The Bill Simmons Podcast - Talking Movies With Don Cheadle and Rob Lowe

Episode Date: June 26, 2020

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by actor Don Cheadle to discuss some of his iconic films, including 'Boogie Nights,' 'Out of Sight,' 'Crash,' and 'Hotel Rwanda,' playing Sammy Davis Jr. in HBO's 'The Rat Pack,' Black actors and storytellers in Hollywood, working on TV and films during the pandemic, his Showtime series 'Black Monday,' and more (6:00). Then Bill talks with actor Rob Lowe about joining the podcast world with his new podcast, ‘Literally! With Rob Lowe,’ Hollywood in the 1980s, the Brat Pack, some of his films including 'The Outsiders,' 'St. Elmo's Fire,' 'About Last Night,' 'Tommy Boy,' and more. Rob also shares stories from his time following the Showtime Lakers (59:35). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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where we're launching a new podcast on Monday, June 29th. It is called the Bakari Sellers Podcast. He has an awesome guest list ahead of you, but he is going to be talking about the election, the moment America is having right now, and a whole bunch more,

plus some great celebrity guests. You can subscribe right now, wherever you get your podcasts, the Bacari Sellers podcast. I'm really excited for this one. So coming up, we're going to talk to Don Cheadle and Rob Lowe. I'm going to say something also at the top. First, Pearl Jam.

Alright, bringing in Don Cheadle in one second. Just wanted to comment on a piece that the New York Times wrote about The Ringer and me earlier this week. And I only wanted to say two things. One, I'm going to say here what I said to the New York Times in an email interview that I did. I emailed all my answers, which I'll be mentioning again in one second. But we know we didn't do well enough. And I wish it had been a bigger priority for us to, um, to really make a bigger commitment to diversity than we did. I think, you know, in the moment we're looking at stuff where you pursue certain people, it doesn't work out. You feel like you're trying. And I think the moment that

the country's having in general, these last four weeks is like, if you feel like you're trying. And I think the moment that the country's having in general, these last four weeks is like, if you feel like you're trying, that's actually not good enough. We're going to do better. And the only thing I'm going to say on that is if you know anything about me and, and how committed I am to all this stuff, to using my platform to try to raise the profile and platform of other people and stuff. This is what I try to do at Grantland, what I try to do at The Ringer.

There's a lot of responsibility that comes with that. And when you fall short in some way, which I feel like I did, and I feel like we did, meaning me and Chris and Sean and Mallory and Julia and Jeff, it hurts, but there's truth to it. And we weren't doing well enough. We're going to try to do better. We are committed to it. And I got to be honest, it was one of the main reasons I wanted to go to Spotify. I thought they were going to be the dominant force in audio. And I also wanted more resources and know-how. And I wanted to tap into their HR and their diversity teams and really try to reshape our company.

And that wasn't something I was going to talk about openly when we did the sale. I really didn't talk about the sale at all. But we've known for a while we wanted to reshape what the company was. And none of us felt like we did well enough. But the thing is, it's like football. You judge a coach by your record. You judge me by my record. and the record wasn't good enough. So the only thing I would ask for is just give us some time.

It's incredibly important to me and to everybody I work with to fix it. And that's all I can ask. So the second piece I just wanted to say, I had a quote in there, quote, it's a business. This is an open mic night. I want to give you the full context of that. I did an email interview with the New York Times and I wanted to read you the question they actually asked and then the answer I gave. And as you'll find out, it was not about diversity. So this was the question from the New York Times. Current and former staffers told us

that it got harder for young writers, parentheses, including but not limited to people of color, end of parentheses, to get more responsibility and visibility after podcasts became a higher priority at The Ringer in late 2017, early 2018. For example, they said that during the first few months of the rewatchables, there were opportunities for younger, more obscure folks to participate. But by early 2018, it was mostly senior folks like you, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Mallory Rubin. Can you comment on this? My answer was this. This is what I wrote back to the New York Times. That's absurd. We were a startup those first two years trying a whole bunch of different things.

Eventually, we realized that podcasts were the biggest financial part of our business, and we needed to put our best people in them. Again, it's a business. This is an open mic night. As for the rewatchables, I created that podcast and it was built around me and Chris Ryan. I've hosted the vast majority of them. It's one of our most popular and lucrative podcasts and one of the biggest pop culture podcasts, period. I'm proud of the show and confident in how we manage it. End quote. So that was not an answer about diversity. And the question was not about diversity. So I just wanted to get that out there so you actually knew where it was coming from. That's all I have. Thanks for listening to this part. We're going to get to Don Cheadle right now.

Don Cheadle is here. I don't know why this took so long. I've had a podcast for 13 years. I don't know where you've been. I don't know why you've been so hard to book. I blame you. I blame you. I blame myself. You've been in a lot of my favorite movies. You know, it's funny.

So I'm going way back. But so Boogie Nights is like a top five movie to me. And the other night, my wife and my daughter were out of the house. My son was at a sleepover. I was all by myself. And I'm like, this is great. I'm just going to watch TV. I'll watch something I've never seen before. And I was flicking channels and it was the start of Boogie Nights. And I was like, ah, fuck it. And I just watched it again. I don't know. I don't know what it is about that movie. What is it about that movie? You must get asked about it a million times, right? I mean, I think it's just, it's an amazing film, obviously.

It's sort of two films tonally. Yeah. Yeah, what it's able to do. And, you know, I met Paul because of Carl Franklin, who directed Devil in a Blue Dress. And he, I don't remember how he met Paul, but he said, this kid, you got to meet this kid. He's got this movie.

The movie's amazing. He wants you to play a part in it. And it's about the porno industry. I was like, my parents are still alive. So I don't think that's going to happen. And he said, no, you got to meet him. He's really smart. And he's kind of a phenom.

So I met with Paul and he was the most confident, you know, self-assured dude I'd ever met. And I said, you know, this is just going to be jokes. And I read the script and the script is like 167 pages long or something like that. It was just massive, but it was very technical and it had all the camera moves in it and all of the things he was going to do with the film in it that weren't really about story at all. It was just how he was going to pull it off. And it was kind of confusing. And I remember asking him, I said, are we just going to be like doing a bunch of jokes about, you know, porn industry? And he's like, just, just, you know, just trust me. Okay. You're going to be sad if you say no to this movie, because you're going to, you're going to, you're going to wish you had said yes, if you say no to this movie. You're going to wish you had said yes if you pass on this one.

You would have been sad. I think he was right. He was absolutely right. He pats himself on the back for being very right about all the things he's right about all the time. He's a lot like you. Now, all these years later, he's had this incredible career, but when we had him on the podcast about 18 months ago,

I couldn't resist. Like, look, we got to talk about this movie. And it was pretty cool to listen to him talk about it because it was so early in his career. And then he follows it up with Magnolia, which was so personal. And it's a movie that he, all these years later, kind of feels conflicted about because there are all these things he would probably do differently with that one. With Boogie Nights, I feel like he feels pretty good about what it was. Yeah, I think he does. I think he feels like he achieved everything he wanted to achieve.

And I remember sitting with him at the screening, one of the early screenings of it. And when the movie takes that turn right after Little Bill tops himself, he looks at me and goes, okay, jokes, giggles, you get it. And I was like, Oh, I get it.

You know? And that, and it's rare to, to be able to do that in the film and still like have the audience stay with you because people want to go on a certain kind of a ride. And then when it, it turns and makes you sort of consider the whole other side of this, I think he was very artful and,

and, and very masterful. That's how, and how he pulled that off. Well, one of the fun things about rewatching it 23 years later is just the cast and all of these people at this, you know, in some cases, really early point of their careers, you know, Mark Wahlberg was still had the Marky Mark kind of stigma to him. Philip Seymour Hoffman was like the kid from Son of a Woman. And you go on, John C. Reilly,

I barely knew who he was. You, I'd only seen you in one movie. And you go on and on and it was all these people that have now had these full careers that I have this whole history with. And you watch a movie like that

and it's like seeing a home movie of them really early almost. You know what I mean? Absolutely. And I think that's one of the, if not the most important aspect uh of being able to be a good director is being able to cast well and being able to find the

people that you're going to be able to get i mean i don't think anyone expected mark walberg's performance in that and it was the best of anything he's ever done i i believe um and everyone you go down the line everybody that you mentioned i think everyone really pulls in and at a great performance and no one is trying to stick out above you know what i mean it was a very ensemble feel uh feel to making it there was a very big no asshole rule and yeah everybody just you know believed in paul and believed in his ability and believed in in what it was he was trying to do. And he knew everything that he wanted to do. There was no, it wasn't,

there was no wishy-washy nature to how he approached anything. You know, you often do movies and you kind of in it and you're like, I don't know if the director knows what he wants. Paul knew it from the very beginning and stayed true to it, to the very end. Also had a great what if where you have, it could have been Leo in the Wahlberg part and he turns it down. And just thinking that pre-Titanic Leo is Dirk Diggler.

What kind of movie that is. I actually think it worked out correctly, but it's an interesting what if. Yeah. I can't imagine another, I can't imagine another actor in that part. I think Mark was just amazing. And some of the scenes that you're watching, I'm like, is this improv? I mean, we didn't really do a lot of improv. We would sometimes do little things that Paul would allow in, but he was pretty secure in what he wrote and kind of a stickler about his words and what he wanted to be done. But yeah, I can't imagine anyone other than Mark in that role. Me neither. You had some great parts in the 90s as you're becoming you. Yeah.

How did you know what parts to gravitate toward and how important was the director in the whole concept of it? I don't think I ever really knew the director. It's something that became very important to me as I learned that that was the most important seat. Yeah. Really started to understand you needed to be under the helm of someone who had a clear idea

of what it is they were going after. Yeah. But I was very, for no other reason than I just decided I was going to be. I was just very picky. I was always just very picky about what I wanted to do. And I also wanted to do a lot of different things. You know, I came out of school.

I went to California Institute of the Arts. And one of the things that, you know, we really had for us in school was a huge variety. You know, we do Moliere, we do Shakespeare, we do August Wilson, we do Fugard, we do, we just did, you know, we just did a lot of different things. And that was something that became what I wanted to do as I went forward in my career. I wanted to play a lot of different roles. I wanted to try to inhabit a lot of different characters. So a lot of the yeses that I would give to a role, a lot of the me saying yes to a part was about, oh, this is something that an area I haven't visited before, a story I haven't done, characters I haven't really filled out. It was just more of I wanted to keep playing and wanted to keep expanding my toolbox. So that's what it was about.

And directors really, like I said, became something to focus on. I was just very fortunate to work with a lot of great directors. They just were the ones that were directing these movies. So I don't think it was a surprise that the roles that I picked

in these interesting projects had directors who were very skilled uh, very skilled as well. Well, it helped that you were talented too. And they, and they wanted to work with you. It's, you know, you get, I think you get half credit, but so you, cause I remember devil in a blue dress. It was like, who's that? Yeah. Then, then you did the goat. Yeah. And I had been, yeah, I'm a huge basketball guy. And when I found out it was eight, was it HBO or Showtime? I can't remember. It was an HBO movie. Yeah. Yeah. And when they, I was like, Oh, they're doing the goat.

Cause I had read the city game by Pete Axel. So I knew, you know, the, the legend, him, there's no footage of him, obviously. You just have a, how are they going to do this? It's such a depressing story. And, and then it was really, you know, obviously it was what it was and it's worth, I don't know. Is that movie still exist?

Is it streaming anywhere? I think you can get it on Amazon. I mean, I think you can get anything on Amazon. Oh, cause I never see it, but I would write for the younger people out there. I would recommend checking it out.

Cause it's, he's this famous street legend. That's right. Who, um, was's this famous street legend. That's right. Who, um, was kind of the lost great. What if guy from the playground scene in the sixties and you always heard the stories,

but then to actually make a movie about him is pretty, it's pretty cool. Yeah. It was the greatest player that no one's ever heard of or something like that. You've never heard of. Um, and one of the most amazing things about that

was that Earl was there the whole time. So getting to really ask him about these stories and to, it was both intimidating and it was very deep to have him around and watch these stories and have him say, yeah, this is what I was going through and it was exactly like this. And I did lose a couple years at one point

where I didn't, he lost years of his life, wasn't aware that years had passed. And then to really see the story that how he was able to turn that around with that record game and really inspire so many young people and bring so many young people up. That was,

uh, it was great to see. And it was always great to see him interact with kids. He was just really, uh, had a big heart that ultimately is a heavy diet of congestive heart failure. Um, but just a very sweet man and just very giving and generous the whole time.

And people don't realize you got cast cause you have a 54 inch vertical leap. Yeah, it was 55. Now it's 54. I lost an inch. You're like, I'll hit all the duck seats myself. So then it, then you end up in out of sight with Soderbergh and then it, then it's off. Then, then at that point you're getting, uh, you're getting a lot of the roles. I'm sure you probably want wanted. What did you learn from Soderbergh? No, I think it's always been, you know, it looks like that, but it had always been a grind. Yeah? Oh, yeah, for sure.

And I think that's probably my story is not, you know, dissimilar to a lot of people in my position. A lot of young black actors at that time. It was never a layup. It was always a grind. I was very fortunate that I got to be in the films that I wanted to be in and to really craft, you know, and, and grow relationships within the business that would allow me to continue that. And I had good

representation always. Um, but yeah, it was, uh, it, it, it was a grind. It was a grind it was a grind um and i met stephen at a table read for out of sight um the casting director at that time and i'm sorry i'm gonna go up on her name but she uh just said can you come to this table read and it became kind of clear like halfway through the table read that they're like well yeah we want you to play the part uh and that started this you know great relationship stephen aren't supposed to play the part. And that started this, you know, great relationship. Steven and I are supposed to do a new movie now if this virus thing ever, you know, steps back. But I learned a lot from Steven. I've been, I think it's now the fifth time I've worked with him.

And he's just another very clear, very focused um but not you know there's always a moment in a steven sober movie that i've worked on that like week two or three where he goes oh i finally know what this movie's about like he's it's you know he's like oh i finally figured out you wouldn't know that but yeah he's lets it come to him you know he's a director who you show up on the set for the scene and he's like all right show me he's he's not like you stand here you stand here you go there he's like show me and then he kind of figures it out with you he operates so he's very he's right there with you it's not like he's sitting behind a monitor and you're you

know half an inch tall and he doesn't really see what's happening. He's right up close. So you know that he's a part of the process in a way that's very intimate. That's a really special movie because it could come out right now and probably be the exact same movie. I think there's certain 1990s movies that are just completely timeless

and that's one of them. That's one of them too. And very underrated. And it's still like every year people pick up on it more and more and more. It's just, Oh yeah. It still holds together. It's a really good movie. Well,

I remember you also, you played Sammy. Yeah. With the Rat Pack, which I thought was one of the best TV movies. I love that. Cause I'd always been fascinated by the, uh,

the Rat Pack, but did you dive into all the Sammy research? Cause he's one of the secretly most, most fascinating people ever. 100%. I had to do all of that. And that was an interesting one, too, because in the movie, on the page, when I got it, they had never really dealt with race for Sammy. They had never really dealt with other than the big sort of operatic scene that there was and the big idea about what he was facing in general with the world.

They never dealt with what he was dealing with inside those own relationships with his friends. And I, and, and, you know, in Sammy's books, he never really talked about it. In either of the autobiographies, he never really talked about it. And I was like, there's no way that this didn't ever come up. This has to be something that we explore. Even if he doesn't talk about it, we have to take the poetic license and deal with this. And it was never in the script and it hadn't been in the script. So every time that it would come up, they offered it to me. And I said, what have you guys done about that part of the script? And they're like, oh, we're going to get to it. I'm like, well,

when you get to it, send it to me and I'll see if I'm going to take the part. And it was weeks and weeks that they hadn't really, the writer, Karyo Salem, really good writer, they hadn't really come to it. And then Karyo wrote this couple of scenes that just touched on it, but in a very impactful way. And then I kind of said, I want to have a moment when I'm performing where they can have the joke out front

where he says, you know, I want to award the NAA, thank you for the NAACP for this thing. Or he says some racist thing to Sammy, some joke. And I said, I just want to be able to turn upstage and have the camera upstage and have, I don't have to say anything. I just want to show the reaction to that. And then I can turn back around and put the smile on and just be Sammy again. And those little moments, I think, really informed it. But once we finally agreed to do that, I had two weeks left to get ready, which meant it was just, I had to cram. So I had gun twirling lessons. I had drum lessons. I had trumpet lessons. And Savion Glover was the tap instructor, which was worth doing it alone. Just that alone was worth

doing it. So I got to learn how to tap from Savion Glover, greatest tap dancer of the lot. And it was just, it was great. And getting to work with all those guys. It's a really good one. It's one of the best

TV movies ever, I think. I think out of all the guys. It's a really good one. It's one of the best TV movies ever, I think. You know, I think out of all the guys from that era, he's the one that would be the best Netflix or Hulu Mad Men style show if you built it around a real person because he's straddling these two worlds, right? At least. Yeah, maybe more.

Where he's like the black face for white people, basically. They really, one of the only ones that have in their lives at that point. But then he has this whole different meaning to black people and he's doing all this under the radar stuff nobody knows about for the black community. So I, it's really like a guy who was living two lives at the same time. And I always felt like in a movie like the one you made, it just scratched the surface for a split second. There's so much more there. So much more.

And the talent off the charts. Oh, yeah. Unbelievable. Everything he did, he did at such a high level. It would be really hard to... It'd be tricky casting as well. So it's a big... It would be really hard to, it'd be tricky casting as well. So it's a big, it's a big,

it would be a big project. And there are people trying to develop that right now. And was missing an eye. And was missing an eye. How about that? And was still like the, the, an amazing performer,

but yeah, I've always been fascinated by him. Do you feel like, do you feel like Crash takes too much shit at this point? How do you feel looking back at it now? The way I felt about it before. I was like, this isn't a perfect movie. I think it's got flaws,

but I can't think of any movies that don't. But I appreciated what it was trying to take on. And I appreciated pushing that conversation out into the world in a way that I hadn't seen done on film. And it's an allegory. You know, the movies, it's not meant to be taken exactly literally. There's a lot of what ifs. There's a lot of sort of sliding doors in that movie. I think some of that is missed on people.

Like they're like, you're telling me that this guy bumped into her at the same time and she bumped into him. I'm like, that's not exactly, I think, how we're supposed to be taking this film in. We're supposed to be talking about the intersections of these people's lives and how they might inform one another

and, you know, a cross section of people. But yeah, I think it takes, it takes a lot of shit and I don't, it's fine. I think once you put something out in the world, that's you, that's what you've done. It's, that's what it's for now. People get to decide they're the jury. They're going to determine its value and its worth and what it means to them. And everybody's right. You know, the people that think it's shit are right. The people that think it's great, they're right. That's about how you connect to a piece of film, to a piece of art. That's how you take it in.

That's the problem with awards, right? Ultimately, we're judging how art affects each human being. And sometimes it's easy. Sometimes there's a performance that is so clearly the best performance you've seen all year, or some movie that's so powerful. But a lot of times, it's going to hit everybody differently.

Absolutely. And I think it was maybe Malcolm McDonald who said the only way to figure out who's the best in each one of these things is to have everybody do the same role. Who is the best in this role? Who is the best in this movie? They're apples and oranges. You can't compare half the best in this role? Who was the best in this movie? You know, but you were trying to, you can't, they're apples and oranges. You know, you can't compare half of these movies to each other. Titanic isn't trying to do the same thing that Crash is trying to do. We're not, you know, they're not even in the same worlds. So putting those all up there and to compare them. And again, you know, these contests between artists, you know, it's just, we know what it is.

It's about much more than just the award itself, obviously, is commerce involved. And there's other things that we're trying to, other boxes we're trying to check off. Well, especially with the Oscars, where it took people forever to realize that the people who are voting the Oscars was a specific demographic that maybe didn't represent everybody who should be voting for the Oscars.

They've made good strides the last few years. I don't know when they'll get to the right place, but at least they've put some more thought into it the last few years. Yeah. I mean, that's it. And people don't understand how much of a campaign it is. The general public isn't privy to how much work goes into people, you know, securing an Oscar nomination. There are Oscar consultants that just work during that period of time to figure out how you have, you know,

best positioned yourself to get an Oscar and how it impacts a film. And, you know, I remember sitting at a table with an exec who I won't name during Hotel Rwanda during that run. And we were at Screen Actors Guild Awards, I think. And they, you know, we didn't get any Screen Actors Guild Award. And he said, well, if we're not going to, if we don't get an Oscar nomination, I'm not, we're not putting any more money into the, you know, marketing for this movie. I was like, what? Where? He was like, yeah, that'd be a waste of money.

If we don't get any more noms, then there's no reason to try to even keep it out there in the theater. I was like, this movie is important. Yeah. There's another reason to keep it in the theaters than just is it making dough. But there's your bumping up against the real world of finance and commerce. These movies are made to make money. And if they don't, then they have to go to the wayside.

So again, it's something that when you peel it back, why awards are tricky, because it's not just about the best. And I don't even think they say best anymore. It's just like, and the Oscar goes too. They can't even use that nomenclature anymore, which is I'm glad about because it's not authentic. It's not real. Last, I would say six, seven years, huge topic of our black actors and actresses getting the same opportunities as everybody else, which has really been a story the last 30 years of Hollywood. But I feel like the last seven or eight, I remember I had Michael B. Jordan on a podcast

once and he said, I just want to get to get to the point where if there's a good part, they're not thinking like, oh, this is a part that should go to a black guy or, oh, this is a part for a white guy. That is just like, what's the part. Let's all see who the, who the best person for the part is. When do it do, have we gotten better at this? Do you feel like we're headed in a better direction? Do you feel like you have more opportunities for parts that maybe you wouldn't have had 20 years ago? Sure. I mean, yeah, in some aspects.

I think it cuts both ways. And I think it's cyclical. I don't think we ever are at a point where we're not taking steps forward and steps back at the same time. And as studios try to figure out, you know, how to do the most important thing on their color chart, which is green, you know, how to make money, you know, that's what's coming into consideration. You know, when all these black movies made money two or three years ago, everybody was going, well, I want, give me four of those, you know?

And so it's kind of how it happens. And we had a moment, there was a moment in the 80s where it was that way. There was a moment in the 90s where it was that way. A lot of black movies around a certain theme were making Boys in the Hood, Menace to Society. They were around a certain kind of a theme, but it was a moment again.

And everybody in Hollywood's always trying to do something in the rear view mirror. They want to know what just worked. So, yeah, the opportunities, there are more opportunities now. I don't know that I ever wanted necessarily to be at a place where the only consideration is, is this the right person for this role? I don't want to erase race. I don't want to erase gender. I don't want to erase race. I don't want to erase gender. I don't want to erase sexual identity. I don't want to erase the things that I don't want to, I don't want to mute it down.

I want to raise everything up so that those, the differences about us are unique and are celebrated and are important and they impact the story. You know, I don't want to just ever take decolorize the things and go, well, we're all just the same. So we can all have the same story. It's like, no, that's not the truth. We're not. And we shouldn't be striving to be all the same. That's not the goal. The goal is to be whoever you are and we can all still share in this great expression. So I don't want that to ever become a non-issue because it's not ever a non-issue in real life.

So let's really show what's going on and be who we are and use that as storytellers to our advantage to tell more in-depth and interesting stories. Well, and it would seem like investing in the infrastructure that would produce more of those storytellers would be the other way to really help. That's the only way you get there. I mean, you cannot, and we haven't had that.

We haven't had an incubator for many years. We haven't had that sort of a proving ground that allows people to matriculate through a system that puts you in a position where now you are a green light executive and you can make these decisions. And behind you is a junior executive that looks like you. And behind them is an assistant that's tracking to potentially become the person to take you over. So there's a real, you know, there's a real sort of like a guard, what would you call it in professional sports? You know, you would have your triple A league and your double A league, you would have a place from where you go back and get these players. So that's something that really needs to be created and,

and, and supported in our business soup to nuts. And then we will have all of these voices and you won't be talking about, well, why aren't I there? It's like, well, if you were there as the person in the mailroom who then got to be the assistant, who then got to be the junior executive, then got to be the executive and got to decide, and you've been through every aspect of this and come through this, there is a crucible of learning that has to happen. You have to be able to fail along the way and not have it be critical and a death sentence and you're out of there. That's the only way that you continue to make the farm system work. So that's what we need. We need a better farm system, I think. I agree with you. And it's not just for

Hollywood. I think it's for a lot of different industries. Investing in college and grad school is going to ultimately be the solution, but that's a 20-year plan. And that's a lot of thought and a lot of money being put in the ground level to try to fix stuff. That's right. And we, as human beings, generally like to see results happen quickly. And if we don't see it happen fast, we're like, oh, I guess it's not working. It's like, no, you may not get to see the end result of the work that you put in. It doesn't mean that the work isn't necessary. It just means that you have to be patient and patient doesn't mean just sitting back, not doing anything. It means you just have to keep tilling the soil. You got to keep working the thing and understand that, you

know, the benefit may be down the road. You may not have it. It may be down the road, but you still got to put in the work. So the movie you're most attached to hotel Rwanda for all you put into it. And for what it meant, there's, I mean, again, I, I am, I look at the, the movies that I've had an opportunity to be a part of and the films that I've been able to help put together from, you know, on the producer side of it, things I've just been cast in, movies that I've written, things that I've been a part of in that way. It's hard to pick one, you know, they're all, not all of them. There's some that I have no attachment to,

but there are others that really, you know, really stay with me and sit with me. And I have great friends from these experiences that I have, you know, still to this day. And we have, our families have grown together and, you know, we've traveled around the world together outside of the movie. So I've been very blessed and very fortunate to have this career. But Hotel Rwanda is absolutely one of the one of the nearest and dearest projects I've ever been involved in. And not only because of the film itself, but for what it fostered outside of what it sort of ramped up for me outside of the film and how it pulled me into this sea of activism that was already happening before I got there. But how I got sort of channeled into that was definitely as a result of the film. Let's take a break to talk about Norton 360 with LifeLock. With everything going on in the world, you may not have heard that there were over 460 million records exposed and data breaches this past May. Those breaches were only the publicly reported ones. The actual number, undoubtedly much higher cyber attacks, ransomware

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What made you gravitate toward doing TV shows? Because you've done two now, the latest being Black Monday. The material. You know, something that happened too around the period of time that a lot, you know, HBO, Showtime, all of these cable entities happened. And then how these streamers have just taken off. You know, there were things that you could do on TV

that you couldn't do in movies anymore. Yeah. All about four quadrant flagship huge cornerstone that had to communicate to the entire world. Superhero capes. Anything that didn't have to be processed through a very distinct lens that would require you to have to understand more than boom, sweet, you know, the, the big themes could get through,

but stuff that, you know, antiheroes characters that were questionable, you know, things that were, weren't, were very gray and weren't just black and white. Those movies were harder and harder.

It became harder and harder to get green lit. So a lot of the artists, a lot of the writers, a lot of the directors, the creatives went to TV because that space was wide open at that time. And they were like, come here and do whatever you want. You can be as edgy as you want. This is adult content. You can say whatever you want. And so artists started, and it was lucrative and people were making dough. So they're going, well, let me go over here and kind of say these things that I can say in this space that I can't say in a film. And, you know, they were very encapsulated. You could do it 12 weeks and you had eight months left of your life to, you know, do whatever. You can go do a movie and go do a piece of theater,

whatever, just not do anything. But, you know, it was, it was, yeah, I was a very early adopter into that idea, but it was because of the script. I read the script for House of Lies and I was like, this, this kills me. I'm laughing. I can't anticipate where it's going. I've never heard of this industry before. This is brand new to me. It's something that's fascinating to me. And it's, I've shoot 30 minutes from the house and I get to sleep in my own bed. And it checked off every box. There was no reason to say no. And we've always been platform agnostic about that. It doesn't matter where it is, if it's good work and it's good material, like, yeah, I want to do it.

We talked to PTA about this. We were saying like, is Boogie Nights in 2000? We talked about it with them in 2000, I think beginning in 19. But if that script is in 2020, do they just turn it into a TV series? Is it a 10 episode? I think so. Hulu show or something.

I feel like it is, right? I think it is. I think it is. And you could spin off every character, right? Oh my God. Every character could get their own episode. Yeah. And you could do origin,

a whole like Better Call Saul sort of the way they did with Breaking Bad. You could just go down any of their lives and do a whole side story about how they came into the industry, what happened to them after they left the industry. All of these people, I want to see them older.

Yeah. Younger. I think Out of Sight also is one that easily could have just been a tv show it at least could have been season one and then maybe season two jaylo goes and has some sort of different adventure maybe cluny's not even in it but you just it could have kept going yeah snoop wouldn't have been he wouldn't have been in it he would have been like i Yes, in the season, but yeah. Yeah, it's a really interesting time for Hollywood where you have awesome IP like that, and I'm not sure what the right place for it is anymore,

whether it is a TV series. I think you just have much more latitude in TV, and I think that now it's not a, you know, we used to be like TV. I don't want to do TV. You know, nobody's on that anymore. Nobody's feeling like that. They're like, there's great work in TV. We know it, you know, we've seen it. There's amazing shows on, um, and some of the best writing is there because it's still pretty much studios are making fewer and fewer movies. They're not making more and more movies. And the, the movies that they are, you

know, opening up the pocketbook for, and that they're bankrolling have to be these big tentpole movies. You know, they're trying to hit home runs with the six movies they're going to make a year at a time when they used to make 26. So it's a very different world. And I don't see that changing anytime fast. Like, if you don't have a strong streamer, if you don't have that kind of platform as a studio, you're in trouble. Every studio has to have that. What's it like to be a respected working actor in the Zoom era? It's very busy. You know, I just have a production company that we started last year. And this is the one thing that everybody can do during COVID, right? Everyone can still develop. So we're still having tons of Zoom

meetings and putting projects together and having meetings with writers. And we're just very busy right now. And that's going to be a very interesting thing once everybody can go back to work. All of this work that's just sitting here. Everybody's at the starting blocks. Let's go. Everybody's at work. Yeah, now we're in the middle of month four. But you also had stuff that was being filmed that had to stop.

Stuff that was about to start filming that now can't film yet. That's right. And only so many actors and crew members and all this stuff. So when we actually can get going, which hopefully will happen at some point over the next four to six months, there's just going to be a lot going on. Is it, how can it, I don't, I don't, I don't know how it can. I don't, I don't, I mean, there are some people that have already gone back. There's some productions that have already gone back. But that bubble concept is very, I don't know how it's actually going to work. I've seen plans on paper, and I understand how the unions are attempting to pitch the idea of the bubble and safety and these zones and people being able to move in safe ways around. But, you know, unless testing is really robust and unless you really have a contingency

plan for if someone does test positive, what do you do if your lead actor tests positive? What do you do if a supporting actor tests positive? What do you do if the DP tests positive? What do you do if a supporting actor tests positive? What do you do if the DP tests positive? What do you do if, you know, that's the other thing about a movie or any of these TV shows is that any link in the chain that breaks can be critical. You know, the costumer goes down. It's like that affects your show dramatically. The hair and makeup team can't be there. That's huge. You know, the boom operators aren't there.

There's certain people you can slug into place, but not everybody. And it will affect the quality of the piece. And what is, you know, AIG just going to like underwrite the thing and pay for everything and go, okay, you guys can reboot and we'll just underwrite this thing for another 15 million. Go ahead, go again. No, I imagine there'll be a claim and it'll be force majeure and the movie will go down and they'll be like, well, we did that. I don't see how you keep going. I mean, I guess the NBA has an idea that they're just going to keep going if, you know, somebody tests positive, they're just going to slug another player in or they're just go light. But they're not going to stop is I think what they're planning.

I don't, that's not the same in a movie or TV show. You can't just not the same in a movie or a TV show. You can't just pass the rock to anybody else in a TV show. It's a great point. I was going to add to that, that in the NBA, they're almost treating it like a sprained ankle. Where if Anthony Davis gets it, he's just out for two weeks and he has to quarantine and all that. But if you got it on your TV show,

there's no guy who can come in and play your part. It's not Broadway. No. Although they, they, that would be an interesting thing to see. Just, you know,

a little bumper before the show starts. Don is down with COVID. So Jeffrey Wright will not be playing the part. We wish Don all the best. They do that Scorsese face swap, like whatever that digital stuff, just put somebody else's face on you. It doesn't cost anything.

That's so cheap. Everybody could afford to do that. Yeah, so you're pessimistic. I'm deep down pessimistic, but trying to be optimistic. Is that pessimistic or is it just realistic? I mean, I don't't i think it's just real i i think now actors will start having a lot of pressure put on them because you know i don't go

back to work 300 people don't go back to work it's not just me not going back to work you know i don't i don't the show doesn't start back up uh so there will be a lot of pressure put on actors in my position to come back. But quite honestly, unless there is some plan that gives us a real, you know, sense of safety and security, is it really worth it? You know, it's not, I don't know. We have these talks every day. We have these discussions every day. And what are you willing to take it on for? You know, we were all quarantined and then George Floyd happens and millions of people are in the streets and I was one of them. So it was important enough for me to be in that environment and to go out there and protest. But. Does that translate? Is it important enough for you then to go back to work? And there was obviously there were no there was no zones and there was no protection and there was no idea that we would somehow be safe. We were outside. Everybody in the one I was with was

masked up. We had goggles on. There was no social distancing. So I guess you're picking the thing that it matters for you to be a part in. But that was raised, the importance of that was raised to me much higher than creating a show again. Although I understand people going, I've got to go to work. I need to make money. I have to feed my family. I have to pay rent. Those are absolutely very real considerations as well.

Yeah, I guess the only thing that sports has beyond everything that you just mentioned is there's a clock to it with the seasons and the history of it where you have somebody like LeBron and his, this might be his last great Lakers season. It might be the last great season he ever has. And there's such a fear, I think,

not just with the athletes and the teams and the commissioner and all that stuff, but even with the fans. Well, fuck, we're just not going to have an NBA season? We have no winner. We need finalization. But with TV and movies and even music, you know, you, that stuff can always, that stuff doesn't have the sort of historical precedent about what we need to experience this you know cathartic we need this cathartic win or loss so that we can validate what i mean you know so that we can we're fans and we're you know i i understand that because some of that is also you know kind of baked into our dna of having these

you know communal experiences through you know these proxy battles so we don't have to have these real battles and these you know proxy wars between these gladiators i understand that but that. But we are also obviously not very adept at looking at clearly what's happening in the world. It's like that all would make sense if there wasn't a pandemic, but there is. So it's like that kind of has to take precedent. And I know we're not used to it. And I know we've never been here before. I would know none of us were alive. Well, some of us were alive during the Spanish flu, but you know, most of us were not. Well, some of us were alive during the Spanish flu, but most of us were not alive during that period of time. But I wish people would look at the patterns because it's exactly the same. People going, enough of this, and basically saying, we need freedom, we need our rights back, and coming out. And then it was a huge second wave

that took out more people than the first wave did. So we're kind of doing the exact same playbook, uh, and even greater numbers of people on the planet because there's more of us now. So it's, I think, and we're hardheaded. So, you know, this is going to be a lesson that we're, that's going to need to be beaten into us. And it seems like we're on, on the path to having it beaten into us. So it is tricky. And yes, there's a ticking clock, not only on the audience's desire to have some sort of a win-loss or a crown, a victor, but there's also a ticking clock on these players' bodies.

Totally. They're not all, like you said, LeBron is, I think he could play for a few more years and I think he does too. But yeah, he's older than he was last year. He'll be older next year. And there is a momentum, obviously, that happens in sports. And there's a groove that you find.

And the Lakers were in their groove. They were flowing. So yes, there's a desire for them to finish the goal, to get to the end and see what's going to happen. But there's still going to be an asterisk around it, no matter what happens. It's going to be a shortened season. It's going to be a season that not all teams participated in. And what's happening with baseball right now? Every sport is really dealing with it in a real way.

Yeah. And I think, like you said, the athletes and their own mortality of their careers, I think, is driving some of the decisions, too, whereas maybe actors, directors can afford to wait and not have those same kind of stakes. But I'm with you. I've changed my mind so many times on this thing. And I really thought the NBA bubble thing was going to work. And then the more you read about it and it's like, yeah, the workers can go in and out. And it's like, well, wait a second, that's not a bubble. And you just, you start poking holes in it. Yeah. The only bubble is literally if you all stay in the same facility and play in the same, same facility, and then go back to the same facility and there are guards all around. So nobody can leave. I mean, because all it takes is one person to leave or one person to come in, and now you've pierced the bubble and that great experiment goes south. And like I said, as soon as what happens, as soon as one person tests positive,

and we're not even, and people can say anything they want to say on paper. Like, yeah, I'll keep playing, but there's going to be some players that are going to be like, yeah, I know what I said, but my wife called and she said, get your ass home. It's a wrap. You know, you got kids and a family. You can't, this is a very serious illness. This is not a joke. People are going down and it's skewing now younger and younger. So it's nothing to be trifled with. And you do have to ask yourself at the end of the day,

what's really important? You know, isn't it more important that we try to be closer to Europe and be closer to these places that are seeing it turn around because they got super aggressive about it early? Again, that's what we're talking about. We want stuff now.

And it's particularly an American thing. I want my shit and I want it right now because damn it, I'm free. I woke up free in this free country. And if I can get it, I want it. It's like to the detriment of everybody. We have to be more responsible than that. Well, it's the narcissist culture, right? Well, we're number one in swag right it's like hey man i did this for three months i'm only 26 i want to go out i need to live my life all right well the virus isn't gone yet no it's waiting for you it'll it'll be at the club when you get there yeah enjoy um last question i'm not going to ask you who the best actor you ever worked with is. I'm going to ask you who was the most impressive actor?

Who was the one that you crossed male or female that you were just like, man, I get it. I get it. I get why this person was so successful. Oh, they also have to be a successful actor. No, they don't have to be successful, successful to you as an actor. Well, I mean, again, I think I've had a great... I've worked with very talented people. I know, that's why I asked.

And it's hard to pick one. Denzel is obviously a great actor and was great to work with and to watch close up. Um, she would tell edge of four,

uh, great actor. Um, Jeffrey, right. Really strong. Really, really good actor.

Uh, Julianne Moore. Amazing, amazing actor. So similar Hoffman, obviously John C. Rileyiley another great actor yeah uh all right really really strong and and and can do anything you know very facile good at comedy good at drama can really can really do it all and and And yeah, I'm a very lucky dude in that way.

All right, I'm audibly in the question. I should have known you weren't going to totally answer it. Okay, go. You catch Denzel when he is Denzel. He is who he is. It wasn't like you, oh, this is the early, he's not quite Denzel yet. It's like,

no, no, he's Denzel now. Yeah. And, and you're sharing scenes with him and scenery and hanging out with him between scenes and all that stuff. And this guy is an icon.

What was that like? I was so, uh, I was so, I don't know if intimidated is the, is the right word, but I was definitely on my P's and Q's. I was definitely very serious during the filming of Devil in a Blue Dress.

I would always stay in character. I was always in costume. I wasn't hanging out on the set as Don Cheadle between takes, just hanging out. I do my scenes and I would usually go back to my trailer and read or... I was super focused during that movie. And my whole sort of MO as playing his best friend was just to have his back. And I think if you watch the movie,

even in the moments where it's like, I'm just there and there's nothing, I'm not doing anything. My whole MO, because I forget these things, you know, this is a long time ago. I think I caught part of it on TV the other day. I was watching one of the scenes and I was like, I was standing behind Denzel and he's in the scene and I'm looking around. I was like, what am I doing? I was like, oh yeah. I'm like, I'm checking corners. And I'm like, I'm just, I'm just watching his back. I was so 100 about the thing because it was Denzel Washington, because

I was like, oh my God, I cannot mess this one up. You know, this one, I have to really bring everything. And I'd worked with Carl before on student film that he had done at AFI. So that was really helpful. And he was great, great director and not was, is a great director and was really, and directed me very specifically and very well. So that was a, that was an amazing experience. Um, but yeah, definitely that, that, that's one of them. That's one of the jewels. That's one of the, that's, I'm very proud of that movie. I did a podcast with him once where I went to see him in a hotel room and it's one of the pods I'm proud of because he's intimidating. He just is. He's actually like almost too famous. Yeah. And you're talking to

him. And I felt the same way when I interviewed Larry Bird too, where it's just like, you're actually too famous. I don't know. It just feels weird to be in the room with you. You know? And when I did, uh, when I did countdown with, and it felt that way for a little while, especially because he's gigantic. He's 6'9". And then after a while, it's just like, oh, it's Magic. You think he, you know, he became normalized after a while. But Denzel and Larry Bird, it was not normal.

I never felt normal for a minute. No, Magic is very disarming. Magic, you just feel like, I can be this dude's friend, you know? It's like, no, you can't. He's Magic. He's Magic Johnson. He can be his friend. But he's a very, yeah, he's very approachable.

They're different dudes. But, you know, Denzel, when we did Flight, we hadn't seen each other in a long time, hadn't talked to each other in a long time. And we were getting ready to do a scene and we just started reminiscing telling old stories and and uh there's another actor on set that he had worked with and the three of us were just kind of hanging out and at one point we looked up we're like are we gonna shoot they're like oh yeah yeah yeah and i my agent was visiting and i said what why were we not shooting we were i thought we were ready to shoot he said the people were just loved that you guys were having a personal moment and having a conversation and they just didn't want to break up.

You guys are having a great time. They just wanted to let it go as long as it was going to go. So yeah. Yeah. You also don't interrupt Denzel. Yeah. He's a larger. Yeah.

Yeah. That's, that's probably true. That was a good movie. I actually, that was one of my favorite Denzel performances. Cause he, he was,

he was kind of like losing control of the steering wheel Denzel, which I was like when he goes in that direction. But anyway, it was, uh, it was fun to finally talk to you. I really admired your career and a lot of the stuff you've done and it's been really fun to watch it grow and all the good things that have happened. Tell the audience about, um, black Monday really quickly. Oh yeah. Black Monday. I think we're back on the 28th. We did go down in post-production because of COVID.

But we were able to get all of our post-production stuff done and got all our effects in and music and colorization and everything's happening. And we're coming back on a strong episode, too. So it's really funny and really over the top. And just, I think, what the doctor ordered for this quarantine experience we're having right now. So your sweet spot is a drama that's actually secretly seriously funny. Or something that's seriously funny that then has some real deep down beat that's mad. All right, got it. Don Cheadle, thank you.

This is great. Appreciate you, man. All right, we're going to bring in Rob Lowe in one second. First, as the original Light Beer, Miller Lite has always been there to bring people together in real life through Miller time. And look, getting together with a few friends in real life,

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I've been using it for years. It's an original sponsor of this podcast. I'm a huge fan. Head to simplisafe.com slash BS and get a free HD camera for my listeners. Once again, SimpliSafe with two I's, simplisafe.com slash BS to make sure they know that our show sent you without further ado, a podcast that's been in the making for like five years, Rob Lowe. All right. The old saying, everybody has a podcast now. Rob Lowe trying to prove that that's true. You're finally here. You finally have your own podcast. You've made it with all the other podcasters. Yeah. I based my career on going backwards. I started out as a movie star and then I went to television and then I became an author and then I went out on the road with my comedy act and then I went and now I have a podcast.

So I believe in going backwards. It works for me. That's all I'm saying. What's going to be the angle for the podcast? Which dropped this week. Yeah. My first episode is out. Chris Pratt is my guest.

And the reason I wanted to get into it in all seriousness was that I've enjoyed being on other people's podcasts so much because you can, you know, this is the last place where you can have a true conversation, freewheeling, and there's no structure. And I always loved that when I was a kid on watching that on television interviews, but that's not the genre anymore. And the diversity of people that I know in terms of having been in the business for so long and the stories, it's like, no one's going to talk to Gwyneth Paltrow the way I am. She, she crashed in my wife and I's guest bedroom when she was 18, trying to get an agent.

Yeah. No, no one's going to talk to Pratt the way I do. When I was like, bro, you got to slim down and you're going to be a big. Yeah. No one's going to talk to Pratt the way I do. When I was like, bro, you got to slim down and you're going to be a big movie star. So, um, you know, I just did magic Johnson for week number two. And when he and I got into our deep dive on the Showtime era, it was, I mean, no one, you know, no one has that perspective. Um, just cause I,

cause I lived with them. So it's been really fun, by the way. I got a blast. Good. I'm glad you're doing it. So you've been one of the hardest people to book for this podcast, dating back to Grantland. There's so much to talk to you about. I don't even know where to start because I grew up with your movies. Yeah. You're a little older than I am, but like, like,

you know, you come in in the early eighties. That's right. When I'm an only child watching everything, I'll talk about whatever you want to talk about, but can we deep dive the eighties? Can we just do it? This is why I love being on podcasts. Cause there's no rules. Great. Uh, and you covered some of this in your book, but one of the things I love about, um, your whole arc, especially those first few years is you're in this generation and it's all these dudes, it's Sean Penn and Tom Cruise and you, a few of you end up together in the outsiders, but you all know each other. And that that's a part like, and you covered this in your book and some of it's been covered in different magazine features but it's a real class when it's almost like if you're using sports terms where like with the NBA you'd be like oh the

the mid-80s like Jordan and Barkley and all these guys they all came in together your thing for whatever reason was a class what was it just sheer coincidence or was there more going on than that, that this many actors all knew each other when, before they became famous? Um, that's a really good question. Um, I think it,

to me, it's a little bit about like what happens in the music business where you go, wow, wait a minute in Laurel Canyon, the birds were living next door to the monkeys. And Neil Young was in the basement above Jackson Brown and Glenn Fry was like the pizza delivery man or whatever. Like that's what it was. Um, I think in the sort of eighties, you know, Santa Monica Malibu, um, era.

So we did, we did all know each other and we're all fighting for the same roles and being competitive and then helping each other with auditions. And, um, I don't think that goes on so much anymore. I really don't. So you have, it's you, it's Sean Penn, it's Emilio Estevez or Sean Penn. Maybe a little, is he a tiny bit older? Is he considered part of that crew? He's a little bit older, but yeah, no, he lived, you know, three streets down.

So it's Chris Penn, Sean Penn, Emilio, Charlie, Robert Downey Jr. Um, Cruz moves, moves to California and now all of a sudden he's in the outsider, so he's in the outsider. So he's in that mix. Yeah. Cruz moves out to Malibu cause he had just done taps, uh, with Sean and Tim and Tim Hutton, who has to be included in this too. Cause he got ordinary people. Yeah.

Tim's living in the colony, getting all the girls, getting all the roles. Wait, all right. So let's get, let's get that. So Tim, so Tim Hunt gets ordinary people, all right. So let's get, let's hit that. So Tim, so Tim Hunt gets ordinary people, wins the Oscar and moves right to Malibu quality. Yeah. Playing, playing pickup basketball out there in the street. I remember it like it was yesterday. And where are you living at the time? You haven't, you haven't had your break yet. I'm living at home. I'm living in my parents' garage. I've converted the garage into,

you know, a 19 year olds paradise, big color TV, a little bit of privacy, some set of weights, you know? And that's an amazing time to be in California too, because they're filming all the stuff there.

Yeah. Yeah. When I moved to California, I was, I was 13 and, uh, we would go out on the, you know, the school playground and there'd be a dog fight of Navy world war two Corsairs dive bombing over the school and they'd be filming that TV show, Bob, Bob black sheep. Oh yeah. Or you go down, Bob Conrad, knock this off my shoulder.

Yeah. Um, or you'd go down to the beach and they'd be filming Charlie's angels and there'd be Farrah Fawcett and that amazing bikini. And I, it was really, really a magical, Oh, I remember driving through Malibu one day and, and seeing a movie company at the end of the Malibu pier. And, you know, I was young and wanted to be an actor and I didn't know anything about it. It's from Ohio. So I wanted to go and see what they were shooting. And it was the Incredible Hulk. And it was it was just so fun to see all that stuff.

I was an only child growing up just outside of Boston. All these shows were in California, including Battle of the Network Stars, which was filmed at Pepperdine, which seemed like, I didn't even know, how is this in the United States? They would do the wide shot. Cosell would do,

right outside Malibu. And it would be like, wow, that's in the United States? Where is this? Battle of the Network Stars was a highlight of my life. Oh, yeah. A, I loved watching it on TV.

And I think it started the year or two before I moved to California. So when I got to- Yes, perfect. So when I got there, I'd seen it on TV. And now I'm there. And I'm watching, you know, Christy McNichol from Family, who was always the MVP, right? She was like, they would turn her loose on the obstacle course, but Mark Harmon out of UCLA, the former quarterback,

Mark Harmon and, you know, uh, Farrah was there, Lee majors. And they took it really seriously. That's what I loved about it. Like they were not fucking around at all. And it always came down to the tug of war. Remember that? Oh yeah. I, it was my favorite show. And one of the greatest sports moments of my childhood was when Gabe Kaplan beat Robert Conrad in the race. And I just had this hazy memory of it,

but really distinct, but you know, it was, and then YouTube came around and I'm like, Oh my God, at some point this is going to come on YouTube. And then it finally did. And it was better than I remembered.

I wrote a whole column about it, freespin.com. It was like one of the great underdog wins of my life. Because it just seemed like Conrad was going to smoke them. But you forget he's smoking like seven packs of Marlboro Reds at the time. So Gabe Kaplan does some. And Gabe Kaplan's got that big gait. He's got those long legs. He just murdered him.

Yeah. So it really did matter back. He just murdered him. Yeah. So it really did matter back then. It was really good stuff. I mean, there's an online photo floating around of me in bright red dolphin shorts with no shirt. And I was like 15. And I was so thin. I literally look like I've been on the baton death march with my dolphin shorts at the battle of the network stars watching it. It's, it's a humiliating photo. I recommend everybody Google it right now. Um, it's humiliating, but that's me at the battle of the network stars. And it was, I thought I was looking so fly.

God, unbelievable. Were you on a TV show at any point there or did you go right to movies? I did a TV show almost immediately after that moment in my life. When I was 15, I got a sitcom on ABC called A New Kind of Family. And it was two women and their family sharing the same

house which then became a big hit and later on on a show called kate and ally yeah i was gonna say yeah that was and apparently it was like some associate producer on our show stole the idea and made it a hit because ours was a bomb ours was a bomb and noteworthy only in that um i remember that there were 62 shows on all of television because we were always number 62. We were dead last because we were up as at 60 minutes, which is the number one show at the time disaster. And, um, one in one of the great moments, the other, it was a disaster. The ratings were terrible.

Nobody knew what to do. They shut us down for a week. And when we came back, the other family had been fired with no explanation whatsoever and replaced with Thelma Hopkins and Janet Jackson. And so I got to know Janet when she was a 13 year old actress. And I remember her going, man, this acting thing is not for me. Yeah. Kind of gravitate to the music. Yeah.

So then the, the outsiders happens, which was a legendary book when I was growing up. And when you were growing up to still is one of the, one of the things I love is that every year there's a new crop of seventh grade folks who have to read the book because it's in the curriculum across the United States. And they get introduced to that movie and they fall in love with the 18-year-old versions of Tom Cruise and me and Matt Dillon. And, and it's fun to walk down the street and have, you know, still have like a 14 year old go, Oh my God, it's still the Bob Curtis. Seriously. Well, it was, it was that it was Tex and it was Rumblefish. That was S.E. Hinton. Those were the three books. And you read all of them. There's one more. There's one more you're missing. Which one? That was then this is now. Oh, that was a great one. Yeah. Right. So for whatever reason, the outsiders, I mean,

they made three movies out of those four. I don't think they made that was then this is now as a movie. If they, if they don't remember it, they did, they did make it. It was directed by, I think the same guy who directed text, but notably it was the first thing that Emilio Estevez ever wrote. He adapted it and wrote it. There you go. Well, The Outsiders, legendary. That was the best of all the books. Coppola's involved.

He has the most juice he's ever going to have. He's coming off of Pop Clips now. Two Godfathers. And it's really funny reading. There's been a couple of great magazine pieces about it over the years about how he really was like, I want to find the next generation of people. And he goes out and the cast ends up having you and Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, Diane Lane, all these people. But this must've been in your circles, like the all time dream.

I have to get this role. Everybody you knew was trying to go for it right there's never been a movie like it certainly in my experience in terms of so plum and with with a director behind it like you allude to at that moment in time there was nobody who even could compare to francis coppola. Nobody. Yeah. And all the parts were great. You know, you didn't even know what part you wanted. They were all so great. And Francis didn't know what part he wanted you for.

Because you would, one day I'd read Ponyboy and I'd come back and audition and then I'd read Dallas and then I'd read Soda Pop Curtis. And the sort of kill or be killed casting sessions that we used to have, or we have to watch each other do it. Um, that none of, none of that has ever happened since. Um, it was, it was an amazing, amazing time. I left out Macho and see Thomas Howell too. Oh yeah. He really did. He really did kind of achieve what he wanted to achieve at the time. Like I want this movie to be remembered as this movie that launched all of these careers. And it was like, uh, you know, the other thing is Francis had a producing partner named

Fred Roos did all of Francis's movies and Fred really was responsible for the casting. Truly. He was, and Fred also did all of those movies I just mentioned, but he also did American graffiti. So if you add the American graffiti cast to this litany of people, it's really, really extraordinary. Did, Did you know your life was going to change? Yeah. Everybody who was in that movie knew. The movie was just too high profile not to change our lives. I'd never done a movie. So to star in a Coppola movie, I mean, by definition, your life's changed immediately. I think what's funny looking back on it for me, though, is that

we all thought the movie would do better than it did. It did fine. It did. It was a success, but it was not a monster. Yeah, it wasn't. And I think we would have thought the movie would do better and maybe we wouldn't. And it turns out that as actors, we all did way better for way longer than the movie ever did. And that, I don't think we saw coming. That was a weird time for movies because there was a lot of movies based around teenagers and young adults. And it was, yeah. And, and I even look at 83, 84, 85, it's just a slew. That's when a lot of the great high school movies, John Hughes, um, Karate Kid, all those type of movies on and on and on. And it just seemed like people went from that movie to the next one, all the right moves. Cruz was in all the right moves, I think the same year.

And there was just dozens of them. And I'm with you. When it was coming out, it felt like it was going to be the biggest movie in the world. Was there a moment, like a before and after moment before the movie came out and after where you're like, you're still a normal person.

Nobody knows who the fuck you are. And then the movie comes out and you're like, oh my God, this is now different. It's how it started before the movie came out. I remember vividly showing, listen, in high school, I was, look, I don't want to pretend that I didn't have girlfriends.

I did, but I wasn't the cool guy. Yeah. The hot girls had no interest in me at all. They wanted the football players, the beach volleyball players, the Santa Monica High School. and acting in those days still was kind of like what theater nerds did. And I'm, I'm using the euphemism they use to describe me was worse than theater nerd. um so i didn't have any real game at all and i remember showing up to tulsa to the uh location first time away from my parents i'm 17 i'm gonna turn 18 on the movie but i'm 17 and the word had got matt had already dylan had already shot

tex there and that was always he was sort of a star already teen i star my bodyguard yeah my bodyguard and so the you know he'd been there for a month and like the girls knew and it had become kind of a thing and i'll never forget walking into the lobby of the hotel fresh off of you know santa monica high school theater nerd life. And they had police barricades to keep the screaming girls away. And I remember Matt walking down the barricade and looking at one girl and pointing at her. And she ducked under the barricade and left her friends immediately and walked up the elevator with Matt and turned.

And I'll never forget the look. She turned around and gave her friends. I remember like it was yesterday and the look was like, Oh my fucking God, can you believe this? And I, and like it was yesterday, I went,

I, the light bulb went on in my head. I went, Oh, so this is what it's like. And that was what it was like. That's been what it's like for Matt Dillon for probably four decades. So he's like, he's the legendary bachelor.

Yeah. So then you go, you make class, which you're not going to believe this. I watched six days ago with my 12 and a half year old son and my 15 year old daughter. I fast forwarded. I knew what part to fast forward. The premise of that movie, my kids didn't know it was going to happen. For the people listening, the premise is you're rooming with Andrew McCarthy at a boarding school. He goes into Chicago one weekend, has an affair with Jacqueline Bessette, who's your mom. And then everybody kind

of finds out an hour in. And as it happened, my daughter, when it's revealed, my daughter was like, wait a second, this, can this happen? How old is it? And she's asking all these questions and it's kind of amazing. The movie got made. I was like, no, no, I think he was 18. It made it. It's the ultimate MILF movie before the phrase MILF was invented.

Totally. I mean, Jacqueline Bissett, I mean, she was all-time legend all-time legend they wanted me to play the andrew mccarthy part originally and i thought just for me i thought that the skip burrows part was just more fun he was just a belligerent badass jerk funny didn't give a shit um and so i ended up playing that part and uh uh, Jackie, who's was amazing. We just used to laugh. She was very uptight about having a son, my age on, on screen. Um, and she was just so beautiful. And one of the first like real true stars that I ever worked with, you know, and, uh, Andrew and I were, we did it in Chicago and we just had full run of that

city. We had so much fun. Those movies were so fun to make. Oftentimes the, the, the making of the movies were, were more fulfilling than the actual movies. Right. Well, and then you also, John Cusack was in that movie and Alan Ruck. It's like a lot of people. Yeah, so Cusack and Ruck were really interesting. There's always been a great history of great actors coming out of Chicago and people working in Chicago because so much stuff is shot there. And Cusack had a part with, I think, two or three lines that said he was always going to be like the third guy in the background of a bunch of scenes. He was so funny. His ad libs were so hilarious that they just kept giving him more and more and more

and more and more stuff to do. But that part was never meant to be anything. He was just a genius at it. And then the other thing people forget about, a little piece of trivia, is when in the scene where I walk in and find Andrew in bed with my mom, I'm with a date. And the date I'm with has one scene.

And I remember, so she's a background artist, that's what they call them, the people who come in for one day and leave. And they brought a bunch of them out for me to pick which one I thought would, my character would want to date. And I picked, uh, uh, this beautiful actress and that was Lolita Davidovich. Oh my God. And all of these movies. So if you watch that, so that's Lolita Davidovich that I bring into that little sequence. And Virginia Madsen's in the movie too. And she's another one.

She was another one that, you know, we were all just starting off and nobody would have known. It was a really fun era because they just started making boarding school movies for like four or five years. It was this weird boarding school run. It was a fetish. It was a boarding school sex fetish movies.

I mean, I thought the whole thing about boarding school was there was no sex at boarding school. Right. Yeah. So it was that, it was that trend. But then there was also that trend of like horny teenagers trying to get laid. And it was like out of that Porky's era. So you have all this.

A lot of movies, a lot of movies where, where, where girls were forced to ride horseback with no tops on. It was right. I've never seen anything like it. Yeah. Cause Cruz, Cruz was in losing it. A lot of movies where girls were forced to ride horseback with no tops on. It was weird. Cruz was in Losing It, where they go to Mexico to try to lose their virginity. But honestly, you go back and there's like 10, 11 movies like that. So then, all right, so you go from there. Now you're a star.

Hotel New Hampshire, which was John Irving. You would never get made today. That movie would never get made today. That movie would never get made. And it was, um, you know, when, when they were making that movie, Tim Hutton, my nemesis was the original actor who was doing it with Elizabeth McGovern. It was their followup to ordinary people. Yeah. And then the movie fell apart. And when it was recast, I got the part. And, um, you know when it was recast, I got the part. And, you know, it was the first movie that I was ever a part of that had this literary pedigree to it.

That, you know, could have been like an Oscar movie, the level of seriousness. It was not a teen movie. It was an adult. It was a John Irving book. It was a big deal. And the movie is just so bizarre. And it came out the same day as a little in a bear suit. You tell me what you're going to go watch on a Friday night. Yeah, it was a little too weird, but it was coming off World According to Garp, which I really liked that movie. And Irving was a huge author at the time. And you think like, wow, they pulled it off

with Garp. And that movie is too weird. But it's really funny as Irving for years would tell you that, um, his favorite adaptation of his books was hotel New Hampshire. Really? Yeah. Um, I think cider house rules probably came later and was a better, a better version. But, but at that point he, he, he was, he was not a giant GARP fan, although that movie was way more successful than hotel New Hampshire. I really like, I will say like looking back on that movie, um, I,

I'm, I, I'm, I'm really proud of, of that movie. Um, as weird as it is. Um, and just in terms of the performances, Jodie Foster is so good in it. And, and I thought that I got to do some, some, some kind of the type of work that, that young actors didn't get a chance to do that era. Really? Were you seeing two Oscars for her when you were working with her? Were you like someday two Oscars? It wouldn't have surprised me. What would surprise me is that she would stay in the business long enough to do it because Jodi was so smart, still is, and has so many interests going

on outside of acting and really sees acting with a gimlet eyed view of what it really is and isn't. She's under no illusions. So the notion that she would still be entertained and engaged enough to still be doing it to get two Oscars would have been the rub. But the level of talent, I mean, there's nobody like her. She's my kind of actor where she suffers no fools, totally gets it, realizes she's not curing cancer, isn't navel-gazing about,azing about quote unquote, her character. We'll talk to you about where you want to go to get dinner afterwards and they'll yell action. And then she will throw the living fuck down. Then they will cut and she'll go right back to her conversation. Your next four movies are very important to me and everyone who grew up in the eighties. It's a murderer's row. First, we're starting with Oxford Blues.

Oh, boy. A movie that's never on anymore. It's really good. It has good music. It's in London. You're a badass rower. It's basically a Tom Cruise part. It's the upstart badass.

He's his own worst enemy. He's so cocky. He believes in himself. Everybody else rebelsbels against him It's just the whole recipe It's good, it still kind of holds up It might be the best rowing movie I don't know, some people say Chariots of Fire

Sure, won a couple Oscars I don't know, I think it's a toss up Listen, any movie that can make Sculling slash rowing Sexy and fun, deserves Oscar, in my opinion. I agree. It's very enjoyable. I had the...

Back in those days, the studios... Today, all the studios are kind of the same. But in those days, there was a hierarchy of studios. Like Warner Brothers. If you were doing a movie for Warner Brothers, it was likely to be a hit. Hollywood Pictures and Disney came out, and they just crushed it. if you if you were doing a movie for warner bows it was likely to be a hit um hollywood pictures and disney came out and they just crushed it and i had the miss like the misfortune of always

working for god bless mgm yeah who could not release a movie if their life depended on it usually because by the time the movie came out The studio had been sold five times So Oxford Blues Later on a movie called Masquerade Both movies that are really good You can't find them anywhere Because they're probably in bankruptcy court somewhere As collateral Masquerade, Kim Cattrall

Kim Cattrall, Meg Tilly Right off of The Big Chill That was later, that was late 80s We're skipping ahead And you're right, it's never on Never, because it's MGM Tilly right off of the big chill. That was later. That was late eighties. We were skipping ahead, but that is a good one. And you're right. It's never on. Never because it's MGM.

It's frustrating. Uh, you would think in this streaming era, when everybody's trying to build libraries, they would try to kick ass with some of these lost classics. Um, which brings me to our next one in this amazing, uh,

quadrilogy, quadro quadrilogy, quadro movies, quadro in this amazing quadrilogy. Quadrilogy? Quadrilogy. Movies? Whatever. Quadrilogy. 35th anniversary this month. Say no most fire.

Oh, boy. 35 years ago, this week. And with the passing of the great Joel Schumacher, our director. There you go. Joel was an amazing man, an amazing director and really really you know look coppola gave me a huge break but joel schumacher gave me the most iconic part i played in the 80s and for sure that's Billy and St. Elmo's Fire you know they wanted me to play so that script was around it was it wasn't the Outsiders but it was close in that the script was out there and every young actor wanted to be in it it had this kind of buzz and everybody was

auditioning and trying to do it but I'd already done movies and you know I wasn't auditioning and didn't have to do any of that stuff and um all the but everybody else in the movie was auditioning and doing it and getting the movie and because they you know it wasn't being like offered to me like the other ones were i didn't even know about it and but i'd heard about it and then finally somebody was like you should read this and i read read it and was like, oh, this part of Billy's really good. And my agent's like, well, I'll talk to the studio. And they talked to the studio and the studio wanted me to play the Judd Nelson part and did

not want me to play Billy. In spite of the fact that I was at that moment, kind of an it guy, they were like not having it. They were like, not interested. Rob Lowe, Billy Hicks? No. And so I had to go to Joel Schumacher and convince him that I could be a bad boy. So I got fucked up on beer. I brought a six pack into the meeting. And by the time the meeting was over, I had the part. And it was one of my favorite movies I've ever done. You know, I remember when the trailer was coming out for it, it had that great music that they would eventually use for NBA finals and stuff like that. They would use like Lakers Celtics, and you would hear Brent Musburger being like, the Lakers thought after game three,

and you would just hear the same almost fire music. It had, you know, the Washington DC mid eighties, Georgetown, the little foliage in October. And it was just, and it was all these actors that at that point, we knew all of them except for Mary Winningham, but the other six and a lot of them had been in movies together and different movies. And it was a movie that just made sense. And it, and also like, you know, people right out of college, I hadn't really seen that movie for a few years. You know, it was a movie that for some reason people weren't making what happens after you graduate. What do you do? Yeah, it was truly looking back at it now, it seems obvious,

but it wasn't at the time. Nobody had done that movie. It's like the, you know you know you've you've had this great moment in your life and now you're like okay now what the fuck and are we still friends and will we be friends and and what were our friendships predicated on and and look cinemas fire has always had a little bit of a um like people make fun of it there's a little bit of a hate watching thing because it's so eighties and it's a lot of, it's really, really dated and, and, and that's all true. But underneath it,

it's really about stuff that, um, has stood the test of time in spite of the fact that me and hair moose might not have stood the test of time. Your hair that you have an incredible trumpet scene in there or sack, I'm sorry, sack scene. I mean,

you gotta love it. Like that's how, you know, it's eighties is there's a saxophone solo scene. There's a band built around the saxophone player. It's like, just wait till you hear his solos. You guys are going to go nuts. This guy's a star and waiting. It's just, yeah, it was, I was trying to do my, my version of Clarence Clemons from the East street band. I was like, I ripped off every one of his moves, even how he, he strapped the horn around his back, like a guitar strap instead of putting it in front of him. And I just completely ripped that from the big man.

Well, the things I loved about that movie that just weren't, and it's a little like the big show was like this too, which I think is a movie that's now thought of all these years later, probably a little more respectfully, but big show, same thing. Like, Hey, we,

we, we all meant really something important to each other for these four years. And now it's 10, 15 years later. And it's like, I barely know you guys anymore, but I still have this connection. And it was the same thing with St.

Elmo's fire where it's like, yeah, we were in college, but now we're all going different ways. We still have this connection. We still have this bond. And that's funny because when people ask me about the Brat Pack or the cast of the outsiders, that's the answer. I would say, if you went to college with if you if you were in a sorority or a fraternity and you did all those things and and went through all of that stuff that the Brat Pack and those people and from those movies they're my fraternity brother. It's what it is. It's like, I don't really know what he's doing now, particularly. And he doesn't maybe know what I'm doing. He doesn't make one fucking bit of difference. We're for,

we were in the same frat. Well, that was the year the brat, the New York magazine wrote the Brad pack piece, right? That's right. And that was on the cover. That's it.

Yep. And it seems like some people have complicated feelings about that. I always liked the Brad pack, but I know there was a stigma to it that I don't know. Do you think ultimately it was a good thing, a bad thing or both? Ultimately it was a good thing. 100%.

I think that it didn't engender us to any positive criticisms. I don't think that movie would have ever, or that, that genre would have ever been a critic's darling type of thing to begin with but that but that piece killed us with polite society in the media and and there were um there were certain members of the of the brat pack who are way way way, way, way more sensitive to that, to that kind of stuff. And so it really was a, they didn't love it and hate it. In fact, hated it. There's a couple of folks who won't even participate to this day in

conversations about 30 year anniversaries of any of it. And I take a different view. I didn't love it when it came out because, you know, it made us kind of look like unserious party animal guys, which we certainly had that side. But we were no one was more serious about their acting and their careers than we were. But looking back on it now, even then, like you, you were an audience member. You never got the dog whistle underneath that you're supposed to not like these people. You're like, whoa, Brat Pack, cool.

And I think that's what most people felt. They didn't realize that it was a winking kind of pejorative that the fancy New York beret-wearing critic bestowed upon us. I think regular people just thought, fucking cool. I wish I was in the Brat Pack. That's how I felt as a teenager. To me, it just seemed like jealousy if people were picking apart. Cause I was just like, I like all the movies these people are making. So I don't know. I don't know why we're bitching about them. What, uh, what from a party standpoint, so you're coming into real prominence here and this is the height of the cocaine era, the party era, the whole thing. It's in LA. Nobody knows. Nobody knows cocaine is really bad yet,

although we have an idea. Belushi dies in 82. Thank you. This is what I, this is what I keep telling everybody is like, it's hard to imagine today that there was a moment in time where not only was cocaine not bad for you, like it helped your thinking. It was good for you. It was good for concentration and your brain and wasn't addicting. I mean, it's not heroin for God's sakes. And it was what successful people did. Yeah. It was honestly, like today's wine, I've been sober now 30 years. So I know I was never a wine guy. So I don't really know. But what I observed today is this sort of wine culture is what cocaine was. It's like in that we're all very refined and very successful. We're going to talk about our cocaine now.

And, um, I assume, okay, it's from a dentist. Actually. It's, um,

it's pure blue, Bolivian ship. Like it's the same rigmarole you hear at a restaurant. I was like, Oh, this is a, an Oki, uh,

Napa Valley. That's what it was. Nobody thought it was bad. We learned. Right. I think, I think the Len bias thing in sports was the turning point for that. That was June 86, but I remember, I remember where I was. I was walking up to the,

to the lunch truck on a movie called a square dance. And you know, no one was a bigger Laker super fan is me and Jack Nicholson. We were the two. Yeah. And, and I, and somebody told me that he had, he had passed away and I thought, Oh my God. And that, that was sort of the beginning of it. Yeah. And I think you look back now and you think, I've talked about this before in the podcast, but movies, TV, music, sports, and comedy. So you take those five things and you think of cocaine from 77 to 86 and everybody. And if you're successful, it's you're doing it the same way. Like we drink coffee now, you know, and it's like,

yeah, I'm a, I have a coffee in the morning. It's not bad for me. It's fine. It's manageable. They sold it on every movie set I was ever on ever. You think about that today. Can you imagine you're working for Amblin entertainment? You're on Jurassic world. Who's selling the blow? Oh, it's, it's a camera department's doing it. Oh, okay. Great. Thanks understand like i also people things are so different when we were doing outsiders tommy howell's i think 14 yeah and i was 17 and the legal drinking age in most states was 21 it might have been 18 in Tulsa. But either way, Tommy's 14. We would get in the van after work every day,

and they would give us a case of beer. Crazy. It's just a different time. Yeah, it's pretty fascinating to look back on. It obviously claimed some victims. One other thing with St. Elmo's Fire, when you talk about the 80s, it's honestly one of the most

80s movies. If you're just like pick five movies from the 80s and just use them as a way to explain the 80s to somebody who didn't get it, they would definitely be one of the five. There's like that crazy Emilio Estevez where he basically stalks

Andy McDowell's character the whole movie, follows her three hours to the ski lodge, and then it's like, it's cool. Oh, all right. I think if somebody made that movie and that was a key point of the movie now, people would be like, what the hell is going on?

This guy needs help. They get a restraining order after the first scene and there'd be no story. Yeah get a restraining order immediately. After the first scene and there'd be no story. Yeah. So it is definitely dated. Hey, let's take a break

to talk about HBO Max. If you're doing more searching than streaming these days, well, HBO Max, a new streaming platform where all HBO meets the greatest collection of movies and shows.

Just recently, my wife and I have been plowing through Sex and the City, which you can find We'll be right back. Superheroes and supervillains from DC. Family favorites like Sesame Street, Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo. You can even find a Rob Lowe movie that we talked about on this podcast, The Outsiders. If you just want to know what we're talking about with The Outsiders, just go to HBO Max. It's right there. They also have new Max originals for everyone. All your favorites all in one place for just $14.99 per month. I think my favorite thing about HBO Max is how easy it is to actually look for stuff. One of my pet peeves with streaming services is when you're watching something and then you go back and it's hard to figure out how to go backwards or go back into the library or skip

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So you weren't done. Oxford blue sin. I was fine. You're ripping them off now. Then you, then you decided to delve into the world of hockey. Young bud, which a very respected hockey movie in the hockey circles.

Um, did you know how to skate before the movie? I skated in the way that every Christmas you would go to the local tree cutting down place and put on the feet, put on the figure skates and work, and work your way around the rink. That was it. So I, the answer is no. Um, so I, I trained for that movie so hard. The, the, the legacy of that movie for me is my love of training, which incidentally I didn't love when I started. I hated it. I remember my body felt like I'd been run over by a truck. It was brutal. I would vomit a lot of times, skate to the boards and just hurl. It was the first time I ever lifted weights.

All of that stuff I learned on Youngblood, and I still do it to this day. But I trained for probably six to eight weeks. And by the time we shot, I was a really good skater. Really, really good skater. Really, really good skater. Still not very good stick handling. So whenever, when you watch the movie,

anytime there's a puck, it's not me. But the rest of the skating would all be me. And they would use some intentional slow-mo too. To make it look good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So Swayze's in that. You're back with Swayze. And then Keanu Reeves is the goalie. I thought he was an actual goalie. I didn't realize that that person, who never said a word, I thought he was French-Canadian. I thought he was a goalie.

And it wasn't until many, many years later and many movies later that I realized that it was Keanu Reeves. I never knew, not one day, that that was Keanu Reeves in the movie when I was working with him. That is a respected hockey movie. And what's funny is it's basically a Tom Cruise template movie where it's like young hotshot thinks he's better than everybody needs to come up and has a mentor. Oh, guess what? Something horrible is going to happen to the mentor. Is this guy going to make it?

I made it. Well, yeah. Let's see if the young hotshot now could carry the load. Like Tom Cruise made that movie five times, but I feel like young blood came before all of them. Oh no. Also for there's the Matthew Modine movie, Vision Quest.

I mean, everybody was doing it. Remember Vision Quest? He's a wrestler, but I don't know how good a wrestler he is. He's got to drop some weight to fight shoot. He's got to wrestle his way to some sort of comeuppance. And then Madonna's going to be in it, singing in the bar, because that's

what happens when you're in Pennsylvania and you're a hard scrabble wrestler. Donna's in your bar. She had to get her. Yeah, it was actually, it was worth the Pennsylvania. I think it was like Spokane, Washington, but she was passing through. She was on tour. Yeah, she passed through.

Singing, singing crazy for you. It's, you just cannot make this up. No, no, it was a good one. And then the last one about last night, which I think has this up. No, no, it was a good one. Uh, and then the last one about last night, which I think has held up. Yeah. I think if you're talking about rom-com recipes, yeah, it's one of the best ones. It's one of the best kind of capturing of how the arc of a relationship and how it can go up and down and how it can get screwed up. And it's very eighties. Um, the whole dynamic of this guy's got a buddy,

she's got her buddy, the way they talk separately, they come together. Like it's all shit. That's been ripped off now for 35 years. I don't really know what was a version of that before about last night. You might've actually been the first. Cause then when Harry met Sally comes two and a half years later,

three years later, and then everybody's like, Oh yeah, let's go. Let's do this thing. It's so funny. You met it's you're the only person who's ever mentioned it that, that way. Cause I very quietly have always been like, you know what? Fuck when Harry met Sally, I made that fucking movie. These guys just fucking ripped it off and made it probably better. I don't know. I'm not so sure about that. I love about last night. It's funny. It's really well written. Um, there's just something really special about me to me and I together in that movie. I agree. Elizabeth, Elizabeth Perkins is, she never worked before. Absolutely genius debut performance and Belushi, um, Jim created the role on stage before he ever played it in the movie because it was a David Mamet play. Well, it was a famous play now. And it was a play that I remember when I was in college, I was taking a playwriting course.

It was one of the ones they gave us. Like, read the dialogue in this. This is how you do it. And I was like, wait, this is about last night. But yeah, all of it. It's so funny how it basically created the template. Gets no kudos. None. No recognition.

None of that stuff. The whole arc of we're in love. Oh, the guy screwed it up. Now he's in the dumps sad music him walking in the rain that maybe he could win her back how about the falling in love montage oh yeah there's some good montages they and plus they're used in chicago too yeah you got bob seger one of my favorite lost bob seger songs living inside my, her heart or whatever. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's the soundtrack to that. Um, John weight song at the end. This, I actually think the

soundtrack to about last night is better than the soundtrack to St. Elmo's fire. I think I agree with you. St. Elmo's fire, actual song, St. Elmo's fire. I need to tape the edited TV version of it to watch with my daughter. Cause I'm not watching the unedited version there's a couple you are not you went for it you got you didn't do me more went for it a couple times in that movie probably not uh that's the other thing is is the in those days everybody was nude everybody and and and every single movie had to have what we blatantly just called without thinking there's anything wrong with it, a sex scene.

Every movie. When I would get scripts, I would always look on page 73. Whatever reason, they were always on page 73. And when you think about it as a writer, it makes perfect sense. Page 73 is sort of mid-second act when traditionally it's the doldrums of storytelling. Yeah. So how do you, how do you solve that? I know we will get them naked. So I would check the page 73 to see how bad or good, depending on your perspective it was going to be. But about last night, I mean, we're, we're running like monkeys in that goddamn movie.

I think that movie is really good. And people listening to this, I would urge you to go find it on whatever streaming service it landed on because I do, I really do think it holds up and it really uses Chicago nicely, which is the other thing. It's a good Chicago movie. It's my favorite. It's my favorite movie that I've ever done.

Wow. It is. It's 100% people. I love St. Elmo's fire. People like St. Elmo's fire. I like, you know, all of the stuff I started to do later, favorite it's my favorite movie that i've ever done wow it is it's it 100 people i love st almost fire people like st almost fire i like you know all of the stuff i started to do later but you know of of the stuff i did early in my career it's not even a close call for me that that would be the one i would have people see what would be the silver medalist? Outsiders just because it's, you know, it's, it's Coppola and it was the first and it, it also still is a, uh, an evergreen.

Can I ask what your life was like, um, from a romantic standpoint, as you're ripping off this run of movies and living in LA, like where were you settled down with people? Were you jumping around? Like how crazy did it get? It's everything you can imagine and more. Um, like I was like the Shaquille O'Neal of actors. Like, you know, when you're with Shaq, you know, you're going to have fun. Yeah. Like that's, that's sort of was my, my thing. Nobody's going to get hurt. Nobody's going to make any false promises. It is what it is. You only live once. Let's go. And that's, that's the way I live. My, I really did live my life in the eighties and, and, um, you know, I, I, it was really fun. I gotta be honest. I had a blast. I,

I'm glad that I grew up, that I got to the point in my life Where I wanted more from life And where I put that in its proper perspective But You know If you're young and famous And got money and it's the 80s You know that's

That's no time to go to the monastery Right Matt Dillon's in there too Oh like I said, I learned everything I ever needed to learn from the goat. Wait. So when you saw like, so 10 years later,

Leo's hits. Oh, it's funny. I think about that a lot. I think about, cause you know, he's, he's on Mount Rushmore.

He's on Mount Rushmore. Nobody says to Leo, you're like the old, but you're like on the NBA team. You're like the veteran at that point. You're like Chris Bosh, 10 years in the league, watching the new rookie come in and go, oh, look at this, this guy.

Well, because the other part of it is that we, when I was coming up, the ultimate guy that I admired was the goat of all goats, and that was Warren Beatty, who no one will ever have a run like he had. And that was kind of baked into what you aspired to. It's like, I'm not sure that it was all that healthy to be out running around as much as I did, but that's what my hero did. And he was winning Oscars. So, okay, that's what I'm going to do. I want to be Warren Beatty.

And I think that all comes, they're still out there. And I got to say, the retired old Yoda in me is very bemused to sit back and watch young Mr. DiCaprio. I doffed my hat. When you aged

out of those kind of college, young adult type of movies, I thought it was really interesting how you shifted and you started making movies like Masquerade, but then when you started doing the SNL stuff, that was when I felt like

you recreated what I thought of you recreated what I thought of you and what I thought your arc was going to be. Because I think a lot of people who succeeded in the 80s, it kind of stayed in the 80s. And it was hard to evolve. And the shocking thing for me was the first time you hosted SNL.

And it was like... Thank you. I'm so glad you watched that. That's cool. Oh my God. I was a huge SNL guy. But the whole episode where it was just like, wait, wait, Rob Lowe's funny. When did this happen? I had no idea. And just being shocked by it. And then that led to you being in some of the Lorne Michaels movies and all that stuff. But yeah, you must've been frustrated that people didn't see you that way. I, I, there was a little bit of that. Cause I was, I was a Saturday Night Live fan from day one. Everything I ever learned about comedy, I learned from watching that show. Like I was obsessed with it like you were, of all people was like, you know what? You're funny. You're a

funny fucker. And I felt like I'd been knighted by the queen of England, the king of England. And, um, and it was so fulfilling for me. And that led, as you, as you say, it led to, you know, the Austin powers, the Wayne's worlds, the Tommy boys, and all of that, that stuff that I continue to do is all because of Lauren. And, um, and I can't, I couldn't have found a better, a better person to sort of give me my credentials than Lauren.

It was kind of the rich man's Ted McGinley part that we grew up with in the seventies, right? That the handsome guy is kind of a dick. Yeah, I did. That was, if there's,'s if there's any what's the word i'm like sort of hesitation i have about all those movies is that it was such a cottage industry of rich handsome dick which is why i always liked tommy boy a lot because it was still in that genre, but he was like white trash, a grifter,

a hustler. And it wasn't like smooth. Mr. Ferrari guy from Wayne's world. We just stayed. We do the podcast podcast on the ringer called the rewatchables where we, we rewatch old movies that we've seen a million times. And we did Tommy boy a couple of months ago.

And, uh, to me, it's like the perfect comedy. It's Chris Farley, obviously his greatest moment that's been captured. It's perfect use of them. I love when people go on road trips, all the side characters are perfect. Like it's just, it hits every check Mark. And what's weird is it wasn't considered that successful when it came out, but now it's beloved. And it's so funny how that happens sometimes with comedies where it's almost like a bottle of wine.

It has to ferment or whatever. It does. It's amazing. And I'm thrilled to be a part of it because I know intimately how it came about, what it was like to shoot, how it was perceived when it came out, that now day in and day out, when I see how much Tommy boy means to people, it blows my mind because I'm like, Tommy boy. And like in,

in, in like sort of the cone of silence when Spade and I are together, we're like, you found Tommy boy. But it is, it is a really, I think the key is Spade and Farley's, their charisma and their true friendship and their weird modern day Laurel and Hardy is just so undeniable.

It's so undeniable and so great. And they're acting. I mean, the dramatic stuff in there is really touching and those two guys crush that's in that movie was it weird to be a dick to chris farley who by all accounts was the most likable human being who ever existed it was i had so much fun playing that part i mean farley was farley was great but i knew i knew i was gonna have a blast when i think it's the best entrance my any character i have ever played has and tommy boy where i on the bus i get off the bus the kid behind me is making faces at me a sweet little

kid i fucking punch the window right in his face and then squeeze up the milk I'm drinking and throw it in a passing baby buggy. Yeah. Like this is awesome. What, what made you, you said you've been sober for 30 years. What made you, what made you become sober was, did you hit a point where you couldn't do, were you falling apart or what was going on? I did. I, everybody who gets sober at some point reaches a bottom and some people's are worse than others. I was never the kind of guy that drank or got fucked up on set ever.

I am a professional pleasure to have in class and always have been. But I was like, work hard, play hard was my motto. And I got to that age, I was about 26, and I started thinking about what I really wanted for my life. And I couldn't keep it together to have a real relationship with any one woman. And that was a big part of it. I knew that if I was still carousing, that was never going to happen. I turned 26 and was just looking at my life and melancholy. My grandfather had just died.

And I had a sort of like, is this all there is? And, you know, moment. And I knew a couple of people who'd gotten sober and they, it had changed their lives. And so I did it. I went to rehab for a month. It was the greatest thing I ever did. I had a, by the way, I had a blast there. Uh, I know it sounds shocking, but I learned so much about why I was the way I was. And it was, it just was, I was ecstatic to finally be like, Oh, I don't have to do this anymore. Because for me, where it ended, people say, what was your bottom?

Here's my bottom. You'll love this. My bottom was Monday Night Football. Monday Night Football became the bane of my fucking existence. Because it would be like, yo, Monday Night Football. Come on, guys. And we would all go over to my house. And we'd all watch Monday Night Football.

And we'd be drinking like you do. And then everybody would leave. I guess you'd still be drinking. And then it would be some more of this. And then I'd call somebody else and then they'd come over. And then so Monday Night Football often for me became Wednesday morning nightmare. So that was not good. And, you know, being being sober now 30 years is, you know, it's given me everything, everything good in my life. You know, my wife, my family, my kids, my career. And I can't recommend it highly enough to people if they're out there and contemplating it. And here's the one thing. And then I'll stop my soapbox. The thing that kept me for the for the longest time uh from getting sober was i thought my life would be over ironically i thought i literally thought well wait a minute so the lakers are gonna win a final and i'm not gonna have a champagne what if i ever have a kid

i'm not gonna like have a glass of glass of whiskey with my bros. What am I going to do on the 4th of July? I'm going to be boring, boring. And that thinking kept me from pulling the trigger for years and years and years. And I've had way more fun sober this amount of time than I ever did in the 80s. And that's saying something. Interesting. Where were you living in your heyday in the 80s?

Oh, you love this. Or was it multiple places? Oh, right. This tells you all you need to know. The very first house I ever bought, it was in the Hollywood Hills, and I remember buying it because it was 12 minutes from the Hard Rock Cafe. If that isn't the most embarrassing, mortifying,

and insightful look into the thinking what street what street are we talking how far down are we nickels canyon i was up in nickels canyon it was very hotel california it was like it when you walked into the doors of that house, you knew exactly what the future for you was going to be. Was it like, was it over the top, like a big portrait of yourself in the living room? No, no, no, no. It was, it was, I mean, I, I not to pop myself, I think I've always had pretty good taste. It was, it was very, um, Adrian line. Oh yeah. Meets Miami vice. Great.

So like Michael Mann could have shot a movie. 100%. 100% Michael Mann. Exactly. That's exactly what it was like. In fact, when I sold it, I sold it to an Oscar winning production designer. Can we talk Lakers really quick?

Oh yeah. All right. I think we should end on this because I want you to come back. I want to save some stuff for the next time. Yeah, we have to, you were, you were there for a bunch and I know you talked to magic Johnson on your podcast. You were there for a bunch of the good ones in the eighties, the glory days. You have to bill have to download my podcast next week for magic. Because I don't know if you ever have this in your life where you go, hey, am I crazy or did such and such happen? As time goes on, you go, I'm imagining this or I'm making more of this than it actually was. Right. So as I think about my time with the Lakers, I thought I I'm imagining it. It was never really like that or was it? And then I get magic

on the podcast and we started going down the rabbit hole together. Yeah. And it is every bit of what I remember and more. It was extraordinary to be a part of that. And by the way, to be a part of it, I act like I had a triple double. I was a fucking guy at a ticket. That's all I was. But I was friends with all of them. I was, I traveled on the road with, with the team. If I wasn't shooting a movie, you know, I would, I would fill my social time, um, with, with, um, you know, basketball. I loved it. You never get credit when they rattle off all the celebrities from the Lakers there. It's always the default is always Jack Nicholson, Diane Cannon, um, flea flea gets in there. Not a lot of Rob Lowe. You need different PR for your basketball fandom.

Well, I introduced to the court Exhibit A, the testimony of Magic Johnson. And he will tell you. You know, I got banned from the hotel by Pat Riley. That's a badge of honor. Wait. Because he was worried about your influence on some of his players. 100%.

What would the, uh, the first Pistons final in those days, the format was you were, it was like two, three, two or whatever. Yeah.

So you'd, you'd be stuck. Oh yeah. Road for like a, like a week. It just was forever. So we're in, you know, it was the Superdome then. And we're out in whatever hotel outskirts that we are.

And, you know, the fans would show up and the girls would show up. And Riley would just look at me and shake his head like you little fucker. And finally they, they banned me from staying the same hotel as, as, as the Lakers. And as magic pointed out on the podcast, which made me laugh, he goes,

yeah, I remember that because they, they made you, we couldn't be with our wives either. So they put you in the hotel with the wives. I thought, well, that isn't the smartest plan either.

Who was, who was the most fun Laker other than magic? Oh, Michael Cooper. Come on. Really? Michael Cooper. I wouldn't have guessed that. Oh yeah. He was my, he was my other run. Like you, he was the guy who would, you know, hit Mr. Chow's with you at midnight after the game. Michael Cooper. I wouldn't have guessed that one. I went out with Michael Cooper after, and you can do the stats on this one. It's the Detroit series.

And I had him out late. That's all I'm going to say. He promptly went on a zero for like 40 shooting tear to end the finals. That's why Riley didn't like me around. It's probably the right move. Did Kareem like you or no?

Kareem didn't like a lot of people. Captain, I love the captain. And captain is, people ask me like, what's Kareem like? And this is Kareem. Like, let's say you crash landed in Antarctica and you barely survived for three months and you're walking across through a blinding freezing arctic snowstorm and there's another fucking human being there and it's getting closer and

closer and you go oh my fucking god that's kareem abdul-jabbar you'd be like fuck thank you kareem and kareem would go hey how you doing that's. If you ran into Kareem in our, in our, he's very low key. And, um, he was very much kept to himself. Um, but the, the, the great move I learned from Kareem was early on before the Lakers had a, their own plane and they flew commercial, which wasn't often. Kareem will put a blanket over his entire body and sit there like a ghost. So you imagine you seven, four,

like a blanket on him just as people are filing in, getting their seats, putting their luggage on. He's just got a blanket over his entire face body. I'm like, that's a good move. That's a good way to disappear. I did.

I spent a year with magic cause we did TV together and we would, you know, we, sometimes we'd show up, we'd have like eight hours cause we'd be doing double headers. You'd have to come on the halftime. So we'd be, it'd be me, him, Jalen and Wilbon. Right.

And, and I was just, and I had the seat right next to him watching all these games and we were bored. And it was just like, I'm just going to ask magic questions. And I would just ask him. So we would talk about Kareem sometimes. And it was so interesting hearing him talk about Kareem. Like it was still like a big brother, older person,

person he was. And meanwhile, magic's like one of the most successful, uh, ex athletes of all time. He runs a company, but the way he talked about Kareem was still like, almost like he's talking about his dad.

Um, you know, it's that, that's that interesting thing that people like, if someone was famous before you got famous, let's say, and then maybe they never work again. And you're uber famous when you meet them to you, they're still the top dog. Totally. So it's that thing is like,

he's magic will forever be the rookie that jumped into cream's arms at the end of the buzzer beater in San Diego in that first season. And totally be, will be the legend goes easy kid. It's a long season. It's my favorite story. Well, it's a long season. It's my favorite story. Well, it was a great one. He told this,

I hope I'm not talking out of school, he told this story about when the famous game when he wins, when he plays center because Kareem sprains his ankle and Kareem doesn't go to Philly with them. They're up 3-2, they win the 1980 finals, Magic has his iconic game.

He was saying the plane lands back in LA and Kareem is waiting for them and goes on the plane and was so happy. He was just like, I couldn't believe, man. Seeing Cap like that, he just didn't get

like that. He was just so happy and he's hugging people. That meant more to magic than winning the finals MVP that he had like, please Kareem. And it was, it was a hundred percent genuine, you know? And, uh, I was, I was really liked their relationship. He's magic's a great guy. I'm, I'm still pro magic. We only spent a year together, but he, uh, he was so much fun to talk to and was such a resource on seventies, eighties, nineties basketball, you know, cause in the seventies, he's playing college, but he's playing. It's all the NBA players during the summer. So he had this whole, I coached his, uh, his, his famous game that he used to have every summer at the, um,

it was, uh, midsummer nights, midsummer night's magic. It was called for the, uh, uh, United Negro college fund. And he raised a ton of money. And everybody showed for him that magic called you, you showed. And I remember the first time magic and Jordan ever played basketball together. I was coach. I was their coach. I didn't have much to say to them other than be better. And I think that that team scored 149 points. I mean, no, no, sorry. More like 200, whatever it was, there was no defense involved. None. You know, so we had talked about doing a documentary

about those, those games. Magic magic that year we spent together, magic would always talk about, man, if we ever got all the tapes to those games and we kind of kicked the tires on it, we couldn't figure out what the story was, but it was, he was just like, every year I had the best players in the league and all of the celebrities, and we would all have this game. And I think we videotaped it and we were like, what? Um, so we definitely, uh, checked out. I remember there was a, I can't imagine, this is how bad a coach I was. At some point in the game, I had Magic

and Jordan on the bench next to me. Clearly, I must not have been any good. But the reason I remember it was Carl Malone, who was a rookie that year, I believe, came flying down on the wing right in front of us as we were sitting there and it was like a,

a train going by, you know, when the air goes by after, and he like ruffled our hair. Wow. And I'll, and I'll never forget. There's a beat of silence and,

uh, magic turned to Michael and goes, would you ever take a charge from that man? And Michael looked and said, fuck no. Well, and then Carl Malone learned how to put his knee up as he did that too. So he was basically like, you're staying out of my way or you're getting a knee really hard in their chest. What was the best Laker game you ever went to? Just

out of curiosity. What's the number one? I mean, it has to be the baby hook game in the Boston, Boston garden. I was at that game. You went to that game. Yep. I, and I tell the story on the podcast. It's, it's really kind of a insane story in my, about how I got there. Cause I had to, I had to get, I had to be taken out on a Zodiac and long Island sound under a blanket for a sea plane to get me. So the people making the movie didn't know I was leaving. Oh my God. Oh, it's crazy. And then I get there just to tip off and I'm seated next to ML car and we start fighting. And so then I had to be taken out of the stands and then they take me up to the Celtics owners box of all places. And Irvin had never heard this story. Yeah. And so I'm sharing this with him on the podcast. He was like, wait,

you were with the owners of the Celtics. I'm like, yes. And I said, do you remember we were down 14? He goes, oh yeah. And I'll never forget Michael Cooper being wide open. And in those days, nobody shot three pointers. And if you shot a three pointer with nobody under the basket, you were sitting your ass down the next two minutes. That's how different the NBA is now. And Coop pulls up with nobody around the basket, drains a three, and I turned to the owners of the Celtics and I said, we're going to win this game. And then of course, magic hit the famous baby hook. And so that was the first one. Yeah, but you thought birdshot was going in at the end though. One, I'll tell you, not only did I think it was going in because the old garden was so steep that the, the, the boxes were so high up.

I could look directly down into the cylinder. That's how high up they were. So when bird took that shot and we talked about this too, that shot I thought was going in, it did go in and out. But when it left his hand, I thought we're fucked. We, um, that's my toughest loss. I'm a, as a diehard Celtic fan, I was sitting mid court. I was online with the shot. So I'm sitting, he's releasing in the basket and it's dead on. And he missed it by a thumb,

a thumbnail, but in the crowd had like the loudest, like, and then it just went silent. It was, there has never been a game like that. There's never been a game like that, right? No, because the Celtics, they were defending champs.

They lose Lembias, all the injuries, and they're just fighting and fighting and fighting, and that Laker team was so good, and it really just seemed like, oh, my God, we might steal this game. And then the key to the skyhook was the Miss Kareem free throw where Michael Thompson goes over McHale's back and they don't call the foul. I'll never get over that.

No call. It still hurts. It still hurts. That was a no call. It was a foul. You got called. So you're trying to tell me in that era of basketball. Yeah, I am.

That you want a ticky tack foul called. We're in Boston. You're in our house. We get that call. You keep dreaming. Why, why weren't you ever in a basketball movie or were you, and I don't remember it. What would it have been? There was never one done while I was, I mean, Hoosiers, I would have been too old. Um, and what blue chip blue chips, he could have been like a hotshot GM. Who's his own worst enemy. You could have done like the

blueprint. Well, you know, I am, I'm developing the Rob Palenka story. I'm going to play Rob Palenka. That's so weird. I I'm glad you that. You're the Lakers GM who looks like you, this team that you loved. And now the GM is like, you could go out as brothers. Actually, we did an event for season ticket holders, Jeannie. And I've known the Buss family forever, obviously. And Jeannie said, hey, why don't you come on and do a bit? So we had all the season ticket holders. And she kept saying, Rob's going to come out and talk to you about the season.

Rob's got a lot of ideas about the players, Rob. And then I came out. I thought it was going to be Lincoln. Oh, that's great. Yeah. All right. Listen, I really appreciate this. This was really fun.

I could talk to you for seven hours. Good luck with your podcast. Good luck with the, you're still doing the Fox show, right? Oh yeah. I got Mental Samurai, which is my competition show. And a 911 loan start both coming back next year. Staying busy. Pleasure talking to you. Nice to finally meet you. Good luck with everything. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it again, man. Thank you, brother.

All right. Thanks so much to Rob Lowe and Don Cheadle. Thanks to Simply Safe, the home security for right now and feeling safe at home has never been more important. Designed to be easy to use while protecting your whole home 24-7, starting at 50 cents a day. Order online easily. Open the box. Place the sensors. Plug it in. Your home is protected around the clock.

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interesting way. Start streaming today. Download the app or visit hbomax.com to start your free trial. Free trial for new customers only. Restrictions do apply. We'll be back Sunday night. See you then. I don't have.