Jeff Daniels: Pitching a No-Hitter
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Hey, everybody. It's literally, it literally is literally. And today, Jeff Daniels, iconic, iconic, iconic actor. I mean, it just goes on and on. In terms of endearment, I'm a dumber newsroom. Steve Jobs, Gettysburg, fellow Midwesterner like me. I cannot wait to get into it. We'll talk Aaron Sorkin. We'll talk.

surviving in Hollywood. This is a good one. Jeff Daniels.

This is one of those podcasts where I'm so excited because I'm such a big fan of you, your career. We're going to get into it. I could go on specifically and we will. But it's just genius because I don't I don't really I mean, we've said hello here and there on, I think, red carpets because that's a first world problem. We only see, you know, you and I really let's face it. We only really spend time in red carpets, really, you know.

My favorite place to be on earth is a red carpet, yeah. Isn't it though? You seem very, always very happy to be there. Well, you know, we're actors. We're actors.

I just, I have so much. There was one time I was standing in line, standing in line to talk to Entertainment Tonight. Yes. In line. In line. In line. And I'm going, really? Really? And then right before it was my turn, one of the Desperate Housewives of the show, way back in ABC, that was the show, left.

you know, sweeped in in front of me and my agent grabbed me, spun me around and said, don't take it personally. Don't take it personally. Don't take it personally. Amazing. Yeah. It's, it's a feeding for it's an M there's so much ambition on the red carpet. It's a feeding frenzy. That's where they need to do it the way they do it in can.

Can first of all, there's no interviews. As you know, you've had movies there. So there's never been there. Oh, can I tell you something? It's insane. You go, why is this so great? And then after you've done it, you realize here's why. First of all, one person at a time on the red carpet. It's like a runway. So it's this gorgeous. Those are all the photos that come out of there are so spectacular. There's no interviews. It's only photographers and they play music.

As you walk down. So they like release you like air traffic control to music. And now it's like, you know, you're, you're talking, you're waiting to talk to fucking Billy Bush. And yeah, you said it. Yeah. And, and you know what they do to them? And this is what, cause I, Billy's a friend. Do you know what they have a, because they always have to look for the bigger fish, right? As you say, it's like, yeah, like, you know, like God help us all. If you know, Brad Pitt rolls up.

And we're burying our souls about our new thing. And so, so, but you know what they do? This is my favorite thing ever. They have a producer whose job is to be looking down the red carpet. He's coming and they draw, they, they draw circles on the back of the interviewer. And if the bigger, the circle, the bigger, the star.

So if you get it, if, if the interviewer feels a big circle being drawn on his back, they know to wrap it up with you and get you the hell out of there. Oh, that's so, so nice. It's so wonderful. So, so supportive and, and yet encouraging at the same time. Isn't it though? Isn't it a wonderful business that we find ourselves in? It's just glorious. Um, okay. Let's get right to it. First of all, Man in Full. I, it's one of my favorite books of all time, by the way.

Good. Good. We did about half of it. I was going to say, exactly. And then kind of veered off and did some other, it was 700 pages. No, I know. I know. And it's been in development for a bazillion. It was a movie. It was a miniseries. It was a this, it was a that. So walk me through a little bit because I'm, I'm a man in full freak and I've, I've, I've tracked it, followed it since the book

It, uh, it came to me, uh, David E. Kelly, uh, was going to write all six episodes of the limited series and Regina King was directing and, you know, right there. Yep. And it was a zoom meeting. I was sitting in Florida and, uh, with my, on a family vacation, uh,

And I just said, this is hysterical. I absolutely want to be involved with it. The fun for me was to come up with that big, big, almost cannot understand him

Southern accent for Charlie Croker. Yeah. And so I was able to, I'll tell you, I will, I'm down big account. I don't know. Well, I'll tell you what, I mean, I could go that far and it was the opposite of less is more. Yes. So I told Regina and Dave, I said, I'm coming in big.

I'm coming in big. Did you say, hey, just remember, I'm the guy from Dumb and Dumber. I'm coming in big. I can do big. I think they were aware that fearlessness was not a problem, that it was going to be.

Will we, you know, can we pull him down like one of those big hot air balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? And I just hit it. I kept waiting. I kept, as you know, I kept waiting after take two, take three for the Regina to come over and go, okay, really good. I mean, just so good. Can we turn it down? Can we just turn it down just a little bit? Yeah, right. Never, never came. Never came. Never came.

So I called the agent. I said, well, this is going to either be really good or, you know, pack the bags. And you never once went like, am I doing Rhode Island red? I said, boy, I said, boy, like, do you know what I mean? That's always my favorite. No, no, it was, it was, look, I mean, you mentioned Dumb and Dumber. I learned about fear, how to be fearless from Jim Carrey. I learned that.

And so from that movie on, whenever I have an opportunity like a man in full to just go all the way, even in the closeups, just go and let them tell you. Yeah. Um, it, I take it and, and apparently I got away with it. Oh, I can't, I can't wait. Who else is in the cast with you? Cause I don't have that info. Bill, Bill camp.

uh, is with me. He's my adversary and, and, uh, Tom Pelfrey is in it. Three of us are kind of at war with each other. And, and I, I early on day one or two, I said to Bill and Tom, I said, don't leave me out there. You,

You got to come with me. Come with me. And they did. They did. They did. Yeah, they did. Yeah, you don't want to get sandbagged by the team. It's like, let's just hang him out there. No, let me go. Let me go underneath. Let me go, you know. I mean, Kevin Costner is doing an incredible Gary Cooper. Yes. Or you stare off into the sunset, count to 10, and they put some music under it. And this was not that. This is not that. No. So I had to...

Yeah, I think Dumb and Dumber had something to do with casting me. Well, okay, we're going to cycle back very quickly to Terms of Endearment. Because I remember, first of all, again, one of my favorite movies for a billion, gazillion different people.

By the way, have you, did you, do you know this story to be true? You're a theater person that Shirley MacLaine famously has a one woman show. She doesn't do it so much anymore, obviously, um, that she did a one woman show. And in the middle of the one woman show, she would say she would sing like sweet charity and then be like, thank you. Thank you. A few years ago, I did a little movie called terms of endearment. Ah,

Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to share a little bit of that with you now. Do you know this story? No. And then she would turn her back to the audience. One, 1,000, two, 1,000, three, 1,000, four, 1,000. And then turn and go, it's 10 o'clock. It's 10 o'clock. My daughter has been waiting for her medicine since 10 o'clock. You need to get my medicine. And do the whole, do that whole speech. Bring the house down to people. Thank you very much. And then go on and sing something else.

Okay, I don't hate that. I don't know how I feel about it. Please tell, because all these years, I'm going, do I like it? Do I not? It's kind of genius. They want to see her do a piece of Terms of Endearment in her one-woman show.

And if you're going to have to do that, I mean, you could do a Q and a and talk about it or you can do what Shirley did. Not sure about the five second pause to get ready. My favorite part, the turnaround. That's my favorite part is, is the, and I'm going to give you a little piece right now and then pivoting, presenting her back to the audience for five full seconds and then just, and then just wheeling on them. It's 10 o'clock. It's 10 o'clock. Okay.

Probably had to wait for the lighting change. Yeah. Okay. Deborah Winger. I'll be blunt. How crazy? Fiercely, on terms of endearment, determined to make Shirley hate her and love her, but that mother-daughter thing. That's what I saw. I saw someone who was not going to let Shirley just do...

you know, sweet charity or something. Deborah was from the, how ugly can we make at school? And she was going to get Shirley across that chasm of, I want you over here doing the movie I'm going to do. So she would, she would push her and, and a lot of what Deborah was doing off camera, uh, to get Shirley riled up, uh,

was so that they could do it in front of the camera as well. That's the way Debra works. She loved me. She was great with me because I flapped and Emma love each other until they don't. But she was great with me. But that's what I saw. And look, I was 28. I was swimming with sharks with Debra and Shirley. And I remember being in the rehearsal room at Paramount. They flew me out there

just to rehearse because Debra was going stir crazy with Jim Brooks. And they got into one of those second story Paramount Studio rehearsal rooms and Shirley came in and then Debra and Shirley started doing the scene about

Shirley's saying a paragraph of here's why you're not going to marry flap. And Debra just kept ad-libbing, you know, over her, you know, like, fuck you. I'm not going to fuck it. Fuck you. I, of course I'm going to fucking marry flat. And Shirley's go, I'm sorry, Jim, this is not in the script. Are we doing the script? Are we not? So that happened for about 15 minutes. Wow. And I'm 28 sitting over in the corner waiting to rehearse my scenes going, I have 1200 bucks in the bank back in New York.

And I'm watching this movie blow up right in front of me. And then the phone in the rehearsal room rang. Script supervisor picked it up, handed it to Jim Brooks. Jim's standing five feet away from me. He goes, you're sure? You're sure? And he puts his hand over the receiver and he looks at me and he goes, you're in a Jack Nicholson movie. We've got Jack for the astronaut. And then suddenly Deborah and Shirley stayed in the room. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

By the way, we've got Jack for the astronaut might be my favorite sentence ever uttered. Yeah, that was pretty cool. I was five feet away when Jim got the word. I had Michael Douglas on the podcast a while back, and he told me an amazing terms of endearment story. It's tangential terms of endearment.

So he is making romancing the stone and the studio wants Debra Winger. He flies to Omaha, wherever the hell you guys were. Yeah. Lincoln, Nebraska. Lincoln flies to link. Michael Douglas flies to Lincoln, Nebraska.

Deborah is now living. This is, I'm not making this up. This is, you can, you can download it and you can listen to it out of the horse's mouth. It's going to sound like I'm embellishing. I'm not. You're not, you're not, you're not. He flies there. Deborah, Deborah Wigner is living in her hospital room. Oh, that I didn't know. I knew she was dating the governor. Oh yeah. I knew that too. That I knew, but living in that. Yeah. Yeah. I could see her doing that. Yeah.

She's living in the hospital. By the way, she's not in the hospital all that long in the movie, but I digress. Living in the hospital room, they go out to dinner to talk about romancing the stone. By the way, the studio is insistent. It must be Debra Winger. It must be Debra Winger. Michael's being a loyal producer.

slash star. They go to dinner. It's great. Great. It's fireworks. It's great. By the way, I don't know if I've said this yet. I'm a massive Debra Winger fan. I mean, there's, I mean, she, that run that she was on has never been equaled in my mind ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. That will never. She was Julia Roberts before Julia Roberts was Julia Roberts. Yes. With officer and gentlemen. Yeah. Mixed with a little, uh, the golden years of Demi Moore, which we can also talk about that too in a minute. Yeah.

it with just a dash of betty davis yes i mean let's face it she's great yeah so it's fireworks you can only imagine and they've they've had a couple of drinks and and i go and i go well why then wasn't she in the movie michael he goes well it's very simple while we were waiting to get the the cars the valet come in she bit me in the face i said what

So yeah, she bit me in the face. And I was like, this, this woman's crazy. I can't, I can't. And he, he flew back to universal and said, she bit me in the face. I'm not making a word of this up by the way. And by the way, if Deborah is listening, don't take it up with Michael Douglas, not with me, but I had never heard that.

10's gentle terms of endearment story. Was there, I don't remember romancing the stone, was there a scene where her character bit him and she was just maybe auditioning? I don't know. I don't know. And also, what did the studio say after Michael said, by the way, she bit me in the face? Still, we still want Deborah Wynne. We still really like her. Yeah.

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Ashley has you and your sleep covered. Subject to credit approval. Minimum monthly payments required. No minimum purchase required. See store for details. Okay, another one of my favorite movies of all time, Gettysburg. Oh. It's one of my favorite movies. And I've been to Gettysburg. I've been to Little Round Top. I'm sort of an American history freak.

I even like the bad beards. Somehow you escape.

I escaped. You really did. But oh, sweet Jesus, Tom Berringer. Well, to be fair, one, I only had that mustache, so that was easier. And, you know, we were authentic. We were 100% wool uniforms. Yeah. And it was August in Pennsylvania. It was 90 degrees and 90% humidity.

And he was playing Longstreet. The guy had a beard down to his navel. And you've got to, you can't fake that. No, you can't. You've got to put that beard on and somehow keep it on. And it was a battle. And look, let's face it. They had beards. They looked like they looked. They had beards. I mean, Martin Sheen's beard. I mean, there's a lot of...

But there are so many great moments in it. And what's the amazing actor who died shortly thereafter? Richard? Jordan. Jordan. Yeah. He's got that amazing battlefield death speech where he wants to talk to his counterpart from West Point.

Who they tell him, I know he's, I know he was injured. Can you please? And they have to deliver the news to him that no, he actually passed away. And is that great? It goes, not, not both of us, not all of us, not both of us, not all of us. A lot of good guys that were all, they were so committed. Stephen Lang and Sam Elliott and on and on down along. And then, you know, see Thomas Howell. Yeah. Right. My God, Tommy and I, you know, got to be good friends. We were playing brothers.

in that. And we, we were shooting August, um, shoots, you know, August 1st until October 1st. And it was just a four hour, two night,

you know, uh, thing on TNT. It wasn't supposed to be a movie. It was supposed to be like roots two hours on Monday, two hours on Tuesday, but you know, go for the awards. Right. And later Ted Turner said it was a four hour movie and that was the end of that. But Tommy and I, hi, nice to meet you at the end of July, but we don't start shooting until labor day. They're going to shoot all the Confederate stuff first. So why,

We're down there a little bit. And what do you want to do? Do you play golf? Yeah, play golf. Let's go play golf. So that's all we did. We played golf like 36 holes a day and got to know each other. And, you know, we're playing brothers and that helped in front of the camera. And Tom Berenger, who was one of the guys who got the thing made, Tom was

came to me because he was taking his guys out, the Confederate guys out. They were going out to dinner in Gettysburg in their uniforms and they had to speak in their accents while they were at the dinner. This is, you know, as before we're shooting, as they're shooting. I mean, that's what, and he came to me and he goes, I hope you're getting your guys ready. I said, well, we got a tea time tomorrow at 730. Does that count? I mean, he looked at me like,

Oh, we hired the wrong actor. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. And we got along great. It was, I really enjoyed Tommy had a great time. Kevin Conway and Matt Lesher and a bunch of guys that were just, it was a really good group. It's a great one. If you guys haven't seen it,

It's, it's just, it's, it's a spectacle. It's one of my favorites. Um, all right, I got to jump ahead to gods of carnage. Tell me, so you do gods of carnage, um, Lincoln center. Uh, we did it. It won't Broadway. We went straight to Broadway. Right. Gandalf, Gandalf. And he got it made. So he went straight to Broadway. Who I adored, you know, complicated and brilliant and all of those.

All of those things. I, what I, I, I didn't get to see it. I can only imagine what that was, what he would be like on, on stage and what that was. I forget who the, the, the, the women were. Tell me, um, hope, hope Davis and Marsha Gay Harden. Oh my God. Marsha Gay. Yeah. It was, it was rock and roll comedy.

It was perfect for New York. It's two couples in Brooklyn who are meeting because their two 11-year-old boys got in a fight at the playground, and they just don't want it to happen again. So let's just all come to an understanding. Thank you much. And then they leave. But, of course, it doesn't go that way, and we start to accuse each other and defend our own kids. And then it just becomes this tsunami of people

unleashing all the darkest secrets of the marriage of hatred for each. I mean, it was just New York loved it. And, and about 20 minutes into the show, my wife played by Hope Davis throws up and she projectile vomits straight out towards the audience onto the coffee table. We had a whole hydraulic system rigged under the couch and,

with a stagehand offstage, just he has to, boom, hit the remote, and there's a tube that goes up the back of her dress, down her long sleeve to her left wrist. I have to go, honey, are you okay? And then behind her,

hook up the tube that's coming out of the cushions in the couch to the tube at the bottom of her back, click it there. Now it's good to go. I pat her on the back. That means we're good for launch. Oh my God.

And then the line comes and boom, straight out. And the wave of laughter. I mean, you could just see the people just reel back and just bounce off the back wall and come forward. And then we had another hour to go of, and we just kept topping it. It was, it was incredible. And Jim was great. You know, Jim was, Jim was, um, he had a lot of self-loathing going on. Yeah.

And I'm, we became great friends, all four of us, but Jim and I, and I, I really worked with him. You know, he was just scared and he just thought he was going to be the one who wasn't good. And we got him stopped drinking. We got him straightened out and man, he did five months straight, never missed a show.

And, you know, the New York Post was waiting for him to just collapse and disappear and, you know, do some of the stuff that he'd gotten away with on Sopranos where he just is gone for three days. Never did it. And I said, Jim, you know, after the second preview, I said, the producers from London are going home. We've got another three weeks before the New York Times.

It's we're there. We're there. He's already said with, after two shows were better than the London cast that was after two months, he said, this is so just, just let's just ride this. And he did. And he did. And he enjoyed it. I was told, you know, uh, later that after he passed away, that the one thing that he had hanging up in his house was the Tony nomination. He got, forgot a carnage. Wow. Yeah. That was, uh,

no, it was a lot of, no, you are good enough to be here. Let's go. Let's go. And he did. He did. He just had to get over that hump of, I don't deserve this. Yeah, he was special for sure. It's funny when you talk about the wave of laughter and how you can ride it. Now we move inevitably as we always do to Aaron Sorkin. As we always do. As we always do. I remember...

hearing that a few good men was hilarious in the theater. Now I love the movie. We all do. Who doesn't? It's funny at times, but not hold it, not anywhere near hilarious. And I, like you had the opportunity to work. Aaron and I went and did a few good men in at the Haymarket in London for like six months. Wow. It was amazing. And, um, it was post West wing.

And post West wing post West wing. So you knew how to do them. There only been like three guys who'd done it before. And they were Tom Hulse, uh, was the first, uh, Bradley Whitford, Tom Hulse, Bradley Whitford, and, um, Tim Busfield. So, and then he had Tom do it in the movies. So he wanted to have somebody who could, who like could do sort of a different iteration. So anyway, uh,

It's the part of a lifetime, but it is amazing how funny it is in, in the theater. I don't know why the movie is different, but it was, you could write it. You, I mean, you know what it's like when you're, when you do. What was funny? Was it the stuff with the lawyers back there planning? Cause I certainly didn't see funny in the courtroom. I know. I, it's, and I couldn't even really put my finger on it other than I think the audience for so is so happy to, uh,

be a part of this Swiss watch, which is unfolding in front of them. Do you, do you, do you know what I mean? And because it really is like a mathematical equation that play, it's like, I mean, it, it murders in and of itself. Like all you can do is fuck it up, you know, it's, um, so I think that's part of it. And, but yeah, it's, I think the Caffey part is way more self,

deprecating. And, uh, Tom plays as he plays almost every with like such bravado and confidence. And it's actually, I think written, uh,

where he's just stepping in it more and more and more. And so I think when you lean on that, I think it makes it funnier. But it was funny. It was funny every night. Funny. Laughs. Like, real laughs. Tell me about West Wing. Because, you know, newsroom, I mean, we are two guys that have done Aaron Sorkin, and it ain't for everybody. No, it's not. It's hard. It's hard and it's funny. I had a conversation with...

Jason Bateman and he was I forget I don't know if it was a part of newsroom or something else and he came and says hey man so I gotta ask you at this Aaron Sorgan thing I may or may not so do you have to say exactly what he wrote yeah go uh Jason yeah no no no I get that I get that man but no but I'm like saying like so what like does that mean like

I said, Jason, it means what it means. It means if he wrote it, that's what you say. He goes, well, okay. So, but like, but like, so there's no, like, if I think I can maybe bring, so I said, Jason, there's no bringing, there's no bringing, there's no bringing. There's, there will be no bringing. Um, and he goes, well, why would I, why would I want to do that? Why would anybody? And I tried to explain it.

It's like you look, you're a, you're a, you're a Michigan guy. You've watched Michigan football. You've got to be a football person. It's like, it's like taking pride in running the crispest routes you can run as like a wide receiver. Like I'll run that motherfucking route. CRISPR.

Then anybody, I'm not going to break the play down, but I'm in that you'd take the pride in that and the greatest routes anybody's ever schemed. And I couldn't get him to understand that. Not for everyone to your point. No. And I, I, I remember when I got it and I remember Jason was on that short list and

A couple other guys were as well. And we just swooped in and, and I, what do I have to do to get this kind of thing? Cause I really wanted to work with Aaron. Yeah. And I remember talking to Allison Janney and I said, how did you guys do it? I mean, you guys, you, Richard, Busfield, Bradley, John Spencer, Martin, Marty. I mean, you're walking down these halls, he's walking talks, but it's like a verbal car chase. Yeah.

And it's 100 miles an hour, and that is the pace. That is the required pace. And then you hear, don't change a word. And it was Allison, and she kind of gave me a way to memorize that I'd never done before. Yeah, isn't it amazing? I know that. I mean, I don't know that I do the whole thing correctly, but I do, if the line is, I refuse to remember whatever it is you said, right? I'll circle the three R words.

You know, and just use that as that just to get it in my head. And it saved me. It saved me. I had to a newsroom. If I didn't have the whole week in my head, Sunday night up at Sorkin speed by Wednesday, I was drowning because I couldn't catch up.

yeah and i had to be able to roll it like that like that i have all the stuff for the whole week bang sunday night and we would have people come in as i'm sure on west wing day players would come in highly respectable actors you've seen them a million times and they're trying to memorize it in the makeup chair and you look and you go oh boy this is gonna be and you you hit take one

Which for all the regulars is like, okay, here's the speed limit. Okay, good. All right. Take two is Sorkin speed, which is about, you know, 75 pushing 80.

And, and the day player just, it's a flop sweat. Yeah. And we call it, we called it getting sorkinized is that the entire, the entire scene that you thought you had, now you don't remember one word of it. Gone. Gone. Gone. And listen, that's the, that is the reason for auditions. I mean, it's like,

You know, on West Wing, every person on that show had the facility. We just heard the music, had the facility, knew what the drill was. I don't know if it was. I mean, I just I just when I read the pilot, I and I didn't even I mean, I vaguely knew Aaron.

Um, his, but not really, but I just, I just knew I was like, oh yeah, I, I, I got this. I 100% got this and, you know, came in, auditioned, um, read with Aaron, uh,

I don't know if you had the opportunity to do that. No, I had a breakfast with Aaron, and I had it by the end of the breakfast. I didn't have to read. I just had to show him that I could get angry. He hadn't seen me get angry. And so I told a story where I basically lit somebody up, and we were in a Four Seasons movie.

lounge restaurant in New York. And I just started banging on the table. The orange juice was moving. People were turning around. He goes, you got it. You got the part. You got it. You got it. You got it. That's amazing. God, God bless you. You didn't have to read. I had to read. And,

And, but it was, it was the most thrilling experience. One of the most thrilling experiences of my life. It was, it was just one of those moments where it all came together when it needed to. And it was like, just absolutely parked into the upper deck. That, that was, that was my experience when I shot the, uh, Northwestern speech. Yes. Um, Will McAvoy's, which was not in the pilot.

No, we were rehearsing a few weeks and then about 10 days out, he said, we have to see what happens at Northwestern. So you're going to get a speech in a couple of days. Is that okay? Yes, that's okay. Aaron Sorkin. And there it came. And as soon as he handed it to me, I knew. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I've been in the room when other people have gotten to do speeches like that from other writers, other movies, other whatevers. And, uh, now he's handing it to me. You got to hit a home run.

You've got to hit a home run. It was day three of the pilot 18 day shoot. We don't have a series yet.

We don't have it. We have, you know, shoot the pilot and then we'll find out two months from now. And I knew this was it. This was the hook into the show. This was, do we have a Will McAvoy or not? We all love Jeff. We think Jeff's great, but you know, he's got to hit this out of the park. And, and Tom Sadowski and Sam Waterston and Olivia Munn drove to the set an hour and a half out of LA college of the canyons. Cause they had purple seats like Northwestern.

They drove to the set on their day off. As Tom said, I wanted to see what kind of show we were in. And, and number two, three, and four of HBO showed up and Scott Rudin, the New York producer flew in and they're all sitting over there in video village. On the way up to the set, I jumped into the car with Aaron and he just turned around and said, as important as this speech is to you, it's twice as important to me. Oh boy.

He was kidding, but not. But not. But the good thing was I'd been around long enough and I knew that this was, do you want to launch your career for another 10 years? Right. Hit a home run. So those 10 days, whatever Alice and Janney taught me,

I was pounding that thing. I knew that thing backwards. I literally could run it backwards sentence by sentence, not word by word, just so I could say in my head, you know this backwards. I could fly through it. I could do it any kind of way I wanted so that when I got out there and they shot the audience first, turned around after lunch and said, are you ready? I said, yeah. And take one, home run. And Aaron walks over and says,

You're pitching a no hitter. I'm not going to talk to you. He gave you the no hitter line. He gave me the no hitter line. Yes. Yes. When you get the no hit. Yes. Yes. I've had the no hitter line. It's a good one. So that's a, that's a great line. That's, that's high praise for Marin then. Good. Yeah. And, and, and I, and Greg Mottola, the director came over and said, really good. Um, just a couple of things on the first take, you did this and you did that. And then you, I said, stop.

Don't tell me what I did. Tell me what you want me to do next. Great. And he goes a little more melancholy in the second half. You got it. And that's take two on. That's what we used. And, and Sam and Tom and Sam and Olivia would Tom's Tom later said, okay, now I know what show I'm on. And they all went to work.

everybody, all those Allison pill, Johnny Gallagher, Jr. Dev Patel, all those people, man, they just every morning at six 30 morning, nobody had sides. Everybody was off book. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. One. It was great. It was thrilling. It was great. It was the, the work, the work of the West wing was thought will remain the highlight of, I mean, because, uh,

And I had the same experience in the pilot. Sam Seaborn has this big speech about how he accidentally slept with a prostitute. Yeah. And, and it was, it was like, this was it. This was like, you got to fucking ruckus this thing. Mm-hmm. And I'd have really, you'll, I think you'll appreciate this. So,

I come in and read it's the you know how the agents like well there's one reading only you read the network of their like every day like pre-negotiate how many times you're going to read and it's all bullshit but there's one reading and my point being it's the studio it's the network it's everybody it's Aaron come in kills people laughing laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh ends Aaron turns to the network of students and he says I told you this scene was funny.

Thanks for coming in, Rob. Yeah, yeah, right. Right.

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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 when you move on to Mockingbird with Aaron, he's a different animal in the theater, I found.

I found that that's his real happy place. Did you find that? Yeah. Yeah. You know, you don't see him so much on newsroom because he's so busy writing the next episode. Right. So he was around more. But they left me alone. Bart Shearer, the director, and Aaron and Scott would sit over there. And Barry Diller was a producer. And, you know, they'd have their meetings. But, you know, I was...

I don't know about you, but I'm like, especially on television, I was a little worried about directors directing. Yes. Yes, for sure. And Aaron had sent me an email early on as Newsroom was picked up for a series. He goes, how do you like to work?

And he says, because I really, I think I need you to say every word and at the pace. I said, okay, deal. Here's the other side though. If there's a director or you or anybody else, if you're coming to me after a take, five words or less. If you can't say it to me in five words or less, stay in the chair.

Amazing. I'm going to try to hit a home run on one, two, and then after that, I'm going to be looking at you going, why are we still here? I love it. And that's kind of how it worked. So they really, they let me find Atticus.

which was a different Atticus than Gregory Peck and the book and all that. So they like kind of let me find it. And Aaron has said, they kind of watched me build it brick by brick. And we had six weeks of rehearsal. So there was no rush. And it's, you know, it's a big, long, once we got into previews, it was 45 previews, six weeks of preview. I felt like you were there your whole life. I felt like, Oh, I really, I was like,

My God, this is, and I mean, this is a bad way. This is still running. It still would have run forever. It was a huge hit. That's why. But I mean, it felt like you devoted your entire life to that show. You know, at, in my mid sixties at the time, and I'm going, this, this could be the peak. This could be the best thing you've ever done. Certainly. Please. Let's remember everything we've ever learned and apply it now. And, and I had to sign a year contract.

I couldn't, it wasn't three months and do it. Did I get a Tony or not? It was one year and, um, or they were going to go to somebody else. You know, that was a threat. Right. And, and I said, you know what? I'll do a year. I'll do a year. But I, I told the producer, I told Rudin, I said, but don't come near my dressing room.

You want me for a fucking year? I'll do it for a fucking year. Don't you come near my dress. By the way, I'm not going to do any press for this fucking show either. You know, amazing. So just stay the fuck away from me. And, and I had to do that because I was going to get so much help.

And I don't want it. And I found it. And then Bart would come in. And Bart had a great way of kind of condensing whatever notes were coming in from everybody else. But then they kind of, there it happened. And it started to happen in previews. We got through all the rewrites, which were constant. And I remember going out one, 10 shows in, and I had 30 changes.

And that, I mean, I would go off stage for four minutes between a scene and just check all the line changes and blocking changes that were coming up in the next 10 minutes and then bolt back out there. Oh my God. And then, and then, and then we got the reviews and we open in December and you know, the Tony's are in June. So everything is a, you know, a march toward the Tony's and then I've got to go all the way to November 3rd.

You see, that's the thing that people forget about. Oh my God. And the, and the stars that come in and, you know, closing night is Tony night then. Okay. And, and I get that because in the summer, what happens, they come to you in April and they go, when do you want to take your two week vacation? Right. And I go, but we're sold out four months in advance and I'm above the title and, and

You know what? I, I'm just not going to take one. Right. I want to go old school. I want to see if I can make it all the way. Same dude. Did you and I are separated shows a week? Yeah, baby. Fuck yeah. 100%. And I made it and I made it. And, but what happens is in the summer, everyone starts taking a vacation and you're working with understudies who are all accomplished actors, just chomping at the bit to do the role.

And so you're kind of playing defense for the summer, and then we get our original cast back after Labor Day. And then it was about, are we going to die here, a slow death in month 11, month 12? Or are we going to do the best version of the show, which is with Sorkin, it's like brain surgery at 100 miles an hour. It has to be that, it's that precise at that point.

And to be that deep into a run and still executing the precision, that's when we were at our best. And all you got to do is step on the gas a little bit. If somebody's starting to slow down a little bit, we're going to pick up the pace. And you make them keep up. And that cast did it. And it was thrilling. And we ended great. Because that easily could have been phoned at end time. And you've got people...

I mean, you've got people like De Niro coming and this was pre COVID they're coming backstage. Yeah. They're sitting in my dressing room. I mean, I'm not, I'm not in Hollywood. I don't, I don't see Justin Timberlake. Right. And he's in my dressing room talking about the power of stillness and Michael Jackson and where he first saw it and that attic, my attic has had a lot of stillness because there wasn't a lot of

trying to win a Tony and sending it to the balcony. It was kind of, you come to me. Atticus makes people, it's like a film. I was trying to do film on stage where you pull the audience to you, except there's 1400 of them with two balconies. Hard to do. We had great acoustics, which helped. So I could speak conversationally. I didn't have to project, but that was the kind of magic trick was trying to pull people in to the stillness of Atticus and

And man, when the closing argument every night, and Bart said, I don't care how you do it, do it different every night. And I kept the staging pretty much the same, but hot and cold, fast, slow, all that stuff. But at the last third of it,

I always would turn to the audience. I would be talking, referring to the jury, and then all of a sudden, the last third, I turn to the audience and I make them the jury. They're the white jurors just sitting there. And now I'm shaming them, 1,400 of the smartest, most sophisticated theater goers at the Schubert Theater, and no one is moving. No one is moving. I had people come and say, I was pinned against my seat

And that's the power of the play and Sorkin and Harper Lee and the character and all of that. And yes, the performance. But I'll never top that. I will never, ever top that. And I got it eight times a week for a year. It was, never forget it. Isn't it interesting how the quality, there are different qualities of the silence in a theater? Oh, yeah. Like that silence you're describing is a very specific performance.

silence. I made 1400 people, one person. They were all individuals. They were all, I was talking directly to each and every one of those four, 10, a hundred people as if they were the only one who was there. That's, that's what it felt like. Cause they, I mean, nobody moved. Nobody. Also the, the pride in when everybody is at the fucking Hamptons,

And it's a billion degrees outside. Yes, it is. And no one's, no one's, no one's been in the house. Well, you, well, listen, your, your show was so ginormous. You probably didn't have this, but when I was in London, it's like, first of all, there are, there are only so many people in London. You know what I mean? And then, and then you've got, there's nobody in the house that's, you know, or is interesting. And you're in, in, in the, like going out and leaving it all on the floor every night, 80, 90, a hundred,

plot whatever performance is in that's the it's the drill it's the same part of us that goes no no that's it's the precision and running the routes and yeah you said 100 performances that it's always stuck with me um i've done a few carnage was a long run um a couple other ones but um

I, you know, in an interview I had said once, well, it takes about a hundred performances to go, okay, now I know him. Now I can do him. And, and I, I remember looking up in three months in or so of, of Mockingbird going, oh yeah, a hundred performances Thursday night. And it, it felt like that. Yeah. Now I,

You know, I'm three months after the critics. I just, whatever it is, now I know that this is the way I'm doing him and now I have him. I've tried all my little, let me try this. Let me try that. I've done all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've circled back to what I should have been doing originally. There's no laugh there. Give up.

All that stuff gets worked out. Oh yeah. Then you got it. How about it? Okay. There is no fucking laugh there. Give up is my favorite. And you spend three weeks. I know it's there. If I just do this. Yeah. Right. I'll cock the head maybe and do it. No, no. What is wrong with you people? Yeah. Oh, the, what is wrong with you people thing? Isn't it funny? The things you're like, I, I finally had to cut the thing I came away with.

Was that any reaction the audience has is the proper reaction. Yeah. Right. Cause you get caught up with like, you know, this murders it's murdered for the last four and a half months. And all of a sudden it's crickets. Yes. And like, I'm sorry, what the fuck is going on out there?

And that's just what, do you don't, do you know what I mean? And like you, you start to take it personally. Yes. Yes. Celia Keenan Bolger was in the show. She played scout, won the Tony. And I, if we got that crowd and that one missed and that one missed and that one missed. And then about 20 minutes in, we have a scene together and I look at her, she looks at me and then we take two minutes off the show. We're moving now.

And everybody can feel it. Oh, they're moving. They're moving. The pace just picked up. We're going, we're not, if you're not going to participate, we're not going to wait for you. That's kind of how it's so funny. You say that because the show, whatever the running time of a few good men was, I could shave. Cause as Aaron says, ah, just so you know, ah, yeah. Ah, Kathy is on stage longer than Hamlet. Just so you know,

He has a way, doesn't he? Right. Uh, and he's right. It's, it's wall. I lost 15 pounds doing the run, ate like a pig, ate at two, two o'clock in the morning, all the time, lost 15 pounds doing it. But if, if the audience wasn't there, I could shave 12 and a half minutes off. Wow. And by the way, it's not like I'm tank. I'm not tanking it.

But, you know, it's that thing that you can, you're like, all right, I'm just, I'm going to drive. Yeah. I think, you know, I think, and what's, what Aaron taught me was that not every line we have is important and it's hard to get actors to understand that sometimes. Yes. And, um, and that's just, you kind of go in going, none of them are important. And then the important ones will jump out. I had a great moment where, and Aaron, I want to work with him as a director now that he's directing, but cause he never, he wasn't doing that.

Obviously didn't do it on a few good men. We had David S.P. Orson, who I love, who's a great director, directed it. But on West Wing, there was an actress who had a habit of playing very heavy subtext always, usually sexual.

And, and, and finally, and not, not a big part by the way, but, but it was an Aaron. Highly sexualized. Yes. Highly sexualized. And Aaron finally, you know, he's, he's there at the monitor and he's mouthing the words and doing the, his orchestra thing that he does. And finally he,

slams the headphones down and comes up to her and goes, ah, the line is, ah, thank you, Mr. President. It's not, do you want to fuck him? Or, ah, it's just, it's just, it's just, thank you, Mr. President. It's the ask for the butter thing. Have you heard about that? No, what's this? I'm going to love this already. It never happened, but that's exactly what it is. It's, uh, uh, the actor who's, you know, uh, asked for the butter and gets a laugh.

And then for three nights, doesn't get a laugh. And they go to Aaron and go, I'm not getting a laugh on asking for the butter. I don't, I don't know why he goes, just ask for the butter. Yeah. Just ask for the butter. Just ask for the butter. Bang. Laugh. Laugh comes back every, every night. Um, what else we got to talk about here? Tell me, I want to know why and when you moved back to Michigan. Cause I kind of fantasize about, cause I'm from Ohio.

And part of me is like, should I go start my theater company in Ohio? And just, it seems like the greatest life that you've, we are still married. You got great kids. It seems like you fit, you really, you really cracked the code. What was the thing that you, that you just know yourself that well, that you're like, you know what? I know I'm going to carve out a great life here. I'm going to go do this. No, there was no long-term plan whatsoever. There was more of a fatalistic approach to the career. Uh, I moved back in 86, uh,

I had, you know, ragtime, Terms of Endearment, Purple Rosa Cairo, Marie, Something Wild. Okay, I'm going to get out of here now because the career is going to end. Wow. They all do. They all end by Tuesday. You just, you're the last one to know. So I don't, I, we, we weren't making a, I didn't have a ton of money, you know, and we had an apartment in New York with a two-year-old boy and we

going to have more kids maybe. And Kathleen is from Michigan. We're from the same town. Um, and it was, we had gone back the two previous summers and stayed for a month. The next one, we stayed for three months. The next summer we stayed for May until October. And I would get on the plane in Detroit at nine in the morning, fly out to LA, have the meeting,

And then fly back that night. I never stayed. Wow. And I think it was just fear. It was fear of fame. It was fear of...

being poisoned, that whatever talent I had that had gotten me to Jim Brooks and Woody Allen and Jonathan Demme, I didn't want to fuck with that. And I just assumed the career would last. I wasn't pretty enough. I wasn't all these things. And so I'll just go home and I'll use the Detroit airport. And when it's over, I'll already be home. And for a long time, that was okay. But

And then I did some independent movies that kind of made Michigan feel like Siberia. Right. And okay, now it's, you really are going down the hill here. And, uh, I got Gettysburg, uh, but then I got Dumb and Dumber and, and that was, that was a war just to get, to get that. And then that bought me years. And then that's, you know, it was, you know, it's like any career overall, you let, if you can make it last, uh,

there are going to be ups and downs. And it's just not, not, it's not what they teach you at star school. You know, they, they tell you about that part. And so you get over 50 and you're just going, the movies are drying up. I'm not enjoying it. I've got a guitar. Maybe that's what I'll do now for the next 30 years. And then God of Carnage happens on Broadway and okay, well theater's still there. And then Aaron Sorkin wants to meet me. And then you, you, you,

You get newsroom and it bought me 10 years. And then I pulled the Michigan thing off. But until then, I was commuting and at least the family was surrounded by extended family. That was the main reason that Kathleen and the kids were surrounded by both sides of our family are all around here. So that, you know, that she wouldn't be

hold up in a house in Beachwood Canyon or sitting in an apartment in New York City. And she'd be surrounded by, you know, a bunch of very supportive family and friends as she was helped raising three kids while I was jetting back and forth. That was the plan. It worked out.

Worked out. It worked out. And I'll, and I'll close with this. Having done dumb and dumber, I did a run in really stupid comedies as well. Austin powers, Wayne's world. Yeah, but you were great. You did the Robert Wagner thing. You just, that's the thing. I was looking through you. I went to, I am, I am DB'd you today. And I go, the guy used his sense of humor. Yeah.

So many actors don't have it, Rob. And they're afraid to do Dumb and Dumber or Austin Powers. They're afraid to do it. One, they can't do it, but they don't know where's the timing, where are the jokes. You can't teach that. You can look off into the sunset and count to 10, but man, you got to know where funny is. It is true. And I just admire actors who can do both.

Right. The Greeks are holding up two masks. So I enjoy being one of those, as you are, that can do both. And I just, I'm proud of that. I am too. And by the way, doing those comedies got me the West Wing, for sure. 100%. Really? Well, there's no doubt. I so knew where the fucking funny was. Yeah. Having apprenticed with, you know, first there was, before there was Aaron Sorkin, there was Lorne Michaels for me. Mm-hmm.

they're very similar in many, many, many ways. And, you know, between SNL three times, Wayne's World, Tommy Boy, Austin Powers, the friendships, the being around it, by the time I got to that speech about accidentally sleeping with a prostitute that nobody had ever gotten a fucking laugh in ever until I did it. It's because it's, it's that. And it's like what you learned from Dumb and Dumber is,

You take the big swing, the fearless. Yeah. And, and the precision, the precision that you learn about the comedic precision that the guys like Jim Carrey have and, and Mike Myers have, uh, and Dana Carvey have, I mean, they, they, that's, you go, Oh, there it is. Surgical, surgical, mathematical. Yep. Well, I hope our paths cross on something one of these days.

I'd enjoy that. Yeah. That would be super fantastic. And thank you. This was great. I cannot wait for A Man in Full. I really, truly. Long gestating. It's about time. Don't sit too close to the television screen because I may come out of it. You've got me so primed. I'm so primed now. There were close-ups. I'd get done being as big as I could be.

And then they go cut. And I would look to the camera operator and going, did I break the lens? Did I, did I, is there a crack in the lens anywhere? Just check for it. Will you please? Oh, I'm so excited to see it. Oh God. I am. So I had a little bit of that with, um, on behind the candelabra where I was like, I, well, I'd finish in, there was one where I thought I was mugging so shamelessly every, every,

every frame of that take is in the movie. I'm just, I'm just holding a glass and I'm literally holding the glass and making faces. I mean, I admit it and, and it's, but you know, it's one of those parts. And sometimes that's, that's all it takes. And the next thing you know, and the Oscar goes.

That's what we live for. Oh my God. Well, all right, brother. This was great. Thank you for, are you doing a bunch of press now? Are you on a big tour? Yeah. Yeah. I got, I got to do quite a bit. Yeah. It's going to be interesting. Yeah. Oh, you'll love it. Yeah. Thanks brother. This is great. You're the best. Thank you, Rob. Appreciate it. You bet, ma'am. Well, here's my takeaway. He's amazing. And I feel like the only, the only episode I ever got an Emmy nomination for on the West wing was,

In the middle of it, Aaron Sorkin came to me and he said, ah, just so you know, you're pitching a no header. And I don't feel like that compliment meant as much knowing that he said the same thing to Jeff Daniels. I'm sad now. That was fun. That was a blast. Anyway, I keyed, I keyed. All right. Just one more thing before we end today's episode. Let's check 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. It is Jim Kinsley. I grew up in Kettering and lived in Oakwood for a while and have a fellow love of Kinsley Players and Marion's Pizza.

I've lived in Nashville for 25 years. Yesterday, I watched Frank and Jesse, and I had a couple quick questions. One was, what was that experience like, and was it your first time on a horse? You looked so comfortable. The other thing that's weird is...

Part of that movie shows Martin Cove, or somebody who looks just like him, giving a speech asking for amnesty for Frank and Jesse and the gang. And he is nowhere in the credits.

And I'm wondering if you could shed any light on your experience with that film and whether I'm imagining things on Martin Cove being part of that. Thank you. Amazing. I, I'm going to have to go back and look at the Martin Cove issue that I, that I, I wish I could help you on, by the way, I love talking to a fellow Kenley players, survivor and Marion's pizza fanatic. Um,

And I love that you brought up Frank and Jesse because I love that movie. That movie was very important to me. It was, um, I produced it and it, it introduced me to my friend, Bill Paxton. And we, we had a real hand in rewriting the script. He and I would, he and I would watch, um, uh, the, the Ken Burns documentary, the civil war every night and just steal, uh,

amazing pieces of dialogue and vernacular that was in that and then we would rewrite the script and the director would riot and uh we won more of the battles than we lost um because we're making on an extremely low budget um and i trained a lot on the horse thank you for saying that i looked good um

I would draw learning how to draw with the cross draw with the Colts was super fun. And I think it might be the, the first and only Western I've ever been in. And I've been looking to do one ever since, but it's an obscure one that was made for HBO back when HBO made those little, um, movies like that. And I encourage you, if you haven't seen Frank and Jesse, um,

Uh, it's a super, super fun one and a really good look at the life of Jesse James and his brother, Frank. Um, thanks for the call. Um, I will see you next week, uh, on literally more great stuff to come. Thanks for listening wherever you may be.

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. Sponsored by the University of Michigan.

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

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