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

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And now, a Blaze Media Podcast.

All right, Glenn.

You know, I've been a fan of yours since

CNN, freely.

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.

You know, when I found myself in bad situations,

it was all my own fault.

We talk about everything from cocaine.

It's fun,

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.

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.

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

It was morning in America, Reagan once told us.

A time of renewal, hope, and boundless opportunity.

Is it morning in America now, or are we just mourning for America?

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

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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?

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

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.

That is crazy.

Yeah, I never think of people like you actually, I don't know.

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

Like watching TV?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or the the news.

It's supposed to be dormant.

Or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

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, right?

And, but it was, um,

it was, uh, yeah, I watched you religiously, actually.

And then all of a sudden you disappeared.

Yeah.

Just like that.

Yeah.

It was funny.

Um, 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.

He came 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.

That guy.

I like that guy.

Yeah, he's so great.

Yeah, nobody ever talked like you.

Yeah, that was kind of about

the time.

When you left, that really kind of

pretty much coincided with this sort of real break.

I mean, there had been

this.

Anyway, but like conservatives and liberals really lined up after that.

It was kind of like

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.

Yeah.

So watched your movie.

Love it.

Thank you.

Absolutely love it.

Yeah.

How frightening was it to take on Reagan?

It was the scariest

role of my life, really.

It's now my favorite movie that I've ever done

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.

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.

We all make a mistake.

Yes.

But,

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.

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'd you vote for?

I said, Reagan.

And he said, You were kicked out of the hippies.

That's really.

So I had to turn in my car and everything.

That was

kicked out there.

So,

you know,

I really so admired him.

And

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.

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

was

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

And

Reagan was giving the speech

on the radio.

Yeah.

Yeah,

time of choosing.

Yeah, time of choosing.

And

my dad was like on the dashboard.

It was just like,

you know, like go Ronnie and stuff.

And

that was my first memory of him as a political figure.

Where then is the road to peace?

Well, it's a simple answer after all.

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.

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

so,

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,

probably one of the most recognized people all over the world, period.

Like Trump.

Has such an opinion about him.

And

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

He was my, I mean, he's,

you know, probably my biggest hero

in a way.

What is it about him that he won the Cold War?

We grew up getting under our desk at school, terrified.

You know, they were going to drop the bomb.

I mean, it was going to happen.

I know.

And it came so close.

The Cuban missile crisis, you know, we lived in Houston and we were in that circle that they had of where those missiles could reach.

And, you know,

we were Space City.

Of course, they were going to hit us.

And we got kept home from school for that.

You know, and nobody had been able to make any progress with that until Reagan.

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

Yeah, he was called a warmonger.

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.

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.

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

and that it was predestined to happen in a way.

The Soviets under Carter really built their military way up.

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

But,

you know, we gave away the B-1 bomber.

We just kept conceding stuff to him.

And it,

you know, the more that we gave away,

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

And

as Americans, I think Jimmy Carter, the Jimmy Carter administration exemplified the way the American people are in their heart.

That we're peaceful.

at our heart.

We want to live in harmony with the rest of the world

in allies, friendships, and

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

in the middle of the

Middle East, you know, and

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

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

We do if

we have somebody like Reagan.

Reagan was, I always wanted, you know, those

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.

That's what Reagan was.

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

you knew he meant it,

and you were like, he at least least 80%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know,

he was the guy who you really thought

he just might do it.

Even the people in our own country

thought.

Yes.

You know.

I love that.

Well, but why do you think that the Iran hostages were released 20 minutes after he took office?

Yeah.

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

and 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.

Well, we made sure about that.

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,

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 the one thing I thought about the movie.

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

odd

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.

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

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

And,

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

In fact, but they had a special thing, and I disagree with you about that because I'm married to

the greatest woman in the world.

No,

I am too.

You know, and

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

into relationships before, too.

But I've, you know, it's

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

I but people don't see that they don't see that anymore.

They might see it in their personal lives or everything, but in culture, that is not

the

image.

No, but

it should be.

Yeah, well, we don't have

the culture has changed so much.

Yeah.

It's a consumer culture where everybody wants everything right now.

Yeah.

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

I got this for

my wife's

anniversary, written by Reagan.

It's a quote from Thomas Jefferson.

Harmony is the.

I should be able to read my own writing.

Harmony is the married state, right?

Yeah.

Married state with

very first object to be aimed at is harmony.

Harmony in the marriage.

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

aimed at, aimed at.

Um,

uh,

happiness by the

gosh, I know I can't, I don't have my glasses.

We're both so horrible.

We got shots.

Uh,

happiness by the domestic

something.

Well, okay, anyway, no, we're into this now, Glenn.

We're gonna do deep

by the by the domestic

pressure.

Pursuit.

Pursuit

is the first

boon of heaven.

Yes.

Isn't it great?

Yes.

He wrote her every day.

Every day.

Every day.

I love children.

He wrote this for her.

Yeah.

This was the one that he was.

He was in the hospital.

I know.

He gave this to her.

They were having dinner with Prince Charles and Lady Diana.

Oh, really?

And on um their anniversary and he slipped it across the table oh wow it's but they did right and

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i mean you saw the movie she's just channeling yeah

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

started.

You were taught by Jerry Lee Lewis.

Amazing.

When you play a character like this,

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

nail them,

you have to have a relationship with them.

Even if they're dead, you have a relationship with them.

Well, it gets down to the point.

For me, what makes acting so fascinating is the psychology of it.

What makes people tick and who are they?

And

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

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

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

To do that is to find out what makes them tick.

And I feel like I have a responsibility to do that.

And

there was a part of Reagan, and my research of it, of people who knew him, that

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

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

And

I think that's where Reagan resided.

I think it was his relationship with God.

I think it was

his most private thoughts and

probably

a shield of

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

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

where

he could have that private

place

and it's almost

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

so much going on.

I think part of that is what made him a great communicator.

But getting to that

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

And so

I read

several biographies,

but I went to the Reagan Ranch.

I got invited up there.

And that was the Western White House.

That's where they lived.

He bought that back after

being governor of California.

Do you have any idea?

When I saw that scene, I thought,

good heavens,

at that time, how much did they pay for that?

Yeah.

Oh,

I'm sure.

It was at the top of the hill, too.

It's not a stream going through it.

But

so I went there.

A group of friends bought it.

after his passing, and they kept it exactly as it was.

I mean, their clothes are in the closet.

You, 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.

There's a lot of bad roads in California.

Yeah, this was bad.

And

went through the gate and come out, and you see the place and the house and the field and the fences and the pond.

And

I got Reagan.

Right there, you can feel him.

I realized that he was a humble man.

He was not a rich man.

And,

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

Oh, my God.

All the appliances are GE.

He used to be the sparks for GE, right?

And

the house itself is maybe 1,100 square feet, you know.

1,100 square feet.

Yeah.

And

you could feel that he really did do all the work around that place.

And

I think

that's when I, that's when I said yes to the role was after that trip.

After that.

I think that's what I liked about Reagan.

He

was just real.

He worked.

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

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 man without the cigarette.

He really was, you know, he was like John Wayne.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Only, you know, in his movie career, you know, that role was taken

by John Wayne.

But I think he maybe has studied John Wayne's walk a little bit

because

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.

And that was another interesting thing about Reagan was that

I

look for things the way we all think of ourselves.

He had to be that way too.

You know, humans, we all have varying levels of self-esteem during certain periods of our life and things that we go through that

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

all that matters is the way you feel.

And I never thought, I think I don't think Reagan ever got to the point

of where he wanted to go as an actor.

Oh, yeah.

You know, he was

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

Right.

And

then, you know, he was married to Jane Wyman.

Boy, that's

that was ugly.

Who was just coming up?

Yeah.

as his career was going down going down

and i mean she won an academy award

you know like that and

uh i myself was in a kind of in a similar situation like that with with meg you know my career was like that when we met's and hers kind of went like like like that

you know and you know you can be you know, generous with yourself or whatever or say that doesn't hit you somewhere

inside you, but it does.

You're playing with that, you know, and

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.

And

his last jobs, he was doing like Vegas shows in

like cheesy

comic Vegas shows, you know, to just...

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,

it takes time sometimes to know who you are.

It does.

It does.

But I mean,

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

you'll feel...

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, are you going to do that?

Are you going to change?

Are you going to do that for that?

Yeah.

Or you know who you are.

Yeah.

And if you're

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.

You have to kind of learn it yourself.

Yeah.

I'm lucky enough to have.

been in those situations that I was 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 when God closes a door

and he opens another one.

And I think with Reagan, it was a really,

a lot of his life

was based on finding God's purpose for his life.

I mean, truly.

And,

you know, he became

when you're.

When you're, when acting starts to kind of like fade, a lot of actors, you know, Ed Asner being one of them and say, Well, you become president of the Screen Actors Guild.

And that was his entry into politics there.

And he was fighting communists

in that role as well.

Because the communists, that was back during McCarthy era, they were trying to take over the unions.

Right.

You covered this a bit in the movie, and I've always heard that he was really torn on that.

He didn't like

going in and turning people, having to give names, but he didn't have a problem if they were communists, if they were a problem.

Yeah.

And, well, his whole idea, too, about

communism

was,

you know, we were trying to root it out of our system.

And when he went to testify, that

he

testified

saying that, you know, you ought to just allow communism

in here because our system can handle it that's what the american american system is all about yes you know the freedom to to uh form a political party isn't it weird that

i mean when you you started you said i said why was it you're here because he won the cold war and he did

but isn't it weird that we're 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

our country as well as all around the world.

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

It's...

Well, I think that's America.

And I think it's happened time and time again.

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.

Then we had 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.

So are you an optimist?

You feel like...

I believe in the American people.

I do.

And

it's sometimes a

big, great experiment that sometimes doesn't, you know, goes flat.

I like Churchill when he said,

trust the American people, you know,

they'll get it wrong, but eventually

they'll figure it out and get it right.

You're right.

Well, the last time that, you know, the most similar times to today are, I would say, the

60s and 70s, you know, that culminated.

You know, the end of that was Ronald Reagan getting

elected to office.

That was a big experiment.

It was tumultuous.

Would Reagan work today?

Yeah, I think Reagan would work today.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, he definitely would work today.

I think that's what people are yearning for, really, is a return to

really kind of common sense

and decency.

I love the fact that

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,

Republican and Democrat walk into a bar.

And

he's not not tearing people down.

He's just telling us

a liberal joke.

I love that.

I love that.

You know, but we also back at this time, we had liberal Republicans, we had conservative Democrats.

Yeah.

And I pined for the Democrat of Joe Lieberman.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was...

I love Joe.

That was like the last, the closest we came is probably Joe Manchin recently.

And there's the closest we came to that.

Right.

And there's a, I think there's a great distance between them, but it is close.

It's at least recognizable.

I think the great hope for, and 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,

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

Yeah,

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

know we could have we can have a conversation.

Yeah.

I just had a conversation.

He called, when I was on CNN, he said that I should be tried for treason and executed.

Really?

Yeah.

Like I said,

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

Yeah.

But we had a great conversation.

We had a great conversation.

And he said,

I've revised some of my viewpoints on

some of these things.

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.

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Can I go into

the 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.

And

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

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

Right.

You know, like we all wanted to be James Dean

back then, you know, to have that angst and stuff.

But I don't think, but I think it steals

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

really find about what you're made of or and who you are.

Maybe there are some people that are lucky in life to

know who they are or whatever.

But, you know, I went through

few periods in my life, you know, that were that's just a deepening.

Yeah, you know, I sometimes feel it's like God's pruning.

And,

you know, when I found myself in bad situations,

it was all my own fault.

So,

you know,

it's all that stuff my mother said, you know,

work out for it, but I found myself like,

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 got into cocaine, you know.

Was that Jerry Lee Lewis?

That culminated in Jerry Lee Lewis.

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.

You know, that all worked until John Belushi.

Yeah.

But there are three, there are three

phases of that, just like with any addiction really, where it's fun, then it's fun with problems, and then it's just problems, you know, and the rest of your life just doesn't work.

And,

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 was, I was lucky enough to get it the first time and get that out of my life.

Good for you.

You know, and

that really began kind of

a second,

because the program that you go through uh with addiction is a spiritual program that's what it caught they say it's a spiritual problem then indeed i think it is because you're you're using whatever you're using or you know whatever your addiction is because to fill that hole inside you which works for quite a while yeah and then

until it doesn't you know and that uh you know that needs to be like an eternal thing in order to be a real thing.

Right.

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

parts of my life.

And I got

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 Hess's Siddhartha, which opened Buddhism

to me.

And, you know, when I went around the world,

I read the Quran, I read the Dhammapada, I read the Bhagavad Gita, and

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

when I

got a rehab, I did that, and

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

that was what really hit me more than any of the

other books.

And I came to realize what a personal relationship with jesus jesus christ is all about

or started to know what that was all about because it is a relationship that that grows and that ebbs you know according to the attention that's paid to it just like any other relationship yeah and uh

but

is always there and how real that is to me.

It's about a personal relationship.

And

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

Right.

Right.

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.

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

And

there are times, and it would always be this way if I were, you know,

always in the right place.

But there are times he is my absolute best friend.

Yeah.

And when you're in that space, and you, because 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.

He's got it.

A lot of people, you know,

who are not believers or

whatever, it's hard to understand that.

Yeah.

It's always been hard for me to understand that too.

But, you know, because, well, that's a crutch or it's like it's some fairy tale about heaven or this or that.

But Jesus,

the way I read it and feel it and experience it, Jesus came

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

heaven afterwards, but more importantly, how to have heaven on earth.

Correct.

That was the main message, in fact,

was about how to experience heaven on earth.

Love God,

love yourself, love your neighbor.

The kingdom of heaven is spread out upon the earth, and man cannot see it because it's about looking inward and it's about just asking.

Yeah, and you, you know, it's also incredibly simple.

It's exactly what it said,

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.

And

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.

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

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.

And

it was

Jesus came along, and

it's about giving up on that.

As much as being forgiven of

sin, it's more about

just throwing it away

inside yourself.

I think that's the secret of heaven is being able to accept,

oh yeah, I did that, but it doesn't, it's not, it's in my past, and it doesn't matter.

And I know who I am.

And that doesn't mean necessarily it's going to be poof, you know,

but you can start to cultivate

a voice inside your head.

Yes.

That

will get you there.

I mean, I myself,

I experienced actually in the last

eight years,

you know, I would say the equivalent of

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

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, I

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

just things in me that

needed realignment.

Yeah, it needed realignment.

And I drew upon

that personal relationship

to get there.

And it's a voice that

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

That, you know, we all have that voice inside our head, and sometimes that voice can take over.

And it keeps you from, yes, it keeps you from being who you are.

And

funny enough, it, you know, along with Jesus, with Yoko Ono,

who really kind of like gave me a little

bit of a

hippie card.

Titbit to get out of that.

She said after John, she just practiced, she, which six months she was a wreck, and she just started like...

smiling at herself in the mirror or trying to.

And she didn't believe it for six months.

But it actually turned into genuine.

And it's about really looking into yourself, really seeing yourself and nurturing yourself.

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?

And

my dad said, start

saying things that you want to believe about yourself and look yourself in the eye.

Boy, there's a long time you looked at.

Oh, I heard it from Yoko Ono.

I didn't even like Yoko Ono before that, to tell you the truth.

You know, the Beatles thing going way back there.

But, you know, it's never realized, you know, that

happiness is a choice or that way.

I hate to say the word happiness because it's such a blanket thing, but it's,

what can I say?

It's a feeling of wholeness inside.

Peace.

Yeah.

feeling of authenticity.

And once you kind of like,

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

What it is, it's a throwing off of it.

And then

you're free.

Yeah.

You're free of all that.

And

so

that was, you know, that was a deepening.

And I feel that,

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,

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

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?

I'm listening to your

album, and it's amazing to hear.

I think there's a huge difference between.

You see the Johnny Cash movie.

Yeah, for sure.

So 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.

You have the same kind of

feeling, I think, that

Johnny Cash had.

Where

you can tell

you earned that.

You can tell you mean that.

Yeah, you're talking about my gospel record.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, because

it was very personal.

Yeah, and the please don't give up on me is is really in fact well the

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

Yeah, wow.

And uh, but um

um

yeah, it's it was very personal.

And I know what you're talking about, is they uh you can feel that it I'd been through what I was

singing about.

Turned out it was very obvious, my spiritual journey through life

was what it was.

So what's next on that?

On that,

with music?

Yeah.

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

Freely.

Yeah.

Yeah, there aren't enough of them anymore, you know?

Like, what's a kid's record?

Well, like, you know, songs like

Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor with a Bedpost Overnight?

Or Remember When You Ran Away and I got on my knees?

That was a kid song.

Come on.

You know, and

you 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

kid songs.

Yeah.

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Let's just talk about

where are we as

a world right now?

What do you tell me?

I don't know.

Yeah, I really.

Nobody knows, right?

I know.

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

over and over again.

I mean, like, some of it is almost exactly what we've been through before.

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

Yeah, it seemed like before we went through it before, there were actually leaders to the like

leaders on our ally side and on their side.

And on their side, or even in the domestic situation, you know, you had

leaders within that.

We had Martin Luther King, you had Matt Connects, you had SDS leaders, Abby Hoffman, blah, blah, blah, people who actually kind of like spoke up for everybody in a sense, you know.

And

where

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

No,

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

even all the this political correctness and

it just

we're, you know, in that sense,

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

which no wonder people are saying, you know, that the the

that there's a dark government, you know,

out there, but with facely, you know, these faceless people that are controlling everything.

And you get the feeling of that.

I don't know, but I also do feel

that it's, like I said, it's a cycle

that all of us are

working out

as individuals and as the American people.

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, 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.

I don't, I don't care how you vote.

I really don't.

Can we agree on some certain principles?

You know, we don't right, exactly.

I'm of the same.

Yeah.

At least can we make like individual

decisions

on our own instead of just taking

some mandate that's been

told that it's mandatory that we have to think this way, say these things.

And I'm talking about on both sides of

you feel like you can't cross that line or you're going to be

a traitor.

Right.

And

what happened to the individual, the rugged individual

that was the American ideal, that you would, look, buddy, I don't agree with you on everything, but good luck.

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.

That 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.

And if you have principles,

then it doesn't matter.

Political party goes out the window.

Correct.

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.

And Reagan definitely had that going on.

That's how he won the Cold War.

It gives you patience, too, with other people and

for allowing something to unfold.

So how do we get back back there?

I guess one little step at a time.

I think it starts at home, in our relationships with our friends,

local community.

You know,

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

there's this just label that goes up on them, and, you know,

they're out the door

on both sides too.

You know, we got to break that down.

We pass each other on the street every day.

We're in each other's shops.

You know, we go to school with

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,

they're horrible people.

What's changed?

You know, only

us.

Yes.

It's we have to look inside ourselves.

Yeah.

Really, in order to find out.

Are the churches doing their part i feel actually that um

the churches or people who who go to church or are religiously minded uh

was going down for so long ever since i guess you know the end of world war ii and but i think it's coming back

i think um

i think covet uh

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

a spiritual revolution looks 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.

And

there was a lot of death going on.

Made you think about what's important.

What is important?

Yeah.

you know

and a lot of people go running to god when things are bad but you know

hey that's okay that's fine too right

but uh um

it uh

it it it forced you to to look inwardly you know and uh that's i think we've

i mean it's not full bloom yet but

The seeds are planted.

Yeah, the seeds are planted.

I really do think that.

I really do believe that.

I agree.

I have faith.

Yeah.

That's where Reagan and I, I guess, have

we're the same.

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

Yeah.

Show you just a couple of Reagan things.

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.

Sorry, Kit.

Yeah.

drew his lines.

Yeah, that amazing.

It's kind of a combination of different eras of prayers.

It is, actually.

Yeah.

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 have a good time, Jesus?

I'm good.

Good.

Do you have a good time?

Good.

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.

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

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.

need someone to tell your troubles to

I will be listening, baby,

tell me everything.

Just let go, let your sweet soul sing.

I will take care of you.

Don't be afraid.

Cause each and every night,

oh, each and every night,

I pray

that may your wildest dreams come true.

May the light shine down

on you.

May God bless your heavy breath.

May your wildest

dreams

come true.

May your wildest

dreams

come true.

and may God

smile

down

on

you

fantastic.

Thank you.

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.