Speaker 1: Hey, how you doing. This is Freddy Rodriguez.
Speaker 2: And this is you're listening to those of egos. Oh
Speaker 2: some of you may be watching us now, so that's right,
Speaker 2: So all love to you guys who have been enjoying
Speaker 2: the show. Interesting episode for us.
Speaker 1: Today, Yes, yes, indeed, it's kind the first of it's kind.
Speaker 1: You've got a bunch of crazy questions from the fans
Speaker 1: that we are going to tackle today.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I want to check in. How are you today?
Speaker 1: I'm I'm good.
Speaker 2: I'm good, right, yeah, man, you I'm good. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: good as well. We're both carrying things, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So it's I just wanted to check in with you.
Speaker 2: But thank you either either way, this is uh not
Speaker 2: about us.
Speaker 1: It's not about us. It's about the fans.
Speaker 2: Baby, about the fans. It's about those of you who
Speaker 2: have been supporting Freddy and Wilmer for all this years. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is about those true fans have been there from
Speaker 2: the beginning. And this is also about our new fans
Speaker 2: who have discovered those amigos as a place for laughs, certainty,
Speaker 2: maybe some information and some useless useless life, useless life
Speaker 2: that some insight, some insight, Yeah, Leo you're you're here
Speaker 2: with us too. Leo clam Uh, Leo klam in the
Speaker 2: house had a podcast for WB Sound and also our
Speaker 2: lead executive producer here on those amigos. You're gonna ask
Speaker 2: and we're gonna.
Speaker 3: Answerr Yeah, I mean we just left an open forum
Speaker 3: for our listeners, and I think people want to get
Speaker 3: to know y'all, but also just want to show some
Speaker 3: love and support.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I grabbed a handful of them and we can
Speaker 3: get into it.
Speaker 2: All right, list wrong, Yeah, let's get us.
Speaker 3: Started, So we'll start. This one's coming in from Sharon. Sharon,
Speaker 3: good morning. My question is for both of you, what
Speaker 3: is your favorite Western? Have a great day? Be someone special? Sharon,
Speaker 3: short and sweet, very.
Speaker 2: Short and sweet, and she's demanding that we become someone special.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she demanded she said, be someone special.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's very sweet. We're always trying to be our
Speaker 2: best favorite Western. I gotta say I just saw American
Speaker 2: Primeval on Netflix. Who wow, Wow. It absolutely blew me away.
Speaker 1: I think Peter Berg directed it. Am I right to
Speaker 1: say that? Taylor Kitch Wow, I mean I just feel
Speaker 1: like he injected it was like the matrix. John Wick
Speaker 1: choreography meets like a Western. It was such a It's
Speaker 1: probably the freshest newest take I've seen on a Western
Speaker 1: in a long time.
Speaker 2: That's cool, It's cool. What is it about? It's about this.
Speaker 1: Taylor Kitch's character is tasked to escort a mother and
Speaker 1: her son across across.
Speaker 2: Is it Utah? I think it was?
Speaker 1: Uh is at it during the Utah War? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but just his execution was so unique and different and Uh,
Speaker 1: as I said, it just incorporated all of this wonderful
Speaker 1: fight choreography in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He's always so great that. Yeah, Peter has an
Speaker 2: amazing team. It does. Yeah. Yeah. And Taylor, by the way,
Speaker 2: it's awesome, big, big big ups to Uh. He's he's phenomenal,
Speaker 2: really great guy. Yeah, really really sweet man. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: really deserves that. That's awesome. I'm going to hear that
Speaker 2: kid to watch that for me. I'm gonna go back
Speaker 2: a little bit. Obviously, the world is split on this one.
Speaker 2: It may not be the greatest Western of all time,
Speaker 2: but it has my heart. Tombstone, tombstone, Okay, you know,
Speaker 2: Kurt Russell, Sam Elliot, Val Kilmer, shout out to Shout
Speaker 2: out to Kurt Yeah, he's the great Val Kilmer as well,
Speaker 2: one of the best performances of his entire career. You know,
Speaker 2: Dark Holliday. Yeah, that that movie. If you haven't watched it.
Speaker 2: It was a really interesting time. It was at a
Speaker 2: crossroads of cinema where like it was, some stuff was
Speaker 2: bubble gum and popcorn and some actually were still really
Speaker 2: cool eighties, late eighties, early nineties, you know, filmmaking. But
Speaker 2: this is you know, it's it's it's a great story
Speaker 2: about a group of guys who you know, want to
Speaker 2: go clean and they want to just you know, stop
Speaker 2: the huzzle, you know, and they're kind of like a
Speaker 2: traveling you know, I guess casino, right, They were bringing
Speaker 2: like cars, they were playing cars. They were like dealers
Speaker 2: and stuff, and they didn't find out they also had
Speaker 2: a skill to be badass cowboys, you know. And what
Speaker 2: why did you like it so much? Just like the
Speaker 2: story I think I think the I think the coming
Speaker 2: into a town who needs you there you you you
Speaker 2: somehow relenting decide that you're going to take the role
Speaker 2: of they want you to be the sheriff or the
Speaker 2: ranger or whatever they want you to take care of the town.
Speaker 2: You're the only ones to stand up against tyranny, and
Speaker 2: the tirony comes and hits back hard, and it's just about, well,
Speaker 2: we're here to clean this town, right. You know, I
Speaker 2: don't know, very traditional Western wester. I think it's kind
Speaker 2: of kind of you ever dot a Western?
Speaker 1: No, I don't think so, No, you.
Speaker 2: I directed a Western music video, but that was a
Speaker 2: different life life Yeah what what what video? It was
Speaker 2: a song called Salute for sky Blue, one of the
Speaker 2: LFL guys, and uh and uh yeah, I did a
Speaker 2: whole full Western and I went and shot with the
Speaker 2: sho uh you know, django and all that, and and
Speaker 2: he was crazy. I had horses. Yeah, it was very cool, cool,
Speaker 2: but the song is very silly, so it didn't match
Speaker 2: the cinematic Scholl But but it was beautiful. It's a
Speaker 2: really really fun salude. I got to check it out. Ryan,
Speaker 2: did you you worked on Salute? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 2: was That was one of my first things where I
Speaker 2: was like, I need a crane shot inside this bar.
Speaker 2: Like it was like shit, Yeah, it was pretty pretty fun.
Speaker 2: We have a Ryan Posts who's our DP here on
Speaker 2: the show, so he worked on it. Yeah, yeah, he was.
Speaker 2: He was working with us on that music video. It
Speaker 2: was a really unique music video and I hope it's
Speaker 2: on your real but I really like that and obviously
Speaker 2: anything cleaning is with ny. That's why watching that with
Speaker 2: my dad that was cool. Awesome. Next question, very.
Speaker 3: Cool from Monica. Monica, Dear Freddie, Dear Wilmer, many thanks
Speaker 3: to the great podcast. I enjoy listening to and watching it.
Speaker 3: Also a big thank you to the whole team. Uh,
Speaker 3: and then she goes, sorry for my English, but it's
Speaker 3: not my mother tongue. Best regards from Germany, Monica.
Speaker 2: Cool.
Speaker 3: So let's start with which movie slash series would you
Speaker 3: like to be in?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I guess if there was a series in our
Speaker 2: history and trajectory, which one would you we would have
Speaker 2: uh loved to be a part of.
Speaker 1: I really you know, my my favorite series is Breaking Bad.
Speaker 1: I just remember watching that series and being so blown
Speaker 1: away by it.
Speaker 2: So at different, how for freshing, how unique, what a
Speaker 2: tone for TV.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the voice was so strong on that show. Vince
Speaker 1: Gilligan's voice on that show, his sense of silence, his
Speaker 1: use of silence without saying words and conveying emotion. Uh,
Speaker 1: it just spoke to me and my instrument as an actor,
Speaker 1: and like man, I would have I would have been
Speaker 1: an extra on that show if I could have.
Speaker 2: I always wanted to. Uh, I always wanted to be
Speaker 2: punch for Chips. That sounded very cool with me, you know,
Speaker 2: I see it. I wanted to be punching the Chips movie.
Speaker 2: It's a long story about that in my book, American Story.
Speaker 2: Everyone's invited everywhere you get your book and your audiobooks,
Speaker 2: you know. So I set it up over there, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, the studio just like randomly decided we got
Speaker 2: to hold on old titles, you know. You know, they
Speaker 2: had just done three hundred, they had just done you know,
Speaker 2: Batman yea, and they've done a lot of success with that,
Speaker 2: you know, and and they also had lots to do
Speaker 2: so Hazards. So I was like, oh, this is an opportunity, right, duke.
Speaker 2: So hazard they're pretty decent, So why not I just
Speaker 2: go and pitch that, And you know, they went for it,
Speaker 2: and uh, for reasons that are always mysterious to us,
Speaker 2: you know, producers and actors, they decided they needed to
Speaker 2: hold the beat on it, right, But we had already
Speaker 2: developed the script. We had to develop everything whatever and
Speaker 2: and he just didn't move forward, you know, and then
Speaker 2: later they you know, they still made it anyways, but
Speaker 2: you know, I kind of found out way later when
Speaker 2: you know, they were already kind of the train had
Speaker 2: already left. But anyways, my point is Punch, you know,
Speaker 2: and the Punch felt like it was like at that
Speaker 2: time Latino Spider Man, like he was that superhero there
Speaker 2: like we didn't have on TV. So Erica Strotta was
Speaker 2: like that guy who's like, you know, so charming, so lively,
Speaker 2: so so you know, so intoxicated, and you know, like
Speaker 2: the dude was like just a big deal on TV.
Speaker 2: So I felt like that was kind of a fun
Speaker 2: thing to look up to. So Punch would have been
Speaker 2: playing Punch on a TV series. But I'm talking about then, right,
Speaker 2: not like a remake or I Want to Lunch or
Speaker 2: whatever like the in the seventies. Yeah, if I was
Speaker 2: in the Live in the seventies, that would have been
Speaker 2: a cool show for me to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, so so you got specific with a character.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, another one.
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, in my neighborhood, Miami, Vice like that
Speaker 1: used to come on and all the kids used to
Speaker 1: go inside the house. It used to be that, And
Speaker 1: it was this other show called crime Story that I
Speaker 1: think Michael Mann also produced a Dennis Farina starring and
Speaker 1: Crime Story.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember that one. They were
Speaker 2: back to back, but yeah, yeah yeah, man, wow.
Speaker 1: I remember it was a kid?
Speaker 2: You ever watch what was that?
Speaker 1: What was that?
Speaker 2: What was that show?
Speaker 1: With Ricky Schroeder? He played like like Richie rich, like
Speaker 1: a like a rich kid silver spoons.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember watching what My brothers like, whoa what he has?
Speaker 1: He has like a train in his house, you know,
Speaker 1: like all those toys. You know, we'd be imagining like
Speaker 1: living that's luxury.
Speaker 2: If you can have a train track inside your house,
Speaker 2: that felt like luxury somehow. Yeah. Yeah. But you know
Speaker 2: there's just shows out there like you just you look
Speaker 2: at those shows and you're like, oh many like to
Speaker 2: be alive at a moment with the show hasn't even
Speaker 2: hit the air, and you don't know what's kind of do?
Speaker 1: Is it good?
Speaker 2: Is it bad?
Speaker 1: Is it? Like?
Speaker 2: To him it becomes this thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I mean you must have felt interestingly similar when you
Speaker 2: did Six Feet Under, right, because six Feet Under was
Speaker 2: like the first of its kind, Like who would have
Speaker 2: thought of a pitch, like, how do you pitch that show?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that show happened. You know, Alan Ball had just
Speaker 1: won an oscar, which was crazy because he was coming
Speaker 1: off of a lot of people don't know that he
Speaker 1: was a sitcom writer all through the nineties. He did
Speaker 1: like Grace, Underfire and you know shows like that the
Speaker 1: nineties and so, which is how I met him. Actually,
Speaker 1: I was I was doing a sitcom called Oh Grow Up,
Speaker 1: and Bob green Blatt and David John Larry were producing it,
Speaker 1: and we're shooting it at CBS Rafford, and I remember
Speaker 1: coming to work every day and it'd be a poster
Speaker 1: up for American Beauty, the movie he did, And I
Speaker 1: remember sitting like the in the makeup chair, and then
Speaker 1: makeup people would be like, Oh, see that poster up there,
Speaker 1: that's Alan's movie. You know, I'm thinking like, wow, cool,
Speaker 1: you're doing a TV show on a movie. And and so,
Speaker 1: you know, the movie came out and the TV show
Speaker 1: came out around the same time, and it was just
Speaker 1: like a thirteen episode sitcom on ABC, and unfortunately it
Speaker 1: didn't do well. But the movie came out and started
Speaker 1: to slowly become a phenomenon and so it was just
Speaker 1: it was a dynamic I've never seen before, you know,
Speaker 1: as the show was failing, the movie was ascending, and
Speaker 1: eventually the show got canceled, and then he won an Oscar,
Speaker 1: and so he was in a really unique position after
Speaker 1: winning that Oscar to do whatever he wanted to. And
Speaker 1: back then there was a big difference between TV and film,
Speaker 1: right where now the lines of blurred, but back then
Speaker 1: it wasn't blurred. And so people thought he was crazy
Speaker 1: that he wanted to go back to doing TV after
Speaker 1: he won the Oscar. You know, everyone thought he was
Speaker 1: going to go do a film and so and so
Speaker 1: he was in this unique position and took meetings everywhere.
Speaker 1: And I believe the story goes that he met with
Speaker 1: Carolyn Strauss over at HBO and and it was after
Speaker 1: the first season of Sopranos and after the second season
Speaker 1: of of Sex and the City, and they were just like, well,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do? And and he loved
Speaker 1: he always loved TV, but he really loved the creative
Speaker 1: freedom over at HBO. And and I think that I
Speaker 1: think Carolyn might have had the idea of doing something
Speaker 1: about a family that ran a funeral home and and
Speaker 1: and they just kind of built off of that, and
Speaker 1: then he came back and pitched the idea and uh
Speaker 1: and the.
Speaker 2: Rest was history. So it's sort of like, you know,
Speaker 2: you know right place, right time, and you and you
Speaker 2: can trust the leadership and and then you're beyond set
Speaker 2: and you're like, god, this is so unique, so different.
Speaker 1: It clicks right like you just never really know, you
Speaker 1: don't know. We we we certainly didn't know. We knew
Speaker 1: we did something special. We knew that, but I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a graveyard for shows that were a
Speaker 1: special that that never hit you know that you can
Speaker 1: go back and watch right then you go, wow, that
Speaker 1: that was special. But it just didn't click, and so
Speaker 1: we we certainly ran the danger of becoming one of
Speaker 1: those shows. But uh so you know, we we we
Speaker 1: shot the pilot and they saw the pilot and then
Speaker 1: we shot the entire first season in a vacuum, and
Speaker 1: we just didn't know what we had, you know, and
Speaker 1: then it came out and it became a phenomenon.
Speaker 2: No you guys, I mean that was the standard. People
Speaker 2: were like, you can go that, I mean, you can
Speaker 2: dream that way and going that direction. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: it was it was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think with US coupled with sopranos, coupled with
Speaker 1: Sex and the City, it was the first time that
Speaker 1: you really saw film like quality on television in that way,
Speaker 1: executed that way. And I think a lot of that
Speaker 1: just came from a lot of our directors came from film,
Speaker 1: and and Alan just won an oscar in film and
Speaker 1: HBO gave us film freedom, and so it was it
Speaker 1: was all of that that was happening, and they were
Speaker 1: taking chances where where you know, how it is at
Speaker 1: a network, right, it's it's all about, uh, the regime
Speaker 1: that's there and and and what their motives are and
Speaker 1: what their objectives are. And but that that regime there
Speaker 1: with Carolyn Strauss and uh Chris Albrech I think was
Speaker 1: running the studio at the time, and some other really
Speaker 1: great executives were there. They're their objective was just to
Speaker 1: just to be pioneers and to and to do something
Speaker 1: different than to give the artists, the artist meaning meaning
Speaker 1: the Alan Balls, the showrunners of the world, complete creative
Speaker 1: autonomy to go forward. And and I feel like that's
Speaker 1: the reason why it became the real you know, the
Speaker 1: hit that it became you know, Alan. Alan was always like,
Speaker 1: you know, you hired me for a reason, like like,
Speaker 1: let me do what you hired me to do. And
Speaker 1: and sometimes I feel that that's the mistake. And this
Speaker 1: is not shipping on like executives or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but sometimes I feel that there needs to be a
Speaker 1: healthy balance between executives and and you know, them giving
Speaker 1: their notes and putting their fingerprints.
Speaker 2: And some of these notes are also fear right, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the biggest problem with executive notes, it's like fear to
Speaker 2: get it wrong. Yeah, And so eventually they start molding
Speaker 2: you into something they've sold before or that's working right now,
Speaker 2: and that's not sometimes the right mutation for whatever you're creating.
Speaker 2: Like you know that that type of experiment of like
Speaker 2: two for you, three for me, it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, But that's why I worked there because
Speaker 1: the foundation of their whole network was completely different.
Speaker 2: You know. They said at HBO one time I went
Speaker 2: to pitch something at HBO and they said the show
Speaker 2: has to be something that it could only be made
Speaker 2: at HBO. That was that was the that was the
Speaker 2: guy that you're going to pitch something over here, it
Speaker 2: cannot be something that can live anywhere else. But of
Speaker 2: course that all went out of the window when streaming
Speaker 2: platforms and everybody started doing thing like House of Cards
Speaker 2: and Stranger Things, Breaking Bad, Breaking Bad, you know, all
Speaker 2: of this stuff. Walking Dead, They're like, whoa, whoa. Like
Speaker 2: now the world's like, oh, we can also do that too,
Speaker 2: and right, so that was interesting in the world. But
Speaker 2: they created that business model.
Speaker 1: You know, no one, I mean there was like, you know,
Speaker 1: Showtime was doing a couple of shows at that time.
Speaker 1: I think FX had Nip Talk, you know, I think
Speaker 1: Ryan Murphy was doing Nip Tuck there. So there was
Speaker 1: a couple of instances elsewhere that people were taking chances
Speaker 1: like that. But for the most part, you know, network
Speaker 1: TV ruled, and the way that they did TV ruled.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I remember Alan one time said to me, he goes,
Speaker 1: you know, after I did after I wrote the pilot,
Speaker 1: I think he said, or after he did the pilot,
Speaker 1: he goes. The only note he got from the network
Speaker 1: was make it more fucked up, and that completely shocked
Speaker 1: him because he goes, Dude, I spent an entire decade
Speaker 1: of life right on network TV shows where you would
Speaker 1: get dreams and reams of pages of notes, and he
Speaker 1: was so used to that that it shocked him to
Speaker 1: get one note off of this part.
Speaker 2: I mean when they just tell you, hey, by the way,
Speaker 2: they get more fucked up. Yeah, we'll run, yeah, run faster,
Speaker 2: keep running.
Speaker 1: Where it's usually the opposite, right, it's like make it
Speaker 1: less fucked up.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, more modern family.
Speaker 1: I heard, yeah where they were they were running in
Speaker 1: the opposite direction, and he he just so wasn't used
Speaker 1: to that. So, you know, it was it was, it
Speaker 1: was certainly the it was the perfect storm. Man. It
Speaker 1: was like it was as close to a perfect experience
Speaker 1: as I've ever had on anything. I mean, where at
Speaker 1: the Sunset and Gower Studios. Okay, it was in l A, Yeah,
Speaker 1: in La Yeah, and we had you know, I remember
Speaker 1: our producer Alan Pool, you know, he'd come back from
Speaker 1: somewhere and I was like, well, where were you And
Speaker 1: he's like, oh's that Sundance And I was like, what
Speaker 1: are you doing there? He goes, I wanted to go
Speaker 1: see who all the new independent directors were, and he
Speaker 1: was and he was hand like picking the hot independent
Speaker 1: directors coming out of Sundance and and you know, Toronto Film.
Speaker 2: Festival and stuff to come and direct our episodes.
Speaker 1: You know. So it was this it was this creative
Speaker 1: whirlwind that was happening there of all the best writers
Speaker 1: and directors and actors and and people coming from the
Speaker 1: theater to come and work on the show. Uh, I
Speaker 1: mean it was it was a near near I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you know they use that that saying like
Speaker 1: the stars were aligned. Yeah, the stars were certainly aligned. Man,
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: It was a perfect storm for TV. Yeah, yeah, you could.
Speaker 2: And again, you couldn't have made that show anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And so you know, it makes me proud
Speaker 1: when I see shows like Breaking Bad. You know, I
Speaker 1: watched that show, and it makes me a little nostalgia
Speaker 1: because I go, oh, I see what you're doing. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, because we use silence a lot, you know
Speaker 1: on our show, a sense of silence, and there were
Speaker 1: certain tones that were similar. And use the network, you
Speaker 1: have to be talking all the time. Yeah you can't
Speaker 1: just said still Yeah. I try to do that on
Speaker 1: Nancy Is.
Speaker 2: I try to like have beats from I internalized something
Speaker 2: and my closters are like, are they going like this today?
Speaker 2: Hello today? Yeah, dude, let me process you know, Leo,
Speaker 2: What what are the questions you have?
Speaker 3: Let's gonna be a quick one. You're whisked away to
Speaker 3: a karaoke bar by friends. Which song do you sing?
Speaker 2: Oh? Easy, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Karaoke bar. I just saw the Billy Joe documentary the
Speaker 1: other day and like I went, I went to Scotland
Speaker 1: when my son was going to school there, and we
Speaker 1: passed this like I don't know what it was, was
Speaker 1: a bar, piano bar or whatever, and Piano Man came
Speaker 1: on and I was blown away by by the camaraderie
Speaker 1: that that song caused.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how I wakes up in the bar?
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody was so in sync on this one,
Speaker 1: so I've never seen that before. And then after seeing
Speaker 1: the documentary, I'm gonna have to say, piano Man, what
Speaker 1: about you?
Speaker 2: It's like Jesse's Girl and Jesse's Girl Girl in Jersey
Speaker 2: that plays in Jersey game game or oh yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: For me, it would be I go with like with
Speaker 2: stuff that like I only I grew up with, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: There was a point where I would do Ricky Martin
Speaker 2: songs because it would make people laugh. What do you mean,
Speaker 2: like Villa Loka, living up Vida look and then I
Speaker 2: just hit the hips I like, and people were like,
Speaker 2: whoa am I seeing double.
Speaker 1: You? Would you wear the the leather pants?
Speaker 2: Well I always yeah, yeah, that was leather pants for
Speaker 2: two thousands. Didn't you have leather pants? I think I
Speaker 2: think there was one time you came to the club
Speaker 2: to meet me and you were wearing leather club bets.
Speaker 2: Was either you or Adam Rodriguez. Shout out to Adam
Speaker 2: Driguez and his leather pants from the early two thousands. Yes,
Speaker 2: he's gonna listen to this and be like, why do
Speaker 2: you tell people we got wear.
Speaker 1: Pants that I don't wear and question about his leather pants.
Speaker 2: We should have Adam here, We should we should talk
Speaker 2: about talk about a silly fun time that would be.
Speaker 2: That would be so good, such a good guy, and
Speaker 2: I can confront him on his leathers like he never wore.
Speaker 2: You can confront him. We're like, hey, we had an
Speaker 2: episode when he talked about your leather pants. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: he's like, what leather pants? You know he's just gonna argue.
Speaker 2: We're like, bro, the leather pants. Remember we went to
Speaker 2: like that you know, that rooftop bar, and you showed
Speaker 2: up wearing black leather pants and just like keep going
Speaker 2: over and see how far he Eventually he'll be like,
Speaker 2: I guess I wore leather bay Convince who well remember,
Speaker 2: so I would do something like Matchbox twenty, you know,
Speaker 2: back to good Yeah, shout out to Rob Thomas, one
Speaker 2: of my favorite people on the planet. Beautiful man, beautiful person,
Speaker 2: and he's beautiful wife Maddy big shut out. I wasn't
Speaker 2: actually in a Rob Thomas singles music video ever the
Speaker 2: same I was in the music video for them, and
Speaker 2: I was like, for me at the time, it was
Speaker 2: like a drink control. I still have match Pox twenty. Well,
Speaker 2: I actually still love match Past twenty. They perform I'm going,
Speaker 2: you know, uh so I do that, and then I
Speaker 2: will do like one of some of the songs from
Speaker 2: Carlos Santana's Supernatural Maria Maria, I got everybody singing at
Speaker 2: that time.
Speaker 1: You're in a very sort of early two thousands, late nineties.
Speaker 1: That's kind of that's why. Yeah, that's who you are,
Speaker 1: you living, you live in that time frame, That's who
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 2: All right, next next question.
Speaker 3: All right, this question is from James. This one's for you.
Speaker 3: Freddie yep, hi, Freddie can you please talk about working
Speaker 3: with a great Italian star, gian Carlo Giannini, you know,
Speaker 3: Walk in the Clouds. What do you learn from him,
Speaker 3: stories you shared, et cetera. Love that film and you're
Speaker 3: working it.
Speaker 2: Oh so where does he live?
Speaker 1: Thank you Jesus.
Speaker 2: Question is crazy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, wow, what a unique question. Working with gian
Speaker 1: Carlo Janini was an insight into what it must have
Speaker 1: been like to make movies in the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 1: Oh so, so it's a it's a feeling, it's it's
Speaker 1: something that I can't really put my finger on, like
Speaker 1: watching him and Anthony Quinn together and Anthony spoke Italian
Speaker 1: and they would be there telling stories about their escapade
Speaker 1: aid in the seventies and sixties, and like he just
Speaker 1: carried himself like a like a seventies movie star. In fact,
Speaker 1: I loved his name so much. I named my oldest
Speaker 1: son my oldest son's name is young Carlo and it
Speaker 1: was the first time I had heard that name. And uh,
Speaker 1: and we named my son that And when my son
Speaker 1: was born, I called him and told him that I
Speaker 1: named my son after him. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: it was after him exactly, but he gave me an
Speaker 1: excuse to call him again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: And so I remember doing that that film, and uh,
Speaker 1: I loved just watching him, you know, I was. I
Speaker 1: was nineteen years old when I did that movie. I was,
Speaker 1: I was right out of high school, and I would
Speaker 1: I was so blown away by seeing him and Anthony
Speaker 1: in their process and doing what they were doing. I
Speaker 1: just loved watching those guys because I had no clue,
Speaker 1: you know, and those guys would be in there and
Speaker 1: they'd be like and they're and you know, getting to
Speaker 1: that emotion place and you know where I was like
Speaker 1: shy and and still trying to like find my footing
Speaker 1: in film. And then you had like Keanu Reeves and
Speaker 1: that equation also. So it was just a bunch of
Speaker 1: heavyweights in there. But he was. He was an absolute
Speaker 1: gentleman and a and a pleasure to work with him
Speaker 1: and his family. I remember his son was there and
Speaker 1: some of his kids were there, and they were they
Speaker 1: were just wonderful. It's a great, great experience. Shout out
Speaker 1: to Gean Carlo Jeanini.
Speaker 2: Awesome. What else you got?
Speaker 3: This one's from Lorena, Lorena, Hi Wilmer, and Freddie. Thanks
Speaker 3: for making you laugh every week. I'm wondering when it
Speaker 3: was a time in your life when you took a
Speaker 3: big risk and how did it change you. I'm making
Speaker 3: a big career pivot and I'm starting to freak out
Speaker 3: a little about whether it'll payoff. I would love to
Speaker 3: hear of those moments when you took a risk with admiration, Lorena.
Speaker 1: Would you take a risk? Was was starting your company
Speaker 1: taking a risk?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And it's it's the risk, right, It is still
Speaker 2: a risk. I mean, you're you continue to input your
Speaker 2: You're investing and investing and investing, and you're waiting for
Speaker 2: that moment where like it's a stains itself, you know.
Speaker 2: And thankfully now most of my companies are you know,
Speaker 2: at least sustaining themselves, right, But in a world where
Speaker 2: people are buying less and making less, you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's still a risk to help production company. But you know,
Speaker 2: your ability to weather the storm is what gives you
Speaker 2: the best shot, you know at actually eventually finding yourself
Speaker 2: on stead making something now. But you know, i'd say
Speaker 2: when you talk about big risk, I mean I would
Speaker 2: say doing something no one in my family had the technology,
Speaker 2: the knowledge, the resources, the most fathom idea that that
Speaker 2: would that would be possible, which is this thing, Oh,
Speaker 2: I want to be an actor. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The trajectory I was having at the time is either
Speaker 2: I was going to be a psychologist or you know,
Speaker 2: I was going to join the Air Force or something,
Speaker 2: you know, because I want to fly planes. So like
Speaker 2: it could have gone either way. We've had these conversations
Speaker 2: before in the podcast, but these are really big leaps
Speaker 2: of faith, you know. Also the same thing with like,
Speaker 2: you know, switching gears in life is never simple, But
Speaker 2: if you're switching tracks, there's something about you that's telling
Speaker 2: you that you know, you got what it takes to
Speaker 2: do it right. Otherwise you wouldn't take that chance, right,
Speaker 2: So I think there's something about that that you have
Speaker 2: to kind of trust yourself, right, You've got to trust
Speaker 2: that you've earned that change of gear, you know, somehow.
Speaker 2: But you know, I'm kind of still thinking a little
Speaker 2: bit about that. I'm still thinking a little bit about
Speaker 2: what are some of these stories. But everything that we
Speaker 2: do in our career is Freddie is a leap of faith.
Speaker 2: Everything come up with an idea, I'm going to write
Speaker 2: it down, I'm going to try to sell it. Right,
Speaker 2: or I'm going to take this part on this TV show.
Speaker 2: I hope it goes a second. Like everything's a little
Speaker 2: bit of a risk, but I will say that a song,
Speaker 2: as you are continuing to perform within your strength and
Speaker 2: you're focusing on your personal contribution to what you're hoping
Speaker 2: to get out of you know you, you're the odds
Speaker 2: are for you and with you on that, I don't know,
Speaker 2: what do you think? Yeah, yeah, and you're right.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this before. What a risk it was
Speaker 1: to just to become an actor right starting there, coming
Speaker 1: from the type of families that we came from and
Speaker 1: what was expected of us, So that was a risk.
Speaker 1: Or I started producing about a decade ago, twelve years ago,
Speaker 1: and I started writing, and these were these were avenues
Speaker 1: that I felt in my gut that I could be
Speaker 1: good at. You know, there are other things that I'm
Speaker 1: interested in, but like my gut was telling me that
Speaker 1: I could potentially be pretty good at this stuff. And
Speaker 1: I tried producing and and I thought I did a
Speaker 1: pretty good job. I've been writing more lately and I
Speaker 1: thought I did a pretty good job. And so like,
Speaker 1: if I could impart any advice to you, Lodana is
Speaker 1: to just follow your gut. Like and that's one thing
Speaker 1: I think that I was born with.
Speaker 2: I think I have.
Speaker 1: I have really good instincts, really really deep, deep good
Speaker 1: instincts about about tone, about projects, about putting people together,
Speaker 1: or being able to read something and recognizing whether it's
Speaker 1: good or not, or watching something and being able to
Speaker 1: recognize if it's good or not. And a lot of
Speaker 1: times my instincts drives my choices, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I just I just did a I just did a
Speaker 1: horror movie. And and you know, sometimes what happens is like,
Speaker 1: you know, if the budget is not thirty forty million
Speaker 1: dollars for example, you know, people kind of go ah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of lower. It's kind of this,
Speaker 1: it's kind of that, you know. I never look at
Speaker 1: projects like what's is it? Is it a million dollar,
Speaker 1: five million dollars ten million dollar budget or what have you?
Speaker 1: You know, like I'm able to read something and my
Speaker 1: gut will tell me if something is good or not,
Speaker 1: you know, or I could I could meet with a
Speaker 1: director and a writer and know, like my gut will
Speaker 1: tell me if they're if they're good or not. And
Speaker 1: so I've just followed my gut. I haven't followed what
Speaker 1: people tell me I should or I shouldn't be doing.
Speaker 1: You know, so anyway to answer the question within all
Speaker 1: that takes a lot of risk because you're putting yourself
Speaker 1: on the line. You're going to people that you trust,
Speaker 1: who who You're putting your brand on the line. You're
Speaker 1: telling people I wrote the script. They're looking at you
Speaker 1: like you're crazy because you're an actor, and then they
Speaker 1: read it and they go, oh shit, no, this is
Speaker 1: this is really good. Or you say hey, I'm producing
Speaker 1: this movie and they look at you like you're crazy
Speaker 1: because you're an actor, and then you execute the production
Speaker 1: of the movie and they're like, oh wow, I didn't
Speaker 1: I never knew you could do it right. But if
Speaker 1: I were to listen to the people who look at
Speaker 1: me like I'm crazy every time I tell them I'm
Speaker 1: gonna produce something new or write something new, that I
Speaker 1: would never get anywhere. I'd just be the actor at
Speaker 1: home waiting for the phone to ring.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wanted to add something to what you were saying,
Speaker 2: because you trigger a different I take trigger another perspective
Speaker 2: that kind of it's in line with what you're saying.
Speaker 2: The times that I've been the most scared to take
Speaker 2: a leap of faith, I realized I wasn't prepared to
Speaker 2: make the leap you weren't prepared to take. I gotcha.
Speaker 2: I knew that was the right chance. I knew that
Speaker 2: that that was the right bed, it was the right gamble, right,
Speaker 2: But I wasn't ready for it, you know, And I
Speaker 2: think you're timing on. Once you switch gears in your
Speaker 2: life and when you take this leap of faith, it's
Speaker 2: absolutely part of the ingredients of the perfect storm, whether
Speaker 2: is going to work or not. For me. The times
Speaker 2: that I've been the most concerned, nervous, or or or
Speaker 2: you know, or fearful of this is when I haven't
Speaker 2: done enough homework about it, when I'm having had you know,
Speaker 2: the proper you know research to say, Okay, I know
Speaker 2: enough about this, and now I can try, you know,
Speaker 2: because imposter syndrome is always going to happen when you're
Speaker 2: doing something new. But if you put in the hours
Speaker 2: to understand where you're going, you're not you're possibly not
Speaker 2: going to take a wrong turn right, You're probably not
Speaker 2: going to get off early. You're going to just keep
Speaker 2: driving because you kind of know what to expect a
Speaker 2: little bit. And I think that's I think that's probably
Speaker 2: the thing the trigger to me the most when you
Speaker 2: started talking about that stuff, is that, you know, those
Speaker 2: are the times where I feel like, oh, let me
Speaker 2: take pause, Like am I doing the right thing? It's
Speaker 2: when I haven't really prepared. I mean, my research enough,
Speaker 2: you know and all that, and now I don't have
Speaker 2: time to not do the research, right, You got to
Speaker 2: know what you're doing, right. It's like yestakes are very
Speaker 2: high now, but and a lot of that is following
Speaker 2: your gut, right, right, this is likely where it is.
Speaker 1: Don't you feel like you've developed your instinct over the
Speaker 1: last two three decades?
Speaker 2: Totally, totally. I think that that that got feeling that
Speaker 2: you have to do this and it has to happen
Speaker 2: because you can breathe without it. And that's very important, right,
Speaker 2: because if you're not happy with where you are in
Speaker 2: the moment, if you're not happy where where things are
Speaker 2: at in your life in this moment, maybe this is
Speaker 2: time to.
Speaker 1: Do a little bit of a nodded yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: but that's that's ambition, right. But I also think that
Speaker 1: there's an instinctual part to it as well that you possess, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's your ambition, going like I got I, this
Speaker 1: has to happen.
Speaker 2: I have to do it.
Speaker 1: But but you're also good at at like your gut
Speaker 1: telling you whether something is good or not. Like I
Speaker 1: remember a couple of months ago we were at your
Speaker 1: office and you showed me like a like a trailer
Speaker 1: for a new documentary that you were you were producing
Speaker 1: with the photographer, and I remember watching the trailer and
Speaker 1: going like, holy cow, man, this trailer is like it's
Speaker 1: so good, Like I can just see it. I can
Speaker 1: feel it all in just that trailer, the tone of
Speaker 1: the documentary and even that other documentary you produced, the
Speaker 1: The TikTok Dancer, The Devil's for the Devil. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so what you're showing me and the stuff that
Speaker 1: you're producing in the documentary world is that you have
Speaker 1: a really strong instinct for choosing the right stuff that
Speaker 1: you want to do.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Even when when we embarked on this journey of this podcast, right,
Speaker 1: like I didn't really know anything about podcasts, right, but
Speaker 1: my gut was telling me through our conversations and what
Speaker 1: you wanted it to be. My gut was telling me, Oh,
Speaker 1: this feels right, This feels like it could be good
Speaker 1: and it could be executed well. And and I think
Speaker 1: that my gut was right, you know, and I can
Speaker 1: tell you right now circle to the why this podcast.
Speaker 2: We've been man of our word. What we said we
Speaker 2: were going to do and how we were going to
Speaker 2: do it, and what it was going to about, what
Speaker 2: was going about esthetically, what it was going to look like,
Speaker 2: and how it was going to land and what it
Speaker 2: could really mean to our community. I think we kind
Speaker 2: of you know, I think we got there. How many
Speaker 2: episodes so far we've done this is this is thirty two.
Speaker 2: This is about thirty two episodes that we've done so far.
Speaker 2: So we've had thirty two conversations. Some of them have
Speaker 2: gone over an hour, an hour and a half, two hours, right,
Speaker 2: So think about how many how much time you and
Speaker 2: I have spent together kind of breaking down and missed it,
Speaker 2: you know, the mysticism of our existence and turn it
Speaker 2: into like just relatable life, life paths. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: very proud of that. And this is exactly you know,
Speaker 2: thirty two conversations ago, what we said, what we're going
Speaker 2: to do and for better or worse, right, like whether
Speaker 2: it works or it doesn't, right. I think that's the
Speaker 2: And what you want to do is you want to
Speaker 2: be able to go to sleep knowing that what we
Speaker 2: said we were going to do it exactly, we're going
Speaker 2: to do it. We did it the way that we
Speaker 2: wanted it. It's when you allowed other drift is of
Speaker 2: like maybe include this, maybe become that, maybe you know,
Speaker 2: the topical stuff like we're not going to talk about
Speaker 2: topical things like this, this is irrelevant to us. It
Speaker 2: happens right now, and then another thirty minutes something new happens,
Speaker 2: and like, I'm not jumping you know, I don't think
Speaker 2: you and I will ever jump in the wagon of
Speaker 2: like what's hot in the news right now, you know,
Speaker 2: but the ever green of what's important to our cultures.
Speaker 2: I think it's why this is, this is important and
Speaker 2: I and you know, I always encourage everybody who has
Speaker 2: a platform to just create destinations where it's safe to
Speaker 2: speak and carry yourself the way that you and I
Speaker 2: have for thirty two conversations. Yeah, but it was it
Speaker 2: was for me.
Speaker 1: This is my own you know, experience with this podcast
Speaker 1: is my gut, my instinct when you presented the idea.
Speaker 1: My gut told me to do it. My gut told
Speaker 1: me to do it for a plethora of different reasons.
Speaker 1: You know, I just in in in the conversations that
Speaker 1: we've had that that the execution was going to be satisfactory.
Speaker 1: It was going to be good, you know, because because
Speaker 1: how many times have you been in meetings or you've
Speaker 1: been in conversations with with people who are like, oh,
Speaker 1: women were come and jump on this project. It's going
Speaker 1: to be this, It's going to be that, right, they
Speaker 1: promise you it's gonna be X, Y and Z, and
Speaker 1: then you you go and you knock it out, and
Speaker 1: then you see it in the theater and.
Speaker 2: You're like, wow, this is really terrible.
Speaker 1: And my instinct was telling me it's going to be terrible.
Speaker 2: But I didn't listen to my instinct because that fall
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you see, like the matrix now, right,
Speaker 2: when somebody come ask you with a similar situation, you're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know that's going to turn out.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, it's you start navigating life based on the
Speaker 2: ripples of you know, how it all kind of works
Speaker 2: out right, and how it all builds out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but haven't you ever been like where your instinct
Speaker 1: tells you you probably shouldn't do this, but then whatever
Speaker 1: external forces like convince you to be a part of it,
Speaker 1: and you're just like okay, like like you put that
Speaker 1: gut voice to the side, and you're like, well, but
Speaker 1: this director said it's going to be listen to that,
Speaker 1: and so I should listen to them. And then you
Speaker 1: see it on screen.
Speaker 2: And it's like, oh, well, the deach looks so pretty,
Speaker 2: you know what the deck looks over, the deck is
Speaker 2: going to be with us, you know. Yeah, there's so
Speaker 2: many there's so many ways I you know.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: The other thing the counter to that is, even if
Speaker 2: you jump into an idea like that or you're like
Speaker 2: your God is telling you maybe not, you got created
Speaker 2: real creative partnership in there and making sure that there's
Speaker 2: an accountability to the openness they sold you on that
Speaker 2: they were going to bring you in. You know, you're
Speaker 2: a producer a director, so when you jump onto a project,
Speaker 2: you're not just gonna show up and say your lines.
Speaker 2: So I also trust that instinct in me that if
Speaker 2: I'm seeing something irregular, I just I can't just like
Speaker 2: but you know, at the beginning we had no choice,
Speaker 2: you know, like we're like, all right, you hire me
Speaker 2: as an actor. Here's my acteam You know, it's like
Speaker 2: it's kind of how it works.
Speaker 1: But but you've developed that muscle right in the last
Speaker 1: like twenty years or so as a spider sense, right
Speaker 1: as a as a producer, you know, to go, although
Speaker 1: this feels right or this doesn't feel right, Like for me,
Speaker 1: it's like I remember we were first doing the podcast.
Speaker 1: I was like we were all kind of evaluating the process,
Speaker 1: and I remember you all turned to me and I
Speaker 1: was just like, it just feels right, Like something feels
Speaker 1: right about it, you know, so I'm anyway, it's a
Speaker 1: super long answer to your question. Trust your gut, and
Speaker 1: you know, like like trust the way that it feels
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 2: You know, it's so fun to hear from all of you.
Speaker 2: It's really cool to hear where you know, where they're curiosity.
Speaker 2: You know, it takes them when it comes to our
Speaker 2: conversations and what those amigos has brought to listeners. So
Speaker 2: all of you are either watching it listening. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much, and all of you who have questions and like,
Speaker 2: oh I want to ask a question. I want to
Speaker 2: hear a little bit about a different topic where I
Speaker 2: want to do deep to and other things. Send us
Speaker 2: your questions, you know, your conversations, your topics. You can
Speaker 2: d m us at Those Amigos talk on Instagram. Uh,
Speaker 2: and you can also email us talk at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's that's good memory.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it's because it's the same name as
Speaker 2: the Instagram account.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Or writer us right, or you could sell
Speaker 1: like a like a voice the message or send.
Speaker 2: Us a voice memo on Instagram. And thank you everyone
Speaker 2: for the questions today. I was really sparked a lolly
Speaker 2: good stuff. Thank you guys so much for listening to
Speaker 2: those Amigos. This is a podcast where you can get anywhere.
Speaker 2: Did you get your podcast? I'm wilmri Valdorama.
Speaker 1: I'm Freddie Rodriguez.
Speaker 2: I'll see you guys on the next Talks.
Speaker 1: Is a production from WV Sound and iHeartMedia's Michael through
Speaker 1: That Podcast Network, hosted by Me, Freddie Rodriguez and Wilmer Valdorama.
Speaker 2: Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burlson and Sophie Spencer's Abows.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Wilmer Valdorama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burr,
Speaker 1: and Leo Clem at WV sound.
Speaker 2: This episode was shot and edited it by Ryan Posts
Speaker 2: and mixed by Sean Tracy and features original music by
Speaker 2: Madison Devenport and Halo boy Our.
Speaker 1: Cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed by
Speaker 1: Deny Holtz.
Speaker 2: Clau and thank you for being here third Amigo today.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you guys always listening to those amos.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My Heart, visit the R Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.
Speaker 2: So you next week