The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 162: Adnan Virk - ESPN Broadcaster: Why You Should Always Say Yes

Episode Date: September 25, 2016

Episode 162: Adnan Virk - ESPN Broadcaster: Why You Should Always Say Yes Adnan Virk works for ESPN. He is the first Muslim Sports anchor to be hired by ESPN. Adnan is one of the most versatile talents in all of ESPN. He is one of three main anchors for Baseball Tonight. In the baseball off-season, he has hosted SportsCenter and Outside the Lines. He is known as someone who will always say "yes" when a leader calls and asks him to fill in. He has filled in for Keith Olbermann, Mike and Mike, SVP & Russilo, and many others. He is a "cinephile." Adnan has an immense love for film, regularly picks the Oscars, and does movie reviews on radio and TV. Recently, he started his own podcast titled, "Cinephile - The Adnan Virk Movie Podcast." He interviews actors and reviews movies.  Some of his guests have been: Robert DeNiro (that story is discussed in depth on this episode), Viggo Mortensen, Denis Leary, Will Arnett, and more. His love (and knowledge) of movies is evident during this conversation. Episode 162: Adnan Virk - ESPN Broadcaster: Why You Should Always Say Yes Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show "You will always have a job if you can do a lot of things. But you REALLY get paid if you can do one thing extremely well." - Mike Greenberg In This Episode, You Will Learn: The Top 5 Tom Hanks movies (we respectfully disagree but had fun discussing) The reason he became a sportscaster How he got his job at ESPN Why he chose to study Broadcasting in college Where his love of film came from Originally wanting to be a director and the moment when he realized he should do something else (and why) What he learned writing his first script -- "You have to be economical with your words" The impact his movie knowledge had on his co-workers at ESPN -- And opportunities it created for him Being a "generalist" -- How and why it's helped him Movie Reviews - Big, Top Gun, Rounders, Cast Away "You will always have a job if you can do a lot of things. But you really get paid if you can do one thing extremely well." His interview preparation process A great Robert DeNiro story - Meeting him, interviewing him, and what happened after it was over The greatest part about having a podcast Understanding the goals you have for each interview -- Having a plan Have to be prepared Research (a lot) Be prepared to go anywhere "Whenever there is an opening, always show up. Always be there for your boss. Be known as the person who says yes when your boss calls. Don't tell them about the trouble it takes you to say yes, just do it. Show up." "Whatever your passion is... You have to find it. And do it. You need new challenges and goals to be entertained." Continue Learning: To Listen to his podcast: Cinephile: The Adnan Virk Movie Podcast To Follow Adnan on Twitter: @adnanESPN To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12 You may also like these episodes: Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon Episode 071: Nate Boyer - Green Beret, Texas Football, The NFL Episode 047: David Marquet - "Turn The Ship Around" Episode 107: Simon Sinek – Leadership: It Starts With Why Did you enjoy the podcast? If you enjoyed hearing Adnan Virk on the show, please don't hesitate to send me a note on Twitter or email me. Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell The Learning Leader Show is supported by Daor Design - Daor Design will help you build your brand like nobody's business. Most of their work falls into one of four categories: Logo Design, Print Design, Web Design or Digital Marketing. They pride themselves in being a trusted, valued resource for their growing family of clients.

I really wanted to be a director. I wanted to be like Scorsese. I want to make my own movies. Now, the son of Pakistani immigrants, they're not going to give me $40,000 to go to college and whatever the hell study film means. So I figured the smartest way to do it was to say, I'm going to go for broadcasting, radio and television arts. Because I did really like broadcasting.

I figured, you know what, I love movies and sports. So if I get a job in either one, I'm pretty much good to go. So I went to Radio and Television Arts, Ryerson University, downtown Toronto, where I was born, but we moved on. I was so young, I was six. This was really my true experience of being in Toronto, this big city, which was kind of overwhelming at the time. But I remember the first day of class, we went around the room, Ryan, and they said to us, what do you want to do? And some kids would say, I want to be an actor, some kids, I want to be a director.

And I said, I go, I'm going to be a director, and I'm going to do what Robert Alpin did, director of Nashville and the player and shortcuts, which was be a TV director that he said we had to movies. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science. behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey, and welcome to The Learning Leader Show.

I am Ryan Hawke, and thank you so much for being here. What a fun, enjoyable, and entertaining conversation I had with Adnan Verk. Adnan is a sports reporter and host with ESPN. He is the host of baseball tonight as well as, ESPN college football coverage. You'll also find him filling in for many of the talented people at ESPN. Mike and Mike, Keith Olberman, Ryan Rusillo, SVP, he's always there, always shows up. And that was a part of our conversation.

A few of the other topics we got into. The advantage to being a generalist versus a specialist. And then how he became an ESPN broadcaster to the path he took to get in there. And then his love for film and movies. This was the bulk of our conversation. He started its own podcast. within ESPN called Cinephile, where all he does is talk about film and movies. It is phenomenal.

I absolutely love this one. I think you'll be able to hear it my voice with Adnan Burke. All right, Adnan, I'm so pumped to have you here, man. There's a number of different ways I think we could start this conversation. But given the fact that you are an ESPN personality, talent, however, you also have your own podcast that is focused solely on film and movies is something that I have. absolutely love. And I know I told you that prior to us recording. So the first thing, though, I have to get this out here because this is, this is recently, I know that you've been talking about. It's on Twitter. Your top five Tom Hanks movies. I want to get your list. And then I have

to share mine with you so we can get it kicked off the right way. Yeah, first off, Brian, thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it. And I'm glad to be not only been bit by the podcast bug, as you said, by doing my own now with Cineophile, but also appearing on yours. So I think it's good. I feel like it's this community that's growing. And once everybody's kind of been a part of the podcast revolution, we're all kind of eager to help each other out. So it's my pleasure for being here. Thanks. Yeah. So what we did was Dan Stangick was the producer of Cineophile. He throws out who he thinks we should do. We do an actor showcase list on Cineafile. So every two weeks we do the podcast. He said, let's go big. Let's go Hanks because Sully's coming out. I said, all right. And in the midst of it,

recording, he was howling because of the disdain I have for Forrest Gump. So I said, all right, the next time we do Mike and Mike together because Dan's primary job is he's the radio producer of Mike and Mike. So when I was filling in, I said, let's go ahead and do some Hanks. And Danny Connell, who I was with is always game for whatever. So I knew Danny would be one to have some fun as well. So Labor Day on Monday, we did my top five Hanks movies. And of course, I trashed forest scumper than everybody got upset about it. Although, I'll say this, I feel rather vindicated by the man of people who supported me in my disdain for the film. My issue of the movies, I just, I just find it so cornball and so syrupy and so schmaltzy and just contrived and all those types of emotions that I don't like

when I go to the movies. I don't want to be told how to feel. I don't like on the nose music cues. I don't like being force fed sentimentality. And to me, Forrest Gump has all of those issues. So to me, my issue with it, there's twofold. One, I don't think it's a very good movie. I don't think Tom Hanks should want an Oscar for it. I thought he was fine. I don't think he should have been nominated for an Oscar even. I thought he was fine. Like, listen, I get, I get that it's a tricky role. Not a lot of people could do it, and he did a decent job with it, but that's it, period. It shouldn't be Oscar winner.

It shouldn't be one of the great performances of all time. That's lunacy. And I really like Tom Hanks, because we're going to get to the top five, which are the movies that I do love of his. And as far as the movie itself, the second issue. So, one, I don't think it's a very good movie. Two, I get outraged because it be Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption and Quiz Show. And Lion King, for God's sakes, which is another great movie.

Somebody reminded me of Lion King. I forgot. That came about 94, too. 94 is like one of the great movies of all time, Ryan, years. And Paul Fiction is one of my all-time favorites. And Charlshank, too. Right? I mean, seriously, when Charles-Shank's on, like, everybody listening stops and watches it.

Like, I've seen it a thousand times and I still watch it every time. Yeah. And the crazy thing was a commercial failure. When it came out, it didn't make a dime. But it got a second life on that at the time, VHS and now DVD. And then people saw it and rediscovered it and they love it now. So my issue is not only the fact that, like I said, Hanks and the movie. I think is overrated, but the fact that it won best picture for those movies is insane.

But the long preamble there, the top five for me, number five is saving Private Ryan. To me, it's a quintessential Hank's role because it's all but his nobility and the fact that he's this heroic character who's trying to do the right thing. It's really a director showcase. It's Spielberg's movie, and especially the first 15 minutes, which is often talked about for its brilliance and deservedly so. You know, sometimes in those kind of movies, the directors and the special effects and take over, but I think he's fortunate.

Spielberg was that he cast Hanks because he's able to kind of anchor the movie, which is Again, the plot and then the narrative isn't fairly threadbare. I mean, we're just trying to say, if I were right, and that's about it. But he really holds it together just with the expressions on his faces. Number four is Toy Story. I love his voice work. I think that he's so good as Woody. And that whole trilogy, I mean, Toy Story 3 to me is heartbreaking.

Like, it's actually a truly great film. And Hank says he's just such a spaz, and his energy has put to really good use in that movie. Number three, I've got to put some comedies in. So I put in big, and I thought it was the first movie that he actually got a nomination for for best actor. and there's not many actors that could do that like Tom Hanks, which is to play the, to be an adult, which he is, but to see it through the eyes of a 12-year-old. I mean, that's incredibly difficult to do

and to be childlike and yet, you know, be trying to carry off this posture of being a grown-up, and I thought he was great at not only the humor of the movie, but also the dramatic scenes and the fact he just wants to go home and just wants to see his mom. And there's a great scene, obviously, with Robert Lozier, where he's dancing the F.A.O. Schwartz and the piano. So lots of iconic moments there.

Number two, What did I have number two? Number two is Road to Perdition. My only issue with Hanks, Ryan, I think sometimes is a little bit, and I'm worried about this with Sully. I think he's a little bit safe with his roles. I think he always just picks these guys who are heroic every man. I like when he kind of stretches a bit.

I was so pumped. I'm like, oh, he's playing a gangster? Great. Now, it's not a truly evil gangster, which I would have loved, but he's still the good guy gangster. But still, it was a different role for Hanks, and it did show some depth and range. And the movie itself is really underrated. I mean, the scenes with him and Paul Newman are excellent, beautifully shot by Conno. Ronald Hall, the late cinematographer, directed by Sam Mendes, who won an Oscar for American Beauty.

So I really loved Hanks and Road to Perdition. And number one is Castaway. That one he didn't win an Oscar for. If you'll recall, he went back to back. He went for Philadelphia, which I think is a very good movie. I don't think it's a great one. I think it's very good. And he's good in the movie.

And then he went for Forrest Gown, which I've already said my opinion about. And then Castaway, he was nominated for, but didn't win. And I actually think Castaway's his best film. I think that that's second hour of the movie, the second act, I should say, where it's just him in a freaking volleyball. I mean, that's silent film acting. Like, he's going to carry the movie all by himself, and he's going to show these emotions of longing for his lost love,

of kind of losing his mind because he paints his own blood on this volleyball and starts having conversations with him. The fact he's eating fish every day, the fact he loses 60 pounds, and all leads to that amazing moment when he actually finally does get rescued. I thought he held that movie together the way very few actors could. And I think years from now, if you just said to somebody, who's Tom Hanks and you showed them castaway, you'd say this guy's a pretty damn good actor

and I get why people love them so much. Man, you just come out swinging. I did not tip you off you purposely. And I love the fact that you can tell that you put so much thought and care into this. And this is meant to be light and fun. But I love it. And I love the fact that it is.

Because Tom Hanks goes down as, to me, I don't know, one of, if not the greatest. And so I have to give you my top five specifically because I disagree on a few of them and I can't wait to hear you crush me for the fact that I'm disagreeing with a few of them. Number five, I put his Castaway. You put that number one. I love Castaway, too.

I'm not going to go into the same depth as you, except for the ones that we disagree. Number four, I'm surprised you to put Apollo 13 in there. Yeah, you know what? When I did the list, Ryan, that was the first thing my producer, Dan Stans said to me. He goes, oh, no, Apollo 13, huh? And I, before I, I'm sorry, I cut you up. It's a good movie. When I saw it, I liked it, but it's not one that I've ever rewatched again.

So honestly, my frame of reference, I haven't seen it in 20 years. I liked at the time, but I didn't find it all that memorable. Go ahead. I actually watched it. No, I want you to interject. I think that makes, especially for the next one. But Apollo 13, I've watched that many, many times. I really enjoy that movie.

Number three, the first one that you're really going to laugh. But I seriously have watched this a ton. And I like that he wrote this movie, that thing you do. Not many people have watched it, but I've watched it many times. Skitch Patterson, the drummer. He comes in. He's got a small part, but he wrote the movie. and I think he produced it as well.

And his company is called Playtone Records, and I just love the fact, or Playtone. I love the fact that all of that combined. And for some reason, it's just an enjoyable, fun little movie. Yeah, you know, I thought it was just kind of light. And, you know, I liked the music. And it was very kind of infectious pop music. That's a sweet story.

But again, it's nothing that I, that to me really stood out. It was like, you know, empty calories. Exactly. I don't really remember ever again, to be honest. I think that's a good description of it. but I think when you want to, sometimes when I go to the movies or I watch a movie, I don't want to really think about anything else. Just kind of light and not be thoughtful.

There are other movies that I definitely want to be thinking about. Number two on a list is, and I just thought this is a great overall movie is a league of their own. Surprise it wasn't your top five either. You know, I'm not crazy about the movie. Why not? It was fine, but it was fine. But again, it's not what this way is they go back and see again. But I will give you this, Ryan.

It's arguably the most important movie of Tom Hanks. his career because prior to then he'd made all those comedies, which, listen, 12-year-old I didn't enjoy it, like the Burbs and Drag Net and Turner and Hooch and all those kind of funny movies. But League of Their Own was critical because at the time he kind of had hit an impasse in his career and nobody really saw him as a guy beyond doing, you know, bosom buddies in these silly comedies. So when he did a league of their own, it really opened up the eyes of all these casting directors. He's like, oh, my God, he's playing this big, overweight, loudmouth, the beard, and he's just this

this loudish character who was a drunk. And they said, oh, my God, Tom Hanks actually has range. He can act. And that actually propelled him towards getting those rules in Philadelphia, which then led to Forrest Gump, which led to Castro, et cetera, et cetera. So I'll give you that League of the Rone is very influential in his career. And he is funny in it, but I don't, again, I saw it. It was fine.

I don't really cling to it personally. And number one on my list is similar to you as big. I watched that growing up. And I've watched it a million times. Again, it's another one that when it's on, I can't turn it off. I thought there's so many good scenes in different parts that relate to people, both as kids and as grown-ups, especially when if you grow up and you get a job at an office just to see how he, you know, what's a marketing report?

You know, just some of the lines are just so great the way that he does it. And then just because we've all been to meetings. I don't know. Maybe this happens at ESPN. You can talk about this where you don't get it. And you just raise your hand, you know, and you're like, you wouldn't raise your hand, probably in a meeting, but you're sitting there saying, I don't get it. And the guy leading the meeting is really upset because you don't get it.

I just thought there's so many parts of that movie that I absolutely loved. And it was so fun. And I can't help but want to watch it whenever it comes on. Yeah, there's one scene that I really remember. I think Mercedes Rule plays his mom. And he's calling her just to tell you, hey, Josh is okay. And he's like, you know, Mom, it's me. And it goes from being kind of funny to them being really sweet because he starts singing.

I think these big memories. He's kind of mumbling. He's like scattered in my mind. He's just got her pictures. And then you just see her crying. And it's just like, it breaks your heart because just imagine like what she's going through that she's lost her son. And then he's trying to console her.

Like, mom, it's me. It's Josh. It's a really good scene. And John Levitz is looking over like, what is he doing? And you remember that part of the movie? But also, the more you think about that, think about that in today's world. If somebody got kidnapped or they're gone and the kidnapper, so to speak, right, is calling the mom and starts singing to her.

How weird is that? Like in real life. But it's such a great part in the movie. I don't know. I just really enjoyed that. But this is a really cool way to get this conversation started. Much different than normal episode, but I love in these conversations. There's so much I want to get to. And then the reason that I, I mean, I originally learned of you, obviously, from your work at ESPN as a media talent.

But then you branch out and do it, as I said, do this podcast called Cinephile, the Adnan-Virk podcast, where you talk strictly about film and movies and your love of it. And obviously, you're really well-versed and you've studied it. And I was curious where this love. of film and movies comes from. Yeah, it was interesting, Ron, because I grew up, I mean, I was born in Toronto, but then I grew up in Kingston, which is a small town of about 100,000 people. And then we even moved to a more remote place when I was 12.

We owned an an operating convenience store in a city called, not even a city, I shouldn't even said, a town, an outpost called Morven, Ontario, which is like 500 people. If you know Avril Levine, people seem to know Avril Lavigne, she lived in a city called Napin-E, which was maybe 10-minute drive away from her eyes. And that's about 5,000 people. So to give you an essence of how small it was in eastern Ontario. So it was just me and my brother, and living this hermetic existence, I just got bit by the bug of watching movies. And since we owned this, like I said, comedian store, so it was a gas station and a variety store, we used to have a movie section.

So it was great. Like when I really began my film education, my dad would let me pick up the movies. So the new releases, obviously, they would give you whatever movies had come out at that time. But I thought I would say, hey, I want to watch Main Streets. So they'd have to ask the distributor, okay, go find this Martin's. Scorsese movie from 1973 called Mean Streets because my kid wants to watch it. So it was hilarious. Like I would just, it helped my film education because we had this essential library that

we were renting up to people, which nobody was renting out except for me. Like the, like, okay, fine, you know, Turner and Hooch was available for rental. And people would pick that up, but then I'd just be ordering these old movies and say, like, I want to watch Citizen Kane. I'll watch it that way. And my mom loves movies, but she would always say to me, I'd want to watch something that's with no violence, nudity, or swearing. And I'm like, Mom, those movies don't exist.

unless you want to go to the classics. So what we would do is, like, I'm not a musical guy. If there's a genre that I really have no time for, it's that one. My friend Tim Kirchon always says to me, he's all these movies you love so much. What are the movies you've never seen? I'm like, well, I've never seen Sound of Music. I've never seen The West Side Story.

So when I say I watched old movies by mom, again, I wasn't watching like the stuff that I had to be interested in. I'd watch the old gangster movies. Because, again, her idea was no violence, no story, no nudity. I'm like, well, if you watch the Maltese Falcon, And it's perfectly tame, even though for 1941, it was, you know, revolutionary with Bogart playing these private eyes. And I love those James Cagney gangster movies and Robert Mitchum and Cape Fear, the original movie of Cape Fear and Night of the Hunter. So it helped, it was all kind of self-taught this film education.

And most of all, I would read Roger Ebert's reviews. And I loved this show, of course, Siskel and Ebert. But I would read Ebert's reviews. He'd print out this yearbook. And his print reviews were incredible. And I still referenced them and I still think about them. I still look them up at Roger Ebert's reviews. rebert.com. So it was this combination of kind of watching these movies on my own and then reading

about his interpretation of these movies that really get you going. And I'm sure it's a lot, you know, for you, with the background in athletics, for any of us who like sports, it's like, how do you first start to love football or baseball or basketball? What it is is, you watch the game one day. So if I'm an, you know, eight-year-old kid, I start watching LeBron James, and I'm watching the Cavaliers and the Warriors. And then I get into the game and then you start learning about, okay, well, who's LeBron James like? Oh, he's kind of like Magic Johnson. So you read a book about Magic Johnson. And you watch it. Highlights of Magic Johnson.

And that leads you to his predecessors and who's Oscar Robertson. Why do they say LeBron James is like him and he could average triple double, et cetera? So it's the same thing with movies. I love Goodfellas. So Goodfellas, you go, well, who's this director, Martin Scorsese?

Oh, okay, well, I'm going to go back and watch Raging Bull and taxi driver and Mean Streets and so on. And I think once you go down the wormhole, there's really no chance of escaping it. So my parents are like, hang on a second. This guy's clearly obsessed with movies. And I really wanted to be a director. I wanted to be like Scorsese.

And I want to make my own movie. Now, the son of Pakistan immigrants, they're not going to give me $40,000 to go to college and whatever the hell study film means. So I figured the smartest way to do it was to say I'm going to go for broadcasting, radio and television arts. Because I did really like broadcasting. I figured, you know what? I love movies and sports. So if I get a job in either one, I'm pretty much good to go. So I went to radio and television arts, Ryerson University, downtown Toronto, where I was born, but we moved.

I was so young, I was six. This was really, you know, my true experience of being in Toronto, this big city, which was kind of overwhelming at the time. But I remember the first day of class, we went around the room, Ryan, and they said, what do you want to do? And some kids would say, I want to be an actor, some kids, I want to be a director. And I said, I go, I'm going to be a director, and I'm going to do what Robert Alpin did, the great director of Nashville and the player and shortcuts, which was be a TV director that he seguued to movies.

And I said to the class, as, listen, my parents would, wouldn't, they understood what that hell that means. I'm going to go be a director. So I'm like, I'm just going to this broadcasting school here. I'm going to do TV shows. I'm going to become a movie director, and that's what I'm going to do. But here's the scary thing that happened. And in second year, when I had to make a short film, when I did it, I quickly realized I didn't have the talent for it.

I had the aptitude for it. As you said, I had this good knowledge of film and I understood what made a good movie. But I myself didn't have that strong visual sense. And if you hear stories about directors, whether it's Scorsese or Spielberg or George Lucas or Francis Ford Coppola or any of these guys, you know, they see the world differently than you or I. They're always seeing it the way as if you and I would be having a conversation and where the camera should be and when the camera moves should be and what's the lighting like and what. What's the color scheme? They're looking at this world differently. And when I did my short film, I realized I didn't have that strong visual sense that I'm more verbal and I'm more literary.

And so my skills is more when it comes to speaking and writing. So the next thought was, okay, well, I don't really have the visual sense. Maybe I could be a screenwriter. So I ended up writing a script in my third year. And again, I wrote it and I enjoyed it. And I still love writing. And writing is a really important component and very an underrated component of being a broadcaster. Because with all these words that we say, you do.

have to be a good writer and understand how to be economical with your words and choose the right words and working with analysts, et cetera. But again, the screenwriting I didn't find I had enough originality to it to really kind of make a go of it. So then I said, all right, listen, why don't just go ahead and be a sportscaster? Obviously, you have a skill set when it comes to words and being fluent and being confident speaking in front of groups. And this will be a really good gig. So I always thought in my head, okay, sports casting is still a great job. It'll be a lot of fun, but if I can ever get into the movies a little bit, we can do it. So fast forward now here. at ESPN.

By the way, I never really gave up on the dream. I still thought when I was in Toronto and I finally got on air, I said, I could be a freelance film critic. So I would send my reviews. I'd watch movies. I'd send my reviews. I was now, like, in my mid-20s, I'd graduate for a few years. I would send them to the Toronto Star on the Toronto side of these places,

but never really heard back. So I'd pretty much given up on the dream until I came to ESPN. Now, a couple of years ago, when I first started filling in the radio, Ryan Rassil and my friend, who I worked with on SVP and Rissil at the time, he would see my tweets and he would start laughing. He's like, who the hell is this guy? Like, because I used really kind of ornate language. And famously, Van Pelt went crazy when he saw my Wolf of Wall Street review, which I said,

I referred to it as a dizzying comic opera. And he's like, what the hell is that mean? Like, what, like, who are you? Like, you know, it'd be like during Monday Night Football, I'd be tweeting about Wolf of Wall Street being a dizzy and comic opera. And they're going on here. So credit to Rosillo that on his radio show, he would say, okay, listen, I'd dance is this big movie fiend, which we didn't know about.

But when you were, you know, watching the Cavaliers Warriors game last night. Adnan's tucked away watching the best of Orson Wells from the 1950s. So we want to kind of give us a window into this. So it was really to his credit that he allowed me to talk about it. So what happened is now I start mentioning it on the radio. Now people start tweeting about it. Now people start hearing about it. Now people internally at ESPN hear about it. And the bosses, they go, I didn't know you're so big new movies. They start following my Twitter. So then come Oscar time, Ryan goes, well, listen, nobody's better at this and Adnan. And I'm a huge fan of the Oscars. So he would have me on him and Van Pelt to break down the Oscars. So it became such a good thing, Ryan, that last year I was actually on Mike and Mike, I was with Greenie, Cannell, and Rosillo, giving my Oscars breakdown. I was on Van Pelt Sports Center, giving my Oscars breakdown. I wrote an article for ESPN.com, giving my Oscars, giving my Oscars, but also post, but a guy from a website called Gold Dury.com, which is the premier prognosticating website for all awards shows, Emmys, Oscars, Grammys, you name it.

and his name is Chris, and he got a hold of me, and he goes, just exactly like how you did. He just tweeted me, he goes, listen, I'm going to have you on this podcast. He goes, like, you're one of us. Like, we have all these people who are 24-7 in these award shows and pop culture stuff. And I hear you with Rosillo and I hear you on the ESPN radio. I go, who is this guy? How is he a sportscaster? Like, he clearly is of this mind with the rest of us.

So I went on with him and then Chris recommended to his boss, Tom O'Neill, who's a big figure in this world, and said, you've got to put Adnan as one of our guys. So now on gold derby.com, there's like experts picks. And like you've got these like, you know, really renowned, established critics from variety and Peter Travis from Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly and all these sites. And then you got me. Like, if you go to the site right now, you're at Nambrook, USPN. Like, I'm predicting the Emmys. I'm predicting the Oscars.

So I think that really helped in terms of credibility. And the other part of it was I've been doing radio for four years now. And as you mentioned, TV-wise, I mean, that's my primary job. I'm a sportscaster for ESPN. I do baseball tonight in college football. football and college basketball and previously had done Sports Center and had filled in for Oberman, which was my career highlight. But radio, I just fill in. So I started to get a little bit annoyed, to be honest with it. I said, listen, four years of filling in, it kind of get tired

to be in the substitute teachers, always filling in for reading and go look. Like, why don't I get my own show? So I had asked my bosses about it. They said, listen, we'd like to do it, but you're just too valuable to TV. You can't do a full-time radio show and a full-time TV show. You'll lose your mind. And I said, well, that's true. I have two young kids. I don't want to work 80 hours a week, but there has to be a way. So what happened was my brother came to visit and he loves Matthew Barry and Field Deates and their fantasy football podcast.

So I reached up to them. I said, listen, my brother would love to meet you guys. And I said, well, hey, you know what, we'll do you one better. He can come and watch us do a taping. So I went there with my brother in March Ryan and we watched them tape. And I said, you know what, this seems pretty easy. You just go in there, turn the mic on, you talk. It's an hour. There's no prep work. There's no post-production. Just do it.

So why don't I do something like this for movies? So I approached Pete Genesini, who runs the podcast division at ESPN. And I said, listen, and Pete knows me well enough. She's obviously heard me a ton on the radio speak because you know how much I love movies. I said, why don't we do a movie podcast? Like Grantland, Bill Simmons's site used to have a lot of pop culture and movie stuff on there. And now that's gone.

So I feel like there's this void here at ESPN. And if Grantland taught us anything, there's a lot of guys out there like me who love sports, but also love movies and pop culture. And I said, listen, Game 7 of the NBA finals, I wouldn't say we had half, but there was a lot of people at ESPN who were trying to watch Game of Thrones while still watching this epic game 70 to the Caval and words. And that shows that, you know, all of us have interest beyond just what you recognize for us. So Pete said, sure, go ahead. I'm going to greenlight this thing. Go ahead. You put something together. Stansick's my buddy. And he has his full-time job with Mike and Mike, but I see, you know, he knows how much I'm into it. He's in the movie. So we did it. And lo and behold, Pete was like, yeah, let's do it. Let's keep going. And so now we're nine episodes in. And my buddies who, you know,

I grew up with are laughing because they go, this is clearly, you know, the most important thing now in your life. Like, you clearly have more passion for this than anything else you're doing. And yet it's something that I'm completely not getting paid for. It's just something that I came up with on my own. And it's an hour every other week. But it's so fulfilling. And I think the lesson to anybody out there listening, you know, whatever your passion is, you have to find it. And that's not to say that I don't love being a sportscaster. I don't love, you know, it's not that I don't love working in ESPN and being on air and being a broadcaster. It's a thrill. But I've been doing it for 14 years. I mean, I'm 38. I've been on air since I was 24. So you always have

to find new challenges and new goals and new ways to kind of make yourself feel fresh and make yourself entertained. And that's what it is, at the very least, whatever your job is, whatever your passions, you have to be entertained. You have to think that no matter what, there's a guy out there like me who's entertained by this. And that's my goal with Cinephile. Like I don't, apparently the numbers are pretty good, which again, I'm pleasantly surprised by. To me, I just said as long as there's the bare minimum that I need to do to keep this afloat

with the zero budget that I'm being provided, that I'm good with that because I'm just doing this, you know, for love of the game. So, you know, when I check in with Pete, he goes, no, no, no, trust me, people are listening. I don't know what the numbers are, but they're really good. It's very gratified to me and it's it's very humbling and like I said, it's a pure passion project and I'm thrilled that people are listening and that they're enjoying it as much as I enjoy doing it. And one of the really, I know you've already experienced this, but one of the coolest part about having your own podcast. Now I'm talking 150, 60 plus episodes in are the relationships you build with your guests.

And so you're a, you most recently have met some of your heroes, specifically, Robert, to can I call you Bob De Niro that you most recently had on. And I was thinking, I wonder what Adnan's feeling, because I felt it so many times when you're meeting, you were in person, but I'd do them over Skype, when you're meeting your heroes to do a, you know, to record a podcast. And I think that's, that's one of the neatest things. Like you mentioned, we have this little community because we have this in common. And if I didn't have this podcast, we would not be talking today.

And if you didn't have that podcast, you probably would not have been talking to Robert De Niro. Talk about that aspect of how it's brought you more joy from that perspective. Yeah, I almost thought it was a joke. We got an email from Katie, one of our talent bookers at ESPN said, Robert DeNero is interested in coming to ESPN to promote his movie, hands of stone. I just need to know who'd be interested. And I got, which was very sweet, all these emails from like producers and camera people and people who are, you know, just know what a big movie guy am and what a big DeNiro fan of. They immediately forwarded the email to me as if I wouldn't get it. Like, hey, just so you know, did you see this yet?

De Niro's coming. And honestly, like, I'm not even exaggerating here. Like, there are our favorite athletes I have, like, especially as a kid. You know, fine. Growing up, I was a, you know, huge hockey fan. And, you know, I love the flyers. So I love Ron Hextall as a kid. My brother's big oilist, feeling loves Gretzky.

So I guess if I met Ron Hextal today, I'd be pretty pumped up. But it wouldn't be the same as when I was 10 years old. As far as, like, major athletes, I'm trying to think I've met Roger Federer. And I mean, I've met Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Derek Geter, or Mariana Rivera. Like, I've been fortunate, Wayne Gretzky, like all these great athletes of all time. So for me, when I meet an athlete,

like if I meet Mike Trout, which I did, you know, he's a lot younger than me. It's not like I'm Starstruck beating Mike Trout. Like, he could be the next Mickey Mantel, but I don't know. Like, when I met LeBron James, I interviewed him for five minutes at the film festival because they ended a documentary

but his high school basketball team. Like, it was cool. He was a good guy. Like, it's great that I'm in my head. I'm like, hey, I can tell kids years from now, hey, I met LeBron James, and this is what he said to me. But to me, to meet these actors, this is a completely different ballgame.

And I don't think there's anything bigger, you know, Scorsese, Pacino, De Niro. Like for me, those are my guys. Like I said, since I was 9, 10 years old, those are my favorite people. And I felt like I know them because I've watched their movies so much and read books about them and learn their life. So it was such a unique experience in that, A, I had these outward forces. One is that I'm in Williamsport. Like, I got my day job here at the USPN. I'm at the Little League World Series, which I obviously can't skip out on.

So I had to do the show Monday night, which got preempted because the game went long. So at 11 o'clock, I'm with my wife and kids, I have two boys, eight and five. We drive back from central Pennsylvania to get back to Connecticut where I am. That's a five-hour hall. So we left at 11, got back at four, slept four hours, got up at 8.30. By the way, my wife's an enormous De Niro fan. So she's like, no, I'm coming too. So I've got to get a sitter.

Sitter doesn't show at 830, 840, 8.50. Like under normal circumstances, Ryan, like if I had been home, I would have got up at seven, gone for a nice run, right? Get the nerves out, had a big breakfast. Would have been, you know, would have got there nice and early. Like, I didn't have that luxury. Like, this was all pressing time. So whatever anxiety and stress I'm already feeling about interviewing Robert De Niro,

it's all being compounded by these life factors because the cinder's not showing up. Now I got to drop the kids out, the neighbor's house. They're crying. I'm like, oh, my God. Like, it's just, it's so frenzy that there's no enjoyment here. It's like, I've got to go, I've got to go. I got to go. So we get to work.

I watched De Niro's interview with Mike and Mike. It didn't go great. And I knew that. I'm like, listen, De Niro is a tough interview. He's not outwardly warm and jokey and friendly. Like, he's a serious, thoughtful guy. So make sure that when you talk to him,

you've got to be in his zone. But that's the one thing. And my wife, the night before, she went up watching interviews on Fallon. And so she goes, you should do what Fallon does. I said, what's that?

She said, you could do like a game with him. Like, reciting lines. And I just looked at her. I said, no, no games. Like, I'm not going to be like, hey, let's do lines from Meet the Fockers. Like, Cinephile is for like, it's like for like grad film students.

Like it's for like serious film connoisseurs of which I am. I'm like, my goal going into this interview and you know this when you interview people, you have to have a goal. You have to hope that afterwards this was accomplished. And all I was hoping for in the week that I heard that he was coming and in that five hour drive home and those minutes before the interview was this, I want to have a thoughtful, engaging conversation with Robert De Niro. And I want to learn something from him. and I want him to know what a huge fan I am. And if I can accomplish those goals in whatever fashion I do, terrific. Now, if there's humor involved, if there's a laugh, great.

But those are my goals. So before he walked in, like I said, there was probably anxiety going into it. But in the moment, I was fine. Once the kids were there, once I was in front of the mic and it was like, here he comes. I actually felt incredibly calm because much like yourself, you've done all these interviews before. So it's like, all right, it's another interview, which is crazy to think about. But when I first saw him turn the corner, but first that was out. my wife, it was almost like a surprise part. Like, get down, get down, here he comes. But when he,

when he opened the door, he had a big smile on his face. And I had a big smile on that face. And I just shook his, the first thought was, oh, my God, he's the same height as me. Like, it's Robert De Niro. Like, we're the same height as way. All my life, I get made fun of for being 5'8, and I'm the same height as Bob. So when he walked in, a big smile, he shook his hand, I shook his in. Hey, Mr. De Niro, I'm at Niam Verpe, huge fan of yours. This is my wife, Aiman. Could you do us a huge favor? Could you get a picture with her? Because I said to, listen, you got into the picture first, because these guys, he's got his press people Mike and Mike, it's me, it's Sports Center, it's his and hers, its first take.

So make sure you get the fun stuff out of the way. So boom, picture, we got that, sit down. And then I had my Tribeca Film Festival shirt on. And I said, hey, Bob, I was at Tribeca early? He's like, oh, he kind of smiles, knots. By the way, small entourage with him. Sometimes some of these guys show up, I think Usher was there a few weeks ago at ESPN. I think he might as well probably his whole posse.

De Niro had two people, one guy, one girl. So they just sat down with us. And De Niro looked at the mic, and again, you know this with podcasts. I think it immediately loosens you up because he looks at the mic, He just goes, so no cameras, right? And I said, no. And in my head, I'm like, see, this is critical because probably that's why De Niro isn't a great interview sometimes on TV, because you feel the lights.

You feel the essence of live television. It makes you a little bit, not anxiety problem, but you just clench up naturally. So I noticed right as soon as he just looked at the mic goes on. It's just the mic, right? I'm like, yeah, just you and me, man, like, just a podcast. It was like, oh, like, I can almost just see it in his shoulders, just kind of like, oh, this is a piece of cake. So then I started saying, I was at Tribeca.

I saw a taxi driver. And then Stan's like, thankfully, gave me a big finger tool. like, let's get going. Again, you know this with podcasts. Even though you feel like, hey, we can go in a hundred different directions, which is the beauty of it. It's a free form. You do have time because De Niro does got to get to his next thing. So he goes, right, let's go. Boom. Don't even tell what you're going to ask him. Just let's get rolling. So the actual interview, I was incredibly calm. Like I said, it was engaging. I thought he was thoughtful. I thought he was smart. You know, I'll never forget, just the way he was looking at me. Like he's giving that face, that De Niro face, which you and I have

seen in hundreds of movies. And yet he's actually talking to me. And he was listening. And The biggest takeaway from it was this. At one point I started to talk about my son Yusuf, and I said, you know, his middle name is Scorsese. And De Niro kind of like smiled. And I was like, you know, there's not a lot of Pakistani Americans with an Italian Catholic middle name. That's how much my wife and I just love Mark Scorsese in these movies. And he just kind of laughs. And I said, you know, my wife's pregnant with baby number three and maybe we'll name him De Niro.

And he's just kind of chuckling, right? Like in my head, I'm like, what do you expect a person to say to that? Like, he's not going to like, oh, great. That's a great name. Or I look forward to coming to the christening. Like, he's not going to say these things. He just gives you like a polite smile and a nod. Like he's Robert De Niro, man.

He's a legend. He's heard it all. Like he's, people have done these things for him at all times. But the biggest takeaway was this in every interview. When I met Will Arnett, listen, he's also Canadian. He's from Toronto. We're talking Blue Jays.

We're talking Leafs. We're talking Arrested Development. You could just make a comment. He'd go. I could just say to Will like, hey, man, how much you missed Tim Hortons? And boom, he'd go. I love that scene. And arrest him, where you did this.

With De Niro, you couldn't just say, God, Bob, I love Goodfell's. It's like, uh-huh. Like, you have to ask him a question. You have to make him work a little bit. And the other thing, I said to Kerchin, I said, how do I start it? Like, do what do I call him? And he said, what do you mean?

I said, nobody calls him Robert. I think it's a mistake if I call him Robert. He goes, okay. I said, everybody calls him Bob, everybody. And I said, but he's 73 years old. Like, there should be a measure of respect. I'm 38. Do I call him Mr.

And Kerchin said, listen, I'm turning 60. And Tim goes, I don't like when people call me Mr. Like when someone calls you Mr. Kirchen, I said, no, that's my father. So if everyone calls him Bob, you should call him Bob. And I checked with my dad, who's 70, and my dad said, no, no, start Mr. De Niro when you meet him. But then in the interview actually say to him, hey, can I call you Bob? And he's going to say, yes, probably. And then you go from there, which is exactly what I did.

And it was fun. And it was so cool to actually be literally calling him Bob while talking to him. So the interview goes great. Like I said, I mentioned that thing about my background and my son. So at the end of the interview, De Niro turns me and just goes, Pakistan? And I said, yeah, that's where my parents are from. I mean, I'm Canadian. And I've never been, but yeah.

And he goes, and he kind of starts mumbling. And this is, I think, where the anxiety hit in, because now I'm like, I'm actually having a personal conversation with Robert De Niro. And he kind of was mumbling. And he goes, ah, Northern Pakistan, Hindu Kush. You know, it's really interesting. And I said, I'm sorry, Bob, did you took a trip to Pakistan? I'm not following.

He goes, no, there's an article at times. It's about a group of people. They're called the Hindu Kush. They live in northern Pakistan. You should read it. I was like, okay. And he goes, you know, if you have trouble finding it, let me or my people know, which I should have just jumped in.

I'm like, well, Bob, what's your cell phone? Go ahead, let me know. But I shake his hand, and I said to me, thanks a lot for this interview. I know this is going to be tough for you. I said, Don Rickles had that great line, which was I had dinner with dinner once. It was like eating alone. So he said to Bob. And he kind of just, he gave that De Niro smile and kind of just patted me.

He gave my wife a hug and a kiss. She almost fainted and collapsed the floor. And he left. And only once he turned the corner, only after his guy Stan shook my head and goes, hey, that was a really good interview. And then he corrected himself. He said, no, that wasn't an interview. That was a conversation. That was a really good conversation between you and Bob.

And I said, thank you so much. I said, you are so much. I love this guy, and Revere's work. So I just tried to be as professional as I could while still being a bit of a fanboy. And he goes, no, no, it was great. Only after they turned the corner right and I go, oh, my God, I just interviewed Robert Taylor. Holy crap. Like, that's when all the adrenaline came flooding through my heart.

And then I was very nervous because I turned to stanza because then you start to worry about the other stuff, the stuff that doesn't matter. Was it okay technically? Was the microphone okay? Was the okay in length? Like, we didn't even get to Goodfellas. I wanted to get a cave fear question in there. We didn't talk about all these other movies that I wanted to discuss. So then you get fearful, and I don't know if you're the same way.

I couldn't relax until I could actually hear it. And by the way, I had no time to relax because I had to go home to get screaming kids. And I had to drive back to Williamsport. I had a five-hour drive, and then I had to be on the air at seven. So really, there was no time to even savour the experience. I literally just was like, get a picture, put it on the Twitter, set it to all my buddies, and then go. And I said, send me the interview. Like, I have to listen to this as soon as possible.

so I know if it was good, if it was terrible. Like I said to him, I think it's a seven. And my wife, Amy was astonished. She was that was a 10. Are you kidding? That was amazing. Like, it was awesome. Like, what are you talking about?

I'm like, I don't know, I don't know. And Stance is kind of like, because he was kind of quiet. Like at one point, the mic was kind of low. Like, I kind of had to push the mic towards him, which kind of threw him off. And went to me, kind of lost his train of thoughts. Now you're just paranoid. You're just, you're being neurotic. So only after I listened to it, he sent to the interview while I was driving, then I listened to it.

And it was the coolest feeling ever. and I'm sure you've had this with other interviews and you'll continue to have it. When you actually hear your own voice ask a question and then I heard Robert De Niroi answering my own question, I said, okay, this is beyond surreal, man. This is so cool that this even happened. And my wife made the best point of all, which was this.

Let's suppose the interview was lousy. Who cares? Like, you met him. You interviewed him. You got a picture with him. Like, this is so cool. And here's the kicker to the story. I get to Williamsport,

and I emailed Katie, the talent booker. And I said, not to be competitive, but we all are. How did my interview go compared to everybody else? He was on Mike and Mike in Sports Center at first day. And she said, well, I'll tell you, yours is the only one that at the end of the interview had something to say to you. Like it finished up normally just shake hands to you. She was you, I saw you guys talking about something, and you're the only guy that he did

that with. I'm like, well, that's a great sign. When I got to Williamsport, I checked my email and it said from RDN's office, subject heading from a guy named Michael Capel. And I read it and she says, hey, Bob really enjoyed talking to today on the podcast. here's that article that he mentioned to you that he wanted you to check out. And there is the link to this article in New York Times about a group of people called the Hindu Kush who are like descendants of Alexander the Great and they're ostracized and they live in northern Pakistan.

And I'm going, oh my goodness. Like when I interviewed, as I said to you, Jeter, Rivera, Gretzky, you name it, all these people, LeBron James. Anthony interviewed, all right, nice to meet you, see it. Like, there's not even a passing thought. The fact that I made enough of an imprint on Robert De Niro that he's thought to himself, hey, this was such an interview, here's something that you're going to enjoy, and that he had to ask the talent worker, what's that guy's name, what's his contact information, then went to one of his assistants and, hey, make sure you send this to this guy. This is important. This is interesting. I mean, that is an enormous gesture. And I'm telling you, as a guy who's been in this business 14 years, that never happens. That's an example what a good guy, Robert De Niro is. The surrealness that you talk about, I felt it fortunately many times. It's not that you're interviewing him. It's that you're genuinely having a

a conversation with one of your heroes. It is more surreal than just about anything that you, and prior to doing some of these things, like you said, the podcast, what it offers is the opportunity to do that. And yeah, you're right. I think leading up to it, there's a nervousness to not blow it, to like, one, is this really going to happen? And there's a buildup. And then it actually starts and you're right.

And then all of a sudden you're in the middle of it. And then you just have to let it flow, you know, and realize that you're prepared and that you're ready to do it. That led me to my next question. Let me interject one thing, right? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. No, you made a great point about, does it actually happen? That is a great point, because I kept saying the Stansick, when I was in Williamsport,

I said, what if he doesn't show? Like, I'm not driving five hours in the middle of the night for nothing. So I'm with you. And were you thinking about all the time? I wasn't because I kept saying, why don't we just wait until Monday night? And if there's been no cancellation, then I'll start worrying about it. Because that was my thought. I'm like, he's a giant of his industry.

Maybe just, you know what, I'm sick, I'm not going to make it. It's a two hours ride from New York. Maybe something came up. Like, I'm not. So I'm with you. That's a very good point that you make about. You don't worry about it until you have to. And then when you worry about it, it's exactly what you said.

You're worrying about, let's just not blow this. I don't want to say something and food comes out of my mouth. I don't want to spit up water at some point. I don't want to burp for some reason. Like, it's all these stupid things that start going through your head that you're like, that you have no reason to worry about, but you just go, what if this happens? What if I have to go to the bathroom? and then all of a sudden I have to run. Like you think of the dumbest things ever.

That's what's going through your head. But as you said, you just want to be relaxed and just have a conversation, which is exactly what it was. What is your prep process like? I mean, for De Niro, it's probably much simpler because you've got everything memorized. But I'm curious, in general, what is your preparation process like? Maybe this even, there's some correlation between your TV work and the podcasting work. Yeah, it's a great point you make about De Niro, the fact it was always in my head. Because you're right, everybody kept asking me, again, when I was doing baseball,

tonight in the days leading up to. And I get this. Everyone always kind of has their own idea. Oh, you're going to ask him about Godfather too. You're going to ask him about midnight run. You're going to ask him. And I said, listen, I'm just going to ask him what I want to ask him. Like, I get the fact that people want to ask about, let's say,

awakenings, which I think is a great movie. But I don't, I'm going to have 15 minutes with them. I don't want to ask him about awakenings. I want to ask him about the stuff that I love, which is the origin of his relationship with Scorsese and Main Street and Tax Straver and Raging Bowl. And if I get that stuff in, great. And here's the only process that I really had. And what I do with all interviews is make sure you have the first two questions and after that you let it ride.

Because I know with De Niro, I was like if I struggle out of the gate, if it's just, hey, hands of stones opening, tell me about the film, I've already lost him. So I have to go something interesting. So I try to find a personal connection. So, you know, you did it smartly here with me. If you had just started with, all right, how did you get your job at ESPN or what's it like covering college football or, hey, who do you think is going to win the World Series this year? You know, those are fairly generic questions. I can answer those easily and it's fine. But you went smartly with something that you knew I was passionate about,

which was tell me about this podcast, where do we go from there? And I haven't shut up since. So same thing with De Niro. I said, okay, go with Tribeca. You have a Tribeca shirt. You just went and saw Taxi Driver 4th anniversary at his film festival. He started this film festival, which there's only two guys.

It's him in Tribeca and Redford and Sundance. And that's it. So this is a unique thing, and he's probably passionate about it. And the second question I said, I have to ask about the documentary he made about his dad, which is Robert De Niro, Sr., who was a really great painter, who was underlooked and really kind of

underappreciated, and De Niro, Robert, made a documentary about it on HBO, which came on a couple of years ago. And so just in my own head, I said, go with stuff he's passionate about, which you would think a film festival and his father, and that will at least loosen him up and show at the very least, okay, this guy's done his homework, he knows a little bit about me. He's not just asking me for the, you know, 20 millionth time.

How much fun was it to do Goodfellas of Joe Pesci? Like, he's actually working a little bit. All I had in my head was go Tribeca, go De Niro Senior, and then get into the stuff with him and Marty and go from there. But if at any point he had started to go in a different detour, I was prepared to do so. If at any point he had said to me, you know, what I want to do is really talk about my comedies. I would say, sure, okay, let's talk about meet the parents.

What was it like with Dustin Hoff and Mike the Fockers or, you know, mid-right one was such a funny movie. So I think that's the key with all interviews, is that you have to be prepared. You have to be well-researched, but be prepared to go in whatever direction they are going to go to. Dennis Lurie, we interviewed in the Cinephile, and I said with Dennis, I want to ask him about rescue me, which was a show that I loved, and I want to ask him about wag the dog, which is only people realize he's in with De Niro and Dustin Hoff, and then go from there. But in my arsenal, in my head, I've got The Ref, I've got stand-of-comedy, I've got his

new show he's doing. I've got all these symbols of Dennis Lerie as being anti-authoritarian and smoking and whatever way he wants to go. I'm like, I'm ready to go. So, and that's beneficial because at one point he started going. on a detour about the Sopranos. I'm like, why, I love the Sopranos. We started talking about how great James Gendalfini was and what a shame it is that he's dead now. So, you have to have this base knowledge that will take you in whatever direction. So if I'm on

ESPN and I'm talking to a college football coach, if I'm talking to Jimbo Fisher, which I did on Florida State, okay, I've got to know going in, I'm going to ask him about Dalvin Cook. I'm going to ask him about Danny Connell because I work with Danny and I'll make a joke about Florida State, and I'll ask him about the ACC and how he feels about Clemson. But at any point, if he goes in a different direction, if he just brings up Jim Harbaugh, if he brings up satellite camps, if he brings up the fact he thinks Sabin's overrated or something, something absurd,

then go in that direction and follow him there. And I think that's the best process. It's to plan, but don't overplan if that makes sense. Yeah, to be a great listener and agile enough to, and prepared enough to take it wherever may go. I've had podcast episodes where I expected to go one way and we completely want somewhere else.

But, Adin, I know you have to run because you're going to go see solar. No, no. You know what? I checked. Sully's not playing until 12-15. I've got another 15 minutes. Awesome. Okay, good. Because Sally was going to something I was, I just saw this weekend. So I won't spoil it for you. But the plane does happen to happen. And it's got a land in the water. Boyler alert. Come on, Ron. Sorry. Sorry that Tom Hanks has to land in the water. But he does a good job. But no, anyway, I think that that's a big deal to me, though, is the art of the interview and getting prepared for it. the fact that you've done it on multiple levels and different platforms is really important

for me to understand and learn from some of the best to how to continuously get better. And I think the prep work that goes into it is everything from that perspective. And I'd love to hear maybe not just the Niro, but your process in general from a preparation to, because you guys write out your whole shows if you're doing, if you happen to be doing Sports Center, then you do Mike and Mike, and you also do baseball tonight. you do college football. So you're more of a, this is a long-witted question, but you're more of a generalist than a specialist.

I'm curious as to, did you purposely make that decision, or did that just kind of naturally happen through your career? It's naturally happened throughout my career. And the weird thing is it's always happened in my career. So Mike Greenberg just said this to me the other day. We did Mike and Mike Friday, September 2nd. We were just kind of chatting off air, and he said to me, same thing you had said,

which was nice. He said, I love that you're doing this thing, Cinephile, because Mike himself, as an author, and he's written a couple of fiction books, and he loves literature. And he said to me, he goes, you know, I wish I had an outlet for that stuff. I can't go on Mike and Mike and start talking about to kill a mockingbird. People like, what the hell are you talking about? Like, let's talk NFL week one recap. Let's go. Robert Gray from the 3rd's out again. But Greenies said, you know, I have these other interests. So he goes, I love the fact that you're doing

Cineophile because it's this natural extension of you in this outlet. And he goes, and more the point, it may even help your brand, because now people know when they see you on whatever venue, oh, there's that guy adding in. Oh, I know he does baseball tonight. But I know. I know he's a big movie guy. I've heard him talk about movies. And that's just, that's just a good thing to have. But he also said to me this, Greenie goes, it's a, you'll always have employment if you can do a lot of things. You'll always have a job at ESPN if you do what you do, which is a lot of things. But you're only really going to get paid. You're only really going to get recognized when you do one thing. Meaning a guy like me who does a bunch of different sports, great. But everybody knows Chris Berman does NFL. Everyone knows State Steel hosts ABC coverage. Everyone knows Trey Wingo does NFL. Everyone knows Reese Davis hosts Mike and Mike and Mike. So his point was that you've got to find one thing and then everyone knows you for that thing and then you're set to go. But I said to him, listen, I'm not calculated enough to do that. And as I said, this has happened throughout my career.

My first on-air sports job was at a place called The Score, which is a really small network in Toronto. We were a national network, but we were trailed behind TSN, who was the big juggernaut, the equivalent of ESPN, and then Roger Sportsnet, which I guess is the equivalent of Fox Sports. So we're like a distant third. And even at that job, I did a lot of NBA. when the regular guys were off on our version of SportsCenter called Scort Tonight, I'd fill in there. When there's a show called To the Point, which was our version of ESPN's out of the lines, I'd fill in there. I even one time, my boss was laughing as he asked me because he knew I didn't know anything about soccer. He goes, you're going to fill it on the soccer show tomorrow.

I'm like, are you nuts? It was called the footy show. But I don't know why. I wish I had a better answer, Ryan, but for some reason, bosses see in me an ability to do a lot of things and they see that versatility. I don't go in their office and say, I want to do every show here. But for some reason, these opportunities present themselves. And it may be as simple as this. It may just be, hey, we have a hole here.

And somebody in a meeting goes, why don't you call out of me and see if he'll do it? I end up doing it. And then someone says, all right, well, he's shown an aptitude or an ability to do something outside the box. Let's call him again. It may just be that. Like, I don't, sometimes I think we give our bosses too much credit. I don't think they're sitting there going, wow, he's really versatile.

I think he can show different range. I think they just go, hey, we need somebody. Who's in the schedule? Oh, he always says yes. I think that's part of it. I think they definitely know that with radio. I'm always filling in. I'll come in on a day off.

I'm very flexible. I think that's what they look at. I think, okay, is this guy available? Yes. Is he flexible? Yes. You think he'll do a good job? I don't know, but I'll give it a good shot.

He seems like a good guy. We'll ask somebody else. And then you go from there. I honestly think that's what it comes down to. So my career at ESPN had started, I was what we call Jen Pop, you know? I was just a guy who was on ESPN News anchoring. And it was only once I heard through Dari Noka and Jonathan Coach when they told me they did radio.

and there were a couple of TV guys, and I swear to God, there was three reasons to do radio. It was first and foremost, more money because I had a second kid on the way, and they told me, wow, we get paid extra to do radio. I'm like, are you kidding? Oh, I'll sign me up for that. Great, I can talk on the radio. One was more money. Two was more exposure.

And three was that it was fun. And they go TV, you know, like you said, on Sports Center, it's real cut and dried. Here's Ed Warder. Here's the topics. All right. Tony Romo is out. Dak Prescott's in. More coming up after this.

radio, just like a podcast, free forum. Okay, you want to talk Tom Hanks? Top Five Movies? Go for it. And then we'll get into something else and we'll get back to sports and be serious about it. So that was definitely what I found out about it. But going into it, I was like, hang on a second. I could use the extra cheddar and I could use the exposure because I was just a guy. So I think that what happened was, my understanding is once I started doing radio,

it opened up my TV career. So now bosses on college football, Diefitting. Now bosses on baseball tonight, Mike McQuay. I've heard this guy on Mike and Mike. I've heard him filling in on SVP. and Rosillo, maybe he might be good for me. He seems like he has personality. He seems flexible. So I never sought out to be a sports generalist, but for some reason, in 14 years of my career,

it has continued. And even it's continuing tonight. Tonight I'm doing a new foray, which is I'm going to be well the host of the World Cup of hockey, which is a no-brainer because I said to my bosses, this one I actually said to them, listen, you guys should put me on this. I'm Canadian. I've got hockey in the blood. It's in my jeans.

I can talk about it forever. So I'm doing that tonight. But yeah, if you looked at my career, if tomorrow I got hit by a job, truck, you can say, this guy's done sports center, outside the lines, Oberman, college football, college basketball, baseball tonight, the World Cup of hockey, ESPN Radio, Mike and Mike, SVP and Rosilla, Gottlieb, Schell, like, it's kind of insane to me what I've been able to do. The only thing I haven't cracked, to be honest, is anything NFL related, because that's Susie Calver and Trey Wingo and Chris Berman. That's the only thing I haven't done any NFL programming, but pretty

much everything else at ESPN I've been able to do. So I've been fortunate, and I don't know how it's happened, but I think Greenie's advice is good. If for anybody listening, I'm out there wants to get in the career. That is really good advice. You'll always have value if you can do a lot of different things, but you'll only really get taken care of if you can do one thing great. Yeah, I love that advice. This has been brought up a few times, both as being a great leader and being a great dad. Part of being a great leader slash great dad is simply showing up. You've got to be there. And that's what I feel like when I feel like you have done a great job at saying yes and being there when you're needed.

And that's open doors for you in your career. Do you have time to do two quick movie reviews for me of some of my favorite movies? Totally. And one of the thought, too, as far as the advice, this is a good one too. My old news director, Dave Rutherford told me this at the score. That job I was telling you about in Toronto. He said whenever there was an opening, because at the time I was freelance, right? So it was $150 a shift, which I was 25 years old.

To me, that was gold. I was like, I'm never going to say no. When he would call, he goes, sometimes you, and I know you know this because we know people like this. You call them and go, hey, can you help me out? somebody called it sick. Can you come in today? The person goes, uh, okay, I just, I got to check. I've got to, you know, my kid's sick or I had, I had plans. I was going to go golf and I'm my wife. Okay, I'll, I'll get back to you. Or they do all that and they go, okay, yeah,

you know, okay, I can move it around. Sure. No problem. Okay. Like, they're making you feel guilty for doing it. I never did that, even though obviously I had plans. I had other things to do. Whenever Dave called me and go, hey, I got an okay, can you be here an hour? I go, yeah, great, thanks. Like, you never give an excuse. You never give reason behind. And I think that's important too, and Dave told me that. And I found that too with ESPN. When they call last minute, hey, go look sick. Can you come in?

Sure, no problem. Even though they know, I've got two kids. I've got a life. I have things that I'm doing. I'm obviously moving things around to make it happen. So that's a good tip, I think, for kids out there as well. When they ask you, just do it. Don't even give them all the reasons.

They know that you're doing it. And they appreciate the fact you're not giving them a song and dance about what an effort and how inconvenienced you are for doing it because you're getting an opportunity. Okay, that's the reward. the reward is the opportunity. Don't worry about the other stuff. You can deal with that stuff on your own. I love it.

Such good advice. Like I mentioned, I think that's been obviously a reason that you've had sustained excellence. I like to talk about. Okay, two quick movie roosur, however much time you have. Totally.

We got five minutes. Whatever you want. Okay. I'm taking you back to 1986, Adnan. The movie is Top Gun. Yes. You know, I got in trouble.

I did the celebrity softball game in San Diego, by the way, which is heaven on earth. And Kevin Fowland, again, this is where the branding comes in. He goes, listen, because of Cinephile and all of your tweets, we're going to do like a little 30-second element coming out of break. And it's just going to be Adnan's favorite movies filmed in San Diego. Like, okay. And so off top of my head, I didn't know any of them. I couldn't tell you which one was. But he sends a list.

And out of the list, one of them was Top Gun. And I can't remember the ones that I picked. One of the I picked was really off the radar was My Blue Heaven, which is a Rick Morana, Steve Martin comedy, which I loved as a kid. It may not hold up. I'd have to watch it again, but I really loved it as a kid. I had no idea it was actually shot in San Diego. All right, great. That's in there. I can't remember the other ones. But I purposely excluded Top Gun. So we come out of the break. And J.K. Simmons with me, the Academy Award-winning actor for Whiplash. And he was playing in the softball game. So he was with me on set. And he goes, seriously? You didn't include Top Gun? And I said, I said, well, I knew it was in San Diego once I thought about because, of course, the Naval Base, it's a big military. It's a big military town.

And I said, listen, for its time, I totally recognize Top Gun was a blockbuster and a huge movie and obviously made Tom Cruise a star. I said, but I've seen snippets of it here and there. I don't think it's aged very well. And Jake Sisson started laughing. And I said, particularly this line, Ace, you can ride my tail anytime. Maybe that's just me, but I think some of these lines are so corny and so silly. I can't tell you it's one of the great movies filmed in San Diego. So he started laughing.

Sorry, good point. But I think it's really one of those movies. It's like a movie of the 80s, right? The danger zone music playing and like the aerial assault and like, especially again, having a background in athletics guys like you and me, just the jocks and like high five. And like, yeah, man, let's go do this. Like it. It really feeds into the 80s and that mindset. I think certainly for its time it was good.

I love the soundtrack. I love the righteous brothers. That's, you know, you've lost that love and feeling. But it's a little cheesy for me at the end there where they play the music and the jukebox. But yeah, I would I would categorize it as a guilty pleasure. Top Gun's a guilty pleasure. The haircuts, the sunglasses, the bomber jackets, the cool, I will say like the cinematography, though, with the airplanes, you have to admit, because I mean, I love Top Gun, just putting it out there. You have to admit it was pretty impressive.

Yeah, I agree, because especially, it's hard sometimes with special effects because people say, well, you have to appreciate it for its time. One of the really good points, somebody made, Val Gordon made to me, one of our producers on Michael Mike about Forrest Gump, she goes, you do have to admit it was revolutionary. And she's right, I had to go back. I like, yeah, I remember now, Lieutenant Dan, the fact that he didn't have legs. That was a big deal. The fact they put Hanks in those newsreel footage, you know, looking at talking to JFK or Lyndon Johnson. Like, that was really interesting.

So you're right. For Topkin, I do give it credit for its time. Those visual effects were really important and were really cutting edge. So you're right. It was definitely something different. Tony Scott was the director, right? He was obviously. Yeah.

Yeah, it's good. Okay. I've been fortunate to talk with a guy who wrote this movie named Brian Coppelman, 1998 rounders. Oh, yeah. Have you seen Rounders recently? Daman, Ed Norton. Yeah, Malcovic was great.

Malcovich was unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I only saw it once. I enjoyed it. I good cast, a good poll to you mentioning compliment. I guess I want to say. Have you listened to his podcast, by the way, called The Moment? Yeah.

Okay. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. Cappellman is an unbelievably great interviewer. One of the best I've ever heard. He's just so thoughtful, so smart. And he just, he's in the middle of filming billions right now. That's right. I'm but to say, why do I know the name?

Because he wrote billions. In the second season, they're filming it right now, and he's, so his podcast is on like a mini hiatus where he does one, like one a month now. But like, I listen to him just, regardless of the guest, just to hear how he crafts and forms the interview process. It's fascinating. I love him. I love the columnist. That's awesome. I'm telling you, you're right.

This is an inner circle here. We're just all helping each other pay it forward. Brian Koppel will be the last next on my podcast. To get them on, yeah. Yeah, rounders, man. You know what? We just Stents and sent me a list because ESP and Radio is Elbrin. their 25th anniversary.

So because we want you to rank our top 25 sports movies. So what he always does, which is helpful, the same thing they did there with those San Diego movies. He just sent me a list. He was, I'm sure you have others which are not on this list. In fact, a movie that I put on there, which I love called Big Fan. I don't know if you've ever seen it, but it's with Patton Oswald. And he plays this, like, obsessive New York Giants football fan.

It's a really good movie. I don't think enough people have seen him. I put in a documentary called Murder Ball, which is really good movie about these guys who were paraplegics, but they play Dodge Ball. And they call it murder ball because it's just so intense because obviously they're in their wheelchairs. It's really well done. But the movies that he listed,

one of the Bepot was Rounders. Because I know it's a bit of a reach, right? I don't think it's really a sports movie. And I say, yeah, you know what? But it's a really good movie because those card scenes are awesome. And I think any time a movie can be the best at something, I always appreciate it further. Meaning whenever somebody mentions, hey,

what's a great movie about cards or poker or, you know, deception? Rounders is one that certainly comes to mind. So really well-crafted, very slick. Yeah. Like you said, that cast is really good. Good. Really good. ESPN had a big role, too.

I mean, Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker, which was televised on ESPN, and that created this massive growth in poker being televised and people playing it in general. And he referenced Rounders, said that's why he got into it. And then ESPN blew it up, and it's been incredible. So it's really interesting just how the world works to see certain events and moments that create new content and things that are out there. So I thought that's another one of my favorite movies. that's not that well known.

My old stage in the score that I was telling you about, they were early in on poker. And again, I don't know anything about it, but we had a guy, Daniel Negranu. Yeah. Yeah, right, he's Canadian. And he was like apparently amazing at the time. So we had him on one time,

and I was joking to him. I said, listen, I don't know anything about cards and gambling, but I said, I love this one maneuver you do, apparently called a nut flush. And he starts cracking up and describing the nut flush in detail. Same thing on MMA. Again, you speak about an interview. Sometimes you just look for something funny.

I said, listen, I don't know anything about UFC, but talk talking about the rear naked chokeholds. Right away, that gets a laugh at a George St. Pierre, whoever I'm talking to. So, yeah, Nagranu and Poker and Rounders. It's all coming together for me now. That late 90s stretch is really good. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

But At Nam, hey, I really appreciate you being here on a learning leader show. It's been so much fun. I'd love to do it again at some point. I'm excited to see Sennophile as it continues to grow and all your work with ESPN. But go enjoy Solly, man. It's really good. I think you'll like it. I appreciate it, Ryan.

I'm a little worried. Like I said, I think Hank's almost two. type cast. He is. He's good, though. I mean, he just, he just great, you know. I mean, I, I think you're going to give it like two and a half maple leaves, maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure. But I, but it's still

it's solid. It's fine. It's a decent movie. You know what I mean? My wife said, why even bother going to see it? To your point, you're like, you already know the ending. You know what you're going to get? I'm like, yeah, but if it's a solid well-crafted film, I'm still going to enjoy it. I think you're right. It feels like a two and a half, maybe a three maple leaf movie. Yeah, I think so. I think so. So, show you like it. But thanks again, man.

and certainly want to continue this dialogue as we both progress on this podcast journey, man. Thank you, Ron. I appreciate me. Any time. This is a lot of fun. Thanks, Adnan. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learning Leadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you.

You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on The Learning Leader Show.