The 500 Presents: Jeff Daniels

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Speaker 1: Pushkin.

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Speaker 2: We're excited to share an episode from another podcast today that I think you'll enjoy, The five hundred with Adam Myers on the five hundred. Adam counts down Rolling Stones list of the five hundred greatest albums of all time, joined by musicians, comedians, and actors for each episode. This episode spotlights the second and final studio album by rock supergroup Crosby, Stills and Nash, and their first as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The album's tracks range from tender folk melodies to driving hard rock. Today, we'll hear an episode with guests Jeff Daniels, the acclaimed actor best known for films like Dumb and Dumber, The Squid in the Whale in terms of endearment. Jeff, who is also an accomplished singer songwriter, makes his debut on the five hundred to share how this iconic album influenced his own approach to music. Here's Adam Myers with Jeff Daniels on the five hundred.

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Speaker 3: The five hundred from the five hundred, j and.

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Speaker 4: Been walking us down through that twenty twelve edition, so it ain't nothing to you. Hundreds, water goo and in need of a friend, that king of this four Angelo talking the five hundred until he ends, talking the five hundred until.

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Speaker 3: He ends with my man j is.

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Speaker 4: On the five hundred, talking the five hundred until.

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Speaker 3: The end is coming. It is coming to.

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Speaker 1: So that is the opening track by Crosby Stills Nashing Young from their nineteen seventy record Deja Vu. It's also number one forty seven out of five hundred on the five hundred with Josh Adam Myers. What's up, Police Army. I am Josh. I'm a comic, and I'm going through Rolling Stone Magazines list of the five hundred greatest albums. We are chipping away right now. I am probably in Amsterdam, I'm not sure. Or I'm dead in Amsterdam, or maybe I didn't make it there. Maybe I got mugged in Paris or Brussels or wherever the fuck. I am making my way through Europe. I'm doing this, of course, ahead of time, so I don't have to bring any equipment. Hopefully I see you guys out there. If you live in another country in Europe, send me a message and I will come have lunch with you. I'm documenting the whole thing. We're gonna post it. On my YouTube YouTube dot com backslide josh Adamyers seventy nine subscribe, subscribe, subscribe and my social media josh Adam Myers on all. Subscribe to the channels YouTube the five hundred podcast watch all the episodes ian. If you really want to help us, subscribe to the Patreon Patreon dot com backslash of five hundred podcast. Join the Fleece Army for five dollars a month. You support the show and we love you. For twenty five you support the show, We love you, and we send you merch merchie. Be a part of the Fleecy. We love you, guys. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for all the help. DJ Morty Coyle, Emily JT, Peter Adam. This is one of my favorite things to do, especially when you have a guest like today. When I get back the end of this month, August twenty ninth and the thirtieth, I will be at the Plano Mic Drop Comedy Club right outside of Dallas, Texas. Then I will be in Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Saudi Arabia with Bill Burd doing a comedy festival. New Orleans, Vancouver, La Joya, Arizona, Wisconsin, I've got a bunch of gigs. I'm gonna be busy. I'll be in Canada a lot next year. We've already got Calgary booked, We've already got Winnipeg booked, Edmonton booked. Come one, Come on Josh Adammeiers dot com for tickets. It's gonna be a great year, guys. I'm excited to get back home. I'm assuming I'm loving this trip. But who knows, who knows? Maybe I'm dead, all right, Crosby Stills, csny Sison, sissony sisne deja vu. Well, this is our second record. We did the first one, We're doing the second one. I'm not gonna talk anymore. Let's get to our guest, a legend, a true actor, and an incredible musician. This is where the Emily Kagan meager comes into full effect. We got a code read booking the one, the only Jeff Daniels. I mean, come on, guys, the newsroom, one of the greatest speeches in television history. Arachnophobia, dumb and dumber, dumb and number two. I could keep going. This dude is so cool taking the time out to talk about this record. I love doing this podcast. When I get to sit down and talk to these dudes. What a gift. All right? Oh, go to his website and check out his music. By the way, He's got some incredible stuff and some upcoming tour dates in Michigan this month. Rate Review. Most importantly, subscribe to the five hundred. Listen free on all platforms or anywhere you get your pods. Follow me at josh Adam Myers on all social media. Follow the podcast at the five hundred Podcasts. Email the podcast at five hundred Podcasts at gmail dot com, Follow the Facebook group run by Creeazy Evan, and for all things five zero zero go to the website the five hundred podcast dot com. All right, y'all, here we go out of five hundred with Deja Vu by crowdsbit Steals, Nash, and Ya. I don't even know how to start because because Jeff, I'm such a huge fan of yours man that this is always This is why I do the podcast is being able to sit down with people that I love, so uh, thank you for coming on to talk about Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and also to let you know, we had like five other big names that wanted to do this record and I told them all, pardon my language, to fuck off, like this is Jeff's record. He got it, divs Okay, I couldn't. I couldn't be happier, man, So what a.

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Speaker 5: Pleasure to deliver. It was a long pressure.

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Speaker 1: No pressure, don't worry. I'll cover a lot of the info. We just want to know your opinion, your love. We're going to talk about this. We're going to talk about some Crosby, Tails and Nash. But I guess you know, just to dive right into this, you know when and why? Au Let's say start there, why are you here for Cross? Out of all the records we probably offered you, why are you here for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young Deja vu?

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Speaker 5: H it uh? It was at a time in my life. I'm gonna say it was seventy one it was released. I was I was early in high school, and so my tastes and music were being formed. I had come out of the late sixties and I was, I mean, I can go back to here comes my Baby from the Turtles, Dave Clark five. You know I was. I wasn't very you know, my musical taste wasn't very interesting. Seeger came out with Rambling Gambling Man on that first album. Then Arlo Guthrie did Alice's Restaurant. Yeah, my attention just because of the acoustic work and the storytelling. And then Woodstock happened, and I remember being in the seventh grade and asking my dad if I could, you know, go to Woodstock with some high school friends who had a car. And that didn't get very far, but that was what was that about? And so I'm young and I'm looking at that. And this was before Elton John which eleven seventeen seventy really kind of catapulted me into okay, what was that? Yeah, but it was Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. It was the acoustic work, and of course the harmonies and their stance. They were doing kind of what Dylan did, except with four part harmonies, what Phil Oakes did, Tom Paxton. They were taking some of that you know, political thing and kind of you know, maybe not so much with Deja Vu, but certainly with Four Way Street. They were a band that was going to say some things. And yeah, back to a young kid in high school, that got my attention.

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Speaker 1: So you were already like innocence interested in what was going on in the world at a really young age. Was that your parents or because I mean I always remember my dad like reading the Washington Post and he would listen, he'd watch the nightly news. And we're from the DC area, by the way, but it was, you know, I vaguely remember Bush versus Ducoccus, literally only because there was a paper meme of a drawing of a vagina chasing a penis, and it was like Bush versus Ducaclus, another fucked up matter? Was it something stupid like that? And that was my to politics. So really, you were when you were like when you were younger, you were already interested in what was going on in the world. But I assume it's probably because a lot of you know, I.

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Speaker 5: Was, and you know, I a small town in the Midwest, and I was I was. I grew up in a Republican household, a small business owner, farmer. My mom was a farmer, you know, worked on a farm, and we didn't talk about politics. I didn't even know it was a Republican household till I went to New York City and realized, oh, this is different from where I'm coming. I think Krosby still is a Nash kind of we're going, hey, come over here, yes, And and I wasn't. I didn't really go to the acoustic guitar myself until about seventy six, seventy seven. But Stills and Neil Young got my attention and and maybe fifteen or maybe twenty years later, twenty five, I a friend of mine got tickets to see them in Chicago at the United Center, and I had I never I didn't get Neil Young. You know, I loved Stills. I loved Stills, and I didn't know why. And then later on it was the musicianship and his you know, that whole Crossroads live thing he does. You know, someday I'm going to try to learn how to play that the way he does, and Treetop Flyer and all that. I was really taken with Stills, and but I didn't get Neil. And then when I saw him in Chicago and they played Almost Cut My Hair, which is on the Day Jubu album, and they turned it into like an eighteen minute thing, epic thing, and Neil, you know, with his black les Paul just that single note stuff that he was doing well Stills was, you know, but yeah, well it just pierced through the United Center and I going, Okay, I get Neil Young. Now, I get Neil Young. They were so different, you know, and they had egos and they hated each other to make album.

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Speaker 1: Oh you're telling me after I've learned everything. I mean, we'll get all into that. But it's it's kind of fun, you know. Oh yeah. But here's here's something funny. Jared, you you might know some of this, but but Jeff, this is actually interesting. I have a connection to three out of four of the guys in this band. I've jammed with Steven Stills at my friend Told my friend told Wilkenfeld's house. She has a recording studio. The bass player play with Jeff Beck. Excuse me. I also played with Jackson Brown that night. Who else? Oh, Neil Young. It's not a connection, but from doing this podcast, we did one of his records and probably my favorite song that I found from Young, and I was much like you like I only really knew like Harvest Moon and a like Ohio and a few others.

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Speaker 3: Uh.

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Speaker 1: But when I heard Lookout Joe about Vietnam vets coming back to from Vietnam and seeing how the seventies has changed with hookers, and Drugs and Prostitutes and became probably my favorite song that I found from doing this podcast. I still listened to it multiple times a week. I love it and nothing with Graham Nash. But I was one of the people that Melissa Ethridge was gonna get sperm from. It was between me and David Crosby. Yeah, I mean I was young, but she wanted a kid, and I said, all right, you know, I got good gene.

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Speaker 5: Okay, But but.

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Speaker 1: There's a thing about them is that, you know, we were lucky enough. This never happens on the podcast, by the way, where we do usually the first record first, you know, because a lot of the artists their first album is their best record, and so sometimes, like when I did Dylan, we did it backwards. We started with Time out of Mind and we've worked our way down. I think we did like Love and Theft and a few others. It wasn't until John Wesley Harding that I think I really got what people love about Dylan. And now I'm really becoming a fan because, as you know, as a Dylan fan, you need to start at the beginning and move your way towards the back because those seven eight minute songs about God and Death and the Devil that he did in the nineties and the two thousands. They're not the same. You gotta know the early shit. But what I love about this band, you know, is you have this first record of theirs and they get together. They're all in their respective bands. You know, I might fuck this up because I've got some of it written down and if you correct me, but I know we've done the Birds, so so David Crosby's in the Birds. You have Stephen Stills is in the Hollies. Or am I mixing it up with Graham Nash? No, Graham Nash is a Buffo Springfield. Yeah, Stills is the Hollies. Nash is Buffalo Springfield. Otherways Okay, well.

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Speaker 5: I was close young, We're Buffalo.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yes. But this is the thing is that they get together. Let me pull up my little one sheet. They get together and they make this record. They make the record after they play Woodstock. So their first gig ever is Woodstock. Yeah, I mean can a's your question? What was what was the first performance you ever did? And were you scared shitless doing.

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Speaker 5: It me personally with a guitar?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Oh yeah, not just good doing as an actor or anything like any your first performance. Was it a natural thing? I mean, obviously it probably wasn't the size of woodstock, but.

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Speaker 5: No. Strangely, which is why I pursued it. I knew exactly what to do, you know, I being on stage and having six hundred people and I'm playing Fagan and Oliver. I knew exactly what to do, and I know how the joke. I knew how to sing the song. I knew how to do the staging. I knew how to hold an audience. It was all just natural ability that I had no idea why I knew it or anything. When I picked up the guitar and started, you know, gigging, which happened thirty years later. That was the terror to walk out and sit in a chair with just the acoustic, singing my own stuff, thinking that it's going to be just as easy as walking on a stage. As an actor, you know, you've got this character filter which protects you in a way. You just kind of do it. And you know, I never stage fright nerves, no, but walking out there and sitting down, the flop sweat just like dripping off me. I there was a nakedness to it that I wasn't prepared for and it took about thirty club dates to learn how to rise above it. And it was the same thing as like doing a talk show, you know, I mean I did I've been doing those forever. I did Carson twice, you know, oh God, and a lot of Lemo and Colbert and you name it. I did him Conan, and you know, it's how do I how do I do this in seven minutes? You're out there and everybody's You've gotta be funny, you gotta be what what? What? What am I? And there were early things with me with Letterman where I'm just a zero and and I finally figured out the character I have to play when I walk out there is me in a good mood.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 5: That's your character, Jeff in a good mood. And I usually wear a fedora just because I love him. And once I put that on, it's like Joe Bonamasa, who's an incredible player.

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Speaker 1: Guess with the podcast we've he's been on, been on a couple of times.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, we love that, love him. He's Joe bonamassa backstage and then here comes the glasses, here comes the suit, and he says I become this other guy and it's a little bit like acting. So the same thing with the acoustic guitar in the chair. Now, any kind of trepidation about it, Remember you're in a good mood. Oh yeah, I'm in a good mood. Boom out I go, and then I'm on top of it.

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Speaker 1: But also, and also, but also because I'm friends with, you know, very close with Bill Burr, and you know what he's explained going on those talk shows, especially someone like Conan. It's just like he's got you. Those guys got you, and their goal is that you can just they'll set you up and you set them up, and it's like it really is like a beautiful dance. And for someone who you know from acting and working with actors, and then also on top of that, you know, having the musical abilities and timing from acting and music, I mean you must I know you said you probably didn't feel like it, but dude, you know, you and Letterman together, you and Carson together, I mean it's a beautiful dance. And I mean none of us could tell that you were fucking nervous at all.

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Speaker 5: No, it's the ability to tell stories, you know, on the fly. Yeah, you know. I mean, you don't have to suddenly bec Robin Williams are Marty Short and just kill like those guys do. Can you tell a good story that has you know, rhythm to it and you learn how to do that? And you know that comes with time and figuring out how to do it. But it's the same thing with the gigs. You know, is sitting down in that chair, is the story leading up to it, and then here comes the song. It's almost like a mini musical, except I'm doing the book and the and the music, and so you know, I've learned how to do it. I enjoy the challenge of that. But it was guys like Still's and Arlow and Neil Young and Steve Goodman later on Lyle Lovett, Christine Lavin, John Hyatt, Keb Mole, Stephan Grossman, the guys who picked up an acoustic guitar and could do it. Jason Isbel has the great album Foxes in the Snow. You know, just Jason with an acoustic in a studio in New York City. I I love that. I just that Crossy Stills, Nashing Young and Deja Vu was the trigger to send me, you know on my mate on my way toward an acoustic guitar, which I bought my first one in seventy six and have been playing one ever since.

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Speaker 1: You still have that first one you bought, Yeah, I love that. Joe's try to Joe's try to buy it off you.

00:19:34
Speaker 5: I'm sure.

00:19:36
Speaker 1: He's listen, man, you we'll get rid.

00:19:38
Speaker 5: Of that thing.

00:19:38
Speaker 1: I'll pay top dollar.

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Speaker 5: I don't love it, I am. I'm a Martin snob now, but it was a Guild D forty. That's the next too skinny, the body's too big. I played it for about three years. Then I saw a friend of mine playing Martin om and I'm just going, oh yeah.

00:19:56
Speaker 1: Dig so much when I was talking about this record and doing the first one where you have the three guys, you know, and then you were lucky enough that later. I mean, it's been almost over a year, I think, at least since we did that first record, and to really dig back into this and then find out the interesting story behind this, you know, for all the listeners and Jeff, I don't know how familiar you are with the backstory of this. But before we get into some of the tracks, you know, like I mentioned, they play their first gig at Woodstock. Then they come out with the first record. Neil, by the way, at this time is laying in the back. He actually played with them at Woodstock, but he is his own person. He's uncompromising. The first record comes out, it's this enormous hit. It's not it doesn't like drag. It doesn't take time to blow up. It blows up, and people are calling them a supergroup amongst with all the different singles, it almost defies explanation that they're going to be adding Neil Young to this band. It's already a perfect trio. It's like, how could it get much better? And by the time they get to this record, this album, basically when we were talking about for a moment and I mentioned it to you, Jared, why you'll find this intersuing as a Beatles fan. This is the white album. This is a fractured record. This is not a collaborative effort. There are them playing together and working on certain things for certain moments, but this is basically a member of the band. Excuse me saying I'm going to go to the studio. I'm going to do a song and if you want to come in, cool, but if not, I could give a shit I'm working on this alone. Some of these sessions, I think I saw somewhere that eight hundred hours. Yes, Steven Still's estimates the album took around eight hundred hours of studio time to record. Sometimes they'd be doing eighty takes of some of the songs before I've got any further. What's the most amount of takes you ever did in a scene and what was it for who.

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Speaker 5: We were close to? I want to say seventy eight. On the Purple Rows of Cairo, the Woody Allen movie nineteen eighty seven, there was a wonner a one shot of a four page scene, and I'm sitting in a in a Ferris Ferris Merry go round, Yeah, which they had found somewhere in Brooklyn, and it was a real one. We were inside, and so it was all kind of built for us. Great terrific. So I'm sitting here with Mia Farrow and it's a love scene and the camera slowly pushes in, no cuts, no close ups, nothing, And at the end of the four page scene there's a kiss. That's it. Well, we're shooting. The problem is we're located about two miles from the JFK airport, so the flight pattern of the planes either taking off landing was just under four minutes, which was about the time it would take to do four pages a minute a page. So we would get to and you're doing the scene and the stammers coming in and we're on the last where now we're at three pages, top of fourth page. Here we come and you can hear the plane. You can hear the plane landing, and and you kind of speed it up to try to get to the kiss and then cut and they look at the sound guy. He goes, no, I heard the plane. I heard so what He just kept going and it was seventy eight takes and I don't think we ever got one that I know we didn't because then we go, well, let's go into editing. We'll see what we got. Because he didn't want to do close ups. Yes, he couldn't cut around a plane. So about four weeks later they built a Merry go round up in Harlem in a studio and we shot it like five takes. Oh there, wow.

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Speaker 1: Was he wasn't like was he? I mean, he feels like a very particular person, you know, about what he wants, like in something like Purple Aza, Cairo or radio days. Was were they long shoots? Because I always feel like he was. He was very good with the budget that he got, because he's not getting a lot of money for his movies, or at least you know, you must say at the beginning. I mean, he is one of the best directors of all time. But still is it? Are his shoots long? Or what was the longest full shoot? Not seen? But just if they're doing eight hundred hours to do a record, what was the longest shoot you were ever on?

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Speaker 5: Well? Would he? No? I mean, back back then, wood he we were usually finishing by five thirty, especially if the Knicks were playing at home.

00:24:50
Speaker 1: Sure, claireinet somewhere for the day.

00:24:54
Speaker 5: We'll come back, we'll go into the close ups tomorrow morning. Thanks everybody, and he's gone, you know, I mean, it was no, they were. They were very professional. You come in ready, He wants to see what you want to bring to All the great directors did Woody, Robert Altman, Mike Nichols, Jonathan Demi, Oh my god, on and on and on. They they don't come in and tell you what to do. They you know, Altman told me ninety percent of what I do is casting. Oh okay, go show me what it is? That right? Okay, good, let's move the camera. You know, sometimes you get nothing, and that's you know, come in and show them what you think it is. That's why they hired you. And Wood he was like that, you know, he said with the script too. He first day he goes, okay, well, you know, this isn't the Bible. So if you want to, you know, change your word here or there, just go ahead. You know, if I need you to say it the way I wrote it, I'll tell you, and you could you could loosen it up a little bit. And he was fine. He wanted it as natural as possible. And and you know that just makes you want to make what he wrote work all the time.

00:25:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what was the longest shoot? Not seeing but just longest project the way they talk about Eyes Wide Shut being almost like almost two years. And that's Kubrick, who, of course is very particular. And you know, of course I must have been interesting working with with a married couple with Tom Cruise and Nicole. But I mean, you've been in so many different projects. What was the longest from from the day you showed up to the day left?

00:26:23
Speaker 5: You know, I know, I don't. I mean the television series like news Room. Sure, yeah, yeah, obviously seven months, but you're shooting nine ten episodes. Yeah, movies. No, I was never on one of those were five months over and we're stuck in Romania.

00:26:39
Speaker 1: I was on that.

00:26:43
Speaker 5: I you know, I did. I did a twenty eight hour day once.

00:26:47
Speaker 1: What was that on that the me in the late eighties called The Crossing George Washington.

00:26:55
Speaker 5: And it's one of those for your lot, you got the location, you got to get it. Yeah, you know, we tried to get it and and for whatever reason, now it was a day shoot that turned into a night shoot that turns into dawn and now they're putting blacks over the windows because it's eight thirty in the morning and it's got to be night, you know. And you you don't know your name? You don't my John Adams?

00:27:21
Speaker 1: Who am I? No, you're John Quincy Adams. Oh, George Washington. I had no idea who I was. Wouldn't teeth, no wooden teeth. They Oh that's a bummer.

00:27:36
Speaker 5: I'm in the makeup chair.

00:27:37
Speaker 1: Dig it. All right, let's keep going on with this.

00:27:39
Speaker 5: All right.

00:27:39
Speaker 1: So, like I was saying before, this is the white album. They're doing all these takes. They hear Neil Young do the song Helpless, and the band flips out and they know how special this guy is. They say, I.

00:27:51
Speaker 5: Think, I think if I read this somewhere, he said, great, we've got the basic tracks. I'm going to take the tapes and go home and mix it myself.

00:28:01
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it's it's basically they they I'm skipping ahead to what I have, the notes that I have for this, but it's basically when he played it for them, they're so blown away. I mean that's when they're just like, we're not worthy, Like they understand that this guy has a gift, and they say, no, we're not touching this, like this is this is a perfect thing. And it's also like, you know, the song is so in a sense autobiographical to him because of what he had been through in the fifties where he's diagnosed with polio and he's basically never been the same. It's one of the only songs on the record that everybody plays on. So it's it's very interesting too, which we'll come back to because I had a good question for that one. But give you a look. We're giving everybody a little taste, we're going back. We're doing a Christopher Nolan right now. So the record company h is all on board of having Neil Young. He says I'll join, but since he's uncompromising, he's like, I'm in la, I'll do a song. But also he will walk away if he isn't feeling the vibe that they're giving. So this record is each member doing their own songs. And if you see the first four tracks are all individual, right, the same person wrote it, that's sang on it. Maybe they do some harmonies, but if not needed it doesn't work, they don't use it. This is not a group project. The songs except for Woodstock, Almost Cut My Hair and Helpless were recorded as individual session but each member, with each contributing whatever was needed and agreed upon. Young appears on only half the tracks, with Nash stating he generally recorded his tracks alone in Los Angeles and then brought them back to the recording studio to put our voices on and took it away to mix it.

00:29:38
Speaker 5: Do you think that, because you know, because I've heard we came together as a group and then we added Neil, but we were always going to go off and do our own things. This was never going to do. Yeah, can we stay together? This was gonna be we're doing this and then we're all gonna go off and solo. Maybe we'll come back, you know. But so if Still's writes the song on Deja Vu is Still's the boss in the uh.

00:30:03
Speaker 1: From the from the understanding that I got from my writer DJ Morty Coyle shout out to him. It's it's basically this is this is the White album. This is John Lennon, this is this is Ringo. Everybody bringing a track saying I'm recording and I'm doing this and you can add what you can. But there's a little bit more collaborative on the White album because the band still plays on it. Dude, If you look at the album cover for this in big letters, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and then the bassist who they're all labeled like. The bassist Jerry Reeves is written on their very small and Dallas Taylor's on there very small. But this is this is a singular it's basically everybody bringing their vibe and them coming together and them cutting this into a record together. It's really interesting. Whereas compared to the first record, it was more of a group thing, you know what I mean. I mean, everybody probably bought more ideas to my understanding. But but this is this is really cool. And then this is really why I'm so happy to have you on for this because you know, with the way that Crosby, Stills, Nashing, Young, especially after this, has done so much on the spectrum or a cross inspectionum with their individual careers, I see the connection to your career because similarly, like you know, the way they see they're like, wow, like David Crosby did this, and Wow, Stephen Stills did this. You have a very very similar career with all the different things. You know, not only now with the with the music, but the acting and working with James L. Brooks, working with Sorkin, working with the Farley Brothers, like You've worked on so many projects with so many incredible people and playing these iconic characters. But just like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young who are blending four powerful voices, does that remind you of any ensemble that you've worked on where every personality in a sense had to fight for space but just to still make it sing.

00:31:57
Speaker 5: You go in whether to play or a movie, TV, you go in wanting it to be a great collaboration where it's a blend and maybe different from music. You know, who gets the solo here. I don't like what you did there. I mean that doesn't happen on a set. You don't do a scene and then you know, say to Meryl Street, Meryl, you want another one. You know, it's more of a of a chemistry thing. You're seeking that, at least I am. You're seeking that going in. Whether it's with Jim Carrey on Dumb and Dumber, you're just trying to bounce. You're planning to play tennis verbal tennis with whether it's Jim on that movie or Meryl and Heartburn or anybody else. In anything, it's all about plugging in and trading licks on the same song, which is the scene you're doing. And you can't do it by yourself because there are two people in the scene and one person wants one thing and you something else, and that's that's why you have that scene drama. So it's a it's a little different. I haven't run into a lot of people who are you know, could you just stand a little closer to my close up? You know? Yeah, I haven't I haven't run into that too much. I worked with people who didn't tolerate that, who were far bigger than I was, And I learned early on that it was more about making the people that are with you as good as possible, and what.

00:33:45
Speaker 1: Act to go off of that, what actor that you've worked with? You probably early on? Do you think you learned the most from Meryl?

00:33:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, a couple of things with Meryl heartburn and then what was the other one? Oh, it was over of the hours, and she just plugs in. She's so moment to moment, she's so prepared, she's so professional, but she's listening to you, and she's whatever you're giving or she's using. And so that whole thing of you know, acting in front of a mirror, uh huh uh huh. And and man, when you plug into Meryl Streep, I could imagine suddenly it's like it's it's it's the chemistry that everybody, that magical thing chemistry, and I you know, and I think Still's and again going back to the Chicago concert, I saw, you know, Still's and Young we're playing off of each other.

00:34:39
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, we're going to talk about that.

00:34:41
Speaker 5: Ego and all of that but man, they learned how to do that with ye and that's a lot of what what a what a good scene with a couple of actors who are listening, uh do, And so in that sense it was similar.

00:34:55
Speaker 1: Well, and I want to I want to go right into what you just said, because that takes us into the first track, which is carry On, which is a Stephen Still song. I love that you said that about playing off one another because one of the reasons Steven Stills it's such an credible guitar player. And then to have someone like Neil Young who also is it's kind of like as a comedian, you know, when you hang out with a group of comics that are funnier than you, because it makes you better, Like you want if you're the funniest guy in your group, you know the guy started with you know, Gerrod Carmichael Angelo Bowers, who unfortunately is not with us anymore, but two of the most brilliant comics I've ever met, which took my game up. And even now spending time with Burr and Big Jay Oakerson, I mean, and being here in New York, it's just it ups your game and I could see why someone is talented as Steven Stills would want to have someone like Neil Young in the band because it's going to make him a better player, and I feel maybe not so much. You know, this is where carry On isn't the you know, the guitar song on the record, but it's it's it is the first track, and it does have one of Steven Still's you know, because at the time everybody was doing this open tuning, like alt tuning of their songs, and Steven Stills ends up putting this together. Neil Young, though, isn't on it. You have Steven Still's leave. He does basically everything lead vocals, harmony, acoustic electric organ, bass, guitar, percussion. David Crosby brought in to do the harmony, so is Graham Nash. I think this is the perfect song on the record to open the album with. I don't think any other song would draw you in the way that Carrie On does. Your thoughts on it, I agree, I agree it grabs you immediately. It's this is like I put this onto the gym and I was like, I mean, it's still kind of pumped me up. It's just it's there's this is the real moment. Because of course like Sweet Judy Blue Eyes. If I fuck it up, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes. That's the main that was the big one off the first record, Yeah, which is one of the greatest songs ever written. This is arguably probably my favorite Crosby Stills Nashing Young song. I feel like it's it's just everything about it I love, you know, and then also finding out about kind of what's going on, which we're going to talk about later as well, which is like, you know, Graham and Joni are dating, but they're breaking up, David loses his girlfriend, Neil Young is just tough to work with. I mean, these are these are real issues. So this song, I feel carries a much deeper feeling and meaning behind it. And we've talked about, like I said, the career you know, and carry on is a way, you know. We're halfway through the recording they realized they needed this song, and in a way, it's almost like advice to the band. We were talking about your career at the beginning, and we said, you've done so much. Was there a point in your career where you've done so much? But you hit a point and you said, what else do I have to accomplish? Well, I guess I just have to carry on.

00:37:53
Speaker 5: Oh I'm there now. And the carry on part is the really really really carry no, you know, I think that back to the song I think if you if you liked their first album, Yeah, we need something that reminds you of that first album and carry On is that song.

00:38:21
Speaker 1: Sure, it's that.

00:38:23
Speaker 5: You know, we're not going to go completely different until later when we bring Neil in, but here's something that you know is harkens back to that first album that you loved so much, and then we'll go on from there. That's what carry On feels like a good kind of you know, for those who like the first album, this is you're gonna like this first song.

00:38:44
Speaker 1: That's what it feels like. It really does, it really does. Wow, you feel like Sarah, you done, You're not going to act anymore? Or like are you just is it?

00:38:53
Speaker 5: No? You know, it's it's a kind of you know, call me if you need me, yeah, versus chasing fifty years of person suing. Yeah, you know, I've definitely you know, once I did to Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway, which I did for a year, I came out of that and I could be done. Yeah, I felt like I had accomplished whatever it was I was going to accomplish. Looking back, yeah, I did it. Now other things have come along, I've done them, but now it's it's more about challenging yourself as an artist. And you know, I'm being focused on some other things. I have a theater in Michigan. The music I'm really enjoying, you know. I can play clubs or you know, five hundred seaters all over the country and sell out, you know, so you know, that's that's as interesting to me now, if not more so than eight times a week on Broadway or you know, another night Shoe in Louisiana. You know, So we'll see. I mean, it's not to say there are a couple of things that are out there that are you know, possibility of happening that I want to do, yeah, because I haven't done them yet. I haven't played that kind of character yet. And if it comes through, which I hope it does, great, but well, just going yeah, call me if everybody wants me.

00:40:32
Speaker 1: You know, is there who's the director that if they called you? I don't know if you want to answer this, but who's the director that if they called you? You you would in a second, be like, yeah, I'm there.

00:40:40
Speaker 5: Scott Frank really Scot, who do did? He direct? Wrote and directed Godless and which we did on Netflix, a big Western and I want an Emmy for that thanks to Scott. He just didn't Department Q on Netflix. He did Queen's Gambit. He's really a good writer director and uh yeah, if he were to, you know, I'd go with him. You know, if he emailed me go I got something for you, I'll go. What time do you want me there?

00:41:10
Speaker 1: Tomorrow? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm playing a gig though in Tulsa. It's a four hundred seater.

00:41:16
Speaker 5: If you cancel, you say we're canceling it.

00:41:19
Speaker 1: Dig it all right, let's move on to teach your children. Probably you know, one of the I'd say why, probably the biggest long lasting song. I feel like that might have come off of this very interesting story behind it. So this is a Graham Nash song. He wrote this while he was still in the Hollies in sixty eight, but he wrote it very much at first like a Henry the Eighth by Herman's Hermit, so not the country version. It was still the one that told him to change it to make it have more of a country song. Graham saw his I saw this photo of a toy hand grenade in Central Park by a famous photographer that I forgot the writer name down, don't know if you know. And there's a moment where he thinks you can either teach your child to be good or bad. And also a little side note, Jerry Garcia from The Grateful Dead plays slide guitar on this little factoid. Are you a Dead fan?

00:42:14
Speaker 5: No? No, And it's not a judgment at all. I just never hooked into him and no, no, no, John to uh Bruce Springsteen in the late seventies and never looked back.

00:42:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, there's are two guys that there are two guys that are awesome to follow. But I was. I fought The Grateful Dead for years and then from doing the podcast, man having we had you know, Senator Al Franken. Remember he's a guy. He's the reason I'm still doing the podcast. I was gonna quit and he goes, you can't quit. You're halfway through, man, this is groovy, And then his excitement it rubbed off and they all told me listen to the live shit. The albums are good. Listen to live shit, I started doing that and now I love him. But here but let me get to the question. Well, actually, before I get to the question, you tell me your thoughts on teach your children, because the message everything it's it really is, you know, being somebody that's a father. I mean, does this song hit home in a different way or is it just always been something that you loved and felt connected to?

00:43:20
Speaker 5: It was okay, you know, I mean, I wasn't Mash again, Nash wasn't the guy that pulled me in House is a nice song, you know, that's nice, teacher children nice, that's you know, sure, yeah, but what still's doing? Yeah? Yeah, I remember Nash saying somewhere that when they brought Neil in, he gave us an edge, you know, and he probably gave Graham an edge because you know, the songs Graham was writing, except for Military Madness, which was pretty on point. I don't know who wrote Ohio, but you know, Neil gave them an edge and really an edge sometimes. But yeah, there's some of the softer stuff is very nice. You know, the harmony is terrific. That's wonderful. But you know, I'm I'm kind of where are still songs totally.

00:44:14
Speaker 1: This isn't my favorite, but like I said, it's definitely the one that I knew immediately when this came on. But but to take it to the meat and potatoes of the song though, uh, more than ever now we're we're seeing a world where parents have the option to teach their children that grew up in the with a with hippie parents and they teach their children to be empathetic or you have these these these new I don't call the new parents, but that are that are tough and they're teaching their their kids, you know, not to care about uh their neighbor.

00:44:41
Speaker 5: Uh.

00:44:42
Speaker 1: Children are the seeds of the parents that plant them. Basically, to use a lyric from one of the songs that's going to be coming out later, do you think we ever can get back to the garden where we can you know, get back to people that are open to the other.

00:44:59
Speaker 5: I hope. So, yeah, I hope. So, I mean I think that's you know, the hope. Basically, I don't know how or when. Right now, it doesn't look possible. Everybody's divided. You know, the people in power are basically doing what they want, and you know who's going to stop them. So I hope. So I've always felt that, you know, I go back to Reagan and uh tip O'Neil, Obama and John Bayner. You know, they got in a room and they came together on a deal or they figured something out. And you don't get everything you want. You get you get as much of what you want as possible, and you're serving something bigger than yourself. And until we can get back to that, I don't see it. Yeah, yeah, I think. I think it's going to come down to the people in the country who either like what's going on you know, a year, two years from now, three four years from now, or they don't you know, if we still have elections. I hope we do. I hope.

00:46:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, definitely. It definitely feels like once, you know, two thousand, well really twenty fourteen fifteen, when when when that you know, that entity came into our political stratosphere, it felt like the you know, the puppets out of the box, and it's like it's just it's just how do you get that thing back in there once you've cranked it up and it's popped out. It's like, you know, I feel like people are only going to be leading that way because on that side, and it's I do think listen, I do think they're there, that you still have good people in this world. But I completely agree with you. So what do you so then how can you as a father?

00:47:05
Speaker 5: And I think I think, oh, I just I just think people will will get back there. We'll get back to that at some point. It's it's not this is not new. What's going on now? Maybe it seems like you know, and and in a lot of ways, it is more aggressive towards something that that eliminates people or discards people, you know, you know, and kind of tramples on what we thought what democracy was. But it's you know, there have been politicians forever that have gotten into office and done things and somebody had to wear the guardrails and wear the checks and balances and all that stuff. So we'll see, we'll see. I mean, it's it's it's up to the people. If the people want this, then it will stay. If if in a few years they don't, then uh, maybe they'll go to the election elections and vote for something else. We'll see, But it's not up to an actor to side I know that.

00:48:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, what well, what when when you were becoming a new father. What was something that your father or mother taught you that you passed along to your children.

00:48:20
Speaker 5: Well, invest in yourself, which I've done, for better or worse. You know, as an actor, you choose projects that that you want to do. Yeah, I've kind of done that, picking up the guitar, writing plays, doing a theater company. Yeah, that's me investing in me and whatever talent I have, just trying to see how far he can take it. Yeah. That, but yeah, my my parents were man, treat everybody the same. Yeah, he really was. My dad was was if I ever see you treating one of the kids in town who doesn't have a lot of money poorly, He didn't have to finish the sentence.

00:49:23
Speaker 1: Good man, what a good man? Oh Man.

00:49:26
Speaker 5: He was a company and in a small town was one of the successful business owners. He was the mayor for a while, he ran the school. You know. He was like Atticus Finch in this little town. Yeah. But man, he would some guy who is barely making it with family, and he'd come into a lumberyard and Dad knew and the guy was having trouble paying the bills, and he would say, come on up to my office, and he would sit with him for half an hour and he would tell the guy at the end of it, you know, don't worry about it, you know, will you pay me when you can, all right? And it was just private. He didn't do it for show. It was just private. He took care of people who were had less than he did, and that was just he would tell us that, but then he would show us that by example. And you know, I've tried to do that. Wow. I love that You're on a set with an actor and it's their first show. Yeah yeah, yeah, you know, and you and you I've done you know, decades of what I've done. And you can tell that he's nervous. And so you sit with him and you talk to him about the scene, or you talk to him about well, yeah, what you're doing, yeah, where you're staying yeah, oh yeah, yeah, you just you kind of you know, yeah, you want him to be good. This isn't about you know, just say your line so we can put the camera on me. It's the opposite of that, and that that comes from my dad.

00:51:02
Speaker 1: And that's why you work, and that's why you've had a fifty year career because you do that and your dad taught you. That's incredible. That really is incredible, man.

00:51:09
Speaker 5: Yeah, unless you're an asshole then I'll kill you.

00:51:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's the laugh.

00:51:18
Speaker 5: Seen stars do that to people who were being divas. Oh my god. So I have that in my back pocket, but I rarely have to use it. Yeah.

00:51:27
Speaker 1: I love that though. I love that, and that comedy is what's gonna lead into the next question. So I'm very excited about this next one. This is for me and people in my generation. But first let's talk about the song almost Cut your Hair, Cut my hair. I'm sorry. This is a David Crosby song, first song on the record that Neil and bass player Greg Reeves are on. This is David's thing, man, it's kind of goofy uh. This is he's gonna let his freak flag fly. Hippies find themselves at a point where they're like, do I cut my hair today and just enjoin the machine? You know, as you know about David Crosby, he was a rich kid in Hollywood and he took that line about the freak flag from Jimmy Hendrix before I asked you the question thoughts on almost cut My Hair? The song David, I know you're a Stills guy. Yeah, gotta love.

00:52:15
Speaker 5: The Warriors were coming out of Woodstock, you know, and maybe that album had been released for all of us who didn't get to go, and you could tell there was whether it was the end of the sixties, which it was the end of something, or whether it was this kind of we're different, this generation is different. It led to the Who, it led to Zeppelin, it led to Crosby, Stills, Nashly Young, others of importance, you know, the Eagles, Jackson Brown. I'm guessing now, but it was a turning point. And for them to come out with almost cut my hair, it hearkens back to you know when when you grew your hair and you you you know, they made fun of you. You know Bob Seeker in that song, you know, Main turn the page. You know, he has a lyric about you know, they make fun of his hairs. Is that girl or is that a boy? And here's Crosby and Still's Nash and Young going keep the hair long. You know. It may be a couple of years after Woodstock and we're going into the seventies, but you know, don't lose the ideals, don't lose the principles that we were fighting for when we weren't stoned out of our minds.

00:53:37
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, yeah, So you know, I kind.

00:53:40
Speaker 5: Of look at it as you know, it wasn't a fad, It wasn't something that we just went through and now we're over it. We're all going to go corporate. It's hang on to that. That's the message I get. It's so on the nose, and I think read somewhere they almost didn't put it on the album, but then you've got Stills in Young going back and forth on it even on the album and certainly live. That makes the song just elevates the song.

00:54:09
Speaker 1: I want to I want to focus on, uh, let your feet. I came and say, it's so hard to let your freak flag fly. That is hard for me to get out right now. So you've done You've done so much, uh with with with with drama, theater and and just being such an accomplished actor. But you were cast in one of the most successful comedies of all time and arguably one of my favorites by two of my favorite directors. What is that like walking in there having to and I don't want to call it prove yourself, but working with someone like Jim Carrey, who at that time was the biggest comedic actor, and not saying you hadn't been in comedies, but playing Harry, you know, versus Lloyd. It's just like, are people trying to talk you out of this? Or are you fighting for this part? Like how do you let your freak flag fly? In a Farley Brothers movie with Jim Carrey, it was.

00:55:08
Speaker 5: It was a fly flying moment, that's for sure. Because, Yeah, the career was slowing down. I wasn't doing things that were interesting to me. I was a supporting actor in dramas and it was okay. But I knew I could do comedy. I had done musicals, and I knew how to time. I could be in front of six hundred people, and I knew how to land the joke. I knew how to set it up. I knew, I mean, you either have that ability or you don't. And I never did stand up, but I did do comedies in theater, and so I knew I had that and I hadn't yet done it on film, and so I went out to LA because I had done a couple of independent movies in the early nineties late eighties that nobody saw, and I told my agent, I got to be in something that people actually see. So I went out an audition for five movies and I got called back on three of them. Two one of them was Dumb and Dumber, okay, and that was the one. I wanted it, and I went and met with the Fairly brothers and then they wanted me, and then I had to come in again and read with Jim and the Faarilies, and you know, I found out later they had been through fifty actors, really names names, friend, Jim calling friends of his going come on man, okay, but you know ten million, No, they it's a smaller you know, they wanted too much money because and it was also Jim. At the time, all he was was ace Ventura. Yes it's true he had shot Masks, but it wasn't out yet. This is April, and we're going to start shooting Dumb and Dumber the end of April. And in the middle of shooting, he flew to can on a weekend and Mask premiered and it became huge instant and then later when they released it in the fall or winter, that's when Jim became you know, capital letters. But at the time, you know, he was he really wanted an actor. He was pursuing, you know, name actors for it, and they just kept turning it down. I mean, because you read it and you're going, okay, well, twelve year old boys are going to think this is their Citizen Kane. But you know, the movie going public, and do you really want to get in a scene with Ace Ventura because Jim is you know, I mean when Jess turns it up, you know, as Chris Guests used to say, you started eleven so but but I wanted that. I wanted to work with someone what I considered to be a comedic genius. And I and I learned quickly to let him lead. You want Jim to lead anyway. And and Jim, on the on the other hand, was going, I need someone who's gonna make me listen. I don't want to do my solo thing where I just you know, take over a human tornado and everyone's yeah, I really want to, you know, make it. It's a buddy buddy movie. I've got to have an actor who makes me listen, or at least I can listen to. And so that became kind of the little formula where and Also, if you let Jim lead, you follow, You're like a puppy on a leash and you can see me where Jim. There's like a half second delay, Harry, what you know? All you okay? You know, and then you go. And so that that allowed us to kind of you know, and then we would get into trouble and I turn on or yell at him or something. But it was, you know, a comedian and you know this, they'll try to top you. Sure, yes, And so it's that thing of here's the joke to come, Why I'm gonna come, Why I'm gonna come, you know, And the next thing, you know, it's what are we doing? What are we doing? And on the on the first dumb and dumber that it was, maybe there was one ad lib. You know, what's the most annoying sound in the world, And that was an ad lib. But other than that, everything was written. It was it was per the script, the gym and the failies had been over it and this is how it's gonna go, and you just executed it. And and he couldn't have been nicer, more collaborative. If I had a punchline, he set me up. If I had one, I set him up. I mean, we were it had to be a team, and that came from Jim wanting it to be a team.

01:00:00
Speaker 1: Wow, and we'll talk about I think they were just the kings of the nineties, the Fairlies were with I mean, Kingpin, Dumb and Dummer, something about Mary. I mean, just some of the funniest movies of like my late teens, early twenties. And to be able to work like Jim, I mean you saw it immediately as a comic, the clips I've seen in him at the comedy Store and just how talented he was and going into living color. Were you intimidated at all or were you just like, all right, this is groovy, Like this is exciting. This is what I need to get out of my rut. I mean, because like you said, you had done some independence. You know, did it come back? Do you do you do Speed before and then you know?

01:00:43
Speaker 5: Or was it like I did Speed before that? And we were shooting and Speed came We were shooting April to the end of June, I think, and Speed came out in June and Jim had masked at the can Film Festival and then that was so we both had something come out. But you know, I was in speed, you know, not intimidated. No, I just wanted to execute what I was supposed to do. And especially in Jim's Jim scenes where we're doing it together, you know, it's it's not a competition, Yes, I guess, collaboration and and if you're going to compete with Jim Carrey, you'r comedic movie. Yeah. So it was a collaboration and Jim was wide open to that. I also knew. And this was my agents, you know you talked about There was an intervention before I was to fly from Michigan to LA to start, you know, doing wardrobe for Domb and Dumber, there was an intervention. I had three of my agents, two in LA and one in New York on the phone at midnight before getting on the plane the next day, saying we're going to stop this from happening. This is not You're not going to do this movie. This is a bad career move. You're going to regret it for the rest of your life. To be honest, Jeff, Jim's going to blow you off the screen.

01:02:09
Speaker 1: And Wow, no confidence in you would be able to stay hang out everything you had done.

01:02:15
Speaker 5: The comedic genius that was Jim, you know, and I had shown nothing. I mean, maybe something wild, maybe purple Rosa Cairo, but that was different.

01:02:24
Speaker 1: There's comedy in Arachnophobia. It wasn't just a horror movie playing a funny character. I mean, but it's way different, not as slapsticky.

01:02:31
Speaker 6: And you know, but Liam Neeson, Liam Neeson would way before Naked Gun and Police Story, was doing dramas, I mean, be able to you know, you never know, it's yeah, but doing that now, I'll say, I met the other guy.

01:02:44
Speaker 1: What fuck, Leslie Nielsen. I'm sorry, Yeah, I met Liam too. Yeah, I was right about what but I.

01:02:50
Speaker 5: Hadn't done it, and so and they were trying. I was on a path to be a serious, important actor who one day would get a Supporting Actor nomination. And I just was going, look, I want to I can do comedy. I want to work with Jim uh And I knew then, I mean, not only would I eventually find a way to collaborate with him that worked, but I knew that I had the snowball in the head, I had the tongue on the pole, and I had the toilet. I had those three scenes. Jim wasn't in those scenes unless they cut them out of the movie, which was possible. I was going to score, so I knew I had that. And so after I got through the first week of shooting and everybody decided that yeah, he's going to be okay, then we were fine everything. Yeah good.

01:03:43
Speaker 1: I love that.

01:03:43
Speaker 5: I love that.

01:03:45
Speaker 1: This is I don't want to be too off topic too, but it's like, what do you enjoy more doing the comedy or playing the bad guy in Looper?

01:03:52
Speaker 5: Looper was?

01:03:53
Speaker 1: I love that movie? Man, I think you're great at that.

01:03:56
Speaker 5: So it a great director, Joe Gordon Levitt. And I didn't. I didn't understand that movie. When you want me, what do you want me to say? That was big? No, I I the comedy is more fun. It's more the target that you have to hit is more sure. Not everybody can do comedy. And you know, Leslie Nielsen and The Naked Guns is a perfect example of that dead pan. You look at him and you think that he doesn't know where the joke is, but he knows exactly where the joke is. And you know Peter Sellers, guys like that, John Klees who went big and Faulty Towers, guys like that, stuck out to me, and so that's always been of interest to me. And then you do you know, like again, like a drama like God Godless, where you're playing you're playing somebody who I think I kill about thirty five people throughout the whole series. Well, you know, because it's the right thing to do. Yeah, But it's as you start doing that you get into the mind of those guys. That's fun. There's fun in that, but there's also fun and time and a good joke. Sure.

01:05:19
Speaker 1: I mean it's funny because I love being funny on stage, but as an actor, I love playing serious like darker characters and the stillness and just even like staring at somebody and not moving is carry so much weight where I'm such an energetic person on stage, So I can see why playing the darker characters or playing somebody that has to kill somebody you know, can be can be fun. But someone especially being able to work in that, you know, in the comedic world, you know, and be able to really dip into your child, you know, those things that you had as a kid. I mean, it's got to be it's got to just be magical and to be able to do with one of the best that ever did it. I mean and and like you said, I mean.

01:05:57
Speaker 5: We didn't know it at the time. I mean we Again, it's the fact that it's still funny to people who've seen it or are seeing it for the first time, you know, decades later. Is it's like Pink Panther with Peterson. Yeah, you don't know it at the time, but then there you are still making people laugh. That's pretty great. It was, you know. The fun of it for me was and actors find little key thoughts that that, well, you can hang onto and you can say to yourself right before you do, you know, whatever you're doing on Thursday, you can grab onto it. And my key thought was, Harry has an IQ of eight, a single digit IQ. You plan it that way, did not seven, not nine? And I would see the number eight, and any intelligence that I may have had just vanished, and then it was rolling and I was there. I held on to that for the whole shoot.

01:07:00
Speaker 1: You did such a phenomenal job, man, and it holds up. It's it's just a you changed the teel blue and bright or shitty tuxes for the entirety of history. And I've seen so many people bite off of that friends of mine for Halloween. So it's a great job, dude. Listen if we're going to talk about it in the next one another, there's something very iconic gears. We're talking about Helpless. We already mentioned the song before I asked the question, like, you know, we said, this is Neil Young songs, what he brought to the table. Everybody's blown away. This is one that everybody played on. Did you give your thoughts on it already or did you just we just mention it? You know, how are your thoughts on Helpless? You know, I know you're a Neil Young guy, You're Steven Still's Neil Young.

01:07:47
Speaker 5: You know. Again, it was Neil had the edge and I don't know the lyrics offhand, but it was this kind of certainly melancholy. But it wasn't the sunshine that was our house and teach your children, not at all. It wasn't the positive message that Graham was doing. Suddenly here comes this song called Helpless, and it again it was they were all doing their own things, which I guess made it made it interesting. It wasn't carry on for twelve songs, or our House for twelve songs, or even Helpless for twelve songs, it was there was a variety in there, which when you know, however they slotted it on the album, you know it jumped out.

01:08:36
Speaker 1: I love that you said that because I always like to talk about the sequencing, and the sequencing on this record is phenomenal. Like every song it's it's a new adventure. But the way they laid them out in order, it just feels right. And to bring it to the question, like I was saying, but the word helpless is that so many people in this world are feeling helpless. And when you started off with that opening monologue as will in the newsroom and deliver that speech and the pilot about how America is not the greatest country in the world, and how you basically in three minutes deliver the fact that you know that this is something that people now go to. Did you know at the moment when you did that speech, aside from Harry sitting on the toilet obviously, that that speech would be one of the most powerful moments of your career.

01:09:25
Speaker 5: No, I knew it was important. Aaron Sorkin, had you know originally it was that speech was not in the pilot that scene Will Wow in the first episode. The episode started with us back at the newsroom talking about what happened at Northwestern, and about ten days before we started shooting, you know, Aaron came up and he goes, you know, we need to see what happened. So I'm writing a speech. You'll have it in a couple of days, okay. And two days later he handed it to me and he said, do you think you can do this? And I said, Aaron, I've been waiting thirty five years for a speech like this.

01:10:13
Speaker 3: Oh.

01:10:13
Speaker 5: I love that, and not just for what it said, you know, because I thought what it said was honest and important and maybe not everybody likes it, but there it is, but also for my career. Yeah, you know I needed to hit a home run with that speech. It was placed what ten minutes into the first episode. Yeah, so HBO and everybody involved knows that if this show even airs, and the day we shot it, we didn't know if we were going to have a series. It depended on me hitting a home run with that speech. It was day three of an eighteen day shoot. We love Jeff, we think he's great, but man, does he have to hit a home run with his speech? Because that speech if we air will be when America sets down their remote. Yeah, they're watching, They're watching newsroom and I'll give you ten minutes. I'm out, Boom they go to something else. So that was that was important as to where it was placed and the day of we shot it in a place called College of the Canyons, which is an hour and a half out of LA because they had purple seats, which Northwestern had purple seats, and an auditorium Number two, three and four from HBO showed up that day. Sam Waterston, Olivia Mon Tom Sadowski, who were in the cast, drove out to watch it. Sam, who's a friend, later said, I just wanted to see if I had a job or not. That's what was at stake. Yeah, that was what was at stake. And I and I, you know, and I told Aaron, I and I and I knew and I had been around long enough and I knew that. You know, you've got to hit a home run. You can't hit a sing alert. You got to hit it over the fence first take. So I did the work, you know, like any any actor would do. You memorize, you wrap it, you work it, you work it, you make the choices, you get it so you can ride it like you're riding a horse. And they they shot this way first, and then when they turned around they said, are you ready. I said yeah, and uh, rolled camera and I hit a home run on the first tap.

01:12:36
Speaker 1: Wow.

01:12:37
Speaker 5: I looked over at the video village and they were crying wow, and not the performance, yeah, but what it said. And they knew at that moment they had a series, they had a show, and they had a macaboy and you know. And then we did a second take and and Greg Matola, director came up and said, okay, on this one, the second half of the speech, instead of you know, maintaining the anger all the way through, wish it could be again the greatest country in the world, melancholy and so you can see the change. So and then we did a whole bunch of other shots. But that became the way we did it was to ban here's the big rant, chew out the little sorority girl, and then wish it could be and here's what we could be when we didn't belittle education. When we did, you know, and get emotional about it. And that's at the end of that day, and we knew we were going to have a series.

01:13:40
Speaker 1: I you know, we we we had Rob low On, we brought up Sorkin, and it's like, he's arguably one of my favorite writers, whether it's television or movies. And I saw it from immediately when my parents rented Malice years ago, which I think is this underrated movie that he did, you know in the nineties or maybe even the Ladies, but early nineties at that it's like, I mean, what, what's that experience like working with somebody because you were so many diferent directors, was working with somebody who's so dialogue specific and his words are like like you said earlier, it's it's a it's a you know, it's a dance. You know, you're but his words are so you know, there's nuances to every sentence, like you know, like how much fun were you were you having working on that show? Working with Sorkin.

01:14:25
Speaker 5: It's the advantage to to working on anything where there's just one writer. Yeah, it's his voice, it's just written. You know. Noah baumback on Squid in the Whale, love.

01:14:39
Speaker 1: That movie very under dude. You were in two You were in two of my favorite movies that year with Good Night, Good Luck and Squid in the Whale Love that movie.

01:14:49
Speaker 5: That was Noah writing about his dad, and there weren't four other writers on it. Woody, you know in Purple Rosa Cairo, it' should it's it's having that singular voice, and you have that in the theater, you know, whether it's Broadway or whatever it is. There is one playwright. There isn't a committee of play rights. There aren't three play playwrights that have been on the script, and we're going to give it to another one, which is what Hollywood does. You know, you get to you know, the set and ten screen you know, five screenwriters, and we're on our twelve draft and so yeah, you can note things to death. Well that wasn't the case with Aaron his you know, and once you pick up his rhythm, it's pretty clear. It's it's not hard to You just got to learn it and then be able to roll it. And it really was the best when you can roll it. And and all the people on West Wing, I mean, I studied that show and I told Erin, I watched that show not just for the acting, but I watched the writing and the way they could just you know, it was it was just like going down on rapids of a river. Yeah, Aaron's the river and and it's it's you just got to find that that rhythm, and it's there. And I never had a problem with you know, Aaron, can we talk about this. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know my choices. I know it was always very clear what Accaboy wanted, what he didn't want, what he was fighting against, what he was saying. It was always you just had to learn it. And you know, coming from the theater where you didn't change your word, you know, unless you went to the playwright and asked permission. You know, it wasn't until you go to Hollywood where you see the star walking on the set with pages going, yeah, I rewrote the end of the movie. Take a look at it. Okay, you know that wasn't that. Will we don't change your word? Okay? Great, I don't have to worry about rewriting anything in my head. Good, terrific? Great?

01:16:52
Speaker 1: Oh I love that.

01:16:53
Speaker 5: Yeah.

01:16:54
Speaker 1: Note to all the people making anything in the Alien franchise, go back to one writer. Please please let James Cameron do it again. No more Alien three or Prometheus is sorry. I'm just that's my note to the Alien franchise. I love that franchise so much, but dude, well, yeah, Sorkin, Dude, I mean, how many people go back to that speech with Martin Sheen talking to that that Christian girl going through the Bible verses? I mean that that speech is up there with that people. I mean it really and especially the direction that America's gone, you know, and and there's still, like we talked about earlier, the hope of it. I mean, your character is speaking truth and and he Aaron just knows and everything that he's done, whether it's you know, sports writers or Saturday Night Live writers or talk show, you know, whatever it is fucking social network. I mean, there's it's just brilliant line after brilliant line, and and it's it's just to be able to see, you know, you do that speech, and just as we talk to you now about it, it's that makes it even better, like just to know that it was like shit, you guys weren't even picked up at that point, did.

01:18:05
Speaker 5: You chunk it at all?

01:18:06
Speaker 1: You didn't, You didn't like, were there moments when you were doing it that you were like at the beginning when you were running it like, oh fuck, all right, what am I gonna say here? Or did you see it immediately? You saw it immediately? Right?

01:18:15
Speaker 5: Well, I you know, I did the work so that I was prepared and then you know I hit it.

01:18:23
Speaker 1: But you definitely hit it.

01:18:24
Speaker 5: Any actor, you know, you open on Broadway, any actor that opens and you hit it. You just have to do the work to do that. And so I did. That's all I was, just I did it was you know, one of Aaron's heroes I think as a writer was Patty Chayefsky. You know, he's another guy that you know, you see William Holden and fade dunaway in a scene from Network and it's it's it's holding and done away. But there are three people in that scene, and the other one is Patty Chaievsky, And that's what Sorkin does and Scott Frank does. I was like, no one did it was quid in the whale. That's when when it's okay that it's written, you know, the actor's job is to make it sound like it isn't. Yeah, and that's that's you know, that's where we come in.

01:19:22
Speaker 1: So I love that. Oh, I love that, all right, speaking of somebody that wrote words that they had nothing to do with. The next song, Woodstock, was written by Joni Mitchell, and it's.

01:19:30
Speaker 5: Also she didn't go. She didn't go to Woodstock.

01:19:34
Speaker 1: She did not go, she graham Nash. Her boyfriend told her about it, So this is her writing a song about what he said. She was too busy doing Ladies in the Canyon, but she wrote the song. As graham Nash described it, it's a beautiful song. I mean, it's too bad that you couldn't go to Woodstock. You know, your dad fucking had.

01:19:55
Speaker 5: I had a friend of mine, an actor friend of mine from New York, who did go. It was a nightmare. I hate it, the blud it took. We couldn't get out, we couldn't get in. We go Oh my god. I mean, he just it just it just destroyed it for me.

01:20:12
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to Woodstock ninety nine so bad, and I'm so glad in retrospect that I didn't, because I love the documentaries of the mess of it. I mean, it's it's just, you know, it doesn't look enjoyable at all. And at least with the original Woodstock there was a vibe and you know, there boobs out and you know people dancing in the mud. I mean, you get all you get Jimmy and you got Sly in the family Stone and and and former guests of the podcast to headline it blood, sweat and tears, just which is crazy just to know that. So I wanted to ask you what was the greatest event that had the biggest impact on you was, whether at a concert, a play, or a movie or an album. But like this, I just like to stick to more live. Something you saw live.

01:20:59
Speaker 5: Ooh, ooh ooh. I was playing guitar. I was an off Broadway actor in the late seventies and I was playing guitar and I could fingerpick a little, and I wanted to get better. And I went to the bottom line and I saw Doc Watson and Merle Watson and T Michael Coleman the bass player, just the three of them, and that blew me away. That that made me want to learn what Doc was doing or deep River Blues or something, you know, which I can play now, But that was like that was that was a mountain to try to climb, to try to what he was doing and what they were doing together, and just with acoustic guitars. That and to be in a smaller room, like the bottom line was maybe it was I'm guessing three hundred seats and to see somebody that I had his album, somebody had turned me on to him, and there he was, and I'm gonna go see him live and oh and he's blind, by the way. You know that that changed me. That that sent me to the Tamblature books of Doc and Stefan Grossman and people like that. That was that was a trigger.

01:22:26
Speaker 1: How long ago was that? You said?

01:22:27
Speaker 5: I forgot?

01:22:27
Speaker 1: You said how old were you when.

01:22:28
Speaker 5: He said the late seventies, my seventies.

01:22:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, something about live music that you know I don't. I are my writer, Morty. Well, I'll take it to this. We had the biggest music critic on the internet, Anthony fantana On who has this show on the YouTube. It's got like three million subscribers, called the Needle Drop. He's like the dude on the internet the reviews records a lot of younger stuff, older stuff too. He's a really good dude. And we had done Prince nineteen ninety nine and I asked him who's about to make their Purple Rain and he said, Tyler the creator And he's a young guy, you know, hip hop dude, but all this kids love him. And our writer Morty took his daughter and he was playing Madison Square Garden and nothing to do, no shows, and so I went on a whim. Don't know any of his songs, and there was a moment where he is singing, rapping, and then and then that the to the one side of the audience and the lights come on and you see the other side, you see the arena that side, and it's all these kids just singing his lyrics. I don't know any of the songs, and it was just it moved me so much because it was like, man, that's their dude, and I remember being that kid. And and it's like it's why I go to concerts NonStop. There's nothing. It's the same way we go to the movies. There's something about sitting in that dark room with strangers, feeling that you know that that moment. But but with live music, it's it's different than any other art form, you know, like whereas a.

01:23:50
Speaker 5: Movie, I agree with you, I think theater can be that way too.

01:23:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.

01:23:55
Speaker 5: I think live music has it over theater and and that AI can't do. Now what Tyler did. No, Tyler's got to walk on that stage and have done the work to be that good tonight just for you in this room. And and AI can't do that movies, you know. I think the day's coming when we can see Tom Hanks at thirty years old. Sure, and everybody around him is AI and so is Tom. And and as long as the audience is okay with that and it makes a hundred million, we're good. You know, even you know you brought up live music thing is different. I think live music is you know, Springsteen's got to get out there and do it. Yeah, you still just had to walk on the stage for four A Way Street and hit it, you know.

01:24:46
Speaker 1: But we can watch Squid in the Whale and feel the awkward moments that that are in that movie. I remember squirming at certain parts by how uncomfortable it was, whether it was with Jesse's character, your character, I mean, because it's it's life and and that's a beautiful thing. That's that's something that that you keep. No, dude, it's every movie I go to see at the AMC. When Nicole Kidman comes out and does that speech. She made twenty five million dollars for literally just wearing a nice dress and saying movies rule, we cry, we laugh, there's everybody cheers for that, you know, and it's it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. But I'll say it.

01:25:20
Speaker 5: I hope it hangs song.

01:25:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, just no, and you're you know, you're I dig it, I dig it for sure, all right, Deja Vu, We've got a couple more. Let's see, I got a little Morty just sent me these. Deja Vu is a poigned song with a beautifully baroque intro section has David Crosby writing about reincarnation in the Buddhist belief that energy never goes away, it just keeps recycling. While carry On was done in like eight hours from start to finish, this track was an arduous and laborious process to get done. Thoughts on dejav Vus the title track.

01:26:02
Speaker 5: And not a lot of thoughts about it. I mean, it's just it sounds like that was the one where Crossby got a lot of help. You know, that might have been one of those were you know, they were jumping in versus just letting him do what he does or you know, yeah, not a lot of thoughts about it.

01:26:27
Speaker 1: That's funny that you say that because when we were going through this, this is one that we were going to skip over because it just doesn't it's not bad. Obviously it's a title track of the song. But I like the question that he came up with. This might seem like a peculiar question, but you know, going back to any of the characters, if you've done a sequel with Harry, which you got to do the sequel with with dumb and number two, who would you want to pick up on and see where they're at now or just visit that character again?

01:26:56
Speaker 4: Oh?

01:26:57
Speaker 5: Man, oh I have now I'm trying to remember what I've.

01:27:01
Speaker 1: Denton Webb and Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael.

01:27:04
Speaker 5: No, I don't think so, you know, it would it would, Uh, it wouldn't, you know, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and Gettysburg after the war. Uh, you know we shot Gettysburg and then Gods in Generals, which was actually before the Gettysburg shot it out of order. Yeah, maybe to you know, see the third act of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's life, maybe.

01:27:36
Speaker 1: You'd want to go back to that time period again and have to like, you know, dirt it up and just those clothes did not look comfortable. I mean, I know, like consuming, they definitely fluff it up, but I mean those are like you're dressing like a Hasidic Jew. It's probably hot out there, you're wearing sick.

01:27:54
Speaker 5: It was Pennsylvania and ninety degrees ninety percent humidity, and we were not wool. Yeah yeah, and we all had, you know, fake beards and mustaches that kept peeling off.

01:28:11
Speaker 1: You're like a break head. Here can I work and put down my musket? Can I take off this eighty pounds of jacket?

01:28:19
Speaker 5: There was you know, we we had like the Battle of a little Round Top was you know, we kind of reenacted that, and the Confederates kept coming up the hill and up the hill. And you've got a lot of these reenactors, these guys that have drove across the country to be in this movie, and they're living intense and they're they're pretending it's the eighteen sixties for four straight weeks. You know, you're in your trailer. You come out here they are and they got their muskets and they just want to be transported back. You know, they're so into it. They made the movie better because you could run the camera across their faces and they were into it, you know, and after a take or two of the Confederates coming up, the assistant director had to get on the megaphone and say, all right, guys, some of you seem to be putting some kind of something in your muskets their paper wads. There's something. We've got to stop doing that because they actually, the Confederate actors are feeling feeling the pelt being pelted. Remember this is just a movie, you know. They get the guys to stop, you know, kind of tap tap tip. But you know, oh for good, I got that.

01:29:47
Speaker 1: That's hilarious into it.

01:29:50
Speaker 5: They were that into it.

01:29:51
Speaker 1: But that's that's so groovy though, man. I mean the people that be better, Yeah, I mean you want everybody to be on board and be excited, and like you get real people that are that's this is their this is their gig. They love doing the reenactments.

01:30:03
Speaker 5: You know.

01:30:04
Speaker 1: It's better than just getting a bunch of guys from Central Casting and just throwing ship on them.

01:30:08
Speaker 5: You know what I mean.

01:30:09
Speaker 1: Dude, Big ups to to the director who is the Ron Maxwell Man, he's in the producers. That's it's great. I remember seeing that all right, our house is a very very very fine house on Gay Down Gay. This song is written not just amongst breakups, but also tragedy, Like I mentioned, yeah, really heavy. Uh Graham Nash Joni had just broke up, so he writes a song about domestic bliss and David real tragic man mourning the loss of Christine. I want to make sure I get this right. Christine Hinton who gets into a car accident. I think she's on the way to the vet and the cat jumps on her lap and it causes her to drive off the road or crash into something, but she passes away.

01:30:51
Speaker 5: Uh.

01:30:52
Speaker 1: There is domestic bliss on the surface, but there is this absolute tragedy.

01:30:58
Speaker 4: You know.

01:30:59
Speaker 1: I don't know if I like this song on this record because it's it's I don't want to call it cheesy, because it's not a cheesy song. It's a beautiful song. And over the years I think i've you know, when I was younger, I might have made fun of it. As I've gotten older, you know, it's I think it's it's changed my opinion. But fitting it on the record, I just don't know if it fits with the vibe of this I feel like this and you know, it's more of a teacher children. But thoughts. I don't want to sit here and say it's bad. It's not a bad song. I mean it's a good song, but your thoughts, Jeff.

01:31:35
Speaker 5: My wife Kathleen does a sing along to raise some money for diabetes every summer and that's one of the songs they sing along. It's an easy song to sing along with. It's again, it's positive. It's it's at least, you know, to those who are just singing it, not really worried about what was going on when they wrote it. Yeah, you know, it's pretty and Graham did a great job of writing songs like that, and it it juxtaposed as well with Helpless and you know later on with you know, when Neil was you know, coming out with Southern Man and Ohio and all of that. I mean, it's to go from one side to the other, is you know, I give them credit for that. That's a lot from a songwriting standpoint, that's a that's a good range, it is.

01:32:24
Speaker 1: And speaking of range and starting at a certain spot, your second movie is Terms of Endearment. And in the movie you're not you're not playing the best character. You're playing Deb's husband who cheats on her and then ultimately she passes. But what was that like for your second movie? Because you're up there with Jack and Shirley and Debbie. I'm acting like I know here, Deborah, I'm sorry, you're playing this shitty guy. How hard was that for you as your second film to play with three powerhouses, especially Shirley McLean and Jack. I mean.

01:32:58
Speaker 5: It was it was going to it was like having a seat in a master's class. I've been acting, not just Shirley and Deborah, but Jack. I was twenty eight years old, and I just kept my mouth shut and I just I would go to the set when I wasn't supposed to be working, just so I could watch Jack, watch Shirley, watch Deborah. You know, they they I learned a lot on that movie. I was off Broadway next thing I know, I'm with those three people. So that was, you know, just hold up your end. And it was the character was so unlikable that nobody, no star, young star with a name at that time, wanted to do it. You know, I mean, you cheat on Deborah Winger and then she dies, you know, come on past. You know. I was thrilled to get it. I was thrilled to get it. I learned a lot. I learned a lot.

01:33:59
Speaker 1: Did they make you comfortable the way that you make younger actors comfortable being?

01:34:05
Speaker 5: You know, the way?

01:34:05
Speaker 1: Did you learn maybe that from them? I know you said your father also implied that in you. But you know, were they giving as well?

01:34:13
Speaker 5: Did she was? She was great with me. She knew I was, you know, a babe in the woods, and and she had just come off of the successive officer and a gentleman. Yes, she was. She was the Julia Roberts of her time at that moment, and she didn't have to be nice to me about anything, and she was she really you know, I felt fine, you know on the set with her. You know, Sureley was was was was terrific, but she and Deborah were kind of at each other, and so I stayed out of that. And then Jack showed up. But I really didn't have any scenes with Jack, and I didn't, you know, annoy him by sitting next to him on the set. You know, if I just I watched, I watched, I'm Jim Brooks brought me. I did. I still don't see dailies to this day, but Jim Brooks asked me if I wanted to see some dailies though of a scene that I wasn't in. I said yes, So he showed me the scene between Jack and Shirley in the kitchen. It was a two shot of the two of them and Jim or Jack goes into the I'm one hundred I'm one of one hundred and six fucking astronauts. You know. It's that speech. And he did about five takes. And this is back when, and maybe it still is, but back when films you could kind of rehearse on film, kind of learn the lines as you go, get used to it, find some choices, work off each other. And then about take six he took off really good. Great. Here comes take seven again, same, just different. Here's eight where he's even angrier. Here's nine where he undercuts it, he goes underneath. Then here's ten where he does something completely different from the other. And between six through ten, Jim Brooks turned around when that was the end of the takes. Jim turned to me and said, which one do I use? You know, and you watched Jack give the editor options and give him options too, that he was chasing impulses and Merrill does this, You know, that's where I learned that it wasn't about with theater where you rehearse for seven weeks and then you kind of lock it, and that's what you do from the first show on. It moves around, but you're supposed to kind of lock it. This is the opposite of that. You're chasing whatever you're feeling at this moment, and if it doesn't work, it's just takes number seven and you delete it. But to watch him kind of just trust his instincts and give Brooks options and then let him figure it out in the editing room is it was a different experience than doing the same thing for straight takes, uh, which which is a way to control your performance where the director only has that Well, he only did it the one way, so I guess we got to go with that. But Jack was was trusted Jim Brooks enough to give it to him different ways, and then so that Jim could could work with it, not only what Jim had written, but Jack's you know what Jack took from it and was able to roll with it. You know, that's where them that's where film is kind of a lot of fun. If that's where the magic happens, and you know, you only have to make it happen for the first time once. Yeah, you know, I think you've got to make it look like it's happening for the first time and it's shown over hundred and twelve.

01:37:55
Speaker 1: Well, I went to see my my buddies were in uh like Bob, Odenkirk and Burr and uh, oh my god, I can't think of his naything guy from Spinal Tap. Uh we're in uh uh not more, Michael McKean, We're in Glenburry, Glenn Ross and I went about five different times and it was cool seeing it was some shows it was funnier, some shows it was darker, and some shows it was uh, you know it was it was a little bit of both. But to see the choices that the actors made, you know, in that moment, because sometimes Bob was even funny, it was was mister Showbob and David and sometimes you know Burr. You know, Burr was always angry the whole time, which was great. But it really it really was this this really cool dance. And going off of what you said about about Jack, I mean, there's that great Matt Damon story about the departed talking to him where he's like, you know, and he's like, you know, I wouldn't have lasted so long if I wasn't a good writer. And it's like, you know, there was a scene where he shoots the girl and he's like, when if you cut right there, you know, but if you keep going and then I improve this and then but if you cut right you could cut right there, but if you keep going and let the camera roll and this lets him play around, and I think, you know, you know, I know that might have been the first time that he was working with James L. Brooks, but something like as good as it gets, where Jim uh and Jack are just I think at their best. I mean, it's just such a powerful performance and the writing and the story. You know, I wonder just like just how much you know they're they're just enjoying what you know, he's being given to say. And then how much Jack, who seems like he just really is is so good at at what he does, and especially from from working with so many great directors over the years that trust him, and you know, it's it's it's great you get you've worked with so many great people that you know, you've been able to really see like just the progression between you know, you know what bad acting is, you know what good acting is, and you know what being the character is. And I think someone like Jack or Christopher Walking and Meryl Streep those people in yourself. It's like you guys live in your characters and you and you you understand it. You know what your character wants, and once you know that, then you can have fun, you know, And that's that's the beauty of it.

01:40:09
Speaker 5: The other thing that I learned, especially on that movie and from someone as revered as Jack, is that it's because there's no rehearsal for film, it's guesswork. So this is your best guess as to what you think the scene is from this character's point of view. And maybe you know or maybe you don't know. And so you know, Jack from the get go is kind of going, what do you think if I do this or I do that? And Brooks, who's smart, brilliant, Yeah, try it because you never know. You get into editing and you're gonna wish you had that one where he wasn't as angry. You're gonna wish you had that one where he said, can I try it? Where I just I remember Jim, or Jim said to Jack, he goes, yeah, great job. I have an idea. It's kind of you know, out on a limb, and I Jack said, I love going out on limbs. I get in trouble out there, and I just risk it, risk it. And that's different than the theater. The theater is that's inside the rehearsal room, and then you know they, no, don't do that. Come over here, and maybe you find a way to you know, do the similar thing. But it's you know, it's weeks ago, this is on the day right now, roll it, boom, hit it. Give it to them. Now they have it. And now months later when they're in an editing room, they've got options because I learned that. It's because it's guesswork. You don't know for sure whether this is the only way to do the speech or the scene. You know, you you know, if you're moving on TV and it's one, two, three takes, got to move the cameras, then you got to make some choices and stick to them, and that's it. But if you give yourself some options, because that's that's where you write. The final draft of the movie is in the editing, Yeah, I did two Indy's where I wrote and directed and acted at him. And that's that's where I learned that where I'm going, Okay, the scene doesn't work, is there, like, God, is there a take where I didn't do? What?

01:42:32
Speaker 2: You know?

01:42:33
Speaker 5: And that's where you write the final draft And yeah, Brooks knew that and Jack knew that, And so let me give you a couple other options and in the event that you need.

01:42:42
Speaker 1: Them, Yeah, I love that. Not to get too off top of I mentioned Christopher Walking, there's that when he did Catch Me if you Can, and he has Spielberg being interviewed and he's just doing this thing talking to Leo, and he does this scene three different ways. He does it straight, he does it a little bit like more intense, and then the last one he starts crying, getting choked up, and it's like Spielberg's just blown away. He's I never even would have.

01:43:07
Speaker 5: Thought of that.

01:43:09
Speaker 1: He's giving this speech about like you know, it was either being the military or something. But it was just like I love that choice, and it's like, that's so fun just to be able to give the director and while them where they don't even think that, well, I didn't even think of trying it that way.

01:43:24
Speaker 5: It's, you know, the talent like Walkin does to do that, to give it to them three different ways instead of arguing about the only way my character would.

01:43:35
Speaker 1: Do this is X.

01:43:37
Speaker 5: Yeah, give it to him three different ways. He's Steven Spielberg. He's probably gonna make you look good, you know. Yeah. Yeah. The one that works for the story, which is a whole other thing. Yeah, is the choice you're making serving the story, probably to bring it back a little bit like the solo that you're doing in almost cut your hair, cut my hair? Does it serve the song? Or is it you just show it off? Yeah?

01:44:07
Speaker 1: Totally something that was that.

01:44:09
Speaker 5: Doesn't really fit it somehow and you don't quite know why, but it just doesn't. And again, when I saw Krogie Stilts, Nash and Young in Chicago, and when I saw Neil do those single note things way up high, for whatever reason, it was exactly what it needed to be and I completely got it.

01:44:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, talking about not touching something, we're gonna mention it. But for timing, I want to move on, because I want to get to Country Girl, because I like that question more. But for it's four and twenty. That was the song that Stills did by himself. When he brought it to the band, they said, it's perfect, do not touch it. Everything is great. I want to if you have any thoughts on that, you can or on four and twenty you can, you can mentioned. But I want to ask you the question for a country, what do you on?

01:44:57
Speaker 5: That is there?

01:45:00
Speaker 1: I think so let me let me take a look at the statistics. I'm pretty sure that I'm pretty crosby and nasting harmony parts again, he into, They planned to at least, and then they were refused. Actually that is what it says.

01:45:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it's again. It's completely different from anything else.

01:45:18
Speaker 1: It's a still song. It's a still song. It's as still as long as it can be.

01:45:22
Speaker 5: Yeah. A good song is a song that can be sung on an acoustic with just an acoustic guitar, and if it holds up, it's it's maybe even a great song. Yeah, that's whole trope. But it's different from country Girl and all the other stuff and carry on and all the other stuff they're doing, which is at times of those harmonies and the operettic kind of feel and the to some of those other songs here comes four and twenty, which is just so naked that it jumps out. It's the same way Helpless jumps out, Yeah, just for different reasons.

01:45:55
Speaker 1: With country Girl, though, this one's the Neil Young song. And this is made up of two different songs that he had earlier written for Buffalo Springfield, called Whiskey Boot Hill, which he had done as an instrumental string quartete arrangement on his debut record, and Downtown Down, which would be wouldn't be released till years later on a box set. He added those to a third section that he was calling country Girl in quotations, I think you're pretty overall, it's very densely orchestrated and mournful waltz. Yeah, I was saying, it's like they already had a sweet with Sweet Judy blue Eyes, so this is kind of like them bringing it back to that. It brings us into a bar where stars are drinking, where people are flirting with the waitress. The third section simply yearns for a country girl to allow him to be her countryman and presumably take her own, take her away from the city. I really liked this one. I I you know, I'm not saying I disliked the final song on the record, But I really if they would have ended the record with country Girl, I wouldn't have been upset. And I'm not taking anything away from Everybody I Love You. It's a good song, but it's just we were this was one that we were thinking of skipping your thoughts on country Girl.

01:46:58
Speaker 5: Yeah, Everybody I Love You sounds like, let's let's give it a happy ending. Yeah, very But where country Girl is? You know? It sounds like Neil wanted to get out of la Yeah. Yeah, uh no, I mean that's one of my favorites on the whole album. It really is arrangement and the where are they going now with that whole song country Girl?

01:47:22
Speaker 1: My question was going to be but you answered it basically about if you ever wanted to do like a Harrison Ford and just go to Montana. But I feel like we already kind of mentioned that, so I wanted to ask you this about it was there the notes right there. You know you're a musician, and speaking of this song being three different pieces, like, like, how much of being a musician do you bring into acting Like.

01:47:47
Speaker 5: Like it's I think it's easier to memorize because of music and the rhythm. There's a rhythm to playing music, and the same thing with memorizing or even doing you know, a dialogue. There you find them to the sentence that he wrote or she wrote. And if you don't have a sense of rhythm, a musical sense, I I it can get harder.

01:48:25
Speaker 1: Sure.

01:48:26
Speaker 5: I think I've worked with some people who didn't and they were just slower to get the lines down and so. And not to say that you have to have a musical background in order to be a good actor. You don't, but it's helped me. And I think it has to do with finding the rhythm of the dialogue, which is similar to finding the rhythm of you know, the song, the chords, the lyrics, the melody.

01:48:52
Speaker 1: I'm assuming certain certain like writers, like we talked about Sorkin finding that melody probably was like oh yeah, like I know this groove immediately, like he's written the groove for you. But then other people you probably have to go, okay, like you know this is this is a little different. Maybe maybe I'm it's gonna have to wait until I get in there with them and figure it out with the other actor, right, Yeah.

01:49:15
Speaker 5: Sometimes yeah, it's usually again when it's a single singular voice that you can hear it. It's like hearing a melody. Yeah. Richard Schiff, who was on West Wing, he came to see Mockingbird and I told him that all those West Wing guys were great. I went to school on those guys before I did Newsroom. And I said to him, I said, and doing sort and it's like music. He goes, no, No, it's melody. There's a melody to the dialogue that he writes. And he was right. It was more specific.

01:49:58
Speaker 1: Gop Man, this is awesome.

01:50:01
Speaker 5: All right.

01:50:01
Speaker 1: Final song, Let's get you out of here, dude. Last song, Thank you for all the time, dude. This has been such a gift to me, to Jeremiah, all the listeners, and please please come back. Final song on the record, everybody, I Love You Breezy. It's a soulful rocker. It's the only writing collaboration on the record, which is by Stills and Young. We already kind of mentioned it, and I feel like, you know, for everything we've talked about like this, this is a good way to kind of leave it where, you know, the opening message of carrying on This really leaves a record that has a real sense of struggle and poignancy, both in the subtext in the actual material, on a note of compassion and good spirits not to be morbid, but with so many losses recently, especially you know, some of the great musicians like sly Stone and Brian Wilson, and then of course Ozzy, which you know, just to be able to go out the way that he did and tell the world how much he loves him and raise all this money right before he dies. What message of love and compassion would you like to leave with this world? And I'll be so happy.

01:51:14
Speaker 5: There's a lot of darkness and a lot of fear, and a lot of craziness going on that no one seems to understand or how to deal with. And and I you know, as as an older actor, who's you know, a celebrity who you know nobody wants to hear from us anymore, okay, but you try to find something good to do every day for yourself or for someone else. It's it's Pollyanna, but it's you know, until we get you know, I hope straightened out about being able to deal with each other again instead of hating each other so much. You know, find something good to do for yourself or for somebody else. That's that's a start that you can do. Can you change the world, probably not, but can you do that every day? Yeah? Yeah, And so that's kind of all I'm doing at this.

01:52:18
Speaker 1: Point, and you're doing a great job of it, man, And I you know, I love that you brought up your dad and what he taught you. And when you have someone like that in your life that you can that shows you how to be empathetic and love your brother and help people. I mean, even on the smallest scale of you helping actors, I mean, that makes me just so happy to know that there are actors that I look at that are extremely successful, that you know, like that you put up on I don't want to say, you know, on a pedestal, but you're like, ah, Man, they might be dicks or assholes, and a lot of them that I've met have been very very sweet human beings. Some of them have been assholes, but it could just be that moment of you never know what they're dealing with in their day, but you know, to be able to talk to you and you know, hear your story and especially what you said about your father. Man, it's like you really had someone very beautiful to be able to like to teach you about things. And I think that is why, you know, even just you sitting down and speaking for an hour and forty mins, it's with us. It's like you didn't have to do this. So this has been incredible and I really appreciate for a time and and the message and the honesty, dude, and you know, and please do Gettysburn too.

01:53:20
Speaker 5: Please please do it. Man.

01:53:23
Speaker 1: I want to know.

01:53:25
Speaker 5: In and Out or Dumb and Dumber three where you know, as Jim said, they'll call it gum and gummer.

01:53:31
Speaker 1: You know, even giving us a second one was like really, I mean, dude, it was it was a Swan song. It was beautiful and it really was. And it's like, dude, it's like spinal tap doing another spinal tap. It's like we the people that love it, need it and and it's special. And and the things that you've done, whether it's the speech in the newsroom or or I remember seeing an Arachnophobia opening night, all dude, it's just like I said good night to luck Squid in the Whale that there was two of my favorite movies that summer, and it's just everything you keep doing. I'll keep watching it and please come back on. Man, this was this was so much fun. I can't think enough.

01:54:10
Speaker 5: I enjoyed it. Guys. Thank you.

01:54:11
Speaker 1: So we ask everybody these questions. Uh, we'll make them quick, but I got a new one I'm gonna throw in. First question, is favorite song on the record?

01:54:19
Speaker 5: Country girl?

01:54:21
Speaker 1: Nice? H What do you skip over? Is there anything you dislike on this album?

01:54:26
Speaker 5: Yeah?

01:54:27
Speaker 1: Our House nice? Yeah, dude, because it's the hit. I always say, sometimes you hear the hit too much. All right, I'm not going to filter this one. Can you fuck to this record?

01:54:39
Speaker 5: Sure?

01:54:42
Speaker 1: Yeah?

01:54:42
Speaker 5: Sure, the rhythms change.

01:54:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all over the place, you know. I mean, teach your children while you're fucking is not gonna be. She's like, no, listen, it's a first date. But you know, just just ignore this. So we'll skip this track. We'll skip this track, all right. This is the This is the one I'm gonna throw in. Out of the four members of Crosbie, Stills, Nash, and Young ranked them and how much you love them. Starting at the lead, you and go top to bottom. You tell us which way you're going.

01:55:13
Speaker 5: Still's Neil Crosby, Nash and you know I love them all, but that's the order.

01:55:21
Speaker 1: That's the order, all right. What would be your elevator pitch to get someone to listen to this record that's never listened to it? How do you sum this record up?

01:55:31
Speaker 5: Remember the Beach Boys, remember the Beatles and all those harmonies, listen to this perfect?

01:55:37
Speaker 1: Yeah? I can't, I can't, I can't. You know, I think you said it perfect because I was going to mention that earlier when you were talking about some of the artists that you like, Like my dad loved the Four Freshmen, he loved those vocal groups. And you know, as I've gotten older, like falling in love with the Beach Boys, falling in love with the harmonies of the Beatles, even doing I was I just did Steely Dan Asia last night, and hearing Michael McDonald was stacked harmonies. There's something about harmonies, and there's something very beautiful about Crosby Stills Nashing Young of anybody, maybe next to the Beach Boys have done it better, and I am. You know, I don't know if we have any I don't think we have any other records on after this, but you know, to be able to go in order and and know what they put through this record. I think it's like it's four guys, you know, taking a break from being solo and making a sense of an individual solo record and then carrying on and.

01:56:35
Speaker 5: An extension of when you know the story of them being at Mama Cassa's house and Laurel Daniel, Yeah, and the three of them cross the visuals and Nash we're singing something and then Nash says, played again, played again, and then it happened. Everybody in the room heard it, and so deja vu is like and this is like, you know, a professional recording of that night in Laurel Canyon.

01:57:02
Speaker 1: That's so rad. Jeff, thank you so much for coming on, buddy, please come back. I know we've got some more Bruce, you know, which is one of our most fought after artists, but I would love to have you back for anything. We still got another one hundred and forty seven episodes left, so your call, man, And this was just a gift to all of us.

01:57:22
Speaker 5: So thank you, brother, all right, thank you appreciate it. Guys.

01:57:25
Speaker 1: What I tell you, What I tell you A gift from Emily the one and Only. Jeff Daniels. Follow him on Instagram. At Jeff Daniels Official and on Facebook at Jeff Daniels Music, and go to Jeff Daniels dot com for all things Jeff. Go to his website. Make sure you check out his music. Upcoming toward eights, he's gonna be in Michigan. Go see his shows. He's incredible. Now we just listened to nineteen seventies de Jaboo by Crossy, Stills, Nash and Young for new music Pick this week brought to you in part by Districal Kid Down I go by the man himself, Jeff Daniels. You can find links to the music on our website, the five hundred podcast dot com. And if you were in a band who were directly of those bone of these albums or artists and you want your music featured on the five hundred website, send your song to five hundred Podcasts at gmail dot com. Make sure you put the album and artists that influenced you in the subject. Next week, it's number one forty six, Whichjefferson here playing surlalistic. I can't even say that surrealistic. Pillar Pilla. It's my pilla from sixty seven. Great record. It's got white Rabbit, It's got someone to love. It's got everything you need. It's a fun record, and it's a good app Do your homework. We'll see you though. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Some towns on right, some.

01:58:41
Speaker 5: Towns roll Zonetown. I'm going soomtimes I'm going.

01:58:51
Speaker 3: For down.

01:58:57
Speaker 5: I go. Sometimes I'm good, Sometimes I'm bad. Sometimes I'm hanging over to things I never heard. Sometimes are lafe. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I'm true.

01:59:37
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'm alive.

01:59:41
Speaker 1: Before I know.

01:59:44
Speaker 3: Down I go.

02:00:02
Speaker 4: Sometimes away, sometimes I lose.

02:00:09
Speaker 5: Sometimes I hear the mass of singing me the blues.

02:00:16
Speaker 1: Before I know.

02:00:19
Speaker 3: Go, I go. The five hundreds, keep it I please see for the three stations on the five hundry, the stile undry. You do things to f