Jerry Bruckheimer: Horatio Caine Is A Wraith
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Hi, Rob. Oh, hey. We're trying to figure out how to get my camera on. Technical difficulties here. This is why the man has Michael Bay do these things. Yeah, no kidding. This is below your pay grade, Jerry, 100%. Yeah, you're right. My guest today, how can I put this? It's like seeing a Sasquatch in the wild. This man does not do interviews. Doesn't have to.

He could buy and sell us all. He is a man of few words. He's the Michael Corleone school of power. He is truly on the Mount Rushmore of producers. He's Jerry Bruckheimer. At one point, three of his TV series were in the top 10. He's been nominated for 77 Emmys. He's won 17 of them. 41 Oscars. Won six of them. Eight Grammys. Won five of them.

23 Golden Globes. Won four of them. His movies include Flashdance, Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, Armageddon, Bad Boys, Remember the Titans, Black Hawk Down, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. I could go on and on. This is a font of entertainment knowledge, and I am so excited to be able to pick his brain because like I said, he doesn't talk to many people.

But he talks to us.

Hey, thank you for doing this, man. I know I can't even remember the last time I ever... You don't do many interviews, I don't think. I don't think you... Really? The only time I do them is when we have a movie about to come out. Right. They're pretty private. When we have a film, I go out and promote it. Right, right. Gotcha. Did you know the actor Bill Paxton? Sure, of course. He used to give me the best career advice, Jerry. I was doing a TV series...

Um, and I, the series was, uh, predicated on me being a running for president and sort of the American president type of vibe was my character. And it was with Sally Field and Calista Flockhart and was called, um, brothers and sisters. And then the network one day decided they didn't want to do any more political stories because

So I ended up having to do all these like house husband stories where I was like baking pies with Sally as opposed to running around with the Secret Service and motorcades. And I was complaining to Bill Paxton about it. Right. He goes, God, buddy, that's a one way ticket to Palookaville for you, man. You got him. You got him. Perfect. He's America doesn't want to see Rob Lowe and oven mitts. Funny.

So, so damn good. Well, Jerry, I mean, I don't even know where to begin with you because I'm such a fan of yours and what you've done both in movies and in TV. And I mean, I think I want to start with the 80s because that's when I first was aware of you. I remember reading the script for Top Gun. People always ask me, was there ever a movie that you wanted to do and you didn't get?

And there's always that, you know, as an actor, you're up for things and the director isn't like whatever. There's always that list you're on. But I remember reading Top Gun sitting in Barry Hersh's waiting room. Right. And reading that script and going, this movie is going to be the biggest movie ever. And of course, I think Tom was always going to be that guy. Isn't that pretty much right? True. He was the only guy we really went out to. But I remember going, this movie is incredible.

this movie is going to be just absolutely magnificent. What was your, how did you really come up with the idea of seeing a picture in a magazine cover? Yeah, it was new West magazine. I think it was called, which has now become LA magazine. And it was a story about this school in Miramar, California. And I saw this photograph of this jet pilot and another pilot, I think upside down, uh,

from another plane against him. I said, wow, this is Star Wars for real. And I read the article and I went into Don's office. I threw the magazine on his desk and he said, shit, we got to get this. And we called our development young lady at the time. And he said, get this article, get the rights. So through a bunch of maturations, we got a hold of the magazine and the author and bought the rights to it.

And was the actual first article about the Top Gun school? Exactly. It was all about the school. And, you know, I didn't know they had, you know, names, all the pilots had names, you know, Maverick and, you know, all the different names. So we had Iceman, but we used, we made up our own course. And Cash and Epps were two writers that at the time Paramount loved. We sent them the article and they flipped over it and they wrote the

The draft that I guess we turned into the studio, but what was interesting is a TV show at the time was on about the Air Force. And unfortunately, nobody tuned it in. So the Paramount management said, well, people don't want to see aviators. Forget it. We're not going to make it. And unfortunately for them, or maybe fortunately for them, they changed managements and a new head of the studio came in named Ned Tannen. Oh my gosh, sure.

You remember him? Of course. So, Ned called Don and myself, and he said, what do you guys got? The coverage barrier. Just tell me what movies you're developing. And we said, we have this movie, Top Gun, and we're real excited about it. And we have a director, Tony Scott, and we'd love to get it made. And he said, well, come over to my house. Get Tony up here. So, Tony flies in from London.

jet lagged like crazy. We're sitting in Ned Tannen's house, Don and myself, and Ned has a dog also, and Tony's just petting the dog. And Ned turns to Tony, says, well, tell me the story. And Tony just totally froze. Couldn't say a word. So Don, the ultimate salesman, just great storyteller, brilliant guy, tells the story that we developed. And then Ned looks to me, says, Jerry, what's this going to cost? I said, I think around $14 million.

And then he turned to us and said, go make it. But are you sure this guy can direct it? The only thing he knows how to do is pet the dog. And we said, no, we have a lot of faith in him. He's an amazing visual artist and storyteller. He'd only done The Hunger at that point, plus a lot. Tony Scott is, of course, Ridley's younger? Younger brother. That's right.

Was he wearing his fishing jacket in the meeting, the fishing vest? I don't think he had that fishing vest at that time. Was he wearing the pink hat yet? He might have had the pink hat on. He might have had the pink hat. Was he smoking a Montecristo No. 2? Of course. Of course. The best.

So when that movie, well, first of all, and then Don Simpson, your original partner, I mean, Simpson Bruckheimer movies were so before anybody branded anybody, those were those movies, all, all your movies had, you know, whether it's, you know, Beverly Hills cop Crimson tide or all those movies were flash dance had, they felt like I only you guys could have made them.

I felt like I remember seeing flash dance. I remember, I remember being in two movie theaters and seeing the audience go absolutely ballistic at the ending. One was Rocky and the other was flash dance.

And the audience just went, Craig, do you remember what it was like the first time you saw that kind of flash dance that worked so well? Well, it was, we reshot the ending of the movie. We didn't reshoot it. We added elements to the ending to make it more satisfying for the audience. And that's when it exploded. Once we added some more of her dancing,

We really made a real moment out of it. And that was partially because, you know, management at the time was Eisner and I think it was

Katzenberg were there. And they said, look, we've got to make this ending even more satisfying. So they encouraged us to go back and pick up some more footage on her dance, her last dance recital. Now, just because it's been a long time and the movie occupies such a big place in the zeitgeist, I want to make sure I get the log line right. She's a female welder that just really wants to dance. She'd rather stop welding and start dancing. That's sort of the movie, is it not? Depressing her dream.

to be, I guess, a dancer. And she, fortunately for her and her career, she found this venue where she could dance. I remember in that moment in time in the 80s, every movie had to take place in like an Appalachian steel town. Well, we made her a real strong working lady, real tough. We liked that. Like tough women, tough, smart women.

No, for sure. And that was an early with Jennifer Beals. I remember fresh out of Yale, correct?

That's right. It's interesting because we had this countrywide search for the girl to play the part. And we had, I think, two or three candidates. And then casting director called us up and said, look, I have this girl in my office right now. I used her as an extra on one of our movies. I think it was on a Tony Bell movie. And you guys should see her.

She just got in from Europe. She spent the summer in Europe. So she comes in and she has no makeup on. She has a sack dress on. Her hair is kind of, you know, curly and all over the place. And Adrian looks at her and reads her for a few minutes and said, this is the girl. And I say, Adrian, you're kidding. But Adrian said, just give me a makeup artist and I'll do a test with her. So we tested her and I think it was two other girls and

And the makeup on this, I still have a photograph of her the way he made her up. She was absolutely gorgeous. And he was right. I mean, he picked her from the beginning. He was passionate about her. Some of the folks at Paramount liked one of the other girls. So it was a real interesting dust up of who was going to get the part. So Michael Eisner, nobody could decide who was the girl.

So Mike Leiser calls a group of the assistants into the screening room, shows them all three tests, and they all walk out and say, it's Jennifer Beals. So the assistants. All of them. Yes. So the assistants picked Jennifer Beals. They agreed with Adrian. And you'd ask the girls. You didn't ask guys. No. I don't think there were male assistants on that floor. It was the women that picked her. Just out of curiosity, do you remember who the other actress was who didn't get it? I do not remember.

The other one, I don't remember their names. It's been a long time. 82. Yeah, a long time. Well, Tony Scott, Adrian Lyne, two of the great visualists. I mean, those guys are some of my favorite directors. And Schrader directed American Gigolo, correct? Is that really sort of your first big credit in the movies? Yeah, that was my first, I guess, break. I mean, I made...

Farewell, My Lovely with Robert Mitchum before that, which became a success. But I guess that was the one that really, really set us apart. That movie is amazing. It's...

I don't want to say it's underappreciated because it's very appreciated, but I'm always talking to people about American Gigolo and wanting people to watch American Gigolo. I'm trying to get my boys to watch it right now. That movie is just such a masterpiece. But one of my favorite – because I watched it recently. The way that we watch movies and audiences' tastes, particularly around pacing, have changed so much.

There's no way you could open that movie with Richard Gere taking an eternity to figure out his clothes. That opening credit sequence is literally like, I like this shirt. No, I don't like this shirt. What about that tie? What about that? There's no way would you approve that cut today? I don't think. Well, what was interesting is the way the country was in those days, it was work shirts and blue jeans. Nobody got dressed up other than bankers, lawyers. That was it.

So we decided to try to find out who's the best designer, men's clothing designer, new, fresh designer. So we talked to somebody at Women's Wear Daily and they said, you should look up this guy, Giorgio Armani. Nobody ever heard of Giorgio Armani. So, yeah, no, it was he was just in Italy at the time.

And at the time, it wasn't Richard Gere, it was John Travolta in the part. John Travolta just had a huge success with Saturday Night Fever. I think it was, I'm not sure if he ever came before us or after us, but he was in Greece. He was in... And Urban Cowboy. Urban Cowboy. That was after us, I think. Oh, yeah. So Paramount had a deal with him, a pay or play deal. They're going to have to pay him unless they...

put him in a movie. So, you know, we thought he was fabulous. We, we, we, uh,

went to Milan to meet Giorgio Armani with Travolta. And it was a ride in the Paris airport because he was such a star. We had to have a police around him, get him on the plane, get him off. We meet Armani. He loves John. He measures him, gets all the clothes. We get all the clothes made for him and come back. And then John decides he doesn't want to do the movie.

What was his reason? Why? What they told us was that his girlfriend had just died. He just finished another movie. He was tired. He wanted to just take some time off. Right. So they turned to us and said, who would you guys want to hire? And at the time, Christopher Reeve was a big movie coming off of Superman. So they sent him the script on a Friday. And they said the budget was obviously much higher with Travolta.

It was like 17 or $18 million. And so we decided, Paul and myself, so we'd rather have Richard Gere, who just came off of Mr. Goodbar. And we thought he was a sexy, talented young actor. So we slipped him the script at the same time. And Monday morning, we get a call from, I think it was Katzenberg, and says, Christopher Reeves has passed.

So we said, Richard Gere would like to do it. And he said, Richard Gere? Why Richard Gere? Well, he's sexy, he's good, he's a wonderful actor. And they, again, turned to me, said that we're not going to make this movie with Richard Gere at $17 million. It's not going to happen. So I worked with our line producer or production manager, and we got the budget down to like $8 million.

So we went back in, Richard Gerell, $8 million, and they greenlit the movie. And how did you get Giorgio Moroder to do the score? Was that the first of his score he had done, Midnight Express, previously? Midnight Express, before that. But I loved his songs. I thought he was a great songwriter, great producer. So I went to the head of publishing at Paramount and said, I would love to meet Giorgio Moroder. Can you set that up? So I met with Giorgio. I gave him the script.

And he loved it. And he wrote the songs for it and did the score. Got very lucky. It's a very, yeah, it's a very atmospheric. I mean, the whole Palm Springs sequence when they take off and that the music. I mean, anytime I'm in a convertible at night, that's like that's the theme that's playing in my head is the American gigolo music.

Did I see correctly in your filmography that you're working – that at least your company is working on some sort of new iteration of American Gigolo? Or am I mistaking that? We are. We're developing a pilot for television based on American Gigolo. It's a great idea. It is a great idea. So that's in the works. That's it. Well, you're – so I'm going to jump around a ton, but – Sure. Other than maybe Dick Wolf –

I mean, no one has cracked the code of television better than you have, particularly coming from movies. Starting with the CSI franchise, now is...

Is this – it's – Zeicher is the original guy, correct? Right. Is it true – is the apocryphal story true that he was a tram operator in Las Vegas who came up with this initial idea? Yeah, his name is Anthony Zeicher. Anthony Zeicher, yes. And the story is that he was –

had this idea to do this thing on CSI. So he called the Vegas Police Department and said, I'd like to ride around with some of your techs and see what happens when they go on a murder investigation. So they pull up in front of this seedy motel and there's a body in this motel room and they remove the body and they take it back to the ambulance. And Zeicher innocently walks in the motel room himself.

He starts walking around. All of a sudden, a hand comes out from under the bed. The murderer was still in the room. What? When Psyker was there. So nobody had checked under the bed. So that's one of his great stories. So we pitched the idea for it to every network except for CBS. And everybody had passed.

So we go in to meet with Nina Tassler at CBS. And Zyker is a real interesting guy. He's another great salesman. But he paces. So when he pitches a story, he paces and he sweats and he acts out the parts and he does it fantastic. So he finishes his pitch and Nina says, I want it. In the room, she bought the pilot. And that was the start of CSI.

Why do you think you can get passes on all those other networks and then you can go in somewhere else and they buy it the room? What's different? It's the same show. You know, it's all about their needs. They need a comedy because it was late in the development season. And so they picked up a lot of pilots already or committed to a lot of pilots. So that's, I think, one of the reasons. Yeah.

Well, that's one of the things that creative people and you're sort of as a good producer, you're half creative, half business. But straight creative people forget that the world doesn't revolve around them. Like if I go in there and I get turned down by three networks, I think it's on me. But the truth of it is, it's like, no, no, we just already bought three comedies. We have room for three comedies. We bought three and you're the fourth. That's exactly how it works.

And that's the part of the business that young actors and young writers and young directors don't get to see is the just nuts and bolts decision making that has nothing to do with how they feel about you or your project sometimes, more oftentimes than not. It's so hard when you talk to a young actor and they come in and they do a terrific reading, but the physical type isn't right. Right.

And you reject them. And they walk out of the room thinking, oh, my God, you know, they hated me. My performance was terrible. Not true. He could have given a fantastic performance, but he didn't have the look that the director and the producers or the writers were looking for.

And a lot of it, it's on physicality. But, you know, great actors are great actors and they'll always rise to the top. And I've seen so many actors come in and audition for us, didn't get roles, later on became huge successors and have phenomenal careers. How often are you at this stage or any stage involved in the audition? Like what level do you come in and start looking at the actors? Yeah.

I usually start looking at him once the director has, we do it now, everything's on video. So once he has a group of who he likes, two or three actors for each part, then we'll come in and sit with them and make a choice or say, let's look further. Do you feel like the convenience of the videos is great, but we've lost that

That that looking into their eyes and getting there because all you get now is I find this with casting on the shows that I'm producing is you can get actors now who are trained in delivering a perfect performance.

sort of self-tape. But, you know, when they're self-taping, you can't go, that's great. Now could you do it slower? Or, okay, that's great, but maybe like a little more intense, like there's no give and take direction that you would have normally when you had the actors in the room. And then some of these folks get on the set and that's the only way they can do it. Have you noticed any of that? Well, yeah, you're absolutely right. But what we try to do is if it's a self-tape, we always try to bring them in.

If they're in the final two or three, we've got to meet them. We've got to look them in the eye. You know, CBS for years and years, I don't know if they still do it, but they make the actors, even though you put them on tape, you do all that kind of stuff, but they make the actors actually come into their theater and perform for the executives. They do the reading in their theater. Wow. I don't know if they're still doing that, but...

That that's how every CBS actor was picked for lead roles. How did the who become the opening for all of the great CSI shows? I know you're a who fan. Was it just that simple? No, it was, I think it was Zyker's. One of our team came up with the idea for the who, and you know, we very fortunately they agreed to do it. And boy, I tell you, they made a fortune on it, which is good. Oh, I know. I, I, I've,

I've licensed many a song, and I famously know how much they got per episode for 22 a year. And then you do the three shows total, right? Right. And I had a meeting with Zyker once, and I said, no Eminence Front ever? And he goes, no, we actually cut Eminence Front to the pilot of whatever the last spinoff was.

And it didn't go with Eminence Front. Yeah, it's too bad. It's a great one, right? Yeah, it's a great one. You're absolutely right. Of all of the stuff that you've done and how much I love it, my favorite thing ever might be, though, the supercut of David Caruso's one-liners on YouTube that goes into the – I mean, if people haven't seen that, I –

highly recommend it. It's him doing his Caruso-isms and then it goes right to the famous scream of the opening credits. Have you ever seen it? No, I haven't. I'll have to look it up. Oh, Jerry, it is. You are going to love it. It's like, you know, I've seen the one where he takes his glasses on and off. I've seen. Yeah. And it's one after another, after another, after another.

I played, I did a show called The Grinder for Fox. I'm really proud of. Really funny show. We did one season of it and I played a crazy, self-important, narcissistic actor who'd been on a

17 season network procedural now was having to find a new life. And I love Caruso. I love him, but I did rip off a lot of his stuff. In fact, I had his actual glasses from, from, from CSI and I took great pleasure in relish and whipping them off and doing what I called the crab walk. He had, he had a thing where he would crab, he would put his hands on his hips and walk around.

And do you know the whole thing about, oh, I'm so glad I have you. This is the best. Do you know his thing about being a ghost? Did that ever make it up to your level? No, never heard that one. So, and I've had this multiple confirmed because it's one of those things you feel like, oh, it's the apocryphal story. That's bullshit. I've had it confirmed. So his theory was that Horatio Cain, correct? Right. Was not an actual person.

that Horatio Cain was a wraith. Right. Not a ghost. Right. A wraith. And for the discovery of evil people. And he would not be photographed because he's a wraith. And as you know, wraiths don't enter or exit. That he would not be photographed entering and exiting. And if you look at the show, he's not. I believe it. I believe it. I did not hear that, but who knows? Yeah.

All of the young writers would say, have you had the talk with David yet? And so I love, but actually it's also a great movie star thing. It's like, it's a very, it's just a great thing that never, never be filmed, particularly exiting. Entering is one thing. But if you watch all those shows, I think you can count on one hand the times that the David Caruso enters and exits, but I don't think people knew it's because he's a wraith. I didn't know that. So.

And I produce the show. You learn something new every day. You learn something about your career today from me that you never would have otherwise. Thank you so much, Rob. Oh, Jerry, it's the least I can do. Hold that thought. We'll be right back.

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Hey, look at you. Florist by day, student by night. Student by day, nurse by night. Since 1998, Penn State World Campus has led the charge in online education, offering access to more than 200 degree and certificate programs taught by our expert faculty.

We offer flexible schedules, scholarships, and tuition plans to help you reach your educational goals online. Penn State World Campus delivers on your time. Click the ad or visit worldcampus.psu.edu to learn more. I have been wanting to ask this question before I even started doing a podcast. I keep, because people always say to me whenever I do things, or people talk about acting, who do you like? What are the bold choices? Who are the greatest movie stars?

et cetera, et cetera. And I always say that I think the single bravest acting performance in the history of the motion picture business is Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. I agree. I'm not kidding. I think Brando can fucking stand in line. Right. And here's why. Because, and this is where you get to say, Rob, you're full of shit when I'm done with this opening statement. Okay. Okay. So,

Johnny has done a career of weird, wonky, oddball goofball parts. Some worked great. Some didn't. He tried to play a leading man. He had a movie called like the astronaut's wife or something disaster. And it gets to the point where we all get in our career where they're like that, not that many get out of jail free cards left. And, and,

Disney, meanwhile, has decided to make movies about their theme parks rides, which people are like, what? Wait, what? There's gonna be a movie called The Haunted Man. What? So they do The Haunted Mansion, which is about the Haunted Mansion ride. Eddie Murphy does it. It's a disaster.

So like, all right, we're going to do the most famous ride we have, which is Pirates of the Caribbean. It's a movie about a ride. Now, it's hard for people to remember it that way because it's become in our consciousness these amazing groups of movies, which they are. But originally, it's a movie about a ride. Correct. And so they go out to Johnny Depp. You hire Johnny Depp to play Captain Jack Sparrow. Errol Flynn, the pirate –

The big leading man, swashbuckling, great jawbone, chiseled, handsome pirate man. And you get what he gave you. Right. Tell me what that was like the first time you saw those dailies. Because there's no way you think you're getting that when you're developing that movie. Am I wrong? No, you're 100% right. The part was written like for if he was alive, Burt Lancaster.

That's who it was. Jesus. That's who Jack Sparrow was. We did a reading of the script at the Viper Room with some of the people we'd cast, including Johnny. That's the first place you want to read a script. I know I do. Like if they're going to like, hey, can we read? I like let's do it next to all the vomit and the needles. Right. At the Viper Room. So he went to the Viper Room and he started playing Jack Sparrow that you know.

which was just hilarious, off-the-wall character. So Disney says, well, they weren't there, but Disney said, we would like to see his costume. And, you know, you always do hair and makeup, right? Sure, right. Hair and makeup and costume, and he's got all his teeth are gold, right? Yeah.

So I get a call from, I think it was Dick Cook. He said, we can't make this movie with him with all those gold teeth. I'm sorry. You know, this is Disney and I don't know. The gold teeth is where he drew the line. Not, not the, it's like gold teeth. I hadn't seen that yet. Oh shit. Okay. My God. Okay, good. This is great. So we set a meeting with Johnny and Dick and myself. And so,

You know, Dick says, well, you know, the teeth and blah, blah, blah. And Johnny says, listen, this is part of the character. So I created the character. He's got to have the teeth. And so I said, Johnny, just...

Take a few of the teeth out. Just have some normal teeth in there. Just, you know, accent it with the gold. It's better. Because you don't want the audience just looking at your mouth. You want them to focus on your performance. So don't write such a spectacle. And he agreed to do that. And then Disney was happy with the look. Now, when the first couple of days of dailies came in, that was the total freak out. Oh, my God. What is he drunk? Is he gay? What is this character? What are you guys doing? This is awful. This is awful.

And when you look at dailies, as you know, because you're a producer and an actor and you see stuff, you know, you get a variation of performances, right? Some are really outrageous and some are a little more subdued. So I said to them, I said, let us cut a sequence together just so you can see what he's doing.

And we cut a sequence together and they became more comfortable. They were never really comfortable with the performance. And it was, it scared them half to death. And it's really interesting because there was no merchandising done for the movie. They had very little faith in the movie. First of all, Country Bears, which was another one of their rides that they made, tanked.

You're already, oof, haunted house tanked. And now we're doing pirates. And when they came to us, they said, we want to make, you got to make it for $50 million. That's what those other movies cost. And we had sea battles and we're in the Caribbean. There's no way we could have made it for that amount of money. And they wanted it to be a PG movie or a G movie. And I went to Dick and I said, Dick, you can't,

constrain Johnny to a PG or a G movie. Just not who this guy is. You don't want that. You want this movie to be from eight to 80. That's what you want. And I promised him that we, let me do it PG 13. And Dick agreed. I said, there won't be any terrible language, but it'll be edgy. No sexuality. We finally agreed to do it. That was the first PG 13 movie Disney had ever made.

Wow. I didn't. I didn't know that. That's amazing. Got to give it to the executives at Disney for allowing us to do that.

And Gore Verbinski is somebody I loved the mouse hunt that he did and some of his other things. So he was a young director. So we were very fortunate. We sent him an outline. He agreed to do this based off an outline. And he was a sought after director. And I flew to, to South of France where Johnny was living with just some storyboards and, and big visuals to show him the, the character and,

And we had like a four hour lunch. I don't know how many bottles of wine. And he agreed to do it. So that's how we got him to be in the movie. It's kind of a roundabout story, but... No, but that's absolutely amazing. I mean, like...

For you to be able to embrace that, knowing... Years later, I think they made... It might have been one of your movies. Was it Prince of Persia? Was that you? Yeah, that was us. Yeah. Because when I watched Prince of Persia and I saw Jake in that, that's probably what they thought they were getting when they hired Johnny. Exactly. Right? That'd be right. And for you to see that at the Viper Room and go, I'm going to go toe-to-toe with Disney because they're going to freak. What's interesting is...

My career is built on choices, choices for directors, choices for writers, choices for actors. And if I believe somebody is really talented, I will move mountains to make sure that they get their vision, whatever that is. If it's a director, if it's a writer, if it's an actor, if I believe in that talent, I will go against anybody to convince them that we have the goods and we

You got to take chances. That's what happened with Jack Sparrow. That was a huge chance. Huge. Huge. I mean, I'm not kidding when I say I think it's the gutsiest, most important acting choice in modern cinema because the stakes – people don't realize how high the stakes were. It's one thing to go take a big swing in some indie movie industry.

Do you know what I'm saying? But when it's you and it's Disney and it's all of that and you got to – you're at that time in your career as an actor where it's time to deliver a hit pretty much. And you go for that. I mean, he'll always be in the Hall of Fame for me with that one and you guys for enabling it. Just unbelievable. No, he's a very inventive actor. And he had a young daughter at the time. He was watching a lot of cartoons. Yeah.

with his daughter and he he fell in love with the character peppy lepew and uh that's part of his performance is kind of peppy lepew like so that's another how we draw from real life and what your life is going through at the time as an artist somebody once told me that um

that Hannibal Lecter, that Anthony Hopkins based Hannibal Lecter on how the computer in 2001, Olivier in The Entertainer, and Katharine Hepburn. I don't know where the Katharine Hepburn came from, but I understand. I think it comes from, it's like the slight, but it's just, I love that. I mean, listen, if Johnny Depp can make

The character out of Pepe Le Pew, he can make it out of Hal and the entertainer. It was a combination of Pepe Le Pew and Keith Richards. Keith was a buddy of his. He used to come over all the time and he'd go in Johnny's closet and say, this is a great jacket. He'd try it on and he'd walk around the room in the jacket and then he'd leave. He'd take Johnny's jacket. So he based it on how he walked and how he talked and a little bit of Pepe Le Pew. So it was a combination of the two.

I have to, at some point, dig up the short film that Charlie Sheen and I made with Johnny. When Johnny had just done... No, I think he was just getting cast in the TV series. And what was the TV series he did when he was a kid? It was 21 Jump Street. Right. And Charlie had this idea, and I think Charlie spent like...

like 15 grand of his own money when he was 20, which is a lot of money to blow up a photo mat. Remember photo mats where you go and deliver your film and they do it overnight. So the, the whole predicate of this eight millimeter movie that Charlie shot starring Johnny Depp was, uh,

that they didn't deliver Johnny's film on time. And so he blew the thing up with an RPG. And I think it was really just an, it was called RPG and it was just an excuse to blow something up, up on point doom in Malibu, but somewhere that movie exists. I'm sure it's great. I think we need to put the famous Bruckheimer logo. How's the time to get it out there? People are just sitting home looking at YouTube videos. So this is it. And we'll be right back after this.

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Tell me about the new Top Gun. I'm so pumped. And look, I'm kind of jaded. I'm like, I kind of feel like I've seen everything, done everything, and I don't really get it up that much to go out. I'm so there for that movie that you have no idea.

Right. It's going to be fantastic. The flying sequences are the best that have ever been filmed. Tom, you know, he's an aviator himself. He flies helicopters. He flies jets. He does aerobatic work. He has his own single engine plane, World War II plane that he has. And

he's just an aviation genius. He can do anything in the air. And he wanted to bring the audience inside the cockpit and tell the story about these very courageous aviators. It's really the love of aviation. That's what the movie is about. And so what he did is he had every actor, he told them, you're going to have to learn how to sit in an F-18 and feel the G-forces. Because on the first movie, we put the actors in an F-14 and,

and every one of them threw up, and we couldn't use one frame of footage, except for Tom. We got some footage on Tom, and he wasn't even a pilot then, but he's got a mindset to get anything done. And so this time, he said, we're going to train you for three months. So the first thing you've got to do is you've got to go through –

escape from the jet into water because they do this water safety thing that you do. So what they do, among other things, is they put you in a cage, they blindfold you, they put you in the water

And they turn the cage upside down. You got to figure out how to get out. That's just one of the little things that they do to train you. And then they put you in the cockpit of a helicopter and they dunk you and flip you and turn you. And you got to figure out how to open the door and how to get out. So that's the first thing they started with. Then Tom put them in.

Just a single engine prop plane, just a normal single, just so they get the sense of flying. Then he put them in an aerobatic prop, which they started to feel some G-forces. You know, they roll them and flip them. And then he put them in a jet, an aerobatic jet. And then they really started to feel the difference of the speed of a real jet versus a prop.

And after they mastered that and stopped throwing up, he put them in the F-18, which takes it to 10 times the level of just a normal jet. And so they had to endure flying in these planes for three months. So once we got them up in the air,

They were accustomed to the G-forces, but you can see it on their faces. You'll see how they're stretched and, you know, they almost pass out. A couple of them did pass because you got to, what you have to do is you have to force the blood to your head. So you have to constantly grunt and get the blood up there so you don't pass out. And they were spectacular. Every one of them just was.

Three months of going through that, you know, an actor normally will rehearse for two weeks and then start, start the movie. But this was a whole different thing. We, and we also had a, we built a cockpit on the ground. So what we do is we run their lines on the ground before they went up with the plane, but don't forget they had to be the cameraman too. So we had five cameras in the cockpit filming them and they had to turn the camera on, turn the camera off. And in order to say their lines, they had, the sun had to be in a certain position.

Because that, because we'd already done some of the aerial stuff. So you knew the sun was behind them or in front of them. So when they did a certain line, because you wanted to cut outside to see the jet, the sun had to be in the same place. So they had to remember where the sun was, what lines they had to say when the sun was at position. They had to turn the thing on and off. It's so easy to start acting and forget to turn the camera on. So they had to go through this. And Tom, what's interesting about Tom, you know him, how dedicated he is. He

did the briefings on all the flights because you do a briefing before the flight and you do a debrief after. This takes hours besides being in the air, being up in the air and being exhausted, getting up at four or five in the morning to do these sorties with these phenomenal Navy aviators who were just fantastic and helped us just make this movie as spectacular as it turned out to be.

So I was wondering about this. When Tom is flying the plane because he's an aviator. Right. Is he – he's not flying that F-18. Is he possibly? Well, let me put it this way. He could. He could, yes. He could very easily. But the government – these are really expensive planes, so that's –

It's not in the cards, but he easily could step in and fly that plane in a second. It would, it's, it's certainly, and he's ready to do it. He could do it if they'd have let him. And we tried, believe me, we tried to get him to do it. Oh, I believe it with Tom. He's, I, I, but that, that, that, um,

That, both, all of the teasers, all of the coming attraction trailers are as good as anything I've ever seen. I'm just, you just want to tear the seats out. I'm so ready. And so the new release date is Christmas, is that right? Yeah.

It is. It is. Let's hope everything is good by then and we can get a movie out. Hopefully we'll be open sooner for films. That's one of the ones. I mean, that's a movie. I'm all for streaming, but that's a movie you want to see in a theater. Oh, yeah. For sure. It's enormous. And the sounds are fantastic. And Hans Zimmer doing the score with Harold Faltenmeier was the original composer. It is really a spectacular film. I can't wait for everybody to see it.

Um, let's see what I, I, okay. So I had, um, I had, uh, John Lovitz on the show a while back and he was telling me, and I think John's a big liar. So I, I just, I just created that. He created that character. So yeah, exactly. He tried, he tried to sell us that bad boys, your movie was originally going to be him. Well, it was originally going to be him and Dana Carvey.

What come? I mean, it's a different approach, obviously. But yes, it was him and Dana Carvey and Michael Bay did a test with them. And for whatever reason, Disney didn't go for it.

And so the project became dormant for a while. We tried, no, what really happened is Dana dropped out. So we were left with John. There's varying stories of what happened. There's John's version and other people's version. But the movie never got made with John and somebody else. So I never give up. I just never do. When I believe in a movie, I just...

until I can get it made. I just keep pushing, pushing, pushing. And I met, somebody set me up with a young actor named Will Smith, who was basically a TV actor. He'd done one movie previously. This guy comes in, he's charming, he's funny, he's handsome. And I said, this is the guy. And then one of the executives at Sony, because the picture was moved over to Sony when Disney passed, we moved. And they were more excited about making the movie.

So we had Will, but Will wasn't a big enough star. Martin Lawrence was a bigger star at the time than Will was. And we sent the script to first Arsenio Hall because he was the hottest guy in the business at the time. And unfortunately, he passed. Well, fortunately for Will, he passed. And then we went on to Martin, who loved it and wanted to make it. Martin got the movie made.

And that pairing is, you know, obviously we just had another huge success with the third one and we're developing a fourth one. So, but Will is so talented. We had two, we're very lucky, we had two really talented people, three talented people. We had two actors and Michael Bay. Michael Bay, this is his first movie.

And he's coming off commercials where, you know, he gets to do basically what he wants. Now, when you're making a movie, you've got to follow the script. You've got to listen to the studio. And fortunately, when you do commercial, you have to deal with a client. If you shoot, you did that commercial. So you got to deal with the advertising agency. So he understood how to deal with the studio, which was great. You know, he got the sense you had to get what you wanted, but also make them feel they were getting what they wanted.

So he did an excellent job. I got to tell me, what is your obsession with hockey? Where does that come from? But for people listening in, Jerry is I don't even know how to. I mean, you have kept hockey alive in show business. You're you're you have your own league. I mean, I'll let you tell it. But when I think of when I think of hockey, I mean, you're you're literally Mr. What Nicholson is to the Lakers. You are to hockey.

Well, here's where it started. When I was seven or eight years old, my dad, I grew up in Detroit. My dad took me to a Red Wing game. It was in this old arena called the Olympia Arena, where you're basically almost over the ice. We were way up in the nosebleed section, but you were hanging over the ice. It was a fantastic experience. And at that time,

The, the Red Wings were kind of like the Lakers in their heyday. They were great team and they want a lot of Stanley Cubs. So I went to some really exciting games with my dad. And then I said, well, maybe I should start learning how to play this game. So I,

I got as a Christmas gift, I got a pair of skates and convinced him to give me a stick and a helmet and the whole thing. So I started to learn how to skate. And I lived about three blocks from a drive-in. This is in Detroit. So in the winter, it's cold. Drive-ins are closed. But, you know, there are humps where your car goes up on a hump.

So in between the hump, there's valleys and there used to be water in there. And so we used to play in the valleys there when it was ice. So I'd walk three blocks, carry my equipment, play the freezing cold and became obsessed with it. So I was always somebody who liked to organize things. So I took a bunch of our neighborhood buddies that played with us and I created a team.

And we had to go, I don't know, we had to take buses if parents, my mom didn't drive at the time. So I had to take a bus to go to the rink. Our games were at seven, so I had to get up at five. And sometimes my dad took me, but I had this little team. We weren't very good. In fact, we were terrible. But that was my experience of playing hockey. But unfortunately, I didn't follow it up until...

back when Gretzky came to LA and I said, well, maybe I should start taking skating lessons because I never could afford skating lessons when I first started playing. So I started taking skating lessons and I put another group of guys together and we played in Pasadena. Some actors, some, you know, people who I knew loved hockey. And then we eventually moved to where the Kings practice. Now we have a game every Sunday night and,

And then we had there's another game Monday night that I play. And so Sunday and Monday is when I usually can play hockey. And what were the what were the legendary Vegas one? It was because those were legendary. I'm the organizer. So I started a tournament in Vegas and we went on for 23 years. Yes. Started with like there were, I think, 20 of us. Marty McSorley, I think, being one of them.

And what we do is we'd have, we had two teams. We used to have one or two pros on each team. So a bunch of bums, myself included. And with these pros, it was the greatest thing ever. And it developed into six teams where every team had three or four pros. And we had over 150 guys, friends coming and playing. And then it dwindled back down to four teams, but it,

Now we're all just spread everywhere. Now we're playing with their kids. Wow. Guys I started with, their kids. In fact, one of them is going to be drafted in the first round of the NHL draft. He looks like he'll be in the first round. Really? Yeah, so that's how it is. Now, do you get to draft as an expansion? Congratulations, by the way. You're one of the owners of the new Seattle expansion team, correct? Yeah, we get to have a draft. We take one player from each team.

So that's great. Tell me, what's the name of the team? We're working on that right now. Oh, this is great. Fantastic. Okay, let's talk about names, logos, mascots, uniforms. Okay, because there's nothing worse, not to scare you. You've dealt with titles. You're going to be just fine. But there's nothing worse than a bad name.

or a bad logo i still can't get beyond like the the tampa devil rays i can't i'm now they're not the devils they're just the re like you screw it up and you got like something to answer for so what do what do we what are we thinking it's seattle so what i think it's it's more about a winning team no matter what your name is if you build a culture

and you start winning, it doesn't matter. I mean, the Mighty Ducks became- I was going to say, that's the most egregious. That's your friend Mike Eisner, right? That's our- Yeah, he wanted to promote his movie. Smart move. But they won a Stanley Cup. It's a good franchise, a terrific franchise. They've had some great players go through there. So it's always about getting a winning culture, and you've got to win. For sure. Yeah.

I think you should call it either the Chiefs as an homage to the greatest hockey movie ever made, Slapshot. Right. Of course. Or the Youngbloods for one of the lesser hockey movies. Oh, another good one. Ever made. You ever go to games? You go to games. I see you at games sometimes. Yeah, I do. I go to games and people...

just go crazy because there there have been that many movies made about junior hockey right and and so young blood being you know it's like a bible for those kids where they're on the road everybody knows it everybody watches it so when they get to the to the bigs and and i go and they see me they lose they lose their minds because they they think i'm so much better i'm a i skate like a movie actor skates well i'm sure that's pretty good we've had some very good actors skate with us

I learned, I did, I trained for Youngblood for six weeks, eight hours a day, every single day. I did not know how to skate when I started. And by the end, I was really good. I could skate. My stick handling was okay, but not anywhere near filmable. So I always say to people, I do all the skating. If there's a puck in the shot, it's not me. Right. Well, I'm kind of the same way.

Look, I got to go in front of the net and they got to feed me the puck. That's the only way. Yeah. They call me the human tripod. I'm like, I'm the same way. Exactly.

I'm like just tripodding there. With all the stress we go through in our business, it's the only time I can take my mind off of all the stress that's around me because at any moment I'll get killed out there because they're bigger, they're faster, and they'll run me over in a second. You have to have gotten run over. With all the hockey you've played, you have to have gotten run over. I got a doctor on call, orthopedic guy on call with all the times I've been slammed and hit, mostly by accident, but-

because of my own doing, I'd run into somebody. But anyway, it's worth it. It takes a lot of the stress away. Well,

Well, this has been – I'm going to wrap up with something that I like to do with my smarter guests, and you qualify, which is the lowdown. And they're a series of questions based on sort of like the old Proust questionnaire that used to be in the back of Vanity Fair. What is your greatest extravagance or whatever? I know what your greatest extravagance is. It's got to be the hockey rink you built in Kentucky, right? It has to be. You're right. You're absolutely right.

I have a fabulous little three-on-three rink in Kentucky that I bring my friends to, and we have a great weekend playing and just telling stories. Kentucky, the hotbed of hockey. Right. That's so great. I love that. Okay, so your top three movies. Let's do both. Let's do your actual top three movies, and then let's do movies that you had nothing to do with, your top three.

Well, I won't tell you my top three. Oh, come on. No, no chance. Because they're all your kids. There's no top three. Which is your favorite dog? You're not going to tell me. All right. I'll let you get away with it. As far as my movies, I love, you know, Bridge on the River Kwai, Dr. Zhivago, Driving this Daisy, The Godfather, you know, just old classics. Yeah.

Those are good ones. I just watched River Kwai last week. Yeah, amazing. Amazing director. You can't argue with that. What is your favorite professional moment? That's a hard one because I've had so many good ones. I think, you know, getting my hands and feet in front of the Chinese theater was a big one.

That is a big one for the listeners. Like, I think they'll give a Hollywood Walk of Fame to anybody at this point, considering I'm a recipient of that. But but hands and feet at what we used to call Grauman's. We can't. What is it called now? Chinese theater. Chinese theater. Yeah. Yeah. So that's right. That's that was pretty great. That's that's pretty spectacular. Here's a great one. I love this one because I remember all of them. Do you remember the worst review you've ever gotten? Sure.

By the way, I love how quickly you answered that. I hadn't even gotten the question out of my mouth. Sure. Love that. Flashdance. The journalist called it a toxic waste dump. Okay. The movie. Yes. Now, cut to 10 or 15 years later, he re-sees the movie and he said, I missed it. Really? A toxic waste dump is up there with mine. Mine was a movie called, that I made with Marty Ransohoff.

And Lewis John Carlino called class and it wasn't toxic waste dump, but it was a vile concoction. Oh, my God. Well, you're right up there with me. I can only hope. Jerry, thank you so much. This was great. It was it's it's it's it's a rarity to get you, you know, out and to talk about your amazing life and work. And good to talk to you. Thanks so much. Thank you. Time, Rob. Fun. You bet. Take care. You bet.

That was so great. I mean, it's not often you get to hear a deep dive with somebody like Jerry that he takes the time to come out and do publicity like this. And it'll all be worth it, particularly if he gets me a seat for the Top Gun premiere. And I don't know if you noticed, but the sneaky takeaway in this is that Tom Cruise didn't really fly the F-16s in the new movie. Just saying. See you next time.

You have been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe. Produced and engineered by me, Devin Tory Bryant.

Executive produced by Rob Lowe for Lowe Profile. Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco. And Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Stitcher. The supervising producer is Aaron Blairt. Talent producer, Jennifer Sampras. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts. And remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

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