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I'm going to do this. So today is... Oh, sorry. Today, yeah, go ahead. Today, we're going to have a nice... Sean, no, sorry. It's just the last time you started the last one. I was going to start this one. Okay. We're just doing an intro. It really doesn't matter if you start. So today... Oh, I thought... Let me just do it. Let me just do it. Listener, here is Smart. Smart.
Listen, I think it's been three weeks since we've done this, since I've seen you, since I've talked to you. And I have to say, I've had some long drives in the last three weeks, so I've gone ahead and done some quality control listening to our podcast. I'm not great at it because I'm listening to them after they've already reached the public. Are you picking up some long hauler miles, some deliveries? What's going on? I am. I've got some five-hour energy cases I'm trying to get through. Okay, sure. So it's really been nice listening to you, fellas. You're both very talented and very funny on the podcast. I'd really like to be more.
a part of it. But, so I was very excited to, I was very excited to see you guys today. But then this morning, this morning, a real dark cloud floated over our family here at SmartLess. Is it possible to say, is it possible for a dark cloud to then give you a gut punch? Is that possible? Sure. What happened? Yeah. Will, why don't you take it from here? Well, Jason read something that I read. We all read it. Oh, God. I read it after you sent it to me. Here we go. No, actually, you know what? Sean sent it. I sent it before I read it. Uh-huh. I don't think so. Sean sent an article to Jason and me in the thread that we're in. With some feigned exclamation points. Like, hey, yeehaw. This is great for us. And by the way, I'm going to put it out there. If anybody thinks they're worthy of being in the text thread, let us know. We'll add you. We'll add you to the thread. And Sean says, congrats for us. Yay, for us. And it's a click to Hollywood Reporter. Smart list nominated. Great. Nominated for a bunch of podcast awards or whatever. Which is kind of neat because this is.
This is an embarrassment. It's a mom and pop operation. We apologize. The fact that we're getting any traction whatsoever, let alone nominations, just thank you to all the folks out there. It's pretty great. Thank you, and also it's embarrassing. Jason's right. It is kind of embarrassing. So then, if you read further down in the story, they're nominated for Best Podcast, blah, blah, blah, and Sean Hayes nominated for Best Host. Which is the worst, which is the kiss of death, because now everybody's like, well, he's not really that great. I don't think they're saying it out of the side of their mouth either. I think it comes straight out the center. Straight out. And here's my thing. Today...
I can't wait to see you host. Yeah, let's see what you got. This is going to be the worst experience for me. Well, the voters are now listening, right? Because the nominations are out. Now they really have to decide. Pay attention to his hosting. My questions are still going to be like, hey, where are you from? Yeah, no, don't worry. We know that. That obviously resonates with the jury over there. The iHeartMedia people have made a bunch of mistakes. When Sean said, what's your favorite color? I mean, let's nominate that jackass. Yeah, here we go. Geez, I'm not going to be able to come up for air for a while. We're thrilled for you, Sean. Yeah, we really are. I'm thrilled for everybody. I said to Sean, by the way, I did say congrats, man. And he's like, oh, thank you. And I responded, I didn't mean it.
What are you doing? I responded with, I didn't read it. I truly didn't know. I didn't read the article. I just read the headline. Like most people. It is true. I think Sean might be the kindest man I've ever met. No one deserves it more. Not around you too. All right, zip it up. We've got an interesting guest today. He's known primarily in New Zealand and South Africa due to his success in rugby.
Florida then came to love him when he pivoted his talents towards highlight and dog racing. And then when he was in California, he was attempting to be the first to successfully mend the San Andreas fault. He tried his hand at acting. And while fame and fortune there has been scarce at best, some call it a wipeout, the critics have given him a few hugs. So he has received a couple of Academy Awards and seven Emmy Awards. What? He's gotten himself a Tony nomination. What? A Highlight Player who has Academy Awards? Yeah, he's turned it around. He got a Lifetime Achievement Award from AFI. BAFTA gave him something. The Golden Globes gave him the Cecil B. DeMille Award. The Kennedy Center honored this Highlight Player. And Barack Obama gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Wait a second. So I say chin up. I say chin up to this fella. I have no idea. This is the most highly decorated guest we've ever had. I would say so. He's famous and fortunate in our book, okay? Please welcome the forever struggling but always diligent, America's own and Hollywood's best, Mr. Tom Lamar Hanks. No!
Had I known that Sean was the host of this podcast, I would have bailed. I said, guys, I'd like to, but, you know, I don't like to work from home. Apparently you're working with one of the brightest hosts in the business. Is there a name for this award? Is it named after somebody? It's called the Aorta because it's from iHeartMedia. Oh, okay. That's not true, but that's my pitch. One of my hard-hitting nominee questions is, where are you right now? I don't recognize that room. I'm in a tiny little cubby hole that is here in my vast compound, somewhere in the tri-state area. I'm telling you, dog racing really pays, guys. You've got to look into it. It's within a single...
day's drive from Lakewood, Ohio, home of the Great Lake Shakespeare Festival. Wait, is it true? No, no. Are we already plugging a festival? Well, it was a long time ago. Wait, did you really do dog racing? No, you dumbass. This is why you're not going to win. You're the worst host. Jason was demonstrating his, quote, comedy chops. Guys, can I write or what? Hang on, I think Tom's on to something. Let's get into Jason's comedy chops. You know, I told some friends last night.
that I was doing this podcast, and first of all, I had to re-explain your names. We were, yeah. I said, Sean who? Jason what? Will, huh? What is the name of it? I kept calling it Helpless based on the Neil Young song, but now I realize, no, no, no, it's smartless, smartless. We really are helpless. And the question came up about you, Will, which was this question, has he started using a different voice professionally?
That in your early days, you were kind of like Squeaky. You sort of sounded like Jane North in those old Dennis the Menace reruns, and you were hilarious. But then you went off and voiced Batman, and it's as though you're walking around with your own self-imposed EQ on your voice now all the time. True or false, Will? Listen, like any good politician, I can't just give you a straight true or false. I will say that I constantly have a monitor in my ear and I'm adjusting my levels, my input levels. Right. And so then I can monitor. No, you know what? It's funny. I recently, you know, I often watch a lot of my old stuff because I like to be entertained. And he has trouble sleeping. Yeah. No, but my voice has gotten, it has. But if you listen to Howard Stern. It's just because of abuse, I guess. Do you still smoke? Who's listening? I'm just learning. I'm just learning. We had Sean Penn on the podcast. He went through a full pack of darts, didn't he?
He did go through a pack of darts. Darts. That's colloquial for cigarette. Yeah, that's Canadian. As opposed to, say, coffin nail. Or a nail. A nail. Or bullet. Actually, Tom, this brings me to an actual question about the nail. I noticed recently I was reading the 10th book in the Gunther What's-His-Name series by Philip Kerr, and I noticed your name on the back of it. Oh, yeah. You gave a little blurb for the jacket of Prussian blue, which I'm almost finished with. Oh, that's a great one. It's a great one, right? Gunther.
Bernard Gunther. Bernard Gunther series. He plays a non... Okay. Be merciful on me on this, okay? He plays a non-Nazi private investigator from 1928 Berlin through well after the war. That's right. It's a fabulous series by Philip Kerr. Philip Kerr. The late Philip Kerr. He passed away. I know, too early. And I read them all.
I'm just, well, I'm not a big, like, detective genre fiction writer. Me neither. But this had that added bonus of very accurate sort of historical detail to it that I really loved. It's a tremendous historical fiction, and you're absolutely right. And I'm with you, Tom, and I read mostly nonfiction. And somebody recommended, they said, you love all this European history. I think you'd like this. I'm fully, like I said, I just started at the beginning of the summer, and I'm on book 10, Prussian glue. But he always refers to cigarettes as nails. And he gets beaten up by these Nazis, and then they look down, and he's spitting up blood, and they say, what do you want? And he looks up, and he says, can I get a nail? Yeah. And you know what? When he smokes one, he looks really cool. He looks really, really cool. He looks really good.
those books is it fills in the blanks of his war years because some of them take place well before world war ii some of them take place after world war ii and in the course of it you see what he what he went through thanks guys for firing us out of the gate here at the start of the interview and our listeners love literature uh go sean you're the host let's do it yeah come on by the way sean i have my hand on my buzzer hand is right on my buzzer correct answer good i want to know what your fascination with with war is Because your name is so synonymous. I've never asked you this in my entire life. Why are you so passionate about the history of the war? Yeah, you're the war guy. It's a good fight. It started with the highlight, I think, right? The dog racing. You know, first of all, we do a lot of them because none of the projects have to have cell phones or laptops. So that alone makes the writing of them so much easier. And there's much less special effects of having to put in those screens. But I get this question asked to me quite often. And the answer always comes down to when, in those formative years of, say, seven through, you know, when you're a little kid.
Every single caregiver, every single adult in my life would make references to the six, two words, three letters each, the war. And they talked about it as this great dividing line in their lives. There was before the war, there was during the war, and there was just after the war. And they talked about it as though it's almost like, well, that was when the Black Plague was walking among us. For a big chunk of their lives, they had no idea where they were going to be in another six months. They had no idea how long the war was going to last. That's one big aspect of it. The other part of the two is...
is that the bad guys lost at the end of the day. We were able to somehow, unfortunately, necessarily kick the stuffing out of them. And when bad guys lose something, it's that, what is that power of myth of, is it Bill Moyers? The world was on a quest to defeat people that were undeniably evil. The governments of those places and many of the populace. So I keep getting drawn back to that. And again, I will say that from a storytelling perspective.
Our present day is just so, there is no shame left anymore. Truth seems to be a malleable, viscous kind of like a... It's a distant memory truth, it seems like. And actually, you know what, Tom, Sean, actually, within the last six months, I don't know if you remember, we were talking about all the movies you've done, the war movies, and Tom said, do you think he'll ever make a movie about TikTok? And, you know, because something that he thinks is important. How about you to get right now? For Sean and Scotty, there's before TikTok and then after TikTok. Well, you know, if I did, it would only be about 45 seconds long. How long is your average TikTok? And then I won't be able to wait for the sequel. Tom, I know that you'd never compare your...
experience shooting Save a Private Ryan to those who actually fought, you know, in all of that and during all that. But was there ever a moment, I'm sure, I bet there was a few moments while you were shooting that where you got close to the feeling maybe of what it might have been like. I mean, certainly the product, the result of that film took me there or as close as I think I could get. But I would imagine there were a few moments there where it just, based on the quality of the production, they managed to create some environments for you there and your own process of trying to get into the character and the realism of it where you were kind of struck a bit by what these guys must have gone through. Well, yeah, but at the same, it was all fake, you know. Sure, but I mean, you got to take that into account. But when we were on the beach there in County Wexford in Ireland, which is where we shot the Omaha Beach sequences. Oh, so it wasn't right there? Well, it was actually, it was one of the places where they rehearsed some of it. So that's one aspect. How far was base camp from the beach? Oh, it was way, well, I was going to incorporate that into this anecdote. So shut, just light up another nail, Will, and take that pause.
We're there with 500 members of the Irish, actual members of the Irish Army. There is landing craft everywhere, and we're all storming the beaches. And the special effects crew had laid out these tiny little flags on the beach where they had set up air mortars and squibs, little explosive devices. Things to avoid. Yeah, and they actually said, you know, be careful, eh? Because, you know, this is going to become, this is like a projectile. It'll come out of the ground very fast. So if you can, try to avoid where the flags are. You know, I think I got that. Then they removed all the flags, and we couldn't see anything. Oh, my gosh. So we were just stumbling all wondering why. So there's all of that, and it's dressed the way it is.
There were always four or five cameras going once the shot began. And you're wet and you're cold and you're coming up. And at a corner of one eye, you see a guy catch on fire. And at a corner of the other eye, you see a guy blown 40 feet into the air, and he loses a leg in the process. Literally, we had amputee stunt people. Oh, my God. They were amputated before you shot. They were amputated before. Thank God, just to clarify. And even though there's harnesses and there's wires and whatnot, machine guns are going off all around you, and explosions are happening like crazy. And it goes on for the better part of, you know, two or three or four minutes. And there was a degree of sort of like odd, fake, and yet at the same time, terror.
that was going on. So we were shooting down there all morning long, I'm going to say about on the, maybe the second day of shooting, because the first day of shooting was spent in the boats themselves. And I climbed up the steps to the bluff. They had put in these wooden steps so we could get up to the base camp, Will. That's where catering and craft services. Not far as the crow flies, but it was awfully high. It was probably about 600, 700 feet up the bluffs. And I went back and I found the other guys in the unit who I would be meeting when we got up to the shale, which was, you know, the defilade that was at the top of the beach. That's where I would come across Barry Pepper.
Eddie Burns and Vin Diesel and the other guys. And they were still hanging around, you know, outside the trailers, the way actors do. And I was wet and I was sandy and I was near death from the amount of noise that had gone on. And I told the guys, I said... you guys better hold onto your hats because it's really wild down there. You are not going to. I mean, when you see a guy catch on fire out there, out of the corner of your eyes. And no one said, you know, Tom. Right, and no one's prepped you. No one has said there's going to be a guy caught on fire on this side. It was an interesting kind of panic. You know what's interesting? And this is kind of folding back to what you were saying earlier. One of the reasons that, what I love about that movie, and I love that movie, Tom, I'm not embarrassed to say, I love it so much and I've seen it a lot of times. And one of the things I really love about it, and you kind of touched on this whole idea of...
Can't wait for the musical version? No. 97, by the way. 1997. Which is insane. That's when it came out. Wow. It seems like two years ago. But you had that moment where your character is a schoolteacher, I think. Is that right? Yeah. But the idea that it doesn't matter what he is. He's just a regular. This is what the thing of this...
particularly this war. There was the Great War, which they refer to World War I as, but then there was the war, this war, World War II. And he was a guy who was called to do something extraordinary. He wasn't a guy who was born to be a military officer. He wasn't a guy who was born to be a killer. He was a guy who had to go because that's what he had to do. And people came in in this moment when the entire world was at war and did extraordinary things. And I always loved that about it. And I think that for me, it really captured what it is.
that sort of makes me have such, it's weird to say have reverence for the war, but you have reverence for the bravery and what people did that were extraordinary things. You actually want to make an anti-war movie at the same time that you're making a war movie. Right. Let me tell you a story. I was 18 years old, I think, and I was a bellman at the Royal Hotel in Oakland, California. And we had a guy who read his own dry cleaning service would come and collect the clothes and take them away and then deliver the clean clothes. He was always coming with, you know, dozens and dozens of shirts and pants that had been dry cleaned. And I was working there one summer and he was gone.
for two weeks. I'm going to say his name was Mike. I can't remember what his name was. But Mike was gone for two weeks and somebody else came in every day. And then after two weeks, it was in June. After two weeks, he came back from his vacation. I said, oh, hey, Mike. Where were these last... Oh, no, I take a vacation every June. I said, oh, oh. Do you go camping? He said, no, no, no. I get together with some of my old buddies. I said, oh, oh. Where did you go? Well, this year, we went back to this place that we had visited back when we were kids. I said, oh, oh. Where was that? He said, it's in the north of France.
He was a paratrooper. He was in the 82nd Airborne. This guy is, this is 1974. So go back 40 years. So he's in his 50s. And what he's telling me is that when he was in his 20s, he jumped into Normandy on D-Day and he was a paratrooper. And now he's a guy delivering his dry cleaning for the hotel. I felt stupid and small. But also, he was an example of that adult, that caregiver that was part of daily life.
He didn't know if he was going to make it back. Oh, he said this. He said, we go back to visit the buddies that didn't make it home. So they're visiting the cemeteries that are in. So look, that's a generation. It was a time that was loaded with all sorts of problems that, of course, we're still dealing with right now. But you can't take away the fact that these were young guys who were asked to go off and liberate the world from really, really bad people, and they did it. Yeah. My grandfather, I'll leave it at this. My grandfather, who passed almost 12 years ago, who I was really close with and loved dearly, I remember him telling me,
And he worked with, he was in the Canadian Army, but he was attached to the Royal Air Force and he planned bombing sorties. And they were stationed at various airfields as they would move across as they, you know, after June 44. And he said, one morning we wake up and there was constantly planes taking off and landing and stuff. And he said, one morning his tent, the guy we shared a tent with woke up, came out of the tent and walked into a propeller of a plane in the dark. And I said, and he told me, he didn't tell me this until I was about 18, of course. And I said, well, what did you do? And he said, and he wasn't joking. He said, well, I got a new tent mate.
And I was like, wow. And he was just like, that's the way it went. We had to keep going. What can you do? I don't want to go into a place I was, that's too much of a bummer of a story. Sad story, true story. Anyway. I think a perfect segue would be Happy Days, right? Let's go. Let's talk about Happy Days. In order to make Saving Private Ryan happen or any of the other incredible movies that you have been in. You IMDb reading sons of bitches. No, no, no. How dare you? This is pure Wikipedia. How dare you come at me with this? Just Wikipedia. So had you not booked that episode on Happy Days. Hey.
Would you have not met Ron Howard and things? We would not have been gifted the High Live player. I did not meet Ron Howard on Happy Days. Ron had left the series by then. The guys I met were Lowell Ganz and Babalu Mandel, who were the staff writers on Happy Days, who wrote Splash, the screenplay of Splash. And Ron was directing, and they said, hey, take a look at that guy who got fired from Bosom Buddies. You know, Bosom Buddies was canceled. Something that Sean is going to experience one of these days. Don't worry, Sean's canceled two programs I've been on, so keep going. And we will be right back.
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And now, back to the show. Tom, would you agree that the routine of a sitcom actor is the best job in show business? Do you miss it still to this day? Well, it is kind of a skate. It's a great hang, I'll tell you that. Because look, if you either shoot, you rehearse Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, camera block Thursday, shoot Friday. Or you rehearse Thursday, Friday, Monday.
Camera block Tuesday, shoot Wednesday. Is that kind of like the... That second one shoots Tuesday, yes. You start on Wednesday. What you're saying is five days of the week. Unless you're working with Jimmy Burroughs, and then you can take the first day off of rehearsal, and it really becomes a four-day work week, and it's only three weeks a month, so it's 12 working days a month. These are really top-secret things, man. You should never let the civilians hear. And it's six hours a day. Now everybody's going to want to be in showbiz. There's food, there's craft service, you get a lot of breaks, you know. It is an awfully fun day. When we did Bosom Buddies, Peter Scolari and I, my dear old pal... One of the great shows. We actually shot that show on video.
Not on film cameras. Film cameras in those days, that was pretty much a bunt. Camera blocking day was just kind of like your stand and did it. But we had four video cameras and we had to do the entire camera blocking day ourselves on camera because they did a line cut, you know, camera three and tighten up on four and four. Let's come back. Let's coming back to two and two. You had to be there for that. So you did. You worked a long day and you did every line of.
that week's script over and over again. And he and I just started goofing around so much that that's where we first got, we got yelled at a couple of times. You know, the director up in the booth, you know, he'd come in over that top voice. Hey, guys, listen, we're working really hard up here. Can you guys just kind of stick to the lines? Otherwise, we can't get the line cut in. Check the tally lights on camera three, Tom. When that comes on, you know, you speak. And we didn't care. We were just goofing around so much. How excited were you when you got that show? What was that moment? So young Tom Hanks and you get Bosom Buddies. You booked it. It's your job. What was that?
Well, I couldn't believe it. I was going to be on TV. Up to that point, as a Shakespearean actor, I made less than $10,000 in a year for an entire year. And I was married and I had a kid. And, geez, I made that in two weeks on Muslim Buddies. So the financial reprieve was huge. When was the last time you did Shakespeare? I did Shakespeare two years ago here in Los Angeles. I played Falstaff. Yes.
with the Shakespeare Center in Los Angeles. Tom, tell that story. It was a video that I saw of you doing it. I can't remember. It was so funny. You pulled some guy out of the audience or something? No, what happened was we had a medical emergency. A gentleman had a heart thing happen to him. And all of a sudden, the paramedics had to be called. We were doing it at the VA center in the Japanese garden amongst the eucalyptus trees here in West Los Angeles. And a guy had some sort of seizure, and we had to call the EMTs. And then we had to take a break. Not the house lights. The lights all came up.
And it was going into, it ended up being about a 30-minute hold while they took care of this gentleman. And we were all backstage saying, should we do something? And then when I saw that people were leaving. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, it was long. It was about close to a three-hour show anyway. But when I saw people, I saw a lady pick up her purse and move toward the exit. And I came running out trying to scream and get back here. Take thee thy seat or something like that. But what was amazing was you were improvising in Shakespearean talk. That's what blew my mind. And it was super funny. God, it was so great. It ended up being worthwhile. I got enough people to stay. And I think I ridiculed enough people that made some lady cry.
Out of laughter, tears of joy. What was the, you know, a splash, by the way, for your birthday years and years ago, I sent you a poster and I superimposed my face over Daryl Hannah's and I said, the note said, you and I would have made a bigger splash. Tom doesn't remember that. We only been the trailblazers. But, you know, what was that like, what was that feeling? Because as a kid, I was like, oh my God, every actor wanted to be Tom Hanks. Every actor wanted to be you because you were in all of the string of these massive comedy hits, right? And big and splash and just on and on. They asked me to be in a movie, so I said, yeah. But did you know when you started doing...
all those other movies. You started, you did big and you did all these things and they were just getting, did you know where you were going or what? No, no, we have no idea. They just said. You had no plan? But you were playing the lead and you were incredibly charismatic and you were compelling on screen. Like you were carrying things right out of the gate. Had you always had the confidence and the sort of, the leadership qualities growing up? No, no. I was just trying to remember the words. I was trying to speak loud enough to be heard. But Tom, you are such a... What a relief. I'll tell you, I'll tell you the biggest lesson that I learned. This was when I was at the Great Lake Shakespeare Festival, just a day's drive from where I am right now in Lakewood.
Ohio, in which Dan Sullivan, who directed the Henry V, excuse me, Henry IV that I did as Falstaff, he directed that. In 1977, we were in rotating rep and I was carrying a spear and I was doing everything that I was told to do. And we had just opened a production of Hamlet the night before. It was in rotating rep. So you open the shows about every two weeks and then you ran a different show every night. That's what repertory means. And so we had opened up Hamlet and we all had a rehearsal the next day for...
Taming of the Shrew, which I played, I played Grumio in Taming of the Shrew. And all of the equity company, the professionals, were hungover, exhausted, because they'd all been out partying the night before, because they'd just opened Hamlet. So everybody was like synambulistic and showing up at 10 o'clock. And no one really knew their lines yet, and everybody was kind of like shuffling around. And Dan Sullivan yelled at everybody. He yelled at everybody. He said, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! We've got three weeks to get this show up on its feet.
And you people are not even trying. For crying out loud, I can't do my job if you guys don't do your jobs. You guys have got to show up on time, you've got to know your lines, and you've got to have an idea. I can't provide everything here. So let's take a break, mainline some coffee, chew it if you have to, right out of the jar, but come back here with some friggin' energy.
Fuck, I would cast you in the Dan Sullivan movie right now, by the way. Sorry, just for what it's worth. That was incredible. I remember. Okay, so look, we're all like 19, 18, 20. I was 20 years old then, and that lesson really super stuck to me. Professional actors who have 20 years in the biz, as they often said. 20 years in the biz. I've never been yelled at like that. That was an important lesson. So all through all of these gigs that I had.
The hits, thank you. The misses, let's forget those. That was always the thing that I thought the most important thing to do was show up on time, know your lines, and have an idea in your pocket. That's all I did through all of those. I didn't know anything. So, Tom, when you were doing all the string of comedies back then, do you remember what it felt like? Or do you remember that pivot moment when all of a sudden maybe you got offered a script or you had a kind of dialogue with your agent? Or what happened where you switched over to more, let's say, important films or more dramatic films? What a question. It's so great. That was the era of...
You can make a movie for about 15 million dollars. And if you just said it was a comedy, you'd seem to do some brand of business. Whether it was actually funny or not, it didn't matter. Yeah, that was the time. Anybody who had said action and cut was trusted to direct a comedy movie, whether they were funny or not. And I made a ton of those.
in which everybody came in. Oh, the dailies were fantastic. I think the audience is going to be standing on their feet at the end of this. So, Tracy, dailies are the thing you watch as you're filming the movie. Yes, the day before stuff. And it doesn't matter if the movie was called Monkeys Make the Sun Go Down. Everybody would say, this is the funniest of all the movies. The Cows of Tumble Town. This is going to be a magnificent comedy. Because the good comedies that were made, you know, at the time, they all had, they were all with former Second City people, you know, and Saturday Night Live people. But there was this, you could take...
A setting. This movie takes place on a ski slope. This movie takes place on a school bus. This movie takes place at a bachelor party, and it will be a comedy. And I made a, I made a billion of those like that because we're just kind of like doing imitations of other people's funny movies. Yeah. But here's the thing. And I've said this about it. There are a few people out there who have this and you are one of them, which is, it doesn't matter what the movie was. You are always good. You're always, even, even doing, I joked about doing the Dan Sullivan, no matter what it is, you're committed. And that always kind of shines through. So I, I know that you talk about those, those misses. I mean, look, if it wasn't for bad movies, I wouldn't make any at all. You wouldn't be sitting in your dad's library. Living back at my folks house. But, but, but, but you know, but it's true. And you always, you always.
deliver in that way because i always get the impression watching you that like you don't care what the thing is you're just doing your i mean you're part of it and you're in the thing and who gives a shit you know i i don't want to i don't want to discount some of the great stuff i met great people and we did we made we actually did some really funny stuff that that really did work and it's always yes it's always always fun also known as classics it was you know it's funny you know they i don't think we ever had a movie splash was well reviewed and i don't think i had another decent review for about I don't know, six or seven films. But now you read about them, and they're cult classics, you know. What? They're a cult classic? No? It didn't happen back in the day. Well, once Philadelphia happened, I would imagine some of the scripts that were coming to you started to confuse things for you and your team a bit. Well, I got older. You know, that's the other thing, too. You know, there's a type of movie you can make in your late 20s. I turned, here's a story, I turned 27 the day of we wrapped the motion picture splash.
It was the last day of shooting. We were in the Bahamas. We had a cake that was actually for the wrap. Hey, let's celebrate the last day of shooting with a cake. And someone, I think with a tube of toothpaste, added in icing on the cake, happy birthday, Tom, because they found out it was my birthday. So that was, you know, there's a movie that you make when you're 27 and in your early 30s and whatnot. And, you know, I made a number of them. But you have to get older, you know. And I was able to age into, Gary Marshall gave me a great role with Jackie Gleason in a movie called Nothing in Common.
David Seltzer wrote and directed with Sally Field, Punchline, and then Big came along. But you get older, and you start saying, I will tell you, look, I'm not big on this kind of stuff, but there was one time I was sitting around with my crack showbiz expert who works for CAA, and he said to me, what do you want to do? Sounds exactly like Richard. That's a great impersonation. Richard, love it. There you go. Beautiful impersonation. What do you want to do? And I said, I want to play grown-ups. I want to play people who have been through bitter compromise because I was in my mid-30s by that point. Compromise, Jason, is a thing that people do when you hear the other person's side and then you go, okay, I'm willing to shift my position a little bit. And whatever, we'll talk about it later. Sorry, Tom. Wait, Tom, you know what I always wanted to ask you? And this is going to be the dumbest question in the world. Guaranteed. He is the host, ladies and gentlemen. That's right. In Castaway, right? Yeah. You...
The volleyball is named Wilson. Now, you're married to the wonderful Rita Wilson, who I love, I adore, we all do. Was that by design? Because it could have been called Spaulding. Jesus. Could have been. It was written by Bill Broyles. And that, man, that movie took about six years to figure out. Bill Broyles and I started talking about it, and we weren't shooting it until six years later. And he came up with the idea of a volleyball, and he named it Wilson in honor of My Beautiful Bride. We've been married. It'll be 34 years in the next day. Hold for applause.
No for applause. Yeah, good for you. So, no, it could have been... There you go. Thank you. Thank you, Will. Well, Jesus Christ, that is a whole new level. I'm like Fred. I'm like Fred on Stern. Now, you know, but it brings me to Finch. Finch seems like it's got some qualities. I mean, if I was a hack studio executive, I'd say, it's Castaway meets Martian. All movies are like that now. All movies are like that now. Yeah. Aren't they all? Since you let you take a... I suppose, yes. This is On the Waterfront meets Pal Joey.
By way of Paw Patrol. Movies are all kind of Paw Patrol. But what you need is a relatable, every man that is empathetic, sympathetic, can alpha and beta inside a page. I mean, you are the man that can service all things. I came up through that era of which every genre movie was about somebody who could not be killed or defeated. You know, the cop that could not be filled. I'm with you. The fighter who never lost.
And so, you know, a geeky guy with a big butt, a big nose, and a squeaky voice. I took all the jobs away from Will. By the way, I do have a big, I have what's called a pro dumper. Well, you can't drive a spike with a tack hammer, as I have heard. Wait, I just have a really quick castaway story that we might cut out of this. And Tom, I think I told you this. But I was working on Will & Grace with somebody who worked on the show. And we went to his house after a taping one night. And we got super, super, super stoned. This won't be cut. Yeah, we got super, super, super stoned. And he said, look, I got a copy of Castaway. I got the DVD. Let's fast forward it to the plane crash.
because the effects are so crazy. Let's get totally high and watch. How do they do that, right? And so he just moved in this house. It was this brand new equipment and I'm sitting in the back of his screening room and he's up front. He just moved into this crazy house. It's gorgeous. And he had no idea how his own equipment worked. And so he's sitting in the back seat and he can't get the DVD to play. And I said, oh no, is that a Sony? Totally high out of my mind. I go, is that a Sony? He goes, yeah. I go, oh, they're voice activated. Those are the new ones. You don't even know what you have. You have to speak the name of the movie into the machine after you put it in. He goes, what are you talking about? I go, just listen to me. You have to say the name of the movie.
as you put it into the DVD player. He's like, are you serious? I go, 100%. I just read about these. So he turns back to the machine with his back to me, and he goes, cast away. And it didn't play, and he waited to be, and he did it again. He goes, cast away. And he turned behind me. I couldn't breathe. I was laughing so hard.
Oh, that's pretty good. Bob Zemeckis on that, he never cuts to the outside of the plane. That's one of the reasons why that plane crashes as good. It's so cool. Just from the perspective of inside the plane. Yeah, really good. That kind of stuff. That's Bob. Now, Tom, with all of your incredible set experience, was that what drew you, was it part of what drew you to the director's chair? Just the effort to sort of streamline things because you knew probably more than a lot of the directors you may have been working with? No, I think directing, that becomes sort of a bit of an ego thing because you become convinced that you know more than you actually do. But seriously. But then you try it.
And you're like, oh, my God, this is hard. I believe every actor should direct. I think every director should have to act. I think we should all be writing and producing because you find out how hard it is to do that other job. For sure. From an actor's perspective, it's like, you know, you got somebody saying, that was pretty good. Try it again. And you want to say to him, do you realize I'm on a horse weeping because my dog died?
And I'm trying to remember six pages of dialogue at the same. Do you realize it's a little harder than it is? Man, let's try it again. That along with the same thing of an actor saying, hey, are we going to shoot this or what? Are we shooting or what? You have to realize everybody has nine million things going on inside their head. And also, look, we're all storytellers. At some point, we can have a sense of what might fit into our mouths a little bit better and maybe some options. It goes back to the thing Dan Sullivan always said, which have an idea in your pocket. Have something that you can come out and say, this isn't on the page, but let me show you something else. So since you have directed, when you do come to the set as an actor with an idea,
your pocket are you sensitive to that there might actually be a plan in place that that director and that crew has been working on for weeks and that your idea might might might disassemble the house of parts there might not be room for it so then you try it once and they say don't do that and so and then you don't do it right you know it's pretty pretty relatively easy stuff is that desire to direct still uh still still burning in you or i can't say that i have the instinctive uh powers of being a director as an actor i think i know what i want to do i read it and i say oh i know what direction i'll go to directing is a uh Directing requires a fidelity and a patience and an ability to communicate. But after I've done it, I've directed two feature films. I've directed a number of episodes of the miniseries that we've done. And I like those because I wrote them more. I wrote on them at the same time. But I think directors more so.
than myself as an actor, they're born into it. You know, you have to think it's the greatest job in the world. Yeah. And oftentimes it's not. Yeah. Do you enjoy the producing part of it all with what you guys? I don't really produce. Well, but you guys churn out. It's really, you shouldn't slough over it. It's the alliances that I make with other people that really do all the work. But the amount of, you're incredibly prolific as a producer. You and Gary. Great team of people. I mean, you've employed an incredible amount of people. You've put a lot of product out there. That's not easy. And it's incredibly admirable. Well, I'm very lucky because we have extremely good people. And we do this, you know, we have a kind of like a clubhouse.
where we lean in each other's doorway and say, you know, is this really a feature film, guys? I'm not so sure it's a feature film. Should it be like a 12-part miniseries instead so we can really examine the theme? And then you make nothing but a ton of alliances. But here's, I'm not a producer because this is what producers do every day. They get on the phone and they try to convince somebody to do something they do not want to do. Or they tell somebody on the phone that there's no way that they are going to do what that person on the phone really wants. That's pretty much it. It's that dichotomy. I always just say, sure, no matter what they're saying. We'll be right back.
And now back to the show. Let me ask you, what's your feeling about this transition that we're all in into a bit more of a streaming element married with box office, theatrical, going to the theater, paying some money for a ticket versus having it at home? What is your opinion on that as somebody in the business and then also as somebody who is a viewer? Do you like the fact that there is less pressure now maybe with not having to open on the weekend because it's streaming? Do you think about that? Well, that's a pressure that doesn't come upon the actor because, look, the movies are always binary. They're either double zero or zero one. They either work or they do not work.
And if they don't work, there's no amount of marketing or interviews that you can do on podcasts in order to change the zeitgeist. The pressure remains absolute. The pressure is the speed of light in order to make a great story. The audience, I think, if I can pontificate just a little bit here, doesn't care where they see it. The business does. The marketing, the producers, and the studios, and the grand entertainment industrial complex. They would like things to be exactly as they were, but we have a business that is forever changing. Back in 1980...
When you guys were still in junior high school and the concept of home video was just beginning. Here's a story that goes back a long way. When we were the first year that Peter and I were in Bosom Buddies. A VHS tape machine, a player at home, cost about $4,000. Wow. And the only people that had them were incredibly wealthy, rich people. Three-quarter inch. Well, by that time, VHS was just beginning. And in a neighborhood, maybe a guy named Doug would open up Doug's Video Rental Shop, S-H-O-P-P-E. Old-timey, old-timey video shopping. And on one side of the rental space would be VHS tapes, and on the other side would be a smaller collection of beta.
Sony Betamax. And eventually Beta went away and it was all just VHS. And by the time, I think the next year, VHS machines were only like $1,800 and then everybody was renting. And the concept that you could, it was great, of course, to be able to record shows after you went through this arcane kind of like process of on, off, recording, timing. But the bigger thing was, is that if you had kids and you had a VHS of Dumbo, you know, they would get up.
in the morning on their own and put in Dumbo and you didn't have to get it. This was huge. And here we are in 2021 and the industry is going through something akin to that change because guess what? As Gary Getzman, my partner at Playton said, you know, sitting at home and watching something on your TV is not that bad. Right, right, right. You know, Tom, you said to me years ago, you said, you know what, Sean, the business is always changing and you have to adapt and change with it. Not as an actor or the craft of creating things. Just you have to keep an open mind and go with the flow of it. Otherwise, and if you fight it, you're just dead in the water. But why didn't you take that advice? Why didn't you do it? Yeah, what happened there, Sean? Because now you're reduced to hosting the Heartless podcast. Is it Heartless? It's Heartless. You're known as Dumbo, the host of Heartless. We were very lucky. We were very lucky at Playton because one of our first deals.
was at HBO, and this was old-school HBO. You know, no commercials. You could say anything you wanted to. There was no language. There was no... And at that point, HBO, doing a series or a movie or a miniseries on HBO, that was the gold standard. It seemed as though you had all the freedom in the world. And now you have even more of that, all the freedom in the world, but...
It still comes down to this very basic requirement. You've got to be putting out an awfully good product. Otherwise, it will disappear into the mist like many of my early films. Thanks, guys. No, no, no. But how have you not? I'm surprised because it seems like they try to gobble up everybody. How have you not? When did Marvel call you and say, Tom, we need you to play, you know, Dr. Universe. And, you know, we need you to do 12 films and you have to play Dr. Universe. Did that ever happen? Here's the problem. First of all, they've never called me once. I can't believe that. No, no, never. And I think that if one of these days they will.
And they'll say, is there any way you would consider playing the secretary of defense? A guy who comes and says, please, help us all for men. We can't survive. I'll be one of those guys. I don't get to play the punk on Foots. But God bless you because you still make the kinds of films. You have continued in an era where most features are, you know, the feature film market is dominated by these huge... Some of those are great. No, I'm saying they're great and I have a lot of friends who do them. Well, they're not all great, but some of them are really good. I said some, but some of them are good and we all have friends who we adore and who are super talented who make those. I'm not saying that. But there is, it seems like a shrinking market for films that stand on their own.
because it's a great story and has a great cast. And you seem to be one of those people. You're in a very unique position that you're still making those films, which I think is awesome. We chastised J.J. Abrams. We're like, go and make some comedies, J.J. You know, we were giving him shit. Because he wants to. But you know, it's because, Tom, you are us and you have maintained being us. You, as far as famous and as successful as you have become for as long as you have been, you have still stayed very grounded, it seems, and normal. And I would imagine that that is just something you're stuck with from when you were a little kid and you probably got a couple of parents to thank for that, I would imagine.
My parents divorced when I was five years old. Way to go, Jason. Way to fucking go. This is why I'm not getting the nominations. This is where Sean really does his research. He would know that. Tom, I don't know this. What did your folks think about you getting into the bizistry, as I call it? You know, I started doing it for fun in high school because I couldn't believe that you could go and do plays in high school and get credit for it. You know, this is school. I remember specifically thinking that the first time I walked into a drama class. And I did it because some friends of mine from junior high had been in the plays. And I just said, what?
I can come to school and do this. Well, this is screwing around, man. This is goofing off in class. I felt the exact same way. I was like, oh my God, everybody's just laughing. Both my dad and eventually my mom, because we lived in different places. When my mom came and saw me and stuff, they just thought, well, this is just wonderful. Look what Tommy found. Sean, you've talked about that. You just said it. You had that same thing, right? Where you were like, this is amazing. This is so much fun. And I can't believe I get to do this in five, six, seven, eight. Hit it, Sean. Hey, now, Sean, when you...
You did Promises, Promises on Bob. Thank you, everybody. He's never brought it up. That's weird. He's never mentioned it. And it was a big hit. And you said something to me because Sean and I see each other. Socially. Not just on this podcast. So after you had done Promises, Promises.
And it was huge because he played the piano on stage and he did all this stuff. It was a big Broadway hit, right? A number of years ago. And I said, are you going to do it again? Do you have the desire to get up and do another Broadway show? And you said something that was, I swear to God, the only person I heard make the same sort of reference. Are you ready for this? I read it as a quote from Laurence Olivier. Okay. You said, I'm not sure I have the fire in the belly. Yes. In order to get up and do eight performances or something. I remember when...
Lawrence Olivier was older, and he was always asked, well, will you ever get up at the National again, what have you? And he says, no, because it requires a stronger heart. And he wasn't talking about medically. He was talking about all the effort that goes in, the fire in the belly. Well, Sean, you would do eight shows a week. I remember you talking, we've talked a lot about Promises, Promises. But you said something the same, you were like, I do it, you did it for nine months or a year? How long did you do it for? A year. A year. A year. Remember you saying, similar thing that you said to Tom, you said the same thing. I said, would you do it again? And you said, I don't know if I have it in me. Yeah. Five, six, seven. Seven, eight. And then you just went.
No, no, it's true, Tom. And I relayed that to you about the constant work ethic you have to jump from movie to movie to movie to movie over these decades. And they're all great. And your work, like Jason said, it's always, always fantastic. You're always committed. You're always in it. And I switched that question back to you about filmmaking. Do you still have the fire in the belly to...
travel and get up at five and stay in this hotel and that hotel. And, and, and you said, yeah, because it's what, it's what I love to do. And yeah, I do. Yeah. There's no other way of putting it. There is, there's, look, it's more fun than fun. That was something that I learned a long time ago before I got my job at the Great Lake Shakespeare. Work in the theater is more fun than fun. And I thought, well, yeah, this is a, this is a great way to, to spend your day. It's not just a lifestyle or, you know, life's work. It's a, it's a life. I love that. And now listen, out of all of the, your entire repertoire, all of your credits, is there one movie? What is your favorite movie? Jesus Christ. No, no, no.
Is there one movie or experience that was extra special to you that will always stick in your brain? You know, I will say, look, yes, they all are in so many ways. Look, I've never had a rotten time making a movie. I've always come away from a movie saying, I can't believe they pay me to do this. That was fantastic. Despite their discomforts in the five in the morning, a little harder at the age of 65, I guess. But...
The experience of making the movie That Thing You Do, I cast it with a bunch of friends. We had a great time. It was the beginning of the company that I formed. So great. I love that movie. With Gary Getsman and everybody else down at Playtown. I could do that again and again and again. Was that the first film you directed? That was the first. Not the first directing gig I had, but it was the first feature film. And it had music in it, and it was very personal because it was set in 1964. But, you know, every gig is magnificent. The ones that don't...
that maybe disappoint a little bit is the ones where you don't get to spend enough time doing it. Like I was just, I just did two weeks. with Wes Anderson in Spain, with the Wes Anderson Repertory Company, and that was fantastic. And I was bummed out. I said, oh, we've got to leave. We've shot out my role. I've got to go now. I'd like to linger for a little bit. I just got to do a couple days with our buddy Taika Waititi, and it was just the greatest experience. And then it was just, we did a show for HBO, and then I just did his movie, and I was like, it was like the greatest, most fun month. And then I'm like, oh, and it's over. Yeah. I just want to go and play with that gang. Don't we get to have that 90-day experience here somewhere, you know, pounding something out and getting up and loving it?
Well, you've given us not 90 days, but a solid hour of your very, very valuable time. Yes, thank you so much. Thank you on behalf of these two fellow Smartless folks, as well as everyone in America and the world, for providing us all these little worlds that you have created that we all get to live in, and they've all been fantastic. Is there a podcast award for second bananas or third bananas that you, Jason, and Will might be up for? Will and I are going to battle for that one. You have to ask questions like, what's your favorite movie?
Yeah. No, you've got a monopoly on that. You've got it all buttoned up. I would say that in Canada, this is known as Will Arnett's Smartless. That's true, it's true. Wait, what? Number one podcast in Canada. I think I just got voted Canada's favorite son. I'm not sure, but I'm putting it out there in case anybody wants to latch onto that and start making that a thing. I'm happy to. Well, it's a delight talking to you guys. You too, Tom. Thank you for saying yes to this. The delight is ours, Tom. Words don't express how I feel. Very kind, very kind, guys. And listen, good luck on the, is there a name for this award yet? It's the iHeartRadio Award. The iHeartRadio Award. It might be called the Aorta. Who are you up against? That would be a big question.
Oh, that's a great question. Hardcore history, maybe? Up against hardcore history? Fingers crossed. It's so great to see you. Thanks, Tom, very much. Good to see you guys. Hope that we'll hang at all those places that people like us end up at. Yeah, for sure. All right, take care, guys. Bye, thank you, Tom. All right, buddy. Bye-bye. Bye, Tom.
I think he's going to make it. That guy's got some charisma. Jason, let me just say this. You've been complaining for a couple of years. You've been saying, man, great cast, you guys. And then you just decided you pulled out one of these, what I now refer to as the topper card. I now call it the topper card. He's that. He's a blue chip, that one right there. Oh, man, what a delight. I mean, he's just like... He does have that thing, and I kept trying to figure out a way to ask him this without him deflecting as he does so well, so humbly. And I just kind of bailed on it because I knew he just wouldn't. Like, he's just got that...
He is us. He is completely personable and authentic. He's every bit a leader that you'd want him to be, but he doesn't seem like he's too arrogant or cocky. I don't know. You mean us as an audience? Yes. He's the guy you want to follow and are never annoyed watching him. I don't know. It's been so consistent. Yeah, I don't see myself as an everyman. I'm special. I'm like the boss of the everyman. So when I'm there, when I see Tom come in, I'm like...
It's great spending time with one of my employees. I hope he keeps staying as prolific as he is. I mean, he's doing, like, what, at least a film a year? Same here. That's what I meant about the movies he makes. I love that he keeps making movies that are, like, it just seems like not a lot of other people are making. And his new movie, which we talked on, what is it, The Finch? Yeah, Finch. No, no, not The Finch. It's just Finch. Finch. The bird. Yeah, Finch. It's on Apple, and it's basically... When is it on Apple? When is it? It's not on now. First week of November. November 5th. November 5th. November 5th. Yeah. So, yeah, so he's doing this movie, Finch, and the sequel is going to be The Finch, I heard.
No, it's called Fincher. It's called Fincher. Oh, it's called Fincher. And David Fincher's directing it. David Fincher's directing it. Are you kidding? Dude, showbiz is incredible. I know. Everything's aligned. But it's him and a dog and a robot. And this is not the start of a joke. But, like, could anybody pull off a high wire act like that? But they do walk into a bar. There is one bar. They do walk into a bar. Be fair. In fairness, they walk. But I saw the trailer, too, with my almost 13-year-old, and we watched it and looked at each other like, oh, what's that? Yeah.
And don't you feel like he's kind of like our ambassador? Not just for the business and not just for Hollywood, not just for Los Angeles, but like America too? Yes, absolutely. He's like quintessentially American and like... He's one of the people we can both sides, if you will, can agree on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, what's the other side? I just meant like both. Like, never mind. Everybody in America can agree. Oh, those both sides. Yeah, LaShawn, we are not political. Sorry. Please. What are you trying to do? You're trying to lose your award? You're trying to wade me into deep water and then you're going to take me down like a crocodile and keep me under? Bye! Bye!
You can't fucking bail out like that. You can't bail yourself out. You can't be saved by your own bell. We've used every word that you could do with bi. No, not at all. No, but also you were just trying to bail yourself out of a sinking ship. You can't use bi as some kind of instrument to bail out your sinking ship. Why not? I just did it. I guess you can. Sorry, there is no rule in that. You're right. You can. But do you think that when he first moved... Oh, no. Let's hear it. Come on.
One of the questions I didn't get to here was he was 1979. He made a move to New York City and he was trying to be an actor full time. So I wonder if he was just trying to take a bite out of the apple in 1979. A bite? A bite? I'm not confident with this. A bite. That's the least. It's the worst. I'm going to allow it. A bite out of the apple.
Smite less.