Hey, folks, thanks to everyone who's been ordering the new WTF merch, the new line is a big hit and our friends at Pod Swag want to give some gifts away this week.

In the spirit of the season, go to WTF pod on Twitter or Marc Maron on Facebook and Instagram. And there's a link to win a free to close T-shirt entries can be submitted until December 7th. Check out the link for a full contest. Terms and conditions. Get the cool new shirt. Get it. All right, let's do the show, lock the gate. All right, let's do this, how are you, what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fuck?

And years, what the fuck? Nix what's happening? How's it going? Where you at? Throw it away already. Throw the leftovers away. It's you don't it's not your responsibility to to kind of string out. You know, the number of things you can do with drying out Turkey, unless it's like unless you enjoy it, my mistake. You know what? Let me take that back. Do make it last forever. Make the soup, make the stew, make the pot pie, do whatever.

String it along for as long as you can, because what else are we doing? I hope you had a good holiday.

I hope that whatever I if you didn't listen to the pep talks on the last episode of WTF, you can always go there. And also, it's a good episode. A lot of people space to listen, but it's my Campbell from the from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. And it was really an exciting episode. I was excited, excited to talk to him. The conversation took took place pre covid, pre tragedy. There was a different time, man.

It was a different time, but I do hope that you dealt with the holiday, OK?

I personally. It was it was the least aggravating, least stressful, more connected Thanksgiving I've ever had.

It was just me and one other person, you know, and I cook this stuff, was not thrilled with the way things came out. A lot of it. I don't I don't guess I need to go into it because it is what it is. Right. You do what you can. Right. But fuck Turkey seriously enough with the turkeys. What am I? You know what? I don't know. Let's talk about this. This is exciting.

James Caan. Fuckin James Caan is on the show today. Do I need to tell you who he is? I shouldn't. The Godfather, he was in Misery Thief. He was in some great older movies. The Killer Elite, The Rain People, The Gambler, Harry and Walter go to New York. James Caan feels like somebody who's been in my life since I was a child because he he has and he was one of those guys that my my father liked, you know, the tough Jew.

There's not that many tough Jews. So, you know, my dad wanting aspiring to be a tough Jew.

I imagine many of the sort of nebbishy Jews that were trying to evolve into something more aggressive were big.

James, who isn't it big James Caan fan. I talked to his kids, Scott, not long ago. And this just happened. And it just happened because somebody happened to tweet at him that he should come on the podcast and his assistant set it up. Nothing to promote, just to talk to him. But he still fucking tough. And he had some good stories. It was very exciting. It was very exciting.

And also, many of you know him from ELF, which is always on television. But Sunny, Sunny in The Godfather. Right, Sonny? Right. Good story about where the character of Sonny comes from. Good story. So anyways, here's a couple of things I realized over Thanksgiving.

Is that Turkey not that great. It's never that good that the the big the big con, the big racket is, you know, once a year we try to make this game tough bird interesting and good. And it's just not that good, I think about it, is it? I mean, it makes a good cold cut. It's OK. Nice. So nice turkey sandwich. I don't mind that. But the whole idea of Turkey, it's just not a great bird.

That's why chicken is popular. That's why you don't go to a restaurant and wonder what the turkey dish is. It's not there. I think we should give the turkeys a break already. I got this mediocre turkey from a place I wasn't even going to do it. I was at the place where I get fish and they had turkeys available. So I got a little one and decided to invite my friend kid over. And we do the thing and I don't know, maybe I fucked it up.

Maybe that's what I'm having a hard time admitting.

I'm usually so good at it because when I'm down in Florida cooking for twenty people, twenty four people and my mother's house, we go to that Delaware poultry joint in Lauderdale or whatever the fuck it is, we get these turkeys that have been dead hours and they're fresh as fuck and they're just they're as good as turkeys going to get. So I bought this smaller turkey and I was on top of it. And all of a sudden it was overcooked a little bit.

But it was the chess pie, man.

The fuckin chess pie. I love chess pie, it's it's a southern regional dessert. OK, I never made it. Some people, you know, they like the chocolate chess pie, the lemon chess pie. There's a lot of different chess pies. It's basically kind of like a custard pie in a way.

But I made the crust, which I was nervous about, but it came out fucking perfect and made the chess pie. And it's like you cook it and that and the custard sets and then the top caramelize is naturally almost like a creme brulee.

And just this southern regional pie that I was obsessed with briefly. And when I go down south, I eat it not unlike barbecue. I'm not going to eat barbecue where there's no barbecue mcgeeney chess pie if it's not indigenous. But I decided for some fucking reason I needed to make a chess pie. I needed to make my own pie crust. And that's a fucking frustrating crapshoot.

You don't know what's going to happen with a pie crust and the lady I'm watching the lady on the video make it and she's just whipping it out, rolling it out like it's nothing. And then you got to realize, like, how many fucking times how is there a pile of fucking fucked up, broken, not attractive looking rolled out attempts at pie crust next to her in a garbage can? Well, I'm not saying she's no good at what she does.

I'm just saying that they're not going to show you the real struggle that us mortals have who aren't bakers.

You know, you've got to fucking figure it out, you know, do it by hand a little bit. But it came out great. The pie was fucking great.

It was literally one of those desserts where I took a bite and it made me cry with joy. The sugar pie. We had a nice Thanksgiving. And I hope that your whiny, complaining, whingeing. Trump loving relatives didn't bump out. The idea it's like it's amazing to me the idea that these fucking fake alpha snowflakes. Call progressive people or people they think who are liberal, whiny, these fucking guys are the most they maybe don't see it as whining.

Maybe it was just call what is bitching and moaning by inflated kux.

Who think they're Alphas who have been misled by a pig grifter, brain fucked by the pig grifter, and now all they do is whine and complain and cry like little babies.

They cry fraud when they just sore losers. They are like what has been revealed here outside of the con, outside of the grift, outside of just a an election where the pig president was handed his ass. What's been revealed here is that. My God. These right wing trolly idiots are much bigger babies than any of the progressives I know what a bunch of babies. Oh, my God. The whining never stops, and then when you think about it, that's all they fucking do.

Just it's like this, the victim mode. How is it that these dudes, these patriotic guys, you think they're alphas, never stop complaining? It's fucking unreal. I'm glad there's clarity coming, a little bit of clarity, at least everyone has stood up and was counted over the last four years. We know who everybody is, don't we? Can I take a minute to tell you about Zell Miller?

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A couple of things happened, I watched the Bellucci documentary and on Showtime and I just I kind of it was weird. I reconnected with how much I love that guy when I was a younger person, when I was when SNL was first season him and Chevy. I love them. And I mean, I really love that guy. And I think a lot of us did of my age who grew up with that.

And I remember the day he died, I was a freshman in college and I used to have a little picture of him him of just his eye on the on the door of my room, of my dorm room in college. And I remember the day I die because I, I got a I got my car towed that day. It was just a horrible day. And there's just I remember those pictures of him being so heavy and and so fucked up on drugs.

And it really hurt me in some way that this hilarious guy who I was so attached to just couldn't reel it in.

And the night or two after I saw that documentary, I had a drug dream for the first time in a while, and it's a weird dream to some guy at a bar, some kind of like a little bearded dude look like he's having a good time.

He said, hey, man, you want to do a bump?

And I'm like, all right.

Like, I remember thinking, like, yes, I'm ready to bump now, maybe do a bump. We got into this bathroom and it was so small. It was not a stall. It was the actual bathroom. It was so small that we were like right up against each other. And his stomach was protruding and it was touching me. And he's pulling these bumps out with a little out of a little vial with a little spoon. And he gave me he gave himself a bump and then he gave me a bump.

And I remember in the dream, like just one nostril growing, doing one nostril.

And then it was it was all cramped in there. Mike, I got to get the fuck out of here. And I left.

And I just remember, like, I felt the burning in my nose. It was very familiar. And I woke up guilty because I remembered.

But it didn't happen. And I guess it was connected to Bushi, but it was not a good experience. And I and I'm glad I opened the door to get out for a couple of reasons. Too cramped in there and didn't look like to do is going to give me a second bump. But that being said, that kind of opened up some portal into my past and then the last few days or night before last, I was putting together I'm trying to set up a room in my house, my office.

And I was going through all these photo albums of me and my parents in the late 60s and 70s, and it was, I don't know, man.

When you really sit with that stuff and you look at that stuff and you realize that your parents were young once and that they, you know, they might not have been happy, but they definitely were engaging in life. There are out in the world my mother was dressing up and all these kind of mod clothes. Same with my dad. Their drink in their smoke in their party, in their swinging, their do whatever the fuck they're doing. And I'm just sitting there thinking, like, is anyone going to pay attention to me?

There's pictures where it's like, oh my God, thank God for my grandma. But I know it just opened up this whole kind of.

Valve in my heart. Kind of a you know, where I came from and that it was a real. It's been a real fucking journey. And there's so much going on in the present and there's so much we dump in our head in the present with the phones and with everything is like you're just brain is occupied with garbage all the time, engaged with garbage.

To just sort of avoid the fear, the pain, the sadness, the anger, whatever it is, but there's just this constant get me out of this. And there I was looking at my whole life in pictures and I'm like, get me in this. Let's get this dug in. You came from someplace, you went through something, so did your parents look at them. Look where you are now. You're 57 years old. My father's going to be 82 today.

Fuck. I got to call my dad. My mother's probably going to be 79. And I'm 57. And we're looking at pictures from 1972 Amee. We're in a little vest that my mom dressed me up like a little mad hippie kid. What outfit? But I'm that same guy, that guy is inside of me, he lives in me, it's been there the whole time. I got to get him up to speed. I've got to get that kid up to speed.

I got to meet a midway. So that's what's going to be happening, folks. There's no shame in feeling down around the holidays, but there's also no reason for you to just suffer in silence. Maybe you're feeling depressed or maybe you're overwhelmed or anxious. Maybe you suffered a loss or you're having problems in a relationship. Better help. Online counseling offers licensed professional therapists who are trained to listen and to help for anxiety, loss, depression, relationship, conflicts, anger, self-esteem and more.

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So James Caan, what an honor this was. You know he's James Caan. This is me talking to him. Enjoy it. Hey, Mom, why are you doing? I'm good, how are you, James? Who gives a shit? That's exactly my feeling.

Exactly how you feel. Man How's your back?

My my back.

Oddly enough, is good where they cut so many times and isolate themselves three times long, wide and repeatedly.

Yeah, I had two back operations before I knew. That's not counting the twenty one that I had from my normal way of life from the time I was about fourteen. Right. Which didn't include very many Jewish activities. Know.

Yeah. Like how'd you do it. Did you fuck your back up.

Well no I mean it was, I mean, I mean non Jewish activities is the answer for all of them. I mean I wrote you professionally for nine years. A Jew from New York. Yeah. Open ocean racing. Yeah. Motorcycles. Right. Karate for thirty five years. I mean you can you name it and I did it.

I don't know why. Non Jewish activities you call them. Yeah. Yeah I, I mean who does that have.

Well how Jewish did you grow up. How Jewish can you grow up. I mean I don't know. My parents were German Jews.

Did they speak Yiddish in the house.

No, didn't speak in Yiddish anywhere was bad enough. I had to learn to speak German a little bit. You know, my mother, you know, call out to James Comey. James. Yeah, I was I was fairly rough when I was young because I fight every day. My don't put your head I and say, OK, it's like, you know, a full face. By the time I get to the front door, you're not helping anything.

Oh, James, you know, they were they were German Jews. And my dad was a beast. He was he was an amicus inmate. He was a butcher. Yeah. He sounds good.

He could he break down a whole cow.

He can break down. You ate a whole cow? He was. Yeah, he was a big man. He was a good guy. Man. He he he specialized. He was like the Go-Between between the market. And he was right in a truck that used to have to clean out the blood when I was old enough to get a car and go pick up a girl for the first time. Yeah, I had to get the fat and blood smell out of the station.

So I used to get them stupid things that hang on the Dingle bangles all over the frigging car.

Yeah, yeah. You mean the little trees smell like a whole house. Yeah, yeah. My mother's perfume.

She was a little kid squirted in there. The three of us. Yeah. My, my younger brother and my sister. So we had one car in the family then he finally got another one. Yeah. I mean it wasn't like oh can I have the Saturday car Dad. Yeah right. You can have this right here. We're going to get out it.

But see that guy was the A fighter. He was a tough guy. He was a great guy. He was about five nine five. Nine and a half.

About two twenty. Yeah. Did he live to see your success. Oh yeah. I made the first fifty dollars that man I blew my whole family out. Yeah. So yeah it was a mistake. My dad, my dad didn't know what to do with himself out here, you know.

Like how long did he come out for. They didn't know what to do. I brought him out here. I shut them down tempo Gomer. Oh I see. Oh yeah. We moved him out here.

Yeah. So his job is what made me act because I didn't want to do that. I did not want to do it.

But you sound like you want to do a lot of things. Yeah. It's interesting that you chose Zach. You don't want to you don't want to be a butcher. But you know, you did a lot of exciting stuff.

See, that's what I like about you, really sharp. You picked that up like fucking nothing like that.

What do you mean?

They want to be a butcher. You're right. Son of a bitch. I'll always love you.

All right. All right. All right. But yeah, but seems like you had other interests. You had a lot of options. Why did you choose acting? Doesn't seem like an easy racket.

It's interesting. I don't know. But I was like the tough guy in the neighborhood. Right. You know what I mean? So when I went to school. I know. I mean, I love making people laugh all the time. Right. I've got all my friends were like three years older than me. I was fairly large for my size. I mean, my age, 14, 15, I was already five, 11, about 175, 180 in order to be the toughest guy neighborhood.

Here's what you have to do. I'm telling all these young kids by OK, so I one fifty. You had to fight three times a week. You get beat up three times a week. It didn't matter. Right. So you had to fight all the time.

So what I did on the first day of school when I went to P.S. one fifty, right there was a kid named Billy Spiro's lived across the boulevard, you know, Billy anyway. And I told him I'd meet him after class. Yeah. And we'll go into the garden. It was a place they called the garden, right. In all my life. I never saw a flower and it was just dark. Yeah, right, yeah, yeah, flowers were long gone.

Yeah, no, I had given them to my girlfriend. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, I, I said the big thing. So I beat the piss out of Billy.

OK. Right. Yeah.

And for that I never had a fight and I was like the big guy in school. You see what I mean. So this way I put all my fights into one fight. Yeah.

If I won it I was home free for four years, you know what I'm saying. Yeah.

It's like the first day in prison if I was already an active bullshitting guy already, like from the time I was in the ninth grade, you know, so no one fuck with you for four years.

No, no. I mean, I had to clean up cases.

I was like the godfather, you know. Yeah. And then I played a lot of ball.

So that's when did the acting bug grab you? Well, I went to Michigan State when I was 16, that's not because I was smart. I saw your face drop a little. A little bit. I was surprised. Yeah, not smart. We had nothing to do with being poor and had to do with being my. I really want to be a pretty good school. So bad roads, high school, but not enough for this kid.

So I became president of my school student body when I was 14. Yeah. So I had I was that president, the student body to play basketball, baseball for them. And when I was president I got an all these these special classes or things that you get more like drivers. And they didn't want that. I got that. Yeah. I got all the things that this will really didn't need. Yeah. So they got rid of me.

They, I went to one summer school and went to Michigan State now at 16 and I want to try to play some football but then I was about one ninety five. Eleven and a half I believe. Yeah. I finally got the back, the back operation made me foot. Yeah.

Now stretch out. Had all these watches and from crashes and whatnot they, they filled them in with metal, they put metal in there.

I have no idea.

I didn't let me look. I don't know. Yeah. So I do, I do hear music all day long but I swear to God it comes right at you.

Picking up the radio songs song God Bless America all day. It's a volume.

So you played ball and you play football. Yeah, a little bit. And then I'll tell you the story I played when I came here, I lied, first of all, that I was because my social life was already dead. I'm sixteen and I'm a Jew. That really went big. You could say no good.

No, no, because you had to have two sports to keep your scholarship. So I went to boxing. I had one of the heavyweight in the class and on the team. Yeah. And for midterm, we had a boxing match, right? I don't know. Boxers. He was nothing really. And I hit him a right hand. I think somewhere like the end of the first down and down he went. Yeah. So I didn't have to do anything extra for that second half.

There was nobody else to fight, just like high school. But so what happened? How'd you get into acting? Well, I'll tell you this story and then it'll go backwards. Yeah. Sixteen years later, when I'm fairly popular, I know I'm being humble. I was so popular.

It was ridiculous.

Early seventies, which is a sixteen years after I left school. Yeah. And Duffy Doretti at Michigan State had retired and he loved the racetrack. Duffy Derby did. So he he he moved to Santa Barbara so he'd go to those tracks for the whole meeting. He loved it. Yeah. And I go, I go there one day and I had a horse of and a little gun so it got me into the director's fancy. I'm above this fancy room.

You because you owned a couple of horses. I owned some people back then. Used to be OK.

Yeah. Yeah. Some of those guys and his name was Cowboys Obsession.

So anyway, I go down with a kid named Archie Macho who a tackle excuse me, the guard at all American who became old pro at New Orleans. And I go to the track and I walk in the director's room and stuff. He Doretti with Johnny Majors and Bud Kristiansen trying ages of just one coach for Pittsburgh from Pittsburgh. And Bud Christiansen, you know, from Oklahoma, I mean, and of course, the coach said this is part of the reason that I was already acting.

Yeah, it's just oh, he's one of my command. So I come over your head coach.

I really see these two guys. Yeah. It's, you know, something like this. He said he said I ought to get ten percent of your career. I said, why is that, coach? I told you to quit playing football. So that's why that was one of the reasons I started. Right. I wasn't really a good student.

I just hated, you know why. I just didn't like it. But you like playing sports.

Oh, I love I love playing sports. I've done. That's the reason for all my other injuries. I mean. Right. I mean every game. Yeah.

And I mean, the rodeo is like stupid enough. Would you.

I mean, that was crazy. What do you have when how old do you need the rodeo. I started my best friends, a guy. He was a stuntman, his name is. And my brother Walter Scott. And he got you in the rodeo. I started doing it there. Yeah.

And I started rodeo. I mean, I started to rope. Right. But you already acting, right? This is just a hobby because I'm acting for the rodeo.

I mean, right now I'm going to go on a fucking road for, like, you know, ten hours a day and relish sandwiches. Yeah, I was ready.

I could afford to do that. Right. Right. I was doing that because I was. A lot of winning a lot. Yeah, a fucking Jew actor from fucking Beverly Hills and they used announce, Nancy, I want to kill the announcer. Do you have to say Beverly Hills?

And now from Beverly, you putz Bob. Yeah. You can you get off and say sell them or say some kind of cute. I don't know. What if they just said Jew?

Here's the Jew from Beverly Hills, Jew on the horse. You don't give it around with that shit.

You don't kill a Jew. You're nothing. They knew it. Yeah.

So you were you were open. I was open to open doing everything, you know, like I started rope calves, rope steers. I hope that was a holy shit.

So you really knew how to do that. I like the way comes a horseman. You knew you knew what was up. Yeah.

Yeah. A lot of that was all real. That was something that was some heavy shit.

But when you I saw I was watching that movie and when you were tying up that calf, you knew what you were fucking doing. Right. You're a smart guy.

I know how to keep impressing comedians.

No shit, but I'm sharp. I pay attention. You make me. Yeah, you make shit up and people laugh. They don't write fucking dominant account.

And of course not. I'm getting away with it just so it's a fucking hustle. I got a question for you. What happens at the Oscars? Like I got nothing to do during the pandemic. So I'm watching movies and I got to watch a bunch of old movies even before I even before I knew I was going to talk to you. I was at one night where I'm like, I want to see a Jimmy Carter movie I'd never seen before.

And I watched Slither, which I thought was pretty.

Holy shit. You dug in there, didn't you, pal? Yeah, I liked it, though. I like it. I like Peter Boyle.

Sally Kellerman was on my TV show. Sally Coleman.

Yeah. Yeah. Jackson who? The director. He could he had a lot of like Peter Falk. Yeah.

Listen to me. When I saw Peter Boyle. Yeah. Sally, I mean everybody with two ls could do it.

But I got a question for you. What they was at the end of Countdown. Does that guy die or does he make it to the fucking down.

What a way you hit it. That's unbelievable. It was Bob Altman's first movie. You understand that. Yes. Yeah. Nobody knew. Yeah.

So the first time we shot this stuff, for example, when he wired everybody and found a way with the sound department to record the sound with people overlapping each other side, you know, if you're talking, everybody has got to be shut up.

Everything is shut off. You get to the line. But he came out with, you know, the ability to do and all those pictures did that you could get conversations going on.

Right, instead of it being filtered in after take.

But that's not what made them great. Bob was a good director, but Bob was also the first guy who had, you remember, a scope, its tone where you put a dollar in a jukebox and it played the video is the first time.

I don't know if I know what that was. Yeah, well, in other words, you know, it was a jukebox just to show videos, right? Yeah. Yeah.

He made the videos for the for the song. Yeah.

So you got the song and you also got it. I get it. Yeah. It was pretty cool.

And he did one in his house. You threw a party and he asked me says Jimmy come up and be in my video. What video. I mean yeah the reviews haven't come out yet.

I'm doing video so I go, I go to the house and we do this video. Oh, I don't know. About three weeks later, we're working at TRW at night and for lunch, he set up these folding chairs in front of a screen, a portable screen, and he wanted to show the crew and everybody, you know, the video which is shot. And it was and it was a video of this party that he threw up there.

Really beautifully done. So, you know, people and the dialogue. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it could be. And I'm sitting there and mind you, this is like midnight, one o'clock. I'm sitting there and all of a sudden there's a shot of this blonde girl.

Holding a tray. I should have I never saw anything like this. Oh, my God. And I watch you and I yell, I'm just an idiot. Stop, stop, stop, stop. Right now, please.

I beg we go back right back up. Jimmy, please. I beg you, please stop it. Who is that whispering to you? Which is hysterical. Yeah. Who the fuck was that? Yeah, he was my daughter.

Oops.

He was always there. Guess who I got your sister. So we went out for a while. You did? Oh yeah. She was great. Great girl. That's pretty funny.

You know, when I was watching on I watch last night, I watched the killer elite.

Oh, man. That's another you watch. OK, these are a little off movies, which I almost got killed with Sam Peckinpah. Right.

But, you know, you put that movie, you endevour so tight by that point, like you guys look like you seem like to be tight. I was great. But you guys actually you like each other, right?

Listen, I did I did my best friend on five or six movies with Bobby. Yeah. I mean, he still calls me. He's just absolutely crazy. Know Bobby. Yeah.

He's is the greatest. But he he's he's he's in his 80s.

He's in Kentucky or somewhere. Right. In Virginia. Virginia.

You got horses claims Virginia. He has a couple of horses, but it's the most beautiful.

So beautiful. It was his father and it's like three hundred and sixty eight was down there.

You still call me six. And one was to me to talk about me for a half hour.

Just you. So you thought to the fucking more, you know, he's just he's the best.

So the first picture was was the real people.

That's a great movie. He was well, he was in Countdown too. That's right.

He played the astronaut. They both pissed off at you.

And I did. I did it slowly. The rain people, the rain people. I never saw that before. That was great. You were right. That was France's second movie. He did one other movie before that call. You were a big boy now. Yeah. What was he like then?

Did you guys get along, you and Francis Bobby know with Francis?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, no, but I was like I was an actor after I got a lot of great notices in that picture, you know, for playing a guy without. Yeah.

You're mentally handicapped and you got to play by mentally handicapped.

I did what the idea was to be mentally handicapped and I really stuck to this, but I wasn't I'm not into that at night. I want to go with the guys. I can't believe that they just said it like a movie. People, 88 of them. We traveled all across the country. I talk that shit all night long. You go nuts. Yeah. And I was so depressed, I used to go into a Holiday Inn and play with the fucking switch lights.

I was like, oh, he wants you to stay in character suicide.

Don't think he did say I just couldn't stand listen that dialogue anymore.

Oh, right, right.

Yeah. But give me some personal.

Yeah, but that was like some deep acting. Where'd you study acting?

I was at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York with Sandy Meisner.

Sandy Sandy.

You just left Cipolla was about that was the youngest teacher at one time.

He's so good, right. Yeah. And and then I got a scholarship for my guru who I stayed with for years, whose I went Hannemann last year.

Oh he's great. Ninety seven. He was still teaching. Yeah. He's my everything. He gave me a scholarship, I went get paid and then he just wanted me to, he had so much confidence in me. Just a beautiful thing. On one one day when we were together I'll show you. I wrote a letter to him. I was twenty one. Twenty two. I should, I went I'm going to go out to Hollywood. I had done there was only three movies at the time and things on film rather sure city.

Remember that. Yeah. You wouldn't remember. It was a TV show. Yeah. Yeah. And then route sixty six. Yeah. And then, and then there was this thing called. It was a Play of the Week by David Susskind. Used to put it on and it was an actual play. It was an hour and a half. There's an hour and a half play of the week and it was done live with three cameras. Right.

I did one of those Black Monday, OK, with everybody.

I mean, in it I mean, Redford was in it. I mean, everybody had handled all these actors and it was a big deal. So I had done those three and that was it, I mean, it was nothing else to do except for my show for forty five dollars a week.

Yeah. And and then I start getting these calls from Hollywood.

I don't know. I don't want you to do this one. I flew out and you're fucking cow town and I can't you've got to drive a half hour to get a newspaper. Are you nuts?

And then it would be seven o'clock on Friday night.

I'd race to the airport, get that midnight special, get all you know, and I'll meet. I'm a married already. I got married when I was 21. Yeah. I don't know what to do that night. I don't know what happened.

How long did that marriage first. One long one. Yeah, three, three, four years. Yeah. I got a second date but that's it. Yeah. Oh boy.

Anyway I had five of them so five marriages, four for my wife.

Less than five. You've got to see. We went down to get a license. Yeah. I had a lady sitting as you see in the applications and all of a sudden she, she goes nine nine nine fucking marriages between two.

I thought I was a fifth. Jesus Christ is the last one.

The final chapter. Yes.

So when you moved out here this so when Hanmin like I talked to John Leguizamo about that guy, like he did it to everybody, champion that guy.

Well well, he had an American playhouse, you know, w well playhouse and yeah, he had that for years and he taught there and he and his big thing was to find young writers, you know, he used to find a way so they would come in and it would put on productions of these writers.

All right, American Playhouse. And I went I did a couple of things for them and it was like forty five dollars a week. Forty five dollars.

Right. Right. But he did he teach you I was driving a truck, you know, it was. Oh, so you're in your family.

They give you a ride home. It's just like I get up in the back of the bloody pocket, they could take them down to a certain place.

And when I went out there, I wrote this letter to him. Hey, buddy. Well, when you were. You know, I'm here and I just so lucky I lived in Feierstein matter was fault. Yeah, I was married a lot. I still go out and see how it goes. Three weeks.

Yeah, I got four starring roles. And the big stories out here in five weeks was that the doctors showed up Soledad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Right, right. We have suspense theater.

So I'm going, Jesus Christ.

You know what? I'm a little cocky fucker. So you're like this, is it not?

Yeah, but it was like the poor guy came out, couldn't get the job so bad. Yeah. I got real lucky, you know, like real lucky. And and then I call for her way we stayed.

Yeah.

I remember how I used to think that I got the jobs mostly because. Because I said no a lot. Really. That's right.

Who's this fucking asshole? We'll show you some M.D. up there. You see that? Yeah.

Yeah. Stick them up your ass. Fuck you. I didn't say that, but I never went that far. But I really had a thing of integrity. I really. I mean, the thing with when when you should say you have a chance to do this better than anybody's ever done it. Wow.

OK, you know, we did of movies here, Don't Cry or some of these things. And he stay with me till this past year. He died in 97. Yeah. Yeah.

I just I just watched a documentary on him. He's a very impressive guy. But but you Bolschwing learned with the the method of the Meisner technique, is that where it started.

Well, Mizer and they're all pretty close. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But you just you just took to it.

I don't remember what to it was, but I mean I did it but to me I had the pleasure. I really did. I taught a couple of classes. Yeah. But one I taught last year and a year or so before.

They called it a masterclass of something. Yeah, I love being a master, that's why it's finally master.

Hey, man, don't call me Jim. Call me if I fight with them and bring a bone. Yeah, but I have very definite ideas about it. You know, it's like, look, I'm a big believer in instinct. I mean, and I proclaim that proclaim I became God to now know.

But the most I say that if you get a script is 10 actors. Right, 20, 30 act. They send the script to. And the first time when they look at you and they send you the script and says, look at the part of John. Right.

Right. I don't care who you are, but you're reading this thing. You don't want to get the storage of goods. So hopefully. But every time subconsciously, when it says, John, you slow down a little bit. I don't get fully shit. You do, right. It's you. Okay, so something happens the minute you see John, right. Something inside of you and suddenly happens. Right. That's as close as you're going to come to being that person.

Now, it's going to be a lot further because you don't understand what your relationship to everybody is, what they feel about you, what you get in the way. It's more of a makeup, right? Yeah, but internally, as the first as close as you're going to come, you're going to come a lot closer to that character.

Yeah. Because it's you it's your instinct. Look, every story's been fucking told. Every one of them. Yeah. I mean, the Romans. The Greeks did Shakespeare fucking did it. You know, they all did it. The good guy wins. The bad guy loses, the good guy gets the horse. He doesn't get old. He gets the girl I dated. You know what I mean?

What do you think keeps people's ass in the seat anymore? They know you journey pretty much everything. You may know where you're going to end up pretty much right is what I call unpredictability. So you're more interested in the character, how he gets through this door. You don't do this consciously, but when he when he or she comes on. Yeah. Oh, well, highly experienced like that. Whatever radiates across the aisle, it's unpredictable. What my brand of major city, because it was it wasn't where it was going.

It's where he's at right now.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right. Totally unpredictable.

Right. Right. That's what keeps you S.A.C., right. You can't say I'm going to be unpredictable. That's you.

You buy yourself as you different than that guy and that's what made you different than the other fifteen guys that you wanted to buy. A new one that's close. No one here like that's the one I'm going to pick. But I'm fifty.

I'm going to read the same shit, you know, like I used to talk like Tommy, you know, a guy pushes his grandmother off the second story, battle down the stairs, nine year old woman, he pushes it down.

Instead, he says, you old bitch, you are pushing. But that's pretty fucking horrid. So if I were to do that and it's the way I am sometimes and I suggest to myself or poor lady, you know, she brought me up from the time I was like five. She worked three jobs she had worked for, but I got older, she said she bought me, she she's a great lady and I loved it that it wasn't for her.

I don't know where I'd be, yeah, and I go and I say my lines, OK? So what happens? Go I look at a little long before I say, yes, the guy's crazy here, but I look at him and I go, I don't know. So I'm saying and I say this what she did for me and I go through all that, you know, before I. Come on. And I go, I'm just doing it verbally now.

You poor old bitch. Yeah. She looks to me. I'm a little. Well. And I just. One of the lines I have to read those lines here, so, you know, God bless you. Bless you. As you seen by. What was that, what was that? You remember that for a long time. That's nuts. That's scary. What was that from?

Whatever it was, you know, anything from above my mind?

I remember it was just to tell you that it's all about behavior. It's not about fucking words. Right. Words don't mean anything until you speak them and and the behavior that you have inside. So when I.

I wanted to say this to this poor girl. Right. The point is, is fuck you and she's going to push you down the stairs. So, yeah, I do it nicely.

But again, when I say this guy, he's got a mental problem is fucked up.

Right. Right. And there's more and more interesting things. I, I'll bet some actually do.

So you got to approach it from yourself, from the inside. That's kind of a broad a broad one. Right. You know what I mean. Yeah, sure. Expansive idea.

Yeah, I know. But that was a good acting lesson. But I mean it comes from but you kind of lock in, you make these fucking choices and then you get him out of your head and then you get it and then you lock into what your choices are.

Right. Yeah, but but you don't bring any of the crap you don't get. Doesn't matter.

You know, you know, if it's done properly. That's when you see.

I know that sounds to me like I'm not I don't think astral flights should do all that shit, you know. Right. Sure. I don't believe in that. But as an actual person, it's like a lot of times you have a thing with your girl or whatever. You do have this whole build up inside before you go. And what I'm going to say, you've had those things with your parents. You know I'm in trouble.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying. Sure. And it's in there you that you did that trip. Yeah. You still when you go and you say, hey, mom, I got to tell you something, all of that is coming out now. Right? Right. And the way you say things she said and said, why are you acting crazy?

You're not acting, but like when you OK, so like when like with The Godfather, you know, you guys like there's all this talk about, like, you know, you were supposed to you were going to play Michael and then Michael in there.

But like I said, every time I say that now, time was full over everything but big.

Like, what was that about? Who made those choices? I'll tell you that.

Well, everything was choices for Francis, nobody else's. Yeah, but as far as they try to make him listen, I had done the wrong people. Yeah. I was friendly with them. He stayed at my house, you know, so when he when he Bob Evans in them, Bob Evans wanted us the garbage or something. You remember him from. Do you remember Gus to go out of the director to the Greek director.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, yeah.

And I used to play, I used to rob them and tennis was ridiculous. I was just this crazy ego. Yeah. You stop being a kid and Gary Chaison was an eight player we go to and he would get Jimmy Connors, he would get Pancho Gonzales who everybody. Anybody he wanted as his partner. I swear to God.

The truth is Bob Evans played for Leitzel. Yeah. Yeah. He played for four hundred dollars a corner and they don't know. I know those guys will beat me. Oh, no. What's wrong here. Right. But they didn't have to hit every other shot. He never got that. He was a fairly decent player. My client was a good A player. Yeah. You know, not at the level. He didn't get the notion. You didn't get the idea.

You got to hit every other fucking ball, you moron. Yeah. You've got to you know, you've got to you've got to serve everyone. You ain't winning that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and you ain't winning none of my shows. I'm your son. I got to get one of them or you have to get four off me. I like my chances so we just rob them. I mean it was you. Me. I can't do this anymore.

Don't understand cause I mean you name the two guys you had there, the pro.

I just. This is ridiculous. You can't do this.

I don't want your money. So and I said at the time I was a little cocky.

I said I said, you know, the only guy that I know that should do this. I'm not saying that I'm responsible for this little bit. Yeah, it's Francis Coppola. I see. Because Francis, his grandmother, lived right around the corner from me and sunny side. Yeah. Francis is not a Brooklyn Italian. Yeah, he's a Mediterranean Italian. Women aren't music. Those kids were never on the room. Father was leave flowers for Tuscany, right?

Yeah. That's all it was. It was. Right, his family, his grandfather, his father was a composer, a composer, and lead cloud is fantastic. Oh, yeah, four hours. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know. Yeah. And that's all we know. You know why it is.

Yeah, I make that mention, but if I met with Francis and maybe a little responsible, but I truly believe that and I think that was a success in the movie. Yeah. Everybody can donate everything for the sake of family. Right. Killed 85 guys.

I don't care your sister yet, you know. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So. He got Francis. And Francis Scott. And we've got Bobby, thank God, Brando, thank God. Double time, yeah, and and Al Pacino, which really we didn't know at the time. Yeah.

OK, so is Jimmy. This is when you come home to San Francisco. But so we went to San Francisco and L.A. His wife put a bowl on it, hasn't a boat and bought these for corned beef sandwiches for lunch. And we improvise. They have that film somewhere where we read some of the dialogue.

Do you and now and embody that. And Brando sometimes. But mostly me and Bobby.

Yeah. And I mean, I never got to say I bust everybody's balls from the minute I got in there. Yeah. Because I'm above the level. Don't level the shit. I didn't write this fucking you know, and the way they show it. Yeah.

So. The point is that that was this case in a price of four coffee sandwiches, OK? Right. So now I go back home and he's going back to New York to scout.

You're to you're going to do New York City in nineteen forty five. That's a small little task. So he's going back to Anderson.

And I get a call one night about 11:00. Had to be two thirty in the morning, William. Jimmy, what? I want you to come in or some kind of friend is they want you to test they. Want me to test that's what you got. Applause You want me to drive around, you know?

Come on, I'm not kidding you just come and do me a favor. Fucking come in. So, OK, so I come in now. They had. I don't want to saying, but the other guy who was going to play. Certainly, they wanted me to play. They wanted me to play Michael, right, Bobby, Bobby, so I go I don't understand. Now, here's the thing. I know so well that I knew you wanted Michael physically to look.

This is silly dog. Yeah. More expensive. And that guy anyone is trying to be the Americanized version of him. Right. Right.

The younger brother and all at that time. I love that he's a good friend of mine and he's great. Yeah. At times he was really self-destructive. Pacino was it was hard for him to get the finances that he buried up in a concept that he had. Yeah.

You know, he was an actor's actor, you know, but it was worse every fucking time he came in. So we'd have these tests. I tested very my proposal. You read the book? Yeah. The making of The Godfather. Yeah. It's Karnad, Tennessee to play. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

I came in, I was half hearted about it. You know, I just because I knew Frances was killing them. Yeah. I walked in this studio 57 street. There were nine hundred actors sitting around just. Fucking on the floor with their backs against the wall in the studio, eating, drinking coffee, all of them going to test that English accent, Scottish accent, they were from bum fuck Idaho. I don't know when where they will from.

Everybody you could name was the everybody. And they were all testing for what, Michael?

Oh my God. Yeah. I go in to test for Michael. I'm fucking you know, it's OK, but I didn't my heart was with Francis, I was getting mad at Francis. Yeah.

So I came home that day from the studio feeling Frances pain in there. And I did my test. I'm going inside. And the next morning I get up and I start talking all the shit in the background. I'm getting out of there and they come to my door. So what were you going? They want you to come and test again. I should put outside of my door. I'll break your fucking get out of your fucking so mean. Come on, show that little prick under 30 story window.

Get the fuck away from me. Just get the fuck out of here, OK? And I'm so sorry. I'm going to go right to the terminal. I get on a train just to get away from the train about my third day there. That's not going to be OK. Jamie, please come back. You don't usually say so. He kept pushing out and each time I was worse than he was the time before. Why?

Because he was overthinking it or what?

No, because I mean, I just discussed it easily with his best friends. He believed them, which is all that really mattered to me as Michael's picture. Once I get in there. Yeah. Once they make up my mind, that is the right. And then leave them alone. Let them direct. Right. And thank God, you know, it was Michael even during the making of it.

But I could see Michael, whatever he he wanted to be so far removed from it. It was this Nebish kind of guy in the army allowed the Corleone's would look right at me while I'm walking, acting up. Right. You know. Yeah. And but it was some place for him to grow from, you know. Yeah. To understand it anyway. So it all worked out, I think pretty well.

But that's interesting. That's interesting. At the beginning he thought he was underplaying it and then he, he left himself room to grow into the was on the play was a guy is a soldier.

He's taking orders coming from right to go. Gilder's OK. Do twenty five pushups.

Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

So he was quiet and thinking it's funny, you, you really kind of think deeply about your intuitions are not just for yourself but for the whole sort of structure of the movie when you went to the shore.

And he has to fit. Yeah. You have to relate to. I mean that's why I said you get to know who they are, how they how much they like. You know, you get to really know you have a little different sometimes. I'm not aware of it. Well, I have a different way of addressing the father as opposed to the mother with my girlfriend. Right. Or the bad guys. The left hand guy, the guy you just if, you know, take your time.

Just seeing what I know, what he thinks about me, what I think about him. Right. Everything is good. I can say anything I want. Right.

Because like, you know, it's amazing. After watching a lot of the movies. Yeah. You got it. You've got incredible range, you know, I mean, it's like, you know, people think of you as sunny or whatever, but you got the full spectrum of shit you can do.

See, Frances, let me go. In other words. Yeah, the very first scene we shot in the Genco Olive Oil Company.

Yeah, I didn't know it was like the first day I shot and it was a scene. What it's Alonso comes in. I just I just wasn't there. I was like I didn't have my foot in anything, you know, like oh really.

Yeah. Yeah. I was just but I was doing it in France is looking at me and saying and then French and Brando was great. Yeah. Anyway I came home from that and I felt shitty. I didn't and we were going out somewhere and I was shaving that night. Yeah. And Rickles used to be a friend of mine, you know as a young kid I used to hang out with them. Who would. Don and John Adams. Yeah.

Yeah. Wrigglers out of his mind, you know, just funny.

Yeah. Anyway, I come in, I was shame and all of a sudden. I don't know why this is true story, unshaven for a change in your fat, you know.

Yeah, yeah, you must be your guy. When you sit on the street, you must say, get up, get up when you're sitting on the toilet seat. Oh, you must have flooded, you son of a bitch. I mean, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And I just busted horn. Yeah. I went in the next day.

I'm telling you, I busted balls for 16 weeks here every day.

Frances, once you get your shoe change you how much money you need. Thirty dollars to get that fresh. You wear it every fucking day.

I mean, yeah. Busted balls. Right. And everybody hysterical. Right. Right. And Frances never said a word, but I had a life together. I could have done Hamlet like that. All those things that the beat about being a woman, that's all improvised. And Frances nonetheless written. I said, you know, in my neighborhood, the Italians, that they maybe had two suits once in that world.

I don't know what it was. Yeah. So I said to the wardrobe lady, as well as black and white kicker's, you know. Right. Or brown and white, but black one. No, it's the ship. Nondescript. Oh, can I get them? You know, we were we had like the half a million dollars, some medicalize. Yes, we have the right what I bought for ten dollars in the Bronx. In your store.

Yeah. Those black. White are you remember the black and white shoes.

Yeah. I bought them for ten dollars. Yeah. Yeah. Same with me. When I come and see I didn't know. Well you lose it or ever use it. I took my call, we had these things. We call them attitude adjusters. Yeah. You know. Do you remember this industrial type Broun's. We cut them off here was a little like one of those little mini you buy at the ballgame.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That'd put them on the back seat. I know. And I to the just in case I need you guys. So what are you doing with that. I don't know. I'll just leave it.

It's a bother when you leave it here. And that was weeks before we did the fight. I mean, I got the fight, I stopped outside and I grabbed that fucking thing. I ran on me and I threw this fucking thing. And it was like the cars on the other side street. I saw that Frances blew up right end.

I was sitting on the stoop that beat the fucking and he started to run and I pulled it out underneath the car. Yeah. And it's just you look like you don't want to hear what are you fucking nuts? This thing's a waste of power. I have to buy here enemies behind it cause he's running right off the coconut. But luckily it was on an upswing. He was on it. All right. I didn't really knock them out my fucking head, so.

Yeah, but he he needed it anyway.

And the other thing is, the only thing he did was like, what was that guy's name? Johnny Russo.

He wrote a book out. Now he claims he did this. Everybody talks about his dad. He fuck my hero. He did this. He did. Yeah.

How do you how can you say that?

You know, that he's OK. He's a he's a real a go getter, you know, like. Yeah.

Anyway, so the key to Sonny came through Don Rickles. Yeah, pretty much.

But it was like, you know, it was a little things in my neighborhood.

I remember when the first time I ever just took off on my own during a wedding, they said, go outside and tries to take the numbers down, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With the cameras. I mean, it's none of that was in there.

Yeah. We were to wedding, but yeah. You know. That's right. The camera down, you throw the money at him all the way.

Yeah. There you go. See that's the thing. You sure you remember. Yeah. I had no intention of doing anything but walking in but when I walked in what. Clemenza was a great character. That guy was great. The guy comes out and he snaps my picture. I see him discretional and I just lost it. Yeah, I took his fucking camera. Right. And we this box damaged property bubble, it must've cost a lot of money.

I smash I smash it on the floor and in my neighborhood it's got boats as long as he paid for it. Right.

And I looked at it, I saw twenty out of out of the franchise. Just love that. It just happened right then. And there is going to be open, you know.

Right. So I had a lot of fun with him and Frances was great with me. Let me do I mean, there's so many things you allowed me to do. But he was really kind of, you know. So let me deal with them. Are you still friends? Oh, yes, sure. I did for more privacy, for more places with them. I want to do one more. But now someone is doing a picture about him, but then all these other great fucking movies, I didn't even know there was a thing.

And that's I like that.

Let me see you mention it right now.

Peter Boyle. That was great. And then Cinderella Liberty was great, the gambler. But was that director's name Carol Rice?

Is that, by the way? He was great. That's a great movie that Toback's Toback's did not write. Complete bullshit. Yeah, he's full of shit.

Yeah, I'll tell you. He I'm telling you, Toback. But Carol Rice, you know, he was the producer of Saturday night and Sunday morning. A great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just the greatest guy. You know, Hungary's English well, you know, and he like I'm an every shot of that movie. Right. And when they were in Lexington Avenue, there's one apartment building here. They got the steps that go all the way up in the front door to the front door.

And I was in the next room and I had a I had a smoke in the green room was next door. They needed me for shots. So the ad comes out and says, hey, Jimmy, we need you to come on you right now. I'm going down the stairs and I have them wires that I step on, one of them cables. You know, I go down from all the way down my hands.

That's as big as a fucking softball this big. I want to hit the ground. Yeah, tore it up. They picked me up and he runs up to Carol and he goes, I think just broke his ankle and talent.

Oh, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast.

Did you break it? No, I ran a pretty bad I watched Frisbee in the beam, which I saw when I was a kid.

Steve is the best I got. Yeah. You love that one. Oh yeah. I mean, I think listen, here's what I mean about making choices. Michael turned out I mean, that was like his first picture. You know, I can say I put him on the map.

Michael Mann. Yeah. Yeah. Is that half a dick? You know, he's a real little Hitler.

Yeah. So I'm doing this picture and I'm looking at this dialogue. And for whatever reason, I have no idea where it comes from.

Yeah, I decided because this story about a guy is like a true guy. By the way, we took, you know, these two guys to make up that one character. But yeah, one of them. Are you going to put in jail for like forty dollars. Right. You know, and that's where you first become a bad guy. That's a lot of these sentences they give these kids, what a joint right here with bad guys for the first time.

Yeah.

They get made into big, big, big eleven years because I had to fight to get a hit as the captain. I did all this stuff. Yeah. So now I'm in a hurry to make up for them. Eleven years, you know.

Right. Did you ever see the picture. Yeah. You know that thing I pulled up with Tuesday. That colored collage.

Yeah. Yeah. That whole scene. Yeah. So I said to Michael one day I said, listen, if you notice in this picture you'll be able to see it again. There is not one contraction in it.

No isn't was no contractions. So I am the last guy on earth you want to mess with, you know. Right. I just never had it. Was it. I am the last guy you want to fuck with. OK, yeah.

So I'm doing this thing. I'm, I'm, I'm doing what is what is it that you think that I'm wearing. These are you know and Michael's I women. Why you. Why are you why are you speaking like that? Why am I speaking like one? You're not.

I mean, I say this because I never want to repeat myself. Do you understand? You're in a hurry. Exactly. Haste makes waste. Yeah.

OK, you know, I you won't find one contraction in there.

And that was your choice. Yeah. You guys are really in a hurry.

But that's really odd. Right. But I am not going to repeat myself.

Make it up for the last time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's fucking great. And what about that with the one you directed. How come you only you didn't want to draw the best reviews on that.

I know the hide in plain sight. I was so yeah.

It was so great. They didn't understand that these idiots over there and jamuna. Yeah I think they won and they put it out and they didn't even have a single sheet yet. And then they came on, I got these reviews and they realized oh my God, you know, and they try to put it out again but they got a movie on their hands.

The truth of the matter is, you know, if you make a movie, even when I'm acting, this sounds pompous, but it's I don't mean it that way. I want everybody in the world to love it, obviously. Sure. But you're really making a film like 20 guys or fifteen thousand girls that you respect a lot. Right. So in France, if something is one of the best five movies or 10 movies that he's ever seen.

Yeah. And Pollack wrote me a letter and a lot of the guy who wrote me a letter. So that was really good rewarding for me. But the kids who were so good, you know, I found you like a very I mean, I was so much fun doing it because I could get to play with my actors, you know.

Yeah. And. I felt bad for them that they didn't get the recognition right. In the business, they did. They did. All right.

Yeah, yeah. It's so funny.

You know, what I noticed when I was watching all these movies is how many times you're recovering from gunshot wounds or, you know, or or in a hospital bed. It's like you got to put a bullet in. It comes a horseman. Then you're in misery. You're in the fucking bed recovering and killer elite. You got you've got to recover from something in Brian's song, Brian song, you know, attackable.

You've got to have at least two bullets. And what is love stories have two bullets. That guy's crazy.

Did you did you like that guy, Sam? Yeah.

You're a complete wacko. Complete. I had a scene with Bobby in the morning, like the night before. First of all, I had to can I study that for. I teach it and and I have this thing there's a whole written scene where we're going to work that next day in the car, if you'll see that first night and then the second night we're the car is a long sheet and it's about a brawl that I took up to the.

My room. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, and he gives you the fake video to give you this thing with a yeah, she has some kind of a natural disease.

My brother went into a wallet, found it, and he didn't stop it, you little prick. Yeah, but I didn't because she was she says, did you touch the opposite of what Bush bit off the cheese? That was it. I couldn't remember. Yeah, they were laughing. So I told you have to tell that story. What I about fucking just tell that story to Bobby came about his nuts afterwards and you just put it in the movie.

Yeah.

So what about these times. What about like you know, it seemed like there were times where you like you didn't want to act anymore, you quit or you retired or you had trouble.

No. Yeah, I had I lost my sister. You know what she was like, girl. She was like my best friend. Like, just.

Yeah. And yeah, things were coming easy, you know, and. I don't know, and then I got into cocaine, which I did, I was a ball player my whole life, you know. Yeah, but I coached my kids have no idea.

I coached I quit and I coached for five years. I coached baseball and I coached hockey, which I do not hockey, which I know nothing about, and baseball. Yeah, and we won. I mean, it was great. So. And you weren't acting at all?

No, I could do in one day. I can feel more creative than I can with one of these kids and I, what, six months in a movie. Yeah, it's great. And I work my ass.

I bought tickets to my house. I bought a batting machine from I got it from the Dodgers in my house.

It was great. My kid was the number one pick. Scott Yeah. Andy Lopez, who is coach of Pepperdine. He offered him a good baseball coach at Pepperdine. Yeah. Offered a scholarship when you 13 so of hands you seen.

So this was what you did to kind of get over the sadness? No, I did.

I did that to get some life back into myself, you know, and I don't know. And I was after the coke and stuff, I realized that, yeah, it was terrible, terrible, really destructive.

And here and I realized that the three words I like least. Yeah.

I don't care. Yeah. Yeah. You want to play tennis. I don't care.

You don't give a fuck you. I don't I want to know that I beat you today. That you wanted to play against the court you know. Yeah.

You know you want to fuck my maybe. OK, ok. You really know you don't you. Really. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So the passion became passion became everything to me like so passionate about something I want to listen or not. You have to be crazy but they care about you. So I got this whole bullshit fucking thing and then. Then I realized like. Then how destructive it was, and then I had some good family, like nobody was better to me than than Castlerock, you know, those guys had a couple I had friends. Rob Reiner, Meathead was one.

And they all for me, misery, misery. I don't know.

Rob must leave me something because I think they went to Warren Beatty and Warren was a good guy, said, now you want a real man for this. You know, you want something like Jimmy Carter or something.

So they came to me to do it. They offered me something was very fair. Yeah. You know, very fair.

And I've been around for more than one third of what I made, which I was making pretty good money. I was I paid guys around.

Yeah. And and I did it.

And that was another part where what would you do to prepare for that? I mean, like what you say about, you know, me, I mean, you know me well enough. But I knew Rob, he he left. I said, I know what you did. And she took the the most. Oh well let me see what the word was.

I used the guy in Hollywood, you know, and put him in bed for fifteen weeks.

Right. He says, I want to get out so bad, you know, and Robin's great. So I looked. At this and Kathy was wonderful. She loved to rehearse. I don't like the crowds, especially here. So I've come to your mind like she wants rehearse. I really don't want to rehearse. I mean, if it's OK, you know, why not? Look, I don't know if she's going to kiss me or fuck me when she comes in.

Why do I want to know with her before? Let me let me get lost. Understand that I have no idea just what I have to do. I'm not playing any I don't have to play with my dialogue. Right. I go don't get me. You know, let's rehearse with somebody else.

Let's rehearse. We are like that. So he got that. He rehearsed where all the time and I had a lot of fun.

So you didn't know you wanted to keep it, so you didn't know what she was going to do. I want me the character. Yeah. I know what you can do, but I try to play against that, will you take it away? All right. Acting like acting, acting for. Right, right, right.

I have to really try to remember what you know. Of course. Yes, I know. But I already have my my energy rehearsed and ready. I've done, you know, I got where I should be, and she was really good.

Do you like doing that part? I had to be in bed. It was really tough, I mean, I am kind of, you know, I'm just kind of move all the time. And yeah, I our cameraman. Still, he will have to get out of bed and crawl to the door when Rob wants to look and he'll go around and be watching them is your route and it's spit on the floor. The prick. So strategic spot.

Yeah.

It's such a great you know, like that. Do you like you knew all these guys. I mean, I can't even believe that when, like one of the first movies you did, you would Mitchum and John Wayne. How about that now. Must have been crazy to watch.

Twenty three years old. Must have been crazy. The first thing I got was left from my fucking heels. And those two guys I love mention today that he was around that guy. That guy was. Yeah, OK, boy. And so I mean I got to work with Wayne. Yeah. And the first week is me and Wayne riding to Eldorado riding.

And I assume that phone you know of about El Dorado. Yeah. And I'm noticing he's talking to me. This fucking guy don't talk. Right. You know, I just noticed it. But now you're coming from the studio, you know, at the playhouse and. And I say he'd go like he shoots this kid. And he goes down and takes his head up and he goes, who right you do it, Luke, why'd you have to go and do that?

A lot of fucked up sometimes, and so it's now Mississippi is what we're going to do with our. And I just couldn't fucking believe it, so I like I tell you, it's like whatever's there and at at all and I'm smiling like, I, I can't believe this guy was really real. Yeah. No human talks like this fucker that. Yeah. I just find it so close about two weeks later. Yeah. Yeah. And I had that bad image comes out and he goes, hey Jiminy Cricket because I had that hat on.

Yeah. You're doing a lot of smiling and they got shot in the dailies, you know. Yeah. You did a lot of smiling as revolution, as revolutions.

Doc, what do you talk.

You laugh and you know, I kept it up, you know, with Wade. Yeah. And he turned out to be like a 12 year old kid. I mean, I loved him, but he was if he could intimidate. Yeah. He'd, um, there was a tube. These two fucking giants. Yeah. Twenty two or whatever the hell it was. Yeah.

And we come on and Howard Hawks and seventy two year old then he was Howard Hawks you know. Right. There was one scene where we come around the corner at the top of the street and the bad guys are all down at the end of the street in a bar on the right. That's where I saw that knife or something. Something else was on, I think it does this thing. But anyway, these bad guys in the town, look, when we come around the corner, we try to look for them.

We came around the corner. We first come running around the corner. We stop at the corner. And Duke says, now look at this city. You run down here right down the middle to scooting around that back end and come around and you come in that that front door when I'm alone. Yeah. OK, so watch over.

We had a dress to hold for just three to six upstairs. I mean, one six up to four people walking up was the length of the street.

Yeah. Took quite a while you know. Yeah I really. OK Jimmy when you say that line boom you go right. I'll go shovel's back to the guys about 50 yards away. Yeah. Turns around and as he's walking back, the transmission is not looking good when you say that to the line. I want you to turn around and give me that look, you give me a lot of thought, look, I'll give you a what would look.

Hey, yeah, I just told you, I guess you just pick it up on the spot all the time, you know?

Yeah. So I said, what?

Just turn around and give me that look you give me and then go.

I say, OK, do all of my background, I want to fly around the corner and I turn around. God, yeah. Jesus Christ, what happened?

Here comes walk slowly across. Bring everybody back. Yeah. Look, Jimmy, when you say that I need you to go, I don't need you to sing it because it's got to be a little whatever.

You know, we need pace. Yeah, no, we need to get them. I said, I'm sorry, coach, I'm looking at this and say, All right, sorry, coach. Sorry, sir. He starts walking back to the company, is now looking kid. I told you, when you give me that look, don't take a full step, you take a half step and then you turn around and give me that look, you give me OK, do this really early on in the relationship.

Right. I am fucking cautious. Everything coming in. I go, I run, I take a step. Go down. Turn around. Kott.

Yeah. What the fuck, what is the matter with you, Jimi? What do you mean? I'm sorry? I told you, don't turn around again and look, it's important you say and you go, Yeah, and to the young kid, he's getting his ass kicked by the director, you know. Yeah.

So I said, I'm sorry, kid. I promise you will not happen again. I'm so sorry. Right. We wiped the horses down. That going to wipe down fucking half hour. Yeah. Yeah.

I get the position and Ducos like a kid and I turn around like this and I was going to pop up like it was a problem and all of a sudden I get Revilla back from you grab both my arms, my back is just too easy.

Who easybeats.

See you fuck you know. And you know, they both kind of laughed and that was it.

You know, from then on we were great.

He was like my best friend, you know, with my kid, because he could get you he would do the honey. If he could intimidate you, he'd fuck your whole whole picture. You would be intimidated.

You get scared to death by Wayne. Yeah. You know, if he could see that and me, it became so bad, like like we believe he'd do it on purpose.

So so we have this scene.

Like you were forced to dance. I am now. Yeah, right. And I'm off camera. Yeah. When we go on with the and the camera's over my shoulder on hill. Yeah. So I'm standing there and he starts talking. I'm going.

You stay and you laugh like that. What's the matter? Oh, nothing, Poppy. I make him laugh, you know.

And so it was like a little kid, you know, those wedding dress movies that have on the set sometimes. Yeah. You know, the wooden dressing rooms you have a key for. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Like a lot going on one day and I open it after lunch. Fucking garbage fill out. But I mean tons of shit for you know is the fucking kid.

But that was such a what a great baptism into show business you get because you must have watched those guys when you were a kid, right.

Sure. I mean, Mitchem. Right.

Were you did you stay friends with Mitchem? Yeah. I mean apparently yeah. He too midshipman's around. He threw George that he had a 220 pounds. I went off a bridge. I'm in San Francisco.

Yeah I was, I was that fucking set. George. Oh my God. And we used to it, me and some stuntmen, I was a stuntman all my life with them. I work sometimes, my friend Walter. And we go down to Mexico. We can come back shitfaced, I mean, you know, information, Charles, because he was the only guy and his parents, you know, his wife's parents, Dorothy, his wife, that he was a colonel.

And there were this line, North Carolina. Probably at that farm and then drunk at night and you start a fight on the kitchen floor, me and Chuck will.

We're just fighting just how drunk I want.

And one day his parents came up to see him. His mother did.

Yeah, I know his father and I, we Chuck Robertson and another guy on the floor every. They're fighting in the kitchen where that's where the beers were, I guess, and we didn't know. Here comes the smaller Mitchum's mother and goes on the floor.

OK, Colonel Hanley.

Get the fuck out of here.

It was great. Good times. Yeah. Got to have a good time. Boy, that's for sure. There's nothing worse than being on a picture and not having one. It's like every morning you got to wake up. But I made sure that I can proudly say to most of my I either made of like me or made them laugh or whatever it was.

Hey, man, it was great talking to you.

Jimmy, who did I talk to you this long? I'm going crazy. This is a big deal for me to talk to any living human. It was great. Come back tomorrow. What are you doing? Nothing.

I wish I was there. Wasn't this fucking this fucking playground. I would come over any time and talk.

I'm sorry. I was fine. I got. That's the only that's that. I did have a few more funny ones.

So you can, you know, hear. No, it was great. It was a real honor buddy. And I, I mean, you're a big part of my life, my whole life. And, you know, my father loved you. I was a real honor to talk to you, meet you.

Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Take care, man. All right, buddy. Take care. Fucking James Caan. What do you think about that, while it was totally wild talking to that guy and don't forget, folks, if you're feeling depressed, overwhelmed or anxious, better help offers licensed online counselors who are trained to listen and help talk with your counselor in a private online environment at your convenience. Just fill out a questionnaire to assess your specific needs, then get matched with a counselor.

And under 48 hours, better help is an affordable option. And for WTF listeners, you get 10 percent off your first month with the discount code. WTF get started today at better dotcom slash WTF. Talk to a therapist online and get help. And I'm going to play guitar a little bit. A little bit. A little bit. Our lives. Find a monkey. Flying Khobragade.