Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascals Stand Up to Her continues
Speaker 1: throughout twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates
Speaker 1: and tickets, go to the Craig Ferguson Show dot com
Speaker 1: slash tour. See you out there, the Greig Ferguson show
Speaker 1: dot com slash Tour. My name is Craig Ferguson. The
Speaker 1: name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest
Speaker 1: in people about what brings them happiness. Ileana Douglas is
Speaker 1: a movie star. She's Hollywood royalty, and she's hilarious, and
Speaker 1: she has low self esteem, as you're about to find out.
Speaker 1: She's also written an amazing book, a really interesting book
Speaker 1: called Connecticut in the movies. I don't listened to this. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to put the headphones on because I like
Speaker 1: them on. I'm swallowing and you can swallow. It's okay,
Speaker 1: don't don't you see?
Speaker 2: I needed to ask permission?
Speaker 1: Why is your self esteem so low? There's no reason
Speaker 1: for your self esteem it be so low. But I
Speaker 1: think that comes from when you were a kid, right, probably.
Speaker 2: But it's funny when in my first book, I Marlon
Speaker 2: Brando pointed pointed that he said that to me, should
Speaker 2: you be so insecure?
Speaker 1: Well, and if Marlon Brando says to you, why you insecure?
Speaker 1: Then you should.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at a certain point, can you change it?
Speaker 1: I think you can.
Speaker 2: The only time I went to I'm I'm not big
Speaker 2: on doctors. Yeah, and I remember going to this doctor
Speaker 2: and he said, you should really try not to be
Speaker 2: so self deprecating, right, you know, because it's it signals
Speaker 2: to people that you know you have low self esteem.
Speaker 1: It gives it gives them permission, I think, to to
Speaker 1: you know, to join in.
Speaker 3: I don't know that's true, but I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 3: I get it. Look any what is the opposite to
Speaker 3: be like a blowhard?
Speaker 1: I mean, we all like, I am so awesome, look
Speaker 1: at me.
Speaker 2: Right, And I don't like the humble brag That is
Speaker 2: sicker than the I hate the It's like I'm honored too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so humble, so humbled. I'm hur win this Oscar.
Speaker 1: You're like, I know, you're fucking no. Like if you
Speaker 1: were humbled to win an Oscar, you didn't even you
Speaker 1: wouldn't even put your name forward to be in contention
Speaker 1: for an Oscar. Shut up.
Speaker 2: By the way, I have to totally interrupt. I didn't bring
Speaker 2: the picture, but you know, I have a picture of
Speaker 2: you and I in my office of us when I
Speaker 2: was on your show. Right, we were talking. I think
Speaker 2: I was trying to learn how to play the guitar
Speaker 2: or something. I don't know, but anyway, you're miming playing
Speaker 2: the guitar. You were doing some bit then and I
Speaker 2: my head is thrown back with laughter and it's one
Speaker 2: of my favorite images and I always I see in
Speaker 2: my office.
Speaker 1: I think you know that sense of joy. It is
Speaker 1: a sense of joy. Seeuse you were asking me about
Speaker 1: podcast before we turn to me. She yes, and you
Speaker 1: were talking about podcasting and what did I like it?
Speaker 1: And I do like it because there's no money in it,
Speaker 1: so that so that's good. It keeps yeah, keeps you humble. Yes,
Speaker 1: so should I win an oscart there's nothing I've done then, uh,
Speaker 1: you know it will keep me centered. But also there
Speaker 1: is no pressure for me to talk to anybody I
Speaker 1: don't want to talk to. That's was great about it.
Speaker 1: That's that's what you're paying for. And I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to you because of the because I started to
Speaker 1: notice on your social media when I was still on
Speaker 1: the social media. I don't do it at all now
Speaker 1: because there's there's a I pay these guys and they
Speaker 1: do it. I'm like, now social media is over because
Speaker 1: now you don't have them.
Speaker 2: Although I like everything else, it's self cannibalizing and it's
Speaker 2: ruining itself.
Speaker 1: Of course. I mean it's nuts.
Speaker 2: It's like cinerama.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about cinerama. What do you mean cinerama,
Speaker 1: the cinema chain or cinerama.
Speaker 2: I guess it as a metaphor that, you know, like
Speaker 2: everything that's it's created with good you know, to be
Speaker 2: something good and snappy and fun and entertaining, and then
Speaker 2: it gets ruined by you know, uh yeah exactly. And
Speaker 2: they tried to turn every movie into you know, as
Speaker 2: opposed to certain movies that some movies didn't need to
Speaker 2: be in cineramic form. That's what I meant. You know
Speaker 2: what every reference I make is from from movies.
Speaker 1: I speak of you as like movie royalty, though you're
Speaker 1: like you're like you're like a movie star, movie star,
Speaker 1: Like no matter what you do in your life from
Speaker 1: now until the end of your life, yes, you'll always
Speaker 1: be a movie star. Do you You get that right?
Speaker 1: That's your thing.
Speaker 2: Could I get a title for that, like.
Speaker 1: Lady Lady Dame Late.
Speaker 2: No, well, in my case would be Lady Lighty l Douglass. Fine, okay,
Speaker 2: except yeah, I accept.
Speaker 1: I think that because we were talking about movies before
Speaker 1: we turned the machine on as well, and yes, talking
Speaker 1: about like the movies. A lot of movies that you're
Speaker 1: in that I love, and the movies that I love
Speaker 1: that you love are movies where not a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff happens. You know, some people they do a thing,
Speaker 1: they have something to eat, they talk to each other,
Speaker 1: and yes, maybe make some decisions, go to a place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the Alexander Payne film Fantastic.
Speaker 1: You know that that movie he did? Was was it?
Speaker 1: Reys Witherspoon Election. That's a great movie. Isn't that a
Speaker 1: great movie?
Speaker 2: Everything he does is great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know he's a pretty talented guy. Did you
Speaker 1: do a movie with him?
Speaker 2: I was almost in that movie, actually, but I was
Speaker 2: doing something else. I was supposed to play the I think,
Speaker 2: the wife of Matthew Broderick. I mean, I don't want
Speaker 2: to say I was supposed to, not true, but I was.
Speaker 1: I was off you were. Yeah, it was funny because
Speaker 1: Matthew Broadrick Wasshing has ass and that movie is one
Speaker 1: of the great screen performance He's great, Like he really
Speaker 1: wins his ass properly in that shriff scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I said to Sarah Jessica, I loved that. I
Speaker 1: don't know Matthew Broderick, but I was working with her
Speaker 1: and I said, you know when your husband watches his
Speaker 1: ass in that movie, Alex and that's one of the
Speaker 1: greatest performances I've ever seen. And she said, he's so
Speaker 1: proud of that shot, Like that's so great because I
Speaker 1: spotted it. I'm like, that's really good. Whatever he's doing there,
Speaker 1: it's really good.
Speaker 2: That's funny. Well, actors love that when you pick up
Speaker 2: on some.
Speaker 1: Little well some little things. That's a business. Well, let
Speaker 1: me talk to you then about the ice skating movie,
Speaker 1: Like when you ice skate in that movie? Yes, oh my,
Speaker 1: did you did you know how to ice skate? Because
Speaker 1: you like, did you grow up in Connecticut?
Speaker 2: I grew up there, and so I knew how to skate.
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to trick skate. So I once
Speaker 2: I got the part, which was to.
Speaker 1: Die for we should say the name of to die For?
Speaker 2: Yeah, once I I went in an audition. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty much walked around the room and second position
Speaker 2: like I it's sort of like acts, yeah, skating all
Speaker 2: my life, you know, doing all the Yeah. Once I
Speaker 2: got the part, I quickly went to New York right
Speaker 2: down the street down on I think it's twelfth Avenue
Speaker 2: and there's a skating rink there.
Speaker 1: You went through an intense skating.
Speaker 2: Yes, I did, and which most of which unfortunately ended
Speaker 2: up on the cutting room floor because Gus Finsen said
Speaker 2: it was too jarring.
Speaker 1: And well, you know, so I think he's probably right.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's pretty clever guy.
Speaker 2: And he's disappointing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But here's the thing though, when you do that
Speaker 1: little spin at the end of the movie, Yes, I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that's it's as good as Matthew Broderick
Speaker 1: washing his ass Italy right. Well, it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's fantastic.
Speaker 2: And I also got to throw in some I think
Speaker 2: that's the first time I really really got the add
Speaker 2: lib and they I thought, you know, to me because
Speaker 2: I wasn't sophisticated enough. That was just me kidding around.
Speaker 2: And then when I saw the movie, I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, Oh wow, really but yeah, the you
Speaker 2: know four letters begins with say, yeah that was yeah,
Speaker 2: I threw in you did that? Yeah, I threw in great,
Speaker 2: I threw in things here and there.
Speaker 1: See, now you create something like that. I'm going to
Speaker 1: talk to you about your book in a minute because
Speaker 1: it's quite kind of quite interesting to me because I
Speaker 1: know that you started as a stand up right, like
Speaker 1: right the beginning. Yes, And I always think of your
Speaker 1: your energy. There's a you know, the actress Uta Lember right,
Speaker 1: uh huh. She said something that I think is the
Speaker 1: trick of stand up is the way I understand it,
Speaker 1: which is this is that? And she was talking about
Speaker 1: acting and she said the trick of acting is to
Speaker 1: create the illusion of spontaneity. And I'm like, that's that's
Speaker 1: what stand up is to me because like you know,
Speaker 1: you do fifty shows over a period of a tour,
Speaker 1: like Show forty eight, you're telling the same joke, but
Speaker 1: the audience has to see feel like I'm just here right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I just thought of this. So when you
Speaker 1: started doing stand up, did you write it down like
Speaker 1: an actor? Did you write it and learn it?
Speaker 2: And yes, it was total desperation. It was simply because
Speaker 2: I had no money and I couldn't get any acting jobs.
Speaker 2: And I saw a sign at stand Up New York
Speaker 2: that if you won this contest you got fifty bucks.
Speaker 2: So fifty bucks seemed.
Speaker 1: That's still a big payday for a lot of time,
Speaker 1: a lot. That's what you get for a podcast. By
Speaker 1: the way, you should think about it. No pair episode,
Speaker 1: but you know throughout the year you'll get fook.
Speaker 2: But I, uh so, yeah I did, and I and
Speaker 2: so I threw together stuff. I used to do my
Speaker 2: jokes for my roommate and he would always say, that's
Speaker 2: not funny, that's not funny. He would critique everything I did.
Speaker 2: And then he also said something to me which I
Speaker 2: never understood, but I always took as a compliment. He goes,
Speaker 2: it's not funny, but I find myself laughing.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 2: So I thought that was interesting. So I had no idea.
Speaker 2: It was very crude. I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 2: I just would throw together enough for twenty minutes. You know.
Speaker 2: They told me that for the first time I went up.
Speaker 2: They said, you only need ten minutes. Ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that suddenly a lot of time when you're starting though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the good and bad was writing the jokes
Speaker 2: was really easy. I did not like I know it
Speaker 2: sounds stupid, but I didn't like the lifestyle I found
Speaker 2: it to be. To walk over to stand up New
Speaker 2: York at ten o'clock at night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know you like to be in bad.
Speaker 2: Slew but myself and I was very scared. So i'd
Speaker 2: have you know, ten coca colas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and then you can't sleep all night.
Speaker 2: And you can't sleep, and then you have to drink
Speaker 2: to bring yourself down. And then, as I said, like
Speaker 2: there was there was people that were doing stand up
Speaker 2: that were you know, professional people like Kevin Neal and
Speaker 2: j Moore. I saw actually David people like that. And
Speaker 2: then they'd all say, okay, now we're going down to
Speaker 2: the comedy cellar and I want to go to bell
Speaker 2: I have to do this again. So I had no
Speaker 2: so is this ying and yang where people were saying,
Speaker 2: you know, I immediately had people who wanted to work
Speaker 2: with me and set me up and.
Speaker 1: Well you have that quality. See, there's that ineffable quality
Speaker 1: that you have, which is interesting because I think probably
Speaker 1: you're looses. See I'm analyzing you know, right, thank you,
Speaker 1: But see this. Did you ever get therapy? Did you
Speaker 1: ever have therapy? No?
Speaker 2: It never. I almost called my first book, I had
Speaker 2: a therapist. I went to a therapist because I was
Speaker 2: getting out of this, you know, bad situation, and so
Speaker 2: I finally was like, well maybe I'll go to therapy.
Speaker 2: And I was telling him some things about, you know,
Speaker 2: my life, and he leaned in and he said, now
Speaker 2: I have to ask you, Ileana, are you making these
Speaker 2: things up? And I said no, why would I make
Speaker 2: it up? I mean, well, I guess because it seemed.
Speaker 1: Well, your life is, well, let's talk a little bible.
Speaker 1: And your grandfather was a movie star, right, Yes, Melvin Douglas.
Speaker 1: Melvin Douglas is a big movie star. And yes, your
Speaker 1: mom was Your mom wasn't in the movies? Your mom
Speaker 1: and art?
Speaker 2: No, my parents grew up. My father was a teacher,
Speaker 2: my mom was a librarian, and they had left New
Speaker 2: York City. Actually that you know, we grew up in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: Right, which is we will go onto the year book
Speaker 1: Connecticut and the movies because it's fascinating and huge and
Speaker 1: much bigger a subject than I thought. It was, like's
Speaker 1: like an independent movie. Where's happening exactly? And then you go, wow,
Speaker 1: actually a lot. I know, all right, your mom and
Speaker 1: died and they moved to Connecticut.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it was we had a very kind of
Speaker 2: bohemian upbringing hippies, which did not really are with you know,
Speaker 2: preppy Connecticut. So that was always a challenge. So I
Speaker 2: couldn't wait to get out of Connecticut to go to
Speaker 2: New York. But in the I spent just an unbelievable
Speaker 2: amount of time with both my with my Italian grandparents
Speaker 2: and queens who's you know who. I was with them
Speaker 2: when I was when I was a child, and then
Speaker 2: I would spend the summers there. So I'd split the
Speaker 2: summers between queens queens in Connecticut. No, and that my grandfather,
Speaker 2: Melvin Douglass on the Upper West Side.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: It was like uptown downtown. This is where I made
Speaker 2: actually a fascinating I made a revelation about entertainment business.
Speaker 2: Poor people go to the movies, rich people go to
Speaker 2: the theater. I don't know what that means, but it
Speaker 2: is true.
Speaker 1: That is probably true. Yeah, Like when I'm in New York.
Speaker 1: I went to the opera last week. I'm going to
Speaker 1: the Oprah. I'm not a guy that goes to the opera.
Speaker 1: I went to the opera and there were people there
Speaker 1: that I was like, yeah, no, much better than me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you are a little bit so with me.
Speaker 2: But that was very heady, both in you know, being
Speaker 2: around all the New Yorkers. Yeah, suited me well for
Speaker 2: later on for films like Goodfellas, because I knew that
Speaker 2: world completely.
Speaker 1: Right, that's the queen's thing, right.
Speaker 2: Completely right, and you know, go to the back of
Speaker 2: the car and open the trunk and pick out whatever
Speaker 2: you want and just fell off the truck. And you know,
Speaker 2: that was very colorful and fun. And then at my
Speaker 2: grandfather's it was you know, playwrights like Robert Anderson and
Speaker 2: he was friends with Myrta Lly and so it was
Speaker 2: it was very intellection.
Speaker 1: Very that's very kind of heady atmosphere.
Speaker 2: Very very heady.
Speaker 1: Is that what meant you? You think that's why you
Speaker 1: fell in love with movies?
Speaker 2: Totally totally because it was. And then I would have
Speaker 2: to go back to Connecticut and being a poor hippie
Speaker 2: and then I was like, okay, I do. First of all,
Speaker 2: the food.
Speaker 1: Was always yeah, happy food never was grown.
Speaker 2: Now, the food it was always in my grandfather well,
Speaker 2: that was where I first discovered, you know, hoggin' dus
Speaker 2: ice cream and ordering food. I Uh, when I grew up,
Speaker 2: you know, wherever we would go out to a restaurant,
Speaker 2: people would make a big fuss about him. We would
Speaker 2: always he would We would go to these restaurants like Sardi's,
Speaker 2: and I remember the portions were enormous. And then later
Speaker 2: on when I was doing movies and i'd go to
Speaker 2: these places, the portions were very small. Yeah, And I realized, oh,
Speaker 2: it's because.
Speaker 1: He's he's Melvin Douglas. And also people got in the cocaine,
Speaker 1: and when you get into cocaine, you don't need as
Speaker 1: much food, so like like the big portions at Sardis.
Speaker 1: And then if you're going to a restaurant, some guests
Speaker 1: and like when you're older, we're talking about late eighties
Speaker 1: and mid nineties, that kind of thing. Yeah, everybody's high.
Speaker 1: You're not. You're getting you know.
Speaker 2: I never understood that. I was like, boy, that guy's
Speaker 2: got a crazy temper.
Speaker 1: He is talking. Does he talk soa Did you ever?
Speaker 1: Did you ever get drawn into that world at all?
Speaker 2: Because I think of you as a very kind of No,
Speaker 2: it wasn't you know again it's not my thing is
Speaker 2: really movies. I remember being excited though, the first time
Speaker 2: when I went to La and this is you know,
Speaker 2: when I was dating Martin Scorsese and I went to
Speaker 2: a party and Richard Perry, the record producer, he came
Speaker 2: up to me and he was, you know, chatting me up.
Speaker 2: And for me, of course, it was immediately drawn in
Speaker 2: my childhood. Oh my god, he's the name on the
Speaker 2: back of the Nielsen. That's how I knew him, right,
Speaker 2: Richard Perry Nilsen, you know. And he said, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a party later on at Jack's house and this
Speaker 2: person is going to be there, and you know, I
Speaker 2: laughed because again when you say drawn into this world,
Speaker 2: I'd read about this world in magazines and stuff, never dreaming,
Speaker 2: of course i'd be a part of it. But I
Speaker 2: wasn't ever like, yeah, that's what I want to do,
Speaker 2: is go do blow with Jack. I always I put
Speaker 2: them on and I had read about these people in magazines. Therefore,
Speaker 2: how could they possibly How could I interact with that?
Speaker 1: But I had the exact same feeling when I went
Speaker 1: to Hollywood and getting it and actually you were part
Speaker 1: of my kind of like I can't believe. Like I remember,
Speaker 1: like maybe the first time, maybe we were on the
Speaker 1: Drew Carey Show or at Kathy Kenny's house in the
Speaker 1: Hills or something like that, and we were and I
Speaker 1: was talking to you, and I was like, I can't believe, swirt.
Speaker 2: But that I was a fan of yours. I'd seen
Speaker 2: your a fan of.
Speaker 1: Yours as well. But that was the But that's the
Speaker 1: weird thing that when you because that happened to me
Speaker 1: quite a lot, particularly doing Late Night. Yeah, because if
Speaker 1: you do a show like that, you meet everybody and
Speaker 1: some some of them are great, and some of them
Speaker 1: are douchebags, and you don't really know what you're going
Speaker 1: to get. Some people became friends, and other people you're like,
Speaker 1: oh God, I can't believe that guy's such an asshole. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When you were dating Marty, though, you're kind of in
Speaker 1: a world which is like that's right in the center
Speaker 1: of it. And and particularly around directors, I've noticed that
Speaker 1: people behave very strangely around film directors, Like film directors
Speaker 1: behave strangely anyway, because they're all fucking maglomaniacs and they
Speaker 1: think that it's unshanging, like all of them even the
Speaker 1: nice guys. They're all assholes, even the nice ones of assholes,
Speaker 1: and they would admit to it. I think they're self aware.
Speaker 1: But and if they're not, I don't care. But but
Speaker 1: people in Hollywood, and I think I've even been going it.
Speaker 1: I know I've been going in this like around the director.
Speaker 1: You're always kind of like he might put me in
Speaker 1: the mood.
Speaker 2: Well, you see, it's funny you say that, because see
Speaker 2: I again, I always I always hit this poll. My
Speaker 2: grandfather always wanted me to be a writer. I'd write
Speaker 2: him these letters. Again, I was out of my mind,
Speaker 2: you're right, or reading about you know, the Algonquin Circle
Speaker 2: and pretending in my mind, you know, I was like
Speaker 2: Dorothy Parker and stuff. So when I went to New
Speaker 2: York and I was working for this film publicist named
Speaker 2: Peggy Siegel. I one of the prerequisites for the job
Speaker 2: is you did tell anybody you were an actor, because
Speaker 2: they would never hire you. Right, You just lie and say, oh,
Speaker 2: I just got out of Wesleyan.
Speaker 1: And I really want to be a publicist. That's what
Speaker 1: I've as to exactly. And in the office, this was
Speaker 1: like the first trick I learned. Everybody always wanted to
Speaker 1: be with the actors like they if we were doing junkets,
Speaker 1: they wanted to be with Kevin Costner. They wanted to
Speaker 1: be with you know, DINNERO or Harry Olwis or wherever.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to be with a director.
Speaker 2: Now I don't know why I did, but I just
Speaker 2: knew sort of that's where the action was going to be.
Speaker 2: And yes, in the back of my mind, I was like,
Speaker 2: one of these people's going, it's put me in a movie.
Speaker 2: It's going to discover Yeah, of course I have it.
Speaker 2: I think that's okay.
Speaker 1: I think that's fairly it's fairly kind of sweet, almost,
Speaker 1: particularly in someone. I mean that's also why, you know,
Speaker 1: bad people pray on the on the ambitions of young
Speaker 1: people that want to get in movies because they're like, yeah, ah,
Speaker 1: so you want to be in a movie. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't over that shit, but.
Speaker 2: I taste something interesting when after working, you know, I
Speaker 2: Brian de Palmer, we didn't work with Marty he was
Speaker 2: down the hall. I met him later, but I worked
Speaker 2: with Brian de Palmer, Norman Jewison, Rob Reiner, Barry Levinson
Speaker 2: was like, I know, it's like loyalty.
Speaker 1: Though I mean these people are.
Speaker 2: And I would get on the phone, you know, and
Speaker 2: part of my job was to invite people to the premiere,
Speaker 2: so I would always look for people that basically I
Speaker 2: just wanted to be like jose Mancowitz, you know Betty.
Speaker 4: You know Betty Cobb did an at F Green and
Speaker 4: that's great. The goal successful. That would have made it successful, yes,
Speaker 4: because a part of me never dreamed I'd be in
Speaker 4: show business. But I thought, well, I at least want
Speaker 4: to meet these people that I idolized. But later on
Speaker 4: when I finally cracked through, and this is sort of
Speaker 4: in the book too, Frank Perry, the director who shared
Speaker 4: we shared offices with, was the one who find he
Speaker 4: put me in a movie and people were shocked and
Speaker 4: almost disappointed that I was going to be an actor
Speaker 4: because they thought I had so much, which I thought
Speaker 4: was an interesting stigma, Like there was like, well, you
Speaker 4: had so much, we'd hire ambitions for you to simply
Speaker 4: be an actor.
Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascals stand up to her continues
Speaker 1: throughout the United States in twenty twenty four. For a
Speaker 1: full list of dates and tickets, go to The Craig
Speaker 1: ferguson show dot Com slash tour say you have there
Speaker 1: if you're in movies, like if you do movies. It's
Speaker 1: also it's like when you're in Hollywood. There are people
Speaker 1: have who have an idea who are on the outside,
Speaker 1: and people who have an idea on the inside. That's
Speaker 1: whenever I hear people say, you know, the Hollywood elite
Speaker 1: or there's a kind of conspiracy in Hollywood, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: you know nothing about Hollywood. First of all, everybody in
Speaker 1: Hollywood doesn't you know, there's no conspiracy. They don't trust
Speaker 1: each other. That's crazy. It's theyn't get together and make
Speaker 1: a plan, and they could hardly get together and make
Speaker 1: a fucking movie. And then the idea of the Hollywood
Speaker 1: delete you go, well, you know that changes very quickly.
Speaker 1: You can be Holywood delete on Thursday and be a
Speaker 1: fucking bum on Monday of the following week, depending on
Speaker 1: how the books of His Returns go.
Speaker 2: I saw it firsthand.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean there were so many stories in my first
Speaker 2: book I couldn't get to. So when I have another,
Speaker 2: you know thing that I'm working on with stories, and
Speaker 2: when we again, like when we were working with Brian
Speaker 2: de Palmer. He was doing The Untouchables. This was sort
Speaker 2: of again a you know, more of a low point
Speaker 2: in his career, and they were very concerned that and
Speaker 2: Untouchables was, you know, not going to be a success.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, it's crazy to think of that.
Speaker 2: So that again, that's why I love being with directors,
Speaker 2: because you were in the thick of things and talking
Speaker 2: to reviewers and trying to find out how everything was
Speaker 2: going to be. And I remember then the how nervous
Speaker 2: he was, and he almost wasn't even going to come
Speaker 2: to the premiere, and there was all this drama associated
Speaker 2: because he thought it was going to be a huge failure.
Speaker 2: And then cut to the opening and it was. It
Speaker 2: was just like a gigantic, excess huge fund and over
Speaker 2: and in the you know, the doors opened and we
Speaker 2: never got to see the movies, by the way, would
Speaker 2: always be outside like comforting someone or but anyway, the
Speaker 2: doors burst open. It was a huge hit and he
Speaker 2: was back on top, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's very exciting.
Speaker 2: Or you'd see the opposite, which I saw with Frank Perry,
Speaker 2: and that was I saw that the Little Movie Put
Speaker 2: Me In which was Hello again. At the premiere, he
Speaker 2: actually made an announcement that he was not going to
Speaker 2: be staying for the movie, so if anybody had anything
Speaker 2: negative to say, it was dire. Like literally right before
Speaker 2: the movie, he said, I will not be staying, so
Speaker 2: you won't have to worry about being polite or anything
Speaker 2: like that. And he literally walked up the eye and
Speaker 2: out the door. And so I said, but do you
Speaker 2: think that sets you up a little bit? If you
Speaker 2: do that, it's like low self esteem, you know. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like people is given the audience permission to well.
Speaker 2: Because again I didn't see. We didn't have internet then,
Speaker 2: and I didn't understand see even for me and I
Speaker 2: write a little bit about this. You know, Frank Perry,
Speaker 2: in my mind, I only knew him from he did
Speaker 2: a movie with us, Compromising Positions, and then he had
Speaker 2: done Mommy Dearest, and then now he's doing Hello again.
Speaker 2: So I thought he was like middle of the road,
Speaker 2: you know, Hollywood director. I had no idea of until
Speaker 2: we became friends and he gave me these movies from
Speaker 2: the sixties, you know, the Swimmer Diary of them, out House,
Speaker 2: David Lisa. Yeah. That then it made sense to me
Speaker 2: that he had made he had come on the scene,
Speaker 2: you know, like a Paul Mazerski doing all these artists.
Speaker 2: He was like the next you know, and then and
Speaker 2: then now he was, you know, doing shit and Shelley
Speaker 2: Long comedy vehicles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think though that, I mean it's I had
Speaker 1: a conversation with Quentin Tarantino about this because I had
Speaker 1: direct I directed one movie and I hated it. I
Speaker 1: hated the experience. The movie was shit. I wrote the movie.
Speaker 1: I'm in the movie that was That was my biggest
Speaker 1: mistake was putting me in the movie. But and I
Speaker 1: don't like the movie. And I said to him, how
Speaker 1: can that happen? And he said to me, did you
Speaker 1: have an idea in your head with the movie? Did
Speaker 1: you know how it was going to look? And I
Speaker 1: was like no, And he said, well, I don't know
Speaker 1: how you could make a movie without knowing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But he also said that, and he's been very public
Speaker 1: about this, He'll make ten movies and he won't make anymore. Right,
Speaker 1: And I think that movies are not really like books
Speaker 1: or like anything else. I think you can make a
Speaker 1: finite amount of movies. And then like even Kubrick at
Speaker 1: the end, eyes White.
Speaker 2: Shirt come on yeah, being repetitive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're kind of like if you get anything
Speaker 1: really to say, you know, or is there any do
Speaker 1: you really love it or do you just love being around?
Speaker 1: Because you know how addictive it has being on a
Speaker 1: movie set and the feeling of it and the and
Speaker 1: the like good movies, bad movies. You don't know, nobody
Speaker 1: knows when you're making it. If you like you're doing
Speaker 1: the reverse angle on you talking to Nicole Kidman, you
Speaker 1: don't know if the movie is going to be good
Speaker 1: or not right, like, it doesn't you don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: you hope, you hope.
Speaker 2: But there's only been a couple of times where yes,
Speaker 2: where and when you say, I'm seeing it in my
Speaker 2: mind and oftentimes I've come to the set and I
Speaker 2: have a preconceived idea of grandeur in the head and
Speaker 2: then they go really going to try to get this
Speaker 2: before lunch?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, and you got like like all of your thoughts.
Speaker 1: It's like, we don't have time for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're just putting We're just gonna put this bench down,
Speaker 2: and you know, and that's pretty much the worst thing
Speaker 2: that you know, when you do your best and your
Speaker 2: pro but that's when your heart sinks a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well, here's I want to lead you into the book
Speaker 1: a little bit. Because after that movie that I'm talking about, yes,
Speaker 1: that I went, I can't make it. I don't want
Speaker 1: to ever make another movie. I don't even want to
Speaker 1: be around movies. I hate movies now. And I thought
Speaker 1: the only antidote for this is to write a book.
Speaker 1: So I wrote a novel after that because it was
Speaker 1: I didn't have to talk to anyone, and all the
Speaker 1: grandeur ideas I could have, I would just put them
Speaker 1: down in there they were. And I set out to
Speaker 1: write a book that was unfilmable. That was the only
Speaker 1: task I set myself was unfilmable. Now you we were
Speaker 1: talking about because this book, Connecticut and the Movies is
Speaker 1: all about movies and movies show in Connecticut and the
Speaker 1: history movies of Connecticut, and about romantic sex comedies in
Speaker 1: Connecticut and how house design is influenced by movies in Connecticut,
Speaker 1: and like this massive subject. But was it with a
Speaker 1: disillusion about movies that you went to it? Was it
Speaker 1: the same kind of thing?
Speaker 2: No? I mean I always love movies, even bad movies.
Speaker 2: That's why I wanted to do an entire chapter on
Speaker 2: sex comedies because nobody's ever taken them seriously, you know,
Speaker 2: they just say, oh, they're out of date and you
Speaker 2: can't look at them, and they're sexist, and everybody's taking
Speaker 2: bands of dreaming and drinking. Well, maybe they should be
Speaker 2: seriously existing.
Speaker 1: I think we could use a little more bands and.
Speaker 2: Alcohol, all these pills that don't exist. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 2: but it was It was a way to make a statement,
Speaker 2: which I always like to do. I always like to
Speaker 2: shine a light on movies where you know, Blue Velvet
Speaker 2: is a movie about dark suburbia, right right, But you
Speaker 2: wouldn't have Blue Velvet without the Swimmer without and in
Speaker 2: my opinion, it all comes from a lot of these
Speaker 2: ideas were set in Connecticut, and writers, the greatest writers
Speaker 2: of the twentieth century. Eugene O'Neil wrote in Connecticut, Arthur Miller,
Speaker 2: Lillian Hillman, Scott Fitzgerald, you know, on and on and on.
Speaker 2: Many actors, Meryl Street, Paul Newman, you know, Katherine Hepburn.
Speaker 2: They chose a lifestyle to live in Connecticut. And so
Speaker 2: I felt my thesis was how much that Connecticut had
Speaker 2: to influenced the culture of movies, and yet there was
Speaker 2: absolutely no credit or no tie to that, and so
Speaker 2: I thought, well, if I do this massive.
Speaker 1: Book, yeah, and it is. I mean, it's very comprehensive,
Speaker 1: and it's a much bigger subject than I would first think,
Speaker 1: because I remember coming across it and like on your
Speaker 1: Instagram or Twitter or something and going, I don't know
Speaker 1: how you can do a whole book on that. And
Speaker 1: now I'm looking at the book, I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I had no idea.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's you know, just to give you a tiny
Speaker 2: little example, somebody like Katherine Hepburn who was from Connecticut
Speaker 2: and she basically is the representative brand of Connecticut. And
Speaker 2: whenever you see a Rich arras in a movie, they're
Speaker 2: playing Catherine Hepburn pretty much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you know women like that growing up?
Speaker 2: Yes, place there's still a little look at me in
Speaker 2: my LLB.
Speaker 1: You know, you got a whiff of it yourself.
Speaker 2: Ready to garden. No, but that you know, they're free spirited,
Speaker 2: they wear pants, they can you know, they can garden,
Speaker 2: they go swim in the ice water. But on the
Speaker 2: other hand, they're very intelligent. And so I wanted to
Speaker 2: identify Connecticut with all of these qualities and both light
Speaker 2: and dark, you know, because Connecticut is a place in
Speaker 2: the thirties and forties of transformation. Like Christmas in Connecticut.
Speaker 2: You get out of the rat race, you go to
Speaker 2: Connecticut and discover who you are.
Speaker 1: Is it Is it still that or is it more
Speaker 1: suburban New York? Now?
Speaker 2: Well, now it still is that, but it's been bastardized
Speaker 2: in a series of you know, Hallmark movies right where
Speaker 2: it's gone completely over the top. But what happened, which
Speaker 2: is what I chronicle, is that by the nineteen fifties
Speaker 2: you start to get movies. So with mister Blandings built
Speaker 2: a stream house, we created this myth of suburbia of
Speaker 2: it's not only suburban living, it's the right kind of
Speaker 2: suburban living. It's getting out of New York, but it's
Speaker 2: living in the right neighborhood in New York. And how
Speaker 2: important that is America. But what's interesting about these films
Speaker 2: is that once they get there, you get a series
Speaker 2: of movies like Gentlemen's Agreement, Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,
Speaker 2: which are now all about the deconstruction of suburbia, and
Speaker 2: they start to get darker and darker and darker.
Speaker 1: Kind of the Swimmer with existential angst, and it's like, yes.
Speaker 2: Right, the values, so everything we were right and we
Speaker 2: got everybody there. Now it starts to get deconstructed. You
Speaker 2: have these really weird sex comedies now where women are
Speaker 2: left alone while their husbands are commuting and having affairs
Speaker 2: and all this dark. And then it culminates with The
Speaker 2: Stafford Wife.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, that's what I guess to write,
Speaker 1: Miss Stafford wise, very dark film.
Speaker 2: It's unbelievably dark. And from that moment on, which was
Speaker 2: my thesis of what I was thinking about, literally, from
Speaker 2: The Stafford Wives on, Now you signal to an audience
Speaker 2: if you want to show something really bad is going
Speaker 2: to happen to a couple they go to Connecticut. It's
Speaker 2: you know, now the house and the white picket fence.
Speaker 2: There's something very bad. You know, there's something evil in
Speaker 2: that house.
Speaker 1: That's kind of weird. I wonder why that happened.
Speaker 2: Well, I try to explain that it's in the.
Speaker 1: Did you come up with any conclusions? Do you think?
Speaker 2: I think that it becomes a convenient scapegoat again and
Speaker 2: again and again, because you don't. You can't, just just
Speaker 2: as we have the stereotype about the Midwest, right, it's
Speaker 2: like go to American values. California is too, like fruits
Speaker 2: and nuts, but it's it's somehow believable to make it Connecticut.
Speaker 2: I'll give you a little short example in the movie
Speaker 2: Rope in Alfred Hitchcock, which is based on Leopold and
Speaker 2: Low murder case. And they were two college students from Yale.
Speaker 2: So Alfred Hitchcock decides to place the movie not in
Speaker 2: Chicago but in a fictional town called Medford, which was
Speaker 2: actually Danbury, Connecticut. And so he changes the location and
Speaker 2: somehow makes that more sinister. If the if they're if
Speaker 2: they're from Connecticut, you know, so I.
Speaker 1: Think it's maybe the I mean Stanford wise, that is well,
Speaker 1: that air of respectability, like everything's respectable, everything's fine. But
Speaker 1: yet underneath it the you know, the ben's a dream
Speaker 1: and alcohol. Right, it can't be this, it can't be
Speaker 1: that good. There's something got to be something wrong. There's
Speaker 1: got to be something horrible here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And some of it has to do with a
Speaker 2: lot of the New Yorkers that were doing plays on
Speaker 2: Broadway and moving to Connecticut may have been satirizing the
Speaker 2: very culture that they were living in.
Speaker 1: Maybe I had an impulse once that I think is
Speaker 1: very similar. I've been sober for a very long time.
Speaker 1: And when I first went to first started working in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: and early in the mid nineties mid nineties, I was
Speaker 1: doing a show at Disney and I had a meeting
Speaker 1: at Disney and the Disney law in the valley. And
Speaker 1: I got there and the meeting was at some office
Speaker 1: the other side of the law and it was Disney
Speaker 1: Family Day, right, So all the Disney employees, all the
Speaker 1: people who worked in the offices and the crews and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. There was a little kind of like
Speaker 1: funfair setup and everyone has found this beautiful suburban the
Speaker 1: sun was shining, all the little kids all in their
Speaker 1: little outfits, and the little Bounty castle and it was
Speaker 1: all sweet and stuff. And I had to walk through
Speaker 1: all of that before I had my own kids, to
Speaker 1: walk through all of that to get to the office
Speaker 1: on the other side where I was having lunch with
Speaker 1: some Disney executive about some saccerin project. Halfway through the funfair,
Speaker 1: I so much wanted to have black Tar heroin that
Speaker 1: I've never I was like, I gotta have something bad.
Speaker 1: This is driving me crazy. Now I think that's probably
Speaker 1: says a little bit about me. But also the sweetness
Speaker 1: and the and the the lightness of it made me
Speaker 1: almost like I wanted, I wanted something to balance it.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's the same thing with Connecticut that
Speaker 1: it was, that it was idealized and then you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, I know, well.
Speaker 2: There's you know, there's roots in real Puritanism. And remember
Speaker 2: they were burning witches in Connecticut before Boston. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: another thing. We don't get enough.
Speaker 1: Question started it.
Speaker 2: We were the ones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so.
Speaker 2: What the Stepford Wives, you know, and I read the book.
Speaker 2: He says it's about conformity, which is true. In Connecticut.
Speaker 2: There's a great sense of you know, conformity. That's not
Speaker 2: what the Stepford Wives ended up being. It's like, again
Speaker 2: it was me. It's sort of being down on everybody.
Speaker 2: It's down on housewives, down on suburbia. But there is
Speaker 2: what I thought was interesting in Connecticut and which I
Speaker 2: fought all my life, is this fierce need to be independent,
Speaker 2: but also this fierce need to conform, right, you know,
Speaker 2: and you if you speak up, people say, well, you know, stop,
Speaker 2: you're meddling, you know, And it's still there. It's still there.
Speaker 2: A little bit, you know that they don't like, you know,
Speaker 2: people to speak up so much. They have a quiet
Speaker 2: you know, old money doesn't talk about their money, right,
Speaker 2: you know. So all of these roots have found their
Speaker 2: way into some of these movies. But then there's example
Speaker 2: after example of things that are are really important that
Speaker 2: nobody knows about. Like Thirgod Marshall try to a case
Speaker 2: with the NAACP in the nineteen forties and won the
Speaker 2: case and it sort of put him on the map. Well,
Speaker 2: that happened in Connecticut, So there's always that, As I said,
Speaker 2: that light and dark that I think is interesting about
Speaker 2: the state.
Speaker 1: And you were drawn back there after living for a
Speaker 1: long time in La.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was living in LA and again just being
Speaker 2: in show business, you know, you just you really couldn't
Speaker 2: at that time pre COVID wanted to be in the movies,
Speaker 2: you know, in TV you had to live in la
Speaker 2: And there was a lot of things I was working on.
Speaker 2: But then when COVID happened and it was like Domino's
Speaker 2: and I saw myself not being employed for a year
Speaker 2: maybe you know even more, that's when I started to think, well,
Speaker 2: I started writing the book and it was an organic
Speaker 2: process of the more I was reading about actor after
Speaker 2: actor after like, well it was good enough for you,
Speaker 2: Gene O'Neil, you wrote here, and oh look at this
Speaker 2: Richard Woodmark. He left Hollywood and became a Mark. He
Speaker 2: became a gentleman farmer.
Speaker 1: Did he really?
Speaker 2: Yeah? You couldn't get him off of his farm. So
Speaker 2: I started to be Richard produced.
Speaker 1: Just to digress just a second, I've always I'm trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what is the movie he dives off
Speaker 1: the pirate boat with a knife in his teeth. Do
Speaker 1: you remember that movie? I kind of remember Richard Woodmark.
Speaker 1: He's got a knife in his hindeth and he dives
Speaker 1: off the and I'm like, I'd see that's the way,
Speaker 1: that's the way to live. So he lived Hollywood, Yes,
Speaker 1: and moved back to Connecticut.
Speaker 2: Yes. I visited his grave. Yeah, and was gentleman farmer
Speaker 2: and lived with his wife, who was a writer, owned
Speaker 2: and got involved with it. You know at all tracks.
Speaker 1: Poone Newman did the same thing that Pony Yuman went back.
Speaker 2: And right after they did. I'm telling you time and again.
Speaker 2: You know it was something I thought, But then as
Speaker 2: I was right, I was like, yeah, Paul knew. They
Speaker 2: did rally around the flag boys, and then they moved
Speaker 2: to Connecticut and Ili Cauzann did a movie here and
Speaker 2: then he moved to Connecticut. You know people who worked here.
Speaker 2: There was something about there was a poll for them
Speaker 2: to move there, and happened again and again and again.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Richard Woodmark had a big, big farm and didn't.
Speaker 2: It was very hard apparently for him to leave the farm.
Speaker 2: And his neighbor was Arthur Miller, and they and William
Speaker 2: Styron the right, uh, and they got involved later on
Speaker 2: there's a chapter on true crime, and they got involved
Speaker 2: helping exonerate boy who had been accused of killing his mother.
Speaker 2: Is a very very famous case murder case in Connecticut. Wow,
Speaker 2: Peter Riley case. Did you know that the wood the
Speaker 2: wood chipper you know the in Fargo Christ Well, that
Speaker 2: is based on a murder that happened in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: That is so. But you started burning witches, you started
Speaker 1: woodchipper murders, right, All the innovation in grizzly Murder comes
Speaker 1: from Connecticut. So then I guess maybe that might explain
Speaker 1: the idea of when it became the suburban ideal. Yes,
Speaker 1: underneath the suburban ideal is that this is where they
Speaker 1: burned the witches, this is where the this is where
Speaker 1: these Puritans came from. England landed here because the restrictive
Speaker 1: practices of religion weren't restrictive enough for a place where
Speaker 1: it was more restrictive, they could be more restrictive than
Speaker 1: the easygoing England of the Middle Ages. Yes, I mean
Speaker 1: that it's crazy though. I mean it's it's a real
Speaker 1: and it's fast when you think about it, a couple
Speaker 1: of hundred years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it also probably has something to do again
Speaker 2: with the landscape. You know, it's not easy. You know,
Speaker 2: it's cold and.
Speaker 1: Cold, and it was before you know, modern convenience, be
Speaker 1: really hard living there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well they first they had to get and I
Speaker 2: go into some detail on that too. One of the
Speaker 2: most fun chapters for me is this movie called Parish
Speaker 2: from nineteen sixty one. Right, it's a Warner Brothers movie
Speaker 2: by director I Love Delmer Daves. He did Three Tender Yuma.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a great movie. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He was primarily known for westerns, but he developed heart
Speaker 2: problems and then he believe he went into like romance movies,
Speaker 2: which is really strange. So he did a summer place.
Speaker 2: He used Troy Donahue again and again. So he did
Speaker 2: this movie called Parish, which was based on a novel.
Speaker 2: It's sort of like dynasty in the tobacco fields of Connecticut.
Speaker 2: That's another thing. Connecticut was very famous, believe it or not,
Speaker 2: Shade tobacco was considered the finest tobacco leaves for cigars,
Speaker 2: which they I go into details. So this movie is
Speaker 2: this is what's so broad about this subject. So he
Speaker 2: comes to Connecticut to work on the script. He gets
Speaker 2: fully involved, immersed in the tobacco, like, learning everything about
Speaker 2: tobacco and the farm, making them work on the farm.
Speaker 2: And I talked with this actress at Connie Stevens about
Speaker 2: you know, they were of course they were immersed in
Speaker 2: you know, Connecticut and living here and going to all least.
Speaker 2: So the movie is a travelogue of Connecticut. But in
Speaker 2: writing about the film, I had to go all the
Speaker 2: way back to the Native Americans who were, you know,
Speaker 2: harvesting tobacco and stupidly told the English people about it,
Speaker 2: and of course they pushed them all out. But it
Speaker 2: has so the movie is so that one film for me,
Speaker 2: it's about the collapse of the studio system, because it
Speaker 2: was the end of Warner Brothers, to the end of
Speaker 2: the era, and people like Troy Donahue and their career
Speaker 2: was ending. It's the last film of Claudete Colbert, who
Speaker 2: was driven to the set every day in a limousine
Speaker 2: from New York. These young rebels, you know, Cottie Steeve,
Speaker 2: theyre running around Connecticut and going out drinking, and they
Speaker 2: were friends with all the extra you know, because they
Speaker 2: hired all these local high school studies at this place.
Speaker 2: There was some boys school in a girls' school, Loomis Chafey, Windsor.
Speaker 2: It's part of the mythology that I would meet people
Speaker 2: I was an extra in Parish.
Speaker 1: Oh right, of course, because they still be there.
Speaker 2: I were working on the time tobacco fields. And then
Speaker 2: it's also about the end of the glamour of Connecticut,
Speaker 2: because it's about this the end of this dynasty, of
Speaker 2: this tobacco dynasty. At the same time it was the
Speaker 2: end of There was a place that they shot at
Speaker 2: called TerraMar in Old Sabrook, And when I delivered the book,
Speaker 2: they actually thought I had made an error because I
Speaker 2: called it a Bowtel, and they corrected it to be
Speaker 2: a hotel, and I said, no, it was a Bowtel.
Speaker 2: Yachts would pull up.
Speaker 1: A boatl.
Speaker 2: I never even heard me neither. Yeah, that yachts would
Speaker 2: pull up from the Long Island Sound. They would dine
Speaker 2: and dance and listen to a musical act whatever, get
Speaker 2: back on the boat. See, I feel like it's all
Speaker 2: in that one movie.
Speaker 1: Isn't that bad? That like would not be more? Is
Speaker 1: that how you live now? You'd take your boat to
Speaker 1: the Bowtel hotel and you wear fancy outfits and listen
Speaker 1: to a band.
Speaker 2: And well, that's what I love about the movie because
Speaker 2: it captures That's what I say, this last gasp of glamour.
Speaker 1: It's it's not like that night because you lived there. No,
Speaker 1: what's your life like?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Then is it rural? Do you have chickens?
Speaker 2: Lot of gardening? No? It's well, as I wrote, I'm
Speaker 2: in the book, I'm Missus Blandings. I'm supervising a restoration
Speaker 2: of an eighteen ten farmhouse which was kind of let
Speaker 2: go for a very long time. So I'm on phase three.
Speaker 1: So a lot of it is how many phases there?
Speaker 2: I'm hoping three, I'm hoping. I'm hoping four is the ending,
Speaker 2: but that I'll probably collapse, you know after that. But no,
Speaker 2: it was a ground up, like from the you know,
Speaker 2: fixing them.
Speaker 1: So this was like a movement of a valley pre COVID,
Speaker 1: after during COVID.
Speaker 2: During COVID.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just I found the house and my real estate
Speaker 2: just said, you know, oh it just needs a little
Speaker 2: love and you know, and then I moved in and
Speaker 2: of course so it was so much worse, but I'm committed.
Speaker 2: That's the one good thing about you know, being an actor.
Speaker 2: When things were really bad, I used to just walk
Speaker 2: outside and say, you can do this. You're directing a
Speaker 2: movie and you've got all these people and you have
Speaker 2: to tell them what to do. And but I mean
Speaker 2: I learned firsthand again just dealing with all the different
Speaker 2: contractors and personalities. I was like, wow, there's still a
Speaker 2: lot of this old Connecticut. Every cliche that is in landings, yes,
Speaker 2: is really still true about people you know? Yep, nope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny that I see a lot of parallels
Speaker 1: with Scotland. For me, there is obviously where I'm from.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the whole idea of like in the movies,
Speaker 1: it's portrayed a certain way and you go, well, it's
Speaker 1: not really like that, and then you go there and well,
Speaker 1: like kind of is like that, you know, and like
Speaker 1: and all the different colors of it, from trainsport in
Speaker 1: to local hero you know, it's like, you know, the
Speaker 1: the awfulness of the some of the urban life and
Speaker 1: the drug problems in the cities, and then the beauty
Speaker 1: and the quiet of the countryside and the people were
Speaker 1: quirky and funny. It's kind of true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a lot of well there's a lot
Speaker 2: of cheapness. People in Connecticut are very you know, thrifty
Speaker 2: they call it. And there is a class system of very.
Speaker 1: Now that's going to be imported from from the UK.
Speaker 1: Surely that's got to be brought and from that's a
Speaker 1: that's an old money thing. Class system. And you to
Speaker 1: matter how much money you make, Well, there's.
Speaker 2: Three classes, which is there's the working class, right, and
Speaker 2: then there's the upper class. But the upper class what
Speaker 2: everybody agrees on is everybody hates what the you know,
Speaker 2: the bourgeoisie. That's what everybody hates, right, and that is
Speaker 2: what the sixties comedies were all about. The bourgeoisie.
Speaker 1: Are the cheese and the Sandwich.
Speaker 2: Fact, people that moved in that were the you know,
Speaker 2: the parking lot czars and not the old money and
Speaker 2: academic you know, it's another area of Connecticut.
Speaker 4: That of course, yeah, Yale, Yale and Wesleyan, Yeah, Trinity College.
Speaker 1: I was always fascinated by. I remember doing a stand
Speaker 1: up gig in Yale, and I was the first time
Speaker 1: I thought this is going to be great. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Hogwarts and it's like going to Hogwarts, but it's like
Speaker 1: if Hogwarts was in the middle of downtown Detroit. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like Jesus crazy, but it's like beautiful campus.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 2: Woman like, oh my god, well that's that's that's always
Speaker 2: kind of fast. That's what I'm It's fascinating me. And
Speaker 2: yet what you only see in the movie is Yale, right,
Speaker 2: you don't see the train station right outskirts and the
Speaker 2: Italian And you know another thing about Connecticut that there's
Speaker 2: a lot of, famously going back to the twenties and thirties, corruption,
Speaker 2: political corruption specifically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think that's everywhere.
Speaker 2: Early I can't believe you're telling me that.
Speaker 1: I don't think. I like, look, I know you guys
Speaker 1: started witch burning, and I know you started bitting people
Speaker 1: in Wood the Hamburger and the Hamburgers from Connecticut.
Speaker 2: Yeah, stop it, Yes it is although people fight people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're having fights about them. They said new Haven.
Speaker 1: I heard the Hagis was from Connecticut.
Speaker 2: Hagus. No, it couldn't be.
Speaker 1: So you're biting them now? Will you ever go back
Speaker 1: to la do you think?
Speaker 2: No, I'll never go back. I never. It's interesting, I've
Speaker 2: never I never returned to a place, you know, because
Speaker 2: I was in New York and then I went to
Speaker 2: l A. I never went back to New York, and
Speaker 2: then now I'm in Connecticut. So I don't see myself.
Speaker 2: First of all, I think a human being only has
Speaker 2: a few moves in them. Remember when we used to
Speaker 2: be by coastal. I was talking to a friend, you know,
Speaker 2: like back when we started our careers, it was very
Speaker 2: easy to.
Speaker 1: Be on the airplane all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we could trap and we had a little place
Speaker 2: in New York, a little crappy. Yeah that's all gone now.
Speaker 1: So I think it's harder for younger people to make
Speaker 1: the kind of money that supports that. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: they don't have to because a lot of it can
Speaker 1: be done online. But I have a theory about New York,
Speaker 1: which is this because I came to New York first
Speaker 1: time when I was We're in New York City right now. Yes,
Speaker 1: you and I are both in New York City. I
Speaker 1: lived in LA for twenty three years. I don't know
Speaker 1: how long you were there, fourteen fourteen, all right. See.
Speaker 1: I first came here when I was thirteen years old,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, with my dad. And I think for
Speaker 1: certain people, once you come to New York, no matter
Speaker 1: where you fucking go, you're going to be New Yorker,
Speaker 1: New York.
Speaker 2: I think that's true.
Speaker 1: And you can be in Connecticut as much as you
Speaker 1: like and write, yeah, big books about Connecticut, but you've
Speaker 1: kind of got out with the New York about you
Speaker 1: all the time. And I hope I have the same myself.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I know, I was in LA for
Speaker 1: a long time. Like even when I was doing the
Speaker 1: Late night show, people go, man, you so in New York.
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, the backdrops I fucking West Hollywood. Yeah.
Speaker 2: People would say that to me, you know when I
Speaker 2: was in LA.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like how long are you here for it?
Speaker 2: I live here right nobody believed that I live there.
Speaker 1: I think it's a certain thing that if you connect
Speaker 1: to New York City, you'll never you'll never uncouple from it.
Speaker 1: It's kind of venue.
Speaker 2: Well, do you think, especially when you come here when
Speaker 2: you're younger and you're really you know, you're starving, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, none of that ever goes away.
Speaker 1: You saw how I devoured my muffin. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, you're allowed to have a muffin.
Speaker 1: It's all right, don't beat yourself up for having a muffin.
Speaker 1: It's breakfast time. But I think that, I mean, I've
Speaker 1: skimmed through the book and I haven't read it, but
Speaker 1: I'm very happy for you, and I am going to
Speaker 1: read it because I still read books, even though they're
Speaker 1: longer than tweets. I'm happy for you that you've done this, though.
Speaker 1: Are you happier now you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, very happy. I have obviously a few more books.
Speaker 2: I love writing books for the same reason that you
Speaker 2: said control. Yeah, it's my vision. Yeah, nobody's really interfering.
Speaker 2: I got to choose the pictures. I had a vision
Speaker 2: of a coffee table book. You know, I knew I
Speaker 2: wanted it to be. There were certain things about my
Speaker 2: first book that I was not you know, I didn't
Speaker 2: have any creative control over it. And so this book
Speaker 2: is I you know, I always feel like well, good
Speaker 2: or bad, and it's been doing really well and people
Speaker 2: love it, and.
Speaker 1: So it's fascinating. It's a fascinating thing because I thought
Speaker 1: at first, when I thought this is for people who
Speaker 1: know and love and think about Connecticut, this is Connecticut people,
Speaker 1: but it's not. It's way. It's about movies, yes, but
Speaker 1: it's also about change, a personal change. I think that
Speaker 1: you've gone through as well.
Speaker 2: Right, because I mean I wouldn't have been able to
Speaker 2: write about it, you know, without it started when I
Speaker 2: wrote about the Swimmer. And again my own complicated relationship
Speaker 2: with Connecticut because as you said, I spent people used
Speaker 2: to always say call you know, you have a New
Speaker 2: York accent, and I think again, just because I spent
Speaker 2: so much time with my grandparents, so yeah, and I
Speaker 2: couldn't wait to go to New York. So I felt
Speaker 2: always like in New Yorker living in Connecticut. I certainly
Speaker 2: was never accepted by any teachers, students, et cetera. You know,
Speaker 2: growing up like you're not from here there definitely was
Speaker 2: that vibe. That's kind of what's fun about being in
Speaker 2: New York. Nobody really nobody here's where you're from, here where,
Speaker 2: But in Connecticut, what road you live on? You live
Speaker 2: on the right side of the tracks, the wrong side
Speaker 2: of the tracks. And these play out in film after film,
Speaker 2: even if it's a film like Mystic Pizza, you know
Speaker 2: where they call them townies. And so I think it's
Speaker 2: for people that love movies, obviously, because it's a hundred
Speaker 2: movies and it's going back to the silent era and
Speaker 2: seeing that d W. Griffiths was making movies in Connecticut.
Speaker 2: You know, we know about New Jersey. So some of
Speaker 2: it was again this blueprint to say, hey, we're here,
Speaker 2: we need some cinematic recognition. But then it was also
Speaker 2: to talk about the culture. Nobody's ever done a book
Speaker 2: about these movies about dark suburbia. Yeah, and I you know,
Speaker 2: I feel like it's a it's important because it reflects
Speaker 2: the culture of all of America, yet it all played
Speaker 2: out in Connecticut on these side. And also again you're
Speaker 2: talking about the great artists of our century and why
Speaker 2: did they all choose to live and work and write
Speaker 2: in Connecticut. I find that fascinating.
Speaker 1: And getting out of Hollywood it's a it's a it's
Speaker 1: a getting out of the rat race. Well it's it's
Speaker 1: more than the rat race Hollywood, because I found it.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you. I found it quite hard
Speaker 1: to leave. It's impossible. It's I didn't tell anybody, Yeah
Speaker 1: you can't. And then when you when you if you
Speaker 1: go to Alie to do some work or something, and
Speaker 1: people like you laughed like I had. Someone said I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say it was but someone who's very famous who
Speaker 1: said to me, don't you get you still go to
Speaker 1: Scotland and went yeah, and she said, don't you get
Speaker 1: kind of bored? What do you mean what board look? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like well you know what what do you do?
Speaker 2: You see? I found l a boring, Yeah, because it's
Speaker 2: it's a constant what are you up to? What do
Speaker 2: you you know you're talking talk about for sure self esteem?
Speaker 2: You know, it's just that meter is going all the
Speaker 2: time of like, oh there's that producer who didn't hire me,
Speaker 2: and yeah, that's.
Speaker 1: What the stop that goes up and there I remember
Speaker 1: talking to a friend of mine and we made a
Speaker 1: film together and he he broke up with his his wife.
Speaker 1: I remember saying that when when did you know? Because
Speaker 1: he'd made another film, and he said, when did you
Speaker 1: know that it was going south? Things were bad? And
Speaker 1: he went kind of when I saw the box office
Speaker 1: return Saturday morning for e God, like that body went yeah,
Speaker 1: it's bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a certain I mean, And I think that
Speaker 2: COVID was definitely for so many people a reset button.
Speaker 2: But I had a sense, maybe as an actor, you know,
Speaker 2: I always think, you know, we're like the caribou looking
Speaker 2: for the moss, like, okay, this this area. I just
Speaker 2: had an epiphany that La was going to be done
Speaker 2: as a city, you know, for now, and cities always
Speaker 2: like I was in New York. I was in New
Speaker 2: York in the eighties and it was the greatest.
Speaker 1: I know, I remember, and you know I was here,
Speaker 1: but it was wild and fid wild.
Speaker 2: You know, you knew, you were like, oh, I'm in
Speaker 2: the thick of things here. And then when I moved
Speaker 2: to LA in the early nineties mid nineties, La was
Speaker 2: like whoa, there were so many things going on in
Speaker 2: LA and then and then New York sort of had
Speaker 2: a dip. But I felt even before COVID that LA
Speaker 2: was flatlining, that more and more of the production was
Speaker 2: being out in Gardena. You know that I was driving
Speaker 2: to hours to go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or you're going to Canada to make a movie,
Speaker 1: or going to Canada or Atlanta or you know wherever
Speaker 1: you're going to make films. Yeah, I remember all that
Speaker 1: as well. Production was getting moved out of town. And
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I took the job in late Night.
Speaker 1: I was working on an independent movie in Winnipeg, Canada
Speaker 1: when I got the call to go and do late Night.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I had a young son. I'd
Speaker 1: just been divorced and I had a little boy, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't I had to look after him. I couldn't
Speaker 1: leave town all the time. I couldn't keep bringing me.
Speaker 1: He was about getting ready to start, you know, elementary school,
Speaker 1: and I had to be there. And that this was
Speaker 1: one of the few jobs doing late night was a
Speaker 1: job that allowed me to be in town all the time.
Speaker 1: And that's that's really kind of why I went, Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll go to shop. Fucking interested being a late night
Speaker 1: a fuck? You know, I didn't go to fucking was
Speaker 1: that school that I was going in Boston and stuff.
Speaker 1: I didn't do all that.
Speaker 2: Did you miss doing Drew Carey Show? Because I look back,
Speaker 2: I never, I don't. I can't. Sometimes I'll see something, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's hard to look at anything because I you know,
Speaker 2: it brings back. Some memories are fun. But I had
Speaker 2: such fun memories of being on the Drew Carrey Show
Speaker 2: because it just was wild and improvisational. And that's one
Speaker 2: of my favorite memories was I remember it was like
Speaker 2: maybe three o'clock in the morning and Drew like throughout
Speaker 2: the script and somebody they came over with like lines
Speaker 2: on a nasket.
Speaker 1: All the time. It happened all the time. And it
Speaker 1: was Bruce Helford who ran that show. Bruce and Drew
Speaker 1: carry they created that environment, which was I don't even
Speaker 1: know if you would get away with that now, don't
Speaker 1: you don't know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, cut to and I won't talk about comedy series
Speaker 2: where oh they really want you on this, and then
Speaker 2: you know, tried to say some yeah, Leanna, if you
Speaker 2: could just stand here, and that's what LA was sort
Speaker 2: of feeling, like, yeah, go very corporate and that's very
Speaker 2: tough when you've had those sort of races, and I
Speaker 2: don't think did you ever go to Largo? I used
Speaker 2: to see Drew.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I did it a couple of times ago.
Speaker 1: I went to Largo. I was kind of fun yere
Speaker 1: kind of place in.
Speaker 2: My generation of the Yeah, comedians and music and fun
Speaker 2: and and you began to feel like an elder statesman
Speaker 2: even though you were.
Speaker 3: Young, Like you know, well in my time, yeah, they
Speaker 3: would have fun. Well it's that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Though. They have places now where you can go and
Speaker 1: learn be a stand up comedian. I'm like, why the
Speaker 1: fuck a would you want to be a stand up?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Stand up comedian is a job that you do desperation
Speaker 1: because you can't do anything. And like, but kids are like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to work on my comedy. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't understand you. And look, maybe it's good, maybe it's
Speaker 1: better for them, but you know, they have like they
Speaker 1: talk about their careers. Like I was in New York
Speaker 1: in the eighties. Yeah, you're like, what I said, career
Speaker 1: was probably in sports, right, So I worked on Wall Street.
Speaker 1: You didn't talk about a career. It was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going to do this fucking wild thing and everyone's
Speaker 1: going to paint themselves blue and we all run around
Speaker 1: and shout you know, that's the play or that's the show,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of he'll not make any money, but
Speaker 1: we don't care.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: In fact, the idea of making money just never came out. No,
Speaker 1: And maybe maybe that was dumb, but it was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Oh No, we were all yeah, we were all but
Speaker 2: and that. So that's really hard if people if you
Speaker 2: have a whole background in a career for you know,
Speaker 2: we started out talking about today for where you were
Speaker 2: literally hired based on the fact that you were your
Speaker 2: input was wanted, you know, and when it was too much,
Speaker 2: they'd say no, no.
Speaker 1: No, bring it back a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But so then to go all the way from
Speaker 2: that to somebody hires you and they go, oh, we're
Speaker 2: such huge fans of yours. And then and you're on
Speaker 2: the set and you feel like, no, don't don't be used,
Speaker 2: please don't, yeah, just stand there and and I had
Speaker 2: a couple experiences like that where I just had some
Speaker 2: very long, lonely walks to my trailers. You know.
Speaker 1: I started to feel the same way towards the end
Speaker 1: of Late Night because like when Dave was going yeah,
Speaker 1: because Dave owned my time slot, so so if latterman
Speaker 1: on your time. Nobody paid any attention to me. But
Speaker 1: I knew that Dave was going to go, and I
Speaker 1: started to get more and more help from executives and
Speaker 1: advertising crossover stuff, and I'm like, yeah, you know what,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I think it's time to go to the parties.
Speaker 1: Getting a little fucking sloppy. And you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people turning up that aren't cool. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: let Himan is fucking cool, you know. I mean he
Speaker 1: can be an asshole sometimes, Dave, and he'd be the
Speaker 1: first to admitute, but he's fucking cool. Well, and it
Speaker 1: was cool to work like that.
Speaker 2: You know, it used to be okay, you could, you
Speaker 2: could be an ass Yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we used to worry this whole.
Speaker 2: You know, you're you're trying to make it's impossible.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people are a little fucking picky. I was. This
Speaker 1: is when I go, oh, this is not for me.
Speaker 1: But this is how long ago it was. It was
Speaker 1: somebody posted in a chat room like they got in
Speaker 1: an elevator with me in Vegas, and I was very rude,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I never where the fuck am I route? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what I did was apparently as I kept the brim
Speaker 1: of my hat pulled down and I didn't say a word. Now,
Speaker 1: you fucking tell me what's rude about that in an elevator.
Speaker 2: But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess I was meant to do fucking ten minutes
Speaker 1: and ask her where she was from. I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: Listen, I you know my boss, would you know? They
Speaker 2: we'd get things thrown at us and yell at us
Speaker 2: and all sorts of and we didn't take any of it. Personally.
Speaker 2: We were thrilled. I know that sounds ridiculous. We were
Speaker 2: thrilled to be around all these people.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of it's different values now maybe yeah,
Speaker 1: it's better.
Speaker 2: I don't sorry, it's not. It's impossible. You can't. I
Speaker 2: mean this whole thing about he's very unlikable in a
Speaker 2: toxic work environment.
Speaker 1: No, that's it's impossible. It's like the number one thing
Speaker 1: people ask to last night we're talking about this is
Speaker 1: the number one thing people ask good But like it's
Speaker 1: he a nice person. When you meet someone, you go,
Speaker 1: how does that fuck it?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: If you like, somebody will say to you, I don't
Speaker 1: know this, gentleman, but say, somebody says, Ozzy Osbourne, is
Speaker 1: he a nice guy? Like, does it fucking matter if
Speaker 1: he's a nice guy, he's Ozzy Osbourne. I mean, I
Speaker 1: suppose it mars to the people who are interacting with him.
Speaker 2: But I would say, in thirty years of show business,
Speaker 2: I have only worked with two people that are unlikable,
Speaker 2: and then five hundred people that are eccentric. A lot
Speaker 2: of people are or have a lot of fear, yeah,
Speaker 2: or maybe going through something, you know I had when
Speaker 2: I there was a very famous movie or who I
Speaker 2: worked with and he had been a really big star
Speaker 2: and now we were doing this like very low butch
Speaker 2: movie the way it goes, you know, and he was
Speaker 2: a little tense, you know, and he snapped at me
Speaker 2: because I offered some help. I said, oh, maybe I
Speaker 2: can help you out. Yeah, shut up, we aren't even
Speaker 2: talking to you. And you know, I mean, like, you know,
Speaker 2: can we have a little compassion for people? And two
Speaker 2: hours later he said, I'm sorry I did that. I
Speaker 2: was I was nervous and it's my first day and
Speaker 2: I said, no problem. So, I mean we I find
Speaker 2: it very challenging to always be keeping my personality.
Speaker 1: It's fake ches It's fucking fake, is what it is.
Speaker 1: That's the whole thing about it. There's this whole fucking
Speaker 1: do you know what it is, It's fucking Connecticut suburbia.
Speaker 1: It's this whole fucking idea that everyone is cool, and
Speaker 1: then underneath it's this fucking dark resentment of fucking because
Speaker 1: humans have emotions, and so to walk around and and
Speaker 1: pretend that you don't have an emotion and you don't
Speaker 1: you know, prejudices and you don't have to challenge yourself
Speaker 1: for what you think. So fucking bullshit.
Speaker 2: But I don't see any way out. I mean again,
Speaker 2: that's one of the reasons I love doing And I'm
Speaker 2: a student of show business. I always tell my friends
Speaker 2: that feel like they aren't working or and I said,
Speaker 2: you only need to look at show business. And I said,
Speaker 2: you know, we may be in the part of our
Speaker 2: careers where we're like Betty Davis and we're going around
Speaker 2: the country reading from Carl Sandberg with like a cello
Speaker 2: in the background.
Speaker 1: Yes, I use Sean Connery is the same example as go.
Speaker 1: You know, everyone has to do those Zardose years. Everyone's
Speaker 1: going to get on the MANKINI at some point nothing, Yeah.
Speaker 2: When I was moving to Connecticut, and like you said,
Speaker 2: that fear of because there wasn't a single person that
Speaker 2: was I stopped telling people that I was going to Connecticut.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They were like, you'll never work again, and you know,
Speaker 2: but I looked and I said, yeah, at the end
Speaker 2: of my when my grandfather's contract in nineteen fifty was
Speaker 2: with MGM and they let everybody go fifty, he moved
Speaker 2: to New York. He started to do theater, and he
Speaker 2: started a whole secondary career as a you know, supporting
Speaker 2: as a character actor. You know, when his first oscar
Speaker 2: is when he was seventy, what his second oscar when
Speaker 2: he was eighty one. So I always tell people you
Speaker 2: have to look at show business and realize nothing is
Speaker 2: you know, really everything is really kind of the same.
Speaker 2: Poor Kerry Grant, you know, he died on.
Speaker 1: The road, Yeah, davenpoor Iowa.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I mean that's that's probably what's gonna happen
Speaker 2: to here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would think, so.
Speaker 2: You think, are you gonna I remember when I moved
Speaker 2: into Connecticut, somebody, my neighbor came over and said, what
Speaker 2: are you gonna do about plowing?
Speaker 5: I was like, what he's like, I said, Oh my god,
Speaker 5: that's right. You got you got to got to get
Speaker 5: the plow guy. And there's when I went to Scotland.
Speaker 5: I moved back to Scotland. A guy came over and
Speaker 5: he said, what are you going to do with this?
Speaker 5: Some fields in front of my house and he said,
Speaker 5: you're going to put some sheep in there? And I went, no,
Speaker 5: I don't like sheep.
Speaker 1: He said you don't like sheep? I went, nah, I
Speaker 1: don't fucking like them. There, big square, yellow teeth and
Speaker 1: they can't really see your eyes. I don't like them.
Speaker 1: And he said you can't. You've got to have sheep.
Speaker 1: What you're going to do with the field? I'm like nothing.
Speaker 1: I said, you can put your sheep in there for
Speaker 1: a little while and he said Kada went no, they'll
Speaker 1: be stupid. And then we went away. And about Tues
Speaker 1: three weeks later, I saw some fucking sheep in my field.
Speaker 1: So I called him up and went, is your sheep?
Speaker 1: He went, yeah, you said I could put them there.
Speaker 1: I went, I fucking never said you could put them there.
Speaker 1: He said, well, I'll just keep them in there for
Speaker 1: a while. It'll help keep your grass down. And I
Speaker 1: said to him, okay, I'm an American now, so I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you what I'm going to happen. Starting
Speaker 1: on Wednesday this week, I'm going to shoot one a
Speaker 1: day until you get them out. And he went, oh right,
Speaker 1: and he got them out on Tuesday. But they have
Speaker 1: this law in Scotland that if someone keeps a sheep
Speaker 1: in your field for over a year, then they have
Speaker 1: grazing rights in that field. So if you let someone
Speaker 1: graze the sheep in the field, they have to take
Speaker 1: them off for a day. They call it a stalk off.
Speaker 1: They have to take the sheep out so that they
Speaker 1: don't have grazing rights for your field.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: Fucking drives me crazy.
Speaker 2: I think that's hysterical. Do so did he win?
Speaker 1: No, he didn't win. I totally get your fucking sheep
Speaker 1: off my field. And I don't have any sheep in
Speaker 1: the field. And it drives them all crazy because like
Speaker 1: what you're doing in that field, I'm like nothing. The
Speaker 1: whole idea of the field is it's a field. Nothing happens.
Speaker 1: I'll let the grass grow and then it gets old
Speaker 1: and it falls down, and like, well, you don't make
Speaker 1: any money from that field. I went, that's right, I don't.
Speaker 1: That's because I'm in fucking Davenport, Iowa. Don't stand out
Speaker 1: to pay for that fucking field.
Speaker 2: That's like anti sounds like anti Scottish somehow.
Speaker 1: A little bit. Well, there's nobody more anti Scottish than
Speaker 1: Scottish people.
Speaker 2: Now, one thing I've noticed, which is sort of cornball,
Speaker 2: one of my favorite things about living in Connecticut is
Speaker 2: coming home. You know, I didn't have any joy landing
Speaker 2: in the at Lax coming home.
Speaker 1: I used to quite like Lendon and Ali Xfoll and
Speaker 1: you know, that's big mess.
Speaker 2: No more books, you know, every my whole culture. But
Speaker 2: but there is a sense of fun of you know, like,
Speaker 2: oh boy, the hokiness and my neighbors, and I know
Speaker 2: all my neighbors.
Speaker 1: It is kind of nice.
Speaker 2: I have a book show on Wednesday at the Gate
Speaker 2: in Old Saybrook, and you know, my Mason's going to
Speaker 2: be there, and my carpenter and my electrician they're all coming.
Speaker 1: Well, they're all very proud, They're.
Speaker 2: All well, they all made it in the acknowledgement.
Speaker 1: You know, we burned witches first, we gotta go get
Speaker 1: out of here.
Speaker 2: Great, I can finish my Muppet