a moment in 2000 when you see this movie and you see all those vinyl albums. You're like, oh, cool, vinyl. Remember those? And now it's like people actually want those. Right now. She's like, oh, cool, vinyl. Remember those? Now it's like people actually want those.

You talked about a little bit the Led Zeppelin scene that got cut, the Stairway to Heaven scene where William Miller plays the entire Stairway to Heaven for his mom. I think it's the greatest deleted scene of any movie, and I also agree with cutting it out of the movie because it's like nine minutes long. But the sister's boyfriend, it's honestly one of the funniest performances where he just gets into it

and he starts doing air guitar and moving his head. How about Francis having to react to all of it? And he said it was two straight days. They filmed Stairway to Heaven over and over again, listening to it, doing different things. I felt so bad for the guy who played the boyfriend because he's so great in that scene. Like Kevin Costner in The Big Chill.

Oh my God. And now he's just on YouTube. But it actually has a lot of views on YouTube. Yeah. Because on the DVD, they didn't have Stairway to Heaven, the DVD. So it was like, play Stairway to Heaven, three, two, one, press. So you could get it.

But on YouTube, you don't have to do that. So now it's lined up. But it's amazing. Even though, I mean, he spent a lot of time shooting it. To have that discipline. Look, if you or I worked for two days on a scene, like we might just be saying to ourselves, like, I can't cut that. I mean, you know, and plus we'd feel guilty about the boyfriend and we'd feel guilty about what we did with Francis. And, and it was there for a reason because we really loved it. And somehow Frank,

Cameron was able to really come to grips with it and say, you know what, it's just going to slow things down, particularly at the end there. Cause that ending flies. Last 20 minutes are humming. I mean, the ending really flies. And from the moment he sees his sister in the airport, it's humming. But also non-chronological when you think about it. Because we see Billy turn around the chair and say, to begin with everything, which is, of of course to begin with is an homage.

You're talking the ending ending. I mean, everything's really kind of like out of sequence because then he comes back after a couple scenes to Billy getting in the cab and leaving. So I think it would have been, I think it would have slowed things down. And I think once again,

Cameron winds up making a pretty unconventional, but really smart choice. You know, having done a lot of documentaries, obviously, sometimes the best thing you can do is cut something that you love, that you know is wrong, that it interrupts the flow for whatever reason. And a lot of times the director won't want to cut it because they

have an attachment to when they actually filmed it or, oh man, I remember that day it was 90 degrees outside and we did this. And they just kind of don't want to admit that it was all for naught. And it was funny listening to him talk about that, about, yeah, we filmed that scene for two days and I had to cut it. Like how painful that is for people, but usually it's the right choice because I think it would have totally ruined the last half hour of the movie. It turns out that he only cared really about making the movie and making the

best version of the movie possible. Everything else, it was like, okay, then you know what? I can't get this one. I'll take this one. I can't do this. He was open to a lot of unbelievable moments throughout the movie where people improvised on a script that he had worked on for 10 years and used it it wasn't even just like he let them do it on the set he actually used it he

said wait a second that's better i mean that there's a there's a lot going on there in terms of filmmaking that i think a lot of other filmmakers wouldn't have embraced. Well, you covered Philip Seymour Hoffman was the only person in an interview because he's unfortunately not with us anymore, but had a legendary less than a week, had the flu the whole time. He's Lester Bangs. And then, you know, read in between the lines, it's funny to hear people talk about actors. We're like, you's a committed guy. Phil wants what he wants. And you're trying to read between the lines like, wait, are they saying he's a dick? I can't really tell. It just seems like he had the most chops on the set and wasn't afraid to use them. Yeah. Cameron said he definitely had his hands on the steering wheel and he wasn't afraid to use it.

And I think that also Cameron brings up another point, which is he was also showing Patrick Fugate said he definitely had his hands on the steering wheel and he wasn't afraid to use it and i think that also cameron brings up another point which is he was also showing patrick fugate what he would he could do like the kind of power that you might have of course it's philip seymour hoffman so patrick might never get that power but the point is he was trying to show like if the if the lights are really in your eyes to the point where you can't open them without being blinded, you got to say something. And in that case, Patrick didn't say anything. John Toll didn't say anything. Cameron didn't say anything.

So Philip Seymour Hoffman yells, cut, on the movie, which astonished everyone, you know, just blew everybody away. We do on the rewatchables. One of the awards is the Dion Waiters award for somebody who's not in the movie that much, but when they're in it, it's a huge heat check and they make a bunch of threes. He's in that movie for, I don't know, 11 minutes. Would you say 10 minutes? Did you ever see any of those running totals for the Academy Awards?

It's like Beatrice Strait in New York. Yeah, five minutes, 43 seconds or something. But even, I mean, I have to say, when you think about it, you think he's in the movie a lot more, but Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting, he's not in the movie that much. I mean, he's in there enough, obviously,

to make it, and he deserved the Academy Award that he got, thank God. I think today's his birthday. Hopkins was 18 minutes in Silence of the Lambs. Right. And it feels like 68 minutes, but yeah. They were like co-stars.

You feel like they were co-stars. So I think Hoffman's in what, four or five scenes, Max? Four, five? I think five, yeah. I think five. But he just, he crushes all of them. Like you really feel like it's Lester Banks. He was really sick with the flu.

He had, he had a high temperature. He was throwing up. He, you know, he would go off, take care of himself somehow with a cold compress, throw up,

try and get his fever down and then come back to the set. That's, that was a championship performance. One thing I learned, I'm really stepping on your podcast. Cause I didn't know that they filmed it in sequence, how Patrick Fugate

was basically on the 140 pitch count in the eighth inning, just trying to get the ball over the plate, completely out of gas, with nobody warming up in the bullpen, and they had to get two more weeks out of him. And it's the stretch of the movie where he had to get it done. And he really cranked up the emotions within Patrick himself.

So Patrick could draw on that for William. But look, when you have somebody, it was a long shoot to begin with. I mean, you can make 30 movies in your career and you wouldn't have a shoot that long. Plus it was a lot of traveling. Plus the kids, I mean, he of traveling. Plus, the kids. I mean, he grew like four inches during the movie. So he's taller than Billy by the end. They had to put Billy in a box for the Golden God.

Yeah. That scene. But he was really exhausted. He was really exhausted. He's good in that movie. He's not great. I think it would have been impossible to find somebody 18 and under. What would you have wanted from him?

Well, I'm, I'm just trying to think like, all right, who's the best possible version of this at what point of their career? Like if you're thinking like early nineties, Leo, if Leo had been kind of born eight years later in 2000,

like the, the way one of the, one of the great things about Patrick and and it's really important, is that he's so innocent. The idea that he was going to lose his virginity at that moment, he hadn't even kissed a girl. I mean, Leo, are you kidding? Leo at that age was so- I'm saying early Leo, before anything major happens, Leo. No, you're not with me. It's hard. You would think that he's already... I mean, look at Gilbert Grape.

I think he's way too attractive, and I just don't think he could pull off that kind of instance. Patrick pulled it off because that's who Patrick was. He was a kid from Salt Lake City, was 15 when he auditioned, didn't really understand this. As soon as Kate walks in the first time for their first meeting together,

he's saying to himself, oh my God, holy shit. That's exactly the kind of woman, girl that I don't even, I'm even afraid to say hello to in high school. Well, I'm glad he admitted that the foursome scene, he was pretty nervous about being a 16-year-old and having to be shirtless in your underwear with three girls two pairs of underwear yeah two pairs of underwear like he had a clear case clear there probably was some tape involved that he didn't talk about he describes exactly what

kind of equipment he was wearing at the time because they they left it for him in the closet and it was hanging there and his mom was there with him and they just started cracking up he's like i gotta wear that but the whole point whole point was he was literally afraid of physiological responses. I don't blame him. We were teenagers once. You didn't really cover in the pod, Kate Hudson was so affected by being in this movie in a good way that she ended up actually, not becoming a bandaid, but ended up throwing herself into the music scene and ended up marrying the guy from the Black Crows. Did you feel like there was a correlation between being in this movie

and all of a sudden she's married to a Black Crows guy? Yeah? I think so. Okay. I think so. I didn't know if it was related. No. And I think she was, I mean she calls herself boy crazy but I think she was

she she knew musicians um you know and hung around musicians and I think that part of it was really just from the inside out I don't think it was like she was in a totally different world okay but I think that it was interesting to talk to her about her career after almost famous and how you know how much that movie, sometimes when the Lord wants to punish you, he answers your prayers and you get a movie like that and you're 19. And then you think, oh yeah, my next movie is going to be like that. And the next movie is like, and all of a sudden you're like, wait a second, those things don't come along as often as, as you know, you might've hoped for and you might've thought back then. Well, you got everybody from this movie.

Gotta say though, rare loss for for you not getting Brad Pitt. I really always thought you could get anybody. This is your first miss in a while. Since Eddie Murphy. What happened? Oh, because you couldn't get Eddie for the SNL book. Well, no, I try. Look, I put a call in to Cynthia, his manager, and I said, would you like to talk?

And they said no. And, you know, at some point, the Jew in me though, felt a little guilty about Billy. So I thought, that's why I didn't like, I really believe, you know, when I want to get somebody, I try and, you know, I get the knee pads out and I beg, but I didn't do it this time because it's just like, you know, Billy just, Billy deserves every, everything he got, you know, you could get in this podcast. So, um, I think it was fine. And you got everybody else. Did, did Cameron Crowe, yeah, that was surprising since they're

now divorced. Did Cameron Crowe send you any Almost Famous stuff? Uh, no, I didn't. I know he's given you a couple of things, right? So after I did that column, he mailed me two fake Stillwater albums and a Jeff Bebe band t-shirt just because he's like, you love the movie. I want you to have this stuff. And I had this Jeff Bebe band t-shirt for like 10 years. And you know when t-shirts just disappear

and you don't know what happened to them? Seinfeld did an episode on that. Yeah, like where did it go? And it's just, I have no idea where it is. And it was my favorite T-shirt. Oh, they are? They were selling the T-shirts at the gift shop down at the Globe. So you can get them now online probably.

I always thought that was like a very subtle, great thing that he put in there that Jeff BB used to be in a band called the Jeff BB band before they audible to still water. Cause that was like such a seventies rock thing. They always said that one weird band before the band that actually took off. Well, uh, I highly recommend the pod.

I know there's a lot of people out there. There's a Venn diagram between people who probably listen to this pod and like almost famous. And, and, uh, I'm sure they would like all five episodes. You can listen to them at 1.2 speed on Spotify, just plow through them. Your ESPN oral history book might need an update after the last five years and even the last couple of months. the place, five minutes, the place never gets boring. It is unbelievable. It keeps giving.

It is the gift that keeps giving. And, uh, and now all the toothpaste is out of the tube. I mean, forget it. It's never going back in, you know,

I mean, Jimmy came to ESPN with two things, make nice, nice with the NFL and make sure we get politics out of ESPN because we don't want politics involved. And lo and behold, there they are making a deal with Jamil Hill and Colin Kaepernick. I mean, if I put it in a script, somebody would say, what are you, smoking crack? And forget it. It's impossible. And now you can't ever go back and try and tell these employees and these on-air people that you can't talk about your own attitudes and your own opinions about things because it's a whole different world. And I'm not quite sure that they're prepared to deal with that.

It's easy kind of now, but it's going to get infinitely more complex. And what about their whole theory that the fans don't even want that? So now, when those things happen, God knows when you start giving out awards to people and everything else now, it is wide open. I don't think that theory was wrong. I think it's wrong now. But I think them audibling and just being like, you know what?

Highlights and games. That's what we are. Let's just do that. I personally wouldn't have done that. Obviously, you know me and you know the stuff I've tried to do. I personally wouldn't do that. But I see it. I understood it.

They were like, let's just get back to what people want from ESPN. Now that's impossible. I don't see any way, any way, shape or form that comes back. And I got to say, like, you know, obviously it's been the craziest year in the, at least in my lifetime in this country. But then you look at the impact on lesser things in the country and big companies and things like that, even for a place like ESPN, this has to be the most tumultuous year in the history of the company, just from losing live sports. I can't even imagine what second. Losing tons of money, trying to figure out how are we going to pay for stuff? When sports coming back, being in the bubble.

Having Iger be the one that basically made the bubble happen, all the conflicts of interest with that. When does football come back? What happens if it overlaps with the finals? And then on top of it, trying to manage all of these different employees in the social media era when anybody can just go to Twitter and start a news cycle.

I mean, when 9-11 happened, there were people at ESPN freaking out about the fact that they weren't covering sports that night, even though the games were suspended. And it's like the next day was like, we can't go a day without it. We can't, you know, we got to get back on. We got to start talking about pre-games. We got games are going to start the next day or whatever. And here it is months and months. And I don't think there's going to be a college football season, but I mean, they spent $27 billion, I think, in the last six, seven years on college football. It's just gone. You know what's going to be even more interesting?

I think there will be a college football season, just not when there usually is. Like, this is what's happening in high school sports in California. Oh, maybe January. Everything got pushed to the spring, and you're going to have these crazy, the good son type decisions now, where it's like, here's the NBA finals over here. They want to play game four on a Sunday night,

or a Monday night, and that's when we have Monday night football. Then you move to the spring. It's like basketball's back. We might, I don't know if they have a football playoff game this year, but you're going to, then college football comes back and you know, you're going to have these, these things at the same time that are going to be impossible to navigate. Total disruption. And also, I mean, look at the NFL insists on playing this fall and the college, there's not a college football season. Why isn't Roger going to say impossible to navigate. Total disruption. And also, I mean, look, if the NFL insists on playing this fall and there's not a college football season, why isn't Roger going to say, by the way, we want some Saturdays?

We're going to take some Saturdays. And Fridays. And Fridays. I mean, so all of a sudden- Yeah, they can do Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Just do five days in a row. So you're just going to all of a sudden, and then they're going to give that up?

You know, they may decide, look, there's a big TV contract coming up next year. They may decide that they want some of that real estate for the future. So it creates a lot of different problems. Well, and then on top of it, the Timberwolves, I had been hearing that there would be a few teams that would become available, at least in the NBA, because the franchises were all overpriced to begin with. And the stuff's cyclical. The last time this really happened

where teams started to become available were 08, 09, 2010. So Timberwolves became available today. I'm wondering, I think I could see like six or seven more teams becoming available in some form. I just think there's going to be a lot of people all over the place, networks, talent, games, who owns different teams,

commissioners are going to take hits. And, uh, and then on top of it, we don't know when we're going to be normal again. It could, we could be another year and a half. This next NFL contract is going to be the wildest NFL contract since television packaging started of football games. And the future of the league depends on it. It has to be Apple TV making a big run, in my opinion, for the money they've spent on it versus what they've gotten back, which I think has been very little and how important I think it is to them. It's got to be, I'm saying Apple Plus. You know, that new service that they created.

And they need to take a big swing with that at one point. I could totally see them getting into NBA or NFL because if you go to Apple Plus, the menu is kind of navigated in a way where you could just kind of hop around the same way you would on cable. Amazon seems like they've had a few years here to really kind of get into this and they just haven't. Well, the other part of it though, is you look at some of what COVID is doing to some of these corporations. Look at the CBS valuation. I mean, right now, CBS, you could make a case that CBS can't even afford to really bid on the NFL package the way thatves, who had this incredible relationship with Kraft and with Bolden

and with Roger and Paul before him. And then you think, well, wait a second. Moonves isn't there. The valuation is down. So now Sunday afternoon becomes really up for grabs. And then what happens there? I mean, that's a pretty – that's a big, big package. It's arguably one of the best packages there is.

So, I mean, I think the whole thing is going to be chaotic and it's going to disrupt everything for the next, probably in the next decade. Give me one wild ESPN prediction. I don't know. I think that they're going to go, I think they're going to wind up going back to what Steve Bornstein always wanted in the late eighties, which is not robots, but I think they're going to, I think that the era of spending money on sports center anchors, I think it's, I think it's over.

The talking head era. I think it's over. I mean, not, they'll always pay. They paid Stephen A a fortune. He's the highest paid person there now by a mile because he's involved in tonnage. He just delivers hours and hours, young, young guy balls, urban eyeballs, everything you can think of. This guy delivers. But outside of that, you know, anchors sitting there making $800,000 a year, $900,000 a year for doing some addition to the sports center. It's, it's over. It's over. Interesting. All right.

This was fun. You can listen to Origins chapter six. Thank you so much for having me. Season six, chapter six, Almost Famous. Congrats on that one. I love that movie and I learned a lot

and I really enjoyed listening to it. It was good talking to you. Thank you so much. All right, thanks to Andy Sandberg and Jim Miller. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Thanks to FanDuel. We'll be back on Thursday with one more podcast. Don't forget about the Ringer Fantasy Football Show.

Don't forget about the Connect with Shane Jason. Don't forget about the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. Don't forget about The Connect with Shane Jason. Don't forget about The Rewatchables, The Conjuring. Don't forget to go to theringer.com for our fantasy football guide, which is launching

on Wednesday. Also, I should mention, big surprise coming on the Bakari Sellers podcast this week. He's a very famous guest. Keep an eye out for that one.

And I will see you on Thursday. On the wayside On the first sun Never lost it I don't have To ever forget