RE-RELEASE - Danny DeVito

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Hey, David, you remember the show Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

Yeah, it's been on since I was born.

It's coming back.

I'm sure.

It's coming back.

Coming back.

And of course, one of the stars of Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

is our good friend Danny DeVito, who we interviewed a little while back.

That's right.

Danny

did SNL with us.

Also, everyone on Always Sonny is a star.

And it's pretty shocking that a show can still be on the air.

Even though it's really funny, it's just, that doesn't really happen as much anymore.

It's like Bonanza or gun smoke.

Yeah.

Simpsons,

there's some that just always come back.

And

so I'm glad it's back on.

I'm glad it's still funny.

I'm glad it's very edgy.

It still gives people what they want.

And I'm glad they get away with all the stuff they get away with because not many shows will try to do that anymore.

It's a great show.

And,

you know, we thought, we had a thought.

We huddled together with our team and thought that maybe we would

show Danny DeVito's interview

this week.

Yeah, that's a perfect time for it.

Yeah, a lot of people, they come and go, and it kind of goes back in the library, but we put it at the forefront and say, if you watch My Always Sunny, don't miss this episode.

It was very funny.

And he was just very uh interesting talking about the new york days and blah blah blah so here he is i hope you like him we do mr danny devito

but i was just thinking doing this in the 1960s we might have waited for yule brenner to come on and that would have been fun yule brenner would be the first yeah guest podcast guest in 1965 we'd follow him up with steve mcqueen yeah you put him on he does a little dance

does the accent He talks about the doing the jump, but he didn't really do it and the great escape.

Yeah, all the stuff that he does.

I had an apartment in New York once

in the 60s.

I got on the bulletin board of

the American Academy of Dramatic Arts where I went to school.

You know, I was looking for apartments.

Everybody was always scrounging for like

no money, but we had no money.

So they had this bulletin board.

Anyway, I went to an address and it was in the weirdest place.

It was on Madison Avenue

in like 57th or 8th Street.

645 was the address I remember.

And yeah, wow.

And

I walk in the door.

It's a really shitty building.

Now it's all, you know,

totally.

total turned into what New York is, you know.

And I

go in the building and the first thing I saw was a giant picture

of El Brenner.

Oh, man.

And it was a little shitty, yeah, a little shitty hallway, like kind of thing.

And

anyway,

it worked out because I got the apartment.

It was like the second flight up.

It had an elevator actually in the building, but very, very, very, very old school.

And, of course, 16,

it was 64 or something like that.

So, what was your rent?

Do you remember your rent?

Yes, $50 a month.

$50 a month.

And it was a one-bedroom apartment.

And the back, and the bedroom was a living room, bedroom kind of situation.

It had a nice bathroom and a kitchen and

a.

Yeah.

And the bedroom had windows that looked out over the tops of

buildings in New York.

So it was like one of those, it was like if you were

doing a play or a movie about New York and you said, like, build me

outside, like what the cyclorama would look like, or today, what you would put in

the background of your movie.

It was all the stove, you know, the exhaust pipes and the tops of buildings and railings and all that.

It looked like

you could do West Side Story on the roof.

Did people hang out of the, how out of their, out of their windows going, hey, what's with the fucking noise over here?

No, no, they weren't doing that.

It was like more like, it wasn't like enclosed, like, like if there were buildings that went up, because in that area, you know, at that time, it was just the top.

So you had a great panorama of looking east.

But no, you didn't see a river or anything.

I was on Madison Avenue, and

but to actually have that address

at that time was like

amazing, fucking crazy, because I put these other glasses, I see better from far away.

I think great, right in the heart of Midtown, right?

Yes, right in the heart of, and the thing about it is that

at that time, and a lot of people don't know this, Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue were two-way streets.

I mean, you guys weren't even born.

I was born.

I go back.

I remember Yoel Brenner.

Look, I mean, David doesn't know who Yo Brenner is.

Yes, you remember him.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I remember the King and I was a poster.

But if you imagine Madison Avenue being a two-way street and

you know New York very well and Fifth Avenue, also.

I used to walk up from 30th and go to 57th or 8th, where I lived, and uh, it was a two-way street.

It was really there, weren't any horses and carts, though.

You'd be happy to hear.

You weren't that far back?

It wasn't that far back.

Oh, good.

All right,

we're in the modern day.

Were you walking around with casting call magazine?

I was doing uh,

what

we used to get was uh show business and uh

what would they call backstage.

You remember that?

Backstage.

You guys did it all the way.

It was just, we'd buy,

you know, it was never in the magazine.

We'd buy these magazine, these papers that came out once a week, show business and

backstage.

And in there, there would be all the casting that was going on.

And we would, you know, we would go to

on the corner of, I think it was 47th and 7th was Howard Johnson's.

And everybody would meet in there.

It was like you go in, you know, take up space and have coffee and read the

latest thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, to see what was going on.

Danny, did you ever find when you auditioned for these things at the beginning?

I found this that you would audition and then

you would hear through the grapevine, they already have offers out to stars, but they're just looking for backups.

No, no, it's all it's always the same case.

So it's been that since the beginning of time.

And the other thing about, like, I'm talking about auditioning for

off, off Broadway, off-Broadway,

uh, regional theater, anything that you could get.

And, you know, sometimes you get lucky and get an audition at the public, you know,

and,

you know,

get a tiny part in uh shakespeare in the park you know like it's not literally a spear carrier but you might have a few lines like i played once i got i played the doctor in uh the merriwe

uh the doctor's servant sorry in the merry wise of windsor you know and uh the best those were the best shows uh to get because They literally paid, man.

That was like, you would wind up with $190 something dollars a week in uh in those uh

in in at joe pap's yeah 200 it was a different contract that you know no strike needed there yeah

four months of rent off broadway off broadway was great man off broadway was 68 a week 70 a week damn that's what i made on snl and snl didn't exist then did it did lauren michaels

existed?

Well, Lauren Michaels always existed.

He was in it.

He was a teenager.

And it still exists.

There is no one

before.

When did SNL start?

When did Edison L start?

That's a good question.

75.

It's like 70 something.

75.

Yeah.

So I, yeah, that's so 75.

I was already in California by then.

I came, I'd gone through off-Broadway and all those things

earlier and

did children's theater in Massachusetts.

I've done, you know, did all that kind of stuff.

And then I got lucky in the in the in 1971-ish or two around there.

And I got a part off Broadway and played martini and cuckoo's nest.

And so that was like where there should be fucking applause.

Then

I stayed in that play for almost almost a year.

It ran at the Mercer Arts Center.

And that was cool.

And then

Milos saw it and everybody saw it.

And I got lucky and got a, you know, Milos.

And then I got the movie.

And then after the movie opened, I moved out.

Wait, Danny.

Sunny, California.

My question was, when you do a play, you're not guaranteed a part in the movie, are you?

No, you're not guaranteed anything.

Our businesses, you must know this.

It's not, there's no, there are no guarantees.

There's no anything, you know.

Yeah.

I mean, once in a while, like, for instance, I, you can imagine like Brando giving a performance like he did in Streetcar.

And then, you know,

you've got to be a, you know, you have to have your head in the sand to not cast him in the movie.

So

same thing with, you know, Vivian.

they're not gonna get someone from the bachelor and they're not gonna like yeah he's gonna be uh the first choice yeah i i starred in hans and franz the musical sorry go ahead i want to hear more about hans and franz the musical hans and franz the musical what i was going to ask you danny is a philosophical question usually when people have their struggling years struggling years and then have hyper superstar success, which I'm going to put you in that category, they look back at at those early years and go, Those were some of the best days of my life.

Do you feel that, or did it suck when you look back on the struggle?

I never, I don't, first of all, I don't,

I mean, unless I'm doing something like talking to you guys, like, or something where you don't think about that as much, but you do think, like, you know,

those days were

struggles, but not, you know, not the best.

They were not,

those were the days.

Uh,

uh, I, I think

the toughest part about that, getting started was, you know, like you guys got started, like when you, you know, you, you, you hit television.

I don't know what your history is, but how, how much you did before,

before I met you

when I did the church lady or something like that.

But uh, you were there, you were, you were there, yeah.

Oh, I remember here.

Well, you hosted a couple of times.

It's just so funny.

And when I did that drum solo in the dress, you were egging me on, you know, and that was my best drum solo on television.

There you go.

You see, you have to be a coach.

You were good.

I had 10 years of

anonymity before I got SNL.

David got a movie right out of high school.

But

I know,

but then I, Danny, thank you for asking.

I did a police academy movie, Police Academy 4, the good one.

And I, and then I came back and turned something down.

I thought I was kind of a big deal.

And then I lost all my heat for three years and had to grind it back.

And it's so fucking sickening to even think about.

But it all worked out.

But like you were saying at the beginning, when you were struggling, I think, like all of us, you don't really know any better.

And you know, you're taking a risk by going into this world of movies and TV and theater.

So you can only really look back and think, God damn, how did I get through that?

But at the time,

$100 is a lot.

You get a little part is a lot.

You know, you're just sitting with your buddies at the coffee shop.

It's such a long shot to make it that it's probably

once you make it, you look back and you go, God, that was tough.

But at the time, it's tough, but you don't, I didn't really notice how tough it was.

Yeah, you don't notice it.

No, you just, well, you're focused on like, you're, you're focused on getting the job yeah so basically that was what what was going on with me i was like i would uh uh i would read those papers that you you know

and at the time

excuse me in the 60s i i didn't have an equity card so i just got out of school and like the way they did it

was

You would read in, say you'd read in the, in, in backstage that such and such was casting something and you go, okay, and they're casting over on 57th Street, you know, by Carnegie Hall, somewhere near one of those buildings down the block, whatever it was.

And

casting was, you know, say Tuesday.

Okay, but you didn't get in until the end of the, you got it.

If you didn't have an equity card, they saw everybody.

You know, they would, because everybody's looking for the right person to play the part, hopefully.

And especially if they're not, yes,

I mean, maybe they already had the lead cast, or that's the way they raised the money, or

those things.

But

you would wait up in the,

if you go, go at like three o'clock, four o'clock in the afternoon, and maybe the line was less.

And you could,

you know, you could, you waited, and then in the end, the very end,

they would let the non-equity people get in

audition.

And then they'd see everybody.

And as a matter of fact, the first play that I ever got,

I did at

in, I think it was 1968 or so,

seven,

the first off-Broadway show, because I had done regional theater.

Well,

I did toured with a play once that came out of school that was like kind of casting the

we went to two theaters went to the eugenicine o'neal foundation where they the playwrights thing in 60 something

64

and

and then like in 68

i i actually did that i went to the to one of those auditions

and where they make you wait until the very end and i peeked my head into the

you know i it was this big big door in one of those big old pre-war buildings, and the like was on, I think it might have been on like near 57th Street.

And I walk up and it's a giant door, and there's nobody there because I had gone and come back.

The line was really long, and hey, anyway, long story short, I stuck my head in, and there were, there was an actor, a director,

and a writer, and a producer sitting at a table really far away in this big empty room.

It looked like a rehearsal room.

And

I just popped my head in.

Like, and and

you know, you still,

you know, seeing people kind of thing.

And the actor,

a guy named Alan Garfield.

You remember, you know, Alan?

James Garfield's son?

No, no, I don't know who's who his dad was.

His name was Alan Garfield, but he was.

You know him, Dave?

No, I know Garfield, the cat.

Okay, anyway,

the guy literally at the table, like across the room, turns around and said, that's the guy who should play the part.

Whoa.

They were trying to talk him into, yeah, he didn't want to do this part.

It wasn't a huge part, but it was a good part.

And I stuck my head in the door and the guy and the actor, not the director and the producers and the writer or whatever.

He said, there's the guy who should play this part.

And I

backed backed out of the room or something and they came and got me and i went in and i read the lines did the thing i didn't i didn't i had never seen the script before just you know that those things where they give you the cold sides yeah yeah and i got a part in the in a in a play called shoot anything with hair that moves

of course

huge success

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Hello, it's Lena Dunham.

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I just think of the 70s and the films of the 70s and Cuckoo's Nest.

And of course that play.

Yeah.

Don't shoot anything that has hair.

And

the friends that

you made, Jack Nicholson and Michael Douglas and your class,

those 70s guys that all became, and they're lifelong friends.

What's the deal with those guys?

Are they fun or do you like them?

Or

Jack Nicholson?

Yeah, they're good to work with.

Yeah, Jack's the coolest guy out there.

Jack was like

a guy from Jersey.

He actually lived.

We were born in the same hospital.

Figure that?

Well, I'll damn sure.

And

well, hey, I'll be damn.

How about

that's what Jack would say?

I'll be damned, born in the same hospital.

Yeah, how do you like that?

Me and D, born in the same hospital.

I don't do a good

accent.

Let's see.

And then, Michael,

I met,

I met actually in the 60s at the Eugene O'Neill

Playwrights Conference up there where we, where that play that I was going through town with,

we opened the festival that year, and

that's where we met.

So, and they were, and

not only good guys, but really

fun to work with.

And once.

We got going, we had a couple of shots to work together, which was like really good.

It's good when people are looking out for you because the business is like very difficult.

And when people are looking out for you, as well as

your buddies and know

what the scoop is, then you, you know, you'd be fortunate to have those guys as friends.

You're lucky you're all good, too, because

it's hard to help each other out or recommend someone.

But if everybody's good,

all three of you.

So it's not crazy that you would all be in another movie or that you would work together because you keep

bringing it, which is hard to do.

It's all about work, the work.

Yeah.

Just keep working.

Yeah.

Keep having and having a good time.

Because our theme here

casually is S it out.

And you hosted five times.

It's very rare

to host five times.

Five o'clock.

You and John Goodman and a couple others, when you host that show, as you know, you got to pretty much cold read

55 scripts over four hours, basically.

And I remember thinking at the time when you came in in 86 or 87, damn, this guy can cold read.

Were you known for that?

But you were like nailing it, you know, over and over again.

I don't, you know, pretty cool to watch as a young performer.

Well, it was a lot of fun to sit in that room with all you crazy people and

have that pile of scripts in front of you and just go through them and

I mean that that's like

you know the opportunity to have everybody there pitching what they thought was best best and what you felt comfortable with that's the main thing I think that's key right for would you say like for the hosts

to be comfortable with all that material.

Pick the ones that are the ones that suit you best.

It's a lucky thing, like to have

that

pack of, you know,

troubadours all sitting around the table.

You know, it's like old school showbiz, kind of.

Yeah, old school.

You know, it's like, yeah, I could imagine what it was like, you know, when the Marx brothers were running around all the theaters trying out material, you know, that that would be the same kind of thing.

They just go do, they

suffer people through

two hours or three hours of material

and then pick the ones that they like best.

Yeah, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin did some TV shows in their Don Pardo show me.

They said to me, and they would just go up to the director and cut his tie off with a scissor.

This is Jerry Lewis in the 50s, and they would both just pull the piano over, like destroy the piano.

They were the anarchists then, the crazy people.

But one thing about you, I have to say, so we get to it, was on Hans and Franz, when we got you in there as like a pit bull, over-the-top

Austrian guy who was out of his mind.

And you kept, we would berate the audience, the imaginary, and you would start berating them.

And then you start attacking the camera, and we had to keep holding you back.

That was one of the funniest moments I had on that show with you, in that sketch.

Yeah.

Hysterical.

Because you committed so fucking hard.

I think sometimes the task of the director for me is,

you know, sitting on me, holding me back, get me away from the, just try to turn the

burners down a little bit, you know.

Once I get going, I guess that's what happens.

Burners down.

Well, that's what Arnold, Arnold told me about you.

He said, you know, you got to keep Danny on his feet.

Keep Danny on his feet because his energy goes up.

He has a short leash.

Otherwise, he gets going.

He gets away at the leash.

And

you have to follow him and get him and bring him back into the scene because the emotions get so high with Danny.

It's funny about it, about with Arnold.

Arnold and I were thrust together by Ivan Reitman, who just passed away.

He called me and said, How would you like to be Arnold Schwarzenegger's brother?

I said,

I'll jump at the chance.

I thought that was a great idea.

Once we got together, it was like we had a great chemistry.

We breaking balls constantly it was like a kind of like you know uh

you know he's he's so formidable you know and like and he's got a great sense of humor he does have oh yeah like he's always

doing all kinds of like you know crazy ass shit and he always had a pack of guys around him like uh franco and and uh franco colombo franco colombo yeah and all these guys and these other bodybuilders and so it was like a pack of it was like a pack of bros it was similar you know going into like that with the you know as a host of saturday night live going into this pack of like crazy people that were always you know that had a second hand a shorthand and and uh and got along the way you guys did i don't you know at least when when i was around you we were always you know fucking around having a good time and so it was a similar kind of thing with uh with arnold i I go in and there would all be these guys

seriously pumping iron and doing shit and

talking about,

you know, and I just like, you can, when you get protein,

all of a sudden a kind of a wrecking ball comes in and starts banging into, you know,

it was fun.

It was a lot of fun.

Were they going to do a triplets?

Yeah, we were going to do it.

And then

two,

this is a,

I always go by the Super Bowl Bowl because I was in Atlanta

doing a movie and

it was Super Bowl Sunday and I was just getting over COVID.

I was stuck in a room for two weeks and

the news came that Ivan passed away on that day.

And so this is going to be three

years now that he's gone.

Yeah, three years.

Two years.

Yeah.

Okay.

Brilliant director.

Yeah, it was a drag.

He was,

you know, he's a lot of fun and

made it made a big difference in my life.

Well,

I was told that.

But we were going to do triplets.

Oh, we were going to do triplets.

We had a script going.

Everything was going.

And then when he passed,

his family didn't want to continue with doing it.

So we're, Arnold and I are working on other things together.

Oh, good.

And, you know, that's awesome.

We love Arnold.

Yeah,

he's a cool guy.

He's a good guy.

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All right, Dana, you know, I'm always dragging around and

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I know that about those.

Yeah, they're either in my sock, in the car, they're somewhere.

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I give them a little slurp.

I don't really shoot the whole thing like like some people do on an empty stomach.

I think I eat a little bit, a couple sips, just like coffee.

Just keep, just keep something going here.

I don't.

I'm actually,

I don't want that much energy at once.

It's five hours, so I kind of, you know, that's what most people do, but I sip it overall.

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Tracy Morgan was going to come in.

I'll put a baby in there.

You know, he's so funny.

We had a great Zoom together, and he was just...

Off the charts.

Bananas.

Hysterical.

I mean, that energy in there was

easy that's that you know

that's the way you know the way things things

things go you know

like um

they

you know you have to always adjust as like we we do

did you have the role that got away danny uh

uh

or maybe a conflict he had he had to do another movie instead

of choices

that i couldn't do

i hadn't had one of those that was

really substantial that

you could look back and say,

no, I've had roles that I desperately wanted and got, which I got, I had to work hard to get.

If you can't imagine,

you know how everybody holds out.

You know, you get a part, and somebody says, the last minute,

you get a part, and it's the one you wanted.

And that's really

the ones I think about.

Ones that got away, I don't know.

I can't, you know.

Were you going to be Costanza?

Oh, no, no.

I think, like, you mean like in Seinfeld?

Yeah.

No,

I wasn't.

They just.

Yeah.

When,

yeah, I was still, I don't know what I was doing at the time.

Midnight.

But

I did a movie called The Ratings Game,

which

was done for Showtime.

It was the first movie that I directed.

And I cast

in that movie as a...

It was one of his first things on camera, Jerry Seinfeld.

I don't know if he had done anything before this,

but

I cast him as an agent.

And

coincidentally,

there were a couple of like character,

really wild characters in the movie.

I cast Michael Richards in the same movie.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Wow.

I didn't know that they would later be teamed up in Seinfeld, but this was like in

it was in 83.

When did Seinfeld go on?

93, 234.

I'm sorry, something like that.

So 10 years earlier, I did a movie called The Ratings Game, and

both Jerry Seinfeld and Michael Richards were in it.

Did Jerry ask you questions about how to direct?

How do you want me to play this scene?

Did he ever say that to you?

No, I don't.

He's pretty kind of serious in real life, I think.

By the way, which Batman did you work with?

I can't remember.

Batman Returns.

Who was the Batman again?

Oswald.

Oh, no.

Oh,

I love my.

I do.

I'm not just because you're on our show right now.

I love your penguin.

I loved it.

Your Oswald penguin.

I thought.

Didn't you have fun doing that?

I mean,

your GitHub was so crazy.

Yeah, yeah, I had fun doing that.

That was one of the ones that I really wanted.

And

I met Tim and

we had a great

conversation about it.

And I knew he had done a lot of drawings.

And we sat in his office and

looked at everything.

And I really, really wanted play that.

And

the makeup was the first makeup was,

I was in the chair for almost five hours.

And then we got it down to three, but we stayed around three, three and a three, three and change.

And it was amazing.

And it was the thing about, I liked about that was, you know, like I said, I like to go big.

And

boy, oh boy, Oswald was written like an opera.

I mean, he could go, he could take this guy.

You know, I mean, he just was, he was slapping his flippers off the walls, baby.

You know, I mean, your bird cannot fly.

He was the wicked witch.

He was all of it all in one.

Yes, yes.

It's odd.

Yeah.

And that was after, okay, that was after.

So I'd worked with, I did the, you know, we did Romancing the Stone, Jewel of the Nile, and then War of the Roses with Michael and Kathleen and I

was just about thinking about what we were going to do again because I was trying to pull a Fritz Lang, you know, where you, as a director, you cast, you know, the same people

in all of your movies, but they play different parts.

And

then Batman came along.

And it's odd the way things you know, emerge.

Most of the movies that I've done,

you know, came out of the blue.

And I was very, you're very fortunate.

You know, I was going to direct a pilot in, I was sitting

in the commissary of Paramount, and

I was just about to make the deal.

I was talking to the writer, and I was talking to the producer, and it was at Paramount.

And I was going to be the, I was directing this pilot, and

I had a yellow pad full of notes, you know, about the pilot script and i knew i was getting really steely daggers from the writer

who was also the producer and a woman this was in the days we didn't have cell phones and stuff a woman from the like the commissary i was in the commissary all the time because of taxi we that's where we shot taxi she came over to me and she said you have a phone call it was like the old hollywood day she didn't bring it to the table but i i I got up and went over to where the phone was.

And it was Michael Douglas.

And

he rescued me from doing that pilot

because we had shot

Romancing the Stone already.

No,

yes, Romancing the Stone.

He said, what are you doing?

I heard you're going to do a pilot.

And I said, yeah, man, I'm struggling through this meeting right now.

He said, well, you can't do you gotta we gotta go on the road man we're going all over the world to promote the movie and i said i love you baby

yeah get me out of here

i love you you rescued my ass all right i got a question go did you ever go see you were on a show called taxi you might not remember but did you ever see

Andy Kaufman go do stand-up just like at the comedy store?

Yeah.

And how was that?

That was that was bizarre yeah bizarre yeah but i went to see him do that and i saw him and i went out to eat at the restaurant he waited he busboyed out in the valley uh it was uh after he was on jackson

yeah while he was on the show

he busboyed out in uh i love it on uh i i think i'm not sure the name of the deli yeah it was a good uh

might have been Katz's, no, no, what the hell in the valley, it wasn't Ark's deli, it was the other one, it's closed now, but Jerry's

out in it was on San is it on Ventura Boulevard?

It was Jerry's is, yeah, Jerry's.

Yeah, that was that was that was probably that might have been it, yeah, Jerry's.

And uh,

and, you know, we went out, we had like

a couple of us from the show.

I think Tony might have been with me.

judd might have come

uh we just one night went out and uh

we knew he was working and so we we went and ate and uh you know had conversations with like you would have with the bus boy

no not andy andy's nowhere around

all right he's the bus boy he was the bus boy

it was like really great i mean that that that was that guy was like

uh yeah

we had some fun.

His dressing room was right next to mine.

We would,

he was,

he was hysterical one day.

Somebody was delivering a package, and it was a woman, and he started yelling at her because she was,

I don't know, UPS.

So I can't remember what,

maybe it was the government.

I don't know what the fuck it was, but she's walking in.

She's got a uniform on.

She's delivering a package to somebody.

And he tells her that she should be home.

You know, she's taking a man's job and he booked her into a wrestling match.

I was there for that one.

Right in the hallway,

both of them turning red, you know what I mean?

Like

being choke holds.

We gotta break that part a couple of times.

You could do that crazy.

I don't think you could, actually.

I mean, you could do that.

You could do, yeah, I don't know.

There was no, like,

you you know, again,

if that was a, it was that was today, somebody would be out with a cell phone, and the next thing you know, it would be online, and people would comment about it, and they would say, you know, but I'll tell you, the woman that he was fighting was as big as he was, and

she did a good job, man.

He had his ass down big time, you know.

It was, it was, uh,

I don't know if Tony, I always wondered if Tony always had a little camera with him, Danza.

And I was wondering if he,

you know, had one of those little

always had a hand quarter.

Eight millimeters.

Were you cast before Andy?

Were you cast first?

Or did you have any hand in the camera?

No, I think Andy might have been cast.

I was the last.

I think I might have been one of the last members to be cast.

And

the

story was that I was told later was that my part was actually written as like a voice that came over the loudspeaker, like kind of like Carlton the doorman.

Yeah,

all involved in that guy.

And

then

ultimately, you know, I came in and did my famous audition where I I said,

I said to them before I, they just introduced me and I said to Brooks and Weinberger and

Stan Danny Dave Davis was there, all the guys sitting around.

I said, one thing I want to know before I start, who wrote this shit?

And I threw it on the table.

And it was like a split second of like, am I going to get thrown out?

Not even, you know, a nanosecond.

Yeah.

And then they just fucking pissed themselves.

Right.

And then it was one of those auditions where

you couldn't say anything, you couldn't do anything wrong.

I'd say, and,

and I'd get a laugh.

You know,

it wasn't, you know, it was the

that was

the casting director was Joel Thurm.

He said, you got to come and do this.

You know, and I say, yeah, man, okay, cool.

What a fucking score.

That was such a score.

That was.

Yeah.

What was weirder working with Andy Kaufman on taxi or then doing the man on the moon with Jim Carrey doing Andy Kaufman.

I think working with Jim was,

it was like really off the charts.

That was the most fun.

Like, I've had fun, like, on

sure.

I'm really fortunate.

I had fun on a lot of the movie.

You know, I've never had one of those, oh, fuck, that was awful movies.

I always had these like really quirky kind of things.

And being on the set with Jim Carrey,

sorry about that.

Being on the set Carrey was, oh, it is Jim.

No, I'm only kidding.

He was like

in so far in, you know, all the stars.

We saw the documentary.

I was producing that movie.

And so my, but also playing, God rest his soul, George Shapiro.

Anyway,

he was busting my balls constantly.

And, you know, and Milos is, then, see, it's infectious because then what would happen, we were having fun, but Milos should go go to me

you gotta go to my trailer i'm losing time my i gotta get you know i am the studio is gonna be on my ass yeah and i'm going and uh andy uh jim uh

tony tony

come on out and he's going you know

but it was fun it was even though it was like you know and i've got a lot of friends who worked on that movie and we still talk about that experience because

Pam Abdi was my assistant at the time.

She was there and knowing that I was going through what was going on.

I mean, he did things like he's, okay, we're acting in the movie, but I'm also the producer, one of the producers of the movie.

And so he would get mad at the

and he like he pulled his car up to my trailer.

and went up, you know, just got the little metal steps.

Yeah.

The car up, put it in gear or something, locked it, took the keys.

I couldn't get out of my trail.

Teamsters had to come with a crane to get the car.

You know, it was like one of those

crazy, crazy time.

I love Jim Carrey.

Jim Carrey is fucking great.

Just the fact that he committed that.

Did he get nominated for best actor for that?

I don't know.

I don't know.

We had a really brilliant.

It was a,

he was brilliant in that part.

And,

you know,

and

seriously

would turn it on and off when he wanted.

So that was like one of those things where whenever he came to the set, he was always in character.

But if you see him, like, you know,

you know, off, like, I went to his house or something like that for a

meeting, you know, some thing.

He was like, cool.

He wasn't, you know, he wasn't like a serial killer off the

side.

He's very,

sort of a quiet, sweet guy.

Yeah.

Quiet, sweet guy, but then turned into like Tony Clifton.

I love it.

Which was Tony Clifton is a whole other.

Yeah.

We shot at a place called Chasins down on.

I remember that.

That place.

Okay.

He spread, there was some kind of, I don't know, union strike or something there was something going on he wrote like big letters like you know in red ink i mean red spray paint uh all over the building i had i had i had to re to paint i had to repaint the entire building

it's like a farley it's like having a crazy person on the side like

chris i i i can't imagine what it was i i i always loved chris and uh

uh because he would take it to that you know oh yeah he was always the one

same kind of thing just a lot of attention a lot of craziness and uh chris lovable sweet guy like jim i mean just but they really liven things up there's always a story after the fact there's always a story

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zana i gotta ask danny about uh always an always sunny question because we can't let you go without talking about always always sunny.

One question of mine is: I don't see all the episodes, but I see a lot of it on Instagram, which I don't know if you know this, but when they show TikTok and Instagram clips, they're always so fucking filthy.

I'm like, are these from the real show?

Are they getting away with all this stuff?

Are they filthy?

I don't know.

I don't, I don't.

I mean, like, just they're very R-rated.

And I thought, yeah, the show.

I mean, people love that fucking show.

They love it.

Yeah, the show is a little,

you know, I don't know

what you're talking about, but we have had some

innuendos, hilarious, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, there's some innuendos for sure.

I'm not sure if they're even innuendos, they're just uh straight ahead, but yeah, they're it's so funny, and uh, it's it's such a long run.

So, it sounds like a gift, I'm sure.

Just

being with fun, they all look fun as shit.

I don't know everybody that well, but no, they're all they're all, you know, uh, uh,

when I got this show uh

that you know land graff was my buddy and he showed me the xbox right

fx

uh

and then i met them and they were you know just the way they are

and uh the same you know the three oddballs and then i met caitlin and she's she's like hysterical hilarious yeah but um

yeah they're they're a lot of fun to go to work with.

It's a good job.

It's been on there forever.

Keeps giving.

Keeps giving.

And now Matilda, we have to talk about.

Yeah.

Matilda came to me.

Yeah.

Which you directed the movie.

I did.

I directed the movie and

I, you know, I saw Mara Wilson

in the

movie Mrs.

Doubt Fire.

And she was a little bit older when I met her, perfect for Matilda.

And we shot the movie, and it was great.

We had a great time.

That was like, that was fun.

That was

hundreds of kids.

There was no CG, we added kids and all that stuff.

Yeah, yeah, this was all real kids.

It was really great.

Me on the stage with a bullhorn, yeah, do this, do that, you know, like,

and uh, get the finger out of your nose.

We're shooting, okay, strangling cats, yeah,

yeah.

And so now we're doing it on uh we've taken the sound out.

You know, you've seen these things.

Uh, everybody's does it with ET and does it with Star Wars and does it with Back to the Future.

I took the soundtrack out, and David Newman is going to conduct the Philharmonic, uh, it's a symphony orchestra, okay, okay, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and we're doing that.

Here's the thing: you take the sound out, okay,

just the music out, but I narrate the movie as well as play a part in it.

So

when I'm narrating, I'm on stage actually with the symphony orchestra.

It's really intimidating, but it's really a lot of fun.

Yeah.

And you're watching the, you know, the streamer go by.

I got a monitor with the movie.

He's conducting the score.

The people are watching the movie.

I've got a brand new print and it's just beautiful.

The print is like gorgeous.

And

then when the stream, when it's my turn to narrate a talk,

you know, you have to, he conducts.

It's like being conducted.

Over it?

You talk over it?

Yeah.

Well, in the movie, I play the part of Wormwood, Mr.

Wormwood, and I also narrate the movie.

So, because I tried to find somebody to narrate the movie, but I, being the egotist I am, I couldn't

embarrass anybody else.

Cast yourself.

Yes, myself.

And it's kind of a trip to see, you know, you play the part, you're narrated the movie.

And I've got Rhea, of course, plays Mrs.

Wormwood.

She's going to come on the 22nd.

And

I've got Pam Ferris coming over from England.

She played the Trunch Bowl.

It's really astounding how many kids love the Trunch Bowl.

Miss Trunch Bowl.

Miss Trunch Bowl.

She was like, really, really.

And Mario.

By the way, I don't hear about a lot of these things, Danny.

You don't hear about the symphony, maybe with a Star Wars or something, but this is a really interesting thing to do.

Yeah.

Fun, challenging situation.

Yeah, it's

and I'm

David Newman, who wrote the score.

We've we've done this once before.

We did it once before.

We did it a few years ago

with an orchestra from the East Coast, not New Jersey.

And it worked out really great.

It's fun.

It's uh,

it's a it's a fun night because you get,

you know, but but you're right.

Usually it's done with the more like Back to the Future-y kind of E.T.

blockbuster crazy movies.

This one is, it's got a lot of music in it, so it's fun.

Who wrote the score?

David Newman.

He's one of the

Newman pack.

As soon as the Newmans were born, the father was

the head of 20th Century Fox Music, did a lot of the scores of all the old movies that we love.

And his brother, they have the whole, you always see the Newman name on.

And then David...

David scores Thomas Newman, Randy Newman.

They're all related, these guys.

They were all like, as soon as they're born, they give them a violin or a, or stick them little babies.

The first thing the Newmans do.

Yeah, even

Eric Newman is his son, Randy's son, produces narcos, a lot of movies.

So there you go.

Everyone's in the biz.

Yeah, everybody's in the biz.

So this should be a really good night.

Sounds great.

Yeah,

are you guys in the East Coast?

Are you here?

Sometimes we are in California, but if I was out there, I'd crash that party.

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Fly on the Wall is presented by Odyssey, an executive produced by Danny Carvey and David Spade, Heather Santoro and Greg Holtzman, Maddie Sprung-Kaiser, and Leah Reese Dennis of Odyssey.

Our senior producer is Greg Holtzman, and the show is produced and edited by Phil Sweet Tech.

Booking by Cultivated Entertainment.

Special thanks to Patrick Fogarty, Evan Cox, Maura Curran, Melissa Wester, Hillary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Sean Cherry, Kurt Courtney, and Lauren Vieira.

Reach out with us any questions to be asked and answered on the show.

You can email us at flyonthewall at odyssey.com.

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