Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show your home for open, honest and provocative conversations. Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show. OMG, you're just not going to believe what we have to be today. Like, looking forward to this. My whole life. My whole life.

We have got Peter Ostrum and Julie Dawn Cole, better known as Charlie Bucket and Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Now, let me tell you, months ago I was sitting down with my team and they were saying, what's your dream list like? Who are your dream guests? You know, and for a long time, it was Bashar al Assad. It's so weird because I really think I would do a good interview of him. But in on a lighter note, it was these two.

I idolized them. I grew up. Breathing this movie, there is no movie that compares to this one when it comes to importance in my own life and I threw it out there, you know, I don't know.

It's like, is that going to work on a popular people? Listen to that. I think they will. I think it's a cult hit. People will feel my love for it and understand why. I think it has a larger cultural significance. But I don't know that a couple of weeks later, my executive producer, Steve Krakauer, sends me the update and the guest bookings. And it's like, OK, on this date, we have this person on that date.

We have another person on this date. We have Peter and Julie Dunkel.

I'm like, but what's he just threw it out there?

Like, it wasn't even a thing because we don't know each other well enough yet for him to understand how life changing that would be for me. And I have been looking forward to it every day.

My kids and I talk about it every day. My husband Doug and I talk about it, have talked about it every day up until this day of of taping the show. So just a word on this movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, why it means so much to me. There are many reasons and I'm going to get into some of them with my guests. But first, we know where the virus came from. But do you know where your mask came from?

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Don't shut down Maska Dotcom MMC. I grew up watching this movie religiously every time I could. This is before the day of, like on demand. We could just watch it whenever you wanted. You had to work for it back in the 80s. And I did. And my connection to the film now is almost religious, like it's truly important to me. I will not watch this if I'm channel surfing and it's not it feels sacrilegious to me.

Like that's not the way this film ought to be treated for me, given my history with it. I want to preserve its specialness, its rarity. It's a magical journey. That's how it feels to me, and it's life lessons, which are what I believe has made it such an enduring hit that even those down on their luck could see their whole lives change with just one turn of good fortune. If they're kind. If they're loving. And if they don't give up on this beautiful world.

And so now, to quote Mr. Willy Wonka, some of my dreams become realities and some of my realities become dreams.

Without further ado, Peter Ostrum and Julie Dawn Cole. Oh, my God. Hello, Meghan. Oh, my God, I'm totally fine. I'm crying.

I am looking forward to this my whole life. Don't don't cry. Don't cry, Megan.

I know. I just turned 50 and you still have this effect on me. It's so crazy.

You know, it's I'm sure you get this all the time because the movie is so important to people like me. I know I'm not alone. I know there are huge fan clubs. And I.

I wonder what it's like to be on the receiving end of that kind of admiration. I start I'll start with you, Peter.

I guess as time goes on, I realize that the film did have an impact.

People will relate. The very first time they were in a movie theater, they saw Willy Wonka. And it usually has to do with significant other like their brother or their parents. But it has a special spot in in their memory. And I'm amazed of the impact that the film was made on on people's childhoods. That being said, I think Julian are both humbled by the the response that people still give us. And it's it's it's a great feeling.

We sort of call it the the Wonka effect. And you meet people and you're doing stuff and you may be talking to somebody and they're having a rotten day and maybe they're a little bit grumpy and grouchy and and then you happen to sort of Wonka comes up and the topic of conversation and you just see something happen.

And people thought it was like, oh my gosh. And so, yeah, we call it the bunker effect. It's very nice.

You know, the first of all, I'm so excited. I'm slightly nervous. I am absolutely thrilled that you said yes to coming on. I was terrified that you wouldn't like me and wouldn't want to talk to me. And I was going to be so heartbreaking.

Not a huge fan of you. You're nervous and I'm nervous. Stop it.

That that's too much for me. I I'm so honored to be having this conversation. It's just to be talking to two people who did such an amazing job and who have brought me and my family so many hours of enjoyment over the course of my life.

It really does mean something to me. And I you know, now I didn't know all the facts about the film. I'm not in the cult. I guess I maybe I'm in the cult, but I'm not an official fan club. I don't know, been preparing for this. I found out you guys have done like a retrospective or the cast. Watch the movie while commentating on it. There have been books. I looked at my assistant, Abby.

I'm like, it's as if you don't love me at all. How did I not know?

But it wasn't it wasn't a huge, huge hit when it first was released on June 30th. Nineteen seventy one by Paramount Pictures. Right.

I wouldn't call it a dud, but it was open to lukewarm reviews at best and then kind of quickly vanished and really wasn't picked up again until it was released on on, on video, on VHS. And then people kind of slowly kind of rediscovered it. So when was that? The eighties.

Yeah, it would be the eighties. We had a slightly later release in the UK. It was December here. It was a Christmas film release here, and it kind of came and went and disappeared within three or four weeks. If you remember back then, you know, movie theaters didn't have the multiplexes that we do now and movies came. And if they were successful, you know, they would sit in the movie theater for two or three months.

I don't think we were there for like three weeks and it disappeared and that was it. OK, well, not so. The reviews in the UK are no one said it's fun, but not very funny. Not one headline.

You've got the last laugh on that you.

That's when I so I was born in nineteen seventy so I didn't see it when it first came out, but that's when it came into my life in the eighties. And what I remember is my best friend Kelly McGuinness and I setting the alarm. She would sleep over, we'd set the alarm for 5:00 in the morning when it just happened it whenever it was playing on TV.

But no matter how early, how late we would set our alarms, we would sit with our popcorn and watch it together. And today it reminds me of that reminds me of my snowy winters in upstate New York with my family, with my best friend and a little bit of magic around every corner.

You know, it's like. Unexpected pleasures in visual delights and, you know, as as as you guys might say, a hefty dose of pure imagination and how extraordinary that you did not know that Charlie Bucket was a near neighbor of yours, also in upstate New York.

I know. Oh, my God.

I feel a kinship. When I learned, Peter, that you were living out just outside of Syracuse, New York, just north of Syracuse by Watertown. I was like it was meant to be we were meant to be close.

He's in my head. That's true.

But that's the clip of the movie, like the one that Walka doesn't really always make me cry, although pretty much every time I cry in one spot or another.

But the spot that gets me every time is when you guys walk into the chocolate room and and the the beginnings of the song, your imagination a little and you'll see into your imagination. And as you're playing that everybody is visualizing the green and the candy canes and the lollipops and the river and the purple jacket and skipping down the steps, everybody can see it.

That's right. What was it like to see it in person?

I mean, I realize it's not the experience we had watching it, but do you remember as kids walking into that chocolate room, the true story that all of us walked into the that set for the very first time when we took that very first take because Mel Stuart wanted it to be a surprise. All of us, except one person had not seen the great chocolate room, that person, Julie, who did not let her finish the story, but somehow she got she snuck in.

And so her expression wasn't quite as original as Paris and the nieces and Mychal's and myself.

I was not quite so authentic in my defense. I'd gone out earlier as it is while we were recording our songs, that we were on location before some of the others and hanging around for costume fittings and what have you. And I believe it was a golf. It was the set designers said, oh yeah, come in and have a look around as they were constructing the set. You do you want to see it? Well, of course I did.

So how exciting seeing this and that. And then our director, Mel Stuart, said he didn't want any of the kids to to see the set before it was a closed set. And that was that because he wanted our original reaction. I was scared and rather obedient, so I just kept quiet.

So you think you're looking at the other guy saying, I want to go in first and don't you dare stop me?

Yes, verruca always goes first. No one was going to mention anything that was going to mess with her.

So, OK, I know you've been asked these questions, but I've got to ask myself, could you eat anything in there now?

And so the short answer is no. So everything that we did eat that we actually put in our mouths was edible, but not obviously there was lots of material that was not edible.

How about those mushrooms you were eating, Julie? What is that? What was that cream on top?

Well, that that I had the the watermelon that I had to smash open on the rock, which I absolutely hated as a child. I didn't like chocolate and it was chocolate flavored things and I hated it. And it was a sort of cold, wet, slimy. It was disgusting. So smashing it. And I think they wanted me to smear it all over my face. And and I thought that was not very ladylike. And B, I thought this is going to make a hell of a mess with my hair and everything else.

So I was just sort of gently looking at it, kept saying, look like you're enjoying it. I'm not I'm not going to be. The other things like Denise still had the gummy bear that came down from the tree and they replaced the gummy bears ear, which was the piece that she bit. And that was the rest of the gummy bear was not edible. I mean, that would be a few pounds and that if it was a real one.

So, Peter, do you remember since it was your first time walking in there and seeing it and what your reaction was? I do.

And not only that, that, but every set that they produced, it was it was just fascinating. And of course, I had never made a film before. That was my first experience. But as quickly as it went up, it came down and you moved on to the next scene. I enjoyed that as much as of making the film, just the whole the process, the experience of watching everybody involved in production do their job for, you know, and for every two people in front of the camera.

You've got fifty people behind the camera that that if they don't do their job, nothing happens. They're they're as important as the people in front of the camera. So I enjoyed the whole process. And just listening to career imagination that that was just almost 50 years. Well, it was it was fifty years ago this fall. I was still Julie was probably well know. We were probably both still there. I think I got done December 12th, December 13th.

I think I had and I was I was heading back to the UK at this point.

Let's go back to when you were children and you were you were auditioning for this film. You you were living in Cleveland, right, Peter? Correct. And I had worked at the at the Cleveland Playhouse. And that was one of the theaters that the casting agency, Marion Dougherty, out of New York City decided to contact because of their they had a good reputation for having. Children's theater. Joel Grey, Margaret Hamilton, they got their start at the Cleveland Playhouse.

Margaret Hamilton being Wicked Witch of the West and Wizard of Oz. And then Joel Grey, at any rate, they contacted the playhouse and I guess I was in the right place at the right time. They gave me for the casting agency, asked if they had anybody that they might recommend and my name was given to them. And and at that point, we had no script. They sent a representative from New York out to Cleveland then. So this was like May of 1970.

I was just completing sixth grade. And we I just read from the book into the tape recorder. And she took a few, took a few Polaroid pictures and basically said, don't call us, we'll call you if we're interested. We'll take that back to Mel Stuart, our director, and Stan Margolese, our producer, and David Wolper. And then we'll we'll contact you if this goes any further. And they did contact me probably in July. And they had kind of given me well, no, I guess I did.

In July, I went to New York for an actual screen test and had to I am not a singer at all. And but I did have to sing.

I think I sang My Country Tis of Thee or something like that. And they just kind of shook their heads and said, don't worry, we're not going to use your voice anyway, which in the end they did, which was kind of fun. But they kept my my they my singing part was kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller as as time went on Gaubatz and carried the day or carried this song.

And I did tell me that when they told you you got the role, they did it with a golden ticket now. And so after that I went to summer camp and they basically said, you're still we're still interested in you. But Chala is really skinny. You've got to lose some weight. And I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't. I'm still skinny. But so I went to summer camp riding horses and hiking and climbing and doing all the things you do at summer camp, trying not to eat because I wanted to lose more weight.

And that's after it came back after camp. And actually I went to Chautauqua, New York, because that's where the Cleveland Playhouse had their summer theater and did I think I did the wilderness for them in August. And then it was shortly thereafter, probably around August 10th, that they actually called and said, you know, you're Charlie and you've got to be in Munich in ten days. It was a short period of time and off we went.

Meanwhile, Michael, who plays Augustus Gloop, was given exactly the opposite instruction to eat as much as humanly possible.

Exactly. Back to Peter and Julie just one second.

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That's Norten Dotcom Mark to save twenty five percent. Do it now. What about you, Julie Stewart, you were 12 as well when you got the part that Niira a week's age difference. I'm a week older and such as? OK, so, yes, the same age I'd gone to theatre school and the previous September I'd been at school for a while, a drama school in London. And, you know, when you're at theatre school, you have lots of auditions.

If you're lucky, you get some of them. So I had been in a production of Peter Pan in London over the Christmas period and my very first job, first ever audition and stepped on the stage and got that role, which was lovely. It's a tiny little part. It was lies of the Made in Peter Pan, but it was a production with Hayley Mills, who was my absolute idol as a child watching her in all those movies. I was just like, oh, my goodness, I'm on stage with Peggy Mills.

I so what? I used to have pictures of Hayley Mills on my bedroom wall. And there I was, my very first job working with us. So that was extraordinary. And there'd been a few other auditions for things that I wasn't getting close with any of them. And every time you would go for an audition, they would say, you know, what have you been in? Then I'd say nothing. You know, I'm a beginner. And they would say, thank you, goodbye.

So along came the auditions for Willy Wonka. And this point, I didn't even know what it was. I was just all the girls at the school were lined up in the whole, you know, real capital, cool stuff. Too tall, too small, too fat, too thin, too dark to show all of that. And then got shortlisted. We had a different casting director in the UK. I had Mary Selway. And so then I was shortlisted and come back, come back.

And then I began to find out what this movie was about. And they sent me out with the school bus driver to get a copy of the book. And I read the book overnight and thought, wow, this is just amazing. And I do. I still have that copy of the book, which I had all the cost side at the time. So I've still got that and read it and thinking, my goodness, this is just amazing.

This chocolate room and the illustrations, which hopefully will remember Quentin Blake's illustrations, which is so wonderful. And so when I went to audition the next day for the final penultimate, I think it was a test with Mel Stuart, the director and producer, Steve Mowgli's. I thought, right, you've got to get smart this time. And so when they asked me what movies I'd been in, I lied and they made a bunch of stuff and I said, Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry verruca.

Isn't that really? But I think I said, I've been in Oliver, which I hadn't. But I knew some of my school friends and a couple of other movies that just made things up and that we'll never find out. And we didn't have the European method, right?

I don't think that's method. Yes.

So that's I mean, obviously, verruca is the most fun part in the movie.

And like, I don't know, I was going to ask you, Peter, can I call you Pete?

Is Pete a thing?

Yeah, that's that's fine. That's dying. Dying. OK, so obviously everybody would like to play the verruca part at one point in their life. I want to ask you how fun it was before or after I tee up just a little sample of verruca for the audience.

Listen. The flaming chocolate bars from dawn to dusk last nights. Go, go, go, or you'll be out of here is. But let's let the first go find a golden ticket gets a bonus. They're not even trying. They don't want to find that jealous of me. How fun was that?

Well, it was it was a lot of fun. And it was just like we just when you think you're being as being and spoiled and bratty is like, no, take it up a notch and another notch. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Make them not just so disgusting.

Is that what they were telling you to do. So you did it and it wasn't nasty enough. So you had to find your deepest, inner, nastiest person.

Yeah, I had to channel my inner demons or whoever my archetype was, you know, just opened up. I would hope my mother would say, you know, I was well brought up and well behaved. And so being bratty like that just happened. It was a bit of a stretch. I would have been slapped if I behave like that.

So, of course.

Well, that's what I love about it, is it does show I mean, the whole film is about showing examples of bad behavior and where they will get you in life if life works out as it should. But Verruca is a perfect example of that because they really don't show her as a very sympathetic character in any single scene of the movie. She's she's just really right and awful like the whole time.

I don't think it's the thing that she's charmless, she's rude, she's nasty, she's pushy. You're quite right that she had not even thought about that making. There's not a single scene where she's got redeeming feature. So no. From outside the thing. Yeah, even outside the factory. I want to go in first. And she's just hideous, hideous. And she wants everything. She she wants a boat and she wants a balloon, but she wants to lick the wallpaper and have a small snobbery.

So what let's talk about this scene where she she gets done in where you go down, the educated etiquette educator.

What happened? What happened there? Did you really go down something?

What was underneath that little you know how old you are if you ask that question? Because that's the question that lots of the kids ask me. Where did you go to when you went down the chute? So I get asked that a lot. So if you're a child, I will say, well, luckily, the furnace wasn't lit. You know, it's every other day in reality, I landed on some cardboard boxes and some mattresses and they broke my fall with that.

Stop me bouncing back up. There is a little anecdote to that which I do tell that we had an assistant director. His name was Jack Rowe and his sons. One was Pete Stand, isn't that right? Bobby was just handed and the oldest son was an assistant on the movie. And he was probably about sixteen, I think, at the time. But he was rather cute and he was one of the guys who was there to break my fall and stop me bouncing back up.

Well, I was more worried about Bill looking up and getting a glance of my underwear as I fell down the chute. So next time you watch it, you might notice that my hands are kind of clamped to my side trying to hold my skirt down. That's what you think about when you're thirteen, of course, where I'm confused.

I read that you that you and Denise who played had both had crushes on Peter.

What we did, we did. But he's blushing now. I know he's blushing and he can't hear any of this. Go and talk about something else to five minutes. Yes, we did it. We both Denise and I had a little crush on Pete. He didn't know any of this at the time. So he was very innocent as it was anyway. You know, when we talk about a crush, it was like, whose turn was it to stand next to him?

And that was really the extent of it. But we will stay in the same hotel, the three of us. So I think we were particularly kind of gang that hung out. We were staying at the hotel, which Pete's father found for us just outside. It was a beautiful Bavarian style hotel and it had a river that ran down nearby. And the only thing, of course, that we were allowed to do it, I suppose we'd be allowed to do it now.

We used to go down to the river every night and skip stones. So Pete is the master bouncing stones on the river. And Denise and I would go down there and say, Oh, Pete, show me how to do it. And we had many a lesson, but we learnt nothing.

Meanwhile, they were both experts. They didn't need you at all. They just wanted to spend extra time with you.

I want to talk about that scene because I heard that you had a birthday celebration on the set, Julie, and that they gave you one of those golden eggs.

They did. They did. It was interesting bringing that back through the airplane on the way home. You know, have you anything to declare? Yes, a golden egg. But yes, it was my 13th birthday shot over a week. But the very last day, I believe, was my birthday. And I was singing Happy Birthday and then shut me down the chute. So, yes, it was a memorable 13th birthday, so I remember very well October the twenty six now since your birthday was a week later or earlier, did you know?

Yeah, later. Did you did you get an egg? Would you get.

I don't think so. What I do remember, I think for my birthday was going to October Fest. Yes. And that was that was great fun. And and that was 12 turning 13 October fest, drinking beer with fizzy drinks, fizzy lifting.

There's no physics. Right, exactly. Drinking beer with Frolich Becker are our dialogue coach. So from the film. So, you know, again, I go back to the film was great. But as a 12 year old kid moving to Munich, Germany, from Ohio, that was like icing on the cake. That that probably was the cake. That was just a remarkable experience. And Munich at that point, they were right in the middle of building all over the city, getting ready for the seventy two Olympics, which was really coming out, you know, for Germany and Munich.

And it was just an exciting time to be there and and to look back at that experience. It was like being like a foreign exchange student, you know, when you're 12 years old, it was the perfect setting, which is shoot because it did have an amorphous kind of look.

You weren't exactly sure what you were looking at. The even the cars seemed relatively nondescript. You could tell it was in America, but you didn't know exactly where it might be. There was that all, Mel Stewart? Because that was a great that was so well done. Just to keep it unclear where you were.

Well, I think it was they had just finished Wolper and and Mel Stewart. If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium just several months prior to that. So kind of their crew was in Europe. And I think that that probably had something to do with making the film there.

Mm hmm. So we were always told I have no idea how much of that is true, but if we had gone to California, there would have been more child labor laws and we couldn't have worked as hard. I have no idea. But that makes great a great story.

Good old Hollywood.

How about I mean, every every actor gets asked this question, but when you when you've starred in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, you really this is a serious one. Did you steal anything from the set?

You first. Did I know?

No, I didn't. I didn't. I was given I was given the clap stick. It is a very, very last scene. Mel Stuart. I asked him because I liked, you know, memorabilia, stuff like that. And I thought it would be a great thing to have. And he gave it to me. I had no idea that it wasn't the only slapstick that they used, but it was one it was used quite often.

I should have known Charlie Bucket doesn't steal that. This is like the whole point of the movie. Charlie is honest verruca.

But on the other hand, over on the other hand. Well, yes, in the clip that you played, you know, they were a stack of Wonka balls and these sorts of things, and they were just burning them afterwards. And I didn't have any family on set with me in Germany. So I wanted to take souvenirs home. And I said, can I take a couple of. Sure, help yourself. I think I was politely and pleased in the British accent does help sometimes.

And so, you know, yeah, I had a few bits and pieces, but I somehow ended up with an everlasting gobstopper and I don't know how that happened.

Really. Do you still have it?

No, I don't happen to really tell the rest of the story because you're forgiven for this.

Which bit you meaning so that the proceeds of that everlasting gobstopper went to your daughter?

Yes, it did seem that I did was to a man named Slug Worth and. Yeah, yeah, it might have been.

Yeah. And paid for her wedding dress. So there we go. Yeah. So I think how big was it.

Did it fit like in the palm of your hand. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You wouldn't want I mean it was just yeah it was cardboard, it was like the lid that you make coffee cups out of, you know, that kind of plastic stuff. I'd had it in the bottom of a trunk for years. I've even stood on it at one point and broke it and had it mended and that kind of thing. I think both you and I didn't we both have scrubbed balls. Because we also did the country thing and we were there for trick or treat, which we did around the studio, lots, all the different sets and having this great big bag full of candy of gummy bears and and all sorts of things and including some one balls, and they would chuck those in as well.

I ate most of them, but I. I can't believe that.

I can't believe you're just throwing out there that you went trick or treating on the set of Willy Wonka when you are 12, you peaked too early.

What did they compare? That's amazing.

The the one problem with it, with the ever lasting gobstopper was it didn't really look like it was going to fit in your mouth.

Well, now that all those sharp edges, it would be terrible, terrible. It just wouldn't work.

Now, I know that you get to ask this, but I want to ask you about the remake. To me, it was sacrilegious. I never saw it. I won't let my children see it. I don't think anything needed to be redone. I don't think it was a tribute. I think it was a glamour and it looked creepy. And while the the real Willy Wonka had an element of creep to it, just like a little little bit to bring you out here and there, it wasn't creepy in the way the Tim Burton remake was.

So what did you see the movie? I'll ask you, did you see the movie, the remake and what do you think I did?

And but it's a totally different film. It's Tinbergen. And and there were parts of it that I enjoyed. But it's you really can't compare the two. But just from a selfish point of view, it kind of really helped us because kids saw that film, but their parents said, no, no, no, you've got to see the original. And so it kind of they they dusted off again, brought us off the shelf. And now we were introduced to a whole the next generation and the third generation.

So in a strange way, it kind of helped us solve it. But I enjoyed it. But it's so different from from the original. What do you think, Julie?

Well, I agree because it was what I think we around about the 30th anniversary or something when that version came out. And I've been thinking, oh, that's sad, you know, but hey, we've had 30 years where we've been at the top of the tree with this, as it were, and that time hand over the baton to somebody else. But that didn't happen. Then people got very partisan and they got quite cross. And, you know, whereas I think we are a bit more philosophical about it, the fans and people like you are quite upset.

How dare they say it's like messing with your childhood memories? Don't do it totally. It's funny. It's interesting.

We're we're actually every Christmas, my family over the holiday will dress up as something, you know, whether it's I could be anything. And when we did The Incredibles, stuff like that. And I will disclose that this year, I'm breaking the surprise because but my kids hear this, they'll already know where we're going as the cast from Willy Wonka.

And I know my dad really well. I'm either going to be Grandpa Joe. I my daughter has to be verruca, Julie.

She has to like it. She'll never forgive me if she's not.

So I either have to be Denise or I have to be Grandpa Joe. It's either going to be violent with regard to Grandpa Joe. We'll figure it out.

But my you know, as as we're getting ready for it, I'm getting my assistant to help me find costumes that look like the original and not supercheap costumes. And she keeps forwarding me damn things from the remake.

I'm like, all right, Abby, first, I didn't know about the cast doing the voiceover of the film and I didn't get either. And now you send me in a gusterson with a red and white horizontal stripe. What what is going on now?

I love it. I love the fact that the dress that I wore, the red dress is iconic and it's been rocked by a few celebrities the year before last. Dolly Parton did it for Halloween. This year it was Sharon Osbourne. I got sent pictures of Sharon Osborne rocking it. And I love the fact that other other people are doing it. And it's kind of gone timeless. One time I thought, I've got a copy of the dress that I had made for something not because I want to wear it, I hasten to add, but it was made for a joke thing that I was doing.

And I was walking on the street and I had it over my arm and somebody just pointed at the dress and went over it. So it's such an iconic dress.

It's really extraordinary.

What did they say when they found out it was actually Veruca Salt they were talking to? Yeah, that.

Then they looked rather shaken and shocked and. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. You know, for five minutes.

So can I ask you about that to you obviously were not on camera. I've seen other interviews that you've done. I wouldn't say you guys are instantly recognizable as the children you were in the movie. Do people do you have to tell people it's me I.

I'm a little bit luckier because with make up on a following wind, sometimes you can get away with it, guys. You do look you do not look like a 12 year old boy anymore, do you?

Peter, do you give him the big reveal like, hey, do you ever see your see Willy Wonka? No, no, I don't reveal. I don't reveal. No, it does not.

Look, but I'm a shy guy and he just doesn't come up and my kids aren't impressed anymore either. So what I'm trying I think it was round about what you're talking about, the audio commentary that we did. And we had been doing a convention in New Jersey, Chilla four for Halloween, and Pete had gone into Greenwich Village to see the parade and what have you. And didn't you go got on the subway? Didn't you wait for four guys?

And he had a photo taken with a selfie and they had no idea who he was?

Oh, my God, they were good.

No, no, I don't understand this lack of vanity, but. But it's something you've lived because I. I know after that movie you are a hot ticket and you pissed out of Hollywood when you were probably the biggest child star going at the moment, or at least one of them.

Why it wasn't it? I enjoyed doing it, but it just it didn't seem like it was something that I was chosen to do for the rest of my life. And just, you know, other doors opened for me. And I kind of followed those paths. But I look back with just fond memories of this film. And again, so thankful of the happiness Philip brings to people like yourself and and other folks out there that still love seeing this film.

More with Peter and Julie in just one second. But first, I got a crash course into home title theft. And you better pray this thing never happens to you because it can ruin you financially. Here's how the crime happens.

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Now we want to quickly bring to you a feature we call asked and answered here on the Meghan Kelly Show, where we try to answer some listener questions that have been sent in in. Our executive producer Steve Krakauer has got the first half of the equation. What's going on, Steve? Yes, Megan, great questions coming in at questions at Devil May Care Media, Dotcom, those have been good. We've read some of those and part of the show, but we are also gathering listener questions at our social media accounts, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Meghan Kelly's show.

Follow us there, ask questions. We look at those as well. This one came to us from Jessica Rae on Instagram and she wants to know, when did you know that Doug was the one?

Hmm. That's a good question. You know, it wasn't like the lightning bolt, like. Oh, you know.

Exactly. I know exactly the one. But there were several moments when we were dating where it was like, oh, wow. Right. I think that's what you're looking for. The oh, well.

And I think probably the yes, I'm going to get married to this person is, I don't know, maybe more fictional than not, although there was kind of a moment.

So I'll tell you about it.

I think I've told the story in the show before, but maybe you didn't hear when Doug and I were dating a good long while into the relationship when he spent his first night at my townhouse that I had just recently bought. It was the first and only place I ever owned all by myself. And he was sitting there. He had on jeans and a white t shirt and his hair was all messed up. And he looked over at me and he said, By the way, if you don't want kids, you should tell me soon.

Oh, it's like I mean, that was a very dreamy moment for for the two of us there because, you know, it's like most guys are like, you know, they don't want to be pressured on the kid front.

And the women are typically like running after the men. I realize we're not all like this, but I have enough friends who are sort of like looking at their biological clocks, wondering enough guy friends who are like, oh, I don't want to marry somebody who's under that kind of a pressure cooker situation that I get the dynamic.

And when Doug and I were first dating, I don't know, I was thirty five and he was thirty five or four.

I can't remember. Anyway, the point is I was getting a little long in the tooth so somebody might have that concern about me, but it was actually kind of exactly the opposite. I went into the relationship thinking I'm not sure if I want kids. It's a whole longer story, but I just wasn't sure. But he looked at me, he said that, and I actually told my stepsister that night, I think I met the man I'm going to marry and I was right.

And then, you know, it's been so many moments thereafter, little little things, you know, big things and little things. The birth of our children. You look over at him and you see that face and you think, yes, I know the moments when he's like incredibly great with our kids. Those those just reinforce your love so much moments where he challenges me, where I try to get away with some intellectual sleight of hand and he won't allow it.

One thing he's very good at that I recommend to all you guys is if I'm feeling bad and I don't want to tell him what I'm mad about, you know, how we women are. He does not allow that. He comes right over and he's like, what's going on? And I'm like, nothing.

And nine of ten men I know are like, OK, good bye. If you let them off the hook, they're like, thank you.

Meanwhile, the woman just keeps steaming, like, screw him until she calms down. This is my own history anyway. So he will come over and he'll say, no, something's wrong. Let's talk about it. And he's very quick to say, like, this is what I'm feeling, you know, and I'm getting that from you. Right. So we get into it and we don't just always turn into an argument, but it's we communicate. And just knowing that he actually does want to know will sort of diffuse the situation right from the start.

Anyway, sorry to ramble on, but he definitely is the one. And it has been made clear to me in a series of moments over what now is I mean, we're going on going on our fifteenth year together and man, it's everything. So thank you for asking and I hope you have the same in your life. OK, don't forget, it's questions at Devil May Care Media, Dotcom. And now back to Peter and Julie.

I just love the fact that it's it plays a special part in so many people's lives that it's got them through tough times and people have told me stories of nine one one. You know, this movie got me through some dark times and I'm sure probably just in the recent months it's happened again. So it's it's sort of the the chicken soup of movies. Oh, that's so right.

Oh, I like that. I like the way you put that. I feel the same. I it's one of those things where whatever I'm feeling, if I, if I put it on, I always feel better. And it's to the point now where I just I will never watch it haphazardly. I won't you know, we have three young kids so we've got the movies in the car. That's not one of them. They know they're not allowed to watch that.

They know that's a special movie that we only watch on special occasions. And now we watch it on my birthday every year. And my sweet daughter, she's nine. She just said to me, because I just have my birthday in November, she just said to me, Mama, she's like, when I'm a grown up, I'm going to watch this every year. On your birthday, I think of you. Oh, oh.

Make an invite us to pay. When is your birthday?

November 18th. Oh, my daughter's the fifteenth.

I'll come to you.

Yes, I'll make you dinner and you can watch it here and people will think of what's great is there's countless stories like that that it just it's amazing. You know, you ask me if people recognize me and they don't. Although probably a year and a half ago, two years ago, I was to Syracuse Airport and I was working on my laptop doing work. And this guy was sitting down probably three feet from me. And he just came over to me and he goes, I just want to thank you for the film.

And and I just smiled and he smiled. He went back. It was just like, well, thanks. That's the kind of stuff that I like, man. You know, looking back, it was obviously well worth it.

Yeah. You did something that mattered and it doesn't cure cancer, doesn't help sick animals like I know you do now if you're a veterinarian.

But it did help a lot of people in small and profound ways. And I'm sure as an actor, you just never know. Because I know, Julie, you went on to have a career as an actress. You just never know whether you're working on a project that's going to turn into that. I'm sure you weren't thinking that.

Absolutely not. No, we were happy to be working and cast in something that was fun. So when you're 12, you're not thinking about the next 50 years, are you? And to be fair, even twenty five years ago, I'm thinking, well, that's interesting. Five years more maybe. And here we are. Fifty years, you know, am I going to be wheeled out of my Zimmer frame? I think.

Yeah.

Well you're both sixty three now, right. Is that both. Sixty three. Correct. Yeah. OK, and so you've gone on as I said PETA, you're a large animal veterinarian.

Right.

Or clinic. It's a mixed animal practice but I primarily do large animal. So cattle and horses, mainly dairy cattle in a small town.

I mean it's not you certainly eschew the fame and stardom of Hollywood, even though I I know you were offered a three picture deal at the end of Wonca.

So it's extraordinary to me that you knew at that young age of 13 when let's face it, most of us are looking for social affirmation. You just didn't want to do it.

You know, you just didn't you must have known yourself extraordinarily well even back then.

I guess that's correct. And I had good I had support from my parents and I tried to kind of carry that on with my children. From the standpoint is I like to think of it as a banquet or a smorgasbord. You you present as many opportunities for your kids as possible and they're going to pick and choose what turns them on what what really excites them. And I just knew that the theater was probably not where I belonged. And then again, I had other other opportunities.

But as a parent, what's really hard is I'm sure my father was disappointed because he always wanted to be an actor. And that's what after he retired as a lawyer, that's what he did. And and in New York. And it was fun to watch him perform, but I'm sure he was disappointed. You know, I was I said, I just don't think that this is my cup of tea. This is. I need to be so that's I mean, speaking of what turns you on, were you a total chick magnet after this film came out?

No, not at all, but no. No, but if I was I didn't know. I didn't appreciate it.

So that's what you loved about him, right? He's had no idea.

He had no idea.

How about you did it? How did it change your life, Julie? At the time? At the time, not at all. I went back to school. It came. It went. It died down. I played some other parts at school while I was still at school. A couple more brats I played. And then at sort of 17, 18, when everybody was going off to college university, I got a role in a TV soap, a BBC soap opera called Angels, which was a series about six student nurses.

So I didn't go to university at that point. I went into a long running series, which I was in for two years, but it was very much a career of two halves. And at that point, Willy Wonka was not something I talked about. And in fact, it it might have even closed doors sometimes because it was a it was a kids movie and not a very successful one. So it didn't open any doors. So it was later in the 80s when it began to be cool and and led to lots of other opportunities.

So I carried on acting. I did a lot of theatre work to voiceover work. I had my children. And then I don't think that kind of of it. I like I don't think I was ever what they call a love enough that I was not in love with the industry enough to want to stay in it. It was always it was a job and I enjoyed it. But I didn't somebody another actor, not my words said about show business.

I like the show, but I don't like the business. And I think that's the bit that I didn't like. I didn't like the business. And some of the the darker side of the business. I really didn't care for that. And I began to think, I don't want to be doing this when I'm 60. And so a good 12 years ago, I made plans to get out and I went to university then and did my degree in psychotherapy and became a therapist 12 years ago and worked with cancer patients currently.

Wow. So I'll Pete's helping animals. You're helping people and you're both healing.

You're both healing in your own way. I when you said you didn't you didn't really love the business part of show business, it reminded me of Gene Wilder who said something similar. You know, how he liked acting, but he didn't like Hollywood. He didn't like show business. He was a private man. He liked to hang out in his beautiful country home with Gilda when she was still with him. And we have to talk about him. Can we can we spend some time on Gene Wilder and whether whether anyone else could have brought Willy Wonka to life as he did.

Now, when you say it and you you hear the bing, bing, bing of pure imagination, you just see Gene and you see those sparkling blue eyes. And for me, that could never be anybody else. And the moment in the movie that gets me every time when he hugs Charlie at the end when they're in the elevator, that's that's welling up now. So, yeah, he have that for me. The the the mystery, the mischievousness, the enigma, the the maverick that he was.

So I didn't think when I first met him that he looked like Willy Wonka. I remember writing back to my mother and saying he's not at all as I imagined him to be. I'd seen the illustrations in the book, but he had that just that weird, offbeat sense of humor. They Roald Dahl wanted Spike Milligan for the part which would have been very different. And I think that was some of the the conflict we had with Mel. It because they disagreed about the casting.

Gene Wilder at the time was not a huge movie star in the UK. So Roald Dahl had quite strong feelings on that. But I can't imagine anybody else doing it. He had such a warmth. And yet when he had those moments of being kind of slightly sinister, they were quite scary, right?

He was he was warm. He was quirky, funny, little sinister, mysterious.

I love the inside jokes throughout the movie, his comments and his little asides to the the brats all around him. And just kind of just to the audience. Right. That's how it feels.

So what he he was not as big a star as he would become, but he was he was a well known actor. What what was he like on set? Was he was there any sense that he was the star?

No, not at all. He was both he and Jack Albertson were as warm and as honest and as helpful.

Everybody, not just me on that set. So there was he had just both of those guys were a joy to work with. And for me, I mean, they kind of took me under their wing a little bit, and especially Jack, because we were a pair, we were partners in crime, so to speak.

But again, nothing but good memories, fond memories of of of working with them.

I read, Peter, that you actually ate chocolate with him during the lunch hour.

Is that. We did. We did. Yeah, we would. We would. I still like chocolate and so did Jane. And so we would share a bar, you know, going back to work in the afternoon. So yeah, that was fun. But that's the type of guy that he was like to hang out, you know, and and it was probably he probably knew what he was doing just to build up that relationship between Charlie and and Willie Wonka, you know, but he was genuine, you know, he was just a good, good person.

I know he told the story on Larry King and again, at the 90 second Street Y years later that he was the one who insisted that Willie Wonka come out with the cane. And then he he would fall into the somersault and stand and people would cheer. And that was another surprise for you, for you all, because he wanted to keep people guessing.

He knew it would keep people guessing about who he was and what his motivations were and what would come next.

Did you Julie, did you have any experiences with him on the set where he was kidding around with you or he was playful or you surprising?

He was very kind. My 13th birthday, which was the goose in the back in the day, you would have a stills photographer that would come around. But they were with black and white then. But because it was my birthday, Jean booked for a photographer to come in and take a set of color stills for my birthday. And that was my my gift from from him, which was lovely that I've got this wonderful set of color photos which are so unusual so at the time and such kind things like that.

Apparently he told Rusty Goff, who's our friend and a friend, when she found out a couple of weeks into shooting that I was the only kid on the set that didn't have any family with me. I was out in Germany with just a chaperone that I only met at the airport. And then we were away for three months and it was this total stranger. And he was rather aghast at that and quite shocked that I didn't have anybody kind of looking out for me.

So apparently he said to Roy and to Rusty, you guys, boys, I think he said, boys, we got to take care of this one. Keep your eyes open and look after her. So that was the kind of guy he was.

I read that about Rusty that he was he was described as, quote, the head butt, which I must confess in all my times of watching it, I did not know there was a head on.

But he talks about how he had that one scene of them.

And with my TV, when my TV is done off, he had to do the dancing and the somersault.

Ah, the cartwheel, which was just dreadful. But there was a reason for that.

Well the the choreographer who hired Geoffrey was an amazing dancer and had done choreography for the trained dancers and he didn't realize that he'd got this bunch of Olympia's that were cast from all over Europe, none of whom had any dance background at all. And their limbs don't move in the same way. So when you're doing a pirouette and your full height doesn't quite work the same when you're a little bit shorter.

So Gene Wilder, he died in twenty sixteen at.

83, yet he had been suffering from Alzheimer's, which they had not disclosed, right, and that the family put out a statement, but I have to ask you about they they wrote the decision to wait until this time to disclose his condition wasn't vanity, but more so that the countless young children that would smile or call out to him, there's Willy Wonka would not have to be then exposed to an adult referencing illness or trouble and causing delight to travel to worry, disappointment or confusion.

He simply couldn't bear the idea of one less smile in the world. Was that the man you knew? Yes, it is, and what's a little bit interesting is, Gene, for what he'll be remembered for. Willy Wonka is at the top of all of his credits, and initially he probably would not have wanted that or would be disappointed to think that with all his roles, with Mel Brooks and all the different things that he he did, that he would be remembered mostly for Willy Wonka.

I think he grew into that and then accepted that that, hey, it wasn't such a bad film after all. And just the quote that you read kind of points to that, that he did recognize the importance of that role and that the people think of him as as Willy Wonka. There were also some other things that led me to believe, you know, you never know why the actors want to talk about a role or don't want to talk about a role.

But there was some of the things that he said that led me to believe that he didn't really want to discuss Willy Wonka because he didn't want to break the magic.

Yes, honestly, that was one of my concerns in doing this interview. But it hasn't it.

And now I should be really mean and just step by. Well, I did I did wonder.

I'll confess after after we lost Gene Wilder. What? After we lost Gene Wilder.

Peter, whether you were thinking, oh, my God, I'm finally going to get to move in, I'm like, it's finally time for me.

The factories that finally mind. I'm ready.

Finally old enough already. Move out. Come on.

You mentioned that final scene, and I. I agree with you. That's that is the one that tugs most on the heartstrings.

And I read that the those last few minutes had to be rewritten or were rewritten at Mel Stewart's direction. Before before we talk about it, let's just listen to what we're talking about. This is the last last part of the movie when they're flying above town in the great glass one quarter.

So the factory's yours, Charlie. You can move in immediately and be absolutely what happens to the whole family. I want you to bring in Paul. But, Charlie, don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted. What happened? He lived happily ever after. Hmm. Now, the. That's it, that's that's it. Well, there is the story that they didn't have a final line and they didn't like what they had, and so Mountstuart rang David Seltzer, who was, I think, in a cabin or something, somewhere like in the woods or what have you.

And they had to kind of track him down. And he demanded that he got this final line while David Seltzer was practically hanging on the other end of the phone, isn't that right?

That's correct. He was on vacation. Yeah, he had left Germany. Yes.

So is that one of those things where they came to you and said, instead of this line, you guys are going to have this exchange and then Gene Wilder dropped that one? I don't know.

By the time that we did the same, David had written had written what you heard. So I don't think there was any disagreement, at least not to me. I mean, you know, it's possible Gene looked at the script and said, I don't know. You know, you didn't like what they had written, but by the time it came to me, it was it was set. So I've still got it in my script. I still have a copy of my scripts and it is as went out.

But I think the ink was fairly wet.

Yeah, you got a lot of things from that set up.

The list keeps growing. Of course.

I'm sorry, folks, but the script, Roald Dahl, he is listed on the credits as writing the screenplay. He did not. David Seltzer did. Roald Dahl was had such disagreements with Martha Stewart and Stan that he pretty much quickly divorced himself from the project. And so he's there in name only. David Seltzer really wrote the screenplay for David.

And by the way, that the perfect line ever to end that movie with. I mean, brilliant.

Yeah. If you read the book alongside it, which I have done recently, I read it during lockdown. You'll see that lots of the script is lifted from the book. So you can see the kind of Roald Dahl bit. But then I would imagine that some of these the jokes and things were that David Seltzer. So what do you make of it?

Because I heard that initially there was a thought by Mel Stewart, the director of wanting to reveal that Willy Wonka had strategically placed those golden ticket tickets in order to give you Peter, a.k.a. Charlie, the factory that this was all preplanned and that he knew exactly who the five children were going to be. What's what's your theory on it?

I know nothing about that.

No, seriously, this is the first time I've heard about that. But I read that I read that Mel Stuart wanted that and then that they that dropped the idea. But then they left the hints because how else would slug Earth? I mean, who was really Mr. Wilkinson have known?

He was always he was very creepy, was if he was a lurker.

And I'd like to complain to the management anyway, because Veruca Salt was the only one that didn't have a film crew there when her ticket was found.

That's a good point. It's very unlike verruca. It's very unlike verruca.

So now that you are in your 60s and maybe have grandkids as well as kids, possibly.

I've got I have one just coming up to one. My my granddaughter and I will be one in December.

And you both you both have kids. No grandchildren for myself. Not yet. Well, let's go back to when you did first get to show it to them and you see that movie through your own children's eyes for the first time. What was that like?

I've got a very strong mean. I can't remember the first time they sort of grow up and I remember showing it to them. And I think my daughter fell asleep the first time and I wasn't hugely impressed. I think she was a little young, but then they kind of grew up and it was always just part of the family folklore, kind of like, oh, yeah, Mum was in that. And I'm guessing it was the same. So know.

But we did a convention in Florida and Pete some leaf and my son Barney, they were similar ages and they sat eating chocolate and watching it on a loop for a whole day, I believe.

But I do. And they never wanted to see it again after of them.

Impossible. I mean, they kind of grew up with it. And it's again, it's looking back, it's kind of as my parents did, they took home movies, you know, and it's just kind of in the attic. The history of of ah ah ah family.

I mean, you know, it's a great trivia question.

Whatever happened to Charlie Bucket and it's like any fan of the movie has Google that a million times and looked at your picture and compared it to when you were a boy. I mean, I've made my children do that. Oh, by the way, by the way, I have to ask you because I asked my kids. They were almost as excited for this interview as I am. I said, what? What would you want to ask them if you could ask them any question?

And they wanted to know if you could play another role in the movie, whose would you have chosen?

I wouldn't want anybody else's. And no, I'm happy with that because I think I got a song and I got to smash things up and I got to be mean and nasty. And and I had all the fun parts of I would not want to be in that Styrofoam bowl being rolled around and turned blue and all of that. No, that wouldn't be fun. And being sent through TV. Now, I really didn't fancy that the fizzy lifting I wouldn't have mind to go at that would have been quite fun, although it was quite uncomfortable, wasn't it?

It was.

They just had you suspended by ropes or what was that. Well, a piano wires, very small. Whatever it was, it was easier for me than Jack is.

Is there somebody if you had to switch a role? I got to say, Jane, I was being groomed for Willy Wonka and couldn't be anybody else.

Mm hmm. I love that. And I love how in the movie he's without knowing he's going to have this special bond with Willy Wonka is defensive of him in scenes.

And you can just you can feel it coming, you know. You know, it's eventually going to come. I love that he kept surprising you guys that he not only did he do the somersault, but I guess is creepiness on the boat was unexpected.

No, completely. Completely. I mean, it was scripted, the lines, but not the way he did. It's so great to keep you guessing.

And I also read, Pete, there was something about the that end scene in the office that was unexpected for you. Is that true?

Correct. Similar to the boat scene. I mean, Jean did not let on the veracity the pow pow, all the screaming and yelling know the high intensity that the scene would be. And and again, he wanted my my primary reaction, you know, so rehearsal was was probably kept to a minimum. And I don't recall we didn't do very many takes of that scene. One, it was towards the end of all, it was at the very end of the film when we were we were both like, OK, let's get this done of time to wrap this up.

The plane taxiing down the runway at that point, but very, very little rehearsal, you know, so and Jean wanted it that way.

And he hit it first or second time. And my reaction was my reaction. It was perfection.

And even the script for you not to say anything in response for you just to place the gobstopper down with the simple. Mr. Wonca, so good, so, so perfect, the line so shines a good deed in a weary world, right? Oh my gosh. That's right. So beautiful.

There are so many lines that sometimes you hear now and they kind of become almost like some little folklore, little expressions that people use. And I'm thinking, I know where that came from. He's got the golden ticket, you know where that came from. And people will say that so shines a good deed in a weary world. It gets quoted. So I love the fact that those things happen.

That's just nice.

But I tell you, as you know, I mean, if you're a true fan of the movie, you're very annoying to watch the movie with because, you know, every line I mean, it's like the little lines that always delighted me and Kelly McGuinness, the one I watch it with, everything like Rachmaninoff, like whatever.

You know, he's in the room, is getting smaller. No, it's not.

He's getting bigger, random, stupid lines that really amount to anything that you just will say over and over, because every line of yours truly.

So but let me ask you now, because I'm I I you've been so generous with your time. But I have to ask you, why has the movie endured? There have been many wonderful films over time, including films directed at children that have not had this kind of enduring legacy. So what do people love about this film?

I'll do Peter and then Julie, you can and you've mentioned this and you can watch it with your family and your kids come away with a little bit different take on it than what you do.

The humor is kind of targeted at the various levels. So people of all ages can watch this and take something different from it. The fact that if you do well, you're an honest person, you know, things are going to probably turn out OK for you. And that's not a bad message to have going forward. The other thing that I think that really makes the film kind of fun is all the different smaller scenes when you're looking for the golden ticket.

One of my favorite things is that Dan Rather, see, when all the golden tickets have been have been found and and he's lamenting that there aren't any more tickets out there and says, you know, but there's many more important things, many more important things important to us. And offhand, I can't think of what they are.

You know, I just I love those different shades.

So and the other little guy who says the guy says, I am now telling the computer exactly what it can do with a lifetime supply of chocolate.

Exactly. And that the wonderful woman whose husband has been kidnapped and she says, how long have I got to think it over? I just love it. They're wonderful. They're all stunning those things.

So what do you think, Julie? Why why has it endured? I agree with Pete because it is a moral tale, isn't it? And we we want to believe and hope that good things happen to good people and the bad people are going to get it. And we like to believe that that's kind of karma taking care of itself. And so it is the ultimate dream that if you're a nice person, then things will come right in the end.

And yeah, we all need a little bit more of that right now.

Mm hmm. Right. That that sin, gluttony, greed, rudeness, idleness is not rewarded.

It's not rewarded. It's punished. And that the kid who does what he thinks is right is kind can be rewarded with parents who love it because it's a slightly moral tale.

You know, you see kids are told you don't speak with your mouth full and don't be rude like that because you'll go down the garbage chute, will be drunk or blow up or whatever it is. So that's it's a moral tale for parents. Kids quite like seeing other kids get get their comeuppance. They do quite like that. We've all had the bullies at school and we go, yeah, good.

So, you know, we like to see that. And then I'll be still my beating heart. But there is Charlie.

It's true. And who doesn't like chocolate? You're exactly right. Listen. To quote the man in the airport who put it so succinctly. Thank you. Thank you so much. So I am so emotional that really meant so much to me. I don't totally have figured out why, but I don't know, you know, it's like I don't get overwhelmed by celebrity, that's for sure. I don't really care about celebrities at all. If anything, I have a negative association with most of them.

But for them, it's about like something more. You know, it's like when that movie came out, as they mentioned. On DVD or back then, it was VHS, I had lost my dad recently and my best friend Kelly and I used to sit there and watch it and it really was an escape. You know, it's an escape in so many ways into something magical and wonderful and visually delightful and just away from whatever you're trying to escape.

Back then, we didn't have the iPhone or the iPads or devices. And so it's very rare. You can find a collection of people with whom you have nothing but a positive association, like an actor, for example, who you just look at and have nothing but great thoughts about, especially in today's day and age where they're they're political and they're trying to lecture us about this. They're that's it. And yet these guys didn't do that. And I think it's almost it's more important that Peter never wanted to play another role.

Like maybe that's helped preserve my love for him in the film. And I never saw Julie in another role, though she did have a successful career in acting across the pond. But it's almost sort of helped preserve the legacy. And I certainly never looked at Jean. I mean, I know he did Blazing Saddles and he did Silver Streak and he did all these wonderful movies. But like in Young Frankenstein, for me, he will always be the one role, like there could never be another.

So I, I didn't expect to be this emotional. I think you probably can relate to something to this in some way. Maybe you have a film or a song. Right. Or some memory like that that just brings back a different time. You know, the passage of time. It always brings tears if you really think about it. But these are bittersweet ones. It was like those two actors and Gene Wilder, all of them have brought me a lot of joy over the course of my life.

So thank you for indulging me and spending this hour with me, which was my Christmas present to myself. And I hope to some extent to all of you to today's episode is brought to you in part by home title luck. Put a barrier around your home to protect yourself from home title theft. Good home title lock dotcom. Now to learn more, I want to tell you before I let you go that you know that a lot of crying on this show and there could be reason for even more coming up on on our next show.

Actually, I didn't cry, but I did laugh hard and had some really funny reactions. In fact, my senior producer, Debbie Murphy, who's been with me for 12 years, she's a hardened newsperson person. She really has no heart. She actually told me this is her favorite interview of mine. This next one coming up, Canadian Debbie. We actually got her excited. And you know who it is. It's Father Jonathan Morris, who is father no longer.

He left the church. My priest left the church, leaving the status of my now baptized children in jeopardy. It's hanging. Does it counter, doesn't it? No, it's really not about my kids, but it is about his story, how he became a priest, which is actually very funny in and of itself, the way it happened and how he just recently decided to leave the priesthood and the woman behind this story or at least who came into the picture.

So we have them both in an interview you will love. Trust me, I don't care what your faith is or whether you don't are a person of faith. You're going to love this exchange. I don't think you're going to be able to turn it off. So that's on Friday. That's Christmas. So tune in when you have your downtime, after you like your punch drunk from all the presents in the coffee and all that stuff, and you got nothing to do.

And there's some football on. And I don't know, you're looking for like a little way to escape for an hour from all the toy trains going off and the new loud presence that the rude uncle gave your kids that never shut up, come away for an hour with me on Friday. Looking forward to it. And before we get there, Merry Christmas. Thanks for listening to the Meghan Kelly Show. No bias, no agenda and no fear. The Meghan Kelly Show The Devil May Care Media Production in collaboration with RedZone Ventures.