Bryan Cranston

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Speaker 1 Brian Cranston, Dana. Brian Brian Cranston.
I'm a big fan of Brian Cranston. And, you know, I don't really run into him out there in the world.

Speaker 1 And most of these people usually kind of bump into here and there.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 1 maybe they were doing Malcolm in the Middle on CBS Radford lot when I was doing Just Shoot Me. It feels like it's synced up around the same time.

Speaker 1 Super cool, super light on his feet. Always.

Speaker 1 is laughing. Doesn't take it too seriously for being a really good dramatic actor and comedic actor.

Speaker 2 No, he doesn't take it seriously at all. And you try to pay him a compliment.
He's very, very humble about it.

Speaker 2 Um, I'm not sure he can really grasp how great he is, but it's hard to not gush a little bit because he was so brilliant in Breaking Bad.

Speaker 2 And I think it's a quintessential show. Um,

Speaker 2 just someone really fun to hang out with, had a great sense of humor, told us all about his adventure trying to be a stand-up comedian for a full year.

Speaker 2 And that's a very interesting story and where where he came from and how he started in a soap opera in New York. And

Speaker 1 when he felt like he made it.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, Malcolm in the middle was huge. And he got,

Speaker 1 was it Breaking Bad within a year?

Speaker 1 It's so weird how those timeframes, because Malcolm in the Middle seems like forever ago. Breaking Bad does not seem like that long ago, but I guess within a year he got it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And then it just goes to the idea of, I call it whimsy or luck in show business.
And he kind of talks about these pieces of his career. There's this sort of like just planets lined up for him.

Speaker 2 And of course, the Phoenician.

Speaker 1 It's out right now with Wes Anderson.

Speaker 1 The Phoenician scheme, was it?

Speaker 2 Sorry about that.

Speaker 1 With Benicio Del Toro, who I love.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And Tommy, Tommy Hanks or Tom Hanks to you.

Speaker 1 Tombo.

Speaker 3 Tombo Hanks.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 1 yeah. So

Speaker 1 great chat. We all cracked up as always.
And hope you like it. And here's the guy.

Speaker 3 Here is Mr. Brian Cranston.

Speaker 1 Shit, that dude's here already.

Speaker 3 Oh, fuck. Brian Cranston.
God damn it.

Speaker 3 Don't have to say anything. He can't hear us yet.

Speaker 4 You can't hear us yet. I can't hear anything.

Speaker 1 Not one thing. No.

Speaker 3 This guy.

Speaker 1 Brian Cranston.

Speaker 3 Brian Cranston is a name you want to say. It feels good to say it.

Speaker 3 Brian Cranston. Our whole goal is not to bore you.

Speaker 3 So how's it going so far? I think we're going.

Speaker 3 You know, I just watched your monologue of Brian Cranston.

Speaker 3 Oh, Brian Cranberry.

Speaker 1 The SNL mono.

Speaker 4 God.

Speaker 3 Oh, God. Thanks for coming on.
You're a, you know, you're, you're Brian Cranston. When did you first realize that? Like, I'm fucking Brian Cranston.

Speaker 1 Yeah. When do you put fucking in it?

Speaker 3 When did you kind of go, hey, I'm Brian Cranston. I'm Brian Cranston.
I'm Brian fucking Cranston. Yeah.
I want to know the moment because we don't have a real structure here.

Speaker 3 I'm assuming sometime during Breaking Bad, it must have hit you at some point. This is fantastic.
This show's great. And I'm, I think I'm really killing it here.

Speaker 3 This is, this is fucking, you know what I mean? You must have had a moment, or maybe it was a gradual series of moments. When I got in SNL, it worked out for me.

Speaker 3 I was sort of like, oh, wow, I'm actually on SNL and it's doing pretty well for me. So the same kind of thing.
Was that, was it there, or was it Malcolm in the middle? Was it

Speaker 3 Seinfeld? Or I assume breaking bad.

Speaker 3 I'll let you talk.

Speaker 3 There you go.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you know, I mean, those

Speaker 4 elevations along the way when you're hoping that you have opportunity. I think I started to talk to some young actors a while ago and also

Speaker 4 those of us who have been around a while. And I said, I think I realized what it was.
When you first start out, you have

Speaker 4 tremendous ambition, but low opportunity. And right, it's like, sure, you want to conquer everything, but it's like you're struggling to find an audition.

Speaker 4 And then if you get get really lucky, as we all have,

Speaker 4 I think the opportunities grow sometimes larger than the ambition.

Speaker 4 And that's where I find myself now is putting out the same amount of energy, but going, oh my God, okay, yes, I will read that script. I will get to that at some point.

Speaker 4 You know, I instruct my agents now. I said, listen, please don't send me anything that you don't really love.

Speaker 4 So, you you know, let them do that work to be able to say, No, this script is really, really great. So, you should take a look at it.

Speaker 4 But I think, and it's a question I actually had for you,

Speaker 4 for both of you.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 4 Can I do that? Can I just say that?

Speaker 1 We love that. We like it better.

Speaker 3 Yeah. It's better for us.

Speaker 4 You know, the interesting thing of when you feel like

Speaker 4 you've made it. When I was 25 years old, I got a job on a soap opera here in New York.

Speaker 4 And,

Speaker 4 you know, it's churn. Man, you're just one script.
You do the script, you throw it out, read so hard. The next day, next day, next day, next day.
It's a lot of churn that you're going through.

Speaker 4 But there was something about feeling like, oh man, I could do this. I feel like I can do this.
And it was from that moment on at 25.

Speaker 4 that I've only worked as an actor since. And so I wanted to find out from you guys if that's the way you felt when you got on SNL.
Did something click?

Speaker 4 Did you cross over a threshold that you went, holy shit, this is it for me?

Speaker 3 David,

Speaker 1 my answer would be it was such a slow grind. I think Dana popped quicker on SNL, but I

Speaker 1 was doing stand-up, then I got on an HBO Young Comedians, then I got on SNL. Then I was a writer first.

Speaker 1 And so it took me to getting through SNL and having to to make one more jump to something that worked because I wasn't quite solidified yet.

Speaker 1 Like you can always make one misstep off SNL and you get one like free pass. Hey, we'll give you a movie.
We'll give you a TV show or something.

Speaker 1 And if that doesn't work, to generate that heat again is so fucking hard. And so I got to a sitcom.

Speaker 1 And then when the sitcom started to work, that one old one, just shoot me, it was probably on around when yours was on.

Speaker 1 But when that got to like year three, I started to breathe again and go, okay, this might be what I do. You know, I don't think I'm going back now.
But when was yours, Dana?

Speaker 1 Because that was, that was, it took that long, to be honest.

Speaker 3 I bombed a lot. You know, I just started doing stand-up.
There wasn't ground lanes or theater groups up in San Francisco in those days.

Speaker 3 So I was doing stand-up, but I didn't find out until 10 years later, literally almost from my first set to getting SNL, like, oh, this is where I belong.

Speaker 3 So when I got on SNL and I'd done these characters as a stand-up, and then I put the wig on and the dress, the church lay and stuff, it was like, this is this is really fun.

Speaker 3 And we'll talk about when you host it, but and also your LBJ, which is, I think, is extraordinary. I was watching.

Speaker 1 You do one of the best LBJs out there.

Speaker 3 Well, the only one where you,

Speaker 1 Fred Travelina, and uh,

Speaker 3 well, he was doing it as an actor. I, I mean, I know I know.
Hollywood wanted to use me. I screen tested for Amadeus,

Speaker 3 you know. Um, for real, yeah, Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
I did a sitcom with Mickey Rooney and Nathan Lane in New York City when I was 25 years of age at

Speaker 3 Studio 6A in Rockefeller Center. And then eight years later, I got on the there.
So to answer your question shortly, it's like, once I got in SNL, I felt like a fish in water.

Speaker 3 Like, I really belong here.

Speaker 3 And so that was

Speaker 3 it for me.

Speaker 4 How old were you then, Dana?

Speaker 3 I was 51.

Speaker 3 No,

Speaker 3 was

Speaker 3 31 in my first set in a shitbox comedy club where these comedians came up, and I thought, well, they're not that great.

Speaker 3 It was a no, it was in Berkeley, and I, and I, I scrolled on a napkin, and I do a Howard Kosell, I do John Wayne, you know, and then a guy came up and levitated the room, and it was Rob Williams.

Speaker 3 And then I crumpled the paper or the napkin, put it back in my pocket because I didn't know there was only one of him.

Speaker 3 But basically, it was the classic 10 years of this but the stand-ups always have a baseline like a band you just go back to the clubs go to the theaters do stand-ups so it's it's a nice little side job it is it's foundational for for you

Speaker 4 i i did stand-up for about nine months oh boy back in 1980

Speaker 4 81

Speaker 4 and uh

Speaker 4 I did it only because it scared the shit out of me. Yeah.

Speaker 4 What you guys do was something that terrified me so i thought wow the only way i'm i'm ever gonna get over this fear of it is to dive in

Speaker 4 so i rose from being terrible to being mediocre in in those that's a big jump yeah that's a big jump

Speaker 1 it is in stand-up it is

Speaker 3 consistently walking everyone do the job get yeah consistent laughs yeah was it new york it was in la

Speaker 4 uh oh in la Back in 81, when they had,

Speaker 4 there were places like the Playboy Club was there in Century City, the Laugh Stop. Of course, the comedy store and improv.

Speaker 1 Is Laugh Stop in Newport?

Speaker 4 There was.

Speaker 3 Yeah, there was one in Newport, right?

Speaker 4 Then there was one in the Valley where I had a great night.

Speaker 4 My best night was in the valley. I did,

Speaker 4 you know, about eight minutes or something and killed. I got in my car.
I drove to the improv. I begged the guy, you've got to get me on.

Speaker 3 I'm on fire.

Speaker 3 I'm on fire.

Speaker 4 And he says, well, I could, you stick around because someone may not show up.

Speaker 3 And so come on, you're blowing it. God.
I know.

Speaker 4 So I, so he says, I think I think what's his name, he's not going to show up. So in about 45 minutes, you can go on.
Okay, okay, 45 minutes, 45 minutes.

Speaker 3 I walked around the block in that neighborhood.

Speaker 4 I walked around the block in that neighborhood doing my set, just trying to recall it exactly as I did it. That got such a great reaction.
And I felt great. And I got up.

Speaker 4 It wasn't the same.

Speaker 3 Not the same. Yuck.

Speaker 3 It's so weird.

Speaker 1 Crowds are like fingerprints. They just, they're all a little bit different.
And then you go, I just was on the road. And I'm like, one night, these three jokes worked the best.

Speaker 1 The next thing, these three. So overall, it's about the same, but you go, why? Why didn't they bite on that? Did I say it wrong? Is it a different attitude? Different something about it.

Speaker 1 It just, it didn't work.

Speaker 3 And you could, you could drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 Anyway, and I started, I

Speaker 4 started turning down auditions because I was drinking too much. You know, I was in the clubs.
And if I had a good night, someone would offer me a drink.

Speaker 4 If I had a bad night, someone would offer me a drink.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And they're all free, which is great.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And you're just going and then sleeping until noon or one and turning down auditions and finally i just went wait a minute wait a minute what am i doing and i realized that what you guys had innately was not me it was not in my being i was trying to overcome a fear and all of a sudden i realized wait a minute i did that oh

Speaker 1 let me go back to it that was the point yeah you did that which is a huge thing

Speaker 1 i remember does it scare you with acting does it scare you or is it the fact you have a few takes so it's a little easier?

Speaker 4 Well, it's, it's just a different muscle, right? You, you, and you,

Speaker 4 you're attracted to certain types of performing and you find something that you do well, and it's, you know, inspiring.

Speaker 4 I, I, I didn't, I didn't wake up thinking, oh, I've got to get on stage and try to tell this joke.

Speaker 4 I love being

Speaker 4 different people and getting into their skin and doing the research and figuring out what made that guy tick and why was he important and all that.

Speaker 1 Are the police coming to your house right now?

Speaker 3 Yeah, we've that's usually a, that's from our parent company. It's just saying, pick up the podcast a little bit.
It's a little bit of,

Speaker 3 they put a siren. It's a little bit like.

Speaker 3 I'm just curious for a second because

Speaker 3 You become one of our great actors. It sort of maybe happened secretly or whatever, but I know you would never never put yourself, probably with your nature, into

Speaker 3 the people you watch growing up, you know, and then you realize, you must realize at some point you're doing work as good or better than a lot of your heroes. Right.

Speaker 3 I'm talking, I know what age group we're in. You know, there's you're the people

Speaker 3 who die now in person. Spencer Tracy would have loved you.
Jimmy Stewart, I just, so that's kind of surreal, isn't it?

Speaker 3 To realize that.

Speaker 4 I still don't feel that. I don't know.
Maybe it's just the way i was raised but um

Speaker 4 there is that imposter syndrome that i think many people go through that you go wait a minute i don't i don't always know what i'm doing but people think i do

Speaker 3 you can get away with a lot

Speaker 3 oh my god your acting choices are like so genius you know i i forgot my line it's throwing a dart yeah that stutter you did i was searching for the word yeah i didn't remember oh when you spaced out, when you looked off,

Speaker 1 so real.

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Speaker 6 Hey, everybody, it's me, Bill Maher. If you're not watching or at least listening to Club Random, you're really missing something good and something unique.

Speaker 6 Because I don't think we look or sound like any other podcast. And that's by design.

Speaker 6 My life's quest has been to do some kind of show that captured the level of intimacy and the lack of artifice you would see if you saw me off camera talking to a friend.

Speaker 6 No one else in the room, plenty of pot and booze, and nothing planned. This is a show where I get high talking to someone I'm interested in to get to know and to laugh with.
It's not an interview.

Speaker 6 It's wild. And I'm having a ball and the guests are having a ball and you will too.

Speaker 6 So please follow Club Random with Bill Maher and see new episodes every Monday on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 When did Bob Odenerk first come to you and go, oh, that was a great take.

Speaker 3 You're so brilliant.

Speaker 3 You're killing it. Oh, my God.
That's so great. People are going to love it.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 3 That's funny.

Speaker 3 That's so funny.

Speaker 4 When he was hired for Breaking Bad, he hadn't seen the show yet.

Speaker 4 And I just ribbed him about that. I go, so you got hired to be on a show and the episodes were readily available to you, but you chose.

Speaker 3 Readily.

Speaker 4 You chose not to be.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 he learned quickly. And

Speaker 4 boy, what a lovely thing that's happened to him.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 when he was offered Better Call Saul, he asked if he can go out to lunch with me.

Speaker 4 And I said sure and he said i'm not that guy i'm not the hey follow me i'll lead you to the promised land kind of guy and i said you know i didn't know that i was that either but there is the need for that person to kind of take care to kind of be the dad of a of a company of a show of a show you you're you're number one on a call sheet it's kind of saying there it is for you to take it's like quarterback yeah

Speaker 1 they'll look up to to you even whether you don't know it. You know it or not.

Speaker 3 Exactly.

Speaker 4 So I said, there's going to be a vacuum if you don't take it. Someone else will, or it'll be taken up by someone who you don't necessarily think is the right person.
So it's, you know, just, I said,

Speaker 4 when I first started getting some comments of my work, I used to push back. Hey, you're really good.
No, no, no. I used to say that.
Oh, you're a really becoming a television star.

Speaker 4 Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just an actor.

Speaker 4 And I found it did terrible things. First of all, it made the person wrong, which is not a good thing.

Speaker 3 They feel bad, yeah.

Speaker 4 And feel bad. It forced them to then continue the fight.

Speaker 3 More compliments. I'm being serious.

Speaker 3 So what do you say now?

Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.
Thank you. That's it.

Speaker 1 You don't want to go on a set and be run run by number nine on the call sheet.

Speaker 3 I'm on. I'll tell you.
Let me ask you a question about the, and I don't know exactly, I know the Malcolm in the middle of this and that, but was

Speaker 3 you were the lead lead in Breaking Bad and you were in the flow all day long.

Speaker 3 I mean, the pacing of yourself, but also when you're someone who comes in and does a guest spot or has one line, you're waiting all day. That's, I mean, you get into a flow, right?

Speaker 3 Where you're just that character

Speaker 3 for so many hours. Is it harder, better? Obviously, it's how do you handle how do you handle the sheer exhaustion? And do you get almost hypnotized even deeper into

Speaker 3 the world because you're just doing so much of it?

Speaker 4 Well, as you guys know this,

Speaker 4 so for the listeners, it's basically

Speaker 4 you find your rhythm when you're needed, when you can rest. You develop a system.
of how and when you're going to rise to an occasion and when you can shut down a little bit.

Speaker 4 But I always thought, and we've all been on shows where you have the person coming on the show who has one line

Speaker 4 and they know nobody, and they have to come in and nail that line. And that's one of the hardest things to do.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 4 So I would always try to greet every

Speaker 4 co-star,

Speaker 3 sabotage them. No, go ahead.

Speaker 4 And just try to make them feel at ease because, number one, it's the right thing to do to help this person.

Speaker 4 But number two, it also helps your show.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're very important. Those people that come in.

Speaker 1 It's so important to get they get it right and they're in a vibe that they don't know. They're just getting in the current going, are we playing everything like this?

Speaker 3 And you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're all down here.

Speaker 1 Like, but they don't know. And then you're, okay, let's make it all clear.

Speaker 3 It's late in the day. All the makeup's kind of wearing down.
And the people have been filming all day long. The crew looks wasted.
They're exhausted.

Speaker 3 They're coming in to land that line yeah it's it's yeah they bring them in you're up it's like oh right before we wrap just relax

Speaker 3 okay never thought of

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 3 great yeah

Speaker 3 but so you so how old were you when you really made it made it in your mind

Speaker 3 because you you struggled for a while No, but you know,

Speaker 4 I expected to struggle. So I guess I didn't feel like I was struggling.

Speaker 1 After the soap opera, were you saying like that was 25? So you kind of consistently worked after that. So that's really making it.
Right.

Speaker 4 Very consistent after that. I've never had to do anything but act after that point.
And that kind of confidence going into whatever you're doing next is

Speaker 4 brilliant. And it was a savior.
And then about 30,

Speaker 4 I guess 35 years ago or so, I stumbled upon a philosophy that I realized, oh, I was doing everything wrong.

Speaker 4 I was thinking that an audition was a job interview.

Speaker 4 And that because I'm an actor and they're casting for a movie or a TV show or something, that's a job. I'm going to go in to try to get something.
And I realized by doing that,

Speaker 4 you're giving up your energy and

Speaker 4 you're sending it away from you. And so I thought, oh, whenever anybody wants or needs something, they don't have control.
They're giving up control because they need something. They need a job.

Speaker 4 They need validation. They need something.
So I thought, oh, I'm just going to hold on to that. And I'm not going to want something.
I'm going to give them something. I worked on this seam.

Speaker 4 I think I can do it. But, you know, it's their option.
Here, here's an idea. You take it.
If that works for you, fantastic. If it doesn't, we'll see you later.

Speaker 1 Oh, like we're 50-50. I'm going in.
This is good. You want my product? Take it.

Speaker 4 Exactly.

Speaker 3 Goodbye. And in the modern era, I like that.
You can audition with your phone or with a friend, which is kind of nice. Like, here's how I'd play it.
You can see me.

Speaker 3 You know, a lot of people get roles that way as well.

Speaker 1 You can tweak it a little bit. Yeah.
That helps.

Speaker 3 I hated going to those rooms and I always bombed and it was horrible. I bombed in front of Paul Newman terribly and Joanne Woodward.

Speaker 4 What did you do?

Speaker 3 Holy shit. Well, I had no

Speaker 4 take a shit in front of them or something.

Speaker 3 Were you there?

Speaker 3 I think probably Benson got the part. I had no training.
I, I, you know, at all. I was just a stand-up.
And so acting terrified me. So I went in.
They put us off in pairs. They auditioned.

Speaker 3 So I went with a lovely young woman. We read the scene.
I was all over the place. I knew I was bombing.
Joanne Wood was there with the dog. Paul Newman with red socks, really tall red socks.

Speaker 3 Red socks. And then Paul Newman was so sweet.
We just bombed. And then he spent 10 minutes saying, Well, I appreciate it that he was just so nice about it, but the air was thick.

Speaker 3 And so I walked out with my partner. I just, I just met and I said, Well, that didn't go well.
And she was like, Yeah, yeah, it didn't go well, did it? You know, I mean, I really ruined her audition.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So, anyway, what you just said, I hope young actors listen to that.
That you're just showing them something. You're not really trying to get a job.

Speaker 4 It's the difference:

Speaker 4 do not go in there to get a job go in there to do a job yeah that's it if you can just say this is my job i'm going to create something it's either funny or it's it's appropriate to this character here here's my idea there it is yeah if you like it great if you don't that's okay i like that you don't look so desperate

Speaker 1 desperation that's my my angle is desperate and thirsty because when i would go in i would try to joke them i didn't know what i was doing so this is dana probably does too we spend eight minutes talking about the 405 and how the crazy drive.

Speaker 1 And then they're laughing. And then I read it.
And when it stops laughing, it goes, oh, forget it.

Speaker 3 Oh, that happened to me.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to win him over with the meeting.

Speaker 3 I made Suzanne Plachette laugh so hard.

Speaker 3 I had 15 minutes. I'm doing, boy, I'm doing everything.
And well, let's, oh, I'm excited to hear you read. And then it was just dead silence.

Speaker 3 And, you know, I mean, so I'm just curious.

Speaker 3 I thought again. I'm curious about our guests today.
I think I heard you say at one point

Speaker 3 that I'm just going to do this, show business. This is, you made a decision wherever it goes, I'm just going to do this.
And what, what, was that after the soap opera? You went back to?

Speaker 4 No,

Speaker 4 I was actually going to a junior college in LA. I had no money.
So I was studying police science. I was going to become a cop.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 3 you look like you could play a detective. Yeah, you look pretty cool.

Speaker 3 We'll get to that. You must have played a cop or detective.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I played lots of cops.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I didn't know what to do. So I was going to become a cop and transfer to a university to finish before I went into the LAPD.
That was a general plan.

Speaker 4 But my second year of this junior college, I took an acting class. And in the class, my job was to kiss this really pretty girl.
I am making out with this pretty girl. And I'm thinking, oh my God,

Speaker 3 this is amazing.

Speaker 4 And so

Speaker 4 after that semester, now I'm 19. And I went, I have no idea what I want to do.
That just spun me out of control.

Speaker 4 And so I hopped on a motorcycle and traveled around the country for a couple of years, getting jobs and

Speaker 3 celebrating the kiss.

Speaker 4 Yeah, just, well, no, I was so confused. So, in a way, at the time, I felt like I was running away.
And I suppose I was because I didn't know what it was I wanted to put all my energy in.

Speaker 4 And it wasn't until I was on the Blue Ridge Parkway of Virginia, waiting out a rainstorm on my motorcycle underneath a picnic covered picnic bench with a slab of cement and me.

Speaker 4 And I stayed there for like five days because it just never stopped raining.

Speaker 4 And it was at that time i had this epiphany that okay

Speaker 4 i am going to go after something that i really feel i can be in love with but i wasn't necessarily good at yet uh as opposed to something i was good at which was police work but i didn't love it and so that was the distinction to me and i thought okay here it goes i'm going all in there's no god that's ballsy too one of them's like a set job and the other one is iffy very very iffy and will always remain that way

Speaker 3 when did you first get uh without giving numbers a check where you kind of went holy shit you know compared to regular you know i was a waiter busboy dishwasher all the all the rest but you know like wow that's amazing they're actually i love this

Speaker 3 and they're paying me a lot of money to do it it's a very heady thing

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 4 I was doing some community theater and some summer stock and dinner theater and stuff like that. But it was in 1979 is when I got my SAG card and started working and making a living.

Speaker 4 And I did commercials and I did industrial films and whatever would pay the rent and all that stuff. So that's, you know, it was fun.

Speaker 1 When did you get paid too much money?

Speaker 3 When did you want to give some of it back? Because clearly this is wrong.

Speaker 4 There are some of those jobs now

Speaker 4 that you say, no, no, no.

Speaker 3 Wait, what? You want to give it a business? Wait, what did you get for Godzilla 2017?

Speaker 3 What did you get?

Speaker 1 We don't ask.

Speaker 3 You don't answer that question. I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 I do know that, you know,

Speaker 4 I did, when I was coming up, I worked, did voices for the

Speaker 4 Power Rangers. I did so many voices for the Power Rangers that they renamed, when they changed all the names from a Japanese name to Americanized sounding names.
They said,

Speaker 4 why don't we name the blue Power Ranger Cranston, Billy Cranston, not Brian. Billy Cranston.
Do you mind? And I said, I don't mind. We didn't think it was going to go anywhere.
And it goes anywhere.

Speaker 4 So the Blue Power Ranger, Billy Cranston, is named after me because I did so many of those voices. Let's go, team.
Let's go.

Speaker 3 Oh, I love that show.

Speaker 4 Defeat me. I will kill you.

Speaker 3 Oh, I love it.

Speaker 3 You've kind of done everything, haven't you? Voiceovers, sitcoms, movies, theater.

Speaker 4 You have to expand your ability to work or else you're really narrowing the field, I think, man.

Speaker 2 Hey, David, when it comes to gifting, you know, I've learned there are two types of presents, okay?

Speaker 2 The ones that get returned and the ones that instantly become a favorite. Do you agree?

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's Jenny Berg jewelry definitely falls in the second category.

Speaker 1 These designs, as you know, are very modern. They're timeless.
Always feel special.

Speaker 2 Oh, well, isn't that special?

Speaker 1 That makes them my secret weapon when I want to give a gift that really, you know, lands. That's why Jenny Bird makes it easy.
The packaging is beautiful.

Speaker 1 It's very thoughtful. The pieces are comfy enough to wear every day.
Yep. And they ship fast.
That's perfect if you're a last-minute shopper like me.

Speaker 2 That's right. I mean, I just want to do this when I hear that.
Way to go. Way to go.
And because the styles are so versatile, they always make an outfit feel pulled together, David.

Speaker 2 Without trying too hard, David, not talking about you.

Speaker 2 Some of my wife's go-tos are the best-selling Florence earrings, which I always get compliments, and the Remy Bengal, lightweight, water-resistant, and just as good stacked as it is on its own.

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Speaker 1 And you can get 20% off your first order with JennyBird by visiting jenny-bird.com and using code F-O-T-W at checkout.

Speaker 3 Give it up for Chicago.

Speaker 7 Sebastian Maniscalco's new stand-up special, It Ain't Right, is coming to Hulu on November 21st.

Speaker 4 30 years ago, Jeff Bezos, complete nerd, Bezos now, ripped to shreds on his super yacht and the boxes keep coming.

Speaker 7 Sebastian Maniscalco, It Ain't Right, premieres November 21st, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers.

Speaker 4 Terms apply.

Speaker 1 Well, I think you're in this new Phoenician.

Speaker 3 Is that the Phoenician scheme?

Speaker 4 Phoenician.

Speaker 1 The Phoenician Scheme, which is

Speaker 4 very interesting

Speaker 1 movies, which I will see this one because you're in it and we're buddies now, but also because it's just those are so cool, those movies that he does.

Speaker 4 He is.

Speaker 4 Wes Anderson is probably the most un-Texan-like Texan you've ever met.

Speaker 4 He's very naturally dressed.

Speaker 4 He's very erudite and polite and

Speaker 3 worldly.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 it's not to say, let me clarify, it's not to say that Texans can't also be that, but sure.

Speaker 4 The sensibility.

Speaker 4 Send all your letters to

Speaker 4 Zane and David.

Speaker 4 But, you know, so I've done, this is the third project I've done with Wes Anderson. And he's,

Speaker 4 it's brilliant. He's such an auteur.
You cannot go into it thinking, oh, I know where he's going to twist this or turn that. It's like he blows your mind with where

Speaker 4 he goes with stuff. Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 1 I think I saw that last one, maybe Astro something with Scarlett Johansson.

Speaker 4 Asteroid City.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Asteroid City. And went and saw it at the theater.
It was so fun and so cool. And it just like wakes you up, like, okay, here's a movie.
Okay, pay attention.

Speaker 4 I was in that

Speaker 1 set dressings, everything. Very good.
You did a great job. Um, and uh, I love Bonicio, also.
Bonicio in this one, he's cool.

Speaker 3 What a cool guy.

Speaker 1 I've run into him along the way here and there.

Speaker 3 But what are your

Speaker 3 thoughts? Very mysterious.

Speaker 1 Give us some Bonicio.

Speaker 4 So, Tom Hanks and I played brothers. We play brothers in the Phoenician scheme.
And we are shooting this in Germany. And so we go over to Germany and we're in every scene together.

Speaker 4 So we're rehearsing together and stuff. And

Speaker 4 we had basically in this in this movie, Phoenician scheme, it's kind of light lift for us, but Benicio has a shit ton of dialogue, very specific, very Wes Anderson-y, you know, the way it's carved and moved.

Speaker 4 It's like, wow.

Speaker 4 And so I was just saying, if there's anything I could do for you, man, you let me know because you're carrying the load here. And he would just nod and look and he would cram.

Speaker 4 And so it's challenging work because of the fact that he is so specific

Speaker 4 in his shooting style and the symmetry of his camera angles and everything.

Speaker 4 It's amazing. But the film works.
Phoenician scheme really does work.

Speaker 1 Those things I've already heard people that have seen it immediately.

Speaker 3 Of course.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you can tell

Speaker 3 it's one person is making the movie.

Speaker 3 I mean, I know that he's, it just sort of hit me researching that sometimes he collaborates with roman coppola yeah um and i did a commercial with chevy chase and molly channel whatever for a phone company and roman was directing it and he had an immaculate suit on and he was such a gentleman it was just very interesting to watch him do that and uh so when i saw him connected to wes anderson there is an eloquence about them that is a type of director out there also it's nice to be in a movie, Brian, where they're not just like, who do we get to direct this?

Speaker 1 You know, because it's going to look so

Speaker 1 specific to a director when he does it. You just watch the trailer and you go, oh, that's what, okay, that's what that is.
You know, and that's, that pulls people right in, I think.

Speaker 1 And to be an actor, to be in it would be what a blast.

Speaker 4 It's cool. I mean, there is some pressure, Brianna.
Like when we were shooting Asteroid City in Spain.

Speaker 1 Oh, that was Spain?

Speaker 4 Shot in Spain for the California desert.

Speaker 4 Yeah. The California, Nevada Desert.

Speaker 4 But I believed it. He worked.

Speaker 4 Wes lives in Paris most of the time. So, and he doesn't like to fly.
So he takes his big bus coach that he has all decked out and he travels that way. So he usually stays on the Conc.

Speaker 3 God, what a life. He's in Paris with a bus, and he has complete control over his work.
And he gets like 10 superstars. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So the budget for the acting, I heard that Hank's got 20 million for this one, or is that what? Exaggerated. Interesting.
Well, that's true. But how does he manage?

Speaker 3 Because you're doing it for the love of the art. I mean, right? And he gets just the greatest Bill Murray and you guys.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we all make the same amount of money.

Speaker 4 And I honestly can't even tell you what that is, but I know it's not much.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I believe it. It's just more like if he wants you and you do do it.

Speaker 3 That's such a great thing that he has. It obviously must be just a hell of a nice person to want to be around.

Speaker 4 And it's a great hang because there are no trailers. You all go and you're in

Speaker 4 one like really souped up kind of tent with the rugs and

Speaker 4 nice comfortable chairs and speaking.

Speaker 4 And everybody just kind of hangs out together. And you go in.

Speaker 4 You only work usually about eight hours or nine hours a day. That's it.

Speaker 4 Within reason.

Speaker 4 And then at night, every night, there's a long rectangular table, and all the actors and all the department heads and the writers and producers and West, we all have dinner together every single night with wine and all kinds of things.

Speaker 1 And so, where do you watch porn? That's my point.

Speaker 3 Yeah, where? How? Why not? Where?

Speaker 1 How? Who has to ask someone? It's so embarrassing.

Speaker 3 Can we do it at dinner?

Speaker 1 Do we have to wait?

Speaker 3 I do anything. I thought.

Speaker 3 yeah, you'll find, you know, you'll figure out. How do you personally, or I guess it's Project,

Speaker 3 like to be directed? You know, do you like a soft touch? You like someone in your face? Crunched in, I don't believe a word you're saying. I don't get it.

Speaker 3 Or does Wes Anderson kind of just sort of wander around and sort of give you subtle notes? Or

Speaker 3 you like it all? I mean,

Speaker 4 the first

Speaker 4 day I worked on Asteroid City, I had quite a large speech to give, and

Speaker 4 I got through it in his tricky dialogue. And I thought I did pretty well.
And he did too. He came to me and he said, yes, Brian, that was very, very good.

Speaker 4 Now I just need it much, much, much, much faster.

Speaker 3 And it was like, oh,

Speaker 4 to hear that.

Speaker 3 Like, oh my God.

Speaker 4 So you're going so fast, you don't even. hear yourself.
You don't even think you're thinking. And you're blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and getting it out.

Speaker 4 So the work is the work is challenging.

Speaker 1 It's hard with dialogue.

Speaker 1 People forget you're memorizing. It's so hard to get every word right, especially if you're working for a writer or director and you go, I've had one where you came back and he said, you were great.

Speaker 1 You missed this one word here. Let's go again.
And I go,

Speaker 1 one word, it was like one word that didn't change anything. Yeah.
But that's the way I wrote it. I go, got it.

Speaker 4 You said

Speaker 4 instead of bumping.

Speaker 3 Exactly. Oh, I hate that.

Speaker 3 That's why I hated movies, but you go in the morning for the master shot, and then you're in your close-up eight hours later and the script supervisor says, no, your elbow was on top of the chair.

Speaker 3 Oh, really? I mean, that's why have you done movies where it's like a moving master, minimal shooting,

Speaker 3 that kind of freedom? Yeah. Yeah.
And that's fun.

Speaker 4 You know, I don't know if you remember this, Dana, but we worked together.

Speaker 3 Why? Whoa. I remember running into you at Letterman, right?

Speaker 4 No, we've done that, but no, like Dave said.

Speaker 3 Was I first on the call sheet? Where was I?

Speaker 4 Sir, you were.

Speaker 3 Was I nice? Wayne's opportunity knocks.

Speaker 4 Yeah, kind of. No, it wasn't that.

Speaker 3 Clean slate?

Speaker 4 Clean slate.

Speaker 3 Whoa.

Speaker 3 You were in that movie. That's your probably your lowest grossing movie.
Oh, that's crazy. I'm so sorry.
If I could write you a check, X, I'm going to do a Venmo. Where are you?

Speaker 4 I played the very pivotal role of club official.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Dana, what would that be? Do you remember?

Speaker 4 We were at, we were in Santa Monica at on the beach.

Speaker 3 Yes, I remember that.

Speaker 3 Right. And

Speaker 4 I don't remember anything else.

Speaker 3 Not a thing.

Speaker 1 Tana doesn't even remember Santa Monica.

Speaker 3 I don't remember a thing. So I play a character with amnesia.
It was Terra. I went to this acting coach and his theory was

Speaker 3 you don't have amnesia. Your character is pretending to have amnesia, but you don't, your character does not have amnesia.
He is that real from the movie. This is Roy London.
God rest his soul.

Speaker 3 He's this great actor. So that was his way of getting you out of your own way.
So then there was a guy

Speaker 3 playing a blind person. We were filming at the beach, and he had the stick, and he's playing a blind person.
And I say, I said to him,

Speaker 3 you know, I don't really have amnesia. I'm just pretending.
And he goes, I'm not really blind. He'd gone to the same acting coach.

Speaker 3 You know, whatever. I just figured.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 yeah, that was

Speaker 3 ridiculous. That was me making a foolish choice right off of SNL.
I had way too much heat, no experience. And

Speaker 3 I wish I could take it back. If we could have switched in that you became the lead and I was guard number one, it might have had a chance.

Speaker 4 No, I was club official.

Speaker 3 Oh, club official.

Speaker 3 god, Wikipedia sucks sometimes.

Speaker 4 Oh, my God, that was written by uh Robert King, by the way. Robert King, he's great, I've worked with since.
Yeah, I was partners with him on a series called Your Honor, and he's terrific.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah,

Speaker 3 that's a great show. I've never seen, I've never seen you bad.
I don't know if you like, oh, you were kind of bad. I wanted to see, let's see, what was

Speaker 4 that?

Speaker 3 It was the one we circled.

Speaker 3 No, but by the way,

Speaker 1 when I heard

Speaker 3 Amalcolm in the Middle reboot?

Speaker 1 Is it that's right. What is it on? What is on Disney Plus?

Speaker 4 It's going to be on Disney. Yeah.
Since they bought out Fox, we were originally owned by Fox.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 How do they do that? And so now we're

Speaker 4 owned by Disney. And they bought four episodes of this reboot.

Speaker 4 I didn't think it reboot.

Speaker 4 It's something I was trying, I was pushing for for the last 10 years

Speaker 4 because I thought that that audience.

Speaker 1 it was that hard wow

Speaker 4 well fun no linwood boomer who is the creator of the show when i first pitched it to him he said no i'm not interested no about a year and a half later i said what about it he goes no i i really don't think it's something i want to do and i went really starting to improve

Speaker 4 and then a third one a third time three years after that it was like well you know if someone else wrote it maybe i'll look at it and i just started wearing him down until he said, I've got an idea.

Speaker 3 And I said, good. Love it.
Go get it.

Speaker 4 So we just finished it. We shot that a month ago.
And it's amazing how these boys who were my boys on that show are now around the same age I was when we first started.

Speaker 3 Oh, no, really?

Speaker 4 They've got children of their own.

Speaker 1 There's a kid on their name, Eric, is there?

Speaker 3 Yeah, Eric. Per Sullivan?

Speaker 4 Yeah, Eric Per Sullivan.

Speaker 1 Played

Speaker 1 Little Joe Dirt in an old movie.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 1 He played me as a kid.

Speaker 4 Now, David, did you remember that? Or

Speaker 4 now that you were doing the research?

Speaker 1 I didn't. I remembered he was on it back then.
He's really cute and funny. And he walked on little cowboy boots

Speaker 1 in the movie. But now that you say it again, I'm like, oh, that's right.
He's probably, you know, older now.

Speaker 4 He is the only one who's not, who didn't come back to act in the show. Oh, for real? Yeah.
I talked to Eric and I said, hey, we got the show. It's going to come back.
He goes, oh, that's fantastic.

Speaker 4 And I go, yeah, so we're looking forward to having you back. He goes, oh, no, no, I don't want to do it, but it's fantastic.

Speaker 3 Oh, really?

Speaker 4 Yeah, because

Speaker 4 he's actually going to Harvard.

Speaker 3 He's a normal person now.

Speaker 4 Well, I don't think he's not normal.

Speaker 3 because he's really

Speaker 4 not in my circle normal. He's really, really smart and he's getting, I think he's getting his masters at Harvard right now.
He said, Oh, God, no, I haven't acted since I was nine or something.

Speaker 4 So I'm not into it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow, because he's like, it just makes us all feel so dumb that we're actors.

Speaker 1 He's like, I don't want to go do that stupid shit again.

Speaker 3 I'm like, no, it's pretty smart what we do.

Speaker 1 And you're like, no,

Speaker 3 really?

Speaker 3 It's not that hard.

Speaker 3 Oh, cool, though. All right, that's good.
Good topic. Okay.

Speaker 3 SNL, you hosted. Oh, God.
And

Speaker 3 just because it was all over the place a couple of years ago during the strike, just the idea of AI and robots integrating with our industry and where it seems to be going is fascinating to me because we keep seeing these digital

Speaker 3 short films by Alphabet Google where you're like, you know, what the hell? I mean, it's getting surreal. We are actually digital copies right now.

Speaker 3 I just wanted to be full disclosure, but it is kind of bizarre, isn't it? Just to watch the future arrive.

Speaker 3 It is.

Speaker 4 It just feels like something a little impersonal. But,

Speaker 4 you know, I remember it so fondly and being invited to host at that time when Breaking Bad was at its, you know,

Speaker 3 peak.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I immediately said yes. And it's such a rush.
I mean, I know you guys have talked about this on the podcast before and everyone's experience, but it was, it was incredible. And how

Speaker 4 deep dive involved you are in every moment of that.

Speaker 4 And that, you know, from that, from the first time I'm sitting in Lauren's office in that chair in the middle, and everybody, all the writers are on the floor and behind the curtains and things. And

Speaker 4 I thought the pitches that were going on that first day, that Monday, were actually supposed to be sincere.

Speaker 3 It was like some of them are. Some, most are fake pitches.

Speaker 4 Yeah, most think. I just want to say this because it'll be rejected and let it die.

Speaker 3 A cold blood.

Speaker 4 Someone said, Okay, so you're a barista at Starbucks, and you finish your drink and you call out, Trevor,

Speaker 4 Trevor,

Speaker 4 I smoke

Speaker 4 latte, Trevor,

Speaker 4 Trevor,

Speaker 4 and no one ever shows up. That's that, that was his pitch.
That's the whole pitch. That was the whole pitch.

Speaker 3 I went, huh?

Speaker 4 I thought this is going to be a long week.

Speaker 1 Yeah, people think of that at Starbucks on the way to the meeting. They're like, because they have, I think the problem is you end the show Saturday.

Speaker 1 You don't wake up until Sunday at three in the afternoon. You do your laundry and then you're in front of Brian Krancis.
You're like,

Speaker 1 I will think of something for him.

Speaker 3 I just have not. I would say a guy walks up and says his name is Trevu.
Trevu? No, not Trevor. Trevor.
And then another guy walks up, Tanif. Nope, Trevor.
Trevor.

Speaker 1 I'm Tevor. Trevu.

Speaker 3 I'm just trying to completely.

Speaker 3 We can write it. We'll write it.
Lauren will be listening to this. We'll have him back, you know, after

Speaker 3 the

Speaker 3 Wes Anderson kick.

Speaker 3 We'll get good numbers with the Malcolm people.

Speaker 3 Do they have nicknames for Malcolm in the middle fanatics? Like Malcolmites or Middlers?

Speaker 4 They probably do, but I don't think. I'm not aware.
I don't know. I'm not aware of that stuff yet.
I don't know.

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Speaker 3 so what were you what what was your monologue like uh did you when you were coming out there i mean did you have a strong one i have i did i did have some ideas and john mulaney is wrote it I remember that guy.

Speaker 1 Did he do that barbershop kind of quartet one or whatever you did?

Speaker 3 Yes. The single.

Speaker 4 That's right. The barbershop kind of thing.
And he said,

Speaker 4 you know, what if we take the point of view that

Speaker 4 people kind of know you, but they don't really know you?

Speaker 4 And I said, yeah, okay. He's like, because I was getting that, oh, you're the guy from Malcolm in the Middle.
You're the dad. You're the guy.
You're the guy. It wasn't associating name with face.

Speaker 3 Breaking Bad was on at that time, right? Yeah, but that's still kind of going up.

Speaker 4 You're kind of that guy. Oh, you're Walt.

Speaker 3 You're the guy from Breaking Bad. Right.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 And it's not until someone actually knows your name connected to your face that you go, okay, things have changed, which goes back to your original question, Dan, is that that's when you go, oh, things have changed.

Speaker 4 But we did, yeah, we did the monologue and I just wanted to do anything.

Speaker 4 I had a couple pitches for them, which I pitched ideas, which were almost immediately shut down.

Speaker 1 Shut down, shut down, shut down.

Speaker 4 I had a great pitch, which I think is.

Speaker 3 So I'm a circus clown. And do you remember the pitch?

Speaker 4 I do remember the pitch.

Speaker 3 But let's hear it and let's see if it's really that bad. We'll grade it.

Speaker 4 Okay, so one to ten.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 myself and a date and another couple, we, oh, we can't believe we got reservations for this restaurant. It's supposed to be amazing.
It's called

Speaker 4 In the Sauce. And it's like, wow.
And this very snooty waiter comes in and says, are you ready?

Speaker 4 Can we see a menu? No, we don't give menus. We serve you food.

Speaker 3 You eat the food, you leave.

Speaker 4 You know, it's like, oh, okay, yes, yes, yes. And he said, it's all about the sauce.
So he puts down a crude d'eté and we dip it in the sauce. And it's like, oh my God, just amazing.

Speaker 4 Crude de is taken away. Here comes the entree.
You're eating the entree. We're eating.
Oh, my God. This sauce is absolutely insane.
We're overeating. We eat too much.
We throw up.

Speaker 4 We dip the barf in the sauce.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 It's all about the sauce. It's like no matter no matter what you're eating, as long as

Speaker 3 we know. No, I like it.
It's in the sauce. It's in the sauce.

Speaker 1 What if it's soil and green at the end?

Speaker 4 It's like you have a severed finger and you dip it in the sauce.

Speaker 3 And whatever, I got you. Yeah.
Still good.

Speaker 4 Still good.

Speaker 1 That didn't get past Monday meeting.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it didn't get past Monday. I truncated that pitch now.
It goes much longer.

Speaker 3 I can do a longer version. Sauteed pig snout to take a bite.
Oh, this is horrible. oh yeah

Speaker 3 get everyone to come in with a funny accent you're halfway there yeah did you get to play uh big big broad accents italian what get that out of your system and just because you have a great ear i mean well yeah

Speaker 4 you you know it's like that

Speaker 4 your your listeners know the system now so i mean tuesday is the big writing overnight right and then wednesday the binder the binder of 60 sketches terrifying and each writer is is, can I talk to you in a second?

Speaker 3 Okay, now you're a pirate. No, no, no.
You're a pirate.

Speaker 3 There's absolutely no system.

Speaker 1 They just grab you.

Speaker 3 They just grab you.

Speaker 3 Oh, I am.

Speaker 4 And so

Speaker 4 you're just making big choices.

Speaker 4 Okay, I'm going to do a New York accent, a Southern accent, an English accent. I'm a pirate.
I'm a baseball player.

Speaker 4 And so I don't know what I was doing. It was just one after another after another.
And it's dizzying, as you know.

Speaker 4 And then, but, you know, he's weighing weighing lauren kind of knows what he wants already and then uh and then i'm shuttled into the room uh shuttled

Speaker 3 yeah kind of so yeah secret lauren's office powered ground

Speaker 4 seth and steve came in steve higgins seth myers steve higgins yeah and set and we're we're looking at the board and he is and lauren said well Is there any particular sketch that you felt connected to?

Speaker 4 And I said, yeah, that this other one, this longer met one. Yeah, that's not as strong as this one, though.
You know,

Speaker 3 he hoped you agree. And then you're like, no, actually, you're on.

Speaker 3 What you just picked would never work.

Speaker 3 Here's one that's better. Oh, you're a novice.
It's not your fault, but we'll take care of it.

Speaker 1 Is there anyone you don't like?

Speaker 3 That'll be the Marcy. Any more popcorn? No problem.

Speaker 1 Brian, he's starving. Help him.

Speaker 3 He's so funny.

Speaker 3 But yeah, I mean, it is, there's nothing like it. It's been called an athletic event on the show by some people, like a sporting event.
It's tactile.

Speaker 3 It's

Speaker 3 high risk. I don't know.
I mean,

Speaker 3 we got to get you back on. I want to co-host with you and David.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 I would love to go back on because it is, you know, Steve Higgins said.

Speaker 4 There's two things,

Speaker 4 two pieces of advice I can give you. And I, and I had known Steve before because I worked with his brothers, Al Higgins and David Higgins, who were connected to Malcolm.

Speaker 4 Al was one of the writers of Malcolm.

Speaker 4 Dave Higgins was one of the actors on the show.

Speaker 4 So Steve says two things. First and foremost, trust the cards.
Don't think you can go off the cards and I got this. I know what it is because they're constantly changing.
Cues are changing.

Speaker 4 Lines are changing. Trust the cards.
And second,

Speaker 4 don't try to be perfect. Allow it to not be perfect.
Allow it to be wherever it's going to go. It's part of the fun.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And so I took that advice. And I think by doing so, I mean, I had a blast.
And man, that 90 minutes was over in it felt like two seconds.

Speaker 4 It felt like, you know, 85 minutes. It was amazing.

Speaker 3 Yeah, the energy that comes because

Speaker 3 when you host that show, you're pretty wiped out by the time the dress and all the stuff. And you're coming out and you're like, damn.
And then, of of course, it just comes,

Speaker 3 it just comes when you need it. As soon as you hear that, and it's adrenaline, yeah.

Speaker 4 And then to hear Don for the first time, I'm backstage at that door with the facade, and people are scribbling their names on the thing.

Speaker 4 And you're waiting behind the door, and I'm standing there going, Oh my God, I'm about to host Saturday Night Live.

Speaker 3 Oh my god.

Speaker 4 And I just, I just took a couple deep breaths, and then I hear Don Pardo's voice going, I'm the host, Brian Cransfly.

Speaker 3 You know, and I went, that freaked me out.

Speaker 4 And the door opens and out we go.

Speaker 3 And it was fun.

Speaker 4 God, like shot out of a cannon.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, Brian, before you go, I definitely want to tell you, it's great. First of all, great to have you.

Speaker 1 And second of all, to have a line like, I won't get it exactly right, but that scene when you say, I am the danger, everyone knows it. Everyone talks about it.
It's great to have a show.

Speaker 3 It's already, everyone's all over it but then to have such a cool thing what a blast i i was it it it it possessed me i was completely possessed by that show and the acting and aaron paul all of it was just so new and different i try to think because i was talking to someone i go sopranos

Speaker 3 breaking bad You know, when they say television is better than movies, you know, like to be up in that category. I thought Ozarks was really good.

Speaker 3 There's been a lot of other shows, but i can for sure say sopranos breaking bad like if you have people who haven't seen sopranos you got to watch that haven't seen breaking bad you got to watch that and i think they're seminal i think they're so

Speaker 3 the wire also is the wire is another one there are others where it's like not arguable people like okay okay it almost didn't happen for me either um

Speaker 4 we were we were finishing malcolm in the middle's seventh season and fox said keep all the sets up we might pick it up for an eighth season then they turned around and a month later said in may of 06 no we had a good pilot season so we're we're done with malcolm thank you very much we're all a little disappointed we would have been it would have been fun but later that year is when vince gilligan wanted to see me for for breaking bad and we shot the pilot for breaking bad in february and march of 07.

Speaker 4 had malcolm in the middle gone that eighth year

Speaker 4 i'm not not doing Breaking Bad. Someone else is.
Wow. So it's right.
I try to tell that to young actors all the time to say, luck has a weird way of working.

Speaker 4 So just when something happens that you think is bad luck, it may be putting you in a position to have better luck. You don't know.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's, I love Paul Newman for a lot of reasons, you know, his charitable work, but he always, people would try to go, how great and cool and Luke and how great you are.

Speaker 3 He goes, it comes down to one thing, dumb luck, you know, whether that's completely true or not, but you know, there is whimsy, whimsy to this life and whimsical things happen in show business.

Speaker 3 You'd never know.

Speaker 4 But you still should not have taken a shit on his red socks.

Speaker 1 No, that's crazy.

Speaker 4 That was, that was a mistake.

Speaker 3 I know, but I did have a dream last night. I'll leave you with this.

Speaker 3 I had a dream last night because I thought of you as in a way, like archetypal, like you could, you could have been an actor from the 40s and 50s or whatever, just because of who you, how you looked.

Speaker 3 You're timeless in a way.

Speaker 3 And Henry Fonda came to me in the dream. And I said, well, what do you think of these young actors, Brian Cranston? He said, well, he's as good as anybody's ever been.

Speaker 3 He sure knows his way around a camera. Would have loved to have done a movie with Brian Cranston.
And then I woke up. You know, I said to my wife,

Speaker 3 I just heard Henry Fonda talking about Brian Cranston. So I just wanted to do that for you.
Thank you. No one asked me to do Henry Fonda anymore.
No.

Speaker 4 that's a perfect Henry Fonda. Unfortunately, you got to be 60 to know who he is.

Speaker 3 They only remember Jimmy Stewart, they don't remember Spencer Tracy, Carrie Grant. It's Jimmy Stewart because of the Christmas movie.
It's a wonderful life.

Speaker 1 Brian looks like a little bit like Springsteen today.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 don't you think a little bit? He does look a little bit. There's an underbot there.

Speaker 4 He has a good underbot.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 3 She's cool.

Speaker 1 We were all right. Thank you, buddy.
All right.

Speaker 3 Brian, it's just Such a pleasure. And good luck and everything.
And I'm going to go see this Wes Anderson pitcher. I'm going to see the Phoenician Scheme.
The Phoenician Scheme. The Phenation Scheme.

Speaker 1 And we got Malcolm coming out soon.

Speaker 3 I'll come at all. Yep.

Speaker 1 Thanks, Brian. Okay, bud.

Speaker 3 Have a good day. Be well.

Speaker 3 You too.

Speaker 1 This has been a presentation of Odyssey. Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all the stuff.
Smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 Fly in the Wall is executive and produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss-Berman of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.