Speaker 1: I am so excited. We are at the Sunset Tower Hotel. However,
Speaker 1: it is not lunch, it is dinner time, and therefore
Speaker 1: I am dressed in a black velvet armani blazer, trying
Speaker 1: to be all like, you know, sultry sexy for Hollywood tonight,
Speaker 1: because we're having a meal with an incredible guy, a
Speaker 1: guy that you've seen in many movies and television shows
Speaker 1: throughout the decades. Hi, allright, it looked very dashing tonight,
Speaker 1: do I Yeah, he's eternally youthful. He's been rocking it
Speaker 1: since the eighties, right through the nineteen nineties, two thousands.
Speaker 1: He's an actor, a writer, a podcaster. What do you
Speaker 1: eat to the town? Very hungry? Perfect? What is your
Speaker 1: go to here? I tend to do a stake when
Speaker 1: I'm I'm going to do the same. We are having
Speaker 1: dinner tonight with mister Roblow. So pull up a chair,
Speaker 1: grab a glass of rose, and we'll be back soon.
Speaker 1: I'm Bruce Bozzi and this is my podcast Table for two.
Speaker 1: I just want to hit upon because I happened to
Speaker 1: watch the trailer for Unstable. Yes, Rob has a new
Speaker 1: show which will be a number one Netflix show, just
Speaker 1: like The last one was with your son, John Owen.
Speaker 1: Lowe called on a stable and I gotta say, the
Speaker 1: trailer is so fucking funny. Oh good, and it's funny.
Speaker 1: It's great. Okay, it's great. Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 1: And working with your son and the whole fame. So
Speaker 1: the genesis of the whole thing was I have two sons,
Speaker 1: Matthew who's twenty nine and works in finance now and
Speaker 1: John Owen, who is a writer and actor. And he
Speaker 1: would troll me on my Instagram, just bust my chops, relentless,
Speaker 1: relentless busting of chops, just saying, Dad, don't do this, Dad,
Speaker 1: don't do that. Go on my Instagram and go back
Speaker 1: and look and you will see what he what he's
Speaker 1: it's he's super witty. Yeah, and really really he's very
Speaker 1: good the way he delivers lines. Yeah, he's got good timings. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he started doing that and just to bust my chops.
Speaker 1: There was there was no agenda to it. There was
Speaker 1: he just was doing it as something as a goof
Speaker 1: on his old dad. And people started noticing it, and
Speaker 1: people started commenting on it, and it got to the
Speaker 1: point where when I would do an interview. Whether it
Speaker 1: was for Ellen or Jimmy Kimmel or Good Morning America,
Speaker 1: didn't matter who. They always wanted to ask about John
Speaker 1: Owen and how he trolls me. Right, And finally got
Speaker 1: to the point where John Owen and I sort of thinking,
Speaker 1: people are wanting this and enjoying it. Is there what
Speaker 1: could we possibly do with it as a as a
Speaker 1: project or something? And I thought, well, we're not going
Speaker 1: to do a reality show about our relationship, but is
Speaker 1: there something about the relationship that we can transpose and
Speaker 1: make a show out of? And that became unstable. You know.
Speaker 1: I took some of the some of my qualities and
Speaker 1: put them on steroids, right, And John Owen basically plays
Speaker 1: himself right, and it just is a super funny, fun
Speaker 1: father son comedy. Was it hard working with your son?
Speaker 1: Is it difficult? Is its great? Oh? It's great. It's
Speaker 1: heaven because both my boys. I feel like worth three
Speaker 1: people with the same brain. Okay, wow, you know all
Speaker 1: content is so subjective, you know, art, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And to have someone who's a partner with you, who
Speaker 1: has the exact same taste, I can delegate things to him,
Speaker 1: he can delegate things to me. As as producers, and
Speaker 1: I like, I know, if new pages are written on
Speaker 1: the script, if he likes them, I know I'll like them.
Speaker 1: Or if he doesn't like them, I know I'm gonna
Speaker 1: like it even less. You know, we grew up exactly
Speaker 1: at the same time, and you and you talk about
Speaker 1: it so much in your warre and I want to
Speaker 1: talk about California in the seventies and the eighties and
Speaker 1: just my favorite sub the parenting that didn't and did happen.
Speaker 1: But I one of the things that I do this
Speaker 1: with my kid too, is we're sort of silly. We
Speaker 1: grew up in a time where we'd get on our
Speaker 1: bikes and we'd go out until it got dark, and
Speaker 1: our parents never asked where we were, didn't know where
Speaker 1: we were, and it didn't care where we're here. And
Speaker 1: so there's a freedom and a sort of zest for life.
Speaker 1: And I think it informs the sort of joada vive
Speaker 1: of certainly of my character my worldview, right. I think
Speaker 1: the Jadevi is key you really want to treat the
Speaker 1: audible is amazing of your book. Hearing you actually, you know,
Speaker 1: talk about that time and the move from Dayton to
Speaker 1: Malibu and then everything that went down, the buses you
Speaker 1: had to take to the parents that didn't exist. And
Speaker 1: there's so much humor in your point of view in
Speaker 1: it even being like where you were allowed to sit
Speaker 1: on the bus. Oh yeah, you weren't allowed to sit
Speaker 1: on the bus. So I was never a cool kid,
Speaker 1: so I couldn't sit with the I find that so
Speaker 1: hard to believe. Like, no, no, man, listen, I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a surfer then. I only learned to surf
Speaker 1: in my forties. I came to Malibu at thirteen, and
Speaker 1: you they weren't going to let a thirteen year old
Speaker 1: Ohio kid. They were meet the shit out of you. Wow,
Speaker 1: Like if you were from the Valley and you tried
Speaker 1: to surf there, they'd slash your tires. Really, it's a
Speaker 1: real no fool and territorial surf gangs. And they weren't
Speaker 1: going some kid, right go out and surf. So I
Speaker 1: never learned. But Malibu then was was a very very
Speaker 1: different thing than it was than than it is now.
Speaker 1: It was really rugged, yeah, super rugged. Now you get
Speaker 1: this that feel and sort of and very sort of
Speaker 1: you know, working class. It was like Fireman and cops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's so special about you, Rob Is you kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to be an actor and I'm going to
Speaker 1: figure this out and I could beat up today. But
Speaker 1: they didn't appreciate me being an actor. Even I came
Speaker 1: from Ohio. They thought I was really crazy wanting to
Speaker 1: be an actor. I get to California to I think
Speaker 1: everybody it's the bastion of show business. And they didn't
Speaker 1: like it either, right, they just did. It was like
Speaker 1: when you go back to Ohio to be and you
Speaker 1: were like, oh, maybe like Peanut Butter and Jelly is
Speaker 1: gonna be like performing it. I was in a a
Speaker 1: Kid's All Star review in Ohio when I was ten
Speaker 1: eleven twelve called Peanut Butter and Jelly and we would
Speaker 1: do covers I think somebody's saying You're so vain by
Speaker 1: Carly Simon. But we also did original pieces and we
Speaker 1: would like do play at the malls and the opening
Speaker 1: of things, and like, we didn't play like bar Mitzva's,
Speaker 1: but it was very close, right. We didn't playing in
Speaker 1: barn Mitchens. They weren't a Jewish. We would have played right.
Speaker 1: But I thought that was like the beginning of my
Speaker 1: big break that I was in Peanut, Butter and Jelly.
Speaker 1: What a great name. As lame as the name is
Speaker 1: is as lame as my memory of it was. But boy,
Speaker 1: I thought it was now. But I love it because
Speaker 1: you tell a story of going back and you're like
Speaker 1: miserable going back something to Ohio and then you call
Speaker 1: up the guy. I was like, hey, we say as
Speaker 1: peot Butter Jelly. Still, it was like it was like
Speaker 1: Fleetwood Mac. So as Fleetwood Mac getting back together. Man,
Speaker 1: we gonna we're gonna go on the road. We're gonna
Speaker 1: play the Dayton Mall. And they just were like, no, kid,
Speaker 1: that's it's over. There's a little life. You're done. You know,
Speaker 1: I know a lot about Rob's career because just being
Speaker 1: basically the same age I watch, and there was a
Speaker 1: lot of influences of your movies and things that were
Speaker 1: going on, your reference sort of growing up in Malibu
Speaker 1: and the kids and the freedom. How did you figure
Speaker 1: that out with Sheryl, with your boys, because the world
Speaker 1: changed so much. The world did change. I mean, no
Speaker 1: no parent today is gonna let their kid go on
Speaker 1: an audition from Mali Boo into Hollywood taking three buses
Speaker 1: by themselves, by themselves at twelve, right, it's not going
Speaker 1: to happen. So when I had kids, I tried to
Speaker 1: give them as from as much freedom as I could.
Speaker 1: And the main thing I did was, there's always going
Speaker 1: to be that cool house that everybody wants to hang
Speaker 1: out at, and I decided it would be mine. Yeah, key,
Speaker 1: because they can keep an eye on everybody. When I
Speaker 1: was young, it was the Sheen's house, but Martin was
Speaker 1: always on location, right, So Rob grew up literally next
Speaker 1: to Martin Sheen and Janet she Martin and Emilio Esteva's
Speaker 1: and Charlie Sheen. We were all friends and there's the
Speaker 1: cool house because they're cool people. But they also had
Speaker 1: a pool. They had an amazing pool. So I recreated
Speaker 1: that with my house, so all the kids were there
Speaker 1: all the time. I know all my my boys friends.
Speaker 1: So you have the intel. Yeah, you have the behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. Otherwise you're not getting it because they're not
Speaker 1: going to give it up to you. But if you
Speaker 1: kind of witness it, then you're It's it's very helpful
Speaker 1: as a parent. You talk about and I find I
Speaker 1: found it so devastating. So you talk about those group
Speaker 1: of kids that you were growing up with they all
Speaker 1: died horribly. Yeah, we had in my junior high, my
Speaker 1: junior I was three grades, was the seventh grade, eighth grade,
Speaker 1: ninth grade, junior high. Seven hundred kids probably right, and
Speaker 1: there were at least seven deaths, And like, if that
Speaker 1: happened today, it'd be like an international news story completely,
Speaker 1: it'd be like what's going on? And nobody cared. It
Speaker 1: was just like it was just a different time. But
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of them were drug overdoses. A
Speaker 1: lot of them were tragic freak accidents. Yeah, but all
Speaker 1: of them were because of the lack of parent oversight,
Speaker 1: access to drugs, and the behavior that unsupervised kids will
Speaker 1: have that put you in a position to have a
Speaker 1: freak accident. Yeah, you lay that out, I think kind
Speaker 1: of perfectly with those like three things that come into
Speaker 1: play as far as what's responsible for that, because clearly
Speaker 1: there's still an issue going on with kids that are
Speaker 1: doing and they're dying from fetanol overdoses, and kids don't
Speaker 1: have the freedom that they used to. But what I
Speaker 1: feel from your growing up was a kid that knew
Speaker 1: who he wanted to be, how to get there, how
Speaker 1: to figure out how to get there, to be a kid,
Speaker 1: to be able to take three buses to go to
Speaker 1: an audition that, like you said, at that age, at
Speaker 1: that age, which is a thirty second audition for a commercial,
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, you know, turnaround, but name great, go home.
Speaker 1: And it's like I knew what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I knew who I wanted to be, and it was
Speaker 1: a blessing. It gave me a focus. I didn't have
Speaker 1: to struggle. And I see so many almost everybody, you know,
Speaker 1: at a certain point of going what am I going
Speaker 1: to do with my life? And you know, I just
Speaker 1: didn't have that experience. It's hard for me. I empathize
Speaker 1: with it, huh, But I don't relate to it because
Speaker 1: I didn't have that. I was just a completely driven,
Speaker 1: single focused. You were amazing. You tell the story A
Speaker 1: little heartbreaking. Was Telly Savalis in the department store story? Yeah?
Speaker 1: When I was still living in Dayton in the mid seventies,
Speaker 1: there was nobody bigger than Kojack, nobody nobody. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be an actor. And I read in the paper
Speaker 1: that Telly Savalis is going to be appearing at the
Speaker 1: Reichs department store on the eighth floor next to the
Speaker 1: women's lingerie, and I was like what, So I take
Speaker 1: the bus again with the buses, and then there's another one.
Speaker 1: I'm ten years old and hey, mom, I wanted to
Speaker 1: some Hollywood actor down at the department. Yeah. Great, So
Speaker 1: I go down there. I wait in like a four
Speaker 1: hour line to get his autograph. I finally get to
Speaker 1: the front of the line and they shut the line down.
Speaker 1: It's time for him to go. And I'm super bumped
Speaker 1: because I bought him a lollipop because Kojack his bit
Speaker 1: was he always sucked a lollipop. And I think he
Speaker 1: has taggin who loves you baby? Who loves your baby?
Speaker 1: With his like blowpop or whatever it was. And and
Speaker 1: I'm like all of ten and I and I I
Speaker 1: grab one of the guys by the coat and excuse me,
Speaker 1: circuit you, maybe you could just give this lollipop to
Speaker 1: mistress of policy. Yeah, your kid, absolutely, And he turns
Speaker 1: to walk away and he throws it in the trash
Speaker 1: and I was so like heartbroken, and I just remember it.
Speaker 1: I've never forgotten it. I think about it all the
Speaker 1: time in terms of dealing with people who come up
Speaker 1: to me. I was at once a fan of somebody's
Speaker 1: and so I don't have to try too. It's in
Speaker 1: my nature. I always enjoy meeting people because I remember
Speaker 1: it vividly what it's like to be a fan of somebody's. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I don't want to throw anybody's lollipop in the trash.
Speaker 1: We're back today is a special one for me on
Speaker 1: Table for two with the beautiful Rob below. Rob's four
Speaker 1: decade career wasn't always easy, and in nineteen eighty two
Speaker 1: he nearly walked away. But just a year later, Francis
Speaker 1: Ford Copoli's adaptation of the Outsiders changed Rob's life forever.
Speaker 1: Let's jump back into our dinner. You know, your memoir
Speaker 1: really goes deep into the audition process and then the
Speaker 1: actual shooting process with Francis Ford Coppolo, which is like
Speaker 1: crazy what he made you guys do, and like because
Speaker 1: that was like the first really big moment my first movie.
Speaker 1: That was your first movie. I've done a sitcom on
Speaker 1: ABC and I played like the Teenager the Teenage Son
Speaker 1: when it ran for like six episodes and was canceled. Um.
Speaker 1: And then I've done some after school specials. If you
Speaker 1: remember those Wednesdays on yours it was a big deal.
Speaker 1: It was a big one. Yeah, it was. It was.
Speaker 1: It was an important moment for me. But I yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd never done a movie. And you know, sitcoms and
Speaker 1: natter school specials are not movies, right, and they're certainly
Speaker 1: not Frances for Coppola. And you know Coppola at that
Speaker 1: still one of our great filmmakers. Yeah, at that moment,
Speaker 1: he was you know, he was only a few years
Speaker 1: off of making Apocalypse Now, right, and you know, and
Speaker 1: of course got The Godfathers. And so here's this very
Speaker 1: very lauded, serious filmmaker doing a movie where all the
Speaker 1: roles are fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year olds, right, and you know,
Speaker 1: all the kid actors were like this, this is the
Speaker 1: it's the goal. The Willie Wonka gold tickets. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: everybody wanted. And and you talk about the auditions and
Speaker 1: you reference in the auditions. So there's the West Coast
Speaker 1: guys that are auditioning and the New York actors. Right.
Speaker 1: I love this because he really makes you work for this.
Speaker 1: The West Coast actors were you Amelia Amelio. Weirdly enough,
Speaker 1: Tom because he was staying out here with Amelia. So
Speaker 1: Cruz was out here even though he was East Coast
Speaker 1: pony Boy Tommy Howe. And then we went to the
Speaker 1: East Coast and that's where Matt Dillon was, Ralph Maccio played,
Speaker 1: and we went through this whole process months, months of auditions,
Speaker 1: months and months and months and months, and then he
Speaker 1: picked his favorites. And then he took us to New
Speaker 1: York and it was the same thing there, but it
Speaker 1: was months. It was, you know, a week and then
Speaker 1: but we did. I mean, there's more filmed footage of
Speaker 1: us auditioning than there probably is of us making the
Speaker 1: actual movie. Actually, if you go on YouTube you can
Speaker 1: see it. You see some really great early stuff. So
Speaker 1: the process of that film, when your sons look at
Speaker 1: that movie, what was their reaction to that movie? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how much of anything of mine my
Speaker 1: sons have actually seen. Really. I know, John Owen is
Speaker 1: never seen the West Wing. Really, this is what it's
Speaker 1: it's become a bit now now now that's his professional
Speaker 1: calling card. Of course he doesn't really know, right, right,
Speaker 1: And I actually do think they've all seen The Outsiders because,
Speaker 1: much to their mortification, they had to read the book
Speaker 1: and see the movie in class. Right, it is that's
Speaker 1: seventh grade. It's in the curriculum across the country the
Speaker 1: most part. And there's nothing I love more than going
Speaker 1: into a seventh grade class right after they've seen the
Speaker 1: movie or and read the book and talking to them.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it because I love kids,
Speaker 1: but also it's a new crop of fans. I mean
Speaker 1: to be able to you know, the key to longevity
Speaker 1: is you can't if your audience ages out. Yeah you're done.
Speaker 1: You're done. So the key to a long career is
Speaker 1: if you're lucky enough to figure it out. Having a
Speaker 1: new crop of people discover you every year. And the
Speaker 1: outsiders does that right by design? That's interesting. Did you
Speaker 1: hear from those young people all the time? I see,
Speaker 1: I still have fourteen fifteen year olds come up to
Speaker 1: me and freak because it's soda pop Curt please, I freaked.
Speaker 1: What was the toughest part when you were in production
Speaker 1: with that? The night shoots? You know, I mean I
Speaker 1: never made a movie, so the notion of shooting all
Speaker 1: night right in the rain, and the fight the big
Speaker 1: rumble scene was a whole week of shooting all at
Speaker 1: night with freezing cold, no dressing rooms, no, no Francis
Speaker 1: was very mercurial. He would treat the cast great and
Speaker 1: then wouldn't provide any anywhere for us to get warm. Right.
Speaker 1: I love that. I didn't know this if Frances when
Speaker 1: you run into Darren Dalton, who plays a soy in
Speaker 1: the elevator and you're with Tommy Howell and you guys
Speaker 1: are on one floor and in the hotel, the socias,
Speaker 1: if you watch this movie, they have like access to
Speaker 1: a gym and room service. I love that whole And
Speaker 1: the best part of it was it didn't work. Though,
Speaker 1: the best part it was it's still the outsiders. Everybody
Speaker 1: wants to be a greaser. Everyone, every one of those
Speaker 1: socials would like like, I'll do without the room service,
Speaker 1: I'll do without the suite. I'd rather have the better part.
Speaker 1: So that's always my I mean, Francis had all of
Speaker 1: these great social engineering experiments he wanted to try. He
Speaker 1: had us playing tackle football in the street, and I'll
Speaker 1: never forget Tommy Howell play pony boy. His dad was
Speaker 1: one of the great stuntman, Chris Howell, the legendary stuntman,
Speaker 1: so Tommy knew his way around even though he's only fifteen.
Speaker 1: He huddled this up, and so listen, I'm calling this game.
Speaker 1: We're done here. If I break my leg on this
Speaker 1: next football play, I'll be on the next flight home
Speaker 1: and somebody else will be playing Pony my favorite thing. Though,
Speaker 1: Francis wanted us to learn about being greasers by talking
Speaker 1: to people who were greasers in the fifties. So me
Speaker 1: and Cruz were hooked up with this family and I
Speaker 1: had to go spend the night at their house and
Speaker 1: the basements, and I can just remember lying in this
Speaker 1: cot in the basement of a house in Tulsa with
Speaker 1: a with a family I never knew, and just looking
Speaker 1: over at Tom and going, what the what the fuck
Speaker 1: are we doing? It was I mean, I understand why
Speaker 1: Francis did it, I get it, but it was It's
Speaker 1: very odd and not the way most people make movies.
Speaker 1: Is that sort of methody in a way, and also
Speaker 1: odd because you guys were young. But I realized the
Speaker 1: only letter when I read I think it's easy Rider
Speaker 1: Raging Bulls so the great book about movie making. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the seventies and eighties, that Francis had lost the
Speaker 1: money for the movie and or it had an all.
Speaker 1: So he was like vamping smart, so he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: giving himself time. He also we would make us wake
Speaker 1: up at six in the morning and do tai chi
Speaker 1: on the location. And I could never figure out what
Speaker 1: doing tai chi had to do with playing in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties grease sir, but whatever, you know, that's Francis said.
Speaker 1: He he's a genius. I mean he beats to his
Speaker 1: own drum. So if you had to like think back then,
Speaker 1: if you had to sort of say, think of an
Speaker 1: adjective for each person that you were with, Like if
Speaker 1: you if I said, Swayzie, like what is he's a mind?
Speaker 1: He was a true renaissance man. He was a professional
Speaker 1: ballet dancer. He was a rodeo champion. He was a songwriter.
Speaker 1: There's there's wasn't a job that he hadn't had. There
Speaker 1: wasn't anything that he wasn't good at. He was a gymnast.
Speaker 1: He was just one of those guys. It was like
Speaker 1: anything you mentioned, yeah, did that, Yeah, and he had right.
Speaker 1: There wasn't like, Hey, this guy that as Scott up
Speaker 1: twenty seven times, he's just one of those guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like a really great guy. Good guy. He
Speaker 1: was a great guy in super intense, Like, but if
Speaker 1: you could harness Swayzy and cruise energy, we could light
Speaker 1: the world for a thousand years. So okay, let's go
Speaker 1: to cruise. Cruise seemed like ambitious, ambitious hands never met
Speaker 1: anybody more ambitious, and I'm ambitious. He makes me look
Speaker 1: like a Hackey Sack plan doper with a pork pie
Speaker 1: hat on in Brooklyn. Now did he take that tooth
Speaker 1: out purposely? Yes? That was intense. Yeah, I mean, like
Speaker 1: I remember the tooth out. It was there's a lot
Speaker 1: of one up in going on. It was like, right,
Speaker 1: the only way that any of us got the parts
Speaker 1: where it was killer be killed. So the people who
Speaker 1: figured out a way to stand out got the parts.
Speaker 1: That's what Frances wanted. Pitted everybody against everybody, and so
Speaker 1: sure it was hopefully in theory the best actors one,
Speaker 1: but I've always thought it was it was the people
Speaker 1: who had who could stand the pressure and who could
Speaker 1: find a way to score. And Tom's part of Steve
Speaker 1: Randall is not a huge part, but you know, Tom
Speaker 1: being Tom was like ambitious and you know, I remember all.
Speaker 1: France has also thought that we should all be gymnasts
Speaker 1: for some reason you talk. And so we had to
Speaker 1: learn how to do backflips. And so, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've ever tried to learn how to do a backflip.
Speaker 1: It's not fun and it's scary as shit. You feel
Speaker 1: like you're gonna break your neck. Yes, and I was
Speaker 1: not good. None of us are particularly swayzy. Of course,
Speaker 1: already knew how to do it right, because he knows
Speaker 1: how to do everything. But Tom took it. So and
Speaker 1: if you see The Outsiders and then there's the movies playing,
Speaker 1: and the movie just stops dead and Tom does a
Speaker 1: backflip off of a card, and then the movie continues
Speaker 1: right which and in that so it starts with Tom
Speaker 1: doing a backflip and the Outsiders it and ends with
Speaker 1: Tom shooting a movie in the space station, which he's
Speaker 1: doing next. We started a very serious trend for him.
Speaker 1: You really did. Yeah. So now Matt Dylan, who seemed
Speaker 1: kind of brooding and intense, he's like the New York
Speaker 1: He was Francis's favorite. He was Francis was in love
Speaker 1: with them, really so much so that when the movie
Speaker 1: came out, we were making the book an exact replica
Speaker 1: of the book. And when the movie came out, it
Speaker 1: was all centered on Matt's character, so they cut a
Speaker 1: lot of what we shot and about I think about
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, they re cut The Outsiders to what
Speaker 1: we actually know what. It's called The Outsiders the Complete Novel,
Speaker 1: and that is now sort of what everybody watches. But
Speaker 1: that original version is a extremely truncated and it was
Speaker 1: really shocking for all of us when we saw it
Speaker 1: because not what we did, but it was Francis's desire
Speaker 1: to focus totally on the Matt Dylan character so beacting
Speaker 1: when the movie came out that that would be the
Speaker 1: way it was. Never I will never. I've never fully
Speaker 1: gotten over seeing theatrical nineteen eighty three version of The
Speaker 1: Outsiders for the first time because all my stuff was
Speaker 1: basically cut no way. I mean, I still have a
Speaker 1: presence in the movie. That's good and yeah, but one
Speaker 1: of the reasons they cut it was and this is
Speaker 1: just shows you how far we've all come. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite scenes I've ever done cut from the original
Speaker 1: film is pony Boy and I in bed together thinking
Speaker 1: about our parents and holding each other right. And when
Speaker 1: they showed it in the theaters, all of the thirteen
Speaker 1: fourteen year old boys were so uncomfortable by it that
Speaker 1: they kind of made a ruck us and they cut.
Speaker 1: They cut that scene, and then I think, once you
Speaker 1: cut that scene, you start cutting the fan. But it's
Speaker 1: a really beautiful scene and it's in the Outsiders, the
Speaker 1: novel super sweet? Is it in the longer? Noways? Okay?
Speaker 1: I watch this great? Are you friends with the guys
Speaker 1: from the outside? When I was roasted on Comedy Central,
Speaker 1: which is one of my favorite things, by the way,
Speaker 1: it's the meanest roast in the history, the best sense
Speaker 1: of you. It's so fun. I can take it, and
Speaker 1: I condition this is rough. Natchio was on My Dais
Speaker 1: to rest me. So I see Ralph Amelia I haven't
Speaker 1: seen a long time. He and I were best friends
Speaker 1: for years and years and years, and Diane Blaine and
Speaker 1: I are always I've seen her around. I did my
Speaker 1: one man show in Atlanta and Tommy Howell came and
Speaker 1: I brought him up on stage. But it's we don't
Speaker 1: really see each other though. I mean, I haven't seen
Speaker 1: a lot of them in years and years, and it's
Speaker 1: not kind of like life. It is, well, it's kind of,
Speaker 1: but there's always that bond. It's like, I'm sure. It's
Speaker 1: like when you're together, it's like you're it's like you
Speaker 1: never Yeah, And I don't know how if you if
Speaker 1: you suffer from this, like when incredible things happen to
Speaker 1: you and time goes by, you begin to question your
Speaker 1: own memory because it's so outrageous and see that could
Speaker 1: possibly have happened. And then you it's like you do
Speaker 1: with your guy with a brother, and I go, remember
Speaker 1: what mom did? Did she really needs it? Yeah? Because
Speaker 1: you question your youth. Yeah, and so chab Rob's brother
Speaker 1: who I know. I love job, super nice guy. It's
Speaker 1: like you need a witness in life. Yes, having a witness,
Speaker 1: Having a sibling that witnesses all of it so helpful.
Speaker 1: You do get to a point where you're like, wait,
Speaker 1: did that really happen. I'm gonna do that with the outsiders.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be like, did we really shoot from twenty
Speaker 1: four consecutive hours? Yeah? Right? Did we? Did Francis really
Speaker 1: have a rap party every Friday night, every Friday, every Friday,
Speaker 1: sushi flown in China, eating on China. This is hop
Speaker 1: This doesn't happen now. By the way, we also shout
Speaker 1: the movie in complete continuity, which is unheard of. You
Speaker 1: don't do like so when you make a movie, you
Speaker 1: shoot each location all the way out. So but there
Speaker 1: scenes an in a house that and you go in
Speaker 1: and you watch the movie in the houses throughout the movie,
Speaker 1: you shoot that house everything in it, and then you
Speaker 1: go We shot the entire movie and continuity. So if
Speaker 1: there was a scene in the house, we shot that,
Speaker 1: and then if in the script we went to a lake,
Speaker 1: we shot the lake, and then if there was a
Speaker 1: scene and that, we went back to the house, and
Speaker 1: then we had a better process. I thought it was great.
Speaker 1: Frances did it? I think to help us as actors? Well,
Speaker 1: how did it? Field would be kind of labeled the
Speaker 1: Brat Pack, like what was that at the time? That time? Good?
Speaker 1: I mean, I thought it was cool, but I don't know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't. Well that's what I realized quicker than a
Speaker 1: lot of the other people in the Brat Pack was
Speaker 1: to to the world large. Yeah, they thought it was cool,
Speaker 1: but if you read the article that it was based on,
Speaker 1: it was absolutely meant as a pejorative right, and a
Speaker 1: sort of dismissive catch all for you know, callo ambition soaked.
Speaker 1: You know, Hollywood operators, you know, who are just spending
Speaker 1: as much time partying as they did with their craft.
Speaker 1: That's absolutely what it meant. And the industry certainly got
Speaker 1: that message. And so within the confidence of Hollywood and
Speaker 1: New York it meant one thing, right, But in the
Speaker 1: world it meant something else. And you know, I very
Speaker 1: quickly got to the point where I realized that I
Speaker 1: was like, how great? But there were other other folks
Speaker 1: who to this day won't talk about some of those
Speaker 1: movies because they were so they felt so pigeonholed by
Speaker 1: that name. Right. But you know, like, I've had a
Speaker 1: ton of therapy over my years, and you realize that
Speaker 1: that people's perception is none of your business. Thanks for
Speaker 1: pulling up a chair tonight, everyone, movie star, TV star,
Speaker 1: podcaster and author. But that doesn't mean you get everything.
Speaker 1: It was a show he was obsessed with as a teenager.
Speaker 1: He never got to be on Did you ever do
Speaker 1: in the day? There was the thing that they used
Speaker 1: to do on ABC, The Battle The Network Stars. Oh,
Speaker 1: listen to me, I'm obsessed with Battle Network Stars. I
Speaker 1: went to The Battle Network Stars multiple times. You did oh?
Speaker 1: Did they do it up? In like on the beach
Speaker 1: if you it's a very embarrassing shot of me that
Speaker 1: exists on Google and my red dolphin shorts. Come on,
Speaker 1: anybody can pull them off, no shirt. And I'm sitting
Speaker 1: on the endfield of the Battle of the Network Stars.
Speaker 1: I think I want I wanted to go and see
Speaker 1: Fara Fawcett majors at that time, right, um. But by
Speaker 1: the time I was well known that that era was over,
Speaker 1: was done. Yeah, So the Battle of Network Stars was
Speaker 1: literally the biggest thing out. It was like the Oscars.
Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah, everyone tuned in and it was all
Speaker 1: these actors from the different networks competing against each other. Today,
Speaker 1: I was thinking, how you would do today? But today
Speaker 1: it would it would be like it would have to
Speaker 1: be like from Ozark Jason Bateman, he would be pulling
Speaker 1: a tug of war with the cast of Succession, um
Speaker 1: and you know the cast of Veep in the realist
Speaker 1: like it would be. That's what it would have to be,
Speaker 1: that level the Game of Thrones. People in the dump tank.
Speaker 1: Do you think celebrity and stars have changed for sure? Right?
Speaker 1: I mean, what would it have been like if you
Speaker 1: could see anytime you wanted on TMZ, Marilyn Monroe with
Speaker 1: her yoga mat rolled up under her arm, James Dean
Speaker 1: coming out of Airwan, Steve McClean, Yeah, Steve me. Just
Speaker 1: there's no mystery and now you know you have it
Speaker 1: on TMZ, you have everybody has Instagram and there's just
Speaker 1: no mystery anywhere. And I'm not sure if it's a
Speaker 1: good thing or a bad thing, but I know that
Speaker 1: it has. It's changed how people perceive stars, and it's
Speaker 1: harder for young people who are just starting out to
Speaker 1: achieve the kind of career where they transcend any individual
Speaker 1: part they're playing. Are there people that are resonating with
Speaker 1: you that you're like, wow, this is someone to watch.
Speaker 1: I remember not all of them are young, but there
Speaker 1: are people that you see for the first time and go,
Speaker 1: oh my god. Yeah. I remember watching one of my
Speaker 1: favorite moves is The Witch, and seeing Anya Taylor Joy
Speaker 1: in that and she's going on to have this amazing career,
Speaker 1: and I think she was probably all of seventeen in
Speaker 1: The Witch, and you go, holy crap, who's that right?
Speaker 1: So that's one a young one. But then you also
Speaker 1: get people who are not young, and you watch inglorious
Speaker 1: bastards and you're introduced to Christophe Waltz and I turned
Speaker 1: to my wife, Ago, that guy's winning the Academy Award
Speaker 1: this year, and he did. So it's super fun when
Speaker 1: you when you see that. Yeah, who were your for?
Speaker 1: People that really influence Paul Newman? Paul Newman, But you're
Speaker 1: casting the Sundance Kid, the Staying Robert Redford. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: Electric Horseman, Three Days The Condor, Dustin Hoffman, A marathon Man.
Speaker 1: I mean, these were the movies Alpaccino, Appaccino, Godfather and
Speaker 1: Dog Day Afternoon, Don Day Afternoon, de Niro in Raging
Speaker 1: Bull and Deer Hunter, Debrah Winger, Officer and a Gentleman. Right,
Speaker 1: is amazing, Like that movie. I saw it again the
Speaker 1: other day. It's so good. Richard gear In that it's
Speaker 1: sexy any thing. They had sex scenes in those days, right,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like your sex scenes in your movies.
Speaker 1: I remember you had sex scenes. Oh, I would are
Speaker 1: you had too many sex scenes? Right? Well, only because
Speaker 1: you're in the body you're in, I mean you. And
Speaker 1: by the way, the sex scenes are always on page
Speaker 1: seventy three. I don't know why because I think seventy
Speaker 1: three is the middle of act two, And as any
Speaker 1: writer will tell you, middle of act two is where
Speaker 1: things get a little slow. Okay, so that's where I
Speaker 1: would always go to page I'm just telling you. Look
Speaker 1: at any script from like Vision Quest, like the sort
Speaker 1: of teen. Yes, that's the one where page seventy three,
Speaker 1: somebody has to get naked, and usually it was made.
Speaker 1: Did you ever have a sex scene that it was
Speaker 1: like just gone all wrong? There was like chemistry wasn't
Speaker 1: there that people didn't which was like I had. I
Speaker 1: had sex scenes with people who I thought, oh, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be off the chain and it was like me.
Speaker 1: And then it also had the scenes where I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is whatever the and I was like why going on?
Speaker 1: So you just and you never it never You just
Speaker 1: never know, and it just speaks to chemistry. It really
Speaker 1: proves it's not about the physical necessarily. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a great pa seeing Paul Newman. You know, Paul Newman
Speaker 1: used to say to actresses before sex scenes. He says,
Speaker 1: if I get aroused, I hope you'll forgive me, and
Speaker 1: also forgive me if I don't. There you go. You
Speaker 1: never know who's going to show up at the Sunset Tower.
Speaker 1: But fresh off the plane from New York City, my
Speaker 1: bestie Andy Cohen walks up, grabs some French fries and
Speaker 1: heckles us over my shoulder. Show pull pull up a
Speaker 1: mic when I was talking about are you letting roth
Speaker 1: of a word in? Yes, totally, of course. No, we
Speaker 1: just we just talked about the Battle of the Network stars.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's my favorite competed on Battle of
Speaker 1: the Network. Even better. I went, I went and watched
Speaker 1: it in red dolphin shorts and no shirts. Oh and
Speaker 1: there the picture exists. Sadly, Wow, sadly, Who woman, I'm
Speaker 1: fifteen and I look like Christie McNichol with their top off?
Speaker 1: What woman do you remember seeing that caught your eye
Speaker 1: at the Network? Oh? All of them? Because it was
Speaker 1: what I now realized, it was just an excuse to
Speaker 1: have nipples showing for bathing suits. It was literally only
Speaker 1: you know, if you ever listened to clips of it now,
Speaker 1: Howard Cosell's commentary is so sexist and offense defense. It
Speaker 1: isn't just everything that he's like a dirty old man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the year that I wi went multiple years because
Speaker 1: they they shot at a pepperdine and I feel yeah,
Speaker 1: so I went one year because Chevy Chase was going
Speaker 1: to be in it. He was my hero. He did
Speaker 1: not show. And then I went one yeares he Farah
Speaker 1: fawce at Majors. Oh my god, that's worth the trup
Speaker 1: And did you see her? I did? Wow? And did
Speaker 1: you ever know her later in your life when you
Speaker 1: became famous? I did? I remember at right at Spago
Speaker 1: one time in the eighties when Ryan O'Neill and Farah
Speaker 1: walked in this day with the most beautiful couple I'd
Speaker 1: ever seen walk into her room. Wow, like there absolute
Speaker 1: height of their beauty. It was insane. Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go get a drink and let you guys be I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be at the bar, all right. Good to see you,
Speaker 1: all right, see you never know at the tower at
Speaker 1: the town. This is you know, your wife is amazing.
Speaker 1: You have a very long relationship, married thirty two years.
Speaker 1: Y is one of the coolest women out. Thank you.
Speaker 1: She was super excited that is coming to hang with you.
Speaker 1: This is awesome and we connect. How do you keep
Speaker 1: a marriage in Hollywood in that form? How do you
Speaker 1: you know? Because it's hard. I think it's it's hard.
Speaker 1: Any It's hard anywhere, right, I mean, it is not
Speaker 1: just Hollywood, it's everywhere. Marriage is hard, and it's it
Speaker 1: can be hard. It's not hard. If we're hard, nobody
Speaker 1: would do it right. It can be hard and will
Speaker 1: be hard. Um. I have a couple thoughts. One of
Speaker 1: it one is that it's it's all about who you choose.
Speaker 1: You know, I chose schl was, was and is my
Speaker 1: best friend. So if you marry for anything other than
Speaker 1: the fact that it's your best friend, you're you're at
Speaker 1: a disadvantage from the jump, because that will sustain when
Speaker 1: the other stuff ebbs and flows exactly. People say marriage
Speaker 1: takes work. I'm not sure if it takes work, But
Speaker 1: but what it does take us forgiveness and being really
Speaker 1: cognizant of what hill you're willing to die on. That
Speaker 1: is sage. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 1: takes staying in the room. Yes, because if you leave
Speaker 1: the room, just stay in the room when it ebbs
Speaker 1: and flows. Yes, when you you know you got to
Speaker 1: stay in the room, you definitely have to stay in
Speaker 1: the room. And and then I think that there's a sense,
Speaker 1: maybe on the outside, when when one looks at a
Speaker 1: long marriage and goes, oh it's been they're blast true
Speaker 1: and it's a perfect marriage. And there's nothing that's perfect, right.
Speaker 1: And I think the minute things go south for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: it could be any any many, many, many, many reasons.
Speaker 1: I think people can go, oh, I knew it, this
Speaker 1: is this is bad, this is a mistake. The marriages
Speaker 1: that work don't have it. Everybody has those dark periods
Speaker 1: and and when they come and they do. Just like
Speaker 1: a career. Yeah, everybody has periods where it's not happening
Speaker 1: right like you would like it. You know, life is
Speaker 1: like that, it's ebbs and flows. You just can't bail
Speaker 1: on the ebbs, right because eventually it will turn around
Speaker 1: if you're with the right person, right, if you stay
Speaker 1: in it, it will last because it's unique. And you, guys,
Speaker 1: you could feel your chemistry still. We you know, we
Speaker 1: were together a couple of months ago, right, and you
Speaker 1: feel it and you're I think you're right. If you're
Speaker 1: lucky enough to fall in love with your best friend,
Speaker 1: if a person who becomes you know, you have to
Speaker 1: have the heat. I do believe you need. You need
Speaker 1: the heat for sure. And yeah, if you don't have
Speaker 1: the heat, that's a chemical thing. Yeah, that's like I
Speaker 1: still have it with Cheryl. I mean, and you got
Speaker 1: to keep the heat. You got to keep the heat.
Speaker 1: That ebbs and flows two. It's not like but when
Speaker 1: that comes into those two there there are times when
Speaker 1: you're just like ah, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you're just like a wild for somebody. Russ. It's one
Speaker 1: of the great human mysteries. What's coming up for you?
Speaker 1: So we have Unstable, So Unstable is I can't wait
Speaker 1: to I really can't wait to see you so um
Speaker 1: it's it's out now because Unstables out now streaming on netflixix.
Speaker 1: By the way, it's the breeziest, quickest, lightest, feel good romp.
Speaker 1: You can watch the entire season of Unstable in less
Speaker 1: time than it took you to watch The Irishman. That's
Speaker 1: my that's my selling points. I could feel it and
Speaker 1: you feel it. I could feel it. I mean that's
Speaker 1: the reason I watched the trailer three times. Yeah, like wise,
Speaker 1: um lone start coming back for season five. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's so much fun. And you know, the Ryan world
Speaker 1: is a great world. Rand Murphy world is a world
Speaker 1: to be in. We are just I just finished season
Speaker 1: three of the podcast. I think we're we're closing in
Speaker 1: on two hundred episodes. Wow, And what do you love
Speaker 1: about that? I love this, I love what we're doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love I love going down rabbit holes. You know,
Speaker 1: the long form interview very few people do. Podcast is
Speaker 1: where long form interviews live. So that's why I love it.
Speaker 1: And I'm very curious. So I like having people on
Speaker 1: to learn from them. But I also like having people
Speaker 1: on that I know, But I also know that the
Speaker 1: public does not know them in a way that I
Speaker 1: know them, and I want to bring that part out.
Speaker 1: Like a good example for it is Maria Shriver and
Speaker 1: Oprah and I've had them both on the podcast, and
Speaker 1: Maria is one of the smartest, eloquent, dignified former First
Speaker 1: Ladies Kennedy. But she's really funny and can like giggle
Speaker 1: and let her hair down and do that, but you
Speaker 1: never You're not seeing that when she hosts the Today Show, right,
Speaker 1: And the same with Oprah. To get Oprah laughing and
Speaker 1: doing her thing is like, you have to know somebody
Speaker 1: to bring that out. Same with Gwyneth. People have a
Speaker 1: very specific opinion of Gwyneth Paltrow. Right, And then I
Speaker 1: ever on my podcast and she's talking about how my
Speaker 1: wife taught her to give a blowjob. By way true story,
Speaker 1: the sun is setting in the Golden Hour descends upon us.
Speaker 1: I see the magic in Rob's blue eyes, and my
Speaker 1: seventeen year old self could never have dreamed that one
Speaker 1: evening I would be having dinner with Soda Popcortis. As
Speaker 1: we celebrate the fortieth anniversary of The Outsiders, I just
Speaker 1: want to say, stay gold pony boy. What would you
Speaker 1: consider your greatest professional achievement professional? Yeah, I like to
Speaker 1: think that it is. It's my longevity. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: I like as we sit here, I'm shooting a drama
Speaker 1: and action drama nine one lone Star, right, we're in
Speaker 1: our fourth year, and then also on Netflix have this
Speaker 1: hard comedy Romp and that I get to go between
Speaker 1: those worlds and is that's for me and the thing
Speaker 1: that makes me the happiest Because a lot of folks
Speaker 1: only get to do either drama or comedy and don't
Speaker 1: get to do both. I feel like you've done. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've been in theater in the West End. You from
Speaker 1: the eyes of a teenager when I first was introduced
Speaker 1: to to sort of see this longevity, to see each
Speaker 1: the decades of your war. I think you're right, it's
Speaker 1: not that's not normal. I mean I think that if
Speaker 1: you go back and you know, part of like hearing
Speaker 1: your story, all the TV shows and the things that
Speaker 1: we grew up with a lot of those people no
Speaker 1: one knows. And you know what, Here's the other part
Speaker 1: I love is I never know when someone approaches me
Speaker 1: what they're going to ask about. Right, Like there's a
Speaker 1: world in which an actor is known for one for
Speaker 1: one thing, or two, right, or maybe three. But like
Speaker 1: I was in what a room Jordan in the middle
Speaker 1: of the desert, and they say, we have surprise visitors coming,
Speaker 1: and I look up and then there's a caravan of
Speaker 1: black SUVs coming out of the desert. We're one hundred
Speaker 1: miles from anywhere. It's the Prince of Jordan. It's coming
Speaker 1: to say hello to me. He's brought his wife and
Speaker 1: two kids, because the two kids are huge fans of
Speaker 1: The Low Files, which is an obscure adventure series I
Speaker 1: did with my sons on any So you just don't
Speaker 1: know right where it's gonna hit. You never know. That's crazy,
Speaker 1: it's crazy, it's crazy. I think for me today tonight
Speaker 1: because we're having dinner, which is great. Getting to know
Speaker 1: you over the years and spending time with you, I've
Speaker 1: been not only such a fan, but I admire you.
Speaker 1: I think you know how you live your life with
Speaker 1: such integrity and with intention. You're a cool cat, so
Speaker 1: nice keep talking. It makes me feel below. So I
Speaker 1: just want to say everyone, I hope you enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed kidding me. This is great. I
Speaker 1: couldn't wait to do it. Thank you everyone for pulling
Speaker 1: up a chair on Table for two. Table for two
Speaker 1: with Bruce Bozzy is produced by iHeart Radio seven three
Speaker 1: seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are Bruce Bozzi,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Hoss, Dressler and Nathan King. Table for two is
Speaker 1: edited and written by Tina Mullen and researched and written
Speaker 1: by Bridget arsenalt Our sound engineers are Emil B. Klein,
Speaker 1: Paul Bowman and Alyssa Midcaff. Table for two's la production
Speaker 1: team is Danielle Romo and Lorraine Virez. Our music supervisor
Speaker 1: is Randall Poster. Our talent booking is by Jane Sarkin.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Amy Sugarman, Uni Cher, Kevin Yuvane, Bobby Bauer,
Speaker 1: Alison Cantor, Graber and Barbour, and Jen and Jeff Klein,
Speaker 1: and the staff at the Tower Bar in the world
Speaker 1: famous Sunset Tower Hotel. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.