WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 900 - Nick Nolte

Episode Date: March 21, 2018

Nick Nolte makes an appropriate guest for the 900th episode of WTF because he clearly has about 900 episodes worth of stories to tell. They can't get to all of them, so Nick tells Marc the ones about football, farming, irrigation, Martin Scorsese, getting arrested, Marlon Brando, Tropic Thunder, Danny McBride, The Thin Red Line, and an epic prank involving Sean Penn and Woody Harrelson. Also, for Episode 900, Marc commemorates the last days of the Garage at the Cat Ranch. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Lock the gates!

Alright, let's do this. How are you what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fucking ears, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fucksters? What the fuckadelics? What the fuckingucks? What the fucktuckians? What the fuckericans?

What the fuckocrats? What the fuckpublicans? What the fuckers? I just throw a few out there because we are marking a milestone. We're marking something. Today is the 900th episode. This episode, today's episode, is the 900th episode of this podcast. Sure, some podcasts have more episodes than that.

Some have less. Some had whatever. None of that matters. We've been doing two new shows a week for 900 episodes. Wow. That's crazy and most of them most of them took place in this garage and that's really what's happening that's what's happening that is what is happening the garage we're moving we're moving in a couple weeks it's all going to be in a new place i gotta i'm going out to buy i gotta pickup, got to rent a pickup and be a guy

with a pickup for a day or two to, all I'm really replacing is maybe this table that I have the mics on. That may be only because I think it should be black, but, but other than that, it's all going. But that is really what marks this podcast. We've only got a few more interviews in here. I'm nervous to get started over at the other place, but I'm going to get it set up. It's going to be a mess at first and it's not going to be together, but I will get the

mics over there and we'll get the equipment up and we'll get to talking to people over there and we'll have that experience. But that is what's happening. That's marking the 900th episode is the last days of the garage. I mean, I can't believe it. I mean, I can't believe I've done 900 of these. And I'm really at that point now where sometimes I don't know if I've talked to somebody on here. I don't remember what we talked about.

Thank God, Brendan McDonald, my producer and business partner, has a memory-term all the way through, all the way through 900 of them. I have to be reminded. I, I, he obviously has a much better memory, better memory than me, but, but also like he has to listen to these things again, really, as I've told you before, probably that the experience for me in these conversations and when the people leave this garage. So I can only remember organically. I don't have to edit it and hear it again or a third time.

But they all start to drift, don't they? Don't they? The experiences, the conversations, the events in one's life. That's what's interesting about this garage is that, you know, what am I keeping up there? And a lot of it needs to be triggered. Do you know? I mean, a lot of it, a lot of the memories, I need them to get a jumpstart. Give me a time.

Give me a place. Give me a person. Give me a tone. So like in a few minutes, I'm going to go through some of the stuff in the garage here. Those are the triggers. You know? through some of the stuff in the garage here those are the triggers you know i gotta if i look at my the list of the 900 people i've talked to in here most of them those would be the triggers just those moments all shared in here this air this space the dust there's if if if most of dust is skin there's a little bit of skin from a lot of fucking people around this garage.

But I'll get into that. I'll get into the transition to the spiritual, mental, emotional transition and the jogging of memories in a few minutes. Nick Nolte is on the show today. Nick Nolte has written a memoir. Well, he's gotten some help writing the memoir that's gone on for a while, so he claims. It's called Rebel, My Life Outside the Lines. You can get that book wherever you get books, but I'm happy that he just so happens to be the one on the 900th episode for reasons that I'm still, I'm still sort of, uh, I'm still sort of ruminating on. So the garage memories, sorting through things, transitions. Uh, I spent a bit of time

with a handheld mic and a bit on this mic over a few days, uh, spread out over a couple of weeks, kind of starting to process moving and actually going through stuff. And so this is how we're going to do this today. I'm going to sort of cut to myself here, going through the garage and having that experience, having memories jogged. A lot of the memories that were jogged are still sort of hanging over me today. Some of them good, some of them bad, but let's do it together. Let's do it right now. So this is what the plan is. I'm going to take down stuff here in the garage, moving towards the selling of the house.

So I've set up a few boxes here. I've got a box for documents, and I've got a box for stuff I'm going to keep, and I've got a box for stuff that I'm probably not going to keep. Nothing personal. And the first thing I'm looking at over here is these are the notes for the Obama interview. And I saved this thing from the Secret Service. Telephone trap sheet. Please fill out the blank spaces with as much information as possible.

Special agents may sign as a witness. And then bomb threat sheet. I don't know what all that meant, but as a page, it looks pretty good. Oh, I see. You had a checklist. I guess I checked this stuff. It didn't fill out here. And then there's just the notes from Brendan that we put together to talk to Obama about. And then there's my notes and some more notes. So, I should keep this.

It was a fairly complicated day. So that goes in the document box. Oh, it's already happening. Oh my god. This weird thing is a strange man made out of pipe cleaners straddling a rat, a plastic or rubber rat. I've had this since college. I remember making it when I was high. The pipe cleaner guy has a very defined cock and balls for some reason, and he's riding a rat uh it seems like a rare piece of ephemera i will keep that this is the first ipod huh that seems like i should keep that oh this is some notes who is this father politics why enlisted in navy political help his father's oh al gore

al gore notes i'll keep those this is a Spider-Man comic with the Not Ready for Primetime players, and I think it's close to the original cast of SNL. Yeah, minus Chevy and Spider-Man. I don't know where I got this, but I'll keep that. Oh, here's my high school diploma. I did it. I did it.

Mark David Marin satisfactorily completed the course of study prescribed for graduation from Highland High School. Look at that. Look at that. I did it, folks. I should keep that. These are some weird fake stamps I got.

Dr. Kevorkian stamps. I should keep those. This is a picture of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a monk who fought fascism on the radio. It was given to me by Roger Corman with some expectations. And I don't know if I lived up to them. Maybe I do. But it was a lot of pressure. This is a Richard Pryor's It's Something I Said 8-track

and a Take Off Some Put-Ons of George Carlin. These are both 8-tracks. They're kind of nice to have around. They look good. And this is a David Koresh CD, Voice of Fire. It's recordings of actually David Koresh singing, which I'll keep because it's part of a weird time, right? Why did I have that? Why would you want that? Well, there was a time where I was thinking, where I thought, well, that's really cool. It's David Koresh CD. This is, someone knitted me some

dog shit. This is knitted dog shit. I know it's what it is. I don't know if you would know that's what it is. Kind of looks like a donut that didn't come out right, but it's like crocheted I think. It's, yeah, it's supposed to be dog shit, but it's knitted. People and their crafts. I'm not sure I need to keep that one. Oh, and here

look, we have a box of pictures from my entire life. From all, just a mess of Polaroids and pictures from my entire life. Oh, there's me holding my first wife's sister's daughter, who's probably in her 20s now. Oh, my God. This is me right after I got out of rehab the first time back in the 80s wearing a devil suit kind of robe me and my dad's wedding me oh the WBCN comedy riot 1988 this is the moment that I lost and came in second oh my god look at these pictures me freshman year college me naked with a guitar

who took that that's the big question who took took that? Oh, here's my mom and my brother. That was at my second wedding. Oh my God. Me and the second wife. What is this? Oh, this is me on the honeymoon that happened late doing a selfie looking not happy. Oh man. You know what? Maybe it's not a good day to go through pictures. Maybe I should just close this thing up. Oh, what is this envelope? These look like old pictures. What's in here?

Oh, look at that. It's my parents. They must have been like newlyweds. Oh, look, there's my mom at the height of her anorexia. Looking, ugh. My God. Alrighty. Well, this didn't turn out to be as fun as i thought it would be with the pictures what do we got over here uh-oh it's a big plastic box labeled journals and

personal oh boy i don't know if i should be reading these out loud or anything there was a period there where i was writing every day to keep my sanity during the divorce and some of these i thought would yield something in waking consciousness today i felt truly alone on the planet with my heart oh my god and i talk about seeing my ex-wife i you know let's not do this now either but i have them i have them all i have all those journals. What else is in here? This is my dad's stethoscope without the rubber on it that he's had since medical school. They used to carry in his bag. I should keep that. This is a box of candles that somebody made with their teeth, carved with their teeth. I'm gonna keep that. This is- oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! That fell down. I don't need it. I wasn't going to keep that.

This is a little fuck sampler. Just a framed fuck in that knitted sampler look. Oh, this is half of George Orwell's 1984. It was sawed in half by Ross Broccoli when we were converting a bookshelf into a CD shelf in my apartment in New York City on East 16th Street. He just brought a fucking power saw thing, handsaw, and we just cut that thing in half. And somehow or another, George Orwell's 1984 was cut in half as well. And I keep it. It's a weird moment. It seemed to be hilarious at the time. Morning Sedition, mouse pad with me and Mark Riley from Air America.

I'm going to keep that. There's the cup. The Obama cup. I'm going to have to keep that. I don't know how to do this. Because I think what I really want to talk about on some level is the importance of this place, which many of you already know and I already know what's happened in this garage. The people that have been through here, I can read a list of the 900 plus people that have sat across from me. Some of them famous, some of them not so famous, but all of them engaging and interesting.

And a lot of things in my heart and in my mind, you know, changed here in this garage through having these conversations over the last, what, eight years or so. I mean, it's pretty astounding. And I know a lot of people are freaked out or panicky about what happens next. But this garage, as sacred as as it is will become a sacred space for the next person i know that the person who was in here before me recorded music in here i know that this space is a special space but it doesn't have to just be my special space i can move on to a new special space i can move on with my new skills that i learned in this special

space but it is kind of wild to think of the people that sat in here and what I've moved through in my own life in here. And as I sort of kind of move through the garage and I look around at these books, I have books in here that I've accumulated my whole life, you know, through college, through the beginning of comedy, through, you know, my entire life, there are books in here that I've taken with me

and they mean something, even if they're just to look at. I have pieces of art on the wall, photographs that mean something to me. Me and Sam Kennison, Dennis Hopper from Apocalypse Now, the cast of Freaks, the poster for my HBO comedy Half Hour from 1995.

I've got a picture of black and white, eight by 10 of Howlin' Wolf on the floor singing his heart out. I got a picture of me and my mentor, Gus Blaisdell, from the Living Batch bookstore with his business card under it. Rest his soul, man. Got a pic of me and my brother. I got the first Zap comic. I've got the envelope that destroyed my life when it was sent to my house when I was living with my wife and it was addressed to the woman who became my second wife. I've got a picture of me in a towel and my brother

in a tux on his wedding day. I've got a cutout of the New Yorker listing of Jerusalem syndrome. I've got an eight by 10 of muddy waters. I've got the laminated Times piece that changed the course of my life up on the wall. The full New York Times piece by Dan Saltzstein that profiled me in the beginning of this podcast in this garage. I've still got the picture of me and my mother when I was a baby on top of the shelf. I've got some old high school yearbooks. I've got some this and that, a fire truck that was from the old days at Aramarka. A fan brought me a fire truck to a gig.

It's all here. But I'm basically saying that everything that I've ever lived through or everything I've ever accumulated, it's represented here for my entire life, for my entire life. This is what surrounded me and my guests. This is a sort of functional depiction of the inside of my mind of what made me. Representations of what made me who I am surround me in this space. of what made me who I am surround me in this space. And in a lot of ways, you know, people walking into this space are walking into my mind, into my heart, you know, into my soul,

if you want to believe that kind of stuff. You know, despite the sort of comfy sort of there's a rug on the floor, you know, everything seems a bit, not chaotic, but, you know, it's wall-to-wall stuff. There's a lot of stuff here on the desk itself, just little things that people can play with, a half a bit, not chaotic, but it's wall-to-wall stuff. There's a lot of stuff here on the desk itself, just little things that people can play with, a half a hammer, a knife, a pair of dice, exercise hand thing, a weird melted record, just bits and pieces, coasters, pencils, pieces of rocks, guitar picks. It's everything that i've ever been and everything that i've become

you know it really is represented in this space in this cozy strange basically single car garage built in the 1920s but all this stuff is going with me people i'm moving to a bigger place but i know that the magic is here but it's not like a ghost. Magic is not like a ghost. You know, this space, you know, it was a space that I occupied when I got this space, you know, it had a crumbling concrete floor. I put a wood floor in here and I had plans that were never realized for this space. And then it just became a junk. It just became, you know, stuff that didn't fit in the house in my small house and then when we started the podcast i just stuck a table in the middle of that junk there was no

order there were no shelves there was no you know sense of style or or pictures on the wall it was just a table in the middle of some junk and i started recording on my on my laptop the first uh after like maybe podcast 11 or 12 that's how it was just me sitting with these sm7 mics on desk you know mic stands you know the ones that the sort of freestanding short ones that sit on a table with these big mics that are supposed to be on booms and i was doing it i knew i needed these mics and what do I really get attached to in here? These mics, I think, are special. And these old bookshelves that I bought at a thrift store

that were once at the LA Mental Hospital. I love them. And then these like acoustic panels, foamy stuff that I replaced because Laughing Andy, who was the board op for the Marin Show, the last incarnation of me on radio at Air America, which was on KTLK.

He had some laying around his house. He came over laughing, Andy, and set me up, you know, because I didn't know what mixer to get. And I knew the mixer that we used to take on remotes when we were working at Air America. And it was this little Samson. They don't make them anymore.

MDR6, the analog mixer that I plug into GarageBand with RCA cable and I run the mics into it. It's a little blue mixer. They don't make them anymore, but this is the secret. This is the magic. Everybody I've talked to in here

has gone through this mixer, has run through this mixer, has run through these mics. These are magic. I believe these are more magic than the Garage sometimes, this mixer, because it's fucked up. It's short now.

Watch, I bet you if I play with this knob, you'll hear it. Did it short out? No, it didn't. Hey, maybe it hears me. Maybe it fixed itself. But the mixer's going with me. The mics are going with me.

And I guarantee you, all this stuff is going with me. Am I going to miss me. And I guarantee you all this stuff is going with me. Am I going to miss this space? Did something happen in this space? Is this space cozy? Is there like the barn doors on this thing that I've locked with padlocks that wing out and open that I've replaced once because of the rain?

You know, the memories I have outside of people, you know, coming in here are memories of, you know, almost flooding the garage because there was no drainage when the monsoon season hits. I put these drains in. I remember being out there with Dean Del Rey and Brenton Bilcombe. They happened to be in the neighborhood and they drove me to the Home Depot. We got sandbags and we sandbagged the front of the garage in pouring rain so it wouldn't flood out.

Save the garage. Save the garage in pouring rain so it wouldn't flood out save the garage save the garage yeah even with the noise outside the planes the lawn equipment the dogs it's quiet in here. It's cozy. The fact that it was somewhere that most people who live in L.A. have never been. There's something about the fact that it was a media stop in a strange kind of run-down neighborhood back then. What they had to drive through back then would not indicate that anything was happening here. It was tucked away. How many people came in here just going, where am I? They're're at the garage they're at the cat ranch they're about to talk to me

in this garage see now i'm feeling it now i'm starting to feel the sadness yeah this garage changed my fucking life this garage holds a lot of fucking beauty and magic laughter and tears all of it that's for sure this garage is magic

but this garage is magic. But I think the new garage is going to be good. I'm going to miss this place. But I got to tell you, I'm excited. I'm excited to set up the new space. I'm excited to expand. I'm excited to get up the new space I'm excited to expand I'm excited to get more shit more things more books

I'm excited to make that new space cozy I'm excited there's a bathroom in it but this place is magic you guys are right you're right but I think

gotta be honest with you at this point looking around at the slight staleness of the setting from my point of view i'm thinking about 89 of the magic is me and on the other side of it is the other person so i think that the new garage can make up for that magic And on the other side of it is the other person. So I think that the new garage can make up for that magic. If it only has to be like 7, 6% magic, I think it's there. That house was built before this one. The new house is older than this one.

I'm sad, but I think this garage knows that we've done what we've done we've done what we could and that it's time it's time it knows it's time for me to move on. This house knows that. I believe that. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, it's, yeah, it's emotional time, emotional time, man. It really is. So Nick Nolte, what a treat. What a treat to sit with Nick Nolte,

who made one of my favorite movies, North Dallas 40, whose title I confused with Semi-Tough at the beginning of this interview. That was an embarrassing moment because I just had a brain skid. But the interesting thing about Nolte, if I'm going to sort of create a theme that may or may not be there, is that you just heard me go through the garage and have my memory and feelings triggered by bits and pieces of artifacts of my life. Things that I've held on to for years that are connected to memories, but those memories are not always accessible. It literally felt today or the day that I spoke to Nick Nolte that his brain was not unlike my garage where he was just wandering through it, being triggered by bits and pieces of things that happened to him.

And that was the vibe of this interview. And I just sort of let him do it. You know, you can put most of them together. They all kind of come together, but there's not a real defined timeline. And we move around a lot of places. We spend some time in the garage of Nick Nolte's mind here. So enjoy that. His book, Rebel, My Life Outside the Lines, is available now wherever you get books.

This is me and Nick Nolte. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations,

how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series,

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streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Salty. Be optimistic. Is that that patch? That's great. Be optimistic. Yeah that that patch? That's great.

Be optimistic. Yeah, sure. No problem. I'm on it. Yeah. That's a challenging one. Yeah. Are you optimistic?

I have to be. Yeah. Otherwise, I wouldn't keep on going, you know? I guess that's true, right? Sure, sure, sure. You got to think. Well, I'm going to get up tomorrow. Yeah.

I can move now. Yeah. But it'll be a little sore in the morning, and I'll moan and groan and be pissy. But, you know. You know, it reminds me of just you saying that, because for some reason, the movie Semi-Tough had a profound effect on me. Yeah. Like, I remember that movie.

I loved that movie. It's a great movie, but there's that scene where you get up and you're like cracking things. You know what that is? That's North Dallas 40. All right, North Dallas 40. That's right. North Dallas 40 with Mac Davis.

Yeah, with Mac Davis. Yeah, I love that fucking movie. Yeah. You know, I wanted Sam Elliott for that role. For the Mac Davis part? Yeah, but I didn't know Mac at all. Sam, he did a screen test three times. Yeah.

You know, after the first one, I asked if he'd do it again. He did it again. Yeah. And the third time, he did it again. And the director I'd chosen, the producer, they just kept saying Mac Davis, Mac Davis. And then what I realized is Mac was an extremely successful singer.

Yeah, singer. Yeah, yeah. That kind of charisma, that kind of go do it attitude was the attitude of the quarterback. Right. You know, like Fred Blitnikoff would tell me that Stabler at the bar after the game, the offensive linemen are at the bar sitting, getting their drinks. The defensive guys are behind them, knocking over their drinks, bumping into him and all that kind of stuff. Yeah.

The defensive backs are up against the wall because they don't want anybody to get behind them. Yeah. Flankers are over in the ends in the dark and the quarterback

comes in about midnight with a blonde going, hi guys, hi guys, and out the door. Right. So,

in that metaphor that Pete Gent told me, that's the way the game was put together. Right. And Tom Keating was playing for the Oaklands. He came down and watched us shoot something. He said, man, what you guys do is just like football, only except you don't have a halftime, you don't have a quarter, and you don't ever get in a huddle and talk about it. Do this stuff.

Yeah, it just goes on and on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it seemed like Mac Davis was, you know, he's sort of charming enough. He did a good job. Oh, he did a great job. Oh, you got railroaded in that one. Oh, it's Dabney Coleman too, right?

Yeah, Dabney Coleman, yeah. All those dudes. The thing I'll never forget about that movie is, you know, when the new guy, the clean guy, the running back, when they shoot him up, you know, and he decides to take the hit because you guys talk him into it. And then he gets nailed and just like disfigured. Yeah. You know, I'll tell you something. The producer I picked because, you know, it was a Paramount picture that Michael Eisner had decided to do it.

And you had choice over that? Yeah. And I had choice over a Paramount producer. So that meant five or six guys that worked at Paramount that they believed in. And five or six, a choice of director and producer. So I knew a story about an old head of Paramount called Frankie Blondes yeah and see Charlie Blutholm owned Gulf Western right so he had Paramount he was a big guy he was the guy that did Capua and all those guys the Godfather yeah he did all that but he didn't care about movies

right he was he was oil right he was he the guy that acquired Paramount for Gulf Western or just the guy that was in charge of it? He was Gulf Western. He was it. He was it. Yeah. So what Charlie's problem was when he played golf on Long Island was they would say, that Lily Tolman, John Travolta film, is that a gay film? You know, Charlie would say, he's going to hit his driver.

He'd say, I'm not in the movie business. I'm an oil man. You know, but here's how it all played out. When Eisner okayed this film, my agents and manager told me, you can't do that, you know, because I came back from Mexico of Who Will Stop the Rain,

and Anthony Zerbe said, that's your next picture. I was reading North House 40. Yeah, North House 40. And I said, you know, you mean I just announce it and do it? He said, well, you've got to get it written and all that. Yeah, and that's what you do. Because you were reading the book. Yeah, I'm reading the book.

Yeah. And I could see it's going to make a wonderful film, because this was vulnerable territory. Yeah. And I could see it's going to make a wonderful film because this was vulnerable territory. Yeah. So I said, okay. So I came back and I said to my manager, my agent, I'm going to do North Towns 40. Yeah. They said, well, you can't do that.

You just can't decide you want to do something. Why would that? Why? Because from the ground up, they just wanted you to take another role? The whole industry doesn't want you to do anything you want to do. It doesn't matter what it is? No, it doesn't matter what it is. They want you to do what they want to do and what they have thought of doing, which could be absolutely wrong.

And the agents want you to do what they want to do because they want to package the whole thing. Right, sure. They're buying their pockets, right? Right. So when you want to do something, it throws a wrench into the whole system. Yeah, but the whole system is about storytelling. Yeah. And where are they going to get the stories?

Right. Well, it might get them from an actor. It might get them from a writer. It might get them from somewhere out of life. So you had this book. Yeah, so I had the book. So I got a writer friend. We took eight months to write it,

and I turned down anything that came my way. Agents were out, but I had a sign and a creek that was running, and it was out off of Canaan Road by Triumphal Canyon and the old place where McQueen used to hang out. But I had a sign that said a nervous M-16. Yeah.

You know. So I went to go, we got a job for you there, you know. They'll give you $2 million. Can't hear you. Can't hear you. Writing. Yeah. So after eight months, we had just finished the script. Eisner called me the next day.

He called me and said, what's this about North Dallas Morning? I said, Mike, we just finished the script. I can bring it in right now and pitch it to you. He said, do that. So I went in, drove in from McGord. I pitch it to him. He says, look, I'll read it tonight. I'll call you at 12 noon. So be around your phone before cell phone. So I'm there at noon, right at noon he calls. And he said, all right, North Dial 40 is a gold picture at Paramount, but you've got to take a Paramount point of producer and a Paramount point of director. And I said, choices amongst that?

Oh, yeah, five or six. I said, fine. My manager, I said, choices amongst that? Oh yeah, five or six. I said, fine. Yeah. My manager, I said, hello? I mean, North Dallas 40 is a gold picture, Paramount. You're fired. Called up my agent. I said, Lou, North Dallas 40 is a gold picture, Paramount. You're fired.

And that was that. How did that movie do? Oh, right real well yeah it became kind of a uh cult classic yeah and and a lot of people saw it so yeah it made its money that's great yeah and frank was the right producer here's the story reason i chose I chose Frank is because when Frank was the head of Paramount, he thought he owned the studio. When Charlie came in, they got in an argument. Frank tried to throw Charlie out of the window.

Two-story window. Charlie fired him. That was that? Yeah. So I thought, Jesus, anybody that's gonna run a football team or not be the coach but run the deal, it's got to be Frank. That tough. Yeah, that tenacity.

And he did? He was the guy? Oh, he was. He was. Wow, man. It seemed like it was a lot more exciting a business back then. Oh, it always is. It's still going on.

Oh, yeah. It's still crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It's still crazy. But you were a football guy. Am's still going on. Oh, yeah. It's still crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It's still crazy. But you were a football guy. Am I right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And you grew up playing football? Yeah. I wanted to play it until you couldn't play anymore. Yeah. You know, and I just wasn't quite fast enough. Right.

You didn't have that. You weren't born a football player. Well, I was. Yeah. But not fast enough. I was born a football player. Well, I was, but not as an Iowa football player. Is that where you were tested? Oh, in Iowa? Yeah, I grew up in Iowa.

Oh, my God. So we were wrestlers, and we were football players. My father was 6'6". He played football at Iowa State. He even played pro ball in Chicago. Really? He played football at Iowa State. He even played pro ball in Chicago. Yeah, because my mom, that whole family, they come from a professor side. My grandfather, Cade, was a professor.

Your mom's side? Yeah. He invented the hollow tile silo. What is that? Well, they couldn't get grain to store, corn to store, because they had holes in bricks. But they didn't have a big tile that had been glazed that had a nine-inch space in between so that the water wouldn't get into the grain. And these tiles, that's what did it. The tiled silo.

Now, I always thought he invented the hollow tile. He didn't. There was some other guy from Illinois who invented the hollow tile. But then they referenced my grandfather as doing it with the local clay of Iowa. Iowa sits between the Mississippi and Missouri. Yeah.

So it's black fertile land. So that was your childhood, Iowa. Yeah. So it's black fertile land. So that was your childhood, Iowa. Iowa. And my mother, we used to have to go to Iowa State College. And what did your dad do? Well, my dad, he graduated from Iowa State. And then he was engineering for the highway department. And then my mother was over at Marshall Fields in Chicago.

Oh, yeah. And she was going to- Department store? Yeah. Yeah. She was going to be, yeah. And she was going to- Department store? Yeah. Yeah. She was going to be a buyer, and she was going out with Frank Capone. My father heard about that. He went over to Chicago and set it straight.

And that's when he played pro ball. Was that Al Capone's brother? Yep. Yeah. Your mom was dating Frank Capone. Yeah, Frank Capone. On her way to being a mob mall. No, Frank was totally Frank Capone. Yeah, Frank Capone. She was on her way to being a mob mall. No, Frank was totally straight, moral, you know.

The good Capone. Good Capone. You know, just because of the name. Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. It can enable me. Yeah, my dad, you know, they had dated all during college. And, you know, he was in Iowa, she was in Chicago, and he just thought he wanted to nail the situation down.

Sure, yeah. Yeah, otherwise I wouldn't be here. Yeah, and what, you got siblings? I got one sister. Uh-huh. One sister who was a little bit taller than me. Really? Still faster, better athlete, would have gone to the Olympics.

Really? But there was no women's liberation at the time. What was her sport? Swimming. Yeah? Yeah. She cut water. She didn't look like she tried, and she just moved through water.

I never saw her lose a race, ever. And we went to all the swimming meets in the Midwest, because Jack McGuire, a family friend, he was a red-headed Irishman, 6'5". Right. So when you got my dad and Jack together, and they had had a few, it was a go. It was pretty scary. Big giants, you know. Jack was a head swimming coach. So Jack was the head swimming coach.

He actually wanted me and Nancy to stay in Iowa. And he would swim. You were a swimmer too? Yeah. So your plan was to be an athlete. Yeah, yeah. That was the plan. Yeah, I'm a real simple guy.

One plan all the way through. And if I don't get resistance, and I got a lot of resistance because of pranks. Because of what? Pranks. Oh, you got in trouble? Oh, a lot of it. Starting with the midget Bud Wilkinson football camp in Minnesota. Yeah, what happened?

Well, the second year, Chuck Freeman, who was from Westside, I was from the Benson's, we're up there and we're a week early yeah the Oklahoma kids haven't showed up so it's primarily for Oklahoma right yeah this is for the camp yeah yeah but Wilson's in camp so what can we do that isn't gonna harm anybody but it would be a good prank. So we defecated in a bag, flattened it with rocks so it was maybe an eighth of an inch thick. And we had chalets. So the Oklahoma guys were in one chalet. We were in another chalet, the out-of-staters. Two from Nebraska, two from iowa two from missouri two you know yeah and all the coaches were oklahoma coaches right so we laid that down

on the spring then a canvas went over that then the mattress went over that since it was no way to tell no no way to see it yeah no way to see it so i forget about it we're a weekend and one of the okies says to me we got a smell in our chalet and we can't figure out what either skunk has died in the wall something happened and i said man you should figure that out we are are. We are. This weekend, we're going to pull out all the beds and everything. And they found this. They found the shit bags?

Yeah, yeah. And they immediately charged me and Chuck with it. But Chuck was a real cool guy. He could just dismiss me. No, no. No way. And I said, no, no way. And I'd say, no, no. And one Oklahoma tackle was saying,

man, I don't know whether to hit you now or fucking cry. I'd say, well, I wouldn't hit. You know, you don't know and all that. That night, I was laying in the bunk. The lights were out. They turned out the lights. And an assistant coach came in with a flashlight. He sat down by my bunk.

You know, we're kids. And he said, Nolte, I know you did this. You will never play football again for the rest of your life. I'll make sure of that. For that? Yeah. Left me in tears you know for that yeah and i think that followed me because we're in the 1950s yeah and you know

there's a curse or he actually went he held on to that and spread the word that's exactly right i think that word just went on and on because my senior year of high school, the coach holds a vote whether I should be on the team or not. Now, the players didn't want to vote. Yeah. You know. Yeah. You know. So my father, I think, had a conversation with the coach.

Yeah. And unbeknownst to me, I got up the next day to find out what was going. My mom said, where are you going? I said, I'm going to find out what this is all about. She said, well, you can, but we're moving today. I said, we're moving? Where? She said, Westside.

You'll be ineligible for two games, but you'll have the rest of the season. And I said, do we have a house? She said, yeah, we bought a house. Well, we don't have the money to do that. I know, but we're not getting out of here. So you can play ball. So I can play ball. Oh, that's some good parents.

Yeah, real good parents. Oh, that's sweet. Real good parents. And you did. Yeah, and I did. So when did you decide to, you came out here for college initially? Because I read that, I was reading bits and pieces of the book.

It's nicely written. Did you enjoy writing it? Yeah, but that was a five-year process. Of writing that book? Five writers. Oh, yeah? That you worked with? Yeah, that I worked with.

Yeah. And they would get so far and not far. And finally, Denise Hardy, the ghostwriterwriter she was able to really pin it down and start to get it it's good opening you know yeah you know when you're in like i because i had a situation when i come out here the first time i came to la it was like in the late 80s and i left because i got fucked up yes and like you know like i just like you come out here in 1962 and like i talked to one other cat who got fucked up and his dad had to come get him. And that guy was James Taylor.

And that was in New York because James got strung out. And the old man kind of took him, got taken back down south and get him cleaned up. And that's what happened to you. You came out here. You were where? Right out here in Pasadena? Yeah, right out here in Pasadena. I had rented a room.

My folks, oddly enough, had a house in Hollywood. Why's that? Well, because when I, you know, these were really unique parents. I think my dad was able to transfer to Hollywood because he was an engineer of large irrigation pumps, moving water. What is not known about L.A. is L.A. is a swampland. So Laurel Canyon, Coldwater Canyon, Benedict Canyon, those are rivers. So it's all underground from Mulholland down.

Now, as an iron worker, I built those tunnels, but I didn't put it together that there's an underground city under there until 10 years later when I come back and I'm looking for a place to smoke some weed at sunset and look over the valley in LA and just relax and I find this fenced in culvert hole about five feet around, heading downhill. And I remembered that at a certain point going up Benedict Canyon, we reduced it down to the round culverts

that we didn't have to put any iron in, so we were off the job. And so we went down it that night, but it was too scary. Yeah. Because it was totally pitch black and you could hear, like, it sounded like waterfalls and stuff. So Rocky and I got out of that. We went over to the house that I was staying in off Gower and we built a cart to go down that tunnel.

So we put wheels on it and we had had it food-packed and all that, and we hoisted over the chain-link fence. And we got it going down, but we didn't engineer it right. It would go up the side and crash. It would slide for 100 feet. Up the side, slide for 100 feet. When it gets down to sunset, it opened into 40 feet wide, 40 feet tall, and 40 feet across the road.

The only way you can get out is there's about, oh, at about your, up to here, your neck. Yeah. Your neck. There are side chutes that are nice and round. You can shimmy up those, and then you're in a Beverly Hills gutter, which is four by eight feet. And there's nothing in there because it's a water draining system. And there was maybe an inch wide trickle of water going down. Sure.

Now, when it rains, I'm sure they turn into rivers. Yeah. Because L.A., Hollywood was highland. Beverly Hills was a little bit high. Yeah. But any of the lowlands, like L.A. based, that was wetlands. Ah. That was all swampy.

No kidding. Yeah. Long time ago. Long time ago. So you were putting that stuff. So your dad knew about that stuff. Well, yeah. He was out here talking to them about pumps.

Yeah. Because eventually what they did is those those tunnels that run the water underground they left one river open la river right now yeah it comes out over here i know and i watched it as we were coming in i forgot that that was there yeah because that's the way it is underground yeah what it looks it's shaped like this. Underground is flat. So you were part of the, you were working the steelworking, you were a steelworker building those things up? Yeah, I was a steelworker.

When you first came out here? When I first came out here, I played a season at PCH. Jim Nelson said, the ironworker's hiring. We can get in on this. They're still building the storm drains. I didn't know what that meant. Were you getting the union? We got in the union.

So I'm in the iron workers union. We worked all that summer. He said, look, we'll make so much money. We'll just draw unemployment for the rest of the year. Hang out in Barney's Beanery. Yeah. And maybe get ready to play football. I said, I don't know.

He said he wasn't going to play football. So when did your dad come out here? Well, my parents lived here, you know, originally for that first season. Right. They lived here. But then my dad was transferred to Phoenix. But I stayed on here because what happened is I played at Pasadena. Yeah.

I had already played at Eastern Arizona Junior College. So I was going to be in Ellsworth Junior College. Yeah. But the idea was to play maybe four or five years at Junior College ball. Yeah. Different places around the country. Yeah. Because they didn't keep track.

Right. You know. So you could play college ball eight years you know be 29 something like that that was the plan fully matured really you know and then you'd know whether you're any good so so that was the plan was to just keep jumping to junior colleges to get to get your chops together for the ball for the big game yeah i never went to school so when you started working for the for the in the Iron Union, you didn't have any plans of being an actor?

No, no, no, no, no, no. And you just wanted to hang out here. Your parents had gone back to where, Arizona? Yeah, Arizona. And the plan was to do the iron work, and then either go for another season of PCH, which I had to avoid them playing Phoenixoenix so i wouldn't get on the bus i don't see anyone get caught yeah get caught or find another junior college far enough

away so they didn't enter in accordance so how does it so so but you get caught up i mean what year is that so like 1962 so it's not too crazy yet. No. Right? Were you just drinking then? Just drinking and taking a pill, which were probably signals. Yeah, yeah. Barbiturates. So you're loopy. Loopy, yeah. What was this habit you had

of slamming your head into things? Well, you know, it's a way, it's the only way that I could find to say I was in a crisis, you know? So, yeah, I was used to physical self-destruction, you know? Of yourself. Yeah, because drinking wouldn't get to it. If I was going to change, change comes from the inside.

It's not fun. Yeah. It's big. Yeah. And you're not going to do it. Right. Oh, yeah, I'll change. Yeah. No, that's not going. Yeah. It's big. Yeah. And you're not going to do it. Right. Oh, yeah, I'll change. Yeah.

No, that's not going to get it. Change is real movement. Yeah. And that was happening to me, and I didn't know how to express it. I mean, it meant that who I thought I was had to go away, had to crumble. Oh, right. And so. So this was happening towards, like like after, like in the book,

I read that you had one of those horrible sort of situations where you get spotted and you get swept up and you think you're about to get your big break and you realize, no, I'm about to get i'm about to get in an awkward situation with a man in a bathrobe yeah there were plenty of men with bathrobes back then too oh yes so so was that like because in the in the beginning of the book you sort of lead up to that you're hanging out with the with the with the women you're going to barney's you're drinking you're you're you're beating yourself up pretty bad but but then you get sort of pulled in by this big agent.

Yeah. And you go over to his house. Have dinner. You have dinner and you think this is it. Yeah. And then he comes out. In his bathrobe. And he said to me, walks over,

and he says, I'm a little cuddle bunny. And I just don't have an answer for that. I don't think that's in the book, but that's what he said. I'm a little cuddle bunny. I just don't have an answer for that. I don't think that's in the book, but that's what he said. I'm a little cuddle bunny? I'm a little cuddle bunny. You knew you weren't in show business, huh? I went to that front door and blew my own. And he was a real guy, right?

Oh, real guy. Did you ever come in contact with him again later? No, I never did because he was quite a bit older. So, you know, I leave L.A. and then that's 10 years, 10, 15 years. But when you were talking about this change that was happening to you, how do you explain that? So you're saying that everything that led you to where you were, playing football, your whole plan for life, the simplicity of who you thought you were was starting to buckle yeah okay so that

that that becomes obvious not to me but to say brian o'brien your friend yeah yeah up the hill yeah acting teacher oh he sees that he sees were you taking acting lessons at the time? Well, Tom Connelly was over here at the Pasadena Playhouse. Chuck Freeman was over here at the Pasadena Playhouse. And I was playing football at Pasadena. So Connelly was from Wichita, Kansas. And he was up for Peyton Place, the younger brother of Peyton Place. He was a really kind of neat guy. And he said, why don't you come

and see a play I'm in? I go to your games. So I did. I watched the play. It was interesting. I didn't think much about it. He said, listen, I have to go. I have a private teacher over in Hollywood, Brian O'Byrne. Do you want to go with me and see that? And I said, sure, I'll go with you. And so I went there and Brian lived up at the very top of Laurel Canyon. This is before I was really living in Laurel. And Brian said, no, you can't be here unless you participate. You'll have to read. And I said, well, I don't know if i can read yeah i've really read a book

in years yeah you know but he gave me a section to read and uh and so after tom had done his work brian i went in and read i read this Yeah. And he got real excited about it and said, you don't know it, but you're an actor. And I said, well, how do I find out? He said, well, I don't know. You'll have to find out. It's up to you. So there were hints. Yeah.

There were hints, but I did not determine yet to go that way. Right. Because I still was this thing. You were working and doing iron work. Yeah, right. And playing football. Playing football. And just goofing with all these poets and musicians.

So that was sort of mind-blowing to you. Oh, yeah, man. You know, John Altoon, an Armenian painter. They can't really talk, but he can. And it's informative because if you've ever seen Life Lessons, it's John painting. What, in the New York stories? Yeah. I love that one, man.

Yeah, it's a great one. I love that you're working that. There's a scene, there's a moment, man. There's a moment where you're sitting at the table with that kid who just climbs out of bed with your chick. And I just bodied him. You bodied him and you say, what do you do? He goes, I'm a graffiti artist.

And you said, I'm a painter. You know, I like hanging around with painters. Sculptors too, but painters really, they're really physical people. I'm dating a painter. Yeah. It's physical. Yeah, they get in it. It's not.

Oh, no, yeah. And so I knew. See, when that was set up, Scorsese didn't pick me. I think it was Jeffrey Katzenberg. He said, we're going to do this trilogy of three pieces. And he said, your act will be Nick Nolte.

So Marty was fine with that. But Marty, in the script that Richard Price wrote, he didn't want to make a choice of who was a painter. There was de Kooning. There was Snobooning. Yeah. There was Schnabel. Yeah.

Great. I went around to all those studios and looked at it. Yeah. When I went to Schnabel's, it's kind of a joke I tell. Schnabel had a big sculpting thing outside. And as you came in,

if you bumped into it, it went mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum bumped into it and went and then you'd walk into this big studio and on ladders on a 20 foot by 20 foot painting yeah were three students that were painting in red yeah and i said what'd the master say think red today, yeah, that's what he said. You know, now they're just laying the background on, you know, but I, you know, and then I went up to his accounting department in that studio. And so I made fun of that. But Snob was a great painter. I truly respect him, but he thought, he thought I wasn't giving him his due.

And I do give him his due. He's a great painter. Yeah, well, he had his moment, and then he kind of evolved out of it. Yeah, because he jumped into film. Yeah, and I hear a lot of the plates are falling off of those canvases. That's what I heard. Yeah, well, de Kooning was interesting, too. He had an easel

he's older old school abstract yeah he had his painting on an easel yeah and he

I'm sitting there and he says what do you think I said well it looks great yeah he says he hits a button

it turns one degree what do you think now well it's interesting it's interesting. It's another, but flips entirely over. He said, this is the way I like it. Upside down.

So, you know. Yeah. So those are the guys you wanted to study. Yeah, that's right. Who did the painting for the film itself? Chuck Connelly. It was one of his. Yeah.

And it's a bridge, but people are falling off the bridge. It's really, life is really. It's a huge canvas. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I really like that. I can barely remember the other two films. It was Woody Allen and a Coppola one, right? That one that you did with Scorsese really stood out.

Yeah. And that was the first time you worked with him? The first time I worked with him. And I think it's some of Marty's best work. He won't recognize it because of the reviews. They just lambasted, tried to compare the films. And so America will never, ever again do a trilogy like that. Yeah, it was a weird thing.

I remember I was excited about it, but I thought that Francis's was kind of trite and silly, and Woody's was ridiculous. And it seemed like the one that really did something was yours. It was Roseanne Arquette in there, right? Yeah. And the guy is using her as a... I would look at Scorsese and I'd look at Coppola. They all had pretty young women assistants.

They're not doing anything with them. Sure. think about it it's inspiration it's energy that's what the painters got she's trapped right and there's that scene where like you know you see you're working and then you see her painting because she's a painter it's just so so small and sad so it was i thought it was pretty deep man i thought it was pretty deep, man. I thought it was pretty deep. So going back, so you hit the wall here, and your dad comes and gets you because you're losing your mind, and your buddy calls your dad and says he's losing his mind. Yeah. And that wasn't drug-related?

That was just a- Oh, everything was related. I mean, there was drugs. There was booze. There was behavior. There was staying up all night. There was excitement. You just unbridled.

I'm totally out there. So you come in. And it's not the 360s yet. Yeah. You know. Right. Yeah. You were ahead of the curve.

Yeah. I'm ahead of the curve, and I'm not anywhere near in the ballpark. So you go back to Arizona? I go back to Arizona, and luckily I got parents that don't say, oh, this is a troubling thing for a young man to be. But this is what happens to young guys. They got to go through some kind of break. Yeah.

Maybe. I did. Yeah. Psych of break. Yeah. Maybe. You don't know. I did. Yeah. Psychotic break. Yeah. Michael Moriarty. Yeah.

He broke. Uh-huh. And his parents sent him to electric shock treatment. Really? Yeah. The actor? Yeah. Yeah.

And Michael tells me that story. He's told that story. So I don't- From Bang the Drum Soily? Yeah. That guy? Yeah. Brilliant actor.

You know, Michael was at the Guthrie when I was at the Old Long Theater. The Guthrie in Minneapolis? Yeah, in Minneapolis. Yeah. And the Old Long Theater was a stock equity company. We'd do Two Dozen Red Roses and Girl of My Soup and that kind of stuff. The Guthrie was doing Shakespeare and all that stuff. You had Mo Yerdy.

Ron Glass was there. Yeah, who was a black actor. Sure, he did comedy. He was doing Barney Miller. Yeah, yeah. And Ron still had street dialect going on. So the Shakespeare, Mo Yerdy decided that Shakespeare should be delivered slowly. So it was something like,

there, out there, thy own self not recognized. Oh, yeah, man, I know which time. It was similar rhythms like that. It was similar rhythms. It was funny, sometimes very affecting, but it was crazy. Oh, that's wild. It was crazy. So you went back to Phoenix and your parents were like, they weren't thrilled, but they're

going to support you anyways? Yeah, they're going to give me a room. They're going to give me a room. And I got my grandma down here who's my mom calls charmingly vague she's demented yeah you know charmingly vague yeah yeah she's heading to the memorial unit every morning to open the memorial and out of state college for the students yeah but she's in phoenix you know she doesn't know her husband's dead. Yeah. But she's pleasant, you know.

She's living at the house with you? Yeah. Living at the house because my mother was in a battle with her sister, Harriet. Yeah. Who was nine years older and was a professor at the University of Oregon. Uh-huh. And so when my mother called her and said, our mother is in bad shape, Harriet said, put her in a home. My mother said, oh you selfish son of a...

And they fought all their life. I mean, it was ridiculous. So you're there with your parents and your grandmother who's losing it. Yeah. Were you getting into trouble or what were you doing no i the best advice i had was i gotta put myself in a room and face everything that's gonna come at me

because it was obvious i was running from everything yeah uh fear was a big thing uh fear used to um uh generalized fear would come under the door as smoke. Yeah. And then as it would come on me, it would start to end up, my heart would be going, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. And the anxiety would come and then I'd have to shut it

off, you know. With booze or something. Yeah, it took me a while before I could let it go ahead and envelop me. And when it did, there was nothing there. It was just, fear went through.

So you got through it, just your brain. And went by. Yeah. So if you're running from your own fears, you won't feel them. You only feel them

up to a point. Then you got no expression for fear because the expression of fear is aggression. Yeah. then you got no expression for fear because the expression of fear is aggression yeah so you got to find a way to aggressively be proper running into cars it's not proper i couldn't hit other people because they just don't do that i i don't do that i could do it in football so you mean this is when you hit yourself yeah yeah and that's why football worked for you yeah that's why football worked for you? Yeah, that's why football worked for me.

Because I used to cry when I played games. There was a kid from Omaha when I went back from 50th High School. Yeah. From Boys Town. He had married somebody from Westside, and he said, I remember you in midget football. I played across from you. You were crying all the time. I thought, Jesus, maybe his dad died or his mother died.

Why were you crying all the time? I said, I cried because I was so passionate to get my hands on the fucking guy that had the ball. I wanted to rip him apart and smash him into the ground. That's why I cried. He looked at me like, are you nuts, man? You know what I'm saying? But that's the kind of passion I had. Sure.

So you were able to channel that a little bit. So where did you end up? What did you get busted for? Selling seven counts of selling counterfeit government documents. What were the documents? Draft cards. So you're selling draft cards to get guys out of the war. Well, really, I'm selling draft cards, a birth registration card, draft card, and a driver's license. And this is what, 65?

Oh, it is early 60s. There isn't a problem with this until Vietnam starts to heat up, and it's before I don't know anything about the war. My mom, I went up on the state charges, and they kind of held those until they saw what the federal court was doing. So you were just doing it for money. I was doing it for money. Yeah. Yeah, doing it for money. I didn't know anything about the war or anything. But the federals, they kept it going for maybe a year and a half, two years.

Yeah, yeah. And my mother got spooked. So all of a sudden, I'm in a car, and we go to Uncle Cole's farm in Redfield, Iowa. And she's running away. And Cole, who always carries a half pint, says, Dot, you can't run away from this. Where are you guys going to run? And I didn't know what she was doing.

It was cold and said she's trying to run away from trouble and you're the trouble yeah so we went back and faced the music and I I pled no la contender you know I did it but I didn't really know what I was doing and they he said, that'll be $75,000 fine and 45 years in jail. And then he said, I'll suspend that and put you under the Youth Correction Act. You'll be in probation for the duration of the Vietnam War. Yay. Yeah.

Yeah, really, yay. Yeah. You know, I didn't show it uh and he said and then this will be off your record it will not be a felony anymore nobody will be able to read it uh and what i found out was it never goes away there's just a page on top of your record that says, do not read past this. Sure, sure. Yeah. Well, they pick it up and read it. Sure.

So the first year I'm here and get hot as an actor, you know, I'm doing television shows and all that, getting ready to do Rich Man, Poor Man. And the inquirer says, we know you're a felon and we're going to ruin your career unless you give us an interview once a week. The inquirer. Yeah, the inquirer. So my manager calls and goes, oh, my God, you're ruined.

You didn't tell me you were a felon. Well, I'm not a felon. I'll talk to you later. And my agent calls. You're a fellow? Oh, my God, this is really a problem. How do we know you're going to have to do these interviews? Let me talk to you later.

I said, Jesus Christ, it's not a big deal. It's not really there. I just got to go out there and speak it. So I knew Rona Barrett. I'd talked to her a few times. She had a television show. I called her and I said, Rona, I got to come on your show. I got something to say.

It's really big news. And I got to do it soon. She said, well, you can come on this weekend. And I said, well, this is Monday, what, Wednesday. Come here Wednesday. Be here at 10 o'clock. On the Rona Bar Monday, what, Wednesday. Yeah. Come here Wednesday, be here at 10 o'clock. On the Ronan Barrett Hollywood Gossip Show. Yeah.

Yeah. So I went on Ronan's show and she said, Nick, you called me and said you wanted to come on. I said, yeah, what I've got to tell you, Ronan, is I made some mistakes when I was younger. I sold draft, counterfeit government documents, draft cards, and driver's license, birth registration cards.

It didn't have anything to do with the war. I said, they gave me a $75,000 fine and 45 years in jail. Yeah. Suspended it and put me under the Youth Correction Act. And she said,

well, then are you a felon? I said, no, I'm under the Youth Correction Act she said oh well that's it what do you think about marijuana I said the plant well you know the plant grows in Iowa there's fields and fields of it if they use it as strings for manila rope oh the navy uses that that's how we have rope you know yeah she didn't have an answer for all that night danced and did a law for show so did it help oh yeah there was no liability anymore they inquired yeah that's good so then that was at the beginning of your career so yeah so like outside of that so you go back and you do this regional theater for a decade?

Yeah. And do you train as an actor other than just doing the theater? I sit in that room for a year. Brian loaded me up with Stanislavski with every acting book you can imagine. This is your room in Arizona? In Arizona. And Brian's the guy from here? Yeah.

He's the coach in Hollywood. Brian, what's his last name? O'Byrne. Okay. He left Hollywood maybe 30 years ago, and he died up in San Francisco. He acted and all that, but he coached many, many, many names. Yeah. So you're confronting fear in a room in Arizona, and he's sending you books.

And I'm reading all the foundation of acting, you know, and I'm finding this stuff wide open to me because the only thing that's working with me is imagination, emotions, and I have to face them. I have to feel them. Where do they come from? How do you evoke them? Where can you get to fear?

Can you get to sadness? Can you get to pain? Can you get to this? And so I'm learning where it all originates and what's real, what's not. That process. And then when I finally, the day I got out of that bed and I walked down to the Phoenix Little Theater, I ran into a director named Kit Carson.

And I told him my story and what I was doing. And he said, well, you just got to start doing important plays. You can start by being in Hasty Heart. And I said, well, okay, what role would I play? Play digger. Here's the screen. Here's the play. And so that started it out.

And he's directing you? He directed it. I did eight plays in that playhouse. And then Kit said, you got to go to Summerstock now. So I applied different places. And I applied at the little theater rockies and they hired me as juvenile lead and paid me how old were you uh i was probably around 23 24 now huh yeah and now so you kind of paid your dues that way yeah yeah but you see i didn't pay dues

i loved it yeah so but so because of your you know, then the rebuilding of your mind and the opening of your mind, you're able to like just completely lock in all this. It's your thing. All of it. You feel it. The other guy was made up. Yeah. So I see that process.

How do you make up a personality that- Made up by who? By you, by society? By me, by society, by all the persons. Expectations? Yeah, and getting a yes or a hurrah or recognition or whatever it is. Yeah, we're structured in that way.

Right. And if we buy into it, you become that. Sure, so you got out. I saw it, how you build it. Yeah. And then you come back here and after being away 10 years and you land some TV. Well, here's the thing. Yeah.

I come back here in a William Inge play. Inge sees me do the last pad over in Phoenix that Sally Goldwater had financed. Yeah. And it's being done by a director named Keith Anderson, who was a Quaker. And it's being done by a director named Keith Anderson, who was a Quaker. He was a child prodigy, and he went to the University of Chicago at 16. Yeah. He gets married at 17, and the mother-in-law and the wife kick him out.

He can't handle it. He stabs the mother-in-law 47 times. He just stabbed her in the same hole. Yeah. You know, her in the same hole. Yeah. You know, she doesn't die. He's in the Illinois penitentiary when his family had been pacifists since World War I, World War II, every war. And I know the Quaker family.

He finally gets out of prison. In prison, he gets the rights to the William Inge play. He calls me and said, will you put this play together with me? And I said, yeah, I'll meet you in Phoenix. I'll come, I'll wrap here, and I'll come down to Phoenix. And this production that you did led to what? It led to Bill Inge being so excited about it. He said, I want this play to go to L.A.

I will find you guys a theater to put it in. I will not ever go back to New York. And so Billings Play opened at this Contempo Furniture Store in Westwood, which is right across from UCLA. It is now the Westwood Playhouse. I couldn't get a job in there if I tried. But we opened it in there. And it was just a furniture store in front, and it had a theater in the back, an old proscenium. But this play we did was in the round, and I had learned a trick.

I had learned it from a kid, but I could do this. The play opened with this kid whining and moaning and in pain. And I would take a can of vegetable soup, and I'd swallow it about three or four minutes before we opened. And I would hold it in the upper stomach. And I could do maybe two, three minutes before I projectile threw up in the toilet. And that shit went everywhere.

And that horrified the audience and they got into it as a reality. Good trick. Yeah. So after that, did people see you and then they started booking you on TV? Yeah, that play ran for a year. A year?

In the furniture store? Yeah, in the furniture store. 1970? What year? I'm not sure. You don't know? Yeah. Yeah, I'll have to look.

Doesn't matter. Yeah. So during that time, Elizabeth Taylor came down. It was just huge people. Casting directors came down, all that kind of stuff. Brian O'Byrne brought manager down. Because of the buzz. There was buzz.

Real big buzz. Did Marlon come see you? No, Marlon never saw me. No, Marlon didn't see movies. He didn't do anything? No. Did you ever meet him? Oh, yeah.

Yeah? Yeah. The last 10 years of his life, Sean introduced me after Thin Red Light. Penn did, yeah. Yeah. Penn was having dinner with Marlon. Now, Woody and I pulled a prank on Sean

on Thin Red Light. Sean called me. Harrelson? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Sean called me when we were back here and said, Marlon wants to meet you.

I'm having dinner with him. And it's going to be up in Beverly Hills, up Beverly Glen Boulevard. Yeah. So I was driving in with my English assistant, Matt Tromans, who's really a smart guy. And I said, Matt, I got a feeling this is Sean's got me right in the spot where he could be really pull a big one. I don't want to go. You thought he was fucking with you? Yeah, I thought he was going to.

Yeah. Sean was upset about what he and I did. What did you do? Well, I got down on Thin Red Line about halfway through. Woody calls me. He said, Nick, I know you don't know me well, but you're the only one that can do this because you haven't been here. And Sean totally trusts you. And he didn't see me talk to you tonight.

So I'm calling him by phone. I need you to help me get Sean in a certain position so I can pull this gag. And I said, well, do you have any idea what it is? And he said, not yet. And I said, I don't want to hurt him. He said, no, no, no, we won't hurt him. We won't hurt him.

So he said, but just tell Sean you want to meet him Saturday night, say, 7 o'clock because you got something to talk about with him and and just you know don't say anything just say you got me with him and I did the next day I called Sean I said hey I got something to talk with you but I can't right now because I got all wardrobe and all that how about Saturday about seven o'clock, you know, it's our day off?" He said, yeah, yeah, I'll meet you. I'll just, I'll come over in that main town and be in bar, you know, and we'll talk. And he said, good, good. Sean's father was dying of cancer. He thought maybe it was some health thing. I don't know what he thought. But anyway, so Woody calls me about six, and he said,

why don't you head down now? Because we're going to call him early. And he said, listen, I'm down here at the police station. You know where it is? I said, is it the White House at the end of the street, just in that park there? Yeah, it's just a little three-bedroom house. That's a police station. The only three policemen. Come on down right away, because you were in a wreck. Well, come on down, I'll tell you. All right, so I got down there.

Two of the policemen were in uniform. The third one was in a T-shirt with tattoos. He looked like an Australian, you know, wild guy. He said, all right, here's what happened. You were in a wreck with this guy in the roundy round. And since you're a foreigner, they're going to have to do a blood test on you, see if you're drinking. But they have a warrant for this guy's arrest.

They're glad they got him. So he'll be in handcuffs. And then when Sean comes down, he has to identify you that, yeah, you're American working on the film and all that. And then the doctor will come, and it'll be a fake, but all that. But somewhere in there, this guy will have to go to the bathroom, and the other officer will walk down with him, and you and Sean will be sitting here.

Now, I don't know, do I leave the gun in? And I said, Woody, if you don't do the gun, Sean's not going to react. You know, a gun makes Sean react. What are you going to do with the gun? Well, they're going to shoot it. So, Woody turns to him and said, okay, the blanks are in. So, when you go down to the bathroom, when he goes down to the bathroom, there'll be a commotion, you know, and then. This is like a theatrical production. Boom, boom, boom. Yeah, yeah. And the other cop will run down there and maybe boom, and then we'll see what Sean does.

And knowing Sean, he's going to run right down there too. Yeah. You know, he's going to. Get there too yeah you know he's gonna get in it sean gets in it yeah so i said he said he got it and i said yeah yeah okay and in the in their office they had ripped out the room so there was a picnic table a desk the back, two big windows on the side. Yeah. Okay? So I go, oh, Sean. Hey, Sean, I was heading downtown. I was going to have a few drinks, and then you talk to you,

but I got in a wreck and a roundy round. And I'm down here at the police station, and they need somebody to vouch that I am. He said, oh, I know where it is. I'll be right there. It's literally two minutes away. And so, now,

the cops got nervous. Yeah. They got hacked. Yeah. And they got nervous and it takes on an ambiance of a real police station.

Right. Fears running around the room. Yeah. And there's knock, knock, knock.

Woody goes out the back door. They go down and one goes down the hall. He's talking to Sean all the way up, you know, in the Australian accent. He sits across from me. The cop stands over us, and he's talking.

Yeah. In the meantime, this guy says, Hey, you're pissed. You know, he takes just off. Yeah, yeah. The other cop walks down there. And the cop is explaining, we don't like to do this stuff because, you know we

know obviously we got the right guy and he we sober and he turned away and looked down the hallway and john said were you drinking no no no he said good good cop turns back and we hear boom bang crash from down the cop looks and we hear boom, one bang. The cop goes rushing down that hallway, boom, boom, two more. Sean said, what the fuck's going on? I said, I don't know. And he gets up and he heads right down that hallway. And there's one more boom went off, I think. And the next thing I know, I'm starting to crack. So I went up against the corner of the wall. The cops come in and go spread eagle on the floor. Sean goes spread eagle on the floor, and here's the crazy man with a gun coming in.

I'm getting the fuck out of here. I'm getting the fuck out of here. I'm getting out of here. You kid, you're going to drive me out of here. And the cop says, the keys are on the desk. Keys are on the desk. So Sean gets up and he says, hey, just don't shoot. There's no reason to shoot anybody. Just don't shoot anybody, okay? I'll drive you wherever you want to go. Come on, let's get out of here. He's like, get the keys. He unlocks that door. He opens the door.

Woody stands there with the camera. Shoots the shot. It was light. Sean goes, oh. You know, and Woody's going, I am king. I am king. And the cops are going, oh, shit. I said, I need a beer.

And they said, yeah, us too. We went to the bar and drank that night. And you thought he was setting you up on the Marlin meeting. Oh, yeah, because see, it didn't end there. I just started the war. Two days later, I get a call from Sissy Spacek. Because Sissy Jack Fisk is her husband. He's the art director.

And she said, Nick, Nick, we have a spoiled sport. Is there anything you can do? And I said, no, Sissy, there's nothing I can do. Because Sean was threatening to tell customs that Woody travels with weed. And Sean said, if we had been in L.A. or any other place, I would have had my gun with me and somebody would have been dead. And I said, well, I don't know. So that's the most elaborate thing i've ever seen or participated but did but did you go eat do you have dinner with marlin yeah yeah yeah i had dinner with marlin yeah you know in the final

end yeah i couldn't figure out what the game could be yeah so so you just went i just went and it was okay and mar Marlon was talking. Yeah. And he didn't allow anybody to interrupt. He had three salads because he was on a diet. Right. You know, he just kept ordering lettuce. Was it good? Yeah, it was great.

Great talk. And then I went outside for a smoke, and he came out and said something like, he said, you guys, you got to quit that. You're going to die. That smoke is going to kill you. And he said, you guys, you got to quit that. You're going to die. That's smoking. I'll kill you. And he said, you and Eric Dean, stop that.

He said, I want to ask you, how did you do Q&A? That's my favorite film. How did you do that? I liked everybody in it. Yeah. But how did you play that guy? And I said, oh, come on, man. He I don't know I don't know I want to know yeah he wanted to know I said well I put on six inch lifts I tilted them forward so if I lean

backwards I would fall over so I had to lean forward so every time I was in somebody's face and they were looking up and I was looking down. And I grew my mustache so you couldn't see where the words were coming from. You could just feel the breath coming out. And I just made him a rogue. I made him one of those cops you don't ever want to see. And he just wanted to know every little thing. That's wild. That must have felt good, though.

Oh, yeah. He's asking you how you put that full role together? And, you know, I didn't know he knew my work, you know. Sure. Well, obviously he did. What was the most challenging one that you had to do? Really, if you look at the whole arc of them. They're all challenging. You know, I we're as complex as i can get them yeah that's

that's how you do it you're like you put these guys together from the ground up yeah yeah that's a fun yeah i love down and out in beverly hills that was a great fun movie that was paul mazurski paul mazurski wanted jack nicholson i knew knew he wanted Jack, but Jack wasn't going to do it, so he came out to see me. He took one, and he's kind of that sardonic Jewish thing, and he took one look and he said, well, I've seen it, okay, bye. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, wait, wait.

Don't you want to read? He said, read what? I said, the script. The whole script? Yeah, let's read. Okay, okay, you want to read. Two and a half hours later, we read the whole down and out. Not a single laugh between us.

And he gets up and he goes, Jesus, all right, I'm out of here. I'm out of here. And I said, no, you know, you got the role, you got the role but I didn't want him to leave without getting that role I love Tropic Thunder, that was fun you like doing comedy

you know what that was, Ben had sent me another piece, it was dark comedy he really wanted to do it but the studio didn't want to do it. And he said, you know, we have another piece called Tropic Thunder. But I don't have much faith in it because I don't know if we can satirize Vietnam yet. I'll send you that script and we'll have a reading of it.

So I said, okay. And he said, it won't be with any of the studio heads. The only person that was in the cast, Steve Kogan, he read. Steve Kogan. Keanu Reeves read Ben's role.

not Canterbury. Geffen, David Geffen. Geffen. Yeah, Geffen was sitting right there. And when Geffen went to that sitting, that word traveled. All of a sudden, every executive was down there to sit at that table read. And they just saw the opportunity of that. I loved it. I think it's a brilliant movie.

Oh, Ben just, he loaded it. He loaded it. I think it's a brilliant movie. Oh, Ben just, he loaded it. He loaded it. And unfortunately, the guy I was working with, brilliant actor. Danny? Danny. Danny McBride, so funny. Danny had been here eight years. He was just about to pack to go back. I know. Go back south.

And here's Danny. He's got a lot of energy i didn't know he's that powerful yeah and i got a lot of energy so we just whop you know he would say to me when they say do you think we were funny i said i don't know you know it's like two heads, buddy. He's funny, man. Yeah, he's great. He's intense. He's really great. Oh, I wanted to ask you about Affliction. Yeah. That's heavy shit, man. I mean, that guy, I can't like, you know,

did you have to pull out some Iowa in that thing? Well, you know what I had to do. Schrader's intense, dude. Yeah. Paul called me and he said i've got affliction and i'll send you the script and i read the script and off the script i said paul we got to do this you know he said well i'll get it financed and we'll do it so i just kind of jaded along and then one day i picked up the book yeah affliction, and I read the foreword.

And in the foreword, Russell Banks talks about how many generations upon generations of eons of time men have sit with their sons and not teach them how to love. That's the affliction. That's what it is. And their only recourse is violence then. They do not know how to love. So it was a process of not being able to love. And the character, you kind of like the guy, but he always made that mistake with his daughter, but he always made that mistake with his daughter his ex-wife or his girlfriend

until he can't take it anymore and when the old man goes and Jimmy Coburn I sent it to Paul Newman Newman said an interesting thing he said I don't think my audience will accept me in this role

and I had to think about that for a while. I mean, Paul was absolutely right about that. Yeah, yeah. You know. Yeah. Not that he didn't. The verdict was about as far out as they could go with Paul. Yeah.

Right? That movie. Like, you know, a down and out drunk lawyer. Yeah. It's not going to go any further than that. No, no. You know, he didn't want to go further, and he really didn't think they would accept him in that role. Couldn't sell it.

Yeah. Yeah. And he didn't want to go there, because he had a son. Yeah. He lost his son. Oh, yeah. You know. Coburn's just like.

Oh, Jimmy. Menacing. Jimmy nailed it. And not only that, he made up for all the time that he had gone through. Yeah, a terrible crisis of arthritis. Right, right. And he would lay in bed, and he could not move his hands. And I don't know who the actor was, but it was a friend of Jimmy's.

He said, Jimmy, you've got to do something. I'm going to do it. He massaged his hands with oil until he got them straight and straightened out. And then Jimmy used MSM and stuff like that. So he was able to function. But before that, he was in a bed. That's a heavy movie. Well, I guess people can read more stories in the book.

I feel like we could just keep going. Yeah. Because we didn't even talk about The Prince of Tides or 48 Hours. But, hey, we love those movies. Yeah, yeah. We love you, man. That was great talking to you. Thank you.

It was fun to do it. Real fun. All right. That was exciting, wasn't it? We traveled. We did some traveling. Me and Nolte did some traveling. That was our 900th episode.

Thank you for staying with us. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a regular listener. Welcome if you're new. We're going to keep going. We're going to keep going. And I'm going to play the one guitar I have left in this garage through the one amp I have in here.

Oh, and by the way, the Cat Ranch goes on the market this Sunday. Yeah, that's happening. Okay, guitar. Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon Boomer lives! It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goal tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes.

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