Thomas Lennon: Coffee & Some Nuts
49:50 Share

Art in your home can instantly transform your space and bring you joy. Saatchi Art makes it easy for you to discover and buy one-of-a-kind art that you'll love. Whether you're looking to complement your home decor, fill a blank space on your walls, or start an art collection, you can find the perfect piece for your specific style and budget at Saatchi Art. Go to SaatchiArt.com today to bring the beauty of art into your home. Plus, listeners get 15% off their first order of original art with code ROB.

That's 15% off at SaatchiArt.com. S-A-A-T-C-H-I-Art.com. Ever wish your favorite TV show had twice as many episodes? Everyone knows that feeling, and so does Discover. Everyone wants more of their favorites. That's why Discover doubles another favorite thing, cash back.

As I was thinking about coming to do this today, I was honestly thinking, I don't know if I've ever laughed more with anybody on any set ever before.

Then you and me trying to survive a long winter of monster trucks. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally. I've been looking forward to this one since I had this particular guest booked. Thomas Lennon is... I'm so blessed to have a lot of funny people in my life. And out of anybody I've ever worked with, I've never laughed more. Ever. Ever. On anything.

than I have working with the amazing Thomas Lennon, who obviously co-created Reno 911 and wears a tight-fitting booty short better than anybody I've ever known. But he's also an amazing writer and actor and...

has a whole side hustle where he punches up and writes huge movies that you would never know. Night at the Museum and on and on and on. So he's got a lot of irons in the fire and he's just pound for pound one of the silliest men I have ever known. So, just fair warning, it could get weird because it gets weird when he and I get in a room. So,

This one may be your cup of tea. It may be. You may love this or you may really not. But I can tell you it's going to be vintage me and Thomas Lennon. And that's always a thing. So here we go.

There he is. He's got the snowbird hat on. He's pimping snowbird. Because, you know, I'm a skier, man. I'm a double diamond ski. Let's talk about that, Rob, because I just got back and my left knee feels very weird. Uh-oh. What'd you do? And guess where I was? I was at a mountain called...

Jackson Hole. I love Jackson Hole. Of course you do because you're a badass. I did a 100,000 vertical in one day.

Of course you did, because it's insane. It's also a mountain for crazy people who are really, really just want to like get a little kiss on the cheek from death. Yeah, it is. No! I know what you're thinking about. The Coulier? The Coulier, Bob Coulier. I did not do it. Did you ski Bob Coulier? I did. No, wait a second. I did ski Bob Coulier. Who's the guy that I went down on in a movie theater one time? Oh, yeah. Who was that guy? That's a different guy.

That's Dave Coulee. Oh, man. I didn't know. I'm very foggy on the whole Alanis, Bob Coulee. Like, how did they know each other? Why did they know each other? I think Bob Coulee is the guy that the mountain run that kills you at Jackson Hole is. Or did somebody Coulee? No, it's Colbert. Colbert's Coulee. Okay. Stephen Colbert's Coulee. Oh, it's Stephen Colbert's Coulee. Yeah. And then, yeah, that Alanis song. I'm glad that we're here to talk about that.

This is what you get on this show. No, I love it. Isn't it called Literally? Yeah, we literally talk about just gibberish. So, yeah, there was that Alana song, and I never noticed the lyrics. And then one day somebody said, do you know that song about her blowing somebody in a movie theater? It was a guy from, what is it, Full House? Full House. Yeah. And I was like, no, I didn't know that. And now it's kind of tough to get through the song sometimes now.

Yeah, by the way, not a visual. I'm interested. It's not my favorite visual. I mean, look, there's a lot of syndicated actors. Mm-hmm. You know, daytime syndicated sitcom actors. I believe you've hit nighttime syndication, Slantra. Thank you. But, you know, he's not up there for me. But let's talk about you.

Rob, it's good to see you. First of all, how is our Lidsville stream coming? No, you have to Lidsville. Mark, why don't you just creep into my hat? So, y'all, we did a movie called Monster Trucks, which we're going to spend a lot of time talking about. I can't wait. But suffice to say that we were bored a lot. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And just, yeah, alone in British Columbia. Alone in British Columbia. And somehow we decided that what America really needed was a reboot of Lidsville. Or, no, but it was, wasn't it a behind the scenes? It was behind the scenes. I think you play Charles Nelson Reilly. No, I do. No, no, you're Mark, the beautiful boy who falls into the hat. In the hat. Oh, hi, Mark. You fell into Lidsville. Man.

Mr. Nelson Riley, I don't know why we always have to rehearse in our underwear. Because you got some movement. You got to feel the hats and the rhythm. Mark, let me tell you a story. Okay.

Tell me the story about the time you went to the Playboy Mansion. So I go to the Playboy Mansion. First of all, I arrive. It's the wrong night. Okay? And I'm like, holy cow, this is going to be the worst, worst Hanukkah ever. I'm alone at the Playboy Mansion, and then Buck Henry shows up. So things get weird, Mark.

Hey, Mark, let's lose the underwear for one. I think we'll feel better if we just try it without the underwear. Mr. Nelson Reilly, I don't remember a massage being part of this scene. No, no, no. This is called Off Buck. This is a little something I learned from Buck Henry on Hanukkah at the Playboy Mansion.

This is what we did for... For days. Days. Quite a long time. Days. And by the way, I'm reminded more than ever why we need this. Lidsville. For those who forgot it, Lidsville is a show about a boy, a real fit little boy. Very fit. And he wore a lot of velour. Tight velour. Velour, tight, tight shirts.

Just bum-hugging bell-bottoms. And for some, he, oh, I know why. Of course it makes sense. He falls into a hat one day. That's right.

That's how it works. He falls into a hat. And when you fall into the hat, you wake up in Lidsville where Charles Nelson Reilly is sort of a warlock. Is he hoodoo? His name is Hoodoo. Hoodoo. If Mark watched me do that hoodoo, then you do so well. And my favorite is it's filmed in what's clearly Magic Mountain, 1976. Like shut down. And it's...

And watch it, you guys, watch it on YouTube. Watch it. Watch any part of Lidsville. But Charles Nelson Reilly is also so right. I should have been with tails. I should have been wheels up 10 minutes ago, guys. You're killing me.

Mark doesn't know his goddamn lines. What am I doing here? I'm out at Magic Mountain. This nose is melting. He's so... Mr. Nelson Riley, you told me that we didn't need to learn the lines. Just out here. I'm going to write here. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to write them on my arm. Come on, Mark. Just, you know what? Mark, you move your mouth and I'll talk. Get us the hell out of here. Magic Mountain. You know, in Lidsville, talk about saying the silent part out loud. Yeah.

Lidsville. Like a lid of pot. And then the same people made H.R. Puffin stuff. They're not related to the Banana Splits people at all. No, they were somebody different. Do you want to hear great trivia, Rob? Yeah. I bet you know him. Do you know who directed the pilot of the Banana Splits? No. Richard Donner.

What? I swear to my hand to God. Richard Donner, who directed Lethal Weapon and Superman and... Yes. Also took a huge bag full of weed down to Mexico when he was young and made the banana splits.

He made the pilot of the banana splits. How? I wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't told me himself. I don't believe it, and I only believe it because you're telling me. Mm-hmm. I met the producers of Happy HR Puff and Stuff, which they confirmed. Mm-hmm. HR Puff and Stuff means... Oh, it's getting high on weed. Happy, relaxing, puffing stuff. Right, but that's before they made the weed real strong. Well, I was talking to somebody the other day that...

You know, I was never a weed guy, but I, before the weed was strong, Willie Nelson gave me a toke. I couldn't find my way out of his tour bus for five hours. I'm not, this is not an exaggeration. I was lost in a tour bus. You went to a labyrinth. Maybe when you get high in Willie's tour bus, it might get, it might actually get bigger. It becomes a labyrinth. It's a labyrinth of riddles. Willie Nelson's labyrinth. Of hillbilly riddles.

Of banjos and riddles, guys changing strings. This is what you get when you get us together. It's never... So glad to see you. I know. It's been so... It's been a minute. So long. So we did...

And we got to talk about your movie you're doing with Jerry, obviously, because I love Jerry. We'll just plug that real quick. We'll unfrost it because I don't know what I love more, Jerry or Pop-Tarts. Like when I heard movie about Pop-Tarts, I was like, I'm double and triple in. But I spent a lot of time with you. I've still, are you going to go see a movie about carbohydrates? Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to think about it. I'm going to say, I like the idea of seeing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just feel like,

You're not going to go see a movie about a lot of carbs. I've been to meals with you. You eat real clean. Yeah. You have. We've had many a steak and salad. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's kind of how we— Not a ton of fruit shoved into a cake. Although, do you remember when we got on our Twizzlers? You got super into Twizzlers, and it was a smart—it was interesting because—but also, Twizzlers don't have carbs, I don't think. I don't think they have anything. I think they're like space— They have nothing. They're space food. It's like what you give a—it's just like a horse chewing on cud. Yeah.

It's just like hot pink strawberry cut. Well, the way you make it sound, say that again. Straw pink. No, no, not that part. Hot, hot. Here's a little something I learned from Buck Henry and Shel Silverstein in the grotto. Shel Silverstein, y'all. That tree doesn't give. That tree is mostly a taker. What part of my piece is missing? Oh, Mark, I'll tell you. One day I'll take you. One Hanukkah, I'll take you to the grotto.

So you're not, I'm not going to see a movie about carbohydrates. Yeah, that's tough for you. I don't think you're going to do that. Even though you've got a lot of friends in it, probably. But the name of your character made me laugh. It's a real person. What is it? Totally real person. I play a dude. Okay, so this is one of those weird things. I play a guy named Harold Von Brownhut. It's the best. So this is the guy who invented sea monkeys? You know what, remember sea monkeys from the back of the magazine? Yeah. Yeah.

Which is like a weird... What do you mean he invented them? He meant to put them in a lab? He was the dude who, I guess, was like, look, if I dehydrate some weird little brine shrimp, and then I get some weird kids in the back of boys' life, or maybe it was in...

Any kind of magazine, you'd see the little ad, and it looked like little people that came to life in a little village. Yeah, like little seahorses or some shit. Yeah, little seahorses with sort of faces and stuff, which is pretty far from the truth. But so Harold Von Braunhut, he actually added the Von to his name to make it sound more German. He invented sea monkeys. He invented a lot of weird novelty stuff.

And then he married this sort of like somewhat famous adult actress from sort of like erotic films. What? And I believe she might still be with us. And I think she lives in like some Connecticut mansion, but it doesn't have water or power. It's the Brownhuts is a great story.

He took a lot of his riches and he did that thing that you do where you buy guns for the Ku Klux Klan. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. He was like, look, I can't be here to do this work forever. So the great thing I could do is just arm the Ku Klux Klan. Now, I should point out to historians, in the movie, I have a German accent. And I think that's just because I did it at the table read.

No. Were you doing it as a bit? I did it as like a bit, but we never changed it. It was sort of written to be like as if he has a German accent, but I also did no research. I didn't look at it. You know me. My acting is not, there's not a lot of work involved. It's a mile wide and inch deep.

So I did the, the first time I did the table read, how well do you know Jerry? Pretty well, I bet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I did the table. You had to do the table read a bunch of times and it's a scary table read because it's a zoom where the boxes that keep filling in as the zoom populates.

are, you know, Hugh Grant. And like, you know, you're like, and Peter Dinklage. None of these are spoilers that people know they're in the movie, but, but it's murderers row. It's a murderers row. It's the 27 Yankees. It's nuts. The people in this movie, if you're going to face plant at a table, read this one, people would talk about it. And so your idea with, with murderers rows, I know I'm going to take a big swing.

I took a huge swing. I'm going full Colonel Klink. Going full Klink. And so I did it. I also did a little bit of it in German. And then we did another table read. So like two or three times, I did the part for Jerry. And I would slip in and out of German. I'm an okay German speaker. Not great, but good enough to say stuff. And then we finally got to set months later. And I was doing the part again. And I said to Jerry, I said...

Jerry, do you like how I kind of go from English to German sometimes? And Jerry says, no. I was like, oh, oh, oh God. Oh, so I was like, wait, that thing that I've done at like three table reads until now, when I've been doing like all the time and I thought it was a grand slam. Like, yeah, don't, don't do that. No, no, no, no, no.

The note was, no, don't do that. That's Jerry's bedside manner as a director. No. No. Sometimes he just watches you doing takes going, no. That's amazing. But when you get a good one, you feel really good. He's like one of those. Like, yeah, if he's not standing, shaking his head, quietly screaming no at you, it must have been a pretty good take. Then you're happy. Yeah, you feel the tiniest morsel of happiness. ♪

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. So there's the Sea Monkey Man. Sea Monkey Man is a character. But what does he have to do with the Pop-Tart? So the Pop-Tart, they put together the greatest minds in the world to try to... The Racing Post and Kellogg's are racing...

It's treated a lot like the right stuff, basically. This is amazing. So they're racing. Yeah. So they put together the smartest minds in the world. This is the greatest. Harold Von Brownhut of Sea Monkeys. Nice. Steve Schwinn of Schwinn Bikes. Schwinn Bikes. Jack McBrayer. Chef Boyardee, which is Bobby Moynihan. Jack LaLanne, who's James Marsden. Myself as Harold Von Brownhut. And then Tom Carvell. And so it's...

It's the greatest minds that they could afford for the project, basically. But these are all the icons of my childhood, though. Yeah, a bunch of legendary guys who sold weird bric-a-brac in the back of magazines. Everybody except whoever came up with the yo-yo. Mr. Duncan. The Duncans, yeah. But it's really an amazing group of people just...

Like, you know, it's the kind of movie where the stress level is high because it's Gaffigan's in it and Melissa McCarthy and Sarah Cooper and Jerry. And a lot of us are in a lot of scenes where everyone's together, you know, so it's like it's definitely like sort of like playing water polo. It's like everybody's just keeping your head up.

You know. Waiting for your moment. Wait for your moment. Try not to beam anybody. Take a big swing. Try not to get friendly fire. Any grabbing underneath the water going on? Oh, nothing but. Nothing but. Good. Nothing but. McBrayer's always got my nuts under the water just a little bit. Just a little. Just a little.

And Jerry goes, no, no. By the way, the last time I saw Jerry, I was skiing with him where? Jackson Hole. Here's the thing about Jackson Hole, not to get too far down the Jackson rabbit hole hole. The blues are a lot like blacks, other places at Jackson Hole. 100%. Steep. It's a steep, steep mountain with a lot of action. That's the only way you can get 100,000 vertical in one day because it's just. It's like a cliff. It's like a cliff.

It's like the whole thing is a cliff. Literally is a cliff. So let's talk about monster trucks. It's coming up on, I think the fourth and what the fifth anniversary of the release. Has anybody called you about number two, part two? Well, they didn't ask you to do the criterion DVD. Okay. Here's the weirdest thing of the thousands of weird things about the movie monster trucks. And there are so, so, so, so, so many.

Oh, I'm going to tell you a weird detail you may not even remember of our weird time on Monster Trucks because it took forever to make. Huge $125 million movie up in British Columbia.

And we were always like way far out. So it's always a long drive with the teamsters, the Canadian teamsters taking you out there and. Oh yeah. Oh, there's Tim Hortons coming up if you want to, if you want a crueler. Yeah. You want a crueler? You want to run out to Kamloops or something, you know? Kamloops. The other thing about that is. You know, we're shooting down in Burnaby over the next four days. We're going down to Burnaby. Oh, you don't want to get all the way out there to Langley there, you know, there. Yeah. Oh, they'll rob you. You get out to Langley, they're going to rob, they'll rob the crap out of you. Yeah.

But so there was a funny of all the funny details. It was you and me. And then, uh, Jane, who's so funny. Yeah. And the kid, uh, the kid who ended up being a MacGyver, who's lovely. Lucas Till. That's right. Right before he became a bunch of people. Yeah. Great. And script seemed fine. Everything seems fine. You know, it's one of those. It seems fine. Right. And there's a bunch of people. And by the way, it's, it's the concept of,

is monster trucks, the little toys, or the toys that become real.

And it's like an E.T. Like one becomes real and a kid hides it. They're kind of cute. They're very cute. And then, but of course, that means when we're filming in Vancouver, it's you, me, and a sort of a skinny little Irish guy in a green unitard who's playing the monster. Yeah. And we don't know what it looks like. That's good to see you. Yeah. You guys. Wait, wait, we're missing a detail.

Isn't it actually is an alien that get that with tentacles that goes under the truck and makes the truck come to life. So they're drilling. You demand. I think I'm your sidekick. I believe I am your sidekick. And you demand that they drilled way too deep.

They're fracking. Oh, they're bad frackers. They're bad frackers. That's what it was. Bad frackers. They're mother frackers. These mother frackers. These mother frackers. That's what actually Monster Trucks 2 is. Those mother frackers did it. I remember because we got to do that scene that you always want to do. Like, I grew up watching, like, Crimson Tide and all these movies. Like, we're going too deep. Keep going. We're crushed up. One more. You can't do it. It won't hold. It will never hold. Sir, this is not authorized.

And it's usually Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. But in this case, it's me and you. Yeah. And I'm like, keep drilling. Yeah, chew it on Twizzlers. Keep it. So we drill too deep. And we hit monsters like you do. We hit oil monsters. That's right. They both live on oil and they're made out of oil? Or... Both. Because remember the reason... Oh, yeah, it's all coming back to me. The reason the alien...

thing that we never got to see is attracted to the bottom of these trucks and makes them real is because that's where the oil is dripping and it's like right and it wants to slurp up it lives on oil but it also is made out of oil but I think this is a good time within the synopsis

To just break away to talk about who came up with the idea. You remember this, right? This is a million percent because he's a friend. And this is the danger of being in a movie that was the idea of the head of the entire studio.

So when Adam Goodman was running Paramount, this movie was like, didn't his son pitch him this idea or something like that? Well, that's who came up with it. Right. It was the child. His five-year-old child in the back seat being, you know, probably in gridlock on San Vincente. Mm-hmm. Perfect. Mm-hmm. Says, what if these trucks became real? Beep, beep, boop, boop. And he's like, I know. Mm-hmm. Then they sometimes have faces.

And the next thing you know, they're spending $120 million at Paramount. By the way, today Paramount has no money. I signed for three pictures. I'm sure you did too. There was a real issue, which is you couldn't just sign a contract for one Monster Trucks. They were so bullish on Monster Trucks. They're like this thing, we're never going to stop making these. We're never going to stop making these. Well, and also this was...

Mattel was... Was it? Wasn't it? Somebody was making them, right? I think it was Mattel, and they were like...

All right. We're after this. We're out of the movie business. And then, of course, they came back with Barbie. They bounced back pretty well. There's a crazy detail. You may not even remember this detail, but of the cast of that, of the wonderful picture, Monster Trucks, which is going to get way more screen time. Then I'll plug Unfrosted one more time, and then we'll just keep talking about Monster Trucks. No. May 3rd on Netflix. No. It's a great picture.

No. Oh, God, no. So if you're playing at home, usually you have a trailer that if you're my kind, if you're kind of actor I am, you're always in like a double banger where there's two, a two room trailer. Why do you think they named it the double banger? Because obviously it's perfect for body doubles. Mr. Nelson Riley. I don't know why. Why are we in that? Why do you call a trailer a double banger?

banger. Hang on, kid. My nose is melting off here a little bit. Son of a gun, let me get this nose back on. What? You know, kid, the shower works in here, but it's recycled water. Mark, anytime you want to use that shower, it works. Just don't get it in your mouth or your eye. So I am in a double banger. Now, just a tiny touch of backstory. So my wife, Jenny, I think you might know my wife. Jenny, she was in Bull Durham and a bunch of stuff. And

Um, when Jenny was young, she, uh, dated this, uh, this actor in New York and that actor from New York ended up marrying my girlfriend who I lived with for five years in New York. Wow. So we don't really hang out and we haven't talked that much. So imagine my surprise, my first day on monster trucks, when I show up to my double banger and the double banger is one side is me and the other side is Frank Whaley.

Frank. That's right, Frank. That's right. Frank, who's married to my ex, and I'm married to Frank's ex. Amazing. And it was just like, I was like, this is way too perfect. I can't believe this is happening. That's right. Yeah. I forgot Frank was in it. Frank was in it, and we shared a trailer for like a month on the coast of upper British Columbia. Can I just say, it doesn't seem right for a movie that's going to, they wanted to sign you.

This is the indignity of show business. We want to sign you for three of these movies. By the way, you're sharing a double banger with Frank Wilde. Of course. Of course. Okay, here's a fun question. What is a real... What's the least...

you've ever been paid on a real movie, a movie that exists for fun. I was playing this game with Matt Walsh the other day because the answer is it can get real low sometimes. Oh, this is a good one. I think I did Merchant Ivory's film Le Divorce and I only got my per diem.

And they flew me there on using someone else's frequent flyer miles. I tried to check in at the airport for making a little divorce and we're going to Paris. I'm like, going to Paris for 10 weeks. This is awesome. At Air France, I'm like, can I give you my frequent flyer number? And they're like, Mr. Lennon, you cannot get the miles when you are flying on miles.

And I'm like, oh, they didn't even buy me an airplane ticket. Wow. They just bought some miles at a discount. Those son of a bitches. They were clever, clever cats. I didn't know Merchant Ivory were such cheap son of a bitches. Very clever, very clever cats. They were real thrifty. I just remember my brother, Chad, doing a movie in Estonia with Donald Sutherland.

A movie that came out? This is a real picture. Yes, it came out. Sort of. No, no, it came out. It for sure came out. Cinemax is coming out, yeah. No, it's out. It's out. It did a thing. And I just remember they had all of these night scenes in the rain. And they had thousands of extras. And I knew the budget was infinitesimal.

Yeah. And I was like, and this is the Berlin wall had just come down. Okay. Or was about to, it was like, like, you know, the freedom was in the air. Mm hmm.

thousands of people in the streets for this. And I go, how do you get up before these? I can't do an Estonian accent, but if I could do one. You make them for soup. You might have a soup out. You put out some soup and everyone show. Is that what really went up? It was, they showed up for a raffle ticket.

with the chance to win smart coffee and nuts

Thousands of people. I'm not laughing at the producer whose idea was, let's give them coffee and nuts. Let them eat nuts. Well, let's let one of them. One of them? Literally one of you. Two thousand people. God damn it, I'll come home. If I come back tomorrow night, I'll get it. Going to have coffee and some nuts. Well...

Yeah, I'm trying to think of the, I was playing me and I was playing this game. I just did Heather Graham's new movie, Chosen Family. Is she directing it? She directed it. How was that? It's great. It's a really great picture. She's the best. This is my second Heather Graham picture. She might be the most beautiful. It's crazy. She's painfully beautiful. Yeah, yeah. I tried. I ended up being sort of mean to her as a result.

Yeah, fuck her. Just to get her out of my eyeline. Come on. I don't want to look at you anymore, Heather Graham. But I will go do her movie. And I think for something, I'm not sure how this movie got made. Low budget, like there's a SAG ultra low budget. Have you ever heard of this? Yeah, therefore, that's really low. The SAG screen actress ultra low budget. That's for the people in the union that have never qualified for health care. No, no, I just did that.

But I, you know, what's weird is there was probably, I made, I made on Heather's new movie, probably the equivalent of coffee and some nuts, coffee and some nuts. And you'd probably rather have the, the coffee and the nuts by the time you're done cashing. Oh my God. Everybody's, everybody takes a little bite. And yeah, at least divide the coffee and the nuts. That's something I have, you know? Well, the agents don't come and take 10% of the nuts. Yeah.

And then the managers take 10% of the nuts. Then you have to pay your publicist and they don't even want the coffee. Just doling out nuts out on the street. Tell me the story about you were offered a Martin Scorsese part. This is not an offer. No, no, no. Not an offer. No. This is what drives me crazy is the world of offers and not offers. And like, you know, after you're in like 40 or 50 films, you're like, oh, they'll just offer that to me. And the answer is no. They almost never do that.

No, but that was, um, I'd read, uh, they sent me the script for Wolf of Wall Street and, uh, what, uh, they said, uh, a very titillating sentence. They said, Martin Scorsese's casting director is very aware of you. And I'm like, yes, that sounds correct. Uh-huh. That's their job. Um, that's their job. And they're like, take a look, take a look at this terrific script he's making called Wolf of Wall Street. I'm like on it.

There's a character called Patrick the butler. That's the first sign it's not going well. When the character's description of what they do for a living is their name. So in the script, and with full disclosure because everybody's seen the movie now, it came out a little different in the finished film than it was on paper in the script. But they asked me to pick a scene and I think I was going to come in and read.

And so I flipped through this giant script. It's 120, 150 pages. It's a big, big early draft of the script. I finally find Patrick the butler. And when you meet Patrick the butler in the script of Wolf of Wall Street, he's at an orgy blowing two dudes at the same time, basically, just surrounded by wangs in his face. And the door opens. Leo DiCaprio sees him. And Patrick the butler turns and says, I'm so sorry.

And that is Patrick's only line in the picture. And then he gets beat up and held naked out a window for a little while. And then they throw him in a cop car and drive him away. And what just... Now you've done how many seasons of Reno have you done at this point? At that point, six, seven. But here, my problem, and the only thing, I'm not some precious like, oh, I'd never do that or I'd never do that. I was just like, guys,

I have to read for this? I have to read for wangs in my face? Like, people can picture what wangs would look like in my face, right? And they know you'll score with one line, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And now I see the movie and I'm like, first of all, the guy's got like a leather jacket on and he looks kind of cool now.

Like they didn't go quite as, it's not quite as intense as it was in the script. Cause I'm sure somebody was like, Hey Marty, this is a tremendous amount of wangs for a picture that's coming out at the AMC. I mean, we got a lot of, can we, can we put some of the wangs in like something funny, like an elephant trunk or just like a wacky, like a thong or something like that. We can do something funny. Right. And then that's what they did of course. And then I was just sitting there like, damn it.

That was a Scorsese picture that's because I got too stuck up on my high horse. And that's the one that got away. The one that got away, Patrick the butler. I tip my hat to the guy who actually was Patrick the butler. He was terrific. It was great. At the end of the day, would you have rather been in Patrick the butler or Monster Trucks? Wait, do you remember when we had this? I don't think you were with me on Monster Trucks the day that

They had, look, and full disclosure, I don't want to be sued by anybody. No, no, no. This is only my- Keeping it very upbeat. This is only my opinion. Something weird happened. Okay. That we had one of the wives of one of the most highest ranking members of the Chinese Communist Party. That's verbatim true, but you're very close on who this is. Right? Yes. This is absolutely correct. Right.

And you would have thought...

the fucking reincarnated ghost of Elizabeth Taylor had arrived. It was, without saying, I'm in two movies with that, the person that we're talking about. This is unbelievable. It is so interesting. There was a period where this Chinese star, we're not going to get sued by anybody. She's a beautiful lady. The Chinese, well, listen, they already know. They're listening to everything. I don't think she's, she's not, she's actually not, I don't think she's a political person.

I think she's a very, very big deal. She has a cosmetics line and stuff like that. Oh, my God. Here's how I know. Okay. Okay. Oh, my gosh. You just reminded me of something I completely forgot. The star who's very, very, very big deal. Chinese star whose name we're not going to say because I don't know why. Because we're terrified. Because we live in terror.

But she's actually a lovely person. Yes. And quite beautiful. And a very beautiful, famous model. And I think it was on Monster Trucks. I was also, I mean, you could now Venn diagram this very easily because she's also in Transformers Age of Extinction with me. Now, she only does movies where mechanical things come to life, though. Come to life and wreck everything. Yeah. This is her thing. Yeah. Got it. She's cornered the market. So this was just such an interesting thing that I got a note from the

the makeup department. And I think it was on, I think it was on monster trucks, but there's an ever so slight chance it was on transformers ages extinction. These were like sort of back to back things. I was in my big monstery things. Yeah. Sure. Also. And they sent, uh, I ended up being on a group text, uh,

And it ended up, it was the makeup department, head of the makeup department with me and I guess whoever else was playing on that day. So that's why it was, it was on monster trucks, any special makeup requirements that you would like. And I was like,

Uh, me? Uh, um, no tips in my face. Um, it'll take two wangs that are usually positioned right here. So I was like, no, um, nothing I can, nothing I can think of. I mean, the biggest thing I can think of is once in a while I had a little bit of eyeliner liner under the eye cause it makes you funnier. I was like, that's about it. Yeah. And I got back because I was accidentally BCC or CC. I got,

The full makeup requirements of that Chinese model and movie star who was going to be in the picture. And it was every item that is used to do her makeup, where you can get it and what the price tag is. It was basically the amount of makeup and products that would have the equivalent. It was about the cost of a brand new Tesla at the time. I'm talking about the Model S.

Before they got to, you know, this sort of plastic. Any explanation of why? She's so pretty. Well, they just asked for what are her makeup? What would she like for makeup? And I guess you got to be very careful when you ask a Chinese influencer and superstar who's used to just having stuff. Yeah. It's like if you're going to ask, okay, you asked, here's the stuff. But it would have been, I mean, someone would have had to shop for this stuff for like days. Yeah.

All set for your flight? Yep, I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

I just remember my scene. I ended up with me hiding under a table. You know, this is how long ago Monster Trucks was. I based my entire character on...

Who was he? He was running for president. That was the guy. Come on. The Texas guy. Yeah. And then one day he just started wearing glasses to look smart. Like he had... Texas guy. Rick. Ricky. Ricky. Rick. Rick Perry. Hey, guys, it's me, Rick Perry. I think you need to drill down below where them... Go deep. Keep in. Push it. Push it. Push it deeper into where those...

aliens come out at. See, we don't, that's a, that was a guy who looms so large for a second. Yeah, that I was basing a character on him. Yeah, now, honestly, it took us a long time to think of his name. That's, that's pretty sad. Okay, so let's see, the movie with Jerry is coming out. Tell me about your, the book you wrote with your screenwriting partner. That's a book called Writing Movies for Fun and Profit, but on the title page, fun and is crossed out.

So the actual legit title of the book is Writing Movies for Profit. That's amazing. And it was basically a, it's a very sort of hands-on guide. I think, you know, we'd kind of gotten to the Hollywood system and we didn't really know anything about writing movies and there's nobody to ask, really. You know, it's like, you know, you can't go ask. And we had a real bitchy section of the book at one point that listed all of the produced screenplays that

by people who were screenwriting gurus, you know, in air quotes. Yes. And most of the screenwriting gurus have never gotten a film made. Right. You know, and which begs the question, if you're so good at this... Right. How come you would have... If you were good at this, you know, it's like if you had invented Facebook, you would have invented Facebook. So that was sort of the idea behind writing movies for fun and profit. And it deals...

With a lot of stuff that just people might not tell you, like how to take notes. Like never, if you're invited, if you get notes from a movie star and you're invited into their trailer on set, first of all, it's a single banger. Never make the joke that it's bigger than your house. It makes movie stars sad when you make that joke. Yes, it does. We get real, they don't like it. They feel bad. So, you know, and it deals with like very specific things. I mean, not just how to take notes, but...

how to get through drafts and give yourself deadlines and, and how to get fired. Like probably the biggest lesson in writing movies for fun and profit is how to get fired gracefully. Ooh, teach. What do you say? Do you have a, you say, you always say not our first plan bake and hope I would, we'd love to be back on the project. If you ever need us again, can't, can't wait to help out. Cause we love the, we love this movie and, and,

You're also, in our world, we were always almost getting replaced, and this is just a sort of part for the course, getting replaced with a dear friend. Right. You know, it's usually somebody you know and like pretty well, and they just want to put fresh eyes on it. They want to put fresh eyes on it. So getting fired, never, when you get fired from the studios, never say something that you would regret. Oh, no, for sure. Yeah. I remember when we were working together, you guys had a draft that was so funny of...

It was, was it Baywatch? Is that possible? For sure. For sure. And we ended up, uh, by the way, that was also Adam Goodman. Adam, uh, we went into Adam Goodman's office at Paramount one day and he had a three by five cart flipped upside down at the bottom of the wall. And it was clearly its next stop was going to be the garbage can. And, um, it was a little bit like Barton Fink. It's like a Baywatch picture. What do you want? A roadmap? How hard could that be? Baywatch picture. Yeah. Um, and, uh,

So we, uh, yeah, we, we did a bunch of drafts on that. And then of course got replaced by people that we love and adore. And, uh, you know, it's, it's be the person they want to hire again is a lot of what that's about. But then we also do my favorite chapter of that book, which I kind of forgot about until recently is we do a chapter about what the studio thinks of you, what their opinion is of you based on where they let you park.

Amazing. Because the parking at certain places, like at Fox, at 20th Century Fox on Pico, there is a parking space called Gold Door. And that is right by the main gold door at the film building. And it's like got two cars can fit there. I've seen James Cameron there many times. It's usually just the James Cameron parking space, but I got it once. One time, I think when Night at the Museum was doing well, I might have gotten the gold door spot once.

But if you show up at Fox and you're at Galaxy Gate, you're done. You fucked up.

You fucked up. Somebody's mad at you. Yes. That's when they've looked at IMDb and seen monster trucks and not Night at the Museum. Is he just coming off monster trucks? Fuck it. Give him Galaxy. No, he can park at Galaxy. How many years has it been since he wrote Night at the Museum? No. Send that asshole, that monster trucks guy from the double banger with Whaley, get his ass down to Galaxy. Yeah. Put him in another Galaxy. Yeah, there's some bad parking spots.

Warner Brothers has very good. Warner Brothers, depending who you're visiting, has a valet parking, depending on how well you've been doing. Oh, I know. Yeah. That's a really great spot. I know. Are you ready for the Netflix effect? It's amazing. It really, it's a thing. It's such a thing. I only know about it a little bit because...

There was a certain point in my life where an age, a certain person of a certain age started recognizing me that I didn't, I couldn't compute and I couldn't figure out. And I was like, where does this strange new batch of like sort of young girls know me from? And the answer is 17 again was like in the top 10 on Netflix for like two years.

And it was a completely different thing from just like being on TV or being in a movie. It was just different. Yeah. It's a real thing. The Netflix effect is a real. And I wish you...

Much, much, much Netflix. I want to, if we do a season three of my Netflix show, Unstable, I got to get you to come play with us. Perfect. I'm amazing in everything. I know you are. Funny accents. And I won't. I'll make you do half German. Yeah. And I come in, basically, if you let me know there's a possibility of coffee and or nuts, even a possibility of coffee and nuts. We do it.

I'm there. We do it. We're going to make it happen. Thomas Lennon. Congrats on that. You're the man. It's so fun. Rob, it's great to see you again. As I was thinking about coming to do this today, I was honestly thinking, I don't know if I've ever laughed more with anybody on any set ever than you and me trying to survive a long winter of monster trucks. A lot. Which...

With full disclosure, is nowhere near as bad as everyone remembers it is. Really? It is nowhere near as bad. It's actually like kind of okay. I mean, yeah. I believe it's kind of okay too. It's totally kind of okay. Yeah. I think everybody needs to watch...

Monster trucks. That's... Jane's great in it. She's great. Lucas Till's great in it. Like, it definitely has like some fun... There's like huge visual effects. You know, I think that... And then we'll wrap with this. I think... And also remember, this is the moment where...

every animator was getting a shot to direct a big movie. Like if you animated, if you, if you drew a cartoon once, you, because of the Incredibles or whatever, there was Brad Bird or whatever that guy's name. He had just done, he had just done the live action Mission Impossible. Right. And I think everybody, and everybody was like, oh, animators, they're the, they're experts on everything. I honestly think our director didn't realize that you could move the camera. Yeah.

It was a crazy time. I remember we went and did reshoots and I've never had this happen where the head of the studio, the president of the studio was at the reshoots.

in a weird parking lot in Vancouver. I'm like, hey, this is weird. The guy who's like giving me notes and like sort of like framing shots is the head of Paramount Pictures. But was his kid there? That's who needs to be there. That's why we didn't, that's why it didn't work out. I mean, you needed the kids whose original idea was. You need that real juice. Yeah. Juice. Amazing. Amazing. All right, brother. I look forward to hooking up with you at some point doing something somewhere. I would love it. Someday, somehow. I, I,

I always love seeing you and you always make me laugh so hard. And we'll get up in Colbert's Kool-Aid one day. Oh my God, you guys. All right. So if any of you are still listening, thank you.

send your plot ideas for the Lidsville sequel to the Lowdown line. And we will, as you just heard, he knows how to take notes from a studio or fans. And when the movie's ready, maybe you'll get a writing credit. That made my day. I love that man. A smile is on my face. You got questions? I got answers. Let's hit the Lowdown line. Hello, you've reached literally in our Lowdown line.

where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep.

Hey, Rob. Chris from Australia. I was just wondering, is there any role that you've done either in movies or TV that you just couldn't possibly bear to watch again? That if someone put it on you, just say, please, no, I cannot watch this again. Just wondering if there was any role like that. Thanks very much. Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of them.

And here's my thing with that. It's not a lack of humility on my part. It's that I know somewhere out there, whatever I mentioned is going to be someone's favorite movie of mine. And the reason I know this is because I'm a big fan of music. And I've had, I'm making this up. I don't know if you ever did it. Tom Petty would say, yeah, I thought that song is not my best. I'm like, that song, that's my favorite song.

Oh, what do I know? So I'm always kind of loathe to talk about stuff because people like I make, you know, there's there's things about young blood. OK, that kind of drive me crazy. But I was just the other days yesterday, somebody stopped me, said, whether you like it or not, you're a you're a Canadian icon because of young blood.

And because, you know, it's a hockey, legendary hockey movie. But there's stuff about that movie that drives it. There's stuff about class that drives it. Look, there's stuff about the sort of 80s ingenue movies that is like if you were looking back at your high school yearbook, right? Because that's really what it was for me, right? That's where you go, oi, oi, oi.

So I would think that would be it. But I know that, but I also appreciate that those movies are also have a lot to offer still. If I meet you at a Starbucks or at a bar, I'll give you a more detailed answer. Thanks. Thanks for being with us.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Sean Doherty, with help from associate producer Sarah Begar and research by Alyssa Grau. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel. Our executive producers are Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross for Team Coco, and Colin Anderson for Stitcher. Booking by Deirdre Dodd. Music by Devin Bryant.

Special thanks to Hidden City Studios. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers, passport. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply.