Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeartRadio My guest Today is an actor, producer, director,
Speaker 1: and author of a new memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club.
Speaker 1: Griffin Dunn is known for his roles in cult film
Speaker 1: favorites like An American Werewolf in London and Martin Scorsese's
Speaker 1: After Hours. You may have also seen done in popular
Speaker 1: TV series such as This Is Us and Succession. As
Speaker 1: a director, Griffin Dunn's work includes Practical Magic, Fierce People,
Speaker 1: and the documentary on his aunt titled Joan Didion The
Speaker 1: Center Will Not Hold. Growing up among famous relatives and
Speaker 1: a father in show business, Griffin Dunn had an unconventional childhood.
Speaker 2: My father when I was growing up was very different
Speaker 2: than the man he ended up becoming. You know, when
Speaker 2: I was growing up, he was very angry, Irish Catholic
Speaker 2: kind of rage you know, suppressed. He was closeted, which
Speaker 2: was you know, not known at the time, and he
Speaker 2: was also very kind of superficial about how things looked,
Speaker 2: and he dictated what we would wear and what we'd
Speaker 2: go to school in. And it was really tough kind
Speaker 2: of being around him, and I had that awful feeling
Speaker 2: as a kid to be a little embarrassed of my dad,
Speaker 2: you know, like he wasn't like a manly, manly guy.
Speaker 2: And you know, my best friends. I went to a
Speaker 2: school in la and everybody was in show business, all
Speaker 2: the parents and my best friends their father was one
Speaker 2: was Jack Palance, who you know almost killed Shane, and
Speaker 2: the other was Howard Keel who was a lumberjack. And
Speaker 2: then there was my dad, and you know comings exactly.
Speaker 2: You know, I was once so embarrassed that I came
Speaker 2: to school and I said that my dad was in
Speaker 2: jail for robbing a bank. And the lie went through
Speaker 2: the school like small party or something, and the principal
Speaker 2: of the school called my dad and go, oh my god, Nick,
Speaker 2: you're out. And he goes, what are you talking about? Well,
Speaker 2: I heard you were you were in jail for robbing
Speaker 2: a bank. And he brought me. My dad brought me
Speaker 2: into the you know, into this room, and he said,
Speaker 2: is that something you'd like me to do? So when
Speaker 2: it came time, you know, for him, as many couples
Speaker 2: do when they break the news to their kids that
Speaker 2: they're going to get a divorce, they plan what they're
Speaker 2: going to say, you know, so they looks like a
Speaker 2: mutual decision.
Speaker 3: And did your dad say he was going back to prison?
Speaker 2: Now we would have loved that, but he, you know,
Speaker 2: my dad had the first line and he went off script.
Speaker 2: He just burst into tears and went, your mother doesn't
Speaker 2: love me anymore and she's dumped me and she's leaving.
Speaker 2: And you know, we were all. I was about ten,
Speaker 2: my brother was eight, my sister was six, and we'd
Speaker 2: never really seen adults quite cry before, and it was
Speaker 2: particularly my younger brother and sister. So they burst into
Speaker 2: tears and they were really crying, and my dad was
Speaker 2: really going at it. And I got nothing I got.
Speaker 2: I'm dry as a bone, and I just feel awful
Speaker 2: thee Yeah, I felt nothing. I felt nothing, and so
Speaker 2: I try to, you know, get a couple of whimpers
Speaker 2: going and yeah, and it cleared my eyes and making
Speaker 2: sounds and I'm looking I see my mother. She's crying.
Speaker 2: I'm wow, that's really bad. And then I opened my
Speaker 2: eyes and she's looking at me through her eyes and
Speaker 2: they're just totally dry, and I catch her faking it.
Speaker 2: She knows I'm faking it, and a bond happened any
Speaker 2: of a beautiful beginning of a beautiful relationship. And when he,
Speaker 2: you know, moved out, I became, at a very young
Speaker 2: age sort of the man.
Speaker 3: Of the house.
Speaker 2: I was eleven.
Speaker 1: Two stings happened with me really well, not so much
Speaker 1: in divorce, but at some point my sister and I
Speaker 1: was Cinderella, Me were the help.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my brother.
Speaker 1: Spent the whole day every day shooting basketballs, playing with
Speaker 1: football in pools, and my sister and I did the laundry,
Speaker 1: rake the leaves, cut the grass, shovel of the snow,
Speaker 1: cooked the meal. Then so you're twelve, and when he leaves,
Speaker 1: where does he go? Does he go far away or
Speaker 1: is he nearby?
Speaker 2: He goes to an apartment, you know, real kind of
Speaker 2: a Jack Lemon bachelor park in California, and you know, real,
Speaker 2: you know, sad sech kind of a apartment that we're
Speaker 2: supposed to go to on the weekends that we never do.
Speaker 2: And you know, my mom was like she what she
Speaker 2: became very I would say, she she would over share,
Speaker 2: and you know, and she you know, she liked her wine,
Speaker 2: and she let me stay up late. I felt terribly
Speaker 2: grown up. And she'd let me have a little SIPs
Speaker 2: of wine like they do in Europe with the children
Speaker 2: in Europe, and she get a little bombed and just overshare,
Speaker 2: and I felt terribly grown up.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: My dad would be come home from work. He'd come
Speaker 1: home and he'd get on the couch and have the
Speaker 1: New York Times, and he'd read those pithy little blurbs
Speaker 1: about the movies on TV on a million on the
Speaker 1: Late Show, and he'd read it and he say, you.
Speaker 3: Know, Ball of Fire, that's a great movie. You'd say
Speaker 3: to me, let's watch a few minutes.
Speaker 1: My dad would, oh, you gotta go to bed. It's
Speaker 1: eleven thirty. You gotta go to bed. It's eleven thirty.
Speaker 1: I go, let's watch ten minutes of him. Just ten,
Speaker 1: You go, all right, we'll watch tennis. Ten minutes goes by.
Speaker 1: He's fast asleep. He passes out on the couch, and
Speaker 1: I watched all the Bowl of Fire. How Green was
Speaker 1: My Valley? Sorry, wrong number, passage to Marseille. I watch
Speaker 1: all the movies I watched in my life, and.
Speaker 3: Like like you, they wanted they were lonely. They want
Speaker 3: to compassion.
Speaker 2: Absolutely No. That's the other thing that happened too, was
Speaker 2: like all the structure went out the window, and my mother,
Speaker 2: you know, was beginning to get sick. She had MS
Speaker 2: and and so we would go to her bedroom and
Speaker 2: we'd eat on TV trays everything, and it would be
Speaker 2: you know, we had a housekeeper that pretty much raised
Speaker 2: me as well. She was Mexican, and we would have
Speaker 2: rice and beans just on the thing. We would eat
Speaker 2: at all different hours. We'd take our tray and we'd
Speaker 2: watch them and we would watch movies till my brother
Speaker 2: and sister go to sleep, but she'd let me stay
Speaker 2: up and we would watch. You know, there was one
Speaker 2: movie called Suddenly Last Summer that was so terrifying to me,
Speaker 2: you know, and I guess there was like a really
Speaker 2: scary gay theme that was under in cannibalism, and there
Speaker 2: was Catherine Hepburn, you know, on one of those chairs
Speaker 2: that would come down the stairs, and for some reason
Speaker 2: we it would be a million dollar movie, and you know,
Speaker 2: they'd play the movies over and over and over. So
Speaker 2: we would watch this movie. We knew it line by line.
Speaker 2: And then when my mother, you know, advanced further, she
Speaker 2: had to get one of those chairs and we would
Speaker 2: just do Catherine Hepburn imitations. On this chair coming down
Speaker 2: the stairs. All those late night movies, you know, really
Speaker 2: were imprinted. They became like the language that we would speak.
Speaker 2: My mother just knew every movie, every musical, every She
Speaker 2: wanted to be but she wasn't she She when she
Speaker 2: got pregnant with me, she decided to just become a housewife.
Speaker 1: And when she when you say her symptoms of MSS,
Speaker 1: her battle with them, I speagan when she was how.
Speaker 2: Old, I'd say in her thirties, because.
Speaker 3: She done when she was sixty five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, down in No Gallas, No Gas.
Speaker 3: That's kind of her family's.
Speaker 2: That's where she went. She returned there.
Speaker 1: So your family, your mother's family, that was the railroad
Speaker 1: wheel car enterprise exactly.
Speaker 2: Her father was from family that in Chicago, Chicago called,
Speaker 2: and they had the Griffin Wheel Company, and the Griffin
Speaker 2: wheels were at one time on all the pullman cars
Speaker 2: in America. So it was quite an empire. Yes, And
Speaker 2: my grandfather really had no interest in taking on that business.
Speaker 2: He yeah, I know what was he thinking? And he
Speaker 2: went to he was like, you know, like Teddy Roosevelt.
Speaker 2: He had weak lungs and ended up in Arizona when
Speaker 2: he was a kid, and just fell in love with
Speaker 2: the landscape, the air in the desert. So when he could,
Speaker 2: he was supposed to be married in a society wedding
Speaker 2: in Chicago, and he literally left her on the altar
Speaker 2: and went to Nogalis, where he became a cattle rancher
Speaker 2: and knew nothing about cattle and bred this like a
Speaker 2: very risky kind of cow and was very successful at it.
Speaker 2: And my mother grew up on this ranch.
Speaker 1: So I'm assuming not to be ghost about this, but
Speaker 1: your mother's family was on all the resources that you
Speaker 1: grew up with exactly.
Speaker 3: She flirted with being an actress, but she didn't take
Speaker 3: it seriously.
Speaker 2: She didn't. She didn't and she wasn't. I think she
Speaker 2: had tremendous regret about it, you know. And when I later,
Speaker 2: when I got kicked out of school and I decided
Speaker 2: to become an actor, we moved to New York and
Speaker 2: was the high school dropout. She actually wasn't disappointed. She
Speaker 2: was a little oddly envious, and she was like, kind
Speaker 2: of go for it.
Speaker 4: That.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now your was your mind.
Speaker 1: I didn't see the photos of there were Your mother
Speaker 1: was a beautiful woman.
Speaker 2: She camera ready, she was so beautiful. She was often
Speaker 2: mistaken for Jennifer Jones and for Elizabeth Taylor in a
Speaker 2: place in the sun. That's the look I rememorder. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, you know. And I was as a little boy,
Speaker 2: I knew how beautiful she was. I was just in
Speaker 2: awe of her beauty. And in this family, as you said,
Speaker 2: all this Griffin Wheel company money kind of withered down.
Speaker 2: She was very comfortable and was able to want she
Speaker 2: married my dad. My dad was able to, you know,
Speaker 2: buy a house that he wouldn't normally have been able
Speaker 2: to cry. But you know, the previous generations outside of
Speaker 2: the founder, griff of Griffin who in the team seventies,
Speaker 2: they were all scoundrels and drunks and philanderers, you know,
Speaker 2: and absolutely it just sort of dwindled down. You know
Speaker 2: that her grandfather, my mother's grandfather, you know, died with
Speaker 2: his mistress on a on a yacht off Palm Beach,
Speaker 2: and his crew loaded his body onto a tender and
Speaker 2: checked him into.
Speaker 3: The breakers and propped him up in the breakers.
Speaker 2: They propped him up, and then they called the wife,
Speaker 2: missus Griffin, and said, we have terrible news. Your husband
Speaker 2: is dead. And she turned to her lover, who was
Speaker 2: an admiral in the navy, and.
Speaker 3: They were the Coronado.
Speaker 2: Where were they and Coronado exactly, and she said, my
Speaker 2: husband died.
Speaker 3: Ever a split screen scene in the movie this.
Speaker 2: Is this is like sturges, you know, and she says,
Speaker 2: my husband died. We can get married, and do you
Speaker 2: want to go to the funeral? And so they get
Speaker 2: married the next day, and then they train, and then
Speaker 2: they get on.
Speaker 3: A train and.
Speaker 2: Then they the Griffin family is so outraged because it's
Speaker 2: front page news in the New York Times. It's all over.
Speaker 2: It's called widow for a day. And they derail the
Speaker 2: train to go to.
Speaker 3: Wisconsin, the train to send him on their way.
Speaker 2: And she got all the money too.
Speaker 1: Now, your dad, who I knew of him, met him
Speaker 1: at the screening of The Dock in Southampton years I
Speaker 1: remember the latter day people called him then Nick Dunn.
Speaker 3: The latter day Nick Dunn and his pals was just
Speaker 3: very very warm and sweet and kind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he loved you and he kind of really just
Speaker 1: divested himself of all of angry Well what we'll called
Speaker 1: Mick done. Yes, how about that happened? Anyway, When you
Speaker 1: decide you want to become an actor. How does it begin?
Speaker 1: Meaning you start you go where to become an actor?
Speaker 3: Quote unquo.
Speaker 2: Well, I was sent studied, Well, my parents always sent
Speaker 2: me to these boys' schools. I never went to school
Speaker 2: girls from the time, well probably, I mean it was
Speaker 2: just like the thing that you can't have. And you know,
Speaker 2: when I went to this boarding school when I was eleven,
Speaker 2: and we did operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan, and only
Speaker 2: we would wear dresses. I would wear like buttercup, and
Speaker 2: I'd have tennis balls for breast, and we'd wear lipstick
Speaker 2: and wigs. I mean it was pretty, you're too, So
Speaker 2: I didn't really think I wanted to be an actor
Speaker 2: after that. And then and and also you know, as
Speaker 2: I ended up in high school and another school, I
Speaker 2: really wasn't crazy about showbiz. I loved what my aunt
Speaker 2: and uncle were doing that they were journalists. I thought
Speaker 2: maybe I'd like to do that. And this guy taught
Speaker 2: me the drama teacher, a guy named Hunter Frost, just
Speaker 2: insisted that I auditioned for Zoos Story by Ed in Colorado.
Speaker 2: I read this play and I understood Jerry and Zoos
Speaker 2: story immediately. I auditioned and I got the part. And
Speaker 2: once I did that play and I felt that thing
Speaker 2: from the audience, and I just knew that was what
Speaker 2: I was going to do. So I became kind of
Speaker 2: Joe actor on the campus. And then I was doing
Speaker 2: Iago and Othello. We were in rehearsal and literally kids
Speaker 2: would come watch me, and the principal would watch, sit
Speaker 2: in the back and watch, and I knew he was thinking,
Speaker 2: this kid's going to be great for fundraising in the future.
Speaker 2: This would be great. And my best friend at the time,
Speaker 2: we got really heavily into drugs, comes in my room
Speaker 2: the night before the performance with a joint, you know,
Speaker 2: or a hash pipe, and he lights it up and
Speaker 2: I take a toke and the a teacher walks in
Speaker 2: and I got kicked out of school and I never
Speaker 2: get to do a Fellow, but it gave me the
Speaker 2: bug to It was just a matter of time. At
Speaker 2: that time, I was seventeen. By the time I was eighteen,
Speaker 2: I was moving to New York. I went to the
Speaker 2: Neighborhood Playhouse. Only did one year there. I had real neighborhood.
Speaker 3: That's a win.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, Wyn Hammond was a teacher there. I had
Speaker 2: a guy named Freddy Carramon, who was incredible. So I
Speaker 2: only went there a year. I wasn't asked back a
Speaker 2: second year, and then I studied with with a Hogen,
Speaker 2: who I was well out of my league. You know.
Speaker 2: When I went there, I hadn't done anything, and I
Speaker 2: fibbed about what I did on the resume, and I
Speaker 2: prepared a monologue from Catcher in the Rye. As soon
Speaker 2: as I saw her, I immediately forgot every word and
Speaker 2: I just made it up. So I took a bus
Speaker 2: down here and I changed the thing and I bought
Speaker 2: a doughnut at the whatever occurred to me, and I
Speaker 2: made it sound like Holden Cawfield, and she, darling, that
Speaker 2: was incredible. She could tell I didn't know what the
Speaker 2: fuck I was doing, like you know, yeah, but I
Speaker 2: begged her to let me stay, and then I kind
Speaker 2: of found myself in that class, and she was incredible.
Speaker 2: Did you ever study with stell Adler?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: I went to Strasburg.
Speaker 1: I was sent back then and they had Stella Jack
Speaker 1: Garfine their own in house ETW Strasburg, and my teachers
Speaker 1: were Marshall Halfret, who.
Speaker 3: I love, and Jeffrey Horne, who is my dear friend.
Speaker 3: Jeff ninety two.
Speaker 2: Now, Stella used to do a workshop in Los Angeles
Speaker 2: for one summer, and so I went to audition for
Speaker 2: that is before I went to the playhouse. And I
Speaker 2: was just such an earnest young man, and I thought
Speaker 2: it was auditioning for her, but it was for a
Speaker 2: guy who sounded very much like your teacher. And I
Speaker 2: did Candida the Shaw play and I was acting my
Speaker 2: little heart out, and he had a dog with a
Speaker 2: collar that must have had a million charblays, and he
Speaker 2: would scratch all the way through my thing. And he goes,
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure you quite got the stuff for Stella.
Speaker 2: You might have to come back. So I came back.
Speaker 2: I did it. I worked so hard, and he said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to take a chance on you. So he
Speaker 2: lets me be with Stella, and I come to Stella
Speaker 2: the first class. She's just this dynamic, strong woman. And
Speaker 2: sometimes she would say she would grab her the hem
Speaker 2: of her shirt and she go, it's gotta come from here,
Speaker 2: and you think she means her heart, but then she
Speaker 2: pulls down her t shirt and you see her breast
Speaker 2: for like two seconds, and then she pulls them back up,
Speaker 2: go it's gotta come from there. Sorry, and I'm looking
Speaker 2: at that at the class. Around the class there are
Speaker 2: not many women and the most incredibly handsome men I've
Speaker 2: ever seen in my whole life, right, I mean, no.
Speaker 3: Jaws that come out here, and you know, Josh things.
Speaker 2: So he goes, all right, so we will take the
Speaker 2: first scene here Vick Ronson and Rock Thurber, you and.
Speaker 3: These guys hospital.
Speaker 2: They go, what, let's sell? I goes, so, what scene
Speaker 2: you boys going.
Speaker 3: To be doing?
Speaker 2: We're gonna do the uh, the shootout scene, the final
Speaker 2: shootout scene from Butch Cassidy in this dance kids I
Speaker 2: did Canada, I did Shaw. So they go and they
Speaker 2: stand behind these they crouch behind these Samsonite chairs. They
Speaker 2: take out their fingers and they go, you ready, Butcher
Speaker 2: ready Sundays And they just do for the whole scene.
Speaker 2: And she goes, oh, that was wonderful. And so I
Speaker 2: was just the only straight guy in the class. I
Speaker 2: guess I don't know what this is in la. Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My great gift from doing Strasburg was gender rehearsal casting.
Speaker 1: You know, they cast a production of Cuckoo's Nests and
Speaker 1: I was nurse Ratchet as a man but I remember
Speaker 1: that whole idea. So when I teach acting, I got
Speaker 1: gender reversal everything.
Speaker 2: Then, Gary, Well, I gotta tell you, you know they My
Speaker 2: daughter was in American Buffalo in high school, and to
Speaker 2: do it with an all female cast. It was mind
Speaker 2: blowing because you see that those guys are protecting their masculinity.
Speaker 2: They have so much going, you know, to protect in
Speaker 2: their manhood, and to see women play that is an
Speaker 2: entirely another dimension. It was incredibly moving. I love when
Speaker 2: that happened.
Speaker 3: In an acting class. I had a guy.
Speaker 1: This was an acting class for non majors at Southampton College.
Speaker 1: And the guy comes in. He's a mailman's a male
Speaker 1: man who wanted to take the acting class with may
Speaker 1: probably forty pounds overweight. He's a big barrel of a man.
Speaker 1: So I made him do the children's hour. I made
Speaker 1: him stand there with the guy. I made him stand
Speaker 1: on the stage with another guy and go. But I
Speaker 1: do love you that way, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I wanted everybody to try everything.
Speaker 2: I love that when people have that drive but they've
Speaker 2: got a life that has nothing to do with acting.
Speaker 2: Before they decide to become actors, a real life and
Speaker 2: that's so fascinating to me how some people get into it.
Speaker 2: Was one guy at the Neighborhood Playhouse who went through
Speaker 2: the entire medical school head a degree, a doctorate degree
Speaker 2: to be a brain surgeon, a brain surgeon, and he said, no,
Speaker 2: I want to go to acting class. Like wow, Okay.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the kind of poll of doing what you.
Speaker 3: Love, Actor and director Griffin Dunn.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy conversations about complex family relationships, check out
Speaker 1: my episode with novelist Erika Jong and her daughter, writer Malyijang.
Speaker 3: Fast.
Speaker 4: On the one hand, you're supposed to look like a
Speaker 4: fashion model retouched, and on the other hand, you're supposed
Speaker 4: to claim to a sophistication you don't and cannot have
Speaker 4: at that age. And I think that women who are
Speaker 4: fourteen fifteen are in the most difficult position they have
Speaker 4: ever been in modern society.
Speaker 3: What do you think about that?
Speaker 2: I mean, I agree, I think there's a lot of sexuality.
Speaker 3: I think it's not explained to young girls in.
Speaker 4: A way, very confusing, Molly.
Speaker 2: But I think that's a legacy of the feminist movement.
Speaker 3: I mean, we said we.
Speaker 4: Wanted a legacy. I'm the feminist movement.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Erika Jong and
Speaker 1: Mali Jang fast go to Here's the Thing dot Org.
Speaker 1: After the break, Griffin Dunn shares how Tim Burton almost
Speaker 1: directed the film After Hours instead of Martin Scorsese. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Griffin Dunn starred in Martin Scorsese's nineteen eighty five film
Speaker 1: After Hours, which has since become a cult classic. In
Speaker 1: addition to his leading role in the film, don was
Speaker 1: also a producer. I was curious about his involvement in
Speaker 1: the project. After what Donn describes as a difficult start
Speaker 1: to his act career.
Speaker 2: I had a very hard time getting the acting job,
Speaker 2: and I really didn't establish myself and start to work
Speaker 2: somewhat regularly until I produced a movie with my partner
Speaker 2: Amy Robinson and a guy named Mark Metcalf, and we
Speaker 2: actually produced a movie with no experience for United artists,
Speaker 2: and I gave myself a small part in it and
Speaker 2: it got the biggest laugh and that led to Werewolf
Speaker 2: and Amy and I then produced another movie called Baby,
Speaker 2: It's You with John Sales, and we had an incredible
Speaker 2: crew that we put together. There was a member of
Speaker 2: union called Nabit, and so we had this all these
Speaker 2: wonderful people working together. And Amy read this script. So
Speaker 2: I had a little bit of credit as an actor.
Speaker 2: But Amy read this script when she was at the
Speaker 2: Sun Dance Institute by a Serbian director named Doujon mcaveef.
Speaker 2: Gave her the script and said, you know, my assistant
Speaker 2: wrote this. He's from Columbia. This was his thesis. And
Speaker 2: Amy reads it and goes, this is unbelievable, and she
Speaker 2: sends it to me. I'm in Los Angeles at that time,
Speaker 2: and I'm blown away by the script, the anxiety. I
Speaker 2: had to read it standing up and turn the pages
Speaker 2: with my big toe and just go, oh my god.
Speaker 2: And so Amy was Teresa in mean Streets and she
Speaker 2: knew Marty Scorsese and she said he'd be really good
Speaker 2: for this, like he's really funny, like really, So we
Speaker 2: got it to Marty and but Marty was just off
Speaker 2: to do Last Temptation of Christ the first time around
Speaker 2: with Aiden Quinn playing Christ, so he was unavailable. And
Speaker 2: then we go to Amy and I were wondering who
Speaker 2: to direct, and my friend Terry Garr had signed on
Speaker 2: already but we didn't have a director, and we go
Speaker 2: see this movie I Forget, which the movie was, but
Speaker 2: the short was directed by a guy named Tim Burton,
Speaker 2: and we went, well, what about him? And so we
Speaker 2: go to Burbank Studios where he's an animator at one
Speaker 2: of those desks, you know, with lots of other animators,
Speaker 2: and we go to lunch and it's this brilliant young guy,
Speaker 2: you know, with the pencil pocket pencil thing and the
Speaker 2: ink coming through the protector, the pocket protector, and he
Speaker 2: does little drawings and stuff and you just go, Wow,
Speaker 2: what's gonna what's this going to be? And around this
Speaker 2: time we're trying to raise money with me Nobody, Terry, somebody,
Speaker 2: but still Tim had not done a movie. It was
Speaker 2: a tough sell. Marty's movie get canceled in Morocco and
Speaker 2: he's got to come back, and on his way back
Speaker 2: he reads at the top of the pile is after
Speaker 2: hours and he lands and he gets back to us.
Speaker 2: We all had the same attorney named Jay Julian. So
Speaker 2: then we had to like tell Tim and we went
Speaker 2: craziest thing happened, and he knew that. We went to
Speaker 2: Marty first, and we start to tell him like, very guilty, intrepidationous.
Speaker 2: Are you telling me mister Scorsese wants to do this movie?
Speaker 2: Well yeah, he said, we haven't gotten back to him yet,
Speaker 2: but I gracefully withdraw. I won't do anything to stand
Speaker 2: in his way. So then it was just meeting Marty
Speaker 2: and I kept waiting for him. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: implicit that I was going to play Paul Hackett, but
Speaker 2: I did wait for him to also say how great
Speaker 2: Bobby would be in this, But then he was like no, anyway,
Speaker 2: he started to say, oh, I saw you in Werewolf
Speaker 2: and that was really great and he never thought twice
Speaker 2: about it. So anyway, we're off and running. And then
Speaker 2: I mentioned the Nabit crew because this was so low
Speaker 2: budget and he was in a bit of director's jail
Speaker 2: from King of Comedy, which we now know to be brilliant,
Speaker 2: but at that time was just getting the shit kicked
Speaker 2: out of it, and it was very expensive and all
Speaker 2: that stuff. So he was like, had to be had
Speaker 2: to show that I can do a mean streets again.
Speaker 2: I can, you know, be a low to the ground,
Speaker 2: but not with an IA crew. So we gave him
Speaker 2: the Nabit crew and all those people, you know, from
Speaker 2: Michael Ballhouse. That's how we met Michael Io. Yeah, I know, yeah,
Speaker 2: and I remember. So anyway, he took all these people
Speaker 2: on with him with movies, many many of the people
Speaker 2: from that crew.
Speaker 3: Where do you get the money from?
Speaker 2: Geffen? Geffen Films, David Geffen?
Speaker 3: He did Beatlejuice with him, He.
Speaker 2: Did Beatle Juice with you with him, and yes, and
Speaker 2: matter of fact, I wanted that part really bad, and
Speaker 2: I thought, how come I can store in this movie?
Speaker 2: And maybe it's because I gave tim a movie and
Speaker 2: then took it away that I didn't get your part.
Speaker 3: Just be honest, that was probably a lot cheaper than
Speaker 3: you were there.
Speaker 2: Well he was cheap. No, you could have gotten me
Speaker 2: for a song. So yeah, he did that. He financed
Speaker 2: it and he god, it was like thirty It was
Speaker 2: considered like, look how fast we are running and gunning
Speaker 2: to the ground and getting it. Marty was unbelievably prepared.
Speaker 2: So there was never a we never fell behind or anything.
Speaker 2: But it was like in those days too, with a
Speaker 2: movie like thirty days. That's all I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: nine and a half weeks. I'm sure it took a
Speaker 2: lot longer than nine and a half weeks. I mean
Speaker 2: you would, you would shoot for months and now it's like, no,
Speaker 2: you only got thirty days. Oh, we can do it,
Speaker 2: and so you know, helicopters bring it down the thing.
Speaker 2: That's more than enough. With a gun to your head,
Speaker 2: you can do whatever. Well, Adam, I haven't been on
Speaker 2: one of those movies for months and years.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 1: I mean I did the movie Kat and the Half
Speaker 1: with Mike Myers, which was just a silly role. I
Speaker 1: wanted to do Kat and That because a boat I loved.
Speaker 1: I love I love Bow to Deathic we're one of
Speaker 1: the greatest guys in the business, Catherine O'Hara's husband who
Speaker 1: did all the you know.
Speaker 2: Scissor Hands and everything, and Catherine from After Ours.
Speaker 3: And Catherine exactly.
Speaker 1: And you knew it was a long movie because the
Speaker 1: makeup room decor changed from pumpkins to turkeys to Christmas trees.
Speaker 3: AT's see it all Valentimes. We were there for fucking
Speaker 3: six months doing this stuff. We were a lot of breaks.
Speaker 3: But I mean, yeah, I haven't done like that a
Speaker 3: long time.
Speaker 2: No, I mean that doesn't exist anymore. You know what.
Speaker 2: I just fell into a you know, when you're clicking
Speaker 2: around and then you just went That's not what I
Speaker 2: intended to watch at all, and then you're there for
Speaker 2: The next was Hunt for Red October. How long did
Speaker 2: that take?
Speaker 1: That was a few months because I think that they
Speaker 1: gave McTiernan, who was coming.
Speaker 3: Off of a couple.
Speaker 1: He did die hard, he was doing well, this is
Speaker 1: the launch of the Clancy Yeah, Library, this is the
Speaker 1: first one they did, so they were really behind it.
Speaker 1: I always remember that movie that I remember sitting there
Speaker 1: at one point. It didn't hit me till I was
Speaker 1: there was like how many great actress that were.
Speaker 3: In that movie?
Speaker 1: Almost makes me cry. I mean, is Scott Glenn, James,
Speaker 1: Earl Jones, Sean or Tim curry Firth who speaks that
Speaker 1: unbroken monologue in Russian as they push in.
Speaker 2: I love That's my favorite thing. I've always wanted to
Speaker 2: steal that for something. Did you ever dream that that
Speaker 2: director would someday be in prison?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: Now, I kept in touch with him, and I think
Speaker 1: what he basically told me was it was not I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is the right word, prosecutorial for
Speaker 1: which I think that he is involved in a case
Speaker 1: where they want to get him for something and they
Speaker 1: finally get him for what you can perjury.
Speaker 3: He lied about something in a time.
Speaker 2: Once they catch you in a lie then and they're
Speaker 2: going after the lie, after the bigger fish. And the
Speaker 2: bigger fish was the detective, you know, the private elly
Speaker 2: who tapped everything. He's actually in the book.
Speaker 3: And yeah, he was on our show. Oh really yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: our show. We're talking about Anthony Pelco and Pelicana was
Speaker 3: on the show. He did our show. Oh really yeah,
Speaker 3: Well because of the the but he went to prison
Speaker 3: for years ago. I'm well aware, he says.
Speaker 1: I think he says in our show, I'm no rat
Speaker 1: alec and I mean he went he went to jail
Speaker 1: for to prison for a long long time.
Speaker 3: He's in your book, was he he? What was he
Speaker 3: doing for the Dune family?
Speaker 2: Well, he changed tones possibly here when the man who
Speaker 2: killed my sister is right here on the cover of
Speaker 2: this book. There, when the man killed my sister and
Speaker 2: did such a small amount of time three and a
Speaker 2: half years, both my father and I became obsessed with
Speaker 2: rage and ruining where he would be.
Speaker 3: And you had an alternate plan for him, Yes, we did.
Speaker 1: Actor and director Griffin Dunn. If you're enjoying this, conversation.
Speaker 1: Tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. When we come back, Griffin Dunn explains his
Speaker 1: family's shared obsession in the aftermath of his sister's tragic death.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty two, Griffin Dunn's sister, Dominique, was murdered
Speaker 1: by her ex boyfriend. She was only twenty two years old.
Speaker 1: A jury acquitted her killer of the second degree murder
Speaker 1: charge and found him guilty of only voluntary manslaughter. He
Speaker 1: received a six year prison sentence for the lesser charge
Speaker 1: and went free after serving.
Speaker 3: Nearly two and a half years.
Speaker 1: As a result of what they considered a miscarriage of justice,
Speaker 1: Griffin Dunn and his family sought their own ways to
Speaker 1: write the situation.
Speaker 2: I used to find out where he worked and get
Speaker 2: him fired, and my mother actually would organize he was
Speaker 2: a chef, and if he worked in a restaurant, it
Speaker 2: was a place called the Santa Monica Chronicle, and my
Speaker 2: mother organized a picket and had signs that the food
Speaker 2: the man who prepared your food strangled my daughter, and
Speaker 2: the Santa Michael Chronicle got rid of him. And sometimes
Speaker 2: I would find out if he had a girlfriend, and
Speaker 2: I would get in touch with a girlfriend and break
Speaker 2: them up, and both both my dad and I kind
Speaker 2: of lost our shit. Anyway, he kind of fell off
Speaker 2: the map, and he called Anthony Pelicano to find out
Speaker 2: where he was. And Pelicano found out that the guy
Speaker 2: had changed his name and had moved to Washington. I believe,
Speaker 2: you know, just Sayattle moved out of the state. And
Speaker 2: he was very you know, you know, my dad, you know,
Speaker 2: loved he loved cops, he loved a journalists, he loved
Speaker 2: crime and uh and he really, you know, he was
Speaker 2: really charmed by Pelicano. You know, he really loved the guy,
Speaker 2: and he was really helpful. I don't think he charged
Speaker 2: him a dime. He just you know, Pelicano was pro
Speaker 2: bono work. He done a little pro bono you know
Speaker 2: what he wanted to say. You know, I gave I
Speaker 2: threw a bone to dominant gun. I helped him out
Speaker 2: a bit, you know whatever.
Speaker 1: Now, two things. Yeah, so the thing, obviously the book
Speaker 1: is steeped in these tragedies. You've had to deal with
Speaker 1: and there's not I'm not going to see this death everywhere.
Speaker 1: But obviously you and your father are your lives are
Speaker 1: changed by what happened to your sister. Without without a doubt,
Speaker 1: I was friends with Jelko Ivonic, I mean I am
Speaker 1: with him.
Speaker 3: I never see him anymore. And he was dating Rebecca
Speaker 3: Shaffer right before she was killed.
Speaker 2: Well we know that. And from that, the families that
Speaker 2: supported Rebecca Schaeffer attended at our trial. They were called
Speaker 2: parents and murdered children. And I believe that was started
Speaker 2: by Sharon Tate's mother, Doris Tate. She started this group
Speaker 2: as a support group, and Rebecca Shaffer's parents were involved
Speaker 2: and were there, and there was a trial. I think
Speaker 2: for some that guy who was you know, as a
Speaker 2: fan or something, and there was a guy with it
Speaker 2: who you know delivered arrowhead water. I remember he's the
Speaker 2: one who captured the killer horrible thing. Yeah, and Teresa
Speaker 2: Seldono's family was also a member. But yeah, that was
Speaker 2: a crazy time.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously this is a long time ago in
Speaker 1: your life. What's the business like for you now in
Speaker 1: terms of you still like to make movies, you want
Speaker 1: to produce movies, act in movies, TV shows. Is acting
Speaker 1: still interest you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? You know, my desire, my ambition has not dropped
Speaker 2: at all. At one point I thought I was going
Speaker 2: to just hang it up with the acting. It was
Speaker 2: like I was just doing I went from you know,
Speaker 2: after hours and made stupid choices over the years, and
Speaker 2: suddenly it was the fourth banana, if that kind if
Speaker 2: a banana was even that big, and I thought, I
Speaker 2: don't get this, and I'm getting older, and you know,
Speaker 2: everybody who I went to the neighborhood playoffs with my age,
Speaker 2: and I've never heard of anybody. So I'm going to
Speaker 2: just go off on the sunset. And then somebody suggested
Speaker 2: told me they were taking a checkoff class taught by
Speaker 2: a Russian, a guy from where Stanislawsky came from the
Speaker 2: Russian Institute, and this teacher who didn't speak a word
Speaker 2: of English through a translator. I did ivan off and
Speaker 2: I've never done checkof before. And I'm like, this is
Speaker 2: like maybe six years ago. I'm you know, looking like this,
Speaker 2: I'm feeling, you know, the middle age, and I'm feeling
Speaker 2: I'm coming up on all sorts of shit, of ag
Speaker 2: and everything. And I got it. I got like I
Speaker 2: think I know who I am as an actor. I'm
Speaker 2: funny and tragic and pathetic and kind of brave, and
Speaker 2: I want to take chances. And I just I got
Speaker 2: so excited about acting, and out of the blue, around
Speaker 2: that same time, as it can only happen in our business,
Speaker 2: I get a call from Dan Fogelman to be in
Speaker 2: the show This is Us. He said, I want you
Speaker 2: to play a guy who's he's suicidal, he's a drunk,
Speaker 2: he's a diabetic, he lives in a cabin, but he's
Speaker 2: actually kind of funny. And I went, oh, my god,
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 3: How to do that. I'm a suicidal diabetic.
Speaker 2: I can do this and I can get a laugh
Speaker 2: putting a gun in my mouth, And so it was
Speaker 2: just a wonderful part. Then it just reinvigorated my feeling
Speaker 2: about acting, and ever since then, I've done really interesting stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm in this very funny movie called ex Husbands, where
Speaker 2: I'm a guy who's my age with grown sons, who's
Speaker 2: going through a divorce, who crashes his son's bachelor party
Speaker 2: getting married in Tuloom. And you know, I'm suddenly tearing
Speaker 2: on this whole checkof thing, you know, with the director
Speaker 2: Noah Pritzker.
Speaker 3: Oh I know, no a Pritzker.
Speaker 2: Oh you do, of course, of course, you know in
Speaker 2: the he's got a house up where are.
Speaker 3: You guys, I know, the whole Pritzker gang.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well his uncle, let's you know, he could
Speaker 2: be one of the We could be hearing a lot
Speaker 2: more from his uncle and the governor of Illinois.
Speaker 3: So what about a play. When's the last you did?
Speaker 2: A play that I haven't done a long time?
Speaker 3: Would you want to do one? I would? I would.
Speaker 2: The last play I did was called Search and Destroy
Speaker 2: that Howard Corter wrote at Circle in the Square and
Speaker 2: that was a fantastic part. We made it into a
Speaker 2: movie that no one saw, but it had Chris Walkin
Speaker 2: and Ethan Hawke and Marty produced it. And uh, I'm
Speaker 2: just thinking, like I've done a lot of things that
Speaker 2: no one likes at the time. Then you know, Criterion
Speaker 2: we discover them. Yes, yes, And.
Speaker 3: It's like the Orson Wells Lost Movies.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, you know, the longer you wait, it's twenty
Speaker 2: minutes of a guy walking along the shore and then
Speaker 2: finally stops and finds a boat and that's it, and
Speaker 2: that's it, and then twenty years later, someone will come
Speaker 2: up and go, that guy who walked along the shore
Speaker 2: that changed me.
Speaker 3: My god, that was so good.
Speaker 2: And then the word gets out and suddenly you got
Speaker 2: like five rotten tomatoes when they hated it the first time.
Speaker 3: Well, let me just say, you're one of those people.
Speaker 3: Everybody in this business loves you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Ellen.
Speaker 3: Good to see how you too.
Speaker 1: My thanks to actor and director Griffin Dunn. This episode
Speaker 1: was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City and
Speaker 1: Monk Music in Easthampton, New York. We're produced by Kathleen Brusso,
Speaker 1: Zach MacNeice, and Victoria de Martin. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.
Speaker 1: Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Is brought to you by iHeart Radio.