The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 368: Neal McDonough—The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

The consummate villainous actor's actor joins us to discuss his childhood growing up in a motel, how being blacklisted in Hollywood tested his faith, and why he chose to play the Benefactor, a.k.a. the devil, in Angel Studio's movie, The Shift. 

There's no countdown. We're rolling. Hi. After all these years, now, suddenly there's no countdown? If you'd like a countdown, I could do it. It's a manual thing. You won't be seeing it on the computer or anything. That's okay.

I just like to hear you count me in. Go ahead. Okay, in five? Not from five. Eight? No, no. Three. Three.

Two. I like it when you say one. You want to hear one as well? I know it's not typical, but I like it. Let me start over. Three, two, one. Well, hello. Go right now.

See? No. Would you say one, you stop, and then I talk. Okay. Three, two, one. Hello, friends. It's episode number 367 of the way I heard it, which means Chuck has had roughly 367 chances to perfect what you just listened to.

And still, we're workshopping it. A simple count in. One of these days, Mike. One of these days. I'm going to nail it. Our guest nailed it today. His name is Neil McDonough. And if the name is familiar, it's probably.

probably because you've seen him on the TV or the big screen countless times. The name of the episode is the luckiest man on the face of the earth with Neil McDonough. And quick sidebar. The reason it's called that is, well, you'll see momentarily why it's called that because he really is, I think. And I don't think he would disagree. But we have a great conversation about Lou Gehrig and we finally come to the conclusion that this is what the episode should be called. In the actual podcast, I ask his permission. I say, Neil, do you care if I call this the luckiest man alive?

Uh-huh. And he says, absolutely, that's perfect. But earlier in the conversation, I think he said, the luckiest man in the world when he was referring to Luke Erick's famous quote. And what I wrote down when you both said it at the end of the episode was the luckiest man on earth. So we got a lot to choose from. Right. So none of us are right. So what we did moments ago was Google it.

And Luke Erick's exact words were, today, I feel like, or I believe. I consider myself. Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Having said all that, you're going to love this conversation. This is an actor's actor. He's a terrific character actor, a method actor, maybe the most prolific villain working today. You've seen him in a band of brothers and in justified. Minority Report.

Absolutely. I mean, it just goes on and on. He's done over 100 movies. I don't even know how much TV. He's probably best known for the two years or so he was blacklisted in Hollywood for refusing to kiss another woman on screen. Yeah. Only his wife.

He kisses only his wife. Right. And so, you know, this is Hollywood. And that kind of limits you in a way. And so word got around and people started to assume he was some kind of a religious zealot, which he's not. He's just a guy with principles. and there are many things he will do, but there's some things he won't.

You have to admire that. Whether you're aligned with him spiritually or not, you have to admire that. And it was really fun talking with him. He's got a new movie. Angel Studios has done it again. This one is called The Shift. And I watched it this morning on my cell phone on the beach, which was not ideal. That's a weird thing to do, dude.

I had a lot going on, man. I had to get my steps in. You somehow managed to get to the beach. I had to prepare for whatever this is. It's a great conversation with a great actor and a devoted husband and a great father. For a while there, a really interesting child who grew up in a motel. Yeah. You're going to hear all about it, and you're going to like him a lot.

I consider him the luckiest man on the face of the earth, one of them anyway, and I think he does too. Neil McDonough, right after this. Long before she was Peggy Roe, my mom was Peggy Noble, daughter of Carl and Thelma Noble. It was her father, Carl, who inspired me to pitch a show called Dirty Jobs to the Discovery Channel and later start a foundation that honored the kind of work Carl Noble did for a living, trade work, skilled labor. That foundation is called MicroWorks, and today I'm proud to tell you that we've helped thousands of people get the training they need to begin a career in the skilled trades. In fact, we'd love to help you. You can apply for a work ethic scholarship right now at microwerworks.org. We've set aside $10 million for this year's applicants. Thanks to a number of very effective fundraisers, including the one with my grandfather's name on the label. I refer, of course, to Noble, Tennessee Whiskey, K-N-O-B-E-L, which is now available in a variety of delicious mash bills, all of which you can peruse at Noble Spirits.com.

In fact, if you spend $100 and use code Carl, C-A-R-L, you'll get one tube of orange bitter-infused sugar cubes for free. That's code Carl with a C to get nine sugar cubes, ingeniously engineered to make nine perfect old-fashions every time. It's my favorite way to support Microworks and my favorite whiskey to sip responsibly after a long day of interviewing people on this podcast. Pick up a bottle at noblespirates.com, K-N-O-B-E-L-Spirits.com. Soon may the noble men come to bring a bottle for everyone. One day when the waitin is done, we'll take a drink and go. McDone, your wings are ready.

McDonough, your wings are ready. And your table. For one, sir? Far City pizza back at Syracuse University. McDonea, your wings are ready. Old habits die hard, Neil. Was that like your first job or one of your first jobs? No, no.

I love being at Syracuse. we had a, I mean, what a great university it was and how much fun it was, but I do miss the food up there, the wings and the pizza and the people and everything about Syracuse. I just don't miss the snow so much. Boston boy, right? Boston boy, that's right. So how often do you get home and how much do you miss it? More than you could possibly imagine, you know, all my families, you know, they're still back there.

All my best buddies are still back there. And I hadn't been back since my dad passed away a few years ago. And this summer, I went back to do a one-night show as Whitey Bulger. And it... Holy cow. Comedy? I'll tell you, Mike, it was one of the most

incredible nights of my life to play someone like that on stage and we never rehearsed it. You know, they've been rehearsing for weeks and I was busy doing a show. So I showed up that day and they say, so are you ready? Mikey, I'm ready.

Where are my spots? You're going to be there, there, there, there, and we did the show and it was just seamless and standing ovation at the end And at the end, to have half of my high school, it seemed, to be at the show. Yeah. And relatives and friends.

You want to talk about being under the pressure cooker, but I love that stuff. You know, it's... Well, wait a minute. So this is a play, and you got your lines cold. You haven't blocked. I had the lines for a couple weeks, but I couldn't really go over them. And I had, like, monologues. I couldn't really go over them.

But because I was doing another show. But, you know, when you get words that are written really well and Casey Sherman, who I went to high school with is just this incredible writer. And Dave Wedge's partner, it just kind of flew off the tongue. I've never got to play a bossing character. Certainly no one like Whitey Bulger before. Right. It was fascinating.

And I got lost in the character. And finally at the end, when the crowd was going crazy, it was just one of those nights there I am in front of Raveh and all my relatives, my brother Bob and all my friends I grew up with. And it was just one of those awesome, awesome nights. Rave is your lovely wife of 20, How many years? 23 years, been together.

We just celebrated last week our 20th. Congratulations. Thank you. Five kids? Five kids. Were they all in the audience as well for this thing? No, they were not going to see Dad play Whitey Balls Group. But why not, dude?

You have Forrest Gumped your way into villainhood. Like, I don't know that anybody else right now can lay claim to that. And I want to get into that and a gazillion other things, but I have to commiserate for a moment because Chuck and I are from Baltimore. which isn't Boston. You know the pain of 70s baseball. Oh my God. You know the pain.

When I was in high school, we had this motel, and all the scouts from Cape Leak would stay at our motel every summer. It was great. But T-Bone, Giordano was the head of scouting for the Orioles. So he would always get me, because Al Bumbrey and I had the same shoe size. I'd be there at Barnsible High School playing for the Red Raiders, and I would have orange cleats and Bumbrie's old gloves or all this kind of.

And so there was this thing about the Orioles that I just adored as a kid. And I was like, why could you be an Orioles fan? You're in Boston. What are you talking about? There was no team. Jim Palmer, you know, I became a pitcher because of Palmer. I wore 22 because of Palmer all through college because it was, that was the dude. And you could hit a baseball too.

And you could hit baseball, yeah. Was that the first sort of talent you realized you might have been blessed with? Yeah, I could hit a ball really well. But, you know, I can hit slap shots really well, too, going up in Cape Cod. So there was two things you were going to. to do growing up in Cape Cod, you were either going to be a sports junkie like all my buddies, or you're going to do stupid stuff. And I saw a lot of my buddies doing the stupid stuff, and it made me realize that's probably not the best way to go through life or to start out

of the gates at 16, 17 years old. Fat, dumb, and stupid is no way to go through life. But I didn't want to be that guy. And then when I was 16, I went on this religious retreat, this Catholic religious retreat, I was a smart-allicky kid who would use his rapier wit to just cut into kids in high school as a defense mechanism. But then when I went off

from this religious retreat, I was like, maybe I could use those talents for something a little more positive. And then all of a sudden, my grades went from very average to A's. They went from kind of giving up a little bit in sports to being so focused, to being a regular kid to the class president,

and then class clown and most popular. Like all these things happened, all because I had this amazing religious retreat called Echo when I was 16 years old. Ever since then, I've always had this really great relationship with God in that the kind of thing that always stuck in my head was that we're all God's kids. And if we're all God's kids, that makes us all brothers and sisters. And if we're all brothers and sisters, shouldn't we be rooting for each other a lot more than taking each other down? It was that seismic shift in the way I thought about things when I was 16 years old that kind of catapulted me into, well, I can go on stage and act on stage and I really enjoy this and people who are listening to what I have to say.

And then in politics and, you know, high school politics and I thought maybe I'd go into the career of politics thereafter. And it all just kind of funneled in from baseball, hockey, and theater to it just kept going. And then theater and just overtook it. And then all of a sudden movies came in. My first audition was Lou Gehrig in the Bay Bruce. story and I got it. All right. Now you're just annoying. It was so annoying.

I'm like, dude, how do you go on getting? It was my cousin. Liam Monaghan was opening up the Cape Cod Times. They're looking for Lou Gehrig in the Baybro. There's an open casting call in Los Angeles next week. You should fly out to it. And I did. And I flew out to it.

And there I was in this young, confident idiot. I didn't want to read the sides because the signs there wasn't much there. And I went into the room and there was a sea of producers. And I said, if you guys heard Lou Gehrig's last speech in person. They're like, no, we haven't. And then I memorized it a night before. Like, luckiest man on earth's speech. So I did the speech to him and there wasn't a dry eye in the room including me because it's just, come on. Lou Gehrig was just, what a cuedee. It's not just the words. It's the uniform. It's everything. It's the sold-out stadium. It's that moment in time.

And not to belabor the point, Neil, but for a guy who comes to the conclusion that all the bipeds are brothers and sisters, well, then it makes a certain amount of sense for a Boston guy to develop a weird affinity for the Baltimore Orioles. That's right. Because how do you know who to root for and against if we're all on the same basic team? So you can watch the sport from a polite distance

and still give a damn. Right. Like, I haven't thought about this in years, but when Brooks Robinson died a couple months ago, you remember, I was on a plane. Yeah. And it hit me like a heavy, wet sponge right in the face.

in a moment. It wasn't just sad, but I was just overwhelmed by the amount of real estate that guy occupied in my mind as a boy who played third base. Oh, gosh. And I just immediately...

And for those out there who don't understand Brooks Robinson is arguably, I'm not even sure it's arguably. It's not the greatest third baseman history of baseball. It was arguable until he died. And then I'm sorry.

But I mean, sure you can talk Mike Schmidt. Sure you go. Of course. That's right. But, and it's not just... one number five. It's not just the talent. It's his connection to that town at that time, which is very similar to what you're talking about with Garrig. Right. So lunch bail. Right. When Kari Ostremski finally passes away, like my brothers and I, we celebrate his birthday on August 22nd.

I don't think it's anybody else in the world. And it's the pride of who's the first one to text all the brothers at six o'clock in the morning? Happy As day. Right, right. You know, so my oldest son, Morgan, talking about brainwashing. growing up in California as he did. He had two t-shirts that he wore to bed from the time he was two to about six. One was a Larry Bird t-shirt, the other was a Carly-Stramski t-shirt, both of which are now hanging in my closet,

which I just look at every day and just kind of giggle. This is so weird. I've got number five hanging in my closet, too. Of course you do. I've got it. Of course you do. But why? Because that's who we looked up to so much as kids.

But why does it matter more with every passing year? Is it mortality? I think because our mortality. You know, we're getting older. I'm like, what do mean? How could our hero be gone? Right. That doesn't make any sense.

Wait a second. That's rude. Then you look in the mirror. Dang it. What happened? How am I 57? I'm still nine years. But I literally still think I'm 10, 11, 12 years old.

You know, my kids just laugh at me because. So is that state of mind or do you think that's a product of the vocation you've chosen? Is that one of the benefits of being able to immerse yourself? I had this conversation with some of my kids' buddies the other day. I said, if you can figure out a way to never, actually have to grow up and you get to live in that make-believe world and that fun world, go for it because I still don't think I've ever grown up. That you, Raveh reminds me of that every day, you know. I don't, it boggles my mind that I'm sitting on Mike Rose show. Oh, come on.

Talking about the villainy that I've had on screen for the last gazillion years and how blessed I am to have had this career. It's still, I don't like to look backwards. And that's why I don't look at any of my TV shows or movies, unless I have to. Because it's just odd to me, and I certainly don't go back and look at my own material. I'm always in the present moment. So that's interesting. Does it make you uncomfortable to watch it, or do you not want it to bleed into your next portrayal? Bingo.

I enjoy watching it. I have to admit, you know, hadn't watched, I don't know how many episodes of suits and Arrow Flash Legends, the 100. How many movies at this point for you? Oh, 100 and, I don't know, I don't know, a lot. That was in the makeup chair with the last movie. The shift. And she says, do you have many times you've died on screen?

I don't know. Like 25, 30, and she's like, this will be your 63rd. Yes, it's got to be a record. But here I'm sitting here and talking about this stuff. You know, I really want to go to Los Angeles to be a comedian. And they're like, you don't look funny. You look a cop. I'm like, okay, that's right, I'll take.

scariest comic ever. You know, you were talking about before that, you know, when you grow up, you want to be an actor, There's an old joke about the guy who goes to his dad and says, Dad, when I grow up, I want to be an actor. And he says, you can't do both, son. Yeah. Yeah.

But look, it's right back to where we started. You can't. I still want to be a kid. The mirror lies to me every day. Lies to me. So there's that. Who said that, do you know? Or is it just one of those old sayings.

I think I heard it from John Rees Davies. Oh, yeah. John Reis Davies. Sure. Not Lou Gehrig? Not Lou Gehrig. That would have been amazing. Live Olman, maybe.

Now, let's go back to Lou Gehry for a second. Could you imagine your dad comes off the plane from Ireland, walks straight into the Army office, said, make me an American, goes overseas for five years, gets a citizenship, goes back to Boston, becomes the most die-hard Red Sox fan of all time. Like, this is his thing.

We grew up in a motel. Every night of the Red Sox game was on. Offseason, he's listening to Red Sox Report. What do you mean you grew up in a motel? My parents owned a motel in Hyannis, Massachusetts. Oh, they owned the motel? Yeah, it's a small little mom and pop motel that six kids grew up in.

So did you have, like, your own? motel room or was it all separate? Yeah. You lived in a motel room. Yeah, and we were basically cheap slave labor for, you know. It was a different time. A simpler time. I remember my first business lesson as a kid.

I was probably three. And my dad would give me the job of picking up cigarette butts in the parking lot. And as soon as I was done, he would give me a quarter. I would take that quarter every single time because you had to earn it. Sure. To go to the Coke machine and grab myself an ice cold Coke. And it wasn't years later. I was like, oh, what a.

genius business transaction for my dad. He would charge somebody else $2. He charged me a quarter, then got the quarter back because I bought something that he had for sale. Brilliant. Genius. Brilliant. But also, some pretty great parenting

in terms of cause and effect. You're attaching value to the quarter. You're attaching value to the journey, to the work. Right. I mean, work ethic either develops or it doesn't. You know, Charles Koch told me once that one of his first jobs was like cutting the lawn, sometimes like with a pocket.

because his dad was just really wanted him to understand the mix of the delayed gratification and the futility and the honor and the dignity of doing a small task over and over again really well how can you possibly hope to instill that unless you find some activity right that you can really jam up your child's butt you told you know I remember if I sat down in the chair in the kitchen for more than 30 My dad would just make me go do something. Go bring a refrigerator to 219. Go paint something.

Go mow the lawn. Go do the thing. So my only out clause was there was a wall in front of the house in front of the motel that I had spray-paid a little rectangle thing in there. And in the spring and summer, I'd be throwing fastballs into it all day long. In this wintertime, I'd be shooting pucks. And it's the only time he would let me stay and not do chores. So because of that, I would throw it for hours into a wall.

You know, pinpoint accuracy of just playing. going over my head, world series games, being in this dream scape of where I am, always on the mound, putting the pressure on myself, I've got to make this three-two strike. How am I going to pitch right here to Craig Nettles? This is going to be a hard job. Now, that's what went through my head as a kid.

How much time did you spend in front of a mirror in that dream world, whether you're impersonating a rock star, which is my thing, or a baseball player, or, I mean, did you literally see your reflection as you were projecting yourself into these alternative universes, which by the way, you know where I'm going with this. Wow, interesting. I do remember looking into the mirror and trying to get my leg as high as Jim Palmer did.

Over. Yes. And over and over and over and over. And look, how did he get the ball? How? All the way down to the dirt in the mound. Do you know the mechanism you have to have to get that high, that elbow that high, that hip that high, and be so down below here, to able to catapult everything forward and throw a problem?

Perfect strike. Well, the only thing harder than that is hitting it. Yeah, oh, yeah. Well, hitting a major league fastball. Palmer hit everything for so long that that baseball looked like an aspirin coming out. It's like, you're not hitting this. A jumpy aspirin. Just phenomenal. He took my grandmother into the broadcast booth on her 92nd birthday. She threw out the first pitch. My grandmother fell and broke her hip. when she was toward the end of her life in my parents' condo,

and she was watching the Orioles play. And she got up to go get a drink during the break, and she stumbled and fell. In the kitchen was a telephone where she could have crawled to hit 911. But in the den was the ball game, and it was still on.

She crawled back to the den. I love this woman. Watch the end of the game. Well, we all did, And when my mother heard the story, she wrote a letter to DeAngelis, I guess, and the Sun Papers published it. Yeah. And then they were like, this woman needs to throw up the first pitch. Oh, yeah, for sure.

So again, baseball, hometowns. I mean, I have no agenda for this conversation, Neil, but you started it in Boston going back to do a play that you hadn't rehearsed in front of half your high school buddies. And that's the thing, man. When you said that, I immediately thought of the lyric opera house, which was the first place I ever performed of note. Awesome. Going back to Baltimore five years ago to do a one-man show and standing there where I auditioned for the Baltimore Opera

in front of a sold-out house trying not to crap up my back. Oh, because, I mean, wow. Yeah. No pressure. Here we're at the Wilbur Theater. I think it might be the oldest theater in. And they gave me the tour before. This is the oldest theater in America.

This is where Brando broke out his first, you know, waterfront performance and this and that. I'm like, thanks for the added pressure. Thank you for that. But there's something about, I think it was that kid standing in front of the mirror so many times. Putting that pressure on myself in a mirror. I never really thought of it until now, Mike, having to deliver or having your father standing in the window watching you. Never played catch with my dad once in my life. No.

Except in my bachelor party, I'll tell you about that, which is pretty funny. Field of dreams must have been hard for you. Oh, yeah. So my dad would just sit there in the window and just watch me throw them ball after ball,

after ball, off to ball, off to ball, off the ball. I think I just like the pressure cooker more than most people did. I think my mom would make me, you know, someone would come in to look at a room and they'd say, hold on. And they get me this, you know, six or seven-year-old, chubby little freckled kid.

And I would show people's room. Like, here's the room. It's two double beds. Color TV, air conditioning, we just got HBO. Do you know what HBO is? Well, let me tell you about it. So I could sell anything to anyone at a young age, and my mom knew it.

And I think putting me into those pressure situations as a kid just kind of made me really enjoy being in that situation. I'm a naturally shy person. But if you put me in front of a boatload of people with a script, I don't have to be Neil McDonough. I can be anybody I darn well, please. And no one can judge me on it. You can judge you and be a Neil McDonough.

You can, whatever. But you can't judge me when I'm acting. It's this weird thing. So I remember doing 88 minutes. I don't know why it's always in my brain. And I was strapped to a gurney because I was about to be injected because I killed more people. Of course you did.

Of course it did. And there's Al Pacino staring at me because he grilled me and he's the one who put me in jail. And they had me all hooked up and I could feel how I was nervous getting into the scene. It's like, okay, get the thought process. And so when I get in, they strapped the blood pressure thing to me. I'm looking at the blood pressure. I'm like, I'm pretty hot right now.

All of a sudden, I ease into the scene, and the scene starts. The scene's over. And I look at the monitor, and it says 58. It's like, wow. 58 beats per minute when it was just 88 or whatever it was. It's being in that pressure situation that I really, I guess, thrive in. It's a crucible, Neil. I mean, gold is tempered in fire.

Yeah, and... That's right. Yeah, it's right. Well, people are still raving, raving, I tell you, about my mother's performance in the latest Pure Talk commercial. And if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to give it a look on my Facebook page and read the comments. They're hysterical. In this commercial, you'll not only see Peggy Rowe gently criticizing her oldest son for his longstanding and well-established commitment issues. You'll learn about the latest offer from Pure Talk, which includes unlimited talk, text, and data for just.

just $3499 a month with no contracts and no commitments of any kind. You can see why I love these guys. If, on the other hand, you have better things to do with your time, then watch my mom and me be impossibly charming together, then allow me to remind you, here, without all the cleverness and charm, that unlimited talk, text, and data on a blazing fast network for just $34.99 a month really is an unmitigated bargain from an American wireless company that keeps all their customers' service,

in this country, supports our veterans in a meaningful way, as well as the MicroWorks Foundation, and allows me to exploit my own mother in a national advertising campaign. Do what my mom did. Get yourself unlimited high-speed data for just 3499 a month. At puretalk.com slash row. You can switch in as little as 10 minutes at puretalk.com slash row. Pure Talk. Could you imagine that same kid coming home after playing Lou Gehrig with his 27 hat, jacket, and shirt on

and walking into the Rainbow Motel office, seeing my dad and my four brothers. And they beat me to a pulp. You will not. I don't care if you're starring. You're not wearing Yankee stuff in our house. They threw it out the window. They're punching me, laughing at me the whole time,

but it was a 50-50. 50-50. He said, don't wear that in the house. The other half was, we got to bust you a little bit because that's our job. But is it like that for you at this point as an actor

after a role as it as simple as taking off the uniform and putting it down and walking away from it because I know, I mean, I don't know, but you strike me as a guy who goes all in.

I mean, there's the method. There are lots of methods. Lots of methods, yeah. But what is yours? And how do you get it all for you? Which is why I don't watch my stuff. You know, I like watching, like I always say, I watched Eisenhower when I did American Horror Story, because I just want to see what it looked like.

And I hadn't watched myself on screen in a long time. A long time. And Ravey said, let's just look at it for a second. And I looked at it. And within 10 seconds, I got lost. I wasn't watching me. I was watching Eisenhower because my thought process, that's why I can't watch Bender Brothers,

because I'll just get so emotional, so fast. Remote drop. Who doesn't? Because he just brings you back to that as a method actor, with some other techniques that have evolved with, you know, as time progressed, it's hard because I call it puking on a canvas. When I'm really gearing up, I'm puking everything onto a canvas and letting everything out and you can judge as much as you want.

So this is just me and I'm going to throw it all out there. But then figuring out how to just puking on the canvas, how to mold it correctly to be a really performance that's kind of just spot on, instinctual, but kind of spot on knowing the techniques in front of a lens. It's exhausting. You know, everybody says you make it look so easy. I'm like, well, I'll sit on set and I won't say, oh, hold on.

I always have this kind of placid look on my face, but what's going through my brain and my soul at that time is just people would think, if I told you the thoughts that go through my head for some of my characters, you'd think, wow, you need to have a jacket on because you're dude, you're crazy. You went there? You went there. Yeah, I went there. So it's funny when I play the good guys like Buck Compton or the Warrant series as Westerns

or this next film, you know, we'll talk about the shift of having to play villains. And is that the promo you showed me? That's a different film. That thing looks amazing. Black Spartans is going to be. We'll get to that. But it's the good guys that's really hard to slough off because then I'm really imagining in my real life world

if this thing happened to someone you loved. Where it's the villain, you're like, ha ha, this is funny. How is that funny? Well, it's funny to me in this situation. And the more I play with that stuff, the more scary it becomes. I love jumping into a character as a villain where you think, oh, this dude's cool, he's my next door neighbor, I like this.

That was odd. Oh, well, that was even Otter. Oh, he's that guy. So those ones are more kind of fun, like, justified or... Yes. You play Robert Quarles, and he's so out of control, nuts that when we're on set, it's kind of hysterical. Mm-hmm.

And then one day, there's one scene, Rave was there, where I'm blowing oxycontin smoke up a double-barrel shotgun into a prostitute's mouth. You know, honey, get in here. You're not going to believe this. And then right after that, there's a scene where I'm naked in my office packing up stuff.

And it's just absurd. And I'm walking into the bathroom, and there's a young man strapped to a toilet. And Ravey's on. There's our title, by the way. Go ahead and jot that down. And there's a young man. strapped to a toilet with Gil McDonough.

Graham gave him my shot back after that. He threw you a lifeline, man. He threw me the lifeline. I would not be here today if I were for Graham. Sidebar. You were basically blackballed for two years. You don't kiss other women on camera. You're not going to do a sex scene.

Word got out. It didn't get out. You informed the industry. Oh, I try to keep it all quiet. They were like, yeah, but you read the world. That's right. So you went from respectable working actor

to religious zealot to unemployed. You lost stuff, man. It lost everything. You lost the Mercedes. Lost the house. Lost the house. Lost the houses.

Yeah, it's lost the house as. So two years go by, you're in the wilderness. This is New Testament stuff. And you're drinking. And you're drinking. By the way, you haven't had it drink in, what, eight years? Yeah. Honestly, is this distracting?

That's my grandfather's whiskey over there. I'll probably pour that for everyone. I love seeing people get hammered. I love it. It's just staring at you. I love watching people fall down apart. It's like, there we go. Wait, wait a minute.

Yeah, I think about eight minutes. Come on, boys, watch. He's about the fall. It's a great party trick. Who invited Neil? Sure, no problem. Invited Neil. But, I mean, that to me is operatic, right?

Like, to have, because if you knew that you were going to be in the wasteland for two years, you couldn't get arrested in this town for two years. If you knew it was going to be that for two years, you could do that standing on your head. But of course, you don't know. You don't know if it's ever going to end. That's it. It's like the traffic jam, right? Three hours in, you're like, okay, this is how we die.

Honey, kids, I hate to say it, but we're going to eat each other at some point. This is going to be very dark, right? But out of nowhere, Graham Yost, who's one of the best. Bad brothers, Boomtown. He wrote me like two of my favorite roles of all time. And then he just went, you know, it was. The phone rings. Is it a landline?

The phone rings while I'm on my knees, and I just said to God, why have you forgotten about me? Ooh. And then I sobbed. I finally hit the spot of, how could I dare say this to him who's given me so much?

Yeah, I'm not working. Yeah, I lost my money. Yeah, I lost my money. You know, Job got beaten up. A lot of people get beaten up in life. Everyone gets beaten up in life. No one's that special. Everyone's going to get kicked hard in the nuts,

and what are you going to do to get up off of that? and I was struggling. I couldn't figure out how to get off the mat. And then as soon as I was on my knees, sobbing and realizing what just selfish person I'd become, blaming it all on that one instance, blaming that person who fired me on the show. And I've often thought I need to write that person a letter

and say, thanks. Thanks a million for doing what you did. And by the way, if I recall, it was Echo. You were 16. the scales fell from your eyes like Paul on the road to Sarsas, I think it was. Damascus. Whatever it was. I told you, Chuck.

Don't ever correct me on the podcast. But anyway, it's a big moment. Replacing Chuck in next week's episode. What I'm getting at is, is there a haughtiness that can sometimes follow a conversion where you see the light and it's like, that's it. I got it now. and you start living a little bigger and a little bolder and then all of a sudden a curveball,

if we want to go back to baseball. I didn't go out to Hollywood to become famous. I came out to Hollywood to be a performer, right? And I think during that time after Band of Brothers and then walking tall on housewives and all these other shows, it was getting so easy that I think that maybe I was taking it for granted. And I think this is the lesson in that

I wasn't working as hard as I should have. have with the gift that he gave me. Yeah, I'm a great actor. Great. That does not make me special. I can't pound a nail. I can barely sing and dance, but man, I can act as Rubei always says. And maybe I thought that specialness was actually special. Right? That I was special. Yeah. And I think maybe he just said, you know, let's get you back to reality here. I'm going to make you squirm for a while and make you realize that I gave you an amazing gift. Don't take you. it for granted. Well, and don't use it.

Well, early you said, I want to use my powers for good, right? So if acting as a talent and many people in this town are blessed with it, why are so many people blessed with that talent so profoundly and irrevocably screwed up? Fame messes with you. Yeah, right? You know, here, here's a boatload of money and every joke that you tell in a room, everyone's going to be laughing. Right.

or you're funny. I used to tell really dumb jokes on purpose to see how much people would laugh. Hey, he's laughing. That's fine. Gosh, maybe I'm getting, and you know, Ravei always says, you're just famous enough. Don't mess that up. Don't mess that up. I don't know. I just, I'm so fortunate to have the clarity of mind, especially of the late, I mean, you look

at the last eight years of my life, you know, being there for the kids so much more, focusing on being a great dad, focusing on coaching their teams, focusing on being the best. focusing on being the best husband I can be for a vase, focus I can be the best actor I can be for the audiences. Focusing on how I can be the best me for him, I wouldn't have had that clarity. Was it hard to give up alcohol? Yeah, it's not easy to give up alcohol as being an Irish guy.

I'm not even sure it's permissible. Right, where everyone's throwing your drinks in Hollywood. Here, have another one, have another one. And you're just like, okay, okay, okay. And then when you take that stance and say, no, I'm done. You become a threat to them. Oh, my gosh, yeah. How many friends I lost because, oh,

Not because you're boring. Not because... I have more fun of parties now that I did then because I can have an actual conversation. What did I just say? I can't remember what I was saying. I was a little drink. That's an ugly dude.

I didn't know how much I disliked that guy until I had to face him in the mirror. You know, I couldn't get that Jim Palmer kick anymore. You know, it was 25 pounds overweight. I was, you know, just kind of... Everything was so easy. And then it happened. And then it still took me a little while

to figure out, all right, back-ish, how do I get into the next gear? And it was Ravei when she said, it's time, you got to stop now. In a profession where there's so many beginnings, middles, and endings, it seems like if you don't have a larger narrative to put over top of all of it, all you're going to do is get yanked back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, project to project to project the project. When I watch Band of Brothers, how many times have you seen it?

I've seen it at least three times. I watched it with my brother. I made my brother. Yeah, I watch it with my dad. I mean, obviously, I can't say anything you haven't heard about this thing, Neil. It's a remote drop, which is a pain in the ass

because it's not a movie. It's a commitment. It's like eight episodes or nine or whatever it is. No matter where it is, I'm going to watch it to the end. I thought, I swear, this is true. I consciously thought the last time

I watched it, what it must feel like to be any of the people in it, including you, to know that you're impacting people like that. It's like when Jim Palmer, let's go with the ball, there's not a damn thing he can do about what happens next. No. Yostramski is liable to hit it 430 feet. Yep. Nothing to be done.

So your work is done. You've puked up on the canvas. You've done your best. And now you get to sit back and see what the ball does. I know you said you don't watch yourself a lot, but I got to ask, man, what, that must feel awfully good to know that you left that kind of mark

on that many people. I haven't watched Band of Brothers since it came out because I just can't. If I hear the music, da-na-na-na-na-na-na-brake out the Kleenex because I go to all the thoughts immediately. That wasn't 23 years ago. It couldn't have been

because that was yesterday that I was on the field. And getting to know Buck Compton who became like another dad to me. Didn't you meet your wife? In my wife? In London? All those guys are still my best pals. I love that.

There isn't a production that Ravey and I make now that doesn't have at least one other band or brother in the cast or in the crew or whatever the case is. And so last week, Morgan, our oldest son, is taking World War II as his history class at his school. And they're studying Banda Brothers. And they asked me to go in and speak about Banda Brothers. I was like, oh, I can't speak about Ben's brothers.

Because more than 30 seconds, if I start talking about Buck, I'd just get weepy. And two days before I went into the thing, Morgan had a golf tournament, so we couldn't go to school. Oops, that definitely leaked out, didn't it? Don't work. Yeah, that's right. Nobody listens to this. He said, Dad, I was supposed to be in class today, and they were watching episode seven, which is the episode where I have my mental breakdown. And he says, do you mind if, can we watch it?

me and you tonight? Yeah, of course you can. And I sat there next to Morgan. The blessings upon blessings that were bestowed on me because of that show is just I can't even fathom.

So I'm sitting there watching the show and tears are running down. I'm just sitting like this and tears just like, I can't, this is just, and I'm looking over at him and there's tears in his eyes as he sees his dad watching himself.

And he finally got it. He's like, oh, now I understand what Buck means to you. And it was just one of those moments that I'll never forget. Luckyest man on Earth. Yep, luckiest man on earth. Back to Garrig. Sooner or later, it all comes back to Garrick. It all comes back to Garrick.

You know what killed me in that, man. I mean, why we fight is one of the best segments. I think that's the episode. But there's a Chuck knows this story because we've actually, I actually wrote about it. It's just a seemingly inconsequential moment, but Spielberg gets those guys to play that quartet, right? And when Ron just walks out,

I think the line is the crowds clean up pretty good, you know, and then somebody says something about Mozart, little Mozart. And he says, that's not Mozart. That's Beethoven. I don't know why that thing haunts me the way it does. But it does. It's a combination of the music, obviously the delivery, but it's just such a gentle correction

from a world-weary guy. In that moment, it's like, wow, that generation is going to have a weight to carry for a long, long time. And your old man was a part of it. So I was blessed on Veterans Day this year to be able to speak at our school, and there was about 3,000 people in attendance, and probably... 50 vets on stage from World War II to now. There I was, I was a keynote speaker,

and they didn't tell me at the school that my five kids were based on. I had five kids were going to introduce dad. And I was like, really? You're going to do this to me and to have all five of my kids say just like the most amazing things about their mom and dad, and then I get up on stage,

and then to speak to veterans who've given their, lives so all of them. We could have the democracies and the freedoms and all the great things and that we have to this day. It was just one of those moments of, my gosh, it was funny, Buck Compton at his funeral. For years he would press me. He's like, you got to come out of the political closet. You just got to tell everyone you're a Republican. I'm like, I can't. I can't do that in Hollywood. They'll just crucify him if I do it. And he goes, you've got to admit it one day. You got admit it. So I told the story in front of everyone in the veterans are there.

and I said, there I was in front of, I don't know, a couple thousand people at Buck's funeral in Washington. I said, no, you forgive me everyone. It's going to sound like an AA meeting, but I have to say this for Buck. Hello, my name is Neil McDonough, and I'm a Republican. And the place just erupted. And I can feel Buck's coffin just saying, yeah, you finally did it, kid. It's beautiful. Well, what did that, what did it feel like for you?

I mean, aside from, I mean, what a great moment. And a fun moment. Yeah, it was fun. But did you feel lighter? When you admit truths, you always feel lighter, don't you? And you should never be ashamed of how you feel about stuff. That's a great thing about our country. We can talk about things freely and how we really feel.

And hopefully, people have the wherewithal to not get offended or upset or angry or point fingers. And, you know, the divisiveness of what's become the political landscape is just, it wasn't like that when I was a kid. Like I tell my kids, you may not like a politician's message or some of the things. that they have to say or what they stand for because of their party. But that doesn't make them a bad person. You know, what people say about, you may not agree with the president on a lot of things, but he's still our president.

You may not agree with your local officials, but we elected them. They're still, and whether you voted for them or not, they're still that you're elected officials. I was listening to Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's partner. Hundred years. Yeah, unbelievable. And he's saying, what's wrong with America now?

Is it greed? And he goes, it's not greed. Greed isn't the worst thing in the world. It's envy. if you agreed for your wife, greed for your family, greed for it, you want to do the right thing. That's one thing. But when you envy other people, you know, even sitting right there in the Ten Commandments, don't covet other neighbors' goods or wives or any of that stuff. But once you start doing that, it's a cycle that it's hard to break. And I think we're going through that cycle right now where

everyone is just pointing fingers at everyone else instead of holding themselves accountable for not being great at certain things, or not trying to be the best version of themselves. Well, you had a front row seat to that. You're a famous drunk in the life of the party, and then one day you walk into the party and no, not for me. And that becomes a threat. Yeah. And that's, I've seen that, I've seen that a lot

in a lot of different ways because we wind up resenting in many cases the very things we rely upon the most. And somehow or other envies wrapped up and all that. Wow, that's pretty good. Do do do do do do do do. Dumb. I love stories like this.

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our workforce i see how frustrated people get you flick the switch and the light doesn't come on It's not just an inconvenience. It's an outrage. How can this not be coming on? I flush the toilet. Why is my crap still in there? Something is seriously wrong in the universe. Somebody needs to fix this stat.

The longer that feeling goes on, the more profound it gets. So when the plumber finally shows up and the electrician finally appears, you're not grateful to see them. You're pissed off that it took so long. That's right. Is to fix it, fix it, fix it? So how do we get to that when we had, you know,

my dad's generation, who wouldn't complain about anything who would just fix it. Well, this in part, oh, that's the worst. Instant gratification. Yes, the worst thing. Instant gratification. We've become a very impatient people, I think. But look, let me shift to shift.

Every single thing we've talked about so far is in this movie you've just done, including the culmination of all villainhood, no matter how you define it. This is it. You're never going to play a bigger villain. Right? From Whitey to Lucifer in six months. Old scratch, brother. I mean, it's a heck of a thing.

It's all done. Come on. Chop, chop. How about see it? So Angel Studios has done it again. We talked to Ballard. He came on here not long after Sound of Freedom. And I was interested in the movie, but I was also very interested in understanding how that movie got made.

And so the role, man, what a fun role for you. But right before we started rolling, I said to you, it feels like it feels like it's a movie. about to tip. It feels like movies are about to be made in a completely different way. One is a thing. Two is a pattern. Three is a trend. These guys are doing something and you seem to be up to your eyeballs in it. So what the heck is happening? Well, they're doing things differently. And instead of the same system that seems to be broken somehow in some ways, in some ways it's working great. Look, Hollywood makes a lot of dark, crazy stuff, and I'm guilty of being part of a lot of it, for sure.

I had to make a living. I had to provide for five kids, so I had to be the villain of villains. That was my job. No good guys without bad ones, by the way. That's very true. And the worst the villain is, the better the good guy is. So that's how I would always go after my character. It's pretty funny you say that.

But what Angel Studios is doing by crowdfunding and building, look, we had 6,000 people invest in the shift. And every single name was on the screen at the end. The names of the investors was longer than the film. It just kept going and going and going. And it was just... So basically, if you have a project, you put it on the Guild, if it gets 50% approval rating,

then it starts going to crowdfunding, and when they get to a certain amount, the Angel Accelerator Fund comes in and matches it and they make the film. Who in their right mind would do that? Smart people who care about their customers. That was the other thing with Charlie Morgan were saying also, how do you make so much money?

Because you have to figure out who your customers are. Angels figuring out who their customers are. And I'm so fortunate to be part of the system. We just, Revan, I just have this now, this new first look deal with Angel. So we have the shift, we just came out, Homestead, which we co-produced. We just finished part one of that. Black Spartans is this film, the trail that I just showed you that is going to go through them. And then we have the last rodeo, which I am just so proud of that.

Look, Ravain and I started our first film was a half million dollars. our dear friend Willie Jackson who we called it after we said we're doing another one at 1.5 you want in and goes yeah and so he helped invest and got us rolling on that one so then the next one was 3 million then the next one was another around

3 million with a warrant that we produced and then Black Spartans we got up to 5 million and then the last rodeo now we're up to 8 million and John Avnet is directing it great cast reassembling and I wrote it and starring in it and my first on-screen kiss

is going to happen in this film because in the story I have flashbacks to my wife who passed away 15 years ago. So your wife's... So my wife is going to be my wife. Ravey's going to be in her first starring role. A very short little flashbacks for moments of her staring into the camera

of just waking my character up. And at one point in about three quarters the way through the film as she's dying of cancer, I lift her up out of her wheelchair and we dance and that's when I kissed her for the first time. I'm famous for one take. You're a one-take guy. I've read that. This is going to be like 30 takes.

I don't feel like we had it yet. We did another day. Come on, everybody. Give me one more. And John Avedon already knows. John Avent directed Fry Green Tomatoes and tons of movies and TV shows, justified.

So we're just so blessed. And then this other film that we wrote called The Wicked and the Righteous, it's Kay and Abel in the West, that we talked to Jim Caviesel about playing my evil brother in it. And this is all through Angel. And it's because of their fan base.

If they don't like it, they're not going to vote it through. Well, you know what, man? People are pissed off. They're underserved. There's a giant underserved. served community who wants a certain kind of content, but they don't want the saccharine suite. Not everybody needs to burst in a song. It's not sunshine and roses, right?

It's got to, there's got to be hope. There's got to be some kind of redemption. But along the way, it's got to feel like life. It's got to hurt. Yeah. Right? And so they seem to have gotten that memo. Yeah, for sure.

And you're, I think. And that's our wheelhouse. I like to write or act in the films that are hope in the face of despair. But you've got to have despair. You got to have the despair first. Because we've all been dragged through torture in life. Every single one of us. There isn't one who hasn't.

And if you don't write to that, then to me it's not really that truthful. When I look at John Wayne's last performances, from the shootist to the Cowboys, they're two of my favorite performances because you saw John Wayne, who has gone through everything in his life. And the Cowboys, to me,

is kind of like a perfect film. and to stand up for one last time against Bruce Derns. Which to our earlier point, and not to say the same thing in a slightly different way, but you take Bruce Dern out of that movie. Mr. Anderson. Mr. Anderson. Gosh, it was so good.

Because he was so despicable. You hated him so much. I would put you with great respect in that category. He made Mr. Anderson, Mr. Anderson. And the sweetest man off camera. Yeah. Yeah. Right?

You know, it's funny. We villains are this tight club of villainy are generally the nicest, goofiest guys who all think, how the heck did I end up being the villain? Because you guys get paid to puke out all the poison every year or so onto the canvas. You get to get it all out of your, all of it, out of your thing, all of it. It's harder to get the good guy behind you.

It's almost impossible. You never do. Because the audience remembers and they see you, they want more of that good guy. I mean, you've got to kind of live up there all the time. Right. Must be exhausting. I can't imagine what was like to be Harrison Ford.

Right. To have to be the good guy. You know, he was clever in having his good guys still a little smart alicky and a little shifty and like, you know, living in the gray area as the hero. That was a genius on his part. He infused such fun into his heroes unlike anybody else. But if you're just playing, playing Goody Two-shoe, He's a good guy. It doesn't make any sense.

Or playing over the top Snidly Whiplash villain doesn't make... That's right. You can't be Dudley-Du-Rite and you can't be Snidly Whiplash. You can't. Which is why the benefactor is such a great moniker, right? You're not the devil. You're not Old Scratch. You're not Bialzab.

You're not Lucifer. You're all those things. But in this movie, you're the benefactor. And gosh, I love when a metaphor comes together. But earlier we were talking about the different reflections you experience when you look at your own self in a mirror. And this movie is really that. I mean, it's sliding doors meets minority report in a way, right? And so we don't just have the devil.

We have the devil's influence on many, many dimensions and universes and different realities and possibilities. So it's sci-fi meets theology. And I don't know that I've seen that before. Well, I don't think we've literally just dawned to me, as you said it right now, like Minority Report, you take Max von Seed out, who is the villain of the piece. You think he's this sweet, great guy for the first half of the film, and then, oh, the difference, which I've never really seen, I don't think, in a real villain villain, like the benefactor.

You know he's a villain immediately. And when you know he's the devil and he's sucking you in as the character did, you're like, well, Kevin, why don't just give over? I mean, dude, you could have any lambing. you want. You can have anything you want in the world. I mean, that's easy. That's a no-brainer. This guy seems cool. Go play with this guy. And he doesn't. And then you see the benefactor start to get impatient, become this impestuous eight-year-old boy who starts getting really, no, you're going to play by my... I sat there and watched it. And there's my five kids. And here's

a revere next to me. The five kids. And I'm just watching them. And they're all like, the whole time in the movie. I was like, why? wow, we're making a movie that the whole family can watch and learn from at the same time. That was, again, one of those awesome moments of my life that they get to see Dad do what he does really well in a film that's a really good film. Beautifully shot.

Oh, yeah. Right? Absolutely. I mean, I don't know what that part of my brain was expecting. I guess, you know, sometimes your expectations get lowered. When you're like, well, this is a very important film, this is going to be a religious, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So somehow or another, there's going to be compromises, but it's beautiful. It's a great script. I'll tell you, the first five minutes

I loved. I'm suspicious of montages as a rule. I think they're lazy. Lazy. Yeah, yeah, they are. Generally are. This was about the most efficient use to see a couple fall in love the moment they meet, and it was really artfully done. I was struck by that, and a lot of other moments in it too. If you don't get nominated for something in this thing, you know, there's no justice in this town, but I hate to tell it to you, but there's no justice. Yeah. Don't hold your breath. You got enough trophies. If you do it for trophies, get out. I do it because I love acting. It's my, you know, there's no place on the world that I'm probably as comfortable as I am in front of a camera, which is just bizarre if you really think about it.

Or on stage or whatever. It's coming back to the benefactor. At first I said no to doing the benefactor because I'm like dude I can't play the devil that's just I'm not going that far and then Ravey and I had a long conversation we prayed about it so we were like well you're probably the best villain in Hollywood you probably have the best relationship with God of those guys you kind of have to if you come out really slimy and weird and it just won't work and these people really want you to do it and don't you always say if someone asked you to do it you just do it and that's kind of pride of my career so if it's an infomercial to a studio film to an independent thing to TV to whatever I'll just do if you ask me I'm going to do

basically because I think it's the right thing to do it's goodwill right yep and then I can't pinhole me as that guy people know me as being a really great actor they can't say exactly which role or that because it's been so much and I've been blessed because of it but the key to the benefactor was Ravei saying you've got to find humanity in lucifer at some point sure because lucifer was once God's guy and he made mistakes and we all make mistakes and we're all And maybe Lucifer will look at this film and think, well, maybe it is time to go back to the good side. As corny as that might sound, it's stuck in my brain. Well, look, man, I mean, if you can redeem Satan with this performance, then you can have that trophy right over there.

That's one of my most beloved trophies, and it's yours. And it's not Satan himself, it's people who are struggling. You know, we all do dumb stuff. We're all sinners. We all do things that we're not proud of every single day. That's part of being human. So don't point your fingers, don't throw those rocks, don't do one, because we're all dofuses at times, more than not. Profound.

But the other thing about the script that I love is the idea there's a butterfly effect in it too. And the idea that a small shift, a small change in the course of a day can have enormous consequences. That's what started our podcast. That's what started the stories I used to write. I'm most interested in the inciting moments. Right. Whether it's in your career or in a good script. I mean, I love the fact that you grew up in a motel.

I love the fact that you were... I fold laundry with the best of them. I mean, I'm like a machine. Give me towels, buddy, boy. I'm done right through it. We need a refrigerator in 219. No, my dad at my prom. Here it comes...

And I paid for it. I paid for my tucks with the tails and the hat and the whole thing. The limo pulls up. My date's getting into the car. As I'm about to put my butt into the car, my dad says, wait a minute. 219 needs a refrigerator.

And there's my mom. You're telling me. He's like, honey, he's going to the prom. And I go and I bring the little portable refrigerator in my tucks, put it in. I'm schvitz and I get in the car. Bye mom, bye dad. Classic, but yes.

Do you remember your date? Gene Farley. She was one of my best friends in high school and we became friends thereafter. It wasn't a romantic thing. It was just... Well, not after the refrigerator.

No. Cheers. But the whole Farley family. You needed a shower. Right. I loved that family. There were great people. I miss Hyannis.

I miss Cape Cod. I miss everything. It's a great spot. What was your first role on stage? Well, first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade I auditioned for, and there's always a fall play in the spring play. And the most I ever got was a tooth and a tree.

I'm like, dude, I'm better than this. I'm so much better than this. A tooth and a tree. I also had a bit of a list. and dyslexia, which my mom would work on, and she was amazing. And finally, I got to high school, and they were auditioning for your good man, Charlie Brown. And... Wait, don't tell me.

Snoopy. I was going to say, Snoopy or Linus. Can't be Charlie Brown, too obvious. So the audition was coming. My mom was a good piano player. We rehearsed two songs on the piano. And I went into the audition, and I could care less if I got the pardon art, which is still in my system now.

I don't care if you like me. I don't care if you like what I'm doing. I'm doing this 100% selfishly for me. And this is how I start. You know, Oscar Wilde said everything is useless to the artist, except the artist themselves. So you should be 100% selfish in your approach to painting and writing and drawing. Sure.

And part of it, acting with other people, you have to have such confidence in your ability that you don't care what other people think. And it's that freedom when you get to. Oh, this is awesome. You must first amuse yourself. You have to. So I amuse myself very well that day

because the director was like, that was incredible. Who were you? I'm like, Neil McDonough, because where are you from? Like, I'm here. And he goes, how have I never seen you

in any of the plays? I'm like, exactly. I know I'm good at this stuff, but I've never had a shot at it. It goes, well, you're going to be Snoopy. I'm like, thank you. And I'll never forget opening night,

and there's my mom in the front row, and I just cranked it. And I got a standing ovation. And I was like, oh, this is that feeling I've always wanted to see what it was like when the audience is completely quiet, totally giving their attention to you, and you darn well bitter give everything back to them

because you got to appreciate a good audience. And I got it immediately. I just understood that. And from then on in, I was like, I'm going to be the best actor that I can be. The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap. They have an important role to play for sure, but if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trades on a national level, we need to be. more organizations like Skills USA, making a real difference on a local level. These guys have been

around since 1965, and today they are relevant like never before, with hundreds of chapters in schools all over the country and hundreds of thousands of students participating and competing every year. Nobody is doing more to train the next generation of skilled workers than Skills USA. and I'm encouraging you to at least consider being a part of this movement. Skills USA advisors and volunteers aren't just teaching trades. They're launching careers and strengthening the backbone of our country by mentoring the next generation of industry leaders. In high school, you could be among the people who are making this movement explode.

Join the skilled trades movement. Support career and technical education programs through Skills USA. There's no better way to do it. You can volunteer at a local chapter. You can start a chapter in your own town. Or you can just go to their website and see the impact for yourself. And see, too, how easy it is to get involved. Thousands of kids are being introduced to the trades in a way that's absolutely positively moving the needle.

The goal is a million members by 2030. I think it's doable. I'm doing what I can to help them. Learn more at skillsusa.org slash mic. That's skillsusa.org. Slash Mike. I'm talking skills, U.S.

Skills, U.S.S. U.S.S. USA. You want to hear something crazy. First play I ever saw. Painters Mill Theater in the round.

You're a good man, Charlie Brown. No kidding. I swear to God. And this will freak you out because there's a moment. Snoopy has a song. Supper time.

Supper time. Overtime. I just can't hold a candle to my supper time. That's terrific. But no, the one I'm thinking of yanks you through the emotions of a day. Hold on. That's it. Faithful friends always near me.

Bring me bones. Scratch my ears. Little birds come to cheer me. So good. And listen to this, Chuck. Every day on my stomach with their sharp little claws. which are usually cold and occasionally painful, and sometimes there are so many that I can hardly stand it.

And then he goes into this whole... Mike Rowe coming out of nowhere, going yard. I'm telling you. Snoopy is... Snoopy is peanuts. Totally. And he is in the same way, look, the New Testament... Why do you think we only have beagles?

Yeah, well, we have a lab now. But we've been Beagles forever. Snoopy's been everything. All the, you know, every gift is always Snoopy. You know, when I'll write love letters to Raveh, it's Newpy. You know, I'm her newpy, you know. Are you kidding me? It's always been because Snoopy, it was such, if it weren't for Snoopy, there's no way I'd be here right now.

No way. Not a chance. Unbelievable that you played Snoopy. Crazy. And you walked in here with those periwinkle pants and I had no idea what we were going to talk about. These babies, I would say, you can take the boy out of Cape Cod. However, I had a Harley years ago. Not in those pants, you didn't.

In these pants! People were laughing me because, you know, my kid's laughing me, because this is me wearing a white button-down shirt, as much dressings I get. But I'm always in a polo shirt and khakis. Everywhere I go. And I used to ride my Harley in a polo shirt and khakis. And my kids are like, Dad, did you ever think of me like wearing jeans?

I'm like, I don't have any. You know, I wear them in movies because of the characters in all these westerns that I'm in now. Because wardrobe. And I love wearing jeans, but I'm a khaki guy. I've always been a khaki guy. Whether it's Perry Winkle, whether it's Nantucket Red or just regular khakis, it's just, I'm comfortable in it.

And I don't really care so much what everyone thinks. I'll leave the house sometimes. And my daughter Clover are laughing. Are you going out of the house like that? I'm like, yeah. Don't you care what other people think? And before I answer, she's like, oh, that's right. You really don't.

No, you don't. And then I said, well, that's because I'm still nine or ten years old in my brain. I'm still that little kid that never, grew up until I look at the mirror and then I'm like, oh wait, okay, I've gotten older, but I'm still not growing up. I can't. So what a run year having, man. Taking a cigarette butts at three years old. No, you're going to go talk to my friend Adam Carolla later today. I am. So, I mean, is this fun for you to, I mean, I'm having a great time in real time, but the weight of promoting a project, you know, I mean, you've been doing it now for so long, how do you keep this part of what you do from

feeling like the bird's claws on Snoopy's belly that sends him into a tizzy. Each year, it seems like the press gets more time-consuming for me. What does that mean? It means I'm climbing that ladder. It means they're giving me the opportunity to tell stories that I've always wanted to do. Look, now I get to be a romantic lead in a film, in an action film, riding 2,000-pound bulls, starring opposite these other fantastic actors in the last rodeo. I get to do a movie called Homestead that's this post-apocalyptic show

where I'm this, you know, Dutton character. I'm kind of a Kevin Costner-ish type of character on this show with a cowboy hat. Or I've got the shift where I'm, you know, one of my most proudest performances. It's hard to put into words how appreciative I am for what he has given me and that I don't want to take any of it for granted.

You pinch yourself from time to time? All the time. I sometimes will just stop and giggle at how blessed my life is to have five amazing kids, my most amazing wife, my best cheerleader, my biggest motivator, my biggest butt kicker, my biggest love, my biggest everything, and all rolled into one human being that I get to call my wife. My favorite part of playing cards is when I pick them up, because you never know. I mean, you never know.

And every now and then, you look down and you're like, I got four aces. That never happens, but it happens. I feel like maybe that happened for you. You know, we joked earlier, and people say, man, you're so successful in the last few years. I know why. It's because, well, two things.

Giving up alcohol was a humongous thing. Then it gave me more time of, oh, I'm not at a bar. I've got much more free time. What do I do now? And the Raveo said, write that idea. You wake me up at 2 o'clock in the morning.

Honey, I got this great idea. She was right it down. And we'd go on for years. And finally, she was like, okay, actually go write it down now. And then I wrote down Boone, the movie that I did, the first movie that I co-wrote. And then I came up with this other idea about this Western, the Wicked and The Wicked and The Wicked, Just go write it. Stop talking to me and start talking into a phone.

And that's what I did. Yeah. And then I would voice dictate a script, basically, and send it to my writing partner, Derek Presley. If everyone could say a prayer for Derek, he's sick right now. He's having a really hard time in the hospital, so please pray for my buddy. We did that. Then I had another idea, then another idea, another idea. And it just kept going.

And the second part of it was every New Year's I jump into water, no matter where I am. It's generally ice cold. And this year, I was in Vancouver in our pool, which was pretty darn cold. And I sat in there and said, okay, Lord, I can't believe all the gifts that you give me. What can I do to repay you? And I heard him clear as day say make entertainment for me. And in that pool, Mike, I was like, I could feel just heat. I can see it like it was yesterday.

this thing that just went through my system of calling me out to do better projects and to do more elevated stuff. And then INSP calls and said, we want you to do a Western called The Warrant. And then we did part two to the warrant, which we just won all the festivals and stuff. It did really, really well. And Ravey and I helped produce that one. And then it just kept moving and kept going, all because giving up drinking, listening to him, and trying to do the right stuff. And there's a confidence that you get after a while that people like, ooh, we want to be part of that. And Unity, this company

that came to Ravei and I about a year ago, said, we know what you're doing, we know your films are making a profit. How can we be part of it? We've got a couple hundred million dollar film fund. So we started talking. I said, well, I'm almost finished just as one script. Tell me what you think. And we wrote it, the last rodeo, and I said, great, we're going to make it. And Like, okay, great. What else you get? We got this other film. And we showed it to one of their buddies, Jonathan Mostow, who directed Terminator 3 and U571, and we had a great meeting as, wow, I would love to direct this.

And then we talked to Jim Caviesel about playing up. So all these things that are happening because of the belief that I have more in myself, because of the lack of the spare time that I used before for silliness has focused me into taking that spare time and putting it actually to fruition of process. of great things to do as a dad, as a husband, as a friend, as a whatever. And it's working. And it's pretty awesome to wake up every day and do it all with my best friend Raveh. If you asked me 20 years ago that this is where you're going to be in 20 years, I would have

said you're full of it. There's just no way people are going to take my opinion that seriously. Now we have a TV series with my great friend, Justin Falvey, at Amblin, that we're working on. and none of this stuff would have happened years ago. Four aces. But I think I might have five. You're a Irish. I'm Irish. You got the Joker.

No, look, man. So what's more important? Gratitude or delayed gratification? Oh, gratitude. Delayed, I don't, if you do anything for gratification, we all do think for gratification. When we do, it's probably the wrong choice. It's for, coach, thanks for giving me the chance to step into that box with the bases loaded

and having faith in me that I'm going to get a hit for you. Gratitude or work ethic? Wow. I don't think you'll never get the gratitude unless you have the work ethic. My dad and my mom pummeled me into having a great work ethic as a kid. And by doing so, my dad always said,

if they give you a dollar, give them $2 worth of effort. And I've always pride of myself on going over and above in anything I do, whether I'm coaching the kids, whether I'm driving, whether I'm driving, whether I'm shopping for food for the kids. I always don't go over and above and get the right stuff, get the good stuff. And when it comes to acting, there's not a chance I'm going to mail something in,

knowing that someone might come to me, some old lady might say, I spent 15 bucks watching you stink it up in a movie. I can't. It would eat me. So work ethic or hope? Hope is positivity, isn't it? If you're positive about things,

great things can happen. If you're not positive, I tell my kids in sports, that if you positively believe that you can do it, there's a great probability that it will. If you think possibly that you're not going to make that shot, not going to make that putt, not going to make that whatever,

not going to make that dance move that my daughter London is just so incredible at, then you're not going to. Those are mind tricks, but I had to learn those mind tricks. You fake it until you make it as a young actor, and I can do this, I can do it, I can, I'm a, can you do, can you do, I'm a, can you do, are you a great swimmer? Yeah, I'm a phenomenal swimmer.

When I got the Guardian, I said I was this awesome swimmer. I wasn't a great swimmer. I got a big Irish head and I sink like an envelope. It doesn't work. You do have a big head. I do have a very big head. So I was doing flags of our fathers at that time with Clinties Wood up in Iceland. And I heard that I got the part in the Guardian.

I'm like, oh, this is going to be awesome. You can swim right off. I'm Cape God. I can swim, dude. I can swim. Like a porpoise. So I go home for a day, literally. And I'm on the plane, going to Shreveport, Louisiana to do the Guardian with Kevin Koss.

And I walk onto the set, which is at the Olympic size pool. And I'm the tough, toughest nails, hard guy instructor. And there's all the guys, hey that, John, the spinner's on deck. And all of a sudden, all the guys are standing there waiting for me. And the technical advisors walk up to me who were coast guard guys themselves, who were just, we could swim forever. And they're looking at me. And they're like, and I'm in my swimsuit.

And I said, what's the test? if I swim all the way, how far underwater is it until I can prove everyone, I'm tough? He goes, well, you can make it all the way under Olympic pool from this end to that end. You'll prove everyone that you're tough. He goes, but, I'm like, what's the but? If you make it all the way and all the way back, it proves you're a coasty. All right. I'm like, oh, no.

All right. I had been in a pool, and I can't tell you how long. So I dive in and I'm flying. I'm about halfway through. I'm like, oh, I got this. Oh, I got this. and I'm on, oh, I don't know if I got it. And I get to the end, and I don't know how to do a kick turn.

So I got to the end underneath, and I touched it, and I kicked off. And at that point, I thought my heart was going to explode. But here comes that little kid who is on stage, is in front of the mirror as Jim Palmer, is picking up the cigarette butts, developing that work ethic, knowing that God is on my side. And get that fridge over to 219 stat. And I'm going, I'm going,

I'm literally puking in my mouth as I'm going, but I'm not going to quit. There's no way. And I think I'm blacking out by the time. I'm about halfway through the second length. And I finally get to the end. It's still kind of like a black moment. I get out of the pool and I stare at everyone.

And I walk off. Straight to the toilet. And I threw up for, I have no idea how long. Where it's going to go? Oh, he's gone for the day. But no one knew, the coast he knew. He knew exactly what I. did and it's that mental toughness of being the youngest of six kids that I don't know where it comes

from but I just I like hanging out with that guy it's a test and I enjoy it brother this country likes hanging out with that guy because we see him in over a hundred films more than a few of which are remote drops shift is the most recent anything else because I've been very selfish and I've kept you here and I know you got to think so just chatting for a bunch and getting to see you over the years and what you do and what you stand for, Mike. And it really is an honor to be on your show. That's, dude, from you, well, I think of the first time I saw Band of Brothers to imagine sitting here with my old buddy who I've known for 42 years. I'm just so grateful for everything that happens in my life because we've all been to a spot that's not so fun. And we all get into tailspins in life.

And once you can figure out how to get out of that tailspin and still, be really thankful for that tailspin and grateful for it and know that there is hope out there that things can change with the way you believe in things and, you know, whether you're religious or not. You know, I'm a very religious person. I'm a firm believer in God and what he has and I want to make him happy with everything that I do. Whether you're atheist or Taoist or Jewish or Muslim or whatever the case is, if you can figure out how to be a better person for humanity, that's where I'm at now. I'm just trying to figure out how to be

as grateful for all the ups and downs in my life because there's going to be more ups. There's going to be more downs. It's being grateful for all of it. That's the journey. And gosh, I get to sit here and talk about it with you. That's pretty awesome. Imagine the New Testament without Judas.

You can't. It's not a story. It can't. It's nothing. It's so true. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for everything you've done and all you're about to do,

Go get Shift. Were we clear on how to do it? Here's the thing, folks. It's called Google. What you do as you get on it. I'm so good at this stuff. You type shift. And then you'll know.

Shiftmovie.a.i. There we go. Shiftmovie. Dot. Final, final thought. The titles to these things are always quotes from our guests. And if you don't object,

I think this one is called The Luckiest Man Alive. That's what I wrote with. Neil McDonough. I think that probably encapsulates. You good with that? Everything too. And your fancy four aces and your beautiful wife and your five perfect kids.

I've seen pictures. Yeah, I know, I know. All right, six aces. All right, enough. Enough. Thank you, sir. If you like what you heard. And even if you don't, won't you please?

Won't you please please? Don't cry? Well, I hate to beg and I hate to plead, but please, pretty is. Please sob.