Dennis Quaid: Playing Ronald Reagan Was the Scariest Role of My Life | Ep 225 | The Glenn Beck Podcast

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Speaker 2 And now, a Blaze Media Podcast.

Speaker 2 All right, Glenn. You know, I've been a fan of yours since

Speaker 2 CNN, freely.

Speaker 2 Today we're joined by actor Dennis Quaid, a man that not only brings Ronald Reagan to life on the silver screen in his new film, Reagan, tear down this wall, but who also shares a personal journey of restoration.

Speaker 2 You know, when I found myself in bad situations,

Speaker 2 it was all my own fault. We talk about everything from cocaine.
It's fun,

Speaker 2 then it's fun with problems, and then it's just problems. To Christ.
And I came to realize what a personal relationship with Jesus, Jesus Christ, is all about.

Speaker 2 But as we shoot the breeze here at my ranch, an old homestead brought back to life from the dust and echoes of the past, We're not just discussing a film.

Speaker 2 We're pondering whether the restoration Reagan believed in can still happen today.

Speaker 2 It was mourning in America, Reagan once told us. A time of renewal, hope, and boundless opportunity.
Is it mourning in America now, or are we just mourning for America?

Speaker 2 Mourning for a spirit, a people, and a leadership that once defined us, but now seems like a distant memory.

Speaker 2 The love of country that he had and all of that seems to be fading in popular culture. Communism is on the rise inside our country as well as all around the world.

Speaker 2 And it seems like we have to fight it all over again.

Speaker 2 Well, I think that's America. Are we just playing out a beautiful but ultimately futile melody on a piano, hoping the notes will somehow carry us back to a time that's long gone?

Speaker 2 And speaking of pianos, Dennis Quaid, always the entertainer, couldn't resist sitting down at a piano we have here and treating us to an impromptu performance.

Speaker 2 It was a moment that brought a smile, a bit of light in a conversation that at times feels like we're searching for something that might never be found again.

Speaker 2 The best is yet to come, Reagan once said. But is it? Or are we, as Americans, simply trying to find our way back to something we've lost forever?

Speaker 2 This is a special episode of the Glenn Beck Podcast, a day at the ranch with Dennis Quaid. Ready? Yes, sir.
Okay. All right, Glenn.
You know, I've been a fan of yours since

Speaker 2 CNN freely. The war on Christmas has only been getting worse.
First it was the mangers, then it was the trees, and then the word itself. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That is crazy. Yeah.
I never think of... People like you actually, I don't know.

Speaker 2 You don't think of people like you doing normal stuff.

Speaker 2 Like watching TV? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Or the news.
It's supposed to be doing it. Or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I was like, well, you were like the brand new voice on CNN when you came on there. And I'm sure you had a radio show going on before you.

Speaker 2 But it was,

Speaker 2 it was, yeah, I watched you religiously, actually.

Speaker 2 And then all of a sudden you disappeared. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Just like that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It was funny. Clint Eastwood, who I've, he's on my bucket list, and I don't think I'm ever going to get that one checked off.

Speaker 2 He came into into CNN on the day I was gone, and they had a poster of me, and he was walking with Larry King's people. Yeah.
And he just stopped.

Speaker 2 That guy. I like that guy.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's so great. Yeah, nobody ever talked like you.
Yeah, that was kind of about

Speaker 2 the time. When you left, that really kind of

Speaker 2 pretty much coincided with this sort of real break. I mean, there had been

Speaker 2 this. Anyway, but like conservatives and liberals really lined up after that.
It was kind of like

Speaker 2 prisoner exchange or something. I know.
And I really, I mean, I tried to use so much humor in the show, and I really thought people would have a sense of humor. No, common sense is what you've done.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So watched your movie. Love it.
Thank you. Absolutely love it.
Yeah. How frightening was it to take on Reagan?

Speaker 2 It was the scariest

Speaker 2 role of my life, really. It's now my favorite movie that I've ever done

Speaker 2 before that was the right stuff. But I judge my movies by the time that I had while I was making them.
It's a personal experience for me, you know. So after 40 years, Reagan is now my favorite.

Speaker 2 But when they asked me to do it, I didn't say yes and I didn't say no. And, you know, this fear went up my spine because Reagan was my favorite president.
I had voted for Jimmy Carter in 76.

Speaker 2 We all make a mistake. Yes.
But,

Speaker 2 you know, at the time he was an outsider, was post-Watergate and all that, you know, and what that was going to bring to Washington, which didn't get brought.

Speaker 2 Reagan was my favorite president. I voted for him, and I came home and I had a roommate at the time, back in 1980.
He said, Who did you vote for? I said, Reagan.

Speaker 2 And he said, You are kicked out of the hippies.

Speaker 2 That's really

Speaker 2 sad.

Speaker 2 So I had to turn in my card and everything.

Speaker 2 That was

Speaker 2 kicked out.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 I really so admired him. And

Speaker 2 he won the Cold War. And he was my dad's favorite president, too.
My dad had been talking about Ronald Reagan for president since back like 68. 64.
He was fantastic.

Speaker 2 In fact, my first memory of Reagan outside of him being the guy who sold Baraxo soap from Death Valley days

Speaker 2 was

Speaker 2 being in the car with my dad going down to Galveston from Houston, which is where I'm from, and

Speaker 2 Reagan was giving the speech

Speaker 2 on the radio, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, day of time of choosing. Yeah, time of choosing.
And

Speaker 2 my dad was like on the dashboard,

Speaker 2 like go Ronnie and stuff. And

Speaker 2 that was my first memory of him as a political figure. Where then is the road to peace?

Speaker 3 Well, it's a simple answer after all.

Speaker 3 You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, there is a price we will not pay. There is a point beyond which they must not advance.

Speaker 2 Inspiring. Yeah, it really is an incredible speech.
Yeah, it is. And timely still today.
That was my first awareness of him as a political figure. And

Speaker 2 so,

Speaker 2 but, you know, he was to take the role, like I said, I had, you know, fear went up my spine because he's like Muhammad Ali. He's one of the,

Speaker 2 probably one of the most recognized people all over the world, period. It's like Trump.

Speaker 2 Has such an opinion about him.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I didn't want to do like an impersonation of him.

Speaker 2 He was my, I mean, he's,

Speaker 2 you know, probably my biggest hero

Speaker 2 in a way.

Speaker 2 What is it about him that... he won the Cold War? We grew up getting under our desk at school,

Speaker 2 you know, they were going to drop the bomb. I mean, it was going to happen.
I know. And it came so close to the Cuban missile crisis.

Speaker 2 You know, we lived in Houston and we were in that circle that they had of where those missiles could reach. And, you know,

Speaker 2 we were Space City. Of course, they were going to hit us.

Speaker 2 And we got kept home from school for that. You know, and nobody had been able to make any progress with that until Reagan.

Speaker 2 At the time, everybody, you know, the left, everybody, to the left, everyone is a monster.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he was called a warmonger.

Speaker 2 You know, he was going to get us into a war for sure. Yeah.
But, you know, all we'd done with the Soviets was appease. I know.

Speaker 2 Kennedy, you know, and Khrushchev had, you know, they were communicating, and that was, I thought that was handled well for the time that it was going to happen because it was going to happen.

Speaker 2 But then, you know, at the time that Reagan entered office, it was very much afraid that it was going to happen again

Speaker 2 and that it was predestined to happen in a way. The Soviets under Carter really built their military way up.

Speaker 2 Carter was, you know, I thought he did a great job in the Middle East of bringing Egypt and Israel together.

Speaker 2 But,

Speaker 2 you know, we gave away the B-1 bomber. We just kept conceding stuff to him.
And it,

Speaker 2 you know, the more that we gave away,

Speaker 2 the more I think they just kind of laughed at us.

Speaker 2 And we're America as Americans. I think Jimmy Carter, the Jimmy Carter administration, exemplified the way the American people are in their heart.

Speaker 2 That we're peaceful.

Speaker 2 at our heart. We want to live in harmony with the rest of the world

Speaker 2 in allies, friendships, and

Speaker 2 but that's not the way the rest of the world is. I know.
The rest of the world didn't grow up like we grew up. They grew up like

Speaker 2 in the middle,

Speaker 2 in the Middle East, you know, and

Speaker 2 they are a product, like we're a product the way we grew up.

Speaker 2 And we don't have a chance against brutes like that.

Speaker 2 We do if

Speaker 2 we have somebody like Reagan. Reagan was, I always wanted, you know, those

Speaker 2 old Westerns where the cowboy kind of has a twitchy eye and you're like, I don't know, he might just kill us all right now, or we might be having, you know, a party in an hour. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's what Reagan was.

Speaker 2 Reagan had that eye where he was fun, he could be your best friend, but when he said something,

Speaker 2 you knew he meant it

Speaker 2 and you were like, hey, at At least 80%.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 he was the guy who you really thought

Speaker 2 he just might do it. Even the people in our own country

Speaker 2 thought. Yes.
You know.

Speaker 2 I love the.

Speaker 2 But why do you think that the Iran hostages were released 20 minutes after he took office? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I love the way that the movie portrays him and Gorbachev,

Speaker 2 I know a lot of people that were in the room at the time with all of this stuff, and you nailed it. The story is accurate, the way it was told.

Speaker 2 Well, we made sure about that.

Speaker 2 The only non-historical fact is that my dog Peaches is the family dog in the movie. He didn't have a bulldog, but that's about where it ends.
So,

Speaker 2 I mean, even down to like his and Nancy's relationship, which is so central to the story. It's a love story as well.
So let me ask you, because this is one thing I thought about the movie.

Speaker 2 I don't know if people, let's say my son's age, 18 years old, 19 years old, is going to be able to relate to their relationship because that is so

Speaker 2 odd

Speaker 2 for today's society, for the consuming society. You know what I mean? You don't see that kind of relationship.
And that was real. Yeah, it was really real.
Right.

Speaker 2 They were like that, but it seems so unrealistic in today's world.

Speaker 2 Well, you know, even back in the 60s, it was kind of

Speaker 2 unrealistic in a way, you know, because 50% of marriages were still breaking up. And they had, in fact, even Reagan was, you know, divorced.
He was married to Jane White. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 in fact, I think he was our first divorce president.

Speaker 2 In fact, but they had a special thing. And I disagree with you about that because I'm married married to the, like, the greatest woman in the world.
No, I am too. You know, and

Speaker 2 I've been, you know, I've been a dog

Speaker 2 into relationships before, too. But I've, you know, it's

Speaker 2 it's it's great to be in one that

Speaker 2 I But people don't see that

Speaker 2 they don't see that anymore. They might see it in their personal lives or anything, but in culture, that is not

Speaker 2 the

Speaker 2 image. No, but

Speaker 2 it should be. Yeah, well, we don't have

Speaker 2 the culture has changed so much. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Right, it's a consumer culture where everybody wants everything right now. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But just, I don't know, you go out into the middle of the country and I see a lot of really great examples of relationships that

Speaker 2 I got this for

Speaker 2 my wife's

Speaker 2 anniversary, written by Reagan. It's a quote from Thomas Jefferson.
Harmony is the

Speaker 2 I should be able to read my own writing.

Speaker 2 Harmony is the married state, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Married state with

Speaker 2 very first object to be aimed at is harmony.

Speaker 2 Harmony in the marriage.

Speaker 2 Harmony in the marriage state is the very first object to be

Speaker 2 aimed at, aimed at. Um, uh,

Speaker 2 happiness by the oh gosh, I know I can't, I don't have my glasses. We're both so horrible.
We got shots

Speaker 2 happiness by the domestic

Speaker 2 something.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 anyway, I figured no, we're into this now, Glenn. We're gonna do that.
We're into deep

Speaker 2 by the by the domestic

Speaker 2 pressure.

Speaker 2 Pursuit. Pursuit

Speaker 2 is the first

Speaker 2 boon of heaven.

Speaker 2 Isn't it great? Yes.

Speaker 2 He wrote her.

Speaker 2 Every day. Every day.
Every day. I love her.
He wrote this for her. Yeah.
This was the one. He was writing when he was in the hospital and assassination.
I know. He gave this to her.

Speaker 2 They were having dinner with Prince Charles and Lady Diana. Oh, really? And on on their anniversary and he slipped it across the table oh wow it's but they did write and

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Speaker 2 So when you, I mean, you came over and you just hit the Steinway before we

Speaker 2 started. You were taught by Jerry Lee Lewis.
Amazing.

Speaker 2 When you play a character like this,

Speaker 2 and you're not a character, but a real person, and you're really trying to

Speaker 2 nail them,

Speaker 2 you have to have a relationship with them.

Speaker 2 Even if they're dead, you have to have a relationship with them. Well, it gets down to the point.
For me, what makes acting so fascinating is the psychology of it.

Speaker 2 What makes people tick, and who are they?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that's what I, you know, we were starting to talk about when I was offered Reagan, I didn't turn it down, but I didn't say yes because I didn't want to do an impersonation and then

Speaker 2 I didn't want to do a hero worship thing.

Speaker 2 It's about playing that person from their point of view.

Speaker 2 Or to do that is to find out what makes them tick. And I feel like I have a responsibility to do that.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 there was a part of Reagan in my research of it, of people who knew him, that

Speaker 2 there was kind of the great communicator, there was this unreachable, very private place

Speaker 2 in him that I think even Nancy felt to a certain extent, although she probably knew him the best. And

Speaker 2 I think that's where Reagan resided.

Speaker 2 I think it was his relationship with God. I think it was

Speaker 2 his most private thoughts and

Speaker 2 probably

Speaker 2 a shield

Speaker 2 from the people around him because he had so many people always

Speaker 2 you know around him at least in his political career but I think this also went back to his childhood

Speaker 2 where

Speaker 2 he could have that private

Speaker 2 place

Speaker 2 and it's almost

Speaker 2 Japanese in that you know that what they talk about having the privacy in the midst of

Speaker 2 so much going on.

Speaker 2 You know, I think part of that is what made him a great communicator. But getting to that

Speaker 2 is what I needed to get to because I knew I was going to be really judged and stuff. And so I

Speaker 2 read

Speaker 2 several biographies and but I went to the Reagan Ranch. I got invited up there.
That's

Speaker 2 and that is was the Western White House. That's where they lived.
He bought that back after

Speaker 2 being governor of California. Do you have any idea?

Speaker 2 When I saw that scene, I thought,

Speaker 2 good heavens,

Speaker 2 at that time, how much did they pay for that? Yeah. Oh,

Speaker 2 I'm sure. It was at the top of the hill, too.

Speaker 2 It's not a stream going through it.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 so I went there, a group of friends bought it

Speaker 2 after his passing, and they kept it exactly. as it was.
I mean, their clothes are in the closet.

Speaker 2 It's like you feel that they're going to come back any moment. But I went through the first, you go up five miles of the worst road in California to get to this place.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of bad roads in California. Yeah, this one's bad.
And

Speaker 2 went through the gate and you come out and you see the place and the house and

Speaker 2 the field and the fences and the pond.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I got Reagan. Right there, you can feel him.
I realized that he was a humble man.

Speaker 2 He was not a rich man.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know, go into the house, they had a king-size bed, but it was two single beds that were zip-tied together.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. All the appliances are GE.
He used to be the sponsor for GE, right?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 the house itself is

Speaker 2 maybe 1,100 square feet, you know?

Speaker 2 1,100 square feet. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 you can feel that he really did did do all the work around that place. And

Speaker 2 I think

Speaker 2 that's when I that's when I said yes to the role was after that trip. After that.

Speaker 2 I think that's what I liked about Reagan.

Speaker 2 He was just real.

Speaker 2 He worked.

Speaker 2 He could fit in on anything, but he seemed more at home at the ranch.

Speaker 2 And, you know, it just, you see these pictures of him and he's, I don't know, he's just, he's almost the Marlborough Marlborough man without the cigarette. He really was.

Speaker 2 You know, he was like John Wayne. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Only, you know, in his movie career,

Speaker 2 that role was taken

Speaker 2 by John Wayne. But I think he maybe studied John Wayne's walk a little bit

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 they walked a little bit like the same. You know, they were all taught how to walk and talk and everything when he got to Hollywood in the mid-30s.

Speaker 2 And that was another interesting thing about Reagan was that

Speaker 2 look for things the way we all think of ourselves.

Speaker 2 He had to be that way too.

Speaker 2 Humans, we all have varying levels of self-esteem during certain periods of our life and things that we go through that

Speaker 2 other people might think, oh, well, he's successful, he's powerful, he's this or that, but inside your own person,

Speaker 2 all that matters is the way you feel.

Speaker 2 And I never thought,

Speaker 2 I don't think Reagan ever got to the point

Speaker 2 of where he wanted to go as an actor. Oh, yeah.
You know, he was

Speaker 2 relegated to beat movies, you know, Jack Warner. And like I said, you know, John Wayne, that role was already taken.
Right.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 then, you know, he was married to Jane Wyneman.

Speaker 2 Boy, that's

Speaker 2 that was ugly. Who was just coming up

Speaker 2 as his career was

Speaker 2 going down.

Speaker 2 And I mean, she won an Academy Award,

Speaker 2 you know, like that. And

Speaker 2 I myself was kind of in a similar situation like that with Meg. You know, my career was like

Speaker 2 that with Methods and hers kind of went like

Speaker 2 that.

Speaker 2 You know, and

Speaker 2 you can be, you know, generous with yourself or whatever or say that

Speaker 2 doesn't hit you somewhere in inside you, but it does. You're playing with with that, you know, know, and

Speaker 2 where you have this feeling like you were disappearing or whatever. And so that's something I could understand about, you know, relate with him about.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 one of his last jobs, he was doing like Vegas shows in

Speaker 2 like cheesy comic Vegas shows, you know, to just

Speaker 2 put food on the table. It's a weird game.
Fame, I think, is... Fame and fortune is battery acid to the soul.
Yeah. You know, because it plays weird games with you.
And if you don't know who you are,

Speaker 2 it takes time sometimes to know who you are. It does.

Speaker 2 It does. But I mean,

Speaker 2 but if you don't in your business, even in my business, you'll lose your way because

Speaker 2 you'll feel...

Speaker 2 Am I slipping a little bit? Am I not? And it just messes with your head. And then you have to decide, is it worth?

Speaker 2 Are you going to do that? Are you going to change? Are you going to do that for that? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Or you know who you are. Yeah.
And if you're

Speaker 2 like if you're a kid from Houston, you know, working class parents, there's not a whole lot of, you know, you really get raised to know what to do in those situations.

Speaker 2 You have to kind of learn it yourself. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm lucky enough to have been in those situations that I was in, you know, and also lucky enough to have gotten through a lot of those things. But it was, you know, it was also

Speaker 2 God closes a door

Speaker 2 and he opens another one. And I think with Reagan, it was a really,

Speaker 2 a lot of his life

Speaker 2 was based on finding God's purpose for his life. I mean, truly.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know, he became

Speaker 2 when you're

Speaker 2 when you're when acting starts to kind of like fade, A lot of actors, you know, Ed Asner being one of them and several others, you become president of the Screen Actors Guild.

Speaker 2 And that was his entry into politics there.

Speaker 2 And he was fighting communists

Speaker 2 in that role as well. Because the communists, that was back during McCarthy era, they were trying to take over the unions.
Right.

Speaker 2 You cover this a bit in the movie, and I've always heard that he was really torn. on that.
He didn't like the

Speaker 2 going in and turning people, having to give names, but he didn't have a problem if they were communist if they were a problem yeah and well his whole idea too about

Speaker 2 about communism uh whereas what do you think about you know we're trying to root it out of our system and when he went to testify that

Speaker 2 he

Speaker 2 he testified with a thing saying that you know you ought to just allow communism

Speaker 2 in here because our system can handle it. That's what the

Speaker 2 American system is all about. Yes.
You know, the freedom to

Speaker 2 form a political party.

Speaker 2 Isn't it weird that,

Speaker 2 I mean, when you started, you said, I said, why was you here? Because he won the Cold War, and he did.

Speaker 2 But isn't it weird that we are kind of back to where we were, except the love of country that he had and all of that seems to be fading in popular culture. Communism is on the rise inside

Speaker 2 our country as well as all around the world.

Speaker 2 And it seems like we have to fight it all over again.

Speaker 2 It's.

Speaker 2 Well, I think that's America. And I think it's happened time and time again.

Speaker 2 In fact, you know, right off the bat, it was after we were formed as a country. You know, there was the whiskey rebellion that Washington had to go put down.
Then we had the War of 1812.

Speaker 2 Then we had, you know, the westward expansion and what was going to be a slave state or a free state. The Civil War solved that one.
Then we went into another thing, you know, which.

Speaker 2 Are you an optimist? You feel like...

Speaker 2 I believe in the American people. I do.
I do. And,

Speaker 2 you know, it is sometimes a...

Speaker 2 a big, great experiment that sometimes

Speaker 2 goes flat. I like Churchill when he said,

Speaker 2 trust the American people. You know,

Speaker 2 they'll get it wrong, but eventually

Speaker 2 they'll figure it out and get it wrong.

Speaker 2 You're right. Well, the last time that, you know, the most similar times to today are, I would say, the

Speaker 2 60s and 70s,

Speaker 2 you know, that culminated. You know, the end of that was Ronald Reagan getting

Speaker 2 elected to office.

Speaker 2 That was a big experiment. It was tumultuous.
Would Reagan work today?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think Reagan would work today. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he definitely would work today. I think that's what people are yearning for, really, is a return to

Speaker 2 really kind of common sense

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 decency. I love the fact that

Speaker 2 I've been watching his speeches for a while now, and I just love the fact that he would always walk out and he'd be like,

Speaker 2 Republican and Democrat walk into a bar. And

Speaker 2 he's not tearing people down. He's just telling us.

Speaker 2 liberal joke.

Speaker 2 He always opened.

Speaker 2 I love that.

Speaker 2 But we also, back at this time, we had liberal Republicans, we had conservative Democrats.

Speaker 2 I pined for the Democrat of Joe Lieberman. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that was. I love Joe.
That was like the last, the closest we could love is probably Joe Manchin recently. And there's the closest we came to that.
Right.

Speaker 2 And there's a, I think there's a great distance between them, but it is close. It's at least recognizable.

Speaker 2 I think the great hope for, you know, that would be RFK, to tell you the truth, as far as being able to reach cross-party and or really not even be about party,

Speaker 2 you know, be about America and where we are and where we're going. Yeah,

Speaker 2 I don't agree with probably most of his ideas, but

Speaker 2 we can have a conversation.

Speaker 2 I just had a conversation. He called, when I was on CNN.
He said that I should be tried for treason and executed.

Speaker 2 Really? Yeah. Well, and like I said,

Speaker 2 I don't agree with most of his ideas, but I don't know the full story on that one. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But we had a great conversation. You know? Yeah.
Had a great conversation. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And he said, yeah,

Speaker 2 I've revised some of my viewpoints on

Speaker 2 some of these things.

Speaker 2 It's enough of a struggle just to live our lives and try to keep tyranny at bay day after day without also having to deal with pain on a regular basis.

Speaker 2 If you're in constant pain or just occasional really bad pain,

Speaker 2 you can count yourself out. We need absolutely everybody in this fight.
You're here for a reason. Now, the biggest cause of our pain is inflammation in our joints.

Speaker 2 I know because I used to have it in my hands really badly. I couldn't button my own shirt sometimes.
I'd have to get my, my wife would get up in the morning and button my shirts. I couldn't do that.

Speaker 2 What changed in my life was my wife insisted that I try Relief Factor. I didn't think it would work for me.
Well, I got my life back. You might get your life back as well.

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Speaker 2 Can I go into

Speaker 2 the

Speaker 2 downfall in your life for a while? Yeah, sure. Because I want to talk about what you're doing now with music and everything else.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I don't know how important is a real downfall to really finding yourself and God and having that deep connection?

Speaker 2 I don't think one should go looking for it.

Speaker 2 Right. You know, like we all wanted to be James Dean

Speaker 2 back then, you know, to have that angst and stuff. But I don't think, but I think it steals

Speaker 2 yourself as a person, and I think that's where you

Speaker 2 really find about what you're made of or in who you are.

Speaker 2 There are maybe some people that are lucky in life to

Speaker 2 know who they are or whatever, but you know, I went through

Speaker 2 a few periods in my life, you know, that were that's just a deepening. Yeah.
You know, and sometimes feels like God's pruning. And,

Speaker 2 you know, when I found myself in bad situations,

Speaker 2 it was all my own fault. So,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 I was all that stuff my mother said. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But I found myself,

Speaker 2 you know, so you get to a point of surrender. You know, I was back in the 70s and 80s.
I was, you know, I

Speaker 2 got into cocaine. You know, like,

Speaker 2 was that Jerry Lee Lewis?

Speaker 2 That culminated in Jerry Lee Lewis.

Speaker 2 I mean, cocaine when it came along in the 70s, I remember a cover story of cocaine, you know, that was like they just discovered it or something, and they were saying it was non-addictive and all that.

Speaker 2 You know, that all worked until John Belushi. Yeah.
But there are three, there are three

Speaker 2 phases of that, just like with any addiction, really, where it's fun,

Speaker 2 then it's fun with problems, and then it's, it's just problems, you know, and the rest of your life just doesn't work

Speaker 2 and uh

Speaker 2 you know i was you know i think i got to that point i guess i yeah i know i got to that point but i went into rehab like 1990 and i

Speaker 2 was i was lucky enough to get it the first time and get that out of my life good for you you know and uh

Speaker 2 that really began kind of a

Speaker 2 a second

Speaker 2 uh because the program that you go through uh with addiction is a spiritual program. That's what it comes.
They say it's a spiritual problem.

Speaker 2 I think it is because

Speaker 2 you're using whatever you're using or, you know, whatever your addiction is

Speaker 2 to fill that hole inside you, which works for quite a while. Yeah.
And then

Speaker 2 until it doesn't.

Speaker 2 That needs to be like an eternal thing in order to be a real thing. Right.

Speaker 2 And that's what I've read the the Bible now like five times through different

Speaker 2 parts of my life. And I got I got

Speaker 2 disillusioned with what I call churchianity. I grew up in the Baptist church.
And I got disillusioned with the churchianity back in the 70s. And I read Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, which opened Buddhism

Speaker 2 to me. And

Speaker 2 when I went around the world,

Speaker 2 I read the Koran, I read the Dhammapada, I read the Bhagavad Gita, and

Speaker 2 then I came back, I read the Bible again, and

Speaker 2 when I

Speaker 2 got a rehab, I did that, and

Speaker 2 I was really struck by the red words of Jesus, which

Speaker 2 that was what really hit me more than any of the

Speaker 2 other books. And I came to realize what a personal relationship with Jesus, Jesus Christ, is all about.

Speaker 2 Or started to know what that was all about, because it is a relationship that grows and that ebbs, you know, according to the attention that's paid to it, just like any other relationship. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 is always there and how real that is to me. It's about a personal relationship.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that is the thing that really runs through all religions, I think, is the search for that. Right.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 I'm an alcoholic. I don't know if you know that, but I'm an alcoholic, and our journey is very similar.
I think most people with addictions would say that.

Speaker 2 And I didn't know what a personal relationship was like. And

Speaker 2 there are times, and it would always be this way if I were.

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 always in the right place, but there are times he is my absolute best friend. Yeah.
And

Speaker 2 when you're in that space, and you could,

Speaker 2 when you're in that space, anything can happen to you, and you'll be like, it doesn't matter. Right.
Doesn't matter. Right.
I'm cool.

Speaker 2 He's got it. A lot of people, you know,

Speaker 2 who are not believers or

Speaker 2 whatever, it's hard to understand that.

Speaker 2 It's always been hard for me. me to understand that too.
But, you know, because that's a crutch or it's like it's some fairy tale about heaven or this or that.

Speaker 2 But Jesus,

Speaker 2 the way I read it and feel it and experienced it, Jesus came

Speaker 2 in the red words of Jesus, he came here to teach us about

Speaker 2 heaven afterwards, but more importantly, how to have heaven on earth. Correct.
That was the main message, in fact,

Speaker 2 was about how to experience heaven on earth. Love God,

Speaker 2 love yourself, love your neighbor. The kingdom of heaven is spread out upon the earth, and and man cannot see it because it's about looking inward and it's about just asking.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And you, you know, it's also incredibly simple. It's exactly what it said.

Speaker 2 You know, but that's what I've come to know and cultivate. You know, everybody gets all wrapped up in sin and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 Jesus took away our sins. I think what Jesus was actually saying to us is that we ourselves, just like heaven exists here on earth, and here's how to get to it.

Speaker 2 But we live, as we go along out of our kid phase, and we live in hell inside

Speaker 2 of ourselves. We either have guilts or the things that we should have or think we should have that really kind of tear us up inside.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it was

Speaker 2 Jesus came along, and

Speaker 2 it's about giving up on that.

Speaker 2 As much as being forgiven of

Speaker 2 sin, it's more about

Speaker 2 just throwing it away

Speaker 2 inside yourself. I think that's the secret of heaven is being able to accept,

Speaker 2 okay, I did that, but it doesn't, it's not, it's in my past and it doesn't matter. And

Speaker 2 I know who I am. And that doesn't mean necessarily it's going to be poof tomorrow, but you can start to cultivate.

Speaker 2 You can start to cultivate a voice inside your head

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 will get you there. I mean, I myself,

Speaker 2 I experienced actually in the last

Speaker 2 eight years,

Speaker 2 you know, I would say the equivalent of

Speaker 2 a kind of a nervous breakdown, to tell you the truth, because

Speaker 2 I was turning 60, which freaked me out. But there were a lot of things going on in my life that I wasn't being authentic to myself.
You know,

Speaker 2 I don't think I was showing one thing to the world, but I was inside and wasn't a terrible person or anything, but it was like

Speaker 2 just things in me that

Speaker 2 needed realignment. Yeah, it needed realignment.
And I drew upon

Speaker 2 that personal relationship.

Speaker 2 to

Speaker 2 get there. And it's a voice that

Speaker 2 in one's head, you know, the voice that tells you you're not good enough, you know, you're not smart enough, and people don't like you, you know, the Saturday Night Life scared.

Speaker 2 You know, we all have that voice inside our head, and sometimes that voice can take over.

Speaker 2 And it keeps you from,

Speaker 2 it keeps you from being who you are.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 funny enough, it, you know, along with Jesus, was Yoko Ono,

Speaker 2 along with Jesus, who really kind of like gave me a little

Speaker 2 bit of a titbit, you get your hippie card.

Speaker 2 Titbit to get out of that. She said after John, she just practiced,

Speaker 2 she, when six months, she was a wreck, and she just started like

Speaker 2 smiling at herself in the mirror or trying to. And she didn't believe it for six months, but it actually turned into genuine.

Speaker 2 And it's about really looking into yourself and really seeing yourself and nurturing yourself and

Speaker 2 and wanting to I mean I know I looked at myself in a mirror for a long time and saying you're worthless you're you're you know you're weak how can this happen to you

Speaker 2 and it my dad said start saying things that you want to believe about yourself and look yourself in the eye.

Speaker 2 Boy, there's a long time you looked at yourself. Well, I heard it from Yoko Ono.

Speaker 2 I didn't even like Yoko Ono before that. Tell you the truth.
You know, the Beatles thing going way back there. But, you know,

Speaker 2 never realized, you know, that

Speaker 2 happiness is a choice or that way. I hate to say the word happiness because it's such a blanket thing, but it's,

Speaker 2 what can I say? It's a feeling of wholeness inside.

Speaker 2 Peace. Yeah.

Speaker 2 A feeling of authenticity. And once you kind of like,

Speaker 2 you know, they say confess your sins or this or that.

Speaker 2 What it is, it's a throwing throwing off of it. And then

Speaker 2 you're free. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You're free of all that.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 2 that was, you know, that was a deepening. And I feel that,

Speaker 2 you know, like I said, God's pruning or, you know, I'm still enjoying lessons. I thought, you know, by the time I got to be 60 or by the time I got to be 70, I would have, you know,

Speaker 2 figured it all out, been through all those like phases of my life.

Speaker 2 but then again I didn't realize that I never knew what it was like to be 60 and I never knew what it was like to be 70 why would you have things figured out

Speaker 2 I'm listening I'm listening to your

Speaker 2 your album and it's amazing to hear I think there's a huge difference between

Speaker 2 you see the Johnny Cash movie yeah for sure so

Speaker 2 so you remember the time when he walks into Sam Phillips studio and he gets the audition and he's playing and he's like, I don't believe you. I don't believe you.

Speaker 2 You have the same kind of

Speaker 2 feeling, I think, that

Speaker 2 Johnny Cash had.

Speaker 2 Where

Speaker 2 you can tell

Speaker 2 you earned that.

Speaker 2 You can tell you mean that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you're talking about my gospel record. Yes, yeah, you're in a way.
Yeah, because

Speaker 2 it was very personal. Yeah.
The please don't give up on me is really. In fact, well,

Speaker 2 half the musicians that are on that record were Johnny Cash's last studio band, in fact.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 yeah, it was very personal.

Speaker 2 I know what you're talking about, is that you can feel that I'd been through what I was

Speaker 2 singing about. Turned out it was very obvious.
My spiritual journey through life. Yeah.
It was what it was. So, what's next on that?

Speaker 2 On that,

Speaker 2 with music? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm kind of working on a kid's record, right?

Speaker 2 Really? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there aren't enough of them anymore, you know? I think. Like, what's a kid's record? Well, like, you know, songs like

Speaker 2 Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor with a Bedpost Overnight? Right. Or Remember When You Ran Away and I Got On My Knees.
That was a kid's song. Come on.
You You know, and

Speaker 2 I got this song called The Jungle, which is I wrote when I was 21, actually, put on there. And, you know, it's a little bit more secular, but

Speaker 2 kid songs. Yeah.
There's a whole market out there that nobody stops.

Speaker 2 Most self-defense situations can be handled with a gun, but that doesn't mean they all should be handled with a gun. I believe wholeheartedly in the Second Amendment.
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Speaker 2 Let's just talk about

Speaker 2 where

Speaker 2 are we as

Speaker 2 a world right now? What are you talking about?

Speaker 2 I don't know. Yeah, I really.
Nobody knows, right? I know.

Speaker 2 It's weird because we've been through all of this before

Speaker 2 over and over again. I mean, like, some of it is almost exactly what we've been through before.

Speaker 2 But for some reason, we don't look to history to figure out, okay, well, don't do that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it seemed like before we went through it before, there were actually leaders

Speaker 2 to the like

Speaker 2 leaders on our ally side and on their side. And on their side, or even in the domestic situation, you know, you had

Speaker 2 leaders within that. We had Martin Luther King, you had Matt Connects, you had SDS leaders, Abby Hoffman, blah, blah, blah.
People actually kind of like spoke up for everybody in a sense, you know.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 where

Speaker 2 would it, when it comes to like Islamic terrorism, who's who speaks for that?

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 I don't know. Yeah.
You know, even Black Lives Matter was like, who are the leaders of that that were like up front speaking for that? Right. It just seemed like the movement.
You know, and

Speaker 2 even all the this political correctness and

Speaker 2 just we're, you know, in that sense,

Speaker 2 there's some way to have a conversation about it instead of just this kind of,

Speaker 2 which no wonder people are saying, you know, that

Speaker 2 there's a dark government, you know.

Speaker 2 But with

Speaker 2 these faceless people that are

Speaker 2 controlling everything yeah

Speaker 2 and you get the feeling of that i i don't know but i also do feel

Speaker 2 that it's like i said it's a cycle

Speaker 2 that all of us are

Speaker 2 working out

Speaker 2 as individuals and as the american people

Speaker 2 and i think the world feels right now like it's been turned upside down, but I'm actually starting to see signs of it turning right side up. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Common sense seems to be, we lost it entirely for a while. And it seems to be, I think people are tired of supposedly having to hate their neighbor and people who vote.

Speaker 2 I don't care how you vote. I really don't.

Speaker 2 Can we agree on some certain principles? You know, we don't. Right, exactly.
I'm of the same. Yeah.

Speaker 2 At least can we make like individual

Speaker 2 decisions

Speaker 2 on our own instead of just taking

Speaker 2 some mandate that's been

Speaker 2 told that it's mandatory that we have to think this way, say these things. And I'm talking about on both sides of the

Speaker 2 really. Oh, I know.
You know, you feel like you can't cross that line or you're going to be a traitor. Right.
And

Speaker 2 what happened to the individual, the rugged individual

Speaker 2 that was the American ideal, that you would

Speaker 2 look, buddy, I don't agree with you on everything yeah but good luck right good luck and I mean that sincerely and hey let's go have a beer or whatever right well Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan did have that

Speaker 2 was one of the things they also had certain principles in common that was the main thing about Reagan is that he had principles in his life and he governed by those principles.

Speaker 2 And if you have principles,

Speaker 2 then it doesn't matter. Political party goes out the window.
Correct.

Speaker 2 Because if you have those principles, you're going to make an unpopular decision with whoever voted you in because it's the best thing to do for the whole.

Speaker 2 And Reagan definitely had that going on. That's how he won the Cold War.
It gives you patience, too, with other people and

Speaker 2 for allowing. something to unfold.

Speaker 2 So how do we get back there?

Speaker 2 I guess one little step at a time. I think it starts at home, in our relationships with our friends, local community.
You know,

Speaker 2 it really got to the point where people, if, you know, you find out if they're Democrats or you find out they're Republicans, you just,

Speaker 2 there's this just label that goes up on them. And, you know,

Speaker 2 they're out the door

Speaker 2 on both sides, too. You know, we got to break that down.

Speaker 2 We pass each other on the street every day. We're in each other's shops.

Speaker 2 You know, we go to school with

Speaker 2 people on the other side. And, you know, then we find out they're either a Democrat or Republican or this or that.
And all of a sudden, you know,

Speaker 2 they're horrible people. What's changed? You know, only us.
Yes.

Speaker 2 We have to look inside ourselves. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Really, in order to find out. Are the churches doing their part? I feel actually that

Speaker 2 the churches or people who go to church or are religiously minded

Speaker 2 was going down for so long, ever since, I guess, you know, the end of World War II.

Speaker 2 But I think it's coming back.

Speaker 2 I think COVID,

Speaker 2 as horrible as COVID was, I think it was also, in a way, that's what

Speaker 2 a spiritual revolution looks like like or a revival is what it looks like because it forced people to get out of their routines that they were obsessed about and the way we lived brought them home the kids were home we were all together we had to like get through this together

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 there was a lot of death going on

Speaker 2 made you think about

Speaker 2 What's important?

Speaker 2 What is important? Yeah. You know,

Speaker 2 and a lot of people go running to God when things are bad.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's okay. That's fine, too, right?

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 it forced you to look inwardly, you know, and that's, I think we've,

Speaker 2 I mean, it's not full bloom yet, but

Speaker 2 the seeds are planted. Yeah, the seeds are planted.
I really do think that.

Speaker 2 I really do believe that. I agree.
I have faith. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's where Reagan and I, I guess,

Speaker 2 we're the same. We're both actors, and I think we both have a sunny disposition down at the bottom of it.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Show you just a couple of Reagan things.

Speaker 2 George Washington's glasses. A wear? A hair? Yeah.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
This is what was held down at his side on Inauguration Day, 1980. So he could

Speaker 2 do his lines. Yeah.
Isn't that amazing? It's kind of a combination of different eras.

Speaker 2 It is, actually. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It is. It's kind of like the very beginning of his presidency, and it's also got a little bit of his Hollywood stuff, too.
Yeah, yeah. Did you ever get kind of just?

Speaker 2 I'm good. Good.
Do you have a good time?

Speaker 2 Good.

Speaker 2 As he began his song and sang the heartfelt words, may God smile down on you, I couldn't help but feel the strength of his faith and the warmth of his optimism.

Speaker 2 Friends, don't mourn for the death of the morning in America.

Speaker 2 Sure, it's shaping up to be a nasty day, but like Reagan, Dennis Quaid understands that faith isn't a denial of reality, it's the courage to face it with the God in whom we trust.

Speaker 2 When you're pulling back the shade, when you're kicking off your shoes at the end of the day, when you just need someone

Speaker 2 to tell your troubles to

Speaker 2 I will be listening, baby,

Speaker 2 tell me everything.

Speaker 2 Just let go, let your sweet soul sing. I will take care of you.

Speaker 2 Don't be afraid, cause each and every night.

Speaker 2 Oh, each and every night,

Speaker 2 I pray

Speaker 2 that may your wildest dreams come true.

Speaker 2 May the light shine down on you.

Speaker 2 May God bless your heavy breath.

Speaker 2 May your wildest

Speaker 2 dreams

Speaker 2 come true.

Speaker 2 May your wildest

Speaker 2 dreams

Speaker 2 come true.

Speaker 2 And may God

Speaker 2 swim down

Speaker 2 nice

Speaker 2 fantastic. Thank you.

Speaker 2 Just a reminder: I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.