437: Neal McDonough—Clear the Mechanism

Well, hello, friends. It's Mike Rowe.
It's the way I heard it.

This is going to be a quick preamble because I'm so excited to share the conversation you're about to hear with you that I don't want to take up any unnecessary time with a bunch of needless blather, Chuck.

And I don't mean any of this personally, but you and me at the top of these things, blathering needlessly is the very definition of needless blather.

So, in other words, you want to get to it right away. I do.
I think the conversation was that good. It was excellent, yeah.
And very little blather to be had in it.

My guest is Neil McDonough, who I'm now going to describe to you as my friend, Neil McDonough. We got along great the first time he came in here about a year ago, and he's back.

If his publicist were here, he would say, well, he's back because he has a new film, and it's great, by the way. It's called The Last Rodeo.

But I like to think he was here, Chuck, just because he enjoys spending time. He likes to hang out and chat, Mike.
He's a very chatty guy. He gives good conversation, and he's an interesting guy.

Very interesting. He's a deep well.
You know him, of course. If you don't, well, you're about to meet him, but you know him.
It's impossible not to have seen this guy.

So many films, over 150 films, movies, TV shows. He's carved out a really interesting relationship with Angel Studios, whom I also know.
I've got a show over there, and maybe another one coming soon.

We'll see.

I don't want to get into it because it's not about me.

But, well, it is about me and Neil McDonough. All right, take it easy.

And he makes it about his wife a lot, too. He does mention his wife.
Man, he loves that. He loves his wife.
I love that. I love it too.
He's a family man. Yeah, he's an open book.

I mean, a lot of people watched our first conversation. Yeah.
And I think the reason people love this guy so much is because, yes, he is an open book. He's having a great time.

He knows what matters to him. He's intense and he's present.
And it's just fun. Yep.

He hits the ball back over the net every single time. You're going to love this movie, and you're going to love this conversation.

I hope I can demonstrate the former on Memorial Day when you go see it. And I know I can prove the latter right after this.

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look at that man get that I've had some cutbacks

first of all are you drinking out of the microwave are you sure you're comfortable drinking out of my enormous head?

It doesn't look good, folks.

We share that. We both have size eight heads.
Who else has size eight heads? Bogart, I heard, had a head. Bogey had a big head.
Which is why he looks so great in that fedora. That's right.

With the good in hats. Revere always says, you look great in World War II helmets or cowboy hats.

I wore baseball caps for 10 years every day. It works.
It does. Some are better than others.
The baseball cap is a remarkable contrivance. There's so many ways it can go wrong.

That like weird angled front or the high-profile front. The thing up just doesn't

look good. Now, the adjustable thing, you know.
It doesn't fit our heads. It doesn't.
You got to put it in the last hole. I take that as a test.

And then there's that thing in the back, which you know doesn't look so good. Right.
And if you're thinking too hard, it pops, all these things. But if you get the one with the Velcro thing,

that will always be so tight, it'll leave the mark on your forehead. That's right.
So you look like you've been branded. That's right.
Which is why cowboy hats are probably a better choice.

And this is why you look so terrific.

Thank you.

I enjoy wearing cowboy hats. It's funny.
Everyone's like, well, you're so in the Western culture.

You're from Massachusetts, but I would say I'm from Southern Massachusetts. Cape Cod.

But growing up as a kid in Cape Cod, my dad always,

on the weekends, would bring us out to Melpitt Farms out in Dennis. I'm not even sure we're still there.
And would take us on, you know, the five boys on horse rides.

And And my brothers would just be, and I was the youngest one, I was a mistake years later. My brothers would always be, why the heck are we here, dad? Why are we? Oh, you'll thank me one day, boys.

You'll thank me one day. Well, I'm thanking him now for all the Westerns that we've been doing for the last several years.
Did he have that much of an accent? Oh, it was so thick. It was so.

My parents are both Mario and you couldn't understand them. My friends literally couldn't understand my dad.
Like lucky charms.

Get out of the thing, my boat.

What was that?

Oh, my dad just said, Good morning. The boat's ready.
Get on the thing of a boat.

For those of you listening, not watching, well, it's your loss. That's right.
Neil is here, and he looks terrific. He's bedecked in a classic Canadian tuxedo.
Thank you very much.

Thank you for all our Canadian fans out there. Thank you.
Denim from top to bottom. I love it.

We were just commiserating off the air, and I didn't know this about you, but it just makes me like you even more. You only have four or five shirts.
That's right.

All the garments that you own, you've basically, I'll just say it, you stole them from Wardrobe Department. You're permanently borrowed from the wardrobe department.

Everything I own is on permanent loan. Yeah.
At least in the textile world. Well, in the whole wide scope of life, isn't everything on loan? Well, sure.
I mean, if we're going to go to

stewards,

just stewards of the land. That's all it is.
That's all it is. Well, I mean, since you evoked Cowboys, we might as well bring in a Native American perspective for that as well, right?

We don't really ever own anything ever. But before we get too deep too fast.
That's pretty good, though. How much fun are you having on a scale of one to 10 right now? 13.

Congratulations.

Your production company is just crushing it. Every time I turn around, you're like stepping in gum.
You're everywhere. I see you everywhere.
And what a delight.

It's always a delight to see you be a mean son of a bitch, a great villain, but you're playing some really wonderful this whole business in the last rodeo. What a nice guy you are, grandpa.

Yeah, exactly. My kids bust my nuggets about that.

I've gone to this point in my life where I finally get to play me. And Mike, this is the first time I've ever starred in a movie as the good guy who gets to kiss the woman in the end.
Yeah.

First time. I feel the weight right now of, oh my gosh, I hope this works.
I know it's going to work. But there's still a part of me that's like, yeah.

I'm so fortunate and so blessed to have gone through what I've gone through in my life to get to the point of this that I,

you know, I think everyone should be crucified at some point in their life, be called out as, okay, what kind of person are you? What kind of, for me, what kind of artist are you?

And then I just got to dig deeper into telling stories and telling stories that I've always kind of enjoyed. And now I get to tell them with my wife Reve.

Yeah. You know, when I talk about it for too long, I just, I get stupidly emotional because it's.

For a company to have faith in us to write and produce, we're about to start our 11th production in four

Yeah, but you earned every single. Oh, I don't know if anybody earned any.

I don't know.

All right, well then I hope you'll forgive me for talking out of school, but we were just comparing notes and I, you're a production company, your first production, you sold it for a little bit of money, a few hundred grand.

Yep. And the next one, a bit more, and then a bit more.
That's what I mean by you earned it. There's a you must be this tall to get on this ride reality in our business.
Yeah.

And there's nothing more annoying than people who cut the line and don't pay their dues and wind up right. And that's not you.

You know, it's another fortunate thing that, you know, we started with, you know, Derek Presley, my writing partner and I, we started with Redstone

for $350,000.

Sold it, boon. Revey raised the money, 1.5.
Then we went off to do the Warrant Part 2. Then we did...
Black Spartans. And we did a, you know, then we got involved with Angel Studios.

And Angel was just starting to grow. And we were just starting to grow.
So the timing was kind of perfect that we, you know, we did the shift together and then we did Homestead together.

And then, you know, the shift was a four or five million dollar project. The homestead was right around the around the same.
By the way, I was on the set for Homestead. Were you really? Yeah.

I came to where you filmed it one day because this thing, with me and Angel,

I've got a series over there. That's right.
Yeah. That's getting

just so people understand. They love you at Angel.
Well, I mean, there's no accounting for taste, but you're right. They sure do.

They watch, somebody's got to do it, and it comes back with like 95s and 96s.

Crazy. So I was out there visiting the boys, and they said, look, this is shooting right up the road.
And we went to the main house and walked up, and I watched them shoot one of the final scenes.

Your big scene had already come and gone.

That little $5 million film made $23 million in the box office. Unbelievable.
So now here we are with an $8.5 million budget on The Last Rodeo that we had

John Avnet direct.

They said, who do you want to direct? And I'm like, my favorite director of all time. We did Boomtown together.
We did Justified together. We did 88 Minutes together.

We've just been, he's always been kind of like my mentor and, you know, so close my whole life. I said, John, they said, who do you want to direct? And I said, you.

And he said, well, of course I'll direct it. What's the story about?

And that's our relationship. Wow.
And then they said, okay, well, who do you want to play the two lead guys in the film? I said, well, my two closest friends in Hollywood, actor-wise, are Michael T.

Williamson and Christopher McDonald. And they said, okay.
I'm like, oh my gosh. Well, then it was like, well, who do you want to play your wife?

And I said, well, they're flashback scenes, but I have to kiss this woman. And we all know that I won't kiss another woman.
So I said, it has to be Revee. And they said, fine, perfect.
Rave killed it.

She was so

good in it. She's in the stance.
You know what?

It's a very Glenn close. It is.
That's exactly it from the natural. That's exactly what we're going for.
Well, you did it. That white hat, the white look, and everything.
And there she is.

And I'm so proud of this film. It's called The Last Rodeo.
And so Neil doesn't have to brag about himself. I'll do it.
He plays a grandfather.

He's a very famous and accomplished rodeo star, but he's entering that point of his life where, you know, you can throw his back out, brushing his teeth, maybe, or taking a poop.

Is that me or is that Joe Wainwright? Besides, it's both. Well, you know, I mean, like, you've always immersed yourself in your character, so I'm going to say they're interchangeable.

Your grandson is stricken. your wife was stricken with something similar, and now, through circumstances that you simply can't script, except for the fact that you did, you're back on the bull

to earn the money that needs to be earned to save the boy that needs to be saved. So

watching it, I was reminded that there are really only six or seven stories in the world. That's it.
Now, there are a million ways to tell them. Sure.

But the fact that you chose a bull at the center of this thing just tickled it. look at you.
How much time did you do? No,

here's the great cheat that we have in this film. If you're doing a film about Major League Baseball, about the Yankees, you would have to use Aaron Judge.
You have to use John Carl Stanton.

You have to use all these guys, right? But you can't. They don't allow that.

So you have to use the New York Yonkers and use different guys, right?

For this, Dalen Swearingen.

The real dude. All these guys are the real guy.

Dalen's the only one who doesn't use his real name. Every other writer in here is the the actual rider using their actual name in the film.
So it just validates everything. I know.

And here's the thing. I knew nothing about bull riding.
I knew nothing about rodeo. I knew nothing about any of it.
I was on set of the warrant. Wait a minute.
You've ridden horses.

I've ridden a horse my whole life, but I didn't know anything about bull riding. So I was sitting there in the set, and I was driving home, and I pulled over to the side of the road, and I was just

so strict. I just missed Rave and the kids so much.
I was just like, oh, and there was a beautiful sunset, and we're shooting out in Arizona. And all of a sudden, I look at these horses out there.

I'm like,

what's life really about? What would ever happen to me if something happened to Reve?

Then I swear,

because I've taken a bunch of punches to my head in my life. I'm not that bright anymore.

I'm positive God planted the seed in my head. Rocky on a bull.

What?

Rocky on a bull.

And within 24 hours, I voice dictated into my phone because that's how I write my scripts. scripts.

And then I'll send it to my writing partner and we'll then break it all down and just come up with some. Do you actually write your scripts by dictating into the phone?

I'm dyslexic, so it's really hard to read my writing because for most people, it wouldn't make much sense. So within 24 hours...
You write like your dad talked. That's right.

Oh, that's what I'll do at the bottom. Sorry, what was that, Mr.
McDonald?

Yes, no.

My brother's back home. Yeah, that's a good dad.
That was pretty good.

So, you know, within 24 hours, I kind of had the outline and I sent it to Derek. And then within a week, we had our first draft.
The next week we had it sold.

And two years almost to the date, it's in the theaters.

That doesn't happen. This was his divine intervention into, Neil, I'm going to give you a beautiful gift, and let's see what you do with it.
And we worked

so hard. Kip Conweiser, our production partner and

partner at the McDonough Company, is a genius.

We figured out the right investors. We knew it was going to be angel.

We knew if we worked really hard, something great might happen out of this. And like my dad said, if they give you a dollar, give them $2 worth of effort.
And we gave $3 worth of effort on this one.

I'm so proud of it. The scores, the test scores are through the roof.
And again, if people out there who are watching love films that you can bring the whole family to.

grandpas to grandkids to everyone that go to Chili's after, have dinner and talk about the movie type of night, which which is what I love to do.

This is that kind of film.

And if you love that stuff, please, everyone, go out there and support it because it'll tell Hollywood we need more films about the heartland of America, real stories about families and breaking down families and how you build it back up with faith.

And that's what we did. And I'm just so stinking proud of it.
Well, you should be. Let me just

pivot to the superficial. It looks great.

And when you told me you had shot everything in Oklahoma, I was like, oh, this is so familiar.

Tulsa is the best. We shot 78 episodes of the way I heard it and the story behind the story in and around Tulsa.
But we were also in Shawnee and we were in Bartlesville.

All over the place. Everywhere.
That's right. It's amazing.
But I just threw a teabag on it. Look at that.
That's Mary's fault. That's

Mary's fault.

That's right. We were all waiting for that.
Unbelievable.

And you put it back in the middle. I did put it back in.
I just teabagged myself. I don't even know if I I can say that.
It happened. I don't know if that's possible.

Are we cutting that from the show? I hope that's not the case. No,

knowing Chuck, he'll cut it into the open, and then we'll build a series of promos around it. That's right.
And then people will be shocked and appalled.

Oklahoma's beautiful. And

this is a horrible transition.

I wish I could walk all this back, but you look pretty good, too, is what I'm trying to do.

What I'm trying to get at is you're a man of a certain age, and you've clearly taken steps, at least to create the illusion of fitness. I don't want to make it weird.

It's all painted. It's all fake.
Is it? Oh, it's all fake. It's all fake.

I worked

so hard

because I knew I was going to have to show these young guys what it's like to be a tough old cowboy. And you can't fake it.
So

Scott St. John, who's a dear friend of mine,

who's a trainer for all kinds of people, I said, I need you to get me in shape. He goes, okay, I'm going to whip your butt.
And he started just crushing me at 6 a.m. every morning.

What was the routine like? It was

non-stop for an hour straight of dumbbells, push-ups, planks, weights, squats, running, everything. Did you lose weight or did you put any on?

Oh, I lost a bunch of weight.

I just, you know,

I was a character actor guy. You know, I could carry around 15, 20 pounds extra and no one would care because I wasn't, you know, I'm a character actor.
I look at myself on, you know, on,

you know, years back, I think, yeah, years back when I was just just, when I had captained America, I gained about 35 pounds, 40 pounds of weight to be Dum Dum Dugan, and I couldn't get it off.

It was so hard to get off.

And then Scott started working at me, and then about a week into it and goes, I need you to try this thing. This is a new product that we're starting to build, and I think you might like it.

It's protein powder, like a great.

And I start taking it, and all of a sudden I just feel

everything just starts, my hips feel better, my joints felt better. You know, I have like from all the fights and hockey and all the kind of my fingers always hurt, my fingers felt better.

And I started taking it every day, and it just started to change everything. And, you know,

are you taking steroids? Are you taking HGH? I'm like, no, I'm just taking this protein powder called Flip My Life. Flip my life.

Seat that down. My life needs to be flipped.
So then I said, I want to be part of this company because I believe in this so much.

Let's go out and sell this to people because it has probiotics, prebiotics, all the antioxidants, super greens, proteins, multi-biotic. I mean, it has everything we would want in a protein powder.

And so now we're selling like, we're sold out. Every time we start a new order, it's gone within days.

And I have people coming up to me, like on the set of Tulsa King, Stallone's stand-in, Chad, who is just this yoked guy. I mean, just yoked.
You'd have to be.

My age.

But he's just so huge. And I went to the set last week and he goes, Neil, and he's just changed.
He's like ripped shredded now. I'm like, what did you do? And he goes, I owe it all to Flip My Life.

Like, what? He goes, I've been taking two shakes every day, replacement meals, and it just cut everything out.

And now I'm so, I get letters and emails and texts from people all over the place about Flip My Life. This isn't supposed to be a Flip My Life ad.
It is now. But I'm telling you, Mike, it works.

And I had, what did I have for breakfast today? A Flip My Life shake. Well, well, I have for late in the afternoon, another Flip Shake.
And it's collagen powders. It's all kinds of stuff like that.

But it's anyway. I love it.
Look, man, this is, it's not a commercial because it's a means to an end. And

there's the whole health industry and everybody's got a version of something. But

when you have to do this in service of something else, a character, a performance, a movie,

it takes on a level of practicality, I think.

I mean, I guess everything is vanity in the end, but you've got to do this.

Yeah, this is invented. This is my job.

I need to look like that Cliniswa guy, and that's what we're trying to do.

We're trying to really take what Clinisua did with Mel Paso and Warner Brothers is what we're trying to do with the McDonough Company and Angel.

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Mike.

Well, because I'll tell you what it reminded me of a little bit, and I.

I mean it as a compliment, but remember Silverado? Of course.

It was Scott Glenn. Scott Glenn, yep.

Remember the scene in Silverado when he's down for the count and they took the boy,

right? And you see him,

just in his eyes and in his face, you see him simply take his body and whatever pain. He's got cracked ribs.
He's not getting up again. Right.
Except he does. Except he does.
So you got Scott Glenn.

Yeah, because he's Scott frickin' Glenn.

One of the most underrated greatest actors in the history of Hollywood. Isn't that the truth?

Urban Cowboy, that mesh, vesty thing that he has with just shredded through it. Yeah.
That takes work. And absolutely, though, he and the sweetest human being.
He exuded cowboy-ness.

Yeah. And I don't know what his background is, but what'd you think of White Lotus? I still haven't seen it.
Oh, my God.

I don't watch anything.

We got five kids.

I mentioned something. I'm coaching the kids in their sports or I'm going to their games or going to their plays or going to their ballet with Revere.
So it's so it's it's driving all over the place.

So the only thing that we get to see is, you know, the only thing I really watch is ESPN or golf stuff because our son's off at University of San Francisco as a D1 golfer. He just loves his golf.

How about that masters? Oh,

gosh. Was this the greatest?

You couldn't write that. Nope.

He's up, then he's down two strokes in the first hole. Gets up again, then he's down his stroke.

18th hole, plunks one one of the sand, misses a six-foot putt, goes to the sudden death, and wins it on just a miraculous shot after Rose put on a perfect shot 12 feet from the pin.

This is, you know, this is. So you saw it.
It was a night shit.

But that's all I watch.

I love watching sports to me. It's like, and now with Rodeo, now we're part owners of the Austin Gamblers, and then we announced it this weekend up in Boise, which is going to be

so team rodeo is the new big thing.

I think it's 10 teams. Austin has a team, there's another Texas team, North Carolina, Kansas City.
There's a bunch of teams, and

it's pretty awesome. And when we were doing,

we were in Madison Square Garden for the opening night of the season back at New Year, basically.

20,000 New Yorkers with cowboy hats on. It was unbelievable.
And we played the trailer, and I got on the microphone and started talking about the movie.

And then this great guy, Egon Durbin, who's

Silver Lake Investments and

TKO and Endeavor and all these things said, we'd love for you and Revey to be part of the Austin Gamblers family. Oh, that's.

So I'm not sure I'm supposed to be talking about it because I'm going to renounce it this weekend. Well, don't worry, this thing will never end.

We have immersed ourselves in the world of rodeo, and we're just so blessed by it. And, you know, what other event starts with a prayer?

Followed by the national anthem. Followed by the national anthem and the culture of of the church.
Followed by the pleasure of the children.

Followed by a brief recitation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. That's right.
No, they're not subtle. And

I think people really need to understand when you say it's a world, that's what it is. Chuck, if you have a chance, can you find my misadventure, my great rodeo misadventure? Ah, yes.

I just want Neil to see this because

I've been around it a bunch, and there's really no way to describe it to people. Like, you're a hockey fan.
Right.

I used to watch hockey, but it wasn't until I went to a game,

right? That does not translate on TV. That's the one sport that doesn't translate on TV.
Chuck's a maniac. I mean, league kings all over him.

And yeah, when you sit on the blue line, you experience it differently. Rodeo is similar.
Yeah.

Like when you can smell the animals and you're packed in there with people and it's so real and it's so visceral

and the stakes, man

they're not guaranteed anything no they're guaranteed they're gonna get busted up they're guaranteed there's a chance that they might get really maimed and they keep coming back are you okay can you write down yeah i just get four broken ribs i'm good

my femur is just out of place it's just a little cracked but i'm good how much time did you spend on an actual bull oh they wouldn't let me get on other than in a pen they wouldn't let me out there so they had me on the mechanical bulls yeah a ton a

ton. Because I'm circling back to Flip My Life because you've got to get in shape.

And you mentioned Rocky, and there's a fun montage in this thing, too, where in the course of like one day, you get amazingly fit

by punching the punch.

That's right. It was so much fun.

And I told Stallone, I was like, this is my homage to you.

And I showed it to him, and he was really tickled by it. But it was, you know, Buddy Joe Hooker, who is

one of the greatest stunt coordinators of all time, beat me up. He worked me hard.
Between him and Scott St. John, and, you know, right around the corner from our house is the Canyon Club.

And they have a mechanical bull in there. And we would go in there and just train on the mechanical bull and just let it rip.
Dude, it's very humbling, isn't it? It's so humbling.

It is, especially when you have someone on the controls who really wants to give it to you.

It's just so hard.

Imagine getting on the back of a 1,500, 2,000-pound beast that wants to kill you. Yeah.

yeah that's what it is who wants you off his back so badly stat stat exactly you know i watched people on mechanical bull it's one of those things where you look at it and you go you know what i can do that yeah well you can't

you can't you

you might be able to get there but it's going to take a whole different

like you've got to get into a an almost a gumby frame like you got to be loose and tight at the same time my trainer on on the when we were doing all the mechanical work, Kyle Sherwood, who was a three-time world champion, really taught me all the things that you really need.

I mean, we just went through it over and over.

The ropes, the knees, the hands, the bed,

everything

for quite some time. And what I didn't want is I didn't want any bull rider to think, nah.

Yeah.

So I worked really hard to make sure I didn't, and it shows. And I got busted up.
There was one shot in the film. I'm not sure if

that was the other one. But I came off of the bull one time and I landed right on my shoulder.
And I didn't tell John Avna, the director, and my shoulder just popped right out.

And I said, excuse me, I said, I'm going to go to the bathroom. And I walked around the corner of this old barn when no one was looking.
I just slammed my shoulder back in. Like, all right.

I walked back out and said, let's do it again. And Kyle Sherwood knew exactly what happened.
And he just grinned at me. He goes, all right, cowboy, let's do it again.

And that was the greatest compliment I could have ever had.

So I did a segment

with bullfighters, and they put me out there. But I'm probably in the worst shape of my life.
There's no flip my life in this thing. Okay, this is probably six, seven years ago.

I can't seem to make it play. I don't know what I'm doing wrong here.
Well, you know, there we go. Oh, there we go.
Okay. But

if you scrub forward, I think it's the first break. There's just a moment.
There was one rule. And the rule was

don't run from it. Don't run straight.
Right. And if you do, yeah, definitely don't run straight.

And it was so humbling because all you really want to do is get away from this thing. But these guys run up and they touch it.

I think if you put their, like, later, when we examine their brains, they're not going to look like other people's brains. Bull riders are just a different breed of man.
They're just.

There it is right there. But the bullfighters are even...
They're crazy. They're just, it's, and I think we really nailed it with Michael T.

Williamson and his character, Charlie, being a bull rider, then going to become a bullfighter because of his hand.

He's terrific, by the way.

He's so good. Wasn't he in Forrest Gump? Yep, Bubba Gump.
He was Bubba Gump. That's right.

T and I have been buddies for such a long time that when Derek and I were writing it, you know, Derek had a picture of Michael T right on his computer and a picture of Christopher McDonald right next to it.

And he knew what I wanted, and we built it to so those guys could have great parts to play with. And oh, no.
That's the shot right there. No, no.

Yeah. And that's how we go to break.
It actually even gets a little closer. The horn.
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, very, very close.
Yeah, the horn missed my sphincter by

inches. Right.

And so, yeah, you look back at those, you know, and you're like, this is not the way I want to go out. But it's the longest eight seconds in the world.
It is.

And I just...

Shame on me for not knowing his name, but a guy just died. Yeah, Dylan Grant.
Dylan. You know, this is a kid who was,

you know, I think, you know, he was on his team and was in,

was it, which school did he go to? Was it Wisconsin? He was in the Buller, but he was 24 years old. And it just,

you know, and I left a message for his folks saying, you know,

I look back at...

Some people in their lives, like Reggie Lewis, who's the captain of the Celtics way back when, he died on the basketball court. Yeah.

I hope that I die on stage. You know, that Dylan got to, when he died, he died doing something he absolutely loved doing.
Everyone knows the consequences of it.

But that's what he loved.

Most people go through life never finding something that they love to do. I was so blessed at a young age to find that I knew it was a God-given talent, that I was a really good actor.

It doesn't make me special.

It's just I found out what one of my talents was. Those are the cards you got.
It's it, and I played them, and I've played them pretty well.

And here I am now with 150 movies and 1,000 hours of television and this and that, and all culminating into the moment that's about to happen, the last rodeo.

I finally get to write and produce and alongside my best friend, my wife, Reve.

And play a character that actually espouses the virtues

that you care about. Yeah.
You know, my dad, like we talked about before, my dad came over from Ireland with 12 bucks in his pocket and said, make me an American.

And they shipped him overseas for five years. But he came back, you know, from the Army as this guy who was so proud to be an American.
So, so, so proud.

And he instilled those values into all of us in the family.

And now it's my job that I get to write about it and instill those values into films so everyone can watch and realize, okay, America is the greatest country of all time. Do we have problems?

Sure, everything has problems.

But I wouldn't trade it for anything. Is there a sport more than rodeo that espouses that? I mean, NASCAR certainly is pretty patriotic.

Baseball to me has always been kind of the perfect game. It's

generational.

You go there with your dad when you're a little boy, and you're getting your Cracker Jacks and your Coke and your hot dog, and you're sitting there, you're watching Carly Jostrumski play in left field.

Those are memories that I will never forget. You know, sitting in the worst seats at Fenway Park because we didn't have much money with me and my brothers watching the Red Sox play in the 70s.

It was magic. Costner captured that.

He got it in the natural. Oh, Oh, my God.
Didn't he? That weird combination of nostalgia and schmaltz. I use, when I talk to young actors, I use a clip from The Perfect Game where

he's on the mound as his last game for the Tigers, and he's playing in Yankee Stadium. Chappell, you're a bum.
You stink Chappell. You can't do that.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And you hear everyone in Yankee Stadium in the crowd and the pressure of being on a mound and having to throw strikes. And then Costner says, clear the the mechanism.
And then shoo,

everything's silent. Nothing exists.
Crowds don't exist. The cameraman doesn't exist in my business.
The gaffer doesn't, no one, no one exists.

It's the only thing that exists are you and I in a scene. That's all that exists.
But I have to clear the mechanism to get to that spot. And once I clear that mechanism, it just flows out naturally.

And that's

it's something that I just absolutely adore doing.

I love being in front of a camera and creating once it's just me playing a character with another great actor or actress and I've got to do it with some of the greats.

So you have to clear the mechanism as an actor in the same way a great bull rider. It's a level of hyper focus.

That's exactly it. If you're going to do anything great in life, you can't really, and I tell all my kids, I said, you can't care what somebody else thinks of you.

And when I first came out to Hollywood, I was like, okay, I got to darken my hair. I got to do this.

And then as soon as I did Band of Brothers, when I I stopped darkening my hair and just let my whiteness be what it is, all of a sudden everyone's like, ooh, who's that guy?

And those are so beautiful. Those are so piercing.

Whatever. And then all of a sudden, my career just went on a whole different trajectory.
And once you're your unique self in life,

God gave you what you have, use it to the best of your ability to give glory to him. And in my writing, in my being a dad, being a husband, you can't be perfect.
We're all sinners.

We all do stupid stuff every day. But if you're trying to be the best version of you for him, great things are there for you.
Great things will happen to you.

Here's a guy from Dorchester, Massachusetts, who didn't start with a whole lot, who's sitting here on the Mike Rowe show talking about my new film, The Last Rodeo, that I produced and wrote with my wife, Revee.

What?

If you said that to me 50 years ago when I was a little kid, that this is where your life's going to be, I'd be like, dude, what are you talking about? No. You say, who's Mike Rowe? You.

But that's why you are who you are. You know, that self-deprecating guy that everyone loves to talk to or listen to because you're one of us.

And when you're one of us, people like to listen to one of them. Well, thank you.
I feel like I'm adjacent to a bunch of stuff.

Like I've been adjacent to those bull riders, and I get a chance to pretend to try and maybe be one. And it's not acting, it's real.

But I get close enough to know that I appreciate and understand what you're doing. It's not for me.
Right, right. Exactly.
Right.

But out of respect and maybe some genuine curiosity, I would like to have a go at it, right?

But I, but somehow there's a difference between that and clearing the mechanism while you're on the back of a 2,000-pound animal who doesn't want you there. And then the stakes are mortal, right?

I guess the stakes are always mortal. Sometimes, you know, there's always a horn an inch or two from, you know, your jewels and whatnot.
Right. But I want to understand better.

Like, there was a guy sitting right where you are now, a friend of ours, Matt Hagen. He drives funny cars faster than anybody.
Chuck, zero to 320

in less than four seconds. Yeah.

Right. Now,

that's more g's than you know, liftoff, yeah, space shuttle, any of it. Zero to 320 miles an hour in three and a half seconds.
So Matt Hagen has to clear the mechanism. Oh, for sure.

As a parent, you have to clear the mechanism. You can't worry about what other people think.

As a husband, you can't in anything. It's if I play to my audience, it's why I don't have social media.
It's why I don't read reviews. That's why I don't watch any of my stuff unless I have to.

Reve and I will go to a premiere of one of our films, do the red carpet. Hey, everybody, how you doing? Walk into the theater, straight away.
Go out the toilet.

Go out the exit, have a nice meal across the street. See at the after party.
What did you think? Oh, it was wonderful. It was a great movie.
It was great. It was great.

I just don't like watching my stuff because I think it would just confuse me a little bit.

And I like to, plus I don't want to take from one character if I read, hey, McDonald was really great when he did this thing. Well, then I'm going to start doing that thing probably.

That's going to be part of my next character. I don't want that.
I want all my characters to be fresh. They all kind of look the same.
Sure. But they have different intent in all the characters.

But no dailies? No. No.
Like, you don't look at anything along the way. No, no, no, no, no.
Why? Why would I? I know that God gave me a talent, so I know that I'm going to be good at what I do.

Well, I mean, I guess maybe the corollary would be if you're, you know, you just got thrown off the bull and you're keen to not have that happen again, but you're going to get back on the bull.

Is there something to learn?

Dumb.

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I got thrown off the bull 10, 12 years ago, whenever it was, or that show, then I didn't work for two years and lost everything. I got thrown off that bull.
That freaking hurt bad.

Everything gone, right?

So what happened after that? I became hyper-focused on my craft. Maybe I wasn't so hyper-focused.
Maybe God said, you know what, you're taking a little too cavalier approach to all this stuff.

I need you to really dial it in for me.

And I think that's what happened.

And ever since then, All my characters, I don't care what it is, they're so, I'm so hyper-focused on my performance because it's not so much I want want to let the audience down.

I don't want to let him down. I want to make sure that he's given me great things in my life.
And

some horrible things have happened to me in my life, but those are blessings. Do you feel a greater responsibility as the writer and the producer

than

just playing a part?

Like, I mean, Band of Brothers, you didn't write, you didn't produce.

You played a part.

But the impact of that thing and the impact of your performance on a lot of people, including your kids, as I recall, it's huge. So Penn Brothers was huge.
Yeah.

It was massive. It's different.
It's when you're

Clinice Wood years ago, about 10 years ago, said, you got to stop being a gun for hire. You got to start creating your own stuff.
I'm like, I got a great career. Why do I want to do this?

And then that thing happened.

And it made me think, okay, well, how do I dig deeper and stop being a gun for hire and actually create create content that gives glory to him? Explain the thing again, just so people understand.

I wouldn't kiss a woman on screen, and they fired me from the show. And everyone thought I was this kind of religious zealot nutbag.
And I was like, guys, I just love my wife.

I don't mind killing people on screen. I don't mind doing certain things.
That's all fake. I've killed millions of people on screen when you think about it.
But it's all fake. But if I'm

kissing a woman,

that's not fake. You're actually physically killing.
And I just didn't, Rave didn't have any problem with it. It was really me that I just didn't want to put her or the kids through it.
It was just,

I don't know, I'm just odd that way, I think.

And finally, I get finally, I get to do it with Rive, which is kind of amazing in itself.

Sorry, I lost my thought. I was just thinking about kissing Rive on screen.
Yeah, you know what? I kind of lost my thought, too.

But no, I know her.

So it's now that I'm creating

what we're creating,

it's almost a sense of freedom that the pressure's off. I was invited to the dance and I can dance however I want to dance as long as it's a dance that pleases him.

I'm curious about the circumstances whereby Clint Eastwood gave you this advice. What preceded that? What facilitated that? We're in a movie called Flags of Our Fathers.
And

there was one scene in Flags of Our Fathers, which is this two-page monologue of how we have to do our job to take out Tinnian, Sai Pei, Iwo Jimo, all these things.

And we were on this aircraft carrier out in San Pedro. and they were going to go out all day and then come back at the end of the day.

And that was going to be the scene because they figured it would take at least a day, maybe two days ahead in the schedule for the scene.

Revee would wake me up at three o'clock in the morning, go, and I would give the speech.

She would plaster it on the refrigerator, she would plaster it on the toilet, she would plaster it on the car, she would plaster my monologues everywhere.

So by the time we got there, there's

600 extras, 200 crew,

you know, NBC, CBI, other people on the, there's a thousand people on the ship staring at me, about to do my scene, which, of course, I cleared the mechanism and just

crushed it. So I do the first take and he's like,

all right, that was perfect. Move the sticks in.
We move the sticks in. Cameras, four or five cameras at the time.

Next one, crushed it again. Let's move the sticks in.
Now East, he's like giggling to himself. And we get closer.
And then finally, we get the close-up.

And within three hours, we did the scene and he's like, turn the ship around, let's go back to the shore and get steak and lobster tails.

And that's when he took me aside and he goes, you're too good just to be a gun for hire. You got to figure out how to really kind of propel yourself.
And

since then, all I've wanted to do is be like Mal Paso. I wanted to, and I never, back then I was like, well, I'm not sure how I'm going to ever do that.

Who's ever going to give me the opportunity to write a script? And I'd written scripts, but I wasn't sure everyone was going to, because everyone wants you.

If you're an actor, you're going to be an actor. If you're a writer, you're going to be a writer.
You can't be, there's no hyphenates. You're not supposed to be a hyphenate, right? In Hollywood.

And all of a sudden, I'm a hyphenate.

And I get to write stories that I want to watch and stories that give glory to him at the same time. Mike, I'm the luckiest SOB that I know.
You really are, man.

It's kind of annoying, if I'm being honest, you know, to have that.

You know,

does it scare you a little bit?

I feel a lot of weight right now. Yeah.
Because, again, I see the trailers for The Last Rodeo playing in front of King of Kings, which did $20 million opening weekend. Holy smokes.

Go Angel.

And that trailer played on every one of those screenings. And getting calls from everyone saying, movie looks so great.
This is going to be awesome. It's going to be big.

I'm like, oh my goodness, that's the,

you know, the weight of that.

At the same time, it's just awesome. I know it's going to do great in the box office.
I know America is going to eat it up with a shovel. It's that story.

If you're a rodeo fan, you're going to love this. If you have a father-daughter relationship that

has little problems with it, I think the people who are going to love this film more than anybody are going to be 30-year-old girls who have a problem with their dad and have a kid.

That's the one who's going to go to the theater and cry their faces off. This movie,

it's not about the rodeo any more than Rocky was about boxing. No, it's about family.
That's right. Right.

But it sure as heck helps to have a 2,000-pound bull reminding everybody around that there might be another star of the show. That's right.
You know, and my name's Ring of Fire. That's right.

Oh, good. Hey, remember, he's Michael.
I watched. He's good.
I watched. Chuck, he's good.
No, it's,

but that's life. It's when you make films that talk about real issues in life.

And look, most of the films that I've been in are, you know, I'm the villain. It talks about crazy stuff and maniacal, nutty things.
And I'm guilty of it. But I had to make a living.

I got five kids and a fantastic wife, and I want to enjoy our lives. So I had to do those things.
But now I've been given the opportunity to write films for the heartland of America.

How blessed am I to be able to say that? And people are going out to the theaters to watch these films. Shift did crazy numbers.
The home said crazy numbers.

I can't imagine what The Last Rodeo is going to do, but more importantly than the numbers that it's going to do, I'm so stinking proud of doing a movie like this, knowing that we worked so hard on it, that John Avnett directed maybe his best direction of all time, and it's a film that talks about American families.

That's what I'm just so proud of. Well, Angel's Building a Brand.

You have a brand. But I would say that, you know, your brand isn't a composite or an amalgam of the characters that you've played.
It's a composite of the films that you've been in.

And there is no hero without a villain. That's right.
And I was going to be the best darn villain. That was my goal.
All you did was elevate everybody around you all of the time. That's all you did.

Thank you. Right?

So I guess, you know, the pressure I'm curious about is, like, is there less pressure to be a great bad guy than a great good guy?

Being a great bad guy

is a lot easier

because you can basically do anything you want as big as you want, as long as you believe it. You can really do anything as long as you believe you're the villain.

And I loved finding situations where I would create villainy or create hysterical humor at the time that I wasn't supposed to.

Like, I'll take the script and it says, he says, he thinks this now, or he, with a frown on his face, or with a grimace, and I scratch all that stuff out.

And then I'll go back and I'll write it all out longhand myself without any punctuation marks and just kind of

just kind of let it sit and seep into my psyche. And then all of a sudden, I get on set and I have that clear the mechanism mindset.
I don't really talk to anybody. I'm very cordial to everyone.

Hey, everybody, how you doing? But the character is, I'm a method actor

without having Rave taught me this. You got to figure out how to be your method actor, but you got to be able to get out of it, or else you're going to be trapped in it.

And then you'll drive you and everyone else crazy around you, especially.

And I'm really good at flipping that switch where,

you know, Derek, my writing partner, does his impersonation of me where I'll be sitting on the phone rolling cameras. Yeah, hold on a second.
Yeah, honey, I love you. Yep, great.
How did he do it?

Did he make the shot? He did. Oh, that's awesome.
And, oh, oh, no, what's it? What's it?

Cut. So how was it? How did you do it?

You know, it's so I can get in and out of my real world, which I adore. and my fantasy world with my characters, which I also adore.
But it's just, you can do it quick. I can do it.

It's frighteningly fast. However, I can't do that with good guys.

When I played Buck Compton and Banda Brothers, it took years. I can't watch, I can't listen to the

and I start crying. I can't, because it's so emotional.
Or if I look back at

one of my favorite projects I ever did was called Tin Man, where I played Wyatt Kane, the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz for the sci-fi channel.

But he carried his heart in his sleeve, this tough guy, with his heart in his sleeve.

Or when I watch, you know, now that I have to watch The Last Rodeo, I can't watch it without bawling every 30 seconds. And Rave's like, stop.
Yeah.

Because, you know, it's when you play the good guy, you're really dredging up who you are and the reality of a situation. When you're a villain, this is all fantasy world.

So you're not really dredging up your psyche. When I'm dredging up, okay, my daughter is having problems.
Okay, what problems do my daughters have? Oh gosh, that hurts. Roll cameras.

It's psychotherapy without asking for it and how you deal with it thereafter is really testing on actors because if you really go to that spot of pure pain and torture that you go through in life and then let that manifest into your body and bring it out into a different character in front of a camera, it's heartbreaking.

And at the end of the day,

it's exhausting. And at the same time, it's such a gift from God that I get to

jump into my soul,

pimples and all, and put it all out for everyone to look at. I've never heard pimples and all.
I've heard warts and all.

That's a reve term. You made it a pimple.
Pimples and all.

You had to make it a pus-filled

carbuncle kind of a thing. Carbuncle.

It goes the other way, too. I've read a lot and had a little bit of experience about, you know,

an actor assumes a character and maybe holds on to it too tight for too long. You know, a method out of control is a psychosis.

Sheridan.

You know,

yeah, I want to hear more about him. I'm so interested in what he's built.
It's an empire, but he seems to have taken so much of what he really lives and what he really knows.

Tell me the story about that. You mentioned it earlier.
It was on. First day on set.
Yeah, yeah.

Well, let's backtrack a little bit. Taylor Sheridan.
He's Yellowstone, right? Yellowstone, yeah. Taylor Sheridan is,

at the heart of it, an actor. And the acting wasn't going the way he wanted it to go.
So he dug deep and stopped being a gun for hire and started writing his own stuff.

Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it? Clear the mechanism.

I owe

so much to Taylor Sheridan. And we've only been in front of each other once.

And the first time I saw him was the first day on set, and there we were at the Yellowstone house. Magnificent.
I mean, it's just breathtaking.

And Kevin comes up to me and we start talking.

We did the Guardian together before, and so we, during our lunch breaks, we would take batting practice at LSU and just because we're both college ball players and just hitting balls and talking about life.

And we had just this great friendship that we started.

And then here I am back in Yellowstone. We were just so tickled to be back together again and having a great conversation.

All of a sudden, here comes this dude bussing up on a horse, breakneck speed, stops on a dime. Neil, Taylor Sheridan, welcome to the show.

We're so excited to have, and all of a sudden, this herd of elk

a couple hundred yards away, beautiful. He says, hold on one second.
He turns and beelines it straight at the helk and herds them back off into the woods, you know, hundreds of yards away.

And we're just staring at this guy. It's like, who is this guy? Beelines it comes right back and goes, I'm so excited to have you on the show.
And here's what we're going to do with the character.

Who is this guy? And, you know, it's,

and he just takes. He's the guy guy who wrote what he knew.
He understands it, you know, from Wind River to everything on. And, you know, now I'm on Tulsa King and the time I had in Yellowstone.

And everything that he does works. And he knows that he doesn't do it for anybody else.
He does it because he knows it's in him and it's unique and it's just him. Wind River was a hell of a script.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
And for him to talk about the heartland of America, to talk about Native Americans, to talk about the problems that that they've had and how

the white guy hasn't been the greatest of all time. He talks about it where no one else has talked about it.
It's awesome. And I love that about Taylor, that he

really gives history lessons in his shows. This is what we've done wrong to America, but this is how we can build America upgrade again.

Stick to the family, stick to the core values of what America was built upon, and let's go write a show about it.

Do you see any kind of parallel at all between what he's been able to accomplish with Paramount as a studio?

And obviously, with an eye on the bottom line in the mercenary position, they understand where their bread's getting buttered.

But the idea of getting that kind of partnership forged around talent, around writing, around producing, around distribution.

I mean, I can imagine you and Angel carving out something similar.

Taylor, when Paramount said, okay, we love this pilot. This is testing higher than anything we could ever have possibly imagined, you know, what's each episode going to cost? And he says,

there is no number. I'll spend as much as I want to spend.

What?

I'm sorry, what was that again?

And he got away with it. And in all of his shows, he has carte blanche to do really what he wants because everyone knows it's going to be great.
He doesn't gaff people. That's not what he does.

But he doesn't want to have any kind of budgetary restraints to get in the way of his storytelling. It's not going to work backwards from a number.
That's right.

You know, Clint Eastwood was kind of the same thing. Clint Eastwood was like, okay, Warners, I've got this script.
You're not going to read it.

I'm not going to tell you anything about it, but I need this much money.

Okay. And I won't see you again until the premiere, right? Yes, Mr.
Eastwood. This is what Taylor Sheridan's doing.

So with Rave and I at Angel, you know, again, we started out together and here's the budget. Go make the best you can.

And they never breathed down our necks. They were hardly ever there when we did the last rodeo.
They knew that we were going to work hard and make something great.

So there's a trust that Angel has with the McDonough Company that we're going to deliver. And,

you know, I've been saying to Reve, I don't think if we do this correctly, we will never have to work for anyone else ever again.

We'll just be able to keep creating our own content that we know is good.

And we have a distribution company that believes wholeheartedly that we're going to give them good stuff. And the great thing about ANGEL is, like you said, it goes on the guild.

You know, last year there was 200,000 members in the guild. We just passed a million members.

And by this time next year, there'll be two million.

So all those people vote. And if it gets 85, 90%, then it goes to the theaters.
If it doesn't, it doesn't.

So if we ever turn in something that doesn't get to that level, well, we know we have to work harder. But so far, our numbers have been astronomical.
It's the mother of all focus groups.

Yeah, it really is. And they're very smart about it.

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Tulsa Kings, how much fun is that? You're coming back as

that a spoiler alert? Should I? No.

So

at the end of last season, I wasn't sure if I was going to come back or not. I had the best time with Sylvester Stallone.

I mean, I just had, we would talk about life, talk about Catholicism, talk about.

How weird is it to be in a scene with the guy? Okay, who you. I'll tell you the first scene.
All right.

So the first scene, it's

Stallone and myself going nose to nose. But the scene is written that he would have the advantage in the scene.
My job is to be the best villain on the planet and to get under the other actor's skin.

What I did to poor Tim Oliphant back in Justified was just the fun. We'll circle back.
Oh, my God. Because I want to hear that too.
But it was so good. Tim's, he's a beast.

So the first scene we're doing, and Reve's in Video Village with one of my best pals, Steve Mitchell and Greg Marsh, buddies I've known for 25 years.

This is a tent, by the way, that's set up maybe 25 yards from the action. That's right.

And all the hot shots and the guests, they gather around and they stare at monitors and they have their headsets on so they can watch you being a villain.

So there's the first take and the camera's on Sylvester to start with,

which made me happy. Because I want his reaction for what I was about to do.
So we're doing the scene. and it's starting to groove and it's starting to groove.

Then all of a sudden I get up in his grill and I start impersonating him in front of of him in the scene

and i see the veins just

every his i look down i see his hands ball up and he's got huge meat hooks and i'm like i got him i got him i got him oh wait a second that's rocky isn't this cool

and then i have to snap back into it that's my you know so it's like it's so bizarre working with sylvester stallone because you know for me He was my hero.

He was the guy that when I was a kid, you were banging out those push-ups. You wanted to be like Rocky.
And as I progressed in my career, I wanted to be like Sylvester Stallone.

I want to be able to write my own stuff. I want to be able to produce my own stuff.
I want to be able to be able to be able to be able to.

I mean, is there a more iconic figure in entertainment? No, I mean, the guy is

so prepared. He is the professional's professional.
If you just wrote Rocky,

you are a massive hit. You did it.
You did it. Congratulations.
Rocky 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Creed. Then there is the Rambo franchise.
Then there's the Expendables franchise. And now it's 78 years old

to write basically most of Tulsa King himself.

I don't know anybody like that. I remember on that scene when I finally got him, I'm doing, you know, you tough guy.

And I go back to Video Village, and there's Rave. He's like, you can't do that.
You're going to get fired. You can't, you can't do that.
And Sly comes around the corner.

He stands in the doorway and he just stares at me. And I'm like, oh no, I'm going to get crushed here.
And he walks over to me and gives it this big, welcome to the show, Neil. You got balls.

And from then on in, we became great friends. So at the end of the season, I wasn't sure if I was going to come back or not.
So I said, I was with Revee and she said, tell him.

It was with David Glasser. I'm like, yeah, she was telling him.

I want to come back next year and I'm going to be the governor.

Okay, so David Glasser is the producer,

Taylor Sharon's partner in everything. Right.
Maybe the most prolific producer in the history of television. I mean, 10 or 11 shows he's got on.

They bought the Triple Sixes or whatever, the big ranch. They've got restaurants.
They're just killing it right now because he's so laser-focused on excellence. And that's who David Glasser is.

And we said, and he goes, hmm, that's a great idea.

Didn't hear anything. Two months later, I get the call, you're back in Tulsa King.
Yes, it's great. Fantastic.
Can't wait to get back there. Anything I need to know?

And he goes, yeah, you're the governor.

I'm like, what? So

I just

retrenched to my earlier question. How much fun are you having now? So, you know, we did our first scene this last week.

It was just great to see Sly again and hanging out and talking about me becoming the governor and how he's going to,

you know, it's because of him that is the power and how we're going to build things together and how the corruption that's going to unfold. It's just awesome.

And I get to do it for Taylor Sheridan and Paramount

and all these great people. And you get to yank Sly's to loan's chain.
So good. So it's so annoying, dude.
Honestly.

You know, do you know Jack Carr?

Yeah. Have you worked with him? No.
So I interviewed Jack a couple times. It's the same kind of thing.

This guy had two basic wish fulfillments, to be a Navy SEAL and serve his country, and then to become a best-selling author. Crushed it.
So 20 years in the SEALs. Okay.

Now I'm going to write what it is.

20 years? Yeah. 20 years in the SEALs.
I mean, he does it. He does it.
And then he writes what he knows. And then Amazon starts making, and off he goes.
So, you know, you run into a guy like that.

I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but you got to be very careful. You say questions like, how's it going?

They're liable to tell you. That's right.
I'll tell you how it's going. Everybody could take whatever I wanted to do, I'm doing.
That's right. Yep.

I'm genuinely happy for you. I'm even happier to hear about,

I like to see

the right relationships. evolve.

It doesn't happen a bunch, especially you and me, dude. This We're in a knife fight in a phone booth.
This industry's just a hot mess. But we like it.

Well, for whatever reason, we're keen to figure it out. I understand clear the mechanism.
That will be the title of this episode, by the way, just so you know. Love that.

And the closest I've got came from my mentor, who we talk about a lot on this show. Chuck and I had a high school music teacher.
guy called Fred King.

And he was so much more than that. He was Mr.
Holland. But again, it wasn't really about the music with him.
It was about values and learning. Substance.
Yeah.

And

his expression for that,

he was all about, he was like, look, you don't want people to see your technique ever.

You have to master your technique. I don't care if you're on the back of a bull.
We're going toe-to-toe with sliced tallone or singing Valkiri from the Ring Des Naibe luncheon.

You must master it, and then you must hide it. And his shorthand for all that was, what, not how?

What, not how?

What are you doing? You can ask yourself that all day long, and you'll be okay, because the answer will be obvious. How you doing?

Welcome to crap in the bed. Right.

Mechanism's not clear. That's pretty good.
I loved it. And there are so many times I thought about it.
I'm stealing that one. Take it.

Because, oh, look, I just took yours for the title of this episode. Thank you, Fred.
And there'll be no royalty or anything like that.

There'll be no money. There's a cup of coffee waiting for me.
There's a cup of coffee.

If you like it, I'll throw a teabag at you because

I'm good at that. But I'll never forget walking up the suspension cable on the Mackinac Bridge

about 600 feet up, you know, tying off on the stanchions, trying to figure out how to deal with the West Cam on the helicopter and host a show and not die. And in the back of my head, like a like a

like a cone, like a Zen, that's just what, not how,

what, not, how,

what, not, how, focus.

Yeah.

It's hard. It's important.

It used to be harder in this business when

I treated it like you were in a phone booth and they fight.

But once I gave over to the the idea that I can't control really any of it, all I can control is my output. Like politics.
I can't control politics.

You know, I can vote for somebody, but I can't control politics. I can't control what they're going to do on Capitol Hill.
I can't control all kinds of things. Outcome.
Can't control the outcome.

But I can control what I do. And when I'm at my best version of me, that's when I'm closest to him.

And I get this feeling of, it's this purple feeling that I have that knowing that I'm doing the right thing

for him. Purple.
Purple. Walk me through that.
When I was a kid, I remember my mom tying my shoes. I was about three years old, and I just couldn't get it right.
And, ugh.

I miss that lady.

And she,

man, I haven't thought of that in a while. And she tied my shoes, and all I could see was this purple aura.
Everything was purple.

And then when I met Revee years later, I hadn't seen purple. And then when I saw Reve,

we went out on this date to get pizza. And while I was eating the pizza, and I just looked at it and I just saw purple.

And every once in a while when something really amazing happens to me, I have this really warm feeling of purpleness. It's odd.
I don't know what it is.

I'm not sure if it's happened to anybody else out there in the world,

but it happens. And I know when I'm doing something right, I get that feeling, that hunch that don't worry what everybody else thinks of you.
You're unique.

You're Neil McDonough, and there's never going to be another one. There is never going to be.
There wasn't one in the past, and and there won't be one in the future.

So what are you going to do today with the present that he gave you?

Hmm. I'm just going to be the best I can be.
And then all of a sudden you're swinging better. You don't put the pressure on yourself.
You don't worry about the outcome. You just are in the moment.

And when you're in that moment as a human being, doing the right thing, searching for those purple moments, That's what life is supposed to be about. It isn't about movies.
It isn't about TV.

It isn't about

box office. it isn't about anything, but it's really doing the right thing to make the world a better place.
As corny as that sounds, it took me,

maybe it took me becoming sober 10 years ago to figure that out. Maybe it took me having so many kids and seeing the ups and downs of what it's like to be a kid.

Maybe it took me being crucified when I didn't work for two years and they stole my house and cars and all those things.

Maybe it took all those things to make me really appreciate that I'm the luckiest son of a bitch that I know. Maybe.
Maybe. Might say somewhere between maybe indefinitely.

I don't like to think too much.

If you went into our house, you would never know that I lived there. There isn't a movie poster.
There isn't anything in there that would say, oh, an actor lives in this house.

Oh, there's pictures of the kids everywhere. There's jerseys.
You know, there's all kinds of stuff like that. But I don't think that I'm a movie star or a TV star or anything.
I'm just a...

a worker that does his job pretty darn well that now I'm really grooving in it because I know that I'm giving glory to him in our work that we do and not just as an actor but as

a dad or giving back to our school or giving back to sending messages to people who might need a little positive reinforcement or doing whatever I can do to make the world a better place while I'm here.

This is weird, but I heard my mom on a podcast the other day. She's a writer and she's about doing press because she's written another book.
She's 87, out of control. Awesome.

She She told a story about how when I was three and four,

I used to greet my dad at the door when he came home with a purple shirt.

He had one purple shirt,

and I made him put it on whenever he came home. I have no idea why.
There's a condition. I don't think I have it, but you might.
See if you can find it, Chuck.

It has to do with translating colors

into

not quite emotions. It's something more than that.
It's a way

to

really experience a whole different level of feelings through color. It's an absolute condition, and the people who have it tell the most extraordinary stories.
I didn't know that about you at all.

That's the first time I've ever mentioned it in my life to anybody. Well,

it's the color of kings as well.

This is very true. This is very true.
What do you got, Chuck? Color psychology explores how colors affect human emotions, moods, and behaviors.

It's deeper than that.

It's almost unpronounceable. It's like a long time.
I'll just Google that.

I'll just Google unpronounceable.

Well, I mean, look, this is life, trying to figure out how to pronounce a thing, trying to connect dots, trying to make sense out of a 2,000-pound animal that wants you dead, and then hopping on it.

And then doing all that in the context of a movie.

I just love how you've got your feet in different worlds. Well, you know.

But are still a congruent, sane, grown man. With a big head that looks good in a hat and wears a lot of denim that you don't really own.

Revere makes fun of me that I don't really have a whole lot of friends.

I love my wife so much. I love my kids so much.
And there's Well, you've mentioned her 30 times

in this conversation.

It's not lost on people who are listening to me. I love my brother Bob, and there's not as much.
That's right. Not Bob, not as much.
Bob, you're not even in that. He's okay.
Yeah.

Plus, he's a palindrome. Bob, forward, backwards.

What do you say?

He says hello, by the way. I told him I was going to your show.
He goes, oh, my gosh, that's awesome. Tell him I said hello.

Sorry, Bob, I just butchered your accent.

But it's.

I think I got it because I can't pronounce it. Synesthesia.
It's synesthea. Yeah.
Sounds like I'm lisping. Read the definition.

Is a neurological phenomenon where stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in another sensory or cognitive pathway.

For example, a person might see colors when listening to music or taste words. Yes, you taste words and you hear color.
So it's a conflation of the senses.

That's what what it is.

Wow.

So.

And here I just thought it was just this weird dude who was a little bit of a sense of the

thing for purple. That's right.
No, it's not that at all. That's right.
You have a serious mental illness.

I am an actor. You are an actor.
I can't get enough of the Irish thing, man. I mean, give me more of your.

I missed that part.

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It's funny. The two things I've never really played.
I played Whitey Bulger on stage last year

in Boston, which was just, I've never really, I've never filmed in Boston.

I've never played a guy with a Boston accent, nor have I played, you know, a shot of film in Ireland, which I'm a citizen of that amazing country, thanks to my parents.

But Whitey Bulger was,

that was a deep dive. That was a, and we did it at the Wilbur Theater, which is one of, if not the oldest theater in America.

Brando did his first waterfront.

there and you know so many people have been on stage and to get on stage in front of a packed house in front of all my buddies from Barnstable High School, I swear half the kids from Barnstable were in there.

You know, the Monahans

who are like family to us, you know, they really are family. Growing up, it was the Monahans and the McDonald's.
We were just like intertwined in everything.

And, you know, I would be doing Whitey,

which, of course, I play all my villains as heroes.

Everything that I do is, you know, it's the right thing, of course. So I'd be doing these monologues and I'd have people screaming out, we love you, Whitey.

Next to someone in person would say, you SOB, you killed my dollar bugger, firefin, bomb, f-bomb, f-bomb, f-bomb.

Which as an actor, as Whitey Bulger, because I was Whitey on stage, I wasn't Neil, I was Whitey. I was just, I was Whitey Bulger, just

churned me up an extra notch. We only did one night.
It was a one-night show only, and it was just remarkable. But it was the only time I've gotten to play.
with a Boston accent.

And my brothers laughed at me because they all have thick Boston accents, but my mom wouldn't let me have one.

So as a kid, I had more of an Irish accent because I was hanging around with my mom or my dad, or the relatives are always by the house. My brothers are all gone because they're older than me.

And when I went to Syracuse, they were like, Where's your accent from? Are you from Canada? I'm like, no, I'm from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. I was born in Boston.
Like, we can't figure it out.

And then finally, they figured out, Do you have any Irish in you? I'm like, Yeah, my parents are not like, Oh, that makes sense. But I've never gotten the chance to play.
Oh, La Vai,

and I can't wait to play that character one of these days. We'll get this.

You must must have just done that about, was it a year ago? A year ago, yeah. Because we talked about the,

I mean,

to go back to your home, to stand on that stage,

to play that character in front of that audience. Like, compare that, if you would, to the Clint Eastwood beat where...

I mean, no pressure, but there are a thousand people and they're on a ship.

So what was more nerve-wracking? Neither of them. Because the mechanism was clear the whole damn time.

Before, I was

crapping my pants. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's a packed house, sold out in 18 minutes.

I hadn't rehearsed. I did one or two Zoom rehearsals because I was doing something else at the time.
Meanwhile, the rest of the cast had been rehearsing for months.

And I got there, and the director's like, okay.

Do you want to run through it? I'm like, just tell me, where are my spots? Where else?

And goes, well, you're supposed to be here, then you're over here, then you're over here, and you come up there and this, come over here, and this is the this. And I'm like, okay, got it.

And I went backstage, and I'm like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do here? Holy smokes.

And then Rave was there. And

whenever I'm around Rave,

I just get at ease. And 648th time, probably.

Unbelievable.

And as soon, you know, I'm backstage, my hands are clammy. I'm like, oh, my gosh, if I'm in my, you know,

Bob's, my brother Bob's out there, you know, relatives. I remember Bob.
Bob, yeah, yeah, Bob. How are you doing, kid? You know, so everyone's out there.
I'm like, oh my gosh.

But as soon as I stepped on stage, Neil McDonough was gone. And I don't, it's this weird thing that

when you become a character and you stick into that character,

nothing else really exists except for what the character would think. Have you had, but then the hardest part was when at the end,

you know, the show is over and there's me sitting in my chair as I'm being beaten to death and I die and tears are running down my cheeks.

It was running down half of it, though, was

as Whitey Bulger knowing that he's dying and this is the end of his life. But the other half of me was I knew the show was over and it just started to seep in

that I got to give back to my hometown. Yeah.

And then

I went backstage and they were doing curtain calls and I couldn't come out.

You didn't come out for curtains?

I couldn't come out there. Neil, Neil, Neil.
And I'm sitting there, I was just in a puddle of tears backstage. That

how did this little kid who grew up in Boston get to play one of the most famous, infamous characters in the history of Boston in front of my hometown crowd? And I know that I crushed it.

I just knew it because I was whitey at that time. And then when I went back, you know, when I went at the curtain call, I was Neil again.
It was like.

Well, you flipped the switch. I flipped the one.

I just, I don't know. Didn't they catch him here, like around this? Santa Monica? Yeah, the Eugenia Apartments, wasn't it? Right.
Right down here. I've been in those apartments.
Yeah.

It's, it's, you know,

it's really incredible to

be in the world that I'm in and get to do the stuff that I do. And, you know, I.

That's why I go to church almost every day, whether it's a mosque, whether it's a temple, whether it's, you know, a Catholic church, Christian, Jewish, Muslim. It doesn't matter.

I want to say thanks to our Creator every day because

he's given me an incredible life that I'm so appreciative of.

Have you had these things Maslow talks about peak experiences, whether it's praying in church or acting or because when the mechanism is clear, that's when these things happen.

And Maslow talks about it. You leave your body.
You don't leave the room, but there's typically an elevation and you look down and you can watch yourself doing the thing.

And it almost always happens. Fred King, what, not how, that guy taught us about, he had several of them.

Once when he was directing a choir on Christmas Eve, which he said was as close to the perfect auditory experience, took him out of his body, and once when he was singing. But I'm just curious,

has that ever happened to you or something like it?

A lot, because it's right now, for instance. it kind of

kind of because you know every once in a while I have to stop oh my gosh I'm working with Sylvester Stallone you know it's one of those moments that's those

but you know two times in particular I was in South Africa once with Rive and her mom and there was this famous chapel that had what was supposed to be the most amazing stained glass windows in this chapel but since that chapel was built in 1900

A township, just an all-black township, was built all around it. And at the top of the hill was this church that no one's been to for years.
And I told Rive's mom, I said, I want to go there.

And she's like,

well, you can't just walk through a black township. You're a white guy.

You can't do that. And I'm like, well, why can't I? She says, okay.

So she drives me to the edge of the township in the car. And she's like, it's up that hill.
You're on your own. And I started jogging up the hill.
And everyone just kind of stops.

And they're looking at this crazy white guy running up the hill. Because you are white, dude.
I'm the whitest thing you've ever seen. You are.
I'm a q-tip. Try to light me on set.

It's almost impossible. So I'm running up this hill and I'm saying, hi to everyone.
Hi to everyone in there, waving hi to me back. And I get up, finally, get to this church.

And it's this tiny little church, and I have the picture. It's on my desk.

Unbelievable.

And then I had this outer body experience where I just imagined me going back down the hill and what it's going to happen. Are they still there? Is it going to be hostile? Is it not?

And I'm like, of course it won't be. God gave me this gift to come up here.
Certainly, nothing's going to happen.

And I started jogging down the hill, and they're all still standing there wondering if what they saw was real or not. And I went down the hill and I said hi to everyone.

And I stopped and I shook some hands and we just kept going, walking down. And they had no idea who I was.
And I got back down to my mom. She's like, that's the craziest thing I've ever seen.

And this other time was when I was in an airport. And I always like to stop in the chapel at an airport.
And it was in Manhattan, and this was probably 2004 or 2005.

This chapel that I used to go to at LaGuardia, I go in there, and there's no crucifix there on the wall anymore.

But there's a picture on the wall, and I look down, and there's probably 15 guys on the ground, all Muslim, bowing down towards Mecca.

Like, hmm. Well,

and I'm a big proponent in that God created all of us.

We are all brothers and sisters. We are all related to God.

If we all rooted for each other, we would stop all this stupid fighting with each other and whose religion is better than whose, whose color is better than whose, whose this or that is better than anybody else's.

We're all in it together. We are related.
Every single person on this planet is related. So why are we fighting so much? And that's always my train of thought.

I went in there and I supplicated and went down on the ground. I stayed down for about five minutes and I just prayed to God.

And then all of a sudden, that out-of-body experience came up and out of my body, I could see myself above with all these other guys and I couldn't tell if they were mad at me or if they were happy with me and I opened my eyes and I looked up and they're all staring at me.

And one of the guys said, what are you doing here? I said, well, I'm praying to our God.

What did you say? He said, I'm praying to our God.

This fellowship, Mike,

of this Catholic guy and these Muslim brothers all together in one room praying to the same God was one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had in my life. In a chapel,

in a LaGuardia.

I thought it was at least JFK, but you were at LaGuardia? I'm at LaGuardia. And it was, you know, it's just kind of.

But every time I have those kind of outer body experiences, it all has to do with having faith.

And the more faith I have in myself,

because he gives me all these gifts, the greater my life is.

And every time I stop and not have that faith and get tripped up by anything in life, whether it was drinking way back when, whether it was getting mad at someone at its traffic light, or whatever the case is, when I get mad at things, then I'm so distant and I feel like I'm on

an island all by myself and I don't feel his grace. And then I have to stop and just kind of pivot and come back to, okay, where am I? What's life about? Why am I here?

It's hard to be angry and charitable at the same time. It's impossible.
You can't. You know, it's, you know,

not too long ago, I watched Gandhi again, and it was just floored by

Kingsley.

How they gave this nobody this plum roll is unbelievable.

But when he's dying on his bed at the end, and he won't give over, he won't eat until everything is,

that's love. That's love that we should all aspire to.
And we forget that sometimes when we're fighting about this or fighting about that or this,

which goes back to the rodeo. One of the things I love so much about rodeo is that it's filled with families.

It's not like you're at an NFL game or another game where half of the people want the other team to get crushed.

When you go to a rodeo, it's moms and wives and grandpas and grandkids, and everyone's just sitting there rooting for each rider to get to eight seconds.

So there's this positive influence that happens inside the arena for every bull ride that I've never seen before.

And as there's this sense of decency in rodeo, that it has made it my favorite sport that I could ever possibly go to. And that I got to land in this with my wife Reve.

What a gift that is that I can never possibly replace. I love the idea that,

because I know you're a baseball fan and you talked about it. Like you can go see Karl Yostramski with your dad and watch a three-hour game.

You can go to the rodeo with the same group of people and watch an eight-second event. and have the same kind of galvanizing communal experience.
Like that. Right.

So, yeah.

There's no Yahoo's drunk and pushing all over. It's not that.
It's not that. It starts off with a prayer.
It ends with just this great feeling when you leave the arena.

It's like, wow, that was awesome. Son, what did you think? I loved it, Dad.
Thanks for taking me. You know, that kind of feeling with the rodeo, that

the PBR, Sean Gleason at the PBR is just...

You know, he started in, I think it was 98 when he first joined in. He built the PBR to be where it is today.

You know, I call him P.T. Barnum.
What he has done is the shows are incredible. The pyrotechnics, the riding, another ride comes in in two minutes, another ride comes in two minutes, another ride.

There's two hours of pure fun, everyone. Drive home safe.
See you at the next one. Yep.
Man, it's awesome. It's a monster truck with flesh and blood.
That's right. That's a

great way of putting it. I mean, it's primal because

it's the animal kingdom. Which we all love.
Which we love. What do you love watching NFL? You love seeing guys get mashed because that's hockey.
Same thing.

I used to love getting hit as much, giving hits.

It was that thing that Rodeo does, PBR does so perfectly.

Who's your team? Bruins.

How'd they do this year? Yeah, touchy. Oh, geez.

That's touchy, man. That's the same as the phone.

Marshall animated.

That's right.

Yeah, so I don't begrudge an ounce of your great good fortune. And I say that not because

I walk around as a ball of envy. I don't.
But I'm really, truly, sincerely happy for you. I like what you're doing with Angel a lot.
I love everything you said about the rodeo.

Aside from nearly getting impaled on my adventure there,

they let me sing the national anthem. Did they really? Yeah.

That's cool. And I don't get nervous a bunch either, but I'll tell you.

I don't want to forget the words to the national anthem at a rodeo. No.
Because I'm pretty sure even the bulls would come together to express their displeasure.

I would want to see a teleprompter in front of me just so I don't make a mistake. Can we go back a little bit?

No.

Yeah. That's a different pressure.
So Clint Eastwood, thousand people, no problem. Steaming? No problem.
Stallone? No problem.

Not Shalantham, I'd freeze. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Out of bunch. You're a good man.
Say hey to Bob for me. And your wife, what do you call her again?

What is her name? Heaven.

This is going to be your lucky night. Thank you again for coming by.
Thanks, Mike. All right.
I really appreciate it. Adios.
it's The Last Rodeo. It's awesome.
He's great. Everybody's great at it.

Go see it. Take the whole family.
This episode is over now.

I hope it was worthwhile.

Sorry it went on so long, but if it made you smile,

then

share your satisfaction in the way that people do.

Take some time

to go all align

and leave a suit.

I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge. But in this world, the advertisers really like to judge.

You don't need to write a bunch, just a line or two.

All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review.

All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review.

All you got to do is leave a quick five-star review.

All you got to do is leave a quick five-star review.

All you got to do is leave a quick

five stop. Especially if you're hate.

Thank you.

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