The Flop House - The Flop House Movie Minute #14 - McShane-McCain

Episode Date: October 11, 2008

In the first edition of Name Droppin', Elliott talks about working with Ian McShane.

And now the flop house movie minute. So Elias, you did a... Hold on. No, that was perfect. Well, fuck it up. We gotta do it again. Stop fucking it up, Baron. Take two.

So, Elias, you did the John McCain video for the Daily Shows Convention Cup. It's called the John McCain Biofilm. Yeah. take to so you did the uh... john mccain video for the uh... daily shows convention coverage called the john mccain biofilm yeah uh... that was uh... narrated by a big hollywood star was it not it was a transatlantic hollywood star mister in mccain was like wearing with him

let me tell you what anyone who's not read about familiar with the name in mccain is best known in england for his character love joy we've been the uh... rogish antiques dealer who solves crimes but uh... here in the united states is best known as al swerging on deadwood the best character on the show one of the best characters on television the past couple years who's also in uh... death race he's in death race he was in scoop

uh... he was the voice of the evil polar bear in Golden Compass And he's a voice and something else coming up too He was he was in hot rod the anvy sandberg film hot rod. Yeah, he was Yeah, I didn't know that it's disappointing. He's a body is really good and I regret completely that I missed the recent run of Harold Pinter's the homecoming that he was in on Broadway But I was doing this McCain bio film and it was all about how McCain's a tough guy and a maverick and there was a lot of cowboy imagery in it. And I said the guy I'd really want to work with is Ian McShane.

So I went to our guest booker and I said, let me know if this is realistic. I'd like to get Ian McShane and she said, yeah, we can do that. And then told me that it's a common request for her to get Leonardo DiCaprio to work on pieces and things like that. So she said, in McShane is a big name, but I think he is more doable than Leonardo DiCaprio. So then that's a little look behind the scenes of how the Daily Show works. We put off recording his voice track as long as possible so that we could get the script in shape.

So it was about a month almost between when I suggested him and when we actually recorded and we had to reschedule him a couple times because it was just not ready for him. But he was very nice and very politely kept rescheduling. He recorded in Los Angeles and I was in St. Paul, Minnesota at the time. So it was all over the phone and then here's another look behind the curtain. The way they do this, they record it in LA. Then they upload it to the internet on an FTP site and we download it, very exciting. We'd like satellites and stuff. No, more like just the internet. The fiber optics, is there some sort of... Those might be involved, it depends on their connection, maybe there's DSL lines, I don't know.

Is it radioactive in some light? No, not at all. Do we get it from the Egyptians? No, they didn't know about this. No Stargates were not from the Egyptians. They were from the ancient alien civilization that inspired the Egyptians I gotta watch that movie one of the things that bugs me about Stargate is you'll read descriptions where it's like Aliens who imitated ancient Egypt and are now and it's like no That you're supposed to get that the Egyptians imitated the aliens They built the pyramids because they wanted to have things that looked like spaces.

Is that what it says on the Netflix sleeve or? That's what I don't know. What it says on... Hey, they have a TV show based on Stargate now. That's really weird. Anyway, I'll finish this story by the end of the show. It was one of the coolest experiences I've had working at the Daily Show, aside from fist pounding,

Barack Obama, when my hands had Dorito crumbs all over them and I couldn't shake his hand. But that's another name-drafting story unrelated to movies at all. He was very polite, he was ready to go through the script any number of times as much as he needed to, and he has, he's English, so he has an English accent, and then he turns on the al-swarringin American accent and it's really cool and I would do an impression of it but I can't do it justice. We had been working with a scratch track that I was recording so we had my voice reading this stuff in my approximation of what it would sound like.

So the first line was he was a Maverick so it would be like he was a Maverick, exactly sounding like that. And then we would replace it with Ian McShane's voice and suddenly the whole thing would come Alive and not sound shitty because I was completely wrong for that part. You're not wrong for any part. Thank you for that This is awkward. We're being recorded right now Ian McShane It was just amazing and exciting to work with him someone I'd seen on TV a lot and Was a huge fan of and he was very he was the kind of thing where you are involved with someone you're a fan of and you find out

that they're very nice and are a pleasure to work with. And so it's exciting and you know, the only time that I was ever happy to learn that someone I was a fan of was not the nicest guy was when I met Kurt Vonnegut. And we had been told ahead of time we could go down and talk to Kurt Vonnegut and he would sign a book of time we could go down and talk to Kurt Vonnegut and he would sign a book for us and we go down and he sees us walking the room and he goes, do we have to? And it was like, oh Kurt Vonnegut, that was perfect. That's exactly what I would imagine

you were like a crusty old man. But this was the exact opposite of that. He was really nice to work with and did it, I think, just as a favor for us. Very exciting. So that has been the first episode of Name Dropping with the Flop House. Next time I'll tell you the exciting story of how I went to high school with a famous movie star. Who was it? And you won't watch her topless. Andy Rooney.