Matt's Interview with Clint Howard at Creature Feature Weekend 2025 (Scranton)

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Go to the Games tab and play FIFA World Cup Launch Edition now, only on Netflix. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Matt Kelly, host of the Horror Movie Night Podcast, and I am here with the esteemed guest of honour. Clint Howard.

Hey. Thank you, folks, and thank you, Matt. Clint, I'm so excited to talk to you, because I have been such a longtime fan of really everything from you, from the starring roles to the bit parts, I think that you are quite genuinely one of the most underappreciated and underutilized actors of our time. Well, geez, I appreciate that.

And there are times in my life I tend to agree with you. Listen, as an actor, I started acting when I was really young. I enjoyed it. I understood the competition of it.

And I like to work, I like to work more, and life has been really good being an actor. You have one of those careers that I think is easy to get so caught up in pop culture to not appreciate how unique it is, where you were literally doing Disney voiceover and Roger Corman films like within a year of each other. Well, technically, I don't know about that. I did my two famous Disney voiceovers when I was a child.

Yes. And I didn't start working for Roger until I was a teenager. Okay, but still very close to each other in transition. No, if you take a step back and look at my career, it is remarkable because I started working a lot in the mid-60s.

I worked in the early 60s, but then I was on a television show. There was a black and white television show before television went color. It was a show called The Bailey's About Boa with Paul Ford and Sterling Holloway. And as it turns out, Sterling Holloway was the voice of Winnie the Pooh.

So it was before Winnie the Pooh, before I did my voiceover of Rue, I had worked with Sterling Holloway. Sterling Holloway. So anyway, it's pretty remarkable. All through the famous television programs, gun smoke, you know, Bonanza, The Virginian, a little bit later on, our Marcus Welby MD.

I did an episode of Family Affair where Buffy kicked my ass. Only in television can Clint Howard get his ass kicked by Buffy. Not the vampires layer, the little girl that was in Family Affair. So anyway, and then, you know, considering that I didn't have anything to do with it, except I had an audition and my dad prepared me for the role, and I won the audition that I got this part in the science fiction show called Star Trek.

And it was the first season. Nobody knew too much about it. They knew it was this kind of, it was a western in space, basically. It was wagon train in space.

And I worked on that and I ended up getting hired to play a 600 year old alien, which made me the world's youngest character actor. So starting at six years old, I began doing character roles, you know, and it's, you know, been remarkable. And I'm very grateful and it's led to a wonderful life. I think character actor is the perfect way to describe you, because when I think of every movie that I've seen you in, whether you're starring in it, whether you're, you know, something like Austin Powers, where you show up for a line, I have never, I don't think I've ever seen you not give the exact performance that was called of you in those roles.

You, you nail the punch lines in these, in these films where sometimes you show up and say a single line of dialogue and you nail it. I remember seeing Austin Powers in theaters and get the explosion of laughter of the delivery of some of your lines. But then you have stuff like Ice Cream Man and Evil Speak, where I genuinely don't think there's another actor on this earth that could play the ice cream man the way that you play the ice cream man, the way that you make us really feel for this character who is a sociopath, but you're still empathizing with this character even as you've seen him kill people. A sociopath with a heart of gold.

Exactly. That's me. I can put that on my tombstone. Well, God, I appreciate that.

And you know what, God gave me a gift. First of all, God gave me mom and dad. I was blessed to be born into this world in the arms of my mother and my father. And then I had this big brother who is, you know, Ron, I've said this for years and years.

He's a Hall of Fame movie director, but I guarantee you, he is a better big brother than he is a Hall of Fame movie director. That's what kind of relationship I have with him. And it's I, you know, he's always been a mentor without trying to be a mentor, you know, and mom and dad were always so solid. And these were not untricky waters to be guiding children through television and films in the 60s.

They're, you know, dad just had a touch. He was like a child actor whisperer. He had a wonderful touch teaching us the fundamentals of acting. Mom was right there as important.

Mom was not really hands on with the acting that dad was, but mom was right there with the support and, and you know, people think that my life was about me being a child actor. And that was part of what I did when I was young, but I was also in Little League Baseball in Park League basketball, in journalism when I was in junior high in high school. And I'll tell you what mom did for me. She was my fan and she was my audience in every baseball game that I ever played.

My mom, she must have had some serious calluses on her butt because she sat on those park league benches for, I mean, I played both basketball and baseball religiously. From the time I was about six or seven years old, till the time I went, played high school baseball. Mom was always there supporting, you know. I'll never forget this.

I was about 12 or 13 years old and I started playing ping pong really, and I love ping pong. She made me a holder for my ping pong paddle. She made me like the sleeve that went around my ping pong paddle that kind of like a, you know, like a little suitcase for my ping pong paddle. And you know, mom did that.

Mom was just this champion lady and then had, she had this spirit about her that, you know, was infectious and beautiful. And let me give you one more little plug here. It's not a plug. It's just, you know, my brother and I, Ron Howard and I, wrote a book called The Boys, A Memoir of Hollywood and Family.

And it really is about us growing up as children in the entertainment business. And it really was written after dad died. It was a love letter to both mom and dad. And we wrote this book and it was, you know, New York Times bestseller.

It's something that they can put on my tombstone. The Clint Howard was a New York Times best selling author. And we were actually on the best selling author list for four weeks in a row, which is actually really cool. So anyway, the book goes into more detail about talking about mom and dad, but they were instrumental.

You know, and then God, God gave me, you know, my face, my temperament, my personality. I firmly believe I'm firmly a deeply spiritual person. And I know there's a connection. There's a glue out there.

And it ain't me. There's this cosmic spiritual glue, you know, God reached down and touched me. And gave me this face and this hairline, which there was a time in my life and I didn't appreciate what got it done with my hairline. But over the years, I've come to appreciate everything and I'm very, very grateful.

The like, the champion that is like a parent or a grandparent that just truly is obsessed with you is such a unsung hero of anyone who's successful. I think of my own grandfather, me just being a six year old kid in love with wrestling and him overhearing me really excited about a wrestling pay-per-view. And he bought it on pay-per-view, taped it, and then went as far as recreating the poster by cutting it out of the newspaper and taping it to the box and gifting it to me. And you know, that was 35 years ago.

And I still think about the amount of effort that went into something that just was to say, like, the things that you're interested in, I love about you, even if I don't care about that thing as much as you do. Like, that goes a long, long way in a child's life. You too, huh? Yeah.

Well, you had it with your grandfather and I had it with Mom and Dad. And that was beautiful what you just said. And you painted it perfectly, you know? Your granddad cared enough about.

He went ahead and recreated the poster. And I have those stories about my parents. Yeah. You know?

And that's, you know, that is awesome. Yeah. But also, you too about wrestling? Oh, the 90s wrestling was, where was that?

I was 60s wrestling. Yeah. I mean, Freddy Blas- Freddy Blas- Sassy Freddy Blas- And Haystack Calhoun. And Dad and I and Ron used to wrestle in our living room.

They, you know, I don't know, probably once a week. Dad would move all the furniture to the sides, you know? And we would have a wrestling ring. And now get this, this is not really a pretty picture as an adult to think about this.

But I would take a pair of whitey tights. I would put those whitey tights around, making myself like one of the like, a loser door. I've got a wrestling mask. Jesus, I hope the mom made sure they were clean.

But yeah, and you know, probably thinking about it in retrospect, it was probably an opportunity for Dad to make sure he blew a little steam, that we blew steam off. Yeah. At the end of the night, if we wrestled for, you know, 45 minutes- You're ready to sleep. You're ready to go to sleep.

You know, my dad was no fool. No. Anyway, I listen, I could go on and on about my mom and dad. But you guys, if you have an opportunity, you should read the book, or it's available on audio.

I know my wife, Kat, she's a big proponent of the audiobook because Ron's got a certain way that he talks. He's sort of like a jazz symphony when he speaks, you know. And I'm a little more like kind of a punk rock act. And so what we do is we just, we read each, we read our words that we've written.

And we wrote it in that sort of style where he talks about his life from his perspective. And then I chime in, being five years younger, I chime in about the perspective I had being the little brother. And it made for good reading. And if you guys haven't had a chance to read it, you guys should check it out.

You should make an alternate version where you read each other's words. I guess so. I don't know. But listen, I love my life.

And I love being Ron's little brother. And I've had a great seat at the table. And let me just jump ahead a little bit. Something and it came up at this convention.

Somebody was talking about solo. And my brother directed solo. And he was a replacement director. The Lucas people decided to let the two directors that were directing the movie go.

After a long time, they filmed for a couple of months. I think it was Chris Miller and Phil Lord, I believe, where the people they moved off. And they finally decided that they needed to replace these guys. And they quickly hunted around and they landed on my brother.

And my brother and the Lucas company had a brief bit of negotiation. And Ron decided he would take the movie. And he was very happy to be getting to work to do a Star Wars movie. And in fact, he called George Lucas.

And he told George Lucas that the two guys had been replaced because George doesn't. He's not day to day operational with the Star Wars Enterprise anymore. So he called George and he says, I'm George, I'm going to direct solo. And George said, I told him to hire you in the first place.

So Ron was very proud that he was George's blessing. And when I got to the set to work on my scene for the week, I was so proud that my brother, they were hiring my brother to be at the tip of the spear of that operation. Because you have no idea with technology and the care and the creativity what they apply to make those Star Wars movies. There is no stone unturned.

There is no dollar left unspent. They will do what they have to to make those movies as good as they can make. And they hired my brother to be the guy to do it. And when I was there on the set, I had a flashback of when he was 16 years old and I was 11 years old.

And he was beginning to seriously make films for the first time. I mean, he had played with the video, he had played with a super eight camera before. But he was about 16 years old. When he really decided I'm going to start being a storyteller.

I'm going to take some film, I'm going to shoot an idea, I'm going to cut it together, I'm going to tell a story. Because that's what he considers himself. He's a story Smith. And I remember when he started and he had a dream of being a director and nobody gave him a lick of a chance.

This is way before the industry embraced young people to direct. I mean, Ron got laughed at. When Ron was 16, 17 years old, 18 years old, telling people he wanted to be movie director. Yeah, that's a cute kid, Opie.

You know, but Ron had the gumption and the drive and he kept up and he got himself in a position to where Roger, Roger Corman wanted to hire him to be an actor in a movie. And Ron said, well, I will be an actor in your movie if you will give me an opportunity to direct one of your movies. And Roger, having a keen sense of what's good, he agreed. You know, and so Ron got to direct his first movie, which was Grand Theft Auto.

But I remember when he was 16 years old and wanted to do it so badly and then on a set of solo, here he was with confidence and assurity getting to direct. It was really awesome. Yeah. I mean, they say in music, if we heard Al Parity's you, you know, you've made it.

I feel like you know that you've been embraced by the film industry if they're going to give you a Star Wars movie. Because that is a, there are a few franchises that are more hard to break through and be given that opportunity than that franchise. And I thought, listen, I thought Ron did a great job on solo. Yeah.

I know, listen, I was really proud of his work. And so anyway, that's, listen, I've been very lucky because I got to do, I mean, when I was a little kid, I was in Star Trek. Yeah. You've done both of them.

I've done both of them and I've done a lot of different Star Trek's. I'm listening. Again, I didn't make the choices. I did suit up and show up.

You know, and I did. Now, lately, the last two or three times I've appeared in the world of Star Trek, they've asked me to be on. But I auditioned for the original Star Trek series. I auditioned for Deep Space Nine.

I mean, I went in and there was somebody to finish second. There was somebody, there was some kid that almost got the job in the original Star Trek in the Corbin might maneuver. And I don't know, as luck would have it, as fate would have it, I've always said that the casting director may think that the casting director, but God truly is the one doing the casting. He has the one guiding there.

Well, we are at a Hargin mention. So we do have to shift things from the fun of the sci-fi. To talk about, there was this, I would almost say there was this giant late 80s into the early to mid 90s, Clint Howard Harr moment. You're in the Silent Night Deadly Night sequels and you're in one of my personal favorites, ticks.

But then I think the thing that people are going to get photo ops here for is Ice Cream Man. You stumble into this small film that just absolutely took over the video store. Well, yes it did. Thank you.

And I did not stumble into it. I auditioned for the role of Gregory in Ice Cream Man. They had actually hired somebody else to play the Ice Cream Man, but the director wanted to do some casting and he had my agent submitting me for the role. And I went in and met with Norman and in hindsight, Norman said, we got to hire Clint.

So it was right place, right time. But it wasn't an offer. It was an audition. And I'm so grateful that happened.

And as a matter of fact, I did a wonderful amount of fun success with Ice Cream Man. You know, listen, a fun little horror movie for kids kind of, you know, for a lot of people, it was their first horror movie that they ever saw. And it was in the era of video stores. So kids would go to the video store, they'd see the box and Ice Cream Man and they'd rent it.

And they would have, they would be tremendously satisfied. And to this day, it's probably my number one, certainly my number one seller at a horror convention. And it's kind of my probably my number one selling photo in any convention. It's one of the best pieces of box art that I think is ever existing.

It's so iconic. My creepy face holding a bloody ice cream cone. I mean, yeah, take that to the bank. You know, and this, I'll tell you what, I've got to do that.

I got to go ahead and follow up with this. Yes, made the little movie in 1994. Didn't really appreciate it at the time. It was fun.

Over the years, people would start calling out Ice Cream Man on the streets, you know. So it resonated a few years ago, my wife, Kat, and I and Norman Epstein, the director sort of decided that we were going to figure out a way to try to do another ice cream in. And Norman and I were hatching plans along with Kat. And it was, you know, we didn't really want to do a sequel.

Gregory dies in the friggin ice cream maker and it seemed like that story was just about over. And we didn't really want to do a prequel. And we really didn't want to do anything. We wanted to do another ice cream man.

So we just invented this great story. We've landed on this wonderful, wonderful story about a guy that sells ice cream. And what makes a man decide to start putting body parts in ice cream? Because on page one, Craigie is not that man.

Craigie is not a monster at the beginning of the movie. But yet things happen to the point where on about page 60, give or take, he decides to take out his meat cleaver and make rocky road ice cream the real organic way. You know, so anyway, we've developed it. Just recently, even in the last couple of weeks, we've heard some great news as far as fully, you know, fully getting the thing off the ground.

And we're on the, we're technically in pre-production and we're literally within the next couple of weeks on the verge of going into full blown pre-production. And we're going to probably shoot an early spring of of 2026 and have it out into the marketplace as quick as possible, as quick as the distributors want us to have it in the marketplace. We're going to have it. We're going to have it.

I am very excited for us to revisit that world. Let's talk to the crowd for a little bit. Does anybody here have any questions for Clint Howard? All right.

Well, it's a golden bucket of popcorn and darned tootin. For a while, we have it on the mantle of our fireplace and that we replaced it kind of with family pictures and stuff, but it's probably displayed in our house. And it's something I'm very proud of. And I'll give you a little tiny little inside bit of trivia on that.

This is a weird thing because I was working on, I was working on a, like an Adam's family reunion movie. And it was April Fools. It was April 1st when my agent called me and said, you know, the MTP people just contacted us and they want to give you the lifetime achievement award. And I literally remember telling Darryl, like, oh, don't bullshit me.

Darryl, it's April Fools. You're just, I mean, you know, that's a good one. That's a really good one. He goes, no, no, they're very serious about it.

They love your work and they want to celebrate you. Now, granted, the year before they gave the award to Chewbacca, you know, so I understood. This is not the Peabody Award or anything like that, but given the opportunity to be, to be given an award, an opportunity to go up on stage and to speak to the industry and to the fans for a few minutes and thank them, you know, I certainly said yes. And, and it was a great experience.

I remember, I mean, it was, it was a fun, you know, fun moment and I have distinct memories of that evening and it's something that people remember and I appreciate you bringing it up, you know. I think the other part about that, that gets lost a little bit is like you said, yeah, prior to this, the year prior they gave it to Chewbacca. And like, maybe there was a satirical thing that they were working at, but you went up there and gave such a beautiful heartfelt speech. They retired the award after that.

Yeah. You were also the last person to get the lifetime achievement award. Yeah, they suspended giving a lifetime achievement award because I went up there and took it seriously. And listen, I knew what it was.

I was fully prepared. I was going to have to give a speech. And of course, I knew it was MTV. I wanted to be hip and maybe tell a few jokes.

And I wrote a speech that I thought was kind of funny and hip and clever. And I went over to my dad's house and I read it to him and he said, that you're doing it wrong. You need to be genuine about the speech. Just treat the award like it was, you know, an Oscar's.

Yes. Be humble, be grateful, thank the people. I mean, isn't that how you feel? I go, yeah, pretty much.

He goes, well, just do that. So I went back home and I rewrote the speech to the speech that I said. Yeah. And my dad, my dad had a touch because he nailed it.

He nailed it. I was genuine. The audience appreciated it. I had Adam Sandler, you know, gave me big giant hug and and you know, Mike Myers, who I worked on their movies.

You know, everybody embraced me. And it maybe it was because of my genuine approach. And that was not my first instinct. Yeah.

No, I think I genuinely think that you, it is one of my favorite acceptance features in the world. Because it is such a heartfelt moment that I think I really do think MTV said, we're never going to top this. Well, thank you, man. I appreciate that.

You know, that's cool. And you know, God, there's, you know, and I was really young. I mean, it's not like I'm stuck with some old crusty dinosaur getting a lifetime achievement award. I mean, I was pretty much in the prime of my career.

Yeah, I've been working a long time. You know, that's the thing. Jesus, you realize that in a couple of months, I will be fully in my 64th year as a professional actor. My first television appearance, I did it in 1961.

And it appeared on television in 1962. So it's mind-boggling. I mean, I am in rare fight air. Yeah.

And I say that with all humility. It's just, you know, blows me away. And I want to keep satisfying the fans. You know, keep making money because it is a business.

Listen, I love entertaining people. But I love entertaining people because it's a way for me to make an income because I have a wife and a daughter. And, you know, listen, you want to do good. You want to bring home the bacon.

Well, we don't need bacon in our house. So we bring home the moolah. So anyway, that's just, you know, I like doing it and I want to keep doing it. Are there any more questions?

I'll say more questions out there in the know- This fellow. What are the aspects of somewhat? What are your favorite and least favorite parts of that? You're saying one of my favorite and least favorite?

Yeah. Yeah. An act. Well, I love nailing it because I'm an audience and I love it when I feel like, yeah, that was good.

I've had it several times in my life where I've been in a situation with top quality actors where I feel like the material is really cooking. My scenes with Ed Harris on Apollo 13, I just felt like there was, you know, we were dialed in, man, and it was cooking. And I really appreciate that. And then in the exact opposite way, when I feel like that I've left something on the table.

When the scene is over and everybody says, oh, that's great. Clint, you know, time for lunch. And I go kind of feeling empty in my stomach. And it's a little less now than it used to be, but I went through a period in my middle age, I mean, in my 30s and 40s, where I was not satisfied as an actor, as a person with a job.

I was not satisfied because I would go home every night thinking, I should have done better, which is get it, eat that, yeah? Now I've learned over time that I must be doing something right because I keep getting hired. And I keep getting people with smiles on their faces coming up and saying, I'm good. And I appreciate that.

So I got to park my thinking and go, well, I must be okay because people like me. But generally, sometimes driving home after a day of work and feeling like I've underachieved, it's just a bad feeling. And I'll give you one example. And there might not be too many people that have seen this, but it was a short film that I did that Michael Keaton directed.

And it was on the David Letterman Film Festival. And you can go and look at it on YouTube. It's called But I'm Happy directed by Michael Keaton. And it was this little fun short that he wrote.

And he took it seriously. He wrote it and directed it. And he asked me if I would be in his shorts. I said, sure, I'd love to, Michael.

It's a good guy. And I went and I worked on his short. And it was all day. We filmed down in Santa Monica at a carpet store, at a carpet sale store.

And I remember distinctly driving home thinking, God, I really let him down. That was really not, I didn't do good. I wish I was better. I wasn't as prepared as I should have been.

I was really hard on myself. And then a couple of months later, I saw it. And I went, that's really good. And that next morning, the director from the Wraith called my agent and said, I just saw one of your clients on the David Letterman Film Festival.

And I want to hire him to be in the Wraith. It was Mike Marvin. So that reminded me at that age, that from my chair as an actor, sometimes I don't know my performance. You know, because look at it.

I've got everything going on in my head. I've got all the dialogue I'm trying to sort out. I've got business I have to remember to do. Did I have a good lunch?

Did I don't like the way I feel right now? And now it's time for me to act. And I'm trying to process all this stuff. That's not a very good position to be a viewer of my work.

I have to also then just accept that my position, my chair, is not the best. Let the director be the judge. Let the audience be the judge. So anyway, those are things I've had to practice over the years.

I saw another hand. Yeah, I was going to say I saw another one back. Yes. How did he get started with Zomb?

Okay, Rob's a champ. He really is. He's a really good dude. And the first time I met Rob Zombi, it was at one of these conventions.

It was a pot convention in Los Angeles at the Beverly Garland Hotel. It was one of the first conventions I'd ever done. And I was probably 30 years old at the time. And on their signing autographs and up to my table walks Johnny Ramone.

And he looked like Johnny Ramone. And you know, Johnny, what are you doing here? Because I'd worked on Rockwell High School with him. And next to him was this long haired guy with a scraggly beard.

And I didn't know who he was. And Johnny goes, oh, we're just here collecting posters. This is my friend Rob, Rob Zombi. So at that day, I met Rob.

And he must have taken a liking to me. We talked for a few minutes. And then later on, I had the chance to work on a film that he did. And then he called me to work.

He was directing a commercial. And he called me one day. And he said, hey, Clint, I'm here in the producer's office of this commercial. And I'm getting ready to direct.

And they said, we're looking for a Clint Howard type. And Rob said, I happen to have Clint Howard's phone number in my phone. Would you like me to call him? And they said, would you?

And so I'm calling you now. Would you like to be in this commercial? I said, sure, Rob. You know, listen, the thing about Rob is he looks.

I mean, he looks like Rob Zombi for Christ's sakes. He is the most astute, concentrated filmmaker. He's on par with any other filmmaker I've ever worked with. He doesn't answer his cell phone.

He doesn't bullshit around. It's all about satisfying the story and getting the job done on time. What you got to realize about moviemaking is we are all beholden to the investment. We've been given X amount of dollars to make a movie.

We have to respect the investment that we are given to tell our story. If we don't respect the money, if we don't make it our job to get the thing done on time and on schedule, because that would be like spitting in the face of your parents. The other one's giving you the chance and you don't respect them? No, so I'm a big believer.

I'm going to be the co-director of another ice cream man. And I'm going to be, I'm going to have to do the best quality job I can do. But I'm also going to get the thing in on time and on budget. Because otherwise we wouldn't be making a movie if it wasn't for the people that invested in us.

So anyway, that's how I feel about that. You know, talking about ice cream man and another ice cream man, you're going to be doing some pretty exciting photo opportunities at this convention right after this panel. Actually, you'll be doing some in costume as well as some outside out front of the hotel with an ice cream truck. And I mention that because we do have a very strict cut off time.

So if you have a question that you want to ask Clint Howard, do you've got roughly 10 minutes left to get that question? So throw up a hand if you have a question for Clint. Do you have another one? No?

You're just scratching a chin? There we go. We have one here, this gentleman and then this gentleman. Is it the different between a big budget in this?

In my opinion, first of all, you should give your best effort, whatever. Whether it's a student film or whether it's a frigging big studio movie with, you know, whoever, you should give it your best effort. Now, this is the one thing I've identified over the years. When it's a little independent movie and they've come to me saying, Clint, will you be in my movie?

You know, will you please help me? You know, I tend to be a little more relaxed and I tend to, I'll make this baseball analogy as a pitcher. If I'm being asked to pitch in a big studio movie, they've hired me to be their pitcher. I'm going to throw strikes.

I'm going to take that baseball and I'm going to get it over the plate. Now, if I'm working on a small little independent movie, I'll tend to niggle at the corners a little bit. I might be a little more daring in an independent movie. I might take be a little fancier.

You know, I might throw that two ball, no strike curve. I may just, you know, as opposed to, like when I worked on the Adam Sandler movies and I worked on the Austin Powers movies, while the first Austin Powers movie was a low budget movie, but the big studio movies, you tend to want to play it safe. You know, and I got to watch that because they didn't necessarily hire safe. They hired the best.

So it's just my take on what they want. So anyway, that's kind of my take on it. I'm just curious to get your own. Did you say one dozen?

They want no one. No, there's a bunch. Listen, you got to understand, at my very best as a young person, I was only getting about 20% of the auditions I went on. So I would have to go on 10 to 15 auditions to book a couple of jobs.

So that means there were lots of times where I went in and auditioned and felt like I was really good and they said, thanks, but no thanks. And I'll give you some of the highlights, some of the sexy ones. And there are some, these are some of these are old and, you know, there was a film that Peter Bogdanovich directed and I'm brain locking right now in the name of it. It was Randy Quaid ended up playing the part.

My goodness. Last picture show. I auditioned to play the slow guy in last picture show. And Peter Bogdanovich, I went in and actually had a couple of auditions.

I thought it would be a really cool part to play this kind of, you know, somewhat, you know, retarded guy. And they ended up hiring Randy Quaid. And Randy was great in it. You know, and I love Randy.

I thought Randy, I worked with Randy twice. And so I wasn't mad at that. But I thought I would like to have played that part. There was a part called, there was a movie called Ace Eli and Rogers of the Sky.

And it was Cliff Robertson and a guy named Eric Shea. Eric Shea played the boy. And Cliff Robertson played this barnstormer, he and his son. And they flew around the country.

And listen, it was a movie and it was pretty forgettable. Although Steven Spielberg was an associate producer on the movie. I didn't realize that at the time, but he had somehow attached himself to this movie. But the reason why I wanted to be an A.C.

line Rogers of the Sky is it was a coming of age story for this boy. And in the movie, Eli gets laid. And I hadn't had that experience yet. I thought that would be just a Jim Vandy role of play.

And I wanted to be Eli. So that kind of irritated me. There was a movie called Twister. And I went to two or three different auditions.

And they again ended up giving the part to Philip Seymour Hoffman. And although I've always thought he was a wonderful, wonderful actor. I mean, his role in Capote was Truman was just awesome. And I wish I would have played that part.

And this one famous one, and it's kind of out there, I've told the story before. But in 1975 or 1976, I auditioned for Star Wars. George Lucas had made American graffiti. And I hadn't met George.

But then George had the opportunity to make Star Wars. And George knew who I was. So did the casting director knew who I was. And they auditioned me.

This is way before there was videotape. And so you didn't send in videotape. You went in and auditioned. I went to the Fox studio a lot one afternoon.

And there must have been 20 or 30 guys standing around waiting to go into audition for Luke Skywalker. And I swear to God, I'll never forget this. Mark Hamill was in the crowd. And I had met Mark Hamill because we're about the same age.

And we auditioned for the same parts when we were kids. So I went, I was standing around and finally got my opportunity. I walked into the room. And the first thing I see is Francis Ford Coppola sitting in a chair right here to my left.

And he was a larger, he's still alive, obviously. But he's a larger than life, man. And getting to look at him was like, my God, Francis is in the room. And a guy named Gino Havens was in the room.

And a guy named Fred Roos was in the room. And I knew Fred Roos from, he was a casting associate on the Antigryfry show. Now Fred was a longtime friend of both Francis' and George. Now at the moment I didn't see George Lucas.

George Lucas was in a leather chair turned around. And I came into the room. I recognized who was there. And all of a sudden his chair spun around.

And he looked right at me. It was George Lucas. He looked me in the eye and he went, Commander Beylock, Corbin might maneuver. And in my mind, I went, fuck, George, get an effing life.

Because you see, I did that episode of Star Trek when I was six or seven years old. I was a baby. And here I was trying to get an adult job. And the director is harkening back to me as a baby.

I was pissed. He threw me off. I didn't audition well. I obviously didn't get the job.

Martin did a great job being Luke Skywalker. And I wasn't pissed off. But it was like, Jesus, George. You know, fuck life.

Well, as it turned out, George had a pretty good life. You said. And you know, funny enough, I had the opportunity to later in life, I spent time with Fred Roos before he passed away. And he had all the casting notes.

He was one of these guys that was like, he kept a scorecard from every day that he ever did casting. And he had the casting notes of me, you know, doing the audition. And so I had Fred didn't really remember that I auditioned. They were auditioning hundreds of people.

And I also, later in life, I've had a chance to spend time with George Lucas. And I asked George, I said, George, remember me auditioning? He goes, no. No, they don't.

I sure did. So anyway, those are my own debt. Yes, I've had numerous casting situations that just didn't turn out. Well, thank you so much for this time.

While we're at this arc of mention, as I'm wrapping up, I do want to give a shout out to what I think is an unsung masterpiece in your horror acting catalog. It's a film from 2015 called The Funhouse Massacre that I absolutely adore. I think that movie is fantastic. You're one of the leads in it.

If any of you have not seen this movie, please go check it out because you are going to see one of Clint's finest acting roles. Thank you. It was great. Funhouse Massacre.

It delivers on the gore, delivers on the scares, the jump scares. It's got a great sense of humor. It's fun. There's a fellow named Mars Crane who plays this giant of a man.

And it's like a sick psychopath that break out of an insane asylum. He's a Robert England in that movie. Robert England's in it too. Yeah.

So he's sick psychopaths break out of an insane asylum and go down to this funhouse, this fake funhouse. Like a haunted attraction on Halloween, basically. It's a Halloween night movie. And we kill all the actors that are supposed to be scared of people.

And we take over and we really start massacring people. It's a fun picture. It's a really fun movie. Go check it out and go get your photographs with Clint Howard right after this panel.

Thank you so much. Clint, let's give it up for one more time. Thank you. Rose and lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes.

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