Transcript of "RE-RELEASE: Tom Hanks" New

I'm going to do this.

So today is—

Oh, sorry. Today. Yeah, go ahead.

Today we're going to have a nice—

Sean, no, sorry.

It's just the last time you started the last one, I was going to start this one.

Okay.

We're just doing an intro. So it doesn't matter who starts.

So I'll just go. So today— Oh, I thought—

Oh, let me just do it. Let me just do it. Listener, here is Smartless by—

Okay.

Smartless.

Smartless. Smart.

Less. Listen, I think it's been 3 weeks since we've done this, since I've seen you, since I've talked to you. And I have to say, I've had some long drives in the last 3 weeks. So I've gone ahead and done some quality control, listening to our podcast. I'm not great at it because I'm listening to them after they've already reached the public.

Are you Picking up some long-hauler miles, some deliveries? What's going on?

I am. I've got some 5-Hour Energy cases I'm trying to get through. Okay, sure. So it's really been nice listening to you fellas. You're both very talented and very funny on the podcast. I'd really like to be more of a part of it. So I was very excited to—

Part of it.

I was very excited to see you guys today. But then this morning— This morning, a real dark cloud floated over our family here at Smartless. Jason, can I just interrupt? Go ahead.

Is it possible to say, like, is it possible for a dark cloud to then give you a gut punch? Is that possible?

Sure. What happened?

Yeah. Well, why don't you take it from here?

Well, Jason read something that I read. We all read it.

Oh, God.

Well, I read it after you sent it to me. No, actually, you know what? Sean sent it.

That's true.

I sent it before I read it.

Uh-huh. I don't think so.

Sean sent an article to Jason and me in the thread that we're in.

With some feigned exclamation points, like, "Yee-haw!" This is great for us.

And by the way, I'm gonna put it out there. If anybody thinks they're worthy of being in the text thread, let us know, and maybe we'll start putting you on the— Yeah, we'll add you to the thread. And Sean says, "Congrats for us! Yay for us!" And it's a click to Hollywood Reporter. Smartlist nominated. Great. Nominated for a bunch of podcast awards or whatever.

Which is kind of neat, 'cause this is, you know, this is an embarrassing—

It's a mom-and-pop operation, yeah.

We apologize. Yeah. The fact that we're getting any traction whatsoever, let alone nominations, just thank you to all of our folks out there.

Unbelievable. Yeah, it's pretty great.

Thank you, and also it's embarrassing. Jason dreaded it. It is kind of embarrassing. So then, as you— if you read further down in the story, they're nominated best podcast, blah, blah, blah.

And Sean Hayes nominated for best host, which is the worst, which is the kiss of death, because now everybody's like, well, he's not really that great.

Well, no, I don't think they're saying it out of the side of their mouth either. I think it comes straight out the center.

And here's my thing, today I can't wait to see you host.

Yeah, yeah, let's see what you got.

This is gonna be the worst experience for me.

Well, the voters are now listening, right? Because the nominations are out now. They really have to decide.

Pay attention to his hosting.

My questions are still going to be like, hey, where are you from?

Yeah, no, don't worry, we know that.

That obviously resonates with the, uh, with the jury over there.

The iHeartMedia people have made a bunch of mistakes.

When Sean said, what's your favorite color?

I mean, let's nominate that jackass.

Yeah, here we go. Jeez, I'm not gonna be able to come up for air for a while.

We're thrilled for you, Sean.

Yeah, we really are.

I'm thrilled for everybody.

I said to Sean, by the way, I did say congrats, man. And he's like, oh, thank you. And I responded, I didn't mean it.

What are you doing?

How dare you say thank you? I responded with, I truly didn't know. I didn't read the article. I just read the headline like most people.

Sure. It is true. I think Sean might be the kindest man I've ever known. Not possible. No one deserves it more.

Not around you two.

All right, zip it up. We've got an interesting guest today. Um, he's, he's known primarily in New Zealand and, and South Africa, uh, due to his success in rugby. Okay. Um, Florida then came to love him when he pivoted his talents towards hīlai and dog racing. And then when he was in California, he was attempting to, uh, be the first to successfully mend the San Andreas Fault. He tried his hand at acting, and, and while fame and fortune there has been scarce at best. Some call it a wipeout. Sure. The critics have given him a few hugs. So, uh, he has received a couple of Academy Awards and 7 Emmy Awards. What? Yeah, he's gotten himself a Tony nomination, uh, even an AFI—

who has Academy Awards?

He's turned it around. He got a Lifetime Achievement Award from AFI. A BAFTA gave him something. The Golden Globes gave him the Cecil B. DeMille Award. The Kennedy Center honored this, uh, this highlife player. And Barack Obama gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Wait, so I say chin up. I say chin up to this fella.

Uh, I have no idea.

This is the most highly decorated guest we've ever had.

I would say so. Um, yet he's famous and fortunate in our book. Okay, uh, please welcome the forever struggling but always diligent, America's own and Hollywood's best, Mr. Tom Lamar Hanks.

No. Oh man.

Yeah. Had I known that Sean was the host of this podcast, I would have bailed. I said Guys, I'd like to, but, you know, I don't like to work from home.

Apparently you're working with one of the brightest hosts in the business.

Yeah. Is there a name for this award? Is it— does it named after somebody? Is it—

it's called the Aorta because it's from iHeartMedia.

Oh, I—

oh, okay.

Uh-huh.

I hope that's not true, but that's my pitch.

One of my hard-hitting nominee questions is, where are you right now? I don't recognize that room.

I'm a— I'm in a tiny little cubbyhole that is here in my vast compound somewhere in the tri-state area.

I'm telling you, dog racing really pays, guys. You got to look into it.

It's within a single day's drive from Lakewood, Ohio, uh, home of the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival. Wait, you didn't—

is it true?

No, no.

Are we already gonna plug— are we already plugging a festival?

I mean, this is— well, it was a long time ago. A long time ago.

Wait, did you really, um, do dog racing?

No, you dumbass. This is why you're not gonna win.

You're the worst host. Jason was demonstrating his, quote, "comedy chops." Yeah, boy.

Guys, can I write or what?

Huh? Wait, hang on. I think Tom's onto something. Let's get into Jason's comedy chops real quick.

You know, I told some friends last night that I was doing this podcast, and first of all, I had to re-explain your name.

Who we were, yeah.

They said, "Sean who? Jason what? Will huh? What is the name of it?" I kept calling it "Helpless" based on the Neil Young song, so— but now I realize, no, no, no, it's "Smartless." Smartless.

We really are helpless.

And the question came up about you, Will. Uh-oh. Which was this question: has he started using a different voice professionally? Mm-hmm. That in your early days, you were kind of like squeaky. You sort of sounded like Jay North in those old Dennis the Menace reruns, and you were hilarious. But then you went off and voiced Batman, and it's as though you're walking around with your own self-imposed ego. A cue on your voice now. Yeah. True or false, Will?

Here, I— listen, like any good politician, I can't just give you a straight true or false. I will say that I constantly have a monitor in my ear and I'm adjusting my levels, my input levels, right? Uh, and so then I can, I can mod it. No, you know what, it's funny, I recently— you know, I often watch a lot of my old stuff, uh, because I like to be entertained and he has trouble sleeping.

Yeah.

No, but I— my voice has gotten— it has. But if you listen to Howard Stern—

it's just because of abuse, I guess. Are you— do you still smoke?

Well, who's listening? Um, I'm just learning. I'm just learning.

We had Sean Penn on the podcast. He, he went through a, a full pack of darts, didn't he?

He did go through a pack of darts.

Darts? That's colloquial for cigarette.

Yeah, it's Canadian.

As opposed to say coffin nail or, um, or a nail.

A nail or bullet. Actually, Tom, this brings me to an actual question, uh, about the nail. I noticed recently I was reading the 10th book in the, uh, in the, uh, Gunther, uh, what's-his-name series by Philip Kerr, and I noticed your name on the back. Oh, the, uh, you, you gave a little, uh, a blurb for the back of, uh, for the jacket of Prussian Blue, which I'm almost finished with.

Oh, that's a great one.

It's a great one, right?

Gunther— help me—

Bernard Gunther.

Bernard Bernie Gunther series. He plays a non— okay, okay, be merciful on me on this, okay? He plays a non-Nazi private Investigator from 1928 Berlin through well after the war.

That's right.

It's a fabulous series by Philip Kerr. Philip Kerr. The late Philip Kerr.

He passed away. Yeah, I know. Too early.

Yeah. And I read them all and just, well, I'm not a big, like, detective genre fiction writer.

Me neither.

But this had that added bonus of very accurate sort of historical detail to it that I really loved.

It's a tremendous historical fiction. And you're absolutely right. I'm with you, Tom. And, and I read, I read mostly nonfiction. And somebody recommended, they said, you love all this European history, I think you'd like this. I'm fully in. Like I said, I just started at the beginning of the summer and I'm on book 10, uh, Prussian Blue, right? And, but he always refers to cigarettes as nails. And he gets beaten up by these Nazis and then they look down and he's spitting up blood and they say, what do you want? He looks up and he says, can I get a nail?

Yeah. And you know what, when he smokes one, he looks really cool.

He looks really, really cool.

He looks really good. What I like about those books is It fills in the blanks of his war years, 'cause some of them take place well before World War II, some of them take place after World War II, and in the course of it, you see what he went through.

Thanks, guys, for firing us out of the gate here at the start of the interview. You know our listeners love literature. Go, Sean, you're the host. Let's do it.

Yeah, host. Thank you so much. Come on. By the way, Sean, I have my hand on my buzzer. Hand is right on my buzzer.

Okay, good.

I'm ready to buzz in with the correct answer.

Good. I want to know what your fascination with with war is, because your name is so synonymous. I've never asked you this in my entire life. Why are you so passionate about—

Yeah, you're the war guy.

—the history of war?

He loves a good fight. It started with High Life, I think, right? Uh-huh.

That dog racing, you know, uh— First of all, we do a lot of them because none of the projects have to have cell phones or laptops. Sure. So that alone makes the writing of them so much easier, and there's much less special effects of having to put in those screens. I get this question asked of me quite often, and the answer always comes down to when, in those formative years of, say, 7 through—

you know, when you're a little kid.

Every single caregiver, every single adult in my life would make references to the 6— 2 words, 3 letters each, "The War." And they talked about it as this great dividing line in their lives. There was before the war, there was during the war, and there was just after the war. And they talked about it as though it's almost like, "Well, that was when the Black Plague was walking among us," you know? For a big chunk of their lives, they had no idea where they were going to be in another 6 months. They had no idea how long the war was going to last. That's one big aspect of it. The other part of it, too, is— is that the bad guys lost. Yeah. At the end of the day, we just— Yeah. We were able to somehow, unfortunately, necessarily kick the stuffing out of them. And when bad guys lose something, it's that— what is that power of myth of— is it Bill Moyers? You know, you wrote, "The world was on a quest to defeat people that were undeniably evil." The governments of those places and many of the populace. So I keep getting drawn back to that.

And again, I will say that from a storytelling perspective. Our present day is just so— there is no shame left anymore. Truth seems to be a malleable, viscous kind of like—

It's a distant memory truth, it seems like. And actually, you know what, Tom? Sean actually, within the last 6 months, I don't know if you remember, we were talking about all the movies you've done, the war movies, and Tom said, "Do you think he'll ever make a movie about TikTok?" And, you know, because something that he thinks about— for Sean and Scotty, there's before TikTok and then after TikTok.

Well, you know, if I did, it would only be about 45 seconds long. How long, how long is your average TikTok?

And then I won't be able to wait for the sequel.

Tom, I, I know that, I know that you would, you'd never compare your experience shooting Saving Private Ryan to those who actually fought, uh, uh, you know, in all of that and during all that. But was there ever a moment— I'm sure, I bet there was a moments while you were shooting that where you got close to the feeling, maybe, of what it might have been like? I mean, certainly the product, the result of that film, took me there, or as close as I think I could get. But I would imagine there were a few moments there where it just— Based on the quality of the production, they managed to create some environments for you there, and your own process of trying to get into the character and the realism of it, where you were kind of struck a bit by, what these guys must have gone through?

Well, yeah, but at the same— It was all fake, you know. Sure, but I mean, you gotta take that into account. But when we were on the beach there in County Wexford in Ireland, which is where we shot the Omaha Beach sequences—

Oh, so it wasn't right there? Well, it was actually—

It was one of the places where they rehearsed some of it.

So that's one aspect of it. How far was base camp from the beach?

Oh, it was way— Well, I was gonna incorporate that into this anecdote.

Sorry. So shut—

I know. Just light up another nail, Will, and take that pause. We're there with 500 members of the Irish, actual members of the Irish Army. There is landing craft everywhere, and we're all storming the beaches. And the special effects crew had laid out these tiny little flags on the beach where they had set up air mortars and squibs. Little explosive devices. Things to avoid. Yeah. And they actually said, you know, "Aye, be careful, eh, Ron, 'cause, you know, this is gonna become— this is like a projectile. It'll come out of the ground very fast. So if you can, try to avoid where the flags are." I said, "You know, I think I got that." Then they removed all the flags and we couldn't see anything. Oh my gosh. So we were just stumbling all over. Wanri Bwani. So there's all of that, and it's dressed the way it is. And when you— there were always 4 or 5 cameras going. And once the shot began, and you're wet, and you're cold, and you're coming up, and, uh, out of the corner of one eye, you see a guy catch on fire. And out of the corner of the other eye, you see a guy blown 40 feet into the air.

And he loses a leg in the process. Literally, we had, you know, amputee stunt people. Oh my God, then they were amputated before you shot. They were amputated before.

Thank God, just to clarify.

And even though there's harnesses and there's wires and whatnot, machine guns are going off all around you and explosions are happening like crazy. And it goes on for the better part of, you know, 2 or 3 or 4 minutes. And, um, there was a, there was a degree of sort of like odd, uh, fake, and yet at the same time terror that was going on. Yeah. So we, we were shooting down there all morning long. I'm going to say about on Maybe the second day of shooting, 'cause the first day of shooting was spent in the boats themselves. Wow. And I climbed up the steps to the bluff. They had put in these wooden steps so we could get up to the base camp. Will? Mm-hmm. Sure.

That's where catering and craft services—

Not far as the crow flies, but it was awfully high. It was probably about 600, 700 feet up the bluffs. And I went back and I found the other guys in the unit who I would be meeting when we— got up to the shale, which was the defilade that was at the top of the beach. That's where I would come across Barry Pepper and Eddie Burns and Vin Diesel and the other guys. And they were still hanging around outside the trailers the way actors do. Sure. And I was wet and I was sandy and I was near death from the amount of noise that had gone on. And I told the guys, I said, You guys better hold on to your hats, 'cause it's really wild down there. You are not going to— I mean, when you see a guy catch on fire out of the corner of your eyes, you're kind of— And no one said, you know—

Right, and no one's prepped you.

No one has said there's gonna be a guy caught on fire on this side. And that's it. All you were— It was an interesting kind of panic.

You know what's interesting? And this is kind of folding back to what you were saying earlier. One of the reasons that— What I love about that movie, and I love that movie, Tom. So much. I'm not embarrassed to say.

I love it so much, and I've seen it a lot of times.

And one of the things I really love about it, and you kind of touched on this whole idea of—

Can't wait for the musical version?

No. '97, by the way. 1997. Which is insane.

That's when it came out. Wow.

It seems like 2 years ago. But you had that moment where your character is a schoolteacher, I think. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. We decided that at some point. But the idea that it doesn't matter what he is. He's just a regular— This is what the thing of this— particularly this war. There was the Great War, which they referred to World War I as, but then there was the war, this war, World War II. And he was a guy who was called to do something extraordinary. He wasn't a guy who was born to be a military officer. He wasn't a guy who was born to be a killer. He was a guy who had to go because that's what he had to do. And people came in, in this moment when the entire world was at war, and did extraordinary things. And I always loved that about it. And I think that, for me, it really captured what it is that sort of makes me have such— it's weird to have, say, have reverence for the war, but you have reverence for the bravery and what people did that were extraordinary things.

Yeah, you actually want to make an anti-war movie at the same time that you're making a war movie. Right. Let me tell you a story. I was 18 years old, I think, and I was a bellman at the Royal Hotel in Oakland, California. And we had a guy who ran his own dry cleaning service, would come and collect the clothes and take them away and then deliver the clean clothes. And he was always coming with, you know, dozens and dozens of shirts and pants that had been dry cleaned. And I was working there one summer and he was gone for 2 weeks. I'm gonna say his name was Mike. I can't remember what his name was. But Mike was gone for 2 weeks and somebody else came in every day. And after 2 weeks, it was in June, after 2 weeks he came back from his vacation. I said, "Oh, hey, Mike. Where were you these last 2—" "Oh, no, I take a vacation every June." I said, "Oh, oh. Do you go camping?" He said, "No, no, no. I get together with some of my old buddies." I said, "Oh, oh. Where did you go?" "Well, this year we went back to this place that we had visited back when we were kids." I said, "Oh, oh, where was that?" He said, "It's in the north of France." He was a paratrooper.

He was in the 82nd Airborne. Wow. This guy is now— This is 1974. So go back 40 years. So he's in his 50s. And what he's telling me is that when he was in his 20s, he jumped into Normandy on D-Day, and he was a paratrooper. And now he's a guy delivering his dry cleaning for the hotel. I felt stupid and small. But also, he was an example of that adult, that caregiver that was part of daily life that, you know, that— He didn't know if he was gonna make it back. And he went— Oh, he said, and we go back, he said this. He said, "We go back to visit the buddies that didn't make it home." Mm-hmm. So they're visiting the— they're visiting the cemeteries that are in— So look, that's a generation. It was a— it was a time that was loaded with all sorts of problems that, of course, we're still dealing with right now. But you can't take away the fact that these were young guys who were asked to go off and liberate the world from really, really bad people.

And they did it. So, yeah, my grandfather— I just— I'll leave it at this. My grandfather, who passed almost, almost 12 years ago, uh, who I was really close with and, uh, loved dearly. He— I remember him telling me, uh, he worked with, uh, he was in the Canadian Army, but he was attached to the Royal Air Force, and he planned bombing sorties. And they were stationed at various airfields as they would move across, as they, you know, after, uh, June '44. Yeah. And he said, one morning we wake up and there was constantly planes taking off and landing and stuff, and they were right And he said one morning, his tent— the guy who he shared a tent with woke up, came out of the tent and walked into a propeller of a plane in the dark. And I said— and he told me— he didn't tell me this until I was about 18, of course. And I said, well, what did you do? And he said— and he wasn't joking. He said, well, I got a new tentmate. And I was like, wow. And he was just like, that's the way it went.

We had to keep going. There was— what can you do?

I don't want to go into a place I was— that's too much of a bummer of a story. Sad story.

True story. It's a very sad—

anyway, I think a perfect segue would be Happy Days, right? Sure, let's go. Let's talk about Happy Days. Let's go to Happy Days. In order to make Saving Private Ryan happen, or any of the other incredible movies that you have been—

You're IMDb reading sons of bitches.

How dare you? This is pure Wikipedia.

How dare you come after Wikipedia?

So, um, so had you not booked that episode on Happy Days— Hey! —would you have not met Ron Howard, and things— we would not have been gifted the highlight—

I did not meet Ron Howard on Happy Days. Ron had left the series by then. What I— the guys I met were Lowell Ganz and Babalu Mandel, who were the staff writers on Happy Days, who wrote the, um, the part, uh, who wrote Splash, the screenplay of Splash. And Bronn was directing, and they said, "Hey, you may wanna— Hey, take a look at that guy who got fired from Bosom Buddies." You know, Bosom Buddies was canceled. Something that Sean is going to experience one of these days.

Yeah. Don't worry, Sean's canceled two programs I've been on, so keep going.

And we will be right back.

And now, back to the show. Tom, would you agree that the routine of a sitcom actor is the best job in show business? Do you miss it still to this day?

Well, it is kind of a skate. It's a great hang, I'll tell you that. Because look, you either shoot— you rehearse Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, camera block Thursday, shoot Friday. Right. Or you rehearse Thursday, Friday, Monday, camera block Tuesday, shoot Wednesday. Isn't that kind of like the—

Yeah, that second one shoots Tuesday. Yes, you'd start on Wednesday.

What you're saying is 5 days of the week.

Yeah. Unless you're working with Jimmy Burrows, and then you can take the first day off of rehearsal, and it really becomes a 4-day work week, It's only 3 weeks a month, so it's 12 working days a month.

These are really top secret things, man. You should never let the civilians hear it.

What are you doing? Why are you blowing it?

And it's 6 hours a day.

Now everybody's gonna want to be in showbiz.

There's food, there's craft service. Climate control. You get a lot of breaks, you know. It is an awfully, awfully fun day. When we did Booz 'n' Buddies, Peter Scalia and I, my dear old pal.

One of the great shows.

We actually shot that show on video. Well, not on the film cameras. Film cameras in those days, that was pretty much a bunt. Camera blocking day was just kind of like your stand-in did it. But we had 4 video cameras, and we had to do the entire camera blocking day ourselves on camera, because they did a line cut, you know? Camera 3, and tighten up on 4. And 4, let's come back. Let's come back to 2. And 2. You had to be there for that. So you did— you worked a long day, and you did every— line of that week's script over and over again. And he and I just started goofing around so much that that's where we first got— We got yelled at a couple of times. You know, the director up in the booth, you know, he'd come in over that top voice of God. Hey, guys, listen, we're working really hard up here. Could you guys just kind of stick to the lines? Otherwise, we can't get the line cut in. We're trying— Check the tally lights on camera 3, Tom. When that comes on, you know, You speak French. And we didn't care.

We were just goofing around so much.

How excited were you when you got that show? What was that moment? So young Tom Hanks and you get Bosom Buddies. You booked it. It's your job. What was that?

Well, I couldn't believe it. Yeah. I was going to be on TV, you know? Right. And I was going to be able— up to that point as a Shakespearean actor, I'd made— I made less than $10,000 in a year for an entire year. And I was married and I had a kid. And, uh, geez, I made almost— I made that in 2 weeks on, uh, on Booz 'n' Buddy. So the financial reprieve was huge. When was the last time you did Shakespeare? I did Shakespeare, uh, 2 years ago here in Los Angeles. I played Falstaff, uh, yes, with the Shakespeare Center Los Angeles. Tom, tell that story.

It was, it was a video that I saw of you doing it. I can't remember. It was so funny. You pulled some guy out of the audience or something. What was it?

No, what happened was we had an— we had a medical emergency. A guy, a gentleman had a heart thing happen to him. And all of a sudden, the paramedics had to be called. We were doing it at the VA Center in the Japanese garden amongst the eucalyptus trees here in West Los Angeles. And, you know, a guy had some sort of seizure, and we had to call the EMTs. And then we had to take a break, and the house— not the house lights, the lights all came up. And it was going into— it ended up being about a 30-minute hold They took care of this gentleman. And we were all backstage saying, "Should we do something?" And then when I saw that people were leaving, I said, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no." I mean, it was a long— it was about close to a 3-hour show anyway. But when I saw people— I saw a lady pick up her purse and move toward the exit. And I came running out trying to scream, "Get back here! Take thee thy seat!" or something like that. Yeah, it was so funny.

But what was amazing was you were improvising in Shakespearean talk. That's what blew my mind. And it was super funny.

God, it was so great. It ended up being worthwhile and got enough people to stay. And I think I ridiculed enough people that made some lady cry, you know, but out of laughter, tears of joy.

What was the, you know, a splash, by the way, for your birthday years and years ago, I sent you a poster and I superimposed my face over Darryl Hannah's. And I said, the note said, you and I would have made a bigger splash But, um, Tom doesn't remember that.

Had we only been to Trailblazers then.

But, you know, what was that like? What was that feeling? Because as a kid, I was like, "Oh my God, every actor wanted to be Tom Hanks." Everybody, every actor wanted to be you. Really? Yeah.

Still to this day.

Because you were in all of this string of these massive comedy hits, right? And Big and Splash and just—

I didn't know what I was doing.

They asked me to be in a movie, so I said, "Yeah." But did you know when you started doing all those other movies, you started, you did Big and you did all these things and they were just like, I was just getting— did you know where you were going or what?

No, no, we have no idea. They just said no plan.

But you were playing the lead and you were incredibly charismatic and you were compelling on screen. Like, you were carrying things right out of the gate. Had you always had the confidence and the sort of the leadership qualities growing up?

I was just trying to remember the words. I was trying to speak loud enough to be heard.

But Tom, you are such a relief.

Listen, I'll I'll tell you the biggest lesson that I learned, and this was when I was at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, just a day's drive from where I am right now in Lakewood, Ohio. In which Dan Sullivan, who directed the Henry V— excuse me, Henry IV that I did as Falstaff, he directed that. In 1977, 7. Um, we were in rotating rep, and I was carrying a spear, and I was doing everything that I was told to do. And, uh, we had done— we had just opened a production of Hamlet the night before. It was in rotating rep, so you open the shows, uh, about every 2 weeks, and then you ran a different show every night. That's what repertory means. Sean. And so we had opened up Hamlet, and we all had a rehearsal the next day for Taming of the Shrew, which I played— doo doo doo— I played Grumio in Taming of the Shrew. And all of the Equity company, the professionals, were hungover, exhausted, 'cause they had all been out partying the night before, 'cause they had just opened Hamlet. So everybody was, like, somnambulistic and showing up at 10 o'clock.

And no one really knew their lines yet, and everybody was kind of, like, shuffling around. And Dan Sullivan yelled at everybody. He yelled at everybody. He said, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! We've got 3 weeks to get this show up on its feet, and you people are not even trying. For crying out loud, I can't do my job if you guys don't do your jobs. You guys have got to show up on time, you got to know your lines, and you've got to have an idea. I can't provide everything here. So let's take a break, mainline some coffee, Chew it if you have to, right out of the jar, but come back here with some friggin' energy.

Fuck, I would cast you in the Dan Sullivan movie right now, by the way. Sorry, just for what it's worth. That was incredible.

I remember, okay, so you look, we're all like 19, 18, 20. I was 20 years old then, and that lesson really super stuck to me. If professional actors who have 20 years in the biz, as they often said, 20 years in the biz, I've never been yelled at like that. That was an important lesson. So all through all of these gigs that I had, the hits, thank you, the misses, let's forget those. I always— that was always the thing that I thought the most important thing to do was show up on time, know your lines, and have an idea in your pocket. Yes, for sure. For sure. That's all I did through all of those. I didn't know anything.

So, Tom, when you went— when you were doing all the strings at the String of Comedies, back then, and do you remember what it felt like, or do you remember that pivot moment when all of a sudden maybe you got offered a script or you had that kind of dialog with your agent, or what happened where you switched over to more, let's say, important films or more dramatic films?

What a way to— what a question. It's so great. Thank you. Oh, I—

That was the era of you could make a movie for about $15 million, and if you just said it was a comedy, it seemed to do some brand of business. Whether it was actually funny or not, it didn't matter. Yeah, that was the time. Anybody who had said "action" and "cut" was trusted to direct a comedy movie, whether they were funny or not. And I made a ton of those, in which everybody came back, "Oh, the dailies were fantastic. I think the audience is gonna be standing on their feet at the end of this." So, Tracy, dailies are the thing you watch as you're filming the movie.

They get little clips. Yes, the rushes.

The Day Before stuff. And it doesn't matter if the movie was called Monkeys Make the Sun Go Down. Everybody would say, this is the funniest of all the movies. The Cows of Tumble Town. This is going to be a magnificent comedy. Because the good comedies that were made, you know, at the time, they all had— they were all with former Second City people, you know, and Saturday Night Live people. But there was this— you could take take a setting. This movie takes place on a ski slope. This movie takes place on a school bus. This movie takes place at a bachelor party, and it will be a comedy. And I made a— I made a billion of those like that because we're just kind of like doing imitations of other people's funny movies.

Yeah, but here's the thing, and I've said this about it, there are a few people out there who have this, and you are one of them, which is it doesn't matter what the movie was, you are always good. You're always— even, even doing— I, I joked about doing the Dan Sullivan, no matter what it is, you're committed, and, and that always kind of shines through. So I, I know that you talk about those, those misses. I mean, look, if it wasn't for bad movies, I, I wouldn't make any at all.

You wouldn't be sitting in your dad's library. Yeah, I wouldn't be my dad's—

living back at my folks' house in Toronto, but But, you know, it's true. And you always deliver in that way because I always get the impression watching you that, like, you don't care what the thing is. You're just doing your— I mean, you're part of it and you're in the thing, and who gives a shit what's up?

I don't want to discount some of the great stuff. I met great people. And we actually did some really funny stuff that really did work. Yes, absolutely.

It was always funny. Also known as classic Conan.

—classics. It was— Well, okay. You know, it's funny, you know, they— I don't think we ever had a movie— Splash was well-reviewed, and I don't think I had another decent review for about, I don't know, 6 or 7 films. But now you read about them, and they're cult classics, you know? What? They're a cult classic now? Geez. Didn't happen back in the day.

But once Philadelphia happened, I would imagine some of the scripts that were coming to you started to confuse you things for you and your team?

Well, I got older. You know, that's the other thing too. You know, there's a type of movie you can make in your late 20s. I turned— here's a story. I turned 27 the day we wrapped the motion picture Splash. It was the last day of shooting. We were in the Bahamas. We had a cake that was actually for the wrap. "Hey, let's celebrate the last day of shooting with a cake." And someone— I think with a tube of toothpaste added in icing on the cake, "Happy birthday, Tom," because they found out it was my birthday. So that was, you know, there's a movie that you make when you're 27 and in your early 30s and what have you. And, you know, I made a number of them, but you have to get older, you know? You can't— And I was able to age into— Garry Marshall gave me a great role with Jackie Gleason in a movie called Nothing in Common. David Seltzer wrote and directed with Sally Field Punchline, and then Big came along. That's great. But you get older, and so you start singing. I will tell you, I— Look, I'm not big on this kind of stuff, but there was one time I was sitting around with my crack showbiz expert who works for CAA, and he said to me, "What do you want to do?" And I said, you know, I think— Sounds exactly like Richard.

That's a great impersonation.

Richard loved it. There you go. Beautiful impersonation. "What do you want to do?" "Who are you?" And I said, "I want to play grown-ups. I want to play people who have been through bitter compromise." Because I was in my mid-30s by that point.

Compromise, Jason, is a thing that people do when you hear the other person's side, and then you go, "Okay, I'm willing to shift my position a little bit." And whatever, we'll talk about it later when Tom's gone. Sorry, Tom.

Wait, Tom, you know what I always wanted to ask you? And this is gonna be the dumbest question in the world. Guaranteed.

He is the host, ladies and gentlemen.

That's right. In Cast Away, Right? You— The volleyball is named Wilson. Now, you're married to the wonderful Rita Wilson, who I love, I adore, we all do. Was that by design? Because it could have been called Spalding.

Jesus. Could have been. It was written by Bill Broyles, and that— Oh, man. That movie took about 6 years to figure out. Bill Broyles and I started talking about it, and we weren't shooting it until 6 years later. And he came up with the idea of a volleyball, and he named it Wilson in honor of my beautiful bride. We've been married, it'll be 34 years next day. Hold for applause. Hold for applause. Yeah, good for you. So, no, it could have been— And I think we added the— There you go. Thank you.

Thank you, Will. Jesus Christ, that is a whole new level.

I'm like Fred. I'm like Fred on Stern.

This is— Now, you know, but that brings me to Finch. Finch seems like it's got some qualities. I mean, if I was a Hack student, if I was a studio executive, I'd say it's Castaway meets Martian. All movies are like that now.

All movies are like that now. Yeah. Aren't they all? Since you let you take a—

I suppose, yes.

This is On the Waterfront meets Pal Joey by way of Paw Patrol. Movies are all Paw Patrol.

But what you need is a relatable everyman that is empathetic, sympathetic, can alpha and beta inside a page. I mean, you are the man that could serve All things.

I came up through that era of which every genre movie was about somebody who could not be killed or defeated. You know, the cop that could not be filled. I'm with you. The fighter who never lost. And so I would, you know, a geeky guy with a big butt, a big nose, and a squeaky voice. Mm-hmm. I took all the jobs away from Will because—

By the way, I do have a big— I have what's called a pro-dump.

Um, well, you can't drive a spike with a tack hammer, as I have, uh, I've heard.

Wait, I just have a really quick Castaway story that we might cut out of this, but, um, and Tom, I think I told you this, but I was working on Will Grace with, with somebody who worked on the show, and we went after, uh, to his house after a taping one night, and we got super, super, super stoned.

And Will knows this won't be cut.

Yeah, we had super, super, super stoned, and he, he said, look, I got a copy of Castaway, I got the DVD, let's fast forward it to the plane crash because the effects So crazy. Let's get totally high and watch. Like, how do they do that, right? And so we, um, so he just moved in this house. It was this brand new equipment, and we're— and I'm sitting in the back of his screening room, and he's up front. He just moved into this crazy house. It's gorgeous. And he had no idea how his own equipment worked. And so I'm sitting in the back seat, and he can't get the DVD to play. And I said, uh, oh no, that's— is that a Sony? Totally high out of my mind. I go, is that a Sony? He goes, "Yeah." I go, "Oh, they're voice-activated. Those are the new ones. You don't even know what you have. You have to speak the name of the movie into the machine after you put it in." He goes, "What are you talking about?" I go, "Just listen to me. You have to say the name of the movie as you put it into the DVD player." He's like, "Are you serious?" I go, "100%.

I just read about these." So he turns back to the machine with his back to me, and he goes, "Cast Away." And it didn't play, and he waited a beat, and then he did it again. He goes, "Cast Away." And I turned behind me. I was— I couldn't breathe. I was laughing so hard.

It's one of my— Bob Zemeckis on that, he never cuts to the outside of the plane. That's one of the reasons why that plane crash is as good. It's just from the perspective of inside the plane. No "I am God" kind of stuff. That's Bob.

Now, Tom, with all of your incredible set experience, was that what drew you? Was it part of what drew you you to the director's chair, to just, just, just the, the effort to sort of streamline things because you knew probably more than a lot of the directors you may have been working with?

No, I think directing in that becomes sort of a bit of an ego thing because, um, you, you become convinced that you know more than you actually do. But Jason, seriously, yeah, but then you try it and you're like, oh my God, this is hard. I believe every actor should I think every director should have to act. I think we should all be writing and producing, 'cause you find out how hard it is to do that other job. From an actor's perspective, it's like, you know, you got somebody saying, "Uh, that was pretty good. Try it again." And you want to say to him, "Do you realize I'm on a horse, weeping because my dog died, and I'm trying to remember 6 pages of dialog at the same— Do you realize it's a little harder to do that?" than it is, "Meh, let's try it again." That, along with the same thing of an actor saying, "Hey, are we gonna shoot this or what? Are we shooting or what?" Right. You have to realize that everybody has 9 million things going on inside their head. And also, well, look, we're all storytellers. At some point, we can have a sense of what might fit into our mouths a little bit better and maybe some options.

It goes back to the thing Dan Sullivan always said, which, "Have an idea in your pocket." pocket, you know, have something that you can come out and say, this isn't on the page, but let me, let me show you something else here.

So since you have directed, when you do come to the set as an actor with an idea in your pocket, are you sensitive to that there might actually be a, a plan in place that that director and that crew has been working on for weeks, and that your idea might, might, might disassemble the house of cards?

There might not be room for it. So then you try it once and they say, don't do that. And so, and then you don't I'll do it. You know, it's pretty—

pretty relatively easy stuff. Is that desire to direct still burning in you, or—

I can't say that I have the instinctive powers of being a director. As an actor, I think I know what I want to do. I read it, and I think, "Oh, I know what direction I'll go to." Directing is a— Directing requires a fidelity and a patience and an ability to communicate that— After I've done it for the—

I've directed 2 feature films.

Directed a number of episodes of the miniseries that we've done, and I like those because I wrote them, or I wrote on them at the same time. But I think directors more so than myself as an actor, they're born into it. You know, you have to think it's the greatest job in the world. Yeah.

And oftentimes it's not. Yeah. Do you enjoy the producing part of it all with what you guys are doing?

I don't really produce.

But you guys churn out— It's really—

You shouldn't slough over it. It's the alliances that I make with other people that really do all the work.

But the amount of, uh— You're incredibly prolific as a producer. You and Gary and Platonia. I mean, it's— You've employed an incredible amount of people. You've put a lot of product out there. That's not easy, and that's incredibly admirable.

Well, I'm very lucky because we have extremely good people, and we do this, you know, we have a kind of like a clubhouse office where we lean in each other's doorway and say, "You know, is this really a feature film, guys? I'm not so sure it's a feature film. Shouldn't it be like a 12-part miniseries instead so we can really examine the theme?" And then you make nothing but a ton of alliances. But here's— I'm not a producer because this is what producers do every day. They get on the phone and they try to convince somebody to do something they do not want to do. Right. Or— They tell somebody on the phone that there's no way that they are going to do what that person on the phone really wants. That's pretty much it. It's that dichotomy. I always just say, "Sure," no matter what they're saying. Right. We'll be right back.

And now, back to the show.

Let me ask you, what's your feeling about this transition that we're all in into a bit more of a streaming element married with, you know, box office, you know, theatrical, you know, going to the theater, paying some money for a ticket versus having it at home. Do you— What is your opinion on that as somebody in the business and then also as somebody who is a viewer? Is it— Do you like the fact that there is less pressure now, maybe, with not having to open on the weekend because it's streaming?

Do you think about that? Well, that's a pressure that doesn't come upon the actor, 'cause, look, movies are always binary. They're either double zero or zero. One. They either work or they do not work. And if they don't work, there's no amount of marketing or interviews that you can do on podcasts in order to— in order to change the zeitgeist. The pressure remains absolute. The pressure is the speed of light in order to make a great story. The audience, I think, if I can pontificate just a little bit here, doesn't care where they see it. The business does. The marketing, the producers, and the studios, and the grand entertainment industrial complex, you know, um, they would, you know, they would like things to be exactly as they were. But we have a business that is forever changing. You know, back in 1980, when you guys were still in junior high school, uh, and, uh, the concept of home video was just beginning— here's a story that goes back a long way. When we were— the first year that Peter and I were in Busan buddies, a VHS tape machine, a player at home, cost about $4,000.

Yeah. Wow. Wow. And the only people that had them were incredibly wealthy, rich people. 3/4-inch, weren't they? Well, by that time, VHS was just beginning. And in a neighborhood, maybe a guy named Doug would open up Doug's Video Rental Shop. Shope. S-H-O-P-P-E. Old-timey video shop. And on one side of the rental space would be VHS tapes, and on the other side would be a smaller collection of Beta, Sony Betamax. And eventually Beta went away, and it was all just VHS. And by the time— I think the next year, VHS machines were only like $1,800. And then everybody was renting. And the concept that you could— It was great, of course, to be able to record shows, those, uh, after you went through this arcane kind of like process of on/off recording timing. But the bigger thing was is that if you had kids and you had a VHS of Dumbo, you know, they would get up in the morning on their own and put in, put in Dumbo, and you didn't have to get up. This was huge. And the— here we are in 2021, and the industry is going through something something akin to that change because guess what?

As Gary Getzman, my partner at Playtone, said, "You know, sitting at home and watching something on your TV is not that bad." Right, right, right.

It's all good. Tom, you said to me years ago, you said, "You know what, Sean, the business is always changing, and you have to adapt and change with it." Not as an actor or the craft of creating things, just you have to keep an open mind and go with the flow of it. Otherwise, why? And if you fight it, just dead in the water.

But why didn't you take that advice? Why didn't you do it?

Yeah, what happened there, Sean? Because now you're reduced to hosting the Heartless Podcast. Is it Heartless? It's Heartless, yeah. Or Smartless?

You're known as Dumbo, the host of Heartless.

We were very lucky. We were very lucky at Playtone because one of our first deals was at HBO, and this was old-school HBO, you know, no commercials. You could say anything you wanted to. There was no language. There was no— and at that point, HBO, doing a series or a movie or a miniseries on HBO, That was the gold standard. Yeah, you had— seemed as though you had all the freedom in the world, and now you have even more of that, all the freedom in the world. But it still comes down to this very basic requirement: you've got to be putting out an awfully good product, otherwise it will disappear into the mist like many of my early films. Thanks, guys. No, no, no, no.

But how have you not— I'm surprised because they— it seems like they've tried to gobble up everybody. How have not, uh, has— when did Marvel call you and say, Tom, we need you to, to play, you know, Dr. Universe, and, you know, uh, we need you to do 12 films and you have to play Dr. Universe? Did that ever happen?

Because here's the problem. I— first of all, they've never called me once. I can't believe that. No, no, never. Uh, and I think that if one of these days they will and they'll say, is there any way you would consider playing playing the Secretary of Defense. Yeah, you're right. A guy, a guy who comes and says, "Please help us, Ultraman. We can't, we can't survive." Well, I'd be one of those guys. Right, right. I don't get to play the punk kung fu chick.

But God bless you because you still make the kinds of films you have continued in an era where most features are, you know, the feature film market is dominated by these huge— Some of those are great.

Some of those are a blast.

No, I'm saying they're great and I have a lot of friends who do them. Well, they're not all great, but some of them Really? I said some, I said some, but some of them are good. And I— we all have friends who we adore and who are super talented who make those. I'm not saying that, but there is, it seems like, a shrinking market for films that stand on their own because it's a great story and has a great cast. And you seem to be one of those people. You're in a very unique position that you are still making those films, which I think is awesome. We, we chatted We chastised J.J. Abrams. We were like, "Go and make some comedies, J.J." You know, we were giving him shit. 'Cause he wants to.

But you know, it's because, Tom, because you are us, and you have maintained being us. You, as famous and as successful as you have become for as long as you have been, you have still stayed very grounded, it seems, and normal. And I would imagine that that is just something you're stuck with from when you were a little kid, and you've probably got a couple of parents to thank for that, I would imagine.

Imagine? Uh, my parents divorced when I was 5 years old, guys.

Way to go, Jason. Way to fucking go.

This is why I'm not getting the nominations. This is where Sean really does his research. He would know that. Yeah, Tom, I don't know this.

What are you— what did your— what did your folks think about you getting into, uh, the biz-dustry, as I call it?

You know, um, I started doing it for fun in high school because I can't— couldn't believe that you could go and do plays in high school and get credit for it. You know, this is school. That's— I remember specifically I was specifically thinking that the first time I walked into a drama class. And I did it because some friends of mine from junior high had been in the plays, and I just said, "What? I can come to school and do this? Well, this is screwing around, man.

This is goofing off in class." I felt the exact same way. I was like, "Oh my God, everybody's just laughing.

This is great." And both my dad, who— and eventually my mom, 'cause we lived in different places. When my mom came and saw me and stuff, they just thought, "Well, this is just wonderful." You know?

"Look what Tommy found." Sean, you've talked about that. You just said it. You had that same thing, right, where you were like, "This is amazing. This is so much fun, and I can't believe I get to do this at 5, 6, 7, 8." And then—

Da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, and then— Hit it, Sean. Hey, now Sean, when you did— You did "Promises, Promises" on Broadway.

Thank you, everybody. Applause for the cast.

He's never brought it up. That's weird.

He's never mentioned it. And it was a big hit. And you said something to me, because Sean and I see each other— Socially.

You know, off and on. Not just on this podcast.

So after you had done Promises, Promises, and it was huge because you played the piano on stage and you did all this stuff. It was a big Broadway hit, right? A few, a number of years ago. And I said, are you going to do it again? Do you have the desire to get up and do another Broadway show? And you said something that was— I swear to God, the only person I heard make the same sort of reference. Are you ready for this? I read it as a quote from Laurence Olivier. Okay. You said, "I'm not sure I have the fire in the belly." Yes, that's good. In order to get up and do 8 performances or something like that. And I remember when Laurence Olivier was older and he was always asked, "Well, will you ever get up at the National again, what have you?" And he says, "No, because it requires a fire." a stronger heart. And he wasn't talking about medically, he was talking about all the effort that goes in, the fire in the belly.

Well, Sean, we— because you would do 8 shows a week. I remember you talked— but you've— we've talked a lot about Promises, Promises, but you said some of the same. You were like, I do it. You did it for 9 months or a year? How long did you do it for? A year. A year. A year. Remember you saying you— similar thing that you said to Tom, you said the same thing. I said, would you do it again? And you said, I don't I don't know if I have it in me. Yeah. 5, 6, 7, 8.

And then you just went right in. No, no, it's true, Tom. You know, 'cause— and I relayed that to you about the constant work ethic you have to jump from movie to movie to movie to movie over these decades. And they're all great. And your work, like Jason said, it's always, always fantastic. You're always committed. You're always in it. And I switched that question back to you about filmmaking is, do you still have the fire in the belly to travel and get up at 5 and stay in this hotel and that hotel? And you said, yeah, because it's what I love to do. And— Yeah, I do. Yeah.

There's no other way of putting it. There is— look, it's more fun than fun. That was something that I learned a long time ago before I got my job at the Great Lakes Shipwreck. Expert says, work in the theater is more fun than fun. And I thought, well, yeah, this is a, this is a great way to, to, to spend your day. It's not just a lifestyle or, you know, life's work. It's a, it's a life. I love that.

And now listen, out of all of the, your entire repertoire, all of your credits, is there one movie—

ask you what is your favorite movie?

Jesus Christ. No, no, no. Is there one movie or experience that was extra special to you that will always stick in in your brain?

You know, I will say, look, yes, they all are in so many ways. Look, I've never had a rotten time making a movie. I've always come away from a movie saying, I can't believe they pay me to do this. That was, that was fantastic. Despite the discomforts and the 5 in the morning, a little harder at the age of 65, I guess. But the experience of making the movie That Thing You Do, I cast it with a bunch of friends. We had a great time. It was the beginning of the The Company that I formed.

It's so great. I love that movie.

With Gary Goetzman and everybody else down at Playtone. I could do that again and again and again. That was— Was that the first film you directed? That was the first— not the first directing gig I had, but it was the first feature film, yeah. And it was— it had music in it, and it was very personal because it was set in 1964, so it was— but, you know, every gig is magnificent. The ones that don't that maybe disappoint a little bit are the ones where you don't get to spend enough time doing it. Like, I was just— I just did 2 weeks with Wes Anderson in Spain with the Wes Anderson Repertory Company, and that was fantastic. And I was bummed out. I said, "Oh, we gotta leave. We've shot out my role. I gotta go now.

I'd like to linger for a little bit." I just got to do a couple days with our buddy Taika Waititi, and it was just the greatest experience. And then it was like, It was just— we did a show for HBO, and then I just did his movie, and I was like, these were the— it was like the greatest, most fun month. And then I'm like, "Oh, and it's over." Yeah. And that was— I just want to go and play with that gang.

Can't— don't we get to have that 90-day experience here off somewhere, you know, pounding something out and getting up and living?

Well, you've given us not 90 days, but a solid hour of your very, very valuable time. Yes, thank you so much, Jon. Thank you on behalf of these two fellow SmartList staffers. Folks, uh, as well as everyone in America and the world for providing us, uh, all these little worlds that, that you have created that we all get to live in. And they've all—

is there a podcast award for second bananas or third bananas that you, Jason, and I will be up for?

Will and I are gonna battle for that one.

You have to ask questions like, what's your favorite movie?

Yeah, no, you've got a— you've got a monopoly on that.

You got it all.

I would say that in Canada, this is known as Will Arnett's Smartless.

That's true, it's true. Wait, what?

Number one podcast in Canada.

I think I just got voted Canada's favorite son. I'm not sure, but I'm putting it out there in case anybody wants to latch on to that and start making that a thing. I'm happy to.

Well, it's a delight talking to you guys.

You too, Tom.

Thank you for saying yes. Tom, I just— words don't express how I feel. I'm such a very kind Very kind guys.

And listen, good luck on the—

is there a name for this award yet? It's the iHeartRadio Awards. The iHeartRadio Awards. It might be called the Aorta.

Who are you up against? That would be a big question there.

Oh, that's a great question.

Hardcore History, maybe? You're up against Hardcore History?

Yeah, sure. Mm-hmm. Fingers crossed.

It's so great to see you.

Thanks, Tom, very much. Thanks so much.

Good to see you guys. Hope to— we'll hang at all those places that people like us end up at. Yeah. For sure. All right, take care, guys.

Bye. Thank you. All right, buddy. Love to you. Bye-bye. Bye, Tom. I think he's gonna— I think he's gonna make it. That guy's got some charisma.

Jason, let me just say this. You've been complaining for a couple of— you've been saying, man, great guest you got, and then you just decided you pulled out at one of these, uh, what I now refer to is— because I don't use this word— you as the, the topper card. I'm gonna now call it the topper card.

He's, he's, he's that. He's, he's a blue chip, that one right there.

Oh man, what a delight.

I mean, He does have that thing, and I kept trying to figure out a way to ask him this without him deflecting, as he does so well, so humbly. And I just kind of bailed on it 'cause I knew he just wouldn't. Like, he's just got that— He is us. He is completely personable and authentic. He is every bit a leader that you'd want him to be, but he doesn't seem like he's too arrogant or cocky to— I don't know.

How does he— You mean us as an audience? Audience, not us three.

Yes. Like, he's just like— he's the guy you want to follow and are never annoyed, you know, watching him. Or I don't know, it's, it's been so consistent. Yeah. I don't see myself as an everyman. Oh no, no, no, no, no.

I see myself— I'm special.

Yeah. Well, yeah.

Um, I'm like the boss of the everyman, you know. So when I'm there, when I see Tom come I'm like, it's great spending time with one of my employees.

I hope he keeps staying as prolific as he is. I mean, he's doing like, what, at least a film a year?

Same here. That's what I meant about the movies he makes. I love that he keeps making movies that are like— it just seems like not a lot of other people are making. And his new movie, which we talked on— what is it? The Finch? Yeah.

No, no, not The Finch. Just Finch. Finch. The bird. Yeah. Finch. It's on Apple. And it's basically—

when is it on Apple? When is it? It's not on Apple yet.

On now, first week in November. November 5th. First week, November 5th.

November 5th. Yeah. So, yeah, so he's doing this movie Finch, um, and the sequel is going to be The Finch, I heard.

Yeah, no, it's called Fincher. It's called Fincher. And David Fincher's directing it. Yeah, are you kidding, dude?

This is— showbiz is incredible.

I know, it's, it's— everything is aligned. Um, but it's about— it's him and a dog and a robot, and this is not the start of a joke, but like, could anybody pull off a high wire act like that? But they do walk into a bar.

They walk into a bar. Be fair. In fairness, they walk in. But I saw the trailer too with my almost 13-year-old, and we watched it and looked at each other.

We're like, "Yeah, I'll watch it." Absolutely. Yeah. And don't you feel like he's kind of like our ambassador? Not just for the business and not just for Hollywood, not just for Los Angeles, but like America too? Yes, absolutely. He's like quintessentially American. He's one of the few people we can both cite sides, if you will, can agree on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you mean?

Wait, what's the other side? I just meant like both— like, never mind. Everybody in America can agree on—

oh, those— yeah, like, LaShawn, we are not political.

Sorry. So please, what are you trying to do? You trying to lose your award? You trying to wade me into deep water and then you're gonna take me down like a crocodile and keep me under? Or alligator? Bye. God damn it. You can't fucking bail out like that. You can't bail yourself out. Yeah. You can't be saved by your own bell.

We've used every word that you could do with "bye." No, not at all.

No, but also, you were just trying to bail yourself out of a sinking ship, and you can't use "bye" as some kind of instrument to bail out your sinking ship.

Why not? I just did it.

Yeah, I guess you can. Sorry. There is no rule on that.

You're right. You can. But do you think that when he first moved Oh boy.

Oh no, sorry. Sean, let's hear it. Come on, go ahead.

One of the questions I did get to here was, uh, he was 1979, he, uh, made a move to New York City, right? Um, and he was trying to be an actor full-time. So I wonder if he was just trying to take a bite out of the apple.

A bite? A bite? I'm not confident with this. At the least, it would have been fine.

We were happy. I'm gonna, I'm gonna allow it.

Smartless.

Smartless. Smartless is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Bennett Park Barbacoa, Michael Grant Terry, and Rob Armjarff. Smart. Less.